So Who’s Afraid of the Israel Lobby?
Virtually everyone: Republican, Democrat-Conservative, Liberal. The fear factor is non-partisan, you might say, and palpable. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) brags that it is the most influential foreign policy lobbying organization on Capitol Hill, and has demonstrated that time and again-and not only on Capitol Hill.
Seldom has the Lobby’s power been as clearly demonstrated as in its ability to suppress the awful truth that on June 8, 1967, during the Six Day War:
- Israel deliberately attacked the intelligence collection ship USS Liberty, in full awareness it was a U.S. Navy ship, and did its best to sink it and leave no survivors;
- The Israelis would have succeeded had they not broken off the attack upon learning, from an intercepted message, that the commander of the U.S. 6th Fleet had launched carrier fighters to the scene; and
- By that time 34 of the Liberty’s crew had been killed and over 170 wounded.
Scores of intelligence analysts and senior officials have known this for years. That virtually all of them have kept a forty-year frightened silence is testament to the widespread fear of touching this live wire. Even more telling is the fact that the National Security Agency apparently has destroyed voice tapes and transcripts heard and seen by many intelligence analysts, material that shows beyond doubt that the Israelis knew exactly what they were doing.
The Ugly Truth
But the truth will out-eventually. All it took in this case was for a courageous journalist (of the endangered species kind) to listen to the surviving crew and do a little basic research, not shrinking from naming war crimes and not letting senior U.S. officials, from the president on down, off the hook for suppressing-even destroying-damning evidence from intercepted Israeli communications.
The mainstream media have now published an exposé based largely on interviews with those most intimately involved. A lengthy article by Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter John Crewdson appeared in the Chicago Tribune and Baltimore Sun on Oct. 2 titled “New revelations in attack on American spy ship.” To the subtitle goes the prize for understatement of the year: “Veterans, documents suggest U.S., Israel didn’t tell full story of deadly 1967 incident.”
Better 40 years late than never, I suppose. Many of us have known of the incident and cover-up for a very long time and have tried to expose and discuss it for the lessons it holds for today. It has proved far easier, though, to get a very pedestrian Dog-Bites-Man article published than an article with the importance and explosiveness of this sensitive story.
A Marine Stands Up
On the evening of Sept. 26, 2006, I gave a talk on Iraq to an overflow crowd of 400 at National Avenue Church in Springfield, Missouri. A questioner asked what I thought of the study by John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard titled “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.” The study had originally been commissioned by The Atlantic Monthly. When the draft arrived, however, shouts of “Leper!” were heard at the Atlantic. The monthly wasted no time in saying thanks-but-no-thanks, and the leper-study then wandered in search of a home, finding none among American publishers. Eventually the London Review of Books published it in March 2006.
I had read that piece carefully and found it an unusual act of courage as well as scholarship. That’s what I told the questioner, adding that I did have two problems with the study:
- First, it seemed to me the authors erred in attributing virtually all the motivation for the U.S. attack on Iraq to the Israel Lobby and the so-called “neo-conservatives” running our policy and armed forces. Was Israel an important factor? Indeed. But of equal importance, in my view, was the oil factor and what the Pentagon now calls the “enduring” military bases in Iraq, which the White House and Pentagon decided were needed for the U.S. to dominate that part of the Middle East.
- Second, I was intrigued by the fact that Mearsheimer and Walt made no mention of what I believe to be, if not the most telling, then perhaps the most sensational proof of the power the Lobby knows it can exert over our government and Congress. In sum, in June 1967, after deliberately using fighter-bombers and torpedo boats to attack the USS Liberty for over two hours in an attempt to sink it and kill its entire crew, and then getting the U.S. government, the Navy, and the Congress to cover up what happened, the Israeli government learned that it could-literally-get away with murder.
I found myself looking out at 400 blank stares. The USS Liberty? And so I asked how many in the audience had heard of the attack on the Liberty on June 8, 1967. Three hands went up; I called on the gentleman nearest me.
Ramrod straight he stood:
“Sir, Sergeant Bryce Lockwood, United States Marine Corps, retired. I am a member of the USS Liberty crew, Sir.”
Catching my breath, I asked him if he would be willing to tell us what happened.
“Sir, I have not been able to do that. It is hard. But it has been almost 40 years, and I would like to try this evening, Sir.”
You could hear a pin drop for the next 15 minutes, as Lockwood gave us his personal account of what happened to him, his colleagues, and his ship on the afternoon of June 8, 1967. He was a linguist assigned to collect communications intelligence from the USS Liberty, which was among the ugliest-and most easily identifiable-ships in the fleet with antennae springing out in all directions.
Lockwood told of the events of that fateful day, beginning with the six-hour naval and air surveillance of the Liberty by the Israeli navy and air force on the morning of June 8. After the air attacks including thousand-pound bombs and napalm, three sixty-ton torpedo boats lined up like a firing squad, pointing their torpedo tubes at the Liberty’s starboard hull. Lockwood had been ordered to throw the extremely sensitive cryptological equipment overboard and had just walked beyond the bulwark separating the NSA intelligence unit from the rest of the ship when, he recalled, he sensed a large black object, a tremendous explosion, and sheet of flame. The torpedo had struck dead center in the NSA space.
The cold, oily water brought Lockwood back to consciousness. Around him were 25 dead colleagues; but he heard moaning. Three were still alive; one of Lockwood’s shipmates dragged one survivor up the hatch. Lockwood was able to lift the two others, one-by-one, onto his shoulder and carry them up through the hatch. This meant alternatively banging on the hatch for someone to open it and swimming back to fish his shipmate out of the water lest he float out to sea through the 39-foot hole made by the torpedo.
At that Lockwood stopped speaking. It was enough. Hard, very hard-even after almost 40 years.
What Else We Know
John Crewdson’s meticulously documented article, together with the 57 pages that James Bamford devotes to the incident in his book “Body of Secrets” and recent confessions by those who played a role in the cover-up, paint a picture that the surviving crew of the USS Liberty can only find infuriating. The evidence, from intercepted communications as well as testimony, of Israeli deliberate intent is unimpeachable, even though the Israelis continue to portray the incident as merely a terrible mistake.
Crewdson refers to U.S. Navy Captain Ward Boston, who was the Navy lawyer appointed as senior counsel to Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, named by Admiral John S. McCain (Sen. John McCain’s father) to “inquire into all the facts and circumstances.” The fact that they were given only one week to gather evidence and were forbidden to contact the Israelis screams out “cover-up.”
Captain Boston, now 84, signed a formal declaration on Jan. 8, 2004 in which he described himself as “outraged at the efforts of the apologists for Israel in this country to claim that this attack was a case of ‘mistaken identity.’” Boston continued:
“The evidence was clear. Both Admiral Kidd and I believed with certainty that this attack…was a deliberate effort to sink an American ship and murder its entire crew…Not only did the Israelis attack the ship with napalm, gunfire, and missiles, Israeli torpedo boats machine-gunned three lifeboats that had been launched in an attempt by the crew to save the most seriously wounded-a war crime…I know from personal conversations I had with Admiral Kidd that President Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered him to conclude that the attack was a case of ‘mistaken identity’ despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.”
Why the Israelis decided to take the draconian measure of sinking a ship of the U.S. Navy is open to speculation. One view is that the Israelis did not want the U.S. to find out they were massing troops to seize the Golan Heights from Syria, and wanted to deprive the U.S. of the opportunity to argue against such a move. Another theory: James Bamford, in “Body of Secrets,” adduces evidence, including reporting from an Israeli journalist eyewitness and an Israeli military historian, of wholesale killing of Egyptian prisoners of war at the coastal town of El Arish in the Sinai. The Liberty was patrolling directly opposite El Arish in international waters but within easy range to pick up intelligence on what was going on there. And the Israelis were well aware.
As for the why, well, someone could at least approach the Israelis involved and ask, no? The important thing here is not to confuse what is known (the deliberate nature of the Israeli attack) with the purpose behind it, which remains a matter of speculation.
Other Indignities
Bowing to intense pressure from the Navy, the White House agreed to award the Liberty’s skipper, Captain William McGonagle, the Medal of Honor….but not at the White House, and not by the president (as is the custom). Rather, the Secretary of the Navy gave the award at the Washington Navy Yard on the banks of the acrid Anacostia River. A naval officer involved in the awards ceremony told one of the Liberty crew, “The government is pretty jumpy about Israel…the State Department even asked the Israeli ambassador if his government had any objections to McGonagle getting the medal.”
Adding insult to injury, those of the Liberty crew who survived well enough to call for an independent investigation have been hit with charges of, you guessed it, anti-Semitism.
Now that some of the truth is emerging more and more, others are showing more courage in speaking out. In a recent email, an associate of mine who has followed Middle East affairs for almost 60 years, shared the following:
“The chief of the intelligence analysts studying the Arab/Israeli region at the time told me about the intercepted messages and said very flatly and firmly that the pilots reported seeing the American flag and repeated their requests for confirmation of the attack order. Whole platoons of Americans saw those intercepts. If NSA now says they do not exist, then someone ordered them destroyed.”
Leaving the destruction of evidence without investigation is an open invitation to repetition in the future.
As for the larger picture, visiting Israel this past summer I was constantly told that Egypt forced Israel into war in June 1967. This does not square with the unguarded words of Menachem Begin in 1982, when he was Israel’s prime minister. Rather he admitted publicly:
“In June 1967, we had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that [Egyptian President] Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.”
