Will the Israel Lobby Issue Go Mainstream?

My network is buzzing about Walt and Mearsheimer's book. I can't tell you how excited folks are. They have the feeling that it's High Noon at last for the Israel lobby--that the issue will be mainstreamed at last. I'm getting emails about possible appearances by W&M (the Cosmos Club in D.C.--great) and about whether they'll be on 60 Minutes (apparently Nyet!).

This is the most important factor in the campaign against Walt and Mearsheimer: the fear that the issue might be mainstreamed in American politics. It's one thing for the authors to hold forth in the London Review of Books, or for critics to lambaste AIPAC in the blogosphere; but getting into the American conversation is anathema. The third rail must remain the third rail! This is why neocons fought so hard against Juan Cole going to Yale. It was one thing for him to teach at the University of Michigan, but we don't want to give these ideas imprimatur, prestige. It's why the right is now google-bombing Trita Parsi; they don't want this brilliant young scholar of Iran, whose new book tells people to cool their jets, to be on television. By maligning him on neocon websites, they hope to marginalize him; when a TV producer who's thinking of scheduling him googles his name, they want her to think twice. (Whereas anyone who called for invading Iraq is perfectly acceptable...) 

As a progressive & optimist, I think their side is losing, that W&M's views are about to go much wider. I wonder who will be the Great Connecter. Who will break the silence in the American mainstream? Who will be the first political candidate to grasp the nettle, and say the words "Israel lobby" in a presidential debate? My bet: Ron Paul.

Comments

[lester]

more like MY bet in the last israel lobby thread! Anyway, both Ron paul and critics of israel are severly marginalized so it would have to be during a debate, if they even let him debate. Certainly none of the dems will say anything about it, though kucinich is coming around. He and Paul were the only ones to vote against the ridiculous AIPAC / Iran bill last month

[Steve]

This is black humor.

I have to wite a paper about the Saudi lobby.

Good plan?

[steve]

PS

The AIPAC matter is anti-statesmanship.

The quality of the USA politics needs improvement. But AIPAC is a sideshow.

The former colonies of Asia and Africa are so poorly managed that they are bringing the world to a catastrophic crisis.

The Russian and Iranian brinkmanship are our other major problem.

All nations must dig themselves out of the holes by a moral and decent reformation at home.

I think that John Edwards could be our best choice for the difficult times ahead.

And I hope that Barack Obama will recognize that he is a caricature. Completely unqualified like Hillary Clinton. (Bill Clinton was an unqualified failure as I think of him now.)

Only Edwards or McCain have character and integrity.

The rest are the usual politicians. Disturbed by truth.

[Arie Brand]

Phil, I am less optimistic than you are.

The whole American political establishment is already on board as far as a now likely war against Iran is concerned (see Arthur Silber's excellent analysis on http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2007/08/worsening-nightmare.html).

Perhaps in the aftermath of that catastrophe Walt and Mearsheimer's ideas will be common currency - but what will be the point then?

[Ed*ard Teller]

1. It won't go mainstream.

2. Mike Gravel or Dennis Kucenich just might bring it up.

3. You're very courageous and tenacious, Phil. I've been too busy to read many of your essays since you "left" the Observer's space, but I'm learning a lot on my few visits here. Thank you!

[David]

Ron Paul's writings during the run-up to the war made it clear that he considered the Israel lobby a major factor. Since launching his campaign, however, he has had to drop any reference to the topic.

On another subject: Just a reminder that the MuzzleWatch story on the town of Watertown's recent stand against the ADL is fascinating. The video of the town meeting (about an hour long) is as heartwarming as any Hollywood movie. The comments from the townspeople, while polite, make it clear that they recognize exactly what kind of organization the ADL really is.
http://www.hairenik.com/HairenikTV/HA_TV_Clip98.htm
http://www.muzzlewatch.com/?p=228

[Hank Ford]

