Israel Lobby

Stanley Fischer: A Dual U.S./Israeli Citizen and Pro-Israel Activist as Vice-Chair of the Fed

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fische1Grant Smith, writing at Antiwar.com provides an enlightening account of the nomination of Stanley Fischer as Vice-Chair of the Federal Reserve (“AIPAC’s Fed Candidate Stanley Fischer on a Warpath against Iran: Dual-citizen nominee’s lifetime benefit to Israel comes at a heavy cost to America“). When I first read that Fischer was a possibility, my only thought was something like “Can’t we find anyone who’s not Jewish to fill a post like that?” After all, the Chair of Federal Reserve has been Jewish since 1987, Janet Yellen, the present vice-chair, will likely be the next chair, and Yellen’s predecessor was Donald L. Kohn.

And one would think that appointing an Israeli citizen —and a high-level one at that (former head of the Israeli Central Bank and likely on a first-name basis with everyone who matters in Israel) — would raise all kinds of red flags about old-fashioned issues like dual loyalty.

But there is much more to the story. Fischer, it turns out, will be AIPAC”s man at the Fed.  Smith notes that

as Bank of Israel governor, Stanley Fischer played a central role in coordinating the implementation of AIPAC-generated sanctions against Iran—ostensibly over its nuclear program.  Stuart Levey, the head of the U.S. Treasury Department’s division for “Terrorism and Financial Intelligence,” an office created after heavy AIPAC lobbying, met often with Fischer in Israel alongside the Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and chiefs of both the Mossad and Shin Bet to explore how to “supplement” UN sanctions and end-run Russian and Chinese opposition.[v]  The Levey-Fischer strategy was “to work outside the context of the Security Council to engage the private sector and let it know about the risks of doing business with Tehran” particularly against European banks that had only partially drawn back their business dealings with Iran.  In 2010, Israel dispatched Fischer to meet with Chinese and Russian “counterparts” in order to financially isolate Iran.[vi]

Smith’s phrase “ostensibly over its nuclear program” is beautifully suggestive. The fact is that Israel has many reasons to want a destructive war with Iran besides the putative nuclear weapons program—its support of Hezbollah, its alliance with Syria, its hostility toward Israel, and simply the fact that it is an energy-rich, technologically sophisticated neighbor with a population of around 75 million and regional ambitions. Israel would love to crush a rising rival power in the region before it becomes too difficult. Read more

The Organized Jewish Community: Wall-to-wall Support for a Strike on Syria

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One of the self-deceptions of Jewish life is the belief that “two Jews, three opinions” — the idea that Jews are especially likely to disagree with one another. But on critical issues like Israel, immigration, multiculturalism and Christianity in the public square, the Jewish community speaks with one (very powerful) voice. A Bloomberg article illustrates the broad-based support among Jews for a strike on Syria (“Adelson New Obama Ally as Jewish Groups Back Syria Strike). The broad-based Jewish support for a military strike on Syria is breath-taking, especially considering that Congress is finding “record opposition” to an airstrike in the rest of America.

Recent polls already show little appetite among the American people for military intervention in Syria. A Pew Research Center poll released Tuesday found just 29 percent of Americans supported air strikes “in response to reports that the Syrian government used chemical weapons,” while a Washington Post/ABC poll out the same day had 36 percent of Americans in favor of air strikes. … Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), a vocal opponent of military strikes against the Syrian government, told reporters after Thursday’s briefing that a vote to use military force in Syria would fail. “The House doesn’t want it, the American people don’t want it. People here listen to their constituents,” Grayson said. “First of all, public opinion is entirely against it. Secondly, public opinion is vehemently against it.” (“U.S. Lawmakers Say Constituents Opposed To Syria Intervention, Cite Record Opposition“)

Morris Amitay, former head of AIPAC and who now heads of the Washington Political Action Committee (whose motto is “A strong and secure Israel is America’s best interest”) favors a military strike. Both the Republican Jewish Coalition and the Jewish Democratic Council advocate a military strike. The Bloomberg article also notes that the ADL and the and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations are also on board.

One tactic is to point out that  Jews were gassed in WWII. The Simon Wiesenthal Center began its letter to all U.S. Senators and Representatives: “It was seventy-one years ago in August 1942, just a few weeks before Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, that Gerhard Riegner, the World Jewish Congress representative in Switzerland informed the US and British governments of the diabolical plan to exterminate Europe’s Jews using gas.” A group of 17 rabbis, “descendants of Holocaust survivors and refugees, whose ancestors were gassed to death in concentration camps” and spanning the Jewish religious spectrum endorsed a military strike.

