The Lobby
Experts in the West and ordinary people in Arab lands have understood for many years that the United States does not have an independent policy toward the Middle East.
President Jimmy Carter, a man of good will, tried to use American influence to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the source of dangerous instability in the Middle East. Israel was able to block Carter's attempt, however, while blaming Yasser Arafat. Carter's plan would have given rise to a Palestinian state. Israel did not want any such state, because obvious military aggression is necessary in order to steal the territory of an official state with defined borders. It is much easier to steal land from a non-state.
By preventing the rise of a Palestinian state, Israel has been able to continue with its theft of the West Bank. Palestinians who have not been driven out have been forced into ghettos, and cut off from schools, hospitals, water and their olive groves and farmlands.
In a recent book, President Carter called the existing situation "apartheid." Carter was demonized by the Israel lobby for his use of this word, but some experts consider Carter's choice of words to be a euphemism for the continuation of what I. Pappe and N. G. Finkelstein call "the ethnic cleansing of Palestine."
That the vast majority of Americans know nothing of this is testimony to the power of the Israel lobby.
A number of writers have exposed Israel's misbehavior and the power of the lobby, but until now, the lobby has been able to marginalize its critics by smearing them as "anti-Semites," "Nazis" and "Jew-haters." In a new book, John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt have broken the Israel lobby's power to suppress truth by demonizing and intimidating all who would criticize Israel.
Mearsheimer and Walt are distinguished scholars holding distinguished appointments at the University of Chicago and Harvard University, two of America's most distinguished universities. Their book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, published by the distinguished American publisher, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, is a masterpiece of scholarship and documentation. Footnotes comprise 23 percent of the book's pages.
Mearsheimer and Walt easily succeed in making their case that neither strategic nor moral grounds can explain U.S. support for Israel. Only the power of the Israel lobby can explain the juxtaposition of a dwindling moral and strategic case with ever-increasing U.S. backing for Israel, even to the disadvantage of U.S. national and strategic interests. Indeed, both executive and legislative branches are so completely compromised by the lobby that the different elements of U.S. Middle East policy "have been designed in whole or part to benefit Israel vis-a-vis its various rivals."
Chapter by chapter, Mearsheimer and Walt demonstrate the deleterious effects the lobby has had on U.S. relations with Palestinians, Iraq, Syria, Iran and Lebanon. The two scholars conclude:
The lobby's influence helped lead the United States into a disastrous war in Iraq and has hamstrung efforts to deal with Syria and Iran. It also encouraged the United States to back Israel's ill-conceived assault on Lebanon, a campaign that strengthened Hezbollah, drove Syria and Iran closer together, and further tarnished America's global image. The lobby bears considerable, though not complete, responsibility for each of these developments, and none of them was good for the United States. The bottom line is hard to escape, although America's problems in the Middle East would not disappear if the lobby were less influential, U.S. leaders would find it easier to explore alternative approaches and be more likely to adopt policies more in line with American interests.
There is nothing anti-Semitic about this book. Mearsheimer and Walt do not challenge Israel's right to exist or the legitimacy of the Israeli state. They believe the United States must defend Israel from threats to its survival. They even regard AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, as a legitimate American lobby and not as an unregistered agent of a foreign state.
The motives of the two scholars, apart from respect for truth and the obligation to speak it, are to further Israel's and America's legitimate interests. Mearsheimer and Walt agree with numerous Israeli historians and commentators that Israel's policy toward Palestine and the Arabs, together with the lobby's suppression of critics, have been "directly harmful to Israel."
The inflexibility that Israel has imposed on U.S. foreign policy has America mired in wars—now a half-decade or more old—in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even as Muslim rage threatens to engulf America's puppet in Pakistan, Vice President Dick Cheney, Israel and its neoconservative allies strive to initiate war with Iran.
