The Israel Lobby
John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt
London Review of Books, www.lrb.co.uk/,
March 23, 2006
For the past several decades, and especially
since the Six-Day War in 1967, the centrepiece of US Middle Eastern
policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination
of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread
'democracy' throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic
opinion and jeopardised not only US security but that of much
of the rest of the world. This situation has no equal in American
political history. Why has the US been willing to set aside its
own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance
the interests of another state? One might assume that the bond
between the two countries was based on shared strategic interests
or compelling moral imperatives, but neither explanation can account
for the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that
the US provides.
Instead, the thrust of US policy in the
region derives almost entirely from domestic politics, and especially
the activities of the 'Israel Lobby'. Other special-interest groups
have managed to skew foreign policy, but no lobby has managed
to divert it as far from what the national interest would suggest,
while simultaneously convincing Americans that US interests and
those of the other country - in this case, Israel - are essentially
identical.
Since the October War in 1973, Washington
has provided Israel with a level of support dwarfing that given
to any other state. It has been the largest annual recipient of
direct economic and military assistance since 1976, and is the
largest recipient in total since World War Two, to the tune of
well over $140 billion (in 2004 dollars). Israel receives about
$3 billion in direct assistance each year, roughly one-fifth of
the foreign aid budget, and worth about $500 a year for every
Israeli. This largesse is especially striking since Israel is
now a wealthy industrial state with a per capita income roughly
equal to that of South Korea or Spain.
Other recipients get their money in quarterly
installments, but Israel receives its entire appropriation at
the beginning of each fiscal year and can thus earn interest on
it. Most recipients of aid given for military purposes are required
to spend all of it in the US, but Israel is allowed to use roughly
25 per cent of its allocation to subsidise its own defence industry.
It is the only recipient that does not have to account for how
the aid is spent, which makes it virtually impossible to prevent
the money from being used for purposes the US opposes, such as
building settlements on the West Bank. Moreover, the US has provided
Israel with nearly $3 billion to develop weapons systems, and
given it access to such top-drawer weaponry as Blackhawk helicopters
and F-16 jets. Finally, the US gives Israel access to intelligence
it denies to its Nato allies and has turned a blind eye to Israel's
acquisition of nuclear weapons.
Washington also provides Israel with consistent
diplomatic support. Since 1982, the US has vetoed 32 Security
Council resolutions critical of Israel, more than the total number
of vetoes cast by all the other Security Council members. It blocks
the efforts of Arab states to put Israel's nuclear arsenal on
the IAEA's agenda. The US comes to the rescue in wartime and takes
Israel's side when negotiating peace. The Nixon administration
protected it from the threat of Soviet intervention and resupplied
it during the October War. Washington was deeply involved in the
negotiations that ended that war, as well as in the lengthy 'step-by-step'
process that followed, just as it played a key role in the negotiations
that preceded and followed the 1993 Oslo Accords. In each case
there was occasional friction between US and Israeli officials,
but the US consistently supported the Israeli position. One American
participant at Camp David in 2000 later said: 'Far too often,
we functioned . . . as Israel's lawyer.' Finally, the Bush administration's
ambition to transform the Middle East is at least partly aimed
at improving Israel's strategic situation.
This extraordinary generosity might be
understandable if Israel were a vital strategic asset or if there
were a compelling moral case for US backing. But neither explanation
is convincing. One might argue that Israel was an asset during
the Cold War. By serving as America's proxy after 1967, it helped
contain Soviet expansion in the region and inflicted humiliating
defeats on Soviet clients like Egypt and Syria. It occasionally
helped protect other US allies (like King Hussein of Jordan) and
its military prowess forced Moscow to spend more on backing its
own client states. It also provided useful intelligence about
Soviet capabilities.
Backing Israel was not cheap, however,
and it complicated America's relations with the Arab world. For
example, the decision to give $2.2 billion in emergency military
aid during the October War triggered an Opec oil embargo that
inflicted considerable damage on Western economies. For all that,
Israel's armed forces were not in a position to protect US interests
in the region. The US could not, for example, rely on Israel when
the Iranian Revolution in 1979 raised concerns about the security
of oil supplies, and had to create its own Rapid Deployment Force
instead.
The first Gulf War revealed the extent
to which Israel was becoming a strategic burden. The US could
not use Israeli bases without rupturing the anti-Iraq coalition,
and had to divert resources (e.g. Patriot missile batteries) to
prevent Tel Aviv doing anything that might harm the alliance against
Saddam Hussein. History repeated itself in 2003: although Israel
was eager for the US to attack Iraq, Bush could not ask it to
help without triggering Arab opposition. So Israel stayed on the
sidelines once again.
Beginning in the 1990s, and even more
after 9/11, US support has been justified by the claim that both
states are threatened by terrorist groups originating in the Arab
and Muslim world, and by 'rogue states' that back these groups
and seek weapons of mass destruction. This is taken to mean not
only that Washington should give Israel a free hand in dealing
with the Palestinians and not press it to make concessions until
all Palestinian terrorists are imprisoned or dead, but that the
US should go after countries like Iran and Syria. Israel is thus
seen as a crucial ally in the war on terror, because its enemies
are America's enemies. In fact, Israel is a liability in the war
on terror and the broader effort to deal with rogue states.
'Terrorism' is not a single adversary,
but a tactic employed by a wide array of political groups. The
terrorist organisations that threaten Israel do not threaten the
United States, except when it intervenes against them (as in Lebanon
in 1982). Moreover, Palestinian terrorism is not random violence
directed against Israel or 'the West'; it is largely a response
to Israel's prolonged campaign to colonise the West Bank and Gaza
Strip.
More important, saying that Israel and
the US are united by a shared terrorist threat has the causal
relationship backwards: the US has a terrorism problem in good
part because it is so closely allied with Israel, not the other
way around. Support for Israel is not the only source of anti-American
terrorism, but it is an important one, and it makes winning the
war on terror more difficult. There is no question that many al-Qaida
leaders, including Osama bin Laden, are motivated by Israel's
presence in Jerusalem and the plight of the Palestinians. Unconditional
support for Israel makes it easier for extremists to rally popular
support and to attract recruits.
As for so-called rogue states in the Middle
East, they are not a dire threat to vital US interests, except
inasmuch as they are a threat to Israel. Even if these states
acquire nuclear weapons - which is obviously undesirable - neither
America nor Israel could be blackmailed, because the blackmailer
could not carry out the threat without suffering overwhelming
retaliation. The danger of a nuclear handover to terrorists is
equally remote, because a rogue state could not be sure the transfer
would go undetected or that it would not be blamed and punished
afterwards. The relationship with Israel actually makes it harder
for the US to deal with these states. Israel's nuclear arsenal
is one reason some of its neighbours want nuclear weapons, and
threatening them with regime change merely increases that desire.
A final reason to question Israel's strategic
value is that it does not behave like a loyal ally. Israeli officials
frequently ignore US requests and renege on promises (including
pledges to stop building settlements and to refrain from 'targeted
assassinations' of Palestinian leaders). Israel has provided sensitive
military technology to potential rivals like China, in what the
State Department inspector-general called 'a systematic and growing
pattern of unauthorised transfers'. According to the General Accounting
Office, Israel also 'conducts the most aggressive espionage operations
against the US of any ally'. In addition to the case of Jonathan
Pollard, who gave Israel large quantities of classified material
in the early 1980s (which it reportedly passed on to the Soviet
Union in return for more exit visas for Soviet Jews), a new controversy
erupted in 2004 when it was revealed that a key Pentagon official
called Larry Franklin had passed classified information to an
Israeli diplomat. Israel is hardly the only country that spies
on the US, but its willingness to spy on its principal patron
casts further doubt on its strategic value.
Israel's strategic value isn't the only
issue. Its backers also argue that it deserves unqualified support
because it is weak and surrounded by enemies; it is a democracy;
the Jewish people have suffered from past crimes and therefore
deserve special treatment; and Israel's conduct has been morally
superior to that of its adversaries. On close inspection, none
of these arguments is persuasive. There is a strong moral case
for supporting Israel's existence, but that is not in jeopardy.
Viewed objectively, its past and present conduct offers no moral
basis for privileging it over the Palestinians.
