I veer here between celebrating the sea-change in the American political discourse and saying that the Israel lobby runs Washington. Today's a good day. Here is my abundant evidence of the sea-change:
--Obama's Chas Freeman pick for National Intelligence Council;
--Obama's George Mitchell pick as Israel/Palestine envoy;
--Hillary Clinton's affirmation of the urgency of aid to Gaza;
--Dennis Ross was hardly given the men's room key at the State Department;
--Warming signs in Iran-U.S. relationship;
--Hampshire College divestment; NYU occupation; indications that BDS movement is spreading from Europe;
--Israel Policy Forum and J Street, establishment organizations, continue to take a stand in opposition to the conservative lobby, occasionally with the company of Brit Tzedek and Americans for Peace Now (which some day may show the fortitude to resign from AIPAC board);
--Steve Walt, author of the Israel Lobby, who was repeatedly smeared as an antisemite, has pitched his camp on the third rail; he has a blog at Foreign Policy where he assails the lobby and is giving lectures at Washington-based schools on the subject;
--Gaza sent a lot of Jews running for the exits, and anti-Zionists openly identified themselves as such at demos;
--Avigdor Lieberman ditto;
--Marty Peretz and Alan Dershowitz, both 70, are increasingly given to smashmouth rhetoric on the importance of Israel that is very "boy cries wolf." Everyone who criticizes Israel is an antisemite. Young Jewish writers, many on the blogosphere, are ignoring these warnings and criticizing Israel;
--John Kerry visited Gaza and carried a letter from Hamas...unwittingly?...
--The Iraq war's positive blowback in States: the understanding that terrorism is a response to occupation/political disfranchisement and those who used it had to be included in Baghdad's ruling coalition;
--Iraq war's positive blowback in States: neocons are in the roach motel;
--A growing place for Muslims to stand in U.S., from Colin Powell's attack on anti-Muslim feeling in his Obama endorsement, to Chief Justice Roberts's repeated pronunciation of the name "Hussein," to the embrace of Slumdog.
And in the sequel? Netanyahu removes all illusions about the two-state solution, more and more American Jews come out against Jim Crow for Palestine, Obama criticizes Netanyahu with Larry Summers and Rahm Emanuel standing behind him.
It's all good. But it's wait-and-see in relation to whether the coalition is there for intense pressure on Israel to stop and reverse decades of jewish colonialism and anti-arab chauvinism. Also, American interest groups' battleground of choice is the US Congress, not the Executive branch, and there's just not enough bottom-up constituency-based anti-colonial activism and money to even begin to outweigh the pressures in the other direction.
NYU occupation? Phil? Watch the tape!!!!!
link to gothamist.com
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I doubt that the Israeli lobby has been harmed. My guess is that the courageous writers and zionists turned anti-zionists are mostly opportunists of the "let no crisis go wasted" type.
I can't take anyone seriously who compares Jim Crow policies to Israel's brutality or who is satisfied with phoney posturing from Hillary Clinton on Palestine, or the fact that Barack Obama dared perform the act of commenting on Palestine in front of Rahm Emanuel.
Where's the zeal for social justice now? The U.S. government has killed far more innocent people (not to mention the soldiers of armies that never attacked the U.S.- remember the slaughter of fleeing or surrenduring Iraqis in Desert Storm?)since the 1990s alone than were ever harmed during Jim Crow. Jim Crow policies in the North or South never had anything to do with supporting brutal foreign regimes, making war on civilians at home, disrupting the world economy or making aggressive war abroad.
As bad as Jim Crow was, let's be honest and admit that the U.S. government has far more power to do harm now, and it does so. I don't think a reshuffling of faces and an altering of rhetoric will do.
And.. this week is Israel Apartheid Week!
I like Phil's high school friend better than Phil!
And I agree with Todd about this:
I doubt that the Israeli lobby has been harmed. My guess is that the courageous writers and zionists turned anti-zionists are mostly opportunists of the "let no crisis go wasted" type.
Bingo! They are no different from 99% of the anti-zionist left: ambulance chasers deluxe. The other 1% are a mix of disgruntled fringe from the far right.
They are useless as progressives. The only true progressives are those working for fairness on both sides…none of this right of return crapola from Islamists and their Western cabana boys.
