Relevant to what I wrote here a couple of days ago– about the politics of the reaction to Bush’s overture to Iran– the sage, well-informed Israeli journalist Ori Nir has an intriguing piece in today’sNew York Forward titled: Bush Overture To Iran Splits Israel, Neocons. The sub-title there is: “Olmert Asks Groups To Keep Low Profile.” “Groups” there meaning “pro-Israeli groups within the US political system.”
Nir writes:
- Neoconservative analysts are blasting the administration, saying that holding talks with the Islamic regime would serve only to embolden it and undermine the anti-fundamentalist opposition in Iran. They argue that America’s ultimate goal should be to change Tehran’s theocratic regime.
… Israeli officials and several influential Jewish groups, meanwhile, have refrained from criticizing the new American approach — which some experts are depicting as the most dramatic foreign policy shift of the Bush presidency — saying that they support more pragmatic ways to block Iran’s apparent dash toward a nuclear weapon. For Israel and Jewish groups — despite Iranian calls for Israel’s destruction — the fundamental goal is not regime change, but to block Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Iam prepared to accept there’s some validity to Nir’s argument that there is some divergence between the longer-term goals of, on the one hand, Israel and its allies, and on the other, many or perhaps most of the neocons.
However, he also signals that there is another (less public) issue at stake in this disagreement, and that is the visibility of the pro-Israeli propaganda effort within the US discourse.
(Hey, have you wondered why the ardent pro-Israeli propagandists “David/Davis” and “Neal” have been so quiet on our comments boards here recently? I assure you it’s not because I’ve banned them. But mainly, they’re just keeping a low profile these days… It almost makes me miss them… Okay, not terrifically much… )
Anyway, here’s what Nir– who’s a good, generally strong-valued reporter– writes on the topic:
- The Walt-Mearsheimer paper has triggered an escalating debate on the influence of Israel and Jewish organizations that has spilled over onto the opinion pages of major publications, including The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Recently, with such scrutiny mounting, Israeli leaders asked American Jewish organizations to lower their profile on the Iran issue, the Forward has learned.
In one notable example, a delegation of leaders from the American Jewish Congress met with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert shortly before returning to the United States. When asked how he thinks Jewish groups should pursue the Iran issue, Olmert reportedly implied that he would prefer a low profile, according to one source familiar with the proceedings.
“We don’t want it to be about Israel,” Olmert is said to have replied, explaining that although Iran’s president focuses his belligerent rhetoric on Israel, both Jerusalem and Washington have an interest in convincing the international community that a nuclear armed Iran would be a menace to the region and to the entire world.
Here’s what Nir wrote about the effectiveness of Olmert’s plea to the(Jewish) pro-Israel lobbyists inside the US:
- Israel’s support for Rice [on Iran] and Olmert’s request for Jewish groups to take a lower profile [on Iran] are being well received by many Jewish groups. Already, some Jewish groups had been asking the White House to stop suggesting that American efforts to block Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons are motivated primarily by a desire to protect Israel.
I think I’ve noted here before how pathetically craven and ideologically dependent most of these groups are… and how ready they are, as a result, to shift their positions by 180 degrees the moment their lords and masters in Israel tell ’em too. Why, they make the West European communist parties of the 1930s look like deeply principled, locally rooted rooted organizations in comparison…
Nir again:
- Jewish organizations have no interest in becoming “the lobby for war with Iran,” one communal official said.
… [W]hile some Jewish groups are uncomfortable with the administration’s shift on direct talks with Iran, only the right-of-center Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs openly criticized the move.
Oh, antediluvian old JINSA. Don’t you gotta love ’em? (Irony alert!!)
But there you have it, in a nutshell: “Jewish organizations have no interest in becoming ‘the lobby for war with Iran'”, as the anonymous offical of one of the US’s many generously funded and politically very powerful Jewish “community organizations” is quoted there as saying.
You betcha. Because if these Jewish-American organizations become labeled as ‘the lobby for war with Iran’, then what about the explanation for those 2,492 US force members who’ve been killed as a result of the US invasion of Iraq? Let’s please ask no questions in that very sensitive regard!
