They Dare To Speak Out
People and Institutions Confront
Israel's Lobby
by Paul Findley
(member of U.S. House of Representatives
for 22 years)
Lawrence Hill Books, 1985, paperback
(2003)
pvii
Shortly after World War II, a small band of United States partisans
for Israel marshaled self-discipline and commitment so effectively
that they succeeded in ending free and open debate in America
whenever Middle East issues are considered.
Their primary goal was to assure broad,
substantial, unconditional, and ultimately blind support for Israel
by the U.S. government. In seeking that goal, these partisans
forced a severe anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bias into U.S. Middle
East policy that has since raised costly economic, political,
and military barriers to the American national interest. The most
harmful part of this process was the disappearance of unfettered
discussion of the United States' relationship to the Arab-Israeli
conflict. These biases and restrictions, though unwritten, are
as effective as if they had been carved in stone. Even in the
legislative chambers on Capitol Hill, the nation's highest and
most hallowed halls of debate, discussion on the Middle East is
virtually nonexistent.
p27
AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee] is only a part
of the Israeli lobby, but in terms of having a direct effect on
public policy it is clearly the most important. The organization
has deepened and extended its influence in recent years. It is
no overstatement to say that AIPAC has effectively gained control
of virtually all of Capitol Hill's action on Middle East policy.
Almost without exception, House and Senate members do its bidding,
because most of them consider AIPAC to be the direct Capitol Hill
representative of a political force that can make or break their
chances at election time.
Whether based on fact or fancy, the perception
is what counts: AIPAC means power-raw, intimidating power. Its
promotional literature regularly cites a tribute published in
the New York Times: "The most powerful, best-run and effective
foreign policy interest group in Washington." A former congressman,
Paul N. "Pete" McCloskey, puts it more directly: Congress
is "terrorized" by AIPAC.
p29
Don Beraus, former ambassador to Sudan an retired career diplomat
At the State Department we used to predict
that if Israel's prime minister should announce that the world
is flat, within twenty-four hours Congress would pass a resolution
congratulating him on the discovery.
p49
an Ohio congressman
AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs
Committee] is the most influential lobby on Capitol Hill... But
what distresses me is the inability of American policy makers,
because of the influence of AIPAC, to distinguish between our
national interest and Israel's national interest.
p50
after AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee] blocked
a $1.6 billion arms sale to Jordan King Hussein complained
The United States is not free to move
except within the limits of what AIPAC, the Zionists, and the
State of Israel determine for it.
p55
Representative Paul "Pete" McCloskey, in an article
for the New York Times, 1982
If the United States is to work effectively
toward peace in the Mideast, the power of this lobby [AIPAC] must
be recognized and countered in open and fair debate. I had hoped
that the American Jewish community had matured to the point where
its lobbying efforts could be described and debated without raising
the red flag of anti-Semitism...
p91
J. William Fulbright - The Dissenter
"When all of us are dead, the only
one they'll remember is Bill Fulbright." The tribute by Idaho
Senator Frank Church, a fellow Democrat, was amply justified.
As much as any man of his time, J. William Fulbright shaped this
nation's attitudes on the proper exercise of its power in a world
made acutely dangerous by nuclear weapons. Dissent was a hallmark
of his career, but it was dissent with distinction. The fact was
that Fulbright was usually right.
He first gained national attention by
condemning the "swinish blight" of McCarthyism."
In 1954, while many Americans cheered the crusade of the Wisconsin
senator's Permanent Investigations Subcommittee, Fulbright cast
the lone vote against a measure to continue the subcommittee's
funding. Because of this vote, he was accused of being "a
communist, a fellow traveler, an atheist, [and] a man beneath
contempt.""
Fulbright opposed U.S. intervention in
Cuba in 1961 and in the Dominican Republic four years later, and
was ahead of his time in calling for détente with the Soviet
Union and a diplomatic opening with China. When he proposed a
different system for selecting presidents, an offended Harry Truman
called him "that overeducated Oxford s.o.b." Twenty-five
years later, in 1974, the New York Times recognized Fulbright
as "the most outspoken critic of American foreign policy
of this generation.
His deepest and most abiding interest
was the advancement of international understanding through education,
and thousands of young people have broadened their vision through
the scholarships that bear his name. 46 But Fulbright also became
well known for his outspoken opposition to the Vietnam War as
"an endless, futile war... debilitating and indecent"-a
stand that put him at odds with a former colleague and close friend,
President Lyndon B. Johnson. President Johnson believed that America
was embarked on a noble mission in Southeast Asia against an international
communist conspiracy. Fulbright put no stock in the conspiracy
theory, feared the war might broaden into a showdown with China,
and saw it as an exercise in "the arrogance of power."
In 1963 Fulbright chaired an investigation
that brought to public attention the exceptional tax treatment
of contributions to Israel and aroused the ire of the Jewish community."
The investigation was managed by Walter Pincus, a journalist Fulbright
hired after reading a Pincus study of lobbying. Pincus recalls
that Fulbright gave him a free hand, letting him choose the ten
prime lobbying activities to be examined and backing him throughout
the controversial investigation. One of the groups chosen by Pincus,
himself Jewish, was the Jewish Telegraph Agency, which was at
that time a principal instrument of the Israeli lobby. Both Fulbright
and Pincus were accused of trying to destroy the Jewish Telegraph
Agency and of being anti-Semitic."
