AIPAC, the ultra conservative pro-Israeli lobby

Politicians Eating Their Own to Defend AIPAC

by Steven D
Booman Tribune,Sep 18th, 2007
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2007/9/18/19318/7181


Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) made a very big mistake, at least as far as the
Democratic leadership in the House is concerned. He told the truth about
AIPAC's unhealthy influence on American politics:

floresriki...@hotmail.com wrote:

On Oct 3, 8:16 pm, Ben Kaufman <spaXm-mXe-anXd-paXy-5000-
doll...@pobox.com> wrote:

No, we were not discussing Zionist Jew versus non-zionist Jew. I pointed out
that you were espousing Jewish stereotypes instead of talking about the
Zionists. I am sure that there are plenty of Jews that don't belong to this
organization, and in fact, if your beef is actually with Israel rather than
Jews

Yes, Israel, and the Zionist Jews in America who have a stranglehold
on Congress, and even the President. But of course you will say
they don't have a stranglehold yaddayaddayadda.

If more Americans would get off their cellphones, out of their SUV's,
and get educated, there would be massive outrage.

(as you have claimed in the past, then you should really be targeting the
Christian Zionists.

There are ignorant Christian Zionists, yes, but they are not the
driving force
behind the massive carte blanche U.S. support for Israel. They don't
have that kind of power over Congress and the Executive Branch. It is
primarily AIPAC and the so-called neo-cons (Zionist Jews mainly)
who have taken over the GOP.

"...Christians are arguably Israel's strongest and most vocal supporters in the
world with American evangelicals making up 1/3 of American tourists that visit
Israel, second only to American Jews....."

http://www.christianpost.com/article/20070717/28481_Christian_Zionist...

See above. Mearsheimer and Walt's book just out covers this very
point
that is often made by people trying to pretend the Zionist Jews are
not
who make up the powerful core of the Israel-first-and-always force

AIPAC, the ultra conservative pro-Israeli lobby

Politicians Eating Their Own to Defend AIPAC

by Steven D
Booman Tribune,Sep 18th, 2007http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2007/9/18/19318/7181

Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) made a very big mistake, at least as far as the
Democratic leadership in the House is concerned. He told the truth about
AIPAC's unhealthy influence on American politics:

In an interview with Tikkun, a California-based Jewish magazine,
Moran said the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is "the
most powerful lobby and has pushed [the Iraq] war from the beginning. I
don't think they represent the mainstream of American Jewish thinking at
all, but because they are so well organized, and their members are
extraordinarily powerful -- most of them are quite wealthy -- they have
been able to exert power." [...]

"The problem with addressing the groups who have argued strongly in
favor of a long-term American military presence in the Middle East is
that they raise arguments that are not related to the point," Moran
said. "I would like to have a reasonable, objective discussion about
AIPAC's foreign policy agenda. But it's difficult to do that because any
time you question their motives, you are accused of being anti-Semitic."

And for that transgression, House Majority Leader, Rep. Steny Hoyer
(D-Md) has decided Moran needs to be taken to the woodshed:

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) went after fellow
Democrat Jim Moran of Virginia Tuesday, calling on him to retract his
comments about the Israel lobby.

"His remarks were factually inaccurate and recall an old canard
that is not true, that the Jewish community controls the media and the
Congress," Hoyer said at a news conference in the Capitol.

First of all, Moran never said the Jewish community controls the media
and Congress, so Hoyer is the one lying. What Moran said was that AIPAC,
the ultra conservative pro-Israeli lobby which doesn't represent the
views of the majority of Jewish Americans, is the most powerful lobby in
Washington which pressed for, and has continued to support, President
Bush's war with Iraq, a statement which is factually true.

Indeed, AIPAC is so powerful that it was able to force Speaker Nancy
Pelosi to remove language from legislation earlier this year that would
have specifically required President Bush to get authorization from
Congress before attacking Iran even though the majority of Americans
oppose another war in the Middle East.

To take an example from these past few months of the Israel Lobby
exercising its power, liberals in the House of Representatives in the
spring of 2007 sought to include in the defense-funding budget an
amendment that would require specific authorization from Congress before
the Administration could use the defense budget monies for a military
strike at Iran. The amendment failed. Most liberals in the U.S. today
oppose preventive wars in general and a military strike against Iran in
particular. So who supports such a move? The answer is: the right wing
government of Israel and its champion in the U.S., the Israel Lobby.

Practically no one thinks it would be a smart idea (much less legally
justified) for American forces to attack Iran outside of Joe Lieberman
and ***** Cheney, and AIPAC obviously. Yet Pelosi was forced to back off
a simple statement that merely reflects the mandates of the Constitution
because AIPAC wants to leave President Bush every opportunity to attack
Iran without any hindrance by Congress.