This is a high price to pay for Israeli territorial expansion even if the U.S.-Israeli policy of war and coercion succeed. If military aggression fails to bring the Middle East under the hegemony of the U.S. and Israel, the dangers to energy flows and Israel's existence could result in the use of nuclear weapons. It is literally insane for the United States to expose the world to such risks for the sake of Israel's misguided policy toward Palestine.
Other scholars, especially those whose sense of justice is offended by the cruel oppression Palestinians suffer at the hands of Israel, are more critical than Mearsheimer and Walt. The latter do Israel and the lobby a service by defining the issue as one of U.S. and Israeli legitimate national interests rather than casting it as a case of crimes, inhumanity and injustice.
Instead of legitimate national interests, James Petras, Bartle Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Binghamton University in New York, sees "a level of crimes parallel to those of the Nazis in World War II" (The Power of Israel in the United States, 2006). Petras writes that "the architects of the Iraqi war planned a series of aggressive wars of conquest based on the principle of domination by violence, torture, collective punishment, total war on civilian populations, their homes, hospitals, cultural heritage, churches and mosques, means of livelihood and educational institutions. These are the highest crimes against humanity."
"The worst crimes," Petras writes, "are committed by those who claim to be a divinely chosen people, a people with 'righteous' claims of supreme victimhood."
It remains to be seen how much more blood and treasure Zionist fanaticism will extract from Americans. But one thing is certain: The Israel lobby is far too powerful for America's good and Israel's.
Forty years ago, the lobby was sufficiently powerful to force President Lyndon Johnson to cover up the intentional Israeli attack on the USS Liberty that resulted in 34 Americans dead and 174 wounded. Adm. Thomas Moorer, chief of naval operations and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff declared, "No American president can stand up to Israel."
Forty years later, the Israel lobby is able to reach into Catholic universities and to overturn tenure decisions. The courageous scholar Norman Finkelstein was denied tenure at DePaul University in Chicago because he is an effective critic of Israeli policies.
In America today, academics and intellectuals who fail to toe the lobby's line are unlikely to receive support from conservative or liberal foundations. Even Mearsheimer and Walt's article, "The Israel Lobby," commissioned by The Atlantic Monthly and from which their book evolved, had to be published overseas in The London Review of Books when The Atlantic Monthly's editors' courage failed them.
American patriots who glorify in their country's status as the "sole superpower" have much to learn about the subservience of their country's foreign policy to a tiny state of 5 million people. There is no better place to begin than with Mearsheimer and Walt's The Israel Lobby.
COPYRIGHT 2007 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
Entries(RSS)
Great article...............................And the book that you speak of should be read by every U.S. Citizen before they vote in 2008.
"They even regard AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, as a legitimate American lobby and not as an unregistered agent of a foreign state."
Just how in the hell is that?
Instead of legitimate national interests, James Petras, Bartle Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Binghamton University in New York, sees “a level of crimes parallel to those of the Nazis in World War II” (The Power of Israel in the United States, 2006). Petras writes that “the architects of the Iraqi war planned a series of aggressive wars of conquest based on the principle of domination by violence, torture, collective punishment, total war on civilian populations, their homes, hospitals, cultural heritage, churches and mosques, means of livelihood and educational institutions. These are the highest crimes against humanity.”
“The worst crimes,” Petras writes, “are committed by those who claim to be a divinely chosen people, a people with ‘righteous’ claims of supreme victimhood.”
It remains to be seen how much more blood and treasure Zionist fanaticism will extract from Americans. But one thing is certain: The Israel lobby is far too powerful for America’s good and Israel’s. (-end quote of above article) ...