Pincus remembers, "Several senators
urged that the inquiry into the Jewish operation be dropped. Senators
Hubert Humphrey and Bourke Hickenlooper [senior Republican on
the Foreign Relations Committee] were among them. Fuibright refused."
The Fuibright hearings also exposed massive
funding illegally channeled into the American Zionist Council
by Israel." More than five million dollars had been secretly
poured into the council for spending on public relations firms
and pro-Israel propaganda before Fulbright's committee closed
down the operation.
Despite his concern over the pro-Israeli
lobby, Fulbright took the exceptional step of recommending that
the United States guarantee Israeli's borders." In a major
address in 1970 he proposed an American-Israeli treaty, under
which the United States would commit itself to intervene militarily
if necessary to "guarantee the territory and independence
of Israel" within the lands it held before the 1967 war.
The treaty, he said, should be a supplement to a peace settlement
arranged by the United Nations. The purpose of his proposal was
to destroy the arguments of those who maintained that Israel needed
the captured territory for its security.
Fulbright saw Israel's withdrawal from
the Arab lands it occupied in the 1967 war as the key to peace:
Israel could not occupy Arab territory and have peace too. He
said that Israeli policy in establishing settlements on the territories
"has been characterized by lack of flexibility and foresight."
Discounting early threats by some Arab leaders to destroy the
state of Israel, Fuibright noted that both President Nasser of
the United Arab Republic and King Hussein of Jordan had in effect
repudiated such Draconian threats, "but the Israelis seem
not to have noticed the disavowals."
During the 1970s Fulbright repeatedly
took exception to the contention that the Middle East crisis was
a test of American resolve against Soviet interventionism. In
1971 he accused Israel of "communist-baiting humbuggery"
and argued that continuing Middle East tension, in fact, only
benefited Soviet interests."
Appearing on CBS television's Face the
Nation in 1973, Fulbright declared that the Senate was "subservient"
to Israeli policies that were inimical to American interests."
He said that the United States bore "a very great share of
the responsibility" for the continuation of Middle East violence.
"It's quite obvious [that] without the all-out support by
the United States in money and weapons and so on, the Israelis
couldn't do what they've been doing."
Fuibright said that the United States
failed to pressure Israel for a negotiated settlement, because:
The great majority of the Senate of the
United States-somewhere around 80 percent-are completely in support
of Israel, anything Israel wants. This has been demonstrated time
and time again, and this has made it difficult for our government.
The senator claimed that "Israel
controls the Senate" and warned, "We should be more
concerned about the United States' interests." Six weeks
after his Face the Nation appearance, Fulbright again expressed
alarm over Israeli occupation of Arab territories." He charged
that the United States had given Israel "unlimited support
for unlimited expansion.
His criticism of Israeli policy caused
stirrings back home. 17 Jews who had supported him in the past
became restless. After years of easy election victories, trouble
loomed for Fuibright in 1974. Encouraged, in part, by the growing
Jewish disenchantment with Fuibright, on the eve of the deadline
for filing petitions of candidacy in the Democratic primary Governor
Dale Bumpers surprised the political world by becoming a challenger
for Fuibright's Senate seat. Fulbright hadn't expected the governor
to run, but recognized immediately that the popular young governor
posed a serious challenge: "He had lots of hair [in contrast
to Fulbright], he looked good on television, and he'd never done
anything to offend anyone."
There were other factors. Walter Pincus,
who later became a Washington Post reporter, believed that Fulbright's
decision to take a golfing holiday in Bermuda just before the
primary deadline may have helped convince Bumpers that Fulbright
would not work hard for the nomination. It was also the year of
Watergate-a bad year for incumbents. In his campaign, Bumpers
pointed with alarm to the "mess in Washington" and called
for a change. The New York Times reported that he "skillfully
exploited an old feeling that Mr. Fulbright ... spent all his
time dining with Henry Kissinger and fretting over the Middle
East.
The attitude of Jewish voters, both inside
Arkansas and beyond, was also a significant factor. "I don't
think Bumpers would have run without that encouragement,"
said Fulbright. Following the election, a national Jewish organization
actually claimed credit for the young governor's stunning upset
victory. Fulbright had a copy of a memorandum circulated in May
1974 to the national board of directors of B'nai B'rith. Marked
"confidential," the memo from Secretary-General Herman
Edelsberg, announced that ". . . all of the indications suggest
that our actions in support of Governor Bumpers will result in
the ousting of Mr. Fulbright from his key position in the Senate.
"6' Edelsberg later rejected the memorandum as "phony."
Following his defeat, Fulbright continued
to speak out, decrying Israeli stubbornness and warning of the
Israeli lobby. In a speech just before the end of his Senate term,
he warned, "Endlessly pressing the United States for money
and arms-and invariably getting all and more than she asks-Israel
makes bad use of a good friend." His central concern was
that the Middle East conflict might flare into nuclear war. 64
He warned somberly that "Israel's supporters in the United
States ... by ) underwriting intransigence, are encouraging a
course which must lead toward her destruction-and just possibly
ours as well."
Pondering the future from his office three
blocks north of the White House on a bright winter day in 1983,
Fulbright saw little hope that Capitol Hill would effectively
challenge the Israeli lobby:
It's suicide for politicians to oppose
them. The only possibility would be someone like Eisenhower, who
already feels secure. Eisenhower had already made his reputation.