But dare to speak the truth about AIPAC's influence on American foreign
policy as it relates to Iraq, and they will quickly send the House
Majority Leader out to verbally attack you. And why are Democrats doing
this on behalf of a group that is fundamentally opposed to their party
on most issues? It's simple really. They are scared to death of AIPAC,
as this story by Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of TIKKUN MAGAZINE, and a
proponent of a progressive "middle path" approach to Israeli-Palestinian
relations illustrates:

When Tikkun held its 2004 conference in Washington to ask Congress
to support our Resolution for Middle East Peace, we brought hundreds of
people from around the U.S. to speak to their elected officials. Through
the intervention of one Democratic Congressperson (not Moran) I was able
to meet with about eight "Members" in a private meeting in which I was
told that people would only sit there if their names were guaranteed
confidentiality.

They had all read the story in The Washington Post that day about
the Tikkun Community/NSP and its efforts to present a "Progressive
Middle Path" that would be both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine, based in
large part on the Geneva Accord that had recently been signed by Yossi
Beilin and Yassir Abed Rabbo.

Tikkun had also raised money to pay for a full-page ad in The New
York Times, signed by thousands of people, calling on the U.S. to
support this path. Tikkun Community members had had meetings that day
with hundreds of Congresspeople, and almost all of them had said the
same thing: "We agree with your perspective, but we are not going to
fight the Jewish community on this topic. As long as they feel the way
they do, we are not going to make this our issue."

Sitting in that room I heard a clearer articulation of what our
Tikkun people were hearing in these other meetings: A pronounced fear of
AIPAC and what it could do to them. At the meeting I was at, every
Member of Congress tried to explain why Nancy Pelosi would never let me
address the Democratic Caucus of the House (at that time, the minority
caucus): House Democrats are too fearful of what AIPAC might do in response.

I told these Members of Congress that I didn't believe them; that I
thought that House of Representative liberals were just pretending to be
fearful of AIPAC in order to avoid a battle and stand up publicly for
Tikkun's middle path position. But then they began to tell me specific
stories from their own experience of the threats they had received from
the Israel Lobby people about being labeled as "anti-Israel." They told
me stories of it being impossible to convene a private meeting of
Democrats who would want to challenge the Israel Lobby because when they
had tried that they had found that every name of the attendees was in
the hands of AIPAC lobbyists within an hour of the conclusion of that
meeting and many of the attendees had been subject to immediate and
intense pressure as though they had decided to abandon Israel (which
they had not, nor is that what Tikkun calls for). And what they told me
rang true: that AIPAC and the Israel Lobby had a large constituency of
single-issue voters who would support a challenge to them in their next
primaries, or possibly even in the general elections, should they not
retain AIPAC's approval. A perfectly legitimate tactic by AIPAC, but
used in this instance to support very bad policies.

So much for electing Democrats to change the course. They say one thing
to us, but when push comes to shove, they will follow AIPAC's lead.
Which is why we are still in Iraq, why the inauguration of a Democratic
President in January, 2009 doesn't necessarily insure a withdrawal of US
forces from Iraq, and why Congress will likely stand impotently by if
Bush decides to give the order to attack Iran.

On Wed, 03 Oct 2007 19:07:02 -0700,

On Oct 3, 8:16 pm, Ben Kaufman <spaXm-mXe-anXd-paXy-5000-
doll...@pobox.com> wrote:

No, we were not discussing Zionist Jew versus non-zionist Jew. I
pointed out
that you were espousing Jewish stereotypes instead of talking about
the
Zionists. I am sure that there are plenty of Jews that don't belong to
this
organization, and in fact, if your beef is actually with Israel rather
than
Jews

Yes, Israel, and the Zionist Jews in America who have a stranglehold
on Congress, and even the President. But of course you will say
they don't have a stranglehold yaddayaddayadda.

If more Americans would get off their cellphones, out of their SUV's,
and get educated, there would be massive outrage.

(as you have claimed in the past, then you should really be targeting
the
Christian Zionists.

There are ignorant Christian Zionists, yes, but they are not the
driving force
behind the massive carte blanche U.S. support for Israel. They don't
have that kind of power over Congress and the Executive Branch. It is
primarily AIPAC and the so-called neo-cons (Zionist Jews mainly)
who have taken over the GOP.

"...Christians are arguably Israel's strongest and most vocal supporters
in the
world with American evangelicals making up 1/3 of American tourists that
visit
Israel, second only to American Jews....."

http://www.christianpost.com/article/20070717/28481_Christian_Zionist...

See above. Mearsheimer and Walt's book just out covers this very
point
that is often made by people trying to pretend the Zionist Jews are
not
who make up the powerful core of the Israel-first-and-always force

Apparently you have not read what everyone thinks of this book.

Reviewers Reject "The Israel Lobby"
Walt & Mearsheimer's book receives harsh reviews in the mainstream media.

Despite a blaze of publicity and the publication of their new book "The
Israel
Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy", Professors Stephen Walt and John
Mearsheimer
have continued to claim that an all-powerful "Lobby" has silenced them and
other
critics of Israel in the media. The very need for organizations such as
HonestReporting and the best-seller status of Israel critics such as Jimmy
Carter and his book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" would appear to
mitigate
Walt and Mearsheimer's claims to martyrdom.

