Anybody recall what's up with that AIPAC/Franklin "spy scandal"? Saul Singer comments:
Sep. 9, 2004 9:40
Interesting Times: The revenge of the anti-cabal
By SAUL SINGER
I know AIPAC. I spoke at the last AIPAC conference, I worked closely with AIPAC lobbyists over 10 years as a Congressional staffer, and before that as a student activist. I'm even married to AIPAC - my wife heads its Israel office. I'm practically a card-carrying member of the pro-Israel "cabal."
FBI, come and get me.
I admit I'm biased, but is there anyone else who is angry at this McCarthyite witchhunt? From various contradictory reports, we learn that Israel is running a spy ring, there are moles in the Pentagon, that AIPAC is a conduit of NSA information (i.e. supersecret intercepts) to Israel, and leaked the fact of the investigation to boot.
I will eat this column if there is a single arrest in this "case." Anyone who knows AIPAC and how Washington works can see these charges are absurd from top to bottom. From the shades of Pollard with which it began, it is boiling down to the possible leak of one quasi-secret (more like an op-ed, according to one official), unconsummated (there still is no approved directive on Iran) policy musing by a mid-level Pentagon employee.
This compared to the near-certainty that some bureaucrats illegally leaked their own investigation, all but ruining the lives of a number of patriotic Americans and impugning the political legitimacy of millions of pro-Israel Americans and the organization that proudly represents them. Other organizations, such as the ACLU, should join the Anti-Defamation League in calling for the appointment of a special counsel to find and prosecute the leakers for abuse of office and other crimes.
But it gets worse. For years American policy elites have bristled at what they regard as excessive Jewish power. They resent the efficacy of AIPAC, high levels of US military assistance to Israel, and the "pro-Israel tilt" of American foreign policy.
Though Pat Buchanan spoke of an "amen corner" that pushed America into ousting Saddam Hussein from Kuwait in 1991, it was really his friends who were a marginalized corner of the policy debate. Then came 9/11.
WHEN TERROR struck the American mainland, President George W. Bush responded with a foreign policy revolution of a magnitude not seen since Harry S Truman laid the foundations of the Cold War over half-a-century before. Revolutions are carried out by small bands of leaders, leaving behind a large, frustrated group to lead the inevitable reaction.
The Buchanan corner has hitched a ride on anti-Bush Doctrine reaction. We are seeing, in short, the revenge of the anti-cabal.
The anti-cabal doesn't care if there are any arrests, because they have already succeeded in portraying Jewish power as something sinister, perhaps even treasonous. This may seem to be "only" a Jewish concern. Far from it.
In a way, this is good news for the Bush Doctrine, because it means that its opponents have so failed to defeat it on the merits that they have resorted to spy scares and innuendo to advance their cause. But the stakes remain high. Will this odd coalition of right-wing anti-Semites, left-wing Bush-haters, and Scowcroftian "realists" (on both sides of the aisle) succeed in marginalizing Bush's post-9/11 revolution?
These reactionary forces are already on their way to succeeding in two respects. First, by convincing so many Americans that the war in Iraq was a mistake (though polls indicate that Bush's convention speech shifted views on the war). Second, by selling the idea that the entire Bush policy is the work of "neoconservatives," almost all of whom happen to be Jewish.
We cabalists must fight back.
First, rather than denying Jewish power, we should ask,"What's wrong with that?" Does being Jewish make one any less American? Does anyone count Catholics or any other ethnic or religious group in the corridors of power? And if Jews are pro-Israel, what is wrong with that? Is anyone concerned about the Greek, Hispanic, Lebanese, and other Americans who lobby for close relations with countries they love along with their own? How is being pro-Israel different from being pro-British during World War II, or supporting any other close American ally?
Second, others must join us. There are millions of non-Jewish Americans who strongly support Israel, either because they support a plucky democratic ally fighting against the same jihad, or out of religious conviction, or both. This same group supports the Bush Doctrine of preemption against the Islamist terror network. This American majority dare not let the conventional wisdom jell that the war is being fought by a lonely president, fooled into it by a handful of cabalists so isolated that even their fellow Jews vote in droves for John Kerry.
American Jews, for their part, should stop holding off pro-Israel Christians with a 10-foot pole. This was always an unaffordable indulgence, as if the pro-Israel cause was so awash with supporters that millions of natural allies could be shunned because of alleged religious motives or irrelevant disagreements on other issues.
It is no coincidence that when Bush spoke at the convention of "our good friend Israel," it was an instant applause line for the, let us say, hardly Jewish audience.
Welcome to the cabal.
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