No article I have ever written has gotten such a strong and angry response as the one posted August 25 on the CommonDreams website ("Don't Blame the Jews for Cynthia McKinney's Defeat.")

The majority of criticisms have come from opponents of Cynthia McKinney, who chastised my disappointment at her lost. These e-mails accused her - and, by extension, me -- of being a traitor, un-American, a supporter of Al-Qaeda, a racist (for supporting affirmative action), a Communist, a supporter of "big government," etc. Virtually none of these mentioned her opposition to Israeli policies in the occupied territories. In many respects, this re-enforces my argument that McKinney was the victim of a concerted nationwide effort by right-wing Republicans and their media allies to defeat her and that Jews who objected to her support for the Palestinians were only one, and not the primary, force responsible for her defeat. Despite this, I also was attacked in other e-mails for refusing to blame McKinney's loss on moneyed Jewish interests allied with the Israeli government. A number of these were overtly anti-Semitic, which also bolsters my argument that putting too much blame on Jewish interests re-enforces such attitudes. Ed Herman's response posted on August 27, "A Reply to Stephen Zunes on the Jews and Cynthia McKinney's Defeat," was certainly not anti-Semitic, but it was misleading on several accounts.

Herman faults me for not mentioning Rep. Ike Hillard's defeat in the Democratic primary in Alabama, but that was not the subject of my essay. I don't know much about that race. Maybe right-wing Zionist groups were instrumental there, maybe not. I do know that often such claims, when examined closely, end up being more complex.

The classic case that supposedly illustrates the power of hard line Zionist groups was the loss of Illinois Rep. Paul Findlay, who was targeted because he challenged the ruling line on U.S. support for Israel. He was also a Republican in an off-year election under a Republican administration and represented a Midwestern rural district at the height of the farm crisis. A lot of farm-belt Republicans lost that year. His opponent did get a lot of money from groups supportive of the Israeli government that could have bought enough advertising to tilt the balance. What is often overlooked is the fact that his opponent also got a lot of labor union money, Democratic Party money, and other liberal money, any one of which could have also tilted the balance. Yet, more than twenty years later, it is only the money from the hard line Zionist groups that is cited as the reason for his loss.

I agree with Herman that "pro-Israel" PACs pollute the political process and threaten democracy, but no more so than the scores of other PACs - primarily tied to big business - that do the same and are even better funded. For example, arms exporters - who profit enormously from U.S. Middle East policy and oppose politicians that question military aid to Israel -- have a lobbying budget and PAC budget six times greater than AIPAC and its allied PACs.

Herman mentions the Senate's strong support for Israeli policy and the lack of support for the Saudi peace plan as evidence of the power of AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the largest "pro-Israel" lobbying group.) But does he realize what the enactment of the Saudi peace plan would mean for arms sales? Billions of dollars worth of profits would be lost. By contrast, support for Sharon's policies means continued tension in the region so arms transfers can continue to flow. It is not surprising that as the chief House sponsor of the Code of Conduct, which would have restricted arms exports to regimes that violate human rights, McKinney's defeat would be a priority.

More fundamentally, this exaggerated view of Jewish political power assumes that somehow U.S. policy would be benign and supportive of human rights if it were not for wealthy Zionists manipulating the process. Ed Herman, of all people, should know that there does not need to be an ethnic lobby for the United States to support repressive right-wing governments that invade neighboring countries and violate fundamental human rights and international law. Does he really think that an Indonesian-American lobby was responsible for Congressional and administration support for Indonesia's 24-year occupation of East Timor? Or that a Moroccan-American lobby is responsible for ongoing U.S. support for Morocco's occupation of Western Sahara?

It is true that there are some liberals in Congress who spoke out against the occupation of East Timor but defend the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, like my congressional representative Nancy Pelosi. Can this really be attributed to the "pro-Israel lobby" and their allied PACs? She is from one of the safest districts in the county, routinely winning 80% of the vote. She's doesn't need a dime of PAC money to be re-elected. (Indeed, the majority of members of Congress that support the right-wing Zionist agenda are from relatively safe districts.) However, the director of Pelosi's district office informed me a couple of years ago that they got ten times more calls from constituents opposing U.S. support for Indonesia's occupation than they did opposing U.S. support for Israel's occupation.