What is an anathema and at the root of this entire problem FOR THE WORLD is not only the anachronistic, supremacist ideology of judaism....And that jews - 'religious/ideological' on the one hand - while on the other hand - secularly speaking yet identify themselves as well a blood group: though at the same time conversely preaching to the west cosmopolitanism, internationalism, and the even more absurd 'globalism', so that it's a one-two punch against ALL the goyim. And yet chuck into the mix that since wwII they're also (not the predators when they are the predators) but the perennial victims entitled forever to victimhood status. That jews themselves (or many if not most) do not even see this about themselves is a myopia that gives testimony to the power of the anachronistic, and supremacist ideology of judaism. Even Islam is at least not covert in its anachronistic and predatory ambitions but all too Overt, and thus LESS powerful in its effects and ambitions.
But the other part of the anathema is that today christianity/the west is also under the influence of its own having gone a bit crazy since the great war or wwI - & is so flakey so liberal or democrazy it doesn't appreciate that other so-called religions like judaism and islam (i.e. as near perfect examples) are at war with christinaity in their very teachings and their very subsequent [automatic]behaviors, and are NOT benign in their teachings and universalist or inclusive in their teachings like christianity is. So HOW under those circumstances does christianity and the west expect to even survive never mind prosper in any kind of tranquility and any kind of beauty when it allows its sworn enemies into its camp, and worse 'as if' they are also NOT enemies.
They ARE. Hello?! ...
Bottom line we are all conceptual creatures. It means that since our species took the evolutionary leap into becoming aware of being aware, rather than thinking automatically and unconsciously like the rest of God's creatures - a PAUSE, so to speak, i.e. language happened - in what became in such a pause first the patently imaginary conceptual realm - [then more refined awarenesses at the conscious level of what we were thinking unconsciously] so that we could hone something akin to rational awareness and subsequently rationally directed activity. Rational thought MUST contain the appropriate/rational amount of the irrational as well since the irrational exists too, and is inextricably linked to the more rational and what it means to be human. It means perfect or absolute balance is not possible while at the same time approximate balance is Requisite.
As Chesterton noted the West isn't wrong since the 20th Century began, just gone crazy... is Overly imbalanced in the direction of the irrational. And in this weakness and imbalance Others and their own ideologies like judaism and islam (that have their own interests at heart and Not those of us in the West) have rushed in to fill the void and to lead the weakened and imbalanced parties around by their noses. That is the second even more indigenous part of the current anathema or curse on the west, its own crazy-liberalism which does not realize given its enemies and their own intentions, we can't survive this imbalanced condition in their midst as well. If they were on your side they'd tell you this. I do because i'm christian. It's the christian thing to do. I don't pull the wool over your eyes - though i could jump on the bandwagon and do so, if i chose it. amen. (it's still early, later... cheers! - no, i don't drink all THAT much. only when the pain is too much...and i must strike a blow for liberty.) HAHAHAHA!
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A couple things about the Israel lobby in America.
1) The trial in January of the alleged AIPAC spies is going to be interesting and revealing, if the new AG does not cancel for lack of interest.
2) We Americans can get better coverage about the Middle East reading Israeli news, than American news.
3) Night sticking folks into submission doesn't work for the long term, whether it is Church, State, Secret Police, street urchens or Gang-bangers wielding the sticks.
4) Some of the most intelligent commentary on this whole subject is coming from Zionist and folks sympathetic to Israel and its lasting existence.
I assume your career is secure after writing this?
Make friends with John Hagee and all will be well.
Robert.......................Have you noticed that there is virtualy a news blackout, in spite of the fact that Condoleeza Rice, Wolfowitz, Abrams, and a small army of neocons have been ordered to testify?
Mr Roberts; How much money does Saudi Arabia pay you for anti-semitism that would make Josef Goebbels green with envy??
"Jimmy " Carter is beholden to Saudi money as well. This is why you and other paleo Nazis are accusing others of disloyalty. How many lives did those "Jews" who developed the atomic bomb save? 1 million Americans would have died had the invasion of Japan been necessary. How many of you paleo Nazis would be sitting in wheelchairs had not 2 Jewish scientists developed the polio vaccine.
Mr Roberts It is you who is the traitor to the USA
Mr. Wilson's post above serves as yet one more indication of the neocon's penchant for name-calling whenever this subject comes up. "Paleo Nazis", eh? Ah.
For another example of this particular form of neocon excitability, see the comments discussion here:
http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/blog/g/b844b934-ceef-40c7-8df5-4d35af4859f0
Thanks Joe. I agree.
Sure "Joe Wilson", you are absolutely right. And do not forget (the great Zionist) Jew Albert Einstein, who was behind the atom bomb - as every Zionist (Jew) will tell you.
Yes, it was he, Einstein - and not Dutchman Hendrik Antoon Lorentz, that discovered Special Relativity; it was he, Einstein - and not Frenchman Jules Henri Poincaré who discovered General Relativity; and it was he, Einstein - and not his Serbian (first) wife Mileva Marić, that actually wrote the Nobel-winning paper on Photoelectric Effect. Einstein merely a crafty popularizer of modern physics? Gibberish. Ask any (Zionist) Jew. And should anyone challenge you, calmly point out that another Jew, Richard Feynman from California, invented physics.
However, if you still fail to convince, no problem. Pull out your Golem. Just say: six million. Which isn't quite m-cee-square, merely 6 x 10^6, but is far more potent: it ends every discussion.
Joe Wilson,
Man, are you ever perceptive!!! I mean, I just got $50 billion from the bin Laden family to start up a one-man campaign to smear Jews, and so I decide to come to this forum to put that money to work. And what do I find?! Joe Wilson has already sniffed me out! Dude! You must be working for the intelligence services, to be that good, that fast. I guess it's not too late to return that money . . .
We're so used to an Israel-oriented foreign policy, it seems as normal as air. But if you think of it, it's simply staggering that a country with fewer people than LA County has us in thrall. Why? Who knows? Perhaps it's a degenerated-Christian misunderstanding of charity. Talk about asymmetric warfare! Well meaning but deluded Christians totally snookered by Israel agents (many of whom are 'conservative' writers at NR and elsewhere) who know exactly what they want. Perhaps we'll become an adult country someday and organize our policies along rational lines.
"Charles Hill" (former deputy to sec. of state Shultz) is the Guiliani Campaign Chief Foreign Policy Advisor, and had previously signed onto the open letter to GWB after 911 urging, "Even if evidence does NOT link Iraq directly with the attack, any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and it's sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq."
"I would say, as a card carrying member of the neoconservative conspiracy, that I think Guiliani, McCain, and Thompson, are all getting really good advice------and Romney!........None of the leading Republican candidates buy any of these fundamental criticisms that "Bush" took us on a radically wrong path, and we have to go to a pre-911 foreign policy.".............................(William Kristol, editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD)
In January of 2007, 5 different candidates met together in a foreign country prior to the debates even starting. Guiliani, McCain, Gingrich, Edwards, and Romney......................Why?..................See "7th Herzliya Conference" for the answer...............And the money poured in!
"Mr Roberts; How much money does Saudi Arabia pay you for anti-semitism that would make Josef Goebbels green with envy??" -Joe Wilson (what a sage! ... he-he-he) it's probably Sid? (humor)
"Imagination is more important than thought." -albert Einstein (not actually a physicist per se probably nor really a mensch either? But his compatriots or blood group [or ideologists i.e. judaism] have had the media for over 100 years in the west, ever since and slightly prior to balfour's challenging them to change public opinion in the u.s. overnight from america's supporting germany sentimentally at the time in wwOne - to suddenly being in favor of england - in return for if they succeeded balfour's giving 'the jews' i.e. whoever they are-?-are they a blood group-?-a religion/supremacist ideology-?-a nation-?-media barons/bankers-?-whoever they allegedly are - "they" were given - palestine, since their propaganda at the time succeeded.) Then it just continued on from there to new 'heights' or new lows?
As for the a. Einstein quote above - at best it's inaccurate and/or meaninglessly stated. Why? Unconscious thought preceded imagination-because imagination occurs next after the historic (or 'histrionic') human pause at a conceptual level which leads to language or words. All creatures non-human and human think unconsciously or automatically. After the human pause at the conceptual level which first was whimsical and entirely imaginary-(hey look, so do you like the flowers in my hair-?-i don't know are you going to san francisco?)-over time and with the development of language came something more than the patently imaginary, or in other words next came conscious thought (rather than exclusively unconscious or automatic thought like the rest of the animal kingdom does.) Conscious thought means human awareness of what one is thinking inevitably anyway, unconsciously. Or in other words the human situation of being aware of being aware.
One must define thought. A thought is something complete in itself, and something you can do. A bird thinks unconsciously - there's twigs they're good for a nest i'll go get them and make a nest. That's unconscious/automatic thinking - something complete in itself and something the bird can do. Bears think - there's a bee hive it's got honey in it i'll bust it open and eat it, it's very tasty. Again something complete in itself and something the bear can do. Same thing with humans hunting or building a log cabin. OR also something that is also thought (complete in itself and something we can do) albeit at a slightly more complex level e.g. 'don't confuse motion with action.' Again it's something complete in itself and something we can do. It's something happening at the unconscious level in us as well...for example all of our internal organs actually competing slightly with one another but Primarily cooperating to make the body work well enough - they function - not confusing motion with action, unconsciously/automatically.
All we humans engage in that is different than the animal kingdom now that we are aware of being aware is we think automatically/unconsciously then we Also these days at the conceptual level imagine other scenarios and then we attempt to implement behaviors that we consider rational since we 'expect' or really 'believe' they will be better than any alternatives, even the patently unconscious or automatic alternatives as well. If we're smart we recoginze this Human process has been going on now for 10's of thousands of years...and so it is prudent to stick with the Traditional behavior because in lasting so long it stood a test of time and it stands upon all that has come (so far) before - Unless and until it be Proven that the new 'idea' or 'wish' or 'fantasy' is actually tenable because it is an extention of tradition and so it may be what is Legitimately new, and so it too stands upon all that has come before, and is what is legitimately Next and thus will become Tradional as well. (Like what i'm writing herein will become traditional, I expect, or intuit or I 'believe'. I can't say per se I 'think' it will because it is not Yet sufficiently subscribed to that it is something complete in itself and something we can Do... although on an inceptionary or this original level alone, I do Think so.) I think it is thought as well in other words, and not merely imagination.
An idea, a wish, a fantasy is neither unconscious thought nor unconscious/Conscious thought per se - because it is open ended... it is Not something complete in itself and something we can Do. But it is often confused with being 'thought.' Whether all men are created equal or not is not the question but the statement that 'all men are created equal' is not a thought - rather it is an idea or a wish or a fantasy because it is open-ended and so one must 'believe' in it - since conversely it is not something complete in itself and something that we can Do. However it is something we can 'believe,' for better or worse, obviously-and it's no doubt a mix of the two albeit it's patently imaginary itself.
So when Einstein says above 'imagination is more important than thought.' (if that statement attributed to him was actually said by him) ... he is suggesting in essence that 'anything is better than this world' so let's make up anything under these horrible circumstances... seems then to be the inference. If that is the inference to be taken, I personally think this world is not paradise nor is it hell either per se - so classically speaking it's obviously something inbetween.
In human beings unconscious thought preceded the capacity for imagination, and conscious thought subsequently follwed our ability to imagine. Thus it is the ability to hone rational behavior as a result of this process...taking it all (-including imagination and the irrational-) into consideration...that is more important than any singular or isolated-aspect of the process. Still if we were to focus on a single aspect e.g. thought v. imagination to decide which is 'more important' clearly both unconscious thought or later unconscious-conscious thought in humans - either, - as a singular consideration would trump imagination alone. It's moot since one cannot survive via 'imagination' *alone. FORTUNATELY given Reality we do Not have to take any one of these categories alone - since they all occur 'as if' one in the same process. Thus a. Einstein's remark or quote above is also rather IMMATURE or adolescent. What did he mean-?-and why is he saying that 'as a physicist'?