Israel is often portrayed as David confronted
by Goliath, but the converse is closer to the truth. Contrary
to popular belief, the Zionists had larger, better equipped and
better led forces during the 1947-49 War of Independence, and
the Israel Defence Forces won quick and easy victories against
Egypt in 1956 and against Egypt, Jordan and Syria in 1967 - all
of this before large-scale US aid began flowing. Today, Israel
is the strongest military power in the Middle East. Its conventional
forces are far superior to those of its neighbours and it is the
only state in the region with nuclear weapons. Egypt and Jordan
have signed peace treaties with it, and Saudi Arabia has offered
to do so. Syria has lost its Soviet patron, Iraq has been devastated
by three disastrous wars and Iran is hundreds of miles away. The
Palestinians barely have an effective police force, let alone
an army that could pose a threat to Israel. According to a 2005
assessment by Tel Aviv University's Jaffee Centre for Strategic
Studies, 'the strategic balance decidedly favours Israel, which
has continued to widen the qualitative gap between its own military
capability and deterrence powers and those of its neighbours.'
If backing the underdog were a compelling motive, the United States
would be supporting Israel's opponents.
That Israel is a fellow democracy surrounded
by hostile dictatorships cannot account for the current level
of aid: there are many democracies around the world, but none
receives the same lavish support. The US has overthrown democratic
governments in the past and supported dictators when this was
thought to advance its interests - it has good relations with
a number of dictatorships today.
Some aspects of Israeli democracy are
at odds with core American values. Unlike the US, where people
are supposed to enjoy equal rights irrespective of race, religion
or ethnicity, Israel was explicitly founded as a Jewish state
and citizenship is based on the principle of blood kinship. Given
this, it is not surprising that its 1.3 million Arabs are treated
as second-class citizens, or that a recent Israeli government
commission found that Israel behaves in a 'neglectful and discriminatory'
manner towards them. Its democratic status is also undermined
by its refusal to grant the Palestinians a viable state of their
own or full political rights.
A third justification is the history of
Jewish suffering in the Christian West, especially during the
Holocaust. Because Jews were persecuted for centuries and could
feel safe only in a Jewish homeland, many people now believe that
Israel deserves special treatment from the United States. The
country's creation was undoubtedly an appropriate response to
the long record of crimes against Jews, but it also brought about
fresh crimes against a largely innocent third party: the Palestinians.
This was well understood by Israel's early
leaders. David Ben-Gurion told Nahum Goldmann, the president of
the World Jewish Congress:
If I were an Arab leader I would never
make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country
. . . We come from Israel, but two thousand years ago, and what
is that to them? There has been anti-semitism, the Nazis, Hitler,
Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing:
we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept
that?
Since then, Israeli leaders have repeatedly
sought to deny the Palestinians' national ambitions. When she
was prime minister, Golda Meir famously remarked that 'there is
no such thing as a Palestinian.' Pressure from extremist violence
and Palestinian population growth has forced subsequent Israeli
leaders to disengage from the Gaza Strip and consider other territorial
compromises, but not even Yitzhak Rabin was willing to offer the
Palestinians a viable state. Ehud Barak's purportedly generous
offer at Camp David would have given them only a disarmed set
of Bantustans under de facto Israeli control. The tragic history
of the Jewish people does not obligate the US to help Israel today
no matter what it does.
Israel's backers also portray it as a
country that has sought peace at every turn and shown great restraint
even when provoked. The Arabs, by contrast, are said to have acted
with great wickedness. Yet on the ground, Israel's record is not
distinguishable from that of its opponents. Ben-Gurion acknowledged
that the early Zionists were far from benevolent towards the Palestinian
Arabs, who resisted their encroachments - which is hardly surprising,
given that the Zionists were trying to create their own state
on Arab land. In the same way, the creation of Israel in 1947-48
involved acts of ethnic cleansing, including executions, massacres
and rapes by Jews, and Israel's subsequent conduct has often been
brutal, belying any claim to moral superiority. Between 1949 and
1956, for example, Israeli security forces killed between 2700
and 5000 Arab infiltrators, the overwhelming majority of them
unarmed. The IDF murdered hundreds of Egyptian prisoners of war
in both the 1956 and 1967 wars, while in 1967, it expelled between
100,000 and 260,000 Palestinians from the newly conquered West
Bank, and drove 80,000 Syrians from the Golan Heights.
During the first intifada, the IDF distributed
truncheons to its troops and encouraged them to break the bones
of Palestinian protesters. The Swedish branch of Save the Children
estimated that '23,600 to 29,900 children required medical treatment
for their beating injuries in the first two years of the intifada.'
Nearly a third of them were aged ten or under. The response to
the second intifada has been even more violent, leading Ha'aretz
to declare that 'the IDF . . . is turning into a killing machine
whose efficiency is awe-inspiring, yet shocking.' The IDF fired
one million bullets in the first days of the uprising. Since then,
for every Israeli lost, Israel has killed 3.4 Palestinians, the
majority of whom have been innocent bystanders; the ratio of Palestinian
to Israeli children killed is even higher (5.7:1). It is also
worth bearing in mind that the Zionists relied on terrorist bombs
to drive the British from Palestine, and that Yitzhak Shamir,
once a terrorist and later prime minister, declared that 'neither
Jewish ethics nor Jewish tradition can disqualify terrorism as
a means of combat.'
The Palestinian resort to terrorism is
wrong but it isn't surprising. The Palestinians believe they have
no other way to force Israeli concessions. As Ehud Barak once
admitted, had he been born a Palestinian, he 'would have joined
a terrorist organisation'.
So if neither strategic nor moral arguments
can account for America's support for Israel, how are we to explain
it?
The explanation is the unmatched power
of the Israel Lobby. We use 'the Lobby' as shorthand for the loose
coalition of individuals and organisations who actively work to
steer US foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction. This is not
meant to suggest that 'the Lobby' is a unified movement with a
central leadership, or that individuals within it do not disagree
on certain issues. Not all Jewish Americans are part of the Lobby,
because Israel is not a salient issue for many of them. In a 2004
survey, for example, roughly 36 per cent of American Jews said
they were either 'not very' or 'not at all' emotionally attached
to Israel.
Jewish Americans also differ on specific
Israeli policies. Many of the key organisations in the Lobby,
such as the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and
the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organisations, are
run by hardliners who generally support the Likud Party's expansionist
policies, including its hostility to the Oslo peace process. The
bulk of US Jewry, meanwhile, is more inclined to make concessions
to the Palestinians, and a few groups - such as Jewish Voice for
Peace - strongly advocate such steps. Despite these differences,
moderates and hardliners both favour giving steadfast support
to Israel.
Not surprisingly, American Jewish leaders
often consult Israeli officials, to make sure that their actions
advance Israeli goals. As one activist from a major Jewish organisation
wrote, 'it is routine for us to say: "This is our policy
on a certain issue, but we must check what the Israelis think."
We as a community do it all the time.' There is a strong prejudice
against criticising Israeli policy, and putting pressure on Israel
is considered out of order. Edgar Bronfman Sr, the president of
the World Jewish Congress, was accused of 'perfidy' when he wrote
a letter to President Bush in mid-2003 urging him to persuade
Israel to curb construction of its controversial 'security fence'.
His critics said that 'it would be obscene at any time for the
president of the World Jewish Congress to lobby the president
of the United States to resist policies being promoted by the
government of Israel.'
Similarly, when the president of the Israel
Policy Forum, Seymour Reich, advised Condoleezza Rice in November
2005 to ask Israel to reopen a critical border crossing in the
Gaza Strip, his action was denounced as 'irresponsible': 'There
is,' his critics said, 'absolutely no room in the Jewish mainstream
for actively canvassing against the security-related policies
. . . of Israel.' Recoiling from these attacks, Reich announced
that 'the word "pressure" is not in my vocabulary when
it comes to Israel.'
Jewish Americans have set up an impressive
array of organisations to influence American foreign policy, of
which AIPAC is the most powerful and best known. In 1997, Fortune
magazine asked members of Congress and their staffs to list the
most powerful lobbies in Washington. AIPAC was ranked second behind
the American Association of Retired People, but ahead of the AFL-CIO
and the National Rifle Association. A National Journal study in
March 2005 reached a similar conclusion, placing AIPAC in second
place (tied with AARP) in the Washington 'muscle rankings'.
