Here is a piece of forcible innocence by leftwinger Stephen Zunes. He is staggered that the Republican Jewish Coalition ads attacking Obama have had an effect, that Obama has stepped away from his statement that Palestinians suffer the most and has adopted "rightwing" positions on Israel/Palestine. Quoth Zunes:
necessary for getting him to the White House, Obama's right-wing
positions regarding Israel and its neighbors are actually hurting him.
They have become a major target of Green Party nominee Cynthia McKinney
and independent candidate Ralph Nader, who correctly observe that their
more evenhanded positions are supported by a majority of the American
people, and have weakened his support within the peace and human rights
community.
Oh that scary formidable Green Party! This argument is idiotic. Obama is a brilliant politician. By now no one can quarrel with that statement. He has not made one misstep (you will say, "cling to their guns and religion" but this is so penny-ante it just proves my point). Political genius Bob Shrum says he is the best politician of his generation; and Obama has adopted these positions for goldplated political reasons: because he doesn't care about alienating the progressive fringe (of which I am a proud thread), but absolutely does care about not alienating Jews in the power structure (money, media, establishment opinion, Mel Levine and Connie Bruck) by seeming to be at all pro-Palestinian. This is a simple truth of the new sociology of America that Obama has in his fingertips but Zunes must resist. His forcible innocence on the idea that mainstream Jews have any influence in the U.S. recalls his earlier arguments against the Israel lobby. Zunes did not think it really exists, or that it has any real power. (I'm sure I could dig up a statement where he says it is just like the teachers' union.) The standard leftwing critique: that it is absurd to say that an ethnic group exercises religious power in the face of the business/military interests that actually run foreign policy. (And meanwhile, of course, the Christian right is crazy and is tilting social policy on Supreme Court nominations and stem cells.)
It must be stated that there is something Jewish about this innocence (and Zunes is a member of the Tikkun community): a familial refusal to accept that our Lieberman-Democrat neighbor, or father, who was so against the Vietnam war and now fulminates about Hezbollah, bears any real responsibility for the Iraq war– the idea of "influence" being a canard from the anti-semites. And mixed in with it, that traditional Jewish vanity: We are outsiders. Blindness, and old orthodoxy.
Thanks to Rupa Shah for the tip. And for a related sermon on this theme, see "The American Left (DailyKos) Is Also Claimed by the Israel Lobby". And now: Breakfast!
The mendacity of Zunes and Chomsky on the subject of Zionism and AIPAC has been amply
demonstrated by Jeff Blankfort. The abject
cowardice of the left (whether Jewish or non-Jewish but Judaized) provides ever more
power and legitimacy to the Zionist Power
Configuration described by James Petras.
I like Obama's positions on Israel/Palestine.
He has stated that he is committed to Israel's safety, and in other more general statements, he has stated a support for human rights, but applied through a mediative approach, rather than an agitation approach.
He's got my vote.
There are two co-existing propositions with seemingly incompatible responses.
1. The isolation and prohibition from civil rights for Palestinians in the West Bank/Gaza. Implying an agitation approach.
2. The conflict and continued state of war between too many Palestinians and Israel, and the continued state of deferred war between nations that have not yet recognized Israel. Implying for Israel a defensive approach, and internationally a mediative approach.
Jim Lobe: Top Obama Adviser Signs on to Roadmap to War with Iran
Supporting Israel is like mother and apple pie in U.S. politics. But we don't really go to war for mother and apple pie, and we don't really go to war for Israel. We go to war for hegemony and oil, and because the military-industrial complex is part and parcel with capitalism as we know it.
As long as support for Israel is integral to these endeavors, our leaders will continue to support it. As long as Israel participates in these endeavors, our leaders will continue to support it.
When these are no longer the case, then Israel will no longer stand in for mother and apple pie, something else will. When there is no longer a confluence of interests, there will be no more quid pro quo. When there is no longer a confluence of interests, rich Jews will find some other cover for the obvious upper class economic interests that drive their support for candidates of either party.
At that point rich Jews, and the more common faithful, will suddenly claim that Israel is not central to their Jewish identity, never really has been, and of course that they always only wanted a just peace in the Middle East. At that point, Jews will have to find some other way to feel like big shots than to invite Israeli generals to speak at Federation fundraisers. Maybe ex-astronauts. Jewish identity in the Zionist fashion will no longer be relevant in the general establishment. But Jews will still be rich and influential.
