اللوبي الصهيوني في أمريكا

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  • BashirShawish
    أعضاء رسميون
    • May 2006
    • 384

    اللوبي الصهيوني في أمريكا

    Who's the dog? Who's the tail?

    Uri Avnery
    Gush Shalom
    22.4.06
    I DON'T usually tell these stories, because they might
    give rise to the suspicion that I am paranoid.
    For example: 27 years ago, I was invited to give a
    lecture-tour in 30 American universities, including all
    the most prestigious ones - Harvard, Yale, Princeton,
    MIT, Berkeley and so on. My host was the Fellowship of
    Reconciliation, a respected non-Jewish organization,
    but the lectures themselves were to be held under the
    auspices of the Jewish Bet-Hillel chaplains.
    On arrival at the airport in New York I was met by one
    of the organizers. "There is a slight hitch," he told
    me, "29 of the Rabbis have cancelled your lecture."
    In the end, all the lectures did take place, under the
    auspices of Christian chaplains. When we came to the
    lone Rabbi who had not cancelled my lecture, he told me
    the secret: the lectures had been forbidden in a
    confidential letter from the Anti-Defamation League,
    the thought-police of the Jewish establishment. The
    salient phrase has stuck to my memory: "While it cannot
    be said that Member of the Knesset Avnery is a traitor,
    yet..."
    AND ANOTHER story from real life: a year later I went
    to Washington DC in order to "sell" the Two-State
    solution, which at the time was considered an
    outlandish, not to say crazy, idea. In the course of
    the visit, the Quakers were so kind as to arrange a
    press conference for me.
    When I arrived, I was amazed. The hall was crammed
    full, practically all the important American media were
    represented. Many had come straight from a press
    conference held by Golda Meir, who was also in town.
    The event was to last an hour, as is usual, but the
    journalists did not let go. They bombarded me with
    questions for another two hours. Clearly, what I had to
    say was quite new to them and they were interested.
    I was curious how this would be reported in the media.
    And indeed, the reaction was stunning: not a word
    appeared in any of the newspapers, on radio or TV. Not
    one single word.
    By the way, three years ago I again held a press
    conference, this time on Capitol Hill in Washington. It
    was an exact replica of the last time: the crowd of
    reporters, their obvious interest, the continuation of
    the conference well beyond the appointed time - and not
    a single word in the media.
    I COULD tell some more stories like these, but the
    point is made. I recount them only in connection with
    the scandal recently caused by two American professors,
    Stephen Walt of Harvard and John Mearsheimer of the
    University of Chicago. They published a research paper
    on the influence of the Israel lobby in the United
    States. [for a pdf file of this paper, go to
    http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP06-011]
    In 80 pages, 40 of them footnotes and sources, the two
    show how the pro-Israel lobby exercises unbridled power
    in the US capital, how it terrorizes the members of the
    Senate and the House of Representatives, how the White
    House dances to its tune (if indeed a house can dance),
    how the important media obey its orders and how the
    universities, too, live in fear of it.
    The paper caused a storm. And I don't mean the
    predictable wild attacks by the "friends of Israel" -
    which means almost all politicians, journalists and
    professors. These pelted the authors with all the usual
    accusations: that they were anti-Semites, that they
    were resurrecting the Protocols of the Elders of Zion,
    and so forth. There was something paradoxical in these
    attacks, since they only illustrated the authors' case.
    But the debate that fascinates me is of a different
    nature. It broke out between senior intellectuals, from
    the legendary Noam Chomsky, the guru of the Left
    throughout the world (including Israel), to progressive
    websites everywhere. The bone of contention: the
    conclusion of the paper that the Jewish-Israeli lobby
    dominates US foreign policy and subjugates it to
    Israeli interests - in glaring contradiction to the
    national interest of the US itself. A case in point:
    the American assault on Iraq.
    `Chomsky and others rose up against this assertion. They
    do not deny the factual findings of the two professors,
    but object to their conclusions. In their view, it is
    not the Israel lobby that directs American policy, but
    the interests of the big corporations that dominate the
    American empire and exploit Israel for their own
    selfish aims.
    Simply put: does the dog wag its tail, or does the tail
    wag its dog?
    I AM NERVOUS about sticking my head into a debate
    between such illustrious intellectuals, but I feel
    obliged to express my view nevertheless.
    I'll start with the Jew, who went to the Rabbi and
    complained about his neighbor. "You are right'" the
    Rabbi declared. Then came the neighbor and denounced
    the complainant. "You are right'" the Rabbi announced.
    "But how can that be," exclaimed the Rabbi's wife,
    "Only one of the two can be right!" "You are right,
    too," the Rabbi said.
    I find myself in a similar situation. I think that both
    sides are right (and hope to be right, myself, too).
    The findings of the two professors are right to the
    last detail. Every Senator and Congressman knows that
    criticizing the Israeli government is political
    suicide. Two of them, a Senator and a Congressman,
    tried - and were politically executed. The Jewish lobby
    was fully mobilized against them and hounded them out
    of office. This was done openly, to set a public
    example. If the Israeli government wanted a law
    tomorrow annulling the Ten Commandments, 95 Senators
    (at least) would sign the bill forthwith.
    President Bush, for example, has withdrawn from all the
    established American positions regarding our conflict.
    He accepts automatically the positions of our
    government, be they as they may. Almost all the
    American media are closed to Palestinians and Israeli
    peace activists. As to professors - almost all of them
    know which side of their bread is peanut-buttered. If,
    in spite of that, somebody dares to open their mouth
    against the Israeli policy - as happens once every few
    years - they are smothered under a volley of
    denunciations: anti-Semite, Holocaust denier, neo-Nazi.
    By the way, American guests in Israel, who know that at
    home it is forbidden to mention the influence of the
    Jewish-Israeli lobby, are dumbfounded to see that here
    the lobby does not hide its power in Washington but
    openly boasts of it.
    The question, therefore, is not whether the two
    professors are right in their findings. The question is
    what conclusions can be drawn from them.

