Joshua, would it make you happy if the US were to abandon Israel altogether? Look at the Israeli geopolitical situation -- a narrow sliver of land on the East Med littoral, the country has no strategic depth. They may have a bigger defense budget (assisted by the US taxpayer) but even so, it is absurdist to think that the Israelis could "threaten" the Middle East without asking why their Arab (and Iranian) does could be so inept militarily.

How do you feel about the four Arab-Israeli Wars (1948, 1956, 1967, 1973)? Don't you think that the constant threat of foreign invasion is what causes the Israelis to adopt its policies. What if another Arab offensive war were to "throw the Jews into the sea" and establish another dictatorship in the Middle East? Is that a suitable end game?

Forget about the immorality of occupation -- the only time they reference the burden the Palestinian population bears or Israel's poor human rights record is to counter the Lobby's claim that the United States has a moral duty to support Israel.

Why do you care about Israeli occupation of Palestine? I have never seen this kind of concern on the left for other occupations. For example, during the Cold War, the USSR occupied Eastern Europe without much protest from the Western left. North Vietnam occupied eastern Laos and Cambodia throughout the Vietnam War with no outrage from the left. For that matter, Jordan and Egypt occupied Palestinian lands from 1948-67 and this never was much of an issue back then.

The point is, Israel is being criticized not so much because it is a Jewish state, but because it is a Western state. The left (generally) attacks imperialism, etc., only when the state in question is part of Western Civilization. When a non-Western state launches aggressive and imperialistic wars, then the silence from the left is deafening. Consider how there never was a leftist-led antiwar movement protesting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

(I grant exemptions for anarchists who are more consistent in their criticism of the Western, communist and third worlds.)

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Israel "has to sit on the sidelines during American-led military actions in the Middle East, including both Gulf Wars" because otherwise no one else would join with the US in those wars?

And that shows the Israel Lobby is so powerful that it doesn't need Israel to do anything?

By the same token, couldn't it be said that the reason the Democrats, with a few exceptions, do not actively oppose the Iraq War is because their opposition would make the policy look good? And that shows them to be powerful? Or does that show them to be weak?

Something is screwy there someplace.

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There is something special about the US/Israeli relations.

How is it possible that Israel is the only nation on earth which had spied on the US and the spy has been convicted, but still receiving billions of dollars from the US government?

How is it possible that the Israelis have the right to receive billions of dollars from the US government to be able to give free health care to their people, but the poor Americans can not have the same "rights" because it is a "communists" idea to give the whole population free health care?

My final question is, how is it possible that political leaders of one country can support another country without getting into problem? Many of those have double citizenship which in my opinion is an absolute no-no for national security issues, but it seems that when it comes to Israel, that is not a problem at all!

The list can be really big, but my time is so limited

/Farhad

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is there some other way to view the world other than dualistically, black-white, good-evil? it seems that we face a covergence here of the christian right meets pro-israeli meets corporate oil giants meet in the whitehouse. kevin philips latest salvo fired across the bow of the good ship blunderbus, once hearlded as a able ship of state, makes all such critiques solid history but for not having added the por-israel lobby to the equation, although he levels a couple of torpedos from big oil to whatever the latest buzzword for christian loonies who think the sky is falling & god is a mother ship hovering above iraq to take calvinists aboard while dropping great gobs of do-do down on the evil muslims below.

the question is how deeply has america climbed into the looney bin with da governator as head california lotus land nutcase.

harvard's avowedly zionist president larry summers, would have been a bad joke, like how many lawyers dose it ake to chase an ambulance, were it not harvard. who is next? crucify poor old realist meister henry kissenger, probably not, he's got too much viagra pumping to do. but that is a realism / reelism of a different footage ... in short, realism is just too surreal for anybody to take it seriously, so it must be a hyper reality dreamed up by someone who did not take the correct pill offered by matrix ... america the looniful, the land of sky high debt & oil slick shining seas .. go back to sleep as the "z" word will make you pee but the "anti-s" word will block your free passage of liquid relief.

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Irrationality Never Sleeps

Having Israel as a dependent ally is like having an out of control, self-destructive, egocentric teen as a daughter. Traumatized by the holocaust, Jews deserve compassion, but irrational behavior must be balanced by consideration for the good of all.

Traumatized by 9/11, America is suffering from irrationality also.

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And more disturbing is the fact that the Pre-millenial dispensationalist and neo-christian zionist John Hagee and his minions have been working hard to become "a more powerful - version of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)...and will target senators and congressmen on Capitol Hill. "
read more:
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/701583.html

“Following the War of 1967, Israel gained an increased portion of USA foreign aid and military budgets, becoming the ‘western pillar’ of the USA strategic alliance against Soviet incursion into the Middle East…

During this period AIPAC and other pro-Israeli lobby agencies began their ascent to power in shaping USA foreign policy.

The Roman Catholic Church and mainline Protestant denominations began to develop a more balanced approach to the Middle East, bringing them closer to the international consensus on the Palestinian question.

Pro-Israel organizations interpreted this shift as being Anti-Israel and in turn began to court the conservative Christians.”

...The Reagan White House hosted a series of seminars from the Israeli lobby and Christian right. This was when Hal Lindsay, Pat Robertson, Jerry Fawell and the Moral majority infiltrated the West Wing.

read more April 4, 2006 WAWA BLOG:
http://www.wearewideawake.org

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The Israeli government and their American supporters are the most antisemitic people on earth because they bomb and invade those semites who happen not to be Jews. Most semites are not jewish so it is really dumb for Jews to call other semites antisemitic. Their propaganda blitzkreig is totally without merit as is the propaganda blitzkreig of Cheney/Bush/Blair.

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..... your own head and that, sir, is courage, something sorely lacking lately in this nation in both politics, academia and the media, both traditional and alternative.

I commend you for doing what you know will bring you condemnation. Its time for the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. This is an excellent analysis and thanks for telling us about that paper. I would have liked a link to it. I bet its there and I missed it. Will go back and check it out again.

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Why is there a US-Israel lobby? This is something I rarely see discussed.

During and after World War II, the U.S. was not quick to accept Jewish refugees, and accepted more than a few scientiests who worked with the Nazis. Then, there is the country of Liberia, which makes me think of Israel - give the Blacks and the Jews their own countries and they won't be so eager to live in the U.S. is how I perceive the reasoning to go.

There also is the ideology of Jews who see themselves first as people of an ethnic religion and then as members of any given nation. There are other religous groups that are trying to emulate this mentality so that they might grow stronger.

