John J. Mearsheimer
Department of Political Science
University of Chicago
Stephen M. Walt
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
THE ISRAEL LOBBY AND
U.S. FOREIGN POLICY
The media’s reporting of news events involving Israel is somewhat more even‐ handed than editorial commentary is, 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 actual behavior. To discourage unfavorable reporting on Israel, the Lobby organizes letter writing campaigns, demonstrations, and boycotts against news outlets whose content it considers anti‐Israel. One CNN executive has said that he sometimes gets 6,000 e‐mail messages in a single day complaining that a story is anti‐Israel.87 Similarly, the pro‐Israel Committee for Accurate Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) organized demonstrations outside National Public Radio stations in 33 cities in May 2003, and it also tried to convince contributors to withhold support from NPR until its Middle East coverage became more sympathetic to Israel.88 Boston’s NPR station, WBUR, reportedly lost more than $1 million in contributions as a result of these efforts. Pressure on NPR has also come from Israel’s friends in Congress, who have asked NPR for an internal audit as well as more oversight of its Middle East coverage.
These factors help explain why the American media contains few criticisms of
Israeli policy, rarely questions Washington’s relationship with Israel, and only
occasionally discusses the Lobby’s profound influence on U.S. policy.
Think Tanks That Think One Way
Pro‐Israel forces predominate in U.S. 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 found W.I.N.E.P. 89 Although
W.I.N.E.P plays down its links to Israel and claims instead that it provides a
“balanced and realistic” perspective on Middle East issues, this is not the case.90
In fact, W.I.N.E.P is funded and run by individuals who are deeply committed to
advancing Israel’s agenda.
The Lobby’s influence in the think tank world extends well beyond W.I.N.E.P.
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 (J.I.N.S.A). These think tanks are
decidedly pro‐Israel, and include few, if any, critics of U.S. support for the Jewish
state.
A good indicator of the Lobby’s influence in the think tank world is the evolution
of the Brookings Institution. For many years, its senior expert on Middle East
issues was William B. Quandt, a distinguished academic and former N.S.C official
with a well‐deserved reputation for evenhandedness regarding the Arab‐Israeli
conflict. Today, however, Brookings’s work on these issues is conducted
through its Saban Center for Middle East Studies, which is financed by Haim
Saban, a wealthy Israeli‐American businessman and ardent Zionist.91 The
director of the Saban Center is the ubiquitous Martin Indyk. Thus, what was
once a non‐partisan policy institute on Middle East matters is now part of the
chorus of largely pro‐Israel think tanks.
Policing Academia
The Lobby has had the most difficulty stifling debate about Israel on college
campuses, because academic freedom is a core value and because tenured
professors are hard to threaten or silence. Even so, there was only mild criticism
of Israel in the 1990's, when the Oslo peace process was underway. Criticism rose
after that process collapsed and Ariel Sharon came to power in early 2001, and it
became especially intense when the I.D.F re‐occupied the West Bank in spring
2002 and employed massive force against the Second Intifada.
The Lobby moved aggressively to “take back the campuses.” New groups
sprang up, like the Caravan for Democracy, which brought Israeli speakers to
U.S. colleges.92 Established groups like the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and
Hillel jumped into the fray, and a new group—the Israel on Campus Coalition—
was formed to coordinate the many groups that now sought to make Israel’s case
on campus. Finally, A.I.P.A.C more than tripled its spending for programs to
monitor university activities and to train young advocates for Israel, in order to
“vastly expand the number of students involved on campus . . . in the national
pro‐Israel effort.”93
The Lobby also monitors what professors write and teach. In September 2002,
for example, Martin Kramer and Daniel Pipes, two passionately pro‐Israel
neoconservatives, established a website (Campus Watch) that posted dossiers on suspect academics and encouraged students to report comments or behavior that
might be considered hostile to Israel.94 This transparent attempt to blacklist and
intimidate scholars prompted a harsh reaction and Pipes and Kramer later
removed the dossiers, but the website still invites students to report alleged anti‐
Israel behavior at U.S. colleges.
Groups in the Lobby also direct their fire at particular professors and the universities that hire them. Columbia University, which had the late Palestinian scholar Edward Said on its faculty, has been a frequent target of pro‐Israel forces. Jonathan Cole, the former Columbia provost, reported that, “One can be sure that any public statement in support of the Palestinian people by the preeminent literary critic Edward Said will elicit hundreds of e‐mails, letters, and journalistic accounts that call on us to denounce Said and to either sanction or fire him.”95 When Columbia recruited historian Rashid Khalidi from the University of Chicago, Cole says that “the complaints started flowing in from people who disagreed with the content of his political views.” Princeton faced the same problem a few years later when it considered wooing Khalidi away from Columbia.96
A classic illustration of the effort to police academia occurred in late 2004, when the “David Project” produced a propaganda film alleging that faculty in Columbia University’s Middle East studies program were anti‐Semitic and were intimidating Jewish students who defended Israel.97 Columbia was raked over the coals in pro‐Israel circles, but a faculty committee assigned to investigate the charges found no evidence of anti‐Semitism and the only incident worth noting was the possibility that one professor had “responded heatedly” to a student’s question.98 The committee also discovered that the accused professors had been the target of an overt intimidation campaign.
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this campaign to eliminate criticism of Israel from college campuses is the effort by Jewish groups to push Congress to establish mechanisms that monitor what professors say about Israel.99 Schools judged to have an anti‐Israel bias would be denied Federal funding. This effort to get the U.S. government to police campuses have not yet succeeded, but the attempt illustrates the importance pro‐Israel groups place on controlling debate on these issues.
Finally, a number of Jewish philanthropists have established Israel studies programs (in addition to the roughly 130 Jewish Studies programs that already exist) so as to increase the number of Israel‐friendly scholars on campus.100 N.Y.U announced the establishment of the Taub Center for Israel Studies on May 1, 2003, and similar programs have been established at other schools like Berkeley, Brandeis, and Emory. Academic administrators emphasize the pedagogical value of these programs, but the truth is that they are intended in good part to promote Israel’s image on campus. Fred Laffer, the head of the Taub Foundation, makes clear that his foundation funded the N.Y.U center to help counter the “Arabic [sic] point of view” that he thinks is prevalent in N.Y.U’s Middle East programs.101
In sum, the Lobby has gone to considerable lengths to insulate Israel from criticism on college campuses. It has not been as successful in academia as it has been on Capitol Hill, but it has worked hard to stifle criticism of Israel by professors and students and there is much less of it on campuses today.102
Europeans have been more willing than Americans to criticize Israeli policy in recent years, which some attribute to a resurgence of anti‐Semitism in Europe. We are “getting to a point,” the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union said in early 2004, “where it is as bad as it was in the 1930s.”103 Measuring anti‐Semitism is a complicated matter, but the weight of evidence points in the opposite direction. For example, 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 Anti‐Defamation League and the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press showed that it was actually declining.104
Consider France, which pro‐Israel forces often portray as the most anti‐Semitic state in Europe. A poll of French citizens in 2002 found that: 89 percent could envisage living with a Jew; 97 percent believe making anti‐Semitic graffiti is a serious crime; 87 percent think attacks on French synagogues are scandalous; and 85 percent of practicing French Catholics reject the charge that Jews have too much influence in business and finance.105 It is unsurprising that the head of the French Jewish community declared in the summer of 2003 that “France is not more anti‐Semitic than America.”106 According to a recent article in Haʹaretz, the French police report that anti‐Semitic incidents in France declined by almost 50 per cent in 2005; and this despite the fact that France has the largest Muslim population of any country in Europe.107
Finally, when a French Jew was brutally murdered last month by a Muslim gang, tens of thousands of French demonstrators poured into the streets to condemn anti‐Semitism. Moreover, President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin both attended the victim’s memorial service in a public show of solidarity with French Jewry.108 It is also worth noting that in 2002 more Jews immigrated to Germany than Israel, making it “the fastest growing Jewish community in the world,” according to an article in the Jewish newspaper Forward. 109 If Europe were really heading back to the 1930's, it is hard to imagine that Jews would be moving there in large numbers.
We recognize, however, that Europe is not free of the scourge of anti‐Semitism. No one would 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 extreme views are rejected by the vast majority of Europeans. Nor would one deny that there is anti‐Semitism among European Muslims, some of it provoked by Israel’s behavior towards the Palestinians and some of it straightforwardly racist. 110 This problem is worrisome, but it is hardly out of control. Muslims constitute less than five percent of Europe’s total population, and European governments are working hard to combat the problem. Why? Because most Europeans reject such hateful views.111 In short, when it comes to anti‐Semitism, Europe today bears hardly any resemblance to Europe in the 1930's.
