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Technorati"My number one priority in foreign policy is to protect Israel."
-Former House Speaker Richard Armey
Rocky was a boyhood friend. He was as big and as strong as his name. In his wild days, Rocky hung out with a runt whose obnoxious mouth regularly got my friend into serious bar fights. One night Rocky was beaten senseless when he stepped between the runt and someone with dangerous friends. I never understood his irrational defense of a guy with obvious "needs."
But then -- K Street realpolitik notwithstanding -- I have difficulty understanding America's irrational defense of Israel, a country whose "needs" are as much at odds with the security of my country as were the runt's "needs" at odds with the health of my friend.
Earlier this month 7,000 activists and politicians attended the America Israel Public Forum Committee's 2008 Policy Conference in Washington D.C. This was AIPAC's premier pro-Israel event, which attracted a bipartisan who's who of Congressional sycophants. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's keynote address drew nearly half the members of Congress.
Along with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, both presumptive Democratic and Republican presidential candidates bent a knee and lowered their head in supplication, pledging an unwavering fealty along with an additional 30 billion taxpayer dollars in military aid to Israel.
John McCain told attendees, "The threats to Israel's security are large and growing and America's commitment must grow as well. I strongly support the increase in military aid to Israel . . . our shared interests and values are too great for us to follow any other policy."
Barak Obama dittoed, "Israel's security is sacrosanct. It is non-negotiable . . . Our alliance is based on shared interests and shared values. Those who threaten Israel threaten us . . . as president I will never compromise when it comes to Israel's security."
As an American citizen, I'd like to think the number one "non-negotiable" of anyone who would be president is the security and the interests of the American people. Instead of reading from the same AIPAC-vetted script, McCain and Obama would better serve their country by reading from the same Constitution -- the version enshrined in Washington D.C. not in Jerusalem.
AIPAC is the most powerful of the dozen or so major organizations and think-tanks that comprise the "Israel lobby" in the United States. This influential lobby dictates U.S. Middle East foreign policy: "You can't have an Israeli policy other than what AIPAC gives you around here," admitted Senator Ernest Hollings (D-SC) upon leaving office in 2004.
Recently, former President Jimmy Carter pointed out that the Israel lobby makes or breaks American politicians depending on their willingness to promote Israel's "security" as their number one foreign policy priority: "It's almost political suicide . . . for a member of Congress who wants to seek reelection to take any stand that might be interpreted as anti-policy of the conservative Israeli government."
Predictably, politicians wanting to keep their government and K Street paychecks merrily dance the mizinka, the Jewish traditional marriage (of convenience) polka.
Most detrimental to the democratic process, however, is the way the lobby manages the political and social discourse by tarring critics of Israel's policies and actions regarding the Palestinians, Gaza and the West Bank with the brush of anti-Semitism, a black epithet that once applied is difficult, if not impossible, to scrub off.
But does our "non-negotiable" support for Israel make us more secure, or is it a MAD policy akin to the insane Cold War strategy of "mutual assured destruction?" Such a strategy may, in the war on terror between "radical Islam" and "freedom-loving democracies," result in the mutual assured destruction of both the United States and Israel.
A Pentagon Defense Science Board report published in 2004 concluded, "Muslims do not 'hate our freedom,' but rather they hate our policies." And the policy that motivates their young men to bring the Middle East conflict to America by crashing passenger planes into the most prominent symbols of our affluence and military might is our "non-negotiable," irrational support for the policies of Israel's right-wing government.
In 2003 it was in Israel's national security interest to see Saddam Hussein and his perceived regional threat disappear, and to let the American military do the killing and the dying to ensure that it vanished. It was never about American security. Period!
While Israel and their American lobby are not exclusively responsible for the Iraq War, it was their cooked intelligence reports and political clout that both stiffened the spine of the neocon administration bent on war and weaken the knees of American politicians who would be voting for the war.
