“Settlers attack West Bank mosque and burn holy Muslim books” was a London Times headline on December 11, 2009.

These attacks, together with the demolition of Palestinian homes, the uprooting of Palestinians’ olive groves, the innumerable checkpoints that prevent Palestinians from accessing schools, work, and medical care, the Israeli Wall that denies Palestinians access to the land stolen from them, and the isolation and blockade of the Gaza Ghetto, are part of the Israeli government’s policy of genocide for the Palestinians.

The Israel Lobby has such power over America that even former President Jimmy Carter, a good friend of Israel, is demonized for using the polite term–apartheid–for the genocide that has occurred over the decades during which American “Christian” preachers, together with bought-and-paid-for politicians, justified Israel’s policy of slow genocide for Palestine.

Israelis who still have a moral conscience–a small part of the population–endeavor to use moral protests against the inhumanity of the Israeli government. Israelis Jeff Halper and Angela Godfrey-Goldstein lead the Israeli Committee Against House Demolition (ICAHD), a non-violent, direct-action group established to oppose and resist Israeli demolition of Palestinian homes in the Occupied Territories.

Under international law an occupier by military force is forbidden to steal the occupied land. The US, however, has protected Israel’s violation of international law for decades by vetoing UN resolutions. Israel has been able to steal Palestine from the Palestinians, because the US government used its power to prevent Israel from being held accountable under international law.

In March 2003 American citizen Rachel Corrie stood in front of an Israeli bulldozer, made by Caterpillar and sent to destroy a Palestinian home. Her courageous act of defiance was regarded as an annoyance, and she was run over and murdered by the Israeli bulldozer operator. Israel suffered no consequences for its murder of an American citizen who had a moral conscience.

In the Israeli-controlled American media, we hear endlessly that Palestinians are terrorists who strap on explosives in order to kill innocent Israelis and who terrorize Israeli towns by firing rockets into them. One look at the maps above is enough to make clear who the real terrorist is. The success of Israeli propaganda in the face of totally obvious facts damns the ignorance and unconcern of the American people.

The Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, which also has a moral conscience and is intelligent to boot, wrote on December 4, 2009: “Every appointee to the American government must endure a thorough background check by the American Jewish community.” Haaretz notes that any American that the President of the United States proposes for an appointment to his government is subject to the approval of the Israel Lobby, which can blackball appointees at will.

Haaretz gives the example of Charles Freeman, whom President Obama intended to appoint as head of the National Intelligence Council. The Israel Lobby proved, again, that it was more powerful than a mere American President and prevented the appointment, citing Freeman’s “anti-israel leaning.” In other words, because Freeman was not an overboard apologist for Israel’s crimes he was unacceptable to the Israel Lobby.

Haaretz reports: “The next attempt to appoint an intelligence aide, in this case, former Republican senator Chuck Hagel, also resulted in vast criticism over his not having a pro-Israel record.” The Israel Lobby has blocked Hagel’s appointment by President Obama. Hagel doesn’t want to start a war with Iran for Israel’s benefit and was blackballed by Morton A. Klein, the president of the Zionist Organization of America. Hagel, it seems, “refused to sign a letter calling on then-president George Bush to speak about Iran’s nuclear program at the G8 summit that year.”

Now it is a Jewish daughter of a Holocaust survivor, Hannah Rosenthal, whose appointment to head the US Office to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, an office that is another indication of America’s puppet state status, is under attack. Rosenthal was the head of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs during 2000-2005. Her black mark came from serving on the advisory board of the J Street Lobby, a recently-formed American Jewish organization formed in opposition to AIPAC’s murderous militarism.

The Israel Lobby’s opposition to Hannah Rosenthal shows that no moral person can survive the Israel Lobby’s blackball.

The US, “the world’s only superpower,” has no independent voice in Middle Eastern affairs. The real power rests in the hands of the settler thug, Avigdor Lieberman, Deputy Prime Minister of Israel and Minister of Foreign Affairs. This is the man who controls the Obama government’s Middle East policy. Lieberman forced the “all-powerful President of the US, Barack Omama,” to rescind his order to Israel to halt the illegal settler settlements on occupied Palestinian land. Obama was given the bird and submitted to his master.

