AIPAC Is the Only Explanation for America's Morally Bankrupt Israel Policy

[Purveyor]

Posted: 07/22/2014 1:59 pm EDT



The official name for Israel's latest assault on Gaza is "Operation Protective Edge." A better name would be "Operation Déjà Vu." As it has on several prior occasions, Israel is using weapons provided by U.S. taxpayers to bombard the captive and impoverished Palestinians in Gaza, where the death toll now exceeds 500. As usual, the U.S. government is siding with Israel, even though most American leaders understand Israel instigated the latest round of violence, is not acting with restraint, and that its actions make Washington look callous and hypocritical in the eyes of most of the world.

This Orwellian situation is eloquent testimony to the continued political clout of AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) and the other hardline elements of the Israel lobby. There is no other plausible explanation for the supine behavior of the U.S. Congress--including some of its most "progressive" members--or the shallow hypocrisy of the Obama administration, especially those officials known for their purported commitment to human rights.

The immediate cause of this latest one-sided bloodletting was the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli hikers in the occupied West Bank, followed shortly thereafter by the kidnapping and fatal burning of a Palestinian teenager by several Israelis. According to J.J. Goldberg's reporting in the Jewish newspaper Forward, the Netanyahu government blamed Hamas for the kidnappings without evidence and pretended the kidnapped Israelis were still alive for several weeks, even though there was evidence indicating the victims were already dead. It perpetrated this deception in order to whip up anti-Arab sentiment and make it easier to justify punitive operations in the West Bank and Gaza.

And why did Netanyahu decide to go on another rampage in Gaza? As Nathan Thrall of the International Crisis Group points out, the real motive is neither vengeance nor a desire to protect Israel from Hamas' rocket fire, which has been virtually non-existent over the past two years and is largely ineffectual anyway. Netanyahu's real purpose was to undermine the recent agreement between Hamas and Fatah for a unity government. Given Netanyahu's personal commitment to keeping the West Bank and creating a "greater Israel," the last thing he wants is a unified Palestinian leadership that might press him to get serious about a two-state solution. Ergo, he sought to isolate and severely damage Hamas and drive a new wedge between the two Palestinian factions.

Behind all these maneuvers looms Israel's occupation of Palestine, now in its fifth decade. Not content with having ethnically cleansed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in 1948 and 1967 and not satisfied with owning eighty-two percent of Mandatory Palestine, every Israeli government since 1967 has built or expanded settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem while providing generous subsidies to the 600,000-plus Jews who have moved there in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Two weeks ago, Netanyahu confirmed what many have long suspected: he is dead set against a two-state solution and will never--repeat never--allow it to happen while he is in office. Given that Netanyahu is probably the most moderate member of his own Cabinet and that Israel's political system is marching steadily rightward, the two-state solution is a gone goose.

more...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephen-m-walt/aipac-americas-israel-policy_b_5607883.html

[enough]

1. A very good summary of the situation.

another snip>

Worst of all, the deaths of hundreds more Palestinians and a small number of Israelis will change almost nothing. Hamas is not going to disband. When this latest round of fighting ends, the 4.4 million Palestinians who live in the West Bank and Gaza will still be Israel's de facto prisoners and still be denied basic human rights. But they are not going to leave, mainly because Palestine is their homeland, but also because they have nowhere to go, especially given the turmoil in other parts of the Middle East.

Eventually another ceasefire will be negotiated. The dead will be buried, the wounded will recover, the tunnels now being destroyed will be rebuilt, and Hamas will replenish its stockpile of missiles and rockets. The stage will then be set for another round of fighting, and Israel will have moved further down the road to becoming a full-fledged apartheid state.

Meanwhile, U.S. politicians and policymakers continue to back a brutal military campaign whose primary purpose is not to defend Israel but rather to protect its longstanding effort to colonize the West Bank. Amazingly, they continue to support Israel unreservedly even though every U.S. president since Lyndon Johnson has opposed Israel's settlements project, and the past three American presidents--Clinton, Bush and Obama--have all worked hard for the two-state solution that Israeli policy has now made impossible.

snip>

[delrem]

2. Primary cause is corrupt US politicians.

Secondary cause is US citizens who elect corrupt US politicians.

Tertiary cause is lobbyists who buy, own and operate those corrupt US politicians.

But no way did those lobbyists FORCE the US politicians to be corrupt.

