"And what was the first thing he did after his astounding victory? He ran to the conference of the Israel lobby, AIPAC, and made a speech that broke all records for obsequiousness and fawning.
That is shocking enough. Even more shocking is the fact that nobody was shocked.
IT WAS a triumphalist conference. Even this powerful organization had never seen anything like it. 7000 Jewish functionaries from all over the United States came together to accept the obeisance of the entire Washington elite, which came to kowtow at their feet. All the three presidential hopefuls made speeches, trying to outdo each other in flattery. 300 Senators and Members of Congress crowded the hallways. Everybody who wants to be elected or reelected to any office, indeed everybody who has any political ambitions at all, came to see and be seen.
The Washington of AIPAC is like the Constantinople of the Byzantine emperors in its heyday.
The world looked on and was filled with wonderment. The Israeli media were ecstatic. In all the world’s capitals the events were followed closely and conclusions were drawn. All the Arab media reported on them extensively. Aljazeera devoted an hour to a discussion of the phenomenon." Uri Avnery
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I doubt if I would like Mr. Avnery. There is a sneering, condescending, politically correct paragraph in this screed devoted to the usual ill informed Israeli opinion on American "genocide" towards the noble red man (somehow the genociders missed those of my ancestors who were NRM) and the unforgivable sin of slavery. Most Americans do not understand our history on these issues and I have yet to meet an Israeli with any real understanding of American History. Hell! Most Americans would have a hard time telling you if the Civil war was before or after the Spanish War.
Nevertheless, Avnery has the common sense to be shocked at the spectacle of American politicians and generals bowing down before a lobby explicitly devoted to the welfare of a foreign state. It makes him uneasy, as well it should. This is an unnatural situation and it can not persist indefinitely. One must ask if Israel is well served in other than a colossal exercise in conceit by this "tail wags dog" folly.
Israeli state survival is a self appointed task assumed by the US. I have no problem with that. Groveling before this lobby? I have a big problem with that.
I see that Arnaud de Borchgrave has similarly held forth. Great minds, etc. pl
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1212871846/
http://www.metimes.com/Security/2008/06/06/commentary_aipac_and_liege_fealty/38a0/
I respect Avnery just as I respect you and I read his column as faithfully as I read yours. He, like you, is a man who is not afraid to speak his mind and stand up for what he believes in. Because of this his life has been threatened, and I don’t think he is one of the most popular people in Israel.
I support Obama, and it makes me a little sad to see him try and out love Israel. However that may be the way he wins some of the older Jewish vote and the less right wing Evangelical vote.
It does seem that politics makes whores out of all politicians.
Maybe it is better and easier to be like you and Avery and speak the truth regardless of who likes or hates you for it.
Again, I want to thank you for this web site, and for the truth as you see it.
Where is the outrage from Samantha Power?
I think you’re being a little hard on Avnery. Yes, he did write the offending verbiage, but, OTOH, he appears to be a voice of common sense coming out of Israel; it’s my sense we don’t want to discourage fellows like this from writing.
Actually, from what I know of Israel, it’s in some respects kind of like the U.S. Polls I’ve seen indicate that the majority of Israelis do not support the bellicose and expansionist policies of their government. Where have we see this before?
WRT AIPAC and the American political tradition of paying obeisance to this slimy organization, all I can think of is how wrong my late mother, born in 1917, was. Liberal that she was, she freely admitted that her generation’s support of Israel—born of guilt from the Holocaust—was in some respects irrational in its support for what was all too often a thuggish nation, one that viewed through unbiased lenses, wouldn’t get the free pass it had gotten from U.S. leaders. She thought that as her generation died out, the next generation, unburdened by Holocaust guilt, wouldn’t be so easy on Israel, wouldn’t be so forgiving of actions that harmed the U.S. She was thinking specifically of such things as the Liberty, Pollard, and, of course, the Palestinian issue. When she died, my liberal mother despised Israel for what it had become.
Mom got the future wrong. Although she was right about the diminution of guilt, what she didn’t reckon on was the unholy trinity of neocons, religious fundamentalists and money. There’s your Axis of Evil. That’s what prevents any dispassionate treatment of Israel from the standpoint of true U.S. national security requirements, and that’s what makes our nation vulnerable to a degree that should make all of us uncomfortable.
BTW, WRT Obama, I found this quote Borchgrave provides kind of interesting: “But part of our commitment must be speaking up when Israel’s security is at risk, and I don’t think any of us can be satisfied that America’s recent foreign policy has made Israel more secure.”
Inasmuch as America’s recent foreign policy has essentially been that of Israel, I think there may be some hope for Obama. By rejecting the current policy, ISTM he’s given himself room to maneuver away from the Israelis and AIPAC. One can only hope.
