A piece of "gossip" on your pal Chomsky....
Jeffrey Blankfort: The Israel Lobby and the Left: Uneasy Questions
by Jeffrey Blankfort Sunday August 17, 2003
The movement's fear of alienating American Jews still holds sway over defending the rights of Palestinians
It was 1991 and Noam Chomsky had just finished a lecture in Berkeley on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and was taking questions from the audience. An Arab-American asked him to explain his position regarding the influence of America's Israel lobby.
Chomsky replied that its reputation was generally exaggerated and like other lobbies, it only appears to be powerful when its position lines up with that of the "elites" who determine policy in Washington. Earlier in the evening, he had asserted that Israel received support from the United States as a reward for the services it provides as the US's "cop-on-the -beat" in the Middle East.
Chomsky's response drew a warm round of applause from members of the audience who were no doubt pleased to have American Jews absolved from any blame for Israel's oppression of the Palestinians, then in the fourth year of their first intifada.
What is noteworthy is that Chomsky's explanation for the financial and political support that the U.S. has provided Israel over the years is shared by what is generically known as the Israel lobby, and almost no one else.
Well, not quite "almost no one." Among the exceptions are the overwhelming majority of both houses of Congress and the mainstream media, and what is equally noteworthy, virtually the entire American Left, both ideological and idealistic, including the organizations ostensibly in the forefront of the fight for Palestinian rights.
That there is a meeting of the minds on this issue between supporters of Israel and the Left may help explain why the Palestine support movement within the United States has been an utter failure.
Chomsky's position on the lobby had been established well before that Berkeley evening. In The Fateful Triangle, published in 1983, he assigned it little weight.
"The 'special relationship' is often attributed to domestic political pressures, in particular, the effectiveness of the American Jewish community in political life and influencing opinion. While there is some truth to this it underestimates the scope of the 'support for Israel,' and it overestimates the role of political pressure groups in decision making." (P.13)
A year earlier, Congress had applauded Israel's devastating invasion of Lebanon, and then appropriated millions in additional aid to pay for the shells the Israeli military had expended. How much of this support was due to the legislators' "support for Israel" and how much was due to pressures from the Israel lobby? It was a question that should have been examined by the Left at the time, but wasn't. Twenty years later, Chomsky's view is still the "conventional wisdom."
In 2001, the midst of the second intifada, he went further, arguing that "it is improper-particularly in the United States--to condemn 'Israeli atrocities,'" and that the "'US/Israel-Palestine' conflict" is the more correct term, comparable with placing the proper responsibility for "Russian- backed crimes in Eastern Europe [and] US-backed crimes in Central America." And, to emphasize the point, he wrote, "IDF helicopters are US helicopters with Israeli pilots."
Prof. Stephen Zunes, who might be described as a Chomsky acolyte, would not only relieve Israeli Jews from any responsibility for their actions, he would have us believe they are the victims.
In "Tinderbox, his widely praised (by Chomsky and others) new book on the Middle East, Zunes faults the Arabs for "blaming Israel, Zionism, or the Jews for their problems." According to Zunes, the Israelis have been forced to assume a role similar to that assigned to members of the Jewish ghettos of Eastern Europe who performed services, mainly tax collection, as middlemen between the feudal lords and the serfs in earlier times In fact, writes Zunes, "US policy today corresponds with this historic anti-Semitism." Anyone comparing the relative power of the Jewish community in centuries past with what we find in the US today will find that statement absurd.
Jewish power has, in fact, been trumpeted by a number of Jewish writers, including one, J.J. Goldberg, editor of the Jewish weekly Forward, who wrote a book by that name in 1996. Any attempt, however, to explore the issue from a critical standpoint, inevitably leads to accusations of anti-Semitism, as Bill and Kathy Christison pointed out in their article on the role of right wing Jewish neo-cons in orchestrating US Middle East policy, in Counterpunch (1/25/3):
"Anyone who has the temerity to suggest any Israeli instigation of, or even involvement in, Bush administration war planning is inevitably labelled somewhere along the way as an anti-Semite. Just whisper the word "domination" anywhere in the vicinity of the word "Israel," as in "U.S.-Israeli domination of the Middle East" or "the U.S. drive to assure global domination and guarantee security for Israel," and some Leftist who otherwise opposes going to war against Iraq will trot out charges of promoting the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the old czarist forgery that asserted a Jewish plan for world domination."
