Six Big Lies About How Jerusalem Runs Washington

From the Jewish cabal to the Capitol Hill Knesset, the worst leaps of logic when it comes to Israel, U.S. politics, and the Middle East.

BY AARON DAVID MILLER | MARCH 21, 2012

6. Barack Obama is just as pro-Israel as Bill Clinton or George W. Bush.

There's no question that Obama understands and appreciates the special relationship between Israel and the United States. But Obama isn't Bill Clinton or George W. Bush when it comes to Israel -- not even close. These guys were frustrated by Israeli prime ministers too, but they also were moved and enamored by them (Clinton by Yitzhak Rabin, Bush by Ariel Sharon). They had instinctive, heartfelt empathy for the idea of Israel's story, and as a consequence they could make allowances at times for Israel's behavior even when it clashed with their own policy goals. Obama is more like George H.W. Bush when it comes to Israel, but without a strategy.

If Obama is emotional when it comes to Israel, he's hiding it. Netanyahu obviously thinks he's bloodless. But then again, the U.S. president can be pretty reserved on a number of issues. Obama doesn't feel the need to be loved by the Israelis, and perhaps American Jews either. Combine that with a guy who's much more comfortable in gray than in black and white, and you have a president who sees Israel's world in much more nuanced terms, which is clearly hard for many Israelis and American Jews to accept. In Obama's mind, Israel has legitimate security needs, but it's also the strongest regional power. As a result, he believes that the Israelis should compromise on the peace process, give nonmilitary pressures against Iran time to work, and recognize that despite the uncertainties of the Arab Spring, now is the time to make peace with the Palestinians.

If Obama had a chance to reset the U.S.-Israel relationship and make it a little less special, he probably would. But I guess that's the point: He probably won't have the chance. If he gets a second term, he'll more than likely be faced with the same mix of Middle East headaches, conflicting priorities, narrow maneuvering room, and the swirl of domestic politics that bedevils him today. If the U.S. president fails to get an Israeli-Palestinian peace, it will be primarily because the Israelis, the Palestinians, and Barack Obama wouldn't pay the price, not because the pro-Israel community in America got in his way.

Getty Images

 

Aaron David Miller is a distinguished scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. His new book, Can America Have Another Great President?, will be published this year. "Reality Check," his column for Foreign Policy.com, runs weekly.

RESPECTABLE LADY

3:29 PM ET

March 21, 2012

You are right

Capitol Hill is not subservient to Israel.

Capitol Hill (and Admin.) are subservient to the right-wing militant Likudnik subset of Israeli polity.

How do you explain the pilgrimages to AIPAC?

Furthermore, it ain't just our Politicos.

It's also the media: e.g., former Times executive editor Max Frankel acknowledged the impact his own pro?Israel attitude had on his editorial choices. In his words: “I was much more deeply devoted to Israel than I dared to assert.” He goes on: “Fortified by my knowledge of Israel and my friendships there, I myself wrote most of our Middle East commentaries. As more Arab than Jewish readers recognized, I wrote them from a pro?Israel perspective.”

Ref: Max Frankel, The Times of My Life And My Life with the Times (NY: Random House, 1999), pp. 401?403.

For more details see the view of this senior ex-CIA head of the Osama Bin Laden Desk:

http://non-intervention.com/1035/slavery-in-america-you-bet-listen-to-obama-and-romney/

 

GARVAGH

12:54 PM ET

March 23, 2012

Yes, Aipac controls US Congress

After Obama said last May that the Green Line should be the border of independent Palestine, the US Congress under directions from Aipac grovelled at the feet of BIbi Netanyahu. And Netanyahu wants to keep most of the West Bank permanently.

 

MCHAUN

1:58 PM ET

March 23, 2012

A brief visit to the Site of senior ex-CIA head of the Osama Bin

I visited the Site and commented on the only comment as follows- Which was promptly flushed.

http://non-intervention.com/1035/slavery-in-america-you-bet-listen-to-obama-and-romney/

"Rhett1 97p · 2 weeks ago
Thank you for at least ONE voice of reason.

The groveling of our leaders to Israeli Firsters will only stop, I suppose, when the US has totally devolved into bankruptcy and division."

Maybe, maybe not.

One might better look for an answer to the question of how German Jewry went from sitting at the top of nearly every German Institution to Krystal Nacht in about one Generation.

Monte Haun mchaun@hotmail.com

 

JGARBUZ

9:15 AM ET

March 24, 2012

Why? Because the Jews did not go to Palestine, that's why.

German Jewry has a history going back to at least 321 BC when Jews were a very integral part of the Roman city Cologne in Germania. But even then, Jews were kept out of public office.

So why, after over 1,600 years of history on German land came the Holocaust? Because in 1922 Palestine was opened to free Jewish immigration and millions of Jews could have come to Palestine to create a Jewish state long before WWII. Alas, only few did so. My mother wanted to go in 1934, but my grandmother, later murdered by the Nazis in the ghetto of Boremel, did not want her dear daughter to face abject poverty and Arab attacks. Palestine was both impoverished and dangerous, and yet the Jews by 1931 had already created the nucleus of a future Jewish state that could have been realized by 1938 had most Jews come.

The Jews have one of two choices: to strengthen their own ancestral state, or face inevitable oblivion either through assimilation or persecution abroad.

 

AUGUST WEST

7:13 PM ET

March 25, 2012

Jewish immigration to Palestine

"If I knew it was possible to save all [Jewish] children of Germany by their transfer to England and only half of them by transferring them to Eretz-Yisrael, I would choose the latter—because we are faced not only with the accounting of these [Jewish] children but also with the historical accounting of the Jewish People.”

Ben-Gurion (1938).

(As quoted in Benny Morris’ Righteous Victims, p. 162)

 

MOHAMEDABED

10:01 AM ET

March 26, 2012

This comment section is basically a bunch of anti-Israel

anti-semitic morons jerking each other off.

A circle-jerk of stupidity, we shall say.

 

MSAM

5:00 PM ET

March 21, 2012

Interesting

The author had to go back to 1991 to come up with an example of a US president sucessfully applying "pressure" to Israelis to abide by their international responsibilities.

And as far as the American public being pro-Israel and having shared values with the Israelis, I guess decades of pro-Israel propaganda and one sided coverage in the US media, orchestrated by Israel's supporters has played no part.

I guess the Author suggests that Americans share values with the Israeli right based on occupation, war mongering and messianic promises of "holy" land.

 

DONLEE

12:10 AM ET

March 22, 2012

McCain-Feingold

The McCain-Feingold bill of the early 2000's may have been the tipping point where the Lobby assumed control of US Mid-east policy.
In this article at http://www.momentmag.com/moment/issues/2011/08/Opinion_Guttman.html
the author believes 50% of Democrat campaign contributions & 33% of Republican currently come from Jewish sources.
He believes that those contributions effect may be diluted as the Citizens United ruling that effectively killed McCain-Feingold will again open contributions to coorperations & unions & therefore reduce Jewish influence.

 

GARVAGH

12:57 PM ET

March 23, 2012

G H W Bush wanted Israel out of the West Bank

Bravo. George Bush Sr. wanted Israel out of the West Bank and Gaza, and to see an independent Palestine. Clinton blundered badly by not immediately following up on Bush's achiements.

 

JGARBUZ

9:02 AM ET

March 24, 2012

West Bank is actually historic Judea and Samaria

Wikipedia - West Bank

"The name West Bank, a translation of the Arabic term ad-difa’a al-gharbiya, was coined by the Jordanians after the territory, conquered by Jordan's Arab Legion in 1948, was annexed to Transjordan, forming the new Kingdom of Jordan in 1949–50. The term was chosen to differentiate the "West bank of the River Jordan", namely the newly annexed territory, from the "East Bank" of this river, namely Transjordan[citation needed]. Until that point, the area was generally known[12] by the historic names of its two regions – Judea and Samaria,[13] the term used by Israel today."

 

DAME BARBARA WHIFFENPOOF

5:12 PM ET

March 21, 2012

nice try Aaron David Miller....

.......however who can forget the immortal words of Thomas Dine on the defeat of Senator Charles Percy,
"All the Jews in America, from coast to coast, gathered to oust Percy. And the American politicians--those who hold public positions now, and those who aspire-- got the message."

 

ANON45

6:53 PM ET

March 21, 2012

Good article for the balanced.

Much like the moon landings, these conspiracy theorists wouldn't believe you even if the proof was in front of their eyes.

You'll never convince the conspiracy theorists above, but its good to see a balanced article.

They cling to the absurd idea that the Jewish people control the media, the economy, and the presidency and direct foreign policy to their whims.

 

JOHNBOY4546

11:36 PM ET

March 21, 2012

Niiiiiice straw man, ANON45

"They cling to the absurd idea that the Jewish people control the media, the economy, and the presidency and direct foreign policy to their whims."

Niiiice. And you erected that all on your own? Very impressive.

The that "the Jewish people" control the media, etc., etc., is indeed absurd, so I don't know why you are advocating it.

Everyone else seems to be advancing this: there is a lobby that exists within the United States of America that exists to pressure the US government to act in ways that are contrary to the USA's own national interest, and all for the benefit of a foreign country.

The further argument is that the actions of this lobby group produces outcomes that are not in the national interest of either the USA ***or*** Israel and, as a result, the policies being advocated by that lobby should be opposed.

The idea that this involves a push-back against "the Jewish people" is ludicrous, if for no other reason that a very large chunk of that lobby isn't, you know, Jewish.....

 

PAUL THE MAGYAR

4:48 PM ET

March 23, 2012

I wish the article was more reassuring.

The fact remains that there are a number of countries in the world which are of equal size to Israel in population, have more of those natural resources valuable to America than Israel, have historically been more valuable allies to America or have the potential to be more valuable to America as allies, and which do not have the liabilities to America which Israel presents to America.

So, what really justifies the amazingly beneficent subsidies America grants directly to Israel and to other countries (subsidies to Egypt, etc., to buy peace for Israel) for the benefit of Israel?

I would like to see a more reassuring, more convincing, more realistic assessment of the balance sheet which, the author seems to assures us, is really more balanced than racists and anti-semites would have us believe.

I would also like to see less demonization of those who ask to see the balance sheet. One does not display the antipathies of a Nazi simply because one asks about the balance sheet -- but that is how one is portrayed and smeared if one does have the temerity to ask about the balance sheet.

It would be nice if Americans could talk openly and without fear of reprisal about America's foreign policy vis-a-vis Israel. That would be a better start to countering what the author claims are lies about the American-Israeli relationship. Only one side of the argument on this topic is acceptable, the other argument is so heinous as to be untouchable.

 

JGARBUZ

9:21 AM ET

March 24, 2012

Name one country besides Britain and Canada that is

more important to the US than ISrael. Israel produces more scientific knowledge than the entire Muslim world put together. Yes, so they have oil, big deal. What else? They also have over 1 billion Muslim people who would love to see America fall and looted. Israel is one of the few countries that WANTS America to be strong and healthy and prosperous, because that helps Israel. The Muslim world wants America to weaken and fall so that can overrun and loot it the way the Muslims overran and looted the entire Middle East and North Africa and Central Asia.

 

JOHNBOY4546

11:55 PM ET

March 25, 2012

 

TRUTHSEEKER

2:54 PM ET

March 26, 2012

 

DAVIDILIEBERMAN

11:45 AM ET

April 3, 2012

@Johnboy4546

So how does the formulation of your fellow-traveler above who attributes the outcome of a congressional election to the mobilization of "all the Jews in America" fit into your thesis that ANON45 is pushing a straw man. Complaining about "all the Jews in America" mobilizing to defeat an anti-Israel candidate certainly sounds to me a lot like "the absurd idea that the Jewish people control the media, the economy, and the presidency."

 

SAM FROM CALIFORNIA

7:19 PM ET

March 21, 2012

UNESCO

Ending funding for UNESCO, all of America's congresspeople giving Israel's PM numerous standing ovations for a cliche and jingoistic speech, America's support for Israel despite its ongoing settlement program and demolition of Palestinian homes in and out of the West Bank, show that Israel's Right-Wing does have inordinate control over US policy. It would be antisemitic to blame Jewish people for this, because as Jon Stewart pointed out in a recent segment, it's actually easier to be critical of Israel IN ISRAEL than in the USA.

Also, lobbies are all "evil", or at least are dishonest interest groups that are largely unaccountable and have much more power than any regular group of common citizens because of the collected financial power they have.

 

JOHNBOY4546

7:35 PM ET

March 21, 2012

"Before we lose our collective minds (again), "

Dare I suggest that the reason why you can't put those collective minds to rest is because there *is* something fundamentally wrong with this relationship.

So it really doesn't matter how often people are told to Just Move Along, Folks,Just Move On Along those folks know exactly what they are seeing.

And what they are seeing is an American political system that has been hijacked by agents of a foreign government.

They understand how that works - goodness knows the USA has done exactly that to any number of other countries - but it rather galls their sense of American Exceptionalism to see it being done to their country.

 

PAUL THE MAGYAR

4:52 PM ET

March 23, 2012

As another author has written

As another author has written elsewhere: "Despite frequent mentoring to Palestinians by liberals in the West to rely on nonviolent tactics of resistance, these extraordinary hunger strikes (Palestinian human rights group Adameer recently tweeted that it was aware of 24 such hunger strikers) have been met with silence or indifference in both Israel and the West."

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/03/201232082829104638.html#.T2uXBoa6pEc.

 

JOHNBOY4546

8:07 PM ET

March 21, 2012

Look, just a comment on Point 6

AM: "Several Clinton administration officials, including me -- with the best of intentions -- adopted an approach".....

Now, that statement requires something of a disclosure from Miller.

These are the officials who "owned" the M.E. desk during the Clinton Administration:
Dennis Ross
Aaron David Miller
Martin Indyk
Daniel Kurtzer

Every single one of those "Middle East experts" is Jewish i.e. working the "Middle East desk" was a closed shop, and the criteria for membership to that exclusive club is pretty damn obvious.

AM: "These views, however, gained currency not because the president's advisors, who happened to be American Jews, were pushing them, but because they made sense to a non-Jewish president with great sensitivity for the Israelis -- and a great deal for the Palestinians too. "

Well, I am gratified that Miller finally slipped that disclaimer in, though I'll note that it was pretty slick work indeed.

But ponder the implications: whenever Clinton sat down to get some advice from his panel of "Middle East experts" he was The Only Goy In The Room.

Q: And what were those experts all of a mind regarding?
A: The importance of skewing the results in Israel's favour.

Q: So why did that advice "make sense" to Clinton and the arabs?
A: It's not as if that advice was simply one of many choices for them to pick from.

Q: Why not?
A: There were no other voices whispering in Clinton's ear.

 

JKLFAIRWIN

8:15 PM ET

March 21, 2012

Apologia

Aaaron David Miller makes a nice case- of pure fantasy. The Percy example , cited above is at the heart of the matter. The Israel Lobby has demonstrated , with a Senator no less, that, while they may not be able to elect everyone they would like, they can gang up politically, media wise, and, most importantly , financially to defeat almost anyone. Remember the last president to stand up against the right wing in Israel was George Bush, the elder. He was the only one term president in the last 30 + years. This was far from the only, or even the main reason for his defeat, but to already spooked politicians, this was another warning. Any politician who does not toe the AIPAC line is very liable to end his political career.

 

JOHNBOY4546

8:33 PM ET

March 21, 2012

Looking at this article from beginning to end...

IN THE BEGINNING:
AM: "Indeed, when it counts and national interests demand it, presidents who know what they're doing move forward in the face of domestic pressures and usually prevail."

Got that? A President will push forward in the National Interest, and damn the domestic pressure, and in that respect Obama is no different from his predecessors.

AT THE END:
AM: "If Obama had a chance to reset the U.S.-Israel relationship and make it a little less special, he probably would. But I guess that's the point: He probably won't have the chance. If he gets a second term, he'll more than likely be faced with the same mix of Middle East headaches, conflicting priorities, narrow maneuvering room, and the swirl of domestic politics that bedevils him today."

Got that? Anyone who thinks that Obama can press forward in the National Interest and damn the consequences of domestic politics is craaaaaaaaazy.

Obama hasn't been able to do that in his first term, and there is no reason to suspect that he will be able to do that in his second term.

CONCLUSION:
The Aaron David Miller who wrote Point 7 thinks that the Aaron David Miller who wrote Point 1 is a dead-set crazy-man.

And the Aaron David Miller who wrote Point 1 has no time for defeatest losers like that dumb-ass Aaron David Miller who wrote Point 7.

There's a name for that condition, isn't there?

 

GIOVANNIALASKA

8:33 PM ET

March 21, 2012

the author himself is pro-israeli

one thing is enough to think about
the author uses the word Jerusalem to refer to the Capital of Israel which the US has not yet approved of it as such neither did the EU at least for its western part
the capital so far is Tel Aviv
one can't say that Israel occupies the US, but it is safe to say that the US is far from being a fair leader in the peace process
we as Arabs don't care about what Israelis do to Americans in America (that's Americans' Business) what really matters to us is what America does to us for the sake of Israel.

 

PAUL THE MAGYAR

4:56 PM ET

March 23, 2012

Good point.

. . . and it is frustrating for some Americans to have to acknowledge that most Americans are ignorant, unaware, misguided and misled in regard to this special relationship.

 

RESPECTABLE LADY

8:54 PM ET

March 21, 2012

From President George Washington's Farewell Address

32 In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential, than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular Nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated.

The Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests.

The Nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the Government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The Government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times, it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of Nations has been the victim.

33 So likewise, a passionate attachment of one Nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite Nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest, in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite Nation of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the Nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained; and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld.

And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens, (who devote themselves to the favorite nation,) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.

34 As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent Patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practise the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the Public Councils! Such an attachment of a small or weak, towards a great and powerful nation, dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter.
35 Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens,) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove, that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican Government. But that jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defence against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation, and excessive dislike of another, cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the favorite, are liable to become suspected and odious; while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.

36 The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connexion as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.

 

RESPECTABLE LADY

9:30 PM ET

March 21, 2012

Sounds like Ron Paul

Funny how founding fathers sound like Ron Paul, huh?

I wonder what the press would have said about them: "Nutters!"

 

JUNGHOKIM

11:17 PM ET

March 21, 2012

Ron Paul is a nutter

because he cannot get past the rhetoric of America's Founding Fathers in the year of Our Lord, 2012. While the Founding Fathers were great men with extraordinary foresight, even they are behind the times on more detailed policy issues - and Ron Paul won't do anyone a favour by resembling them on that front.

A more comparable analogy would have had Ron Paul of the the late 18th century itching to burn some witches.

 

NOTHING BUT THE FACTS

9:38 PM ET

March 21, 2012

Need We Say More

Last night, Netanyahu met in New York for over an hour with incoming House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), who is set to become the highest ranking Jewish member of Congress in history. The meeting took place at New York's Regency Hotel, and included no other American lawmakers besides Cantor. Also attending on the Israeli side were Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren, and Netanyahu's National Security Advisor Uzi Arad.

Israeli sources characterized a one-on-one meeting between an Israeli prime minister and a lone American lawmaker as unusual, if not unheard of. Cantor's office did not think that Cantor and the Prime Minister had held a one-on-one meeting before...

..."Eric stressed that the new Republican majority will serve as a check on the Administration and what has been, up until this point, one party rule in Washington," the readout continued. "He made clear that the Republican majority understands the special relationship between Israel and the United States, and that the security of each nation is reliant upon the other."

Veteran observer of U.S.-Israeli relations Ron Kampeas said he found that statement "an eyebrow-raiser."

"I can't remember an opposition leader telling a foreign leader, in a personal meeting, that he would side, as a policy, with that leader against the president," Kampeas wrote at JTA's blog -- an interpretation which Cantor's office later disputed to Kampeas.

From Michael Tomasky's Blog The Guardian

 

DUAGO

5:27 PM ET

March 23, 2012

oh my gosh

Does bibi speaks good English?

 

JOHNBOY4546

9:56 PM ET

March 21, 2012

And a quick comment on Point 3 "Lobbies are evil"

No, lobbies aren't evil, though they are immoral i.e. they are there to advocate on behalf of their client.

It's pretty easy to identify the client-base for the Oil Lobby, and it ain't the motorists of America.

It is also very easy to identify the client-base for the Tobacco Lobby, and it ain't the poor sods who are smoking their lungs to death.

So why be so coy about the client-base for the Israel Lobby?
It ain't The Jews of America.
It's The Government of Israel, and everyone knows that.

Don't get me wrong: there is nothing "evil" about being "agents of a foreign government", so long as you are willing to acknowledge that, and you are willing to register as that.

"When a former Arab diplomat I know once referred to the U.S. Congress as the Little Knesset, he was not only mocking a system -- he was jealous too."

Yeah, no doubt he is.

But he's jealous because HIS government doesn't have anywhere near as effective agents working from them that the Government of Israel does.

That still makes AIPAC the "agents of a foreign government", and so AIPAC should be made to register as such.

 

NASSER716

10:19 PM ET

March 21, 2012

 

SPOOD

2:52 PM ET

March 22, 2012

Because ad hominem is the stock and trade of these arguments

Its all part and parcel with the usual rehashing of anti-semitic conspiracy theories. Why bother coming up with something new when the old crap suits you just fine.

Instead of referring to "Elders of Zion" of old, now the same old cliches get new life by inserting AIPAC or Jewish Lobby. Of course anyone Jewish gets lumped into it as a form of guilt by association.

Why bother with facts, they have never serviced those people before. Why start now?

 

IAN

10:47 PM ET

March 21, 2012

This is what is wrong...

"AIPAC not only assiduously guards the pre-existing pro-Israeli tilt among the American public, but it also defines for much of the Jewish and political establishment what it means to be pro-Israel in America today. Its clout on Capitol Hill sends a powerful message to elected officials, many of whom already share general sympathy with Israel and who have no desire to cross swords with a powerful lobby that might jeopardize what they've come to Washington to do: advance their constituents' interests."

This is what you wrote. How can anyone write this and not immediately think this is very, very wrong. Any one organization that has so much political clout that it can, in your own words, jeopardize elected officials ability to advance their constituents' interests if they don't fall in line with this organization, should be outlawed on Capitol Hill.

Does anyone else not get totally righteously angry about this? Being able to block the very reason all politicians are supposed to be elected for just because you don't agree with them? I mean, holy shit! Seriously. All other things aside, this should NEVER be able to happen.

Regardless of whether the other things you say are lies, are, or are not, these couple sentences are all that is wrong with the AIPAC-American relationship. And since AIPAC is essentially a foreign nation lobby, it inevitably leads to people seeing the Israeli-American relationship as too tilted to one side.

I mean, these couple sentences essentially prove yourself wrong about Israel owning Capitol Hill. You claim is doesn't, but then say that if elected officials don't go with the AIPAC flow, they might not be able to do their job...

How can anyone write something like this down and not be angry about it?

 

RESPECTABLE LADY

10:53 PM ET

March 21, 2012

duh

"AIPAC not only assiduously guards the pre-existing pro-Israeli tilt among the American public..."

really? If there were such a tilt would it not obviate the need for a super-powerful lobby that serves the 0.1% of US population that are militant Likudnik zionists.

It is clear AIPAC does NOT represent all Jews. e.g. J street.

And all Jews are just 2% of US population.

The lobby skews US policy away from interests that would serve all US citizens.

see eg. the view of this CIA official:

http://non-intervention.com/1035/slavery-in-america-you-bet-listen-to-obama-and-romney/

 

MSAM

10:58 PM ET

March 21, 2012

Summary

Quick summary of mr Millers arguement

Although he and other close advisers of successive US presents were puhing the Israeli agenda and not providing balanced advice that was necessarily in the interest of the US, it was still up to the president to be the "adult" in the room and not buy their arguements.

I guess Obama should take the advise of his middle east advisers that push for confronting Iran with a lot of skepticism, especially if they have the same ideas as Mr. Miller and his colleagues about honest advice and patriotism

 

JUNGHOKIM

11:18 PM ET

March 21, 2012

A disgraceful article

Do you take the rest of the world as idiots, Mr Miller?

 

JAN Z. VOLENS

11:19 PM ET

March 21, 2012

It is actually worse then you think !

Between Joseph Lieberman in the Senate and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in the House - nothing can happen without AIPAC's consent! Ileana Ros Lehtinen is the most powerful of a long chain of AIPAC representatives - who seemingly represent Israel's geopolitical interests in both North- and Latin America. AIPAC has positioned its de-facto agents throughout the fabrique of U.S. foreign policy sector.

 

RESPECTABLE LADY

12:42 AM ET

March 22, 2012

On "Favored Nations" George Washington sez.....

The Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave.

It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests.

33 So likewise, a passionate attachment of one Nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite Nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest, in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite Nation of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the Nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained; and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld.

 

ALICJA LARSSON

2:30 AM ET

March 22, 2012

To Nasser and few others, You

To Nasser and few others,

You seem to believe that people have their opinions based exclusively on their natonality or citizenship or religion. What if you didn't know if Miller, the writer of the article, was Jewish or not? Do all the Arabs or the Muslims or the Americans or the Swedish by definition share the same opinion on every subject? Please, make an effort to evaluate an argument regardless of who a person is.

 

CHAIBROOK

1:36 PM ET

March 23, 2012

Actually...

Alicja,

For Nasser and quite a few others to shed their prejudices would mean to open their minds, when it comes to them Jooz, Nasser and his ilk care liitle about truth. They are so blinded in their prejudices (even when they claim to have none!), that historical truth is just a bothersome inconvenient barrier that should be trampled at will.

A little knowledge of American history, a little knowledge of the State Department's Real Politik and the disasters it wrought, would soon convince anyone with an open mind as to is the more aggressive, who is playing the unfortunate victim AND above all... Why is it that the oil exporting Arab World, whose despots are pocketing Western billions are only paying lip service to the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and it is Europe and the US who are pouring the billions into Palestine. What other country, autonomous region, etc. employs over 10% of its population in "government service?"

Even if the facts were presented to these fine specimens of mankind, their prejudices will still convince them that no Jew alive can be right. Israel started as a socialist country (hear that progressives?!?!?), it veered politically (but not economically) to the right when the left's tactics only resulted in further anti-Israel terror!!! Even now over 50% of Israelis favor a 2 state solution, less than 10% of Gazans accept it!

Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza, instead they got 1000 of rockets rained upon the border towns.

Now, you bigots, my blood is as red as yours, my life is worth not an iota less than yours, and if you come to hurt me or my loved ones I'll fight back just as you would if you are anything other than spineless, thoughtless, ignorant fools. The fact remains that there could easily have been two separate countries in 1947, when Ben Gurion accepted the UN's Partition Plan, THE ARABS DID NOT!!! Within hours of becoming a country in 1948, Israel was invaded by 5 Arab armies. Dem Jooz were outnumbered, out armed, but they fought back without American weapons and repelled five Arab armies, in 1956 the Arabists in the State Department were rooting for Egypt and in spite of the US State Department, dem Jooz defeated Abd'el Gamal Nasser. In '67, they won the war again and became a regional power. In '73 they were attacked again by their loving neighbors (outnumbering dem Jooz and armed with Russian, French and British weapons), the Israelis had American, French and '67 captured Russian weapons and again they repelled the aggressors.

Israel is sick of war, we want peace, but not at the price of our lives! We Jooz, have been conquered and scattered throughout history by the mightiest empires. Jooz are still here, the once glorious empires are mostly remembered by the beauty of their ruins...

 

EAGLE24

3:52 AM ET

March 22, 2012

I think it would be useful

I think it would be useful for Mr Miller to (re?)read Walt and Mearsheimer's excellent book "The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy" which indeed gave me hope that something positive may be happening. I'm still waiting though...

 

SIN NOMBRE

3:58 AM ET

March 22, 2012

On "Up" meaning "Down," and other curiosities

I always get a kick out of these rambling denialist pieces that oh-so-carefully jump their way around selective historical facts that in the end they establish absolute nothing other than self-advertising for the authors. They're just so obviously and purely little sentiment memos, assuring someone the author is concerned about that yes, their heart is still in the self-perceived "right" place.

What's funny about them is that because the reality they deny is so glaring, almost inevitably their authors have to face up to at least one such recent incident whereupon, because it so utterly punctures their thesis, they have to essentially execute some blatant, in-your-face, drive-by idiocy. It's almost as if it's a requirement: "See?," they as much say to whomever they are really writing for, "I'm so much with you that I'm willing to say the most blatantly incredible thing...."

And, sure enough, here's Miller's necessary groveling where he's speaking of Obama's caving on his request for a temporary freeze on Israel's settlement building, with me using asterisks to highlight Miller's oh-so delicate wording:

"That Obama was *seen* to have backed down in the end only made matters worse, making it *appear* that he lost his nerve with Netanyahu. Even so, *none* of this means the Israelis run the White House."

So in other words here's Miller's explanations of this incident which would otherwise seem a great big sucking dagger in the heart of his thesis:

A.) Obama didn't really back down due to pro-Israeil pressure, he only *seemed* to;

B.) Obama did back down, but it only *appeared* that he did so because of pro-Israeli pressure;

C.) Obama did back down and did so because of pro-Israeli pressure but for some utterly unexplained reason this still doesn't mean that pro-Israeli pressure caused him to back down.

Or, in other words, the Millerian injunction when we see something he doesn't like us to see is as follows:

A.) We can't *really* see what we are seeing;

B.) We *are* seeing what we are seeing, but it only *appears* to mean what we see;

C.) And when we really *are* seeing what we see and it can't mean anything *other* than what it means, for some reason it still can't mean what it means.

Congratulations Mr. Miller! You've shown your commitment to the cause! Boldly uttered the necessary fatuity, insulting the intelligence of everyone else, showing who you really care about. Your penitence is noted....

 

AREN HAICH

7:36 PM ET

March 22, 2012

The Unintended Fun Of Curiosities

Well done.
You show how dismantling Aaron David Miller’s arguments can be a thoroughly enjoyable exercise.
I hope Aaron Miller will learn from your post and have fun while reading it.

 

JOHNBOY4546

5:13 AM ET

March 22, 2012

And this bit is an insult to our intelligence

AM: "No U.S. president would pick a fight with a close ally, particularly one that had strong domestic support, without good reason and a clear purpose."

Which is immediately followed by two examples that illustrate quite a different conclusion i.e. if you are going to pick a FIGHT with Israel then come prepared for a FIGHT.

To wit.....
GHWB: I want you to stop settlement construction.
Shamir: Yeah, and what if we don't?
GHWB: No More F**king Loans For You Guys!
Shamir: Okey-dokey, I'm stopping the bulldozers now.

Versus....
BO: I want you to stop settlement construction.
Bibi: Yeah, and what if we don't?
BO: Err, gosh, nothin' much, I guess.
Bibi: Then the answer is "f**k off".

It's not that one had a "clear purpose" and the other didn't (the "purpose" was identical), but that the former did not hesitate to wave a "clear threat" over the Israeli heads, and the latter didn't have the fight in him.

 

CHARLI12

5:47 AM ET

March 22, 2012

Think about it

Awesome article written by author.The author tries his best effort to explain about many senior officails in U.S. They are heighly involved in which is happening in U.S. The U.S. president should think about and stop this thing very soon. Because it is very harmful for U.S.
I think that author suggests that U.S.that to Beaware from all these types of peoples.

car for cash

 

CHAIBROOK

3:07 PM ET

March 23, 2012

"Beaware from all these types of peoples"

Charli12,

And who are "all these types of people?" Do you mean those nefarious Jooz?!?!?

 

MADRID

8:01 AM ET

March 22, 2012

You don't seem to have convinced anyone, Aaron David Miller.

At least at the level of public opinion-- not the same thing as the all important force of cold, hard cash, mind you-- the times (and the opinions of the American populace) seem to be a-changing.

Maybe you guys need a new team of consent-manufacturers....

 

MADRID

8:11 AM ET

March 22, 2012

current consent-manufacturers on Israel should be worried...

And not just by the rash of skeptics here, but try reading the comments sections on such articles as Miller's in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the LA Times or even now the Wall Street Journal.

Articles like this face just as much ridicule. The kinds of people that read those papers-- even the Wall Street Journal for gosh sakes-- are beginning to despise the US so-called alliance with Israel, which they perceive as manipulation by a foreign lobby, regardless of Miller's and others' strenuous efforts to argue otherwise.

Time for the GIYUS (Give Israel Your United Support) brigades to start monitoring those comments sections more assiduously, boys!

 

AREN HAICH

7:45 PM ET

March 22, 2012

Heartwarming Input

Perhaps there is still some hope for America's future!

 

WILLIAMBILEK

8:53 AM ET

March 22, 2012

Rights of American citizens

Dr. Miller has written long, and extensively from his position supporting what he, as an American, believed was best for America. I have faulted him for his closed-mindedness to the reality of how many Jews, inside and outside Israel, view their condition, position, and future, as tied to their past, and to the nation state of the Jewish People.

AIPAC is an AMERICAN organization, comprised of many thousands of AMERICANS of all races, religions, colors, and creeds, who sincerely believe that a strong U.S.-Israel relationship is important to, and in the interest of, AMERICA. Some may disagree. That is their right, as Americans. But so is it the right of other Americans to express their views to their elected representatives through an organized group, just as the AMA, AARP, the NRA and other lobbying groups do. The attempts of bloggers on this post, Walt and Mearsheimer, et al, to besmirch the motives of Americans with whom they disagree is indicative of the malaise that grips our divided country today.

 

MADRID

9:49 AM ET

March 22, 2012

Hilarious response

AIPAC is the least diverse organization on the planet. What really gets me is how you describe America as gripped by "malaise." If only it was malaise-- wait til this spring and summer, when the protestors hit the streets. I think the words you will be using are rage, anger, etc.

 

RESPECTABLE LADY

11:24 AM ET

March 22, 2012

AIPAC

Last weekend, Barack Obama dutifully reported to the AIPAC meeting and pathetically begged his audience of wealthy and disloyal U.S. citizens to be patient with him as he needs more time to prepare to attack Iran. To protect his reelection chances, Obama in essence explained, he needs to keep pursuing sanctions against Iran to prove to his party’s Pacifist/peace wing that he has exhausted all non-military options. (This, in itself, is a certain sign of Obama’s innate duplicity as there obviously is no Pacifist or pro-peace wing in the Democratic Party — nor is there an American peace movement — unless there is a Republican president in the White House.)

“Please, please, please — oh, please!,” the enslaved-to-AIPAC Obama pleaded, give me a few more months to fool the American electorate with talk of effective sanctions and then I will go to war for you against Iran and provide as many of America’s soldier-children as necessary to be killed for the Israeli theocracy.

 

ANONYMIZ

9:05 AM ET

March 22, 2012

Jerusalem and Washington

The writer might want to check his facts--the glaring error in the headline casts a shadow over the entire piece.

 

RESPECTABLE LADY

9:42 AM ET

March 22, 2012

Exactly

Like I said in the very first comment: Capitol Hill is not subservient to Israel.

Capitol Hill (and Admin.) are subservient to the right-wing militant Likudnik subset of Israeli polity.

How do you explain the pilgrimages to AIPAC?

Furthermore, it ain't just our Politicos.

It's also the media: e.g., former Times executive editor Max Frankel acknowledged the impact his own pro-Israel attitude had on his editorial choices. In his words: “I was much more deeply devoted to Israel than I dared to assert.” He goes on: “Fortified by my knowledge of Israel and my friendships there, I myself wrote most of our Middle East commentaries. As more Arab than Jewish readers recognized, I wrote them from a pro-Israel perspective.”

Ref: Max Frankel, The Times of My Life And My Life with the Times (NY: Random House, 1999), pp. 401?403.

For more details see the view of this senior ex-CIA head of the Osama Bin Laden Desk:

http://non-intervention.com/1035/slavery-in-america-you-bet-listen-to-obama-and-romney/

 

DUAGO

5:31 PM ET

March 23, 2012

Error in judgement or intention?

Nah just overconfidence!

 

MRJS1G

10:21 AM ET

March 22, 2012

Reading the comments...

How many actually read the article -- and are, more importantly, further willing to engage in a civil discussion without 'ad hominem' attacks...?

 

RESPECTABLE LADY

10:29 AM ET

March 22, 2012

Out of arguments?

This is what G. Washington said -- and it contradicts Miller's view.

Where is the ad Hominem? You do not have an argument so are casting others' legitimate arguments as ad Hominems when they are not.

Do you have an argument?

=== President Washington said ====

"The Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave.

It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests.

33 So likewise, a passionate attachment of one Nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite Nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest, in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite Nation of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the Nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained; and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld.

 

SPOOD

2:59 PM ET

March 22, 2012

RL, you are a Paulie. There is no reason to take you seriously

Which is why Washington was the finest mind of the EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. Three hundred years later, it doesn't fly.

I know you are just rehashing the stupidity of Ron Paul as your POV, but frankly it didn't really make sense back then (our first foreign conflict was under Jefferson) and it sounds even dumber now.

 

JGARBUZ

10:50 AM ET

March 22, 2012

Israel is the barbed wire against Islamofascism

WE may not be at war with the Muslim world, but the Muslim world does see itself at war with the West, and has been since the 7th century. Israel is only a dike, barbed wire, a barrier between the forces of Allah and the infidel West that must and shall be subdued and placed under the banner of Allah!

Those who believe what I just wrote, will support Israel. Those who don't won't. It's that simple.

It is the religious OBJECTIVE and DUTY of Islam and Muslims to bring the world into submission to Allah, and to recognize that Muhammad was His final Prophet. Just as it is the duty of true Christians to evangelize and "save" the souls of sinners who still do not accept Christ, so it is the duty of Muslims to bring the infidel into submission under the banner of Islam.

 

RESPECTABLE LADY

10:57 AM ET

March 22, 2012

Or the other way around.

Alternatively, one could argue that we are the target of Islamofascism because of our support of Israel.

If we did not give Israel arms (with which they kill civilians, in contravention of our own Arms Export Control Act) maybe them muslim infidels would not attack us.

I think this is what Washington was getting at in the quote above.

 

JGARBUZ

11:01 AM ET

March 22, 2012

First US war after Revolution was agianst Muslim Pirates!

Jefferson sent the US navy to fight the Muslim Barbary pirates in 1801. The first war the US was forced to fight after it got independence was with the Muslim pirate states of North Africa. Why do you suppose that was?

 

JGARBUZ

11:06 AM ET

March 22, 2012

Israel had no US arms in 1948 nor in 1956 nor in 1967

The US did not start arming Israel until it was in US's interest to do so, only after 1967 because ISrael had defeated the SOviet-backed Arab armies using French planes and British tanks. Today Israel makes its own tanks and missiles and UAV drones, and could make planes if it were worth doing, which it is not. Actually, the US arms the Arab states far more than it arms Israel! US arms sales to the Muslims states are at least 3 times greater than what it gives or sells to Israel! Israel is surrounded by states that have US F-16s and F-15s and M-1 tanks in Egypt for example.

 

DUAGO

5:33 PM ET

March 23, 2012

I get your point....

What side are you on?

 

FPWATCHER29

3:13 AM ET

March 25, 2012

There is no more

There is no more islamofascism than zionistofascism : the truth is that you have stolen a land that you had never owned...Israel mistreats the palestinian people, the real indigeneous one, and replaced it with immigrants coming from all over the world who according to common sense should never had been allowed to emigrate there...The terror Israel inflicts to civlians in both Palestine and neighbooring countries is unmatchable...

 

JGARBUZ

10:59 AM ET

March 22, 2012

Jefferson sent the US navy to fight the Muslim Barbary pirates

in 1801. The first war the US was forced to fight after it got independence was with the Muslim pirate states of North Africa. Why do you suppose that was?

 

RESPECTABLE LADY

11:13 AM ET

March 22, 2012

Did pirates come here or we go there?

Do you think it was the "pirate" part or the "muslim" part that was important?

Do you think it was because US went to Barbary or because the Pirates came to NYC?

Here is the CIA officer who was in charge of hunting down Osama -- do you think this guy is a secret muslim, like Obama?:

http://non-intervention.com/1035/slavery-in-america-you-bet-listen-to-obama-and-romney/

 

JGARBUZ

11:49 AM ET

March 22, 2012

Why don' t you read some history and find out?

The Muslims believed that the Mediterranean was a Muslim lake and that they could shake down every ship, and take infidels captives. That went on until finally the US and the Europeans defeated the Barbary states and soon occupied the Maghreb (North Africa), which them became European colonies.

But the war between Islam and Christendom has gone on since Muhammad and his Caliph Umar burst out of Arabia with their new religion and conquered virtually all the lands between China and France, including Spain, SIcily and others. The Muslim side began to really lose in the 17th century and went into decline as the West rose in technology and power. SO now the Islamic forces have begun to rise, especially with the rise of Shia Iran to resume the struggle with the West. But this is only the continuation of a 1300 year old struggle for whose ideas will dominate, western or Islamic. The outcome remains to be seen.

 

RESPECTABLE LADY

11:52 AM ET

March 22, 2012

Logic much?

Oh, sort of like France and Spain and UK thought of the caribbean as their lake?

Is this a muslim-only disease?

Check your racism.

 

RESPECTABLE LADY

11:54 AM ET

March 22, 2012

So what do you think we should about all these evil muslims?

So what do you think we should about all these evil muslims?

Maybe put them on trains and concentrate them? They seem to be sub-human from your description.

 

JGARBUZ

12:13 PM ET

March 22, 2012

They probably should not have been allowed to immigrate

into the West and the US in the first place. It was LIBERAL JEWS like Senator Jacob Javits of my New York that pushed for the change in the immigration laws in 1965 that opened the floodgates of third world immigration into the United States. Now I am an immigrant myself, born in the refugee camp in Germany after WWII. We were waiting to go to Palestine, when Truman opened the door to some 50,000 of us, and so we came to Brooklyn instead of Beersheba instead. But we were grateful to the US. We were homeless. My parent's first families were murdered, and they were Holocaust survivors, and their own homes and properties were gone and occupied by others. Many surviving Jews trying to go back to what was left of their homes in Poland were killed or chased away. So about 200,000 Jews were in DP camps such as the one I was born in. And General Patton, now the Governor of Bavaria, hated JEws and loved Nazis, and kept barbed wire around our camps until the Jewish community forced Truman to get Eisenhower to fire Patton, who died in a hospital from a traffic accident in Gemany on his to the airport on his way back to the US.

I was born a refugee but the US gave us sanctuary and freedom, for which we were eternally grateful. To the Muslim immigrants in America feel the same way? They have 56 Muslim states, including 21 Arab states. Why are they here? Could the Palestinian refugees have gotten citizenship in Lebanon or the other Arab states? There was no Jewish state yet when I was born. There is only half of one now.

The Muslims in America are promotoing anti Israel and anti-Jewish propaganda and some of them are a menace. Not all, by any means, but their religion has an imperialistic bent which says that Islam must triumph using any means necessary. That is why Muslims pose a threat, IMO.

 

JGARBUZ

12:28 PM ET

March 22, 2012

It has nothing to do with racism.

It was Arab imperialism under the cloak of Islam, versus Western imperialism under the cloak of Christian civilization. I oppose all imperialism regardless of the source or whatever it cloaks itself under. But certain things should be considered "settled." The conquest of the Americas by the Europeans, Spaniards in the south, English speakers in the north, have created facts on the ground like the US, Canada, Argentina, Australia in the east, etc. But there are also 56 Muslim states. They are facts on the ground. And there is one very tiny Jewish state now, and it should be fully accepted as a FACT too! After 63 years you would think it would be, but go tell that the Muslims! And tell the Muslims that their Sharia cannot be extended beyond those 56 states nor will Israel be eradicated unless they want total war and destruction. At some point things have to be accepted as "settled law."

 

RESPECTABLE LADY

12:34 PM ET

March 22, 2012

OK

More or less agree -- only I think a theocratic state like Israel has no business expecting support from the US, a state based on separation of church and state.

Fine -- let Israel fight its own battles. Not my problem.

No US blood or $ for anyone.

 

JGARBUZ

12:45 PM ET

March 22, 2012

Israel is DEFINITELY NOT a theocratic state! It is a

secular western democracy that also happens to be the homeland of the Jewish nation. Jewish nationhood goes back at least to King David of Judah. Even Christians made a point of tracing the descent of Jesus back to a Judean king! He was a King of a state. A nation. In exile, the Jews were characterized as just another religion, but in fact, Jews are a tribal nation with a tribal religion, no different than the Apaches or Navajo or any other tribe.

But the modern State of ISrael is based on mostly British Common law, and makes use of residual Ottoman laws as well as British ordinances dating back to pre-state periods. Halacha or ancient Jewish law has only a very minor role in the life of the JEwish state. Too minor for the taste of the 20% or so who consider themselves pious (hassidic) or otherwise religious Jews. Most Jews today, like most Christians today, are mostly secular and give only lip service to certain mininal Jewish practices. Many don't even do that much.

 

RESPECTABLE LADY

11:18 AM ET

March 22, 2012

Truman supported Israel for political expediency not morals

Truman told his assembled American diplomats from Arab countries:

“I am sorry, gentlemen, but I have to answer to hundreds of thousands who are anxious for the success of Zionism; I do not have hundreds of thousands of Arabs in my constituency”.

 

JGARBUZ

11:57 AM ET

March 22, 2012

Gromyko of the USSR was the first to call for a Jewish State

in the halls of the UN in 1946.Once the USSR in the UN backed the idea of recognizing a Jewish state, because Stalin was hoping it would become a Jewish communist state, Truman and the US had no choice but to beat the Russian to the punch. How would it look after the Holocaust if the Soviets backed a Jewish state, and the West, including the US balked? As Abba Eban said, once he saw that the USSR in the UN Security COuncil had no objection to a JEwish state in Palestine, he knew that the Zionist cause had prevailed. The US then raced to beat the USSR to actually recognize the JEwish state after the vote in General Assembly was over. AGain, it was for US interests, not for Jewish interest. A Jewish communist state with a harbor in Haifa in the middle of the Mediterranean would have give the Soviet Union a tremendous base of operation. But, as it turned out, Israel chose to go western and democratic and then Stalin turned on the JEws and threw his support to the Arabs when he felt the Jews had betrayed him. Remember it was Czechoslovakia (thanks to Stalin) that provided the Jews with arms to defend their new state, not the US. The US had an arms embargo on both sides, and often stopped arms from being smuggled out of the US to Israel back then.

 

RESPECTABLE LADY

12:10 PM ET

March 22, 2012

so?

point?

 

RESPECTABLE LADY

12:26 PM ET

March 22, 2012

But Israel is not western and democractic

This is what the Israeli Education Minister says about Israel:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2007/01/08/yes-there-is-apartheid-in-israel/

Jewish self-righteousness is taken for granted among ourselves to such an extent that we fail to see what’s right in front of our eyes. It’s simply inconceivable that the ultimate victims, the Jews, can carry out evil deeds. Nevertheless, the state of Israel practises its own, quite violent, form of Apartheid with the native Palestinian population.

The US Jewish Establishment’s onslaught on former President Jimmy Carter is based on him daring to tell the truth which is known to all: through its army, the government of Israel practises a brutal form of Apartheid in the territory it occupies. Its army has turned every Palestinian village and town into a fenced-in, or blocked-in, detention camp. All this is done in order to keep an eye on the population’s movements and to make its life difficult. Israel even imposes a total curfew whenever the settlers, who have illegally usurped the Palestinians’ land, celebrate their holidays or conduct their parades.

[............]

Apartheid is defined therein as an international crime that among other things includes using different legal instruments to rule over different racial groups, thus depriving people of their human rights. Isn’t freedom of travel one of these rights?

In the past, the US Jewish community leaders were quite familiar with the meaning of those conventions. For some reason, however, they are convinced that Israel is allowed to contravene them. It’s OK to kill civilians, women and children, old people and parents with their children, deliberately or otherwise without accepting any responsibility. It’s permissible to rob people of their lands, destroy their crops, and cage them up like animals in the zoo. From now on, Israelis and International humanitarian organisations’ volunteers are prohibited from assisting a woman in labour by taking her to the hospital. [Israeli human rights group] Yesh Din volunteers cannot take a robbed and beaten-up Palestinian to the police station to lodge a complaint. (Police stations are located at the heart of the settlements.) Is there anyone who believes that this is not Apartheid?

Jimmy Carter does not need me to defend his reputation that has been sullied by Israelophile community officials. The trouble is that their love of Israel distorts their judgment and blinds them from seeing what’s in front of them. Israel is an occupying power that for 40 years has been oppressing an indigenous people, which is entitled to a sovereign and independent existence while living in peace with us. We should remember that we too used very violent terror against foreign rule because we wanted our own state. And the list of victims of terror is quite long and extensive.

We do limit ourselves to denying the [Palestinian] people human rights. We not only rob of them of their freedom, land and water. We apply collective punishment to millions of people and even, in revenge-driven frenzy, destroy the electricity supply for one and half million civilians. Let them "sit in the darkness" and "starve".

Employees cannot be paid their wages because Israel is holding 500 million shekels that belong to the Palestinians. And after all that we remain "pure as the driven snow". There are no moral blemishes on our actions. There is no racial separation. There is no Apartheid. It’s an invention of the enemies of Israel. Hooray for our brothers and sisters in the US! Your devotion is very much appreciated. You have truly removed a nasty stain from us. Now there can be an extra spring in our step as we confidently abuse the Palestinian population, using the "most moral army in the world".

[Translated by Sol Salbe]

SHULAMIT ALONI is the former Education Minister of Israel. She has been awarded both the Israel Prize and the Emil Grunzweig Human Rights Award by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.

 

JGARBUZ

12:54 PM ET

March 22, 2012

In Israel, as in America or any western democratic state

anyone can freely say anything, or write anything, and not get jailed, unless it is a military or national security secret. So ISraelis can crtiicize their government every bit as freely, and I would even more so, than can Americans criticize their gov't. Free speech is the hallmark of democracy. So you can quote to me basketfuls of Jews who criticize Israel or Jewry, etc., and all it means is that unlike in most Muslim countries, the Jewish state is a free and democratic country where anything goes as long as it doesn't directly harm national security.
In Israel, only criminals and those who are working to promote terrorism, and actual terrorists themselves, sit in jail. No one in Israel is in jail just for speaking against the state or even for being antisemitic! There is not even a law against Holocaust denial in Israel as there is in Germany and Austria!

 

JGARBUZ

12:58 PM ET

March 22, 2012

P.S., the "Palestinians" are NOT INDIGENOUS. They are not

the "indians" nor aborigenes of Canaan! Even the Canaanites were not indigenous. They supplanted a previous people after 3000 BC. And Hebrew is the only remaining Canaanite language, whereas Arabic is a foreign import brought in the by the Arab conquerors in 638 AD, along with their new Muslim religion. So please stop spreading these old discreditedl myths. They don't promote serious dialogue.

 

RESPECTABLE LADY

1:04 PM ET

March 22, 2012

Original inhabitants were fish

Jews and Arabs are really the same:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/nov/25/medicalscience.genetics

 

JGARBUZ

1:04 PM ET

March 22, 2012

So? Point? The point is that the US gives mixed support

to Israel because of self-interest, and also arms Israel's enemies because of self-interest. Next to Iran, the greatest military threat to Israel comes from the US F-16s, F-15s, Harpoon missiles, M-1A tanks that the US has supplied to the Arabs. Obama signed a $60 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia just last December, and a deal to sell Turkey, no longer a friend of Israel, some 100 F-35 fighters. So the US does what's in its own economic and geopolitical interests, and getting rid of Israel is not in the US interest, because in the final analysis, Israel is the only western democratic ally the US has in that region that it could count on if push comes to shove. Getting rid of ISrael would be like getting rid of Britain. It would be just be more surrending of allies to the Islamofascist enemies. Remember, the US is the TARGET; Israel is just barbed wire to be brought down or stepped over. It is not the end goal of the Jihad. The end goal of the Jidad is to bring down Western Civilization and turn it into a Muslim caliphate under Sharia law.

 

RESPECTABLE LADY

1:14 PM ET

March 22, 2012

Extermists left and right: Jewish Sharia no better

Looks like crazy Jihadi Zionists are no better:

http://jezebel.com/5871293/orthodox-israelis-spit-on-whorish-8+year+old-girl-for-going-to-school

An American girl attempting to walk to her Jewish school in Israel is subjected to daily taunting and physical intimidation so bad that she says it makes her afraid to go to school. Her tormenters aren't fellow children, but rather adult men upset by the presence of the "immodest" girls attending school in their ultra-Orthodox neighborhood. And now, the town's male residents are clashing with police and media over their the gender integration they say insults their faith. Eight-year-old girls can be such whores.

The case of 8-year-old Naama Margolese, who was born in Chicago, has upset some Israelis, and for good reason. She says she's afraid to walk to her all-girls school in Beit Shemesh, near Jerusalem, because of taunting from Ultra-Orthodox men. They spit on her, call her a whore, throw rocks, and shout at her. As a result, Naama says her "tummy hurts" when she walks to school.

Not that it should matter, but Margolese isn't full glitzing down the street in a Nicki Minaj outfit, gaily skipping off to Toddlers & Tiaras & Kippahs school during these impromptu stoning sessions; she's walking to an Orthodox all girls' school in her uniform, which consists of a long skirt, a high-necked, long sleeved shirt. But the clothing of Naama and her classmates, modest by nearly any other standard, are not modest enough for the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men of Beit Shemesh. Parents attempting to escort their daughters to the school are also subjected to the same treatment.

In recent months, tension between the secular, Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Beit Shemesh have escalated, especially with the erection of an all-girls school the Ultra-Orthodox say is encroachment on their beliefs. The community has erected signs warning sidewalk walkers to remain separated by gender and deployed "modesty patrols" designed to make sure the natural sluttery of women is kept in check. (I feel like I've heard this one before...)

The Israeli government doesn't support segregation of the sexes or the agenda of the Ultra-Orthodox, but, according to MSNBC, they have "turned a blind eye" to much of the community's practices while awarding them generous government subsidies, as the minority fundamentalist population typically kept their hands (and rocks) to themselves. But now that the group, which comprises about 10% of Israel's population, is becoming more aggressive, police have stepped in, and they've also found themselves the objects of the group's derision. Yesterday, protesters pelted police with rocks when they attempted to remove illegal gender segregating signs, lit some garbage cans on fire, and called a news crew who attempted to film the signs "anti-Semitic." Talk about stoning the messenger.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has spoken out strongly against the conduct of Beit Shemesh, saying that those responsible would be stopped and arrested.

Fringe group responds to minor perceived trespass on their ideology with violent overreaction that escalates into something totally out of control that ends up harming everyone involved? People are called bigots because they dared identify something as bigotry? The world continues apace.

 

JGARBUZ

5:04 PM ET

March 22, 2012

Apaches and Sioux are really the same.

Germans and French are really the same. Irish and Welsh are really the same. Poles and Russians are really the same. Etc. Your argument is ridiculous. The Arabs have PLENTY OF Land. Tiny Israel is Jewish land, and the Arabs living on it are no different than Jews living on German land.

 

WARREN METZLER

8:28 AM ET

March 23, 2012

I see

Let me see here. According to you, Arabs have been in Palestine for close to 2,000 years. But they are not yet indigenous. My current dictionary is obviously faulty. I wonder it AIPAC sells Israeli friendly dictionaries?

 

JGARBUZ

2:20 PM ET

March 23, 2012

Jews are known to have been in Germany in 300 AD

or 1700 years. Some even before. SO when do Jews become "indigenous" to Germany? Jews were in Iraq for 2,500 years, When do the IRaqis give them a Jewish state of their own? When does Germany give its Jews a state of their own? Why should Arabs have another Arab state on Jewish soil? What gives Arabs the right to claim any land outside of Arabia?

 

DUAGO

7:05 PM ET

March 23, 2012

Isaac and Ishmael - two sons of Abraham

We have been saying that for over 1400 years. Arabs (and our holy prophet Muhammad [peace and blessings be upon him]) is from the lineage of Ishamael, the Jewish people are from the lineage of Isaac.

Muslims say Abraham had two sons, Jewish people have been denying this up till now and say there was only one. Now science proves Muslims to be correct.

After Abraham, all prophets came from his lineage. First from the line of Isaac e.g. Jacob, Joseph etc but when Jewish people corrupted their books and refused to obey the word of Allah, the final messenger came from the lineage of Ishmael (the elder son of Abraham).

There is no messiah to come. Only the anti-Christ. So don't be deceived. We do believe in the second coming of Jesus [peace and blessings be upon him] but he will come to reveal the truth.

 

DIANA RELKE

12:58 PM ET

March 22, 2012

oh, really?

So Israel’s elite spy networks acquiring U.S. nuclear technologies while evading criminal and diplomatic consequences is just an Ooops?

 

JGARBUZ

1:11 PM ET

March 22, 2012

America acquired JEWISH Nuclear capabilities, not the

other way around. Israel did not acquire any nuclear help from the US. QUite the opposite, the US opposed Israel's nuclear program, but was unable to stop it because there was no NPT at that time, and ISrael was not in violation of any treaty. But it was Jews who invented the atomic bomb FOR America in 1945, and so ISrael had plenty of Jewish physicists who knew all about it from day one. When the US refused to give Israel a treaty of alliance under Eisenhower, and after Khruschev threatened Israel with a rocket attack in 1956 for defeating the Egyptian army, Israel and France decided to collaborate for mutual reasons. France needed Jewish nuclear knowledge, and Israel needed French money and technology to build Dimona. The US was opposed and forced ISrael to submit to annual "inspections," from 1962-1969, until Nixon stopped the charade. As a result, the US pressed the UN to draft a Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as a result of its failure to stop Israel, India and Pakistan from developing their own nuclear deterrents.

 

RESPECTABLE LADY

1:16 PM ET

March 22, 2012

Logic much?

And American got Saudi Oil so Saudis should also be allowed to spy on us...is that your logic?

 

JGARBUZ

5:06 PM ET

March 22, 2012

EVeryone spies on everyone.

It's all part of the game.

 

DIANA RELKE

9:18 PM ET

March 23, 2012

spying

It's a game that exacts consequences for those who get caught -- unless you happen to be a spy for Israel caught spying on the US.

 

LKPFRED

1:32 PM ET

March 22, 2012

The most infuriating aspect

The most infuriating aspect of the offerings of Mr. Miller and his ilk is the contempt they demonstrate incessantly for the intelligence or Common Sense of the Goyim. One has only to use Jewish and Israeli sources: Haaretz, Jerusalem Post, Jewish Forward, Huffington Post (some gentiles), Mondeweiss, the Aipac website itself and one cannot escape the position that, yes, Likud and its American Mignons do dominate American Mideast policy. No amount of medication could put one in a frame of mind to conclude that withdrawing from UNESCO funding (thanks! Jon Stewart!) or a UN veto of our own Policies on the Settlers was other than a Likud display of dominance over US policy.
Of course, there are numerous incidences where--as in the recent case of the Republican National Committee position that Israel policy show be based on Biblical teaching--the ilk are correct.

 

RESPECTABLE LADY

2:49 PM ET

March 22, 2012

No need for a lobby if what you are doing is "right?

I think they also feel that it is the natural and correct course for America, which -- were it the case -- would obviate the need for a Zealous powerful lobby.

It is the fact that what AIPAC spouts is unnatural and contrary to American interests that a powerful lobby is needed at all.

BTW, the original "Zealot" tribe were -- surprise -- Jewish. Wiki it

 

SPOOD

3:03 PM ET

March 22, 2012

Tell that to AARP, the Religious Right and Environmentalists

RespectableLady, you are truly moronic. Lobbying is what all organizations do when they want to get their agenda into the halls of congress.

You are truly ignorant as to the political process, your prior posts show you are more likely to swallow propaganda rather than discuss actual facts and you don't even bother to make a sensible argument.

 

RESPECTABLE LADY

3:09 PM ET

March 22, 2012

ALL lobbies skew democracy

I happen to think ALL lobbies skew democracy and are not needed, and sometimes harmful to most citizens. Including AARP and Teachers Union etc.

It's pretty crazy: I think our rep's should not get bribes for access.

Crazy old me liberal non-zionist Jew.

 

RESPECTABLE LADY

3:10 PM ET

March 22, 2012

President Washington

=== President Washington said ====

"The Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave.

It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests.

33 So likewise, a passionate attachment of one Nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite Nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest, in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite Nation of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the Nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained; and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld.

 

WHISKEYPAPA

3:11 PM ET

March 22, 2012

Anti-Semetic

I am not anti-semetic.

I am totally anti-Israel.

Walt

 

WHISKEYPAPA

3:11 PM ET

March 22, 2012

Anti-Semetic

I am not anti-semetic.

I am totally anti-Israel.

Walt

 

WHISKEYPAPA

3:13 PM ET

March 22, 2012

Anti-Sem@tic

"Your submission has triggered the spam filter and will not be accepted."

Ha!

I guess the truth hurts.

Walt

 

WHISKEYPAPA

3:14 PM ET

March 22, 2012

So much for the spam filter

My note went through not once, but twice.

Walt

 

KXB

3:32 PM ET

March 22, 2012

Do yo believe me or your lying eyes?

So, Miller says that he worked to push forward a settlement that was in Israel's favor, but hey, his heart was in the right place. Furthermore, Miller intentionally mixes up lobbying Congress and lobbying the President. At different times, different presidents have told the Israelis to buzz off. Reagan left them in their Lebanese mess. Bush 41 dragged them kicking and screaming to a peace table with Jordan. Bush 43 thought their 2007 request to attack Iran laughable after their humbling by Hezbollah in 2006. So, yes, presidents can, if necessary, turn down the Israelis.

Congress is a joke. Much as gun policy is written by the NRA, government employee unions carry a lot of clout, and no one touches Social Security because of AARP - so Mideast policy is lopsided in Israel's favor.

When other American friends such as the UK, France, Japan, South Korea, and India have told us that we'd be better off bringing a sense of balance to our Mideast policy, maybe they are worth listening to, instead of the Aaron David Miller's of the Beltway.

 

RESPECTABLE LADY

3:55 PM ET

March 22, 2012

Distinction between Zionism and JUdaism

Whiskypapa is right that there's a lot of anti-Semitism in the world.

But he fails to note one of the main causes: Zionism.

Since the early 20th century, Zionists have waged a relentless campaign to equate their political movement with the Jewish religion. They have largely succeeded; in the eyes of many, Zionism and Judaism are one and the same, and opposition to Zionism becomes opposition to Judaism. But that doesn't change the fact that the two are antithetical.

I am a Jew, and I know from my religious education that if the Jewish people are to attain the Holy Land, it will be through the Messiah, and not with guns.

Jews are taught to heal the world ("tikkun olam"), not to displace families, create refugee camps, and practice collective punishment such as that used against Jews in the past.

So long as this confounding of Zionism with Judaism continues, it will sow anti-Semitism.

But, in the end, anti-Semitism serves the Zionist ideology.

 

JGARBUZ

5:07 PM ET

March 22, 2012

Jews are a nation. Those who don't want to be part of it

can join another tribe. Go to a Mosque and become a Muslim Arab. You won't be missed. Judaism without ISrael is like Christianity without Christ. Totally meaningless.

 

RESPECTABLE LADY

9:12 PM ET

March 22, 2012

Really?

Really? If I am not a Zionist I am not Jewish? So no Jews existed before 1948?

 

JGARBUZ

1:05 AM ET

March 23, 2012

There are Apaches who don't live on Apache land too,

just as there were Jews who could not live in their homeland because it was occupied by Arabs and others who resented and persecuted Jews living in the Land of Israel. It's still the reason why most Jews don't live in Israel, because 5.5 million Arabs are still occupying scarce Jewish land. Every day one reads in the Israeli press of Arabs attacking Jews living in Israel, Judah or Samaria. And being attacked from Gaza even though Gaza was totally cleansed of Jews over 6 years ago.

But sure, one can be an Arab living outside of Arabia, and one can be a JEw living outside of ISrael, but such people are called exiles in diaspora because they are living on other people's homelands.

 

DAME BARBARA WHIFFENPOOF

5:06 PM ET

March 22, 2012

Biblical Mumbo Jumbo and other stuff

Dear JGARBUZ in their magnificent book The Bible Unearthed, Israeli archeologists Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman say no evidence historically, forensically or archeologically of a Jewish presence in Palestine prior to the dissolution of the Babylonian Empire......no Saul no David and definitly no Solomon.

 

JGARBUZ

5:16 PM ET

March 22, 2012

More recent archaeological evidence has proved

Finkelstein and Silberman are wrong. Look up the findings of Devon and others for details. The "Bible Unearthed" should be burned and buried as that book is already out of date, just as is Arthur Koestler's "13th Tribe" book, which was proven wrong in recent years by genomic science and DNA analysis.

And if there was no Jewish presence, why does the Pharaoh Menerptah mention a people called "Israel" on his 13th century BC stele? There are a lot of anti-religious "JEws" in Israel making a living as renegades and minimalists, because the Arabs pay well for anti-Israel and anti-Jewish stuff, and these kinds of renegades will happily sell their people for money just as the brothers of Joseph sold him to the Ishmaelites into servitude in Egypt. But Israel is a democracy and you can write any pack of lies you want for the vast Muslim Arab audience, for money, and there is nothing the government can do about it. That's the price of democracy. It allows traitors and renegades to run wild. In Muslim countries, such people get their tongues cut out or their throats cut. That doesn't happen in Israel.

 

RESPECTABLE LADY

5:28 PM ET

March 22, 2012

We are brothers and sisters

Jews and Arabs are really the same -- there is no master race --

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/nov/25/medicalscience.genetics

 

DUAGO

7:04 PM ET

March 23, 2012

Ishmael and Isaac - two sons of Abraham

We have been saying that for over 1400 years. Arabs (and our holy prophet Muhammad [peace and blessings be upon him]) is from the lineage of Ishamael, the Jewish people are from the lineage of Isaac.

Muslims say Abraham had two sons, Jewish people have been denying this up till now and say there was only one. Now science proves Muslims to be correct.

After Abraham, all prophets came from his lineage. First from the line of Isaac e.g. Jacob, Joseph etc but when Jewish people corrupted their books and refused to obey the word of Allah, the final messenger came from the lineage of Ishmael (the elder son of Abraham).

There is no messiah to come. Only the anti-Christ. So don't be deceived. We do believe in the second coming of Jesus [peace and blessings be upon him] but he will come to reveal the truth.

 

DAME BARBARA WHIFFENPOOF

5:54 PM ET

March 22, 2012

myths legends and fairy stories

Eight little words on a stele....no mention extra-biblically of Saul David or Solomon ....looking more like readapted Babylonian legends to moi.

 

JGARBUZ

12:47 AM ET

March 23, 2012

No Arabic found in "Palestine" dating before the 7th century AD

Arabs are simply settlers and occupiers of Jewish land. Period.

 

CRESTTWO

7:54 PM ET

March 22, 2012

Violation noted

Aren't there some sort of limitations on the number of straw man arguments permitted in one article?

He did refute the popular misconception on the left about the blood of christian children and the matzo, good job, there.

Who know that Miller had such a gift for irony?

My personal favorite bits are where israeli 'defense' forces run an American girl over with a bulldozer, or where they shoot one of our citizens in international waters, and our politicians fall over themselves to apologize to the israelis for denting their equipment.

Same thing they would do for Argentina, depend on it.

 

SIN NOMBRE

9:18 PM ET

March 22, 2012

As brilliant as it gets

CRESTTWO wrote:

"My personal favorite bits are where israeli 'defense' forces run an American girl over with a bulldozer, or where they shoot one of our citizens in international waters, and our politicians fall over themselves to apologize to the israelis for denting their equipment."

I never thought of this. Hell, if *France* did this to one of our citizens there'd be hell to pay.

Brilliant observation, if beyond pathetic reality.

So piercing in fact takes you beyond just laughing at Miller's article here to ... well, some actual anger at the bullshit. Those American citizens, after all, were Miller's *co*-citizens too.

 

JOHNBOY4546

11:58 PM ET

March 22, 2012

"Same thing they would do for Argentina, depend on it."

Goes to the heart of it, really.

Does anyone dispute that American politicians roll over when Israel does something that if done by any other nation would send those same politicians stormin' the ramparts?

After all, Israel bulldozed Rachel Corrie into the ground and double-tapped Furkan Dogan to the back of the head, and..... the USA rushed to provide political cover for Israel regarding both of those deaths.

Heck, the Israeli Prime Minister at the time (Olmert and Netanyahu, respectively) received vastly more political cover from US lawmakers for those executions of US citizens than Obama himself received when he had Anwar al-Awlaki killed.

 

JGARBUZ

12:54 AM ET

March 23, 2012

IF France did it, nobody would even mention it.

All I've heard about for the last decade has been "Rachel Corrie, Rachel Corrie." What was she doing in Gaza anyway? What business did she have there? She decided to become a martyr by standing in front of a moving tractor. Maybe if she'd been alive today she'd be standing in Toulouse, France in front of the apartment of that terrorist murderer who killed a bunch of children as well as muslim French soldiers. Rachel Corrie had no idea where she was or what she was doing. She was just trying to protect a bunch of terrorists who were happy to use to this idiot as a shield. Maybe she's in Islamic paradise servicing martyred suicide bombers.

 

SIN NOMBRE

6:02 AM ET

March 23, 2012

Can't even do it on your own dime

JGARBUZ wrote:

"All I've heard about for the last decade has been 'Rachel Corrie, Rachel Corrie.' What was she doing in Gaza anyway? What business did she have there?"

For one, because as an American citizen she objected to Israel's pathological sucking of money out of the pockets of her fellow Americans so as to pay bulldozer drivers in what I suspect is your country to flatten Palestinian and Beduin houses.

But yes, the glee you find in the fact that you don't even have to pay your own bulldozer drivers to do so and can use our money instead, and your utter contempt for us being such suckers—to the point even of sneering at our deaths—is duly noted.

 

RESPECTABLE LADY

6:32 AM ET

March 23, 2012

We are brothers and sisters

It makes me so happy to hear that Jews and Arabs are really the same -- there is no master race --

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/nov/25/medicalscience.genetics

 

DUAGO

7:02 PM ET

March 23, 2012

Isaac and Ishmael - two sons of Abraham

We have been saying that for over 1400 years. Arabs (and our holy prophet Muhammad [peace and blessings be upon him]) is from the lineage of Ishamael, the Jewish people are from the lineage of Isaac.

Muslims say Abraham had two sons, Jewish people have been denying this up till now and say there was only one. Now science proves Muslims to be correct.

After Abraham, all prophets came from his lineage. First from the line of Isaac e.g. Jacob, Joseph etc but when Jewish people corrupted their books and refused to obey the word of Allah, the final messenger came from the lineage of Ishmael (the elder son of Abraham).

There is no messiah to come. Only the anti-Christ. So don't be deceived. We do believe in the second coming of Jesus [peace and blessings be upon him] but he will come to reveal the truth.

 

RESPECTABLE LADY

6:33 AM ET

March 23, 2012

What is the root of the problem?

Hardcore fundamentalist extremist Likudniks are right that there's a lot of anti-Semitism in the world.

But they fail to note one of the main causes: Zionism.

Since the early 20th century, Zionists have waged a relentless campaign to equate their political movement with the Jewish religion. They have largely succeeded; in the eyes of many, Zionism and Judaism are one and the same, and opposition to Zionism becomes opposition to Judaism. But that doesn't change the fact that the two are antithetical.

I am a Jew, and I know from my religious education that if the Jewish people are to attain the Holy Land, it will be through the Messiah, and not with guns.

Jews are taught to heal the world ("tikkun olam"), not to displace families, create refugee camps, and practice collective punishment such as that used against Jews in the past.

So long as this confounding of Zionism with Judaism continues, it will sow anti-Semitism.

But, in the end, anti-Semitism serves the Zionist ideology.

 

LE KABYLE

8:49 AM ET

March 23, 2012

What is the root othe problem

You are indeed a respectable lady.I salute you.

 

JGARBUZ

12:26 PM ET

March 23, 2012

Denial of Zionism is denial that JEws have a homeland and

the denial of the Bible too, and also means that Jews are to remain a landless, oppressed minority group forever until liquidated. Naturally, Arab Muslims are anti-Zionists because Muslim Arabs believe that only Ishmael has the right to rule over all lands. Islam is basically ARab imperialism under a religious cloak, just as Christianity was used as a religious cloak to conquer vast areas of land at one time. But the Jews never claimed any other land but this tiny land along the Jordan river.

 

JON HARRISON

8:04 AM ET

March 23, 2012

Six lies about Jerusalem and Washington

This article fails to see the forest for the trees. While some of Miller's points have merit, U.S. policy is in fact warped by the Israeli connection. The "benefits" derived from this connection are far outweighed by the problems it presents. The sole U.S. interest in the Middle East is keeping the oil flowing from the region to the industrialized West. Nothing else matters. The existence of Israel hinders this policy. Moreover, our support for Israel has contributed to the rise of radical Islam and Islamic terrorism. Israel is poison for America.

As for shared "values", i.e., democracy, Israel is a democracy for the dominant ethnic/religious group only. While not the equivalent of apartheid South Africa, the resemblance is nevertheless striking. As for America, just how much democracy is left to us these days? What we see in fact are two imperial powers, large and small, whose perceived imperial interests seem to coincide. In reality, however, the interests of the American people would have been better served had Israel never come into existence (something that both Secy. of State Marshall and Secy. of Defense Forrestal recognized in 1948). And their interests would be better served today if Israel were to disappear.

 

JGARBUZ

12:15 PM ET

March 23, 2012

And what would happen if ISrael disappeared?

Would oil prices go down? Would fewer Muslims emigrate to Europe and America? Would Jihad disappear? The only thing that happens if ISrael disappears is that a major ally of western civilization, what's left of it, will disappear along with it soon enough.

 

DIANIMAL

11:27 AM ET

March 23, 2012

I GUESS THE OTHER STUFF IS TRUE THEN....

That was an extremely unpersuasive piece of writing. As I'm often looking for more balanced views to present to blindly pro-Palestinian friends I read this with interest. Too bad it was a piece of fluff! Basically the author just denied things without backing anything up.

I was wondering if the piece was going to address the evidence trail that appears to point to MOSSAD foreknowledge of 9/11 but it didn't go near that one.

(Not that it would have been possible to rebut.)

I agree with the "respectable lady" above who makes the distinction between zionism and judaism - the two are often considered as synonyms. I disagree with her when it comes to notions of "holy lands". "God" didn't give any specific patch of dirt to any specific peoples. One planet and we all gotta coexist on it somehow.

 

JGARBUZ

12:09 PM ET

March 23, 2012

Judaism without Israel is Christianity without Christ or

Islam without Muhammad. It means nothing. Judaism is totally pointless without the Land of Israel. The Arabs are trespassing on Jewish land while they have at least 21 other countries of their own. If they get off Jewish land, all problems will be solved.

 

RESPECTABLE LADY

12:27 PM ET

March 23, 2012

It's also the Arabs' homeland

It's also the Arabs' homeland -- It makes me so happy to hear that Jews and Arabs are really the same -- there is no master race --

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/nov/25/medicalscience.genetics

 

SIN NOMBRE

12:59 PM ET

March 23, 2012

Interesting

JGARBUZ wrote:

"Judaism is totally pointless without the Land of Israel."

This seems to me to potentially be an incredibly consequential observation, very well stated, and to have a large following.

With all due respect then JGARBUZ I'd wonder if you'd expand on why you think thi is the case? And do you think it's following is indeed just large, or pretty much universal amongst the world's jews?

After all lots of other religions don't even consecrate any land at all, much less say that there's a religious "homeland."

And judaism was pretty fully formed before the Diaspora too, wasn't it? So didn't it just take for granted jewry could live anywhere and thrive? Or was it the opposite and it had been formed for so long in the Israel area that it became one with the land essentially?

At any rate, a powerful statement for sure on your part.

 

JGARBUZ

1:40 PM ET

March 23, 2012

Jews and Arabs are NOT the same, just as Apaches and

Cherokees are not the same! The Sioux have their lands, the Apaches their lands, and the Seminoles were totally deprived of all their lands. They may be "indians" but they are NOT the same! We Jews are related to Arabs ethnically, but we are NOT the same! SCots and Irish may be ethnically related but they are NOT the same. Israel is NOT part of the "Greater Arab homeland" as Arabs call the lands they occupied! Israel is Jewish land! Whether it is "holy" or not is irrelevant. I don't think ISrael is any holier than Hoboken, New Jersey, but it is still Jewish land regardless!

 

JGARBUZ

1:50 PM ET

March 23, 2012

Every tribe on earth had its own religion, its own gods and

spirits. For whatever reasons, in the West, the Jewish books seem to have made a compelling argument for others to adopt the "single invisible God of Everything theory." It seemed over time to make more sense to many than having zillions of gods. Also the Jewish teachings of compassion, charity, better treatment of slaves, and hopes for eventual peace also appealed to the oppressed and downtrodden. Of course, the Hindus are perfectly satisfied with their having zillions of gods. So, the middle eastern invisible god of the Hebrews came to be adopted by hundreds of other tribes and nations over time including the Arabs with modifications made by their Arab prophet Muhammad.

But the Jews remained more or less with their same tribal religion, though modified by rabbis to suit the new environment of exile and having to live in other people's countries while our own was occupied by all kinds of non-Jews. At least half of what is called "Judaism" or the religion of the Jews has to do with Israel, or coming to ISrael in Passover from Egypt, or the destruction of our capital city Jerusalem with our Temple, and the story of the Maccabee guerrilla fighters who briefly recaptured the Temple and lit the menorah with a little sacramental oil that lasted 8 days, etc. So much if not most of what we call the "Jewish religion" is basically a tribal, land-oriented religion as are most tribal religions. Ours is not a "universal" religion like Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, whatever. It is the religion of one small tribe that caught on and influenced the religious ideas of other peoples that came into contact with us.

 

SIN NOMBRE

5:46 PM ET

March 23, 2012

THanks

JGARBUZ wrote:

"Ours is not a "universal" religion like Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, whatever. It is the religion of one small tribe that caught on and influenced the religious ideas of other peoples that came into contact with us."

Well thank you for this and the rest of your kind answering of my question. Very informative.

 

JAMES5A

7:16 PM ET

March 24, 2012

My duhjgar is worth ten of your George Marshalls.

It's an absurd arguement but I'm a sucker for the truth. If the monolithic Muslim world owned 31 Monopoly properties in 1947 but they owned a third of the thirty first property would your smart Semitic counselor tell you this?, "Heh, a third is a third, which equals 99% of the truth if the UN matters. I can sell this." I didn't think so.

But what if we can control the truth and the UN? Maybe than a third of the pie is just as sweet as a nation on a hill with a lollipop in its mouth.

 

JAMES5A

7:22 PM ET

March 24, 2012

What's Math got to do with this war?

Sometimes it's hard to swallow just how unjust and wrong Israel is. Or maybe I'm just not good at math. Jews comprised one third of Palestine's population in 1947. I reversed the ratio in my previous comment.

 

RESPECTABLE LADY

12:26 PM ET

March 23, 2012

Our "ally"

800 Nuclear Triggers Smuggled to Israel, Mastermind Untouchable - Secret FBI Files

Published: Thursday, Mar. 22, 2012 - 7:44 am

WASHINGTON, March 22, 2012 -- /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following is being released by the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy:

An espionage ring smuggled 800 krytons to the Israeli Ministry of Defense for use in the clandestine Israeli nuclear weapons program according to newly declassified FBI files. The secret documents were originally scheduled for public release in the year 2036, but were obtained under appeal to the Justice Department by the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep). The documents available online at http://www.IRmep.org/ila/krytons reveal new details about the failed effort to indict the nuclear smuggling ring's masterminds.

A kryton is a gas-filled tube used as a high-speed switch. Their export requires a U.S. State Department munitions license because they can be used as triggers for nuclear weapons. The U.S. government rejected several requests for kryton export licenses to Israel. California-based MILCO International Inc. shipped 15 orders totaling 800 krytons through an intermediary to the Israeli Ministry of Defense between 1979 and 1983. Heli Trading Company, owned by Israeli movie producer Arnon Milchan, brokered the transactions with MILCO.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/03/22/4358315/800-nuclear-triggers-smuggled.html#storylink=cpy

 

JGARBUZ

2:04 PM ET

March 23, 2012

Israel should have used its nukes on its enemies a long

time ago. What good are they otherwise? If you don't use 'em, ya lose 'em. Thanks to Jewish-American Admiral Hyman Rickover, he built nuclear submarines for the navy to hide America's nuclear arsenal under the oceans, to keep the Soviets from being able to wipe them out in a sudden, surprise first strike! What Iran intends to do is secretly build up a first strike capability to take out Israel's nukes before they can even be launched. Israel now has a few subs, but they only house a handful of cruise missiles with nuclear warheads that could easily be shot down. Most of ISrael's nuclear deterrent is concentrated and vulnerable to being destroyed before they can even be employed. Iran is smart and knows what it'd soing. It also knows the US and the EU will not stop it with their sanctions, which will crack apart soon anyway as sanctions always do. The West has no morale left to oppose a relentless and clever Islamofascist enemy who never tires and never sleeps.

 

MAITY125

1:50 PM ET

March 23, 2012

Jerusalem?

Am sure YOU mean Tel Aviv. If you are American, you should be saying Tel Aviv !! I think it is disgusting that the most powerful nation of three hundred millions plus has its foreign policy, print and TV media along with film industry influenced (controlled) by 2% of its population. Anybody who dares to annoy these guys is taken care of swiftly and many other Americans who enjoy favours from these guys join in to condemn / punish the their opponants. I certainly hope we as a nation can get rid of this foreign domination and become Independent.

 

JGARBUZ

2:05 PM ET

March 23, 2012

Jerusalem is the united sole capital of the Jewish state

Tel Aviv is just a business center, like New York in the US. Jersusalem alone is the sole Jewish capital in the world. It has nothing to do with Arabs, except that Arabs live there just as Jews live in New York.

 

GYPSYSNIPE

2:01 PM ET

March 23, 2012

moslem extremists

They far outnumber the secular reasonable ones. These ppl are determined to bring westrn civilization down. We are in a war of civilizations, culture and religion. They don't mean to assimilate, their aim is to annihilate.

 

JOSSEFPERL

2:35 PM ET

March 23, 2012

An Attempt to Rationally Refute Irrational Claims

We can all appreciate this attempt by Aaron David Miller to refute "Six Big Lies" regarding the subversive nature of Israel's influence on US foreign policy. However, contemporary liberal American Jews often seem to be naive about the irrational nature of anti-Semitism. Aaron David Miller begins by telling us about that his past article that admitted that officials in the Clinton's administration had a "strong inclination to see the Arab-Israeli negotiations through a pro-Israel lens." He then states that: "Unsurprisingly, the piece was hijacked ......" and was misused to support the claim that "America had long compromised its own values and interests in the Middle East by its blind and sordid obeisance to the Jewish state and its pro-Israeli supporters in the United States."

First, Dan Ross, Clinton's Jewish advisor most intimately involved in the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiation never shared Mr. Miller's claim that the Clinton's administration had a "strong inclination to see the Arab-Israeli negotiations through a pro-Israel lens" . He stated time and time again that the negotiations were impartial (although Arafat was afraid that it was a setup and broke the negotiations without a counter offer.) Second, Mr. Miller states that he was not surprised by the fact that his article
"Israel's Lawer" was hijacked by anti-Semites; the obvious question is Mr. Miller, why did you write that article? The obvious answer is that in the view of liberal Anerican Jews like Mr. Miller, United States is such a bastion of democracy that even its anti-Semites are rational. This is a highly naive view; anti-Semitism is a disease of irrationality; the "Big Lies" that Mr. Miller discusses in this article are the same lies ant-Semites have been using in other enlightened countries of Europe and all over the world.

Finally, as to the special relation between the US and Israel, I should paraphrase an old wisdom from the Talmud: "A relation based on interest, when the interest is gone so gone the relation, while a relation that is not based on interest lasts forever." The US and Israel share common interests but it is based on much more than just interests, something people today referred to as values. By contrast, the US relation with the Arab world is driven by a very narrow interest of oil. Once the oil is gone (or our dependance on it is gone) the basis of the relation will be gone. While we all want to see the Arab world develops both politically and economically (no one hopes for that more than Israel) the current GDP of the entire Arab world is so minuscule to have any economic interests or others for the US.

 

JAMES5A

3:56 PM ET

March 23, 2012

Grab a hat. White Black, plumb truth.

Sometimes it feels good to be the mob. We know we're right, we've got testosterone on our side. Sometimes that means we're on the side of what's right, not lately, but it does happen.

The Israeli American parallels keep giving. What doesn't keep giving is the idea that Israel is anything more Jacob Marley's chains. Someday we'll be together again. That would be justice and America. OK, ok, ok. That has never been America.

S'hore enuff. We are victims of the truth. Israel is Hitler's chain that we wear because it makes us feel better.

ADM, Aipac, and the rest of the corporate enhanced, self-reverential, tools are us.

 

RESPECTABLE LADY

4:06 PM ET

March 23, 2012

No master race, no chosen people, no chosen land. All Bro's

It's also the Arabs' homeland -- It makes me so happy to hear that Jews and Arabs are really the same -- there is no master race --

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/nov/25/medicalscience.genetics

 

JGARBUZ

5:06 PM ET

March 23, 2012

Are Navajos a "master race" or chosen people?

I can't live on their tribal lands even if they are now part of the United States. I'm a citizen of the US, and a Navajo is a citizen of the US, but while they can live in New YOrk, I can't go live on Navajo land without their permission. The fact is that 5.5 million live on Jewish land today, while hardly any Jews are left in the Arab countries. That's an undeniable, easily checked out fact.

 

DUAGO

7:17 PM ET

March 23, 2012

Isaac and Ishmael - two sons of Abraham

We have been saying that for over 1400 years. Arabs (and our holy prophet Muhammad [peace and blessings be upon him]) is from the lineage of Ishamael, the Jewish people are from the lineage of Isaac.

Muslims say Abraham had two sons, Jewish people have been denying this up till now and say there was only one. Now science proves Muslims to be correct.

After Abraham, all prophets came from his lineage. First from the line of Isaac e.g. Jacob, Joseph etc but when Jewish people corrupted their books and refused to obey the word of Allah, the final messenger came from the lineage of Ishmael (the elder son of Abraham).

There is no messiah to come. Only the anti-Christ. So don't be deceived. We do believe in the second coming of Jesus [peace and blessings be upon him] but he will come to reveal the truth.

 

JGARBUZ

11:26 PM ET

March 23, 2012

The BIBLE wrote that Abraham had Ishmael and Isaac

He also had a third wife, Keturah, and other children as well. But Ishmael was given lands EAST of his brothers, but the land of Canaan was promised to the lineage of Isaac and not of Ishmael. In the Bible, Ishmael and his mother Hagar were sent away so that they could not take Isaac's claim. Of course, the Quran changed the story.

 

DPS

5:52 AM ET

March 24, 2012

I think this may help for

I think this may help for some info on native people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_civil_rights

 

PRESTOAA

6:42 PM ET

March 23, 2012

Lobbying

I think you miss the point on lobbying.

In the UK, for example, citizens have been able to petition the government on any issue since the middle ages.

What has changed is the perception that the average citizen (and certainly the low paid citizen) has a minimal impact when petitioning the government.. Instead the petitioning system has developed into a lobbying system where wealthy lobbyists (such as, but not limited, to AIPAC) can, effectively, buy the government decisions they desire.

The problem with AIPAC is that it is, essentially, promoting the interests of a foreign country and using a corrupt lobbying system to do it.

 

JGARBUZ

10:20 PM ET

March 23, 2012

The purpose of AIPAC is to balance US arms sales to the

Arabs and US aid to Israel. What AIPAC managed to accomplish was to get the US to promise Israel back in 1982 a Qualitative Military Edge (QME). What this means in plain words is, that for every 3 planes the US sells to Israel's enemies, it will give Israel 1 superior version of the same plane.

Otherwise, the US would be arming Israel's enemies without balancing Israel's needs. This would force Israel to rely on non-conventional means of self-defense, such as preemption. IT would also mean that Israel would then have no contraints on selling its own capable military products to countries America is not happy with, such as China.

So all AIPAC has done over the last 3 decades is create a balance that the US defense industries and the US military can live with. They can sell arms to the Arab while still posing as Israel's "ally" politically.

 

RESPECTABLE LADY

12:05 AM ET

March 24, 2012

No US $ for foreigners

Israel violates the Arms Export Control act so should have aid cut.

No US $$$$ for other countries' weapons...we need the $$$$ here.

Go buy your own Israeli weapons you weasel.

 

JGARBUZ

12:37 AM ET

March 24, 2012

If the US cuts off all aid to the Muslims and Palestinians

then I would have no problem with an aid cutoff to ISrael as well.

 

RESPECTABLE LADY

1:27 PM ET

March 24, 2012

Genius

Yes, cut all military aid to Palestine....oh, wait, there is NONE.

I don;t care: cut all aid to anyone.

And compare the billions given to Israel w. that given to Palestine Genius boy.

 

PULLER58

2:32 AM ET

March 24, 2012

Fair and balanced

Having Stephen Walt on here requires having someone like Miller on it as well. So be it. But Miller's piece here borders on the delusional. There are so many examples of how wrong he is that I won't bother detailing them here. I'll just say that a little research would blow holes in his central theory. Why he bothered to write this piece puzzles me. Guess he has an itch to stratch.

 

RESPECTABLE LADY

11:06 AM ET

March 24, 2012

What a success!

What a wild success this column has been: many comments and clicks -- editors should continue to post drivel so they can court controversy and clicks.

Welcome to new media: Wrong Sells!

 

WASLOVE101

11:07 PM ET

March 24, 2012

Its become very hard to post a bogus on fp

I have been following posts on Israel-Palestine for quite sometime on FP. Earlier the comments section would be regularly spammed by pro-Israeli bots with patriotic nicks like marinesniper etc. These days they dont even seem to bother defending their hasbara. For ex. this post is full of comments bringing down the arcticle so much so, that i didnt even have to read the article to know it was bogus. I guess, in the end truth will be all that shall remain.

 

TIMWX

4:59 AM ET

March 25, 2012

The only

The only lie's I see are the ones in this article. Israel does control the US but only because they answer directly to a higher power, the house of Rothschild.

Zygor

 

AUGUST WEST

7:10 PM ET

March 25, 2012

Right and wrong

1. The White House is Israeli-occupied territory.

This claim is not anti-semitic. Those who so claim are smearing those who fail to support Israel. The claim is accurate. Only such a case explains how any Administration could remain silent in the face of Israel's 2006 attack on Lebanon and its 2008 attack on Gaza. Only such extreme political influence could have prevented the US from joining the rest of the civilized world in denouncing Israeli crimes against humanity.

2. The U.S.-Israel relationship rests on shared values alone.

The US and Israel share few values. The US opposes racism and theocracy. Zionism is racist. Israel is turning into a theocracy of the haredim. Israel is a democracy, but so was the antebellum South.

3. Lobbies are evil.

What is evil are lobbies for hostile foreign powers who have the clout to avoid registering as agents of foreign governments and who succeed in forcing the US to pursue policies destructive of our national interests.

4. His Jewish advisors made him do it.

Yes, that is false. Jewish donors to AIPAC and Christian Zionists made Congress threaten to abort Obama's domestic agenda if he failed to follow orders from Israel.

5. Election-year politics drive Obama to war with Iran.

This is true. The Israeli press has noted this. They note that Netanyahu is timing his hissy fits about Iran with the US election calendar. They note that his threats to attack Iran time perfectly with the Presidential election campaign timeline.

 

DENNIS59

7:58 PM ET

March 25, 2012

Unconvinced with weak arguments

So, after reading "The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy" by Stephen M Walt and John J Mearsheimer I am supposed to believe that Aaron David Miller has presented an accurate view of the influence of the Israelis on US foreign policy in 7 pages?. There were more than 100 pages of documentation in the book by Walt and Mearsheimer and no one successfully refuted any statement they made in their book or discredited any of their sources. The standard tactic was again to criticize the messenger (they were antisemitic) without critical review of the message.

Israel is a democracy but it is not like the US democracy when Arabs living in Israel don't have the same rights as Jews who are Israeli citizens. Go there --- as I have ---- and see for yourself.

A democracy does not prevent people living adjacent land (Gaza) from importing peanut butter or writing utinsels for students. A democracy does not prevent people of one ethnic group from selling land to a differnet ethnic group.

Remember that Gaza and Palestine are land islands. Everything that comes into them and leaves them --- including anyone living there --- needs to have permission from another country (Israel) to come in or go out. Our strongest ally in the region is doing this in the name of their security. It's planned economic strangulation designed to depopulate these areas via economic hardship.

Suppose, Iowa were Israel and you lived in Rock Island, Illinois and you had a doctor's appointment in Davenport, Iowa. All you needed to do was cross the Mississippi River bridge to go see your doctor but to do so you needed to get permission from the state government of Iowa. That's the reality of the situation.

 

THE_OBSERVER

6:36 AM ET

March 26, 2012

The Israel Lobby

I would take Aaron Miller's piece with a big pinch of salt. First of all he's an avowed zionist. Secondly , he has been an advisor to six Secretaries of State and he worked within the United States Department of State for twenty four years (1978–2003). Basically, he is a dual loyalist working inside the US Government who is now trying to deny any zionist influence on US FP???

For a more correct analysis of the influence of the zionist lobby in the USA see the essay, The Israel Lobby, by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, professors at the Uni. of Chicago and Harvard repectively.

http://http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/john-mearsheimer/the-israel-lobby

I would trust Mearsheimer and Walt over the zionist Miller any day. For putting out the truth, Mearsheimer and Walt, had the full numbers and weight of the various Jewish lobby and zionist think-tanks dump on them. Not a pretty sight but that only went to show the power of this fifth column in the USA and Europe.

 

TOSCANO

8:38 PM ET

March 27, 2012

Misundertsanding?

To me, the writer only reinforces the myths he wants to discredit. Maybe one needs do have a deeper understanding of American culture than I do to get his points.

 

ZACKARY GOLDFEDER

3:45 AM ET

April 17, 2012

Jerusalem runs Washington

I’m sorry–I love your blog–but I did not find that piece by Aaron David Miller was, in any way, enlightening! It puts forth a series of straw horses then gently knocks them down. I lived in France for ten years–I saw the way Israel/Palestine was covered in Europe. It was a much more balanced approach. The way the issue is dealt with in the United States, from politicians of the right and left as well as journalists, is just shockingly one-sided.