If Spain had the Inquisition, the United States has the Israel lobby. Such is the fear of 'the lobby' in the United States that the classic book on the subject, Mearsheimer and Walt's The Israel Lobby & US Foreign Policy (2007) almost failed to appear:
"The two men actually gave up on the article and book years before it was published because doors kept closing... Mearsheimer spoke about the idea first at the American Political Science Association meetings in Boston in 2002; and a friend said the Atlantic wanted to commission an article on that very subject. The Atlantic magazine assigned Walt and Mearsheimer in 2002. Then it got cold feet and killed the piece in early 2005. At that time, Walt said, the two scholars thought no other outlet in the United States would publish it, but they could flesh it out as a 'short book,' so they consulted a 'number' of publishers... We got what you would call polite interest but nothing you could call enthusiasm. At one point we basically decided to drop the project entirely... After that, though, an editor who had a copy of the piece showed it to a scholar at UCLA who reached out to Mearsheimer and said the London Review of Books might be interested. The LRB version was eventually published in March 2006, and 'provoked an immediate firestorm,' Walt said. Ironically, once it provoked that firestorm, suddenly publishers... recognized that there was a product people were interested in and suddenly they were contacting us and offering us book contracts." ('The lobby is still as powerful as ever' - John Mearsheimer, ten years after publishing The Israel Lobby, Philip Weiss, mondoweiss.net, 25/9/17)
The comment by CitizenC in the thread following Weiss's post is a fair assessment of the book:
"The book and article were indeed important landmarks, and brought the issue into the mainstream. But the authors pulled their punches in certain ways. They did not examine the first chapter of the story, the 1940s, when the nascent IL overwhelmed the opposition of the military and diplomatic establishments, and forced support for the partition of Palestine and a Jewish state on the US government. They also claimed that the IL 'is just another lobby, doing its job in US interest group politics.' This was in part defensiveness about the charge of anti-Semitism, which they addressed.
"The IL is not like other lobbies. It has operated at and beyond the margins of the law since its founding. In its early years it moved adroitly thru various legal gambits and incorporations to evade prosecution under foreign agent laws. The Fulbright hearings of the early 1960s forced the founding of AIPAC by existing IL personnel, and were the end of US sovereignty in the foreign agent area, as far as Israel was concerned. Grant Smith has shown all this in an important series of books based on documents unearthed with FOIA. He feels that the USG has essentially lost the ability to enforce the Foreign Agent Registration Act where Israel is concerned.
"Much of Mearsheimer and Walt's defensiveness was due to the refusal of the left, led by Chomsky, to consider the issue, imposing instead the [Israel as] 'strategic asset' dogma. Chomsky wrote some trivial dismissal in response to the article, and ignored the book. The left is unchanged since Mearsheimer and Walt. The IL argument is still viciously attacked as anti-Semitism, notably by Jewish Voice for Peace. Ten years after the article and book appeared, Chomsky's friend Irene Gendzier tried to impose the 'strategic asset' argument on the 40s, in a risibly weak book.
"The IL has also been addressed by diplomats, politicians and academics since the 40s. Paul Findley, George Ball and Michael Cohen are examples. Nonetheless, Mearsheimer and Walt gave the issue renewed prominence, made a major contribution, and paid a price, as Phil says."
I would add to CitizenC's list in the above paragraph - and highly recommend - James Petras' The Power of Israel in the United States (2006).
Showing posts with label Grant F Smith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Grant F Smith. Show all posts
Sunday, October 1, 2017
Sunday, June 25, 2017
Israel Can't Fool All of the People All of the Time...
