How large a role does the "Israeli Lobby" play
in shaping U.S. policy in the Middle East?
Some answers may be contained in
The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy
(Farrar, Straus & Giroux), by John Mearsheimer
and Stephen Walt, reviewed in the Sept. 23 New
York Times, and
Rulers and Ruled in The U.S. Empire by James
Petras, just published by Clarity Press.
Mearsheimer teaches at the University of Chicago
and Walt teaches at Harvard.
According to Petras, a sociologist at Binghamton
University, New York, the pro-Zionist "power
configuration" is not just the American Israeli
Public Affairs Committee(AIPAC). The Zionist
lobby is so powerful, Petras argues, it "calls
the shots" and "supports the escalation of the
Iraq war and the savaging of Palestine, Somalia
and Afghanistan."
"It (the Lobby") has neutralized the biggest and
most concerted efforts by big name centrist
political figures to alter White House policy,"
including James Baker, (former Secretary of
State under the first president Bush,) former
president Carter and "protesting former military
commanders" in Iraq.
Petras charges, "the White House is putting into
practice the war strategy presented by the
American' Enterprise Institute, which he dubs a
Zioncon thinktank. Led by "arch-Zionist" Michael
Ledeen a resident scholar of AEI, "some in the
Jewish Lobby dismissed the Baker Iraq Study
Group as the realists and anti-Semites.'" The
ISG "was unable to deal with Israeli violence
against Palestinians or enter into a dialogue
with Syria and Iran on any but the most narrow
and unpromising terms," Petras asserted.
Petras goes on to say the Lobby includes
investment bank Goldman Sachs, which exerts a
"dominant presence" in the Bush government.
Among its alumni are Joshua Bolton, White House
Chief of Staff; Robert Steel, former GS vice
chairman who advises Treasury Secretary Henry
Paulson on domestic finance; and Assistant
Secretary of State Randall Fort, an adviser to
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Paulson is
a former chairman and CEO of GS.
What's more, Petras writes, high Bush officials
from the Lobby have played top Pentagon
policymaking roles and have "longstanding and
deep ties with the Israeli state." Elliott
Abrams, President Bush's deputy national
security advisor, Petras writes, is a "stern
defender of Jewish purity and intimate
collaborator with the Israeli high command" and
"gave full support in early summer to an Israeli
plan to destroy Hezbollah," a month before last
year's controversial border incident when two
Israeli soldiers were captured. David Wurmser,
former Mideast adviser to Vice President Cheney
is also an "Israeli Firster", according to
Petras.
"An examination of AIPAC's agenda shows a new
war against Iran on behalf of Israel at the top
of its list of priorities," Petras asserts. "For
the last three years, the publications,
conferences and press releases of the Conference
of Presidents of the Major American Jewish
Organizations(CPMAJO) had urged their members to
go all-out to fund and back candidates (mostly
Democrats) who supported Israel's military
solution' to Iran's nuclear enrichment program."
CPMAJO consists of 51 national organizations,
including the Anti-Defamation League and the
American Jewish Committee, several hundred local
and regional Jewish federations, and the United
Jewish Communities. Petras would doubtless
include the Rabbinical Council of America.
"The Lobby," Petras says, also includes seven
major "think tanks" that "crank out" position
papers arguing "Israel is always right" and "the
Arabs and Muslims are a threat to peace."
Besides the AEI, these think tanks, Petras
identifies as the New Citizenship Project, the
Project for the New American Century, the Center
for Security Policy, the National Institute for
Public Policy, the Jewish Institute for National
Security Affairs, the Washington Institute for
Near Eastern Policy, and the Institute for
Advanced Strategic and Political Studies.
In Congress, Petras cites the pro-Israeli stance
of Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D.-Ill.) and Senator
Charles Schumer, (D-N.Y.), campaign finance
directors, and calls House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
and Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D.-Nev.)
"100% Israel supporters."
Writing of Mearsheimer-Walt book, reviewer
Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council
on Foreign Relations, says its authors contend
"the lobby has made U.S. policy so lopsidedly
pro-Israel that if fuels Muslim terrorism
against the U.S., fosters the spread of nuclear
weapons in Arab states and puts at added risk
America's critical energy supplies from the
Persian Gulf."
Gelb concedes "It's true" the Lobby "has made
America's longstanding $3 billion annual aid
program to Israel untouchable and indiscussible"
but notes the U.S. is also giving $2 billion a
year to Egypt. He also points out for several
decades every occupant of the White House "has
sold Saudi Arabia and other Arab states
first-rate modern weapons, against the all-out
opposition of Israel and the lobby."
And, he adds, each of these administrations
since the 1967 war when Israel occupied the West
Bank and Gaza Strip "has privately favored
returning almost all of that territory to the
Palestinians for the purposes of creating a
separate Palestinian state.
Gelb says by asserting the dominance of the
Israeli lobby, Mearsheimer-Walt "also minimize
the lobbying influence of the Saudis and the oil
companies" that, along with the Egyptians, have
been significant voices in Washington arguing
for a Palestinian state. As for war against
Iran, Gelb says this has been urged as much by
Saudi Arabia and the Lobby.
Gelb contends even if the U.S. quit backing
Israel, American foreign policy would still be
in disfavor because of its "deep ties with
highly unpopular regimes in countries like Saudi
Arabia and Egypt, not to mention the war in
Iraq." The real play-callers behind the Iraq
war, he said, are President Bush and Vice
President Dick Cheney. "They hardly have a
history of being in the pockets of the Jewish
lobby (more like the oil lobby's), and they
aren't remotely neoconservatives." Finally, Gelb
writes, Bush and Cheney favor "getting Iran"
and, in the last analysis, they "neither need
nor heed lobbying."
Sherwood Ross
is a Miami-based writer who covers political and
military affairs. Reach him at
sherwoodr1@yahoo.com
Source: http://www.counterpunch.org/ross09242007.html
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Wes Penre is a
researcher, journalist, the owner of the domains
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