I think if einstein were attempting to make that statement of his today-?-he would thus be in agreement with my point which says - anything allegedly 'rational' MUST include the appropriate amount or rational amount of the patently imaginary/or irrational as well since the irrational exists in the process too and is inextricable as a part to being a Human. Or if it does not include the appropriate or rational amount of the irrational/imaginary then subsequently what you aver is rational is NOT rational... Again, since it irrationally attempted to exclude a part of the process.
This goes to another of my maxims of which I am aware or conscious which thus is not a 'metaphysical' truth but rather in my opinion a super-physical or an intra-physical axiom i.e. "perfect or absolute balance is not possible in this, our/the world - but similarly, approximate balance is Requisite." That's because the world is dynamic not static it's alive not extant on a pedestal and thus the word 'meta-physical' which employs the greek meta = 'next to' - the physical is really a platonic notion, which as a civilizing facade or that which is an appropriately irrational or imaginary part has its usefulness as well in the physical Human equation. Frankly speaking it is the whimsical, patently imaginary or irrational ideas like that which led to unconscious-Conscious thought, and the possibility for more rational behaviours. That's a good thing. We're all familiar with the term, are we not - 'damage control.'
Thus for example we may indeed be glorified monkies - ah yes indeed - but let's Face it we are thus, under God. amen! (get those endorphins releasing or you may become a retard or a drug addict)
Questions?
imperfect's perfect in a living world... and no one thing isolated is completely actual - rather it is all actual 'as if' one. Next question? -
oh, I don't know... next question -
will they 'let' me on t.v. i.e. 'intra-Media' as the "Shell Answer Man of old?" ... hardly - you must TAKE back the MEDIA... idiots... next question?
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14, "wuthering Heights"
"... Questions? ..."
On and on... What on Earth are you talking about?... ... ...
i kid.
you didn't laugh.
why do you or pretend to - take it so seriously?
funny. maybe then i'm talking about you.
Dr. Z if i were 'g' - I'd sing it out loud and clear like the american poet of the civil war from n.y. ... why not-?-especially today - there's 'benefits.' worst ever happened to me - i promiscuously slept with a coed, and woke the next morning with someone giving me head - i thought it was her - but she was sleeping beside me face to face - it was someone like you - younger version than you no doubt, her male roommate, who was/is g. ... I was spooked - it didn't sit well. I jumped out of bed - rise and shine. ... Since I know I like women-even if I were bi - which to my knowledge i'm not - i'd pick one or the other gender. You should stay gay though... don't go 'both' of the ways... Or save yourself for science.
No, I realize you have achieved your aim with your distractions - so I advise readers to return to post # 14 or those above it... and given our new visitior Dr. Zeitgiest or Dr. Z whatever or prior W.E. ... please dear readers, don't unless it's good for you - descend below # 14 - it's his hope at disruption/distraction.
What a bore you are. Do have a brain in your head - besides a penis in your pants-presumably?
Humor: I keep getting spam that I should buy all of these different brands of pill and patches to enlarge my penis... but if I got them all wouldn't it then be too big? ... We're all right-sized. Probably even Dr. Zeitgiest... are you sending the spam?
"President Jimmy Carter, a man of good will"...I bet back in 1980 Roberts was thrashing Carter as a Reaganaut.
To call Israel an apartheid state is extreme. To call Israel the borderland between the Mid East and the West is more accurate.
Palestinian ARABS don't rate a state and never did. Everything that has happened since Oslo in 1995 was easily predicted and CAME TRUE. It was a disaster for Israel and continues to be.
The "peace process" is a worn out retread tire, however at least it goes nowhere not like W's catastrophe in Iraq.