Likewise, Israel's "security" demands that Iran not further its nuclear ambitions, peaceful or otherwise. It is once again in their best interest to let the U.S. do the killing. The Bush administration and Senators Hillary Clinton and John McCain promised to do just that using American nukes. AIPAC is intent on holding them to their promise.
Former chief United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq, Scott Ritter, wrote in his 2006 book, "Target Iran," "Let there be no doubt: If there is an American war with Iran, it is a war that was made in Israel and no where else." That war will both inflame and unite the Arab world against Israel and its benefactor and will once again bring the "chickens home to roost" on American shores.
Keep in mind that Israel has never lost a major war since 1948. It has the most technologically advanced and deadly military in the region and, according to journalist Chris Hedges, is the world's fourth largest arms dealer and security technology exporter. It has over 200 nuclear warheads, enough to wipe the Arab world off the map in minutes. It has accomplished all this with chutzpa and 154 billion in U.S taxpayer dollars -- monies it is not required to account for, unlike other countries that receive U.S. aid.
Keep in mind also that it is official U.S. policy that Israel not expand its settlements in the occupied territories. However, Israel is constructing a 40-foot high "security barrier" in the West Bank -- at a cost of one million U.S taxpayer dollars per mile -- that will effectively annex 40 percent of Palestinian land for Jewish settlements and further the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. This MAD policy waves a shoe in the face of Palestinian Arabs who have struggled for sixty years to live free in the State of Palestine. Be assured, Arabs know who is footing the bill.
Past victimhood is no moral justification for Israel's repressive, draconian "defensive" policies against Palestinian resistance, whether that resistance takes the form of slingshots or backpack explosives. Nothing excuses the killing of innocents on either side, but we do well to remember that terror bombing was midwife to the birth of the state of Israel. Indeed, Israeli historian Benny Morris speculates, "The Arabs may well have learned the value of terrorist bombings from the Jews."
Former Israeli Prime Minister Yizhak Shamir argued that "neither Jewish ethics nor tradition can disqualify terrorism as a means of combat." Defending his terrorist past to an interviewer in1998 he further claimed, "Had I not acted as I did, it is doubtful that we would have been able to create an independent Jewish state of our own." No doubt Palestinian fighters are thinking the same regarding an independent Palestinian state of their own.
Since there is no overwhelming strategic or moral reason for the United States to continue its "non-negotiable" support of Israel, that country should be treated like any other ally and not like an over-indulged adolescent. It is time Israel makes its own way in the world. To assume it is incapable of doing so is anti-Semitism worthy of the brush stroke, and a MAD policy we can no longer afford.
More than likely, the runt would not have been as belligerent had Rocky not been watching his back.
[Author's note: For a non-AIPAC vetted view of the Middle East conflict see Ramzy Baroud's "The Second Palestine Intifada," Ilan Pappe's "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine" and John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.]
Robert Weitzel is a contributing editor to Media With a Conscience. His essays regularly appear in The Capital Times in Madison, WI. He can be contacted at: robertweitzel@mac.com
40 Comments so far
Show Allhttp://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7999343597466477342
Americans, the stringpullers don't want you to see this video!
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7267134620652018859
Loss of Liberty
Never forget the Liberty.
Salman asked: Is there any US politician with guts to defy Israel? Eisenhower did. He had some "quaint" ideas about international law and a new world order. When Israel (along with France and the UK) attacked Egypt to take the Suez Canal, Eisenhower threatened to withhold all aid if Israel did not withdraw.
Maybe we need a "Biblical" history lesson here. When it was stated the ISRAELITES were "God's" chosen people, there was no such thing as Jews, the way we know them. All monotheists were "Jews" and all non-Jews were polytheists, atheists, etc. We don't have "Jews" or "Christians", etc until after 345 AD with the council at Nicea. What were these Isrealites "chosen" for but to receive God's law which they did with the Ten Commandments as revealed to Moses and they were "chosen" to receive God's Messiah in Jesus Christ of Nazareth whom the Jews reject until this day.
