Return of the ‘American’ Jedi

The Israeli lobby in America is under pressure these days. It seems they crossed so many red lines that some hot-blooded Americans felt obliged to protest.

The 2002 Nobel Peace Prize winner, former US President Jimmy Carter, is not alone with his recent book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” and LA Times and Guardian article, “How I See Palestine.” A recent Harvard study entitled “The Israel Lobby” by Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt details the ways of the lobby and its victims. Tellingly, they later joined the victim list. There are similar studies and books exposing the lobby, like “They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel’s Lobby” by 22-year veteran Congressman Paul Findley whose stand cost him dearly, and “Jewish Power: Inside the American Jewish Establishment” by American-Jewish insider, J. J. Goldberg.

Some still think this is a lobby like any. An American friend argued that the tobacco and gun lobbies are among the strongest in the US. They use similar aggressive methods to advance their agenda and influence decision makers in Congress and the Administration — what is the difference? I explained that these groups are working on an all-American platform, claiming to represent and defend the interests of the American public and businesses. In the Israeli lobby case, it is Americans for Israel. They fight and pressure not for the good of the American nation, but for that of a foreign country. They even dare to say it loud and clear, like former House Majority Leader Dick Armey who pronounced in September 2002: “My No. 1 priority in foreign policy is to protect Israel.” (Not America!)

This Christian Zionist congressman and chief author of the Republican Contract with America, who called in May 2004 for ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, is not alone. According to the Harvard study, the lobby also includes prominent Christian evangelicals like Gary Bauer, Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reed and Pat Robertson, as well as Tom DeLay, former majority leader in the House of Representatives and Trent Lott, Senate minority leader. All of whom believe Israel’s rebirth is the fulfillment of biblical prophecy and support its expansionist agenda; to do otherwise, they believe, would be contrary to God’s will. Neo-conservative gentiles such as John Bolton; Robert Bartley, the former Wall Street Journal editor; William Bennett, the former secretary of education; Jeane Kirkpatrick, the former UN ambassador; and the influential columnist George Will are also steadfast supporters. Other Jewish senators and congressmen work to ensure that US foreign policy supports Israel’s interests.

You can’t argue with success. For decades, the centerpiece of US Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering support for Israel has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardized not only US security but that of much of the rest of the world. This situation has no equal in American political history.

According to the Harvard study, Washington has provided Israel with a level of support dwarfing that given to any other state. It has been the largest annual recipient of direct economic and military assistance since 1976, and is the largest recipient in total since World War II, to the tune of well over $140 billion (in 2004 dollars). Israel receives about $3 billion in direct assistance each year, roughly one-fifth of the US foreign aid budget, and worth about $500 a year for every Israeli. This largesse is especially striking since Israel is now a wealthy industrial state with a budget surplus and a per capita income roughly equal to that of South Korea or Spain.

Since 1982, the US has vetoed 32 Security Council resolutions critical of Israel. It blocks the efforts of Arab states to put Israel’s nuclear arsenal on the International Atomic Energy Agency’s agenda. The US consistently supported the Israeli position in every peace negotiation. An American participant at Camp David in 2000 later said: “Far too often, we functioned...as Israel’s lawyer.” Finally, the Bush Administration’s ambition to transform the Middle East is at least partly aimed at improving Israel’s strategic situation.

Israel knows it could rely on the lobby and its friends in the American power structure. They never fail it even if it means sacrificing their own country’s best interests. Whatever Israel wants Israel gets.

That is why Israeli former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Oct. 3, 2001 said to Shimon Peres, as reported on Kol Yisrael radio, “Every time we do something you tell me America will do this and will do that...I want to tell you something very clear: Don’t worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it.”

140 Billion in 60 years since WW2? So, we've averaged giving Israel about 2B a year. Compared to how much overall we've spent on foreign aid/foreign policy, 140B since 1945 is nothing.

Our overall defense budget is 500B a year. The overall budget is vastly higher. So, overall, aid to Israel amounts to a miniscule part of it.

The WH is about to ask for another 100B for Iraq. That's on top of the hundreds of billions already spent there. Now it would seem to me that the money spent on Iraq quaifies as foreign assisatnce since it's all meant to build up and support the Iraqi Govt. Same thing with Afghanistan. We've spent more on Iraq in the past few years than we have on Israel in the past 60 years, and what have we gotten for it? We've had 3000 killed and 25000 wounded for Iraq. How many troops have been killed and wounded for Israel in the sma eperiod, or even in Israel's existence? Is Iraq's Govt a friend? What have they done for us? Instead we get their President and PM going to Tehran and Damascus and laughing it up with Ahmadinejad and Asad. Now, I'm not saying Iraq isn't a worthwhile effort, just providing come comparison between expenidtures for the two.

How much have we spent on Saudi Arabia? How much have we sold to them in arms? Way more than we've sold to Israel. How much did we spend to keep our troops there for a decade after the Gulf War? What did it bring us? Were our troops in Saudi Arabia because of the Jewish lobby? We've never had to keep troops in Israel and the US has never sent troops to fight and die in Israel. Unlike the troops we've sent to fight and die for, among others since WW2, South Korea, South Vietnam, West Germany, Kuwait, Lebanon, Kuwait, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan

When you add in Israel's role during the Cold War(providing invaluable intelligence on the USSR and Eastern Bloc in the form of immigrants, accessing Khruschev's secret 1956 speech, defeating Soviet Arms in battle time and again, acquiring the Mig 17 for the CIA and DOD, capturing and handing over to the latest Soviet arms from Sinai, Lebanon and the Golan Heights, defeating the latest Soviet Air Defense system in Lebanon in 1982, cooperation and support of NATO ally Turkey, propping up King Hussein's Govt from Syrian/PLO takeover in 1970, being an ally of the top US ally in the Gulf the Shah of Iran, collaborating on the latest avionics and missile defense technology, etc...)there's much better explanations than some big Jewish conspiracy.

It was Nixon that really stepped up aid to Israel in the aftermath of the Six Day War and the 1973 War when he saw how they represented a US ally/client actually achieving victories over Soviet clients, unlike what was happening in Vietnam, in Cuba, in Africa and elsewhere. Israel was a rare bright spot in the fight against the Soviet Union. And Nixon was no friend of the Jews. But he saw the practical, dare I say "realist" side of things.

Return of the ‘American’ Jedi

I find the title irritating at best. He doesn't make any direct connection to the Star Wars saga and why he feels that pro-Islamowacko Americans (like Jimmy Carter) are the Jedi in the equation.

Actually, the Sith look more Muslim to me. LOL!

Noticed the long swords and the lust for power in their eyes. These are the people who murder little children to get what they want.

The Jedi, on the other hand, have always used their power to defend the underdog, which would certainly apply to the Jewish people (and the land of Israel, surrounded on every side by enemies) very well.

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