Continuing the Discussion on Zionism and the Media

Dear Friends,
we continue this extremely important and absolutely frank discussion with
response of Michael Neumann to Jeff Blankfort, while other equally important
will be sent by separate email. The most important part of this long
exchange (in my opinion) is the agreement of both respected men of terrible
complicity of the Jewish American leftists and peaceniks in cover-up of
Israeli crimes and in blocking all rational response of American public.
Shamir

From Andrew Hanos:

I liked Mr Neumann's essay. It makes a telling point in that there is a
cowardice in the rest of us allowing these crims to get away with it. This
was stretched pretty thin though and was perobably stylistically attractive
rather than water-tight. Blankfort's response is warranted in about 90% of
his comments, I would estimate. That is pretty high. Both are nevertheless
adding to a necessary debate, so I hope Mr Neumann is not discouraged by the
savagery of Blankfort's reply.

Good work.

From Robert Silverman, Montreal

Dear Israel,


I find your list super great.


Robert

From Maguire
Blankfort writes:
"At this moment in time, one must admit that the Palestine solidarity
movement in the US has been an utter failure and when people are beginning
to look at the root causes of that failure, among them, the faulty analysis
that Chomsky has purveyed and that you have repeated, you, in effect, are
dragging the movement back to repeating its errors".

First there was the exhaustive analysis of Jewish media control, which
pro-white people have known about for decades. After mixing apples and
oranges by implying the steel industry plays as great a role in the
political process as the media does, the question remains unanswered, what
to do?

Answer:

Enact anti-trust legislation to prohibit:

a) any foreign ownership shares in any American media
b) prohibit any person or corporation from owning any part of more than
one radio or TV station, newspaper or CATV system.
c) regulate ALL tv, radio and CATV as common carriers, just like the
telephone company. Require them to sell all their air time in 30 minute
blocks, at public auction, to totally unrelated parties. Punish with
capital punishment any owner making backroom deals to sell air time outside
the public auction process.

Easy, eh? All that's left is to install legislatures minded to enact that
legislation.

More likely the Left will devote several thousand more articles to
discussing this issue. "Reporting" as per the ending statement. One report
per Palestinian child or woman killed. Such a deal!

"Maguire"



From Michael Neumann:

Just two days ago I wrote Jeffrey Blankfort that it would take me a long
time to
respond to his excellent critique. I didn't at the time realize - my
fault,
not his - that his response was being circulated. Now I feel, perhaps
purely
from vanity, that a response is more urgent. So here it is, though
Blankfort's
points richly deserve more careful consideration.

I have put BLANKFORT before his comments, which are followed by my
replies marked NEUMANN
(I abbreviated original materials for your convenience, as they can be
viewed in the archive of shamireaders [at] yahoogroups.com open for all)
American Power and Jewish Power

By MICHAEL NEUMANN

NEUMANN
Have the white folks been dethroned by the Jews?

BLANKFORT
First, American Jews are, for the most part, "white folks," and are treated
us such. When was the last time some one was stopped by the police for
"driving
while Jewish."

NEUMANN
This is a misunderstanding. I was saying that others posit a Jewish power
structure which apparently is meant to have dethroned the old WASP (hence
white)
power structure. That's perfectly consistent with Jews being treated as
whites.

------------------------------------------------------
NEUMANN
<There is> evidence for the enormous, disgraceful complicity of American
Jews in Israeli
crimes, a complicity which includes very serious sins of omission throughout
the
Jewish left. The evidence also supports the notion that Jews have
considerable
political influence. But it does not support the claim that Jewish power
somehow
amounts to Jewish control of America or Americans, or even of American
foreign
policy. Whether or not the claim is antisemitic, it is annoying, because it
lets
the real culprits for American policy off the hook. Their identity is no
dark
secret. They are the Americans.

BLANKFORT
Only the far right claims "Jewish control of America," so that is a straw
man, as is the generalization that Jews control "American foreign policy"
beyond
that of the Middle East.

NEUMANN
It seems odd to suggest that the claims of the far right are straw men.
Quite
unsurprisingly in the current situation, the ideas of the far right, not
itself
insubstantial, are now gaining currency in other circles.

The claim about Jewish control is also found on the left, and among
supporters
of the Palestinians who are not left-wing. And it is absolutely untrue that
the
question of Jewish control is raised only with respect to American foreign
policy in the Middle East. Given the global scope of the war on terror and
the
attempts by Israel and the Zionists to exploit this crusade, their influence
certainly extends far beyond Middle East affairs. This of course raises
questions about their control of American foreign policy in general.

Beyond this, the question of how much power Jews must have in order to
exercise
so much control over American foreign policy is in any case is a natural
one,
and quite worth exploring. Even if one starts from an emphasis on the
Jewish
lobby, a political person must ask: can these people be beaten? That
inevitably leads to the question of the extent of Jewish power over American
society in general.