He was already a great man in the eyes of the country, and he
wasn't afraid of anybody. He said what he believed."
Then he added a somewhat more optimistic
note: "I believe a president could do this. He wouldn't have
to be named Eisenhower." Fulbright cited a missed opportunity:
I went to Jerry Ford after he took office
in 1975. I was out of office then. I had been to the Middle East
and visited with some of the leading figures. I came back and
told the president, 'Look, I think these [Arab] leaders are willing
to accept Israel, but the Israelis have got to go back to the
1967 borders. The problem can be solved if you are willing to
take a position on it.
Fulbright predicted that the American
people would back Ford if he demanded that Israel cooperate. He
reminded him that Eisenhower was reelected by a large margin immediately
after he forced Israel to withdraw after invading Egypt:
Taking a stand against Israel didn't
hurt Eisenhower. He carried New York with its big Jewish population.
I told Ford I didn't think he would be defeated if he put it the
right way. He should say Israel had to go back to the 1967 borders;
if it didn't, no more arms or money. That's just the way Eisenhower
did it. And Israel would have to cooperate. And politically, in
the coming campaign, I told him he should say he was for Israel,
but he was for America first.
Ford, Fuibright recalled, listened courteously
but was noncommittal. "Of course he didn't take my advice,"
said Fulbright. Yet his determination in the face of such disappointment
echoes through one of his last statements as a U.S. senator:
History casts no doubt at all on the
ability of human beings to deal rationally with their problems,
but the greatest doubt on their will to do so. The signals of
the past are thus clouded and ambiguous, suggesting hope but not
confidence in the triumph of reason. With nothing to lose in any
event, it seems well worth a try. 66
Fulbright died on February 9, 1995, ending
one of the most illustrious careers in American politics. Reared
in the segregationist South, he left an imposing legacy as a fearless,
scholarly, and determined champion of human rights at home and
abroad.
p118
journalist Charles Bartlett about JFK
[JFK] said if he ever did get to be president,
he would push for a law that would subsidize presidential campaigns
out of the U.S. Treasury. He added that whatever the cost of this
subsidy, it would insulate future presidential candidates from
... [financial] pressure and save the country a lot of grief in
the long run.
p123
Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to Henry Luce, owner of
Time magazine
I am aware how almost impossible it is
in this country to carry out a foreign policy not approved by
the Jews.
p127
Not only do Israel's American supporters
have powerful influence with many members of the Congress, but
practically no actions touching Israel's interests can be taken,
or even discussed, within the executive branch without it being
quickly known to the Israeli government.
... Israelis have been so long conditioned
to expect that Americans will support their country, no matter
how often it disregards American advice and protests and America's
own interests.
p131
George Ball, former deputy secretary of state under two presidents
and former US ambassador to the United Nations, in an article
in the Washington Post, 1977
When leading members of the American Jewish
community give [Israel's] government uncritical arid unqualified
approbation and encouragement for whatever it chooses to do, while
striving so far as possible to overwhelm any criticism of its
actions in Congress and in the public media, they are, in my view,
doing neither themselves nor the United States a favor.
p131
George Ball, former deputy secretary of state under two presidents
and former US ambassador to the United Nations, in an article
in the Washington Post, 1977
[President Ronald Reagan] did not demand,
as he should have done under the law, that we would exact the
penalties provided unless the Israelis stopped murdering civilians
with the weapons we had provided them solely for self-defense.
Instead he bought them off by committing our own marines to maintain
order while we persuaded the PLO leaders to leave rather than
face martyrdom.
p151
Les Janka, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense who
is a specialist in Middle East policy
You have to understand that the Israelis
operate in the Pentagon very professionally, and in an omnipresent
way. They have enough of their people who understand our system
well, and they have made friends at all levels, from top to bottom.
They just interact with the system in a constant, continuous way
that keeps the pressure on.
p159
a Newsweek article, 1979
With the help of American Jews in and
out of government, the Mossad looks for any softening in U.S.
support and tries to get any technical intelligence the administration
is unwilling to give to Israel. "The Mossad can go to any
distinguished American Jew and ask for his help," says a
former CIA agent. The appeal is a simple one: "When the call
went out and no one heeded it, the Holocaust resulted." The
United States tolerates the Mossad's operations on American soil
partly because of reluctance to anger the American Jewish community.
p159
a senior State Department official who held the high career positions
related to the Middle East, 1979
I urged several times that the United
States quit trying to keep secrets from Israel. Let them have
everything. They always get what they want anyway. When we try
to keep secrets, it always backfires.
p160
a secret analysis prepared by the CIA in 1979 titled 'Israel:
Foreign Intelligence and Security Services'
In carrying out its mission to collect
positive intelligence, the principal function of the Mossad is
to conduct agent operations against the Arab nations and their
official representatives and installations throughout the world,
particularly in Western Europe and the United States .... Objectives
in Western countries are equally important (as in the USSR and
East Europe) to the Israeli intelligence service. The Mossad collects
intelligence regarding Western, Vatican, and UN policies toward
the Near East; promotes arms deals for the benefit of the IDF;
and acquires data for silencing anti-Israel factions in the West.
