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OPINION & EDITORIAL

Jimmy Carter confronts fallacies of pro-Israel lobby

Kyle Szarzynski

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by Kyle Szarzynski
Wednesday, February 21, 2007

The release of President Jimmy Carter's new book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," has garnered a reaction from the American political establishment that can best be characterized as scandalized, tumultuous and loud. The book's commitment to truth — including a biting analysis of Israeli human rights abuses — has resulted in a "full-scale furor," according to The New York Times. The Anti-Defamation League took out full-page ads attacking President Carter and his book in numerous newspapers. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party was quick to satisfy the powerful Zionist lobby. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, "With all due respect to former President Carter, he does not speak for the Democratic Party on Israel."

Predictably, insidious charges of bigotry have ensued as well. Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League and vociferous defender of the Jewish state, showed a lack of honesty and decency when he recently said, "I believe [Carter] is engaging in anti-Semitism." Other Jewish leaders have echoed Foxman's claim.

In response to this outcry from Zionist extremists, President Carter points out that "Out in the real world … the response has been overwhelmingly positive." Middle East scholar Norman Finkelstein notes that "Outside the never-never land of mainstream American Jewry and U.S. media, [the reality of Israeli apartheid] is barely disputed." Still, the cries of bigotry, anti-Americanism and support for terrorism have been so shrill that a discussion of the actual content of President Carter's book has been sidelined.

The truth is that "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" is written by a sincere man who shows a remarkable understanding of the conflict in the Middle East. President Carter first takes the reader down history lane, chronicling the major events in the region since the Yom Kippur War of 1973. He writes of the futile violence and religious intolerance for which both Jews and Arabs have been responsible. He also laments that the breakthroughs have been limited. The Camp David Accords of 1978 and Oslo Accords of 1993, for example, only amounted to broken Israeli promises.

Contemporary political developments have been similarly lamentable. At the Camp David peace talks of 2000, President Bill Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak made a "generous" offer that turned out to be anything but generous — and was rightfully rejected by Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian delegation. As many commentators have noted, it would have fragmented Palestine and created a system of Bantustans that remained subservient to Israel. There was a 90-percent increase in Israeli settlers as President Clinton desperately pursued peace. The continued increase of Jewish fundamentalists in the occupied territories signifies the Israeli government is not interested in offering the Palestinians a viable state. In the minds of many politicians, Israel is entitled to the entire Kingdom of David, including the West Bank.

As political negotiations ended in repeated failure, the Palestinians continued to face dehumanizing oppression. President Carter courageously points out what few Americans dare to: The Israeli system of subjugation in the Palestinian territories is apartheid. Through his visits with the Palestinians, President Carter has attained a heartfelt sympathy for the Palestinian people and their struggles. He details his visits with Palestinian families and recounts their Israeli-induced hardships.

He tells of Palestinian homes demolished to make way for Israeli settlements. He tells of villages that were destroyed in response to local children throwing stones at Israeli tanks. He tells of egregious human rights violations, including the inability to travel freely or assemble publicly. He tells of the imprisonment of Palestinian children, who are tried as adults by the age of 14. He tells of harsh Israeli military courts and a prison system that penetrates the consciousness of the Palestinian population. He tells of wealthy, subsidized Israeli settlements amidst malnourished Palestinians. He tells of the construction of a wall that encompasses Palestinian land and separates families. In short, he tells a human tragedy that both saddens and angers the reader.

While President Carter lays the blame where it belongs — at the blood-soaked feet of the Israelis — his solution to the conflict is disappointingly timid. His conviction is that the best hope for peace and dignity for the Palestinians is through peaceful negotiation. Such a conclusion is a blatant contradiction of President Carter's own analysis. How can the Palestinians hope for justice through peace when offered no legal recourse or even a semblance of fairness from the most liberal Israeli administration? President Carter paints a bleak picture for the Palestinians, but then strips them of their only method of resistance — armed struggle.

Still, President Carter has chutzpah for bringing the reality of the conflict to Americans, who are used to being fed Zionist propaganda. For this achievement, he is to be commended.

Kyle Szarzynski (szarzynski@wisc.edu) is a sophomore majoring in Spanish and history.


Anonymous (February 21, 2007 @ 1:36am):

"Israeli broken promises"

Lets see.... Ehud Barak offered the "Palestinians" basically all of the West Bank, Gaza, and MORE, ONLY requesting peace.

And they rejected it.

Oh yeah, then they started blowing up pizza parlors and dance halls.
Real justified.

You need to learn your own history on the subject.

Anonymous (February 21, 2007 @ 2:33am):

"blood soaked feet of the Israelis"...?

I think you were looking for "hands."