As for Walt and Mearsheimer, perhaps their own book will not be the
bestseller
they are looking for, based on many reviews in the mainstream media.
Rather than
some conspiratorial effort to bury it, as W & M may have us believe, it
appears
that common sense has prevailed. Many newspapers, including some that are
regularly critical of Israel, have recognized that W & M's publication is
simply
a terribly flawed read. Here is a selection of recent reviews:

Tim Rutten, LA Times: "Anyone familiar with the tortured history of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict will have a hard time recognizing the history
Mearsheimer and Walt rehearse. Every hoary old Israeli atrocity tale is
trotted
out, and the long story of Palestinian terrorism is rendered entirely as a
reaction to Israeli oppression. The failure of every peace negotiation is
attributed to Israeli deviousness under the shield of the American Israel
lobby.
There is nothing here of Palestinian corruption, division and duplicity or
even
of this unhappy people's inability to provide a reliable secular partner
with
whom peace can be negotiated.

At times, the authors simply contradict themselves, asserting -- rather
remarkably -- at one point that the United States has nothing to fear from
a
nuclear-armed Iran and, at another, that the dangerous prospect of a
nuke-equipped Tehran is the Israel lobby's fault. Similarly, they write,
Al
Qaeda would hammer its swords into ploughshares and Osama bin Laden would
lay
down with the lamb if only the United States would come out from under
Israel's
thrall and create by coercion a Palestinian state.

Baloney. If -- as was long ago proposed -- the Jewish state had been
established
in Uganda, the Twin Towers still would be rubble."

David Remnick, The New Yorker: "Where many accounts identify Osama bin
Laden's
primary grievances with American support of "infidel" authoritarian
regimes in
Islamic lands, Mearsheimer and Walt align his primary concerns with
theirs:
America's unwillingness to push Israel to end the occupation of the West
Bank
and Gaza. (It doesn't matter that Israel and the Palestinians were in
peace
negotiations in 1993, the year of the first attack on the World Trade
Center, or
that during the Camp David negotiations in 2000 bin Laden's pilots were
training
in Florida.) Mearsheimer and Walt give you the sense that, if the Israelis
and
the Palestinians come to terms, bin Laden will return to the family
construction
business.

It's a narrative that recounts every lurid report of Israeli cruelty as
indisputable fact but leaves out the rise of Fatah and Palestinian
terrorism
before 1967; the Munich Olympics; Black September; myriad cases of suicide
bombings; and other spectaculars."

Steve Huntley, Chicago Sun Times: "The two go to lengths to try to rebut
any
suggestion of anti-Semitism in their criticism of the American Israeli
Political
Action Committee and other pro-Israel groups. But you can't read The
Israel
Lobby without realizing that whenever two interpretations exist for some
action
by Israel or its supporters, Mearsheimer and Walt automatically default to
the
darker view."

William Grimes, The New York Times: "The general tone of hostility to
Israel
grates on the nerves, however, along with an unignorable impression that
hardheaded political realism can be subject to its own peculiar fantasies.
Israel is not simply one country among many, for example, just as Britain
is
not. Americans feel strong ties of history, religion, culture and, yes,
sentiment, that the authors recognize, but only in an airy, abstract way.

They also seem to feel that, with Israel and its lobby pushed to the side,
the
desert will bloom with flowers. A peace deal with Syria would surely
follow,
with a resultant end to hostile activity by Hezbollah and Hamas. Next
would come
a Palestinian state, depriving Al Qaeda of its principal recruiting tool.
(The
authors wave away the idea that Islamic terrorism thrives for other
reasons.)
Well, yes, Iran does seem to be a problem, but the authors argue that no
one
should be particularly bothered by an Iran with nuclear weapons. And on
and on."

Mark LeVine, Asia Times: "Mearsheimer and Walt seem to know little about
the
Middle East, Israel's role in US foreign policy, and what are core US
goals and
strategic interests in the region. They argue that this is a case of the
"tail
wagging the dog" - a small client state and its allies in the US leading
the US
government to engage in policies that are manifestly against its interests
because of undue political power. But this is nonsense. In fact, it is the
other
way around."

Richard Cohen, The Washington Post: "In the end, Mearsheimer and Walt
disappoint. They had an observation worth making and a position worth
debating.
But their argument is so dry, so one-sided -- an Israel lobby that leads
America
around by the nose -- they suggest that not only do they not know Israel,
they
don't know America, either."

For more on this issue, see:

George Schultz, The 'Israel Lobby' Myth, U.S. News & World Report
Dore Gold, Understanding the U.S.-Israel Alliance: An Israeli Response to
the
Walt-Mearsheimer Claim


http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/critiques/new/Reviewers_Reject_The_Israel_Lobby.asp

Ben

Apparently you have not read what everyone thinks of this book.

Reviewers Reject "The Israel Lobby"

Walt & Mearsheimer's book receives harsh reviews in the mainstream media.

http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/critiques/new/Review...