The Lobby also includes prominent Christian
evangelicals like Gary Bauer, Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reed and Pat
Robertson, as well as Dick Armey and Tom DeLay, former majority
leaders in the House of Representatives, all of whom believe Israel's
rebirth is the fulfilment of biblical prophecy and support its
expansionist agenda; to do otherwise, they believe, would be contrary
to God's will. Neo-conservative gentiles such as John Bolton;
Robert Bartley, the former Wall Street Journal editor; William
Bennett, the former secretary of education; Jeane Kirkpatrick,
the former UN ambassador; and the influential columnist George
Will are also steadfast supporters.
The US form of government offers activists
many ways of influencing the policy process. Interest groups can
lobby elected representatives and members of the executive branch,
make campaign contributions, vote in elections, try to mould public
opinion etc. They enjoy a disproportionate amount of influence
when they are committed to an issue to which the bulk of the population
is indifferent. Policymakers will tend to accommodate those who
care about the issue, even if their numbers are small, confident
that the rest of the population will not penalise them for doing
so.
In its basic operations, the Israel Lobby
is no different from the farm lobby, steel or textile workers'
unions, or other ethnic lobbies. There is nothing improper about
American Jews and their Christian allies attempting to sway US
policy: the Lobby's activities are not a conspiracy of the sort
depicted in tracts like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. For
the most part, the individuals and groups that comprise it are
only doing what other special interest groups do, but doing it
very much better. By contrast, pro-Arab interest groups, in so
far as they exist at all, are weak, which makes the Israel Lobby's
task even easier.
The Lobby pursues two broad strategies.
First, it wields its significant influence in Washington, pressuring
both Congress and the executive branch. Whatever an individual
lawmaker or policymaker's own views may be, the Lobby tries to
make supporting Israel the 'smart' choice. Second, it strives
to ensure that public discourse portrays Israel in a positive
light, by repeating myths about its founding and by promoting
its point of view in policy debates. The goal is to prevent critical
comments from getting a fair hearing in the political arena. Controlling
the debate is essential to guaranteeing US support, because a
candid discussion of US-Israeli relations might lead Americans
to favour a different policy.
A key pillar of the Lobby's effectiveness
is its influence in Congress, where Israel is virtually immune
from criticism. This in itself is remarkable, because Congress
rarely shies away from contentious issues. Where Israel is concerned,
however, potential critics fall silent. One reason is that some
key members are Christian Zionists like Dick Armey, who said in
September 2002: 'My No. 1 priority in foreign policy is to protect
Israel.' One might think that the No. 1 priority for any congressman
would be to protect America. There are also Jewish senators and
congressmen who work to ensure that US foreign policy supports
Israel's interests.
Another source of the Lobby's power is
its use of pro-Israel congressional staffers. As Morris Amitay,
a former head of AIPAC, once admitted, 'there are a lot of guys
at the working level up here' - on Capitol Hill - 'who happen
to be Jewish, who are willing . . . to look at certain issues
in terms of their Jewishness . . . These are all guys who are
in a position to make the decision in these areas for those senators
. . . You can get an awful lot done just at the staff level.'
AIPAC itself, however, forms the core
of the Lobby's influence in Congress. Its success is due to its
ability to reward legislators and congressional candidates who
support its agenda, and to punish those who challenge it. Money
is critical to US elections (as the scandal over the lobbyist
Jack Abramoff's shady dealings reminds us), and AIPAC makes sure
that its friends get strong financial support from the many pro-Israel
political action committees. Anyone who is seen as hostile to
Israel can be sure that AIPAC will direct campaign contributions
to his or her political opponents. AIPAC also organises letter-writing
campaigns and encourages newspaper editors to endorse pro-Israel
candidates.
There is no doubt about the efficacy of
these tactics. Here is one example: in the 1984 elections, AIPAC
helped defeat Senator Charles Percy from Illinois, who, according
to a prominent Lobby figure, had 'displayed insensitivity and
even hostility to our concerns'. Thomas Dine, the head of AIPAC
at the time, explained what happened: 'All the Jews in America,
from coast to coast, gathered to oust Percy. And the American
politicians - those who hold public positions now, and those who
aspire - got the message.'
AIPAC's influence on Capitol Hill goes
even further. According to Douglas Bloomfield, a former AIPAC
staff member, 'it is common for members of Congress and their
staffs to turn to AIPAC first when they need information, before
calling the Library of Congress, the Congressional Research Service,
committee staff or administration experts.' More important, he
notes that AIPAC is 'often called on to draft speeches, work on
legislation, advise on tactics, perform research, collect co-sponsors
and marshal votes'.
The bottom line is that AIPAC, a de facto
agent for a foreign government, has a stranglehold on Congress,
with the result that US policy towards Israel is not debated there,
even though that policy has important consequences for the entire
world. In other words, one of the three main branches of the government
is firmly committed to supporting Israel. As one former Democratic
senator, Ernest Hollings, noted on leaving office, 'you can't
have an Israeli policy other than what AIPAC gives you around
here.' Or as Ariel Sharon once told an American audience, 'when
people ask me how they can help Israel, I tell them: "Help
AIPAC."'
Thanks in part to the influence Jewish
voters have on presidential elections, the Lobby also has significant
leverage over the executive branch. Although they make up fewer
than 3 per cent of the population, they make large campaign donations
to candidates from both parties. The Washington Post once estimated
that Democratic presidential candidates 'depend on Jewish supporters
to supply as much as 60 per cent of the money'. And because Jewish
voters have high turn-out rates and are concentrated in key states
like California, Florida, Illinois, New York and Pennsylvania,
presidential candidates go to great lengths not to antagonise
them.
Key organisations in the Lobby make it
their business to ensure that critics of Israel do not get important
foreign policy jobs. Jimmy Carter wanted to make George Ball his
first secretary of state, but knew that Ball was seen as critical
of Israel and that the Lobby would oppose the appointment. In
this way any aspiring policymaker is encouraged to become an overt
supporter of Israel, which is why public critics of Israeli policy
have become an endangered species in the foreign policy establishment.
When Howard Dean called for the United
States to take a more 'even-handed role' in the Arab-Israeli conflict,
Senator Joseph Lieberman accused him of selling Israel down the
river and said his statement was 'irresponsible'. Virtually all
the top Democrats in the House signed a letter criticising Dean's
remarks, and the Chicago Jewish Star reported that 'anonymous
attackers . . . are clogging the email inboxes of Jewish leaders
around the country, warning - without much evidence - that Dean
would somehow be bad for Israel.'
This worry was absurd; Dean is in fact
quite hawkish on Israel: his campaign co-chair was a former AIPAC
president, and Dean said his own views on the Middle East more
closely reflected those of AIPAC than those of the more moderate
Americans for Peace Now. He had merely suggested that to 'bring
the sides together', Washington should act as an honest broker.
This is hardly a radical idea, but the Lobby doesn't tolerate
even-handedness.
During the Clinton administration, Middle
Eastern policy was largely shaped by officials with close ties
to Israel or to prominent pro-Israel organisations; among them,
Martin Indyk, the former deputy director of research at AIPAC
and co-founder of the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near
East Policy (WINEP); Dennis Ross, who joined WINEP after leaving
government in 2001; and Aaron Miller, who has lived in Israel
and often visits the country. These men were among Clinton's closest
advisers at the Camp David summit in July 2000. Although all three
supported the Oslo peace process and favoured the creation of
a Palestinian state, they did so only within the limits of what
would be acceptable to Israel. The American delegation took its
cues from Ehud Barak, co-ordinated its negotiating positions with
Israel in advance, and did not offer independent proposals. Not
surprisingly, Palestinian negotiators complained that they were
'negotiating with two Israeli teams - one displaying an Israeli
flag, and one an American flag'.
The situation is even more pronounced
in the Bush administration, whose ranks have included such fervent
advocates of the Israeli cause as Elliot Abrams, John Bolton,
Douglas Feith, I. Lewis ('Scooter') Libby, Richard Perle, Paul
Wolfowitz and David Wurmser. As we shall see, these officials
have consistently pushed for policies favoured by Israel and backed
by organisations in the Lobby.
The Lobby doesn't want an open debate,
of course, because that might lead Americans to question the level
of support they provide. Accordingly, pro-Israel organisations
work hard to influence the institutions that do most to shape
popular opinion.
