Tony Judt: A Lobby, not a conspiracy.

A Palestinian activist was once asked what she thought of Anti-Zionist Jews. She replied by saying that they were all wonderful, and then she added, 'all fifteen of them'. I have mentioned her wisdom in her reply many times on this blog, because I consider her answer to be valid. There are a whole bunch of Jews masquerading as caring, altruistic individuals acting for the sake of seeing justice rendered, but you scratch the surface and you will find a very emotional Zionist Jew underneath. Those who are truly anti-Zionist Jews are not only great, they are beyond great. Jeff Blankfort comes to mind. How much should the Palestinian trust him that he is speaking on their behalf and for their benefit and with no hidden agenda? My unequivocal answer is 100%. He is a blessing not only to the Palestinian community but to the world community. But there are many out there who have gained fame for the wrong reasons, because they are excellent pretenders and they have managed to fool most of the people most of the time.

I recently came across a printed document that i read a long time ago, and written by hand on the top of the page was the word: 'idiot'. Today, i begun to read it again and I wanted to know why I reached the conclusion that the writer of the article was an 'idiot'. I doubt very much that the writer is an idiot, far from it. In fact, he maybe one of those sleek operators. I have heard his name before, but this article of his would have been the first article that I have ever read. I don't need to read anymore. The man's name is 'Tony Judt'. 'Oh, no'? Listen: my job is to 'translate' what he is attempting to say and what he is attempting to accomplish and on whose behalf. Your job is to accept or discard my analysis of the document based on common sense.

So let me begin my translation of the document. The title of the article is also very telling which way the Jewish man was headed.

Keep in mind what he said in the Article:
"I know something about it (anti-Semitic) growing up Jewish in the 1950's Britain."

He sometimes uses 'critics' to knock down the the John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt report so that his hands remain clean.

their scholarship is shoddy
unmistakably smelly
relatively obscure paper
of little concern to general-interest readers
Tom Segev described the essay as arrogant
Washington is anyway awash with "lobbies'
the United States would probably be in Iraq today even if there had been no Israel lobby.

You can tell from the last statement that he is trying to protect his Ashkenazi Jewish tribe from being blamed for the holocaust of millions of Arabs and the destriction of Iraq.

This clever Jew has a way of rendering facts irrelevant by using phrases such as :

it is an issue for legitimate debate
can be debated on its merits
that is a matter of judgment

This Jewish man also used what I call the 'but' syndrome' very effectively in his article. He first states the obvious and then he grabs his 'but' tool and strikes the first statement and negates it. Very clever!

The Jewish man also laments that America has been rendered ineffective form 'war on terror and rogue states'. 'War on terror' is war on Islamic countries that the Jews' state does not approve of, and the 'rogue states' are also all Muslim countries to be dealt with for not embracing the Jewish state that has an insatiable thirst for Muslim blood.

He also asks a few questions in his article, pretending not to know the answers. I will answer them for him:

He is wondering why the John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt essay has been widely discussed in his Jewish state and in Europe but not in America's mainstream media. He knows who owns the mainstream media. They are members of his tribe. The American tax payer is the most ignorant when it comes to what the Jews' state is doing to his/her country and billions of American money continues to pour to this malignant tumor that goes by a deceptive biblical name of 'Israelite'. Yea, right! How clever. Theodor Herzl did say that the Christian world would support them because they believe the coming of the Messiah will happen when the 'Jews' return to the Holly Land. Was the biblical reference in regards to European Khazars who had no knowlededge of the Middle Eastern religions for centuries? Therefore, it is in the best interest of the Jews who own the media to kill the story, lest it awakens the American public,which might lead to drying up the load of money these Jewish people get from America. Now how complicated is this logic? The man of course was feigning ignorance, but he knows better.

The man also makes a very stupid statement when he said:

Each of these considerations might reasonably account for the mainstream press's initial indifference to the Mearsheimer-Walt essay. But they don't convincingly explain the continued silence even after the article aroused stormy debate in the academy, within the Jewish community, among the opinion magazines and Web sites, and in the rest of the world. I think there is another element in play: fear. Fear of being thought to legitimize talk of a "Jewish conspiracy"; fear of being thought anti-Israel; and thus, in the end, fear of licensing the expression of anti-Semitism.

But sir, if the entire world is not affaid of being slapped with being 'anti-semitic' for discussing the paper, why would Americans be different? After all, Americans have no guilty baggage to deal with vis-a-vis the Jews' holocaust. The only explanation is that Jews own the media and they worry about awakening the sheepish American public about the plunder their country is being dealt with.

Here is that article in its entirety

April 19, 2006

Op-Ed Contributor

A Lobby, Not a Conspiracy

By TONY JUDT

IN its March 23rd issue the London Review of Books, a respected British journal, published an essay titled "The Israel Lobby." The authors are two distinguished American academics (Stephen Walt of Harvard and John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago) who posted a longer (83-page) version of their text on the Web site of Harvard's Kennedy School.

As they must have anticipated, the essay has run into a firestorm of vituperation and refutation. Critics have charged that their scholarship is shoddy and that their claims are, in the words of the columnist Christopher Hitchens, "slightly but unmistakably smelly." The smell in question, of course, is that of anti-Semitism.

This somewhat hysterical response is regrettable. In spite of its provocative title, the essay draws on a wide variety of standard sources and is mostly uncontentious. But it makes two distinct and important claims. The first is that uncritical support for Israel across the decades has not served America's best interests. This is an assertion that can be debated on its merits. The authors' second claim is more controversial: American foreign policy choices, they write, have for years been distorted by one domestic pressure group, the "Israel Lobby."