Even in Trumpland:
"An unprecedented [IRmep] poll reveals the gaping void between American identification with Israel and the official position taken by both major political parties. A majority of American adults - 70.3% - do not consider themselves Zionists when defined as 'A Zionist is a person who believes in the development and protection of a Jewish nation in what is now Israel. Only 24.9% say, 'I consider myself a Zionist' while 4.8% provided other responses." (Poll: Most Americans aren't Zionists, Grant Smith, antiwar.com, 20/6/17)
Some other interesting excerpts from the above:
"... 80 million Christian evangelicals provide a nationwide multiplier at the voting booth, the result of decades of intense Israel lobby cultivation. This critical to the Israel lobby since according to Pew research, 82% of Jewish Americans do not belong to Jewish organizations, 70% are only somewhat or 'not at all' attached to Israel, while 44% think settlement building is a bad idea. This suggests that Jewish supporters involved in the Israel lobby number only around 774,000..."
"Many prospective candidates for national office must present position papers on Israel to regional AIPAC officials before being allowed to tap a national network of single issue issue pro-Israel donors for the seed-funding necessary to launch political campaigns. Any subsequent divergence from an essentially Zionist narrative or voting record can result in loss of this financial support, primary challenges and ousting from office."
"It is a testament to the lobby's harmful propaganda campaigns that in 2014, as it battled the Iran nuclear deal, most Americans believed Iran already possessed nuclear weapons. A plurality of Americans - in contrast to much of the world - believe Palestinians occupy Israeli land and not the reverse."
"An unprecedented [IRmep] poll reveals the gaping void between American identification with Israel and the official position taken by both major political parties. A majority of American adults - 70.3% - do not consider themselves Zionists when defined as 'A Zionist is a person who believes in the development and protection of a Jewish nation in what is now Israel. Only 24.9% say, 'I consider myself a Zionist' while 4.8% provided other responses." (Poll: Most Americans aren't Zionists, Grant Smith, antiwar.com, 20/6/17)
Some other interesting excerpts from the above:
"... 80 million Christian evangelicals provide a nationwide multiplier at the voting booth, the result of decades of intense Israel lobby cultivation. This critical to the Israel lobby since according to Pew research, 82% of Jewish Americans do not belong to Jewish organizations, 70% are only somewhat or 'not at all' attached to Israel, while 44% think settlement building is a bad idea. This suggests that Jewish supporters involved in the Israel lobby number only around 774,000..."
"Many prospective candidates for national office must present position papers on Israel to regional AIPAC officials before being allowed to tap a national network of single issue issue pro-Israel donors for the seed-funding necessary to launch political campaigns. Any subsequent divergence from an essentially Zionist narrative or voting record can result in loss of this financial support, primary challenges and ousting from office."
"It is a testament to the lobby's harmful propaganda campaigns that in 2014, as it battled the Iran nuclear deal, most Americans believed Iran already possessed nuclear weapons. A plurality of Americans - in contrast to much of the world - believe Palestinians occupy Israeli land and not the reverse."
Sunday, October 27, 2013
The Unpalatable Truth About Martha Gellhorn 4
In the West Bank (under Jordanian rule at the time), Gellhorn, who had hearted Republicans in 30s Spain, uncharacteristically finds herself warming to monarchists:
"In Jordan, a refugee's education and self-reliance showed at once in his politics. The better educated, the more able do not waste their time on thoughts of violent revenge, and give their loyalty to King Hussein. The more ignorant and less competent nourish themselves with a passion for Nasser, war, and Return."
In Israel itself, she seeks out "the [Palestinians] who stayed behind, the non-refugees," interviewing a Christian Arab schoolteacher in Galilee who informs her that "[i]n the 1948 war, the next village was bombed by the Jews; when we saw that, we knew we had no hope."
Gellhorn responds with the following parenthetical comment to the reader: "(Pause for breath: the Jewish Air Force at the time consisted of 19 Piper Cubs, a nice little plane, not a bomber...)"
