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Is The “Israel Lobby” Losing Its Grip?
By Alan
Hart
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19668.htm
02/04/08 "ICH"
--- - In an perceptive piece for The American Conservative
under the headline OBAMA’S ISRAEL TEST, Scott McConnell asked, “Is
the lobby losing its grip?” It seems so, but I think it’s important
to understand the choice that will exist for the Jews of the world,
and Jewish Americans especially, if American politicians (many if
not all) and the mainstream media do stop being frightened of
offending the lobby.
But first
things first. The lobby in question is not what McConnell and others
including Mearsheimer and Walt state it to be. It’s not “the
Israel lobby”. It could only be called that if it represented the
views of all Israeli Jews. It does not do so any more than AIPAC
represents the views of all Jewish Americans. (According to recent
polls, AIPAC probably speaks for not more than one-third of all
Jewish Americans and possibly considerably less).
A more
accurate (but not completely accurate) description of the particular
phenomenon is “Likud lobby”, terminology which conveys the correct
impression that the lobby is rightwing and very hardline, even
extreme, and opposed to peace on any terms the vast majority of
Palestinians and most other Arabs and Muslims everywhere could
accept.
Way back in
February 1980, I had a private conversation with Shimon Peres. He
was then the leader of Israel’s Labour Party, the main opposition to
Menachem Begin’s Likud dominated ruling coalition, which was
speeding up the colonisation of the occupied West Bank. In the
course of this conversation, I used the term “Israel lobby”. In a
voice laced with despair and a hint of anger, Peres said: “It’s not
an Israel lobby. It’s a Likud lobby. And that’s my problem.” (At the
time Peres and almost the whole world including President Carter was
hoping that he would win Israel’s next election and deny Begin a
second term in office as prime minister. He didn’t).
In due
course, after Ariel Sharon broke with Likud to form the Kadima
Party, the lobby became the Likud-Kadima lobby, but it remained
Likud in its core essence. The only major difference between Likud
and Kadima is that the latter understands, as Prime Minister Olmert
recently admitted, that the Zionist state of Israel would be
finished, destroyed by the demographic time-bomb of occupation, if
it did not withdraw from some of the West Bank. (Sharon did not
withdraw from Gaza for peace but as a first step to defusing the
demographic time-bomb; and, if he could do it without provoking a
Jewish civil war, he was intending at some point to withdraw from
about half, more or less, of the West Bank. He was not at all
concerned that the 40 to 60 percent of it he was intending to
withdraw from would not and could not constitute a viable
Palestinian mini-state).
All things
considered, including Israel’s on-going colonisation of those parts
of the occupied West Bank its leaders intend to keep for ever, I
think (and have long thought) that the best way to serve the cause
of understanding is to give the particular phenomenon its proper
name. It is not the Israel lobby, or even the Likud or Likud-Kadima
lobby. It is the Zionist lobby.
For those
who are unaware of what Zionism actually is - I mean political
Zionism as opposed to spiritual Zionism - and why it is the complete
opposite of Judaism, I offer the following brief explanation.
Judaism is
the religion of Jews, not the Jews because not all Jews are
religious. And, like Christianity and Islam, Judaism has at its core
a set of moral values and ethical principles. All the religious Jews
of the world look to Jerusalem as the centre of their religion and
spiritual capital, and in that sense they could be said to be, and
many do regard themselves as being, spiritual Zionists.
Political
Zionism is the nationalism of some Jews, actually a tiny minority of
the world’s Jews at the time of Zionism’s first public and dishonest
mission statement in 1897, which colonised land, Palestine, to
create a state for some Jews; an enterprise which required the
incoming, alien Zionist colonisers - most if not all of whom had no
biological connection to the ancient Hebrews, the first Israelites -
to ethnically cleanse the land of most of its indigenous Arab
inhabitants, the majority population at the time of the
colonisation. A Zionist today is one, not necessarily a Jew, who (to
quote Balfour) supports the Zionist state of Israel “right or
wrong”, and who cannot or will not admit that a wrong was done to
the Palestinians by Zionism, a wrong that must be righted on terms
acceptable to the Palestinians for justice and peace.