    LET'S TAKE the Iraq affair. Who is the dog? Who the
    tail?

    The Israeli government prayed for this attack, which
    has eliminated the strategic threat posed by Iraq.
    America was pushed into the war by a group of Neo-
    Conservatives, almost all of them Jews, who had a huge
    influence on the White House. In the past, some of them
    had acted as advisers to Binyamin Netanyahu.

    On the face of it, a clear case. The pro-Israeli lobby
    pushed for the war, Israel is its main beneficiary. If
    the war ends in a disaster for America, Israel will
    undoubtedly be blamed.

    Really? What about the American aim of getting their
    hands on the main oil reserves of the world, in order
    to dominate the world economy? What about the aim of
    placing an American garrison in the center of the main
    oil-producing area, on top of the Iraqi oil, between
    the oil of Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Caspian Sea? What
    about the immense influence of the big oil companies on
    the Bush family? What about the big multinational
    corporations, whose outstanding representative is Dick
    Cheney, that hoped to make hundreds of billions from
    the "reconstruction of Iraq"?

    The lesson of the Iraq affair is that the American-
    Israeli connection is strongest when it seems that
    American interests and Israeli Interests are one
    (irrespective of whether that is really the case in the
    long run). The US uses Israel to dominate the Middle
    East, Israel uses the US to dominate Palestine.
    But if something exceptional happens, such as the
    Jonathan Pollard espionage affair or the sale of an
    Israeli spy plane to China, and a gap opens between the
    interests of the two sides, America is quite capable of
    slapping Israel in the face.

    AMERICAN-ISRAELI relations are indeed unique. It seems
    that they have no precedent in history. It is as if
    King Herod had given orders to Augustus Caesar and
    appointed the members of the Roman senate.

    I don't think that this phenomenon can be wholly
    explained by economic interests. Even the most orthodox
    Marxist must recognize that it also has a spiritual
    dimension. It is no accident that American (as well as
    British) fundamentalist Christians invented the Zionist
    idea well before Theodor Herzl hit upon it. The
    evangelical lobby is no less important in today's
    Washington than the Zionist one. According to its
    ideology, the Jews must take possession of all the Holy
    Land in order to make the Second Coming of Christ
    possible (and then - the part they don't shout about -
    some Jews will become Christians and the rest will be
    annihilated at Armaggedon, today's Meggido in Northern
    Israel).

    At the basis of the phenomenon lies the uncanny
    similarity between the two national-religious stories,
    the American myth and the Israeli. In both, pioneers
    persecuted for their religion reached the shores of the
    Promised Land. They were forced to defend themselves
    against the "savage" natives, who were out to destroy
    them. They redeemed the land, made the desert bloom,
    created, with God's help, a flourishing, democratic and
    moral society.

    Both societies live in a state of denial and
    unconscious guilt feelings - over there because of the
    genocide committed against the Native Americans and the
    horrifying slavery of the blacks, here because of the
    uprooting of half the Palestinian people and the
    oppression of the other half. Both here and there,
    people believe in an eternal war between the Sons of
    Light and the Sons of Darkness.

    ANYHOW, THE American-Israeli symbiosis is unique and
    far too complex a phenomenon to be described as a
    simple conspiracy. I am sure that the two professors
    did not mean to do so.

    The dog wags the tail and the tail wags the dog. They
    wag each other.

    GUSH SHALOM p.o.b. 3322 Tel Aviv 61033
    د/ بشير محمد الشاوش
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