--------
NEUMANN
The notion that Jews control America stems from a couch-potato school of
political analysis. If your world is the TV screen, the Jewish-control
theory
makes some sense, because Jews really do pervade the entire range of your
remote. And if you should look at the newspaper during commercials, you may
find
something similar. But contrary to popular belief, the sinews of reality are
not
found in the media. They reside in armies, oil fields, auto plants,
factories,
farms, mines, forests, oceans, roads and airports. Here the Jews do not
prevail,
nor do they prevail even in the financial world. Even in the media, their
power
is exaggerated.


BLANKFORT
Jews like Charles Hurwitz of Maxam and David Fisher, owner of the GAP, are
two of America's largest owners of forests. However, the suggestion that
auto
plant owners have more clout than owners of the communcations industry is
simply
a reflection of a pre WW2 mindset. I notice that you don't mention corporate
real estate where Jews are dominant. As for their power in the media being
exaggerated it is anything but. Here is enough of a sampling to indicate
that it
is not:
<long list of important Jews in media omitted>
And that's just for starters. From the boss to the delivery it's an
impressive
list. While they certainly can't be put in the same box when it comes to
Israel,
they more or less guarantee that there will be limits to any criticism they
may
make of Israel.

NEUMANN

None of this gets to the heart of the matter. See my response to the next
comment.

----------
NEUMANN

Most of the captains of industry I hear about
aren't Jewish. They have many times more dollars to spend than the Jews have
put
into influencing US policy.

BLANKFORT

I find it curious that you exclude the media, but Jews dominate the
telecommunciations industry, as well, although, again, your question has
very
little do with the setting of Middle East policy in which pro-Israel
interests
encounter little corporate opposition. What is more significant is to look
at
the list of donors to the major political parties that can be found on the
Mother Jones website (see Mother Jones 400). This list is overwhelmingly
dominated by Jews, eight of the top 10 and 13 of the top 20, almost all to
the
Democrats. Haim Saban, an Egyptian-born Israeli, was fifth on the 1999-2000
list,with $1,250.000. Last year, he gave $7 million to the Democrats, the
largest single donation in the party's history. Please don't tell me that
there
is any Gentile capitalist he can't play poker with.

NEUMANN

The question I am addressing is not whether there are many rich and powerful
Jews, but whether Jews control America. I excluded nothing: the reason I
took a
list out of an almanac is because it represents a generally accepted view of
what constitute the major sectors of the America economy. I was, in other
words, preventing myself and others from skewing the picture of Jewish
control
by focusing on some sectors instead of others.

Blankfort may be doing just that when he moves from the media to 'the
telecommunications industry', because I'm unclear how he defines it. Jews
dominate the whole thing? It is normally thought to include such enormous
economic entities as the telephone companies, the providers of fibre-optics,
handset manufacturers, specialized chip-makers, certain software companies,
the
major ISPs, and so on. Where's the evidence? Moreover, issues of power, as
opposed to presence, have little to do with the Jewish editors, news anchors
and
news directors with whom Blankfort pads his list. And far from denying a
pervasive Jewish presence, I asserted it. Real power lies, of course, with
whoever hires and fires these people.

Beyond that, my objection is simple. You can't measure either the control
or
the power possessed by A without comparing A's resources and political
assets to
those of the other guys. Blankfort has made no serious effort to do this.
In
any case, I never denied that Jews were dominant in the media. Their
dominance
is consistent with their power being exaggerated. The exaggeration has to
do
with the importance of the media and the ability of non-Jews to have media
power
as well, not with dismissing such evidence of Jewish media ownership as
Blankfort produces.

There is another consideration that I didn't raise in the essay. Even if,
like
myself, one is unconcerned with antisemitism, it is not unreasonable at
least to
raise the question of whether every one of these Jewish magnates is a big
supporter of Israel. I myself have suggested that almost all Jews are
complicit
in Zionist crimes, but there's a difference between the complicity that
comes
from failure to work against them, and that which comes from active support.
In
assessing Jewish power in America, any assumption that all powerful Jews
work in
favor of Jewish aims at least needs confirmation. Obviously many of them,
and
almost certainly most of them in the media, do work to advance Israel's
interests. But can't some of these people, especially outside the media,
just
want to make money?

----------
NEUMANN

One might reply: ah, but the Jews control such crucial elements of American
life. This is another couch-potato hypothesis, that media control is all.
The
claim would be that, despite non-Jews and like Ted Turner, Steve Chase and
Rupert Murdoch, Jews control enough of the media to control our minds and
their
decisions.

The inherent implausibility of this hypothesis has two components. The first
is
that it must postulate Jewish control over all the gentiles in a position to
have some media influence of their own. Oil company execs, agri-business
magnates and lumber potentates must have succumbed to the subtle messages of
Seinfeld re-runs and become incapable of pursuing their own interests,
unable to
withstand Jewish media despite all their riches. If so, one can only marvel
at
the merciful generosity of the Jews, who appear from the goodness of their
heart
to have left non-Jews with an inexplicably enormous remnant of power and
wealth.

BLANKFORT

Again, you introduce irrelevant arguments in what seems to be a desperate
attempt to disapprove the influence of Jews. You create the hypothesis that
you
destroys Your dismissal of the significance of Jewish control over most key
aspects of US media, without mention to the racist images of the Arabs that
have
become increasingly prevalent in film and television, is extraordinary. By
injecting Seinfeld reruns into the discussion, your argument borders on the
ludicrous.