This is a very interesting blog. It is ironic that I come upon it now, just days before the publication of my new book on the influence of the shadow woman lobby. That's right, the woman lobby. I'm not talking about their front organizations like NOW or NARAL, I'm talking about the informal infrastructure of females that conspire to control the world. Talk about a third rail - THIS never gets discussed. Over the last 100 years these ladies have gained increasingly greater control over out media institutions (Oprah anyone?), our government (record number of female repreresentatives at the state and national level), our foreign policy (Rice anyone?), our educational institutions (more female professors and students), our corporations (Meg Whitman anyone?) and most importantly our homes (you know what I'm talking about). Take a look at the world around you. We are besieged by terrorism, ecological disaster, potential market collapse, rogue states, an ineffectual UN, record number of bankruptices, dog fighting quarterbacks and crooked NBA refs. Do you really think that we would have these problems if it weren't for these dastardly women? Who do you think gave birth to the people who are exploiting others and to those who are killing innocent children? That's right -- WOMEN!! Those damn women. Michele Malkin - can you name me someone who was beating the war drum louder than this woman. Imelda Marcos - she made her husband oppress an entire island nation just so she could fulfill her shoe obsession. Winnie Mandela - almost single handedly destroyed her great husband's reputation. Margaret Thatcher - the Iron Lady caused unknown amounts of death and destruction due to her policies and decisions. Golda Meir - Mass killer of Arabs. Suha Arafat - Thief of millions. Lindsy Lohan, Brittany Spears, Madonna. I could go on for pages, but you'll have to read my new book for a comprehensive list. Now I used to be big fan of women. I bought into their propaganda hook line and sinker. I was taken in by many of them and did their bidding. My own mother and sisters were active in the conspiracy, but kept me in the dark for the most part. The constant anti-male remarks should have clued me in. Always stressing the need for women to have more control and their own desire to run things went right over my head. It wasn't until I met a man who had once been a woman. "He" had a sex change several years ago and spilled the beans on the woman conspiracy. Let me add that it is not ALL women. Some women are good people who don't wish to see their sisters take control and continue ruining the world, but they are cowed into silence by their fellow sisters. Just try bringing this up at a cocktail party. With my new book "The Shadow Woman Lobby" I expose all and lay out a 27 point plan on how to take back control. We may need to crack a few eggs, but can we really afford not to?
You can expect quite a few johnnie-come-latelys to come out with similar books now about this conspiracy, but remember that you heard it first here, from Hank Ford. FIGHT THE WOMAN LOBBY!

[JMac]

Given my dissident politics, I should be up in arms about the Israel lobby. Not only have I supported the civil rights of the Palestinians over the years, but two of my principal intellectual mentors were George W. Ball and Edward Said, both severe critics of Israel and its extra-special relationship with the United States.

Nowadays I ought to be even bolder in my critique, since the silent agreement suppressing candid discussions about Israeli-U.S. relations has recently been shaken by some decidedly mainstream figures. These critics of Israel and its American agents include John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, of the University of Chicago, and Harvard's Kennedy School, respectively; Tony Judt, a historian at New York University; and former President Jimmy Carter.

Somehow, though, I can't shake the idea that the Israel lobby, no matter how powerful, isn't all it is cracked up to be, particularly where it concerns the Bush administrations past and present. Indeed, when I think of pernicious foreign lobbies with disproportionate sway over American politics, I can't see past Saudi Arabia and its royal house, led by King Abdullah.

The long and corrupt history of American-Saudi relations centers around the kingdom's vast reserves of easily extractable oil, of course. Ever since President Franklin D. Roosevelt met aboard ship in 1945 with King Ibn Saud, the special relationship with the desert kingdom has only grown stronger. The House of Saud is usually happy to sell us oil at a consistent and reasonable price and then increase production if unseemly market forces drive the world price of a barrel too high for U.S. consumers.

In exchange we arm the Saudis to the teeth and turn a blind eye to their medieval approach to crime and punishment.

Even during the Saudi-led oil embargo of 1973-74, an exceedingly hostile action against the United States supposedly justified by Washington's support of Israel in the Yom Kippur War, the Nixon administration treaded very softly. Despite the illegality of the embargo it arguably violated international law as well as a bilateral commercial agreement between the United States and Saudi Arabia the White House and the State Department could hardly have been more diplomatic toward their Bedouin friends.

As the historian J.B. Kelly recounts, the U.S. ambassador to Riyahd, James Akins, did his best to placate King Faisal by urging the Saudi's American-owned oil concessionaire ARAMCO to, in Akin's words, "hammer home" to the White House that the embargo wouldn't be lifted unless "the political struggle [between Israel and the Arabs] is settled in [a] manner satisfactory to [the] Arabs."

In all, as Kelly wrote, "a most peculiar recourse for an ambassador to employ to influence the policy of his own government."

But this was a blip on the screen of harmonious petrol politics. After Iran's Islamic revolution overthrew the trusted shah, in 1979, the thoroughly anti-democratic Saudi oligarchy appeared an island of stability and thus of greater strategic value to Washington. Indeed, in a head-to-head match-up with the Israel lobby in 1981 over the proposed American sale of AWACS planes to the Saudis, the Saudi lobby won a close vote in the Senate. Leading the Arab charge on Capitol Hill was the debonair Prince Bandar, who demonstrated that charm mixed with a lot of money could beat the Israelis, even during the pro-Israel administration of Ronald Reagan.