I agree that it is difficult to have a discussion on the state of Israel without someone presenting an opinion that the topic is about religion. Seems all too similar to the current condition of discusssions about America where any opinion that is negative about U.S. military actions or tax breaks for the rich is seen as unpatriotic and a threat to the president.

This raises another question: Is the rush to argue anti-Semitism over any verbal attack upon Israel really a religious defense or is it savvy politics to keep discussion away from how a nation is run?

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If Israel were a child, every teacher it had ever had would write the same thing on the report card: "Doesn't get along with others." When will Israel realize that existing only by force and deception and the annihiliation of others is no way to live ? And instead of helping this deeply traumatized society/religion/race heal, the US is catching it's psychosis to the point where our country too can only exist by pointing weapons at the rest of the world.

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What was interesting about the paper was its authorship and the reaction it elicited from Israel's many U.S. supporters. Those supporters inadvertently proved Walt and Mearsheimer correct on at least one point: the Israel Lobby doesn't tolerate debate about the relationship between the United States and its favorite client state, and it's quick to accuse dissenters of having the vilest of intent.

The New York Sun -- known as a mouthpiece for neoconservatism -- ran six articles about the paper the week it was released. Two were on the front page, above the fold. The first was headlined "David Duke Claims to Be Vindicated by a Harvard Dean" (Walt is the academic dean at the Kennedy School). According to the Sun, "Duke, a former Louisiana state legislator and one-time Ku Klux Klan leader, called the paper 'a great step forward.'" Later in the article -- below the fold -- Duke admits that he hadn't actually read the study.

I think it is very funny that Joshua Holland has used the same tactic in his responses to people who are anti-illegal immigration (another powerful lobby that has control over the debate). Truthiness is alive and well and these writers that view the exact tactic used in different instances as somehow different, because they agree with one point of view, but not the other are poor excuses for writers. It proves they don't even read what they write. Wonder if you ever did this much research regarding illegal immigration? You seemed to have combed through every paper to find where the media and the pro-Isreal lobby colluded to color the conversation. You should be ashamed to call yourself a journalist.

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Does anyone find it odd that the two major allies of the U.S. in the Middle East are Saudi Arabia and Israel? Neither of these countries adhere to a basic democratic principle: separation of church and state. As history has shown, religious institutions should not be running governments.

Nevertheless we spend billions supporting these two regimes, which are essentially religious states that are highly repressive (Saudi Arabia still has public beheadings and forbids women from driving cars, and the continuing campaign to drive Palestinians off land so Israeli 'settlers' can move in is pretty similar to the Chinese invasion of Tibet, or the Sudanese genocide in Darfur).

Of course this just reveals the blatant hypocrisy of the 'campaign to spread democracy in the Middle East' - more like the "campaign to repress the Middle East and steal its natural resources."

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This may surprise you Burton, but I couldn't care less what happens to Israel. For the record, and to head off the inevitable calls of anti-semitism, I feel the same the same way about every other nation.

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They can both blow each other to bits for all I care. Only place in the world with a higher concentration of self-righteous military fanatics is the U.S. Any intelligent person from either side should realize the clusterfuck and get the hell out of there.

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At least so far. What happens in the long run is yet to be seen. But the American destruction and subsequent occupation of Iraq is seen as a positive development by many in Israel.

Israeli journalist Michael Karpin in his book
The Bomb in the Basement: How Israel Went Nuclear and What That Means for the World,Simon & Schuster (January 3, 2006), makes this observation:
"From Israel’s point of view, the war that the United States declared on international terrorism, the end of the Saddam dictatorship and occupation of Iraq by the U.S. coalition, had caused some favorable changes. They wiped away the eastern front that had threatened Israel for years, expedited the waning of the Palestinian armed uprising, and accelerated the pace of the peace process." (page 341)

This was pinned, of course, before the election of Hamas in the Palestinian territories. But in the geopolitical sense Israel is the biggest winner in Bush's "war on terror," more so than the United States. The curious fact seems that the United States gets little in return for this special relationship. But because of entwining currents of fundamentalist religion, both Christian and Jewish, electoral politics and the defense/security complex do not expect this relationship to change any time soon.

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It would be a lot easier to dismiss the "anti-semetic conspiracy theories" if

1) self-professed anti-semites didn't react with such glee and approval

and

2) 'foreign policy realists' bothered to mention the extent to which the "Israel Lobby" has been co opted by Christian Dominionists, Evangelicals and Fundimentalists.

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"Semite" has come to mean a subset of the semitic peoples. There's glory for you!

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no more than being Anti G.W. Bush is being Anti American.

Iseal is a nation state with government leadership that has been soaked in scandel for half a century or more...not unlike our 230 years of government.

YES, they like many other nations and territories lobby the US for our support, be it money or war or our working poor's jobs.

this is not anti semitic...this is POLITICS...get over it

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Short version for those who don't want to read the entire article: After he lauds the authors for their "courage," he spends the rest of the article pointing out why it's bullshit.

The Israel Lobby?
by Noam Chomsky
March 28, 2006
I've received many requests to comment on the article by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt (henceforth M-W), published in the London Review of Books, which has been circulating extensively on the internet and has elicited a storm of controversy. A few thoughts on the matter follow.
It was, as noted, published in the London Review of Books, which is far more open to discussion on these issues than US journals -- a matter of relevance (to which I'll return) to the alleged influence of what M-W call "the Lobby." An article in the Jewish journal Forward quotes M as saying that the article was commissioned by a US journal, but rejected, and that "the pro-Israel lobby is so powerful that he and co-author Stephen Walt would never have been able to place their report in a American-based scientific publication." But despite the fact that it appeared in England, the M-W article aroused the anticipated hysterical reaction from the usual supporters of state violence here, from the Wall St Journal to Alan Dershowitz, sometimes in ways that would instantly expose the authors to ridicule if they were not lining up (as usual) with power.
M-W deserve credit for taking a position that is sure to elicit tantrums and fanatical lies and denunciations, but it's worth noting that there is nothing unusual about that. Take any topic that has risen to the level of Holy Writ among "the herd of independent minds" (to borrow Harold Rosenberg's famous description of intellectuals): for example, anything having to do with the Balkan wars, which played a huge role in the extraordinary campaigns of self-adulation that disfigured intellectual discourse towards the end of the millennium, going well beyond even historical precedents, which are ugly enough. Naturally, it is of extraordinary importance to the herd to protect that self-image, much of it based on deceit and fabrication. Therefore, any attempt even to bring up plain (undisputed, surely relevant) facts is either ignored (M-W can't be ignored), or sets off most impressive tantrums, slanders, fabrications and deceit, and the other standard reactions. Very easy to demonstrate, and by no means limited to these cases. Those without experience in critical analysis of conventional doctrine can be very seriously misled by the particular case of the Middle East(ME).
But recognizing that M-W took a courageous stand, which merits praise, we still have to ask how convincing their thesis is. Not very, in my opinion. I've reviewed elsewhere what the record (historical and documentary) seems to me to show about the main sources of US ME policy, in books and articles for the past 40 years, and can't try to repeat here. M-W make as good a case as one can, I suppose, for the power of the Lobby, but I don't think it provides any reason to modify what has always seemed to me a more plausible interpretation. Notice incidentally that what is at stake is a rather subtle matter: weighing the impact of several factors which (all agree) interact in determining state policy: in particular, (A) strategic-economic interests of concentrations of domestic power in the tight state-corporate linkage, and (B) the Lobby.
The M-W thesis is that (B) overwhelmingly predominates. To evaluate the thesis, we have to distinguish between two quite different matters, which they tend to conflate: (1) the alleged failures of US ME policy; (2) the role of The Lobby in bringing about these consequences. Insofar as the stands of the Lobby conform to (A), the two factors are very difficult to disentagle. And there is plenty of conformity.