The Lobby's perspective prevails in the
mainstream media: the debate among Middle East pundits, the journalist
Eric Alterman writes, is 'dominated by people who cannot imagine
criticising Israel'. He lists 61 'columnists and commentators
who can be counted on to support Israel reflexively and without
qualification'. Conversely, he found just five pundits who consistently
criticise Israeli actions or endorse Arab positions. Newspapers
occasionally publish guest op-eds challenging Israeli policy,
but the balance of opinion clearly favours the other side. It
is hard to imagine any mainstream media outlet in the United States
publishing a piece like this one.
'Shamir, Sharon, Bibi - whatever those
guys want is pretty much fine by me,' Robert Bartley once remarked.
Not surprisingly, his newspaper, the Wall Street Journal, along
with other prominent papers like the Chicago Sun-Times and the
Washington Times, regularly runs editorials that strongly support
Israel. Magazines like Commentary, the New Republic and the Weekly
Standard defend Israel at every turn.
Editorial bias is also found in papers
like the New York Times, which occasionally criticises Israeli
policies and sometimes concedes that the Palestinians have legitimate
grievances, but is not even-handed. In his memoirs the paper's
former executive editor Max Frankel acknowledges the impact his
own attitude had on his editorial decisions: 'I was much more
deeply devoted to Israel than I dared to assert . . . Fortified
by my knowledge of Israel and my friendships there, I myself wrote
most of our Middle East commentaries. As more Arab than Jewish
readers recognised, I wrote them from a pro-Israel perspective.'
News reports are more even-handed, in
part because reporters strive to be objective, but also because
it is difficult to cover events in the Occupied Territories without
acknowledging Israel's actions on the ground. To discourage unfavourable
reporting, the Lobby organises letter-writing campaigns, demonstrations
and boycotts of news outlets whose content it considers anti-Israel.
One CNN executive has said that he sometimes gets 6000 email messages
in a single day complaining about a story. In May 2003, the pro-Israel
Committee for Accurate Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA)
organised demonstrations outside National Public Radio stations
in 33 cities; it also tried to persuade contributors to withhold
support from NPR until its Middle East coverage becomes more sympathetic
to Israel. Boston's NPR station, WBUR, reportedly lost more than
$1 million in contributions as a result of these efforts. Further
pressure on NPR has come from Israel's friends in Congress, who
have asked for an internal audit of its Middle East coverage as
well as more oversight.
The Israeli side also dominates the think
tanks which play an important role in shaping public debate as
well as actual policy. The Lobby created its own think tank in
1985, when Martin Indyk helped to found WINEP. Although WINEP
plays down its links to Israel, claiming instead to provide a
'balanced and realistic' perspective on Middle East issues, it
is funded and run by individuals deeply committed to advancing
Israel's agenda.
The Lobby's influence extends well beyond
WINEP, however. Over the past 25 years, pro-Israel forces have
established a commanding presence at the American Enterprise Institute,
the Brookings Institution, the Center for Security Policy, the
Foreign Policy Research Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the
Hudson Institute, the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis and
the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA). These
think tanks employ few, if any, critics of US support for Israel.
Take the Brookings Institution. For many
years, its senior expert on the Middle East was William Quandt,
a former NSC official with a well-deserved reputation for even-handedness.
Today, Brookings's coverage is conducted through the Saban Center
for Middle East Studies, which is financed by Haim Saban, an Israeli-American
businessman and ardent Zionist. The centre's director is the ubiquitous
Martin Indyk. What was once a non-partisan policy institute is
now part of the pro-Israel chorus.
Where the Lobby has had the most difficulty
is in stifling debate on university campuses. In the 1990s, when
the Oslo peace process was underway, there was only mild criticism
of Israel, but it grew stronger with Oslo's collapse and Sharon's
access to power, becoming quite vociferous when the IDF reoccupied
the West Bank in spring 2002 and employed massive force to subdue
the second intifada.
The Lobby moved immediately to 'take back
the campuses'. New groups sprang up, like the Caravan for Democracy,
which brought Israeli speakers to US colleges. Established groups
like the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and Hillel joined in,
and a new group, the Israel on Campus Coalition, was formed to
co-ordinate the many bodies that now sought to put Israel's case.
Finally, AIPAC more than tripled its spending on programmes to
monitor university activities and to train young advocates, in
order to 'vastly expand the number of students involved on campus
. . . in the national pro-Israel effort'.
The Lobby also monitors what professors
write and teach. In September 2002, Martin Kramer and Daniel Pipes,
two passionately pro-Israel neo-conservatives, established a website
(Campus Watch) that posted dossiers on suspect academics and encouraged
students to report remarks or behaviour that might be considered
hostile to Israel. This transparent attempt to blacklist and intimidate
scholars provoked a harsh reaction and Pipes and Kramer later
removed the dossiers, but the website still invites students to
report 'anti-Israel' activity.
Groups within the Lobby put pressure on
particular academics and universities. Columbia has been a frequent
target, no doubt because of the presence of the late Edward Said
on its faculty. 'One can be sure that any public statement in
support of the Palestinian people by the pre-eminent literary
critic Edward Said will elicit hundreds of emails, letters and
journalistic accounts that call on us to denounce Said and to
either sanction or fire him,' Jonathan Cole, its former provost,
reported. When Columbia recruited the historian Rashid Khalidi
from Chicago, the same thing happened. It was a problem Princeton
also faced a few years later when it considered wooing Khalidi
away from Columbia.
A classic illustration of the effort to
police academia occurred towards the end of 2004, when the David
Project produced a film alleging that faculty members of Columbia's
Middle East Studies programme were anti-semitic and were intimidating
Jewish students who stood up for Israel. Columbia was hauled over
the coals, but a faculty committee which was assigned to investigate
the charges found no evidence of anti-semitism and the only incident
possibly worth noting was that one professor had 'responded heatedly'
to a student's question. The committee also discovered that the
academics in question had themselves been the target of an overt
campaign of intimidation.
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of
all this is the efforts Jewish groups have made to push Congress
into establishing mechanisms to monitor what professors say. If
they manage to get this passed, universities judged to have an
anti-Israel bias would be denied federal funding. Their efforts
have not yet succeeded, but they are an indication of the importance
placed on controlling debate.
A number of Jewish philanthropists have
recently established Israel Studies programmes (in addition to
the roughly 130 Jewish Studies programmes already in existence)
so as to increase the number of Israel-friendly scholars on campus.
In May 2003, NYU announced the establishment of the Taub Center
for Israel Studies; similar programmes have been set up at Berkeley,
Brandeis and Emory. Academic administrators emphasise their pedagogical
value, but the truth is that they are intended in large part to
promote Israel's image. Fred Laffer, the head of the Taub Foundation,
makes it clear that his foundation funded the NYU centre to help
counter the 'Arabic [sic] point of view' that he thinks is prevalent
in NYU's Middle East programmes.
No discussion of the Lobby would be complete
without an examination of one of its most powerful weapons: the
charge of anti-semitism. Anyone who criticises Israel's actions
or argues that pro-Israel groups have significant influence over
US Middle Eastern policy - an influence AIPAC celebrates - stands
a good chance of being labelled an anti-semite. Indeed, anyone
who merely claims that there is an Israel Lobby runs the risk
of being charged with anti-semitism, even though the Israeli media
refer to America's 'Jewish Lobby'. In other words, the Lobby first
boasts of its influence and then attacks anyone who calls attention
to it. It's a very effective tactic: anti-semitism is something
no one wants to be accused of.
Europeans have been more willing than
Americans to criticise Israeli policy, which some people attribute
to a resurgence of anti-semitism in Europe. We are 'getting to
a point', the US ambassador to the EU said in early 2004, 'where
it is as bad as it was in the 1930s'. Measuring anti-semitism
is a complicated matter, but the weight of evidence points in
the opposite direction. In the spring of 2004, when accusations
of European anti-semitism filled the air in America, separate
surveys of European public opinion conducted by the US-based Anti-Defamation
League and the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press
found that it was in fact declining. In the 1930s, by contrast,
anti-semitism was not only widespread among Europeans of all classes
but considered quite acceptable.