This is why pro‐Israel forces, when pressed to go beyond assertion, claim that there is a ‘new anti‐Semitism’, which they equate with criticism of Israel.112 In other words criticize 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 Caterpillar manufactures the bulldozers used to demolish Palestinian homes, the Chief Rabbi complained that it would ʹhave the most adverse repercussions on ... Jewish‐Christian relations in Britainʹ, while Rabbi Tony Bayfield, the head of the Reform movement, said: “ʹThere 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.”113 However, the Church was neither guilty of anti‐Zionism nor anti‐Semitism; it was merely protesting Israeli policy.114
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. Instead, they question its behavior towards the Palestinians, which is a legitimate criticism: Israelis question it themselves. Nor is Israel being judged unfairly. Rather, Israeli treatment of the Palestinians elicits criticism because it is contrary to widely‐accepted human rights norms and international law, as well as the principle of national self‐determination. And it is hardly the only state that has faced sharp criticism on these grounds.
In sum, other ethnic lobbies can only dream of having the political muscle that pro‐Israel organizations possess. The question, therefore, is what effect does the Lobby have on U.S. foreign policy?
Bush had enormous potential leverage at his disposal. He could have threatened to reduce U.S. economic and diplomatic support for Israel, and the American people would almost certainly have supported him. A May 2003 poll reported that over 60 percent of Americans were willing to withhold aid to Israel if it resisted U.S. pressure to settle the conflict, and that number rose to 70 percent among “politically active” Americans.115 Indeed, 73 percent said that United States should not favor either side.[3 out of 4,and yet we still cannot be heard, such horse dung DC]
Yet the Bush Administration failed to change Israel’s policies, and Washington ended up backing Israel’s hard‐line approach instead. Over time, the Administration also adopted Israel’s justifications for this approach, so that U.S. and Israeli rhetoric became similar. By February 2003, a Washington Post headline summarized the situation: “Bush and Sharon Nearly Identical on Mideast Policy.”116 The main reason for this switch is the Lobby.
The story begins in late September 2001 when President Bush began pressuring
Israeli Prime Minister Sharon to show restraint in the occupied territories. He
also pressed Sharon to allow Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres to meet with
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, even though Bush was highly critical of Arafat’s
leadership.117 Bush also said publicly that he supported a Palestinian state.118
Alarmed by these developments, Sharon accused Bush of trying “to appease the
Arabs at our expense,” warning that Israel “will not be Czechoslovakia.”119
Bush was reportedly furious at Sharon’s likening him to Neville Chamberlain, and White House press secretary Ari Fleischer called Sharon’s remarks “unacceptable.”120 The Israeli prime minister offered a pro forma apology, but he quickly joined forces with the Lobby to convince the Bush administration and the American people that the United States and Israel faced a common threat from terrorism.121 Israeli officials and Lobby representatives repeatedly emphasized that there was no real difference between Arafat and Osama bin Laden, and insisted that the United States and Israel should isolate the Palestinians’ elected leader and have nothing to do with him.122
The Lobby also went to work in Congress. On November 16, 89 senators sent Bush a letter praising him for refusing to meet with Arafat, but also demanding that the United States not restrain Israel from retaliating against the Palestinians and insisting that the administration state publicly that it stood steadfastly behind Israel. According to the New York Times, the letter “stemmed from a meeting two weeks ago between leaders of the American Jewish community and key senators,” adding that A.I.P.A.C was “particularly active in providing advice on the letter.”123
By late November, relations between Tel Aviv and Washington had improved considerably. This was due in part to the Lobby’s efforts to bend U.S. policy in Israel’s direction, but also to America’s initial victory in Afghanistan, which reduced the perceived need for Arab support in dealing with al Qaeda. Sharon visited the White House in early December and had a friendly meeting with Bush.124
But trouble erupted again in April 2002, after the I.D.F launched Operation Defensive Shield and resumed control of virtually all of the major Palestinian areas on the West Bank.125 Bush knew that Israel’s action would damage America’s image in the Arab and Islamic world and undermine the war on terrorism, so he demanded on April 4 that Sharon “halt the incursions and begin withdrawal.” He underscored this message two days later, saying this meant “withdrawal without delay.” On April 7, Bush’s national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, told reporters that, “‘without delay’ means without delay. It means now.” That same day Secretary of State Colin Powell set out for the Middle East to pressure all sides to stop fighting and start negotiating.126
Israel and the Lobby swung into action. A key target was Powell, who began
feeling intense heat from pro‐Israel officials in Vice President Cheney’s office and
the Pentagon, as well as from neoconservative pundits like Robert Kagan and
William Kristol, who accused him of having “virtually obliterated the distinction
between terrorists and those fighting terrorists.”127 A second target was Bush
himself, who was being pressed by Jewish leaders and Christian evangelicals, the
latter a key component of his political base. Tom DeLay and Dick Armey were
especially outspoken about the need to support Israel, and DeLay and Senate
Minority Leader Trent Lott visited the White House and personally warned Bush
to back off.128
The first sign that Bush was caving came on April 11—only one week after he told Sharon to withdraw his forces—when Ari Fleischer said the President believes Sharon is “a man of peace.”129 Bush repeated this statement publicly upon Powell’s return from his abortive mission, and he told reporters that Sharon had responded satisfactorily to his call for a full and immediate withdrawal.130 Sharon had done no such thing, but the President of the United States was no longer willing to make an issue of it.
Meanwhile, Con-gress was also moving to back Sharon. On May 2, it overrode the Administration’s objections and passed two resolutions reaffirming support for Israel. (The Senate vote was 94 to 2; the House version passed 352‐21). Both resolutions emphasized that the United States “stands in solidarity with Israel” and that the two countries are, to quote the House resolution, “now engaged in a common struggle against terrorism.” The House version also condemned “the ongoing support of terror by Yasir Arafat,” who was portrayed as a central element of the terrorism problem.131 A few days later, a bipartisan congressional delegation on a fact‐finding mission in Israel publicly proclaimed that Sharon should resist U.S. pressure to negotiate with Arafat.132 On May 9, a House appropriations subcommittee met to consider giving Israel an extra $200 million to fight terrorism. Secretary of State Powell opposed the package, but the Lobby backed it, just as it had helped author the two congressional resolutions.133 Powell lost. [ Now to people that have operating brain cells,the above votes in both the Senate and the House PROVES, that we ARE NOT represented in Washington,remember earlier the authors showed you polls stating that 3 out of 4 Americans DID NOT want our country playing favorites in the Middle East.The above votes PROVE that congress continues to ignore the American peoples will, and bend to the wishes of the most powerful special interests lobby in the United States D.C]
In short, Sharon and the Lobby took on the President of the United States and triumphed. Hemi Shalev, a journalist for the Israel newspaper Ma’ariv, reported that Sharon’s aides “could not hide their satisfaction in view of Powell’s failure. Sharon saw the white in President Bush’s eyes, they bragged, and the President blinked first.”134 But it was the pro‐Israel forces 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 to deal further with Arafat, who eventually died in November 2004. It has subsequently embraced the new Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, but has done little to help him gain a viable state. Sharon continued to develop his plans for unilateral “disengagement” from the Palestinians, based on withdrawal from Gaza coupled with continued expansion on the West Bank, which entails building the so‐called “security fence,” seizing Palestinian‐owned land, and expanding settlement blocs and road networks. By refusing to negotiate with Abbas (who favors a negotiated settlement) and making it impossible for him to deliver tangible benefits to the Palestinian people, Sharon’s strategy contributed directly to Hamas’ recent electoral victory.135 With Hamas in power, however, Israel has another excuse not to negotiate. The administration has supported Sharon’s actions (and those of his successor, Ehud Olmert), and Bush has even endorsed unilateral Israeli annexations in the Occupied Territories, reversing the stated policy of every president since Lyndon Johnson.136
U.S. officials have offered mild criticisms of a few Israeli actions, but have done
little to help create a viable Palestinian state. Former national security advisor
Brent Scowcroft even declared in October 2004 that Sharon has President Bush
“wrapped around his little finger.ʺ137 If Bush tries to distance the United States
from Israel, or even criticizes Israeli actions in the occupied territories, he is
certain to face the wrath of the Lobby and its supporters in Congress.
