AIPAC on Trial: The lobby argues that good Americans spy for Israel

May 7, 2007 Issue
Copyright © 2007 The American Conservative

by Justin Raimondo

Is there a First Amendment right to engage in espionage? Dorothy Rabinowitz seems to think so. Describing the actions of Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, two former top officials of AIPAC, the premier Israel lobbying group, who passed purloined intelligence to Israeli government officials, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist characterized them as “activities that go on every day in Washington, and that are clearly protected under the First Amendment.” If what Rabinowitz says is true—if passing classified information to foreign officials is routine in the nation’s capital—then we are all in big trouble.

On Aug. 4, 2005, Rosen, Weissman, and Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin were indicted by a federal grand jury and charged with violating provisions of the Espionage Act that forbid divulging national defense information to persons not authorized to receive it. The indictment traces the treasonous trio’s circuitous path as they met in the shadows—in empty restaurants, at Union Station in Washington, on street corners. Rosen and Weissman sought out and cultivated Franklin, milking him for information that they dutifully transmitted to their Israeli handlers. According to Rabinowitz, however, they were merely “doing what they had every reason to view as their jobs”—which is true, assuming they understood their jobs to be spying for Israel.

The trial is scheduled to begin June 7. As the day of reckoning approaches, the Israel lobby is ratcheting up the rhetoric. So, too, is the defense: in a duet of hysterical accusations and frenzied rationalizations, the accused spies’ defenders have described the proceedings as a frame-up, the result of an intra-bureaucratic struggle within the government, and a plot by anti-Semites in Bush’s Justice Department to carry out a Washington pogrom. None of these flights of imagination are any more convincing than the Dream Team’s defense of O.J. Simpson. Yet the noise level continues to rise, as if sheer volume, instead of logical arguments, could overwhelm the copious evidence of the defendants’ guilt.

The indictment lists numerous acts of espionage, dating back to 1999, in which Rosen and/or Weissman acted as conduits for classified information flowing from Washington to Tel Aviv. The feds had been watching for a long time: the indictment makes clear that Rosen and Weissman didn’t make a move without the FBI’s counterintelligence unit knowing about it. This surveillance is how they happened on Larry Franklin, the Pentagon’s top Iran analyst, who walked in on a luncheon meeting in Arlington, Virginia, attended by Rosen, Weissman, and Naor Gilon, chief of the political-affairs section at the Israeli Embassy. The feds were listening in as Franklin—referring to a document dated June 25 and marked “top secret”—announced he had secrets to tell.

Tell not sell: unlike the majority of post-Cold War spies, the AIPAC-Franklin espionage ring wasn’t centered around financial gain but ideology. Franklin is a dedicated neoconservative, a minor yet key player in the neocon network, who served in the military attache’s office in the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv in the late 1990s and was a Defense Intelligence Agency analyst with expertise in Iranian affairs working in Douglas Feith’s policy shop.

The counter-intelligence unit was hot on Franklin’s trail, and they watched his every move—his wholesale transfer of top-secret information on Iran, al-Qaeda, and other intelligence of interest to Israel to Rosen and Weissman, who funneled it to their contacts in the Israeli Embassy. The FBI gave Franklin enough rope to hang himself, and then moved in, showing up at his door and confronting him with his treachery. A search of his home and office turned up a veritable lending library of classified documents dating back years, all of which had doubtless been made available to the Israelis. Faced with the probability of a long prison stretch, Franklin agreed to wear a wire to his subsequent meetings with Rosen and Weissman. In the months that followed, the FBI built its case, recording conversations and following the AIPAC duo.

And they did a good job, apparently, because the government is making an unusual request: that some testimony and evidence be shielded from the public due to its highly sensitive nature. This wasn’t just a case of pilfering a few innocuous memoranda. It looks like team AIPAC made off with the family jewels and maybe even the deed to the house. Why else would the Justice Department risk having a conviction thrown out on appeal on account of such a rarely invoked legal mechanism?

The defense has protested proposed security procedures—magnetometers at the courtroom door, security sweeps of the courtroom itself, an officer of the court monitoring electronic surveillance while the trial is in session—on the grounds they would prejudice the jury against the defendants. They compare this to dragging Rosen and Weissman before the jury in prisoners’ uniforms and shackles. Yet these security measures point to the seriousness of the matter before the court, the depth to which the Rosen-Weissman-Franklin spy ring penetrated the government, and the ongoing breach they have opened in America’s national-security firewall.

While most of the more cautious elements in the Jewish community are staying well away from this case, the radicals, such as Rabbi Avi Weiss and his AMCHA-Coalition for Jewish Concerns, who have previously devoted their efforts to freeing Jonathan Pollard, have now turned their attention to Rosen and Weissman. Steven Lieberman and Anne Sterba, lawyers for the group, wrote in an amicus brief: “Trying these two men for disclosing critical ‘national defense information’ to foreign officials, without letting the public know what the alleged information was, will allow enemies of the Jewish people to exaggerate the significance of that evidence and will leave the press and the public to subsist only on rumors and speculation.”

The Weiss group likens the prosecution of Rosen and Weissman to the Dreyfus case—in effect positing the existence of a vast anti-Semitic conspiracy at the highest levels of the Justice Department. Not exactly a credible contention, offered, as it is, without evidence, but the defenders of Rosen and Weissman are getting more frantic as the trial date approaches. As a writer for the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz put it, “Does this trial really carry any resemblance to the Dreyfus trial? It’s a different era, a different country, a different system, a different accusation. Making this comparison demands some imagination, much ambition, and maybe a speck of chutzpah too.”

A recently unsealed defense memorandum details a Feb. 16, 2005 colloquy between Rosen’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, and Nathan Lewin, AIPAC’s legal counsel, in which the latter reveals that Paul McNulty—then the U.S. attorney for the eastern district of Virginia and chief prosecutor in the case—“would like to end it with minimal damage to AIPAC.” Lewin told Lowell, “He is fighting with the FBI to limit the investigation to Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman and to avoid expanding it.” This is hardly the behavior one would expect of contemporary anti-Dreyfusards in the Justice Department plotting to scapegoat AIPAC and the Jews.

Clearly the Rosen-Weissman defense team is involved in a bit of “greymail,” that is, forcing the government to disclose as much classified information as possible during the discovery phase of this case and hoping to derail the prosecution entirely as it weighs the effects of disclosure against the benefits of a possible conviction. As we go to press, Judge T.S. Ellis has ruled against the prosecution's proposal to shield sensitive testimony and evidence behind a veil of pseudonyms and euphemism, which could delay the begining of the trial.

Efforts to embarrass the administration go beyond accusing DOJ and extend to prominent figures such as Condoleezza Rice, who is accused by Abbe Lowell of leaking national defense information to AIPAC as Franklin did. Gen. Anthony Zinni is being targeted in a similar manner. Both have been subpoenaed, along with David Satterfield, deputy chief of the U.S. mission to Iraq, and William Burns, U.S. ambassador to Russia, to testify. If Rosen and Weissman are going down, the Israel lobby seems to be saying, then so are a lot of prominent people—some of whom, like Zinni, just happen to be their enemies.

This isn’t greymail, it’s blackmail. It was Zinni, after all, who said of the Israel lobby and the neoconservatives: “I think it’s the worst-kept secret in Washington. Everybody—everybody I talk to in Washington—has known and fully knows what their agenda was [during the run up to the Iraq War] and what they were trying to do.”

The intrigue thickened last October as word leaked that a proposed deal was dangled in front of Rep. Jane Harman: AIPAC would back her to become head of the House Intelligence Committee if she would urge the government to treat Rosen, Weissman—and AIPAC itself—with kid gloves. The Forward reported, “Several congressional sources confirmed that major donors to the Democratic Party have been lobbying Pelosi on behalf of Harman’s nomination to head the intelligence committee and that these attempts were not welcomed by the House Democratic leader.” Time named Haim Saban, the billionaire Hollywood producer and major AIPAC moneybags, as one of the supplicants. Pelosi didn’t fall for it, and Harman was rebuffed. Perhaps this was in the background when the speaker was booed as she addressed the subsequent AIPAC national conference, although Pelosi got back in the Israel lobby’s good graces after she stripped a provision from the military appropriations bill that would have required the president to go to Congress for permission to attack Iran.

The defense has fought to get the case against Rosen and Weissman thrown out on any number of grounds: the Espionage Act is unconstitutional, it doesn’t apply to their clients but only to government officials, and, last but not least, it’s a violation of the Israel lobby’s First Amendment “right” to betray classified information to its masters in Tel Aviv. Twisting and turning, threatening and spitting, delaying as best it can, the defense has tried to wriggle out of it every which way, to no avail. The trial is going forward, and the public spectacle of the biggest espionage scandal involving Israel since the prosecution of Pollard could deliver a body blow to the Israel lobby at a time when it has come in for public scrutiny and criticism as never before.

But that hasn’t prevented the lobby from brazenly defending the accused spies, in spite of the preponderance of evidence, and even hailing them as patriots. Writing in The Forward, Michael Berenbaum avers, “Instead of being grounds for prosecution, perhaps the influence Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman were trying to exert—making officials and the public aware of the danger from Iran—should be heralded.” And why should we hail espionage as laudable in this instance? Well, you see, because the AIPAC defendants were ahead of their time in citing the danger from Iran: “In Washington, as Rosen and Weissman are learning the hard way, the ‘crime’ is often not being wrong, but rather being right too early or at the wrong time, or being out of sync with the conventional wisdom, or pushing an inconvenient truth.”