I should note that there are a number of Jewish-American community organizations that provide good social services to Jewish Americans (who as a result are generally not a particularly needy social group these days), or who work actively in support of social justice issues here in the US, in Israel/Palestine, or elsewhere in the world. However, the general rubric of “Jewish Community Federation” of whatever, which used to be federation of such philanthropic groups, has in many cases been hijacked by the ultra-Zionist, Israel-uber-alles crowd, to the point that it’s sometimes hard these days even to identify the Jewish-American groups that are sincerely working for a world without oppression, and which actually buy to some degree or another into the arguments of the territorial maximalists within Israel… (Here’s one that in my view, does great work on the basis of upholding the equality of all human persons: Brit Tzedek v’shalom.. Let’s hope that my identifying it as such doesn’t give the kiss of death to its fundraising effort.s.. )
Well anyway, big thanks to Ori Nir for his sterling reporting there. And to the Forward, which is a modern-day, English-language version of an old Yiddish-language socialst newspaper in New York, for the support it gives to good reporting like Nir’s.
I just add, a propos of nothing in particular here, that there have been strategic thinkers in Israel who’ve made the argument that Iran’s nuclear program is not such a big deal even if it has military aspects… because basically, if Israel and Iran both end up with nuclear weapons (or the capability for ’em), then that could even bring a degree of strategic stability to the Middle East…
But I gess that’s an entirely different area of discussion.
Because if these Jewish-American organizations become labeled as ‘the lobby for war with Iran’, then what about the explanation for those 2,492 US force members who’ve been killed as a result of the US invasion of Iraq?
You might run that by Juan Cole. Wasn’t he once in favor of the war? I didn’t know he was “Jewish-American.” And George Bush, Don Rumsfeld and Condi Rice. You learn all kinds of things here. The Jewish conspiracy must be powerful indeed.
I suspect that even if current Iranian leadership declares “Damn the torpedoes! Full steam ahead!” for their nuclear weapons program, it’ll still take them a few generations to match the Israeli nuclear arsenal circa 2003 (assuming, of course, that they’ll be able to evade the torpedoes or whatever is hurled their way).
Vadim, I have nowhere claimed that the Jewish-American lobby was the most important force pushing for the invasion of Iraq. Indeed, the pro-Zionist evangelicals were probably even more important than the Jewish-American groups. (And still are… Did you read this post?)
But to imagine that Juan Cole was anywhere close as influential in this decision as prominent leaders of from JINSA and similar organizations, or people like Richard Perle or Wolfie, or Doug Feith? If you were to try to argue that you’d be majorly betraying your ignorance of how things work in DC…
2006-06-09 Neoconservative ME policy: straight from Dan Brown
“However, the general rubric of “Jewish Community Federation” of whatever, which used to be federation of such philanthropic groups, has in many cases been hijacked by the ultra-Zionist, Israel-uber-alles crowd, to the point that it’s sometimes hard these days even to identify the Jewish-American groups that are sincerely working for a world without oppression, and which actually buy to some degree or another into the arguments of the territorial maximalists within Israel.”
It’s not a question of hijacking. Jewish groups can be involved in social services and also involved in advocacy for the one democratic and pluralistic state in the middle east. The values and ideology behind both are essentially the same.
Unfortunately I see you’ve reverted to your “Israel-Uber-Alles” rhetoric. Hateful Helena is at it again.
American Jews remain less supportive of the Iraq war than the public at large, he said, but most Jewish organizations have been silent on the subject.
No Comment!!!
Josh Bolten has also been a quiet advocate for Jewish concerns, say Jewish organizational officials, sometimes bringing issues past the White House bureaucracy and straight to influential leaders, like Karl Rove, the president’s deputy chief of staff and political adviser.”
The fact that White House policy is now in the hands of two Jews is not seen as significant by activists in the American Jewish community.
There is one aspect of Nir’s article I didn’t buy. He seems to posit a split bet. Jewish organizations and the neocons on Iran. As if the Jewish organizations all of a sudden have lined up in support of Bush’s diplomatic initiative toward Iran.
I think this is ludicrous. First, even Bush prob. doesn’t believe in this diplomatic initiative. he’s just using it as a ploy so he can say he tried it & it didn’t work & now we can go on to more drastic policies against Iran, thank you.
In the same way, Jewish groups like Aipac which may not be overtly attacking the new Bush initiative are surely just waiting for it to be tried & exhausted before they can resume their previous war-promoting bellicosity.
I don’t buy an Aipac-neocon split for one minute. This is merely a tactical retreat so they can resume their strategic march toward war at a later date. All one has to do is look over the agenda for the most recent Aipac national conference to see that it simply is not possible for the group to hide its will to war.
To Brit Tzedek, may I add the Israel Policy Forum, and American Friends of Peace Now who put up the good fight against the Aipacs of this world. And the former groups are getting stronger thank God.
