No individual had as large a role in Israel’s shift from an embattled settler state to a regional power as James Angleton, the head of counterintelligence at the CIA in the 50s-70s, who relied on Israeli intelligence in his battle against communism. Angleton overlooked Israel’s acquisition of nukes, Jefferson Morley relates in his new biography of Angleton, The Ghost.
Thirty years ago, Prince Charles said that U.S. support for Israel is a cause of terrorism and that the “Jewish lobby” tied an American president’s ability to address the issue. He wrote in a 1986 letter: “I know there are so many complex issues, but how can there ever be an end to terrorism unless the causes are eliminated? Surely some US president has to have the courage to stand up and take on the Jewish lobby in US? I must be naive, I suppose!”
Tzipi Hotovely, deputy Israeli foreign minister, says American Jews are threatening the existence of Jewry with “80 percent” rate of assimilation, and criticism of Israel, which is all that holds Jews together. Then she challenges Labor parliamentarian Merav Michaeli, “When’s the last time you went to the Kotel [the western wall], can you possibly tell me?”
The Balfour Declaration was a wartime play by the British government to win international Jewry to its side. This meant the Russian masses in the U.S., and banker Jacob Schiff, who were against American entry into the war. The British may have exaggerated Jewish power, but Zionists lobbied successfully for the declaration by citing such power, marking the entry of the Israel lobby on the world stage.
Last week the UN’s rapporteur on the occupied territories called for sanctions against Israel in a report saying Israel has “driven Gaza back to the dark ages” due to denial of water and electricity and freedom of movement. Michael Lynk went on that there is a “darkening stain” on international law because other countries have treated the occupation as normal, and done nothing to resist Israel’s “colonial ambition par excellence,”
Kenneth Marcus heads a lawfare organization that targets the Boycott Israel movement on campus as allegedly anti-Semitic and thereby violating federal laws against racial discrimination. Last week he was named to the top civil rights job at the Dep’t of Education, stirring fears that he will attempt to silence advocates for Palestinians.
Paul Singer, the megadonor hedge fund manager, funded the group that uncovered dirt on Trump in Russia, then turned around to help pay for Trump’s inauguration and visit the White House regularly. Why would Singer flipflop? His main issue is Israel, and he wants to influence the White House. And he already has, on the Iran Deal.
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency says its briefs editor, Marcy Oster, moved to Israel in 2000. It airbrushes the uncomfortable truth: Oster lives in an illegal settlement deep in the occupied West Bank, Karnei Shomron, and has often acted as an advocate for that community, raising money for young Jews to buy mobile homes there.
Citing the separate laws and roads for Palestinians and Jews in occupied territories, CBC columnist Neil Macdonald says “Israel is already an apartheid state.” It’s about time liberal Zionists in the U.S. admitted what’s going on over there. But they can’t, they’re the firewall on the political mainstream, and U.S. support for apartheid Israel. Still, the list of apartheid-namers is growing.
Organized American Jewry has a tough job. It has to raise endless money for Israel and protect the country against all human-rights-abuse accusations and denounce Israel’s accusers. To be Israel’s vassal, in short. But the new anti-BDS legislation across the country will make some Jews reexamine the deal. They are being asked to sell out our country’s civil rights for Israel’s sake. And there’s sure to be a backlash against the Jewish organizations.