[archaic56]

11. applause

the first article and this post.dead on . we wait for the media to tell us things have changed.. Yet, you know what needs to change most..? Ourselves

You nailed that so well delrem I wanted to applaud

[Jefferson23]

3. I think that is far from accurate. See what you think and consider of the following 2 OP's on the

subject. Also, consider that while AIPAC was pushing for more sanctions on Iran, and even
while Senate Democrats were signing letters of support..once they heard that Obama wanted
something else..what AIPAC said went by the way side..very quickly.


The Israel Lobby?
Noam Chomsky
ZNet, March 28, 2006

I've received many requests to comment on the article by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt (henceforth M-W), published in the London Review of Books, which has been circulating extensively on the internet and has elicited a storm of controversy. A few thoughts on the matter follow.

It was, as noted, published in the London Review of Books, which is far more open to discussion on these issues than US journals -- a matter of relevance (to which I'll return) to the alleged influence of what M-W call "the Lobby." An article in the Jewish journal Forward quotes M as saying that the article was commissioned by a US journal, but rejected, and that "the pro-Israel lobby is so powerful that he and co-author Stephen Walt would never have been able to place their report in a American-based scientific publication." But despite the fact that it appeared in England, the M-W article aroused the anticipated hysterical reaction from the usual supporters of state violence here, from the Wall St Journal to Alan Dershowitz, sometimes in ways that would instantly expose the authors to ridicule if they were not lining up (as usual) with power.

M-W deserve credit for taking a position that is sure to elicit tantrums and fanatical lies and denunciations, but it's worth noting that there is nothing unusual about that. Take any topic that has risen to the level of Holy Writ among "the herd of independent minds" (to borrow Harold Rosenberg's famous description of intellectuals): for example, anything having to do with the Balkan wars, which played a huge role in the extraordinary campaigns of self-adulation that disfigured intellectual discourse towards the end of the millennium, going well beyond even historical precedents, which are ugly enough. Naturally, it is of extraordinary importance to the herd to protect that self-image, much of it based on deceit and fabrication. Therefore, any attempt even to bring up plain (undisputed, surely relevant) facts is either ignored (M-W can't be ignored), or sets off most impressive tantrums, slanders, fabrications and deceit, and the other standard reactions. Very easy to demonstrate, and by no means limited to these cases. Those without experience in critical analysis of conventional doctrine can be very seriously misled by the particular case of the Middle East(ME).

But recognizing that M-W took a courageous stand, which merits praise, we still have to ask how convincing their thesis is. Not very, in my opinion. I've reviewed elsewhere what the record (historical and documentary) seems to me to show about the main sources of US ME policy, in books and articles for the past 40 years, and can't try to repeat here. M-W make as good a case as one can, I suppose, for the power of the Lobby, but I don't think it provides any reason to modify what has always seemed to me a more plausible interpretation. Notice incidentally that what is at stake is a rather subtle matter: weighing the impact of several factors which (all agree) interact in determining state policy: in particular, (A) strategic-economic interests of concentrations of domestic power in the tight state-corporate linkage, and (B) the Lobby.

in full: http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20060328.htm


It’s Not Either / Or
The Israel Lobby

05.01.2006
By Norman G. Finkelstein

In the current fractious debate over the role of the Israel Lobby in the formulation and execution of US policies in the Middle East, the “either-or” framework — giving primacy to either the Israel Lobby or to U.S. strategic interests — isn’t, in my opinion, very useful.

Apart from the Israel-Palestine conflict, fundamental U.S. policy in the Middle East hasn’t been affected by the Lobby. For different reasons, both U.S. and Israeli elites have always believed that the Arabs need to be kept subordinate. However, once the U.S. solidified its alliance with Israel after June 1967, it began to look at Israelis, and Israelis projected themselves, as experts on the “Arab mind.” Accordingly, the alliance with Israel has abetted the most truculent U.S. policies, Israelis believing that “Arabs only understand the language of force” and every few years this or that Arab country needs to be smashed up. The spectrum of U.S. policy differences might be narrow, but in terms of impact on the real lives of real people in the Arab world these differences are probably meaningful, the Israeli influence making things worse.