p160
a secret analysis prepared by the CIA in 1979 titled 'Israel:
Foreign Intelligence and Security Services'
Mossad activities are generally conducted
through Israeli official and semiofficial establishments - deep
cover enterprises in the form of firms and organizations, some
especially created for, or adaptable to, a specific objective-and
penetrations effected within non-Zionist national and international
Jewish organizations .... Official organizations used for cover
are: Israeli purchasing missions and Israeli government tourist
offices, El Al, and Zim offices. Israeli construction firms, industrial
groups and international trade organizations also provide nonofficial
cover. Individuals working under deep or illegal cover are normally
charged with penetrating objectives that require a long-range,
more subtle approach, or with activities in which the Israeli
government can never admit complicity.
p161
a secret analysis prepared by the CIA in 1979 titled 'Israel:
Foreign Intelligence and Security Services'
In addition to the large-scale acquisition
of published scientific papers and technical journals from all
over the world through overt channel he Israelis devote a considerable
portion of their covert operations to obtaining scientific and
technical intelligence. This had included attempts to penetrate
certain classified defense projects in the United States and other
Western nations.
The Israeli security authorities (in Israel)
also seek evidence of illicit love affairs which can be used as
leverage to enlist cooperation. In one instance, Shin Bet (the
domestic Israeli intelligence agency) tried to penetrate the U.S.
Consulate General in Jerusalem through a clerical employee who
was having an affair with a Jerusalem girl. They rigged a fake
abortion case against the employee in an unsuccessful effort to
recruit him. Before this attempt at blackmail, they had tried
to get the Israeli girl to elicit information from her boyfriend.
p162
a senior official in the Department of State, 1980
We have to assume that they have wiretaps
all over town. In my work I frequently pick up highly sensitive
information coming back to me in conversations with people who
have no right to have these secrets.
p163
To strike back at government officials considered to be unsympathetic
to Israeli needs, the pro-Israel lobby singles them out for personal
attack and even the wrecking of their careers. In January 1977
a broad-scale purge was attempted immediately after the inauguration
of President Carter. The perpetrator was Senator Richard Stone
of Florida, a Democrat, a passionate supporter of Israel."'
When he was newly installed as chairman of the Senate Subcommittee
on the Middle East, he brought along with him a "hit list."
In his view, fifteen officials were not sufficiently supportive
of Israel and its weapons needs, and he wanted them transferred
to positions where their views would create no problems for Israel.
Marked for removal were William Quandt, Brzezinski's assistant
for Middle East matters, and Les Janka, who had served on the
National Security Council under Ford. The others were career military
officers, most of them colonels. Stone's demands were rejected
by Brzezinski. According to a senior White House official, "after
pressing reasonably hard for several days," the senator gave
up. Although unsuccessful, his demands caused a stir. One officer
says, "I find it very ironic that a U.S. senator goes to
a U.S. president's national security adviser and tells him to
fire Americans for insufficient loyalty to another country."
p167
John C. West, US ambassador to Saudi Arabia in 1979
We would never put anything in any cable
what was critical of Israel. Still, because of the grapevine,
there was never any secret from the government of Israel. The
Israelis knew everything, usually by the time it got to Washington.
p173
Admiral Thomas Moorer recalls a dramatic example of Israeli lobby
power from his days as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
At the time of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, Mordecai Gur, the defense
attaché at the Israeli embassy who later became commander-in-chief
of Israeli forces, came to Moorer demanding that the United States
provide Israel with aircraft that were equipped with a high technology
air-to-surface anti-tank missile called the Maverick. At the time,
the U.S. had only one squadron so equipped. Moorer recalled telling
Gur:
I can't let you have those aircraft.
We have just one squadron. Besides, we've been testifying before
the Congress, convincing them we need this equipment. If we gave
you our only squadron, Congress would raise hell with us.
Moorer looked at me with a steady, piercing
gaze that must have kept a generation of ensigns trembling in
their boots. "And do you know what he said? Gur told me,
'You get us the airplanes; I'll take care of the Congress."
Moorer paused, then added, "And he did." America's only
squadron equipped with Mavericks went to Israel.
Moorer, speaking in his office in Washington
as a senior counselor at the Georgetown University Center for
Strategic and International Studies, said he strongly opposed
the transfer but was overruled by "political expediency at
the presidential level." He notes that President Richard
Nixon was then in the throes of Watergate. "But," he
added:
I've never seen a president - I don't
care who he is - stand up to them [the Israelis]. It just boggles
your mind. They always get what they want. The Israelis know what
is going on all the time. I got to the point where I wasn't writing
anything down. If the American people understood what a grip those
people have got on our government, they would rise up in arms.
Our citizens don't have any idea what goes on.
p175
A former high-ranking official in security affairs cited the intimidating
effect of this procession on career specialists:
When you have to explain your position
day after day, week after week, to American Jewish groups-first,
say, from Kansas City, then Chicago, then East Overshoe-you see
what you are up against. These are people from different parts
of the country, but they come in with the very same information,
the same set of questions, the same criticism. They know what
you have done even in private meetings. They will say, "Mr.
Smith, we understand that in interagency meetings, you frequently
take a hard line against technology transfers to Israel. We'd
like you to explain yourself." They keep you on the defensive.
p177
a State Department official
One has to keep in mind the constant
character of this [Jewish] pressure. The public affairs staff
of the Near East Bureau in the State Department figures it will
spend about 75 percent of its time dealing with Jewish groups.