Interesting how Judaism, Christianity and Islam worship the same God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob but only Judaism refuses to acknowledge Jesus at all, to the Christians, Jesus is the Messiah and to the Muslims, Jesus is the greatest of God's prophets, the only one to have performed miracles.
So as one can see, being "God's chosen" is not a "get out off jail free card" for todays Jews but had historical significance for a group of people that for all intents and purposes no longer exist. If we were to find the true lost tribes of the Israelites, they would be found amongst the Palestinians currently being subjugated by the descendants of Zionists coming out of Europe. That should make people think.
-Presence « Namasté »-
Ummm what are you saying....
I am stating the the creation of Israel has been the vortex of injustice in the Middle East. Israel was ushered in with a backdrop of prophecy fullfillment by the nutcases who believe in the dribble of millenialism (the people who brought you the idiocy of the Rapture). It is these same shitheads, 80 million strong, with irrational leaders such as John Hagee, who believe Israel can do no wrong, and foam at the mouth when Israel flexes her USA fed muscles militarily. In 2006 when Israel destroyed Lebanon under what she considered the aggregious act of two of her soldiers being captured and held by Hezzbollah, the Rev. Hagee was foaming at the mouth in glee that this was the beginning of the war of Armageddon. No doubt he was waiting to greet the Second Coming of Jay-sus on his white horse. George Bush, (the most ignorant man and worst president who ever held office)once said that we had invaded Iraq because of 3 main reasons:
1.) possession of illegal weapons of mass destruction 2.) UN violations 3.)International humanitarian violations. Well, Jesus H. Christ, if that is the case, we should invade Israel. They have over 200 ILLEGAL nuclear weapons, they have over 69 UN violations against them for the stealing land from the Palestnians, and they have imprisoned hundreds and even thousands of children and bulldozed Palestinians in their homes and are currently starving them with a seige. If we are really serious about terrorism then we need to start treating the Middle East fairly and not blindly agreeing to everything Israel wants in it's lust for power fueled by it's paranoia. You cannot starve people, steal their land, and then ask why they hate you.
The world cold be so much better had Israel never been created.
Wow. Where'd all the regular Zionist apologists go? Thought they'd have showed up here by now.
~ SPHNE ~
As you say, "When you understand where they are coming from it makes perfect sense."
Yes, to their foolishly narrow focus, wanting everything great for Israel, to be paid for by American taxpayers ( with less than 2 % being Jewish ).
__ But, NOT far as US citizens who know that :
the agendas and policies of Israel
are SIGNIFICANTLY different from
__ what is GOOD for AMERICA __
Actually, most of the Jews i know are good people. I do believe that their culture of valuing education and sucess has allowed many of them to excel in business, and yes, many business people will do anything for a buck, it is the nature of the beast. Also, someone mentioned that saying some of the people in gov. have "dual citizenship" is misleading since all Jews do, this is correct, however many of these guys own property, are invested in businesses, and have family in Israel, they fly back and forth all the time. It truly is the 51st state to them. When you understand where they are coming from it makes perfect sense.
Doom & Gloom; The Native American's were PURE victim's as well.
After WW1 Jew CarpetBaggers from around the world descended on Germany's carrion like vultures and fed.
Bought property for nothing, evicted the old owners, became the new landlords, bakery owners, and turned the screws to a starving and broken people. This is history that is "lost" also.
Nice people those Jews, huh?
The American Holocaust against American Indians cost fifteen times more lives than the Jewish Holocaust. Yet America continues the genocide against American Indians while at the same time aiding the Israeli's with untold billions and possibly trillions. Jews do their best to keep the American Holocaust off the airwaves. Given their small numbers in the U.S. Jews are a powerful people. They apparently have no hesitation to inflict genocide on others while milking their holocaust for all it's worth. Nice people those Jews huh?
lisa32, Gotcha. It makes a person wonder....