The claim that Israel has become a liability for U.S. “national” interests in the Middle East misses the bigger picture. Sometimes what’s most obvious escapes the eye. Israel is the only stable and secure base for projecting U.S. power in this region. Every other country the U.S. relies on might, for all anyone knows, fall out of U.S. control tomorrow. The U.S. discovered this to its horror in 1979, after immense investment in the Shah. On the other hand, Israel was a creation of the West; it’s in every respect, culturally, politically, economically in thrall to the West, notably the U.S. This is true not just at the level of a corrupt leadership, as elsewhere in the Middle East but, what’s most important, at the popular level. Israel’s pro-American orientation exists not just among Israeli elites but also among the whole population. Come what may in Israel, it’s inconceivable that this fundamental orientation will change. Combined with its overwhelming military power, this makes Israel a unique and irreplaceable American asset in the Middle East.

in full: http://normanfinkelstein.com/2006/the-lobby-its-not-either-or/

[BlueMTexpat]

4. I'm not sure that it is "far from accurate" but

I do concur absolutely that AIPAC is not the whole story. But they are a powerful part.

Yes, it is absolutely true about Israel's geopolitical importance to the US and that is the major reason why the US has traditionally supported Israel against all comers. That cannot be emphasized enough, at least throughout the Cold War period. The irony is that US foreign policy, especially since 1991 (the fall of the Soviet Union and, although less often, if at all recognized, Gulf War I) has done more to alienate Arabs and exacerbate the I-P conflict than has Israel's, at least until the fall of 2000, when Ariel Sharon took his deliberately provocative stroll on the Temple Mount and literally initiated the spiraling cycles of violence that the world has seen since, with an appalling cost in human lives attributable to weapons primarily furnished by the US.

OTOH, the Mearsheimer-Walt book is worthwhile reading and I am somewhat surprised that Chomsky pooh-poohs their thesis as he does. The land grab on the West Bank especially has certainly been a cooperative effort between radically conservative American Jews and radically evangelical Christian groups who have helped raise money for Jewish settlers to "purchase" land from Palestinians so as to build their - by international legal standards - illegal settlements. If you have ever been to the West Bank, these settlements look like modern versions of medieval fortresses (with all mod cons and infrastructure) next to squalid refugee camps where generations of Palestinians have been born and raised. The contrast is literally mind-blowing. This clear encroachment onto Palestinian lands is much akin to white settlers' seizure of lands in the US West from other powerless peoples and has caused a festering resentment that will continue so long as the "apartheid" policy exists.

The actions of other Arab states, with the clear exception of Jordan and possible exceptions of Lebanon and Syria, leave much to be desired. The worst of these, especially since 1991, are two big US ME allies: Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. There are several others that previously expelled Palestinians prior to 1991, or at least never allowed them to earn a second nationality in their countries. Yes, there's lots of blame to go around. None of that, however, justifies Israel's current disproportionate campaign.

At the end of Gulf War I (Bush I's more limited war with Saddam Hussein - I did not support that one either, btw), Kuwait - with the US's blessing - made a wholesale expulsion of some 200,000 Palestinians still in the country - another 200,000 or so had been out of the country at the time of the August invasion, or had fled shortly after and were unable to return (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_expulsion_from_Kuwait), even those who had been there for generations, ostensibly because Arafat had supported Saddam Hussein or had "helped" Saddam - but without any proof of such as to justify wholesale expulsion.

Although not expelled wholesale from Saudi Arabia, most Palestinians who had been working for US corporations in SA were not rehired by those companies. http://www.badil.org/en/al-majdal/item/1514-art07 Up until 1991, Palestinians literally "ran" both countries - the "worker bees" to the respective royal monarchies who literally never lifted a finger.

Most expelled (now jobless) Palestinians did not have a second nationality (some had prudently worked to attain such over the years; it was difficult, but not impossible) and were forced to return to the only places they could go: the West Bank and Gaza, or to poor overburdened Jordan. So there was a huge influx of refugees into an already crowded area and there was no longer economic stability such as the remittances they had previously and consistently sent to their families back in the "homeland."

At the same time, with the easing of emigration policies and ultimate breakup of the USSR, around a million Jews emigrated from former SSRs to Israel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990s_Post-Soviet_aliyah

We are now seeing the results of these two worlds colliding - with one world (Jewish immigrants) receiving all the aid Israel (and the US) can lavish upon them (an admirable welfare state in many ways except that Israeli Arabs do not receive the same benefits) and the other world (Palestinian Arabs) receiving little to no aid in comparison. And the situation continues ...