In light of Judge Ellis’s recent ruling that in this trial the Espionage Act is going to be interpreted narrowly and that the burden is on the prosecution to show that the defendants knowingly harmed U.S. national security interests, the defense might be expected to make a pitch similar to Berenbaum’s—that, instead of prosecuting Rosen and Weissman, we ought to be pinning medals on their chests.

The AIPAC defendants weren’t spies, they were merely ahead of the curve, anticipating the day when a distinction is no longer being made between American and Israeli interests. That is the line we are hearing, as the curtain goes up on the trial of Rosen and Weissman. Whether the jury or the public falls for it remains to be seen.
___________________________________________

Justin Raimondo is editorial director of Antiwar.com.

May 7, 2007 Issue

AIPAC Trial Likely to be Postponed

The unprecedented trial of two former officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, who are charged under the Espionage Act with unlawful receipt and disclosure of national defense information, is likely to be postponed from its scheduled start date on June 4.

The need to resolve disagreements between the parties over the handling of classified information involved in the case will "knock the trial date into a cocked hat," said Judge T.S. Ellis, III at an April 19 hearing.

The Judge gave prosecutors until May 2 to decide whether they will propose a new set of "substitutions" for classified evidence, which would then need to be reviewed by the defense and the court under the provisions of the Classified Information Procedures Act.

Alternatively, prosecutors may decide to stand fast with their previous proposal to bar public access to the classified evidence, a position that the judge has already rejected, thereby setting the stage for an appeal.

Judge Ellis issued a detailed memorandum opinion (pdf) on April 19 to explain why he concluded that the prosecution proposal to exclude public access to classified evidence is not authorized by statute or precedent.

The memorandum opinion advised the government that any proposal to exclude public access to classified evidence would have to be thoroughly supported by "a highly detailed explanation of the ensuing harms to national security... [since] much of the classified information at issue [here] is not self-evidently damaging to national security."

Posted by Steven Aftergood on April 24, 2007 12:03 PM | Permalink

Finding the Courage to Negotiate: Pelosi, AIPAC and Foreign Policy

The Berkeley Daily Planet

Editorial

By Becky O’Malley


So let us begin anew, remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate.
—President John F. Kennedy


These words are from Kennedy’s first inaugural address. That speech marked a generation, my generation. Nancy Pelosi, a politically aware woman of my own age, like me a college student in 1961, cannot have escaped hearing that speech and being influenced by it all of her adult life, as we all were. The attitude it embodied ultimately resulted in the end of a repressive regime in the former Soviet Union, without the atomic war that many in 1961 thought was inevitable. Kennedy described the belief system he hoped to counter: “[B]oth sides overburdened by the cost of modern weapons, both rightly alarmed by the steady spread of the deadly atom, yet both racing to alter that uncertain balance of terror that stays the hand of mankind’s final war.” Kennedy and his successors made many mistakes along the way, but his assertion that negotiation was the only way to end the balance of terror and avoid the atomic Armageddon which threatened to destroy the planet paid off in the end.

Pelosi, now a grandmother like me, is continuing to follow Kennedy’s advice by visiting leaders of potentially warring nations in the Mideast and urging negotiations. Tom Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor in Congress, is going along. Her credentials as a supporter of Israel, like his, are rock-solid, but no matter, the twerps are nipping at their heels.

Dick Cheney, briefly emerging from his undisclosed hidey-hole, led the attack, which has now trickled down to lesser-con luminaries like columnist Debra Saunders. The most foolish version of all this was Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s suggestion that Pelosi shouldn’t have worn a headscarf when she visited a mosque. “I just don’t know what got into her head, to be completely honest with you,” he said. “Her going to a state which is, without question, a sponsor of terror, and having her picture taken with Assad and being seen in a head scarf and so forth is sending the wrong signal to the people of Syria and to the people of the Middle East.”

Perhaps Romney, who is a Mormon, doesn’t knew that when Nancy and I were growing up Catholic women were always required to cover their heads in church, and that even Protestant princesses (there were no women Speakers in those days) donned veils when calling on the Pope. As a mayor’s daughter she’s undoubtedly grown up seeing politicians of all faiths bobby-pin yarmulkes to their heads when courting Jewish voters. Wearing a scarf is no big deal.

Lantos has even suggested that a trip to Iran should be the next item on the agenda, a proposal which Pelosi’s political staff quickly rejected, but don’t bet against it nevertheless. The time for talking to all parties is now, as sensible Israelis and Americans, even some Republicans, are starting to admit. Pelosi carried what she thought was a peace message to Syria from Israel, only to have clueless Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert deny that he’d intended any such thing, probably under pressure from the Bush White House.

But the time has come to talk. George Soros, international financier, philanthropist and determined advocate of what he believes to be human rights imperatives, came out of the political closet with a piece in the April 12 New York Review of Books.

He said that “The Bush administration is once again in the process of committing a major policy blunder in the Middle East, one that is liable to have disastrous consequences and is not receiving the attention it should. This time it concerns the Israeli–Palestinian relationship. The Bush administration is actively supporting the Israeli government in its refusal to recognize a Palestinian unity government that includes Hamas, which the U.S. State Department considers a terrorist organization. This precludes any progress toward a peace settlement at a time when progress on the Palestinian problem could help avert a conflagration in the greater Middle East.” His statement was dated March 15, before Pelosi’s trip, but its endorsement of the necessity of negotiation certainly applies to talking to Syria as well.

With a great deal of trepidation, remarkable in someone with as much influence and even power as Soros has, he zeroed in on the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as one of the principal obstacles to peace:

“I am not sufficiently engaged in Jewish affairs to be involved in the reform of AIPAC; but I must speak out in favor of the critical process that is at the heart of our open society. I believe that a much-needed self-examination of American policy in the Middle East has started in this country; but it can’t make much headway as long as AIPAC retains powerful influence in both the Democratic and Republican parties. Some leaders of the Democratic Party have promised to bring about a change of direction but they cannot deliver on that promise until they are able to resist the dictates of AIPAC.” Even though Soros is himself Jewish and a strong supporter of Israel, he knows that he is exposing himself to personal attacks for taking this position.

Pelosi, like many Democratic politicians in the Bay Area including Lantos, Assemblymember Hancock and Mayor Bates among others, has in the past been a vocal and visible supporter of AIPAC. That puts her in a good position to jump boldly into the negotiating process, just as Nixon’s history of anti-Communism put him in a good position to open negotiations with China. Even so, it has taken a considerable amount of courage for her to do so, and for Lantos and Congressman Henry Waxman to get her back as she does. It’s not too much to ask that other Democratic political leaders, especially those in safer-than-safe Northern California seats, should now demonstrate similar courage in resisting AIPAC’s undue influence on American and Israeli policy and speaking out in favor of open negotiations with all parties in the Middle East.

Since The Victims Are Arabs and Muslims

Ayoon wa Azan

Jihad el-Khazen Al-Hayat - 13/04/07//

In New York, Darfur is the most important issue in the world, or at least this is what the resident or visitor sees and hears. From subway tunnels to the streets, there are thousands of posters talking about 'genocide' and 400,000 people killed, with advertisements in the newspapers and on television. The lobby to save Darfur claims that it comprises 180 organizations representing 130 million Americans, and its aim is to pressure the Congress and the administration to stop this 'genocide' and punish the Khartoum government.

Darfur is a terrible humanitarian disaster that should not be played down. I am not doing that myself. However, the UN itself said that 200,000 were killed and that what had been committed there were war crimes, not genocide.

I choose to believe the UN, not the lobby to save Darfur, because this lobby is just the Israel lobby nicknamed. The goal is to divert attention from Israel's crimes, or the catastrophe of the war in Iraq.

The US war on Iraq has killed, according to a medical estimate, 655,000 Iraqis. That is, more than three times the dead in Darfur, and perhaps five times if we believe the higher estimate of nearly a million victims. Yet, we do not see posters in New York for the Iraqi victims, nor read about 'genocide' or a call to punish the war cabal on charges of genocide, or at least for committing war crimes.

Today, I pick up on what I said yesterday. The US media tycoon in Iraq is exposed, and the distinguished and capable US press did not resist the war in Iraq as it did over Vietnam. It did not try to expose those responsible for it, as we saw done in the Watergate scandal. The reason, at least in my personal opinion, is that the victims were Arabs and Muslims.

In Darfur, the victims are Muslims. There are 200,000 Muslims killed by Muslims. This lobby, whether of Israel or Darfur, does not defend them. It just makes use of them as a smokescreen to obscure the other crimes stretching from Palestine to Iraq. The Israeli lobby, after all, has been very active in the pursuit of war and still defends it; i.e. still supports killing the youth of the US in an unjustified war to protect Israel's security.

Thus, the US press is not interested because the victims are Arabs and Muslims, and the lobby prevents any in-depth discussion and diverts the attention from the crimes committed every day in Palestine and Iraq.