Anonymous (February 21, 2007 @ 2:52am):

I really wish opinions like yours came from people other than you. I have seen you on the street pushing those socialist newspapers in people's faces and believe me, those aren't the greatest arguments to make, moral absolutism in one direction but not the other.

However, as much as I disagree with your approach, I agree that we're not criticizing israel enough. There are human rights violations, but because Hamas is fighting our "America Jr", we call them terrorists.

However, I can't believe that you'd assail Carter for not advocating armed struggle. The man's a peanut farmer who won a nobel peace prize. Why would he go militant all of a sudden?

Anonymous (February 21, 2007 @ 3:32am):

This article is highly dubious on many grounds, factually being the most important. Quoting Norman Finkelstein as a 'Middle East Scholar' is highly inaccurate. Finkelestin is a political science professor who engages in polemic and debate on the Middle East which is at best very problematic. His preachings are so out of the mainstream of worldwide opinion, that his views on the conflict are as useful as the 'extreme zionists' the author quotes.
The author also does not mention any of the gross factual errors that pepper the book. All opinions are welcome in the marketplace of ideas, however they must be based on a modicum of fact.
By leaving out these parts in his review of the situation, the author leaves himself bare to the accusations that he himself is hardly unbiased in these matters and did not need Jimmy Carter's book to think the way he does.

Anonymous (February 21, 2007 @ 4:28am):

The Badger Herald commenting on Israel? No way.

Anonymous (February 21, 2007 @ 6:45am):


Jimmy Carter did what needed to be done. He provided a compassionate glance at Palestine and some (but not all) of racist Israel's ongoing crimes & Kyle Szarzynski writes a great op-ed explaining that. However I do not agree with Szarzynski 's conclusion that "Carter paints a bleak picture for the Palestinians, but then strips them of their only method of resistance armed struggle."

Armed resistance is not at all the only method of of Palestinian resistance! Heavens many many MANY non-violent ways to resist have been used all along. Ignoring or diminishing that fact insults all the many gentle, non-violent Palestinians who do not like violence of any type, state sponsored or otherwise. It also belittles and dismisses the many talented artists and poets and painters and academics and letter writers who have devoted their lives to freeing Palestine in peaceful ways.

Sincerley,
Anne Selden Annab

Anonymous (February 21, 2007 @ 7:40am):

Solution: Change the name of Israel to Palestine, create a "unity government" between the Jews and Arabs, and quit bitchin'.

Anonymous (February 21, 2007 @ 7:40am):

The Palis can't seem to stop killing each other, I don't see where they will ever stop trying to kill all the Israelis. There is nothing that will satify the Palis other than the death of all the Israelis.

But then the Sunnis and Shites can't seem to stop killing each other either. Maybe there's just no hope.

Anonymous (February 21, 2007 @ 7:42am):

Interesting that the ADL says it is against "bigotry" and "discrimination," yet support the apartheid state of Israel.

So, where Jews live as a MAJORITY, Israel, they aggressively, sometimes violently promote the interests of the MAJORITY.

Where Jews live as a MINORITY, they aggressively, sometimes violently promote the interests of MINORITIES.

Then factor in that there are no nonwhites in America that are opposed to discrimination, but support it when in their ethnic interests -- and you understand that there are no egalitarians in the world, merely pretend-egalitarians, only supporting what we call multiculturalism/egalitarianism for ethnically motivated reasons.

They discriminate when in their ethnic interests, they organize along racial lines, appoint racially defined leaders -- while punishing Europeans who show just a hint of racial aggression.

Anonymous (February 21, 2007 @ 8:31am):

"The Palis can't seem to stop killing each other"

We should all take a page from Bourdieu and rename the entire region "Otherstan."

Really, I don't think anyone truly supports armed resistance, since legitimacy amongst other things depend on peaceful processes, yet when those peaceful means dry up and no other channels of participation or recourse are given, we should expect no less. I mean, damn, the Palestinian gov't is nothing more than a glorified ASM. Israel gives them a little money and authority to play with so they can wash their hands of the poverty.

Anonymous (February 21, 2007 @ 8:35am):

Simply put, you are a racist. The Palestinians are being abused, not by Jews, but by Arabs who have turned their backs, literially on them because they are views as the "lowest" sect of Muslims. The Palestinians currently cannot govern themselves or stop killing one-another.

Anonymous (February 21, 2007 @ 9:04am):

The non-Jews in Israel have more rights and freedom than the non-Jews in all the other countries of the Middle East.

PS. I can abide all this confusion of ethnic/racial difference when religious difference is the real driver of aggression.

PPS. Do you think that the Moslems will ever get over the "SUBMIT OR DIE" meme?