NEUMANN

I can't reply to this because I don't think I understand it. For now I'll
just
use Blankfort's comment as an excuse to tout another of my pet theories,
that
the prominence of loveable Jewish comics throughout the history of modern
American media has been a major factor in shaping American attitudes towards
Jews and, indirectly, towards Israel. But certainly nothing I said is
inconsistent with Jews or anyone else disseminating racist stereotypes of
Arabs
throughout the media.

-------
NEUMANN

The second implausibility lies in the presupposition that Americans are
deluded
media slaves. (Saying this to a leftist is like telling Virginia there is no
Santa Claus.) Briefly--the issue is too large to cover here--media bias does
not
take the form of censorship as often as many love to think. The mainstream
media, for instance, provide more than enough information to build a
conclusive
case for Israel's criminality, and no one has to stick to the mainstream
media.
Equally important, the media may at times play a role in forming opinion,
but at
least as often they are anxious or happy or simply so unoriginal as to
reflect
opinion. Perhaps the reason so many people believe what the media tells them
is
that the media tells them what they already believe.

BLANKFORT

And where, pray tell, do they get those beliefs? How it works was stated
clearly in a sports column by Selena Roberts in the January 8th New York
Times.
She was interviewing Doug Williams, who was one of the first black
quarterbacks
to break the barriers in the NFL that saw potentially great black
quarterbacks
who had starred in college being shifted to running back because they were
not
considered intelligent enough to play quarterback, and even now, those who
have
broken the color line will be lauded for their "mobility" or their
"athleticism"
and not for their "mental capacity."

"It's the people who have the mike," said Williams, "The networks lead
perception." As this is true of sports, so it certainly is when it comes to
reporting the news and crafting opinions.

NEUMANN

As far as I can see, all this says is that someone says that the networks
lead
perception. It seems to me that the essentially government-sponsored civil
rights movement, which was not particularly media-driven, might have had a
little something to do with changing attitudes to black athletes as well.
For
that matter, perhaps black athletes and activists themselves might have had
a
little something to do with it too.

----------
NEUMANN

Finally, there is a huge difference between media influence and media
control.
SUV ads may make some men (and perhaps some women) fantasize that they have
a
large penis, and desire to purchase 4-wheel proof of this, but it never
makes
them actually believe they have a large penis. Similarly, teenagers know
that
smoking won't make them as cool as Joe Camel, and that cigarettes aren't
risk-free fun. No guy thinks that drinking Pepsi really gets you a shot at
Britney Spears. So the idea that Jewish influence in the media could turn us
into helpless robots is simply a non-starter.

BLANKFORT

Again, you have created a straw man. No one is saying that.

NEUMANN

I didn't' say that people actually said this; it seems to be an often
unconscious presupposition of what they *do* say. If media dominance
translates
into real power in the Weberian sense, it must exercise enormous control
over
people's beliefs and decision making. What else would constitute its power?
And in fact the claim that the masses are puppets of the media has for many
years been a hallmark of left-wing political analysis. It would follow from
that claim that, if the Jews control the media, the masses are the puppets
of
the Jews. That would make them a lot like helpless robots, wouldn't it?
-----------------------------------
NEUMANN

Were Jewish media influence as important as many would have us believe, the
Jews
have had done with it a long time ago. Israel would already have wiped out
or
expelled every single Palestinian. A Zionist US government would have
suppressed
all anti-Israel material as 'hate literature' or terrorist propaganda,
overthrown every pro-Palestinian Arab government, and used American troops
to
deal with the consequences. That this hasn't happened is symptomatic of a
deep
incoherence within the view that Jews don't control everything, but only the
crucial things. If the things were really crucial, Jews really would control
everything after all.

BLANKFORT

Your arguments are seriously off the wall. You are taking the most
outrageous
statements from the right-wing, classical anti-Semites, lumping them
together
with those who have made a more sophisticated analysis. Your statement also
assumes there is one Jewish position, even one Zionist position on the
Middle
East which you know is not the case. The Clinton adminstration was dominated
by
liberal Jews who supported the idea of a truncated Palestinian bantustan, a
two-state solution that they could live with. The main oppostion came from
the
neo-cons and the Zionist Organization fo America who support deporting the
Palestinians to Jordan. Most Jews, in polls, support the former, but then,
most
Jews, probably two-thirds are not involved in the Jewish community or
pro-Israel
activities.

Your statement is also ahistorical. Even if its leaders wanted to, Israel
was
prevented from doing what it wanted to the Palestinians during the Cold War
by
the presence of the Soviet Union, and currently, it is held back by its
dependence on Europe for the bulk of its trade.

