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Siah
04-09-04, 23:17
The Pro-Israel Lobby

Second, the lobby's power is shown by its ability to maintain Israel's huge claim on the foreign-aid budget, a claim that remains at approximately $4 billion a year -- untouchable and undebatable -- even in a period of serious budgetary pressures and neglect of large domestic constituencies.


Western Guilt
As an explanation of Western support for Israel, guilt over the Holocaust and sympathy with the victim people is a non-starter. Guilt rarely if ever affects national policy, which is almost always grounded in more earthy considerations. Concern over the Holocaust victims never extended so far as to allow significant numbers of Jewish survivors to emigrate to the U.S. after World War II, nor did it lead to extensive prosecutions of the Holocaust's managers and beneficiaries.

Anti-Arab Racism
If Palestinians and Arabs are looked down upon today, and if racist stereotypes are expounded with impunity by Martin Peretz, Fouad Ajami, Hollywood and the culture at large, this racism is mainly an effect and reflection of interest and policy rather than a causal factor. Scapegoating is a function of power and interest. Unfortunately for the Palestinians and many other Arabs, they have little economic or military muscle and stand in the way of powerful interests.

Israel As Strategic Asset
A more compelling analysis explains the policy tilt and bias in terms of Israel's value to the U.S. as a strategic asset. Most important in this view, Israel serves U.S. interests as a Western-oriented enclave and proxy military and political force in the Middle East. It has also made itself available as a surrogate in covertly supporting regimes difficult for the United States to support directly and openly (Duvalier's Haiti, Guatemala in the years of mass murder, Argentina, Chile, South Africa, Zaire, etc.).
There is an important truth in this line of argument. If Israel's interests were in real conflict with that of core U.S. power interests, or could not be reconciled with them, there is little doubt that support for Israel would be weaker. If core U.S. interests call for access to and control over Middle East oil, has the pro-Israel policy served this end well? Israel has no oil, and is disliked and feared by the oil-rich Arab states. Support for Israel has brought not peace and stability to the region, but polarization and a string of wars. The U.S. policy led to the organization of an Arab-centred oil-producers' cartel and the embargo and damaging price increases of 1973. There is no reason to believe that a more even-handed U.S. policy that forced a peace settlement wouldn't have been equally or more effective than the one followed.

The Pro-Israel Lobby
Another important reason to doubt the importance of Israel's strategic asset role in explaining the pro-Israel policy and intellectual bias is the character and evident impact of the pro-Israel lobby. Long-time Democratic congressman Clarence Long acknowledged to Paul Findley that "Long ago I decided that I'd vote for anything that AIPAC [the American Israel Public Affairs Committee] wants. I didn't want them on my back....I made up my mind I would get and keep their support."

The lobby's power is manifested, first, then, in the virtually open submissiveness of a large number of legislators. The lobby can muster remarkable numbers in support of Israeli interests, in general, or on any specific issue: in 1989, after Secretary of State Baker at an AIPAC convention called upon Israel to awaken from its dream of the Greater Land of Israel, "the Israeli lobby showed who rules the town by making 95 Senators and 235 congressmen sign a declaration of support of Israel" (in the words of Alon Pinkas, in the Israeli publication Davar [June 28, 1991]).

Second, the lobby's power is shown by its ability to maintain Israel's huge claim on the foreign-aid budget, a claim that remains at approximately $4 billion a year -- untouchable and undebatable -- even in a period of serious budgetary pressures and neglect of large domestic constituencies. Even Israeli commentators wonder at the phenomenon and ask whether this may not eventually backfire.

Third, George Bush (Sr.) greatly antagonized the Israeli lobby and its media spokespersons by trying to tie a $10-billion loan guarantee to Israeli restraint on further settlements in the occupied territories. The resultant reaction was, I believe, an important factor in his defeat, second only to the economic stagnation. Clinton, by contrast, promised Rabin there would be no cuts in the Israeli grants, and redefined the "occupation" of the West Bank and Gaza as merely a matter of "disputed territory." As with Clarence Long, the Clinton Administration found it the better part of valour to give the lobby whatever it wants.

A fourth manifestation of the lobby's power is its ability to keep a lid on public discussion and exposure of Israeli abuses (for example, torture, aid to terrorist states, cross-border terrorism of its own in Lebanon, and illegal build-up of a nuclear arsenal). This even extends to covering up the massacre of U.S. military personnel [in 1976].

The basis of the lobby's power is political resources, intelligently and aggressively deployed, strong media and pundit representation and support, a well-developed and powerful system of grassroots activism, and the absence of any seriously contesting opposition. Affluent Jews have responded generously in support of pro-Israel lobbying groups, especially in times of perceived threats to Israel. The leading U.S. lobbying group, AIPAC, is widely thought to be the most influential lobbying body in the country. There are more than 60 pro-Israel PACs, most of them closely linked to AIPAC, whose resources (supplemented by individual contributions) has made this collective the largest dispenser of single-issue money in U.S. politics. It is deployed aggressively and with sophistication, and its threat terrifies politicians, especially Democrats. According to political analyst Stephen Isaacs, the Democratic National Committee gets about half of its money from Jewish sources, and he reports one non-Jewish strategist as saying: "You can't hope to go anywhere in national politics, if you're a Democrat, without Jewish money." Republicans have been less dependent on this source, but many of them (and their Christian-right supporters) have been keen on Israel because of its harsh policies and support of U.S. militarism.

The lobby has benefited greatly from the sizable contingent of mass-media pundits who aggressively push the Israeli foreign office and AIPAC line -- George Will, William Safire, Charles Krauthammer, A.M. Rosenthal, and others. The rest of the mainstream media only rarely depart from the official U.S. line, which is basically strongly supportive of Israel, even if occasionally calling for small changes and symbolic gestures. Media adherence to the line is reinforced by the strength of the lobby's grassroots base and its activism. AIPAC has an estimated 50 to 60,000 active supporters, and the Jewish communities nationally have several hundred thousand more who follow the news, write letters and make phone calls to editors and reporters, and attend meetings where Middle East issues are addressed. They constitute a tremendous and effective flak machine that greatly constrains free speech and the scope of debate in this country. Reprinted from Z magazine, July, 1994.


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