Here is a very intersting call by Ayatollah Hossein Khomeini, ” the grandson of Ayatollah Khomeni (yep, the guy in the black turban who founded the Iranian Republic & his supporters seized the Amer Embassy and kept 52 staffers prisoner for 444 days) has called for Bush to occupy Iran and liberate them”
“Young Khomeini has been spending a good deal of his time in Iraq, where he has many friends among the Shia. He is a strong supporter of the United States intervention in that country, and takes a political line not dissimilar to that of Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani. In practice, this means the traditional Shia belief that clerics should not occupy posts of political power”
So not just Blaming Jew/Zionist whatever but there are evils like Chalabi, Makiyah or Hussein Khomeini.
Remembr this Young Khomeini introduced early in 2003 by Tom Friedman
“Mr. Jamaleddine, Mr. Khomeini; these are real spiritual leaders here. But if the U.S. does not create a secure environment and stable economy in Iraq, their voices will never get through. If we do, though – wow. To the rest of the Arab world, I would simply say: Guess who’s coming to dinner.”
http://www.travelbrochuregraphics.com/extra/dinner_wuth_the_sayyids.htm
btw, Israel isn’t quite as “democractic and plural” as some of its more starry eyed fans seem to regard it as from afar, not even for all it’s Jewish citizens. The process for getting a divorce by a bonafide female citizen of Israel is straight out of Kafka…
Helena, what about Israel Policy Forum? Ask your readers to subscribe to my IPF Friday by ending an e-mail to ipf@ipfdc.org
Thanks, MJ
PS Thank you, Richard Silverstein
“Jewish groups can be involved in social services and also involved in advocacy for the one democratic and pluralistic state in the middle east.”
Israel is one of the most brutal and oppressive states in the world.
Jashua, stop trying to make Israel sound like America. Israel is a state based on Jewish rights. America is a state based on individual rights. The foundation of Israel is fundamentally un-American.
Its astonishing how willing a host America has become to Israel.
Israel in NOT like America. Yet every year we pay, like foolish hosts to a clever parasite.
I don’t for a moment,think that the Jewish lobby in the US cares a damm about the loss of US lives in the wars in the Middle East.
Only the demands of the Jewish state matter to them,no matter how brutal and selfish!
I call essays like this psycho-analytical. antiwar has alot like these. they kind of try and get into the mind of someone, usually the neo cons. Personally, I don’t think republicans are at all cognicent of the anti – israel backlash we see displayed in threads like this. In fact, i don’t think they know much about the middle east at all. They sort of leave those issues to the neo cons. unfortunately.
“the one democratic and pluralistic state in the middle east”
Democratic in the absolutely most limitedly technical sense of the term, perhaps.
Pluralistic? Well, as long as you are a Jew of one kind or another Israel is for you you are entitled to full rights and recognition. If you want to call that pluralistic, go right ahead.
Helena
You might find Tim Garden’s speech in the House of Lords worth a quick read.
I hadn’t realised they had lost that much!
http://www.tgarden.demon.co.uk/writings/articles/2006/060606hol.html
He does know rather a lot about what he talks about.
Maybe Davis and Neal are actually Iranian agents Helena, and are off to the Football World Cup. It is interesting that the Holocaust denier Iranians are playing in Nuremberg of all places. It was also remarkable that every Mexican player made the sign of the cross before stepping onto the field to face the Iranians today…
Iran lost, of course. I am expecting a fatwa to be issued against Mexico, and the Mexican boycott to start in the muslim world. Muhhamad vs. Moctezuma, stay tuned.
.- Bliss
“Iran lost, of course.”
Didn’t you hear that Ahmadinejad has denied that they lost?
Those annoying Jews in the US and Israel conspiring to avoid being nuked by the regime in Iran. What don’t they just die so that the Friends can feel sorry for them again?
“It was also remarkable that every Mexican player made the sign of the cross before stepping onto the field to face the Iranians today…”
Not even remotely remarkable. They do it before every game. It is common practice for teams from Mexico and other predominantly Catholic countries.
Ther ability of Israel’s cheer squad ,to ignore the fact that so many Jewish people are in high positions in the Bush regime,or if they are ,well then they don’t influence policy in Israel’s favour …is astonishing!!
Feith,Bolton,Rove,Abrahams.and formerly Wolfowitz and Pearle,all are tireless advocates of the Zionist position and in popsition of great importance in Washington.. Only,then do they think and act for their own country,.. if at all.!. America’s welfare comes far down the line…only Israel’s concerns matter…it’s kind of treachery.
They are ,as the great writer Gore Vidal said”Israel’s Fifth Column”…