Israel had, in fact, prepared well militarily and mounted provocations against its neighbors, in order to provoke a response that could be used to justify an expansion of its borders. Israel’s illegal 40-year control over and confiscation of land in the occupied territories and U.S. enabling support (particularly the one-sided support by the current U.S. administration) go a long way toward explaining why it is that 1.3 billion Muslims “hate us.”
Ray McGovern works for Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC. He was a CIA analyst for 27 years and is now on the Steering Committee of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). He spent some time in Israel and the West Bank this summer.
This article was first posted in Consortiumnews.com
Ray,
Once again you speak for me. I have been screaming about this for years. How can a race so effected by genocide become the monster of their near demise? Only things I can think of are pure power, ideological stupidity, or the ignorance that comes from beoming the very thing you claim to hate.
Either we live in the United States Of America, or the United States Of Israel. Personally, I’m tired of living in an occupied country. Is there any other precedent set of an outside country having this much control of another soverign nation…besides the US I mean-lol.
Once again Ray…you rock baby!
Aloha & Peace
Apparently Ray McGovern is no longer afraid of the Israel lobby. Will he be hit with a thunderbolt? Dismissed as a crackpot?
Will he be hailed as a hero, because he’s got the guts to say in public what we all know to be true?
When our country turns its back on the mid-East, including oil, the defense feeding trough, and Israel, we’ll finally be able to attend to the “existential” issues that had better get our attention, and quickly.
Things like global warming. Overpopulation. Energy alternatives. Repairing the damage to the rule of Law. Finding a use for Religion.
You name it, it can’t get done until we get the mid-Eastern monkey off our back. Zionism is one-fourth of the problem, with defense, oil, and the religious Right making up the balance of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
OuterBeltway, I suspect that the Israel Lobby not only will try to brand Ray McGovern a crackpot, but an anit-Semite. The sinking of Liberty is only the tip of the iceberg. What about the fact that Israel was founded on a policy of population removal. While the Jews’ ancestors were living in Eastern Europe, the Palestinians’ ancestors were living in what is today called Israel. Once Americans overcome the conditioning, it will be all over for Israel.
What’s truly terrifying is the extent to which Hillary Clinton is in bed with this lobby.
As well as the other dem “frontrunners”. They may, in fact, be worse than the repubs.
Hillary has said that [ We can’t allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon ]
she herself is perfectly comfortable with bombing Iran. That’s with Israel in possession of an arsenal of at least 200 tactical nuclear weapons, and the means to deliver them, nearly anywhere, at will. While Iran is five years away from developing even rudimentary
nuclear devices.
I don’t know what it will take, but Americans have to start thinking about how all this will be written, historically, and how we’re going to look to future generations.
“Excuse me,” the interviewer asked, “what you’re trying to say is sometimes a decision of war — you have to take a decision of war in order to achieve peace.”
“That’s exactly right,” Bush said. Which is why:
“I am very optimistic that we can achieve a two-state solution.” After all the other “states” are blowed up real good, he added with his trademark smirk…
Does anyone dare to take this to the next obvious step and suggest that 9/11 was also an Israeli operation?
Exactly what evidence “proves” the attack was deliberate the other doesn’t state, simply saying their are mounds of it…somewhere and he’s got it.
For a long time I was wondering exactly how a piece on the USS liberty had to do with progressive politics, and then the last sentence explained it all.
“Israel’s illegal 40-year control over and confiscation of land in the occupied territories and U.S. enabling support (particularly the one-sided support by the current U.S. administration) go a long way toward explaining why it is that 1.3 billion Muslims “hate us.””
So that’s the big idea, try(and btw i am not convinced by this article that israel deliberately attacked a US ship) to turn public opinion against Israel to appease the “1.3 billion muslims”. Which raises an interesting question…how is the world’s total muslim population impacted by the occupation of a tiny strip on land in the middle east? Why should a Pakistani muslim, for example, care about the Palestinians more than, say oppressed non-muslims in his own country? Doesn’t the answer sound like religious fanatacism?
There is plenty of evidence to suggest that 9/11 was a Saudi operation.
Massud:
No, I’m not trying to appease the Muslims. I’m mainly trying to appease myself. I resent the enormous mis-allocation of scarce resources that are lavished on the economic, military and political defense of Israel’s indefensible behavior.
It’s stupid. Why pour money down a rathole? Why not redirect those enormous resources toward something much more valuable, like reversing climate change, for example?
The reason we don’t do the logical thing is because Zionists, along with the other three horsemen of the Apocalypse (Oil, Defense, Religious Right), are doing everything possible to direct the flow of American public resources into areas which are counterproductive to the interests of the vast majority of Americans.
That’s why there’s never been a public referendum on our nation’s support for Israel. In a popular vote, it would be trashed. Only behind closed doors can it be done successfully, and that’s what we’re all trying to stop.
I say it’s time to relentlessly pressure our lawmakers to report any contact and or money they take from AIPAC, or any other foreign lobbying organization.
massud asked:
“Why should a Pakistani muslim, for example, care about the Palestinians more than, say oppressed non-muslims in his own country? Doesn’t the answer sound like religious fanatacism?”
Yes.
iammyself asks:
Why should an American Jew, for example, care about the Israelis more than, say oppressed non-Jews in his own country? Doesn’t the answer sound like religious fanaticism?
Yes.
I applaud Ray’s courage in bringing up this third rail of American politics. We have got to have the courage to discuss the undue influence Israel has on American policy, and if the USS Liberty is the way to open this discussion, go for it. And it disgusts me how Hillary et al. are so bought and paid for by this group.
As for Israel’s involvement in 9/11, that’s a lot more speculative, and more difficult to pursue as an opener. The whole issue of what really happened on 9/11 begs a serious investigation apart from the whitewash we’ve had so far.
Just as we now look at the Treaty of Versailles as a mistake - which levied enormous war reparations on Germany - which helped fuel the rise of Hitler and World War 2, I believe history will not look kindly on the decision to create a separate Jewish state in 1948, given the enormous potential this has created in our time for World War 3. It’s not that the Jews didn’t deserve a homeland, it’s just that no one fully envisioned the enormous tensions this particular homeland would create, just as no one envisioned that Versailles would lead to Hitler would lead to World War 2.
And now we find ourselves married at the hip, America’s destiny connected to Israel’s. It would be one thing if we all consciously agreed to this, but this decision has been done behind the scenes with money and influence, in effect bribing our officials. I applaud Ray’s efforts to expose this.
The battered children of Adolf Hitler have become the batterers in the middle east.
Extremist hard liner decisions have pushed us to the brink. When standing on the edge, you don’t want an extremist to stand with you because he’ll only just keep saying that “It’s too late to go back now, there is nothing left to do but jump.”
Extremists love their Rubicons and are never satisfied till everyone has crossed them. There was a Rubicon crossed with the USS Liberty but unsuccessfully. Afterwards, when it wasn’t sunk, came the denials that any Rubicon had been crosssed which however were successful. The change of thinking this damage control established allowing other Rubicons to be crossed in the future in the occupied territories (settlements etc.).
Someone must’ve said that there should be no more USS Liberty(s) but it was in Israel and not in the USA. They had seen their error (when it failed) and the Israeli lobby would do all the pushing for any Rubicons from then on. Damage control had fixed a grave mistake in crossing that Rubicon which had been produced by extremist thinking. Maybe someone had figured to claim the Egyptians had sunk the Liberty?
However Bin Laden has also crossed his Rubicon but there would be no damage control this time, though the Saudis surely ramped up their lobby. Oddly, extremists all seem hell bent on giving their opposite numbers exactly what they want. Al Queda fed the extremist talk of the Israeli lobby and gave it credibility. Equally, extremist suicide bombings have allowed settlements and walls etc.. Like it or not, extremists are deciding policy. They see themselves as tough thinking realists who nevertheless come to a Rubicon and then unrealistically say “Let’s see what will happen if we cross it.” Sadly they do.
Israel has a right to exist but you won’t hear Palestinian extremists and anti-semites say so. Palestine has a right to exist as a free country without occupation but you won’t hear settlers or other hard liner Israeli extremists say so. So who feeds who?
The Israeli lobby wants the USA to take down it’s enemies in the mid east while doing whatever they feel like which produces those enemies. They see a fifty year ‘forever’ war as the only solution. Iraq was step one and the plan was always Iran as step two. They wanted the USA involved militarily in the mid-east but it was Osama Bin Laden who made that happen.
His jihad against the west crossed that Rubicon. To the anti-semites who can’t see the forest for the trees, who can’t see the hard liners and neocons in charge of Israeli politics, who can’t see Israel for the jews, was Osama an Israeli agent since he gave the neocon extremists what they wanted more than anybody else? Your anti-semitism prevents criticism of hard liner Israeli policies. Yet you can’t see it. You look to find rationalizations for what you want to believe instead of looking for the truth. It’s a bitter joke. A poster above suggests that 9/11 was an Israeli operation. Muddled thinking looking to find what he wants to believe. So I ask him… since Osama gave the Israeli extremists what they wanted… was Osama an Israeli agent? Is that an ‘obvious step’ to take?
Extremists decide policy to everyone’s ruin. They cross their Rubicons and feed each other’s hate. Ray walks a delicate line between the Rubicons of the extremists. Our only hope is the truth. All else is extremism.