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Semite is a VERY old term that applies to all persons decendant of Sem, the son of Noah. It doesn't mean Jewish or Arab, as those are subsets of this group.

I'll let the Online Etymology Dictionary speak for me...

Semite
1847, "Jew, Arab, Assyrian, Aramæan," from Mod.L. Semita, from L.L. Sem "Shem," one of the three sons of Noah (Gen. x:21-30), regarded as the ancestor of the Semites (in the days when anthropology was still bound by the Bible), from Heb. Shem. Semitic (1813 of languages, 1826 of persons) is probably from Ger. semitisch (first used by Ger. historian August Schlözer, 1781), denoting the language group that includes Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, Assyrian, etc. In recent use often with the specific sense "Jewish," but not historically so limited.

anti-Semitism
1881, from Ger. Antisemitismus, first used by Wilhelm Marr in 1880, from anti- + Semite (q.v.). Not etymologically restricted to anti-Jewish theories, actions or policies, but almost always used in this sense. Those who object to the inaccuracy of the term might try H. Adler's Judaeophobia (1882).

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If the American government TRULY loved Israel and the Israeli people (as anything more than a convenient 51st State military satellite in a hostile oil-producing region), it would:

1: SPEND THE TRILLIONS IT SPENDS ON UNWINNABLE WAR TO, INSTEAD, GET THE OIL INDUSTRY AND THE ENTIRE US OFF OIL AND ONTO HYDROGEN FUEL CELLS IMMEDIATELY.

2: Enlist the remaining troops in the Mideast to EVACUATE all the people of Israel AND their assets to the US WHICH WOULD, WITHOUT FAIL, END TERRORISM FOREVER. That's IF they REALLY wanted to end their moneyminting "war" on "terrorism", which is, BY DESIGN, an inept war but one helluva money-minting INDUSTRY designed to steal trillions from American taxpayers.

If America has room for millions of illegal aliens from Latin America, it CERTAINLY has room for the people of Israel IN ORDER TO END "ISLAMIC" TERRORISM forever, which would effectively no longer give a convenient cover to MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL-COMPLEX STATE-SPONSORED SELF-TARGETED TERRORISM.

Would the people of Israel immigrate freely to a better land? Would this really end terrorism? The answers, the rationale, and far more, are here:

The Answer to Peace

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I am facisnated by Memetics

According to my understanding of the topic, memes are to culture & information what genes are to biology.
Meaning memes (ideas, opinions, information, concepts, ect..) spread & mutate through our minds & our culture.
I have also heard that once a meme is adopted, it will find arguments to defend itself. This helps me to understand why we see so many people (Bush admin, Neo-cons, Bill O'reilly) making absurd arguments & grasping at straws to prove they are right. Once we adopt a position it is painfull to examine the posibility that we may be wrong. Its like trying to change a habit, its dificult to say the least & causes genuine stress to the host of the meme.
Which brings me to this article...
Being young & having analysed and rejected racism in my mind a very long time ago, (I have had a profound experience of all of us being the same deep down where it counts & I trust & believe in this experience)
Because of this experience & because I have friends of just about every ethnic background, I have no fear looking at what i see as the facts & I DO see a Jewish/Zionist elite with a great deal of influence/power, i DO see terrible injustices in Palestine, I see the West shunning a democratically elected government in Palestine... I see distortion of the facts by the media in the west, it's rather obvious if you are open to seeing it...
I have also read that in the not to distant past Jewish law viewed Jews as Superior to non-Jews, and even allowed a Jew to kill a non-Jew for minor offenses but not the other way around. I think those views would have an effect on the current mentality of a people, and i think there is probably a great deal of Hate, Racism & fanatical behaviour among Isrealis & Zionists even though media only talks about Arab Hate.
& I believe it makes sense that those who were victims of terrible atrocities will now repeat the cycle and do to others what was done to them, history repeats itself, the abused becomes the abuser, these cycles and paterns always continue, we see this clearly in our society & it makes sense from my understanding of memetics as well. It occurs to me that with one side vs. another side, neither side will change. I think that understanding the processes that lead to this hate is the only way to escape from it.

May some interesting chats come from this post..
: )

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A number of people who strenuously oppose U.S. support for the Israeli occupation (not just Noam Chomsky) have raised serious questions about Mearsheimer and Walt's methodology and assumptions. Mearsheimer and Walt are prominent figures of the realist school of international relations and, with some rare exceptions, were strident defenders of U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War and subsequently. They clearly have an agenda aimed at absolving from responsibility the foreign policy establishment they have served so loyally all these years and finding a convenient scapegoat for our disastrous Middle East policy.

Was an Indonesian-American lobby responsible for U.S. support for a quarter century of brutal occupation of East Timor? Is a Moroccan-American lobby responsible for U.S. support for the ongoing occupation of Western Sahara?
The unfortunate reality is that our country is perfectly capable of supporting right-wing allies to invade, repress and colonize weaker neighbors without an ethnic minority somehow forcing our hand to do so. To claim otherwise is to assume that without the pro-Israel lobby, the U.S. would be supportive of international law and human rights in our Middle East policy. Given that the U.S. foreign policy has rarely ever been particularly supportive of international law and human rights anywhere else, why should the Middle East be different?

