Influencing American Foreign Policy -- The Impotence of Jews & Arabs Together

UPDATING links added 12-15-2010

The Wikileaks are telling the broad public some truths that were earlier mainly known only to the very well-informed. Jeffrey Goldberg explains that American foreign policy is made by US officials, although I would not say that policy is necessarily made in the American interest. That interest is itself a matter of interpretation and controversy.

The Impotence of the

Pan-Semitic Front

By Jeffrey Goldberg

Here's a fact that might astonish Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, whose book, "The Israel Lobby," posits the existence of a nefarious, all-powerful Jewish lobby that works in direct opposition to American interests: The "Lobby" (they love to capitalize the word, to accentuate its alleged uniqueness) has failed to convince two successive American administrations, one Republican and one Democratic, to attack Iran's nuclear sites. So much for Jewish power.

Here's another fact that might astonish Walt and Mearsheimer: It turns out that the Jewish lobby wasn't even the main lobby working to bring about an attack on Iran. It was, according to the treasure trove of State Department cables released by Wikileaks, the Arab lobby -- whose lead lobbyist is, by the way, the King of Saudi Arabia (which is a big job, since he's also in charge of the world's oil supply) -- that was at the forefront of an intensive, even ferocious, anti-Iran lobbying effort. For Walt and Mearsheimer to acknowledge that the Arab lobby, and not the Jewish lobby, was the prime mover of this issue would mean that they would have to recall their book, and somehow stuff back into a bottle all of the anti-Semitic invective they unleashed in the book's wake. So don't expect an apology anytime soon.

In sum, what we have here is a situation in which all of the Semites in combination have been proven impotent in their attempt to move American foreign policy. Which suggests that American foreign policy might actually be made by Americans. This is definitely a tough week for the neo-Lindberghians.

This article available online at: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/11/the-impotence-of-the-pan-semitic-front/67222/ Copyright © 2010 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All Rights Reserved.

I'm not sure that Goldberg believes that walt-mearsheimer really believe in what they wrote in their own book called The Israel Lobby. In fact, Mearsheimer himself was interviewed on NPR several years ago and contradicted the claims made by walt & himself in their book, which might better be called a non-book, to use terminology from the 1960s and 1970s. Goldberg would have done better to write: Here's a fact that might astonish walt & mearsheimer if they really believed what they wrote in their book The Israel Lobby.

The revelation discussed by Goldberg is that Arab rulers too, not only Israel, were very concerned by the Iranian nuclear bomb project. This was known long ago and even reported fairly frankly in early 2009 by an Arab reporter with the Associated Press. Maybe the phoney experts on Middle Eastern affairs who proliferate and swarm in the major mass media and the "think tanks" don't read AP reports. Otherwise, why were they so ignorant and misleading?? A Jerusalem Post editorial mentions some of the names: Marc Lynch of Foreign Policy, Robert Dreyfuss of the once rational The Nation, and of course walt-mearsheimer. There are many more lesser and greater lights who reiterated the same silliness.

Getting back to Goldberg's point that the influence of the Semites in Washington, of Jews and Arabs taken either separately or together, was not enough to move Washington to a really firm policy against the Iranian Bomb, a policy not ruling out military action, as several Arab rulers called for, what do we conclude. First of all, the actual US policy was made by Americans, not Arabs or Jews or both, and not necessarily in the true, paramount interest of the American people which would be to limit nuclear proliferation. Secondly, it seems that --despite many fine words over the many years history of the Iran nuke endeavor-- the Washington policymakers did not want to stop the Iranian Bomb project. They want Iran to have the Bomb.

- - - - - - - - - -
Barry Rubin on Wikileaks and the Iranian Bomb [here]
David Horowitz, editor of the Jerusalem Post on Obama's duplicity concerning the Iranian Bomb Project [here]
Judith Apter Klinghoffer covers disappointment among Western "leftists" that Arabs too opposed the Iranian Bomb [here]. She also argued that "Obama lied when he pretended that he needed to kick Israel to convince Arabs to support his anti-Iran policy" [here].
12-8-2010 Tariq al-Mohayed admits that the wikileaks revelations about Arab opposition to the Iranian Bomb Project were true [here]. He calls them: "leaked US diplomatic cables."
12-15-2010 Martin Kramer brings a lecture from two years ago explaining that Arab states feared an Iranian Bomb [here].

Fake Human Rights Outfits like Human Rights Watch Form a Central Axis of the MSM's Anti-Israel Strategy

UPDATING link added 10 September 2009

. . . Many Lies resembling Truth. . .
Hesiod, Theogony

Sources of fake "information" that present themselves as ostensibly loyal to lofty ideals are part of a well-developed propaganda-cum-indoctrination machine. A fake outfit, ostensibly devoted to a lofty principle, such as human rights, uses its undeserved image of decency, idealism, truthfulness and impartiality to smear a target, a designated enemy. It doesn't use bullets or guns but words. Yet in the long run, the words are meant to play a military role too. The process entails a fake human rights group or fake "peace group" etc, like Human Rights Watch, drawing up a report falsely accusing Israel of killing civilians in warfare, either intentionally or negligently/carelessly. The report is passed on to the complicit Mainstream Media or --to use a somewhat dated term-- the Establishment media. The various media/press/broadcasting organizations --not all to be sure-- report on the report, perhaps further dramatizing it. A smear, a libel, a slander spreads throughout the world. The target has been effectively smeared. The smear is especially effective among readers or listeners who are weak in their knowledge of history, sociology, political science, comparative religion and so on and so forth, as well as being weak in their ability to carefully read what is written, to discount speculative accounts without well-identified credible witnesses, and so on. That is how Human Rights Watch and similar entities can operate.