In fact, the fledgling AIF had "25 Avia S-199s (purchased from Czechoslovakia, essentially Czechoslovak-built Messerschmitt Bf 109s) and 62 Supermarine Spitfire LF Mk IXEs (also purchased from Czechoslovakia)... Many of the first IAF's pilots in 1948 were foreign volunteers (both Jewish and non-Jewish) and World War II veterans... As the war progressed more and more aircraft were procured, including Boeing B-17s, Bristol Beaufighters, de Havilland Mosquitoes and P-51D Mustangs..." (Wikipedia)
The following conversation ensues, with Gellhorn displaying a mastery of Zionist talking points, an appalling condescension and racism, and a palpable impatience with an interlocutor who sounds suspiciously like the proverbial straw man:
"'The Arab Kings [says the teacher ] were not the true representatives of the Arab peoples when they made war against Israel. Now all the refugees should come back and we should have Palestine.'
"At this point, I decided to make one long, determined stand to see whether there was any meeting ground of minds on a basis of mutually accepted facts and reasoning.
"'Please bear with me and help me,' said I. 'I am a simple American, and I am trying to understand how the Arab mind works, and I am finding it very difficult. I want to put some things in order; if I have everything wrong, you will correct me. In 1947, the United Nations recommended the Partition of Palestine. I have seen the Partition map and studied it. I cannot tell, but it does not look to me as if the Arabs were being cheated of their share of good land. The idea was that this division would work, if both Jews and Arabs accepted it... The Jews accepted this Partition plan; I suppose because they felt they had to. They were outnumbered about two to one inside the country, and there were the neighboring Arab states with 5 regular armies and 40 million or more citizens, not feeling friendly. Are we agreed so far?'
"'It is right.'
"'The Arab governments and the Palestinian Arabs rejected Partition absolutely. You wanted the whole country. There is no secret about this... The Arab governments never hid the fact that they started the war against Israel. But you, the Palestinian Arabs, agreed to this... And you thought... that you would win and win quickly. It hardly seemed a gamble; it seemed a sure bet. You took the gamble and you lost. I can understand why you have all been searching for explanations of that defeat ever since, because it does seem incredible. I don't happen to accept your explanations, but that is beside the point. The point is that you lost.'
"'Yes.' It was too astonishing; at long last, East and West were in accord on the meaning of words.
"'Now you say that you want to return to the past; you want Partition. So, in fact you say, let us forget that war we started, and the defeat, and, after all, we think Partition is a good, sensible idea. Please answer me this... If the position were reversed, if the Jews had started the war and lost it, if you had won the war, would you now accept Partition? Would you give up part of the country and allow the 650,000 Jewish residents of Palestine - who had fled from the war - to come back?
"'Certainly not,' he said, without an instant's hesitation. 'But there would have been no Jewish refugees. They had no place to go. They would all be dead or in the sea.'
"He had given me the missing clue. The fancy word we use nowadays is 'empathy' - entering into the emotions of others. I had appreciated and admired individual refugees but realized I had felt no blanket empathy for the Palestinian refugees, and finally I knew why... It is hard to sorrow for those who only sorrow over themselves. It is difficult to pity the pitiless. To wring the heart past all doubt, those who cry aloud for justice must be innocent. They cannot have wished for a victorious rewarding war, blame everyone else for their defeat, and remain guiltless. Some of them may be unfortunate human beings... But a profound difference exists between victims of misfortune... and victims of injustice. My empathy knew where it stood, thanks to the schoolteacher... He has never seen even a corner of a real big war; he cannot imagine it. He thinks war is something that lasts a few weeks... you run away for a bit and then come home to your undamaged houses and lead a good life, indeed a better material life than before. None of these Arabs has suffered anything comparable to what survivors of modern war know; none can imagine such catastrophe."
So the Palestinian nakba, the ethnic cleansing of 85% of the population of Palestine overrun by Zionist forces in 1948, the Israeli refusal to allow their return as demanded by international law and the United Nations, the theft of their homes, lands, businesses and bank accounts, and the consignment of around 750,000 people, all indigenous inhabitants of Palestine, to exile in perpetuity, is a mere "misfortune" which cannot even begin to compare with the "injustice" suffered by European Jewry.