Let me say, as someone who remembers 1967 and the initial reports of the attack on the Liberty, that it faded from the mainstream press extremely quickly. For the next few years, there was the occasional article in a second-tier magazine, but the major news publications got off the subject as quickly as they could. All this should be readily verifiable by visiting a few newspaper morgues or magazine archives.
Most (not all) of the facts now being cited have been available for years. There’s no reasonable question that the attack was anything but intentional; there’s no reasonable doubt that the press killed coverage as quickly as they possibly could.
So if it’s not a question of the influence of the Israel lobby, how else to explain it? How else to explain that Dick Armey, when he was House Majority Leader, could declare on TV that he would regard an attack on Israel as an attack on the USA and (in a separate incident) call for ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians without raising an eyebrow? (This while the US was trying to portray itself as an honest broker in Middle-East peace talks!) How else to explain that Israel gets to bomb Syria and no one in the US press even asks why?
Israel (as McGovern notes) admits that it started the Six-Day war — satellite photos of Arab troops in clearly defensive positions corroborate this.
Israel kills over ten Palestinians for every Israeli that Palestinians murder, and is currently using food and water as weapons against the residents of the Gaza Strip, yet the US press decline to point out that such treatment is a crime against humanity, and consistently portray Israelis as victims of Palestinian terrorism.
Israel is not the only country to benefit from the US media’s (and their wet-nurses, the US government’s) blind eyes. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Egypt benefit similarly, if not so obviously. We favor any despot who can help our oil companies profit. We favor any regional military power inclined to help us divide and conquer those who have what we want. We back every royal family in the Middle East, and every tyrant willing to subordinate his own national interests to ours.
Given that we’re willing to sacrifice thousands of US troops to protect our Saudi allies, why should our willingness to sacrifice dozens of sailors to protect our Israeli allies surprise anyone? If it had been a hot battlefield, it would have been presented as a case of “friendly fire”. Given that there was no battle raging, we decided to forget the incident as quickly as possible.
Nothing to see here. Everyone just move along. Nothing to see here.
http://www.wrmea.com/archives/July_2006/0607016.html
Imagine if we could put that aid to Israel over the years to good use for our children’ schools or infrastructure, healthcare or affordable housing. Frankly I am tired of paying through the nose to the Israel lobby and only getting hatred from the world in return.
The lobby has become the new American mafia. It has little to do with Israel, the nation, and everything to do with Israel, the state — or perhaps it would be more accurate to say the state of “Likudia.“
If one drew up a list of the politicians and academics whose careers and/or reputations have been ruined by the lobby, one would have the nucleus of an anti-Likudia movement.
I`m suggesting a movement because there seems to be no negotiating with the lobby. It refuses to back off from its mafia search-and-destroy strategies.
Fearmongering appears to be the lobby leadership`s primary tactic. Every Israel foreign policy critic is the new Hitler, every alternative to the Israel-Palestine status quo a plan for the next Holocaust. My message to AIPAC would be this:
“Earth to Israelists: HITLER IS DEAD. You are so busy trivializing Hitler by finding him in every critic of Israel’s brutal foreign policy that you wouldn’t recognize him if he jumped out of the grave and bit you on the bum. Nor would I. Having grown up a gentile among Jews in the aftermath of WWII, when every new report from Europe disclosed grimmer and grimmer details of Hitler’s final solution, I thought I knew what antisemitism was. Today, I’m not so sure. Today, the charge of antisemitism is more about moral blackmail than it is a response to any credible threat to Jews or Israel. You are fearmongering among Jews, many of whom experience residual feelings of unease — understandable, given a 2000-year history of persecution.
“Perhaps you should work at recovering Israel’s long forgotten ideal and become “a light unto the nations” of Islam. Maybe then we could look forward to some peace in the Middle East and Central Asia. Or would that put too big a dent in your burgeoning arms industry?“
Good job Mr. McGovern. I also direct this to “Wake Up October 6th” re: Israel and 9/11. In October 2001 I was all over the MidEast producing documentary films. Ask people on the “Arab street” why 9/11 happened. I did. In every case the response was “America’s support for Israel’s brutal occupation of Palestine” not that exact translation, however, clear enough. and W. tells us that they were “jealous of our freedoms.” Nonsense. Go to www.weroy.org and view Arundhati’s “Come September.” We are fighting Israel’s war in Iraq, albeit, the oil junta - the administration is hopeful.
Power to the people.
Excellent article, Ray McGovern. One of the reasons the Zionist lobby is so successful is due to how effectively they control the language. As long as we accept their terms without question, we will lose every time.
For instance, the term “pro-Israel” or “Zionist” doesn’t, on the face of it, sound like such a terrible thing. But if we were to identify the lobby as what it intrinsically is, as the anti-Palestinian lobby, then we are making progress. Just because apartheid Israel already exists as an independent nation-state doesn’t make it anymore legitimate than Palestine.
Zionists also abuse terms like “terrorist”, and “Islamofascists”, conflating various Islamic militant factions in the Middle East as if they all share identical goals, desires and political aspirations. Zionist propaganda goes further by attempting to make it look like Arab anti-Israel terrorist groups are irrational fanatics, and bloody-thirsty anti-Semites who want to “drive Israel into the sea”. But no, they don’t stop there, they further claim that the “real” goal of these terrorists is to create a worldwide Islamic Empire, where they will exterminate all Jews and other infidels. Sometimes I think the anti-Arab Zionist extremists are so delusional that they believe their own propaganda.
More and more Americans are waking up, thanks to Jimmy Carter, Meirsheimer and Walt and others. The realization that Americans may in fact be fighting wars largely for apartheid Israel’s benefit is spreading. The ultimate insult is when anti-Palestinian fanatics question the patriotism of Americans(”soft on terror”) who do not fully back apartheid Israel. Hopefully more of us wake up before apartheid, nuclear-armed, colonialist Israel ignites World War III.
The question of control of the flow of oil will remain after the state of Israel is dissolved, and I anticipate that in 20 years it will be dissolved for lack of interior support & as the world Jewish community severs its own interests from those of the christofascists and zionazis.
Either all Jews have to live in Israel, putting racial descent and citizenship above religious/cultural identity, or Israel has to dissolve and free Jews from the increasing burden of racial, and increasingly racist, identity.
As it is, Israel has become a sort of privileged ghetto maintained as an illusory bastion of Jewish survival, when in fact its existence is a real political liability, although the AIPACkers and ADLers continue to enjoy the temporary advantages of their position within the US’s own dying political establishment.
To Bugs BBunny:
Please, when will Jews stop throwing anti-semitism around whenever someone says something negative about Israel or Jews?
I have heard the same story from other navy people;
Israel attacked the Liberty in full knowledge that it was an American ship.
Your solution?
Protect Israel at any cost by crying anti-semitism.
Maelstrom and the other anti-Semites. It’s very easy to simply dismiss criticism of your anti-Semitism by claiming it isn’t anti-Semitism, but it very clearly is. It’s quite obvious. Deny it all you want, you’re only fooling yourself.
2 things to quiet the anti-israeli crowd and the blind supporters of our so-called 2 party system …
1) Get rid of corporate personhood. Outlaw contributions of any kind coming from businesses or PACs. Get the special interests out of politics. Get big money out of politics and maybe the people can get candidates they actually want to vote for.
2) Quit pointing fingers at Israel for holding onto territory it captured in a war … unless the United States wants to give back all the land it stole from Native Americans, Mexico and Spain. Why should the rules of land acquisition be different for Israel than any other country that has captured land from indigenous populations? Not that it’s right … but you sound so hypocritical in your attacks because it’s not YOUR country that has wronged a native population.
Scott Ritter on the Israeli lobby
http://tinyurl.com/33pn74
Damn, Mikey, you play that card awfully well…
President Lyndon Johnson, when it was said that he heard of the attack by Israel on the Liberty, he replied that he wanted it kept quiet, because he did not want our allies to be embarrassed.
“The Israelis would have succeeded had they not broken off the attack upon learning, from an intercepted message, that the commander of the U.S. 6th Fleet had launched carrier fighters to the scene”.
In another account that I read years ago, when Johnson heard that the commander had launched aircraft in defense of Liberty he was told to immediately recall them and when the commander got the message to recall, he asked for it to be repeated, because he could not believe it..
It amaze me, that they can continue to find men and women to put on uniforms and defend this country, when it is plain to see that our politicians have no respect for their lives.
Well several people on this discussion board just proved McGovern right. Don’t be afraid to speak out. They use your fear to stifle dissent and the truth.
Two points: What happens to you is not as important as what you do with what happens to you. Case in point: a child who has been molested can either go no molesting other children when he is an adult, or ….. become a strong advocate against child abuse. Similarly, as a response to what Hilter did to Jews, they could have become an advocate against racism, genocide, war crimes, and wars of agression. But they chose to repeat on other people what was done to them by Hitler.
The second point is Palestine may be the most known Israeli occupied territory. But the most important, and less discussed Israeli occupied territory is the US COngress.
Think about it.
Welcome to USrael.
Have it your way, mikep. Fact is, dichterfreund is quite right. In 20 years there will be no “Jewish State of Israel.“ And it will have nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not Israel`s critics are antisemitic.