Otto makes an important point that the AIPAC-controlled Congress can always circumvent any efforts made by Team Obama to enact a sea-change in the Middle East. At the same time, Phil's Kryptonite analogy is brilliantly apt. These 12 developments in the wake of the IDF slaughter of innocents were unimaginable because the Bush administration (the executive branch) itself was jam-packed with Israel-first Neocon embeds.
The list of neocons in the Bush administration is mind-boggling. Given the extent of control exercised by Zionists inside the American administration over the last eight years, it's perfectly understandable that AIPAC is in freak-out mode that Obama is not a "friend to Israel" in the same way Bush was. That Obama has rejected the notion of installing a WINEP-trained, Israel-firster to anaylze the NIE to justify a strike on Iran is an exceptionally important development.
Going down Memory Lane, here's a list of neocons that made up Bush's team, many of whom are dual Israeli/American citizens (this list is freely available through a Google search).
Attorney General – Michael Mukasey
Head of Homeland Security – Michael Chertoff
Chairman Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board – Richard Perle
Deputy Defense Secretary (Former) – Paul Wolfowitz
Under Secretary of Defense – Douglas Feith
National Security Council Advisor – Elliott Abrams
Vice President Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff (Former) – “Scooter” Libby
White House Deputy Chief of Staff – Joshua Bolten
Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs – Marc Grossman
Director of Policy Planning at the State Department – Richard Haass
U.S. Trade Representative (Cabinet-level Position) – Robert Zoellick
Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board – James Schlesinger
UN Representative (Former) – John Bolton
Under Secretary for Arms Control – David Wurmser
Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board – Eliot Cohen
Senior Advisor to the President – Steve Goldsmith
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary – Christopher Gersten
Assistant Secretary of State – Lincoln Bloomfield
Deputy Assistant to the President – Jay Lefkowitz
White House Political Director – Ken Melman
National Security Study Group – Edward Luttwak
Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board – Kenneth Adelman
Defense Intelligence Agency Analyst (Former) – Lawrence (Larry) Franklin
National Security Council Advisor – Robert Satloff
President Export-Import Bank U.S. – Mel Sembler
Deputy Assistant Secretary, Administration for Children and Families – Christopher Gersten
Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Public Affairs
- Mark Weinberger
White House Speechwriter – David Frum
White House Spokesman (Former) – Ari Fleischer
Deputy Secretary of Commerce – Samuel Bodman
Under Secretary of State for Management – Bonnie Cohen
Director of Foreign Service Institute – Ruth Davis
AIPAC is regrouping. It has the power to morph to the left slightly.
The juxtaposition of a right-wing Israel with a center-left US is confusing to AIPAC.
That condition hasn't existed in 12 years.
Todd is probably correct.
The Israel Lobby runs a powerful international imperialist system
The Lobby has opened up a new front in the Netherlands. (See Poll: Wilders' party biggest in the Netherlands.)
It appears that the Lobby leaders hope to distract Europeans and Americans from Jewish Zionist subversion by scare-mongering against Islam on a transnational basis. (See Collection: Wilders' Visit to Boston.)
I am going to go find the text of the Protocal of the Elders.
I have never see it but I am begining to think it might not have been a forgery as they claim after all. I can well imagine some whacko zionist like SOG,Berel or Susie writting some screed for jewish world supremacy.
I like Phil's accentuation of the positive, even if it's on a slightly shaky foundation. Perhaps his most important point is that decent Jews are finally starting to open their eyes to the morals, ethics and nature of the fanatical Jewish Zionists, and are losing their ability to stomach their abuses, shameless demagoguery and atrocities any longer. Given that up until recently, the more or less monolithic support of Israel by American Jewry has been the primary bulwark against progress, this is significant.
It appears that decent Jews are simply less and less interested in standing shoulder to shoulder with the kind of Jews who can cheer on the kind of mass murder that we've seen in Gaza, in Lebanon, and the kind of murderous institutionalized Jim Crow ongoing in Palestine. It's likely been difficult for them, perhaps like a parent slowly coming to the realization that their child is a violent serial criminal that poses a danger to society. But once the acknowledgement is made, there's simply no turning back, no matter how many cries for leniency and casting of blame on society at large are emitted by the criminal spawn. They’re realizing the safeguarding of society is far more important than their own personal emotional attachments to a criminal who long ago snubbed his nose at all bounds of decency, propriety and morality.