Anonymous (February 21, 2007 @ 9:42am):

What happened to the Jewish people through history, slavery in Egypt and the Holocaust during WWII is horrible and should be considered during discussions like this. It should not however be used as an excuse to treat the Palestinian people as being less then the Jewish people. When it comes to US support of Israel there is one simple reasons for it.
Christian Politicians feel that "their" holy land is safer and more accessible under the control of Jewish people then it would be if Muslims controlled the area.

Anonymous (February 21, 2007 @ 9:56am):

It's been said often before: "If the Palestinians threw down their weapons, there would be peace tomorrow. If the Israelis threw down their weapons, there would be no Israel tomorrow."

Anonymous (February 21, 2007 @ 10:09am):

DOWN WITH ZIONISM!
DOWN WITH ZIONISTS!

Anonymous (February 21, 2007 @ 10:25am):

Support armed resistance: well, at least the author openly advocates terrorist activities so that he colors are known. (Perhaps an investigation by US Federal Authorities would be warranted.)

This opinion article is replete with falsehoods: for example, 1)Norman Finkelstein is an anti-zionist extremist who has called for the destruction of Israel; the Camp David and Oslo accords were not honored by either party as is well documented, e.g. Arafat arranged for the Karin A to transport heavy weapons to the region without even looking at the homocidal actions of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Peace in the region will only come through dialogue based upon the principal that each side is entitled to a portion of the former British Mandate with such a solution recognizing the security needs of each side.

Anonymous (February 21, 2007 @ 11:51am):

Mr. Szarzynski regrettably puts forward a very extreme opinion on this conflict, placing 100% of the blame on Israel. In this, as in every conflict, both sides have made mistakes and both shoulder some of the blame.

In his one sided account, Szarzynski fails to note that the PA promised to end its terror attacks in Israel as part of the Oslo Accords and broke that promise. He fails to note that Yasser Arafat did not make any counter-offer in 2000 and walked out of the negotiations, and that unlike former-President Carter, President Clinton placed the blame for this solely on Arafat.

Insinuating that American Jews live in a "never-never land" is beyond insulting, and there will never be peace if intolerant, ignorant people such as Mr. Szarzynski are allowed to frame the issues in this conflict.

Anonymous (February 21, 2007 @ 12:23pm):

any reason you failed to mention carter's interceding of a known nazi?
any reason you failed to mention the saudi/muslim lobby and its ties to carter and the left?
any reason carter remarks on the lack of debate but won't actually debate his book?
any reason you failed to mention the 14+ people that have quit the carter center and have stories galore about carter's antisemitism, like when he said there were 'too many jews on the holocaust panel?
any reason you left out the part when carter said, 'f&^k the jews' in 1979 when they weren't in his corner?
any reason you forgot to mention the stolen maps, and flat out lies in carter's book?
any reason you feel comfortable linking the apartheid of S.A. to what occurs in israel?
any reason you forgot to mention the 60% of jordan that ARE palestinians (who are losing land rights and more)?

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/staticarticles/article53954.html
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/119732
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/016502.php
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/009594.php
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/016151.php
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/cover053106.htm

Anonymous (February 21, 2007 @ 12:30pm):

The Palestinian people are treated better in Israel than elsewhere.

Anonymous (February 21, 2007 @ 12:37pm):

"What happened to the Jewish people through history, slavery in Egypt and the Holocaust during WWII is horrible and should be considered..."

I think the statute of limitations has long lapsed on the Egyptian slavery thing. Maybe we should also consider the 3000 years of NO history prior to WWII.

Anonymous (February 21, 2007 @ 3:50pm):

Pelosi is a "Zionist extremist"?

Who knew?

Anonymous (February 21, 2007 @ 4:58pm):

Between the Exodus from Egypt and WWII, Jewish history is replete with acts of repression and violence against the stateless Jewish people.

A small set of examples to show the breadth of evil actors;
+ the Inquisition by the Spanish (1492 C.E.),
+ Expulsion from England (1290 C.E.),
+ Russian Pogroms,
+ Drefyus Affair in France (1894 C.E.)
+ constant repression by Arab states of Jews under Sharia law treating non-Moslems (including Christians, Jews, and Bahai) as second class citizens
+the 1929 Hebron massacre.

The last manifestation of violence against Jews based upon their religion is most pressing as it was at the hands of Moslem reidents of Mandatory Palestine. The need for Jews to have a in their rightful ancestral land (where a Jewish presence has been since the expulsion in 70 c.e) is without question necessary.

Based upon the continued bad acts of Western Europeans as well as Arab/Moslem states, it is our moral obligation to ensure that this homeland continues to exist as a Jewish state so that contined acts of violence whose intent is the eradication of the Jewish people will not suceed.

Anonymous (February 21, 2007 @ 5:37pm):

"replete with acts of repression and violence against the stateless Jewish people"

Ok, by that logic, Gypsies should be given a homeland. Every group has been treated badly at one time or another, so what?