The US is finished in the Middle East. All that remains is the question of when the troops can come home. When that happens, Israel will be faced with the decision it should have made long ago: a multinational state in which all Jews, all Arabs, and all the other ethnic groups will have equal citizenship. That is the BEST that can be hoped for.
However, Israelis may just opt for the worst. But this time, that`s their choice, not Hitler`s.
Why does the state of Israel get to break the law? They are in violation of several UN Security Council resolutions, going back to # 242 in 1967.
Remember, we went to war with Iraq over Security Council resolutions. *
We behave as if they’re important sometimes, it seems.
So are we allowed to talk about why the state of Israel gets preferential treatment?
* If you don’t believe, here’s part of the ‘Joint Resolution’ ‘To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq’
(1) strictly enforce through the United Nations Security Council all relevant Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq…
The big joke is that Congress funnels U.S. taxpayers’ dollars to Israel in absolutely absurd amounts - the average Israeli receives more U.S. money than the average U.S. citizen. Then, through organizations like AIPAC, a goodly portion of that money is funneled back to members of Congress. Israel is a failed welfare state that would cease to exist if we cut off their funding.
you guys can vote all you want, but the truth is Hillary Clinton will be the first Empress of the United States of Israel.
if you think your “votes” count, well, never mind.
i can’t stop laughing.
It’s too early to tell, but I’m afraid that the Holocaust may have inflicted a fatal wound in the psyche, soul of the Jewish people.
Violence and hate cannot heal this septic wound.
We must pray for our Jewish brothers. We must pray that God gives the Jewish people the courage and compassion to heal this septic wound.
ArbeitMachtFrei:
That was a good post. No question that the Jewish people took a terrible shot, and yes, it seems as though the reckoning (internal and external) isn’t nearly done yet.
As a foil, look at the U.S. What would it take for our society to say to itself “we have enough. We’re OK. We don’t need to prove anything anymore”.
For a person, that realization takes an awfully long time. How long does it take for a society? Are there any studies about this? What conditions must pertain in order for this process to happen?
Now the 9/11 conspiracy doesnt’ seem that far fetched.
BugsBBunny III October 6th, 2007 5:21 pm Among other tidbits of wisdom blessed us with this “Israel has a right to exist”, by what logic do you come to this declaration? From all the historical facts I have read the modern state of Israel has no more right to exist than the USA has a right to be in Iraq. I guess in your thinking Might makes Right.
McGovern will just be ignored, as he has been so many times. Just like the story of the belated 10th anniversary celebration of the massacre at Qana, and how the day before Israel maintained an artillery barrage on a known UN observation post, essentially admitting it was covering up evidence of war crimes. The MSM spent its time lambasting Mel Gibson instead.
Who has noticed the stories of the Stark and the Liberty are so similar, except for the long term result? It appears B41 was telling Saddam in action, not just mere words, that he could get away with invading and occupying Kuwait.
Conservative US Jews all support the Likud. But what percentage of liberal US Jews does?
Going all the way back to massud and iammyself:
Of course people (Jews, Muslims, etc.) should be expected to care more about other people that share a similar value system and worldview, than about other people who swear allegiance to the same flag…
I care more about the people on this list than I do about my republican next-door neighbor.
fascinating…and infuriating
And they send assassins abroad under cover of Canadian passports.
Lets see thirty billion to Israel
Mega millions back to the AIPAC lobby
Millions to select campaign funds.
This has been going on for way to long amigo.
The key to this long term willing extortion now holding (nearly) all parties effectively hamstrung when Israel is mentioned is lucidly examined by Piper in “The Final Judgement”. ……and it all makes soooo much sense: JFK reversed his campaign pledge to support Israel, infuriating Ben Gurion. (Now, of course, the ADL is already screaming “anti-semite” so let’s scream back (in unison): Israel is a country, Judaism is a religion. period. (Almost understandably, exploiting the victim card was, and is, too effective to resist!)
Kennedy proposed denying nukes, his no. one offense. He also wanted Viet Nam withdrawal. Supporting Algiers–another no no. Add challenging the depletion allowance and we start to get a “big picture”. Johnson kept us busy in ‘Nam, opening drug channels for Meyer Lansky and necessitating a reliance on a stronger Israel and establishing a foothold in oil country. And the depletion allowance?: upped to 30%.
Now we all know this must be nonsense since intelligence agents and policy makers here and abroad would have had to talk to one another, cook up a plan, “conspire” …… Which could not have happened less than 5 years before with the good ship Liberty incident….or in Egypt (and Iran) in ‘53……. “strategic tension” is just another radical theory….. why do they hate us? pray tell
Everybody is afraid of the Israel Lobby. If you ever hear one dissenting voice against Israel’s policies, they will be silenced or ridiculed as antisemetic in seconds.
Hey MikeP !!!
One of the most outrageous incidents about the USS Liberty topic is the ongoing harassment of survivors when they attempt to speak out. Even after death.
I know personally of at least 1 funeral where representatives of the Israel embassy got up and started calling the person delivering the eulogy ‘anti-semitic’ because he started talking about the sinking caused by Israel. All he was doing was what the deceased survivor had asked him to say at his funeral. What hutzpah!
and so it goes.
Thank you, Ray
Much too over zealous and overanxious, they are digging their own graves without noticing it. However, I still admire their intelligence, and I pity the fools that they rule over.
They make up less than 2% of the total US population, but they, and their paid agents, are swarming the State Department, the Congress, the mass media, and other top positions in the government.
They pushed us into the Iraq war, and I pray now that their attempt to push us into another war with Iran for the sake of their “promised land” would be thwarted.
BugsBBunny III said:
“Ray walks a delicate line between the Rubicons of the extremists.”
It’s obvious what you’re trying to defend with your jumble of confused paragraphs. The fact is: Ray is telling the truth.
Treason, that’s what the kings of old would have said. Off with their heads. This would mean war. Iraq and Vietnam have been fried for less.
The question is how did the US government and the israeli’s manage to later kiss and make up? Possibly there was no need. Of course the Liberty was a “foriegn power” (the US Navy) spying at a time of war and atrocities. But the US government and Israeli at the high level are seamless, sharing the same delusions. There are no overt disagreements at the high level.
The USI (United States of Israel) government did not want the Liberty to gain or promulgate sensitive information that would embarass its holy oneness.
The destruction of Liberty is the least of the rewards that that the shreds of US independence and freedom will get, from the merciless military USI.
The power and geopolitics of the USI have intensified even more since. The USI scorns its brief exposure in the marginal media. Even in Australia, the main Opposition candidate and Prime Minister must make love to the USI.
Read your Bible within the archaeological facts. There were Canaanites of many stripes living and thriving in the Middle East for thousands of years before the first definite and agreed-upon sign of “Israelites” appeared on an Egyptian monument circa 1212 BCE. The “experts” used to tell us that wars of extermination, such as those told of so proudly in The Old Testament, were “the way it was done back then” when one people conquered another—and that was a lie. Now (see for ex. Israel Finkelstein’s “The Bible Unearthed”) we are told that the exterminations, burnings of cities etc. never happened, that Israelites were simply “an indigenous people” who happened to still be there when all the others virtually fell apart and disappeared. How, why, since there was nothing about Jewish material culture or religion that was going to attract anybody already living there? This they still cannot explain—and Zionist zealots don’t bother trying. The land is theirs, period. And yet, if The Bible itself says it was NOT theirs before some kind of takeover, then Israel’s right to the land is nothing more than a “right” of conquest—and when you do that, you open the door to the next conquerors and THEIR right of conquest. They lost what they had conquered from others—tough historical luck. And yet here we are forcing the Palestinians (as Ahmedinijad said) to pay for the European Holocaust. Why? Because the very idea, ideology, philosophy that says you can “righteously exterminate” those in the way of what you want (living space, resources etc.) became the most powerful engine of what we call “history,” and you can ask any African or Native American, for starters, what that has meant and still means….That’s why “it doesn’t matter” how many people in Iraqistan get killed, because “we” (in desperate need of their resources) know what’s best for them. In choosing their first king, Saul, the Hebrews chose WAR as the central reason for cultural existence. That was not even remotely “the way it was done” before. Now, JUDEOCHRISTIANITY HAS RUN ITS COURSE, but the flame burns hot and bright just before one’s delusions burn out. We need to understand afresh the principles that fed The West’s LONGEST CONTINUOUS PERIOD OF PEACE AND PROGRESS—namely, the archaeologically-documented facts of Minoan Crete: not a utopia, but a place where women were the focal points of power, where interrelation through intermarriage and exchange supported understandings in times of conflict, and where men found ways of feeling important without violence. IT WORKED, and for as long as we have turned away from and continue to ignore these FACTS, we are going to suffer. ECOLOGICAL SENSE, ECONOMIC JUSTICE, EGALITARIAN CULTURE—We will wander in the “wilderness” until we decide to come home to Planet Earth: which is where we came from, where we are, and where we’re going. http://ancientgreece-earlyamerica.com
That the attack was deliberate is beyond question; what really matters is WHY. The investigative film generated by the Liberty survivors, “Dead in the Water”, suggests, and gives witnesses’ testimony, that it was intended to be a false flag operation to be blamed on the Egyptians. In the film, government witnesses claim certain knowledge of two aircraft ordered from the Mediterranean fleet with atomic weapons to bomb Cairo. They were stopped, and the attack on the Liberty was stopped, when the whole operation’s secrecy was blown, perhaps by Russian recon aircraft. Again, former Navy personnel claim knowledge of atom bombs heading for Cairo, apparently to destabilize the Nasser government.