A commenter on the Augean Stables site, which was founded precisely to deal with frauds and distortions in the media, sees the link between the media and the fake "NGOs" and groups with ostensibly lofty goals, as follows. He points out part of the strategy of the MSM in promoting false "news":

Denting the credibility of ‘trusted sources’ like HRW is precisely what the MSNM carefully tries to avoid even while pretending balance. It regularly uses apparently neutral sources which are actually deeply committed players to force a covert agenda on the audience as a magician forces a card on a dupe. [Lorenz Gude at Augean Stables 8-14-09]

By the way, Gude goes on to mention the impact of the Internet and intelligent blogs on MSM/Establishment control of the "narrative."

Now an unruly audience gets to point out when the magician is pulling a fast one.

That is probably true but the MSM still have more power than the blogs.

Another trick is to pretend that one is neutral, maybe merely interested in having the law obeyed or that one is opposed to one's own ally and allied with one's enemy. This trick is often used against Israel, with the MSM and State Dept pretending to defend Israel against Arab enemies while the truth is the opposite. The Israeli govt also plays along with this lie, which is another problem.

Academic international relations specialists Walt & Mearsheimer were well regarded in the United States in their profession and specialty. They were also both State Department consultants. The State Dept has almost always been hostile to Israel and Jews since before the rebirth of the State of Israel. However, public opinion in the United States has often been sympathetic to Israel and this sympathy has sometimes thwarted State Dept policies hostile to Israel. It seems that one purpose of Walt & Mearsheimer's notorious book, The Israel Lobby, was to create a hostile atmosphere for Israel in the United States, a hostile body of public opinion in order to replace or counter the body of opinion sympathetic to Israel. In that way, the State Dept would be less restricted by public opinion in what it does to harm Israel. W & M falsely claimed that Israel had controlled even dictated American Middle East policy through the so-called Israel Lobby which is at best a very amorphous body of public opinion, often pulling in different directions.

They went so far as to claim or insinuate that the US-led invasion of Iraq --in which Israel's old nemesis, the UK-- took a major role-- had been dictated or forced on America by Israel. W & M knew that this was a lie. Indeed, Mearsheimer went on at length in an interview on National Public Radio [the US Govt broadcaster; also see here] that when Israeli officials had learned of the US intention to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein, they --the Israelis-- had tried to dissuade the Americans from doing this and to convince them [the Americans] that, if they were going to go to war anyway, it would be better to attack Iran than Iraq, since Iran was more dangerous in the Israeli view, with its undisrupted efforts to develop a nuclear bomb, etc. Needless to say, the Israelis did not succeed in convincing the Americans and the invasion of Iraq went ahead. This admission by Mearsheimer, probably inadvertent, did not stop W & M from lying afterwards about Israeli control of US policy. And of course the MSM routinely claim that Israel is a favored ally of US policy whereas, especially under Obama, Israel is a target, an enemy meant to be attacked. While doing their "book," W & M, overlooked the close ties and cozy financial relationships between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, American administrations, the State Dept and -- former State Dept employes who had worked in Saudi Arabia and later got on the Saudi payroll. Charles Freeman, whom Obama had originally wanted to appoint to a highly sensitive intelligence post, was one of these. Of course, W & M were aware of the Saudi-American connection, especially close under the two Bush administrations [Sr & Jr], as described in detail in Craig Unger's book on the House of Saud.

In another example, Pres Obama has been denouncing "special interests" such as insurance companies and big pharmaceutical outfits for being opposed to his so-called health plan. In fact, he is already allied with Big Pharma [see here too] and seems to have the insurance industry on board as well. This is a blatant example of this technique. He denounces the big drug companies, whom he and his advisors knew were disliked and distrusted by the public, in order to win public support for his program. They, the Big Pharma firms, are against Me, against Little Me. Meanwhile, Obama and Big Pharma are allied.

Further, Obama's supporters throw out the label "astroturf" to smear opponents of his plan. Astroturf is a brand name for a kind of imitation grass used in some sports stadiums. The label is meant to say that opponents of his plan do not represent the real "grass roots" but are fake grass, astroturf, organized by the Republican Party or the Big Interests, such as Big Pharma [as insinuated]. There couldn't possibly be anything wrong with Obama's health plan.

In tsarist Russia, the government conducted an anti-Jewish campaign in various ways. One way was to finance and encourage a group called the Black Hundreds [tshernotentsy] that blamed the Jews for all of the Russian Empire's troubles and carried out anti-Jewish pogroms. When such pogroms broke out, often instigated and organized by the Black Hundreds, the police often did little or nothing to protect the Jews. They pretended to be helpless before such a "spontaneous" outburst of popular hatred of Jews.

Getting back to "human rights watch," it pretends to objectivity and impartiality. These pretenses have been easily disproven by a number of serious reports in various publications and blogs. Among these, see the Augean Stables blog and --especially-- the NGO Monitor blog, both linked to on our blog roll. Emet m'Tsiyon has considered hrw's tragi-farcical charade several times in the past [see here & ici & aqui & qui ]

HRW ought to be severely discredited due to recent revelations that it sent some of its top officials to Saudi Arabia for fundraising [see here & NGO Monitor & Augean Stables], with three Saudi officials present at meetings [according to an AFP report]. Bear in mind that Saudi Arabia, with its Wahhabi Muslim ideology and legal system, rejects the whole notion of human rights in principle. Likewise discrediting is the fanatically anti-Israel career of top HRW operative Joe Stork, who has not changed his extreme anti-Israel views since he openly identified himself as a "radical leftist" years ago. This too ought to discredit HRW. See Stork's background here.
- - - - - - - - -
UPDATING link added on 10 Sept 2009
David Bernstein on HRW seeking funds in Saudi Arabia, from the Wall Street Journal [published 16 July 2009].
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
Coming soon: Arabs and State Dept helping to fund the "J Street" lobby outfit, Lies supporting the "peace process" and Obama/State Dept policy.