Hundreds of such groups get appointments in the executive branch
each year.
p185
In a 1986 statement to the press, Israeli Embassy spokesman Yossi
Gal said
The [Jonathan] Pollard [spy] affair was
an unauthorized deviation from the clear-cut Israeli policy of
not conducting any espionage activity whatsoever in the United
States or activities against the interests of the United States,
given that the United States is a true friend of Israel.
p185
a U.S. government official
The Mossad is the most active foreign
intelligence service on U.S. soil.
p185
reporter Charles Babcock of the Washington Post
[The] remarkable intelligence harvest
[for Israel] is provided largely not by paid agents, but by an
unofficial network of sympathetic American officials who work
in the Pentagon, the State Department, congressional offices,
the National Security Council, and even the U.S. intelligence
agencies.
p185
a 1996 U.S. government report
[Israel] conducts the most aggressive
espionage operation against the United States of any U.S. ally.
p210
In 1979 AIPAC established its Political Leadership Development
Program (PLDP), which trains student activists on how to increase
pro-Israeli influence on campus.
... In 1983 AIPAC distributed to students
and faculty around the country a ten-page questionnaire on political
activism on their campuses. Its instructions included: "Please
name any individual faculty who assist anti-Israel groups. How
is this assistance offered? What are the propaganda themes?"
The survey results formed the body of the AIPAC College Guide:
Exposing the Anti-Israel Campaign on Campus, published in April
1984. While AIPAC claimed to respect the right of all to free
speech, number eight on its list of ten suggested "modes
of response" to pro-Palestinian events or speakers on campus
reads: "Attempt to prevent."
Number ten on the same list is "creative
packaging." Edward Said, a professor of comparative literature
at Columbia University who frequently speaks on campuses in support
of the Palestinian cause, described a case of "creative packaging"
at the University of Washington, where he spoke in early 1983:
They stood at the door of the auditorium
and distributed a blue leaflet that seemed like a program, but
it was in fact a denunciation of me as a "terrorist."
There were quotations from the PLO, and things that I had said
were mixed in with things they claimed the PLO had said about
murdering Jews. The idea was to intimidate me and to intimidate
the audience from attending.'
Said reported another experience at the
University of Florida, where the group protesting Said's talk
was led by a professor of philosophy:
They [pro-Israel student activists organized
by AIPAC] tried to disrupt the meeting and the professor finally
had to be taken out by the police. It was one of the ugliest things
- not just heckling, but interrupting and standing up and shouting.
It's pure fascism, outright hooliganism.
p214
Noam Chomsky was leaked a copy of his ADL [Anti-Defamation League]
file which contained about a hundred pages of material
Virtually every talk I give is monitored
[by the ADL] and reports of their alleged contents (sometimes
ludicrously, even comically distorted) are sent on to the [Anti-Defamation]
League, to be incorporated in my file.
When I give a talk at a university or
elsewhere, it is common for a group to distribute literature,
invariably unsigned, containing a collection of attacks on me
spiced with "quotes" (generally fabricated) from what
I am alleged to have said here and there. I have no doubt that
the source is the ADL, and / often the people distributing the
unsigned literature acknowledge the fact. These practices are
vicious and serve to intimidate many people. They are, of course,
not illegal. If the ADL chooses to behave in this fashion, it
has a right to do so, but this should also be exposed.
p247
Francis A. Boyle, a professor of international law at the University
of Illinois, advised the Palestinian delegation to the Middle
East peace negotiations in Washington, D.C., from 1991 to 1993
- urging the Palestinians to reject what became the Oslo Accords
They are offering you a Bantustan. As
you know, the Israelis had very close relations with the Afrikaner
Apartheid regime in South Africa. It appears they have studied
the Bantustan system quite closely. So it is a Bantustan that
they are offering you.
p247
Francis A. Boyle, a professor of international law at the University
of Illinois
There are 149 substantive articles of
the Fourth Geneva Convention that protect the rights of almost
every one of these Palestinians living in occupied Palestine.
The Israeli government is currently violating, and has been since
1967, almost each and every one of these.
p247
Francis A. Boyle, a professor of international law at the University
of Illinois
It can be fairly said that U.S. Middle
East policy has not shown one iota of respect for international
law.
p247
Francis A. Boyle, a professor of international law at the University
of Illinois
I have been accused of being everything
but a child molester because of my public support for the Palestinian
people. I have seen every known principle of academic integrity
and academic freedom violated in order to suppress the basic rights
of the Palestinian people. In fact, there is no such thing as
academic integrity and academic freedom in the United States when
it comes to asserting the rights of the Palestinian people under
international law.
p251
Jerry Falwell
I don't think America could turn its back
on the people of Israel and survive. God deals with nations in
relation to how those nations deal with the Jews.
p281
A scholarly study by Vincent James Abramo a veteran federal employee
showed that the settlements are deep rooted in religion. A little-noted
factor in the Middle East imbroglio is the rising power of ultraorthodox
Jews in Israeli and U.S. politics. Their core beliefs demand implacable
opposition to the establishment of an independent Palestinian
state on any part of the West Bank, part of the area seized by
Israeli forces in the June 1967 Arab-Israeli war and identified
in the Bible as Judea and Samara. Ultra-orthodox interpretations
of Judaic law that are found in the Torah, Talmud, and Halakhah
prohibit Jews from sharing power with non-Jews in the "Land
of Israel."