But it gets worse. Gellhorn (whose knowledge of Arabic is zero) plumbs new depths of calumny and racist abuse with this outburst:
"Arabs gorge on hate, they roll in it, they breathe it. Jews top the hate list, but any foreigners are hateful enough. Arabs also hate each other, separately and en masse. Their politicians change the direction of their hate as they would change their shirts. Their press is vulgarly base with hate-filled cartoons; their reporting describes whatever hate is now uppermost and convenient. Their radio is a long scream of hate, a call to hate. They teach their children hate in school. They must love the taste of hate; it is their daily bread. And what good has it done them?"
In fact, today's Islamophobic banshees, such as Oriana Fallaci, Pamela Geller, and Melanie Phillips have nothing on Gellhorn:
"Victory over a minor near enemy is planned as as the essential first step on a long triumphant road of conquest. A thousand-year Muslim Reich, the African continent ruled by Egypt, may be a mad dream, but we have experience of mad dreams. We cannot be too careful. The echo of Hitler's voice is heard again in the land, now speaking Arabic."
But, as the following data indicates, there's more, much more, to Gellhorn's Atlantic Monthly hatchet-job on the hapless victims of Israeli ethnic cleansing than meets the eye:
"In the early 1960s the American Zionist Council's (AZC) [AIPAC's parent organization] Magazine Committee met regularly with writers to prepare articles for top US magazines such as Reader's Digest, the Saturday Evening Post, and Life. In its program for 'cultivation of editors' and 'stimulation and placement of suitable articles in the major consumer magazines,' the committee pushed lighter subjects with prepared texts such as the 13th anniversary of Israel's founding while killing investigative pieces at such publications as the Christian Science Monitor. The committee confronted two major news items challenging Israel: fallout from the 'Lavon Affair' (a cover up of failed false-flag Israeli terrorist attacks on US government facilities in Egypt) and American peace proposals calling for the return of some expelled Palestinian refugees to their homes and property in Israel. The Israeli government and its US lobby invested heavily in arguing against the return of Palestinian refugees through The Atlantic, according to yet another secret AZC report: 'The Atlantic Monthly in its October issue carried the outstanding Martha Gellhorn piece on the Arab refugees, which made quite an impact around the country. We arranged for the distribution of 10,000 reprints to public opinion molders in all categories. Acting on information that anti-Israel groups were bombarding the Atlantic with critical letters, we stimulated a letter campaign designed to counteract their impact... Interested friends are making arrangements with the Atlantic for another reprint of the Gellhorn article to be sent to all 53,000 persons whose names appear in Who's Who in America... The November issue of the Atlantic carried a special 64-page Supplement on Israel, with articles by some of Israel's top names... Our Committee is now planning articles for the women's magazines for the trade and business publications'." (The Israel lobby swims The Atlantic, Grant F. Smith, antiwar.com, 17/8/10)
To be continued...
"In Jordan, a refugee's education and self-reliance showed at once in his politics. The better educated, the more able do not waste their time on thoughts of violent revenge, and give their loyalty to King Hussein. The more ignorant and less competent nourish themselves with a passion for Nasser, war, and Return."
In Israel itself, she seeks out "the [Palestinians] who stayed behind, the non-refugees," interviewing a Christian Arab schoolteacher in Galilee who informs her that "[i]n the 1948 war, the next village was bombed by the Jews; when we saw that, we knew we had no hope."
Gellhorn responds with the following parenthetical comment to the reader: "(Pause for breath: the Jewish Air Force at the time consisted of 19 Piper Cubs, a nice little plane, not a bomber...)"