Democratic Party presidential candidates understand these facts of life too,which is why John Kerry went to great lengths to display his unalloyed support
for Israel in 2004 and why Hillary Clinton is doing the same thing today.138
Maintaining U.S. support for Israel’s policies against the Palestinians is a core goal of the Lobby, but its ambitions do not stop there. It also wants America to help Israel remain the dominant regional power. Not surprisingly, the Israeli government and pro‐Israel groups in the United States worked together to shape the Bush 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 U.S.
decision to attack Iraq in March 2003, but it was a critical element. 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 member of the
President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (2001‐2003), executive director
of the 9/11 Commission, and now Counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice, the “real threat” from Iraq was not a threat to the United States.139 The
“unstated threat” was the “threat against Israel,” Zelikow told a University of
Virginia audience in September 2002, noting further that “the American
government doesn’t want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a
popular sell.”
On August 16, 2002, eleven days before Vice President Cheney kicked off the campaign for war with a hard‐line speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Washington Post reported that “Israel is urging U.S. officials not to delay a military strike against Iraq’s Saddam Hussein.”140 By this point, according to Sharon, strategic coordination between Israel and the U.S. had reached “unprecedented dimensions,” and Israeli intelligence officials had given Washington a variety of alarming reports about Iraq’s WMD programs.141[All of them TOTAL horse dung DC] 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.”142
Israeli leaders were deeply distressed when President Bush decided to seek U.N. Security Council authorization for war in September, and even more worried when Saddam agreed to let U.N. inspectors back into Iraq, because these developments seemed to reduce the likelihood of war. Foreign Minister Shimon Peres told reporters in September 2002 that “the campaign against Saddam Hussein is a must. Inspections and inspectors are good for decent people, but dishonest people can overcome easily inspections and inspectors.”143
At the same time, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak wrote a New York Times op‐
ed warning that “the greatest risk now lies in inaction.”144 His predecessor,
Benjamin Netanyahu, published a similar piece in the Wall Street Journal entitled
“The Case for Toppling Saddam.”145 Netanyahu declared, “Today nothing less
than dismantling his regime will do,” adding that “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 [Israeli]
military and political leadership yearns for war in Iraq.”146
But as Netanyahu suggests, the desire for war was not confined to Israel’s leaders. Apart from Kuwait, which Saddam conquered in 1990, Israel was the only country in the world where both the politicians and the public enthusiastically favored war.147 As 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.”148 In fact, Israelis were so gung‐ho for war that their allies in America told them to damp down their hawkish rhetoric, lest it look like the war was for Israel.149
Although neoconservatives and other Lobby leaders were eager to invade Iraq, the broader American Jewish community was not.153 In fact, Samuel Freedman reported just after the war started 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% to 62%.”154 Thus, it would be wrong to blame the war in Iraq on “Jewish influence.” Rather, the war was due in large part to the Lobby’s influence, especially the neoconservatives within it.
The neoconservatives were already determined to topple Saddam before Bush became President.155 They caused a stir in early 1998 by publishing two open letters to President Clinton calling for Saddam’s removal from power.156 The signatories, many of whom had close ties to pro‐Israel groups like J.I.N.S.A or W.I.N.E.P, and whose ranks included Elliot Abrams, John Bolton, Douglas Feith, William Kristol, Bernard Lewis, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, had little trouble convincing the Clinton Administration to adopt the general goal of ousting Saddam.157 But the neoconservatives were unable to sell a war to achieve that objective. Nor were they able to generate much enthusiasm for invading Iraq in the early months of the Bush Administration.158 As important as the neoconservatives were for making the Iraq war happen, they needed help to achieve their aim.
That help arrived with 9/11. Specifically, the events of that fateful day led Bush and Cheney to reverse course and become strong proponents of a preventive war to topple Saddam. Neoconservatives in the Lobby—most notably Scooter Libby, Paul Wolfowitz, and Princeton historian Bernard Lewis—played especially critical roles in persuading the President and Vice‐President to favor war.
For the neoconservatives, 9/11 was a golden opportunity to make the case for
war with Iraq. At a key meeting with Bush at Camp David on September 15,
Wolfowitz advocated attacking Iraq before Afghanistan, even though there was
no evidence that Saddam was involved in the attacks on the United States and
bin Laden was known to be in Afghanistan.159 Bush rejected this advice and
chose to go after Afghanistan instead, but war with Iraq was now regarded as a
serious possibility and the President tasked U.S. military planners on November
21, 2001 with developing concrete plans for an invasion.
160
Meanwhile, other neoconservatives were at work within the corridors of power. We do not have the full story yet, but scholars like Lewis and Fouad Ajami of John Hopkins University reportedly played key roles in convincing Vice President Cheney to favor the war.161 Cheney’s views were also heavily influenced by the neoconservatives on his staff, especially Eric Edelman, John Hannah, and chief of staff Libby, one of the most powerful individuals in the Administration.162 The Vice President’s influence helped convince President Bush by early 2002. With Bush and Cheney on board, the die for war was cast.
Outside the administration, neoconservative pundits lost no time making the case that invading Iraq was essential to winning the war on terrorism. Their efforts were partly aimed at keeping pressure on Bush and partly intended to overcome opposition to the war inside and outside of the government. On September 20, a group of prominent neoconservatives and their allies published another open letter, telling the President that “even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the [9/11] attack, any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.”163 The letter also reminded Bush that, “Israel has been and remains America’s staunchest ally against international terrorism.” In the October 1 issue of the Weekly Standard, Robert Kagan and William Kristol called for regime change in Iraq immediately after the Taliban was defeated. That same day, Charles Krauthammer argued in the Washington Post that after we were done with Afghanistan, Syria should be next, followed by Iran and Iraq. “The war on terrorism,” he argued, “will conclude in Baghdad,” when we finish off “the most dangerous terrorist regime in the world.”164
These salvoes were the beginning of an unrelenting public relations campaign to win support for invading Iraq.165 A key part of this campaign was the manipulation of intelligence information, so as to make Saddam look like an imminent threat. For example, Libby visited the CIA several times to pressure analysts to find evidence that would make the case for war, and he helped prepare a detailed briefing on the Iraq threat in early 2003 that was pushed on Colin Powell, then preparing his infamous briefing to the U.N. Security Council on the Iraqi threat.166 According to Bob Woodward, Powell “was appalled at what he considered overreaching and hyperbole. Libby was drawing only the worst conclusions from fragments and silky threads.”167 Although Powell discarded Libby’s most outrageous claims, his U.N. presentation was still riddled with errors, as Powell now acknowledges.
The campaign to manipulate intelligence also involved two organizations that
were created after 9/11 and reported directly to Undersecretary of Defense
Douglas Feith. 168 The Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group was tasked to
find links between al Qaeda and Iraq that the intelligence community
supposedly missed. Its two key members were Wurmser, a hard core
neoconservative, and Michael Maloof, a Lebanese‐American who had close ties
with Perle. The Office of Special Plans was tasked with finding evidence that
could be used to sell war with Iraq. It was headed by Abram Shulsky, a
neoconservative with longstanding ties to Wolfowitz, and its ranks included
recruits from pro‐Israel think tanks.169
Like virtually all the neoconservatives, Feith is deeply committed to Israel. He also has long‐standing ties to the Likud Party. He wrote articles in the 1990's supporting the settlements and arguing that Israel should retain the occupied territories.170 More importantly, along with Perle and Wurmser, he wrote the famous “Clean Break” report in June 1996 for the incoming Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.171 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 implement their advice, but Feith, Perle and Wurmser were soon advocating that the Bush Administration pursue those same goals. This situation prompted Ha’aretz columnist Akiva Eldar to warn that Feith and Perle “are walking a fine line between their loyalty to American governments … and Israeli interests.”172
http://zfacts.com/metaPage/lib/1996_07_IASPS_Clean_Break.pdf
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 the first among fifty notables who “have consciously pursued Jewish activism.”173 At about the same time, J.I.N.S.A 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 2003.174
Finally, a brief word is in order about the neoconservatives’ prewar support of Ahmed Chalabi, the unscrupulous Iraqi exile who headed the Iraqi National Congress (I.N.C). They embraced Chalabi because he had worked to establish close ties with Jewish‐American groups and had pledged to foster good relations with Israel once he gained power.175 This was precisely what pro‐Israel proponents of regime change wanted to hear, so they backed Chalabi in return. Journalist Matthew Berger laid out the essence of the bargain in the Jewish Journal: “The I.N.C 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.”176
Given the neoconservatives’ devotion to Israel, their obsession with Iraq, and their influence in the Bush Administration, it is not surprising that many Americans suspected that the war was designed to further Israeli interests. For example, Barry Jacobs of the American Jewish Committee acknowledged in March 2005 that the belief that Israel and the neoconservatives conspired to get the United States into a war in Iraq was “pervasive” in the U.S. intelligence community.177 Yet few people would say so publicly, and most that did ‐‐ including Senator Ernest Hollings (D‐SC) and Representative James Moran (D‐ VA) ‐‐ were condemned for raising the issue.178 Michael Kinsley put the point well in late 2002, when he wrote that “the lack of public discussion about the role of Israel … is the proverbial elephant in the room: Everybody sees it, no one mentions it.”179 The reason for this reluctance, he observed, was fear of being labeled an anti‐Semite. Even so, there is little doubt that Israel and the Lobby were key factors in shaping the decision for war. Without the Lobby’s efforts, the United States would have been far less likely to have gone to war in March 2003.