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More conditioning. Turn off your TV's, put down the gossip papers and think for yourselves.

Terrorists are created by other terrorists, who have no idea they are terrorsists. They see their parents,siblings and neighbors killed and circle starts again. Or, they see their perceived way of life theatened ( Oh no! My gas just cost escalated).

This article is another trap. The first comment, a recitation of historical gossip/data. Not a personal experience.

WAKE UP!!!

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More conditioning. Turn off your TV's, put down the gossip papers and think for yourselves.

Terrorists are created by other terrorists, who have no idea they are terrorsists. They see their parents, siblings and neighbors killed and the circle starts again. Or, they see their perceived way of life theatened ( Oh no! My gas price just escalated).

This article is another trap. The first comment, a recitation of historical gossip/data. Not a personal experience.

WAKE UP!!!

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and one has to wonder how much ideology motivated this ridiculous review of the Walt-Mersheimer brouhaha. He didn't mention that Harvard has totally distanced itself from this paper, changing the usual "does not necessarily reflect the views" to what amounts to "has nothing to do with this paper." nor does he mention that many eminent researchers have decried the study for failing to meet "minimal standards of scholarship." Finally, he implies that all the criticism is from the pro-israel crowd, failing to mention that Chomsky, hardly part of the AIPAC love-Israel scene, also roundly criticizes the paper.

There is room of course for a study of israeli influence onU.S. policy (which i think would show there isn't nearly as much as many of you seem to think), but this study, clearly ain't it.

Holland's research skills, in this case, are about as shoddy as those of the authors he claims are being vilified.

and no, i don't think holland is anti-semitic or judeaophobic.

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I wish to congratulate your Mr.J.Holland for his article on the Israel Lobby. The authors of the "Lobby", by virtue only of the fact that they decided to tackle a " NO NO " issue, have made their point felt all around the world and, all those "friends" of Israel that are sceaming MURDER, are indeed contribuying to the proof of the Article's content, they would do well to read and quote the answer that Mr.Daniel Levy gave rather than the remarks of Mr Duke.
Finally, what to some of us looks terribly unethical is the behavior of the ... famous Harvard University and its Kennedy School of GOVERNMENT,which, for the fear of losing the Gifts from some, has decided to trade in its dignity and respect for principle. What a disappointment, ... no values ? just money ?

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Alan Dershowitz is an Israeli agent.
You do not belive me?
It is easy to check.
Connect couple of electrical wires to his testicals,
(after all, that is what he promotes),
and in five or ten minutes You will see
that I am absolutely right.

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In our short attention span, 10 second sound bite, ADHD, overly busy and sleep deprived world everybody wants to put people into binary categories. You are either a or b -- never c.

There is no question that people have exploited this anytime any one makes critical comments about the Israeli Government. The Jewish people have a history and claim in the region and have a right to live in the area--so do the Palestinian people. The tragedy is that neither group has shown the forgiveness or trust necessary to resolve their problems.

One can be critical of Israeli policies without being some kind of racist crazy. The fact that some people spin criticism of Israel a being anti-semitic shows how unlikely it is that there will be peace there anytime n the future.

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I had normally dismissed any talk about Israel controlling the US policies. I still don't see "control" as such. However, the banning and the type of criticism of the intended production of "My Name Is Rachel Corrie" woke me up with an unpleasant start. I have to admit, I really didn't see it coming. I now see the hand of Israel in the unflattering ways I would previously have dismissed.

Regardless of Rachel Corrie's views and objectives, not all of which I agreed with, the banning of her play in this country and the type of attacks on it are for me the proof of a voice I had ignored - thinking such views must be anti-semitic. Silly me.

I haven't been happy with Israel's actions toward the Palestinians either but I until the Rachel Corrie play was banned I was really blind to the amount of policy-changing pressure the Israeli lobby and their loosely-knit partnerships bring about within the United States.

What they demanded in terms of "balanced" production doesn't make sense. The same is not demanded of holocaust productions, and shouldn't be. We have to apply the same standards across the spectrum. Anything less is corrupt.

"My Name Is Rachel Corrie" flushed that Israeli "lobby" out from cover for me. They really made a mistake. I will never again see that "lobby" the same and I will now go read this paper to evaluate it and then check it out.

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I don't know how anyone can deny there is some sort of 'israel lobby' in this country. Look at the group of neoconservatives who orchestrated this war. PNAC heavy hitters Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Pearle, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, James Woolsey, I. Lewis Libby, Norman Podhoretz, Elliot A Cohen, Stephen P Rosen, George Weigel, bill kristol, etc. These neoconservatives have very precise plans laid out in their position papers, expanding US millitary power in the region, securing Israel's future by neutralize Israel's enemies in the region. This group has worked to join together pro-israel forces in jewish and evangelical groups.

I don't think there is anything else quite like it in our foreign policy, billions of dollars in aid to a forign country which seems to me, more than able to provide for itself, while ignoring UN resolutions and doing what many consider to be illegal actions. As an american with irish roots, I was always on the side of the irish with the problems in northern ireland, but as an american, i would never wish my country to provide support to one side, diverting our own money to another country just because of my heritage. That is un-american. If someone wants to support israel, open up your own checkbook. Send your money back to Israel, Ireland, India, pakistan. Whereever you want. But why should our government be sending billions of dollars in aid to israel, it makes no sense. Any talk of that is dismissed as anti-semetic. I have no problem with helping our allies, but i doubt we sent the UK or Canada quite the same package. Quit whining about anti-semitism and come to the table for a REAL political debate.

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Great and well-balanced article on the the Israeli lobby.

It is chilling that Harvard withdrew its name from the report. It appears there may a new kind of blacklist emerging; any criticism of the relationship between Israel and the United States is forbidden. Israel has every right to exist, but is the United States obligated financially, morally and geo-politically to support Israel? There are many immigrants to America; why not unconditional support for Mexico, Italy, Nigeria?

George Washington, our first president was clear: the United States ought not to have foreign entanglements favoring any nation, for that undoubtedly would be a detriment to the United States. Has the United States been harmed by relinquishing its status as an neutral broker in the Middle East? Current and former living American presidents have discounted George Washington's admonition. I guess they are smarter and wiser than George Washington.