Bandar was quickly promoted to Saudi ambassador to Washington, where, in 1990, he was assigned the task by Defense Secretary Dick Cheney of, in effect, doling out press passes to the U.S. media before the Gulf War this in spite of the fact that tens of thousands of U.S. troops were swarming into the kingdom to defend it against a perceived invasion threat from Saddam Hussein. When he wasn't entertaining congressmen and spreading good cheer through his highly paid lobbyist, Fred Dutton, Bandar was busy making friends with, at first vice president, and then president, George H.W. Bush, and by extension with Bush's son, the future president. This personal relationship with the Bush family has served Bandar and his family very well, as documented in Craig Unger's book, House of Bush, House of Saud.

But the prince and his royal relatives evidently also impressed the Clinton administration. Before he died in the World Trade Center on 9/11, the former FBI counterterrorism chief John O'Neill complained to French investigator Jean-Charles Brisard that Saudi pressure on the State Department had prevented him from fully investigating possible al-Qaida involvement in the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996, which killed 19 U.S. servicemen, and of the destroyer Cole in 2000. As with Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf, there's always talk of the Saudis playing a double game with al-Qaida publicly denouncing it and privately paying it off but you don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to understand that the Saudis don't have America's best interests at heart.

So it gets worse. Now, according to Seymour Hersh, Bandar has virtually joined the Bush administration as a shadow cabinet member. Hersh's New Yorker article last month described "the redirection" of U.S. foreign policy against Iran and Arab Shi'ite terrorists in collaboration with such Sunni-dominated countries as Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt (this in spite of the fact that Sunni rebels, funded in part by Saudi "private citizens," have killed the bulk of American solidiers who have died in Iraq).

The wise men in this new policy council reportedly include Vice President Cheney, deputy national security adviser Elliot Abrams (an Iran-Contra convict who is very pro-Israel), the nominee for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, and none other than Bandar, now the Saudi national-security adviser. Such is the cynicism of Bushian, Israeli and Saudi foreign policy that Abrams collaborates with Bandar, whose country does not recognize Israel and whose "charities" give money to the families of suicide bombers who blow themselves up inside the Jewish state.

Lately, King Abdullah has been making anti-American noises, calling the U.S. presence in Iraq an "illegitimate foreign occupation." But like the Saudis' paper-thin devotion to the Palestinian cause, this is just so much realpolitik. In March 1974, the oil embargo was lifted without any conditions concerning Palestinian rights. Today, as the Shi'ism scholar Amal Saad-Ghorayeb told Mohamad Bazzi, of Newsday, "the Saudis are being more autonomous, but it's a very contrived sense of autonomy" designed "to give [them] more political cover so they can rally Arab support against [Shi'ite] Iran."

If you're naive enough to believe that the Saudi king's rhetoric signifies a genuine break with the United States over Iraq, or anything else, then you might also believe that the Israel lobby is more powerful than the Saudi lobby. And if you think that Israeli security means more to George Bush than Saudi oil, then you might even believe that Bush saw 9/11 coming.

[sharpinchitown]

Steve, you're on the wrong side. everyone you mentioned - Edwards, Clinton, Obama - are all a part of the system, just the other side of the coin from your standard republican.

Ron Paul is the only politician who does not believe in the Federal Reserve banking system of inflating and deflating our economy into bankruptcy.

He is also the only republican who was ALWAYS anti-war (how many democrats can say that?) because it violates our Constitution.

[PMS]

Hank Ford is a chauvanist pig. Everyone knows it is men who have caused all of the problems in the world. Has there ever been a female president of the USA?

And don't give me this crap about women controlling the men behind the scenes. That is crazy conspiratorial thinking.

[DavidH]

Hank - They will call you crazy, bigoted, misogynistic, and whatnot. Don't let it deter you from forcing a serious discussion on this issue. I can tell you that at the office where I work the women have colluded to make it so that more of their own will be hired, regardless of who is the best candidate. If we raise this taboor topic we are threatened with losing our job.

I'm hoping your book will be able to help others connect the dots.

[Will]

Mr. Ford,

Are you a member of the National Coaltion of Free Men. http://www.ncfm.org/?

I have been a long time admirer of this courageous group. I want to call people's attention to the plight of William Hetherington. He has basically been a political prisoner in an American jail for 18 years thanks to the women's lobby.

Additional reading on the danger these women pose to our society can be found at http://www.savethemales.ca/000202.html

Thank you.

[liberal white boy]

Hank, don't let anyone mess with you. There is nothing wrong with being gay. As for me I just ordered the Mearsheimer-Walt book. I'm betting the Jinsa, Aipac, ADL and MSNBC cabal have White Russia Professor Duke lined up for the whole month of September to spread hysteria through the country. Kind of like this. http://www.davidduke.com/date/2006/03/22/
Sorry everyone else seems to have taken the video down.

[Lincoln]

Congrats Phil! You are now featured on David Duke's website. http://www.davidduke.com/

Thanks for the tip to the site liberal white boy.