It's interesting that the Israel Lobby perspective seems to be consistent with the Obama is our Savior perspective. They're both ways of avoiding the fundamental analysis and the work that has to be done in response. So, there's this outside and disproportionate influence, and it's addressed by–voting for someone who panders to it–in the hope that he will suddenly wake up and shake it off???
Wealth and power in this country is not given to frivolousness. It's foreign policies are not an accidental artifact related to the unlikely events in Palestine of the past century. Obama has been vetted for his support for these policies. Any standing up to the Lobby will be for calculated reasons of power and privilege. The fundamental problems will remain, even if Israel is taken out of the equation for pragmatic and cynical reasons.
Do we want a foreign policy that stops killing Arabs for resources, or do we just want one that offers Jews a clean conscience as Jews (although not as Americans). There is a persistent and troubling ethnocentrism to all this.
Zunes has made denial of the lobby the cornerstone of his career. It seems every recent piece has as its subtext the Chomskian message of Israel as docile servant of U.S. imperialism. Going back to before the war, here he is writing in Tikkun–
"While AIPAC undeniably has influenced congressional votes regarding Israeli-Palestinian concerns and other issues, it has not played a major role in lobbying for support of the president's call for a U.S. invasion. More fundamentally, there are far more powerful interests … blah blah blah"
Sniegoski dissects him here–
Israel-Lobby Denial: The Bankruptcy of the Mainstream Left as Illustrated by Stephen Zunes
Jeff Blankfort debated him on the subject at radio station KPFA–
Blankfort-Zunes Debate on Power of Israel Lobby
(Worth listening to. There's a transcript around somewhere but I can't find it right now.)
Its hard to affirm or deny "the lobby" when it is presented as two mutually exclusive entities.
1. Diverse organization(s) undertaking offentimes diverging legal and rational activities in support of very vague common perspective on specific relationships
2. Monolithic coordinated conspiracy
What exactly is Zunes "denying"?
There obviously IS an organization AIPAC, but that was not the Walt/Mearsheimer thesis. That was evident already, not warranting a book.
Zunes must be objecting to the degree and character of what is described, that it is NOT monolithic, NOT conspiratorial.
It's as David Green suggests, Richard. Zionism is not THE factor driving murderous U.S. foreign policy, but it is one of them. And zionism benefits the M/I complex directly, by lending its good vs. evil wwii myth that has justifies military interventionism ever since, and providing a never-sunsetting stimulus package to the arms business.
You may think zionism is all about saving the jews, a lot like many christian Americans think the popularity of Christmas has something to do with Jesus.
The unskeptical religious mind believes whatever the most comfortable myth.
Occasionally you ought to stop swinging at strawmen and confront the facts before your face. Zionism is a pillar of 21st century American military imperialism.
Proud?
Political ideologies are not ALL emperors' nakedness.
The element of Zionism that I support is self-governance for the Jewish people.
That position allows me to criticize policies and actions, while loving the entity.
A position that I will stick with.
Unconditional love is for your children, not nation-states and idolized "entities".
Here's the transcript for that Blankfort-Zunes debate–
link to student.cs.ucc.ie
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What "we" are you a part of MM?
Palestinians are affirmatively part of a "we". They have the same question of whether to be a good and considerate "we", an opportunistic "we", an angry "we", or a sadistic "we".
Like Zionists, some are amazingly humane, some are sadistic, some are conditionally humane.
"We" is a natural state, an important one. When "we" is at some human scale, (very very few are capable of global as their human scale) it is rational, ecological, right. When "we" is a giant abstraction only, its artificial, forced, coercive.
Zionism is on the cusp of being human scale vs abstraction. As human scale, it is community oriented, seeking to be a good neighbor to a good neighbor. Although Zionism is currently expanding, its scope is by definition very limited.
Much much less limited than the imperial designs of the US, or China for example.
To regard it as evil is little different than George W calling Iran or Syria only evil.
Richard,
Once you buy into "we", all is lost. It's funny how Zionists claimed that there was no Palestinian "we" (nationalism) before the Jewish "we" (Zionism). Like "we" were first, in terms of ancient history and nationalism, even religion. Not a good example to set. But there's a difference between "we" as settler-colonialists and "we" as indigenous peoples. I don't buy into the Jewish or Israeli "we". It's obsolete, just like war. Let's do the right thing, and let the Palestinians be to work out their own issues.