In fact, the fledgling AIF had "25 Avia S-199s (purchased from Czechoslovakia, essentially Czechoslovak-built Messerschmitt Bf 109s) and 62 Supermarine Spitfire LF Mk IXEs (also purchased from Czechoslovakia)... Many of the first IAF's pilots in 1948 were foreign volunteers (both Jewish and non-Jewish) and World War II veterans... As the war progressed more and more aircraft were procured, including Boeing B-17s, Bristol Beaufighters, de Havilland Mosquitoes and P-51D Mustangs..." (Wikipedia)
The following conversation ensues, with Gellhorn displaying a mastery of Zionist talking points, an appalling condescension and racism, and a palpable impatience with an interlocutor who sounds suspiciously like the proverbial straw man:
"'The Arab Kings [says the teacher ] were not the true representatives of the Arab peoples when they made war against Israel. Now all the refugees should come back and we should have Palestine.'
"At this point, I decided to make one long, determined stand to see whether there was any meeting ground of minds on a basis of mutually accepted facts and reasoning.
"'Please bear with me and help me,' said I. 'I am a simple American, and I am trying to understand how the Arab mind works, and I am finding it very difficult. I want to put some things in order; if I have everything wrong, you will correct me. In 1947, the United Nations recommended the Partition of Palestine. I have seen the Partition map and studied it. I cannot tell, but it does not look to me as if the Arabs were being cheated of their share of good land. The idea was that this division would work, if both Jews and Arabs accepted it... The Jews accepted this Partition plan; I suppose because they felt they had to. They were outnumbered about two to one inside the country, and there were the neighboring Arab states with 5 regular armies and 40 million or more citizens, not feeling friendly. Are we agreed so far?'
"'It is right.'
"'The Arab governments and the Palestinian Arabs rejected Partition absolutely. You wanted the whole country. There is no secret about this... The Arab governments never hid the fact that they started the war against Israel. But you, the Palestinian Arabs, agreed to this... And you thought... that you would win and win quickly. It hardly seemed a gamble; it seemed a sure bet. You took the gamble and you lost. I can understand why you have all been searching for explanations of that defeat ever since, because it does seem incredible. I don't happen to accept your explanations, but that is beside the point. The point is that you lost.'
"'Yes.' It was too astonishing; at long last, East and West were in accord on the meaning of words.
"'Now you say that you want to return to the past; you want Partition. So, in fact you say, let us forget that war we started, and the defeat, and, after all, we think Partition is a good, sensible idea. Please answer me this... If the position were reversed, if the Jews had started the war and lost it, if you had won the war, would you now accept Partition? Would you give up part of the country and allow the 650,000 Jewish residents of Palestine - who had fled from the war - to come back?
"'Certainly not,' he said, without an instant's hesitation. 'But there would have been no Jewish refugees. They had no place to go. They would all be dead or in the sea.'
"He had given me the missing clue. The fancy word we use nowadays is 'empathy' - entering into the emotions of others. I had appreciated and admired individual refugees but realized I had felt no blanket empathy for the Palestinian refugees, and finally I knew why... It is hard to sorrow for those who only sorrow over themselves. It is difficult to pity the pitiless. To wring the heart past all doubt, those who cry aloud for justice must be innocent. They cannot have wished for a victorious rewarding war, blame everyone else for their defeat, and remain guiltless. Some of them may be unfortunate human beings... But a profound difference exists between victims of misfortune... and victims of injustice. My empathy knew where it stood, thanks to the schoolteacher... He has never seen even a corner of a real big war; he cannot imagine it. He thinks war is something that lasts a few weeks... you run away for a bit and then come home to your undamaged houses and lead a good life, indeed a better material life than before. None of these Arabs has suffered anything comparable to what survivors of modern war know; none can imagine such catastrophe."
So the Palestinian nakba, the ethnic cleansing of 85% of the population of Palestine overrun by Zionist forces in 1948, the Israeli refusal to allow their return as demanded by international law and the United Nations, the theft of their homes, lands, businesses and bank accounts, and the consignment of around 750,000 people, all indigenous inhabitants of Palestine, to exile in perpetuity, is a mere "misfortune" which cannot even begin to compare with the "injustice" suffered by European Jewry.
