This is the tipping point. And it all happened in the last 24 hours. Why? Because AIPAC overplayed its hand. Mr Conventional Wisdom, Tom Friedman in the New York Times, warns of the dangers to Jews if the Israel lobby is perceived to drag the country into war:
It is also an issue fraught with danger for Israel and American Jews, neither of whom want to be accused of dragging America into a war, especially one that could weaken an already frail world economy..
The last thing Israel or American friends of Israel — Jewish and Christian — want is to give their enemies a chance to claim that Israel is using its political clout to embroil America in a war that is not in its interest.
That could easily happen because backing for Israel today has never been more politicized. In recent years, Republicans have tried to make support for Israel a wedge issue that would enable them to garner a higher percentage of Jewish votes and campaign contributions, which traditionally have swung overwhelmingly Democratic. This has led to an arms race with the Democrats over who is more pro-Israel — and over-the-top declarations, like Newt Gingrich’s that the Palestinians “are an invented people.”
And it could easily happen because money in politics has never been more important for running campaigns, and the Israel lobby — both its Jewish and evangelical Christian wings — has never been more influential, because of its ability to direct campaign contributions to supportive candidates.
Note Tom Friedman in 2003, to Haaretz, on the neocons’ responsibility for the Iraq war, which Friedman had also supported, citing suicide bombers in Tel Aviv.
Is the Iraq war the great neoconservative war? It’s the war the neoconservatives wanted, Friedman says. It’s the war the neoconservatives marketed. Those people had an idea to sell when September 11 came, and they sold it. Oh boy, did they sell it. So this is not a war that the masses demanded. This is a war of an elite. Friedman laughs: I could give you the names of 25 people (all of whom are at this moment within a five-block radius of this office) who, if you had exiled them to a desert island a year and a half ago, the Iraq war would not have happened.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrJ0Kp6FFM0
Robert byrd on the insanity of war in Iraq
War with Iran for Israel is no less insane.
Nonsense, utter nonsense. irresponsible.
he was THANKING OBAMA for shifting the lens away from Israel and american jews by making “the iranian threat” a US/Worldwide problem to be dealt with. And cheers him on as he prepares americans to do the heavy lifting……
phil man, your reading only what you want to read.
“As such, no one should want domestic electoral politics mixed up with the Iran decision, which is why it was so important that the president redefined the Iran problem as a global proliferation threat and grounded his decision-making in American realism, not politics”
“…….If it comes to war, let it be because the ayatollahs were ready to sacrifice their whole economy to get a nuke and, therefore, America — the only country that can truly take down Iran’s nuclear program — had to act to protect the global system, not just Israel. I respect that this is a deadly serious issue for Israel — which has the right to act on its own — but President Obama has built a solid strategic and political case for letting America take the lead. “
TBH I don’t think the sociopaths who run Israel care too much about regular American Jews. The top echelons of the IDF don’t. Bibi doesn’t.
Actually, I wonder if all this slow-motion attempt to push us into war isn’t more damaging to Israel and the Lobby.
In the first place the present situation seems to just be gradually pulling in the marginally interested. Once the shooting starts however, the impulse to just root for the flag tends not to be the greatest for encouraging examination and reflection.
Further makes me wonder if Phil’s “tipping point” hasn’t subtly been reached sometime before now, being some subtle thing to begin with. E.g., just the expansion of the conversation to talk about separate interests, together with amazement that anyone would be talking about another war after Iraq and Afghanistan? Coupled with the Lobby’s need to be more full-throated in boosting one against Iran?
I know some may say it was W&M’s book, but I doubt it, not in terms of the general public. And yet it does seem that where we see movement is in the general public—with someone I read recently mentioning that even amongst the Tea Party crowd there’s a goodly amount of skepticism about our ties with Israel. And of course it is the general public’s feelings with which Tom Friedman’s piece here is concerned.
I note also a certain populism in Obama’s remarks now, clearly feeling there’s an audience for them: Talking separately about our interests and then Israel’s, and talking about how those popping off don’t pay the price of war and etc.
(Not to mention how interesting those remarks were in the form of firing shots across the Lobby’s bow: “You want more of this?” they can easily be interpreted as saying.)
“a chance to claim that Israel is using its political clout to embroil America in a war that is not in its interest.” This is once again revealing that there is (or might be seen to be) more than zip between American and Israeli interests. Yep, boys, two countries, each with its own interests, two and not one.
HOWEVER, his second paragraph slyly suggests that a pre-emptive Israeli attack WILL drag America into war, and this is a slight-of-hand that Obama would do well to negate.