Obama's Starched-Shirt Old & Middle-Aged White Men Mentors, like Lee Hamilton, Chaz Freeman and Others

Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools

Obama is probably the greatest faker to become president since 1900 --and he has a lot of competition. Like George Bush Jr's pretense at being against "terrorism," whereas George B played ball with many a terrorist. Arafat was only one of them. But we think Obama takes the cake as a fraud. He came to power on the slogan of Change. Hence, a lot of the fools thought that he was against that old Establishment of middle-aged white men wearing ties, jackets, and starched shirts who have so long dominated Washington. In fact, Obama has long been taking counsel with the worst of these Establishment white men. Shortly before the inauguration, it came out that he met discreetly with Lee Hamilton, an ex-congressman, veteran hater of Israel, director of the Wilson Center, and the Hamilton of the Baker-Hamilton Report put out by the so-called Iraq Study Group. Note that George B Jr had already begun to implement their recommendations about two years ago. So much for Change.

It now turns out that Hamilton is the gray eminence [eminence grise] behind young, fresh-faced, innocent Obama who naively sat in Pastor Jeremiah Wright's church for 20 years and never heard him say a mean word about white folk, like his dear granny. Maybe Obama is hard of hearing or has some sort of auditory problem. Anyway, it now turns out that he not only looks up to Zbig Brzezinski, an old white feller, but he looks up to another old white feller, that is, Lee Hamilton [see link].

Another example of the kind of white folk that Obama's appointees hang around with and pal around with is Chaz Freeman, the kind of guy who likes to get close to the hog trough so that he can slurp up the goodies. After being ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Chaz then became a lobbyist for Saudi Arabia [and for Communist China]. No doubt his loyal services to his Saudi employers were decently compensated from a pecuniary point of view. And then one of Obama's not so intelligent intelligence experts came along and wanted to appoint Chaz F to a sensitive job in editing the daily intelligence reports that go the president. Daily Beast claims Freeman is tied to the bin Laden family.

It is true that in the end Freeman was induced to decline the appointment although the NYTimes and other MSM "news" outlets did their best to cover up for him.

James Kirchick was one of those who wrote up the Chaz Freeman story that the NYTimes thought was "not fit to print" [here]. Here are some highlights from Kirchick:

The Chinese Communists are not the only authoritarians for whom Freeman seems to have a soft spot. From 1989 to 1992, he served as ambassador to Saudi Arabia, where he developed an affinity for the monarchs who run the kingdom as their own personal fiefdom. “I believe King Abdullah is very rapidly becoming Abdullah the Great,” he said last October. In 1997, he became president of the Middle East Policy Council, a Saudi-funded think tank in Washington. There, he bragged about publishing an “unabridged” version of “The Israel Lobby” by professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, which purports to expose the Jewish state’s nefarious power and the dual loyalties of Jewish government officials, journalists and political activists. A man who for a decade presided over a front group for a theocratic kleptocracy and who believes the title of “king” isn’t sufficient for the fat oil baron who rules that benighted land should pause before endorsing a work that questions the loyalty of others.

The elevation of Freeman provides welcome opportunity for a debate about a lobby, one just as well-financed and professionally staffed as the groups that support America’s strong relationship with Israel — that is, the one shilling for the House of Saud. While a pro-Saudi Arabia lobby does not enjoy nearly the same level of domestic support as the pro-Israel lobby (primarily because Saudi Arabia, unlike Israel, does things like behead homosexuals, ban women from driving and outlaw the practice of Christianity), the Saudis — and the Gulf states in general — have far more sympathizers in high-level positions in the State Department than does Israel, which is, and always has been, friendless at Foggy Bottom.

What Kirchick wrote several weeks ago about Foggy Bottom [the State Dept] is still true today. Next we ought to look at the anti-Jewish Racism of Obama/Hamilton/Freeman's opposition to Jews living in Judea-Samaria, as well as the anti-Black Racism of the Obama Administration's willingness to appease the genocidal regime of `Umar [Omar] al-Bashir in the Sudan [see link].

Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools

- - - - - - - - - -
More obamoid appeasement -- they want iran to have A-bomb capability.

The Anti-Jewish Bigot Jesse Jackson Supports Obama with Lies

Jesse Jackson has long been one of the less appetizing major figures in US politics. He was long a recipient of millions in Federal govt funding for various projects allegedly meant to help the poor, whereas most of the money went to line his own pockets and buy him luxuries [such as, traveling to Europe on the Concorde for his family]. Yet he has been tolerated and treated kindly by the media. His apparent role in setting Martin Luther King up for assassination has been generally overlooked [see Jim Bishop's book on that assassination]. Nor did his vicious anti-Jewish comments place outside the pale of acceptable and accepted [salonfahig] politicians. Now, he has once again come out of the closet as an anti-Jewish bigot. He has embraced the Walt-Mearsheimer lie that Israel controls US foreign policy in the Middle East. I wonder how much money he gets from Saudi Arabia and/or other Arab sources for failing to mention Saudi influence, which was examined to some extent in the film Fahrenheit 9/11 by "leftist" Michael Moore. Here are some choice quotes from an interview with Jackson reproduced on the blog of Prof Judith Apter Klinghoffer.

Jackson believes that, although "Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades" remain strong, they'll lose a great deal of their clout when Barack Obama enters the White House. . .

This is only part of Jackson's expressions of anti-Jewish hate. Next he tells whom he supports:

Jackson warns that he is not an Obama confidant or adviser but, "just a supporter" But he adds that Obama has been "a neighbor, or better still, a member of the family."