The Lobby and its friends often portray
France as the most anti-semitic country in Europe. But in 2003,
the head of the French Jewish community said that 'France is not
more anti-semitic than America.' According to a recent article
in Ha'aretz, the French police have reported that anti-semitic
incidents declined by almost 50 per cent in 2005; and this even
though France has the largest Muslim population of any European
country. Finally, when a French Jew was murdered in Paris last
month by a Muslim gang, tens of thousands of demonstrators poured
into the streets to condemn anti-semitism. Jacques Chirac and
Dominique de Villepin both attended the victim's memorial service
to show their solidarity.
No one would deny that there is anti-semitism
among European Muslims, some of it provoked by Israel's conduct
towards the Palestinians and some of it straightforwardly racist.
But this is a separate matter with little bearing on whether or
not Europe today is like Europe in the 1930s. Nor would anyone
deny that there are still some virulent autochthonous anti-semites
in Europe (as there are in the United States) but their numbers
are small and their views are rejected by the vast majority of
Europeans.
Israel's advocates, when pressed to go
beyond mere assertion, claim that there is a 'new anti-semitism',
which they equate with criticism of Israel. In other words, criticise
Israeli policy and you are by definition an anti-semite. When
the synod of the Church of England recently voted to divest from
Caterpillar Inc on the grounds that it manufactures the bulldozers
used by the Israelis to demolish Palestinian homes, the Chief
Rabbi complained that this would 'have the most adverse repercussions
on . . . Jewish-Christian relations in Britain', while Rabbi Tony
Bayfield, the head of the Reform movement, said: 'There is a clear
problem of anti-Zionist - verging on anti-semitic - attitudes
emerging in the grass-roots, and even in the middle ranks of the
Church.' But the Church was guilty merely of protesting against
Israeli government policy.
Critics are also accused of holding Israel
to an unfair standard or questioning its right to exist. But these
are bogus charges too. Western critics of Israel hardly ever question
its right to exist: they question its behaviour towards the Palestinians,
as do Israelis themselves. Nor is Israel being judged unfairly.
Israeli treatment of the Palestinians elicits criticism because
it is contrary to widely accepted notions of human rights, to
international law and to the principle of national self-determination.
And it is hardly the only state that has faced sharp criticism
on these grounds.
In the autumn of 2001, and especially
in the spring of 2002, the Bush administration tried to reduce
anti-American sentiment in the Arab world and undermine support
for terrorist groups like al-Qaida by halting Israel's expansionist
policies in the Occupied Territories and advocating the creation
of a Palestinian state. Bush had very significant means of persuasion
at his disposal. He could have threatened to reduce economic and
diplomatic support for Israel, and the American people would almost
certainly have supported him. A May 2003 poll reported that more
than 60 per cent of Americans were willing to withhold aid if
Israel resisted US pressure to settle the conflict, and that number
rose to 70 per cent among the 'politically active'. Indeed, 73
per cent said that the United States should not favour either
side.
Yet the administration failed to change
Israeli policy, and Washington ended up backing it. Over time,
the administration also adopted Israel's own justifications of
its position, so that US rhetoric began to mimic Israeli rhetoric.
By February 2003, a Washington Post headline summarised the situation:
'Bush and Sharon Nearly Identical on Mideast Policy.' The main
reason for this switch was the Lobby.
The story begins in late September 2001,
when Bush began urging Sharon to show restraint in the Occupied
Territories. He also pressed him to allow Israel's foreign minister,
Shimon Peres, to meet with Yasser Arafat, even though he (Bush)
was highly critical of Arafat's leadership. Bush even said publicly
that he supported the creation of a Palestinian state. Alarmed,
Sharon accused him of trying 'to appease the Arabs at our expense',
warning that Israel 'will not be Czechoslovakia'.
Bush was reportedly furious at being compared
to Chamberlain, and the White House press secretary called Sharon's
remarks 'unacceptable'. Sharon offered a pro forma apology, but
quickly joined forces with the Lobby to persuade the administration
and the American people that the United States and Israel faced
a common threat from terrorism. Israeli officials and Lobby representatives
insisted that there was no real difference between Arafat and
Osama bin Laden: the United States and Israel, they said, should
isolate the Palestinians' elected leader and have nothing to do
with him.
The Lobby also went to work in Congress.
On 16 November, 89 senators sent Bush a letter praising him for
refusing to meet with Arafat, but also demanding that the US not
restrain Israel from retaliating against the Palestinians; the
administration, they wrote, must state publicly that it stood
behind Israel. According to the New York Times, the letter 'stemmed'
from a meeting two weeks before between 'leaders of the American
Jewish community and key senators', adding that AIPAC was 'particularly
active in providing advice on the letter'.
By late November, relations between Tel
Aviv and Washington had improved considerably. This was thanks
in part to the Lobby's efforts, but also to America's initial
victory in Afghanistan, which reduced the perceived need for Arab
support in dealing with al-Qaida. Sharon visited the White House
in early December and had a friendly meeting with Bush.
In April 2002 trouble erupted again, after
the IDF launched Operation Defensive Shield and resumed control
of virtually all the major Palestinian areas on the West Bank.
Bush knew that Israel's actions would damage America's image in
the Islamic world and undermine the war on terrorism, so he demanded
that Sharon 'halt the incursions and begin withdrawal'. He underscored
this message two days later, saying he wanted Israel to 'withdraw
without delay'. On 7 April, Condoleezza Rice, then Bush's national
security adviser, told reporters: '"Without delay" means
without delay. It means now.' That same day Colin Powell set out
for the Middle East to persuade all sides to stop fighting and
start negotiating.
Israel and the Lobby swung into action.
Pro-Israel officials in the vice-president's office and the Pentagon,
as well as neo-conservative pundits like Robert Kagan and William
Kristol, put the heat on Powell. They even accused him of having
'virtually obliterated the distinction between terrorists and
those fighting terrorists'. Bush himself was being pressed by
Jewish leaders and Christian evangelicals. Tom DeLay and Dick
Armey were especially outspoken about the need to support Israel,
and DeLay and the Senate minority leader, Trent Lott, visited
the White House and warned Bush to back off.
The first sign that Bush was caving in
came on 11 April - a week after he told Sharon to withdraw his
forces - when the White House press secretary said that the president
believed Sharon was 'a man of peace'. Bush repeated this statement
publicly on Powell's return from his abortive mission, and told
reporters that Sharon had responded satisfactorily to his call
for a full and immediate withdrawal. Sharon had done no such thing,
but Bush was no longer willing to make an issue of it.
Meanwhile, Congress was also moving to
back Sharon. On 2 May, it overrode the administration's objections
and passed two resolutions reaffirming support for Israel. (The
Senate vote was 94 to 2; the House of Representatives version
passed 352 to 21.) Both resolutions held that the United States
'stands in solidarity with Israel' and that the two countries
were, to quote the House resolution, 'now engaged in a common
struggle against terrorism'. The House version also condemned
'the ongoing support and co-ordination of terror by Yasser Arafat',
who was portrayed as a central part of the terrorism problem.
Both resolutions were drawn up with the help of the Lobby. A few
days later, a bipartisan congressional delegation on a fact-finding
mission to Israel stated that Sharon should resist US pressure
to negotiate with Arafat. On 9 May, a House appropriations subcommittee
met to consider giving Israel an extra $200 million to fight terrorism.
Powell opposed the package, but the Lobby backed it and Powell
lost.
In short, Sharon and the Lobby took on
the president of the United States and triumphed. Hemi Shalev,
a journalist on the Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv, reported that Sharon's
aides 'could not hide their satisfaction in view of Powell's failure.
Sharon saw the whites of President Bush's eyes, they bragged,
and the president blinked first.' But it was Israel's champions
in the United States, not Sharon or Israel, that played the key
role in defeating Bush.
The situation has changed little since
then. The Bush administration refused ever again to have dealings
with Arafat. After his death, it embraced the new Palestinian
leader, Mahmoud Abbas, but has done little to help him. Sharon
continued to develop his plan to impose a unilateral settlement
on the Palestinians, based on 'disengagement' from Gaza coupled
with continued expansion on the West Bank. By refusing to negotiate
with Abbas and making it impossible for him to deliver tangible
benefits to the Palestinian people, Sharon's strategy contributed
directly to Hamas's electoral victory. With Hamas in power, however,
Israel has another excuse not to negotiate. The US administration
has supported Sharon's actions (and those of his successor, Ehud
Olmert). Bush has even endorsed unilateral Israeli annexations
in the Occupied Territories, reversing the stated policy of every
president since Lyndon Johnson.
US officials have offered mild criticisms
of a few Israeli actions, but have done little to help create
a viable Palestinian state. Sharon has Bush 'wrapped around his
little finger', the former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft
said in October 2004. If Bush tries to distance the US from Israel,
or even criticises Israeli actions in the Occupied Territories,
he is certain to face the wrath of the Lobby and its supporters
in Congress. Democratic presidential candidates understand that
these are facts of life, which is the reason John Kerry went to
great lengths to display unalloyed support for Israel in 2004,
and why Hillary Clinton is doing the same thing today.
Maintaining US support for Israel's policies
against the Palestinians is essential as far as the Lobby is concerned,
but its ambitions do not stop there. It also wants America to
help Israel remain the dominant regional power. The Israeli government
and pro-Israel groups in the United States have worked together
to shape the administration's policy towards Iraq, Syria and Iran,
as well as its grand scheme for reordering the Middle East.
Pressure from Israel and the Lobby was
not the only factor behind the decision to attack Iraq in March
2003, but it was critical. Some Americans believe that this was
a war for oil, but there is hardly any direct evidence to support
this claim. Instead, the war was motivated in good part by a desire
to make Israel more secure. According to Philip Zelikow, a former
member of the president's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board,
the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, and now a counsellor
to Condoleezza Rice, the 'real threat' from Iraq was not a threat
to the United States. The 'unstated threat' was the 'threat against
Israel', Zelikow told an audience at the University of Virginia
in September 2002. 'The American government,' he added, 'doesn't
want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a
popular sell.'
On 16 August 2002, 11 days before Dick
Cheney kicked off the campaign for war with a hardline speech
to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Washington Post reported
that 'Israel is urging US officials not to delay a military strike
against Iraq's Saddam Hussein.' By this point, according to Sharon,
strategic co-ordination between Israel and the US had reached
'unprecedented dimensions', and Israeli intelligence officials
had given Washington a variety of alarming reports about Iraq's
WMD programmes. As one retired Israeli general later put it, 'Israeli
intelligence was a full partner to the picture presented by American
and British intelligence regarding Iraq's non-conventional capabilities.'
Israeli leaders were deeply distressed
when Bush decided to seek Security Council authorisation for war,
and even more worried when Saddam agreed to let UN inspectors
back in. 'The campaign against Saddam Hussein is a must,' Shimon
Peres told reporters in September 2002. 'Inspections and inspectors
are good for decent people, but dishonest people can overcome
easily inspections and inspectors.'
At the same time, Ehud Barak wrote a New
York Times op-ed warning that 'the greatest risk now lies in inaction.'
His predecessor as prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, published
a similar piece in the Wall Street Journal, entitled: 'The Case
for Toppling Saddam'. 'Today nothing less than dismantling his
regime will do,' he declared. 'I believe I speak for the overwhelming
majority of Israelis in supporting a pre-emptive strike against
Saddam's regime.' Or as Ha'aretz reported in February 2003, 'the
military and political leadership yearns for war in Iraq.'
As Netanyahu suggested, however, the desire
for war was not confined to Israel's leaders. Apart from Kuwait,
which Saddam invaded in 1990, Israel was the only country in the
world where both politicians and public favoured war. As the journalist
Gideon Levy observed at the time, 'Israel is the only country
in the West whose leaders support the war unreservedly and where
no alternative opinion is voiced.' In fact, Israelis were so gung-ho
that their allies in America told them to damp down their rhetoric,
or it would look as if the war would be fought on Israel's behalf.
Within the US, the main driving force
behind the war was a small band of neo-conservatives, many with
ties to Likud. But leaders of the Lobby's major organisations
lent their voices to the campaign. 'As President Bush attempted
to sell the . . . war in Iraq,' the Forward reported, 'America's
most important Jewish organisations rallied as one to his defence.
In statement after statement community leaders stressed the need
to rid the world of Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction.'
The editorial goes on to say that 'concern for Israel's safety
rightfully factored into the deliberations of the main Jewish
groups.'
Although neo-conservatives and other Lobby
leaders were eager to invade Iraq, the broader American Jewish
community was not. Just after the war started, Samuel Freedman
reported that 'a compilation of nationwide opinion polls by the
Pew Research Center shows that Jews are less supportive of the
Iraq war than the population at large, 52 per cent to 62 per cent.'
Clearly, it would be wrong to blame the war in Iraq on 'Jewish
influence'. Rather, it was due in large part to the Lobby's influence,
especially that of the neo-conservatives within it.
The neo-conservatives had been determined
to topple Saddam even before Bush became president. They caused
a stir early in 1998 by publishing two open letters to Clinton,
calling for Saddam's removal from power. The signatories, many
of whom had close ties to pro-Israel groups like JINSA or WINEP,
and who included Elliot Abrams, John Bolton, Douglas Feith, William
Kristol, Bernard Lewis, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle and Paul
Wolfowitz, had little trouble persuading the Clinton administration
to adopt the general goal of ousting Saddam. But they were unable
to sell a war to achieve that objective. They were no more able
to generate enthusiasm for invading Iraq in the early months of
the Bush administration. They needed help to achieve their aim.
That help arrived with 9/11. Specifically, the events of that
day led Bush and Cheney to reverse course and become strong proponents
of a preventive war.
At a key meeting with Bush at Camp David
on 15 September, Wolfowitz advocated attacking Iraq before Afghanistan,
even though there was no evidence that Saddam was involved in
the attacks on the US and bin Laden was known to be in Afghanistan.
Bush rejected his advice and chose to go after Afghanistan instead,
but war with Iraq was now regarded as a serious possibility and
on 21 November the president charged military planners with developing
concrete plans for an invasion.
Other neo-conservatives were meanwhile
at work in the corridors of power. We don't have the full story
yet, but scholars like Bernard Lewis of Princeton and Fouad Ajami
of Johns Hopkins reportedly played important roles in persuading
Cheney that war was the best option, though neo-conservatives
on his staff - Eric Edelman, John Hannah and Scooter Libby, Cheney's
chief of staff and one of the most powerful individuals in the
administration - also played their part. By early 2002 Cheney
had persuaded Bush; and with Bush and Cheney on board, war was
inevitable.
Outside the administration, neo-conservative
pundits lost no time in making the case that invading Iraq was
essential to winning the war on terrorism. Their efforts were
designed partly to keep up the pressure on Bush, and partly to
overcome opposition to the war inside and outside the government.
On 20 September, a group of prominent neo-conservatives and their
allies published another open letter: 'Even if evidence does not
link Iraq directly to the attack,' it read, 'any strategy aiming
at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include
a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.'
The letter also reminded Bush that 'Israel has been and remains
America's staunchest ally against international terrorism.' In
the 1 October issue of the Weekly Standard, Robert Kagan and William
Kristol called for regime change in Iraq as soon as the Taliban
was defeated. That same day, Charles Krauthammer argued in the
Washington Post that after the US was done with Afghanistan, Syria
should be next, followed by Iran and Iraq: 'The war on terrorism
will conclude in Baghdad,' when we finish off 'the most dangerous
terrorist regime in the world'.
This was the beginning of an unrelenting
public relations campaign to win support for an invasion of Iraq,
a crucial part of which was the manipulation of intelligence in
such a way as to make it seem as if Saddam posed an imminent threat.
For example, Libby pressured CIA analysts to find evidence supporting
the case for war and helped prepare Colin Powell's now discredited
briefing to the UN Security Council. Within the Pentagon, the
Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group was charged with finding
links between al-Qaida and Iraq that the intelligence community
had supposedly missed. Its two key members were David Wurmser,
a hard-core neo-conservative, and Michael Maloof, a Lebanese-American
with close ties to Perle. Another Pentagon group, the so-called
Office of Special Plans, was given the task of uncovering evidence
that could be used to sell the war. It was headed by Abram Shulsky,
a neo-conservative with long-standing ties to Wolfowitz, and its
ranks included recruits from pro-Israel think tanks. Both these
organisations were created after 9/11 and reported directly to
Douglas Feith.
Like virtually all the neo-conservatives,
Feith is deeply committed to Israel; he also has long-term ties
to Likud. He wrote articles in the 1990s supporting the settlements
and arguing that Israel should retain the Occupied Territories.
More important, along with Perle and Wurmser, he wrote the famous
'Clean Break' report in June 1996 for Netanyahu, who had just
become prime minister. Among other things, it recommended that
Netanyahu 'focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq
- an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right'.
It also called for Israel to take steps to reorder the entire
Middle East. Netanyahu did not follow their advice, but Feith,
Perle and Wurmser were soon urging the Bush administration to
pursue those same goals. The Ha'aretz columnist Akiva Eldar warned
that Feith and Perle 'are walking a fine line between their loyalty
to American governments . . . and Israeli interests'.
Wolfowitz is equally committed to Israel.
The Forward once described him as 'the most hawkishly pro-Israel
voice in the administration', and selected him in 2002 as first
among 50 notables who 'have consciously pursued Jewish activism'.
At about the same time, JINSA gave Wolfowitz its Henry M. Jackson
Distinguished Service Award for promoting a strong partnership
between Israel and the United States; and the Jerusalem Post,
describing him as 'devoutly pro-Israel', named him 'Man of the
Year' in 2003.
Finally, a brief word is in order about
the neo-conservatives' prewar support of Ahmed Chalabi, the unscrupulous
Iraqi exile who headed the Iraqi National Congress. They backed
Chalabi because he had established close ties with Jewish-American
groups and had pledged to foster good relations with Israel once
he gained power. This was precisely what pro-Israel proponents
of regime change wanted to hear. Matthew Berger laid out the essence
of the bargain in the Jewish Journal: 'The INC saw improved relations
as a way to tap Jewish influence in Washington and Jerusalem and
to drum up increased support for its cause. For their part, the
Jewish groups saw an opportunity to pave the way for better relations
between Israel and Iraq, if and when the INC is involved in replacing
Saddam Hussein's regime.'
Given the neo-conservatives' devotion
to Israel, their obsession with Iraq, and their influence in the
Bush administration, it isn't surprising that many Americans suspected
that the war was designed to further Israeli interests. Last March,
Barry Jacobs of the American Jewish Committee acknowledged that
the belief that Israel and the neo-conservatives had conspired
to get the US into a war in Iraq was 'pervasive' in the intelligence
community. Yet few people would say so publicly, and most of those
who did - including Senator Ernest Hollings and Representative
James Moran - were condemned for raising the issue. Michael Kinsley
wrote in late 2002 that 'the lack of public discussion about the
role of Israel . . . is the proverbial elephant in the room.'
The reason for the reluctance to talk about it, he observed, was
fear of being labelled an anti-semite. There is little doubt that
Israel and the Lobby were key factors in the decision to go to
war. It's a decision the US would have been far less likely to
take without their efforts. And the war itself was intended to
be only the first step. A front-page headline in the Wall Street
Journal shortly after the war began says it all: 'President's
Dream: Changing Not Just Regime but a Region: A Pro-US, Democratic
Area Is a Goal that Has Israeli and Neo-Conservative Roots.'
Pro-Israel forces have long been interested
in getting the US military more directly involved in the Middle
East. But they had limited success during the Cold War, because
America acted as an 'off-shore balancer' in the region. Most forces
designated for the Middle East, like the Rapid Deployment Force,
were kept 'over the horizon' and out of harm's way. The idea was
to play local powers off against each other - which is why the
Reagan administration supported Saddam against revolutionary Iran
during the Iran-Iraq War - in order to maintain a balance favourable
to the US.
This policy changed after the first Gulf
War, when the Clinton administration adopted a strategy of 'dual
containment'. Substantial US forces would be stationed in the
region in order to contain both Iran and Iraq, instead of one
being used to check the other. The father of dual containment
was none other than Martin Indyk, who first outlined the strategy
in May 1993 at WINEP and then implemented it as director for Near
East and South Asian Affairs at the National Security Council.
By the mid-1990s there was considerable
dissatisfaction with dual containment, because it made the United
States the mortal enemy of two countries that hated each other,
and forced Washington to bear the burden of containing both. But
it was a strategy the Lobby favoured and worked actively in Congress
to preserve. Pressed by AIPAC and other pro-Israel forces, Clinton
toughened up the policy in the spring of 1995 by imposing an economic
embargo on Iran. But AIPAC and the others wanted more. The result
was the 1996 Iran and Libya Sanctions Act, which imposed sanctions
on any foreign companies investing more than $40 million to develop
petroleum resources in Iran or Libya. As Ze'ev Schiff, the military
correspondent of Ha'aretz, noted at the time, 'Israel is but a
tiny element in the big scheme, but one should not conclude that
it cannot influence those within the Beltway.'
By the late 1990s, however, the neo-conservatives
were arguing that dual containment was not enough and that regime
change in Iraq was essential. By toppling Saddam and turning Iraq
into a vibrant democracy, they argued, the US would trigger a
far-reaching process of change throughout the Middle East. The
same line of thinking was evident in the 'Clean Break' study the
neo-conservatives wrote for Netanyahu. By 2002, when an invasion
of Iraq was on the front-burner, regional transformation was an
article of faith in neo-conservative circles.
Charles Krauthammer describes this grand
scheme as the brainchild of Natan Sharansky, but Israelis across
the political spectrum believed that toppling Saddam would alter
the Middle East to Israel's advantage. Aluf Benn reported in Ha'aretz
(17 February 2003):
Senior IDF officers and those close to
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, such as National Security Adviser
Ephraim Halevy, paint a rosy picture of the wonderful future Israel
can expect after the war. They envision a domino effect, with
the fall of Saddam Hussein followed by that of Israel's other
enemies . . . Along with these leaders will disappear terror and
weapons of mass destruction.
Once Baghdad fell in mid-April 2003, Sharon
and his lieutenants began urging Washington to target Damascus.
On 16 April, Sharon, interviewed in Yedioth Ahronoth, called for
the United States to put 'very heavy' pressure on Syria, while
Shaul Mofaz, his defence minister, interviewed in Ma'ariv, said:
'We have a long list of issues that we are thinking of demanding
of the Syrians and it is appropriate that it should be done through
the Americans.' Ephraim Halevy told a WINEP audience that it was
now important for the US to get rough with Syria, and the Washington
Post reported that Israel was 'fuelling the campaign' against
Syria by feeding the US intelligence reports about the actions
of Bashar Assad, the Syrian president.
Prominent members of the Lobby made the
same arguments. Wolfowitz declared that 'there has got to be regime
change in Syria,' and Richard Perle told a journalist that 'a
short message, a two-worded message' could be delivered to other
hostile regimes in the Middle East: 'You're next.' In early April,
WINEP released a bipartisan report stating that Syria 'should
not miss the message that countries that pursue Saddam's reckless,
irresponsible and defiant behaviour could end up sharing his fate'.
On 15 April, Yossi Klein Halevi wrote a piece in the Los Angeles
Times entitled 'Next, Turn the Screws on Syria', while the following
day Zev Chafets wrote an article for the New York Daily News entitled
'Terror-Friendly Syria Needs a Change, Too'. Not to be outdone,
Lawrence Kaplan wrote in the New Republic on 21 April that Assad
was a serious threat to America.
Back on Capitol Hill, Congressman Eliot
Engel had reintroduced the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty
Restoration Act. It threatened sanctions against Syria if it did
not withdraw from Lebanon, give up its WMD and stop supporting
terrorism, and it also called for Syria and Lebanon to take concrete
steps to make peace with Israel. This legislation was strongly
endorsed by the Lobby - by AIPAC especially - and 'framed', according
to the Jewish Telegraph Agency, 'by some of Israel's best friends
in Congress'. The Bush administration had little enthusiasm for
it, but the anti-Syrian act passed overwhelmingly (398 to 4 in
the House; 89 to 4 in the Senate), and Bush signed it into law
on 12 December 2003.
