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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (187050)	5/22/2006 2:41:06 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Thanks for linking that Sun Tzu, it's a big relief to see that not everyone on the Left is sliding into Protocols of the Elders of Zion-like conspiracy thinking. However, there are naturally a few arguments and gaps to question in the article. What progressive supporters of Mearsheimer's and Walt's analysis seem to ignore is that both men have a vested interest in absolving from responsibility the foreign-policy establishment that they have served so loyally all these years. Israel and its supporters are in essence being used as convenient scapegoats for America's disastrous policies in the Middle East. He's certainly got a point about Israel being a scapegoat, but let us recall just what alliance the foreign policy establishment types DID favor, and have long favored heavily in the Mideast. Does the name Saudi Arabia come to mind? It should. Do they have a lobby? Oh boy and how. Have US expenditures to them and for them been heavy? Yep, including Gulf War I. Have there been certain unintended consequences of the alliance? You could say that. Anybody laying out the US portion of "blame" for the rise of the Islamists has to lay support for the House of Saud right alongside of support for Israel as a proximate cause. Yet how is it that Zunes manages not to mention "Saudi Arabia" even once in the article? Nor does he mention "Iran," which is currently providing very good motivation for Israel to keep its armed forces up to full strength, regardless of the wishes of the US establishment. I seem to remember some quite recent remarks about wiping Israel off the map. But Zunes doesn't seem to recall them. The unfortunate reality is that the US government is perfectly capable of supporting right-wing allies in efforts to invade, repress, and colonize weaker neighbors without a well-organized ethnic minority somehow forcing Congress or the administration to do so. To claim otherwise is to assume that without the pro-Israel lobby, the United States would be supportive of international law and human rights in its foreign policy Ah yes, that Utopia of "international law and human rights", which only the US impedes. Doubtless if the wishes of France, Russia, China and the Arab world could be followed without this impediment, everything would be so much better, their track record regarding human and rights and international law being what it is. Why this chimera has credence I will never know. I suppose because the leftish proponents of a world government know that they haven't a hope unless they can get the US to buy in. Meantime, they are like a Greek chorus following the US (& Israel too) around, shouting "Marquis of Queensbury rules now! Marquis of Queensbury rules!" whenever the US gets into a fight - but always only at the US (or Israel), never at its opponent. The opponent is allowed not only to punch below the belt, but to use a knife and a suicide bomb belt too. It's considered affirmative action in war, or something. The entire argument would make so much more sense if all sides could agree on ONE standard to be applied UNIVERSALLY. But many proponents of human rights have imbibed too much multiculturalism to be able to apply the same standards they apply to America to those they deem non-European or non-American. Nobody can bring himself to apply the same standards to Damascus, Khartoum as they do to Washington or Jerusalem. If they could, they might notice that Ariel Sharon handled Jenin in 2002 just slightly differently from the way Hafez al Assad handled Hama in 1982, though Sharon certainly had the power to have crushed and emptied Jenin the way Assad did Hama. If they could apply the same standard, then they might conclude that Syria and Israel deserved quite different scores. Then I might be able to hear criticism of Israel without ridiculous arguments that the is "no moral argument" to support Israel over Syria.

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (187050)	5/22/2006 10:28:35 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

It is certainly true that the United States is, in the words of Mearsheimer and Walt, "out of step" with the vast majority of the international community on the question of Israel and Palestine. Kind of easy to be "in step" with the international community (whoever they may be?.. possibly the non-democratic members of the world) when they don't have to bear the political cost of their decisions, riding upon the coat-tails of US security policy. Or maybe it's because they remember all the hijackings and terrorist bombings perpetrated by the Palestinians against them when they refused to support their cause? Or maybe it's a little of both... ;0) For example, we can recall French and Russian support for Iraq. But folks like you don't think about the amount of ECONOMIC INTEREST they had in keeping Saddam in power. They didn't give a sh*t if he was a brutal dictator.. they know that the US/UK would contain him if he got out of line. So it was an easy decision for them to muck around and put their own interests ahead of those of the UNSC, as well as regional security. They had money to make.. and all of those oil concessions that Saddam promised to them was a tremendous incentive that motivated them to have the sanctions removed, or at least undermined. And now we're seeing the Russians and Chinese doing the same thing with Iran, as they try to PREVENT the UNSC from becoming involved and applying sanctions against that intransigent government. So tell me.. if the Israeli lobby is so powerful, can not the same be said for the Palestinian lobby in Europe and Russia?? Could it be that the Israeli lobby depends upon the US to prevent being walked over by the European-Palestinan block? Could it be that maybe it's the RIGHT THING TO DO supporting a democratic state, flawed as it might be, over non-democratic dictatorships and monarchies?? And what about the Saudi lobby in the US? There's been tremendous controversy about the level of Arab lobbying support in the US as well.. They certainly have more financial resources than does Israel (and they generally pay cash for the things they buy from us). Bottom line, as the authors seem to imply, there is no clear "black and white" with regard to the measure of control the Israeli lobbies have, or do not have. There is certainly major support for protecting Israel from it's enemies, but there is also tremendous criticism levied at Israel by the US Jewish lobby (which is quite liberal). And I found it curious, though it makes sense, that Israel would have lobbied on behalf of Syria, to prevent Assad's government from falling and ushering in an Islamist regime. Hawk

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (187050)	5/30/2006 5:53:44 PM
From: Noel de Leon	Respond to of 281500

Thanks for the article. Zunes deals with the first part of W&Ms article in a positive way, is it in US FP interests to support Israel as massively as it does. Zunes adds, indirectly, the question is it in Israel's long term interests to support US FP in the ME? The second part of W&M's article where W&M try to show that there is a powerful Israeli lobby is knocked down without the usual anti-Semitism/protocol of Zion nonsense. As you have seen in previous posts my position was to get a debate on the question of US FP interests in the ME and it's support of Israel on the agenda. Unfortunately the debate was quickly reduced to questions of personal motives.