Asking For a Fair Hearing

[Gryphons Eyre]

Yesterday I wrote a post making the unforgivable mistake of using “Jewish lobby” instead of “pro-Israeli lobby” when referring to “some Democrats are fighting Speaker Pelosi's language which would prevent the President from going to war in Iran without the approval of Congress.” While some remarks suggested the response would have been pretty much the same either way, this much I must concede; Pro-Israeli is more accurate and not all Jews are Pro-Israeli so if this was the entire reason for your calling me a racist, anti-Semitic David Duke then point taken.

The response here was over the top and uncalled for! If anyone is simply looking to strike out in blind hatred then let me suggest this is not it whether you can “feel it in your guts” or not. But let’s start at the beginning.

For months the Bush administration has been on a slow steady march to oblivion. All the same eerie markings of the lead up to the Iraq war are now everywhere concerning the same orchestrated reasons for going to war with Iran. It is undoubtedly only months now before this administration “pulls the trigger on Iran.” Finally, a Democrat majority in congress shows some signs that they will attempt to interdict this absolute disaster by specifically denying the executive funding for such a war and members of our own party have the nerve to try and prevent it? I make no pretence here, this makes me very angry. Angry first that my government is being led by men so short sighted that they will risk everything for some extreme, untested, obscure ideology that has brought the world to the edge of apocalypse, and second that even now pressure is being applied by anyone to complete the process.
So I fire off a short note describing my feelings before leaving for the evening and come back to find war has broken out, the post has been moved to assure that it will be closed without an opportunity for me to respond. Here then is that response.

My first question would be, did anyone read the paper I provided as support for my position? If so is there anything there you feel is inaccurate or not factual? Or did you simply do what is commonly done in many instances and dismiss the entire argument out of hand? I realize the paper is some 24 pages of text and 28 pages including references so who has the time. Let me abbreviate that for you.

This is really about money; what substitutes for democracy in our nation for so many reasons.

From a one-man office when it was founded 50 years ago, AIPAC has grown into an organization of 85,000 members, with activists in every Jewish community in the United States. Each Spring it holds a national three-day conference in Washington. "It's climatic Congressional Dinner attracts hundreds of congress members and dozens of foreign ambassadors," writes Forward editor J.J. Goldberg, "all of them eager to curry good will with AIPAC and the Jewish community. Lest the point be lost, the dinner chairperson always reads a “roll call' naming every senator, every representative, and ambassador present in the hall... followed by private receptions by lawmakers courting Jewish campaign support."<18> The organization does not contribute money to candidates directly but advises numerous Jewish PACs and wealthy Jewish donors as to the campaigns where their money might be the most useful to Israel. AIPAC holds similar conferences, but on a smaller scale, around the country in the winter, with local officials from the respective regions being honored as invited guests. It so happened that AIPAC's annual conference last year followed the Iraq invasion by a week. Since "AIPAC is wont to support whatever is good for Israel, and so long as Israel supports the war," wrote Ha'aretz's Guttmann, "so too do the thousands of the AIPAC lobbyists who convened in the American capital."<19>

And, to be sure, money had its role with Democrats who had benefited from large contributions from pro-Israel PACs being among the swing votes. Having "pro-Israel liberals behind the resolution made it easier to hold moderate Republicans as well."<24>While the U.S. Congress was divided over going to war in 1990, "there is one place in the world which is longing for war," said retired Major General Matti Peled, a former Knesset Member and, before his death, a leader of the Israeli peace camp, "and that is Israel... Every commentator finds it his duty to join the party of the war-mongers. Arrogant statements about the slowness of the Americans are heard every day."<25>Anti-war activists paid no attention to such statements or to the activities of the Israel lobby then, nor have they since.<26> While they chanted, "No Blood for Oil!," in national protests on October 25th, Kinsley, a mainstream liberal, described the situation as "the proverbial elephant in the room... Everybody sees it, no one mentions it."<27>

The power that is represented here has been influencing United States policy since the Nixon era and the last major attempt by a U.S. president to challenge this power was when Gerald Ford attempted to withhold weapons from Israel to force a change in policy:

