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THE FIFTH COLUMN ROLE OF ZIONISTS IN THE LEFT - by Jeffrey Blankfort
Let's look at the role of Zionists in the left who have kept the anti-intervention [anti-war] movement from putting the Palestine issue on its agenda, and blocking any movement to end the billions of dollars that flow to Israel each year to purchase weapons.
"The Myth of the Israel Lobby" (http://www.aei.org/ra/rafrum021021.htm) by David Frum, is typical of those who wish to defray attention from the power of the pro-Israel lobby of which my article, "Breaking the Silence on the Israel Lobby" (http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/01/1560029.php), was only the briefest sketch. Frum, a conservative columnist, former Bush, Jr., speech writer and American Enterprise Institute fellow--his wife claimed that he was the inventor of the “axis of evil” phrase--who is often expediently and partially posted under other names in various online discussion comment posts (like different indymedias), trots out all the standard fallacies in support of his position. A few major corrections to Frum's commentary will be supplied here.
First, by several estimates, including the Jewish press, Jewish contributions to the Clinton campaign were 60%, not one-third as Frum claims. This is in keeping with a Congressional Research Service report from the early 1980’s that reported that more than 60% of the contributions to the Democratic Party over $10,000 came from Jews.
Clinton's plan, if agreed to by the Palestinians would have left the major Jewish settlements in place, would have left the Palestinians with 22% of what had been Palestine, and would have cantonized the resulting Palestinian bantustans with its divisions being separated by "for Jews only roads" enforced by the IDF, as would the air space over the bantustans controlled by Israel, as well as the water beneath the ground.
As Uri Avnery has pointed out, every president from Nixon on, made an effort to get the Israelis out of the West Bank and Gaza and each effort was foiled by the mobilized lobby whose generous contributions, combined with blackmail and intimidation--and no visible opposition thanks to the mindset of Carter, as codified as "conventional wisdom" by Chomsky and Bennis--guarantee Congress's compliance.
Those presidents who challenged the lobby in the post-Nixon years were one-termers:
Ford, with Kissinger's agreement, halted aid to Israel for six months in 1975 when Israel refused to disengage from the Sinai and was about to make a major speech, reassessing the U.S.-Israel relationship, but was stopped from doing that when AIPAC heard about it and drafted a warning letter to Ford signed by 75 senators.
Carter became unpopular with the lobby when he pushed through Camp David, which required Israel to give up the Sinai. In order either to break the agreement or to test Egypt's willingness to be pacified, Begin invaded Lebanon in 1978 but was forced to withdraw when Carter told him to three months later. Begin responded by rapidly colonizing the West Bank. Then Carter committed another heinous sin in the eyes of Israel and the lobby by calling for a Geneva conference, which would include the USSR, to bring about a just settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Carter ended up in 1980 with the lowest Jewish vote of any Democratic candidate in modern times.
Bush, Sr., came into office with a record of past antagonism to Israel. As Reagan's veep, he had wanted to sanction Israel, first for bombing the Iraq reactor and second, for invading Lebanon in 1982, but he was outvoted within the administration. His defeat in 1992 was largely caused by his demand that Shamir halt Jewish settlement building in order to get $10-billion in loan guarantees that the Israeli PM turned down and instead went to Congress for help. When Bush called a press conference denouncing 1000 Jewish lobbyists who had come to Washington to lobby for the loans, his goose was cooked. Old friends in the media, like Safire and Will, went on the attack, finding everything possible wrong with the Bush administration, and his Jewish vote went from an estimated 38% in 1988 to 6% in 1992.
Bush, Jr., learned the lesson. When he called for Sharon to pull out of Jenin, saying "Enough is enough!," and Sharon ignored him, he could do so because there was Safire and Will again on the attack, with Will writing that Dubya had "lost his moral clarity." Dubya did a quick reality check and described Sharon as "a man of peace."
But let's leave Washington and look at the role of Zionists in the left who have kept the anti-intervention [anti-war] movement from putting the Palestine issue on its agenda, and blocking any movement to end the billions of dollars that flow to Israel each year to purchase weapons and cash. The time has arrived when the issue of the lobby will be viewed as it should be, exactly like Gore Vidal described it back in 1986, a veritable fifth column which places the interests of a foreign government over that of the inhabitants of the US.
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If the Zionists manage to distort the U.S. capitalist class's policies in favor of their own special interests, they can cause greater harm to certain groups -- Palestinians in particular -- than would occur otherwise, but they don't increase the overall damage done by U.S. capital in the world, including inside the United States. In fact, they may be weakening U.S. capitalism somewhat by undermining its influence among Arabs and Muslims.
None of this means that the left should in any way support the ZIonists. Their reactionary influence on left and working class opinion should be consistently fought. But we should never give credence to the idea that U.S. capitalism would be in any sense better for the world's working and oppressed people if it weren't for the Zionists -- or the Jews!
Aaron S. [I'm now writing my name as 'Aaron S.' to differentiate me from the 'aaron' who often posts to indymedia and who doesn't give an email address.]
P.S. I oppose imperialist war. I don't oppose war against imperialism and/or capitalism in general. And I consider the notion of 'the cycle of U.S.-Israeli-insurgent international terrorism' to be very misleading. What 'insurgent international terrorism' consists of is a varying mix of (1) false-flag operations by imperialist intelligence agencies, (2) blowback by right-wing groups originally established by such agencies but now operating on their own, and (3) genuine anti-imperialist armed actions. I certainly support the latter kind of activity and reject the notion that the will or ability of imperialists (U.S.-Israeli or otherwise) to carry out their own terrorism is increased by such actions. On the other hand, actions of al Qaeda, Hamas and Islamic Jihad fit into categories (1) and/or (2) and may be scripted as part of a 'cycle of terrorism' to justify the overwhelmingly greater terror of the imperialists.