Pro‐Israel forces have long been interested in getting the U.S. military more directly involved in the Middle East, so it could help protect Israel.181 But they had limited success on this front during the Cold War, because America acted as an “off‐shore balancer” in the region. Most U.S. forces designated for the Middle East, like the Rapid Deployment Force, were kept “over the horizon” and out of harm’s way. Washington maintained a favorable balance of power by playing local powers off against each other, which is why the Reagan Administration supported Saddam against revolutionary Iran during the Iran‐Iraq war (1980‐88).
This policy changed after the first Gulf War, when the Clinton Administration
adopted a strategy of “dual containment.” It called for stationing substantial
U.S. forces in the region to contain both Iran and Iraq, instead of using one to
check the other. The father of dual containment was none other than Martin
Indyk, who first articulated the strategy in May 1993 at the pro‐Israel think tank
W.I.N.E.P and then implemented it as Director for Near East and South Asian
Affairs at the National Security Council.182
There was considerable dissatisfaction with dual containment by the mid‐1990's, because it made the United States the mortal enemy of two countries who also hated each other, and it forced Washington to bear the burden of containing both of them.183 Not surprisingly, the Lobby worked actively in Congress to save dual containment.184 Pressed by A.I.P.A.C and other pro‐Israel forces, Clinton toughened up the policy in the spring of 1995 by imposing an economic embargo on Iran. But A.I.P.A.C et al 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 for 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.”185
By the late 1990's, however, the neoconservatives were arguing that dual containment was not enough and that regime change in Iraq was now essential. By toppling Saddam and turning Iraq into a vibrant democracy, they argued, the United States would trigger a far‐reaching process of change throughout the Middle East. This line of thinking, of course, was evident in the “Clean Break” study the neoconservatives wrote for Netanyahu. By 2002, when invading Iraq had become a front‐burner issue, regional transformation had become an article of faith in neoconservative circles.186
Charles Krauthammer describes this grand scheme as the brainchild of Natan Sharansky, the Israeli politician whose writings have impressed President Bush.187 But Sharansky was hardly a lone voice in Israel. In fact, Israelis across the political spectrum believed that toppling Saddam would alter the Middle East to Israel’s advantage. Aluf Benn reported in Ha’aretz (February 17, 2003), “Senior I.D.F 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.”188
In short, Israeli leaders, neoconservatives, and the Bush Administration all saw war with Iraq as the first step in an ambitious campaign to remake the Middle East. And in the first flush of victory, they turned their sights on Israel’s other regional opponents.
Prominent members of the Lobby made the same arguments after Baghdad fell.193 Wolfowitz declared that “there has got to be regime change in Syria,” and Richard Perle told a journalist that “We could deliver a short message, a two‐ worded message [to other hostile regimes in the Middle East]: ‘You’re next’.”194 In early April, W.I.N.E.P released a bipartisan report stating that Syria “should not miss the message that countries that pursue Saddam’s reckless, irresponsible and defiant behavior could end up sharing his fate.”195 On April 15, Yossi Klein Halevi wrote a piece in the Los Angeles Times entitled “Next, Turn the Screws on Syria,” while the next 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 April 21 that Syrian leader Assad was a serious threat to America.196 [Such liars,and degenerates all ,and just as guilty as Obama and Clinton,for their criminal acts in violation of International law against both Libya,which included the Assassination of a state leaderDC]
Back on Capitol Hill, Congressman Eliot Engel (D‐NY) had reintroduced the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act on April 12.197 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—especially A.I.P.A.C—and “framed,” according to the Jewish Telegraph Agency, “by some of Israel’s best friends in Congress.”198 It had been on the back burner for some time, largely because the Bush Administration had little enthusiasm for it, but the anti‐Syrian act passed overwhelmingly (398‐4 in the House; 89‐4 in the Senate), and Bush signed it into law on December 12, 2003.199
Yet the Bush Administration was still divided about the wisdom of targeting Syria at this time. Although the neoconservatives were eager to pick a fight with Damascus, the CIA and the State Department were opposed. And even after Bush signed the new law, he emphasized that he would go slowly in implementing it.200
Bush’s ambivalence is understandable. First, the Syrian government had been providing the United States with important intelligence about al Qaeda since 9/11 and had also warned Washington about a planned terrorist attack in the Gulf.201 Syria had also given CIA interrogators access to Mohammed Zammar, the alleged recruiter of some of the 9/11 hijackers. Targeting the Assad regime would jeopardize these valuable connections, and thus undermine the larger war on terrorism.
Second, Syria was not on bad terms with Washington before the Iraq war (e.g., it had even voted for U.N. Resolution 1441), and it was no threat to the United States. Playing hardball with Syria would make the United States look like a bully with an insatiable appetite for beating up Arab states. Finally, putting Syria on the American hit list would give Damascus a powerful incentive to cause trouble in Iraq. Even if one wanted to pressure Syria, it made good sense to finish the job in Iraq first.
Yet Con-gress insisted on putting the screws to Damascus, largely in response to pressure from Israel officials and pro‐Israel groups like A.I.P.A.C.202 If there were no Lobby, there would have been no Syria Accountability Act and U.S. policy toward Damascus would have been more in line with the U.S. 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 adversary to acquire
nuclear weapons. Virtually all Israelis regard an Islamic country in the Middle
East with nuclear weapons as an existential threat. As Israeli Defense Minister
Binyamin Ben‐Eliezer remarked one month before the Iraq war: “Iraq is a
problem …. But you should understand, if you ask me, today Iran is more
dangerous than Iraq.”203[question for the jewish propagandist.Name one country that Iran has attacked in it's history DC]
Sharon began publicly pushing the United States to confront Iran in November 2002, in a high profile interview in The Times (London).204 Describing Iran as the “center 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 now calling for regime change in Iran.205 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.”[Degenerate liar DC]
The neoconservatives also lost no time in making the case for regime change in Tehran.206 On May 6, the A.E.I co‐sponsored an all‐day conference on Iran with the pro‐Israel Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and the Hudson Institute.207 The speakers were all strongly pro‐Israel, and many called for the United States to replace the Iranian regime with a democracy. As usual, there were a bevy of articles by prominent neoconservatives making the case for going after Iran. For example, William Kristol wrote in the Weekly Standard on May 12 that, “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 one ‐‐ will be for Iran.”208
The Bush Administration has responded to the Lobby’s pressure by working overtime to shut down Iran’s nuclear program. But Washington has had little success, and Iran seems determined to get a nuclear arsenal. As a result, the Lobby has intensified its pressure on the U.S. government, using all of the strategies in its playbook.209 Op‐eds and 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 also pushing Congress to approve the Iran Freedom Support Act, which would expand existing sanctions on Iran. Israeli officials also warn they may take preemptive action should Iran continue down the nuclear road, hints partly intended to keep Washington focused on this issue.
One might argue that Israel and the Lobby have not had much influence on U.S. policy toward Iran, because the United States has its own reasons to keep Iran from going nuclear. This is partly true, but Iran’s nuclear ambitions do not pose an existential threat to the United States. If Washington could live with a nuclear Soviet Union, a nuclear China, or even a nuclear North Korea, then it can live with a nuclear Iran. And that is why the Lobby must keep constant pressure on U.S. politicians to confront Tehran. Iran and the United States would hardly be allies if the Lobby did not exist, but U.S. policy would be more temperate and preventive war would not be a serious option.
But even if the United States fails to transform the Middle East and finds itself in conflict with an increasingly radicalized Arab and Islamic world, Israel still ends up protected by the world’s only superpower.210 This is not a perfect outcome from the Lobby’s perspective, but it is obviously preferable to Washington distancing itself from Israel, or using its leverage to force Israel to make peace with the Palestinians.
But that is not going to happen anytime soon. A.I.P.A.C 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 expanding their activities and staffs.211 Moreover, 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.