Some would prefer, when explaining American actions overseas, to point a finger at the domestic "energy lobby." Others might blame the influence of Wilsonian idealism, or imperial practices left over from the cold war. But that a powerful Israel lobby exists could hardly be denied by anyone who knows how Washington works. Its core is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, its penumbra a variety of national Jewish organizations.

Does the Israel Lobby affect our foreign policy choices? Of course — that is one of its goals. And it has been rather successful: Israel is the largest recipient of American foreign aid and American responses to Israeli behavior have been overwhelmingly uncritical or supportive.

But does pressure to support Israel distort American decisions? That's a matter of judgment. Prominent Israeli leaders and their American supporters pressed very hard for the invasion of Iraq; but the United States would probably be in Iraq today even if there had been no Israel lobby. Is Israel, in Mearsheimer/Walt's words, "a liability in the war on terror and the broader effort to deal with rogue states?" I think it is; but that too is an issue for legitimate debate.

The essay and the issues it raises for American foreign policy have been prominently dissected and discussed overseas. In America, however, it's been another story: virtual silence in the mainstream media. Why? There are several plausible explanations. One is that a relatively obscure academic paper is of little concern to general-interest readers. Another is that claims about disproportionate Jewish public influence are hardly original — and debate over them inevitably attracts interest from the political extremes. And then there is the view that Washington is anyway awash in "lobbies" of this sort, pressuring policymakers and distorting their choices.

Each of these considerations might reasonably account for the mainstream press's initial indifference to the Mearsheimer-Walt essay. But they don't convincingly explain the continued silence even after the article aroused stormy debate in the academy, within the Jewish community, among the opinion magazines and Web sites, and in the rest of the world. I think there is another element in play: fear. Fear of being thought to legitimize talk of a "Jewish conspiracy"; fear of being thought anti-Israel; and thus, in the end, fear of licensing the expression of anti-Semitism.

The end result — a failure to consider a major issue in public policy — is a great pity. So what, you may ask, if Europeans debate this subject with such enthusiasm? Isn't Europe a hotbed of anti-Zionists (read anti-Semites) who will always relish the chance to attack Israel and her American friend? But it was David Aaronovitch, a Times of London columnist who, in the course of criticizing Mearsheimer and Walt, nonetheless conceded that "I sympathize with their desire for redress, since there has been a cock-eyed failure in the U.S. to understand the plight of the Palestinians."

And it was the German writer Christoph Bertram, a longstanding friend of America in a country where every public figure takes extraordinary care to tread carefully in such matters, who wrote in Die Zeit that "it is rare to find scholars with the desire and the courage to break taboos."

How are we to explain the fact that it is in Israel itself that the uncomfortable issues raised by Professors Mearsheimer and Walt have been most thoroughly aired? It was an Israeli columnist in the liberal daily Haaretz who described the American foreign policy advisers Richard Perle and Douglas Feith as "walking a fine line between their loyalty to American governments ...and Israeli interests." It was Israel's impeccably conservative Jerusalem Post that described Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense, as "devoutly pro-Israel." Are we to accuse Israelis, too, of "anti-Zionism"?

The damage that is done by America's fear of anti-Semitism when discussing Israel is threefold. It is bad for Jews: anti-Semitism is real enough (I know something about it, growing up Jewish in 1950's Britain), but for just that reason it should not be confused with political criticisms of Israel or its American supporters. It is bad for Israel: by guaranteeing it unconditional support, Americans encourage Israel to act heedless of consequences. The Israeli journalist Tom Segev described the Mearsheimer-Walt essay as "arrogant" but also acknowledged ruefully: "They are right. Had the United States saved Israel from itself, life today would be better ...the Israel Lobby in the United States harms Israel's true interests."

BUT above all, self-censorship is bad for the United States itself. Americans are denying themselves participation in a fast-moving international conversation. Daniel Levy (a former Israeli peace negotiator) wrote in Haaretz that the Mearsheimer-Walt essay should be a wake-up call, a reminder of the damage the Israel lobby is doing to both nations. But I would go further. I think this essay, by two "realist" political scientists with no interest whatsoever in the Palestinians, is a straw in the wind.

Looking back, we shall see the Iraq war and its catastrophic consequences as not the beginning of a new democratic age in the Middle East but rather as the end of an era that began in the wake of the 1967 war, a period during which American alignment with Israel was shaped by two imperatives: cold-war strategic calculations and a new-found domestic sensitivity to the memory of the Holocaust and the debt owed to its victims and survivors.

For the terms of strategic debate are shifting. East Asia grows daily in importance. Meanwhile our clumsy failure to re-cast the Middle East — and its enduring implications for our standing there — has come into sharp focus. American influence in that part of the world now rests almost exclusively on our power to make war: which means in the end that it is no influence at all. Above all, perhaps, the Holocaust is passing beyond living memory. In the eyes of a watching world, the fact that an Israeli soldier's great-grandmother died in Treblinka will not excuse his own misbehavior.

Thus it will not be self-evident to future generations of Americans why the imperial might and international reputation of the United States are so closely aligned with one small, controversial Mediterranean client state. It is already not at all self-evident to Europeans, Latin Americans, Africans or Asians. Why, they ask, has America chosen to lose touch with the rest of the international community on this issue? Americans may not like the implications of this question. But it is pressing. It bears directly on our international standing and influence; and it has nothing to do with anti-Semitism. We cannot ignore it.

Tony Judt is the director of the Remarque Institute at New York University and the author of "Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/19/opinion/19judt.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin