[Dialogue] FW: AIPAC, Israel, likely war with Iran, etc. Part I

Tue Sep 25 13:32:37 EDT 2007

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Rippey [mailto:jimripsr at qwest.net] 
Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2007 12:28 PM
To: jim
Subject: AIPAC, Israel, likely war with Iran, etc. Part I

I, Jim Rippey, have been challenged for writing a comment I made in a
previous Dialogue submission.  I said:  “It appears that Obama is thoroughly
under the influence of AIPAC.  Meanwhile, elsewhere, the war with Iran that
the Israeli government and AIPAC seem determined to have looks more and more
inevitable. “  

I was reacting to a report by Ken Silverstein in Harpers 9/14/07 that
Obama’s campaign had released a statement saying that the senator “has
stated that his support for a strong U.S.-Israel relationship, which
includes both a commitment to Israel’s security and to helping Israel
achieve peace with its neighbors, comes from his belief that it’s the right
policy for the United States.”  It is my opinion, along with others, that
the statement Obama issued contains the standard code wording that means we
will continue to support Israel in spite of its illegal occupation of
Palestinian land and its harsh treatment of Palestinians.  

Obama’s statement also referred to a controversial new book “The Israel
Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,” by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt.  The
statement said that while Obama had not actually read the book, its
conclusions were “dead wrong.”  OK, I’m sure Obama does thoroughly research
many issues.  But for him to be so certain about a book he hasn’t read
doesn’t seem like a good example.  The AIPAC bunch have really gone
ballistic in their criticism of this book.  If you keep reading, you’ll find
several contrasting views below.  But first:

In my original posting,  my first mistake was that, even though Dialogue has
had previous articles referring to the threat of “Greater Israel”
enthusiasts, and AIPAC has been discussed, I should have explained more
about AIPAC and I will do that below.  .

I should also have said that I admired much about Obama until he, and ALL
the other presidential candidates, were cowed into silence by the  “Greater
Israel” people, among whom AIPAC is foremost.  Anyone who says a sympathetic
word about Palestinian suffering gets booed.  Many careful observers,
including some prominent Jews, accuse those Americans (The “Greater Israel”
enthusiasts) of being more interested in Israel’s dominance of the entire
Palestinian area than they are in the long range interests of the United
States.

I am not a Jew but I do firmly believe that Bush’s preemptive attack on Iraq
was a terrible mistake.  Even Alan Greenspan is saying public that it was
obvious the attack was about oil.   That “war” has resulted in nearly 4000
American service members’ deaths plus the death of thousands of Iraqis.  It
has greatly weakened our Armed Forces, and has been a recruiting tool for
anti-American terrorists .  We were manipulated into supporting that war by
clever propaganda, much of it created and pushed by AIPAC and certain other
powerful lobbies.  Now they are busy convincing us that Iran is so
dangerous, it must be attacked.    

I have been studying this situation for a dozen years, have read extensively
and have hundreds of articles filed in my computer.  I will quote from some
of them in an attempt to explain why I am so concerned.  I am very
pessimistic that an attack on Iran is probably going to happen before the
end of Bush’s term.  If I does, I believe the whole Middle East will be in
flames and it won’t matter who is president.  All our energy and all our
money will go to “support our troops.”  

FOR THE RECORD, my wife and I stretched our budget and bent over backwards
last election to support Democrats.  We are so disappointed in them now that
we are putting our contributions into ACLU, MoveOn, alternate news sources
and other more worthy causes this year. 

Following are quotes that emphasize my concern.  Of course they tend to be
one-sided.  However, the fierce, ugly criticism they are receiving and will
continue to receive is far more one-sided. 

----------------------------------

TONY KARON is a senior editor at TIME.com (TIME magazine’s on line blog).  A
Jew who grew up in South Africa, he was appalled by the apartheid regime
there. On the Time.com blog, he analyzes the Middle East and other
international conflicts.  Recently, AlterNet featured a lengthy article of
his with the title, “For American Jews, Dissent Against Israel Has Become
Mainstream.”  AlterNet printed the full article 9/15/07.  You can find it
at:   http://www.alternet.org/story/62618/

In that article, Karon wrote about  Mearsheimer and Walt's new book which,
he said, “challenges the wisdom and morality of the unashamed and absolute
bias in U.S. foreign policy towards Israel. In an exchange on the NPR show
Fresh Air, Walt was at pains to stress, as in his book, that the Israel
Lobby, as he sees it, is not a Jewish lobby, but rather an association of
groupings with a right-wing political agenda often at odds with majority
American-Jewish opinion.”   (Rippey note:  Major “allies” are the oil
industry and others who profit from our exploitation of “lesser” countries.)

Elsewhere, Karon says that when he came to the U.S. 13 years ago, “it would
have seemed unthinkable for historian TONY JUDT  to advocate a binational
state for Israelis and Palestinians or for Washington Post columnist Richard
Cohen to write that "Israel itself is a mistake. It is an honest mistake, a
well-intentioned mistake, a mistake for which no one is culpable, but the
idea of creating a nation of European Jews in an area of Arab Muslims (and
some Christians) has produced a century of warfare and terrorism of the sort
we are seeing now." 