Macho Americans who prance around as if they owned the world are nothing but the puppets of Israel. The US is not a country. It is a colony.

TONIGHT: Senate Will Pass AIPAC’s Iran Sanctions Bill To Undercut Obama.

 It appears that the 800 pound gorilla that is AIPAC has been eating regular. The Senate is prepared to vote tonight — under super expedited procedure — on AIPAC’s legislation that would impose onerous sanction on Iran, cutting the legs out of the President’s diplomatic strategy.

Note. This is being done in the dark of night although, on the good side, it takes only one senator to stop it (and he or she can do it anonymously). …

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mj-rosenberg/tonight-senate-will-pass_b_384610.html

WASHINGTON (JTA) — J Street has endorsed congressional legislation imposing sanctions on Iran’s energy industry. ….

http://jta.org/news/article/2009/12/07/1009569/j-street

“European Union foreign ministers pulled back from a confrontation with Israel by dropping a call for east Jerusalem to be recognised as the future capital of a Palestinian state.” – Telegraph.co.uk

http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Obama-Puppet–The-wo-by-Paul-Craig-Roberts-091201-447.html

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The World’s Least Powerful Man – The Obama Puppet

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

It didn’t take the Israel Lobby very long to bring President Obama to heel regarding his prohibition against further illegal Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land. Obama discovered that a mere American president is powerless when confronted by the Israel Lobby and that the United States simply is not allowed a Middle East policy separate from Israel’s.

Obama also found out that he cannot change anything else either, if he ever intended to do so.

The military/security lobby has war and a domestic police state on its agenda, and a mere American president can’t do anything about it.

President Obama can order the Guantanamo torture chamber closed and kidnapping and rendition and torture to be halted, but no one carries out the order.

Essentially, Obama is irrelevant.

President Obama can promise that he is going to bring the troops home, and the military lobby says, “No, you are going to send them to Afghanistan, and in the meantime start a war in Pakistan and maneuver Iran into a position that will provide an excuse for a war there, too. Wars are too profitable for us to let you stop them.”

And the mere president has to say, “Yes, Sir!”

Obama can promise health care to 50 million uninsured Americans, but he can’t override the veto of the war lobby and the insurance lobby. The war lobby says its war profits are more important than health care and that the country can’t afford both the “war on terror” and “socialized medicine.”

The insurance lobby says health care has to be provided by private health insurance; otherwise, we can’t afford it.

The war and insurance lobbies rattled their campaign contribution pocketbooks and quickly convinced Congress and the White House that the real purpose of the health care bill is to save money by cutting Medicare and Medicaid benefits, thereby “getting entitlements under control.”

Continue reading: COUNTER PUNCH

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. His new book, How the Economy was Lost, will be published in January by AK Press / CounterPunch. He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts[a]yahoo[dot]com

It made quite a splash. At such an ardently pro-Israel school as Tufts, the book’s near-demonization nagged my interest a little – had Walt and Mearsheimer really gone mad, bandying about one of the silliest myths in American politics?

For all the abounding conspiracy theories, the pro-Israel lobby does not resemble a shadowy council of the Elders of Zion. But an unspoken and notoriously powerful “Israel Lobby” exists, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt insist, as a corroboration of decentralized American institutions bound in advocating continued American support for Israel. The lobby’s disproportionate influence in pushing a fervent, if not dogmatic support for the Jewish state damages American interests, says their book, The Israel Lobby. Unsurprisingly, the book’s publication touched off a vicious maelstrom of criticism.