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they show no interest in a rational debate because they know full well the abject immorality of their position, so they resort to cravenly sniping: anti-semite, Holocaust denier, and so on.
Even Jews are not exempt from it, witness the treatment dished out to Chomsky, Finkelstein or Yehudi Menuhin's son.
The thing to do is refuse to be cowed by idiotic epithets, stand up for the right thing, insist on equality of treatment for all, uniform rules of the game that any and all must abide by. That, I was brought up to believe, is essence of Western Civilization, something that Burton obviously cannot wrap his mind around.
In his diatribe, he does not mention South Africa under Apartheid being piloried by those detested liberals (whose apparent crime is the love of liberty), thus by his definition it was clearly a Western country, something Israel does not deny since they collaborated on nuclear R&D.

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Americans all across the existing political spectrum, from far Left to far Right, and Europeans as well, are desperate to believe that an alien force has hijacked an otherwise "decent" U.S. government, and all that remains is to identify the culprits and restore it to its original "goodness" through removal of the usurpers. Such a view conveniently ignores both the real congruence between the ideology of "neoconservativism" and that of the American political "mainstream", and between the US and Israeli states in the Middle East, to the extent that the first is simply a concentrated logical extension of mainstream American ideology and not "aberrant" to that ideology, while the second is likewise no more than a state institutional extension of the United States into the Middle East.

This concept of close congruence to the point of a real identity between neoconservativism and the mainstream, Israel and the USA, conforms to and offers a much better explanation of the facts on the ground in the Middle East (and elsewhere), than does either the concept of a rogue cabal of neocon hijackers, or the concept of a "foreign lobby" working its way through the American polity over the long duree. As AIPAC ceaselessly reminds us, the mainstream of the American ruling class unconditionally supports Israel because it (correctly) *identifies* Zionist ideology as its own "American" ideology, as a central element of "Americanism". As such, AIPAC and other such *American* political formations are not "foreign lobbies", but are merely highly organized factions - incipient political parties - of the American ruling class, carrying out normal political work of agitation and propaganda both within their own class and within (a highly decadent and shriveled ) American political society at large.

That this particular political faction has come to the fore now to occupy central instutions of political power under the GW Bush Administration requires the addition of a more general concept: that of a growing deep structural crises in the USA's relation to and insertion within a rapidly changing global political economy. This relation has featured a steady and unplanned drift away from the USA as a productive entity and toward the USA as an increasinly parasitic predator on the global scene - a kind of global Tony Soprano if you will. Ruling class anxiety over the obvious risks of such a (default) "strategy" began to rise beneth the surface around the turn of the century, but it was of course the 9/11 event that acted as catalyst to bring to the surface the political void: the spector of a ruling class frozen with fear, without a plan of action to address America's crisis.

It is into such political breaches that the most determined, well organized, "Bolshevik" of political factions can rise to the top for better or worse as the decisive faction, and that is exactly what happened in the case of GW Bush. This is hardly the first time in American political history: there was the Antebellum period before the Civil War, where the Slavocracy was the decisive factor, and there was the long period extending from the 1890s' until the New Deal, where the "Roosevelt faction" of "progressive imperialism", beginning with the Uncle and ending with the Nephew, acted as the decisive faction. The present political crisis is on par with these of former years, and one could easily wager that this one will exceed these in extremity, for, as hinted at above, America's situation within the world scene is in many ways without precedent both within its own history as well as that of the world.

(to be continued)

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I like chocolate-chip cookies. I'm sure some KKK members also like chocolate-chip cookies. Therefore, I am a white supremacist, even though I'm not white.

Walt-Mearsheimer use quotes from the former president of the World Jewish Congress to make a point. Some KKK-types use the same quotes to make another point. Therefore, Walt-Mearsheimer are in cahoots with the KKK, and the former president of the WJC is also, in effect, a supporter of the organization that wants him dead.

Right.

I suppose tomorrow morning if a Bin Laden audiotape has him saying 2+2 = 4, and we all know Sesame Street said similar things with that Count Dracula muppet designed to help kids count, they're in cahoots with each other too.


Regardless of the merits or flaws of the arguments raised in the W-M thesis itself, the total *lack* of merits in the arguments raised by the article's critics, their utterly illogical hysteria, does more to support the initial thesis than anything the authors ever wrote about it.

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The founding fathers told us two important things:

1) Stay out of the affairs of others. I won't even comment on how badly that advice has been ignored and the horrid outcomes it has produced.

2) There must be a separation of church and state. Support for Israel is NOT a small matter like whether someone wants to put a granite 10 commandments somewhere. Support for Israel makes us lose votes in the UN by absurd counts like 170-4. To be THAT out of step with global opinion in support of a tiny religious group is EXACTLY the sort of outcome the founding fathers warned us about.

Ignore Jefferson at your peril folks!!

Jews have every right to be treated as our best neighbors. This should NEVER be about whether you get along normally with your neighbor, or dentist, or your kid's geometry teacher. But Jews do NOT have the right to insist that we also support their crazy cousin Benjy who moved to Bethlehem and now patrols Arab neighborhoods with an Uzi.

I don't have the right to stop Jews from cheering for Israeli successes but if they want to support her, fine, just leave the rest of us out of this. Those who think Israel REALLY needs our money should set up a charity or hold a bake sale. But supporters of Israel must take their hands OUT of the public till.

And if the above positions--which are based on every good citizenship lesson I was ever taught--leads to juvenile name-calling by Israel's supporters, then those names have no meaning.

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Isreal is such a small place...look at the world globe...any stance taken against it or the Jew's is demonically inspired... etc. etc. etc...

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Unfortunately, white supremacists and other bigots seem to abuse the research done on US/Israel relations and on Israeli policies in order to validate their inane rantings. Racists and anti-semites willfully distort the intent of independant political research in order to legitimate their paranoid claims about alleged "Jewish Control" of everything from the media to whole governments. They will always do this! It doesn't mean that when they praise something it is to be associated with racist insanity. The neo-Nazis have even used the political research and scholarship of Israeli human rights activists like Israel Shahak and Jewish scholars like Norman Finkelstein, who they post on their website reading and book sale lists, in order to "prove" the plausibility of their paranoid claims about the Jewish Community. Does this then equate the Neo-Nazis with legitimate Jewish critics of Israel or opponents of Zionist politics and Ideology. The Neo-conservatives are distorting reality once again. It will have serious negative consequences for the Jewish Community.