In April 2002, a convention of Sharon's
Likud Party voted to oppose Palestinian statehood. The vote was
seen as an appeal for continued support from ultraorthodox Jews
and as an intra-party victory for former Prime Minister Benyamin
Netanyahu, who was expected to oppose Sharon in the next Israeli
election. Always a factor in Israeli politics, orthodox Jews became
a powerhouse in the past decade. In his study of Orthodox Judaism,
Abramo wrote: "The success of the religious parties in the
1996 and 1999 Israeli national elections vastly increased the
influence of orthodox Jews in the Israeli political process. Politically
influential and highly visible orthodox rabbis seek to convince
Israel's religiously observant Jews that the Messiah will not
arrive until Jews establish themselves as sole rulers in the biblical
Land of Israel. They believe that any governmental compromise
to return biblical lands to the Palestinians in exchange for a
peace agreement is, in the eyes of God, a treacherous and punishable
act. The orthodox are committed to derailing all Israeli government
and international peace initiatives that would force them to give
up any part of Jewish sovereignty, political autonomy, and administrative
control over all of Israel's biblical land." Abramo estimated
that 20 percent of Israel's Jewish population is committed to
these beliefs and ideology. This small percentage has proved adequate
to be decisive in close elections.
Orthodox Jews promoted the expansion of
settlements and sanctioned violent acts by Jewish extremists.
The Orthodox goal is simply the expulsion of the Palestinians
from the West Bank. The late Professor Israel Shahak, a survivor
of a Nazi concentration camp who became a leading champion of
Palestinian rights, wrote of Orthodox leaders: "All were
outwardly dovish but employed formulas which could be manipulated
in the most extreme anti-Arab sense." In 1993, they mobilized
against the Oslo Accords, which contemplated an eventual Palestinian
state in the West Bank. They can be expected to marshal all possible
resources against U.S. pressure for a Palestine state.
The ruthless tactics employed by Israel's
right-wing Orthodox parties assure that they will remain a major
factor in Israeli politics for years to come, no matter what Israeli
party coalitions may be established.
Abramo warned of possible Jewish violence
in the United States: "Continued U.S. pressure to compromise
on East Jerusalem, the Temple Mount, and the right of return for
an estimated 3.2 million Palestinians creates a scenario that
could see the United States as a potential target of Jewish extremism
in the future."
Aramo deplored the U.S. tendency to perceive
Israel "as a likeminded country with similar democratic values."
He warned, "This mirror-imaging has proven to be dangerous
and misleading, because it deflects attention away from the powerful
undercurrent of [orthodox Jewish] religion as a driving force
in Israeli political life."
p283
Every government of Israel gives high priority to maintaining
unity among U.S. Jews. This unity is regarded as a main line of
Israel's defense-second in importance only to the Israeli army-and
essential to retaining the support that Israel must have from
the United States government.
American Jews are made to feel guilty
about enjoying safety and the good life in the United States while
their fellow Jews in Israel hold the ramparts, pay high taxes,
and fight wars. As Rabbi Balfour Brickner stated: "We hide
behind the argument that it is not for us to speak our minds because
the Israelis have to pay the price." One Jewish reporter
attributed Jewish silence to an organized enforcement campaign:
"I have often been told-verbally, in Jewish publications
and in synagogues - that even if I have doubts about the Israeli
government and its treatment of Palestinians, I should keep quiet
about it and be steadfast in my support of a nation that needs
to exist."
For most Jews, open criticism of Israeli
policy is unthinkable. The theme is survival - survival of the
Zionist dream, of Judaism, of Jews themselves.
p286
Roberta. Strauss Feuerlicht in a book that was critical of Israel
"The Fate of the Jews"
Opposition to Zionism or criticism of
Israel is now heresy and cause for excommunication.
p286
Roberta. Strauss Feuerlicht in a book that was critical of Israel
"The Fate of the Jews"
Israel shields itself from legitimate
criticism by calling her critics anti-Semitic; it is a form of
McCarthyism and fatally effective.
p287
Paul Findley
In my [Paul Findley] twenty-two years
in Congress, I can recall no entry in the Congressional Record
that discloses a speech that was critical of Israeli policy and
was presented by a Jewish member of the House or Senate. Jewish
members may voice discontent in private conversation but never
on the public record. Only a few Jewish academicians, such as
Noam Chomsky, a distinguished linguist, have spoken out. Most
of those are, like Chomsky, protected in their careers by tenure
and are thus able to become controversial without jeopardizing
their positions.
p287
Richard Cohen of the Washington Post, during Israel's 1982 invasion
of Lebanon
[In the U.S.] dissent becomes treason
- and treason not to a state or even an ideal (Zionism), but to
a people. There is tremendous pressure for conformity, to show
a united front and to adopt the view that what is best for Israel
is something only the government there can know.
p288
Richard Cohen of the Washington Post, in an April 2002 editorial
in the Washington Post entitled "Who's AntiSemitic?
Here [in the U.S.] criticism of Israel,
particularly anti-Zionism, is equated with anti-Semitism. The
Anti-Defamation League, one of the most important Jewish organizations,
comes right out and says so. "Anti-Zionism is showing its
true colors as deep-rooted anti-Semitism," the organization
says.
p288
Richard Cohen of the Washington Post, in an April 2002 editorial
in the Washington Post entitled "Who's AntiSemitic?