Presumably, this is what Zunes would call an example of the "latent anti-Semitism which has come to the fore with wildly exaggerated claims of Jewish economic and political power." And that it "is a naive assumption to believe that foreign policy decision making in the US is pluralistic enough so that any one lobbying group can have so much influence."
This is hardly the first time that Jews have been in the upper echelons of power as Benjamin Ginsberg points out in The Fatal Embrace: Jews and the State, but there has never been a situation anything like the present. This was how Ginzberg began his book:
"Since the 1960s, Jews have come to wield considerable influence in American economic, cultural, intellectual and political life. Jews played a central role in American finance during the 1980s, and they were among the chief beneficiaries of that decade's corporate mergers and reorganizations. Today, though barely 2 % of the nation's population is Jewish, close to half its billionaires are Jews. The chief executive officers of the three major television networks and the four largest film studios are Jews, as are the owners of the nation's largest newspaper chain and the most influential single newspaper, the New York Times".
That was written in 1993, Today, ten years later, ardently pro-Israel American Jews are in positions of unprecedented influence within the United States and have assumed or been given decision making positions over virtually every segment of our culture and body politic. This is no secret conspiracy. Regular readers of the New York Times business section, which reports the comings and goings of the media tycoons, are certainly aware of it. Does this mean that each and every one is a pro-Israel zealot? Not necessarily, but when one compares the US media with its European counterparts in their respective coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict, the extreme bias in favour of Israel on the part of the US media is immediately apparent.
This might explain Nation Columnist Eric Alterman's discovery that "Europeans and Americans differ profoundly in their views of the Israel/Palestine issue at both the elite and popular levels.. with Americans being far more sympathetic to Israel and the Europeans to the Palestinian cause"
An additional component of Chomsky's analysis is his insistence that it is the US, more than Israel, that is the "rejectionist state," implying that were it not for the US, Israel might long ago have abandoned the West Bank and Gaza to the Palestinians for a mini-state.
Essential to his analysis is the notion that every US administration since that of Eisenhower has attempted to advance Israel?s interests in line with America's global and regional agenda. This is a far more complex issue than Chomsky leads us believe. Knowledgeable insiders, both critical and supportive of Israel, have described in detail major conflicts that have taken place between US and Israeli administrations over the years in which Israel, thanks to the diligence of its domestic lobby, prevailed.
In particular, Chomsky ignores or misinterprets the efforts made by every US president beginning with Richard Nixon to curb Israel's expansionism, halt its settlement building and to obtain its withdrawal from the Occupied Territories.
"What happened to all those nice plans?" asked Israeli journalist and peace activist Uri Avnery.
"Israel's governments... mobilized the collective power of US Jewry --which dominates Congress and the media to a large degree-- against them. Faced by this vigorous opposition, all the presidents; great and small, football players and movie stars-folded one after another."
Gerald Ford, angered that Israel had been reluctant to leave the Sinai following the 1973 war not only suspended aid for six months in 1975, but in March of that year made a speech, backed by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, that called for a "reassessment" of the US-Israel relationship. Within weeks, AIPAC (American-Israel Public Affairs Committee), Israel's Washington lobby secured a letter signed by 76 senators "confirming their support for Israel, and suggesting that the White House see fit to do the same. The language was tough, the tone almost bullying." Ford backed down.
We need to only look at the current Bush presidency to see that this phenomenon is still the rule. In 1991, the same year as Chomsky's talk, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir asked the first Bush administration for $10 billion in loan guarantees in order, he said, to provide for the resettlement of Russian Jews. Bush Sr. had earlier balked at a request from Congress to appropriate an additional $650 million dollars to compensate Israel for sitting out the Gulf War, but gave in when he realized that his veto would be overridden. But now he told Shamir that Israel could only have the guarantees if it would freeze settlement building and promised that no Russian Jews would be resettled in the West Bank.
An angry Shamir refused and called on AIPAC to mobilize Congress and the organized American Jewish community in support of the loan guarantees.
A letter, drafted by AIPAC was signed by more than 240 members of the House demanding that Bush approve them, and 77 senators signed on to supporting legislation.