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A few random thoughts -

- we could easily be on the verge of armageddon and the spark might very well be in the middle east but it will affect everyone, so we all really have the same ultimate "interest"
- injustice is the source of unrest, as is unequal resources
- nuclear weapons are the great leveller which cannot be stopped; no long-run security to be had in arming ourselves
- only real security is cooperation and alleviating inequality
- trust must the answer and paranoid fearmongering and hatemongering as sure as shootin' won't help build that
- building fences on our border or israel on theirs only makes things worse since let's go back to needing trust
- by all means let's put pressure on sources of inequality, injustice and fearmongering etc but let's also work to build the opposite - not add to the problem!
- finally let's try to view things with understanding and respond with sensitivity but let's also not avoid confrontation
- we all have the same interests even if we refuse to see it

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Whether or not the Harvard paper is accurate about the level of influence the "Israel Lobby" has on US foreign policy, it is certainly true that for many, many years there has been a hands-off policy regarding criticizing the Israeli government in the US. I am Jewish, I have family in Israel, my grandmother was born there, but I am dismayed at both the lopsidedness of the discussion and the disproportionate power of the two sides. Both the Israelis and the Palestinians have engaged in terrorism, but one side has been given all the legal power to do so (and in the name of democracy, too!) while the other side has been criminalized and marginalized. Is it any wonder that Iran is insisting on its right to nuclear technology when the Israelis have it? Is it unreasonable for the Palestinians to want autonomy in the country they have called home for centuries? I agree that the "We will push the Zioinists into the sea" rhetoric of the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s was asinine- and has proved to be terribly damaging to the Arab side- but Israel is in no danger today of going anywhere. A few years back, a cousin of mine was arguing that the Palestinians should not be given anything, because there had never even been a country called Palestine! My mother and I told her that, on the contrary, when my grandmother was born there, it most certainly was called Palestine. It breaks my heart that a mere generation after having their property seized, their children stolen, being herded into camps to be killed at the whim of those who controlled the country they were living in, and being jailed (or worse) for standing up in protest, the Israelis have chosen almost the exact same tactics to deal with their "Palestinian problem". Would the real anti-Semites please stand up?
To think that so much bloodshed could result from a disagreement on a rather minor dogmatic point. Jews and Arabs, you worship the same God, just in slightly different ways! Please, let's get over this already before it destroys humanity!

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I'm a liberal Democrat, so are all my friends, and with the exception of our Jewish friends, all of us have soured over Israel in the last 30 years. This has nothing to do with anti-Semitism, but with serious questions about Israel's policies and actions. Thirty years ago, we were staunchly pro-Israel.

Since the early 1990s, pro-Israel hawks, now part of the Bush inner circle, have discussed a "preventive" war against Iraq whose chief beneficiary was supposed to be Israel. You can read these articles in policy journals! That war on paper sure looks a lot like the real war that began in 2003. No wonder people have questions about Israel's role in pushing for an Iraqi war within the Bush administration.

The Israel lobby are supposed to be some of the sharpest, most competent people in Washington. They should use their eyes and brains to realize that the fault doesn't lie with irrational and disgusting anti-Semitism, but with the fact that Americans have lived with Israel's policies for decades, and at the end of the road, we don't like what we see.

It's about time people started asking some tough questions, and I'm glad that Joshua Holland and the Harvard researchers have done that.

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It is true that most Isrealis have a far higher standard of living than many of us in the US. I hosted a 16 year old Isreali exchange student several years ago and she was furious and asked to be removed from my home because she had to sleep on a roll-away bed in the livingroom of my apartment and I didn't have a car. She was also furious because my daughter's school had a large concentration of blacks and my daughter is half black. She and her friends spent all their time in Boston shopping furiously for jeans and expensive sneakers, while talking about how eager they were to get into the army and shoot arabs. This experience really left me with a bad impression

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Whether it has been written with golden pens and signed in blood in a dark secured room somewhere or not, it's all about the eventual seize of control of the desert's wealth by those most in need of its sustanance. Maybe not today, maybe not....well you know how it ends. But when you lay the scenario out exactly as it is, that whole "(sp?)Auchum's Razor" theory comes into play in my opinion. The easiest explanation being the most likely. SO let's see, Israel being the only democracy around and full of fossil fuel-hungry white folks that are protected by a superpower in the middle of the highest concentration of oil and Muslim brown people on the planet. In that area Israel is the only country we are on good terms with, the only country we grant free reign in the weapons department, the only country with nukes. Hmmm, I'd have to say that the future looks pretty bleak for nonChristians in the region. As soon as the world's fuel guage hits the red zone, they're fucked, like proper fucked(to spare the niceities). Am I reaching here? Far fetched and conspiratorial?

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WHEN America's reign of terror ends in Iraq (and with any luck we can avoid it in Iran), it will end in one of two ways:

1. America will have, at an enormous cost in human lives and trillions of dollars, stabilized Iraq and created some sort of puppet state obedient to future administrations and more importantly, willing to tolerate our military bases there. This regime will necessarily be brutal, autocratic and mainly atheistic in order to supress sectarian violence. What I am saying is it will be just like Saddam Hussein, only with a friendlier, more pro-western face. Funny huh?

2. Dumya and Yogi Blair will cut bait and run, leaving Iraq in the lurch, choking on the bodies of its civilian dead. To fill the void Iran and Pakistani militants will enter stage right and Syria and fanatical Palestinians - stage left. Bodies everywhere - mosque bombings - executions - IED's - essentially more of what we are seeing now on steroids. This will spill over into the West Bank and before long Israel will have its twitchy finger on the button as Sunni and Shia vie for sectarian supremacy within Islam. America will be faced with its toughest decision to date. Take out Israel or watch as it drops nukes on Tehran, Damascus and maybe Amman just for good measure, possibly giving a highly sensitive region critical mass enough to serve as the opening act of Armageddon . . . I don't think Israel is about to give up its precious religious relics in order to avoid a thermo-nuclear war. Evacuation sounds nice but I don't ever believe it would come to pass.

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How did the AlterNet editor who created the subtitle for this report ever get the idea that "The Israel Lobby" was "seemingly noncontroversial?" Of course it is controversial. It was meant to be provocative. And those criticized made sure to attack it so that it would become infamous.

All that aside, as someone who is a progressive Jew and writes a blog mostly devoted to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I found the study quite incisive. That's not to say that I found it entirely persuasive in every pt. But Aipac has such a pernicious impact on U.S. Mideast policy and on Israel's long-term interests that the essay is quite instructive in pointing many of these issues out to readers.

I'm also persuaded by the left critique by Joseph Massad and Noam Chomsky which claims that Walt & Mearsheimer focused too much on the Lobby as the cause of U.S. ME policy myopia--and not enough on a over-willing American foreign policy apparatus. However, unlike Massad & Chomsky I think there is much truth in the Walt-Mearsheimer thesis (AND the left critique of it). The truth is somewhere in between.