The whole
point of Zionism’s colonial enterprise was, as it still is, to
take for keeping the maximum amount of Arab land with the minimum
number of Arabs on it; an enterprise that was assisted by the
obscenity of the Nazi holocaust, which gave Zionism a blackmail card
to silence criticism of Israel throughout the mainly Gentile
Judeo-Christian world and suppress informed and honest debate about
who must do what and why for justice and peace.
In summary
it can be said that Zionism makes a mockery of, and has contempt
for, the moral values and ethical principles of Judaism. That being
so, it’s all the more amazing that Zionist spin doctors succeeded in
making the mainly Gentile Judeo-Christian world believe that Judaism
and Zionism are one and the same thing. They are emphatically
not. Zionism, as the title of my latest book asserts and its
substance demonstrates, is the real enemy of the Jews, as well as
being the biggest single threat to the peace of the region and
arguably the world.
Knowledge of
the difference between Judaism and Zionism is the key to
understanding. It’s the explanation of why it is perfectly possible
to be passionately anti-Zionist (opposed to Zionism’s colonial
enterprise) without being in any way, shape or form anti-Semitic
(anti-Jew). It’s also the explanation of why it it is wrong to blame
all Jews for the crimes of the relative few. (As a matter of fact,
almost all Arabs have always known the difference between Judaism
and Zionism; and that’s why they call for the de-Zionization of
Palestine, and not, repeat not, the destruction of the Jews now
living in it).
McConnell
noted that President Kennedy buckled under Zionst lobby pressure. He
did indeed, and he was very angry about having to do so and become
what he himself described as a “political whore”. As I document in
Volume Two of my book, Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews,
presidential candidate Kennedy said the following to an old and
trusted friend, newspaper columnist Charles Bartlett, after he,
Kennedy, had been summoned to a fund raising meeting:
“As an
American citizen I am outraged to have a Zionist group come to me
and say - ‘We know your campaign is in trouble. We’re willing to pay
your bills if you let us have control of your Middle East policy.”
(In further remarks to Bartlett, a furious JFK emphasised “they
wanted control!” My guess is that they didn’t put it that way, but
that what they said left no room for JFK to doubt that control was
what they wanted).
As I also
document in my book, there is good evidence for believing that, if
he had been allowed to live, a second term President Kennedy would
have addressed the root cause of the conflict in and over Palestine,
even at the cost of, Eisenhower-like, confronting the Zionist lobby.
(I think - see McConnell’s obeservations below - that it’s not
unreasonable to speculate that a second term President Obama, if he
is allowed to live, could be the White House occupant who calls and
holds Zionism to account).
McConnell
wrote that several wars and many billions of dollars later (after
JFK), the politics of Israel-Palestine are not exactly the same as
50 years ago but not that different either. “Israel is more powerful
and more dependent on American largesse. Americans are far more
deeply engaged in the Middle East and for the most part they are not
happy about it.”
And this
about the man most likely to be America’s next President: “On the
surface, the tie between Barack Obama and Israel’s establishment
supporters is warm and comfortable… Nonetheless, there’s a sense
among the Jewish establishment (I imagine McConnell probably
means the Zionist establishment) that all is not as it seems -
and if the view has not yet crystallized that Obama has a less
Israelocentric perception of he Middle East than any other major
party nominee since Eisenhower, there is foreboding that times are a
changin’.” (My emphasis added).
And this is
how McConnell sees change manifesting itself:
“For the
first time in a presidential race, the Israel-Palestine issue will
consist of something other than two men squabbling over who will
more rapidly overrule the State Department and absolutely positively
move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. (I note that
although he is sticking pretty much to Zionism’s script as all
candidates must when running for office - all offices not just the
highest - Obama has already indicated that he does not accept that
Likud and Israel are synonymous).