If there is anyone who questions the influence of the lobby, the AIPAC annual conference last month has provided a sufficient answer, as it attracted senior administration figures and the Democratic opposition at the same time. Vice President Dick Cheney delivered a speech entitled 'The United States and Israel: Tradition and Transcendence'. He stressed that the US "would remain unflinching and steadfast", while the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), reiterated that the US stands with Israel, now and forever. In short, the lobby announced that half of the members of the Senate and half the members of the House participated in the annual conference, which heard the words of a hundred US officials and guests, as well as some Israelis, such as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, via satellite, and Foreign Minister Tzibi Livne who was present.

I argue that the official Israeli lobby, i.e. the Jewish lobby AIPAC, does not represent US Jews. It is led by an extremist minority of war advocates, while the majority of US Jews are moderate liberals who always lean toward peace. The US presidential elections are undisputable evidence of this. During President George Bush's two campaigns, in 2000 and 2004, no more than 20% of US Jews supported him. In other words, 80% of them voted against the most pro-Israeli US President yet, and this is the highest proportion for an ethnic or religious group in the US elections.

I believe that the lobby is on the way toward paying the price for its fanaticism and for not being representative of the majority of the US Jews. While campaign financing silences candidates, blogs are free from such influence. And there are now many blogs that challenge the lobby, refute its falsehoods and extremism, and enjoy huge popularity. But such issue needs pages to be dealt with properly. I will suffice by saying that many among the leaders of the campaign against the lobby are liberal US Jewish bloggers, who have started to record some remarkable success. This is especially the case after the lobby went too far and began to accuse Jews of anti-Semitism just because they oppose the violations of Israel.

I would not lay the responsibility for the Iraq war on only the lobby, as the US press, particularly the great liberal part of it, is responsible before anyone else. I refuse to believe that newspapers such as the 'New York Times' have failed to find out about the forged Niger uranium letters, or cover the fabrication story as they had done with Watergate. On the other hand, a young Italian woman journalist discovered the forgery easily by herself. The forgery was confirmed by Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). I also do not believe that the US press did not see clear and flagrant errors in Bush's State of the Union address on January 28, 2003, or in the then Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech in front of the UN Security Council on February 5, 2003, a speech Powell himself said, some time later, was the lowest point in the history of his political career.

Members of Congress stood and clapped a great deal for Bush, and the US press published praises about Powell's speech. If the shortfall had come from the Arab press, which is negligent by nature, I would have accepted their excuse. But the US press is smarter than to be tricked, and has its traditions and its freedoms that would have made it easier to expose the crime of the war, if it had wanted to. I will continue this topic in a few days.

http://www.j-khazen.blogspot.com/

A Song Only Obama Hears, A Vision Only Obama Sees

The Presidential Candidate’s Visit To A Remote Palestinian Village Leads Him To Some Strange And Inaccurate Conclusions

by Ira Glunts

Wednesday March 21st, 2007

In an otherwise unremarkable speech delivered March 2 (for full text) to members of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Senator and Presidential candidate Barack Obama concluded his talk by making a startling reference to his brief January 2006 visit to the village of Fassuta [1] in northern Israel. The Senator spoke of “the signs of life and hope and promise” he witnessed there. Toward the end of his speech Mr. Obama stated,

Peace with security. That is the Israeli people’s overriding wish. It [emphases mine] is what I saw in the town of Fassouta on the border with Lebanon. There are 3,000 residents of different faiths and histories. There is a community center supported by Chicago’s own Roman Catholic Archdiocese and the Jewish Federation of Metro Chicago. It is where the education of the next generation has begun: in a small village, all faiths and nationalities living together with mutual respect. [2]

The reality is that the village of Fassuta [3] is not an integrated community as Senator Obama claims, but one that is comprised almost solely of Melkite Christian, Palestinian Arabs. The Melkites, who are Roman Catholics, are part of a greater Christian Arab community, who are themselves a minority among Palestinians living within the pre-1967 Israeli borders. Of course the vast majority of Arabs in both the Israel delineated by the pre-1967 borders and the Israel delineated by the post-1967 borders, are Muslims.

According to official Israeli government statistics for 2005, there were no Jewish residents in Fassuta. In a January 11, 2006 article entitled, “Obama Visits Remote Israeli Town With Chicago Ties,” Chuck Goudie, a reporter at the local Chicago ABC television station, states that “[a]ll 3,000 residents of Fassouta are Israeli, Palestinian and Catholic.” (Earlier in the article Goudie incorrectly states that a majority of Arabs in Israel are Christian.) This article, amazingly, is posted on Senator Obama’s official Senate web site [4].

The support that the Catholic Archdiocese and Jewish Federation have given the villagers of Fassuta is commendable. It is only appropriate that Mr. Obama would want to acknowledge the good works of his constituents. But implying that what he saw there fourteen months ago is an example of present progress toward peace in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict when the region has witnessed so much strife and hardship subsequent to his visit, is disingenuous.

Fassuta, like other Palestinian villages, suffers from a lack of services and infrastructure as a direct result of Israeli government policy. According to the Israeli Central Department of Statistics figures, the average income in Fassuta is 3748 NIS (New Israeli shekels) per wage earner as compared with 6835 NIS for the entire country. The village is rated as average in a government devised socio-economic scale (5 of a possible 10). A past resident whose family still lives there told me that he “wouldn’t describe Fassuta as a ‘poor’ village, although the authorities treat it the way they treat all other Arab villages - with total neglect and dismissiveness.”

The government of Israel views its Palestinian population as second class citizens at best, and officially sanctioned discrimination against its minority communities is openly acknowledged. To the vast majority of Palestinians, who are Sunni Muslims, the small gesture of outside support given to a Christian village would not be viewed as evidence of new signs of progress. But it would be a reminder of the Israeli policy of favoring smaller sectarian groups over the larger Muslim population, in a policy known in Israel as “divide and conquer.” This strategy has been most effectively employed with the Druze community.

In American foreign policy discussions, the above internal state of affairs tends to go unrecognized. Sometime this is because we choose to ignore it, sometimes it is because of lack of knowledge. Often it is because we focus on what many think is the greater, more pressing and more soluble problem – the disposition of territory Israel acquired as a result of the 1967 War and the possible creation of a Palestinian state. Obama’s speech conflates both discussions with equal measures of falsehoods and flights of fancy.

I would never expect Senator Obama to champion the cause of the Palestinian citizens of Israel during his campaign for the Democratic Presidential nomination. In the current US political climate, if he were to do so in front of AIPAC, the least of his problems would be alienating his immediate audience. However, I would expect a Presidential candidate to not draw completely irrelevant and erroneous conclusions about what a town like Fassuta signifies in relation to the “[p]eace with security… [t]hat is the Israeli people’s overriding wish.”

I wonder if Obama even knows that some seven months after his visit, during the last Lebanese/Israeli war, Fassuta sustained heavy damage from Hezbollah shelling. I wonder if Obama knows that the Israeli government does not build bomb shelters in Palestinian villages, as they do in Jewish settlements. This was a particularly egregious oversight in Fassuta since during the last war “Israeli artillery units were stationed in fields near …[the village]…, from where they exchanged shell and rocket fire with H[e]zbollah units.” [5] I wonder if Senator Obama knows that the residents of Fassuta had to bring the Israeli government to court in order to receive equal compensation to that received by those living in neighboring Jewish towns for damage caused by the shelling. Although the residents won their case, it is not clear if they will actually receive compensation equal to that of their Jewish neighbors. [6]

Fassuta’s two most famous natives are Sabri Jiryis and Anton Shammas . Jiryis is a founding member of Al-Ard, a writer, lawyer and political activist. He is a prominent, long-time member of Fatah, who returned to Israel in 1994 after 24 years in exile. His classic 1966 book, The Arabs In Israel, was updated and translated into English in 1976. [7] Jiryis presently divides his time between Ramallah in the West Bank and Fassuta. Anton Shammas, wrote the highly regarded Hebrew autobiographical novel Arabesques, and has been living in a self-imposed exile in Ann, Arbor, Michigan where he is a university professor. Shammas has written about his own difficulties living as a Palestinian in his native land. [8] I do not imagine that Mr. Obama knows about or has met either of these two men. Maybe if Obama had spoken to them, he would not be so quick to point to Fassuta as “[p]roof, that in the heart of so much peril, there were signs of life and hope and promise-that the universal song for peace plays on.”

American politicians are famous for making outrageous statements which demonstrate that they are totally unaware of the cultural and political realities in the foreign nations they visit. It is disappointing that Mr. Obama could be so deaf to the song that he heard, since according to Chicago writer and activist Ali Abunimah, [9] the Senator had attended numerous Arab-American events when he was an Illinois state politician. To describe an atypical village in northern Israel as a sign of hope and promise, and a kind of paradise of dancing children, is to sing a tune which will grate on the ears of those who are familiar with the region.

Mr. Obama is often depicted as a politician who can communicate a message of hope to his listeners. But a message of false hope is destructive and shows a disregard for the suffering of the victims. I do not know what Mr. Obama wanted to communicate to his listeners at AIPAC. However, what he communicated to those who are knowledgeable about the Palestinian/Israeli conflict is that he is not at this time prepared to seriously discuss Middle Eastern policy.

Ira Glunts

Notes

1. The name of the village is generally transliterated as “Fassuta,” and alternately “Fasuta,” or “Fassouta” The latter spelling is used in the text of Obama’s AIPAC speech and in the cited Goudie article.