After these remarks, Jackson takes some unexpected "right-wing" positions:

. . . the United States "will have to remain in Iraq for a very long time."
"We need to protect our manufacturing industry against unfair competition that destroys American jobs. . . "

The full interview is here.
- - - - - - - -

Coming: More on Obama the war candidate, More on the anti-Jewish racism of the "Peace Process," Republicans, Democrats & Jews [FDR and Eisenhower and Carter and George Bush Sr]; Jews in Jerusalem, Hebron, the Land of Israel, archeological updates, peace follies, propaganda, etc

Star British Journalist Adores Walt- Mearsheimer's Anti-Israel Fraud

You cannot hope to bribe or twist (thank God)
The British journalist
But seeing what the man will do
Unbribed, there's no occasion to.
Humbert Wolfe, poet, 1930

Max Hastings is a veteran and eminent or maybe overrated British journalist. He praised the walt-mearsheimer travesty in a review for the London Sunday Times [2 Sept 2007]. His review was uncritical, even gushing, although he did complain about the style which he thought somewhat heavy.

Hastings endorses the ridiculous falsehoods of Walt-Mearsheimer. He summarizes their position as saying, inter alia, that America gives Israel's governments "unconditional support."

But they [walt-mearsheimer] are dismayed by America’s unconditional support for its [Israel's] governments’ policies, including vast sums of cash aid for which there is no plausible accounting process.

This is simply a lie. For instance, on Jewish settlements in Judea-Samaria. These areas were part of the Jewish National Home set up by the San Remo Conference in 1920, and endorsed by the League of Nations in 1922. They are legal. Yet, United States policy is opposed to them and considers them an "obstacle to peace."

It is not the settlements that are illegal. What was illegal --according to the League's Permanent Mandates Commission-- was the British White Paper policy starting in 1939 that prevented Jews from buying real estate in most of the National Home despite the clear principles enunciated by the Mandate issued to Britain in 1922. As to settlements, US policy opposes them, although the US is not so ready to declare them illegal as the UK is.

It may be forgotten in 2007 that in the spring of 2002, President Bush, very vehemently opposed Israel's Defensive Shield operation, aimed at overcoming the mass murderous terrorists operating out of the Arab cities controlled by the "Palestinian Authority." Bush demanded that Israel's army immediately turn around and leave those areas, this was after the Park Hotel bombing in Netanya, Israel, on the Jewish festival of Passover, that had slaughtered 29 Jews. Yet, Bush opposed necessary Israeli defensive actions. Indeed, many of the Bush Administrations policies toward Israel and the Arabs are harmful to Israel. Without providing a long list, I will mention the Bush State Department's plans for an "international conference" at Annapolis [see here & here] which can do no good for Israel, plus the massive funds contributed to the Palestinian Authority.

As to funds unaccounted for, the Palestinian Authority --favored by the State Dept, the UK Foreign Office, the BBC, the EU, and in fact by President Bush-- is notorious for funds unaccounted for. Yet, it seems that walt-mearsheimer & Hastings are not concerned about how the PA spends or misplaces the huge sums donated to it.

[It is curious that Hastings does not mention a charge against the so-called Israel Lobby made in walt-mearsheimer's original article on that subject in 2006 in the London Review of Books and in their book. They charge that the Israel lobby was behind the Iraq War. It is peculiar that Hastings doesn't mention the accusation. In any case, Mearsheimer admitted the truth, contradicting his own and Walt's lie about the Iraq War in an interview with a journalist on US National Public Radio. Camera picked up this interview in which Mearsheimer gainsaid one of the central claims in his book, that the Bush Administration made war on Saddam Hussein's Iraq in order to serve Israel.]

And many Israeli government actions, including the expansion of West Bank settlements and the invasion of Lebanon, reflect repressive policies that do not deserve Washington’s endorsement: “While there is no question that the Jews were victims in Europe, they were often the victimisers, not the victims, in the Middle East, and their main victims were and continue to be the Palestinians." [w-m's words]

Hastings packs a lot of smear into a fairly short paragraph. Why is it "repressive" [Hastings' word] for the Israeli government to allow Jews to live in Judea-Samaria, the heart of the ancient Jewish homeland? The League of Nations' palestine mandate states [Article 6]:

"The Administration of Palestine . . . shall facilitate Jewish immigration . . . and shall encourage. . . close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes."

This is what the Israel government has done and Hastings now smears it as "repressive." International law still recognizes Judea-Samaria & Gaza as parts of the Jewish National Home. The truly "repressive" action was that of the UK government in violation of the Mandate, as expressed in the 1939 White Paper policy and in various regulations to implement that policy. Some of these regulations forbid --in a racist manner-- land purchase by Jews in most of the country. And this on the eve of the Holocaust!

Furthermore, Israel was attacked from Lebanon by the Hizbullah in July 2006. The seizure of two wounded Israeli soldiers and the killing of several others was accompanied by a barrage of katyusha rockets on Israeli towns and villages along the northern border. The Hizbullah is an armed militia with a Judeophobic ideology containing Nazi-like elements. It operates independently of and in opposition to the parliamentary government of Lebanon. It is a protege of the Iranian and Syrian regimes, both of which make Nazi-like propaganda against Jews. Max Hastings, a respected British journalist, considers Israel's defensive actions in Lebanon to be "repressive." He has written an insidious, mendacious tract, using words for emotive purposes rather than rational meanings.

Hastings and walt-mearsheimer also reverse the historical relations between Jews and Arabs. Saying that the Jews were victims only in Europe but not in Arab-Muslim ruled lands is simply a lie. Jews in Arab-Muslim-ruled lands were subject to the oppressive dhimma rules of Muslim law, described below in our comments on Jimmy Carter. The Arab-Muslims in the Land of Israel historically oppressed and exploited Jews, precisely in Israel, precisely in Jerusalem. See here & here & here. As to the W-M claim about Jews being "victimisers" rather than victims of Arabs, Palestinian Arabs in particular, see the previous post about the role in the Holocaust of Haj Amin el-Husseini, British-appointed mufti of Jerusalem [see here & here too, etc]. It is curious that Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, utters similar falsehoods about the Arab-Jewish relationship, comparing Arab terrorism with the civil rights movement of American blacks. This is evidence that the walt-mearsheimer article and book were meant to serve State Department purposes, also in view of the fact that Walt & Mearsheimer have been State Department consultants.

