Jeff Blankfort: The power of the Israeli Lobby in Washington, DC

I do not have at a hand a list of all the names of those in key positions in the Executive Branch, but even the Israeli paper, Ha'aretz was impressed by the preponderance of Jewish neo-cons, for whom aggressive Zionism was and remains a major influence, in and around the Bush administration, such as Wolfowitz, Perle, Abrams, Feith, Bolton, Wurmser, Grossman, Zakheim, Fleischer, Kristol, Kagan, Ledeen (those immediately come to mind). Through several think tanks in which they are interspersed they have written the script not only for the war in Iraq and the threats to Syria and Iran, but for making sure that Israel can do what it likes with the Palestinians, and now it seems anyone else, Americans and Europeans, who are in the occupied territories to prevent or document Israel's crimes. It is quite clear, as this latest episode with the British cameraman indicates, they have been given a license to kill.

Now, Dubya, is mightily afraid of Israel's domestic lobby who the American public may one day view as a bag of traitors, after his dad's experience with it in 1991. This is how I described it in an article. "The Israel Lobby and the Left: Uneasy Questions," that has just appeared in Left Curve (http://www.leftcurve.org), one of the few publications on the left that has the courage to publish articles on this situation. The segment I have extracted begins with the presidency of another US president who challenged the lobby and lost, Gerald Ford:

"Gerald Ford, angered that Israel had been reluctant to leave the Sinai following the 1973 war and backed by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, not only suspended aid for six months in 1975, but in March of that year made a speech calling 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.[12]

"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 freezes 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 loans 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.[13]

"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%.[14]

"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."[15] 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 marauding 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. George Will associated Dubya with Yasser Arafat and accused Bush of having lost his "moral clarity."[16] 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 suvival."[17] Junior got the message and, within a week, declared Sharon to be "a man of peace."[18] 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."

Now, Bush Jr. has received a letter signed by 87 of the 100 US senators and at least 297 members of the House telling Bush, in essence, to forget the "road map," as pathetic as that is, and stick to what he had said in a speech last July 24th. Both Sharon and Netanyahu have boasted that the Jewish lobby controls America. Regarding the Middle East, they have yet to be proved wrong.