2. The full text of the speech is available at Senator Obama’s US Senate web site http://obama.senate.gov/speech/070302- aipac_policy_forum_remarks/index.html

3. Some pictures of Fassuta can be found at: http://www.pbase.com/pb975/fasuta

4. Goudie, Chuck, “Obama Visits Remote Israeli Village With Chicago Ties,” January 11, 2006. http://obama.senate.gov/news/060111-obama_visits_
remote_israeli_town_with_chicago_ties/index.html

5. de Quetteville, Harry, "Israel Is Accused Of Racism Over Its War-Payouts,” Telegraph, September 24, 2006.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main. jhtml?xml=/news/2006/09/24/wmid24.xml

6. See above.

7. Ettinger, Yair, “The PLO Is His Life’s Work,” Ha’aretz, November 17, 2004.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=502532

Also see Wikipedia entry for “Jiryis, Sabri.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabri_Jiryis

8. See Kahlil Sakakini Cultural Centre web site entry for “Shammas, Anton.”
http://www.sakakini.org/literature/anton.htm

9. Abunimah, Ali, “How Barack Obama Learned To Loved Israel,” March 4, 2007.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6619.shtml

---

Ira Glunts first visited the Middle East in 1972, where he taught English and physical education in a small rural community in Israel. He was a volunteer in the Israeli Defense Forces in 1992. Mr. Glunts lives in Madison, New York where he writes and operates a used and rare book business. He can be contacted at gluntsi[at]morrisville[dot]edu.

Just Whom Does Congress Represent?

03/23/2007
Joe Murray

By Joe Murray , The Bulletin
Philadelphia

I do believe that Congress should assert itself, though, and make it very clear that there is no previous authority for the president, any president, to go into Iran," declared a confident Speaker of the House just a month or so ago.

Driven by a clear mandate to end the Iraqi conflict, remove American troops from Mesopotamia, and close the curtain on America's "Romeo and Juliet" affair with imperialism, it appeared that this grandmother from San Francisco was poised to tell the White House that the buck stopped at Baghdad. It was to be the culmination of the Democratic coup d'état.

But, as stated by Oscar Wilde, "There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it." First, a little background.

The election of 2006 was the Waterloo of the Bush Doctrine; it was the manifestation of American discontent. Five years after telling Americans that an invasion of Iraq would be met with rose petals and the makeover in Mesopotamia would produce a democratic oasis in Arabia, history has proven the cakewalk crowd to be fatally wrong.

Just into its fifth year, the war in Iraq has spilt the blood of 3,000-plus Americans, severely damaged America's international reputation, increased the number of tripwires that would plunge America into wars that are not her own, and tossed onto the ash heap of history Teddy Roosevelt's advice to "walk softly and carry a big stick."

Tired of sacrificing their blood and treasure for a people who did not seek, nor do not want, America's interference in their domestic affairs, Americans decided to pull the plug on the neo-conservative foreign policy comedy hour in November 2006.

Three months into the Democratic reign, the American people are now ready to pull the line of credit extended to Democrats in November. While they are important issues, Main Street is not primarily concerned with stem cell research, a higher minimum wage, and pharmaceutical/governmental relations; they want answers on Iraq.

Make no mistake; Americans rolled out the red carpet for Pelosi and friends because this war weary people believed that a new Congress would roll back the president's ability to increase the war, bring the troops home and restore a traditional foreign policy. This is what Americans were promised.

"And nowhere did the American people make it more clear that we need a new direction than in the war in Iraq," said Pelosi. "'Stay the course' has not made our country safer, has not honored our commitment to our troops and has not made the region more stable."

Americans took the Democrats at their word, but three months into a Pelosi Congress, Americans are still left with unanswered questions.

Where are the congressional hearings scrutinizing the legitimacy, and source, of the evidence used to propel America into the war? Where is the use of subpoena power that was dangled, like the carrot, before Americans?

Where is the tough-talking Congress that wooed Americans in their time of distress? And more importantly, where is the answer to the tough question of who brought this war upon us?
A few weeks ago, it had appeared that the cowardly Congress had found its courage when it decided to attach a provision to a major military spending bill that required the president to obtain congressional approval if he was to attack Iran. In other words, Congress was putting a stop payment on the blank check used to thrust America into the Iraqi war and telling the White House it had to follow the Constitution before launching another pre-emptive war.

The Legislature was back in business.

With well over 60 percent of Americans backing such provisions, it appeared that the Democrats were well on their way to fulfilling their electoral promise. This, however, did not happen.
Democrats were soon burnt by the flames of fury fanned by a militant minority pushing for a widened conflict in the Middle East. Enter the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

The Washington Times explains: "Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi received a smattering of boos when she bad-mouthed the war effort during a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and the Democratic leadership, responding to concerns from pro-Israel lawmakers, was forced to strip from a military appropriations measure a provision meant to weaken President Bush's ability to respond to threats from Iran."

What did Pelosi say that so enraged the AIPAC audience? Here is Pelosi in here own words: "Any U.S. military engagement must be judged on three counts - whether it makes our country safer, our military stronger, or the region more stable. The war in Iraq fails on all three scores."
All Pelosi did was tell the AIPAC audience that if America is to spill the blood of its children and expend its resources in fighting a war, it will be for the protection of vital U.S. interests. Pelosi was merely acknowledging the wisdom of the four men whose faces are carved into Mt. Rushmore.

AIPAC, needless to say, went apoplectic and the Iranian provision, the Arc de Triomphe of the Democratic Congress, was leveled. The Democratic Congress elected to write the final chapter on a failed imperialistic foreign policy had turned its back on those who put them in power. It is betrayal that would make Benedict Arnold blush.

Why did this happen? Carah Ong, Iran Policy Analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation, has her suspicions.

The move to strip the military appropriations bill of this provision, explains Ong, "coincides with AIPAC's annual conference, which Pelosi addressed on Tuesday. It also follows Vice President Dick Cheney's address to the AIPAC annual conference on Monday, during which he pleaded with AIPAC to 'rein in anti-war Democrats' ... ."

Along the same line, David Espo and Matthew Lee, writing for the AP, noted that the removal is reflective of "widespread fear in Israel about Iran, which is believed to be seeking nuclear weapons and has expressed unremitting hostility about the Jewish state."

Translation - Pelosi placed foreign interests before that of the Americans she was elected to represent.

Even more disturbing, AIPAC, despite its clamoring, is not the voice of Jewish America. Ari Berman of The Nation explains: "AIPAC's continued support for the war in Iraq proves how disconnected the organization is from mainstream Jewish Americans. According to a recent Gallup poll, Jewish Americans oppose the war in Iraq more vigorously than any other religious group in the US. Seventy-seven percent of US Jews (and 89 percent of Jewish Democrats!) believe the war in Iraq was a mistake."

In the end, the crux of this matter centers on the power of the Israeli war lobby to affect the legislative process in America. AIPAC is an organization that is unapologetically pro-Israel and makes the fatal mistake of assuming that Tel Aviv's interests are identical to Washington's interests.

It was this type of foreign influence George Washington had in mind when he warned Americans, "a passionate attachment of one Nation for another produces a variety of evils." Washington explained, "Sympathy for the favorite Nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest, in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justification."

Washington, more than two centuries ago, just explained how America got roped into the mess in Mesopotamia.

Five years after Iraq, the war drums are beating again and Congress must resist the siren song. Just as Washington warned, we cannot let foreign influence dictate U.S. policy and lead us into another war that is not our own.

When Pelosi, in describing Iraqi policy, pledged, "We cannot continue down this catastrophic path," Americans believed her. She was then elected to represent American interests and not the interests of a radical group blinded by its own passions.

Just whom do you represent, Pelosi?


Joe Murray can be reached at jmurray@thebulletin.us.

AIPAC Senators ask Rice to hold the line on aid to the Palestinian government

Senators ask Rice to hold the line on aid to the P.A.

03.22.07

With Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice heading back to the Middle East and rifts developing between Washington and its European allies over diplomacy with the new Palestinian unity government, Congress appears determined to hold the line on limiting aid to a Palestinian Authority still dominated by terrorists.

But many lawmakers also appear nervous about attempts to shut down all contacts with the new government.

That was the subject of a political tempest surrounding a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice by two pro-Israel senators.

Senators John Ensign (R-Nev.) and Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) circulated a letter last week urging Rice to maintain and expand sanctions against the Palesztinian Authority, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — the pro-Israel lobby — pulled out all the stops in urging other lawmakers to sign on.

The letter noted new American attempts to “reinvigorate the peace process,” and warned that such efforts must not deviate from the three demands imposed on the Palestinian Authority by the international Quartet as a precondition of resumed aid: recognizing Israel’s right to exist, renouncing terrorism, and accepting previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements.

But Ensign and Nelson went further, urging Rice to insist on “no direct aid and no contacts with any members” of a Palestinian Authority that does not meet international conditions.

That, according to groups like Americans for Peace Now, would have barred official contacts even with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, a major change in U.S. policy in the region.

APN, backed by Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, activated its political network and urged senators not to sign the Ensign-Nelson letter; delegates to last week’s AIPAC policy conference supported the letter during their March 13 congressional visits.

But when APN brought the controversial language to the attention of key Senate staffers, “there was a lot of concern that this letter went further than current U.S. policy,” said a top congressional source. “The letter attempted to get members on record before the situation was clarified, before briefings by the State Department, before hearings.”

This aide described the controversial phrase as a “preemptive strike” that made many lawmakers “nervous.”