Tony Vodvarka, Hartly DE
I think one of the distinctions that has to be made in these types of discussions is that between Israel, as any entire country and people, and the right-wing policies of Likud. Those of us appalled when all Americans all lumped together with Bush’s neo-fascists know this. We really need to target our arguments at Likud and at special actions, ideology and behavior. This is not about “the Jews”, this is about the bare-knuckle world of international politics, where ALL countries sin, America perhaps worst of all (in the 21st century at least).
Clearly Lockwood and all the brownshirts who survived the attack are anti-semites. What other motivation could they have in alleging such a thing?
McGovern, this article should be ranked right up there with Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
For the ironically impaired–I am joking.
And while we are on the subject of Holocausts–as all conversations involving criticisms lead to invoking the only officially sanctioned and recognized Holocaust in history within a few minutes or comments in this case–let’s not forget the annual American Holocaust Celebration on Monday. All hail Columbus, brave discover and war criminal. Help celebrate this holiday and show that you are doing your part in the War on Terror by doing what our leaders suggest–shopping! Especially if you use those 20 dollar bills that have the face of a genocidal war criminal on them.
How is it that such a relatively small number of people (~6 million in Israel, ~5-7 million in the US) wields such political influence? I’ve poked around www.opensecrets.org and while AIPAC, etc. sends a fair amount of money to US politicians, it doesn’t really seem to be enough to purchase most of D.C. politicians. Is there far more money than is going reported? Through some other channel? Or is it control of the US mainstream media?
Certainly there are right-wing “Christian” bridge organizations, such as Christians United for Israel (http://www.cufi.org/site/). I see that the director for “region 8″ (the midwest) is none other than Mac Hammond, a right-wing fundamentalist who runs a talibanesque megachurch in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area and apparently cooks his books now and again (has had some run-ins with the IRS).
One would almost conclude that these are mainly tax shelters, money laundering outfits, or something along those lines.
Where did the real Ray go?
“First, it seemed to me the authors erred in attributing virtually all the motivation for the U.S. attack on Iraq to the Israel Lobby… Was Israel an important factor? Indeed. But of equal importance, in my view, was the oil factor”
I have read this same fall back position three times now in the past month. It’s simply a method of switching the reader’s attention away from the Walt/Merschiemer thesis without having to directly debate the facts (which are air tight). Each time, the writer fails to make any case whatsoever to support the “war for oil” thesis that they suggest W.and M. should have considered. They simply present it as obvious or “a no brainer” (a favorite propaganda technique).
Quite frankly this did not surprise me coming from Ray McGovern. He wrote one article which ascribed responsibility for the Iraq war to Israel, then did a complete turn around and started with the “war for oil” bit which he has yet to substantiate. Was he threatened? Blackmailed? Co-opted? How does he deal with 9/11 truth? Limited hang out.
We have someone here that we should not trust in the least.
Paul Bramscher,
The Israel lobby publishes candidate ratings on pro-Israel criteria. They simply disseminate the ratings and their effect is not trackable.
atheo:
Puh-leese. “They simply disseminate the ratings and their effect is not trackable”. Yup, that would do it. Just send a mimeographed sheet around to all the congressmembers, and that’ll be all ya need to get your agenda converted into law. No need to track; it’s automatic.
Nope. That’s not what it takes to get your way in Congress. It takes tectonic force to move those plates, and that means you must control a valuable resource, and know how to leverage that resource. Money or control of votes. Labor was successful when it controlled a lot of votes. Wall Street is powerful because it controls a lot of money. Media is powerful because it controls a lot of votes.
AIPAC is powerful because it can move large sums of money and large chunks of public opinion, and sizeable numbers of swing votes in close races. AIPAC loves that our nation is so evenly divided (dems .vs. repubs) because that makes a few votes mean a lot.
AIPAC is successful because they have an excellent stable of resources (money, media, lock-step constituency (both ReligRight and most Jews) and they know how to plan and deploy. They have also moved their key players into crucial policy making roles in the upper reaches of our government. Finally, and this is the part that’s most obvious, is the attack-dog antics of ADL whenever anyone objects to the influence of full panoply of organizations that constitute the so-called Israel lobby.
But the biggest reason for the Jewish people’s success in influencing American politics is that they care so much about the survival of Israel, about their own safety, and they are committed. Long term. And they reason that it’s about survival, not comfort.
The only problem is that they’re aiming for, while it may be “good” for them, is really terrible for the U.S. and that’s the rub. The question is only how much of a crack-up the U.S. has to absorb before the spell wears off, and what the after-party arguments devolve into.
Outerbeltway,
Nothing in your retort contradicts my statement.It is not possible to measure the israel lobby’s influence by looking at their financial records. tThey promote candidates and wealthy zionists finance them. That can be hard to trace.
atheo
Do you honestly believe that “the war for oil” and the war to protect Israel aren’t one and the same? The proponents, Texas oil patch folks and Israeli fascists, know exactly where their own interests lie.
I’d suggest, for sake of any-understanding and judgment (if such is intended) that everyone quit looking for Black&White when examining most ‘extra-individual’ motives and actions.
Jackson was a first-class ‘genocidal war-criminal’ (ask any Cherokee) — but regards Central-banking, he’d be your ‘hero’.
The Liberty was, of course, attacked deliberately by Israel. That tells us ‘nothing’ of-itself. They may have been motivated by the slaughter of around 1,200 Palestinians just-ashore from that spy-ship (which may have been monitoring), or perhaps by the ‘plus’ of blaming the sinking on Egypt — for enhanced American war-support, if needed. However, what Johnson said (when ordering-back American-jets sent in USSLiberty-support) was along the lines of: ‘I want that ship at the bottom of the g*d-damned sea’. For all any of us here will ever ‘know’, that attack may, in fact, have been ordered by the US — for popular-support of increased war-involvement, or a ‘joint-notion’ of war-strategy. [If doubting that, look to emerging details of Johnson’s ‘Gulf of Tonkin’ gambit — and as for Israel’s willingness for self-serving ’sham’, Google the “Levon Affair”].
It is easy to see/find all-manner of bad-acts and violent or criminal events (throughout history or current-events) and deplore all-of-them as unethical, unjust, and infuriatingly-hateful. Harder to ‘pin-them’ to one-criminal or traitor (and impossible and counter-productive to blame all of his/her Nationality, Religion, Sex, Creed, Party, Class, Sexual-Orientation, etc., regardless). And, quite-difficult to isolate to any ‘one-side’ alone what varied self-interests motivated, occasioned, and co-joined in perpetrating any ‘Act’ inflaming one’s passions.
To the degree the US is ‘controlled’ by Israel, you can be sure that it is generally-limited to what the US (meaning its-Government, and those who most-influence it, internally) finds it ‘convenient’, and purportedly in the Interests of these in the US. And, the same may be said for Israel.
For the existence of a modern-Israel, one can certainly blame (or congratulate — depending upon ‘point-of-view’) Zionists, by definition — but they could not have succeeded without the support/Intents of the US. Since the late-1800’s (at-minimum), largely-Secular Zionists made a virtual-religion of this dream for a Jewish-’Homeland’. Religion itself was but one-tool exploited for this ’supreme-goal’ (to include Muslim and Christian religions). [The annotations of the Scofield-bible attracted both Zionist-publication and broad/’free’-distribution in America to insure Fundamentalist support, much-later — and Muslim hatred was often deliberately-agitated to insure retaliation ‘justifying’ pre-planned and non-proportional ‘Defense’]. Wilson was perhaps somewhat ‘influenced’ into WW-I, partly to achieve the ends of the Balfour. British-recalcitrance re: the Balfour may have accounted for the majority-Jewish participation at the Treaty of Versailles, which set Reparations ruinous to post-War Germany and enabled (with follow-up Banking-induced Depressions, and support from American-capitalists) the rise of Fascism. And the following Holocaust, to the extent that it did target leftist and irrationally-hated Jews, was of-course used (then and increasingly-since) as a powerful argument (and a legitimate-one) for the Founding and later-Interests of a post-WW-II ‘Homeland’. All regardless of efforts by Zionists in Palestine to discourage the flight of European future-victims to any other receiving-nation not Palestine, or their early-offer to fight for the Nazis in the mid-East if they would only export/deport their targeted-Jews to Palestine.
None of this, nor all atrocities and excesses since, tells us anything ‘telling’ about Zionists, much-less ‘Jews’, nor regards Israel or its ‘Nature’ — other than ‘many Zionists were highly motivated and zealous’ for its Founding, seemingly willing to “pay any price” before and after. The Founders of any-Nation (including the US) were similarly ‘motivated’, and the selfish-’Interests’ of many Nations after their Founding have been commonly actualized at the cost of innocent-blood (especially the US, which ‘defensively’ killed-off unknown-millions of its ‘lesser-Destiny indigents’, and conquered all the future-States it desired from a ‘hostile-Mexico’).