Anonymous (February 21, 2007 @ 7:52pm):

i find it amusing how he calls the jewish settlers in the west bank "extremists" while at the same time advocating for the use of "armed struggle" by the palestinians.

Anonymous (February 21, 2007 @ 7:55pm):

non jews do not understand what it is like to be without a homeland, my grandparents and great-grandparents survived atrocities that should never happen again.. we hold no ties to Russia or Poland (where tehy are from) because those lands are not our homeland, israel is.

i understand where the palestinians are coming from, i do believe that they should have their own state in the future, but i do not believe in intentionally harming civilians.

Anonymous (February 21, 2007 @ 8:11pm):

"Ok, by that logic, Gypsies should be given a homeland. Every group has been treated badly at one time or another, so what?"

So what indeed, all land titles are, at bottom, "By right of conquest". The Jews conquered the land thousands of years ago, got thrown out and now they're back. The wheel turns. Why shouldn't the USA support the Jews instead of people yelling "Death to America", people who say we must "SUBMIT OR DIE"?

Anonymous (February 21, 2007 @ 8:26pm):

In an olive-branch gesture, Israel completely pulled out of Gaza.

How have Palestinians reacted?

With increased Qussam attacks on Gaza-boder areas and elevated rhetoric and militant force in the region.

Still waiting on their peace gesture......

Anonymous (February 21, 2007 @ 8:30pm):

"President Carter paints a bleak picture for the Palestinians, but then strips them of their only method of resistance 'armed struggle.'"
This is the most alarming and disturbing sentence I have ever seen in a campus newspaper. Whether you support the government of Israel's policies or you don't, everybody on this campus should be disgusted with a human being who supports blowing up innocent Israeli citizens. Kyle Szarzynski's comment sounds like it came from a Hamas militant or any other Islamic extremist. I am disappointed, shocked, and outraged that Szarzynski supports terrorist groups and doesn't understand that the "armed struggle" of Palestinian terrorists is the reason there is no peace. Israel has to resort to certain security policies to protect its people and its existence from this "armed struggle." When Palestinian terrorists put down their arms and accept Israel's existence there will be a just and lasting peace.

Anonymous (February 21, 2007 @ 8:35pm):

This article is right on the nuts. Anyone with half a brain knows how right you are, Kyle.

Anonymous (February 21, 2007 @ 11:02pm):

Jimmy Carter was the biggest disaster to happen to US foriegn policy in the last 200 years. The fact that he has even retained a shred of credibility is befuddling to me. Also, Kyle: Please seek professional help.

Anonymous (February 21, 2007 @ 11:13pm):

Bottom line, the countries that want peace with Israel have come to recognize Israel as an independent state, and have come to the negotiating table willing to have ACTUAL LONG LASTING PEACE. Examples of this being Egypt and Jordan which now have had peace with Israel for some time now. Unlike the Palestinians under former leader Yasser Arafat, they have continually rejected peace negotiations as well as many generous offers which include land for peace. Not only does this include the proposition made by the United Nations in November of 1947, Before Israel FOUGHT for their INDEPENDENCE, where Israel agreed to the plan that would have split Israel into an Independent Jewish state as well as an Independent Arab state. The palestinians have been screwing up their chances for peace in the land even in the latest action made by the Israelis for peace, when they pulled out of Gaza for Palestinians to continue terror attacks on the border capturing innocent Israeli soldiers, and blowing themselves up in malls and markets. Now ask yourselves which side is coming to the table with desires for peace! Who is really putting the effort in by presenting negotiations that would possibly lead the two sides to a peaceful life. It is appherent that the Palestinians will not stop until it is all of theirs!

- Benjamin Lazarov

Anonymous (February 21, 2007 @ 11:13pm):

What a droll and boring review. Once again accusing some mysterious Zionist lobby of pulling the strings in America. With so many people out to vilify Israel, it seems to me that the "Zionist Lobby" is rather inept at controlling the media, Washington or campus loose cannons. So what is it - all powerful Zionists? Inept Zionists? Or maybe just that the Zionist argument has a powerful logic that sways most rational thinking folks?

Anonymous (February 21, 2007 @ 11:34pm):

As an atheist humanist mutt American with little to no tangible cultural heritage, I fail to understand.