NEUMANN

As a look at my original text will confirm, I'm not taking any statements
from
anyone. I'm saying that, if Jews control the media and if media control
translates into so much power, why haven't the Jews used that power as they
would like to? Not only the Jewish establishment, but also the overwhelming
majority of Israeli and American Jews, would love to have done with the
Palestinians once and for all. That some Jews in high places and elsewhere
have
been and are much more moderate is nothing to the case: according to me,
they
are moderate precisely because they don't have the power that the Jewish
control
hypothesis presupposes. They therefore resort to indirect strategies, or
seek
compromise solutions.


re 'ahistorical': By 'a long time ago' I meant ten or twenty or twenty-five
years ago, not forty or fifty years ago. It is plausible that at the height
the
cold war, Israel was restrained by the Soviet Union, but the cold war era is
long gone. Even before the fall of the Soviet Union and starting sometime
after
the 1973 war, it became increasingly clear that no one was particularly
committed to defending the Palestinians. As for Europe restraining Israel,
don't make me laugh. Europe is terminally pusillanimous, and such economic
constraints as it is willing to impose would be quite inadequate to restrain
a
power as strong as Israel. Israel has technologies for which half the world
would sell its soul, and in any case Europe would not manage to impose a
tight
or enduring embargo on anyone, much less Israel.

-------
NEUMANN

Jewish control was no more telling in the past than it is in the present:
when
they worked to turn America towards Israel, the Jews never overcame any
serious
opposition. The historical record shows that, far more than Jewish lobbyists
or
the Jewish vote, worries about communism pushed the US into an alliance with
Israel. The alliance developed in lock-step with growing alarm about Soviet
inroads in the Middle East.

BLANKFORT

While worries about communism, stressed by David Ben-Gurion, did get the US
to lean towards Israel, it wasn't done that eagerly, and that's why (1)
Eisenhower didn't hesitate in telling Israel to get out of the Sinai in 1956
and
why (2) France was Israel's major source of weaponry and aid until 1967. If
Neumann's last sentence were true, which it isn't, it would have been
reflected
in the amount of aid offered to Israel at the time, and it was paltry. One
of
the reasons is that until 1967, their was relatively little interest in
Israel
on the part of most American Jews, Israel's economy was stangnant, and more
Israeli Jews were emigrating than were arriving. So, until the triumphalism
of
the Six-Day War captured the imagination of American Jews, and created the
fighting Zionist of Beverly Hills and Brooklyn, most Jews here, while voting
Democratic, did not have Israel high ot even on their agendas.

NEUMANN

These questions are complicated and I won't give a full reply here. I never
claimed that the US was eager to lean towards Israel: in fact my point is
that
the leaning preceded the eagerness, which comes only when support for Israel
is,
much later, erected into a religious institution. By the way, the US winked
at
France's support for Israel, which is why I didn't make more of the US arms
embargo. Of course when I said that the US tried to play both sides of the
street, I was not saying that it was enthusiastic in its support for either
side. And the American Jews' pre-1967 lack of interest in Israel has been
exaggerated, as is suggested by the enormous popularity of Leon Uris' Exodus
(1961, and 33 weeks on the bestseller list).

----
NEUMANN
From before 1948 on, the US was concerned to counter Soviet influence by
helping BOTH Zionists AND Arabs. This was the objective of all US
policymakers
regardless of their religion or personal sympathy for Zionism. The Soviets
initially did the same. The shifting alliances had everything to do with
great
power rivalries, and very little to do with the machinations of American
Jews or
with any concern for the fortunes of Israel.

BLANKFORT

As I recall, Secretary of State George C. Marshall as well as his immediate
successors were not concerned enough about Soviet influence to help the
Zionists. Marshall opposed even recognizing Israel.

NEUMANN

These comments appear to apply mainly PRE-1948, which was not my concern.
There
was a fairly big (though gradual) change post-1948, due to the fairly big
fact
that Israel had become a reality, and potentially an opportunity for Soviet
penetration. It is true that, the further back you go, the more diversity
there
was among American policymakers vis-a-vis Israel.

---------
NEUMANN
In the early 1950s, Israeli-Soviet relations soured and Arab-Soviet
relations
prospered.

BLANKFORT

They soured before that, because Ben-Gurion and his Mapai Party were
fiercely
anti-Soviet and they dominated the pro-Soviet Mapalm.


NEUMANN
This is a matter of 'semantics' in the trivial sense. Sure, the process
started
before the early 1950s, but how sour does it have to get before you can say
they
soured? My claim could be restated: "they got *really* sour during... ."

--------

NEUMANN

But despite Zionist pressure, the US did not rush to back Israel, nor indeed
the
Soviets to abandon her.

BLANKFORT

What Zionist pressure? AIPAC was one man, Si Kenen. There was nothing like
the lobby that exists today.

NEUMANN

This is seriously misleading. AIPAC and the lobby groups did not at the
time
reflect anything like the full extent of Zionist pressure, which was applied
internationally and through private channels. Accounts of this pressure -
all
of them admittedly controversial - are readily available. When pressure is
more
or less institutionalized, as it was in the early days, its extent is hard
to
gage, but many responsible people claim it was substantial. Some of it may
have
been clandestine.

--------
NEUMANN
As late as 1956 the Soviet Union was supplying Israel with cheap oil to
circumvent the Arab boycott, and Israel refused to supply NATO with military
bases to counter a Soviet threat. The US imposed an arms embargo on Israel
in
1948, and maintained it with minor exceptions until the Hawk missile sale of
1962. (Even then, according to some authorities, the sale was to be linked
to
the repatriation by Israel of some 100,000 to 150,000 Palestinian refugees!)
The
American-Israeli alliance was forged only when American attempts to keep the
Arab world onside foundered.

