Assange on the Israel Lobby

An interesting piece from Alex Mitchell's Weekly Notebook, News not reported here, cometherevolution.com.au, 5/10/17:

"Julian Assange is an alleged rapist who is wanted in the US to face charges as a 'world terrorist' and spend a lifetime behind bars. On the other hand, to a majority of civilised people across the globe he is a hero whistleblower who has blown open the atrocities of the US military in Iraq and around the world. Now he's done it again with a statement issued from the Ecuador Embassy in London where he lives in self-imposed incarceration. On 22 September 2017 Assange told reporters via telecast:

"'Russian actions on its own doorstep in Eastern Europe do not in fact threaten the United States or any actual vital interest. Nor does Moscow threaten the US through its intervention on behalf of the Syrian Government in the Middle East. That Russia is described incessantly as a threat in those areas is largely a contrivance arranged by the media, the Democratic and Republican National Committees and by the White House.

"'Candidate Donald Trump appeared to recognise that fact before he began listening to Michael Flynn [retired US Army Lieutenant-General Flynn who was sacked as National Security Adviser on February 13, after just 24 days in the job], who has rather a different view. Hopefully the old Trump will prevail. There is, however, another country that has interfered in US elections, has endangered Americans living or working overseas and has corrupted America's legislative and executive branches. It has exploited that corruption to initiate legislation favourable to itself, has promoted unnecessary and unwinnable wars and has stolen American assets and military secrets. Its ready access to the mainstream media to spread its own propaganda provides it with cover for its actions and it accomplishes all that and more through the agency of a powerful and well-funded domestic lobby that oddly is not subject to the accountability afforded by the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) of 1938 even though it manifestly works on behalf of a foreign government. That government is, of course, Israel."

Mitchell follows this with Buying the US Congress:

"If you think Assange is exaggerating you should be aware that in the past week the US Senate unanimously passed (99 votes to 0) the Anti-Semitism Awareness Bill. The legislation makes Jews and Jewish interests a legally protected class that is immune from criticism. In future, Americans will be able to burn the Stars and Stripes, sell pornography and automatic guns and attack the Christian religion - but they won't be able to criticise Israel as that effectively becomes a 'hate crime'. The legislation was demanded by the Israeli lobby which bribes its way across Capitol Hill to propagandise on behalf of the apartheid-style Zionist regime in Tel Aviv."

UK Labour's Arbiter of Anti-Semitism

Remember when anti-Semitism used to be a matter of hating, or discriminating against, Jews for no other reason than that they were Jews? Well, times change, and now, apparently, it means something quite different:

"Politicians and media pundits are starting to push the debate about anti-semitism in disturbing new directions... and this process has accelerated since [Jeremy] Corbyn became leader. This dangerous trend was highlighted in a commentary last week in the midst of the [Labour Party] conference. Jonathan Freedland, a senior columnist at the Guardian newspaper and the Jewish Chronicle, is highly influential among Britain's liberal Zionist community. He is possibly the most prominent arbiter of 'anti-Semitism' on the British left. He used his column to attack three well-known Labour figures closely identified with Corbyn who had each dismissed 'Labour's anti-Semitism plague' as mischief-making. Freedland accused former London mayor Ken Livingstone, award-winning film-maker Ken Loach, and trade union leader Len McCluskey of anti-semitism denial and leading Labour into a 'dark place'.

"In a circular proof of Labour's anti-semitism crisis, Freedland cited calls from some Labour activists - in fact, a handful - to expel the JLM [Jewish Labour Movement, the sister organisation of Israel's own Labour Party] from the party. He avoided mentioning why: that the JLM had been caught redhanded conspiring against the party leader by the Al Jazeera investigation... Freedland, a former winner of Britain's Orwell Prize, then indulged in some trademark Orwellian 'newspeak'. He argued that the three leading Labour lights, as non-Jews, were not in a position to assess whether there was an anti-Semitism crisis in the party. Only Jews could make that call - and, he added, Labour's Jews were adamant that the party had a big problem. Here Freedland effectively backed the draconian and rejected definition of anti-semitism originally proposed by the JLM at the conference. According to both the JLM and Freedland, anti-semitism cannot be adduced through objective criteria, or by applying tradtional methods, such as hateful statements or actions against Jews because they are Jews. Instead, Freedland and the JLM believe that anti-semitism can be defined more broadly. It exists, they say, if it is perceived as such by its victims, even if no tangible evidence can be identified. It is like a mood sensed only by those - Jews - who are attuned to it through their firsthand experience of anti-semitism." (As battle rages in UK Labour Party, Moshe Machover expelled after asserting 'Anti-Zionism does not equal anti-Semitism, Jonathan Cook, mondoweiss.net, 5/10/17)

The Hounding of Sophie McNeill 2

Michael Danby, MP for Tel Aviv, may have bitten off more than he can chew. Here's the latest development in his campaign against the ABC's Middle East correspondent Sophie McNeill:

"Top Labor figures believe 'it's time' for outspoken federal MP Michael Danby to retire as anger over his taxpayer-funded attacks on an ABC journalist sparked fresh speculation about his future... [P]arty figures from Opposition Leader Bill Shorten down are deeply unimpressed with Mr Danby's attacks on McNeill. In a heated phone conversation on Wednesday Mt Shorten instructed Mr Danby - his factional ally - to withdraw [the latest of two ads] but it had already been sent on to the printers. The controversy has hardened the resolve of Mr Danby's critics, who want him to end his 20-year hold on the seat of Melbourne Ports and make way for someone better able to fend off the Greens. 'The expectation here is it's time,' one state source said... Federal party sources say they are fed up with Mr Danby using political capital to attack the media rather than the government. But his critics are unwilling to publicly criticise him, fearing it will cause him to dig in and run again." ('It's time': Labor MP Michael Danby under pressure after ABC attack backfires, Adam Gartrell, Broede Carmody, theage.com, 5/10/17)

Typically, the ALP has no problem with Danby's Zionism. It's just that they'd just prefer him to be a zionist rather than a Zionist, know what I mean?

The Hounding of Sophie McNeill 1

"Federal Labor MP Michael Danby has paid* for an advertisement in the Australian Jewish News that accuses ABC Middle East correspondent Sophie McNeill of being biased in her reporting of Jews and Palestinians. The ABC's director of news, Gaven Morris, is so appalled by the prominent ad... he has written to the opposition leader, Bill Shorten, calling on him to curb the Victorian MP's attack... This is not the first time Danby has taken aim at McNeill... She has been a particular target and the Israel lobby has also openly campaigned for the ABC to cancel her posting. In 2015 former managing director Mark Scott strongly defended McNeill from attacks by Liberal senator Eric Abetz... In July former Middle East correspondent for the Australian John Lyons revealed that pro-Israel advocacy groups in Australia targeted McNeill, fellow ABC correspondent Peter Cave and himself. Lyons said he was subjected to consistent pressure from the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council while based in Jerusalem for the Australian for six years. In his Middle East memoir, Balcony Over Jerusalem, Lyons said there was a campaign against McNeill before she set foot in the Middle East." (ABC's Sophie McNeill accused of anti-Israel bias in ad by Labor MP, Amanda Meade, theguardian.com, 4/10/17)

Here's John Lyons' account of that campaign from Balcony Over Jerusalem:

"I came to realise that hardline Jewish groups in Australia commonly targeted journalists. One such campaign led to an extraordinary process inside the ABC.

"The ABC's Sophie McNeill was targeted from the moment her appointment was announced in February 2015. AIJAC published a dossier which amounted to a comprehensive attack on her. It was authored by Ahron Shapiro and posted on AIJAC's website. Headlined 'Should the ABC have given advocacy journalist Sophie McNeill the keys to its Jerusalem bureau?', it went on: 'There are serious questions that must be raised about whether Sophie McNeill, who has recently been appointed the ABC's exclusive Jerusalem-based Middle East correspondent, can comply with the obligations contained in ABC's Code of Practice.'

"The dossier said that McNeill had appeared on a panel where she was 'speaking alongside' two people who had supported Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel. The case against McNeill included that she once said in an interview: 'One of the saddest things I've seen in my whole life is spending time filming in a children's cancer ward in Gaza.' On this charge, I could also be indicted - one of the saddest things I've ever seen was a baby dying in a children's hospital in Gaza because the hospital could not get through the Israeli checkpoint the medicines required to keep him alive.

"The sourcing of much of AIJAC's material was questionable. It said: 'According to the account of a Palestinian student who summarised from a personal video she made of the event... ' AIJAC said McNeill's 'apparent role at the event was to inspire student activities through her first-hand accounts from Gaza, and she appeared eager to play the part'. Apparent role? It continued, 'according to the Tweet of one attendee, she spurred the audience on.' The Tweet of one attendeee? McNeill's appearance at the conference, AIJAC said, 'was tantamount to joining a protest movement'. Tantamount to? The standard of allegation made in AIJAC's attacks on journalists often did not come anywhere near the standard of sourcing of material that they demanded from the journalists they were attacking.

"The dossier also targeted McNeill for a story she had done looking at Israel's ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. 'McNeill promotes the narrative that Israeli Jewry as a society is radicalising in terms of its Jewish character through the demographic growth of the ultra-Orthodox.' The 'implied message', AIJAC said, was that 'Israel is not really the pluralistic Western society it purports to be but is shifting towards religious radicalism'. Implied message? Of all the absurdities in the dossier, to me this was the most bizarre. Israel's own media is full of stories about the rising number - and power - of the ultra-Orthodox. Given their high birth rates - many have seven or eight children - they are increasing as a proportion of the community.

"After publishing the dossier, AIJAC wrote to the board of the ABC, referencing it. The letter set off an extraordinary - perhaps unprecedented - chain of events. The chairman of the board, Jim Spigelman, asked the managing director, Mark Scott, for a response. Scott then instructed the corporation's editorial policies department to prepare a response. Senior managers in the news and current affairs department were also enlisted. Scott believed that the ABC's selection process was thorough, and was unhappy that a lobby group had the power to require the ABC to have to defend an appointment. 'I will not cower to AIJAC,' he told his managers.

"The ABC's managers answered each claim, taking more than three weeks. The process included putting to McNeill each AIJAC accusation against her. The AIJAC attack also said that McNeill had credited British journalist John Pilger as being an influence on her - when she was 15. To her managers, McNeill pleaded guilty to this charge but said his influence was in alerting her to the situation in East Timor when she was 15. In fact, McNeill was critical of Pilger - she said that she believed Pilger's politics had 'blinded him' to the situation in Syria.

"Mark Scott was particularly angered by parts of the dossier which attacked McNeill for who she may have spoken alongside on panels. 'Here is a professional journalist like Sophie McNeill subject to a whole lot of attacks which in my view were trying to taint her by association,' Scott told his managers.

"Scott wrote for the ABC board a 12-page response to AIJAC's letter. In it he said that while AIJAC did not call for McNeill's appointment to be reversed, despite raising a series of critical questions and concerns about her 'past activities' - 'they were letting us know they would be watching'. Scott told the board that he had engaged in dialogue as a media executive for almost two decades. 'In that time, I have seen similar dossiers to the one created on Sophie McNeill on other journalists and around coverage of issues. The AIJAC website contains detailed, negative coverage of many leading Australian journalists who have reported on the Middle East, including Paul McGeough, John Lyons, Ed O'Loughlin and Ruth Pollard, as well as reporters from the BBC and The Guardian.'

"Scott added: 'The article demonstrates to Sophie McNeill and to the ABC that her every word will be watched closely by AIJAC and she starts on the ground with this key interest group sceptical. We are all aware she will be under even closer scrutiny now. As they seek to influence our coverage, this is a pre-emptive "shot across the bows". It should be noted, of course, that fair, impartial, accurate and balanced coverage from McNeill will not guarantee her immunity from ongoing criticism.' Scott told the board: 'The pre-emptive attack on McNeill is similar to the approach employed by lobby groups internationally. The US reporter, Jodi Rudoren, was targeted when she was appointed Jerusalem bureau chief for the New York Times in 2012 and accused of being biased against Israel and unsuitable for the post ... The New York Times refused to bow to the pressure and Rudoren remained in the position.'

"On 30 March 2015, Scott presented the response to Spigelman. The defence, and AIJAC's attack, went to the April meeting of the board. The board supported Scott. The whole process had taken enormous resources inside the ABC. In my view, no other lobby group in Australia would be able to command that level of response. This is real power. And as a journalist I believe that such efforts can have the effect of making a journalist or organisation self-censor. This would not prove to be the case with McNeill. However, in my opinion such a process certainly puts pressure on a reporter, raising the possibility of what is known in journalism as 'the pre-emptive buckle'." (pp 282-86)

Finally, some high comedy on the matter from today's Sydney Morning Herald: "It is not the first time the MP for Melbourne Ports has criticised McNeill's reporting. In the past, he has called her an 'advocacy journalist' on social media and has claimed she is obsessed with the 'Palestinian narrative'." (Labor MP used taxpayer funds to attack ABC reporter, Adam Gartrell & Broede Carmody)

Of course, Danby is nothing if not a pro-Israel 'advocacy politician', utterly obsessed with ensuring that only the 'Zionist narrative' is heard in public discourse.

[*The Herald account, says that Danby "admitted he had used a 'small amount' from his taxpayer-funded electoral allowance."]

The Failed States of America

"Each new massacre that is not met by drastic changes in gun laws (among other things) is further evidence that the US is a failed state." David Rovics tweet, 3/10/17

The Balfour Declaration Centenary: 1 Month to Go

Here's the American historian, Herbert Adams Gibbons (1880-1934), writing on the subject of Britain's odious, ill-fated November 2, 1917, decision to hand Palestine to the Zionist movement in the January 1919 edition of the New York magazine Century:

"The Zionists fall back upon their acceptance of the clause in the Balfour Declaration that 'nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.' Zionism, they say, does not mean oppression of or conflict with the other communities. If conflict arises, it will be the fault of others, and help will be asked from Dr Weizmann's 'one just and fairly responsible guardian' [Britain!] to defend the immigrants. But how can the setting up of the Jewish 'national home' in Palestine fail to affect the civil and religious rights of the present inhabitants of the land? What other result can it possibly have than to rob the Palestinian Arabs of their hope to evolve into a modern, self-governing state? The spirit of the twentieth century is unalterably opposed to government by communities constituted on theocratic principles. The evolution of self-governing democracies has been possible only through unification and secularization. Utah is an illustration. Doing away with polygamy was simply the rallying cry in the inevitable conflict with Mormonism. In Zionist congresses delegates have frequently advocated making the United States 'the promised land.' But the answer always was that the ideals of Zionism could not be realized under the American system of civil government. Mr Lloyd George is now an enthusiastic advocate of Zionism - for Palestine. But years ago, when he was lawyer for the [Zionist] organization at the time of the eastern African proposal, he told his clients frankly that they would have to change their scheme of governing Zion if Zion was established in a British colony."

Mearsheimer & Walt's 'Israel Lobby' 10 Years On

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).