This is my blog critique of The Israel Lobby.

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Once again we hear the lie that US foreign policy is being driven by Israel and the Israel lobby.

AIPAC is certainly a powerful lobby that throws a lot of money and influence around, but it does not run US foreign policy in the Middle East or anywhere else.

The US policy is driven by profits and oil. What the US is doing in the Middle East is the same thing they did in SE Asia, Latin America, the "American" West, Africa--you name it. The US imperialist butchers don't need Israel or any one else to educate them on where their true interests lie.

However, M-W do NOT pander to anti-Semitism: they point out the involvement of many Christian-Zionists, et. al. Also that much of the sharpest criticism of AIPAC and in general Israeli racist policies occurs in Israel.

But some journalistic accounts of the paper do promote anti-semitism.
First they blames the "Jews", (without actually saying so): there is this semi-secret cabal that is driving US policy--Wolfowitz, Feith, Wurmser, Perle--all members of the tribe. Why not mention Brezinski a good gentile Pole who helped articulate the "Carter Doctrine" that called for war to maintain control of middle east oil? Why not mention Clinton who oversaw the murderous sanctions against Iraq that killed hundreds of thousands? Or were they unwitting dupes of the evil, conniving pro-Israel lobby?

The article says US Mid-east policy is not really in the interests of the US, so the pro-Israel lobby and those who do their work must be traitors to the country. Doesn't that sound familiar?

But the real point is should "we"--the anti-war movement, peace movement, or just the "people"--defend US national interests. I say we should not. US national interests have ALWAYS been about profits and control to which end the ruling classes lie, slaughter and oppress. When we call for US out of Iraq and the Middle East--we are really calling for the defeat of US imperialism.

US imperialism is the main enemy of the people and workers of the world. It destroys lives on every continent.

One quote especialy caught my eye: "The overall thrust of US policy in the region is due almost entirely to US domestic politics, and especially to the activities of the 'Israel Lobby'"

Now that's a lie. No mention of oil, Exxon, Mobil, the rest of the bloodsuckers, the good-ole boys in Texas making their billions. I think Mearsheimer, et. al. represent one wing of the imperialist ruling class that believes, perhaps rightly so, that unqualified support of Israel is not in the best interests of US power.
But the squabbles and disagreements of various imperialist spokesmen should not be our fight. Like I said, what we REALLY want when we call for US out of the Middle East is the DEFEAT OF US IMPERIALISM.

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Do you call someone an "anti-semite" simply because they disagree with you?

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Just ignore it, coolguy.

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Political motivations on the side, a major factor influencing American foreign policy in the Middle East is that there are many supporters of pro-Israeli policies that believe in the coming of the rapture. According to scripture, in order for this to come about the Jewish people must reclaim the Holy Land. This is one of the drawbacks of having people high-up in our political system believe in the apocalypse. They'll deny it to the grave, but its obvious. Didnt anyone else find it odd that extreme right elements began to back pro-Israeli foreign policy?

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Discussing the specail US/Israel relationship without a good look at whacko Christian Zionism in the US is not going to explain anything.
They want to force armaggedon, and force Jesus' return and the rapture. Can't hold God hostage unless the second temple gets rebuilt.
Seriously. Watch Pat Robertson for awhile and read between the lines.
At least as spooky as AIPAC.

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Why do they want to kill Alison Weir?
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/

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Why do we care? Its simple the closest example of Hitler on this planet today is Israel. They have practiced systematic economic genocide for decades, in addition to traditional genocide.

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The state of our current discourse on Israel and the Palestinians is enormously frustrating to those of us who don't support the Likud (or the settlements, or the wall, or the bulldozing, etc.) but do support the existence of Israel as a nation. The fact that there are considerable rights and wrongs on both sides has hardened the passionate self-righteousness of their overseas supporters.
Unfortunately, Joshua Holland's piece on the supposedly noncontroversial article also sheds more heat than light. Its whole purpose seems to be to endorse the authors' pre-emptive (not to mention self-serving) assertion of guilt by association. If AIPAC accuses its critics of anti-Semitism, then anyone who criticizes them or raises that issue must be "the Israel lobby" and a "neocon." That's just as false as saying that all criticism of Israel must be anti-Semitic.
As a middle-class WASP who has heard casual expressions of hostility to "the Jews" from neighbors, friends, and family all his life, I think I know anti-Semitism when I see it. And from that perspective, the authors' painstaking distinction that not all Jews are part of the Israel Lobby sounds an awful lot like "but some of my best friends are Jewish."

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Although the Party is happy to use the "rapture" wing of the evangelical Right as footsoldiers, it's hard to believe they have much actual influence on Middle Eastern policy. In any case, they "support" Israel purely as a means to an end. In their apocalyptic fantasy, only the 144,000 "righteous" Jews who "accept Christ" will be taken up into heaven; the rest will burn in Hell along with the rest of us sinners.

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First, it does not matter whether JH or WAWA or santa claus "first posted" the problem of Harvard & Zionism & Academic Freedom ... for this is the heart of the issue, not political realism of criticism of a US FP out of touch with historical/classical diplomacy.

Dual/divided loyalties have always been a reality, nowhere more so than in the Anglosphere, the gang of five -- UK,, US, Can, Aust & NZ where both a political-economic majority & underlying ethos are rooted in WASP values ranging from a simple Calvin / Luther - ism to full-bore genocidal Cromwellian iconoclasm & leveller anti-hierarchal ethnocentricism.

more directly put, these ethno-religiously inerwoven sociolinguistic populations of the settler-colnial states and former motherland have despite occasional spats, remained loyal to the collective whole, as two world wars so bloodily proved.

But herein lies a paradox at the crux of this discussion, the jewish other as vehicle for the root paradigm of biblical based fundamentalist protestant ideology and ethos. Ironically, England was the first Euro-christian nation to expell `jews' but also the first to elect a jewish state leader 'disraeli'. to continue irony & paradox, which rabid supporter of israel among the neo-con ideologues and a majority of adherents would invite a jew into their intimate circle of family social life? A particular problem is that such family-scial circles 'communities" are both faith based and share in a common covenant of that congregation, an even tighter circle than "denomination" which represents only a nominal and flexible umbrella over constantly transforming communities.