BLANKFORT

Onside? When Neumann speaks of the Arab world, he makes it seem monolithic.
US-Saudi relations were going quite well. Egypt was another matter.

NEUMANN

Again, I'm not sure there is an important bone of contention here. The US
of
course wanted control of and/or friendship with the *whole* Arab world.
Egypt
was rightly considered a key to this ambition, and Egypt was daily growing
both
in prestige and in its opposition to US plans. At the same time, it was
vigorously seeking to establish an Arab unity which would have no place for
the
pro-US Hashemites, and it was doing very well in this enterprize. The issue
is
not diversity but power.

--------
NEUMANN
The great motivator in this process was not love or fear of the Jews. It was
fear of Nasser.In the 1956 Suez war, America
sided with Egypt, but only to co-opt the Soviet Union, which had stated that
any
further Franco-British advances into Egypt would be met *by force*. This was
the
end of attempts by the great powers to play both sides of the street.

BLANKFORT

This contradicts Neumann's earlier statements about the strength of the
US-Israel relationshp that was forged back in 1948. He also neglects to note
that the US opposed the British and French mucking about in the region.

NEUMANN

I don't understand exactly what is supposed to contradict exactly what, so
again
I can't really reply. Since I just referred to US opposition to the British
and
French at Suez, I would think I *did* just note US opposition to British and
French mucking about. Of course this opposition had earlier roots and
manifestations, but I don't what turns on this.

-------------
NEUMANN
The 1956 war for the first time showed Israel as a militarily capable power
which could, on its own, defeat Arab forces armed with Soviet weaponry.
The Arabs, led by Egypt, were on
the Soviet side, and the Israelis became the very useful proxies of the
West.

BLANKFORT

That's not much of a proxy, simply allowing British and US planes to fly
though its airspace. It was in 1958, that Ike sent the Marines to Lebanon to
prop up the reactionary regime there. The notion of Israel as a US proxy or
cop
on the beat does not stand up to scrutiny. Not a single Israeli soldier has
ever
lifted a finger in America's behalf, and its arms deals to countries like El
Salvador, Guatemala, Somoza's Nicaragua, Pincohet;s Chile, as well as South
Africa, were essential to maintain the viability of Israel's arms industry.

NEUMANN

This doesn't seem important. My point was not that this was much of a proxy.
I
noted the incident because I believe it significant that the *first* use of
Israel was to counter a very significant Nasserite movement. The incident
suggests, and other evidence confirms, that Nasser was not simply an
expansionist ruler, but a focus for a very serious and, to the Americans,
worrying upsurge in a newly vigorous Arab nationalism.

--------
NEUMANN
This is the origin of the United States' deep commitment to Israel. Though
Zionist influences were at work throughout this process, they were never
decisive, and in the end it was American security concerns that cemented the
US-Israel alliance. With the fall of the Soviet Union, the rationale for the
alliance ceased, but the alliance itself rolls on, its inertia abetted by
the
disinclination of Americans to put any obstacle in its course.

BLANKFORT

This argument is simply a restatement of Chomsky's position that has been
welcomed by many Jewish non-Zionists because it takes the onus off of the
lobby.
From a standpoint of political action, however, it has thoroughly disarmed
the
Palestinian solidarity movement which has never even attempted to begin a
campaign at the congressional level, urging the cutting off of aid to
Israel,
prefering to focus, helplessly, on whoever is in the White House. At this
moment
in time, one must admit that the Palestine solidarity movement in the US has
been an utter failure and when people are beginning to look at the root
causes
of that failure, among them, the faulty analysis that Chomsky has purveyed
and
that you have repeated, you, in effect, are dragging the movement back to
repeating its errors.

NEUMANN

My view of the politics of the various positions has been argued in
"Pro-Palestinian Activists and the Palestinians", which Blankfort has said
makes
some sense to him. I will use this as an excuse to avoid this discussion.
I'll just say that it is premature to campaign at either the congressional
or
the presidential level. First, it must be argued clearly that US interests
run
contrary to Israeli interests. 'Interests' must include those of big oil
and
the American establishment, not just those of the American people, if there
is
to be any realistic prospect of success.

---------
NEUMANN

it is helpful to conceive of Jewish power in America
somewhat like eunuch power in the Ottoman Empire.


BLANKFORT

This is too absurd to require a rebuttal. I suggest that you do more
research
on the pro-Israel lobby before you go on any further in this vein.

NEUMANN

No argument here, so no reply.

---------
NEUMANN

No, the Jews aren't quite the eunuchs of the American Empire. But Jewish
power
does exist at the good pleasure of non-Jewish Americans, both in government
and
throughout the general population. This holds even where Jews exercise the
most
effective control, in Hollywood. That's why you don't see Arnold
Schwarzenegger
playing the widowed, retired Israeli paratrooper, raining fire and death on

the
leering Palestinian thugs who killed his children and gang-raped Selma
Hayek,
their beloved Israeli Arab nanny.