To do so, we need to go back to 1975 and the administration of Gerald Ford. In that year, Ford, like Richard Nixon before him, tried his hand at achieving a Middle East peace settlement and was confronted with an intransigent Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin, then in his first tour of office. In March of that year, exasperated with Israel's behavior, Ford had made a speech calling for a "reassessment" of U.S. policy towards Israel On the advice of his secretary of state, none other than Henry Kissinger, Ford "conspicuously delayed delivery of weapons to Israel, including the F-15 fighter plane suspended negotiations for pending financial and military aid to Israel"<43> Within White House circles, a consensus for a peace plan was emerging which "looked very much like UN Resolution 242 and the Rogers Plan" that would have required Israel to return to its pre-1967 borders, with provisions that its security would be guaranteed. The idea was for President Ford to make a major speech, spelling out America's basic interests in the Middle East, and those interests required Israel's withdrawal.<44> It was not to be. As J.J. Goldberg noted in his book, Jewish Power, "Rabin and his aides entered the Kissinger negotiations as hard bargainers with a clear sense of the bottom line... And one of the most potent weapons at their disposal was the American Jewish community... "<45> Two years before, after the end of what the Israelis describe as the Yom Kippur War, with an Arab oil embargo causing gasoline shortages and widespread resentment around the country, the General Assembly of the Council of Jewish Federations voted to launch an emergency public-relations campaign in behalf of Israel. It would be endowed with a $3 million emergency public-relations fund and administered by a special task force on Israel. The campaign would combine the "national clout and know-how of the major agencies with the local resources of the federations and community-relations councils" <46>As Goldberg describes it, "President Ford was the first to taste its power, when he spoke about his ‘reassessment’ of U.S.-Israel relations. Within six weeks, Ford gave up the idea after 76 senators signed a letter, drafted by AIPAC, demanding that he "back off."47 The letter's key paragraph put the president on notice that:

... within the next several weeks, the Congress expects to receive your foreign aid requests for fiscal year 1976. We trust that your recommendations will be responsive to Israel's urgent military and economic needs. We urge you to make it clear, as we do, that the United States acting in its own national interests stands firmly with Israel in searching for peace in future negotiations, and that this premise is the basis of the current reassessment of U.S. policy in the Middle East. <48>Senator Charles Mathias, (R-MD) acknowledged that, due to lobbying pressure, "Seventy-six of us promptly affixed our signatures although no hearings had been held, no debate conducted, nor had the administration been invited to present its views. Mathias added that "as a result of the activities of the Despite their victory in this situation, certain Jewish supporters of Israel in Washington were determined that such a potential crisis in U.S.-Israel relations would not to be allowed to happen again. Enter Perle and JINSA, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.

What is represented here is not strictly a result of activism by 85,000 members of AIPAC. Neither could it be accounted for by JINSA, Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish-American Organizations, American Jewish Congress, American Enterprise Institute, or even the small group of neo-conservatives that are in control of U.S. and Israeli governments today. Call it Pro-Israeli lobby if you wish but in the end the power being flexed here could only be explained by the support of a much larger community then these organizations represent.

I could go on with this line of argument for an extended period concerning this one document let alone multiple other sources I could reference but I will leave it there. Why point out what has already been pointed to if it will serve no purpose or as stated above; “described the situation as "the proverbial elephant in the room... Everybody sees it, no one mentions it." The sad conclusion to this exercise in futility is that there seems to be no way to discuss sensitive topics that ultimately speaks to everyone’s interest without initiating a response that prevents that from ever happening. I believe America must overcome this apparent inability to speak openly and calmly about issues that separated us or risk destroying ourselves; that is why I continue such discussion in the first place. I will not stand mute while my country tears itself apart. I will not apologize for feeling passionate about what I believe in; I would not ask that from anyone else. You want to show me where I am wrong with kind words and tolerance for difference of opinion then you will find me quick to concede; throw labels and accusations at me and we both loose.

In the end I am interested in stopping a war; that’s pretty much it. In the end 33 recommendations for my post which “amazed” some members was a reflection of this and not some implied racist, anti-Semitic, ulterior motive. Most of those crying foul made no mention of their interest for peace. Those that I offended unintentionally I sincerely did not mean to do so; those that work for peace among all peoples of the world could find none more loyal then I would hope to be.
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