A recent book has been criticized for vastly exaggerating the influence of the Israel lobby in Washington. As a former senior advisor to the White House, and a longtime active resident of Washington, let me tell you that the opposite is the truth. As all the other lobbies are shutting down, as one office after another on the notorious K Street is emptied out, these vacant spaces are all picked up by the Israelis. In effect, Hebrew is now the language most often heard in the fancy, expense account restaurants of Washington.
Some have argued that the military-industrial lobby and the oil lobby arranged for the 10-billion dollar arms deal for Saudi Arabia, the mother of the 9/11 terrorists. Actually, this too is the work of the Israel lobby, although its reasons for pushing through this deal for one of Israel's enemies remain murky. Also, one should grant that at least in this case the lobby has been quite generous: it succeeded in inserting into the relevant congressional bill a clause that requires that three out of every four dollars of the funds involved will be spent buying the weapons from American arms dealers rather than from the burgeoning Israeli military industry.
The Israel lobby also exerts a major influence over the media. In effect, a large chunk of the media is owned by one famous South African rabbi, Rupert Murdoch. One of the most influential TV news program is that of Bill O'Reilly of Fox, whose great grandmother is reported to have been Jewish. The most influential radio program is that of Rush Limbaugh, who is believed to study Kabala with Madonna herself.
The lobby has well camouflaged its voice by placing Jewish intellectuals, writers, and editors all over the political spectrum. Some write for the liberal New York Times and some for the conservative Washington Times. Some are to the left of Che Guevara, Noam Chomsky for instance. Others instead are way to the right. There are now even Israeli neo Nazis. And a fair number of the remaining communists are Jewish. All this makes it extremely difficult to uncover what exactly they are promoting together.
The same holds for the actual acts of lobbying. Unlike any other ethnic group, the Jews work hand in hand, all pulling Washington into one direction. True, several major Jewish groups lobby for removing the Israeli settlements from the West Bank, in favor of a Palestinian state, pro removing the security barriers that separate the West Bank from Jewish territories, and otherwise meeting most of the Palestinian demands. Other Jewish groups lobby for delaying any negotiation with the Palestinians until they renounce violence, advocate that Israel keeps the West Bank and objects to the forming of a Palestinian state. Still other Jewish groups prefer to lobby for all kind of non-Jewish causes, from ending poverty in the United States to debt relief for African nations. These differences, though, are all displayed merely to conceal the fact that in their heart of hearts all these groups really favor the same course, which - one must grant - is often very difficult to figure out.
The fact that once in a rare while a lobby fails, should not be taken as an indication that it is not all-powerful. It is true that the Israeli government made numerous presentations to the Clinton Administration during its last years and to the newly elected Bush Administration, contending that the threat to peace in the Middle East came from Iran, not Iraq. It showed that Iran's nuclear program was much more advanced than the Iraqi one. Yet, their arguments were not heeded. As Alan Greenspan recently confirmed, the oil companies craved Iraqi oil sources, which at the time were controlled by French and Russian companies. Also, Bush was seeking to avenge a threat on his father's life, as he himself has admitted. And the neo cons were looking for some weak nation to beat up, to show that Bush meant business. Well, you cannot win them all; the Israel lobby did lose this round.
Watch the next rounds: who carries the day next, in the ways the United States and its allies deal with North Korea, with Russia's newly assertive policies, China's dangerous products, the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and such arenas in which the Israel lobby has vital interests, and the other lobbies (such as they are) have none. And note that if you want to buy some bridges in Brooklyn, these too are owned by Israel.
Amitai Etzioni is Professor of International Relations at the George Washington University and the author of Security First: For A Muscular, Moral Foreign Policy. www.securityfirstbook.com
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