BLANKFORT

You may yet see that. But they are a little more sophisticated than what you
give them credit for. There already have been any number of films (ask the
ADC)
that expose the Arabs in a stereotyped manner with the implication,
unstated,
that all Arabs are alike. I would advise you to read Jack Shaheen's "The
Arab in
Hollywood" to get a better understanding of the subject. As for Jewish power
existing at the pleasure of non-Jewish Americans, you are playing into
classic
Jewish paranoia, that "it can happen here." Ironically, if this power is not
challenged by what passes for the left and what passes for academia here,
and
there is a severe depression, it could possibly happen, but it isn;t likely.

NEUMANN


I certainly hope and pray that it can happen here - by 'it' I mean a change
in
sentiment about Israel, which will require a change in sentiment about Jews.
While I certainly don't want to stir up racial hatred, I do think that
there's
little hope of stopping Israel while Jews in America are so wildly
idealized.
While a change in sentiment is certainly dangerous and may well have very
undesirable consequences, the situation of the Palestinians is utterly
desperate, and I see no other way of helping them.

As for Arab stereotypes, of course they are outrageous and pervasive. I was
simply saying that things could be even worse. Americans don't *need* to be
approached with subtlety, do they? That the approach is subtle is an
indication
that Jews in the media and/or the media generally don't feel they have a
free
hand in the matter. That's why, in fact, the bad guys in action flicks
recently
tend *not* to be Arab. They're Russian gangsters or triads or Columbian drug
lords or North Koreans (whoops!)or some other safe target. We haven't had a
first-run "Delta Force" in a while...

---------
NEUMANN
Max Weber said that "'power' [is] the chance of a man, or of a number of men
to
realize their own will in communal action even against the resistance of
others
who are participating in the action." Whatever sway Jewish Hollywood moguls
hold over their actors, elsewhere they have much influence, but little
power.
Jewish lobby groups constitute, not a separate power structure, but the
department of Jewish affairs within the American power structure. Their will
is
realized, and the will of Jews is realized throughout the US government, but
it
is not "against the resistance of others". What resistance? By and large,
American gentiles have either been pushing in the same direction, or
watching
from the sidelines.

BLANKFORT

The organized Jewish power structure has successfully turned the black
political structure into an "invisible plantation," demonstrating the power
to
select or reject both men and women who might possibly become leaders in
that
community. The ability of the lobby to successfully target balck politicians
who
refuse to genuflect to their demands is a given, and the resentment this has
stirred within the black community is legitimate. But this story is hardly
known
because even black activists are afraid to talk about publicly less they be
branded as anti-semites. Three other victims of the lobby: Johnetta Cole,
because she had once spoken for the Palestinians (and lost an appointment
from
Clinton), Lani Guinier, because she supported affirmative action (ditto for
her
with Clinton), and Ben Chavis, driven from the leadership of the NAACP
because
of his outspoken support of the Palestinians.

NEUMANN
I don't dispute any of this, except perhaps some of the language in which it
is
expressed. I'm simply saying that blacks are very weak and an easy target.
That Jews can suppress black dissenters says nothing about Jewish power
versus
American power, my theme, because (a) Americans generally and the American
power
structure couldn't care less that black dissenters are suppressed, (b)
blacks
themselves understandably do not consider support for the Palestinians a
vitally
important issue compared to, say, the imprisonment of a huge chunk of the
black
population. Besides, the sincere support of many Jews for black rights,
whether
or not it should do so, earns them some influence among blacks which is not
attributable to the exercise of power or control.

--------
NEUMANN
It is not, after all, as if America aches with compassion for the
Palestinians,
but has been crushed by the mighty Jews. If the Jewish lobby has defeated a
few
maverick black congressional candidates, it is not because mountains of
American
dollars have been dwarfed by even bigger mountains of Jewish shekels.

BLANKFORT

No, then please explain, for example, how Earl Hilliard and Cynthia McKinney
were the only Democratic congressmembers to lose in the primaries.

NEUMANN

My explanation is that there weren't mountains of American dollars, nor much
else to overcome. The Jews may well have defeated Hilliard and McKinney,
but
they were the softest of soft targets.

--------
NEUMANN
And if non-Jewish leftists have failed to condemn the diffidence of their
Jewish
counterparts, it is not because the Big Jewish Money police are prowling
around
in black leather trench-coats. The real culprits in the story of Jewish
influence in America are the people who let it all happen.

BLANKFORT

It isn't a matter of either/or but both.

NEUMANN
Since Blankfort certainly doesn't believe in the Big Jewish Money police in
their black leather trenchcoats, I don't see why it's a matter of both. My
point is that most American leftists don't fail to support the Palestinians
because they are afraid of Jewish money, but because they are themselves
sentimentally attached to things Jewish, or because they are racist against
Arabs, or because they are misinformed, or all of these.

--------
NEUMANN
These are the non-Jewish Americans who, in their opposition to Israel, are
so
timid that a couple of words from Alan Dershowitz would send them all
scuttling
like cockroaches back to their dark corners. The few who go further are not
'silenced' by Jewish power. One hears from them all the time: ask a Chinese
or
Iraqi or former Chilean dissident what 'silenced' means. They are
ineffective
because they haven't even tried to organize themselves, shrinking from the
unpleasantness of offending the 'courageous' Jewish left. One thinks of the
immortal words of George Carlin: "Take a fucking risk, for Christ's sake!"