To protest living conditions on the West
Bank is not anti-Semitism. To condemn the increasing encroachment
of Jewish settlements is not anti-Semitism.
p293
Nahum Goldmann, played a crucial role in the founding of Israel,
in 1980
The time may not be far off when American
public opinion will be sick and tired of the demands of Israel
and the aggressiveness of American Jewry.
p305
I.F. Stone
The Jewish people are apprehensive, fearful.
They are afraid about the future. They feel they are at war, and
many of them feel they have to fight and keep fighting.
p305
I.F. Stone
Finding an American publishing house willing
to publish a book that departs from the standard Israeli line
is about as easy as selling a thoughtful exposition of atheism
to the Osservatore Romano in Vatican City.
p350
[The] deep attachment to Israel began as soon as the state carne
into being fifty-four years ago. Backed by a small but passionately
committed minority of America's Jews, augmented later by growing
groups of fundamentalist Christians, the lobby of the American
Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) steadily strengthened
its manipulation of U.S. political institutions into unconditional
support of Israel's subjugation of the Palestinian people and
the forcible takeover of Arab land. This transition occurred with
little awareness by the American people, except those of Arab
ancestry and Muslim affiliation.
Throughout the years, America's national
leaders acted as if they were oblivious of the violations of international
law perpetrated against the Palestinians by every Israeli government
since the creation of the Jewish state. With only two brief exceptions
years ago when the U.S. government sold military aircraft to Saudi
Arabia, Israel's lobby always got what it wanted.
After 9/11, lobby influence was nowhere
more apparent than on Capitol Hill. Even as evidence of worldwide
outrage against U.S. complicity with Israel's assault on the West
Bank and Gaza mounted, a large majority of members of both the
House of Representatives and the Senate remained beholden to AIPAC.
They blocked any fair and open discussion of the U.S. national
interest on Middle East policies, giving their allegiance on these
issues to AIPAC, rather than to their home constituencies.
p351
Capitol Hill is truly Israeli-occupied territory.
p351
Capitol Hill is truly Israeli-occupied territory. Members of Congress
are well informed about the true interests of the United States
in the Middle East, but they are so intimidated they obey lobby
direction [AIPAC]. Based on my long, intimate experience in the
Capitol Hill legislative process, I believe that most of those
who cast affirmative votes on the resolutions privately resented
being pressured by AIPAC and were embarrassed by having to vote
against U.S. interests. Scores of times over the years, I have
sat in committee and in the chamber of the House of Representatives
as my colleagues behaved, as an undersecretary of state once described
them, like "trained poodles" jumping through hoops held
for them by AIPAC.
p356
Why, in the wake of 9/11, did no one ponder the question "why?"
Why did America and its leaders remain silent about Arab and Muslim
grievances?
Perhaps it was partly, if not mostly,
because Muslims are often considered "different," if
not dangerous, by the general public-most of whom, I must add,
have never knowingly met a Muslim or read a verse from the Qur'an.
In research done for my book, Silent No More, I learned that Muslims
were unfairly linked with terrorism long before 9/11. Misperceptions
of Muslims as being less than human were nurtured by heavy television
coverage of the suicide bombings in Israel that were carried out
by individual Palestinian Muslims, while scenes of Palestinian
suffering and death seldom reached American homes. Few Americans
seemed aware that Palestinians had no weapons to defend themselves
against heavily armed Israeli forces marauding through the West
Bank and Gaza.
From its founding in 1948, Israel's government
has treated Palestinians as inferior human beings that it was
entitled to subjugate. Years ago, Israeli Prime Minister Golda
Meir even denied that a Palestinian nationality existed. Her denial
buttressed the fiction that Israel came into being in 1948 in
"a land without people," a false notion that has been
kept alive ever since in Israeli schoolbooks. Even the Palestinians,
who can vote in Israeli elections, are set apart from Jewish citizens:
Their cars display distinctive license plates. They are denied
important social services. They have difficulty buying any real
estate and, in effect, can live only in restricted residential
areas. They are rarely able to secure construction and remodeling
permits while Jews receive them without delay.
This process of colonial domination and
intellectual brutality advanced the destruction of the Palestinian
national identity in the perception of the American people: Palestinians
are not viewed as human beings struggling for freedom; they are
portrayed as anti-Jewish terrorists who hate freedom. Columbia
University professor Edward Said, born in Palestine, called Israel's
treatment of Palestinians "dehumanization on a vast scale."
He added, "The intellectual suppression of the Palestinians
that has occurred because of Zionist education has produced an
unreflecting, dangerously skewed sense of reality in which whatever
Israel does it does as a victim .... This has nothing to do with
reality, obviously enough, but rather with a kind of hallucinatory
state that overrides history and facts with a supreme unthinking
narcissism."
p357
The U.S. media played a role in America's failure to explore and
address Arab grievances. After 9/11, several television commentators
rejected as "appeasement of terrorists" steps that would
take Arab grievances into consideration. Their reasoning for this
was the invariably uttered sound bite: "That is exactly what
the terrorists want us to do." To the commentators, responding
to legitimate grievances would be tantamount to caving in to the
enemy. Except for a few dissenting voices, the misinformed American
people seemed to agree.