Hastings goes on to present a distorted picture of outside lobbying and political-financial pressures on American foreign policy in the Middle East.

The authors argue that American policy towards Israel is decisively and unhelpfully influenced by the power of a domestic lobby spearheaded by AIPAC (the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee). This organisation wields extraordinary power in raising funds for American political candidates whom it favours, and bringing down wrath upon those whom it deems insufficiently supportive.

Comment: The Saudi lobby is not mentioned in the review, although it is likely much more powerful than the pro-Israel lobby and closer to the heart of the Bush family with its ties to the oil industry, although it is backed by a much smaller constituency in American public opinion. How about the fat speakers fees paid to ex-presidents like Carter and Clinton who give lectures in the Persian Gulf emirates [UAE]? How do we know how much money Saudi Arabia, the Gulf emirates and other wealthy Arabs may be donating to presidential candidates? Changing the relative size of the pro-Israel community --the body of pro-Israel opinion-- in the US is one of the main purposes of the w-m book.

Jimmy Carter too seems to be propounding the same big lie as Walt-Mearsheimer, Rice, and Hastings about the Arabs as victims of the Jews, reversing historical and current reality.

Former president Jimmy Carter incurred not merely criticism but vilification when he published a book entitled Palestine, Peace Not Apartheid, likening Israel’s policy towards the Palestinians to that of the old white regime in South Africa towards its black majority.

When someone terribly slanders someone else, what should the reaction be? How should Jews react when an ex-president of the US makes hate propaganda against Israel? Applying the label "Apartheid" to Israel is very false and very sinister, since the charge embodies other charges, such as racism, whereas Jews suffered from racism in South Africa and from something much like apartheid in traditonal Arab-Muslim society. Arab/Muslims suppressed, exploited, humiliated, oppressed Jews for more than a thousand years in the status of dhimmis. Dhimmis were non-Muslims tolerated in the Muslim state. But they were tolerated only in the inferior status of dhimmis. This status involved such things as special taxation, originally conceived of as a form of tribute in the Quran [9:29]. Muslim law [shari`ah] specifically aimed to humiliate the dhimmi, as in how one of the special taxes on dhimmis, the jizya, was to be paid. In some places, the dhimmi had to accept a blow on the back of the neck when he paid it. In other, milder cases, the dhimmi had to offer the Muslim official the coin with his hand open, palm upwards. The official would then lift up the coin from the dhimmi's hand. This was to prevent the dhimmi's hand from being above that of the official --as the case would be if the dhimmi dropped the coin into the official's hand-- which would constitute humiliation of a Muslim, in the eyes of Islamic law. In Muslim courts, the dhimmi's testimony was worth one-half that of the dhimmi, and a dhimmi woman's testimony was worth even less. For more on the dhimmi status, see here and here and other posts on this blog.

One of the things that the Nazis did to ready their population and other Europeans and people elsewhere for the Holocaust was to constantly vilify the Jews. Carter vilifies the Jews --ostensibly only the state of Israel-- by libelling Israel as "apartheid," then Max Hastings claims that the Jews are vilifying Carter. For the record, in Israel, Arabs vote for the parliament, the Knesset, there is an Arab cabinet minister, Arab judges, including a supreme court judge. Arabs go to university with Jews. Arabs go to school with Jews, although most Arab parents prefer that their children get an Arab education with a Muslim religious component. Arabs ride buses with Jews [how else did the suicide bombers get on the buses?]. Arabs eat in the restaurants with Jews. Now in apartheid South Africa, this ethnic equality did not exist. I don't say "racial equality" since skin color is not the problem between Arabs and Jews. There is in fact a broad range of skin colors among both peoples, particularly among Jews and Arabs in Israel.

A major theme of the walt-mearsheimer tract is that Jews or the "Israel Lobby" dominate what the American media say about Israel. In my view, the Petro-Diplomatic Complex has more influence over what the American media write about Israel than Israel's supporters do. Anyhow, here is Hastings:

The American media, claim the authors, even such mighty organs as The New York Times and The Washington Post, do less than justice to the Palestinians, much more than justice to the Israelis. . . There is no American counterpart to such notably Arabist British polemicists as Robert Fisk.

The problem is that the New York Times and Washington Post have often published false reports libelling Israel. Hastings, uncritically approving w-m's claim, turns the situation around to have it that the NYT and WaPo favor Israel over those Arabs, now fashionably called "Palestinians." Bear in mind that one hundred years ago, the Muslim-Arabs themselves did not speak of "Palestine" let alone a "Palestinian people." As late as 1946, Palestinian Arab spokesmen testifying before the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine, demanded that the Palestine mandated territory --set up to embody the Jewish National Home in international law in 1920 at San Remo, endorsed by the League of Nations in 1922 and so on, confirmed by the UN Charter [Article 80] after WW2-- be a part of Syria or Greater Syria, in conformity with the traditional Arab geographical concept of bilad ash-Sham [Greater Syria, including Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Israel, grosso modo]. Few Americans, certainly not friends of Israel, would agree that the NYT or WaPo are friendly to Israel. Now, as to Robert Fisk, he is a notorious journalistic liar. Fisk has an aversion to facts that don't fit his anti-Israel arguments. Fisk shames the British people. One of his lies was published in an article that I read after Iraq's conquest of Kuwait, a fellow Arab state, in 1990. Fisk claimed that there had been a "Province of Palestine" in the Ottoman Empire before WW One. This is completely false. At that time, the country on both sides of the Jordan was divided between the province of Syria [vilayet of Sham; also translated as "province of Damascus"], the province [vilayet] of Beirut, and the mutesariflik of Jerusalem [also called "independent sanjaq of Jerusalem"]. So when Robert Fisk claimed that there had been an Ottoman "province of Palestine," he was either lying or he was ignorant. Fisk's purpose was to project the "palestinian people" notion back into the past.