“Blankfort’s attempt to undermine U.S. support for Israel by appealing to American nationalism -- something I [Aaron] criticized him for in the past -- certainly undermines the struggle against U.S. imperialism.”
Aaron makes this kind of statement repeatedly, but never provides concrete examples of how this is supposed to be the case. Most likely because there is no such example, because the idea is patently ridiculous. There is simply nothing in Blankfort’s argument that would lead to support for imperialist activities, in the Middle East or elsewhere.
Aaron S then claims not to understand what I meant by “a major aspect of peace” and therefore ducks my point. Let me clarify for him. I meant that the Zionist influence over US politics helped increase the threat of war in Iraq, which might easily spread horrific suffering to other parts of the Middle East.
In response, Aaron takes the position that he doesn’t “see the idea of 'peace' having any relevance as long as capitalism exists.” So is he therefore indifferent to the possibility of war in Iraq? That’s what he seems to be saying. To him, it’s irrelevant if thousands of Iraqis or Palestinians die.
Jeffrey Blankfort is taking the very reasonable position that opposing Zionist influence over the US political system will lead to less actual violence in the Middle East and less suffering by people who have no immediate recourse against American capitalism. Aaron seems to be saying, ‘let them suffer; I’m only interested in ideologically pure political activities.’ Well, it may be ideologically pure, but it’s inhumane.
kind of peace that we find under occupation or pacification) when we live in the
comfortable confines of Berkeley or San Francisco where the confrontations with
the armed minions of the state are largely by choice, unless one happens to be
in East or West Oakland or Bayview Hunters Point.
Second, given not just the absence of any signifificant movement witrhin the left to
pull the Israeli jackboots from the necks of the Palestinians, but theexistence of
am influential presence of a significant Zionist element within the movement
working against it, an appeal of American nationalism is an obvious, but
legitimate, last resort.
For those who decry any form of nationalism, a viewpoint with which I generally
agree, to challenge this point, is to put their ideological perspective above the lives
and futures of the Palestinian people, which is something I am not prepared to do
that.
If the left, at least those segments of it that say they are for the Palestinians, had not
been so pure, they would have raised the issue of the USS Liberty, the spy ship
attacked by Israel in the 1967 war, many years ago. Even now, the subject is
ignored.
For those who are ignorant of the facts, the Israeli navy and air force attacked the
lightly armed US spy ship which was monitoring its communications during the
Six-Day War. Thirty-four US sailors were killed and 171 wounded.
Without speculating on the reasons for the attack and the subsequent coverup by
the Johnson administration, that Israel was allowed to get away with what was
literally cold-blooded murder of US servicemen, who were threatened with
court-martial if they talked about it, was the defining act in US-Israel relations.
That the left, except for a few of us, has not cared to ever raise this issue, shows,
among other things, the essential disconnect that we have with the masses of
the American people that we have thus far failed so miserably to win over.
In this sense, Judeo-supremacy and its manifestation in the government's fawning support for Israel is an obstacle to our self-determination (and obviously, MUCH MUCH more so for the Palestinians). Ordinary Americans can relate to this appeal, and it is no crime to relate this to them.
The problem is that none of the fundamental problems of the power structure are challenged by this view, only one ethnic disproportion (and subsequent discrepancy - grants to Israeli apartheid) within the power structure - hence, anti-Semitism, 'the socialism of fools,' peddled by Gentiles, like Henry Ford, who want that power all for themselves. That does not mean that challenging the Zionist power structure on grounds of "Bad for America" is wrong, only that we extend this argument against all in the corporate world and ALL the monied interests dictating our hegemonic foreign policy. One can thus appeal to the American people without touching a flag, and help Palestine.
'Bring the power back to the street, where the people live.' - DP
JAnderson & Jeff Blankfort both argue in favor of pragmatism, i.e., dealing with a particular problem according to what seems to work in that particular situation. They both seek to deal with one particular instance of oppression in isolation, without considering how their tactics in that situation affect the struggle against imperialist capitalist oppression in general.
According to Jeff, I am putting my "ideological perspective above the lives and futures of the Palestinian people". On the contrary, it is people like JA and Jeff who put the well-being of one group of victims above the well-being of the literally billions of victims of imperialist capitalism, including the nearly 100,000 children who die every day for lack of food and clean water.
Jeff writes: "That the left, except for a few of us, has not cared to ever raise this issue [the USS Liberty], shows, among other things, the essential disconnect that we have with the masses of the American people that we have thus far failed so miserably to win over."
Given all the different methods that various leftists have tried -- with little success -- in order to connect "with the masses of the American people", isn't it time to recognize that the problem is with the population (especially the white population) of the United States, a population bought off by the material advantages of imperialism and settler colonialism, and panicked into reacting like Israeli Jews to any threat of losing those advantages?
I really don't object if Jeff, JA and others go around to reactionary, patriotic white AmeriKKKans and use their already-existing nationalism to turn them against U.S. support for Israel. I just don't want them, especially while presenting themselves as leftists, to encourage such chauvinist poison among potentially revolutionary sectors of the population who, if not already supporting the Palestinians, can be won to that support on an internationalist basis.