This week the letter’s authors agreed to change that language; the new letter urges Rice only to “maintain current U.S. policy with respect to the Palestinian government until it recognizes Israel’s right to exist, renounce terror, and accept previous agreements.”

Nelson staffers, in a memo to other Senate offices, indicated that the changes were meant to “clear up any misperception concerning a change in U.S. policy. The letter reaffirms and urges maintaining current U.S. policy with respect to the Palestinian government.”

AIPAC officials denied that the original letter called for ending contacts with Abbas.

House letter warns EU

Also circulating in the House: a letter urging the Europeans to stick to the demand that the Palestinian Authority meet certain conditions before economic aid is resumed.

The letter, which had gathered almost 100 signatures by the weekend, was authored by Reps. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.), Gary Ackerman (D-NY), and Mike Pence (R-Ind.), among others.

That comes as some European leaders say they may resume contacts with the new Palestinian “unity” government while still withholding aid.

“We have deep reservations and ongoing concerns about the intentions of a government led by a hostile Hamas which rejects the basic premise under which diplomatic relations could be concluded and remains committed to the destruction of Israel,” the lawmakers wrote.

Concerns arise on Iran

Last week a group of Jewish legislators successfully blocked language in an Iraq war-appropriations bill that would have required the administration to get congressional authorization before using military force against Iran.

But the issue is far from dead, as antiwar lawmakers worry that President Bush, bogged down in Iraq, may be planning military action against Iran as well.

Last week’s action involved a Democratic amendment to an emergency spending bill for the Iraq war. That amendment would have required a U.S. pullout from Iraq by next year, a compromise measure that enjoys strong support from the House Democratic Caucus.

Partly to attract liberals angry that the Iraq amendment didn’t go further and partly because of concerns that the administration might be ill prepared for another war, some Democrats wanted to add language requiring specific congressional authorization before any military action against Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

Responding to pressure from some pro-Israel Democrats who said the provision would tie the administration’s hands and send the wrong message to Tehran, Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.), chair of the Appropriations Committee, barred the Iran language from the Iraq amendment.

But Pelosi has reportedly promised supporters of the provision that she will allow its introduction as a separate bill.

Some opponents said they would continue to fight what they say would be a dangerous message to leaders in Tehran.

“I do feel any president needs to come to Congress before any sustained military action,” said Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), who first raised objections to the Iran provision. “But there are instances where a president needs the flexibility to react.”

Engel said the administration is “doing the right thing” by focusing on sanctions and international pressure in its response to Iran, but added that such nonmilitary tactics lose their power if Congress limits the administration’s authority to use force.

“If you take the credible threat of force off the table, it gives Iran less incentive to negotiate,” he said.

Engel said that adding the Iran language was just a sop to liberal lawmakers who were unhappy that the Democratic Iraq package did not go far enough in limiting the administration’s ability to continue the war in Iraq.

Engel conceded that the Bush administration’s performance in Iraq does not bode well for any Iran attack, but said that “what worries me more than that is a nuclear Iran. Having a nuclear Iran is simply unacceptable; I hope the international community will understand that.”

Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY) also opposed the Iran provision, arguing that it could have doomed the Democratic package aimed at ending the Iraq conflict.

“Including that provision brought us none of the liberals who want to get out Iraq immediately, but it risked losing the conservatives,” he said. “So it wasn’t going to work.”

And he said the provision was irrelevant because “our position is that the Constitution already says that the administration would have to come to Congress” before attacking Iran.

But Ackerman, too, said that maintaining the threat of military action is necessary to give the diplomatic and economic strategy a chance of success.

New antiwar group has plan

Most Jewish groups are in hiding as the debate over the Iraq war rages in Congress — a silence that has spurred the creation of a new Jewish antiwar group dedicated to “ending the Iraq war and preventing one with Iran.”

Leaders of Jews Against the War say that they, not major Jewish organizations that have refused to speak out, reflect the views of a community that is overwhelmingly opposed to current U.S. policy.

In a statement announcing the group, Rabbi Joshua Levine Grater, leader of the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center in California and a leader of the left-of-center Tikkun Community, said that many pulpit rabbis refuse to speak up out of fear of being divisive.

“But, like the prophets of Israel, I can no longer take the ‘safe’ road,” he said. “This war is wrong and it needs to end. Our country’s moral voice in the world has vanished under the weight of torture, secret tribunals, and occupation; our beloved Israel is in greater danger now, with Iran emboldened; and our nation’s budget has been sacked.”

Aryeh Cohen, a professor of rabbinic literature at the University of Judaism, said in an interview that the group plans to lobby Congress, organize “vigils and protests” at synagogues, and orchestrate antiwar letters by rabbis and other Jewish leaders.

He said some Jews concerned about the war have been turned off by antiwar groups like International ANSWER with a strongly anti-Israel agenda.

“The ANSWER coalition is problematic — but it doesn’t define the antiwar movement,” he said. “The reason we are starting this organization is to articulate our own message. We do know that there is a very strong antiwar sentiment in the Jewish community that is not being reflected by the community’s leadership.”

He praised the Union for Reform Judaism, the only major Jewish group to publicly challenge administration policy, as “ahead of the game,” but said many Jews “don’t even know the Reform movement made a statement. There is some organizing going on, but not for stakeholders at the center of the community. There needs to be a vehicle for lay leaders whose voices on Iraq are not being heard.”

He blasted Jewish lawmakers who acted last week to keep a provision requiring congressional approval before any attack on Iran out of an amendment laying out a Democratic plan for ending the Iraq war.

“The Jewish congressmen are held hostage to what they think the American Jewish community’s position is on relating to Israel,” he said. “And they are misguided.”

DeLay: I quit for Israel

---

Tom DeLay says he quit the U.S. Congress to fight for Israel and conservative causes.

Tom DeLay says he quit the U.S. Congress to fight for Israel and conservative causes.

The former Republican majority leader in the U.S. House of Representatives was forced to step down from his leadership post last year to face charges of breaking fund-raising laws in his home state of Texas. DeLay surprised colleagues by quitting Congress altogether and joining a conservative think tank.

Appearing on CNN on Thursday to promote his new book, "No Retreat, No Surrender," DeLay said he stepped down because "I had to do two things, push the conservative cause and support Israel." He said he felt he would be more effective doing so as a commentator than as a rank-and-file congressman.

DeLay was one of Israel's fiercest defenders in the House, at times deriding bills driven by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the main pro-Israel lobby, as insufficiently pro-Israel.

The AIPAC Girl

by Patrick J. Buchanan

Posted 03/20/2007 ET
Updated 03/20/2007 ET

If George W. Bush launches a pre-emptive war on Iran, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will bear full moral responsibility for that war.

For it was Pelosi who quietly agreed to strip out of the $100 billion funding bill for Iraq a provision that would have required President Bush to seek congressional approval before launching any new war on Iran.

Pelosi's capitulation came in the Appropriations Committee.

What went down, and why?

"Conservative Democrats as well as lawmakers concerned about the possible impact on Israel had argued for the change in strategy," wrote The Associated Press' David Espo and Matthew Lead.

"Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said in an interview there is a widespread fear in Israel about Iran, which ... has expressed unremitting hostility to the Jewish state.

"'It would take away perhaps the most important tool the U.S. has when it comes to Iran,' she said of the now-abandoned provision.

"'I don't think it was a very wise idea to take things off the table if you're trying to get people to modify their behavior and normalize in a civilized way,' said Gary Ackerman of New York."

According to John Nichols of The Nation, Pelosi's decision to strip the provision barring Bush from attacking Iran without Congress' approval "sends the worst possible signal to the White House."

"The speaker has erred dangerously and dramatically," writes Nichols. Her "disastrous misstep could haunt her and the Congress for years to come."

Nichols does not exaggerate.

If Bush now launches war on Iran, he can credibly say Congress and the Democrats gave him a green light. For Pelosi, by removing a provision saying Bush does not have the authority, de facto concedes he does have the authority.

Bush and Cheney need now not worry about Congress.

They have been flashed the go sign for war on Iran.

Pelosi & Co. thus aborted a bipartisan effort to ensure that if we do go to war again, we do it the constitutional way, and we do it together.

Nothing in the provision would have prevented Bush, as commander in chief, from responding to an Iranian attack or engaging in hot pursuit of an enemy found in Iraq. Nor would the provision have prevented Bush from threatening Iran. It would simply have required him to come to Congress -- before launching all-out war.

Now Pelosi has, in effect, ceded Bush carte blanche to take out Iran's nuclear facilities. It's all up to him and Cheney.

For this the nation elected a Democratic Congress?

Why did Pelosi capitulate? Answer: She was "under pressure from some conservative members of her caucus, and from lobbyists associated with neoconservative groups that want war with Iran and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)," writes Nichols.

The Washington Times agrees as to who bully-ragged Nancy into scuttling any requirement that Bush come to the Hill before unleashing the B-2s on Arak, Natanz and Bushehr:

"Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi received a smattering of boos when she bad-mouthed the war effort during a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and the Democratic leadership, responding to concerns from pro-Israel lawmakers, was forced to strip from a military appropriations measure a provision meant to weaken President Bush's ability to respond to threats from Iran."

This episode, wherein liberal Democrats scuttled a bipartisan effort to require Bush to abide by the Constitution before taking us into a third war in the Middle East, speaks volumes about who has the whip hand on Capitol Hill, when it comes to the Middle East.