“Were [the book] an actual person,” writes Israeli historian Benny Morris in The New Republic, “I would have to say that he did not have a single honest bone in his body.” Morris is often depicted as a “new historian”, an Israeli scholar engaged in reevaluating Israel’s historical narrative that many acknowledge as receiving a few nationalistic embellishments over the years. Walt and Mearsheimer seem to have counted on Morris’s support, referencing three of his works no less than eleven times throughout their book. Morris is unamused. “[The Israel Lobby] is a travesty of the history that I have studied and written for the past two decades. Their work is riddled with shoddiness and defiled by mendacity.”

They take quotes from sources such as Morris that are “wrenched out of context”, storms Alan Dershowitz, Harvard University Professor of Law. Responding to Walt and Mearsheimer’s article appearing in the London Review of Books upon which their book expands, Dershowitz accuses Walt and Mearsheimer of “distortions that should be obvious to any critical reader”. In alleging that the Bush Administration was unwarrantedly influenced by the Israel lobby in its decision to invade Iraq in 2003, or in its hard-line approaches to engaging Syria and Iran, Walt and Mearsheimer “simply chose the most insidious explanation – which also happens to be the least plausible explanation – without even an acknowledgement that other interpretations are possible.” Dershowitz, who is repeatedly referenced in The Israel Lobby as one of the Jewish state’s most assiduous American defenders, calls it “little more than a compilation of old, false, and authoritatively discredited charges dressed up in academic garb”.

Forward, a Jewish online weekly, condemns “the flimsiness of [Mearsheimer and Walt's] work”, which it likens to the work of an undergraduate deserving to be “laughed out of class”. The research is described as “oddly amateurish”, drawing considerably from newspaper columns “seemingly dug up in quick Internet word searches aimed at proving a point, not exploring the truth”. Forward, like Dershowitz, find numerous instances of “cherry-picking” quotes. In one instance, Walt and Mearsheimer assert that then-US Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz was the Bush Administration’s “most hawkishly pro-Israel voice” by quoting the Forward. Upon further inspection, insists the Forward, the article was seeking to deny this claim in an article about Wolfowitz being booed at a pro-Israeli rally for “defending Palestinian rights”. Again, Walt and Mearsheimer may have expected otherwise out of a newspaper they cited twenty-eight times throughout the course of their book.

This is merely a sliver of the sweeping vituperations that greeted The Israel Lobby’s publication. Most devote considerable time to the academic failings of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt in preparing the book, uncommon for intellectuals of such caliber. It is surprising, for example, that by Mearsheimer’s admission the duo did not conduct any primary research. However, even if The Israel Lobby is as odious an aberration as many assessments (or almost all, at Tufts) lead a reader to believe, it is nonetheless doubtful that Walt and Mearsheimer would have abandoned all sense. Professors at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and the University of Chicago, each are acknowledged as among the foremost contributors to realist political thought. Their past writings have been received if not lauded with respect, and furthermore neither has any known history of overtly anti-Israeli or anti-Jewish leanings.

Many criticisms of The Israel Lobby fail to address its fundamental assertion – that the pro-Israel lobby has wielded an astonishing power in Washington that continues to direct US foreign policy towards unconditional support of Israel, harming the national interest. Walt and Mearsheimer have effectively broken the taboo of talking about the elephant in the room, which in part explains their widespread denunciation. The lobby’s existence is no secret, and in nearly every case documented by the book its numerous institutions have operated in complete lawfulness under the democratic, pluralistic US legal system. However, to allude in such grand terms to the lobby – and especially to find fault – is scarcely with precedent. Israel, they assert, receives “special” treatment within the US, to the extent that there is nearly a gag order on criticizing the Jewish state.

While the international community is less hesitant and freer to speak up when it feels Israel steps out of the line, the US takes pains to minimize its censure at the United Nations. The US has made a practice of ensuring Israel is nearly immune from the UN’s limited and largely rhetorical reach, obstructing resolutions that reach the Security Council. From 2000-2006, the US vetoed nine resolutions that would have been critical of Israel, three times muting a call for Israel to halt operations in Gaza, once halting a condemnation of the Israeli assassination of Ahmed Yassin, and once preventing the UN from condemning the Israeli destruction of a World Food Program warehouse. All nine times the US was the only country voting against the resolution. The vetoes cast on Israel’s behalf between 1972 and 2006 amount to forty-two, “greater than the combined total of all the vetoes cast by all the other Security Council members for the same period and amounts to slightly more than half of all American vetoes during these years” (Mearsheimer and Walt 40). This US tradition of vetoing anti-Israel resolutions surely dooms the Goldstone Report were it to reach the Security Council, though it has already passed the General Assembly by a count of 114-18.