That should shut the old lady up for a while, huh? Who says your career is being hurt by this whole Jews are responsible for the war thing of yours.

[Hazel]

Well, that should clear up the mystery about who "David" is in the comments section.

To Mr. Ford -> Drop dead creep.

[KXB]

Here's a little exercise for those who invoke the name of David Duke to silence debate.

1. David Duke is a racist.

2. David Duke believes in gravity.

3. I believe in gravity.

4. Therefore, I am a racist.

[bonanzaman]

How can it possibly go mainstream when the MSM is controlled by the same people who created and own Israel and the lobby? If one journalist happens to slip up he or she will be gone faster than the speed of light. There's an unwritten rule never to touch this subject.

[lester]

as tony judt pointed out, mr lincoln, there were many racist americans who were against communism, it doesn't make anti communism a racist cause. actually you probably think it is, you damn trotsky-ite a couple decades before the fact!!

[Lincoln]

Lester - Easy on the butchered commie analogies so early in the morning. Well for me at least.

I was simply letting Mr. Weiss know that he is indeed featured on Mr. Duke's website. Not merely mentioned, but featured. As a writer Mr. Weiss has to be impressed with this sort of publicity. No doubt many of Mr. Duke's other readers have been intrigued and come to see what Mr. Weiss has to write.

Interesting comment regarding the identity of "David" It had never crossed my mind that David might be David Duke, but clearly, David Duke reads Phil's website. Are they one and the same? David?

Lester - Your logic is correct in so far as common cause does not make one supportive of an ally's other positions.

Thank you Lester. Have a nice day.

[David]

I think bonanza is right. There's little chance of this issue ever going mainstream so long as the media remains preponderantly Zionist.

The media is the main branch of the lobby, not AIPAC; I wish Phil would focus more on it. Insights into how the "free press" politely discourages certain viewpoints are what's neeeded. Phil's AmCon article about his New York Observer experience is a great example of what needs to be done. It also wouldn't hurt if we could reach the point where society could discuss the topic of media ownership without having to go to antisemitic sites.

[Alan]

If the apologist who signs as "Lincoln" thinks that by associating Phil with David Duke -even indirectly- he is going to scare everyone away and bring Phil back "to his senses" and the "correct way", he should think again.

(By the way, this is the "name calling" technique of the Hasbarah manual. For anyone interested, you can read about that playbook and download it here:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Hasbara )

Nobody gives a damn about David Duke Mr. "Lincoln". But far too many people are starting to really worry about what is happening to this country. And this kind of tricks and the usual "anti-Semitism" canard won't help your cause.

Remember that.

P.S. This lousy propaganda trick has been used against Phil before. It was dealt with then as it was dealt with now. But one wonders, can't the Hasbarah guys get their act together and offer here anything other than boring reruns of their theatrical acts?

[liberal white boy]

See Phil that's how it works. Just mention David Duke and we no longer talk about the Lobby, the espionage trial or anything else that may be of interest to the American people. Book him MSNBC for the whole month.

[lester]

lincoln- I recognize that Marx was one of your admirers, but your sensitivity to communism is still ridiculous. Stalin wasn't too kind to the doctors there. also, tell your friend mr bill pearlman that i ahd a nightmare last night about a horrible Stormfront person who was very rude to me. It's his fault for bringing it up all the time and I'm suing him for gross negligence

[Joachim Martillo]

ADL as Hate Group and the Armenian Genocide

Hilda Silverman is quite sharp. Here is her correspondence with the Boston Globe on the ADL's no place for hate campaign.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2007/08/11/adls_apologia_blurs_the_real_issue/

ADL's apologia blurs the real issue
August 11, 2007

BY BEGINNING an otherwise fine editorial ("A genocide not to be denied," Aug. 3) with the nonsensical statement, "The Anti-Defamation League is caught in a controversy not of its making," the Globe left an easy opening for the self-justifying Aug. 8 letter from ADL New England's regional director Andrew Tarsy and regional chairman James Rudolph. Still, the ADL cannot provide any rational reason for the refusal to acknowledge the Armenian genocide, and skirts around the real reason: support for Israel in its relationship with Turkey. Yet anyone who refused to use the term genocide to describe the destruction of European Jewry would be rightly excoriated by local and national ADL leadership.

It is irrelevant that No Place for Hate may be a good and productive program. Communities have the human resources to develop such programs on their own. Every town that posts an ADL-identified No Place for Hate sign provides added luster to the reputation of an organization which, in addition to what amounts to genocide denial, has, under the rubric of fighting anti-Semitism, long fomented fear, anger, and, yes, hatred mainly against Arabs (especially Palestinians), Muslims, and anyone who would seriously criticize the policies of the state of Israel.

HILDA B. SILVERMAN
Arlington