(Rippey note:  mistake or not to begin with, I believe it would be a
terrible human tragedy now if Israel were abolished.  I am sure Cohen would
say the same.  My problem is that we claim U.S. “Policy” is to help Israel
achieve peace with its neighbors.  And we’ve been saying that, and
continuing to subsidize Israel, for years and years.  Yet all the while, the
Israeli hardliners have kept grabbing more Palestinian territory and
continuing the harsh occupation.  Some 400 Israeli combat veterans (not
pacifists) are so appalled they have refused to serve again in Occupied
Territory.  Some have been jailed as a result.)

Further in his article,Karon laments that Jimmy Carter “was called a
"Holocaust denier" (yes, a Holocaust denier!) for using the apartheid
analogy in his book on Israel 
. But the ethnic-cleansing in which the
Israelis expelled 750,000 Palestinians in 1948 and the apartheid character
of Israel's present occupation of the West Bank are objective realities.”

--------------------- 

Here’s another article that worries me:  In the 1/26/07 issue of The
American Prospect, Matthew Yglesias wrote this:  “Is There A Kosher Way to
Criticize the Israel Lobby?”

“Retired GENERAL WESLEY CLARK is, like me, concerned that the Bush
administration is going to launch a war with Iran. Arianna Huffington spoke
to him in early January and asked why he was so worried the administration
was headed in this direction. According to Huffington's January 4 recounting
of Clark's thoughts, he said this: "You just have to read what's in the
Israeli press. The Jewish community is divided but there is so much pressure
being channeled from the New York money people to the office seekers."

“This, of course, is true. I'm Jewish and I don't think the United States
should bomb Iran, but Thursday night I was talking to a Jewish friend and
she does think the United States should bomb Iran. The Jewish community, in
short, is divided on the issue. It's also true that most major American
Jewish organizations cater to the views of extremely wealthy major donors
whose political views are well to the right of the bulk of American Jews,
one of the most liberal ethnic groups in the country. Furthermore, it's true
that major Jewish organizations are trying to push the country into war.” 

--------------------------

The hidden cost of free congressional trips to Israel,  By Jim Abourezk,
Information Clearing House (ICH) Blog, 01/26/07                
•Jim Abourezk is a FORMER DEMOCRATIC SENATOR senator from South Dakota.

            The pro-Israel lobby does most of its work without publicity.
But every member of Congress and every would-be candidate for Congress comes
to quickly understand a basic lesson. Money needed to run for office can
come with great ease from supporters of Israel, provided that the candidate
makes certain promises, IN WRITING, (Emphasis added) to vote favorably on
issues considered important to Israel. What drives much of congressional
support for Israel is fear – fear that the pro-Israel lobby will either
withhold campaign contributions or give money to one's opponent.  In my own
experience as a US senator in the 1970s, I saw how the lobby tries to
humiliate or embarrass members who do not toe the line. 
            Pro-Israel groups worked vigorously to ensure that the new
reforms would allow them to keep hosting members of Congress on trips to
Israel. According to the Jewish Daily Forward newspaper, congressional
filings show Israel as the top foreign destination for privately sponsored
trips. Nearly 10 percent of overseas congressional trips taken between 2000
and 2005 were to Israel. Most are paid for by the American Israel Education
Foundation, a sister organization of the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee, the major pro-Israel lobby group.

----------------------

TAKING ON THE ISRAEL LOBBY is the subject of an AlterNet article by Joshua
Holland, 4/4/07

Walt and Mearsheimer's case is that, on balance, the United States' (almost)
unconditional support for Israel doesn't serve the interest of American
power.  Israel -- once a valuable counter to Soviet influence in Syria and
Egypt -- is, in the post Cold-war era, a strategic liability.

Their argument on this point is hard to dispute. While the United States'
support for Israel is not the only source of anti-American terror, it is
certainly a driving factor and always a good recruiting tool for extremists.
The relationship, the authors argue, is so inflammatory in both the Arab
world and among our European allies that Israel has become a highly
militarized partner that has to sit on the sidelines during American-led
military actions in the Middle East, including both Gulf Wars, in order to
build and maintain international support.
-------------------------------
By Joshua Holland, AltNet. 4/10/07
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/joshua/34644/

“Israel is a client state with whom we have a truly unique relationship.
Which other close ally has an analogous situation, exactly? (For that
matter, what other occupation has lasted almost four decades?) Our tax
dollars provide what amounts to $600 dollars per year for every man, woman
and child in Israel, despite the fact that it is a solidly middle-income
country. And our (almost) unconditional support for Israel buys us a ton of
grief all around the world. No surprise, then, if people consider matters
occurring over there slightly more immediate than what happens in Papua.

More in Part II coming next.  The original exceeds Dialogue's limit. 