Pelosi gets booed by the Israeli lobby, then runs back to the Hill and gives Bush a blank check for war on Iran, because that is what the lobby demands. A real candidate for Profiles in Courage.

As for the presidential candidates, it is hard to find a single one willing to stand up and say: If Bush plans to take us into another war in the Mideast, he must first come to Congress for authorization. And if he goes to war without authorization, that will be impeachable.

All retreat into the "all-options-are-on-the-table" mantra, which is another way of saying, "It's Bush's call."

The corruption of both parties is astonishing. Republicans used to be the party of the Constitution: "No more undeclared wars! No more presidential wars!"

Democrats used to be the party of the people. The people don't want this war. They don't want another. The Jewish community voted 88 percent for Democrats in November, and 77 percent oppose Iraq.

So says Gallup. Yet, just because the Israeli lobby jerked her chain, the leader of the Peoples' House has decided she and her party will leave the next war up to Bush.

Sam Rayburn must be turning over in his grave.

Patrick J. Buchanan (more by this author)

Can American Jews unplug the Israel lobby?

As Bush's unbalanced Mideast policies careen from disaster to disaster, people who don't toe the AIPAC line are beginning to speak out.

By Gary Kamiya

Mar. 20, 2007 | Last week, a familiar Washington ritual took place: Leading American politicians from both parties lined up at the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to vie with each other over who could pledge the most undying fealty to Israel. As usual, much of Congress showed up -- half of the members of the U.S. Senate and more than half of the House, including figures like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, along with Vice President Dick Cheney.

It was a typical AIPAC parallel-universe extravaganza, marred only by partisan rifts that have begun to appear over Iraq. (Even some of the AIPAC crowd, who overwhelmingly supported the war at the outset, have begun to realize that it has been a disaster for both the United States and Israel.) Cheney got a standing ovation, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said via a video link that winning the war in Iraq was important for Israel, Nancy Pelosi was booed for criticizing the war, a fire-breathing Christian dispensationalist who believes that war on Iran will bring about the Rapture and the Second Coming was rapturously greeted, and Barack Obama took heat for having the audacity to mention the suffering of the Palestinians.

But AIPAC showed its true power -- and its continuing ability to steer American Mideast policy in a disastrous direction -- when a group of conservative and pro-Israel Democrats succeeded in removing language from a military appropriations bill that would have required Bush to get congressional approval before using military force against Iran.

The pro-Israel lobby's victory on the Iran bill is almost unbelievable. Even after the nation repudiated the Iraq war decisively in the 2006 midterms, even after it has become clear that the Bush administration's Middle East policy is severely unbalanced toward Israel and has damaged America's standing in the world, Congress still cannot bring itself to stand up to the AIPAC line.

The fact that AIPAC, which is ranked as the second-most powerful lobby in the country (trailing only AARP, but ahead of the NRA) virtually dictates U.S. policy in the Mideast has long been one of those surreal facts of Washington life that politicians discuss only when they get near retirement -- if then. In 2004, Sen. Ernest "Fritz" Hollings had the bad taste to reveal this inconvenient truth when he said, "You can't have an Israel policy other than what AIPAC gives you around here." Michael Massing, who has done exemplary reporting on AIPAC for the New York Review of Books, quoted a congressional staffer as saying, "We can count on well over half the House -- 250 to 300 members -- to do reflexively whatever AIPAC wants." In unguarded moments, even top AIPAC figures have confirmed such claims. The New Yorker's Jeffrey Goldberg quoted Steven Rosen, AIPAC's former foreign-policy director who is now awaiting trial on charges of passing top-secret Pentagon information to Israel, as saying, "You see this napkin? In twenty-four hours, we could have the signatures of seventy senators on this napkin."

Until 9/11 and the Iraq war, this state of affairs was of little concern to anyone except those passionately interested in the Middle East -- a small group that has never included more than a tiny minority of Americans, Jews or non-Jews. If the pro-Israel lobby wielded enormous power over America's Mideast policies, so what? America's Mideast policies were always reliably pro-Israel anyway, for a variety of reasons, including many that had nothing to do with lobbying by American Jews. And the stakes didn't seem that big.

But in the wake of 9/11 and the Iraq war, that all changed dramatically. 9/11, and the Bush administration's response to it, made it inescapably clear that America's Mideast policies affect everyone in the country: They are literally a matter of life and death. The Bush administration's neoconservative Mideast policy is essentially indistinguishable from AIPAC's. And so it is no longer possible to ignore it -- even though it is a notoriously touchy and divisive subject.

The touchiest aspect of all is the role played by pro-Israel neoconservatives in laying the groundwork for the Iraq war. Much of the media has been loath to go near this, for obvious and in some ways honorable reasons: It feels a little like "blame the Jews." But that taboo has faded as it has become clearer that "the Jews" are not the ones being blamed for helping pave the way to war, but a group of powerful neoconservatives, some but not all of them Jewish, who subscribe to the hard-right views of Israel's Likud Party. This group no more represents "the Jews" than the Shining Path represents "the Peruvians."

Logic and forthrightness has traditionally taken a back seat to timorous self-censorship when it comes to discussing these matters. But in addition to the war debate, several other watershed events have helped erode the taboo against discussing the power of the Israel lobby. The most important were the publications of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's "The Israel Lobby," and Jimmy Carter's "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid." The overwrought reaction to Mearsheimer and Walt's piece, ironically, only supported its thesis. Similarly, the opprobrium heaped on Carter only succeeded in making it clear how little room there is for open discussion of these issues in America.

For all these reasons, a powerful spotlight has been turned on the pro-Israel lobby. And there are signs that increasing numbers of Americans, Jews and non-Jews alike, are willing to openly question whether it is in America's national interest for AIPAC, whose positions are well to the right of those held by most American Jews, to wield such disproportionate power over America's Mideast policies.

As a group, American Jews continue to be staunchly liberal. A new poll shows that 77 percent of American Jews now think that the Iraq war was a mistake, compared with 52 percent of all Americans. (Jewish support for the war has collapsed: A poll taken a month before the war showed that 56 percent of Jews supported it, somewhat below the national average at that time.) Eighty-seven percent of Jews voted Democratic in 2006. And although data here is murkier, polls also show that most American Jews hold views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that are to the left of AIPAC's.

What all this adds up to is that for liberal or moderate American Jews who don't support Bush's war in Iraq or his "war on terror" and who are willing to look at Israel warts and all, the fact that AIPAC has anointed itself as the de facto spokesmen for American Jews is becoming more and more unacceptable. And increasing numbers of them are beginning to speak out.

One of the most trenchant commentators is Philip Weiss, a regular contributor to the Nation. Weiss' blog, MondoWeiss, offers informed and passionate discussions of what he calls "delicate and controversial matters surrounding American Jewish identity and Israel." He routinely skewers attempts by mainstream Jewish organizations and pundits to lay down the law on what is acceptable discourse. This means being willing to look at off-limits subjects like "dual loyalty." When the American Jewish Committee, a powerful advocacy group that shares AIPAC'S line, issued a reactionary response to the Mearsheimer-Walt piece and the Carter book, accusing Jewish intellectuals who didn't toe the party line on Israel of being "self-haters," Weiss pointed out that the heavy-handed attempt had backfired -- instead of silencing dissenting voices, the AJC piece revealed for all to see the "anti-intellectual, vicious, omerta practices of the Jewish leadership."

Other widely read writers who have been outspoken on formerly taboo subjects include Matthew Yglesias of the American Prospect and Glenn Greenwald of Salon. Both Greenwald and Yglesias, for example, punctured a classic attempt by the Jewish establishment to smear Gen. Wesley Clark, who, saying that he feared that Bush might be preparing to attack Iran, added, "The Jewish community is divided but there is so much pressure being channeled from the New York money people to the office seekers." Clark was immediately -- and predictably -- accused of being anti-Semitic for referring to "the New York money people" and implying they wanted war with Iran. But as both Yglesias and Greenwald pointed out, everything Clark said was demonstrably true. Adding insult to injury, Greenwald proved it was true by citing such right-wing, pro-Israel media sources as the New York Sun and the New York Post.

Of course, a few blogs, articles and organizations do not necessarily a movement make -- certainly not one capable of standing up to a deep-pocketed powerhouse like AIPAC. But there are other signs that the hegemony of AIPAC and its ilk is weakening. Last year liberal Jewish groups like Americans for Peace Now, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and Peace and the Israel Policy Forum succeeded in handing AIPAC a legislative defeat, persuading Congress to gut a harsh AIPAC-supported bill that would have cut off all aid to the Palestinian people. These groups still have only a fraction of AIPAC's clout and money. But as Gregory Levey noted in Salon, there has been talk of a new lobby, possibly bankrolled by billionaire George Soros, which would compete with AIPAC. If such a group comes into existence -- and it's much too soon to say that it will -- the entire playing field would be changed.

How long AIPAC will hold sway depends on how long it can convince politicians that it speaks for American Jews. It doesn't, but only American Jews can prove that. American politicians are not going to stop paying homage to AIPAC until there's an alternative -- and only Jews can provide it. Are liberal Jews really beginning to turn speak out against AIPAC? And if not, why not?

