So pro-Israel that it hurts --- By Daniel Levy

So pro-Israel that it hurts

By Daniel Levy

The new John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt study of "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" should serve as a wake-up call, on both sides of the ocean. The most obvious and eye-catching reflection is the fact that it is authored by two respected academics and carries the imprimatur of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. The tone of the report is harsh. It is jarring for a self-critical Israeli, too. It lacks finesse and nuance when it looks at the alphabet soup of the American-Jewish organizational world and how the Lobby interacts with both the Israeli establishment and the wider right-wing echo chamber.

It sometimes takes AIPAC omnipotence too much at face value and disregards key moments - such as the Bush senior/Baker loan guarantees episode and Clinton's showdown with Netanyahu over the Wye River Agreement. The study largely ignores AIPAC run-ins with more dovish Israeli administrations, most notably when it undermined Yitzhak Rabin, and how excessive hawkishness is often out of step with mainstream American Jewish opinion, turning many, especially young American Jews, away from taking any interest in Israel.

Yet their case is a potent one: that identification of American with Israeli interests can be principally explained via the impact of the Lobby in Washington, and in limiting the parameters of public debate, rather than by virtue of Israel being a vital strategic asset or having a uniquely compelling moral case for support (beyond, as the authors point out, the right to exist, which is anyway not in jeopardy). The study is at its most devastating when it describes how the Lobby "stifles debate by intimidation" and at its most current when it details how America's interests (and ultimately Israel's, too) are ill-served by following the Lobby's agenda.

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The bottom line might read as follows: that defending the occupation has done to the American pro-Israel community what living as an occupier has done to Israel - muddied both its moral compass and its rational self-interest compass.

more at:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/698302.html

in the balance. God help them both.

It's not a Jewish problem. It's not even really just an Israeli problem. It's a problem of radical nationalism.

nt

that there is wider spectrum political debate in Israel and a less controlled press. If not true, then that begins to explain a lot--war propaganda control of the press combined with boffo military budgets is just lethal to democracy, i.e., to any true representation of the majority of the people.

far. When people like Hagee, Robertson, Dobson begin a movement to launch another lobby group to support Israel among a Congress that is wholly owned by the likes of AIPAC, then you know the neocons and PNACers have really gone too far. It may take a little more time, but the blowback is imminent.

more...

Visible signs of Israel and the Lobby not being on the same page are mounting. For Israel, the Gaza withdrawal and future West Bank evacuations are acts of strategic national importance, for the Lobby an occasion for confusion and shuffling of feet. For Israel, the Hamas PLC election victory throws up complex and difficult challenges; for the Lobby it's a public relations homerun and occasion for simplistic legislative muscle-flexing.

In the words of the Harvard study authors, "the Lobby's influence has been bad for Israel ... has discouraged Israel from seizing opportunities ... that would have saved Israeli lives and shrunk the ranks of Palestinian extremists ... using American power to achieve a just peace between Israel and the Palestinians would help advance the broader goals of fighting extremism and promoting democracy in the Middle East." And please, this is not about appeasement, it's about smart, if difficult, policy choices that also address Israeli needs and

Israel. And it is the arms dealers and war profiteers who are doing the wagging.

I have thought this for some time about the US gov't, most especially in regard to the Iraq war. I found the vote of many Democratic Senators and Congresspeople to give away their war powers to George Bush--an unconstitutional act and a violation of the Congressional oath (not to mention its utter stupidity)--ESPECIALLY after the Democratic Party's experience of, and culpability for, the immense, senseless slaughter in Vietnam and Southeast Asia--SIMPLY INCREDIBLE. And I think that arms dealings and war profiteering were major drivers in that vote (also fear of the Bush junta).

Now I'm wondering the same thing about Israel. It seems to me that Israel's policy, toward the Palestinians and the rest of the Middle East, is to try to run a democratic country inside a medieval fortress bristling with armaments, complete with a snaking wall in and around Palestinian areas, with the Palestinians pinned inside. It reminds me of someone living in a crime-ridden neighborhood building an electric fence, getting killer dogs and arming themselves to the teeth. They may gain temporary safety, but they have no real safety and security, which can only come from getting to know your neighbors, finding common ground, joining with your neighbors for the improvement of the community, recognizing the problems and humanity of all people, and caring deeply for the COMMON good--not just for you in your little armored enclave, but for everyone, even for those who are driven to crime by poverty or desperation, or to achieve a false sense of dignity.

Peace-making, in other words. Understanding. Compassion. Building prosperity, and safety and security, for all.

Bad, bad mistakes have been made in the past--for instance, the US/Israel destruction of Iranian democracy in 1953 (followed by 25 years of oppression and torture by the US-installed Shah of Iran). Amends need to be made. Apologies issues. Fears allayed. Tempers calmed down. And the common good of all people in the Middle East needs to be pursued.

Well, I could write a similar prescription for the US--and its problems of poverty, theft by the rich, Corporate Rule, NON-TRANSPARENT elections, illegitimate government, unjust war, torture, Bush junta power-mongering and law-breaking, corporate news monopolies, and so on.

But if the real drivers are these largely unseen parties--the suppliers of guns, tanks, planes, bombs, surveillance and targeting technology, military barracks, food, clothing, etc. (not to mention gasoline)--and if these military contractors have a stranglehold on your economy, and thus on whatever government can achieve power, it is much harder to address. The tail is wagging the dog. Even TRANSPARENT elections might not be able to correct the situation of an out-of-control military-industrial complex. (It would be a start, though.)

I really don't know that much about Israeli military contractors (I imagine they might be quite intertwined with their US brethren), nor about Israeli politics. (I presume that Israel has transparent elections, but I don't know for sure.) My sense is that Israelis are like people everywhere--they want peace and justice, and prosperity, and a good purpose in life, and safety and security in which to pursue it. They are probably as bewildered as Americans are as to why peace has not been achieved, since just about everybody THEY know WANTS peace.

It's very hard to see a way out of the stranglehold of big military budgets--and a manipulated militarism--with the tail wagging the dog. These military suppliers and arms manufacturers--or those who profit the most by these activities--DO. NOT. WANT. PEACE. In fact they would like to arm all sides, and, where they can get away with it, do. I really don't think they have any loyalty or patriotism--except to their own pocketbooks.

Israel is more vulnerable than the US--and its paranoia is more understandable. But fear and paranoia can never achieve true peace, only a hiatus between slaughters. We may see some swing back toward another hiatus, or we may not--given the lack of accountability controls on the Bush junta-- but you can be sure that, if another hiatus comes, the fat-cat war profiteers will only be taking a respite, and letting some civilian prosperity accumulate, so they can come in for the kill again, with yet more manufactured conflict and war propaganda.

How do we get this monster--the military/industrial complex--under control? How do we do it here? How do we do it in Israel? That, to me, is the question. Neither country can achieve safety through militarism, and, in the case of the Bush junta, trying to be the bully of the world, and, in the case of Israel, trying to be the medieval fortress of democracy in the Middle East. Both of these modes are completely untenable in the long run, and profit NO ONE except these fat military establishment albatrosses.

And, that process is already well along the way to completion. I'm not sure about Sharon and Likud, but I suspect the same thing may have happened there.