Anonymous (February 22, 2007 @ 1:14am):

Kyle,
It is irresponsible of you to write an article in which you do not present any facts and only elaborate on your opinions. From your viewpoint, you say that Israel is to blame for all the problems the Palestinians face, and that Israel is responsible for the broken peace. However, you do not lay out an objective for your article, it is an article with no purpose. It seems as if you wrote this solely to rant about Zionists from your socialist viewpoints. In that case, I ask of you, why do you believe Israel is always at fault for everything? While Palestinians sit in refugee camps in Syria and Lebanon, exiled from Jordan, they have the right to citizenship, education, and healthcare in Israel. Last year, in hopes of peace, Israel disengaged from the Gaza Strip, only to find that within months, the land that was once home to thousands of Jewish settlers is now used as a base to fire rockets at Israeli civilians in nearby communities. It is a fact that Yassir Arafat was worth billions (his widow still is) yet he chose to share none of that with his people. It is also a fact that in September of 1970, in what is now referred to as Black September, King Hussein of Jordan massacred far more Palestinians in that one month than have been killed since Israel's creation in 1948.
It is clear from the failed Camp David Accords in 2000, the organized terrorist attacks, and the silence in condemning murders of Israeli civilians that the Palestinians in charge want nothing less than to push the Jews into the sea.
I DO believe that the Palestinian civilians want peace just as much as the Israels, and that comprimises will and must be made on both sides.
Kyle, your arguments that equate a mainstream viewpoint with those of Norm Finkelstein (author of The Holocaust Industry), call for armed resistence of the Palestinian people, and somewhat theorizing a powerful Zionist lobby attempting to take over world politics is a chilling reminder of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" although this was most likely not your intention.
This article, however, belongs in the same place that I found it, on the floor by a trash can in Helen C. White 2nd floor bathroom.

Jeff Stein

Anonymous (February 22, 2007 @ 6:51am):

Kyle:

Openly supporting "armed struggle" are you? It is percisely the constant onslaught of terrorism and violence which you advocate that has required Israel to take defensive measures that you complain of...guards at public places checking bags, security barriers at borders, restriction of entry to those with a stated intent of emnity, infiltration by security services of hostile groups...

Now that I think about it, those are the same actions that are encumbant on all nation states in defense of their citizens. Lets put aside the US and Israel since you clearly have debased hatred, these are the same actions taken the world over, even by the Socialist countries you adore. Take a good look at the security actions of Russia relative to the Chechens, and the Chinese relative to N. Koreans.

Anonymous (February 22, 2007 @ 9:15am):

Wow, this is one of the most misinformed articles I have ever read. Give me a break or atleast an op-ed author who does research. Poor, poor showing.

Anonymous (February 22, 2007 @ 11:24am):

"Contemporary political developments have been similarly lamentable. At the Camp David peace talks of 2000, President Bill Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak made a "generous" offer that turned out to be anything but generous -- and was rightfully rejected by Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian delegation."

Kyle, you fail to mention any part abot what the actual offer was. Are you aware, that 97% of the West Bank was offered to the Palestinian people with a joint capital in Jerusalem? And you say this was rightfully rejected? Are you also aware that Yasser Arafat died as one of the richest men in the world, while his people live in these terrible conditions that you speak about? And by the way, the fact that you can even come close to relating the treatment of the Palestinian people to Apartheid South Africa is not only disgustingly untrue, but I see it as a personal insult to the people that suffered in Apartheid South Africa. Next time, know your facts better and chose your words more carefully before you make accusations that simply have NO effect on your life.

Anonymous (February 22, 2007 @ 12:23pm):

Kyle Szarzynski's op-ed on Israel's alleged mistreatment of the Palestinians is nothing more than an ugly hit piece motivated by thinly veiled hatred for Israel and anti-Semitism under the guise of anti-Zionism.

I haven't seen the phrase "Zionist propoganda" used so frequently since CNN interviewed former Ku Klux Klan head David Duke from the Holocaust Denial Conference in Iran recently.

The writer characterizes every Israeli attempt at peace as far from "generous," fails to mention a single instance of the suicide bombing horrors that have rocked Israel for the past decade, and treats noted terrorist Yasser Arafat (a man who stole millions from the Palestinian people while watching them suffer) as a reasonable negotiator. He concludes that Jimmy Carter's somewhat reasonable two-state solution is "timid."

From a law student's perspective, Szarzynksi's argument appears to favor the solution proposed by Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which is the total destruction of Israel. Shameful stuff.

Anonymous (February 22, 2007 @ 2:44pm):

Kyle,
Were you on the capital steps in September with the KKK?
You missed your calling... but I'm sure they'll still have you.

Anonymous (February 22, 2007 @ 2:54pm):

Kyle,
If you go to Israel, at least the kids in the Israeli army, and the average Israeli citizen, will try and protect you from the suicide bombers. If you go to Gaza I'd wear a metal turtleneck.

Anonymous (February 22, 2007 @ 3:40pm):

To 2:44
I'm sure that Kyle would love for you to identify yourself - you're probably too scared.

With a non-WASP last name like Szarzynski, I doubt the KKK would have Kyle.

I'm sure that more dangerous organizations like the IDF would love to have you.

