Israel Lobby

Philip Weiss on Samantha Power

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Samantha Power’s nomination as UN Ambassador is not going over well with some in the Israel Lobby. The JTA reports that the hardline Zionist Organization of America is opposed to her. As a neophyte in championing human rights, Power made the mistake of applying the logic of intervention on behalf of human rights to Israel. In response to a question of “what she would do if ‘one party or another” seemed ready to commit genocide. At the time [2002], Israelis and Palestinians were mired in the second intifada.”

“It seems to me at this stage, and this is true of actual genocides as well and not just major human rights abuses which we’re seeing there, you have to go in as if you’re serious, you have to put something on the line,” she said. That meant taking the billions of dollars “serving Israel’s military” and investing it instead in the state of Palestine and a “mammoth protection force.” Power also noted that taking such a step “might mean alienating a domestic constituency of tremendous political and financial import.”

What?? Jews have power? And they use it to compromise the rights of the Palestinians? And you’re suggesting funding a military force to protect the Palestinians from the Israelis? Perish the thought. Read more

SNL spoof of Hagel hearings pulled

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It’s often said that ridicule is a very potent weapon. Hollywood routinely makes fun of Whites with politically incorrect attitudes. Norman Lear’s Archie Bunker comes to mind, as well as the depiction of neo-Nazis in The Blues Brothers (1980) which I happened upon recently.  But that’s just scratching the surface.

The ridiculous fealty of U.S. politicians to the  Israel Lobby would be a rich vein to mine, and that’s exactly what Saturday Night Live did, in a sketch written by Jim Downey. A video of the dress rehearsal of the skit managed to get out.

The Republicans competition over who loves Israel the most is delicious, and the Lindsay Graham character can’t conceive of the possibility that U.S. interests could differ from Israel’s. Read more

Hagel Wisely Caves in to the Israel Lobby

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The viciousness of the Hagel hearings is really amazing, especially the questioning of John McCain, Lindsay Graham, and Ted Cruz. Graham and Cruz especially were being good soldiers of the Israel Lobby. The exchange that really revealed the power of the Lobby was when Graham asked Hagel to

“name one person, in your opinion, who’s intimidated by the Israel lobby in the United States Senate.”

“I don’t know,” Hagel ultimately conceded.

Graham continued his interrogation, asking Hagel to, “Name one dumb thing we’ve been goaded into doing because of the pressure from the Israeli or Jewish lobby?”

“I have already stated that I regret the terminology,” Hagel protested.

“But you said back then, it makes us do dumb things,” Graham pressed. “You can’t name one senator intimidated, now give me one example of the dumb things that we’re pressured to do up here.”

“Well, I can’t give you an example,” Hagel admitted.

Obviously Hagel  was intimidated. There was no way he would name names, even though it’s common knowledge that anyone actively opposing the Israel Lobby should be prepared to see his opponent in the next election run a very well-funded operation. More importantly, Hagel would never be so bold as to name the war in Iraq as Exhibit A for a “dumb thing” that the Senate (including Hagel) was stampeded into by the Israel Lobby, its megaphone in the media,  and its operatives in the Pentagon (Wolfowitz, Feith, Shulsky; see here, p. 40ff) supplying false intelligence to the hopelessly naive President Bush. Such things are still completely off the table in polite conversation.  Read more

Obama versus the Israel Lobby, Act 2

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Jim Lobe reports that senior White House officials have leaked information that Chuck Hagel “was likely” to be the Obama Administration’s nominee for Secretary of Defense when Leon Panetta leaves. What’s not surprising is that the neocons have gone into full-on attack mode, including charges of anti-Semitism. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Bret Stephens complains because Hagel once said “the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people [in Congress].” Read more

Maureen Dowd on Slithering Neocons: Why Isn’t the ADL Outraged?

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Maureen Dowd recently wrote a column dripping with what is routinely labeled “anti-Semitism” by the ADL and other guardians of political correctness  (“Neocons Slither Back“). Most commentators (see here) focused on her claim that Dan Senor is Mitt Romney’s guru on all things related to Israel. Jeffrey Goldberg weighs in:

Maureen may not know this, but she is peddling an old stereotype, that gentile leaders are dolts unable to resist the machinations and manipulations of clever and snake-like Jews. (Later, Hounshell wrote, “(A)mazing that apparently nobody sat her down and said, this is not OK.”)

This sinister stereotype became a major theme in the discussion of the Iraq war, when critics charged that Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, among other Jewish neoconservatives, were actually in charge of Bush Administration foreign policy. This charge relegated George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell, Stephen Hadley and the other Christians who actually set policy to the status of puppets.

Of course, no one would say there was anything sinister about saying that Karl Rove had inordinate influence on Bush on domestic issues. It’s only a problem when a Jew is said to have influence; the implicit (ridiculous) theory is that no Jew could ever have a strong influence on a president, especially on issues related to Jewish ethnic interests—prototypically Israel. As usual, the actual facts are irrelevant. Simply saying that a Jew has such influence crosses the line—even though Dowd never mentions that Senor is a Jew. Read more

The pre-election window for war with Iran

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Jacob Heilbrunn thinks there may be an “October Surprise”—a U.S. bombing operation against Iran. The point would be to outflank Romney who has done all he could possibly do to show his absolute fealty to the Jewish state.

Romney observed in December, he would never, ever criticize Israel. Instead, he would get on the phone with Prime Minister Netanyahu and ask, “What would you like me to do?” So it’s fair to say that Romney would outsource his foreign policy to Netanyahu when it comes to Israel and its enemies.