And we are surprised that the disempowered side lobs rockets at the other? No, they should absolutely not do it and should be properly excoriated for it and held to account. But those actions are certainly understandable. The empowered side has overwhelming blame and deserved opprobrium for what is happening now. It should stop immediately and the truce should not be conditional.

[Jefferson23]

5. Thank you for such a thoughtful reply.

I'm not sure I would characterize Chomsky's review as a pooh-pooh of the book, but that is
not as important as understanding the broader reasons we continue, I believe, to be complicit
in the ongoing occupation. For one we pay a price for it in many ways, and our foreign policy
regarding our other endeavors in the ME have proven as disastrous...overall.

I do feel it is important to relegate responsibility, incentives and so forth that depicts
a more truthful picture of why we support Israel. If we were planning to actually contribute
to peace in the ME in the case for the Palestinians our approach could be at the very least,
to allow us to abstain from UNSC resolutions against Israel. For the 42 times we prevent
any consequence to Israel's policies toward the Palestinians, we not only enable their
government to continue a brutal occupation we prove to the entire ME that we are not
honest brokers in the alleged peace process.

In short, if you want a viable state for these people, you use your political muscle or
at least get the hell out of the way.

[BlueMTexpat]

6. Chomsky is generally a favorite of mine,

along with his friend, the late Edward Said, a strong proponent for the one-state solution. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-state_solution As I noted, I was somewhat surprised at some of his comments - not all, to be sure.

With the way that the occupied lands have been settled since the 1970s, especially in the WB, Israel/Palestine has de facto become one state. All one has to do is to look at a map to see that.

Unless there is mass expulsion of Jewish settlers (with compensation where appropriate) from those settlements - which I frankly do not see happening - EVER - a two-state solution is hardly viable, even if everyone laid down their arms right now and stopped killing each other.

Of course, laying down arms and stopping the killing would be a major step forward, regardless of the ultimate solution.

You are absolutely right about the US not being an honest broker in the situation. Except for Jimmy Carter's efforts, we truly have not been. Bill Clinton made some gains, but he too put together a bargain that could not be accepted. And I also concur that abstaining in the UN SC in order to allow some kind of concerted action at the international level would be a great start if we are not seriously going to be an honest broker.

It is not as though it is Israel against the world, even though Netanyahu and his ilk like to cast things that way. People in Europe at least remember the Holocaust - with much more reason than the US because nearly every country was directly affected by it "up close and personal." There is much more goodwill than not.

[Jefferson23]

7. I agree with just about all you say here, with a few exceptions. There is still some hope

left for a viable state, if the Palestinians collectively unite in civil disobedience.

Please know I am not judging these people, and I realize no one can tell a people....just do it.
It must come from within and after being beaten down for 47 years..I am in no position
to judge them. Their leadership, if you can call it that, is horrible...if Abbas would take
the necessary legal steps that would/could be used to influence a fair settlement, there
might be a chance. I don't want to see them left with a bantustan..no peace will come from
that and certainly, no justice.

I have enjoyed our exchange..thank you.

[BlueMTexpat]

13. I have also enjoyed it.

And I too hope that some sort of viable, equitable, and JUST long-term solution can be found for this situation which was imposed on the area by Western powers as part of their own agenda.

[Jefferson23]

14. Same to you, my friend...in solidarity.

back at ya.

[The Stranger]

8. I would characterize Chomsky's review as a pooh-pooh of the book.

He doesn't engage the debate but talks around it.

And this surprises me, coming from him.

I expected better. Much better.

[Jefferson23]

9. You mean in the sense you feel AIPAC has more leverage than he agrees with?

This was written several years ago, but I don't think he has changed his view point on it.

[leftynyc]

10. Considering the polling I've seen

it looks like the people in Congress are representing their constituents who strongly favor Israel. Isn't that why we put them in office?

[yurbud]

12. if Israel did not serve some interest of the financial elite, they would not get dime one

or a shred of support from us.

For decades, Israel has been our "bad cop" on the Arab beat. As the good cop, we would pursue negotiations with Arab countries that got out of line, but gosh darn it, we just couldn't control that loose cannon "bad cop," who would take the short cut and bomb the crap out of whoever was dragging their feet with us.

Strategically, they border the Suez Canal, and are the shortest route from Eurasia to Africa. And they are within spitting distance of the Middle Eastern oil countries.

If they are just the most effective lobbyists ever, I will be as surprised as anyone.

We will only know for sure once oil is no longer an economic fctor.