Anonymous (February 22, 2007 @ 3:49pm):

I hope that Kyle's instrutors have taken notice of his shallow and dishonest analytical skills. This article is shallow, angry and repulsive. One may disagree with the actions of the Irsaeli government, but to openly advocate and support the actions of terrorists steps over the line. Shame on you Kyle.

Anonymous (February 22, 2007 @ 4:05pm):

The Influence of Israel and it's American Lobby over US Middle East Policy
Presented by Jeffrey Blankfort
Islamic Human Right Commission Conference
School of Oriental and African Studies, London
2 July 2006
Return to the PIWP home page
Return to the article abstract
----------------------------------------

The apparent ability of Israel, one of the world's smallest countries, to shape the Middle East policies of the world's remaining superpower has been a source of puzzlement, conjecture, and constant frustration on the part of those fighting for justice for the Palestinians and for the peoples of the region, as a whole.

One of the roots of this unique historical phenomenon may be found in the interpretation of a 120-year-old US Supreme Court decision that afforded corporations the same rights as individual American citizens. One of those rights is the freedom of speech that is guaranteed by the 1st amendment to the US Constitution. Thanks to the extraordinary degree of corruption that was manifest in American society in the late 19th century, financial contributions to political candidates came to be seen by the court as expressions of political speech and thus under the court's protection. This has resulted in the American political system becoming one of never-ending and ever more costly political campaigns, and, without question, the most corrupt among what are generally described as "advanced countries." The Supreme Court's decision, reaffirmed over the years, opened the door to well funded "special interests' and their lobbies and has allowed them, through what amounts to legal bribery, to shape the foreign and domestic policies of the United States.

By 1907, the American author, Mark Twain would write that there was only one "native criminal class in America -- Congress" and a decade later, the humorist Will Rogers would joke, "America has the best Congress money can buy." In the beginning it was the railroads and the steel companies who paid the going price and then came the lumber, oil and construction companies, the weapons and automobile manufacturers, the airplane and communications industries, and what are euphemistically known as the health providers -- the doctors, the hospitals and the pharmaceutical manufacturers who have made sure that Americans would be the only citizens in a developed country that have no national health service.

In the arena of foreign policy, no lobby has proved more powerful than that of the organized American Jewish community in support of Israel; what is generally referred to as the Israel Lobby and in the halls of Congress, simply as "the lobby." Its power is all the more impressive when one realizes the lobby represents no more than a third of America's six million Jews. The dedication and single-mindedness of that one third, however, stands in stark contrast to the lack of involvement by the overwhelming majority of Americans in a system for which they long ago lost faith and respect. This has made the lobby's task much simpler than it might first appear. It is also why unconditional support for Israel will likely remain the only issue in which Democrats and Republicans submerge their hostilities and march in lock step together like trained circus animals. Not only do pro-Israel measures usually receive 400 votes of the 435 member House and up to 99 of a 100 in the Senate, but when it comes to foreign aid, Congress has frequently voted to grant Israel more money than a president has requested and to pass legislation favorable to the lobby over his opposition. Since 1985 the amount of direct aid has fluctuated between $3 and $3.5 billion while unpublicized extras in the Pentagon budget have tended to raise that figure considerably higher. The total today is estimated to be at least $108 billion. This figure does not include the costs of $19 billion in loan guarantees to Israel since 1991, the billions of taxpayers dollars invested in Israeli government bonds by union pension funds, individual states and county and city governments, nor the billions in tax-exempt donations by American Jews to quasi governmental Israeli agencies and charities since Israel became a state.

The state of the US economy has never been a consideration. When funds have been unavailable for essential domestic programs, such as in 1991, when six out of ten U.S. cities were unable to meet their budgets and several states their payrolls, Israel received, over the first president Bush's wishes, an additional $650 million in cash as part of the Gulf War emergency spending bill. In September 1992, after stubbornly resisting for a year Israel's request for $10 billion in loan guarantees, but with a difficult election against Bill Clinton just two months away, Bush went along with Congress's demand that Israel's request be approved. It was too late to help him at the polls. This is not only a tribute to the millions of dollars contributed to national political candidates by wealthy American Jews but a testament to the fear that AIPAC, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, Israel's officially registered lobby, has instilled in members of Congress who have neither a personal interest in supporting Israel nor a sizeable Jewish constituency. "If there was a secret ballot, aid to Israel would be cut severely," a Congressman described as pro-Israel told the New Republic's Morton Kondracke in 1989. "It's not out of affection any more that Israel gets $3 billion a year. It's from fear you'll wake up one morning and find out than an opponent has $500,000 to run against you."