(more coming) protestant zionism .. parallalism of god's chosen peoples & promised lands .. settler-colonial states & frontier ethos, ongoing expansion & f. j. turner's thesis, ...

but most brilliant here is the overthrow of anti-semite, as a term always semanticaly and linguisticly absurd ... to introduce, "judeophobic" even if not original ... perhaps the linguistic high ground, the real power point in any argument is to discuss judeophobic vs judeophilic ... but many suporters of zionism are more judeophobic than judeophillic, that is they are more averse to jews than in love with them .. therefore let us jettison these absurdities and bring it down to the ideological reality shed from ethnic or religions baggage ... modern zionism in all its varieties, therefore to reject all use of anti-semite and reference to jewish ... call a spade a spade ... zionism in its modern form is the foundation for the USA as a settler-colonial state and has always been used to define the american exceptionalism and "god given covenant" estabilshing their right to take the territory and eliminate indigenous populations of this new promised land, this new zion, as experssed in WASP place names, the biblical naming of their new settler-colonial america . "new zion" and especially the mormon movement, church (covenant) of latter day saints a reincarnation of biblical zion.

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It's about time thinking, compassionate people started standing up to Israel's Lobby. What's most important is that we have courage in the face of the relentless attacks from the Lobby and its friends, and that WE BACK EACH OTHER UP. The Lobby’s success in preventing an honest reappraisal of the U.S.-Israel relationship is due to a divide-and-conquer strategy, based on the idea that most people will not care enough, or be brave enough, to come to the aid of beleaguered critics, when they see the ferocity and ruthlessness of the Lobby’s attacks.

The Lobby realizes that if the truth were to get out, public opinion would force big changes in the U.S. government's Israel policy, because of the basic moral and legal bankruptcy of the Occupation, as well as Israel's and the Lobby's many misdeeds (Remember The U.S.S. Liberty!). Really, what the Zionists do, is justify their own crimes by the reaction to those crimes. As if, somehow, the fact that a few desperate people resort to desperate measures in the face of the confiscation of their land and identity as a people, as well as unrelenting violence and oppression, justifies such a confiscation. To the Zionists, apparently two wrongs DO make a right. When they are called on this, they say, “well, others are doing worse and you don’t care about that!” Of course the implication is that our protestations are merely the result of latent anti-Semitism.

I say, let’s fight the good fight, and do right by the Palestinians, who are being forced to pay for the Holocaust, a crime they had nothing to do with.

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There is no crime in the world that these
crooks will not commit to preserve theirs riches

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...to this article posted in The Mix.

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If a country can only exist by being artificially invented and by being propped up by the rest of the world because it can NOT exist on its own...is it a real country?

Just wondering...

(and to BsAs - if you can read this and can be bothered to reply, DO try and make it a sensible, well-thought out answer. Calls of "you're anti-semetic" are a mindless cop-out and will be ignored)

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An essay posted to one of my e-groups that offers a perspective on world affairs that makes too much sense to ignore.
"At least twice each week I read the rant of another angry American who invariably declares that Bush is an idiot, but if they’re just figuring that out now, they’re throwing stones from a glass house. Of course he’s an idiot. They needed an idiot. If the man displayed any signs of intelligence, evil actions couldn’t be repeatedly passed off as 'failures' or 'bungling.' If the president were intelligent and scholarly, people would question why he’s completely incompetent, but because he’s an obvious buffoon, many people accept that as the reason everything’s going horribly wrong. It’s also a lot less distressing to believe that your government is incompetent rather than know that they’re evil, and most people will cling to that comfort. The real problem is that if people blame Bush’s idiocy for our troubles, they probably also think that the solution would be to get him out of office, but if they think we’ll be saved by 'Hillary in ‘08,' or any other politician, they’re even slower than Bush.
Regardless of who’s occupying the White House, there has never been an idiot running this country. There’s simply too much power and money at stake for an idiot to gain control of it. If the president is an idiot, and there doesn’t seem to be too much debate on that issue concerning Dubya, he’s only in the White House because someone else has firm control over him. Someone somewhere is flipping through the Bush-Gannon photo album, and that person has a lot more control over the fate of this nation than our 'president' does.
Of course this reasoning begs the question 'if this country isn’t being run by an idiot, why is everything going so horribly wrong?' The answer is that it’s going wrong by design. The naive questioner makes the erroneous assumption that this country is being run by people who are acting in the interest of Americans, but nothing can be further from the truth. Instead of accusing Bush of doing a lousy job, or being a lousy president, please try to think in terms of Bush’s 'boss' being someone other than the American people, and his 'job' as being to grab as much cash as he can for himself and his friends before driving this country into the ground. If you look at his presidency in that light, you can instantly see that he’s doing a marvelous job, and he’s the best 'president' an enemy nation could ever hope to see in the White House.
The fact of the matter is that America as we know it (or knew it) is being systematically destroyed, and the politicians from both political parties are making this possible. Freedom and justice are fading memories, the U.S. Constitution is 'just a goddamn piece of paper,' and the election process has been undermined. The jobs have been shipped overseas, the economy is hopeless, the environment is being raped, the Army is 'broken,' the infrastructure is crumbling, our borders are being dissolved, and every dollar or gold nugget that was subject to being looted, is already gone. With the entire nation and its population deep in debt, crashing the economy is a simple matter of raising interest rates, which will allow the bankers to once again scoop up all mortgaged property, and force its inhabitants out into the street.
The next logical question one would ask is 'who is running this country that would intentionally inflict such horrors upon it, and how do they benefit from destroying a country they control?'
To answer the 'who is running this country?' part of the question, ask yourself why no politician can get elected in this country unless he shows undying financial, political, and military support for Israel. Continued...

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I'm grateful to Harvard professors for writing what is painfully obvious in U.S. and Israeli relations. We, Americans, are too timid to debate anything about U.S. foreign policymaking in the Middle East and our relationship with Israel. Indeed, we are downright frighten to discuss any "sacred cow" that affects Jews.

In college (University of South Carolina-Columbia), Jewish groups would target professors that criticized Israel and anyone writing a critical comment in "The State" newspaper would be clobbered and labelled "antisemitic."

Recently, I was banned from the ABC Message Board for writing the Holocaust was less about the numbers (6 million) and more about the State (Germany) and every level of State sanction of murder against Jews, Gypsies, and other undesirables. I don't know who I offended, and I certainly didn't deny the Holocaust. Perhaps the whole pro Israeli crowd resented sharing their plight with the 22 million Chinese, 20 million Russians, and 7 million Poles killed in WWII.

I'm just happy to see anyone standup to AIPAC and the pro Israeli lobbies.

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