BLANKFORT

Wrong, or at least partially wrong. Where is the responsibility of all those
Jews on the so-called left who have successfully blocked any attempt, not
only
to raise the aid issue, but have blocked any mention or connection of the
Middle
East to the global struggle for more than 20 years, and who have blocked, as
you
are doing in this article, any serious exposure of the Israel lobby and now
the
role that Jewish neo-cons are playing and have played in writing current US
policy towards the Middle East.


NEUMANN
No big disagreement here. The Jews are very much morally responsible for
Israeli
crimes due to their enormous and disgraceful complicity. They are also to a
much lesser but still quite significant extent causally responsible for
American
policy. The main causal responsibility for American policy, and indeed the
main
moral responsibility for it, likes with the Americans. Bear in mind that
you
can have more than 100% responsibility: if the members of a firing squad
shoot
the prisoner at the same time, each member may in many cases be wholly
responsible for the prisoner's death.

--------
NEUMANN

That Americans have let the Jews have their way doesn't mean that reporting
on
Jewish activities in America should stop.

BLANKFORT

It has hardly begun and already you are putting on the brakes.


NEUMANN
By denying it should stop?

--------
NEUMANN
But what is needed is not yet another list of the Jewish court jesters hired
by
the American establishment, or the groups that lobby for policies the US
government anyway wants to promote.

BLANKFORT

If you consider Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Lewis Libby,
Elliot Abrams, John Bolten, merely court jesters, I suggest you find another
subject for your expertise. And me think, thou protesth too much.

NEUMANN

Perhaps I exaggerate, but these are employees. The employers are the
American
people and/or the people who control America. Others have to power to
dismiss
these individuals, or not hire them in the first place. The media magnates
whom
Blankfort cited earlier I would certainly not call court jesters, because
they
do have a real role in creating the fashions that favor these ...I continue
to
be unimpressed by them, and consider them clowns. I hold only that the
Jewish
media magnates don't control America, not that the mouthpieces of those who
do
control it aren't to a large extent Jewish.

I can understand incredulity here, but put it this way: it's not the people
listed who win elections and get candidates nominated. They do have much
to do
with making American policy decisions, but the policies themselves have far
deeper roots.

-----
NEUMANN
Nor do we need more dark hints based on collections of scattered facts
rather
than serious comparative data. Far more revealing and just as damning would
be
the story of how ordinary Jews either applaud the worst Israeli crimes, or
deplore them and support Israel anyway, or denounce them with rhetoric that
somehow never gets around to advocating anything that would stop them. It is
a
story that just lies there, ready and waiting to be told.

BLANKFORT

Well, tell it then, and while that is a story, it is not the only story. And
don't silence others who have something to say.

NEUMANN

It is a story that is told less than all the others, I think. And I would
protest this use of 'silence'. You would have to be unimaginably wimpy to be
silenced by me, even if I wanted to. I made it quite clear in the article
that
I do not.

-----------
NEUMANN
Jewish tribalism is real and strong, but it does not enslave Americans. For
all
its prestige, it is not something 'special' or specially powerful.

BLANKFORT

With all due respect to your expertise, you obviously have only the barest
idea of what constitutes the Israel Lobby, at least the Jewish side of it,
and
it is definitely unique.

NEUMANN

I claim no expertise, but nothing Blankfort and others have said about the
Jewish lobby comes as any surprise to me. Again, what strikes me here is
the
failure to compare this lobby to others. No doubt it has some unique
features -
pretty well everything does. Not 'special' - in scare-quotes - doesn't mean
utterly undistinctive, but something more like not strikingly distinctive.
There are questions of degree here, none of them worth settling. As for
specially powerful, I've already discussed this.

--------
NEUMANN
It is just another instance of the ordinary, vulgar racism and nationalism
found
all over the world. It is immoral, but not as contemptible as the whining of
those who supposedly want to do something about Israel, yet are astounded to
encounter Jewish opposition and slink off, muttering about 'being in the
grip of
Jewish power'. These people should themselves get a grip, and do something
about
it.

BLANKFORT

They may be contemptible but they are not nearly as problematic as academics
who would lead us away from the truth by creating straw men and rebutting
irrelevant arguments.

NEUMANN

This is not intended as something which requires a reply from me, is it? But
honestly, don't you think I might make irrelevant arguments even if I was a
non-academic? And I'll add that even if Blankfort thinks that the arguments
I
address are, at least now, confined to the far right, that would hardly make
them irrelevant. Aren't they on topic? Mightn't they be sound?

--------
NEUMANN
Do what? How about an experiment? It involves an unprecedented and essential
first step towards real change in America's Middle East policies--actually
asking for measures that would hurt Israel.

Right now, what passes for radicalism is a call to stop military aid to
Israel,
despite the fact that hardly any country in the world is more capable of
doing
its killing unaided. That this represents the most daring opposition to the
American-Israeli alliance is both shameful and absurd. It all but proclaims
to
the whole world that even the American left would rather moan about the
agony of
the Palestinians than try to stop it.