This situation is deeply worrisome, because the Lobbyʹs influence causes trouble on several fronts. It increases the terrorist danger that all states face—including Americaʹs European allies. By preventing U.S. leaders from pressuring Israel to make peace, the Lobby has also made it impossible to end the Israeli‐Palestinian conflict. This situation gives extremists a powerful recruiting tool, increases the pool of potential terrorists and sympathizers, and contributes to Islamic radicalism around the world.
Furthermore, the Lobby’s campaign for regime change in Iran and Syria could lead the United States to attack those countries, with potentially disastrous effects. We do not need another Iraq. At a minimum, the Lobby’s hostility toward these countries makes it especially difficult for Washington to enlist them against al Qaeda 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. U.S. efforts to limit nuclear proliferation appear equally hypocritical given its willingness to accept Israel’s nuclear arsenal, which encourages Iran and others to seek similar capabilities.
Moreover, the Lobby’s campaign to squelch debate about Israel is unhealthy for democracy. Silencing skeptics by organizing blacklists and boycotts—or by suggesting that critics are anti‐Semites—violates the principle of open debate upon which democracy depends. The inability of the U.S. Congress to conduct a genuine debate on these vital issues paralyzes 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 by those who believe in free speech and open discussion of important public issues.
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 marginalize a generation of Palestinian leaders has empowered extremist groups like Hamas, and reduced the number of Palestinian leaders who would be both willing to accept a fair settlement and able to make it work. This course raises the awful specter of Israel one day occupying the pariah status once reserved for apartheid states like South Africa. Ironically, Israel itself would probably be better off if the Lobby were less powerful and U.S. policy were more evenhanded.
But there is a ray of hope. 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 forever. What is needed, therefore, is a candid discussion of the Lobby’s influence and a more open debate about U.S. interests in this vital region. Israel’s well‐being is one of those interests, but not its continued occupation of the West Bank or its broader regional agenda. Open debate will expose the limits of the strategic and moral case for one‐sided U.S. support and could move the United States 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.
SOURCE
http://mearsheimer.uchicago.edu/pdfs/A0040.pdf
Footnotes 87- 211 start on page 59 of PDF
Groups in the Lobby also direct their fire at particular professors and the universities that hire them. Columbia University, which had the late Palestinian scholar Edward Said on its faculty, has been a frequent target of pro‐Israel forces. Jonathan Cole, the former Columbia provost, reported that, “One can be sure that any public statement in support of the Palestinian people by the preeminent literary critic Edward Said will elicit hundreds of e‐mails, letters, and journalistic accounts that call on us to denounce Said and to either sanction or fire him.”95 When Columbia recruited historian Rashid Khalidi from the University of Chicago, Cole says that “the complaints started flowing in from people who disagreed with the content of his political views.” Princeton faced the same problem a few years later when it considered wooing Khalidi away from Columbia.96
A classic illustration of the effort to police academia occurred in late 2004, when the “David Project” produced a propaganda film alleging that faculty in Columbia University’s Middle East studies program were anti‐Semitic and were intimidating Jewish students who defended Israel.97 Columbia was raked over the coals in pro‐Israel circles, but a faculty committee assigned to investigate the charges found no evidence of anti‐Semitism and the only incident worth noting was the possibility that one professor had “responded heatedly” to a student’s question.98 The committee also discovered that the accused professors had been the target of an overt intimidation campaign.
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this campaign to eliminate criticism of Israel from college campuses is the effort by Jewish groups to push Congress to establish mechanisms that monitor what professors say about Israel.99 Schools judged to have an anti‐Israel bias would be denied Federal funding. This effort to get the U.S. government to police campuses have not yet succeeded, but the attempt illustrates the importance pro‐Israel groups place on controlling debate on these issues.
Finally, a number of Jewish philanthropists have established Israel studies programs (in addition to the roughly 130 Jewish Studies programs that already exist) so as to increase the number of Israel‐friendly scholars on campus.100 N.Y.U announced the establishment of the Taub Center for Israel Studies on May 1, 2003, and similar programs have been established at other schools like Berkeley, Brandeis, and Emory. Academic administrators emphasize the pedagogical value of these programs, but the truth is that they are intended in good part to promote Israel’s image on campus. Fred Laffer, the head of the Taub Foundation, makes clear that his foundation funded the N.Y.U center to help counter the “Arabic [sic] point of view” that he thinks is prevalent in N.Y.U’s Middle East programs.101
In sum, the Lobby has gone to considerable lengths to insulate Israel from criticism on college campuses. It has not been as successful in academia as it has been on Capitol Hill, but it has worked hard to stifle criticism of Israel by professors and students and there is much less of it on campuses today.102
The Great Silencer
No discussion of how the Lobby operates would be complete without examining
one of its most powerful weapons: the charge of anti‐Semitism. Anyone who
criticizes Israeli actions or says that pro‐Israel groups have significant influence
over U.S. Middle East policy—an influence that A.I.P.A.C celebrates—stands a
good chance of getting labeled an anti‐Semite. In fact, anyone who says that
there is an Israel Lobby runs the risk of being charged with anti‐Semitism, even
though the Israeli media themselves refer to America’s “Jewish Lobby.” In effect,
the Lobby boasts of its own power and then attacks anyone who calls attention to
it. This tactic is very effective, because anti‐Semitism is loathsome and no
responsible person wants to be accused of it. Europeans have been more willing than Americans to criticize Israeli policy in recent years, which some attribute to a resurgence of anti‐Semitism in Europe. We are “getting to a point,” the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union said in early 2004, “where it is as bad as it was in the 1930s.”103 Measuring anti‐Semitism is a complicated matter, but the weight of evidence points in the opposite direction. For example, 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 Anti‐Defamation League and the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press showed that it was actually declining.104
Consider France, which pro‐Israel forces often portray as the most anti‐Semitic state in Europe. A poll of French citizens in 2002 found that: 89 percent could envisage living with a Jew; 97 percent believe making anti‐Semitic graffiti is a serious crime; 87 percent think attacks on French synagogues are scandalous; and 85 percent of practicing French Catholics reject the charge that Jews have too much influence in business and finance.105 It is unsurprising that the head of the French Jewish community declared in the summer of 2003 that “France is not more anti‐Semitic than America.”106 According to a recent article in Haʹaretz, the French police report that anti‐Semitic incidents in France declined by almost 50 per cent in 2005; and this despite the fact that France has the largest Muslim population of any country in Europe.107
Finally, when a French Jew was brutally murdered last month by a Muslim gang, tens of thousands of French demonstrators poured into the streets to condemn anti‐Semitism. Moreover, President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin both attended the victim’s memorial service in a public show of solidarity with French Jewry.108 It is also worth noting that in 2002 more Jews immigrated to Germany than Israel, making it “the fastest growing Jewish community in the world,” according to an article in the Jewish newspaper Forward. 109 If Europe were really heading back to the 1930's, it is hard to imagine that Jews would be moving there in large numbers.
We recognize, however, that Europe is not free of the scourge of anti‐Semitism. No one would 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 extreme views are rejected by the vast majority of Europeans. Nor would one deny that there is anti‐Semitism among European Muslims, some of it provoked by Israel’s behavior towards the Palestinians and some of it straightforwardly racist. 110 This problem is worrisome, but it is hardly out of control. Muslims constitute less than five percent of Europe’s total population, and European governments are working hard to combat the problem. Why? Because most Europeans reject such hateful views.111 In short, when it comes to anti‐Semitism, Europe today bears hardly any resemblance to Europe in the 1930's.
This is why pro‐Israel forces, when pressed to go beyond assertion, claim that there is a ‘new anti‐Semitism’, which they equate with criticism of Israel.112 In other words criticize 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 Caterpillar manufactures the bulldozers used to demolish Palestinian homes, the Chief Rabbi complained that it would ʹhave the most adverse repercussions on ... Jewish‐Christian relations in Britainʹ, while Rabbi Tony Bayfield, the head of the Reform movement, said: “ʹThere 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.”113 However, the Church was neither guilty of anti‐Zionism nor anti‐Semitism; it was merely protesting Israeli policy.114
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. Instead, they question its behavior towards the Palestinians, which is a legitimate criticism: Israelis question it themselves. Nor is Israel being judged unfairly. Rather, Israeli treatment of the Palestinians elicits criticism because it is contrary to widely‐accepted human rights norms and international law, as well as the principle of national self‐determination. And it is hardly the only state that has faced sharp criticism on these grounds.
In sum, other ethnic lobbies can only dream of having the political muscle that pro‐Israel organizations possess. The question, therefore, is what effect does the Lobby have on U.S. foreign policy?
THE TAIL WAGGING THE DOG
If the Lobby’s impact were confined to U.S. economic aid to Israel, its influence
might not be that worrisome. Foreign aid is valuable, but not as useful as having
the world’s only superpower bring its vast capabilities to bear on Israel’s behalf.