Phil finally got an analogy right. Only krytonite, a piece of evil, can spoil the goodness of those groups of individuals who link together, from time to time, to aid israel in the war against Islamic inspired terrorism.
chris berel, either you are a co-dependant enabler of Zionist criminalism, or you are part of the Zionist serial criminalism yourself. Either way, your demographic is being ushered to the margins of civil society. Prepare yourself for many years of wandering in the wilderness as a rogue pariah nation unfit for inclusion and participation in the community of law abiding nations.
Berel does not understand the Superman mythos.
Kryptonite is ethically neutral, for it is just as deadly to General Zod, Kru-El, and Faora Hu-Ul as it is to Superman.
Joachim does not understand his own analogy. Ed has become a victim of his own lunacy.
Ed: I like Phil's accentuation of the positive, even if it's on a slightly shaky foundation.
***
I agree, Ed, and I'm very impressed by Phil's optimism and moral integrity (how many people his age ever chuck a morally rotten mindset and built a new one, particularly at the cost of social and professional ostracism?)
Furthermore, Phil can speak the language of the liberal intelligensia, and with impressive moral consistency. I am not very interested in arguments based on universal human rights (I don't believe there's any such thing), but they seem to be among the only kind that make an impact.
The conservative-realist critique of the Israel/Palestine conflict doesn't register with most people; it's based on an intellectual tradition that is alien to nearly everyone who went to college since the 1960's.
I am going to go find the text of the Protocal of the Elders.
I have never see it but I am begining to think it might not have been a forgery as they claim after all. I can well imagine some whacko zionist like SOG,Berel or Susie writting some screed for jewish world supremacy.
Read the text below, if you are intested in the Protocols. I always respected Hagemeister higly, who as a historian does not only look at the work of his fellow historians but also on fiction and fictionalized history, but I surely love him since I know his critique of Hadassah Ben Itto's "study" of the Protocols, which I ordered too fast based on the German blurb, Hagemeister cites it in the short text below. As Cesare G. DeMichelis he is like a breeze of fresh air in historical studies of the Protocols. Michelis studied the development of the different versions of the Protocols and based on linguistic studies bases their origin in the Ukraine.
Michael Hagemeister: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion: Between History and Fiction.
If this link or the download doesn't work here, you find the text also on his site Michael Hagemeister
beneath Downloads … above Aktuelle Publikationen/current Publications
There is another text in in English one can download.
@ David F: "I'm very impressed by Phil's optimism and moral integrity (how many people his age ever chuck a morally rotten mindset and built a new one, particularly at the cost of social and professional ostracism?)"
Agreed. It is remarkable and commendable. He's an example of redemption to the entire Boomer generation, if they'd allow him to be.
haha! I LOVE Leander's polite and academic way of telling American that he is an anti-semitic conpiracy nut.
I read Hagemeister's article. Very interesting. Guess the bottom line is no one truly knows who fabricated the Protocols. But certainly they were ideological ancestors of the wild-eyed anti-zionists on this blog. :-)
Love that Joachim Martillo can also weigh in on on the Superman backstory. I always enjoy reading his additions and contributions.
"haha! I LOVE Leander's polite and academic way of telling American that he is an anti-semitic conpiracy nut.
"I read Hagemeister's article. Very interesting. Guess the bottom line is no one truly knows who fabricated the Protocols. But certainly they were ideological ancestors of the wild-eyed anti-zionists on this blog. :-)"
American seemed to be only half serious, Suzanne. I don't know what Leander meant, either. My guess is that she wasn't telling you in a politely academic way that you aren't a nut. :.)
@ Suzanne
"none of this right of return crapola from Islamists and their Western cabana boys."
So, Suzanne you don't like Israel's right of return?"
no one truly knows… But certainly
The mind of Suzanne: in the absence of facts, anti-Semitism is the best explanation.
Marshmallow…don't you have some cyanide party at a bunker to attend? Hurry! Hurry! You're already late! :-)