Israel Influences US but not in US Interests

Comment by Larry Ross, April 28 , 2006

Robert Fisk explores the potentially disastrous influence of Israel on US policies toward the middle east.
Israel wanted a hard line toward Palestine and Hamas, and a soft line toward expanding Israeli settlements on stolen Palestine territory, on Israeli military action, on Israel's ignoring of UN resolutions and building a huge wall that effectively stole Palestine land. Israel also got it's U.S. war with Iraq, and seems like getting it's desired U.S. desired war with Iran - although this may be a joint enterprise.. It also gets some 3-4 billion dollars a year in U.S. military and other aid and support for every policy it takes toward the Arab world. The economic and financial power of the Israeli Lobby has toward U.S. politicians and policies is huge.

Not mentioned by Fisk is the power of the Christian Zionists, and the religious influence of Armageddon theology and beliefs within the Bush Administration. This has a considerable influence on policy formation and on the final policies, as well as appointments to high posts in the Bush Administration of people of like mind.

 

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United States of Israel?

When two of America's most distinguished academics dared to suggest that US foreign policy was being driven by a powerful 'Israel Lobby' whose influence was incompatible with their nation's own interests, they knew they would face allegations of anti-Semitism. But the episode has prompted America's Jewish liberals to confront their own complacency. Might the tide be turning?

By Robert Fisk, April 27, 2006

"The Independent" -- - Stephen Walt towers over me as we walk in the Harvard sunshine past Eliot Street, a big man who needs to be big right now (he's one of two authors of an academic paper on the influence of America's Jewish lobby) but whose fame, or notoriety, depending on your point of view, is of no interest to him. "John and I have deliberately avoided the television shows because we don't think we can discuss these important issues in 10 minutes. It would become 'J' and 'S', the personalities who wrote about the lobby - and we want to open the way to serious discussion about this, to encourage a broader discussion of the forces shaping US foreign policy in the Middle East."

"John" is John Mearsheimer, a political scientist at the University of Chicago. Walt is a 50-year-old tenured professor at the John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. The two men have caused one of the most extraordinary political storms over the Middle East in recent American history by stating what to many non-Americans is obvious: that the US has been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of Israel, that Israel is a liability in the "war on terror", that the biggest Israeli lobby group, Aipac (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee), is in fact the agent of a foreign government and has a stranglehold on Congress - so much so that US policy towards Israel is not debated there - and that the lobby monitors and condemns academics who are critical of Israel.

"Anyone who criticises Israel's actions or argues that pro-Israel groups have significant influence over US Middle East policy," the authors have written, "...stands a good chance of being labelled an anti-Semite. Indeed, anyone who merely claims that there is an Israeli lobby runs the risk of being charged with anti-Semitism ... Anti-Semitism is something no-one wants to be accused of." This is strong stuff in a country where - to quote the late Edward Said - the "last taboo" (now that anyone can talk about blacks, gays and lesbians) is any serious discussion of America's relationship with Israel.

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