“A welcome
corollary will be realization that there are different ways for
Americans to be “pro-Israel” and push back against the view that
being pro-Israel means supporting the right of the Jewsh state to
lord it over 5 million Palestinians in conditions increasingly seen
as resembling South Africa apartheid. The alternative view won’t
sweep the country, but it will migrate from its present home on
university campuses and liberal Protestant churches into the wider
body politic.”
And finally
will come recognition, McConnell wrote, that “the Israel lobby’s
power to dominate the American debate is beginning to weaken.”
The reason
why I agree with McConnell can be simply stated. In the last few
years, and for the first time ever, Zionism’s version of the history
of the making and sustaining of conflict in and over Palestine has
started to be exposed for the propaganda nonsense it is. And that is
thanks in large part to the work and courage of Israel’s “new” or
“revisionist” historians. (The terms “new” and “revisionist” in this
context are euphemisms. The more accurate or proper adjective to
describe Israel’s truth-telling professors of history - Avi Shlaim
and Ilan Pappe are the giants in their field - is honest. Am
I suggesting that before them Israel’s historians were dishonest by
default if not design? Yes, I most certainly am). The task of
telling the truth of history is also being assisted by a bottom-up
media revolution made possible by the internet.
Zionism’s
narrative, upon which the first and still existing draft of
Judeo-Christian history is constructed, is rooted in denial of
ethnic cleansing. (The most comprehensive and fully documented work
on this subject is Ilan Pappe’s latest book, The Ethnic Cleansing
of Palestine).
There are
people who’ll say that what’s done is done. Israel, no matter how it
was created, exists. But that’s not the point. There is not a
snowball’s chance in hell of a real peace process unless and until
the Jews, and Israelis especially, are prepared to acknowledge the
wrong done to the Arabs of Palestine by Zionism.
Zionism’s
denial of ethnic cleansing is underpined by two great propaganda
lies.
The first is
that poor little Israel has lived in constant danger of annihilation
- the “driving into the sea” of its Jews. The truth of history is
that Israel’s existence has never, ever, been in danger from any
combination of Arab force. Not in 1948/49. Not in 1967. And not even
in 1973. Zionism’s assertion to the contrary was the cover which
allowed Israel to get away where it mattered most, America and
Western Europe, with presenting its aggression as self-defence and
itself as the victim when, actually, it was and is the oppressor.
The second
great lie of Zionism’s version of history was that Israel had “no
partners” for peace. On this account the truth of history includes
the fact, for example, that Arafat the pragmatist opened the door to
a genuine and viable two-state solution as far back as 1979, more
than a quarter of a century ago. And long before that, another
example, Eygpt’s President Nasser, who never had any intention of
fighting Israel to liberate Palestine, authorised, and himself took
part in, secret, exploratory exchanges with Israel in the hope of
making an accomodation with it. (Avi Shlaim’s magnificent book,
THE IRON WALL, Israel and the Arab World, which is informed in
part by Avi’s access to de-classified Israeli state papers, leaves
no room to doubt that it was Israel’s leaders, not Arab leaders, who
never missed an opportunity to close the door to peace).
Professors
Mearsheimer and Walt (the distinguished authors of The Israel
Lobby) have declared that the best way of dealing with the lobby
is “to encourage a more open debate… in order to correct existing
myths about the Middle East and to force groups in the lobby to
defend their positions in the face of well informed opposition.” (My
emphasis added).
The problem
for Zionism (as I’m sure Mearsheimer and Walt know) is that its
positions are indefensible when they are challenged by those who are
armed with the documented facts and truth of history. And that’s why
the Zionist lobby is beginning to lose its grip.
