The usual suspects are quoted in this highly-positive New York Times front-page piece today on Hillary Clinton and the peace talks: Martin Indyk, Abraham Foxman, and Aaron David Miller. You'd think the Times might vary the line-up now and then, especially after 20 losing seasons? Indyk had the Op-Ed page barely a week ago to promote his view that the peace talks are going to work out great, and that Netanyahu has stopped settlement activity.
You have to turn to Al Jazeera to get a contrary American view, a piece saying the talks are unlikely to produce anything, by Robert Grenier, former CIA station chief in Islamabad, '99-'02, and director of the CIA's counter-terrorism center. Isn't Grenier fit for the Times? He joins the list of American realists who say bluntly that the Israel lobby is undermining American security, a bluntness you simply do not find in the Times.
The piece takes apart Indyk's Op-Ed obfuscations on behalf of Netanyahu, including the house demolition morsel below, then concludes as my excerpt does...
Finally, we are told [by Indyk], the demolition of Palestinian houses in East Jerusalem "is also down" compared to recent years. That's rather like praising someone for beating his wife less frequently....
From all this, Martin would have us believe that the current moment is propitious for peacemaking.The only conceivable explanation for his mendacity, apart from the desire to see his name in print, is that Martin is continuing to promote the type of 'American diplomacy' he championed during his years in the Clinton administration – diplomacy designed to keep pressure off the Israelis while they do whatever they please. Although he doubtless had to make some accommodations along the way in transitioning from an overt lobbyist on behalf of Israel to a foreign-policy apparatchik in the Clinton administration, one always assumed that his basic motives were unchanged. In those years, he had a lot of company, the redoubtable Dennis Ross being most prominent, and most disingenuous, among them. At least Aaron Miller, another of the state department peace-process team members, has had the good grace since his retirement to admit that he and the others saw their role as acting as "Israel's lawyers".
For those of us who watched the process from close range in those years, it was obvious that Ross, Indyk and the others saw their jobs as consisting of a two-part process: Find out what the Israelis want, and then help them get it.
In this, they could never have succeeded in doing the harm they did on their own. After all, they were merely apparatchiks - viziers serving at the behest of a series of politically craven administrations, of which the current one is merely the latest.
But for those of us who spent our careers trying to protect and defend a country whose security was being systematically and gratuitously undermined by the likes of Martin Indyk, this latest bit of cynical posturing in the New York Times is a lot to swallow. I don't know who Martin thinks he's fooling, but I can assure you he's not fooling us.
Miller – Self declared dual-loyalist, or self declared traitor? Can anything be done?
Ray McGovern is another former intelligence professional who has stated bluntly that Israel is undermining American security. Dana Milbank reported in the WaPo on a June 2005 hearing on Capitol Hill:
link to washingtonpost.com
All one can say is ‘there they go again,’ as the Lobby openly propagandizes for the US to attack Iran, or stand aside and allow Israel to do so. The US is utterly dependent on energy imports, requiring nearly 12 million barrels/day of crude and refined products, some of it seaborne from the Middle East.
By contrast, Israel imports a mere 0.28 million bpd, most of it via the Caspian Consortium and BTC pipelines — land routes, that is to say.
Israel’s reckless warmongering against Iran repeats the same set of sensational lies used against Iraq, and places the US at far greater risk of a devastating oil shock than Israel.
Far from the actions of ally, Israel’s thorough penetration of US electoral, policymaking, defense and intelligence entities constitutes probably the gravest threat the US faces from any nation.
“Aw, quit bashing the Jews–we have more imporant things to deal with right here in America,” would be the response of the regular Americans I know. “Don’t you realize the muslims want to kill christians, establish shia law right here? They’re pedophiles too. Anyway, I read the Palestinians are not a real people. Did you read what that guy did to his poor dog? He should be shot! Take a look, here, in today’s local paper.”
Isn’t quite instructive that former CIA officers keep saying the same about the role of the US in the Middle East while the Israel Lobby keeps peddling propaganda to the contrary?
There’s Philip Giraldi, Robert Grenier, Robert Baer, Ray McGovern….Did I miss anyone?
It just goes to show that all these intelligence gathering institutions lack the political power needed to influence the decision-makers in the White House and Capitol Hill. That is the nature of the beast. This supposed separation of powers and the bureaucracy that props it prevent true change.