But it gets worse. Gellhorn (whose knowledge of Arabic is zero) plumbs new depths of calumny and racist abuse with this outburst:
"Arabs gorge on hate, they roll in it, they breathe it. Jews top the hate list, but any foreigners are hateful enough. Arabs also hate each other, separately and en masse. Their politicians change the direction of their hate as they would change their shirts. Their press is vulgarly base with hate-filled cartoons; their reporting describes whatever hate is now uppermost and convenient. Their radio is a long scream of hate, a call to hate. They teach their children hate in school. They must love the taste of hate; it is their daily bread. And what good has it done them?"
In fact, today's Islamophobic banshees, such as Oriana Fallaci, Pamela Geller, and Melanie Phillips have nothing on Gellhorn:
"Victory over a minor near enemy is planned as as the essential first step on a long triumphant road of conquest. A thousand-year Muslim Reich, the African continent ruled by Egypt, may be a mad dream, but we have experience of mad dreams. We cannot be too careful. The echo of Hitler's voice is heard again in the land, now speaking Arabic."
But, as the following data indicates, there's more, much more, to Gellhorn's Atlantic Monthly hatchet-job on the hapless victims of Israeli ethnic cleansing than meets the eye:
"In the early 1960s the American Zionist Council's (AZC) [AIPAC's parent organization] Magazine Committee met regularly with writers to prepare articles for top US magazines such as Reader's Digest, the Saturday Evening Post, and Life. In its program for 'cultivation of editors' and 'stimulation and placement of suitable articles in the major consumer magazines,' the committee pushed lighter subjects with prepared texts such as the 13th anniversary of Israel's founding while killing investigative pieces at such publications as the Christian Science Monitor. The committee confronted two major news items challenging Israel: fallout from the 'Lavon Affair' (a cover up of failed false-flag Israeli terrorist attacks on US government facilities in Egypt) and American peace proposals calling for the return of some expelled Palestinian refugees to their homes and property in Israel. The Israeli government and its US lobby invested heavily in arguing against the return of Palestinian refugees through The Atlantic, according to yet another secret AZC report: 'The Atlantic Monthly in its October issue carried the outstanding Martha Gellhorn piece on the Arab refugees, which made quite an impact around the country. We arranged for the distribution of 10,000 reprints to public opinion molders in all categories. Acting on information that anti-Israel groups were bombarding the Atlantic with critical letters, we stimulated a letter campaign designed to counteract their impact... Interested friends are making arrangements with the Atlantic for another reprint of the Gellhorn article to be sent to all 53,000 persons whose names appear in Who's Who in America... The November issue of the Atlantic carried a special 64-page Supplement on Israel, with articles by some of Israel's top names... Our Committee is now planning articles for the women's magazines for the trade and business publications'." (The Israel lobby swims The Atlantic, Grant F. Smith, antiwar.com, 17/8/10)
To be continued...
Monday, April 13, 2009
Name Them!
This post should be read in tandem with my 29/3/09 post (Rambamming Makes the Front Page) on the expose of MPs and political junkets by Sydney Morning Herald journalist Phillip Hudson.