Why have we not mentioned the non-Jewish wing of the Zionist camp? Evangelical Christians are largely blindly supportive of Israel. The reason? They believe that Jesus, as his second coming, will see which peoples are friends to and which are enemies of the chosen, and God will reward/punish them accordingly.
Never mind the fact that the name "Israel" was chosen, at least partially, with such beliefs in mind. And don't tell the Israelis, but Christian Zionists pretty much believe that those Jews in Israel at Armageddon will be cast into Hell for eternity if they don't accept Christ.
Fun stuff. And utterly insane as a basis for foreign policy. I called in to my local right-wing-nut-job morning talk show about this a while back. I mentioned how basing foreign policy on religious beliefs flies in the face of everything the first amendment was intended to be. Blind support of everything Israel does based on the belief God will reward the U.S. when the world ends is crazy and unconstitutional. A woman called in immediately after me and said that some things are just true whether I believe in them or not.
Moron.
To lillulu; thanks for an interesting post re the pentagon siphoning. Scary in the extreme. If people will kill for money, how many people will they kill for 3 trillion?
3,000?
If your mother is 100% Jewish your rights as a citizen of Israel are total.
That is what Israel is.
lillulu,
The trope in your post about all the "dual citizens" of the US and Israel is not factual.
i've looked into it (i encourage anyone to do so) and it simply refers to the fact that the state of Israel will accept anyone who is Jewish to "return" to Israel and become a citizen.
THIS DOES NOT MEAN ALL JEWS ARE ISRAELI CITIZENS. It does not mean that Jews in the US government are "dual citizens" with Israel. It does not mean that any particular person who is Jewish in the United States is disloyal.
Please note that i am a US citizen by birth, i am not a zionist, i am not Jewish, i do not support US policy, and in fact i am not loyal to the US and i am not patriotic. i am just tired of seeing this "dual-citizen" trope repeated as if it proved something.
I received an email from 'J' Street a little bit ago, they were a tad inscensed that ISRAEL had propsed a truce with the Palestinians, I suppose they said Hamas, and there was nary a word, only silence. WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN? In one year Israel and the NYT along with WaPo stated the figures, 7 Israelis and FOUR HUNDRED Palestinians, I am quite certain the 400 is greatly under-exaggerated. I was suspect of this entire 'J' Street litany of talking points, now I see I was correct.
Our Trillions & Trillions have built and maintain the infra-structure itslf.
Those stolen AMERICAN trillions also help pay the 100% Medical & Dental and Psychiatric and SURGURY and ALL Medical care for ALL Israelies.
I can't afford dental work for my children. Tough luck for them and me. Near zero medical.
What I get for rejecting US values and not chasing money.
PeacePeace.
I'm convinced AIPAC doesn't speak for the great mass of US Jews, who have overwhelmingly over time sided with the under dog. But AIPAC has been way too successful in BSing many Jews on matters having to do with Israel and Mideast policy.
Salman - I can name a couple: Cynthia McKinney and Dennis Kucinich.
We know what happened to McKinney, and they have been trying the same with Kucinich, but so far he has too much local support to be replaced by their preferred Zionist.
And I will add for the umpteenth time that it makes perfect sense to be furious with our candidates for having to "dance the mizinka" with AIPAC, but our fury should be directed at the people making this conditional. It's easy for us all to demand our politicians commit career suicide (I'm beyond pissed at Obama for this) but that's what we're asking.
Also remember that there are several key states with large Jewish populations who can influence an election severely. This is why Obama and others have to be vetted by 3% of our population. It's disgusting. And they will vote for McCain any way.
Salmon asked. "Is there any US politican with guts to defy Israel
....If you have please share with us."
Take a look at Presidential candidates running as Independents. I believe Ron Paul and Ralph Nader would qualify.