p357
Any gesture of fairness to Arabs would be widely misconstrued
as hostility toward Israel, and this, in turn, would lead to accusations
of anti-Semitism. Speaking up for Arab rights could lead to all
kinds of personal losses-businesses, friendships, even social
standing. Almost everyone could find an excuse to stay quietly
on the sidelines.
p362
James J. David of Marietta, Georgia, a brigadier general in the
Georgia National Guard who had extensive experience in Middle
East as a U.S. Army officer, in an article, October 2001
The cause of this terrorism [9-11] is
our involvement in and support of the criminal behavior of the
Israeli government. You can be certain that you will not hear
this accusation from the controlled media, but nevertheless, let
the truth be known .... The Palestinians and many of their Arab
allies have been targets of a half-century of unrelenting Israeli
terrorism .... Every Palestinian and Arab is aware that Israel's
... terror could never have occurred without the active financial,
military, and diplomatic support of the United States. That is
why the Arabs hate us, and that is why they are trying to strike
back at us.
p363
James J. David of Marietta, Georgia, a brigadier general in the
Georgia National Guard who had extensive experience in Middle
East as a U.S. Army officer, in an article, January 2002
The United States' generous handouts to
the Jewish state have done nothing but bring more turmoil and
violence to the Middle East and to the soil of the United States.
If America wants peace in the Middle East and is serious about
fighting world terrorism, then it's time to get tough with Israel
and end all military and economic aid to the Jewish state.
p363
William Pfaff, International Herald Tribune columnist, September
13, 2001
The only real defense against external
attack is a courageous effort to find political solutions for
national and ideological conflicts that involve the United States
for more than thirty years, the United States has refused to make
a genuinely impartial effort to find a resolution to the Mideast
conflict. If current speculation about these attacks [9-11] is
true, and they do indeed have their genesis in the Israeli-Palestinian
struggle, the United States has now been awarded its share in
that Middle East tragedy.
p363
Charley Reese, a syndicated columnist
I hope you don't believe the fairy tale
that we were attacked because of our wealth or freedom... That
is disinformation. We were attacked and will be attacked as long
as we support Israel's aggression and occupation of other people
and their lands. Personally, I am deeply angered that people I
love might / die one day just because a bunch of politicians have
their hands in the pockets of the Israeli lobby. That is a sordid,
stupid, and useless reason for any American to die.
p364
Nurit Peled-Eichanan, Israeli lecturer and former Israel Knesset
member
When you put people under border closure,
when you humiliate, starve, and suppress them, when you raze their
villages and demolish homes, when they grow up in garbage and
in holding pens, that's what happens. Don't blame the extremist
group Hamas. We are nurturing the Hamas by what we are doing.
p367
If the United States had refused partnership in Israel's crimes
against the Palestinians and other Arabs, would Israel have been
able to maintain its subjugation of the Palestinian people decade
after decade? Any fair analysis would yield an answer in the negative.
In the absence of unconditional U.S. support, Israel would have
discarded its ambitions for "Greater Israel" and negotiated
the terms of peaceful coexistence with its neighbors years ago.
Would America have suffered 9/11? My answer
is no. All evidence that is available today points to 9/11 as
being the crime of disaffected Arabs, mainly Saudis, led by Osama
bin Laden. According to bin Laden, they were outraged by what
he described as the corrupting influence of the United States
on the Middle East, particularly its support of Israel's subjugation
of Palestinian human rights. If these "corrupting influences"
did not exist, and if the U.S. government had dealt with Israel
in a normal, traditional way by demanding specific standards of
conduct in exchange for U.S. aid, America, in effect, would have
blocked Israel's illegal campaign of territorial aggrandizement
and retained its great Arab reservoir of goodwill. Barring the
absence of some anti-Arab blunder in U.S. policy, Arab terrorists
would have no reason to attack the United States.
Of course, the United States government
has not refused partnership with Israel. On the contrary, every
president and every Congress over the years have reiterated loyal,
unconditional support of Israel. These statements are usually
cast as assurances of undying support for that nation's security,
with no reference to the need of Palestinians for security. Those
serving in Congress often publicly declare Israel's right to exist
within secure borders, and they probably do so more frequently
than they repeat the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United
States.
I have yet to hear any member of Congress
declare the right of Palestinians to exist within secure borders.
p368
America's descent into intimate involvement in Israel's unlawful
activities advanced step by step, beginning in 1967. The most
basic, fundamental cause of this dreadful decline is the lobby's
greatest success: the elimination of free, open, unfettered discussion
in the United States about what U.S. policy in the Middle East
should be. Israelis enjoy free, rigorous debate of Middle East
policy in their parliament, media, and private life, but Israel's
U.S. lobby has stifled all such debate in America for nearly forty
years.
p369
With few exceptions, members of Congress, presidents, the nation's
editorial writers, the ( clergy, and the nation's vast array of
nongovernmental advocacy organizations have been afraid to speak
out. I cannot recall any of the major \ political players in Washington
even noting the absence of unfettered debate. They were afraid
to challenge Israel or its U.S. lobby at any level / for fear
of being called anti-Semitic. The operative word was fear.
p370
By supporting Israel unconditionally, America turned its back
on long-cherished ideals and principles. As expressed in the Declaration
of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, all Americans are pledged
to stand against bigotry and intolerance and for the rule of law,
equal justice for all, and due process even for the most despicable
people among us. Instead, year after year, our government has
helped Israel violate each of these principles.
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