Monday, December 10, 2007

Cents & Sensitivity – Harvey Morris’ review of J. Mearsheimer and S. Walt’s “The Israel Lobby & US Foreign Policy” Financial Times Nov.1, 2007

The implied presumption that political influence by Jews is unfair, unpatriotic and even dangerous thoroughly permeates both the book and the sympathetic review. It’s as though the multitudinous lobbyists and national interests everywhere represented in Washington are normal and expected, reasonable and balancing – as long as they do not peddle the nefarious and deceptive manipulations of Zionists cabals, Jews and Israelis who could clearly not possibly share many of the same visions and hopes as large sections of America’s democratic public.

The Saudis, whose lobby budget dwarfs that of AIPAC’s and every other Israel-simpatico group combined, are allowed their extensive pressures and influences. No mention in either the book or the review is made of the oil lobby, clearly the most compromising, manipulative and successful of all the lobbies. Just which influences are indeed preeminent in Washington: Taking an unimpaired look past the opaque blinders of Walt and Mearsheimer, one notes that America supports Egypt to the tune of $2 Billion a year and supplies F-15 and F-16 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, whilst all the countries surrounding Israel publish and promote and educate using genocidal and hate-filled propaganda directed uniquely at Israel, without any limiting pressures from the Unites States.

Iran’s Ahmadinejad races towards nuclear weapons and his promised annihilation of Israel with the USA seemingly stymied about any effective response.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad send rockets and mortars daily into Israel’s civilian areas with impunity, a result of America’s insisting on what seems to be a suicidal restraint by Israel, who as victors of the last four wars, are being endlessly pushed to trust and rely on peace initiatives with terrorist groups and leaders whose charters still openly advocate the destruction of Israel.

Are these all signs of a toothless Washington and a uniquely influential Jewish lobby? If it indeed were so, monies flowing to Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, et al., would be directed to Israel; oil would be $40 per barrel. Ahmadinejad and Iran would be defanged, Assad and Nasrallah deposed, Gaza dumped back at Egypt’s door and the West Bank donated back to Jordan with Jordan correspondingly being the declared Palestinian homeland (as it should be then with its Palestinian majority).

In short, I would take great comfort in seeing a more successful AIPAC and Jewish lobby, one that would not just try and hold the wolf back from Israel’s borders but one that also turns back the relentless tide of anti-Semitism, of Jihad and Islamic radicalism that has Israel in their sights, and one that allows Israelis to live without losing their sons and daughters to Katyusha, suicide bombers and intermittent intifadas and allow these Israelis to start contributing to democracy and freedom in the Middle East, which is ironically Israel’s strong desire and not of those many feudal countries that surround it.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/aa155d92-8114-11dc-9f14-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1

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