On September 12, 1991, Jewish lobbyists descended on Washington in such numbers that Bush felt obliged to call a televised press conference in which he complained that "1000 Jewish lobbyists are on Capitol Hill against little old me." It would prove to be his epitaph.
Chomsky pointed to Bush's statement, at the time, as proof that the vaunted Israel lobby was nothing more than "a paper tiger "It took scarcely more than a raised eyebrow for the lobby to collapse," he told readers of Z Magazine. He could not have been further from the truth.
The next day, Tom Dine, AIPAC's Executive Director, declared that "September 12, 1991 is a day that will live in infamy," Similar comments were uttered by Jewish leaders who accused Bush of provoking anti-Semitism. What was more important, his friends in the mainstream media, like William Safire, George Will, and Charles Krauthammer, not only criticized him, they began to find fault with the economy and how he was running the country. It was all downhill from there. Bush?s Jewish vote, which has been estimated at 38% in 1988, dropped down to no more than 12%, with some estimates as low as 8%.
Bush's opposition to the loan guarantees was the last straw for the Israel lobby. When he made disparaging comments about Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem in March, 1990, AIPAC had begun the attack (briefly halted during the the Gulf War). Dine wrote a critical op-ed in the New York Times and followed that with a vigorous speech to the United Jewish Appeal?s Young Leaders Conference. "Brothers and sisters," he told them as they prepared to go out and lobby Congress on the issue, "remember that Israel's friends in this city reside on Capitol Hill." Months later, the loan guarantees were approved, but by then, Bush was dead meat.
Now, jump ahead to last Spring when Bush Jr. forthrightly demanded that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon withdraw his troops from Jenin, saying "Enough is enough!" It made headlines all over the world, as did his backing down when Sharon refused. What happened? Harsh criticism boomed from within his own party in Congress and from his daddy?s old friends in the media. Will associated Dubya with Yasser Arafat and accused Bush of having lost his "moral clarity." The next day, Safire suggested that Bush was "being pushed into a minefield of mistakes" and that he had "become a wavering ally as Israel fights for survival." Junior got the message and within a week, declared Sharon to be "a man of peace." Since then, as journalist Robert Fisk and others have noted, Sharon seems to be writing Bush's speeches.
There are some who believe that Bush Jr. and presidents before him made statements critical of Israel for appearances only, to convince the world, and the Arab countries, in particular, that the US can be an "honest broker" between the Israelis and the Palestinians. But it is difficult to make a case that any of them would put themselves in a position to be humiliated simply as a cover for US policy.
A better explanation was provided by Stephen Green, whose Taking Sides, America's Secret Relations with Militant Israel, was the first examination of State Department archives concerning US-Israel relations. Since the Eisenhower administration, wrote Green, in 1984, "Israel, and friends of Israel in America, have determined the broad outlines of US policy in the region. It has been left to American Presidents to implement that policy, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, and to deal with the tactical issues."
An exaggeration, perhaps, but former US Senator James Abourezk (D-South Dakota) echoed Green?s words in a speech before the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee last June:
"That is the state of American politics today. The Israeli lobby has put together so much money power that we are daily witnessing US senators and representatives bowing down low to Israel and its US lobby.
"Make no mistake. The votes and bows have nothing to do with the legislators' love for Israel. They have everything to do with the money that is fed into their campaigns by members of the Israeli lobby. My estimate is that at least $6 billion flows from the American Treasury to Israel each year. That money, plus the political support the US gives Israel at the United Nations, is what allows Israel to conduct criminal operations in Palestine with impunity."
That is a reality that has been repeated many times in many forms by ex-members of Congress, usually speaking off the record. It is the reality that Chomsky and those who accept his analysis prefer to ignore.
The problem is not so much that Chomsky has been wrong. He has, after all, been right on many other things, particularly in describing the ways in which the media manipulates the public consciousness to serve the interests of the state. However, by explaining US support for Israel simply as a component of those interests, and ignoring the influence of the Israel lobby in determining that component, he appears to have made a major error that has had measurable consequences. By accepting Chomsky's analysis, the Palestinian solidarity movement has failed to take the only political step that might have weakened the hold of Israel on Congress and the American electorate, namely, by challenging the billions of dollars in aid and tax breaks that the US provides Israel on an annual basis.