A lobby and its allied PACs do not need to be very strong if there is nothing opposing it. Left/liberal lobbies and PACs have consistently dropped the ball on this issue. For example, groups like the Coalition for a New Foreign Policy, National Impact, and Demilitarization for Democracy refused to include Israel in their lobbying for ending arms transfers to repressive regimes. Human Rights PAC, MoveOn, PeacePAC, and various PACs affiliated with state chapters of Peace Action, among others, have routinely endorsed candidates who took far right positions on Israel and Palestine. I could give lots of examples from House and Senate races, but let's instead look at the last three competitive Democratic primaries for president in 1984, 1988 and 1992: Who were the most fanatical supporters of the Israeli government running in those years, respectively? Alan Cranston, Paul Simon and Tom Harkin. Who got most of the volunteers, endorsements and money from the mainstream peace and human rights community those years? These same three senators. I seriously doubt any of them would have gotten such support if they had taken a similarly rightist line on Central America.

In other words, why shouldn't a politician support AIPAC's line if they never have to suffer the consequences? Instead of whining about AIPAC, progressives and their organizations should simply stop supporting these racist militarists who pose as liberals. They won't change until they know it's going to cost them. I believe that the problem is less that of AIPAC than the failure of progressives to challenge members of Congress who support the Israeli government to the degree that members of Congress who supported the Salvadoran government were challenged in the 1980s. If progressives unite to say that they will refuse to support any politician who supports Ariel Sharon, no matter how good they are on other issues, we would quickly see how weak AIPAC and its allied PACs really are.

My point in my original article and in this response is this: I do not deny that there are well-organized, well-funded, vicious, nasty, right-wing special interests groups composed primarily of American Jews dedicated to advancing the agenda of the Israeli government. They have made it a priority to ruin the careers and lives of any politician, professor or other public figure that dares challenge Israeli policies. As a result of my solidarity work with the Palestinians, you better believe that I have been targeted myself. They have slandered me in the press, harassed my kids, tried to get me fired, and more. They may have indeed determined the outcome in some elections, though I still maintain that Cynthia McKinney's defeat was not one of them. Herman did not present any evidence to contradict this, the focus of my article.

For those who are still skeptical of my assertion that conservative Republicans and big business interests contributed more to McKinney's opponents than "pro-Israel" groups, please check out Open Secret's web pages on Georgia's 4th District primary race, www.opensecrets.org/races/summary.asp?ID=GA04&Cycle=2002. Open Secrets, which tracks special interest money in Congressional races, has a half dozen categories to click through regarding the sources of special interest money - from both PACs and individual donors - that went into Majette and McKinney's campaigns.

Finally, a word about Jewish political and economic power: Jews are somewhat over-represented in small-to-medium-sized business, academia, law, entertainment, journalism and other influential professions. However, in terms of the real ruling class -- the top corporate boards, the top CEOs, the Trilateral Commission, the National Association of Manufacturers, the Business Roundtable, etc. -- their percentage is not much higher than their percentage of the overall population. Despite Herman's skepticism, I stick by my statement that it is wealthy white Gentiles, not Jews, who hold the reins of power in this country. Indeed, if you want to find a grossly over-represented religious group in those ranks, it would be the Episcopalians!

Despite what Herman claimed, I have no problem criticizing AIPAC and other right-wing Zionist groups and I believe there is nothing anti-Semitic in doing so. However, exaggerating their power and influence can indeed re-enforce anti-Semitic stereotypes, divide minority communities that need to work together, and allow those who really control U.S. policy to get away with supporting repressive governments in Israel and elsewhere.

Stephen Zunes (zunes@usfca.edu) is an associate professor or Politics at the University of San Francisco and is the author of Nonviolent Social Movements (Blackwell, 1999) and the forthcoming Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common Courage, 2002).

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