Obama, on the other hand, has had at best a strained relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu, and, as Heilbrunn notes, his administration “has been doing everything in its power to dissuade Israel from speedy action. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s visit to Israel was another sign that the administration is trying to reassure Israel of its commitment to its security.”

The downside of an attack on Iran would be $200 oil in an economy that is currently the main issue in the election. I rather doubt that Obama would want to take the chance that Americans would be really enthusiastic about yet another war against a far away nation that only the most fevered neocon would portray as an imminent threat to the U.S. Read more

Universities as a target of the Israel Lobby

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As traitorous White elites go, university presidents are at the top of the list. These days the job description really has two components: Raise lots of money, and be sure to kowtow to the ever more massive anti-White diversity contingent at your university—all those departments of the left that now dominate the social sciences and humanities.

But being a university president definitely has its rewards, chief among them financial: The median salary for public-university presidents in the 2011 academic year was $423,395, not including generous housing, transportation and 5- and 6-figure pension contributions. Add around $100,000 for presidents of private universities. The steeply rising salary curve for university presidents far outpaces salary increases for professors and is a bit incongruous in an era of crushing student debt.

Given the financial clout of the Jewish community, it’s not surprising that when it flexes its muscle on campus, university presidents will fall in line (Terri Ginsburg, “US university chiefs’ shameful embrace of Israel,” Electronic Intifada). Project Interchange, a branch of the American Jewish Committee, has instituted a program to give free trips to Israel for university presidents and other leaders aimed at shoring up the resolve of universities against the burgeoning BDS movement. The basic strategy is to expose participants to the image that Israel is under attack (by taking them to a city that has been fired on by Palestinian rockets from Gaza), that lack of progress in obtaining peace is entirely the fault of the Palestinians, and that Israel is, in the words of a Jewish participant, David J. Skorton of Cornell University, “a modern, Western, Middle Eastern, democratic, Jewish state.” Clearly Skorton is ill-acquainted with the English language—a bit surprising in a university president.

Rather than exposing true facts about the wall Israel is building in the West Bank, Jewish-only roads and towns, illegal settlements, collective punishment, second-class Palestinian citizenship, and Israel’s countless other violations of international law, Skorton and Davisson spent significant time denouncing the boycott, divestment and sanctionsmovement and insisting that US universities reject calls to boycott Israeli academic institutions. “It is hard for us to imagine a scenario in which a boycott … would be constructive and helpful, as opposed to divisive and destructive,” they wrote (“Skorton and Davisson blog from Israel on higher ed’s role in Middle East peace,” 23 June 2010).

Project Interchange visits often include a trip to Yad Vashem to reinforce the image of Israel with Jewish suffering. Besides university presidents, Project Interchange recruits other leaders or future leaders, such as Rhodes Scholars.

Because being a university president these days is all about raising money, the visits for university presidents highlight opportunities for research and academic collaboration with Israeli universities. North Carolina State president Randy Woodson stated that “Sharing information on the strong ties between higher education and industry will provide meaningful examples for NC State’s continued efforts to support a strong economy in North Carolina.”

The ties between Israel and U.S. universities are indeed deep. The Jewish Virtual Library lists 6 US-Israel Binational Foundations which distribute money to US universities and corporations. For example, recipients have included all branches of the University of California system, as well as Standford and CalTech. Because of the elite status of universities in the US and the urgent need to counter the BDS movement and the general decline of Israel’s image, one may anticipate major increases in Israeli funding for universities in the future.

These programs only scratch the surface in terms of Jewish financial influence in universities. Colleges actively recruit Jewish students, at least partly because of the expectation that they have “a propensity for donating to the school once they graduate.”  A stroll through any Ivy League campus shows a large number of buildings named after Jewish benefactors.

Since Diaspora Jews are a small minority, recruiting sympathetic Jews is a recurrent problem. A branch of the Israel Lobby with a program that parallels Project Interchange is the program of the Jewish Institute for National Security [of Israel] Affairs (JINSA).

Part of JINSA’s effectiveness comes from recruiting non-Jews who gain by increased defense spending or are willing to be spokesmen in return for fees and travel to Israel. The bulk of JINSA’s budget is spent on taking a host of retired U.S. generals and admirals to Israel, where JINSA facilitates meetings between Israeli officials and retired but still-influential U.S. flag officers. These officers then write op-ed pieces and sign letters and advertisements championing the Likudnik line. In one such statement, issued soon after the outbreak of the latest intifada, twenty-six JINSAns of retired flag rank, including many from the advisory board, struck a moralizing tone, characterizing Palestinian violence as a “perversion of military ethics” and holding that “America’s role as facilitator in this process should never yield to America’s responsibility as a friend to Israel,” because “friends don’t leave friends on the battlefield.”266 Sowing seeds for the future, JINSA also takes U.S. service academy cadets to Israel each summer and sponsors a lecture series at the Army, Navy, and Air Force academies.

JINSA also patronizes companies in the defense industry that stand to gain by the drive for total war. “Almost every retired officer who sits on JINSA’s board of advisers or has participated in its Israel trips or signed a JINSA letter works or has
worked with military contractors who do business with the Pentagon and Israel.” (see “Neoconservatism as a Jewish Movement,” pp. 55-56)

Of course, the the incredible neocon infrastructure and the Israel Lobby itself extends far beyond JINSA. AIPAC is also deeply involved in providing free trips to Israel for influential people, ranging from Congresspeople to media types. I am posting as a featured article a piece that I did in 2007 that discusses this, focusing especially on the psychology of influence that comes into play during these junkets. Financial windfalls and psychological manipulation are a powerful combination. Certainly university presidents would not be exceptions.