The Goldstone Report was met with distaste within the US Congress. By a 344-36 margin, the House of Representatives passed a nonbinding resolution for the Obama Administration to reject outright any endorsement of Goldstone’s Fact Finding Mission. Indeed, Israel is perhaps the most bipartisan-friendly issue in American politics, and the Goldstone Report by usual standards put up a decent fight. During the Second Intifada, the House of Representatives passed a 2002 resolution affirming “solidarity” with Israel by a vote of 352-21; the Senate echoed by voting 94-2 (210). In 2003, after an intense spate of Israeli targeted assassinations against Palestinian leaders, the House again voiced its “solidarity” with Israel and its support for “using force to deal with terrorism” by a margin of 399-5 (215).

The point is to illustrate in a concrete fashion that which cannot be disputed – that one would be hard pressed to find a single Congressional act since Kennedy that did not stand behind Israel in an overwhelming majority. Such a Congressional and UN voting records suggest that American and Israeli interests are always aligned, or nearly identical. Walt and Mearsheimer strongly dispute this. US and Israeli interests are no longer aligned, they argue, and with issues involving Israel in Congress “potential critics fall silent and there is hardly any debate at all” on account of the damning repercussions for opposing the Israel lobby (152).

The bulwark of the Israel lobby’s efforts in Congress is vested in the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC. By popular accounts, AIPAC is the most visible and the most successful facet of the Israel lobby. This is true, insofar as the lobby’s role in Congress is concerned; here, AIPAC’s influence is unrivaled. The organization’s magnitude can be seen in its remarkable sway within both Democratic and Republican camps. Bill Clinton praises AIPAC as “stunningly effective” and “better than anyone else lobbying in this town”; Newt Gingrich describes it as “the most effective general-interest group… across the entire planet”; Harry Reid once remarked “I can’t think of a policy organization in the country as well-organized and respected” (153). AIPAC’s “almost unchallenged hold on Congress” (162) led Jimmy Carter to warn that for a member of Congress to take an anti-Israel position, especially near an election year, is “almost politically suicidal” (160).

AIPAC commands an unmatched ability to direct campaign funds, say Walt and Mearsheimer, and “has been known to threaten politicians who appear reluctant to follow its lead” (159). They record some dozen instances in which AIPAC influence, and particularly fundraising, assisted in electing a pro-Israel representative during a tough campaign year – or in redirecting funds away from a candidate who does not display adequate commitment to ensuring the Jewish state’s security. In addition to controlling finances in a way that makes it “dangerous for senators or representatives to utter even mild criticisms of Israel’s conduct” (161), AIPAC provides regular information on Israel to Congressmen in need. Former AIPAC staff member Douglas Bloomfield even describes involvement in the policymaking process, assuring that AIPAC is “often called upon to draft speeches, work on legislation, advise on tactics, perform research, collect co-sponsors and marshal votes” (161). The organization is extensively networked, evidenced when Condoleezza Rice received an “AIPAC-sponsored letter signed by seventy-nine senators, urging her to avoid contact with the new Palestinian ‘unity government’” (162) prior to her departure for the Middle East. The Israeli government understands the importance of AIPAC in the American policymaking process; Ariel Sharon, speaking to an American crowd, once said “When people ask me how they can help Israel, I tell them – Help AIPAC” (162). Ehud Olmert also recognized the lobby’s indispensability, saying “Thank God we have AIPAC, the greatest supporter and friend we have in the whole world” (162).