Accordingly, the Lobby has also sought to shape the core elements of U.S.
Middle East policy. In particular, it has worked successfully to convince
American leaders to back Israel’s continued repression of the Palestinians and to
take aim at Israel’s primary regional adversaries: Iran, Iraq, and Syria.
Demonizing the Palestinians
It is now largely forgotten, but in the fall 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 Qaeda, by halting
Israel’s expansionist policies in the occupied territories and advocating the
creation of a Palestinian state. Bush had enormous potential leverage at his disposal. He could have threatened to reduce U.S. economic and diplomatic support for Israel, and the American people would almost certainly have supported him. A May 2003 poll reported that over 60 percent of Americans were willing to withhold aid to Israel if it resisted U.S. pressure to settle the conflict, and that number rose to 70 percent among “politically active” Americans.115 Indeed, 73 percent said that United States should not favor either side.[3 out of 4,and yet we still cannot be heard, such horse dung DC]
Yet the Bush Administration failed to change Israel’s policies, and Washington ended up backing Israel’s hard‐line approach instead. Over time, the Administration also adopted Israel’s justifications for this approach, so that U.S. and Israeli rhetoric became similar. By February 2003, a Washington Post headline summarized the situation: “Bush and Sharon Nearly Identical on Mideast Policy.”116 The main reason for this switch is the Lobby.
Bush was reportedly furious at Sharon’s likening him to Neville Chamberlain, and White House press secretary Ari Fleischer called Sharon’s remarks “unacceptable.”120 The Israeli prime minister offered a pro forma apology, but he quickly joined forces with the Lobby to convince the Bush administration and the American people that the United States and Israel faced a common threat from terrorism.121 Israeli officials and Lobby representatives repeatedly emphasized that there was no real difference between Arafat and Osama bin Laden, and insisted that the United States and Israel should isolate the Palestinians’ elected leader and have nothing to do with him.122
The Lobby also went to work in Congress. On November 16, 89 senators sent Bush a letter praising him for refusing to meet with Arafat, but also demanding that the United States not restrain Israel from retaliating against the Palestinians and insisting that the administration state publicly that it stood steadfastly behind Israel. According to the New York Times, the letter “stemmed from a meeting two weeks ago between leaders of the American Jewish community and key senators,” adding that A.I.P.A.C was “particularly active in providing advice on the letter.”123
By late November, relations between Tel Aviv and Washington had improved considerably. This was due in part to the Lobby’s efforts to bend U.S. policy in Israel’s direction, but also to America’s initial victory in Afghanistan, which reduced the perceived need for Arab support in dealing with al Qaeda. Sharon visited the White House in early December and had a friendly meeting with Bush.124
But trouble erupted again in April 2002, after the I.D.F launched Operation Defensive Shield and resumed control of virtually all of the major Palestinian areas on the West Bank.125 Bush knew that Israel’s action would damage America’s image in the Arab and Islamic world and undermine the war on terrorism, so he demanded on April 4 that Sharon “halt the incursions and begin withdrawal.” He underscored this message two days later, saying this meant “withdrawal without delay.” On April 7, Bush’s national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, told reporters that, “‘without delay’ means without delay. It means now.” That same day Secretary of State Colin Powell set out for the Middle East to pressure all sides to stop fighting and start negotiating.126
The first sign that Bush was caving came on April 11—only one week after he told Sharon to withdraw his forces—when Ari Fleischer said the President believes Sharon is “a man of peace.”129 Bush repeated this statement publicly upon Powell’s return from his abortive mission, and he told reporters that Sharon had responded satisfactorily to his call for a full and immediate withdrawal.130 Sharon had done no such thing, but the President of the United States was no longer willing to make an issue of it.
Meanwhile, Con-gress was also moving to back Sharon. On May 2, it overrode the Administration’s objections and passed two resolutions reaffirming support for Israel. (The Senate vote was 94 to 2; the House version passed 352‐21). Both resolutions emphasized that the United States “stands in solidarity with Israel” and that the two countries are, to quote the House resolution, “now engaged in a common struggle against terrorism.” The House version also condemned “the ongoing support of terror by Yasir Arafat,” who was portrayed as a central element of the terrorism problem.131 A few days later, a bipartisan congressional delegation on a fact‐finding mission in Israel publicly proclaimed that Sharon should resist U.S. pressure to negotiate with Arafat.132 On May 9, a House appropriations subcommittee met to consider giving Israel an extra $200 million to fight terrorism. Secretary of State Powell opposed the package, but the Lobby backed it, just as it had helped author the two congressional resolutions.133 Powell lost. [ Now to people that have operating brain cells,the above votes in both the Senate and the House PROVES, that we ARE NOT represented in Washington,remember earlier the authors showed you polls stating that 3 out of 4 Americans DID NOT want our country playing favorites in the Middle East.The above votes PROVE that congress continues to ignore the American peoples will, and bend to the wishes of the most powerful special interests lobby in the United States D.C]
In short, Sharon and the Lobby took on the President of the United States and triumphed. Hemi Shalev, a journalist for the Israel newspaper Ma’ariv, reported that Sharon’s aides “could not hide their satisfaction in view of Powell’s failure. Sharon saw the white in President Bush’s eyes, they bragged, and the President blinked first.”134 But it was the pro‐Israel forces 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 to deal further with Arafat, who eventually died in November 2004. It has subsequently embraced the new Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, but has done little to help him gain a viable state. Sharon continued to develop his plans for unilateral “disengagement” from the Palestinians, based on withdrawal from Gaza coupled with continued expansion on the West Bank, which entails building the so‐called “security fence,” seizing Palestinian‐owned land, and expanding settlement blocs and road networks. By refusing to negotiate with Abbas (who favors a negotiated settlement) and making it impossible for him to deliver tangible benefits to the Palestinian people, Sharon’s strategy contributed directly to Hamas’ recent electoral victory.135 With Hamas in power, however, Israel has another excuse not to negotiate. The administration has supported Sharon’s actions (and those of his successor, Ehud Olmert), and Bush has even endorsed unilateral Israeli annexations in the Occupied Territories, reversing the stated policy of every president since Lyndon Johnson.136
Maintaining U.S. support for Israel’s policies against the Palestinians is a core goal of the Lobby, but its ambitions do not stop there. It also wants America to help Israel remain the dominant regional power. Not surprisingly, the Israeli government and pro‐Israel groups in the United States worked together to shape the Bush Administration’s policy towards Iraq, Syria, and Iran, as well as its grand scheme for reordering the Middle East.
Israel and the Iraq War
On August 16, 2002, eleven days before Vice President Cheney kicked off the campaign for war with a hard‐line speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Washington Post reported that “Israel is urging U.S. officials not to delay a military strike against Iraq’s Saddam Hussein.”140 By this point, according to Sharon, strategic coordination between Israel and the U.S. had reached “unprecedented dimensions,” and Israeli intelligence officials had given Washington a variety of alarming reports about Iraq’s WMD programs.141[All of them TOTAL horse dung DC] 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.”142
Israeli leaders were deeply distressed when President Bush decided to seek U.N. Security Council authorization for war in September, and even more worried when Saddam agreed to let U.N. inspectors back into Iraq, because these developments seemed to reduce the likelihood of war. Foreign Minister Shimon Peres told reporters in September 2002 that “the campaign against Saddam Hussein is a must. Inspections and inspectors are good for decent people, but dishonest people can overcome easily inspections and inspectors.”143
But as Netanyahu suggests, the desire for war was not confined to Israel’s leaders. Apart from Kuwait, which Saddam conquered in 1990, Israel was the only country in the world where both the politicians and the public enthusiastically favored war.147 As 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.”148 In fact, Israelis were so gung‐ho for war that their allies in America told them to damp down their hawkish rhetoric, lest it look like the war was for Israel.149
The Lobby and the Iraq War
Within the United States, the main driving force behind the Iraq war was a small
band of neoconservatives, many with close ties to Israel’s Likud Party.150 In
addition, key leaders of the Lobby’s major organizations lent their voices to the
campaign for war.151 According to the Forward, “As President Bush attempted to
sell the . . . war in Iraq, America’s most important Jewish organizations rallied as
one to his defense. In statement after statement community leaders stressed the
need to rid the world of Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass
destruction.”152 The editorial goes on to say that “concern for Israel’s safety
rightfully factored into the deliberations of the main Jewish groups.” Although neoconservatives and other Lobby leaders were eager to invade Iraq, the broader American Jewish community was not.153 In fact, Samuel Freedman reported just after the war started 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% to 62%.”154 Thus, it would be wrong to blame the war in Iraq on “Jewish influence.” Rather, the war was due in large part to the Lobby’s influence, especially the neoconservatives within it.
The neoconservatives were already determined to topple Saddam before Bush became President.155 They caused a stir in early 1998 by publishing two open letters to President Clinton calling for Saddam’s removal from power.156 The signatories, many of whom had close ties to pro‐Israel groups like J.I.N.S.A or W.I.N.E.P, and whose ranks included Elliot Abrams, John Bolton, Douglas Feith, William Kristol, Bernard Lewis, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, had little trouble convincing the Clinton Administration to adopt the general goal of ousting Saddam.157 But the neoconservatives were unable to sell a war to achieve that objective. Nor were they able to generate much enthusiasm for invading Iraq in the early months of the Bush Administration.158 As important as the neoconservatives were for making the Iraq war happen, they needed help to achieve their aim.
That help arrived with 9/11. Specifically, the events of that fateful day led Bush and Cheney to reverse course and become strong proponents of a preventive war to topple Saddam. Neoconservatives in the Lobby—most notably Scooter Libby, Paul Wolfowitz, and Princeton historian Bernard Lewis—played especially critical roles in persuading the President and Vice‐President to favor war.
Meanwhile, other neoconservatives were at work within the corridors of power. We do not have the full story yet, but scholars like Lewis and Fouad Ajami of John Hopkins University reportedly played key roles in convincing Vice President Cheney to favor the war.161 Cheney’s views were also heavily influenced by the neoconservatives on his staff, especially Eric Edelman, John Hannah, and chief of staff Libby, one of the most powerful individuals in the Administration.162 The Vice President’s influence helped convince President Bush by early 2002. With Bush and Cheney on board, the die for war was cast.
Outside the administration, neoconservative pundits lost no time making the case that invading Iraq was essential to winning the war on terrorism. Their efforts were partly aimed at keeping pressure on Bush and partly intended to overcome opposition to the war inside and outside of the government. On September 20, a group of prominent neoconservatives and their allies published another open letter, telling the President that “even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the [9/11] attack, any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.”163 The letter also reminded Bush that, “Israel has been and remains America’s staunchest ally against international terrorism.” In the October 1 issue of the Weekly Standard, Robert Kagan and William Kristol called for regime change in Iraq immediately after the Taliban was defeated. That same day, Charles Krauthammer argued in the Washington Post that after we were done with Afghanistan, Syria should be next, followed by Iran and Iraq. “The war on terrorism,” he argued, “will conclude in Baghdad,” when we finish off “the most dangerous terrorist regime in the world.”164
These salvoes were the beginning of an unrelenting public relations campaign to win support for invading Iraq.165 A key part of this campaign was the manipulation of intelligence information, so as to make Saddam look like an imminent threat. For example, Libby visited the CIA several times to pressure analysts to find evidence that would make the case for war, and he helped prepare a detailed briefing on the Iraq threat in early 2003 that was pushed on Colin Powell, then preparing his infamous briefing to the U.N. Security Council on the Iraqi threat.166 According to Bob Woodward, Powell “was appalled at what he considered overreaching and hyperbole. Libby was drawing only the worst conclusions from fragments and silky threads.”167 Although Powell discarded Libby’s most outrageous claims, his U.N. presentation was still riddled with errors, as Powell now acknowledges.
Like virtually all the neoconservatives, Feith is deeply committed to Israel. He also has long‐standing ties to the Likud Party. He wrote articles in the 1990's supporting the settlements and arguing that Israel should retain the occupied territories.170 More importantly, along with Perle and Wurmser, he wrote the famous “Clean Break” report in June 1996 for the incoming Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.171 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 implement their advice, but Feith, Perle and Wurmser were soon advocating that the Bush Administration pursue those same goals. This situation prompted Ha’aretz columnist Akiva Eldar to warn that Feith and Perle “are walking a fine line between their loyalty to American governments … and Israeli interests.”172
http://zfacts.com/metaPage/lib/1996_07_IASPS_Clean_Break.pdf
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 the first among fifty notables who “have consciously pursued Jewish activism.”173 At about the same time, J.I.N.S.A 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 2003.174
Finally, a brief word is in order about the neoconservatives’ prewar support of Ahmed Chalabi, the unscrupulous Iraqi exile who headed the Iraqi National Congress (I.N.C). They embraced Chalabi because he had worked to establish close ties with Jewish‐American groups and had pledged to foster good relations with Israel once he gained power.175 This was precisely what pro‐Israel proponents of regime change wanted to hear, so they backed Chalabi in return. Journalist Matthew Berger laid out the essence of the bargain in the Jewish Journal: “The I.N.C 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.”176
Given the neoconservatives’ devotion to Israel, their obsession with Iraq, and their influence in the Bush Administration, it is not surprising that many Americans suspected that the war was designed to further Israeli interests. For example, Barry Jacobs of the American Jewish Committee acknowledged in March 2005 that the belief that Israel and the neoconservatives conspired to get the United States into a war in Iraq was “pervasive” in the U.S. intelligence community.177 Yet few people would say so publicly, and most that did ‐‐ including Senator Ernest Hollings (D‐SC) and Representative James Moran (D‐ VA) ‐‐ were condemned for raising the issue.178 Michael Kinsley put the point well in late 2002, when he wrote that “the lack of public discussion about the role of Israel … is the proverbial elephant in the room: Everybody sees it, no one mentions it.”179 The reason for this reluctance, he observed, was fear of being labeled an anti‐Semite. Even so, there is little doubt that Israel and the Lobby were key factors in shaping the decision for war. Without the Lobby’s efforts, the United States would have been far less likely to have gone to war in March 2003.
Dreams of Regional Transformation
The Iraq war was not supposed to be a costly quagmire. Rather, it was intended
as the first step in a larger plan to reorder the Middle East. This ambitious
strategy was a dramatic departure from previous U.S. policy, and the Lobby and
Israel were critical driving forces behind this shift. This point was made clearly
after the Iraq war began in a front‐page story in the Wall Street Journal. The
headline says it all: “President’s Dream: Changing Not Just Regime but a Region:
A Pro‐U.S., Democratic Area is a Goal that Has Israeli and Neo Conservative
Roots.”180 Pro‐Israel forces have long been interested in getting the U.S. military more directly involved in the Middle East, so it could help protect Israel.181 But they had limited success on this front during the Cold War, because America acted as an “off‐shore balancer” in the region. Most U.S. forces designated for the Middle East, like the Rapid Deployment Force, were kept “over the horizon” and out of harm’s way. Washington maintained a favorable balance of power by playing local powers off against each other, which is why the Reagan Administration supported Saddam against revolutionary Iran during the Iran‐Iraq war (1980‐88).
There was considerable dissatisfaction with dual containment by the mid‐1990's, because it made the United States the mortal enemy of two countries who also hated each other, and it forced Washington to bear the burden of containing both of them.183 Not surprisingly, the Lobby worked actively in Congress to save dual containment.184 Pressed by A.I.P.A.C and other pro‐Israel forces, Clinton toughened up the policy in the spring of 1995 by imposing an economic embargo on Iran. But A.I.P.A.C et al 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 for 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.”185
By the late 1990's, however, the neoconservatives were arguing that dual containment was not enough and that regime change in Iraq was now essential. By toppling Saddam and turning Iraq into a vibrant democracy, they argued, the United States would trigger a far‐reaching process of change throughout the Middle East. This line of thinking, of course, was evident in the “Clean Break” study the neoconservatives wrote for Netanyahu. By 2002, when invading Iraq had become a front‐burner issue, regional transformation had become an article of faith in neoconservative circles.186
Charles Krauthammer describes this grand scheme as the brainchild of Natan Sharansky, the Israeli politician whose writings have impressed President Bush.187 But Sharansky was hardly a lone voice in Israel. In fact, Israelis across the political spectrum believed that toppling Saddam would alter the Middle East to Israel’s advantage. Aluf Benn reported in Ha’aretz (February 17, 2003), “Senior I.D.F 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.”188
In short, Israeli leaders, neoconservatives, and the Bush Administration all saw war with Iraq as the first step in an ambitious campaign to remake the Middle East. And in the first flush of victory, they turned their sights on Israel’s other regional opponents.
Gunning for Syria
Israeli leaders did not push the Bush Administration to put its cross hairs on
Syria before March 2003, because they were too busy pushing for war against
Iraq. But once Baghdad fell in mid‐April, Sharon and his lieutenants began
urging Washington to target Damascus.189 On April 16, for example, Sharon and
Shaul Mofaz, his defense minister, gave high profile interviews in different
Israeli newspapers. Sharon, in Yedioth Ahronoth, called for the United States to
put “very heavy” pressure on Syria.190 Mofaz told Ma’ariv that, “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.”191 Sharon’s national
security adviser, Ephraim Halevy, told a W.I.N.E.P audience that it was now
important for the United States to get rough with Syria, and the Washington Post
reported that Israel was “fueling the campaign” against Syria by feeding the
United States intelligence reports about the actions of Syrian President Bashar
Assad.192 [So more likely then not the fiasco in Syria which broke out into the open in 2011,was related to a second term for the last idiot in the white house DC]Prominent members of the Lobby made the same arguments after Baghdad fell.193 Wolfowitz declared that “there has got to be regime change in Syria,” and Richard Perle told a journalist that “We could deliver a short message, a two‐ worded message [to other hostile regimes in the Middle East]: ‘You’re next’.”194 In early April, W.I.N.E.P released a bipartisan report stating that Syria “should not miss the message that countries that pursue Saddam’s reckless, irresponsible and defiant behavior could end up sharing his fate.”195 On April 15, Yossi Klein Halevi wrote a piece in the Los Angeles Times entitled “Next, Turn the Screws on Syria,” while the next 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 April 21 that Syrian leader Assad was a serious threat to America.196 [Such liars,and degenerates all ,and just as guilty as Obama and Clinton,for their criminal acts in violation of International law against both Libya,which included the Assassination of a state leaderDC]
Back on Capitol Hill, Congressman Eliot Engel (D‐NY) had reintroduced the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act on April 12.197 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—especially A.I.P.A.C—and “framed,” according to the Jewish Telegraph Agency, “by some of Israel’s best friends in Congress.”198 It had been on the back burner for some time, largely because the Bush Administration had little enthusiasm for it, but the anti‐Syrian act passed overwhelmingly (398‐4 in the House; 89‐4 in the Senate), and Bush signed it into law on December 12, 2003.199
Yet the Bush Administration was still divided about the wisdom of targeting Syria at this time. Although the neoconservatives were eager to pick a fight with Damascus, the CIA and the State Department were opposed. And even after Bush signed the new law, he emphasized that he would go slowly in implementing it.200
Bush’s ambivalence is understandable. First, the Syrian government had been providing the United States with important intelligence about al Qaeda since 9/11 and had also warned Washington about a planned terrorist attack in the Gulf.201 Syria had also given CIA interrogators access to Mohammed Zammar, the alleged recruiter of some of the 9/11 hijackers. Targeting the Assad regime would jeopardize these valuable connections, and thus undermine the larger war on terrorism.
Second, Syria was not on bad terms with Washington before the Iraq war (e.g., it had even voted for U.N. Resolution 1441), and it was no threat to the United States. Playing hardball with Syria would make the United States look like a bully with an insatiable appetite for beating up Arab states. Finally, putting Syria on the American hit list would give Damascus a powerful incentive to cause trouble in Iraq. Even if one wanted to pressure Syria, it made good sense to finish the job in Iraq first.
Yet Con-gress insisted on putting the screws to Damascus, largely in response to pressure from Israel officials and pro‐Israel groups like A.I.P.A.C.202 If there were no Lobby, there would have been no Syria Accountability Act and U.S. policy toward Damascus would have been more in line with the U.S. national interest.
Putting Iran in the Cross hairs
Sharon began publicly pushing the United States to confront Iran in November 2002, in a high profile interview in The Times (London).204 Describing Iran as the “center 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 now calling for regime change in Iran.205 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.”[Degenerate liar DC]
The neoconservatives also lost no time in making the case for regime change in Tehran.206 On May 6, the A.E.I co‐sponsored an all‐day conference on Iran with the pro‐Israel Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and the Hudson Institute.207 The speakers were all strongly pro‐Israel, and many called for the United States to replace the Iranian regime with a democracy. As usual, there were a bevy of articles by prominent neoconservatives making the case for going after Iran. For example, William Kristol wrote in the Weekly Standard on May 12 that, “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 one ‐‐ will be for Iran.”208
The Bush Administration has responded to the Lobby’s pressure by working overtime to shut down Iran’s nuclear program. But Washington has had little success, and Iran seems determined to get a nuclear arsenal. As a result, the Lobby has intensified its pressure on the U.S. government, using all of the strategies in its playbook.209 Op‐eds and 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 also pushing Congress to approve the Iran Freedom Support Act, which would expand existing sanctions on Iran. Israeli officials also warn they may take preemptive action should Iran continue down the nuclear road, hints partly intended to keep Washington focused on this issue.
One might argue that Israel and the Lobby have not had much influence on U.S. policy toward Iran, because the United States has its own reasons to keep Iran from going nuclear. This is partly true, but Iran’s nuclear ambitions do not pose an existential threat to the United States. If Washington could live with a nuclear Soviet Union, a nuclear China, or even a nuclear North Korea, then it can live with a nuclear Iran. And that is why the Lobby must keep constant pressure on U.S. politicians to confront Tehran. Iran and the United States would hardly be allies if the Lobby did not exist, but U.S. policy would be more temperate and preventive war would not be a serious option.
Summary
It is not surprising that Israel and its American supporters want the United States
to deal with any and all threats to Israel’s security. If their efforts to shape U.S.
policy succeed, then Israel’s enemies get weakened or overthrown, Israel gets a
free hand with the Palestinians, and the United States does most of the fighting,
dying, rebuilding, and paying. But even if the United States fails to transform the Middle East and finds itself in conflict with an increasingly radicalized Arab and Islamic world, Israel still ends up protected by the world’s only superpower.210 This is not a perfect outcome from the Lobby’s perspective, but it is obviously preferable to Washington distancing itself from Israel, or using its leverage to force Israel to make peace with the Palestinians.
CONCLUSION
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 A.I.P.A.C officials passing U.S. government
secrets to Israel. One might also think that Arafat’s death and the election of the
more moderate Abu Mazen would cause Washington to press vigorously and
evenhandedly for a peace agreement. In short, there are ample grounds for U.S.
leaders to distance themselves from the Lobby and adopt a Middle East policy
more consistent with broader U.S. interests. In particular, using American power
to achieve a just peace between Israel and the Palestinians would help advance
the broader goals of fighting extremism and promoting democracy in the Middle
East. But that is not going to happen anytime soon. A.I.P.A.C 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 expanding their activities and staffs.211 Moreover, 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.
This situation is deeply worrisome, because the Lobbyʹs influence causes trouble on several fronts. It increases the terrorist danger that all states face—including Americaʹs European allies. By preventing U.S. leaders from pressuring Israel to make peace, the Lobby has also made it impossible to end the Israeli‐Palestinian conflict. This situation gives extremists a powerful recruiting tool, increases the pool of potential terrorists and sympathizers, and contributes to Islamic radicalism around the world.
Furthermore, the Lobby’s campaign for regime change in Iran and Syria could lead the United States to attack those countries, with potentially disastrous effects. We do not need another Iraq. At a minimum, the Lobby’s hostility toward these countries makes it especially difficult for Washington to enlist them against al Qaeda 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. U.S. efforts to limit nuclear proliferation appear equally hypocritical given its willingness to accept Israel’s nuclear arsenal, which encourages Iran and others to seek similar capabilities.
Moreover, the Lobby’s campaign to squelch debate about Israel is unhealthy for democracy. Silencing skeptics by organizing blacklists and boycotts—or by suggesting that critics are anti‐Semites—violates the principle of open debate upon which democracy depends. The inability of the U.S. Congress to conduct a genuine debate on these vital issues paralyzes 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 by those who believe in free speech and open discussion of important public issues.
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 marginalize a generation of Palestinian leaders has empowered extremist groups like Hamas, and reduced the number of Palestinian leaders who would be both willing to accept a fair settlement and able to make it work. This course raises the awful specter of Israel one day occupying the pariah status once reserved for apartheid states like South Africa. Ironically, Israel itself would probably be better off if the Lobby were less powerful and U.S. policy were more evenhanded.
But there is a ray of hope. 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 forever. What is needed, therefore, is a candid discussion of the Lobby’s influence and a more open debate about U.S. interests in this vital region. Israel’s well‐being is one of those interests, but not its continued occupation of the West Bank or its broader regional agenda. Open debate will expose the limits of the strategic and moral case for one‐sided U.S. support and could move the United States 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.
SOURCE
http://mearsheimer.uchicago.edu/pdfs/A0040.pdf
Footnotes 87- 211 start on page 59 of PDF
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