Salman, I have looked at the Israel Palestine crisis for the last thirty years, and have come to the conclusion, that the reason we side with Israel is racist. Now, I know this sounds very simplistic, but following the holocaust, many European Jews went back to Israel. The Western World felt pretty ashamed about the genocide of millions in the death camps, and it came about, that the Jews were like a protected people, nobody was allowed to criticise or hurt them. Judaism also seemed to have more direct links to Christianity, and the Arab people were dark skinned, and historically seen as an inferior race. We were even taught at school, that Salladin and the Saracens were barbarians, who slaughtered people for no reason. We were not told of the massacres carried out by the crusaders, because of course, they were representing Jesus Christ!
At the very time the state of Israel was created in 1948, both the UK and US were very racist countries. Neither wanted to have large numbers of Jews settling in their homelands, but they cared even less about the Palestinians.
We have the modern phrase "political correctness", which is another way of saying, that you are not allowed to speak the truth, if it is the least bit controversial or contentious.
Here is one truth. Here in the UK, many law firms and financial institutions are controlled by Jews. I suspect the same is true of the US, and this creates a problem. Even within a democratic country, if you have a relatively small amount of people wielding immense power, money and influence on politicians, then the wishes of the electorate, and the true needs of the country are going to be ignored.
Is there any US politican with guts to defy Israel
I have not seen one in 50 years.
If you have please share with us
We used to joke that "Israel is the 51st State", but it looks more like we had that backwards.
For starters, Let's elect a president that is not beholden to Israel. We certainly don't want him or her taking orders from Israel. You already know which ones they are.
The same goes for the Congressmen or women we choose.
"It's almost political suicide . . . for a member of Congress who wants to seek reelection to take any stand that might be interpreted as anti-policy of the conservative Israeli government."
The way for us to end this is to pledge to vote against any cacidate backed by AIPAC.
Barak Obama dittoed, "Israel's security is sacrosanct. It is non-negotiable.
Then as one poster on CD noted a few weeks ago: reality will negotiate anyway, and you don't even have to be in the room.
Oops! (correction) Trillions of dollars are missing from the Pentagon, still not recovered or explained — your tax money.
Maybe Israel has quietly insinuated to US elites that its 200 nuclear weapons can be re-targeted elsewhere in the world.
Israel is the only entity that I know of that can "have it's cake and eat it too" and get someone else (Americans) to pay for it. This scenario will not last forever,..... never mind what the moronic politicians (both Dems and Republicans) say when they capitulate at AIPAC rallies.
It has to do with America's desperate need to feel good about itself. Defending a perceived 'victim' validates it.
One of our leaders needs to explain why Israel which has the third or fourth most powerful army in the world, is a nuclear power, gets 3-5 Billon dollars (at least) from the US, needs a protection guarrantee from the US, and why we supposedly have sacrificed 4100 US soldiers to keep Israel safe from Iraq (or anybody else)???? Israel can keep itself safe, or return all of the money and weapons we have given to them in the past 25 years.
Trillians of dollars are missing from Pentagon, still not recovered or explained --- your tax money.
Dual citizen of Israel and the U.S., Dov Zakheim is a "former Bush appointee who was a Pentagon Comptroller from May 4, 2001 to March 10, 2004. At that time he was unable to explain the disappearance of $1 trillion dollars. Actually, nearly three years earlier, Donald Rumsfeld announced on September 10, 2001 that an audit discovered $2.3 trillion was also missing from the Pentagon books. That story, as I mentioned, was buried under 9-11's rubble. The two sums disappeared on Zakheim's watch.
Zakheim was born in Brooklyn in 1943 and attended exclusive Jewish schools, spent summers in Israel Zionist camps, which trained the Zionists of the future. As to Dov's formal education, he graduated from Columbia University in 1970 and the University of Oxford in 1972. From 1973 to 75, he attended the London school of Jewish studies, described as a "Harry Potter" type cauldron; among the subjects Jewish supremacy, Advanced Bible, Talmud, Jewish Mysticism, Holocaust, Anglo-Judaica, and Zionism. After, he was ordained a Rabbi. From 1975 to 80, Zakheim was an adjunct professor at the National War College, Yeshiva University, Columbia University and Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut.