The lobby, however, is more than AIPAC, which, alone, would be unable to exert such power. There are, in fact, more than 60 organizations, from small to large, engaged single-mindedly, in promoting Israel's interests in the US while marginalizing, intimidating and silencing its critics. Its targets include Jews opposed either to Israel's existence as a Jewish state, such as myself and others who are simply outraged by Israel's continuing occupation and theft of Palestinian land, and the deadly means with which both are carried out, held in check only by the mild restraints of the international community. Some 52 of these organizations belong to Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish American Organizations, which is supposed to the voice of American Jewry. Along with AIPAC, the two largest and most influential of them are the Anti-Defamation League, or ADL, and the American Jewish Committee, or AJC. Representatives of the major organizations meet every month to plan strategy for that month. Nothing can be left to chance.

The ADL began in 1914 as an offshoot of the nation's oldest Zionist organization, B'nai B'rith. Its mission was to defend Jews from anti-Jewish acts and words. It still does that, but anti-Jewish racism ceased to be a serious problem in the US years ago and the ADL's chief task today is gathering information on critics of Israel, what it calls the "new anti-Semites" and smearing them in the public media. Fourteen years ago, its information gathering went too far. A raid by the San Francisco police on ADL's San Francisco office revealed that the organization was conducting a major private spying operation across the United States. In the San Francisco area alone, its agent had illegally compiled files on more than 600 organizations and 12,000 individuals, myself among them. These were not just Arab-American, Palestinian and Muslim groups, but Black, Latino, Asian, Irish, and trade unions, as well. There was a special category for the anti-apartheid movement which given Israel's ties with apartheid South Africa, was not surprising, but the ADL spy was also passing that information on to a South African intelligence agent along with reports on black South African exiles living in the area.

Pressure from influential local Zionists convinced city officials not to prosecute the ADL while the organization promised it would stop its spying activities. There is no reason to believe it has done so. Today, it works very closely with police departments across the country, educating them on so-called "hate crimes" and routinely sends groups US police officials on free trips to Israel to learn how to respond to "terrorist attacks." This doesn't bode well for what is left of America's civil liberties.

The American Jewish Committee was founded by German Jews in 1906 and was firmly anti-Zionist until the events of the Second World War and the Jewish Holocaust led it to change its position. Today, it is the lobby's unofficial foreign office, and until recently was largely content to work behind the scenes pressuring foreign governments in behalf of Israel. It began flexing its muscles more publicly two years ago when it opened an office in Brussels to lobby the European Union. The AJC now has weekly meetings with a high official if not the chief of state of a EU member government and one can already see the effect. Over the past year the EU has moved away from its relative support for the Palestinians and adopted one position after another that reflect Israeli demands.

A number of other important components of the lobby will not be found in the President's conference, including 117 Jewish community relations councils, 155 Jewish federations, and several powerful "independent" Washington think tanks such as the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a creation of AIPAC; the American Enterprise Institute, and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy, founded after the attack on the World Trade Center.

When one adds to what I have mentioned so far, the Jewish religious bodies that also lobby for Israel, it should be obvious that there is no other ethnic or religious group that comes close to being so intensely organized, except, perhaps, the Christian Zionists, but the scope of their activities is relatively limited. This is but one of several things that distinguish the Israel Lobby from other powerful US special interest lobbies, apart from the fact that it represents the interests of a foreign country. All are important to understanding its success. The first, of course, is its money. It is impossible to know exactly how much of it Jews contribute to American politicians, but it is far more than any other group. The difficulty occurs because groups monitoring the data categorize contributions according to the financial sector of the donor, which, in the case of Israel, tends to disguise the goal of the contributor. For example, the Communications industry in the US is dominated by Jews, most of whom are known supporters of Israel. When they contribute to the Democrats or Republicans, however, that money is not attributed to the Israel Lobby, but to the Communications industry. This applies to the Banking and Wall Street Financial houses that are also largely Jewish, as well as to other sectors of the business world.

Haim Saban exemplifies this problem. An Egyptian-born Israeli-American billionaire and media owner, Saban, in 2002 gave the Democratic Party $12.3 million, $7.5 in one chunk. This was two million dollars more than the Exxon corporation gave the Republican Party over a 10-year period but rated no more than a few inches in the NY Times. Saban, a good friend of former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, has also made large contributions to AIPAC. He also established the Saban Center on the Middle East at the Brookings Institute, turning that once independent think tank into another component of the lobby. Saban's $12.3 million, however, was not considered to be Israel lobby funding.

What is considered as pro-Israel money is largely restricted to funds from some three dozen pro-Israel PACs or political action committees and their members. PACs are groups that are licensed to collect donations and pass them on to politicians supportive of the particular interests of the industry, trade union, or non-profit organization that formed the PAC. What distinguishes the pro-Israel PACs from the others is that they disguise their identity to avoid the prying eyes of the media and the public. They do this simply by not mentioning Israel in their name. Thus we have the Northern Californians for Good Government, St. Louisans for Good Government, the Desert Caucus, Hudson Valley PAC, and NATPAC, etc. This has led to them being referred to as "stealth PACs" by a former State Department official. Moreover, unlike other PACs, they only contribute to candidates in other states. For example, the Desert Caucus will send money to congressional candidates or an incumbent Senate or House members in Illinois or New Jersey, based solely on their positions on Israel. This has led critics of the lobby to portray them as Israel Firsters. That is meant to indicate that they are more concerned with the welfare of Israel than they are with that of their fellow Americans.