To be sure, Hastings criticizes the book's style.

Mearsheimer and Walt’s book argues its points at such ponderous length that it makes pretty leaden reading.

But this is a trivial point when he has uncritically accepted all of their political and historical claims. Then Hastings gets into high dudgeon about freedom of the press, etc.

. . . it is extraordinary that, in a free society, the legitimacy of the expression of their opinions should be called into question.

But is it legitimate to lie so grossly on important public issues?
Then Hastings quotes walt-mearsheimer wanting to have Israel downgraded as an ally of free, democratic countries besides Israel allegedly being immoral and oppressive to Arabs, in their terms.

“We show,” say the authors, “that although Israel may have been an asset during the cold war it is increasingly a strategic liability now that the cold war is over. Backing Israel so strongly helps fuel America’s terrorism problem and makes it harder for the United States to address the other problems it faces in the Middle East.”

Here Hastings, and w-m forget how US foreign policy --including in its so-called "realist" mode [walt & mearsheimer are supposed to be "realists" on foreign policy]-- has created problems in the Middle East which one may or not agree favor American interests but surely are harmful to Israel. For instance, was it good for the United States under President Carter --his foreign policy managed by Zbig Brzezinski-- to have supported the takeover of Iran by the Muslim fanatic Khomeini [1978-1979], whom Ahmadinejad obeyed at the time?? Does Hastings remember the Teheran hostage crisis, perpetrated by those whom the US had helped to take over Iran? Was it good for the United States to have favored the takeover of Lebanon by Syria, which it did under President Ford [in 1976, Kissinger was secretary of state] and under President Bush Senior [in 1990, James Baker was secretary of state, encouraging Syria to crush its last Lebanese opposition]?? Was it good for the United States to have helped Iraq, to have helped Saddam Hussein, in the 1980s, then having to fight Iraq in 1991 after it had conquered Kuwait and was threatening Saudi Arabia?

Americans ring-fence Israel from the normal sceptical processes of democracy, while arguments for the Palestinians are often denounced as pernicious as well as antisemitic.

Indeed, many arguments for the Arabs now called "palestinians" are "perncious as well as antisemitic." How about "the right of return"? The Palestine mandate and the Jewish National Home principle endorsed by the League of Nations stipulated a Jewish "right of return." However, the Arab political leadership of the Mufti Husseini and his Arab Higher Committee for Palestine called for cancelling that right, as the Nazis in Germany became more of a threat to the Jews. Precisely on the eve of the Holocaust, when the Jews needed a home more than ever, the British government accepted the Arab position and severely curtailed Jewish immigration into the internationally designated Jewish National Home, in violation of the Mandate, according to the League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission.

Mearsheimer and Walt conclude, weakly but inevitably, with a mere plea for more open debate in the US about Israel. “Because most Americans are only dimly aware of the crimes committed against the Palestinians,” they say, “they see their continued resistance as an irrational desire for vengeance. Or as evidence of unwarranted hatred of Jews akin to the antisemitism that was endemic in old Europe.

Here Hastings & walt-mearsheimer come close to the shrill tones used by the "left" against Israel's alleged "crimes." They repeat --by implication and insinuation-- the lie that, yes, there was "antisemitism . . . endemic in old Europe" but not in the Arab world. Hence, this line indicates a convergence between the so-called "left" and Establishment foreign policy planners against Israel.

For Europeans, all this adds up to a bleak picture. Only America might be capable of inducing the government of Israel to moderate its behaviour, and it will not try. Washington gives Jerusalem a blank cheque, and all of us in some degree pay a price for Israel’s abuses of it.
After that remark, I shall be pleasantly surprised to escape an allegation from somebody that I belong in the same stable of antisemites as Walt and Mearsheimer.

So Hastings wants the USA to exert massive pressure on Israel's government, which is weak anyhow, in order to "moderate" Israel's behavior, whereas it is not considered that Arab behavior needs to be moderated, although Abu Mazen's Palestinian Authority has not fulfilled any of the requirements of the so-called Road Map, such as ending hostile propaganda against Israel and disarming terrorist militias. Yes, I consider Hastings to be an antisemite, or rather a Judeophobe. Another British scribbler, one Daniel Levy, treated the walt-mearsheimer tract favorably in a review in HaArets [available in English]. This Daniel Levy is the son of Lord Levy, one of Tony Blair's major campaign contributors. Another British journalopropagandist, Gwyn Dyer, falsifies the status of the 1949-1967 armistice lines, calling them Israel's "legal borders." This is of course par for the course in British journalism, although journalists elsewhere spread the same lie. If Hastings, Dyer, & Fisk are exemplars of British journalism, then it's simply a propaganda industry, although Britain can do much better.

Walt-Mearsheimer are political scientists, so their book can be considered political science fiction.
The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy by John J Mearsheimer and Stephen M Walt
- - - - - - -
Coming: Condi and the false analogy between Abu Mazen and Dr Martin Luther King [a Zionist, in fact], Jews in the Land of Israel, Jerusalem and Hebron, peace follies, propaganda, war for order, etc.