As he stepped into the Reagan administration, he talked them into funding development of the Lavi Fighter at a cost of $3 billion. The Lavi was a total flop and Israel dropped it, though it owed $450 million in contract fees that were cancelled. Israel, according to Judicial Inc, also created a story that China was eager to buy the Lavi. Zakheim convinced Reagan that China had to be sandbagged. Reagan gave Israel $500 million for its lost contracts. Reagan then threw in a wing of F-16's as a bonus and sign of good will. Do we see a pattern here, personal, familial, career-wise, of over-the-top Israeli advocacy?
Again, during Zakheim's tenure as Pentagon controller from May 4, 2001, to March 10, 2004, over $3 trillion dollars were unaccounted for. Additionally, military Information was jeopardized and military contractors billed the US for Israeli items: $50 million dollar fighter jets were rated as surplus and the list rolls on. As the scandal of the missing trillion dollars surfaced and Dov resigned, Israel was handed the finest fighter jets in the US inventory while 15 percent of US jets were grounded for lack of parts. In whose best interest was this?
But Dov is not alone. He is one of an elite group of Jewish Americans/Israelis who inter-marry and enter government. They and their Christian counterparts are called neocons and their sole purpose is directing US policy. Most of them are dual citizens and few serve in the US military. Think of Paul Wolfowitz, Elliot Abrams, Richard Perle, Ben Wattenberg, to mention a few. Whether their motivation is anger at the Muslim world, seen as a religious and territorial enemy, or a deep-rooted reaction to the Holocaust, the culmination of European anti-Semitism, their reactionary militarism becomes a world-threatening force unto itself. Hence our concern.
Yet on May 6, 2004, Zakheim took a lucrative position at Booz Allen Hamilton, one of the most prestigious strategy consulting firms in the world. One of its clients then was Blessed Relief, a charity said to be a front for Osama bin Laden. Booz, Allen & Hamilton then also worked closely with DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is the research arm of the Department of Defense. So the dark card was shifted to another part of the deck." --- Jerry Mazza
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_1047.shtml
Just noticed what a wonderful name that is---DICK ARMY. And his ally Robbin' Leech. Lifestyles of the rich and murderous.
Everyone seems to have opinions on the Israel-Palestine conflict, but spending a few minutes on this quiz might still be an enlightening experience.
Almost exactly backward.
It is the US that created the Israeli psychotic attack dog, to block any "third way" development from the mid-East's fabulous oil wealth.
There is a moral reason why the USA gives non-negotiable support to Israel Mr. Weitzel. This is because the Jewish people are supposedly superior to everyone else in the world in USA opinion. The Jewish people are supposedly the "chosen people" of the Jewish God. How original(a God that is supposedly the true God of all human History and the most accurate rendition of theology not only because the Jewish people say so but because some 20% of the human race buys into this lie)!
Israel can take care of itself - thank you very much USA! Israel no longer needs USA taxpayer money. No one in AIPAC, Christian Zionists, not USA politicians seem to be able to connect the dots regarding the fact that the most common reason why most people living in Southwest Asia hates Americans is because the Americans show favoritism to Israel - not to mention the fact that the USA has turned Iraq into a nuclear wasteland to demonstrate American cruelty.
A clue to who's really in charge of relevant policies should be provided by the fact that open discussion and debate is far more vigorous within Israel than is allowed in the US. It is interesting to note, for example, the treatment of Mearsheimer and Walt during their recent visit to Israel.
One day Israel will be hung out to dry, and the only hope they will have is Jahweh. And he has really helped them out well in the past hasnt He? If that's how you are rewarded for being Chosen, I prefer to be unselected.