The administration itself was still divided
about the wisdom of targeting Syria. Although the neo-conservatives
were eager to pick a fight with Damascus, the CIA and the State
Department were opposed to the idea. And even after Bush signed
the new law, he emphasised that he would go slowly in implementing
it. His ambivalence is understandable. First, the Syrian government
had not only been providing important intelligence about al-Qaida
since 9/11: it had also warned Washington about a planned terrorist
attack in the Gulf and given CIA interrogators access to Mohammed
Zammar, the alleged recruiter of some of the 9/11 hijackers. Targeting
the Assad regime would jeopardise these valuable connections,
and thereby undermine the larger war on terrorism.
Second, Syria had not been on bad terms
with Washington before the Iraq war (it had even voted for UN
Resolution 1441), and was itself no threat to the United States.
Playing hardball with it would make the US look like a bully with
an insatiable appetite for beating up Arab states. Third, putting
Syria on the hit list would give Damascus a powerful incentive
to cause trouble in Iraq. Even if one wanted to bring pressure
to bear, it made good sense to finish the job in Iraq first. Yet
Congress insisted on putting the screws on Damascus, largely in
response to pressure from Israeli officials and groups like AIPAC.
If there were no Lobby, there would have been no Syria Accountability
Act, and US policy towards Damascus would have been more in line
with the national interest.
Israelis tend to describe every threat
in the starkest terms, but Iran is widely seen as their most dangerous
enemy because it is the most likely to acquire nuclear weapons.
Virtually all Israelis regard an Islamic country in the Middle
East with nuclear weapons as a threat to their existence. 'Iraq
is a problem . . . But you should understand, if you ask me, today
Iran is more dangerous than Iraq,' the defence minister, Binyamin
Ben-Eliezer, remarked a month before the Iraq war.
Sharon began pushing the US to confront
Iran in November 2002, in an interview in the Times. Describing
Iran as the 'centre of world terror', and bent on acquiring nuclear
weapons, he declared that the Bush administration should put the
strong arm on Iran 'the day after' it conquered Iraq. In late
April 2003, Ha'aretz reported that the Israeli ambassador in Washington
was calling for regime change in Iran. The overthrow of Saddam,
he noted, was 'not enough'. In his words, America 'has to follow
through. We still have great threats of that magnitude coming
from Syria, coming from Iran.'
The neo-conservatives, too, lost no time
in making the case for regime change in Tehran. On 6 May, the
AEI co-sponsored an all-day conference on Iran with the Foundation
for the Defense of Democracies and the Hudson Institute, both
champions of Israel. The speakers were all strongly pro-Israel,
and many called for the US to replace the Iranian regime with
a democracy. As usual, a bevy of articles by prominent neo-conservatives
made the case for going after Iran. 'The liberation of Iraq was
the first great battle for the future of the Middle East . . .
But the next great battle - not, we hope, a military battle -
will be for Iran,' William Kristol wrote in the Weekly Standard
on 12 May.
The administration has responded to the
Lobby's pressure by working overtime to shut down Iran's nuclear
programme. But Washington has had little success, and Iran seems
determined to create a nuclear arsenal. As a result, the Lobby
has intensified its pressure. Op-eds and other articles now warn
of imminent dangers from a nuclear Iran, caution against any appeasement
of a 'terrorist' regime, and hint darkly of preventive action
should diplomacy fail. The Lobby is pushing Congress to approve
the Iran Freedom Support Act, which would expand existing sanctions.
Israeli officials also warn they may take pre-emptive action should
Iran continue down the nuclear road, threats partly intended to
keep Washington's attention on the issue.
One might argue that Israel and the Lobby
have not had much influence on policy towards Iran, because the
US has its own reasons for keeping Iran from going nuclear. There
is some truth in this, but Iran's nuclear ambitions do not pose
a direct threat to the US. If Washington could live with a nuclear
Soviet Union, a nuclear China or even a nuclear North Korea, it
can live with a nuclear Iran. And that is why the Lobby must keep
up constant pressure on politicians to confront Tehran. Iran and
the US would hardly be allies if the Lobby did not exist, but
US policy would be more temperate and preventive war would not
be a serious option.
It is not surprising that Israel and its
American supporters want the US to deal with any and all threats
to Israel's security. If their efforts to shape US policy succeed,
Israel's enemies will be weakened or overthrown, Israel will get
a free hand with the Palestinians, and the US will do most of
the fighting, dying, rebuilding and paying. But even if the US
fails to transform the Middle East and finds itself in conflict
with an increasingly radicalised Arab and Islamic world, Israel
will end up protected by the world's only superpower. This is
not a perfect outcome from the Lobby's point of view, but it is
obviously preferable to Washington distancing itself, or using
its leverage to force Israel to make peace with the Palestinians.
Can the Lobby's power be curtailed? One
would like to think so, given the Iraq debacle, the obvious need
to rebuild America's image in the Arab and Islamic world, and
the recent revelations about AIPAC officials passing US government
secrets to Israel. One might also think that Arafat's death and
the election of the more moderate Mahmoud Abbas would cause Washington
to press vigorously and even-handedly for a peace agreement. In
short, there are ample grounds for leaders to distance themselves
from the Lobby and adopt a Middle East policy more consistent
with broader US interests. In particular, using American power
to achieve a just peace between Israel and the Palestinians would
help advance the cause of democracy in the region.
But that is not going to happen - not
soon anyway. AIPAC and its allies (including Christian Zionists)
have no serious opponents in the lobbying world. They know it
has become more difficult to make Israel's case today, and they
are responding by taking on staff and expanding their activities.
Besides, American politicians remain acutely sensitive to campaign
contributions and other forms of political pressure, and major
media outlets are likely to remain sympathetic to Israel no matter
what it does.
The Lobby's influence causes trouble on
several fronts. It increases the terrorist danger that all states
face - including America's European allies. It has made it impossible
to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a situation that gives
extremists a powerful recruiting tool, increases the pool of potential
terrorists and sympathisers, and contributes to Islamic radicalism
in Europe and Asia.
Equally worrying, the Lobby's campaign
for regime change in Iran and Syria could lead the US to attack
those countries, with potentially disastrous effects. We don't
need another Iraq. At a minimum, the Lobby's hostility towards
Syria and Iran makes it almost impossible for Washington to enlist
them in the struggle against al-Qaida and the Iraqi insurgency,
where their help is badly needed.
There is a moral dimension here as well.
Thanks to the Lobby, the United States has become the de facto
enabler of Israeli expansion in the Occupied Territories, making
it complicit in the crimes perpetrated against the Palestinians.
This situation undercuts Washington's efforts to promote democracy
abroad and makes it look hypocritical when it presses other states
to respect human rights. US efforts to limit nuclear proliferation
appear equally hypocritical given its willingness to accept Israel's
nuclear arsenal, which only encourages Iran and others to seek
a similar capability.
Besides, the Lobby's campaign to quash
debate about Israel is unhealthy for democracy. Silencing sceptics
by organising blacklists and boycotts - or by suggesting that
critics are anti-semites - violates the principle of open debate
on which democracy depends. The inability of Congress to conduct
a genuine debate on these important issues paralyses the entire
process of democratic deliberation. Israel's backers should be
free to make their case and to challenge those who disagree with
them, but efforts to stifle debate by intimidation must be roundly
condemned.
Finally, the Lobby's influence has been
bad for Israel. Its ability to persuade Washington to support
an expansionist agenda has discouraged Israel from seizing opportunities
- including a peace treaty with Syria and a prompt and full implementation
of the Oslo Accords - that would have saved Israeli lives and
shrunk the ranks of Palestinian extremists. Denying the Palestinians
their legitimate political rights certainly has not made Israel
more secure, and the long campaign to kill or marginalise a generation
of Palestinian leaders has empowered extremist groups like Hamas,
and reduced the number of Palestinian leaders who would be willing
to accept a fair settlement and able to make it work. Israel itself
would probably be better off if the Lobby were less powerful and
US policy more even-handed.
There is a ray of hope, however. Although
the Lobby remains a powerful force, the adverse effects of its
influence are increasingly difficult to hide. Powerful states
can maintain flawed policies for quite some time, but reality
cannot be ignored for ever. What is needed is a candid discussion
of the Lobby's influence and a more open debate about US interests
in this vital region. Israel's well-being is one of those interests,
but its continued occupation of the West Bank and its broader
regional agenda are not. Open debate will expose the limits of
the strategic and moral case for one-sided US support and could
move the US to a position more consistent with its own national
interest, with the interests of the other states in the region,
and with Israel's long-term interests as well.
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