Hudson's just done it again with Ex-envoy warns on bias from MPs' free trips (13/4/09), which focuses squarely on the issue of junkets to Israel. Here are the relevant bits (along with my comments in square brackets in bold):
"A former Australian ambassador to Israel has raised concern about the high number of overseas travel gifts accepted by federal MPS [Feds are just the tip of the iceberg - see my 30/3/09 post I've been to Israel too...] and suggested the scheme could be [!!!] distorting Australia's foreign policy perspectives. Ross Burns said that during his time as ambassador in Israel from 2001 to 2003 there were many visits by MPs but only one was not a travel gift. He said that this had translated into a substantial political benefit for Israel over Arab countries. 'The issue of subsidised travel is a difficult one', he told the Herald. 'The issue was particularly tortuous in the case of Israel, where a disproportionate number of visits, including backbench MPs, Opposition frontbenchers and serving ministers, were funded not by the Australian Government or the Parliament but by Israeli lobby groups... The heavy reliance on subsidised visits to Israel has taken its toll in terms of Australia's wider interests. Most MPs and ministers who visited until recently followed programs that gave a heavily sanitised view of the Israel/Palestine situation... Missing, for example, was any exposure to the heavy burden that Israel's occupation of most of the lands of Palestine has imposed on both societies [Can you imagine someone writing about the German occupation of Europe in terms of 'imposing a heavy burden on both societies'?]. Australia's embassy in Tel Aviv could often be sidelined in the natural desire of the hosts, and accompanying 'minders', to present a few 'facts on the ground' including meetings or visits that might be construed as accepting Israel's sovereignty in contested [occupied] territory. The number of trips to Israel also greatly outnumbered visits to Arab countries, even those that have provided significant elements of the Australian community such as Lebanon and Egypt... Ms Liu has done us a great service in reminding the Australian public that subsidised travel does have a hidden cost. I suspect the costs may be a lot more trivial in the case of China than in the Middle East, where our stocks have never been lower and where political mindsets have long been conditioned through the practice of subsidised visits'..."
Hudson goes on: "The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council [AIJAC] has paid for 13 MPs to visit Israel since November 2007. Its executive director, Colin Rubenstein, said the program had been running for several years. Some journalists from the Herald have taken this trip [When are you going to do an expose on that, Phillip?]. 'It's usually a 5-day or so intensive visit to try and understand better the very complex realities of the Middle East [Oh yes, so fearfully complicated only the Israelis can explain what's going on!] so they have a better understanding of what's transpiring in the region and frankly make them more effective as parliamentarians... They're mature people. We let them make up their own minds. They're exposed to a whole range of viewpoints. They meet with a whole range of Israeli and Palestinian opinion when we can ["When we can"?]'. He said the trips usually cost several thousand dollars each and the money came from supporters in Australia, not foreign governments."
Is it too much to expect the Herald to name the MPs concerned, not to mention the Herald (& other) journalists? And what about those "supporters in Australia," without whose largesse our poor MPs would not be able to avail themselves of this once-in-a-lifetime chance to better understand "the very complex realities of the Middle East"? Who are they?
And speaking of exposes, I'll leave you with a quote from Grant F Smith's 2007 book Foreign Agents: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee from the 1963 Fulbright Hearings to the 2005 Espionage Scandal: "It is popularly believed that the immense power of the Israel lobby sprang from broad grassroots commitment by concerned individuals across America. However, evidence from internal American Zionist Council and AIPAC documents reveal a different history. Many groups, including Christian religious organizations now highly active in AIPAC-directed affairs, were initially indifferent to or even suspicious of Israeli initiatives. It took millions of dollars of Israeli government and overseas funds and decades of effort to create the public relations, lobbying, and political juggernaut that now dominates in America. However, not all Americans welcomed the formation of Israel's lobby. Founder Si Kenen's startup activities proved to be so brazen that they were put under the microscope of a US Senate committee investigating the activities of non-diplomatic foreign agents in the United States... The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations dove headlong into questions about whether the American Zionist Council, AIPAC, the Jewish Agency, and Si Kenen were avoiding Foreign Agents Registration Act declarations or filing false ones, acting as unlawful conduits to launder tax-exempt funds, and illegally disseminating Israeli government propaganda in the United States. This investigation, conducted by Senator James William Fulbright, provides the first outside glimpse into the American Zionist Committee, Si Kenan, and AIPAC." (pp 20-21)
