Finkelstein documented the Holocaust industry scam, so one would think he had gotten over the Jew-victim imagery burned into the consciousness of average Jews by the Zionist Power Configuration for its own purposes. But apparently many Jews of a certain age can't seem to psychologically grip the idea that organized Jewry enjoys tremendous power in the US today (and exercises it ruthlessly) just as it enjoyed tremendous power in the Soviet Union for many years and exercised it ruthlessly there, as documented by Slezkine.

Finkelstein, what the hell is so hard to comprehend? Unless the guy has gone nuts, the only explanation that I can come up with is that he's posturing in order that Jews don't get scapegoated for the entirety of the ruling elite's deep moral corruption. But only idiots believe Jews are the entirety of the problem, as the masses of Zionist gentiles and Judeophiles on both the Left and Right demonstrates. They all seem to regard Jews as some kind of royalty, and would (and did) happily partner with them in the most depraved of adventures any day of the week.

Finkelstein would never conclude that criticizing the greedy, elitest and racialist ideas and agenda of gentile monarchists is somehow wrong in that it is "scapegoating" a small group of royalty for the sins of an entire community that enabled them. Yet when it comes to the Jewish monarchy, he suffers from some kind of psychological block.

They are both problems, but I agree that the melding of the two exceptionalisms is what has made the Israel Lobby as strong as it is. The Israeli Jews are culturally closer to the majority of Americans than the Arabs, so it's been easy to paint the I/P conflict as good Westerners vs. evil terrorists. It fits in well with American themes from earlier in our history, most notably the good civilized settlers vs. the savage Indians.

Now there is a real concern that the forbidden meme of which I speak and classic Anti-Semitism are indistinguishable to some people, especially on brief contact. You can see the cognitive dissonance on Margaret Warner's face as she listens to Jimmy Carter violate the taboo. Yet, this is where truth leads us. We cannot be informed reasonable citizens without rejecting the mis-use of the Anti-Semitism smear to silence valid criticism of brutal, racist, ethnic-cleansing policies, and deliberate efforts to hide it from view through thought and message control. We cannot be good citizens and let our Congresspersons debase themselves before a foreign lobby. I believe emails will be just as effective as money, they don't cost anything, and we don't have to engage in paying politicians to act like we want them to act. I contribute to my local representatives, and I tell them what I think. You should, too. And part of that is they shouldn't have their position on policy on sale to outside fundraisers, especially for foreign countries.

And the Israeli PM would make a phone call to Aipac and the next day Obama would be forced to deny he ever made that call. If Obama made that his number 1 political priority, perhaps he could move American policy towards neutrality. I hope he has higher priorities — his political capital is limited.

He represents the american people, not you.

Most Americans look to Tv or the mainstream press for any news. They have not learned about samizdat. They still believe that the
USA has freedom of the press. When and if they get objective reporting, you will quickly see a sea change in the rubber-stamping
of Israel First.

The polls showing Americans favor Israel are all based on assumptive questions that rely on American ignorance.

In the real world, if chris berel sat at a bar with average Americans,
he would be quickly keyed as a nerd and no American Firster.

We just need to tell the actual facts, as the Beatles might say, "Altogether now!"
The old strength in numbers, don't you know?

http://www.tomhayden.com/lebanon.htm

'Twenty five years ago I stared into the eyes of Michael Berman, chief operative for his Congressman brother, Howard Berman. I was a neophyte running for the state assembly in a District which the Bermans claimed belonged to them.

“I represent the Israeli defense forces”, Michael said. I thought he was joking, but he wasn’t. Michael seemed to imagine himself the gatekeeper protecting the Westside for Israel’s political interests, and those of the famous Berman-Waxman machine. Since Jews represented one-third of the Democratic district’s primary voters, Berman held a balance of power.

All that year I tried to navigate the District’s Jewish politics. The solid historic liberalism of the Westside was a favorable factor, as was the strong support of many Jewish community leaders. But the community was moving in a more conservative direction. Some were infuriated at my sponsorship of Santa Monica’s tough rent control ordinance. Many in the organized community were suspicious of the New Left for becoming Palestinian sympathizers after the Six Day War; they would evolve into today’s neo-conservatives.

I previously had traveled to Israel in a generally supportive capacity, meeting officials from all parties, studying energy projects, and befriending peace advocates like the writer Amos Oz. I also met with Palestinians and wrote favorably on the works of Edward Said. As a result, one of Berman’s allies prepared a file in an attempt to discredit my candidacy with the Democratic leadership in Sacramento.

This led to the deli lunch with Michael Berman. He and his brother Howard privately leaned towards an upcoming young prosecutor named Adam Schiff, who later became the congressman from Pasadena. But they calculated that Schiff couldn’t win without name recognition, so they were considering “renting” me the assembly seat, Berman said. But there was one condition: that I always be a “good friend of Israel.”'

The rest of the essay is also eye-opening about the machinations by which religious groups "own" "our" civic debate.