We can be sure that the US ultimately saw Israel as ‘in its own Interests’ in the middle-East and World, as obvious from the extent of all/unique-support prior and since it’s post-War Founding — throughout the ‘ColdWar’, and into the contrivance of a GWoT (’terrorism’ replacing ‘Communism’ as a very-needful, if ’stateless’, Enemy for the purposes of US-Interests). If there had not been an Israel, convenient with a ‘Moral and Historically-Inspirational Struggle for its Survival’, the US would have had to invent-similar to achieve its own-Ends (may-have, in fact?). This was my meaning behind ‘hate Acts, not Actors’ — since all humans can be capable of “excess in pursuit of Virtue”. It is a shared-failing that we see what is shameful in others for ‘blame’, and then allow that to inspire similar-or-worse from ourselves to expeditiously obtain our own self-Interests. There is no Boogyman or group-specific Evil to eradicate, or be Paranoid-of — there is only the downside of Human Nature to guard-against. “Any means to my end” is where that Nature falls to Criminality, and perceptions of past-Injustices are generally what inspires popular-adoption, initially. The most-difficult Ethical-Choices are those distinguishing “Any means to my end” from “For the greatest-good, to the greatest-number” — given the perspective of those defining-’Good’, glorifying-’Ends’, or minimizing-’Means’. To eliminate atrocities and bad-acts of large-scale, we will all need to shed our Religious/Historic/Nationalistic/Racist&similar perspectives, and favor broader-Identifications and Interests.
Some here discount the influence of the Zionist lobby, believing it doesn’t have enough money. They are not necessarily more powerful than GE. Read William Greider’s Who Will Tell the People (from ~ 1992) to learn how one corporation changed US tax policy, to the great benefit of GE shareholders and execs. The real tragedy of the corruption of the US Congress is not that they can be bought, for we all have our price, but that they can be bought so cheaply.
Another major influence of the Zionist lobby is with the US MSM. Google up “Midas ears” for a chilling look at how 2% of the US population tremendously slants coverage of the Israel-Palestine story. (I note the NPR bit about Daniel Schorr is over the top, he was highly respected but I doubt his power to censor at the time of the article.
A third major influence is with the radical “Christian” right. I suspect this is mostly a coincidence of ideology, fanaticism, and tactics.
The re-intensification of the US war against Iraq was a coalition of people and organizations who had a variety of motivations. B43 wanted a continuous war, so he could be a war president, and he needed every political edge he could get. (Yes, he cheated in both elections, but he had enough public support that cheating could work.) Cheney had Halliburton and the oil companies to take care of. The US military brass needed another opportunity to play warrior* to polish up their resumes. Another major group is the evil racists who want to see death and destruction of people they like to think of as no more than animals. Most of these people happen to be in the pro-Zionist coalition, but most of these people are members of more than one of the above groups.
*The US military makes war, but except for a few, has rarely made the true warrior commitment of being as willing to die as to kill. They’d much rather kill large numbers of civilians as “collateral damage” than take more than a minimal risk themselves.
There is a large and frightening ruthless army of Jewish people in the United States who live and breathe every minute to advance the Zionist agenda in the West Bank and the entirety of the Near East. If that Zionist agenda were benevolent and humanitarian, no-one would give a hoot. But Zionism is not benevolent, and it is not humanitarian. Zionism is - and always has been - about the Jewish conquest of territory for Jewish settlement. So today’s Zionist agenda is visibly cruel and murderous, and no different in quality or purpose than Germany’s conquest of Poland in 1939 for the settlement of Germans in its territory.
Most people do not know what makes a conspiracy. They mistakenly believe that it operates like a little club, where every participant is visible and knows each other and all agree on every detail of operations to achieve an illegal purpose. Wrong! A conspiracy may, and often does, include hundreds of people who don’t even know of all the others, or what the others are doing. What is necessary is a common purpose that is at some level focused into a criminal goal. A money-laundering conspiracy may involve thousands of people and thousands of small bank accounts, few of whom know anything about the existence or activities of others, but all serve in network which ultimately focuses on a single criminal goal. A corporation is a perfect example of such an arrangement in a legal, commercial setting. “Conspiracy” applies when the focus of the diverse activities is criminal. And, of course, what Israel is doing in the West Bank is criminal by all standards of international law - as criminal (and as brutal) as the German conquest and occupation of Poland in ‘39 and France in ‘41.
And that is the sum and substance of the “pro-Israel” conspiracy at work today in the US, to promote the Israeli crime of military aggression and conquest, most recently (since’67) against Palestine. It is a loyal-to-Israel, rich, talented, politically influential and diversely constituted conspiracy that uses three things to huge advantage - (1) a vast and diverse organization of lawful institutions (synagogues, civil associations, lobbies, not-for-profit corporations, charities, campus groups, PACs, etc. etc.) to raise money, generate propaganda, influence by fear or favor (a’ la treatment of Rachel Corrie, Tony Judy, Jimmy Carter, etc.), (2) vast wealth used for fear and/or favor in national politics, think-tank manipulation and pseudo-intellectual propaganda, and (3) its cynical use of the victimization of Jews in Germany as a political slander (”anti-semitic”) to silence critics of both this conspiracy and Israel’s criminal enterprise that it serves. As Mearsheimer-Walt write, and as proven by the USS Liberty attack and cover-up, it is an enterprise utterly indifferent to the well-being of Americans. It is all-serving Israel. Reflect on the 40 year history of the sinking of the Liberty and its cover-up, the defeat of Senator Percy by “all the Jews of America” (per Tom Dine, head of AIPAC), and on, and on, to today’s fear of the presidential candidates of 2007 to even hint that some correction in US foreign policy toward Israel might improve US interests in the world.
To sum it up: LET THE LESSON OF THE USS LIBERTY GUIDE YOUR THINKING.
And yes, to confront this threat to America, you must be courageous enough take positions that may generate false words toward you - but never forget it is cheap and malign slander, not truthful at all. Take comfort in that all people of good heart know it is false and nothing more. The brave are emerging in America: Tony Judt, Jimmy Carter, Mearsheimer-Walt, Norman Finklestein, Paul Findley, and countless others ordinary citizens - Jew and non-Jew alike - who are fearlessly determined to unmask this perversity largely within the Jewish community for what it is - an enemy within.
purvis,
Do you really see a case to be made supporting “war for oil”?
The “Texas oil patch folks” make their money by contracting oil field services, transport and shipping services, refining, distribution, and retail marketing. None of these activities inherently benefit from the chaos of occupation. The Iraq oil law has been dead in the water since the begining of the year, any suggestion that US oil corporatins will stand to gain is baseless happy talk simply presented for US public consumption. There really is no proof that the oil indusrty lobbied for the invasion of or continued occupation of Iraq. There is however a rich lode of documents providing proof for wars for Israel.
Mealsotoo,
Please innumerate the ways in which you feel Israel has served the US’ interests.
Gde,
” B43 wanted a continuous war, so he could be a war president, and he needed every political edge he could get”
Joseph Stiglitz estimates the true cost of the Iraq adventure at $2 trillion. The damage done to the US economy is not warranted by the explanations you provide. Note that every sector of the US economy will ultimately suffer the economic consequences.
You cannot compare Palestinians to American Indians when excusing Zionism. We did not deport our native population. American Indians have full rights as citizens but are now a minority. In the West Bank and Gaza the Arabs are being squeezed out of the native lands like Colgate toothpaste. The policy is to make life so miserable that being a refugee is better than fighting for thier their right to live in Palestine. They were once the best educated Arabs and now they live in ghettos and live in poverty. Life is an insult. Just say the word Palestinian and you think terrorist. They are not wanted. A cursed race. Sounds like the Jews in the Third Reich.
Jack37, I thought they were Judeans…
By today’s standards the Free French would be termed terrorists for fighting to liberate Paris. Just imagine hordes of Prussian colonists settling Provence and the French fleeing to Spain and Italy. And of course if you attacked Prussians–of course they would come with their families–you would be beyond the pale. However patern bombing every German city and killing thousands upons thousands of innocent Germans was just war as usual. Asymetrical warfare means you see the enemy eye to eye. Using high tech means you are cool…
If being for truth, if being for justice, if being for compassion is anti-semitic; then we all should be anti-semitic.
Atheo agreed and Walt and Mersheimer argue the same in their book on a chapter about the role of oil lobbies. Oil lobbies lobby for tax breaks not foriegn policy. Its all about AIPAC folks and until the peace movement and the left recognize this we’re doomed to keep repeating these horrendous wars in the greater Middle East. If a war with Iran happens its cause of AIPAC as I have no doubt the oil companies will be pissed when the Iranians retaliate to block the strait of Hormuz and the oil tankers cannot get their oil out of the Persian Gulf to sell to global markets. Of course the rest of us will be pissed to as our economy collapses as oil has sky rocketed. Attacking Iran is a stupid idea and lets not allow AIPAC to goad our politicans into another stupid war.
You cannot compare Palestinians to American Indians when excusing Zionism. We did not deport our native population. American Indians have full rights as citizens but are now a minority. In the West Bank and Gaza the Arabs are being squeezed out of the native lands like Colgate toothpaste. The policy is to make life so miserable that being a refugee is better than fighting for thier their right to live in Palestine. They were once the best educated Arabs and now they live in ghettos and live in poverty. Life is an insult. Just say the word Palestinian and you think terrorist. They are not wanted. A cursed race. Sounds like the Jews in the Third Reich.
I get your point but you are really mischaracterizing what happened to Native Americans.
Native Americans live on reservations and have full voting rights. What a bunch of lucky-duckys!!!!
To paraphrase Barbara Bush, “This is working out very well for them.”