Hudson's just done it again with Ex-envoy warns on bias from MPs' free trips (13/4/09), which focuses squarely on the issue of junkets to Israel. Here are the relevant bits (along with my comments in square brackets in bold):
"A former Australian ambassador to Israel has raised concern about the high number of overseas travel gifts accepted by federal MPS [Feds are just the tip of the iceberg - see my 30/3/09 post I've been to Israel too...] and suggested the scheme could be [!!!] distorting Australia's foreign policy perspectives. Ross Burns said that during his time as ambassador in Israel from 2001 to 2003 there were many visits by MPs but only one was not a travel gift. He said that this had translated into a substantial political benefit for Israel over Arab countries. 'The issue of subsidised travel is a difficult one', he told the Herald. 'The issue was particularly tortuous in the case of Israel, where a disproportionate number of visits, including backbench MPs, Opposition frontbenchers and serving ministers, were funded not by the Australian Government or the Parliament but by Israeli lobby groups... The heavy reliance on subsidised visits to Israel has taken its toll in terms of Australia's wider interests. Most MPs and ministers who visited until recently followed programs that gave a heavily sanitised view of the Israel/Palestine situation... Missing, for example, was any exposure to the heavy burden that Israel's occupation of most of the lands of Palestine has imposed on both societies [Can you imagine someone writing about the German occupation of Europe in terms of 'imposing a heavy burden on both societies'?]. Australia's embassy in Tel Aviv could often be sidelined in the natural desire of the hosts, and accompanying 'minders', to present a few 'facts on the ground' including meetings or visits that might be construed as accepting Israel's sovereignty in contested [occupied] territory. The number of trips to Israel also greatly outnumbered visits to Arab countries, even those that have provided significant elements of the Australian community such as Lebanon and Egypt... Ms Liu has done us a great service in reminding the Australian public that subsidised travel does have a hidden cost. I suspect the costs may be a lot more trivial in the case of China than in the Middle East, where our stocks have never been lower and where political mindsets have long been conditioned through the practice of subsidised visits'..."
Hudson goes on: "The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council [AIJAC] has paid for 13 MPs to visit Israel since November 2007. Its executive director, Colin Rubenstein, said the program had been running for several years. Some journalists from the Herald have taken this trip [When are you going to do an expose on that, Phillip?]. 'It's usually a 5-day or so intensive visit to try and understand better the very complex realities of the Middle East [Oh yes, so fearfully complicated only the Israelis can explain what's going on!] so they have a better understanding of what's transpiring in the region and frankly make them more effective as parliamentarians... They're mature people. We let them make up their own minds. They're exposed to a whole range of viewpoints. They meet with a whole range of Israeli and Palestinian opinion when we can ["When we can"?]'. He said the trips usually cost several thousand dollars each and the money came from supporters in Australia, not foreign governments."
Is it too much to expect the Herald to name the MPs concerned, not to mention the Herald (& other) journalists? And what about those "supporters in Australia," without whose largesse our poor MPs would not be able to avail themselves of this once-in-a-lifetime chance to better understand "the very complex realities of the Middle East"? Who are they?
And speaking of exposes, I'll leave you with a quote from Grant F Smith's 2007 book Foreign Agents: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee from the 1963 Fulbright Hearings to the 2005 Espionage Scandal: "It is popularly believed that the immense power of the Israel lobby sprang from broad grassroots commitment by concerned individuals across America. However, evidence from internal American Zionist Council and AIPAC documents reveal a different history. Many groups, including Christian religious organizations now highly active in AIPAC-directed affairs, were initially indifferent to or even suspicious of Israeli initiatives. It took millions of dollars of Israeli government and overseas funds and decades of effort to create the public relations, lobbying, and political juggernaut that now dominates in America. However, not all Americans welcomed the formation of Israel's lobby. Founder Si Kenen's startup activities proved to be so brazen that they were put under the microscope of a US Senate committee investigating the activities of non-diplomatic foreign agents in the United States... The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations dove headlong into questions about whether the American Zionist Council, AIPAC, the Jewish Agency, and Si Kenen were avoiding Foreign Agents Registration Act declarations or filing false ones, acting as unlawful conduits to launder tax-exempt funds, and illegally disseminating Israeli government propaganda in the United States. This investigation, conducted by Senator James William Fulbright, provides the first outside glimpse into the American Zionist Committee, Si Kenan, and AIPAC." (pp 20-21)
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