BLANKFORT

At last, we reach a point of agreement!

NEUMANN

Publishing something like the following statement would test for the
presence of
a backbone among American radicals:
<long list of possible sanctions omitted>
BLANKFORT

By listing a list of maximum demands, you guarantee few signers, Jewish or
non-Jewish. Who would endorse the use of nuclear weapons under any
circumstance?
Would you?

In fact, this list appears to be deliberate over-kill on your part. And your
bringing in to the picture, as allies, the reactionary Arab regimes is,
forgive
me, a little suspicious. Merely stopping all aid to Israel, revoking all tax
breaks, instituting severe economic sanctions, perhaps penalizing those
institutions that refuse to turn in their billions of State of Israel Bonds,
and
no longer protecting Israel in the international sphere, would do the job,
and
do it very quickly.

NEUMANN

Having come to appreciate the full extent to which humans are capable of
paranoia, I am not concerned about Blankfort's suspicions, which in any case
I
believe have moderated since he wrote this. I could be Satan himself and
still
be correct.

This seems to me Blankfort's most important and, for me, worrying criticism.
But

(a) I just finished saying, in the original text, that they were *not*
maximum
demands, and I do mean that.

(b) With the exception of non-Jews would are firmly in the Zionist camp, I
cannot recal *any* non-Jews who have told me - before talking to Jewish
friends
- that the demands were 'extreme' or 'maximum'. And even without those
qualifications, practically no non-Jews have told me they found anything off
the
wall in the proposed statement.

(c) Even if the statement did include maximum demands, I consider it
absolutely
essential that *someone* put maximum reasonable demands on the table. Not to
do
so invests Israel with a kind of sanctity which is perhaps its chief asset
in
the United States.

(d) Very few people would endorse the first-strike use of nuclear weapons.
Quite a few people would endorse the THREAT to use nuclear weapons in
response
to a first strike. That is what the statement recommends. Moreover, we are
not
talking about what we would endorse in some ideal world. Does Blankfort
dispute
that Israel has used nuclear blackmail against the US: support us, or we
will
use nukes to defend ourselves? Countering this blackmail is not a side
issue;
it is a central issue.

(e) Perhaps the statement would have few signers. The point is not to get
many:
nothing is so ineffectual as a petition, and it would be idiotic to suppose
that
even 100,000 signatures would help the Palestinians. The point is to see
whether there *is* serious opposition to Israel: opposition ready to
further
policies that would really harm Israel. If no one is trying to do that,
why
should the Israelis give a damn what goes on in America? You can't tell me
that
they're going to lose sleep over some Naderesque congressional campaign to
cut
off aid. There has to be a real change in the political climate. That can
come
only if Israel is clearly identified as a country which ought to get more
than a
slap in the wrist, to be administered after some ten-year effort which may
leave
nothing but Palestinian corpses to protect. It requires strategies which
are
based on an appeal to American self-interest, and which make what now sounds
extreme or maximum, sound reasonable. And as for suspicions, why is it so
out
of line to treat Israel as Iraq was treated? Is Israel really such a
wonderful
little country?

(f) Most important of all, I said *something like* this statement, and I
meant
it. The minute fine-tuning of such statements is an inevitable, annoying
characteristic of all petition efforts. For example, you could take out or
soften the nuclear clause, and what remained would still be light-years
beyond
what is actually endorsed today. Personally I believe that one *essential*
element of such a statement is the suggestion that Arab states such as Syria
and
Lebanon would be perfectly acceptable allies in an American effort to bring
strong pressure on Israel. (I want to say, military partners. Would this
again
be considered suspicious extremism? Syria was already a military partner of
the
US in the Gulf War.) Given the allies to which America - and indeed states
generally, in the real world - resort, *not* to include such a suggestion
would
smell of racism. To my mind it would indicate that for the left, Arabs are
perhaps good enough to help the US fight other Arabs, but not good enough to
defend mere Palestinians against the sacred Jews.

----------
NEUMANN

My guess is two, at most. But how many non-Jewish notables would do so? My
guess
is ten, proportionately fewer than among the Jews. If so, it is a testimony,
not
to Jewish power, but to American insularity, laziness and cowardice.

BLANKFORT

Another straw man. Where do you keep all those bales? So therefore, do
nothing. I think I understand where you are coming from.

NEUMANN

Hard to understand this. Why wouldn't the inference be that something must
be
done about American laziness, insularity and cowardice? People are not fixed
quantities. My basic suggestion is and has always been to convince Americans
that their vital interests, including security interests, are very
threatened by
US support for Israel. This seems a reasonable way to make the necessary
changes.

How important are these disputes? If Blankfort thinks that something can be
done, he must think that both the Israel lobby and Jewish power are not
invincible. That's what I'm saying too.

---------

Jeffrey Blankfort, Former Editor of the Middle East
Labor Bulletin

Michael Neumann is a professor of philosophy at Trent University in Ontario,
Canada. He can be reached at: mneumann [at] trentu.ca