That is to say that regardless of the actual reality on the ground — as related via intelligence briefings, studies and analysis — politicians are the ultimate gate-keepers and they will continue to do whatever is good for The Lobby. Meanwhile, the Pentagon is run by the Military Industrial Complex, a great part of which is in bed with AIPAC.
Robert Grenier wrote:
“But for those of us who spent our careers trying to protect and defend a country whose security was being systematically and gratuitously undermined by the likes of Martin Indyk, this latest bit of cynical posturing in the New York Times is a lot to swallow. I don’t know who Martin thinks he’s fooling, but I can assure you he’s not fooling us.”
Wow. I dunno that I’ve seen any other former official of such rank—esp. from our intelligence community—come so close to out and out calling folks like Indyk Israeli agents/spies, can anyone?
And wow again with that use of his last word “us.” Makes you wonder if there’s not a bit of a war starting in the U.S. gov’t with folks such as Grenier reaching their limit via perceiving some of these folks as just simple agents/spies and starting to react.
Makes you wonder why now? The Iran biz? Or has Grenier written like this before?
It was so obvious during the Clinton years that Indyk and Ross were Zionist plants. Why is anyone surprised today. These guys support the WB annexation movement. Someone, let me know that amI wrong on this. Isn’t it obvious?
Indyk si such a syain on humanity, but I love the way Grenier tears him apart with such clinical prescision. Here’s a few sentences that made me laugh:
“The fact that he still purveys pious nonsense regarding the peace process calls his motives once more into question, and a brief examination of his views serves to explain why he and his comrades – the Dennis Rosses, the Aaron Millers, the Dan Kurtzers and a few others – somehow managed, on behalf of their political masters, not only to preclude any possibility of a just peace in the Middle East, but to undermine the long-term security of both Israel and the US in the process.”
and …
“Finally, we are told, the demolition of Palestinian houses in East Jerusalem “is also down” compared to recent years. That’s rather like praising someone for beating his wife less frequently.”
Another cynical analysis by Phil Weiss.
If the peace talks result in a consented proposal between the two representatives, will you celebrate, or will you mourn?
In response to the consented proposal, will you advocate for it, comment on the discussion of it from a detached journalistic distance, form a personal opinion on it and argue rationally for the merits or demerits, or will you trash it and do so by trashing the persons advocating for it, rather than addressing the argument and weight?
Richard, what do you mean by “consented proposal?”
Israel has multiple guns pointed at the Palestinians. If they don’t agree to Israel’s proposals, Israel will bomb, murder and arrest them, as they’ve done recently. As well as continue to expel, demolish homes, confiscate land and deprive them of economic viability, as they’ve done recently.
I expect nothing out of peace talks from the Israeli side other than proposals to keep what they’ve stolen at gunpoint up to now, and maybe a little more. These are the Israeli demands, and ones which you’ve supported in the past: denial of equal rights for Palestinians, permanent exile from their place of origin, demands for acquiescence to the destruction of their villages, homes, society and mass murder of their people. Demands for acquiescence by Palestinians to the confiscation by Israel of land, property, and funds, to be turned over for Jewish-only use.
For this, they’ll offer no real independence or viability. Continued confiscation of Palestinian land in areas given over to Israel. On the plus side, a reduction in murders – maybe – and the permission to form business ventures as long as Israeli Jews can make a profit from them too, like the Dead Sea resort.
That any agreement under such circumstances is a “consented proposal” is rather dubious to start with, and yes, it’s better than being killed, but why do you think pointing guns at people to get them to agree to give up their property, and killing some to make an example, is a good thing, one that I should support?
Another cynical trashing of Phil by Richard, based on a hypothetical peace deal which may or may not be reached, and which may or may not be good for the Palestinians which Phil may or may not oppose.
By now the NYT has probably been self-selecting its readers to be Zionists.
Alfred Lilienthal wrote about how the NYT became an extension of the Israeli embassy in “The Zionist Connection”. In the 1950′s, this paper refused to run an ad for Yitzak Shamir because of his terrorist background. This led to a massive subscriber boycott which nearly bankrupted the paper. The NYT folded, changed its staff, and has slavishly promoted Israel since then.