A Gem of Absurdity from walt-mearsheimer

UPDATINGS at bottom -- original quote here below as of 12-2-2007

Finally got a look at walt-mearsheimer's magnum opus, a rather inflated tome called The Israel Lobby. Anyhow, I had a chance to read some of their slick but shallow arguments. Just leafing through the pages, I found a gem. In the chapter on Israel's moral case, they write that Israel's supporters could --in Israel's defense-- point to Arab threats to destroy Israel in several wars, 1948, 1967, 1973, etc. W-M admit that in 1948, some Arab leaders called for "throwing the Jews into the sea." But then they claim that the Arab leaders really didn't mean it. It was all just for domestic consumption, walt-mearsheimer claim. They go on to argue that this was because the Arab leaders knew that they couldn't destroy Israel. So here W-M make a leap of logic: Because the Arab leaders allegedly knew that the Arabs couldn't win the war against Israel, this means that they didn't want to destroy Israel.

Of course the whole argument is full of holes like swiss cheese --and it stinks like moldy cheese too. The Arab spokesmen were threatening war at the UN before the UN General Assembly made its partition recommendation on 29 November 1947. At that time, and up to 15 May 1948, Israel was not yet an established state. It was a dream, an idea, a hope. It had lightly armed forces that stayed in the underground during British rule. But it could not bring in heavy weapons as long as the British forces remained in the country, unless they could be smuggled past the British --who were actively pro-Arab at that time. So why would the governments of Arab states, that could bring in heavy weapons, and did get British supplies, know that they couldn't defeat the as yet unborn state of Israel? How do walt-mearsheimer know what the Arab leaders knew or believed at that time? The Arab League governments were NOT saying: We can't defeat the Jews. Indeed, they were boasting in their usual bellicose Arab rodomontade that they could win, and this view was shared by high officials in the British and US governments, for instance. Such as expert opinions produced by the UK & US governments that the Jews could not hold out against the Arabs. Abdul-Rahman Azzam, secretary-general of the Arab League, warned the UN that Arab states would use force against any partition plan and boasted of a bloody Arab victory in the coming war with the Jews:

'This war will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongol massacres and the Crusades.
'[Ahkbar Al-Yom, October 11, 1947 quoted in Jewish Agency for Palestine, Memorandum 1948; Howard Sachar dates this statement to the Spring of 1948, in his A History of Israel (New York: Alfred Knopf 1976), p 333; Leonard Davis & Moshe Decter date the statement to 15 May 1948, in Myths and Facts 1982 (Washington, DC: Near East Research 1982), p 20]

Can we imagine Arab officials telling each other at the Arab League conference at Bludan, Syria, in June 1946, as they reached a consensus to send forces to the Land of Israel to prevent emergence of a Jewish state: Of course, we can't win the war. And we really don't want to throw the Jews into the sea. But we must fight for the sake of fanatic domestic public opinion and we will be just delighted when we are defeated in a humiliating fashion. Public opinion will be delighted too. This defeat will bring us all closer together, governments and the fanatics in the street. Then we will plan together on how to lose the next war.

There may have been some well-informed and thoughtful Arabs who had doubts, who thought that maybe the Arabs couldn't drive Israel into the sea. However, since the Arab states had been established as states, they had been able to build regular armies, train troops, and import weapons -- which weapons exporting states were quite willing, if not eager, to supply [in the United Kingdom's case]. Further, the Arab Legion [al-Jaysh al-`Arabi] of Transjordan was British-commanded [by Sir John Bagot Glubb] , British-financed and equipped, and most senior officers were British.

Why should the Arab leadership have believed differently from the UK and US government experts?? Moreover, given their traditional contempt for Jews who were traditionally at the bottom of the social ladder in the Arab-Muslim countries, given the age-old Arab/Muslim teachings about their own military superiority and the inferiority of the Jews, what else could a normal Arab-Muslim, educated in his own tradition, think but that the Arabs would be gloriously victorious? Furthermore, the UK and US were urging the Arab League states to go to war against the as yet unborn state [about US policy, see the research of Professor Shlomo Slonim].

Now, the widely known Arab journalist, Muhammad Hassanayn Haykal [Mohamed Hassanein Heikal], wrote --on the eve of Soviet leader Khrushchov's visit to Egypt [1964]-- that the British had urged Egypt to go to war against the soon to be proclaimed Jewish state. He added that the British had given the Egyptian army weapons and ammunition from British stocks in the Suez Canal Zone, at that time under British control [of course, the Egyptian army had to go through the Suez Canal Zone in order to get to Israel, which may have been so obvious to Haykal that he didn't bother to point it out]. Haykal also claimed --after the fact [in 1964]-- that he had known in 1948 that the Arabs could not win and that he had discussed this with prime minister Nuqrashy Pasha who knew it too. Here, Haykal does what walt-mearsheimer do. He too indulges in after the fact psychologizing. He argues that the British knew that Egypt could not win and wanted Egypt to be defeated in the war with Israel in order to weaken Egypt's negotiating position when negotiations came up with Britain over the Suez Canal's status. That's why the UK pressured Egypt to get into the war, Haykal claimed.

Be that as it may, the decision-makers in Arab League states [in Egypt the king] decided to destroy Israel at birth. And their threats of war and massacre were heard at the UN General Assembly too. Here is the crucial question for Walt & Mearsheimer. Can they produce records of the deliberations at the Arab League meetings that decided to go to war? If so, can these records or minutes or protocols or proceedings demonstrate that the majority of Arab states at that time admitted an Arab military incapacity to defeat Israel?

Walt-Mearsheimer claim that the bellicose threats to Israel, the Arab rodomontade, were for domestic consumption. Indeed, there were attacks, pogroms, on Jews in Arab countries in that period, such as in self-governing Egypt and in Aden which was under British control. So the Arab home front or "street" wanted to kill Jews. But if the leaders knew that they could not win a war against the Jews, then why would they rationally send their armies into a certainly humiliating defeat [any defeat at the hands of the despised Jews would be humiliating!!]? Such a defeat could and DID lead to the overthrow of existing Arab governments --as in Egypt and Syria. They could instead have loudly and for a long time condemned Britain for not preventing a Jewish state from emerging, or a similar diplomatic-political subterfuge, engaging in a lot of sound and fury to satisfy the fanatics at home, with little shooting.