My very dear
friend Ilan Pappe told me that Zionism was more worried by my book
than any other because of its title, which, he agreed, represents a
great and profound truth in seven words. The more the citizens of
the mainly Gentile Judeo-Christian or Western world become aware
that Judaism and Zionism are opposites, the less Zionism’s
propaganda maestros will be able to suppress informed and honest
debate with the charge, almost always false and malicious, that
criticism of Israel is a manifesation of anti-Semitism.
Ilan also
offered me this observation:
“Zionism’s
main defense is not money and military might but a wall of
propaganda lies. If one or two of the main bricks in this wall can
be dislodged, the whole thing might collapse faster than any of us
would dare to imagine.”
At the time
of writing, as in the past, the mainstream media, almost all
publishing houses and virtually all politicians are still too
frightened of offending Zionism to come to grips with the truth of
history as it relates to the making and sustaining of conflict in
and over Palestine; but despite this complicity in Zionism’s
suppression of the truth of history, one or two of the main bricks
in Zionism’s wall of propaganda lies are in the process of being
dislodged.
So what are
the implications if the Zionist lobby really is beginning to lose
its grip?
The short
answer is that the next American president will be more free than
any of his predecessors to use the leverage he has to require Israel
to behave in accordance with international law, and to be serious
about peace in accordance with the will of the organised
international community as expressed in the spirit as well as the
letter of UN resolutions. (If I was writing a speech for the next
president, I’d having him saying something like the following to
Israel. Until now there have been two sets of rules for the
behaviour of nations - one for all the nations of the world
excluding only Israel, and one exclusively for Israel. This
double-standard is no longer acceptable to the peoples and
governments of the world).
If the next
American president (or possibly his successor) was prepared to
require Israel to be serious about peace on terms which the vast
majority of Palestinians and almost all other Arabs and Muslims
everywhere could accept, I think that what would actually happen
would be determined by how the Jews of the world, and Jewish
Amercans especially, responded.
Because the
Zionist lobby is beginning to lose its grip, and does not anyway
represent the majority of Jewish Americans, it’s my guess that most
of them would say, perhaps not out loud: “We are Americans first,
and if our president deems it to be in our national interest that
leverage be used to require Israel to be serious about peace, so be
it.”
But that
would be mere acquiescence and it would not necessarily be enough.
The hardest core Zionist leadership in Israel, political and
military, is quite capable of telling the whole world, including the
president of America, to go to hell. Why do I say that?
Many years
ago, in private conversation, I asked General Moshe Dayan, Israel’s
one-eyed warlord, why Israel had nuclear weapons. I said we both
knew Israel didn’t need them vis-à-vis the Arabs. Dayan
replied as follows. “Ben-Gurion was not stupid. I’m not stupid. We
know how international politics work. We know that a day could come
when even our best friends will want us to do something that we
would not consider to be in Israel’s best interests.” Dayan meant,
and obviously did not want to be more explicit, that if ever a day
came when an American president said to Israel, “You must do this,”
Israel could say, “Mr.President, don’t push us further than we are
prepared to go because, if you do, we will be prepared to use all
the weapons at our disposal.” (I am sometimes asked if I think that
Bush and Blair would have invaded Iraq if Saddam Hussein had had
nuclear weapons. My answer is always “No”)
My main
point in summary is this. Even if the Zionist lobby really is losing
its grip, and even if, as a consequence, an Amercan president feels
himself free enough to use the leverage he has to require Israel to
be serious about peace on terms almost all Palestinians, most other
Arabs and Muslims everywhere could accept, a just and peaceful
resolution of the conflict may still not be possible unless the Jews
of the world, and Jewish Americans especially, end their silence on
the matter of Zionism’s crimes and use all of the influence with the
Jews of Israel.
Footnote: The day that
Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews can be published in America, and
reviewed by the mainstream media, is that day that I will say,
without fear of contradiction, that the power of the Zionist lobby
has been broken.
Reproduced from:
www.informationclearinghouse.info
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