To try to get some answers, I called M.J. Rosenberg, the director of policy analysis for the Israel Policy Forum, a Washington-based liberal counterpart to AIPAC that advocates muscular U.S. support for a two-state solution in Palestine. Rosenberg worked for AIPAC between 1982 and 1986, leaving when he became disenchanted with the group's hard-line response to the Oslo peace process.

I asked Rosenberg how AIPAC has been able to maintain its power.

"Although they [AIPAC] don't represent anything like a majority of American Jews, they may represent a majority of those who are most interested in Israel," Rosenberg said. "American Jews who care about Israel and other things are more likely to be supporters of the IPF kind of approach. I think Jews who care only about Israel are closer to the AIPAC position. In our politics today, single-issue voters and donors tend to have clout out of all proportion to their numbers. That's nothing new. My father used to tell me that in the 1930s when you had any kind of a meeting of liberals, the Communists always prevailed because they were the most single-minded -- everybody else would go home. Things go to extremes. And that would apply to the right-to-life movement and the gun movement as well. We always claim we're the majority -- we are, but we have a soft majority. And they've got a hard minority."

Why weren't more American Jews with moderate views on the Middle East stepping forward to challenge AIPAC and its hawkish policies? I asked Rosenberg. Was it because they were afraid of being morally blackmailed -- facing the predictable accusations of being self-hating Jews, disloyal to Israel, collaborationist "kapos," and so on?

"I think the number of people in that group is relatively small," Rosenberg said. "I think the much larger number are people who are absolutely indifferent. And therefore they're not susceptible to moral blackmail because they will never hear what AIPAC or the IPF or any of the Israel organizations say. I don't know what percentage it is, but my guess is that no more than 40 percent of American Jews think about Israel in any way, shape or form. Most of them live their lives, like most people do. So we're fighting over people who think about it at all, and as I said the single-issue ones tend to be more with AIPAC for now. We're trying to get the rest. But I do think that as time goes on, with more and more young people, that moral blackmail thing doesn't work anymore."

Rosenberg said that long-term demographic trends were working against AIPAC and its fear tactics. The AIPAC leadership, which he described as a "true believer [on Israel] crowd with money," is "a much older crowd," he said. "Their children and grandchildren don't have those views. As we get further from World War II, it's harder to scare young people into support for Israel. They will support Israel if they believe in Israel and if Israel appeals to them. But those scare tactics, 'write checks because there's going to be another Holocaust' -- that's doesn't work with the under-60 crowd. The people who demonstrated against the Vietnam war in the '60s, they're just not going to buy into the 'Hitler is coming' stuff. They're just too smart for that. I've got kids in their 20s -- the idea of telling them that America could be a dangerous place for them? They would laugh in my face. That's ridiculous."

Rosenberg also pointed out that "Israel's popularity with American Jews has gone down since 1977, when Begin became prime minister. The way Israel was sold, the Leon Uris Israel, was the Israel of the kibbutz, this socialist paradise. And that's totally changed now. A lot of the glow is really gone, which makes me sad, because I'm very involved with Israel and I care a lot about Israel."

Rosenberg said that one of the best things American Jews can do to educate themselves about Israel is to read the Israeli press, which routinely prints pieces far more harshly critical of Israel than anything found in the American media. "If people who don't follow the situation closely started to read the Israeli press, started to read Haaretz, they'd realize how much debate there is there, and how many people feel terribly about what's happened to the Palestinians, and how many people are determined to break out of this situation," Rosenberg said. "And they'd realize that Israelis in general feel that the rhetoric of American Jewish organizations is about as outdated as the last century. It says nothing to Israelis. They laugh at that kind of rhetoric. If American Jews saw what the debate is like there, that would make Israel more popular. The more knowledge, the better. American Jews would see that the kind of liberal humanitarian views they have on issues here are perfectly legitimate in Israel, and perfectly common in Israel, even though in the mainstream American Jewish organizations they're considered off-center."

Rosenberg compared American Jews' evolving attitudes to Israel to the achievements of the civil rights movement. "Look, 25 years ago you couldn't even talk about the Palestinians. I mean, Golda Meir said there was no such thing as a Palestinian. Now there's not a single major Jewish organization except the far-right organizations that does not give at least nominal support to the two-state solution. So it's moving. It's kind of like the civil rights movement in this country. It's not perfect, but you see the change. I would say that 90 percent of American Jews understand that there's going to be a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as its capital. That's what most Israelis know is going to be the future. So that's something."

Liberal American Jews are in a difficult situation, with powerful and understandable emotional crosscurrents pulling them both ways. If they are liberal, antiwar, anti-Bush Democrats, willing to look critically at Israel, you'd think they might be willing to speak out against AIPAC. But why should they? Like most other Americans, most Jews are probably sick of Israel's endless conflict with the Palestinians, don't know much about it, and aren't that interested in learning more. Everyone knows that holding strong opinions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a surefire ticket to painful arguments -- in this case, possibly within one's own family. Much easier just to let AIPAC be in charge of speaking for Jews on Israel and be done with it.

American Jews may not be as susceptible as they once were to the old fear-and-guilt approach, as Rosenberg suggests, but for many Israel remains something of an untouchable subject. They may not support it 100 percent, maybe not even 50 percent, but they're still not ready to do anything to undercut a group like AIPAC that does. For some, this is simply a reflection of a more or less ardent Zionism. For others, the reasons can be subtler. For Jews who have little attachment to their religion or their cultural traditions, supporting Israel -- which for many, unfortunately, means actively or passively supporting AIPAC's position on Israel -- may be a way of demonstrating that they haven't completely abandoned their heritage. The internalized second-class status of being in the diaspora, too, may play a role: "Who am I in New York City to say anything against a guy in the West Bank facing suicide bombers?" As Haaretz's diplomatic correspondent and my longtime Salon colleague Aluf Benn once told me, "For American Jews, Israel is a cause. We Israelis don't see it that way."

We find ourselves in a very strange situation. America's Mideast policies are in thrall to a powerful Washington lobby that is only able to hold power because it has not been challenged by the people it presumes to speak for. But if enough American Jews were to stand up and say "not in my name," they could have a decisive impact on America's disastrous Mideast policies.

All Hail Israel

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

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(Ben Heine © Cartoons)

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Homage to Fear and Fawning
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By William A. Cook (*)

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Like all patriotic Americans, I spend a portion of each weekend browsing through the “official” web sites of the Presidential candidates preparing myself for the 2008 run off between Republicans and Democrats, Republicrats for short. I now aggregate all of them because all pay homage, indeed a groveling obsequiousness, to AIPAC and to the Olmert/Leiberman regime in Israel. Such fawning is born of fear, as former congressmen Paul Findley, Cynthia McKinney and Earl Hilliard can testify, fear that comes with crossing a powerful force, a force that can threaten the candidate’s standing in the polls. Yossi Beilin, former Labor Party Minister under Ehud Barak recognized this force: “They (AIPAC) have the threat of voting out (congressional) representatives. I never liked this leverage. It’s counterproductive.”

Yet it’s clear that the American Congress’ unrestrained support for the Sharon/Olmert regimes over the past six years, coupled to the Bush administration’s total capitulation to Israel’s dominance in Palestine, has created an untenable situation for America in the eyes of the world. America’s bondage to Israel is the overriding issue that can release America from its position as the target for the world’s hatred, yet all candidates but two grovel before AIPAC and the Olmert/Leiberman regime.

Why is bondage to Israel a concern? Because those who attack America, including Bin Laden, have told Americans that it is a concern; because our 9/11 Commission told us in Without Precedent that the dominant reason given to them for actions against America was our absolute and continued support for Israel; because Maershimer and Walt, in their report on AIPAC influence in our congress, presented to America an inventory of evidence that establishes America’s allegiance to Israel and the consequences of such allegiance; because Haaretz, the leading Israeli newspaper, has admonished Israelis and Americans that the perception in the Arab world and in the EU of America’s total commitment to Israel is unwise and will erupt in a blowback against Israel itself; because virtually every nation in the world understands what Americans cannot seem to digest, that support for a country that has systematically persecuted another people without letup for 60 years, has made America a pariah nation subject to the frustration, anger, and outright hatred of those who condemn the injustice inflicted on the Palestinians.

Why continue such unrestrained bondage to Israel? Why indeed. Why shackle America to a nation that has defied UN resolutions year after year (over 160 UNGA and 60 UNSC) since 1948 that calls for it to act humanely to the Palestinians, to return stolen land to the Palestinians, to recognize international law and the right to return of refugees driven from their homes? Why shackle America to a country that defies international law by occupying the land of other nations and peoples? Why shackle America to a nation that refuses to sign a mid-east nuclear non-proliferation agreement, develops its own arsenal of nuclear bombs (estimated at 200-400), then, with all brazen chutzpah, condemns its neighbor for developing such a weapon? Why shackle America to a nation that cries before the world its right to defend itself when it refuses to negotiate with its neighbors the borders of its own state as it occupies land belonging to others, then condemns the Palestinians for refusing to recognize what it has yet to declare publicly, where Israel begins and ends?

Why shackle America to a state that constructs a Wall that imprisons another people, using their land and stealing their water and farm land in the process, a Wall not unlike the Berlin Wall that America found so repulsive, a Wall that has been condemned by the International Court of Justice as inhumane and illegal? Why shackle America to a state that imprisons 10,000 people without charge and tortures many without regard or adherence to international law or the Geneva Conventions? Why shackle America to a state that contains in its government a vowed racist, Avigdor Leiberman, who leads his party and now the state to ethnically cleanse the indigenous population by transfer or slow starvation? Why shackle America to a nation that accepts as normal behavior the assassination of individuals on the say so of the Prime Minister or his subordinates denying them the rights provided by law in a civilized society, the right to be charged, to confront the evidence and/or the accuser, and trial by peers? Why shackle America to a state that determines for itself that the will of the people whom they oppress by occupation cannot democratically elect those who would govern them, deny the right of the government to exist, and then steal the tax funds that belong to that government? Why shackle America to the tax burden required to provide this state with 3 to 5 billion dollars per year for military and infrastructure development when it uses these tax dollars to construct illegal housing for immigrants to that nation, to build apartheid roads over stolen land, and to construct the heinous Wall that entombs the Palestinians?

Why indeed. Yet with only two exceptions, all candidates running for president in 2008 have obsequiously crawled before AIPAC to declare his or her unqualified allegiance to the Israeli state thus negating before they could take office the chance to bring peace to the mid-east. Anyone paying attention for the past twenty years or more understands that Israel alone can bring peace to Palestine, and Israel does not want peace as long as it believes it can continue to create conditions on the ground that confiscate more and more Palestinian land (read Jeff Halper’s “Matrix of Control” or Why Israel won’t Make Peace”). Why, then, should our candidates fall on their knees fawning before AIPAC and Olmert? Consider this observation by the editors of Haaretz:

"The conclusion that Israel can draw from the anti-Israel feeling expressed in the article (Maershimer and Walt article) is that it will not be immune for eternity. America’s unhesitating support for Israel and its willingness to restrain itself over all of Israel’s mistakes can be interpreted as conflicting with America's essential interests and are liable to prove burdensome. The fact that Israelis view the United States support for and tremendous assistance to Israel as natural causes excess complacence, and it fails to take into account currents in public opinion that run deep and are liable to completely change American policy."

If editors at Haaretz understand that America’s support can be detrimental to its interests, why must our candidates grovel before the far right organization that purports to represent Israel? Why shouldn’t they recognize that other Jewish voices also speak for Israel, especially those now forming that are meant to counteract AIPAC’s influence? (the “Soros Initiative,” and other Jewish organizations that do not agree with AIPAC’s dominance, Israel Policy Forum, Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, Tikkun Community, Jewish Voice for Peace).

But grovel they must. Each has to outdo the other. Senator Biden states the Democrats support for Israel “comes from our gut, moves through our heart, and ends up in our head. It’s almost genetic.’ (October 5, 2006). “Israel cannot be expected to negotiate with a party that calls for its destruction, engages in terrorism and maintains an armed militia. Hamas must choose: bullets or ballots.” (January 2006). Obviously, Biden’s gut response never gets to his head. How can the Palestinians negotiate with Israel when its government does not recognize the right of Palestinians to have a state and calls for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their own land or imprisons them behind walls? How can Palestinians negotiate with a state that has been terrorizing them for six decades, relentlessly and brutally? How can Palestine negotiate with a state that maintains, not an “armed militia,” but the third to fourth largest military force in the world to occupy a small and undefended people? How can Palestine negotiate with a state that will not allow for a one-state solution that would allow for ballots not bullets?

Not to be outdone, Hillary proclaims at a Hanukkah dinner at Yeshiva University that “Israel is not only our ally; it is a beacon of what democracy can and should mean … If the people of the Middle East are not sure what democracy means, let them look to Israel.” Look indeed, look at the only people allowed to be citizens in Israel, Jews; it is in its declaration a state for Jews. There are Arabs (Palestinians in fact but can’t be called that in Israel) who have resided in the land granted to Israel by the UN and given Israeli citizenship, roughly 20% of the population, but they are in reality second class citizens and denied many of the rights granted to Jews. The very fact that it is a state for one people contradicts the premise of a democracy.

But Hillary goes on, goes on to negate the validity and the judgment of the International Court of Justice in its condemnation of the Entombment Wall as inhumane and illegal. She takes it upon herself to declare the ICJ as meaningless and its decision, after trial and evidence, null and void. But who is Hillary to determine anything of the sort? Hasn’t the United States signed the document that established the ICJ, and despite the illegal actions of the Bush administration, isn’t the US still legally bound to that document? She, like Bush, will rule without law and order when it comes to Israel.

Senator Dodd, like Biden, relates his support for Israel back through family blood, to his father before him, decades of support. He makes this observation: “For six decades, Israel has passed every day in the knowledge that its enemies are praying and plotting for its death. In the face of such hatred, we might have expected the people of Israel to answer with hate of their own. But they have not.” (AIPAC’s National Summit, 10/06). Unfortunately, the people of Israel, like Americans, are victims of their respective governments that have been all too willing to brandish their hatred and brutality on the Palestinians and Iraqis on behalf of their citizens. Indeed, the good Senator brags about being the co-sponsor of the Syrian Accountability Act, another example of Israel’s willingness to use our Congress to benefit its own interests while it locks out the possibility of working with the Syrians toward some measure of peace in Iraq, a direction, despite Dodd’s efforts, finally underway now.

John Edwards has resorted to endorsing Olmert’s “realignment” plan, a euphemism for more theft. But, as Edwards notes, “Israel is in the unfortunate position of having to act without an agreement.” Why are they without a negotiating partner? Because Olmert will not recognize the legitimate democratically elected government of the people of Palestine. Since he had already determined that Mahmud Abbas was too weak, and that the Palestinians did not recognize the state of Israel, stop the violence, and accept all agreements made by the PLO, positions Israel has not been willing to make to the Palestinians, they were left with no one to work with toward peace. That reality Edwards ignores.

Haaretz quotes Bill Richardson in its November 19th, 2006 on-line edition as saying “The partnership between our two countries has never been stronger. We are fortunate to have each other in the fight against terrorism and in advancing our common cause of a lasting peace in the Middle East.” This reflects the mantra that all extend to AIPAC, negating in its utterance the terror Israel inflicts daily and the almost universal acceptance of Israel as a terrorist state. (see Pew Foundation survey).

Finally, to wrap up the Democrats that have labored hard in the Israeli vineyards, we turn to the one man allegedly untainted by the influence of lobbyists if only because of his limited time in Washington, Barack Obama. Well, it appears that he’s been tainted. Haaretz quotes Obama in its March 3, 2007 on line edition: “My view is that the United States’ special relationship with Israel obligates us to be helpful to them in the search for credible partners with whom they can make peace, while also supporting Israel in defending itself against enemies sworn to its destruction.” Shmuel Rosner, the Haaretz correspondent goes on to say that “Obama passed any test anyone might have wanted him to pass. So, he is pro-Israel. Period.” AIPAC works fast. The one candidate that might have reason to be objective in light of his family’s experience, grovels before the oppressor, no doubt never having visited the plantation on the other side of the Wall.

Needless to say, all the Republicans are baptized in AIPAC’s largesse – McCain, Giuliani, Romney, Brownback and Hunter. Others like Hagel are testing the waters reluctant to wade in until the pool becomes less crowded. No need to quote these folks, let Haaretz do it for us. “Israeli panel: Giuliani is best presidential candidate for Israel.” That’s the headline. It reports on Israel’s new project, “The Israel Factor: Ranking the Presidential Candidates.” The panel will rank the candidates each month until the 2008 election. Giuliani scored best on the possibility of attacking Iran, followed by Gingrich (undeclared) and McCain.

Two candidates, only two, Gravel of Alaska and Kucinich of Ohio, offer balanced approaches to meaningful settlement of the crisis in Palestine. Gravel proposes that the US sponsor direct negotiations between Israel and all Palestinian factions including Hamas, support a Palestinian state alongside Israel, have the US serve as a guarantor for the demilitarization of Israel’s border with a future Palestinian state, commit itself to raising the economic standards of Palestinians comparable to that which it supplies to Israel, and disavow a nuclear first-strike policy.

Let me conclude this romp through the candidates with Dennis Kucinich’s statement on the issue, a statement issued in September of 2003: “The same humanity that requires us to acknowledge with profound concerns the pain and suffering of the people of Israel requires a similar expression for the pain and suffering of the Palestinians. When our brothers and sisters are fighting to the death, instead of declaring solidarity with one against the other, should we not declare solidarity with both for peace, so that both may live in security and freedom? If we seek to require the Palestinians, who do not have their own state, to adhere to a higher standard of conduct, should we not also ask Israel, with over a half century experience with statehood, to adhere to the basic standard of conduct, including meeting the requirements of international law?”

What more can be said? Gravel’s proposals provide an avenue toward peace that respects both Israelis and Palestinians, and Kucinich’s statement, from the least likely candidate to gain credibility with the American public, offers the American voter a route to a moral resolution of a conflict that has brought it, because of its unrestrained support for Israel and its illegal actions as an occupier of Palestinian territory, international censure and denunciation. All other choices lead to a continuation of the injustice inflicted on the Palestinians and the residue that is the consequence of our allegiance to Israel’s brutally aggressive treatment of the Palestinians. How can American voters trump the power of AIPAC and its allies for Israel in determining the future policy of this nation toward Israel if AIPAC has our candidates

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(*) William Cook is a professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern California and author of Tracking Depception: Bush's Mideast Policy

--> This article originally appeared on MWC News
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Posted by Ben Heine at 6:24 AM