Will this put them on high alert? Maybe. But wouldn’t it be nice to have an American politician pick their pockets for a change?
Publius
If I thought that my complaint would deter Avnery I would not voice it. pl
Underlying the post and comments so far on the post is that the AIPAC conference and its attendees are a distortion of US political views of the importance of Israel. Whether or not this is the case, the time is coming when I believe the US body politic and political leadership will be made to ante-up on their Israeli bets. It is always interesting to me that Gen. Marshall strongly opposed the recogniition of Israel and that is well documented. Few have documented his reasons. Partly it was his understanding of the Arab views of the British involvement in the middle-east. Partly it was his understanding that only the US could or would be the guarantor of Israeli existence. Okay so if that is the case let’s tell Israel what borders they have that we will guarantee and let’s tell the Islamic world that unless they recognize these borders we will treat their borders as the mish-mash of Anglo-French line drawing from the WWI period that they are. In other words if we think we must have the ethnic and relgious line drawing from almost 80 years ago, plus Israel in the Middle-EAST let’s at least figure out what we think makes sense. Actually a middle east without Israel does not make sense ethnically and an Islamic middle-east that ignores ethnicity does not make sense either. My point is that if Israel makes no sense then neither do most of the tribes wearing flags as nations in the middle-east. Egypt, Turkey, Iran will be dragged into the line drawing sooner or later. Then of course we will get to see how N.American political lines are drawn by the Islamic World in return. The great danger for AIPAC Is that they are rapidly being labled as just another lobby in Washington, admittedly powerful. Most skillful lobbies in Washington know that you never give its membership everything it wants because then you are the target. Once that all-powerful label sticks, Israel is finished sooner or later because the fiction that the US foreign interests reflect domestic politics is just that. It in fact reflects who has the most clout in Washington and e.g. that could soon be the NOC’s (National Oil Companies) once they realize that the hedge funds and traders are undermining their soverign interests. The string in the ball of wax will burn with the ball. If political contributions by those with dual US and non-US citizenship were allocated and policed based on the non-US citizenship remarkable consequences might ensue. Under current law, contributions to domestic campagins for President are barred from recieving foreign contributions. Enforcing this rule might prove as interesting as making sure each vote counts.
The AIPAC conference is a surface phenomenon. What is vital is suggested by the LA Times article, New forces fraying U.S.-Saudi oil ties
Under these circumstances, what the AIPAC-dominated American polity would like to do and what external forces will permit it to do are entirely distinguishable.
I don’t think America will wake up to this until CIPAC starts up (China-Israel Public Affairs Committee).
Wasn’t it Kissinger who famously said “America has no frineds, only interests.”
Same applies to Israel.
There is a storm a’comin for American politics in my opinion.
20 years ago, who outside of Washington had heard of AIPAC?
10 years ago, who outside of the US ever spoke against AIPAC or American unconditional support for Israel?
5 years ago, who would have dared release a book questioning the influence that an organisation dedicated to the welfare of a foreign state has on the leaders of the United States?
If Bush has done one thing well, it has been to introduce the average American, the American who cared little of what happened outside of his borders, to the rest of the world. He has made people think about foreign policy, how its formed and who influences it. And the more people look, the more they dont like what they see.
AIPAC will have noticed this downturn in their influence on Joe Public, in their ability to silence the critics by sheer intimidation. They will have noticed that the average American is starting to question how the tail can wag the dog when he/she has so much pride and belief in the dog. And they will not like the appearance of the likes of JStreet.
So expect AIPAC to start fighting back. Expect the propoganda to become more extreme, the vilivication and intimidation, via Congress, Campus Watch et all, to be ramped up.
And, most importantly, expect an astute politician, who suffers from deep mistrust amongst these most powerful and influential of lobbyists, these guys who have some of the worlds largest media organisations on side, to make a speech that sounds so fawning, so toady that one is tempted to think that it had crossed into the facetious.
An idealist is a man not running for office. What Obama said in his speech, or more importantly, the tone of his rhetoric, was far removed from the man that openly declared that the Palestinians are suffering more than anyone (a fact that is dangerous to repeat for any American politician), the man that wanted cluster bombs and the sale of those bombs to Israel to be banned and the man who opposed the appointment of Mad Dog Bolton as representative to the UN and the man whose biggest backer is George Soros, whose views on Israel are well known (follow the money?).
If actions speak louder than words and a politician is in election season, then his words are, to be frank, as worthwile as the kisses he gives to babies.
Which Obama do I believe is the real Obama? I have no idea, and will not unless he is elected to the Oval office.
The anger here has to be aimed more at a lobby system that makes those running for the most powerful job in the world look like whores auditioning for pimps. A system so infleunced by pork that the average American citizen is so oft-ignored for a fistful of electoral dollars.
Ironic that Obama is runnig under just such a manifesto is it not?