The argument and the book are ridiculous. Mearsheimer has even admitted, in so many words, that he was lying. As we recall, one of the charges made in the original w-m article in the London Review of Books in 2006 [Nota Bene: the London Review] was that Israel and/or the Israel Lobby had pushed the Bush administration into the war against the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq. However, in an interview on National Public Radio, Mearsheimer stated that the war on Iraq had been decided on by the US Govt before Israeli officials knew about it. According to Mearsheimer in this interview, the Israelis suggested that if there were to be a war, it should be against Iran, which Israel saw as more threatening an enemy at that time. But the Bush Administration decided otherwise. As to Walt-Mearsheimer, they knew that they were lying. As competent political scientists with the status of consultants to the State Department, they were part of policy making. They were in a position to know the truth. They lied knowingly and deliberately.

Now what are the context and the purpose of the w-m lies???
They and their article, book, media appearances, etc. are part of a concerted anti-Israel propaganda campaign by the Petro-Diplomatic Complex. Others taking part are former president Carter, James Baker-Lee Hamilton, Professor William Polk-George McGovern, etc. All those named have recently produced tracts that argue against either Israel's morality or moral rights, or against Israel's usefulness to the United States, that is, to US interests, or both. One problem is What are American interests abroad generally, and in the Middle East in particular? Another issue is: Who is to decide what these interests are? Is it the Petro-Diplomatic Complex that has had the upper hand in the US's Middle East policymaking over the years? The purpose of the campaign appears to be to besmirch Israel in public opinion in the US so much so that Israel is softened up for a diplomatic crushing at an international "peace" conference, which Secretary of State Rice is conveniently preparing for the end of November. This conference will be a conference in favor of Arab terrorism. It will reward Arab anti-Israel terrorism. Rice has already pressured Israel to release terrorist prisoners in order to supposedly support the "moderate" Mahmud Abbas [Abu Mazin].

The aims of the w-m book and of the campaign by carter, baker, et al., are objectively genocidal.

As evidence that US policy --especially under Bush-- is anti-Israel, Bush is the first US president to come out unequivocally for an Arab state to be named "palestine" to be set up in the Land of Israel. Such a state would inevitably threaten Israel militarily and economically. The Arabs are not now ready to make a real peace with Israel on any reasonable terms. Another sign of Bush's hostility to Israel were his demands at the beginning of Israel's anti-terrorist offensive in 2002 --the Defensive Shield operation-- that Israel's army immediately withdraw from the areas assigned to the Palestinian Authority --areas from which the mass murder bombers were coming. These demands are forgotten now in the present surreal air of political deception in which we live.

UPDATING #1-- There was a precedent for throwing a hated ethnic group into the sea: In 1922 Turkish nationalist forces led by Kemal Ataturk drove the Greek population of Smyrna into the sea. Smyrna had been a Greek-speaking city for more than 2,000 years. It remained predominantly Greek in population even after the Ottoman Empire conquered Smyrna from the Greek-speaking Byzantine Empire hundreds of years before 1922. Smyrna also had a Turkish-Muslim minority, a Jewish quarter, an Armenian quarter, and many Europeans and Americans who had come for purposes of trade or were there for religious/missionary purposes. There were also Levantines, people with mixed European and Greek or Armenian ancestry. These Levantines too were mainly involved in trade and services for the European and American communities. In 1922 the Turkish nationalist army of Ataturk drove the Greeks out of the city, while it massacred the surviving Armenians in the city and set fire to Greek and Armenian neighborhoods. Meanwhile, the fleets of the major Western powers sat at anchor in the harbor of Smyrna. They had orders not to interfere with the slaughter perpetrated by the Kemalist forces and were reluctant to help the refugees. Greece sent a motley assortment of boats to take out the refugees, including surviving Armenians. Since the expulsion of the Greeks and the massacre of the Armenians, the city has been officially called Izmir. This is a historical precedent for what those Arabs may have been thinking who called for driving the Jews into the sea, as walt-mearsheimer admit they said.
Sources:
Ernest Hemingway, "On the Quay at Smyrna," in In Our Time [starting with the 1930 edition of the anthology In Our Time; New York, Scribner's]. This is a fictionalized account of the events at Smyrna that rings true. Hemingway was a reporter in Anatolia and the Balkans in that period. See his description of a Kemalist official in this post.
George Horton, The Blight of Asia -- Horton was the US consul in Smyrna in 1922, that is, he was an eyewitness.
Marjorie Housepian, The Smyrna Affair
- - - - - - -
UPDATING #2 as of 12-2-2007 Original Quote from walt-mearsheimer

. . . some argue that the Arabs precipitated wars in 1948, 1967, and 1973 in order to "drive Israel into the sea."
While there is no question that Israel faced serious threats in its early years, the Arabs were not attempting to destroy Israel in any of these wars. This is not because the Arabs were happy about the presence of a Jewish state in their midst --they were not-- but rather because they have never had the capability to win a war against Israel, much less defeat it decisively. There is no question that some Arab leaders talked about "driving the Jews into the sea" during the 1948 war, but this was largely rhetoric designed to appease their publics. In fact, the Arab leaders were mainly concerned with gaining territory for themselves at the expense of the Palestinians, one of the many occasions when Arab governments put their own interests ahead of the Palestinians' welfare. [Walt & Mearsheimer, pp 83-84]

For more commentary on walt-mearsheimer: see this link.

- - - - - - -
Coming: UK journalopropagandist, Max Hastings, gushes over the w-m book, Jews in Jerusalem, Hebron, peace follies, propaganda, etc.