Most importantly, the 800-lb. gorilla (AIPAC) not only released a statement supporting a military strike but now says it is mounting a full-scale campaign to get Congress to approve. 250 activists will descend on Washington to lobby every last senator and representative.

The amount of money the Israel Lobby is able to muster for an effort like this is staggering. The Bloomberg article notes:

The pro-Israel community contributed $14.5 million to federal campaigns for the 2012 elections, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. That’s more than the $11.1 million in donations by the defense aerospace industry, one of the biggest and most consistent political contributors.

It bears mentioning that the American aerospace industry is massively intertwined with Israel’s and that they both have a shared interest in getting Congress to cough up money for defense contractors. For example, the Arrow 3 missile is a joint venture between Boeing and Israel Aerospace Industries. David’s Sling, a short-range anti-missile system, was jointly developed by Raytheon and Rafael, another Israeli aerospace company. The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (“Securing America, Strengthening Israel”) advocates shared American-Israeli ownership of Iron Dome, which is already deployed in Israel.

Sheldon Adelson’s financial commitment is truly staggering:

While most of the Jewish groups’ donations lean Democratic, Adelson alone transformed the 2012 Republican primary when he and his wife used $15 million in private funds to sustain the unsuccessful candidacy of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and then poured $53 million into groups advancing Republican nominee Mitt Romney. In all, Adelson and his wife donated $93 million to Republican causes in the 2012 campaign, center data shows.

Imagine if White advocacy had people like Adelson willing to commit $93 million to the cause.

Instead, Adelson, a board member of the RJC, will now be gearing up his millions for a military strike — no matter what the great majority of Americans want.

How the media works: David Makovsky on the non-existent AIPAC 800-lb gorilla

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On my way into work today I was listening to an NPR promo spot with the catch phrase “no rant, no slant” — the implication being that NPR is above partisan wrangling that one sees on FOX News or MSNBC.  Well, that’s certainly refreshing.

The problem is that the programming then segued into an interview of David Makovsky by Renee Montagne. Makovsky is introduced simply as someone affiliated with the Washington Institute on Near East Policy. Unless the listener knows something about the 800-lb. gorilla of U.S. Middle East policy, he or she would not know that WINEP is a pillar of the Israel Lobby which is anything but even-handed when it comes to anything even remotely relevant to Israel. To say it is slanted would be to put it mildly.

As noted in my previous comment on the Israel Lobby and the Syria crisis,  WINEP has numerous articles advocating an aggressive posture on Syria aimed basically at regime change. I also mentioned an article co-authored by Makovsky on the website of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs—another pillar of the Israel Lobby. Makovsky’s JINSA article advocates a very destructive attack aimed at “sending a credible and menacing message” to the Syrian government. Not much question where he stands.

Makovsky was invited on to address this quote that appeared in the New York Times:

One administration official, who, like others, declined to be identified discussing White House strategy, called Aipac “the 800-pound gorilla in the room,” and said its allies in Congress had to be saying, “If the White House is not capable of enforcing this red line” against the catastrophic use of chemical weapons, “we’re in trouble.”

AIPAC an 800-lb gorilla? Definitely not news that’s fit to print (so the Times soon deleted it; see below). As an AIPAC lobbyist once noted, “A lobby is like a night flower: it thrives in the dark and dies in the sun.” Best to keep AIPAC out of public consciousness. Read more

The Israel Lobby and the Organized Jewish Community Want Regime Change in Syria

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President Obama is now saying his administration has decided to attack Syria but will seek Congressional approval before doing so. This sets up a really interesting situation if Congress doesn’t agree, as seems quite possible.

The idea of Obama ordering an act of war on Syria without significant international support and without a Congressional mandate always was a head scratcher. Here’s our far left president advocating yet another war in the Middle East after opposing the Iraq war when he was a senator. The same president who has a frosty relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu and has repeatedly fallen short of the demands of the Israel Lobby.

Of course the rationale is framed in moral terms—like all American wars, but there was more than a touch of that in the run-up to the Iraq war as well. Here the case for the hawks is made more difficult because the WMD story turned out to be false. Lest we forget, this story was manufactured by strongly identified ethnically Jewish, pro-Israel operatives linked to the Office of Special Plans in the Department of Defense, including Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Abraham Shulsky, Elliott Abrams, David Wurmser, Michael Ledeen, David Schencker, and Michael Rubin, with the close cooperation of Israeli intelligence (see here, p. 47ff).