A contradiction in your position I think PL, why would the Wash elite have to grovel before the Israel Lobby if protecting Israel was America’s “self-appointed task”?
Nobody aspires to be a beggar, or to grovel. If the US establishment really self assumed the task of Israel’s protection they would not be groveling before AIPAC.
OO
I think you know that AIPAC aspires to and has achieved more than merely assuring that America adhere to its own resolution to see that Israel survive. pl
My suspicion is that AIPAC’s current state is something like the Soviet Bloc circa 1985, that is, looking mighty important and powerful on the outside, but rotting within, and soon due for a spectacular fall.
Support for Israel in the U.S. is a lot thinner than it appears. Sure, tens of millions of U.S. evangelicals say they support Israel, but plenty of those (e.g., the dispensationalists that Professor Kiracofe has written of here) don’t necessarily support the notion of Israel as an end: they support Israel as a means to get themselves raptured up to heaven just as soon as Israel can gain a more expansive set of Middle-Eastern borders.
And plenty of those folk who vote for the GOP are dangerously susceptible to the Timothy McVeigh school of conservative thought, so as the U.S. economy continues to tank, they won’t likely be singing the praises of generous U.S. foreign aid to Israel as much as they’ll be ranting about ZOG and leaning anti-semitic in their voting patterns.
I’d give AIPAC a decade to survive as a viable entitiy, and less if the U.S. economy starts sliding any faster. And maybe those “elders of zion” (as Jon Stewart recently referred to them) see this handwriting on the wall already, which explains their stridency of late.
otiwa, You should look at AIPAC more closely.
They do not follow an Israel first agenda. They follow a Likud first agenda first and only and Israel first agenda second IF that agenda does not conflict with that of the first.
That is the point of AIPAC. Support for Israel is secure and a given. Its goal is to ensure that US politicians commend and support Israels most vile actions.
One can hope that the OMan follows the dictum of Jesse Unruh(sp?) long gone pol of California: If you can’t drink their booze, eat their food, and fuck their women and when the time comes, vote against their interests, you don’t belong in politics.
It is interesting to observe, how easy it is, for a foreign nation, to capture the politics of America.
Like anything the pendulum can swing the other way and most often does.
AIPAC is probably at its apex of power and influence. Some day someone courageous enough will ask the simple question – what is the US national interest vis a vis Israel? That would inevitably lead to the question of how much influence should a foreign lobby exert in US politics.
One of these days a US politician will campaign on a US first policy. May not be in my lifetime but it will come.
“These guys who have some of the worlds largest media organisations on side” can’t mistrust him too deeply or said media would not have been pushing (call it what you like) Obama’s nomination with the same zeal as they promoted the Iraq war.
This discussion calls for a brief interlude with Sen. Obama regaling us with the story of Abraham and Isaac:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jg8lCLumByw
The Poodle (sp?) may bark too much?
as hopeful as i am about obamma, i was disturbed by the posture he took at the aipac meeting
i have come to view aipac and right-wing israeli politicians as advocating interests which may be disadvantageous to the united states
i have become increasingly sanguine about the idea of taking on the obligation of ensuring the existence of a jewish-only state
western christian guilt over jewish persecution over milennia cannot be assuaged in the manner we are doing it
resolution of the 60+ year conflict vis a vis palestine and israel must be relentlessly pursued
i would think that it would be the price of our support
i continue to be confounded by the seemingly increasing political power demonstrated by aipac
it looks like israeli likud propogandists are now being embedded in national news media organizations
fareed zakaria has a new show on cnn called GPS
the show promises a comprehensive look at foreign affairs with a panel of international analysts and a weekly indepth interview
the panel features natan sharansky, likud party leader, settler movement leader, and russian emigre, as an expert observer of international affairs
cable news has a habit of confusing domestic political players like carville, buchanan and others with observers
i was surprised this embedding of players among the talking observers extended to include political leaders of foreign coutnries like sharansky
rjj,
I cannot comment on US media’s handling of the electoral process as I am not in the US.
What I do know is that Israel and supporters of Israel are, lets say mildly concerned and given a choice of the 3 candidates that were on offer before Clinton quit, I’m willing to bet he would not have been in the top 2.
I also know that amongst some of the most powerful media persona are ardent Zionists.
Therefore, I believe my comment stands even if your belief of US media bias is correct.
Colonel,
it appears that some big dem donors are now flocking to mccain camp.
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/jewish-dem-donor-joins-mccain-team-2008-06-10.html
TheHill.com – Jewish Dem donor joins McCain team
Could you help me. Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers.
I am from Sierra and also am speaking English, please tell me right I wrote the following sentence: “At all times, the information on this site shall be footnoted with the sources of published information, date and medical and health pages provided.”
THX :-D, Noland.