It’s a wonder you didn’t mention the wonderful casinos they have.
I realize you probably didn’t intend to be offensive and that you were making a larger point about Israeli and its egregious mistreatment of Palestinians but I think it’s important to remember:
There are tribes that no longer exist as a result of systematic genocide.
There are no monuments to the American Indian Holocaust. There has been very little to commemorate or even acknowledge the inhuman treatment of Indians that our country was founded on.
For fuck’s sake: A genocidal war-criminal is on our 20 dollar bill. We actually celebrate the holiday when a genocidal thug “discovered” America and set it motion the tragic North American Holocaust.
This issue of comparing native Americans to Palestinians is tricky. On the one hand, there were many instances of better attitudes and treatment of the indigenous in the US, there were also many examples of conduct as unbecoming as that presently displayed by the zionists. It should be recalled that zionism was begun while the Indian wars were still occuring in the west. All in all, the US’ present native American policies in no way approach the evil of genocidal Israel, though the zionist inspired occupation of Iraq is quite similar.
“If being for truth, if being for justice, if being for compassion is anti-semitic; then we all should be anti-semitic.”
And anti-American, anti-Sino/Soviets, anti-Corporate, White-Power, Black-Power, FemiNazis, Religious…anti/anti/anti. You’ll soon end-up a very bitter/beaten person if wasting so much of your focus and humanitarian-incentives being ‘anti-Whatever’. Be pro-Human, pro-Justice, pro-Transparency — these can be ‘positive’.
“Please innumerate the ways in which you feel Israel has served the US’ interests.”
My feelings don’t enter into this (or anything of import). As for those who have acted in what they determined the ‘best interests of the US’:
Many anti-Semitic by choice favored a magnet-’homeland’ for Jews:
Many found it profitable, politically and economically, to pander to Christian-Fundamentalists convinced by Scofield that ‘Israel is for the Chosen’;
Anglo-American interests profited from the ‘excuse’ of defending-a-friend regards putting-down post-war Independence-movements in the oil-rich and strategic mid-East;
Cold-Warriors (known by another false-moniker now) found them useful in Proxie-wars, Intel, and focus-for-division of sorely-used Muslim states;
Many who profit from US ‘Defense’, military-budget, and Imperialistic-leanings regards “US Resource Interests” profit in ‘justifying’ such post-USSR expenditures on a ‘new/shared Enemy’; and,
What better excuse and impetus exists for the physical-occupation and containment/control of the peoples of the mid-East than “they are savages or fanatics incapable of self-rule, as shown by their despicable and irrational-hatred for poor, long-suffering Israel”. {I could go-on at length…?]
Yes, Jews are much in evidence in the MSM…but, believe me, they were ‘put there’ by the real-Owners of those corporations (maybe to insure sympathies for shared-Interests, or perhaps because they are ’suited to their profession’?). Jews are disproportionately represented in wealthy-circles, academia, medicine, banking, and the Law/Politics in America — as they often were/are in many Diaspora-countries of the World and in modern-History. This is not due to some ‘plot’, but due to their adamantly-cohesive culture, which emphasizes and reinforces such aspirations and skills (and perhaps a forgivable-degree of Nepotism in attaining-it through social-networking). So, too, the Chinese in Hawaii, and many-others — such is to their credit, not their ‘blame’. But Jews are only a tiny-minority in the US or in any-country save Israel. They do not have the power or capital, not a fraction of it, to ‘dictate’ or buy American-favor. Just as soon as Israel’s path should become counter-productive to those American-Interests (be they real, or imagined — Dem, Repug, or Corporate), you can assume those who DO act in their-own and America’s-Interests [some Jewish, most not, all ‘greedy’ and largely-secular] will cut-them-off like the liability they quite-often are. But, only if-and-when those mutual-Interests diverge — and not a day-before.
It serves no purpose to ‘hate’ Israel for its many bad-acts, or the Palestinians for theirs. It certainly makes no-sense for Americans to hate Jews for the losses of the 700,000 Palestinians they have largely-displaced (or the suffering of the 5-million refugees and indigenous-Muslims they have grown-into, since) — American ‘hands are not clean’. Not regarding financing and enabling all-above, not regards its MUCH larger (if less-quick) Crimes against its own-indigenous, and its mistreatment of Slaves [even the Cherokee, on their Trail of Tears, took their black-slaves along as ‘property’]. Once any dominant-group can act in their self-Interest at penalty of a weaker-group — they have. They continue-to. They do-so by dressing-up their greed in Mythos and fear. Even the powerful dictator of the mechanized-army massed on Poland’s border needed an ‘excuse’ to secure the ‘cooperation’ of its own-people — an ‘attack’ by the ‘mighty’ Polish horse-mounted Infantry was staged, so that Germany _had_ to act in its-Defense (as the US had-to against a country softened by a prior military-defeat and onerous-Sanctions/bombings/Inspections ever-since).
Israel-Jews don’t intend to ‘take-over’ the mid-East. Jews, worldwide, could barely-fill one large-city. But, Zionists have no-intention (and never-did) of ’sharing’ Israel save entirely on their own-terms. And, though sad for the Palestinians, that horse has left the barn — they ‘lost’ long-ago. And the world, at large, has already paid an enormous-price for Israel’s re-birth (and America’s intended use of it). We can only hope, someday, that it will be ‘worth it’ (American’s seem to accept that, readily, regards their own-History).
Also hopefully, when the sufferings and retaliations of the Palestinians no longer serve these ‘greater-Interests’, those of conscience everywhere will then have their chance to attempt to make reparations — the granting of American-immigration and massive-help in their establishment and adjustment might-appeal? Or elsewhere… But no-such ‘goodwill’ will take place when their ‘threat’ to Israel, and their inspiration for Muslim-independence, lends itself to joint and violent Imperialism/Colonialism in name of Anglo-American and Israeli ‘Defense’.
As Kissinger said of betrayed-Kurds: “Don’t confuse counter-Intelligence with missionary-work”.
there were also many examples of conduct as unbecoming as that presently displayed by the zionists.
YA THINK????
I mean you couldn’t be talking about:
Smallpox genocide?
Trail of tears?
Here’s what is ‘TRICKY’ about comparing native Americans to Palestinians: IT SHOULDN’T BE DONE.
PERIOD.
It’s a losing proposition to compare the tragedy of one people to another.
What is the point in trying to prove that one set of people have suffered more than others? What mathematic formulas do you use to calculate levels of inhumanity and genocide?
I know this is a sidebar in a discussion about Palestine and Israel but I for one find this to be a highly offensive sidebar. It actually detracts from the otherwise interesting discussion going on here.
Mealsotoo,
So your answer to the question of how Israel serves the US is that it provides a way to get rid of Jews? Wow. And you continue to write about America’s “use” of Israel, do you expect America to drive Jews to Isarael? You really are a true zionist.
You state:
“Anglo-American interests profited from the ‘excuse’ of defending-a-friend regards putting-down post-war Independence-movements in the oil-rich and strategic mid-East”
Could you be more specific? Are you suggesting that the US marines were stationed in Lebanon to further the interests of western oil corporations and not Israel? You seem to the one that is laboring under myths.
I don’t find it a ‘”disgusting sidebar”. I think it behooves all to address these realities, if only to prepare some to act against such inhumanity ‘effectively’.
No comparison need be made regards any individual-or-group human tragedy — all diminish us, and all of us. But, an awareness that most who come to ‘finger-pointing’, when a thirst for revenge is masked by Justice, are easily made the ‘tools’ that, themselves, most allow these tragedies to reoccur with such alarming regularity and in massive-scale — that is anywhere a ‘good thing’…and such awareness should be fostered.
To be specific — of course Energy-Interests don’t directly lobby for war — that would be obvious (they must maintain the front that war breeds chaos, and chaos is ‘bad for business’ — when, in fact, such chaos is intended to spike-up the value of holdings, and thirst for the control of others-holdings). Instead, organizations like AIPAC are supported by those with ’shared-Interests’, including those who determine America’s-Interests (or think they do, while reaping the plunder).
Don’t make me apologist for any/all of these transgressions or crimes — I abhor them all. And I jump to agree the ‘guilty should be punished’ (as, in a perfect-World, they would be). But since Empires long-dead, as with many governments still in Power, still those of-influence invoke their citizens (from whom all-these derive their Power) unwary-and-ignorant consent in perpetrating all of these tragedies/Holocausts by their fomenting fear and hatred of others and in promise of greedy self-interests. I refuse to hate any American (or an Israeli or a Palestinian) for the crimes perpetrated, past or present, by their-fellows and purportedly in their name — and regardless ‘comparisons’, we know those crimes are many and egregious. Such hate empowers those who would be so-criminal — who use such to-advantage.
“Maelstrom and the other anti-Semites. It’s very easy to simply dismiss criticism of your anti-Semitism by claiming it isn’t anti-Semitism, but it very clearly is. It’s quite obvious. Deny it all you want, you’re only fooling yourself.”
Ooooh, doublethink…cool! Great job, mikep, you just did your side a huge disservice by affirming what this thread is all about.