The Weekly Standard’s usual neocon suspects — including many of the same people who promoted for the Iraq war — are pressing for a very large U.S. involvement in Syria. It’s mind-boggling to read in the statement of these so-called “experts” that the president must act “to ensure that Assad’s chemical weapons no longer threaten America.” Shades of how Iraq under Saddam Hussein was going to destroy the U.S. with his WMD’s. How Assad is going to unleash his chemical weapons on America is anybody’s guess. Read more

The Toughest job in Washington: Explaining U.S. policy toward Israel

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I had to feel sorry for State Department spokesperson Marie Harf trying to explain U.S. reaction toward Israel’s in-your-face announcement of thousands of new housing units on the West Bank on the eve of the Israeli-Palestinian talks. The U.S. expressed its “serious concerns” and labeled the settlements “illegitimate” — at the same time claiming that Israel was negotiating in good faith.

In the first 20 minutes of this video Herf does her best to dodge the difficult questions and promises to get more information on issues like whether the U.S. considers settlements since 1967 illegitimate or just the recent ones.

The good news is that the atmosphere of the briefing was definitely hostile to Israel and to U.S. complicity in the ongoing dispossession of the Palestinians. Matthew Lee of the Associated Press was particularly incisive in his questioning.  Another reporter, Rosalind Jordan of Al Jazeera mentioned proposed train lines between Israeli settlements that would be closed to the Palestinians.

When you have talk of train lines being brought through to connect one settlement with another and not allowing people who live in between to board them, it… makes it more difficult for the Palestinians to say to their side you have to be patient, we’re trying to make this work– (see Philip Weiss, “Palestinians have to suck it up for segregated train lines and 4000 new settlements –reporters grill State Dep’t“

Apartheid by any other name, but not at all the first example of Israeli apartheid. Read more

All you need to know about the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Talks

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The Israelis and Palestinians are meeting in Washington, DC with the purpose of establishing a framework for peace talks. Martin Indyk, who has a long history as an operative for the Israel Lobby, will represent the Obama Administration. The following is from an interview with Josh  Ruebner, the national advocacy director of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, as reported by Mondoweiss.

It’s definitely a step backwards for the Obama administration. When the Obama administration came to office in 2009, they appointed former Senate majority leader George Mitchell as special envoy for Middle East peace. And that was widely seen as revolutionary within the circle of analysts who look at “peace process” issues, because Mitchell has been the only key figure involved in the “peace process” for the last two decades who doesn’t come from that kind of a background, like Indyk, like Ross, like Aaron David Miller, who are very much part and parcel of the Israel lobby–and who, when they’re not in office, then shuttle back to pro-Israel think tanks. So it was seen as very revolutionary, and in fact the Israel lobby came out very strongly against Mitchell, saying, “we don’t want someone who’s even handed. Even handed is bad. We need to be pro-Israel.”

The problem throughout these past two decades, has been that the United States has acted, in the words of Aaron David Miller, who was a former peace process player and a very high-ranking one at that, that the United States functions as “Israel’s lawyers.”

And if you look at the published memoirs of people like Dennis Ross, who has been a key peace process participant for the last two decades, if you look at what was revealed through WikiLeaks and through the Palestine Papers, which was thousands of documents from inside the Palestinian negotiating team that were leaked to Al Jazeera a couple of years ago, what you’ll find is a very coherent and very straightforward strategy that the United States has pursued regardless of who is the president of the United States. And that is to work with Israel, to try to mold proposals that are to Israel’s benefit, and then to try to ram these proposals down the throat of the Palestinians, and to blame them when they don’t accept them, when they don’t even come close to meeting standards of international law, human rights, and come nowhere close to fulfilling Palestinian self-determination. …

So the fact that Mitchell was seen as unencumbered with this ideological baggage of belonging to these pro-Israel lobbying institutions was seen as a negative in their eyes. So the fact that Obama would consider appointing Indyk to head up this “peace process” in the second term, is really, really a huge step backwards. And you know, I’ll say even though Mitchell was considered to be more even-handed in his approach, actually again, if you look at the Palestine Papers, look at WikiLeaks, and this is something I detail in my book coming up, you’ll see how Mitchell did the exact same thing as a lot of the other pro-Israel peace process officials, and that is twist the arms of the Palestinians into accepting Israeli proposals.

So if Obama thinks that Martin Indyk could do a better job where George Mitchell couldn’t, he’s sadly mistaken, and he’s sadly mistaken if he believes that he can keep appointing individuals from these very pro-Israel ideological perspectives to somehow bring about a just and lasting peace. It’s not going to work. It hasn’t worked in the past, it won’t work in the future. And it really brings to mind Einstein’s definition of insanity. The United States keeps doing the exact same thing over and over again, and somehow expects that it’s going to lead to a different result, and it’s not. It’s only been leading to more Israeli colonization of Palestinian land, which many people would argue is really the point of having a “peace process”–it seems as if Israelis and Palestinians are negotiating towards a peace agreement, that takes a lot of pressure off of Israel, and allows them to continue colonization.

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