While AIPAC does take positions outside the Congressional pale, Walt and Mearsheimer put considerable stock in pro-Israel think tanks. “[T]he largest and most visible foreign policy research institutions in Washington usually take Israel’s side and do not question the merits of unconditional US support” (177), of particular consideration when “news media increasingly depends on experts from Washington-based think tanks” (175). A number of think tanks are implicated as providing an unmitigated pro-Israel line, such as the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and the Saban Center for Middle East Policy among others. Think tanks have been of unique importance in marshaling support for pro-Israel policies, especially those inclining towards the neoconservative movement that dominated much of the Bush administration’s foreign policy.

The decision to invade Iraq, the hardline approach to Syria and Iran, and American support for Israel during the 2006 war in Lebanon was primarily at the behest of the pro-Israel lobby and the neoconservative movement, allege Walt and Mearsheimer. Of the entire book, this section is perhaps the most important and certainly the most engaging to read. It is important to remember that, when discussing AIPAC, think tanks, and other pro-Israel groups in America, each operates entirely in accordance with US law in exerting its influence. Yet as Walt and Mearsheimer seek to demonstrate in the four case studies of Iraq, Syria, Iran and Lebanon, the lobby engineers a “reflexive support for Israel [that] has fueled anti-Americanism throughout the Arab and Islamic world and undermined the US image in many other countries as well” (335). Rising anti-Americanism in turn threatens US national security, leading to a set of policy recommendations Walt and Mearsheimer make at the end of the book.

In the Middle East, America has “three distinct strategic interests”: 1.) Ensuring reliable and consistent access to oil, 2.) “Discouraging” the acquisition of nuclear weapons in the region, and 3.) Stymying the growth of anti-American terrorism (337). Israel, the authors boldly state, “is ultimately not of critical strategic importance to the United States” (338) and abandoning unconditional support for Israel best serves American interests. Walt and Mearsheimer stake a belief in continuing American support for Israel’s right to exist, but when the dust settles maintaining the current degree of commitment to Israel only costs America billions of dollars and loses what few friends it has in the Middle East.

Walt and Mearsheimer’s aim to pinion the Israel Lobby is reasonably well met (the illustration of which is pretty limited here). As their critics point out, the authors’ recurrent reliance on newspaper articles for evidence does not always best serve their ethos, and there was certainly an opportunity for primary source research that was not seized. To their credit, however, Walt and Mearsheimer broached a seriously taboo topic in American politics, and the ensuing vitriol spat in their direction in a way confirms a political culture – fostered by the Israel lobby – that outright condemns any and all criticism of Israel. Such a political culture is not borne in the democratic spirit.

While it remains debatable how pervasive the influence the Israel lobby commands over American politics, one may hope that after the publication of The Israel Lobby room has been created for further discussion. Now is a particularly pertinent time to conduct a critical  self-evaluation of the lobby’s putative role in American politics. Though Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu now countenances a mild settlement freeze (with dubious efficacy), there is still no reliable explanation for Obama’s initial retreat from his demands for a settlement freeze. For a president elected on a pro-peace process platform, this is suspicious behavior indeed.

HonestReporting Media BackSpin, 25. November 2009

Simon Plosker, Chefredakteur von HonestReporting, wurde von JNet Radio interviewt, wo er über Dispatches: Inside Britain’s Israel Lobby sprach. Hören Sie es sich bitte bei Humyo an oder klicken Sie auf die Abbildung unten.

Weitere Links zur Auseinandersetzung zwischen HonestReporting und Channel 4:

- Warum wir nicht mit Channel 4 sprachen

-  “Antisemitismus, demonstriert an meinem Beispiel“

- Under Attack: HR Accused by UK TV Documentary (sehr ausführlich; in Englisch)

- HonestReporting antwortet Channel 4

- Oborne nun mit Frontalangriff gegen „Israel Lobby“

- Verzerrter Blick auf Großbritanniens “Israel Lobby“

The huge Apparatus of the ‘Israel-Lobby’. — A Power Grab: