Israel
Lobby Takes A Few Hard Hits
By William Hughes
02 September, 2006
Countercurrents.org
President George W. Bush’s
reply to a reporter’s question about whether Iraq had anything
to do with 9/11: "Nothing!"
Washington, D.C.
- On two consecutive days this week, the Israel Lobby, aka
“The Lobby,” took direct hits from opponents. On Monday,
Aug. 28, 2006, two distinguished scholars, authors of the “Harvard
Study,” Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, showed up
at the National Press Club, near the White House. (1) The Professors,
who are both Jewish, ably demonstrated how the Lobby used its enormous
influence, with the U.S. Congress and the Bush-Cheney Gang, to help
give the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) a “green light”
to bomb Lebanon back to the Stone Age during the recent, horrific 33-day
war. That immoral conflict took the lives of around 1,183 Lebanese,
(many of them children), displaced over 970,000 innocent people and
caused damages worth billions of dollars to the infrastructures of that
sovereign and democratic state. It also created more enemies for America
in the Islamic World. (2)
The original report of the two scholars evidenced the fact that the
Lobby had been exercising “unmatched power” over the foreign
policy of the U.S., persuading it to do things that weren't in the “national
interest.” It also revealed that it had extracted $140 billion-plus
from our national treasury to feed to the Israeli hawks. They have used
much of that money to brutally oppress the Palestinian people. (3)
On Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2006, across town, at the Palestine Center, Grant
F. Smith, ripped into the Neocons, like: Richard Perle, Douglas Feith,
David Wurmser, and others, for their role in formulating the “Clean
Break Plan,” which was a 1996 blueprint for “destabilizing”
the Middle East. (4) This scheme presaged a military attack on Iraq
and “regime change” in that unfortunate country, along with
the assault on Lebanon. The Neocons are a small, but significant, part
of the Lobby’s massive apparatus found in all of the 50 states.
(5) One friend of mine from New York City put it this way when talking
of the Lobby’s omnipotence: “They watch over us like we’re
in intensive care!”
Smith also took to task Paul Wolfowitz, the ex-Deputy U.S. Secretary
of Defense, chief architect of the Iraqi War, and pusher of the “Preemption
Doctrine.” He said that Wolfowitz, who was “kicked upstairs”
to the CEO of the World Bank, was “guilty of plenty of bad thinking.”
Smith is the director of the “Institute for Research: Middle Eastern
Policy,” located in this city. His hard hitting presentation,
entitled "The Clean Break Plan: A Conspiracy of Theories,"
was like watching someone give a left jab to the Lobby’s nose,
followed by a sharp right cross to its chin. Smith is also the author
of the insightful book, “Deadly Dogma: How the Neoconservatives
Broke the Law to Deceive America.” His informative talk is available
in a transcript format. (6)
Also, noteworthy, is an important court case, involving the Lobby, and
in particular, two ex-honchos of the powerful American-Israeli Public
Affairs Committee, (AIPAC), Kenneth Weissman and Steven Rosen. They
stand charged with passing classified information to an Israeli diplomat.
The matter is slowly making its way through the federal criminal process
at the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, VA. Smith cited it, at length,
it in his one hour lecture. He praised the presiding trial jurist, the
Hon. TS Ellis, III, for his rulings to date in the vigorously disputed
case. (7)
Getting back to the National Press Club conference of Aug. 28th-it was
sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). The group
deserves kudos for putting it on. (8) I was deeply impressed by the
presentation of both professors. In a word, they were-brilliant! Professor
Walt repeatedly underscored that “without 9/11, you don’t
get a war with Iraq." It then jumped out at me at a gut level:
9/11 had to be “an inside job!” I agree with the skeptics
who assert: “The wildest 9/11 conspiracy theory is actually the
one endorsed by the Kean Commission, ‘that 19 fanatical Arabs,
directed from a cave in Afghanistan, caught the whole of the U.S. military
intelligence, the whole of U.S. political and diplomatic establishments,
and NORAD completely off guard.’" (9) I've also never found
credible the government's explanation for the highly suspicious antics
of those "five dancing Israelis" arrested over in New Jersey
on the morning of the WTC inferno. Also, I think that the response of
the Israeli Hard Rightist, ex-P.M. Benjamin Netanyahu, on the morning
of 9/11, somehow fits into this puzzle. He reportedly said about the
attack: "It's very good...Well, it's not good, but it will generate
sympathy (for Israel). (10) Keep in mind, too, that the "Clean
Break Plan" was prepared by the Neocons for him. (4) Solving the
mystery of 9/11 should be priority No. 1 for all truth-seekers and for
all of those who demand full justice for the victims of 9/11.
Professor Mearsheimer told the nearly packed audience in the Holeman
Lounge: "It seems intuitively clear that Israel's destructive campaign
in Lebanon violated the laws of war." He added that the principal
reason the U.S. backed the IOF's vicious blitzkrieg in Lebanon of terror
and death, which included over 7,000 air sorties and an "additional
2,500 bombardments" from its navy, "while the rest of the
world criticized it, is the Israel Lobby." Mearsheimer also strongly
suggested that Israel planned the war "before the July 12th events"
and that it had briefed the U.S. on its evil plot. He also concluded,
(unlike the dubious theories posited by the ideologue Noam Chomsky in
similar situations), that Israel was not acting "as a client state"
of the U.S. in this bloodstained matter. (11)
Finally, up in Connecticut, the Lobby’s favorite Iraqi warmonger,
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, is fighting for his political life. He went down
in flames in the Democratic primary, losing to challenger Ned Lamont.
Now, the slippery Lieberman has switched parties and is running as an
Independent. If Connecticut had a “Truth-in-Campaigning”
law, he would have been forced to run in the General Election under
the banner of the Likud Party, since his Hard-Right views on the Middle
East are so closely allied with it. The coming Connecticut election
is a real test of the present power of the Lobby. If Lieberman wins
in November, it will show to other aspiring candidates for public office
that the Lobby, although wounded, remains an unassailable force within
the realm of the national political arena. If he loses, it may encourage
others to come out of the closet and speak out about the baleful effects
the Lobby is having over the workings of our Republic.
Notes:
1.
http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/
rwp/RWP06-011/%24File/rwp_06_011_walt.pdf
2. http://baltimore.indymedia.org/newswire/display/13104/index.php
3. http://www.pchrgaza.org/
4. http://www.iasps.org/strat1.htm
5. http://batr.net/neoconwatch/archives/
2004_12_01_neoconswatch_archive.html
6. http://www.irmep.org/Defaults.asp
and http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/images/fortherecord.php?ID=281
7.
http://www.answers.com/topic/aipac-espionage-scandal
8. http://www.cair-net.org/
9.
http://www.vancourier.com/issues06/
084206/opinion/084206op2.html
10. http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/fiveisraelis.html
11. http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/30636
William Hughes is the author of “Saying ‘No’
to the War Party” (IUniverse, Inc.). He can be reached at [email protected].
© William Hughes 2006.