The questions that beg asking are why his argument has been so eagerly accepted by the movement and why the contrary position put forth by people of
considerable stature such as Edward Said, Ed Herman, Uri Avnery, and more recently, Alexander Cockburn, has been ignored. There appear to be several reasons.
The people who make up the movement, Jews and non-Jews alike, have embraced Chomsky?s position because it is the message they want to hear; not feeling
obligated to "blame the Jews" is reassuring. The fear of either provoking anti--Semitism or being called an anti-Semite (or a self-hating Jew) has become so ingrained into our culture and body politic that no one, including Chomsky or Zunes, is immune. This is reinforced by constant reminders of the Jewish Holocaust that, by no accident, appear in the movies and in major news media on a regular basis. Chomsky, in particular, has been heavily criticized by the Jewish establishment for decades for his criticism of Israeli policies, even to the point of being "excommunicated," a distinction he shares with the late Hannah Arendt. It may be fair to assume that at some level this history influences Chomsky's analysis.
But the problems of the movement go beyond the fear of invoking anti-Semitism as Chomsky is aware and correctly noted in "The Fateful Triangle":
[T]he American Left and pacifist groups, apart from fringe elements, have quite generally been extremely supportive of Israel (contrary to many baseless allegations), some passionately so, and have turned a blind eye to practices that they would be quick to denounce elsewhere."
The issue of US aid to Israel provides a clear example. During the Reagan era, there was a major effort launched by the anti-intervention movement to block a $15 million annual appropriation destined for the Nicaraguan contras. People across the country were urged to call their Congressional representatives and get them to vote against the measure. That effort was not only successful; it forced the administration to engage in what became known as Contragate.
At the time, Israel was receiving the equivalent of that much money on a daily basis. Now, that amount "officially" is about $10 million a day and yet no major
campaign has ever been launched to stem that flow or even call the public?s attention to it. When attempts were made they were stymied by the opposition of such
key players (at the time) as the American Friends Service Committee which was anxious, apparently, not to alienate major Jewish contributors. (Recent efforts
initiated on the internet to "suspend" military aid (but not economic!) until Israel ends the occupation have gone nowhere.)
The slogans that have been advanced by various sectors of the Palestinian solidarity movement, such as "End the Occupation," End Israeli Apartheid," "Zionism
equals Racism," or "Two States for Two Peoples," while addressing key issues of the conflict, assume a level of awareness on the part of the American people for which no evidence exists. Concern for where their tax dollars are going, particularly at a time of massive cutbacks in social programs, certainly would have greater
resonance. Initiating a serious campaign to halt aid would require focusing on the role of Congress and recognition of the role of the Israel lobby.
Chomsky's evaluation of Israel's position in the Middle East admittedly contains elements of truth, but nothing sufficient to explain what former Undersecretary of State George Ball described as America's "passionate attachment" to the Jewish state. However, his attempt to portray the US-Israel relationship as mirroring that of the Washington's relations to its client regimes in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, has no basis in reality.
US involvement in Central America was fairly simple. Arms and training were supplied to military dictatorships in order for their armies and their death squads to suppress the desires of their own citizens for land, civil rights, and economic justice, all of which would undermine US corporate interests. This was quite transparent. Does Israel fit into that category? Obviously not. Whatever one may say about Israel, its Jewish majority, at least, enjoys democratic rights.
Also, there were no Salvadoran, Nicaraguan or Guatemalan lobbies of any consequence in Washington to lavish millions of dollars wooing or intimidating members of Congress; no one in the House or Senate from any of those client countries with possible dual-loyalties approving multi-billion dollar appropriations on an annual basis; none owning major television networks, radio stations, newspapers, or movie studios, and no trade unions or state pension funds investing billions of dollars in their respective economies. The closest thing in the category of national lobbies is that of Miami's Cuban exiles whose existence and power the Left is willing to acknowledge, even though its political clout is minuscule compared to that of Israel's supporters.
What about Chomsky's assertion that Israel is America's cop-on-the-beat in the Middle East? There is, as yet, no record of a single Israeli soldier shedding a drop of blood in behalf of US interests, and there is little likelihood one will be asked to do so in the future. When US presidents have believed that a cop was necessary in the region, US troops were ordered to do the job.
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