So Mealsotoo would have us believe that AIPAC is really a front for big oil. Right. The US pays over a hundred billion in tribute to Israel, the US media is completely dominated by zionists, US pro-Israel foreign policy is alienating every country on earth except Vanuattu and Nairu, no national representative can oppose Israel’s desires and it’s all a service to big oil. OoKay.
atheo: You are correct I did not prove my comments about B43 and “forever war”, I thought the background should be obvious to any regular reader of CD. As to desire for war, see http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1028-01.htm or similar. As for value of being at war to an incumbent leader (as opposed to just winning and going home), google up “wag the dog”.
As for the $2T, or whatever the true # will be (and $2T is as good a guess as any), it’s all on the credit card, and there is no minimum payment yet. Thus, the cost is invisible to the many in the US who aren’t paying attention.
The strongest evidence for the “forever war” hypothesis is obtained from a review of US military tactics. Many can be blamed on cowardice (refusal to separate neutrals from true foes, spraying munitions versus exposing oneself long enough to take out the target without “collateral damage”) or incompetence (failure to be fluent in the local language, or even to pay lip service to the official counterinsurgency doctrine (FM 3-24)). However, the US military has done its best to see that Iraq is flooded with unaccounted weapons, ranging from the stores at al-Qaqaa to the 190K missing small arms. More details are available if one looks.
This is not proof, certainly. However, compare how the evidence fits 2 hypotheses, forever war versus win, stabilize, and handover. It fits the former far better than the latter.
Not every like-Interest constitutes a criminal-conspiracy (nor does such disqualify-same for reasonable consideration/review — I’ve no personal insight of all who privately-supports AIPAC).
I believe that AIPAC’s interests are Israel’s. These may, certainly, be ‘happily shared’ by American defense-contractors, energy-concerns, politicians, and wealthy-interests in-general — or, more indirectly, you and me. [Or perhaps-not…but you and I were not asked to ’set policy’, presumably].
I believe, directly or indirectly, that Israel has cost the US somewhat over a Trillion since its Founding — and another trillion-plus if viewing Iraq/GWoT as solely in Israel’s-Interest [which I do not — powerful-interests were ’shared’ by many, and I believe that these policies/’Wars’ are ultimately counter to Israel’s real security-Interests]. Someday, maybe a pittance of that support will be spent on instituting a binding-Constitution there?
I also believe that I am in no position to ‘judge’ Israel’s interests, or America’s — relevant facts are not shared with peons, and my personal-Interests would be held in low-esteem and considered ‘naive’ by those who set-policy and are ‘Global-Realists’, or so they claim. My priorities are to understand what is behind ‘great-events’ of my-Age, and assume responsibility for only my own valued-Ethics and personal-dealings (and, secondarily, focus upon my extended societal-group’s actions towards others — these being where I can have most-influence).
gde,
I sense a “war for the sake of war” stance in your latest post. I agree that the MIC is a problem and that this notion needs always to be considered. However, the Iraq occupation is proving very damaging as a war of example to prove US might, and if that were truly what it was about, the occupation would have been abandoned by now.
You state:
“it’s all on the credit card, and there is no minimum payment yet”
I would point out that the US dollarhas declined by 70% against the euro over the course of the deficit spending on the wars fr Israel. That’s a hefty “minimum payment” in my book. It even hurts US wealthy elites of the rentier class.
Ray McGovern, thank you for standing up and defying the neo-fascist Zionist lobby!
I totally agree with the insanity of the israel lobby. I believe it is setting up Jewish peace activists, not to mention all Jews, for another round such as we have seen not since 60 years ago. History repeats this way. However,
I still find it hard to believe that Dick Cheney is afraid of israel. That this empire is afraid of israel. Why? Do they have video of Dick Cheney in drag with another man, not unlike Hoover having all the dirt on everyone in the u.s.? Does israel have a greater military might than the u.s.? I find that hard to believe. Even if they are just a military satellite of the u.s. in the mid east, what would make the likes of the entire media, and all politicians afraid of Israel?
I would love someone to offer an answer to this question. In essence, how is the state of Israel holding the U.S. hostage? That is the part I would love explained to me. Bear in mind I find Israeli policies to be abominable and horrific. But I can’t wrap my mind around where the U.S. fear comes from. Because the ‘Jewish conspiracy’ running all the media was played in Nazi Germany, and I find this kind of talk to be very dangerous. And I blame Israel for recreating history, as I have said.
Any responses,
Paradigm,
Perhaps it is a 50/50 toss whether there is indeed an Israeli conspiracy in the MSM. And more than that: certainly there are cases of academics, high profile speakers, etc. losing their status, tenure, ability to speak publicly (most recently with Tutu). If true, they would only be part of the picture: the war was about: energy + m.i.c. + AIPAC. A large enough enterprise such that several players collaborated on it.
On the other hand, one wonders whether this is a false flag, something to deliberately create a backlash of anti-semitism. All fascists need a class of bogeymen. Bush seems to have settled with nebulous “terrorists”. It also keeps people squabbling among themselves. Anything to get people looking the wrong way provides useful cover for them.
Paradigm,
The evidence is conclusive, any national politician that goes against Israeli demands is ousted as their opponent recieves massive fnancial support and the media rushes in to smear them. It’s all about financial power not military power, always has been. Those big armies require massive financing, once an empire creates such a behemoth they are as vulnerable as today’s highly leveraged mortgagees.
In The Long Twentieth Century by Arrighi the process is explained, Genoese capital financed the Spanish aggression in the new world, the benefits flowed to Genoa and Amsterdam. The world’s greatest empire (Spain) was left to twist in the wind. The very same capital ended up financing Brittish and French imperialism and finally wound up in N.Y.
Ahmadinejad asks the same question as Paradigm:
Ahmadinejad: West is ”Zionism’s captive”
05-10-2007
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, addressing the World Qods (Jerusalem) Day ralliers and Friday prayers worshipers, said Zionism is a political party that has taken captive western states and nations. “There is also a second idea which says western powers and statesmen have founded Zionism themselves and they are directing the Zionist game,” he said.
“According to this idea,” the president said, “The Zionist party is, as a matter of fact, these heads of western powers who are playing their role behind the curtain, but they have invented something dubbed as ‘Zionism and oppressed jews’.
Addressing the western powers, Ahmadinejad said,” I ask you, which one is the real Zionist? Are you captives or you are lying and you are the axis of Zionism?”
He added, “This is a serious question, if the Zionists control you, we and the other free nations are ready to help you to make yourself free from this criminal party’s captivity and rescue your nations.”
Ahmadinejad told western officials, “If you are behind the curtain, declare it. I am asking those governments, who support the Zionists to declare their position. But in any case they should know that they are responsible and are partners of the Zionist regime’s crimes.”
© 2007 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
atheo, hello (again)
We agree 80-90% and you listen, but disagree when you think I’m wrong, which I do with you, and rebut. Which is good, I think, on both our parts.
I agree the finances associated with this God-damned war (to put it politely) have already hurt both the average and median USAn. I just don’t think most of these people realize the financial impact yet.
gde,
I concur, and I would add that the “war for the petro-dollar” meme is designed partly as a smokescreen to prevent Americas from realising the economic harm that results from these wars for Israel. The sanctions on Iran are harming the US economy also.
Riveting discussion following McGovern’s fascinating essay. Thanks to all.
———————–
atheo said: It’s all about financial power not military power, always has been.
atheo,
Agreed, it’s always about the financial power. But financial power is what enables one to purchase military power. Which in turn enables one to maintain the financial power, and acquire more resources including that of other peoples, as well as more military power, and so on… It’s a circularly dependent economic-military system. But it’s not a perfect (ideal) economic system, as it can easily collapse. btw, It’s also morally bankrupt, but that’s another point.
Which leads me to ask, doesn’t most of the US aid money that goes to Israel go towards military spending, purchasing of (primarily) American built weaponry? If yes, that would make the U.S.-Israel arrangement another circularly dependent economic-military system.
So, I have to wonder who’s zooming who, and no matter the answer, we’re all being screwed; though it’s clearly Palestininans who are clearly getting the absolute worst of it, as regards this discussion.
————————
It’s easy to see that many people are afraid of or intimidated by the Israel Lobby. Who is the Lobby afraid of? Anyone?
—————————
Remember you don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist. Just as you don’t have to be a Nazi to be a Supremacist. You don’t have to be a Christian or Muslim to be a terrorist or a fanatic. &etc… But you do have to be compassionate and humane to be(come) fully human.
I do not think Israel was behind 911 but there is no doubt in my mind that Israeli intelligence had information and chose to withold it from us. I just hope I live long enough to see that scandal break;.
So someone on this blog questioned whether the Zionists/Isreali loby had the funds to ‘buy’ control of the US media & government. I call your attention to this statement:
“Your indicators will be gold, and the attack on Iran. A breakdown of gold ownership is: ~ 40% by Zionists, 30% by central banks, and 30% by individuals. For the last decade, the central banks have sold or leased their gold, but individuals have held tight with it. In order to pressure individuals to sell, the Zionists will engineer a gold collapse. Before the attack, the Zionists will have closed all their vital operations in the United States, and have them set up in Israel ahead of time, to manage this massive financial scheme
During the collapse panicked investors will dump their remaining gold, just for cash.
Bankers Offer Salvation:
There will be a total financial collapse and the good Zionist bankers will come to the rescue. They will propose a commodity based on a new worldwide currency, that will be based off gold.”
See link: http://judicial-inc.biz/Nuclear_attacks_on_america.htm
—————————————————————–
America will be conquered not by military might, but through financial subterfuge.