The way I measured pro-Israel political contributions was to go to the web site of Mother Jones magazine, a pro-Israel liberal monthly. In 1996 and 2000, it compiled lists of the top 400 individual donors to both political parties. What I found was that in 2000, 7 of the top 10 donors, 12 of the top 20, and at least, 125 of the top 250 were Jewish, most of which went to the Democrats. In other words, at least 50% and even higher among the larger contributors. It is an extraordinary figure you realize that Jews make up but 2.3 % of the American population. The 50% overall figure corresponds to estimates from within the Democratic Party as well as Jewish organizations although some speculate the figure is as high as 70%. The extent of these contributions, coupled with those from trade unions that are strongly pro-Israel at the leadership level and which have invested at least $5 billion in Israeli government bonds, have made the Democratic Party, into what American law professor Francis Boyle recently called, "a front for AIPAC."

While maintaining a formidable presence in the nation's capitol, so much so that it is referred to in Congress simply as "the lobby," AIPAC gathers its strength from its grass roots cadres and that of other Jewish organizations with which it networks in every state and major city in the United States. Its operations are carried out by a staff of 165, a healthy $47 million annual budget, and offices across the country. What affords it a special advantage is that it is considered a domestic lobby and not required to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. This gives its lobbyists access such registration would prohibit, such as taking part in Congressional committee hearings, drafting or vetting legislation that concerns Israel or the Middle East, and placing its interns as volunteers in the offices of members of Congress where they serve as AIPAC's eyes or, if you prefer it, spies.

Few AIPAC staff members actually lobby. Most provide research materials, talking points, and speeches for members of Congress or help prepare AIPAC's Near East Report, a four-page bi-weekly that is essential reading on Capitol Hill. At a local level, in addition to contributing money, AIPAC members voluntarily provide their expertise to competing candidates in congressional elections, so whoever wins, Israel is assured of a supporter.

AIPAC's annual conference in Washington each Spring is a major event of the political season. In 2005, 4,000 of its members attended along with 1000 student guests. The keynote address is usually given by the President, the Vice-President or the Secretary of State. This year it was Vice President Dick Cheney who was greeted with may rounds of applause and a standing ovation. As a tribute to the lobby's power, approximately half the members of Congress attend, including the Democratic and Republican leaders in the Senate and the House. Predictably, their speeches reflect their personal loyalty and of America's unbreakable commitment to Israel. The names of the congress members who show up are publicized on AIPAC's web site, which enhances their status among major Jewish donors.

As important but rarely publicized are regional lunches and dinners that AIPAC holds across the country, to which local political leaders -- mayors, supervisors, city council members, police chiefs, district attorneys, school superintendents, etc, are invited. The speakers at these events will usually be a US Senator or a governor from another state. What is interesting is that the media is never invited nor informed of their appearance, neither where the event takes place nor in the speaker's state.

As a follow-up, those favored public officials will soon find themselves invited on all-expense paid trips to Israel provided by local Jewish community relations councils, federations or other community organizations. There they meet the prime minister, defense minister and the IDF Chief of Staff, tour Israel and a West Bank settlement, and visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum. It is from such so-called "civil servants" that new members of Congress invariably emerge and so the personal relations established between them and influential Jewish community activists through these trips are mutually beneficial.

Politicians, from Congressional candidates to the president, frequently travel to Israel to gain the support of Jewish voters back home. George W. Bush made his only trip to Israel before deciding to run for President in what was widely viewed as an effort to win pro-Israel voters' support. California Governor Arnold Shwarznegger and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a non-practicing Jew, did the same. Once in Congress, members can be assured of more free trips to Israel arranged through the American Israel Education Foundation, a foundation set up by AIPAC for that purpose. In 2005 alone, more than 100 members of Congress visited Israel, some several times. It should be noted that few politicians think it necessary to make such a political trip to Mexico prior to or even after an election, despite the fact that Mexico is far more vital to the US economy and is the genuine homeland of many more millions of Americans. But then, there is no Mexican lobby with similar political or financial clout.

AIPAC does not contribute directly to congressional or presidential campaigns but it does advise its members and the pro-Israel community as to where their money can be the most effective, whether through individual contributions or through one of the PACs. An important hallmark of AIPAC's power is its ability to get the signatures of at least 70 U.S. senators on any letter it wishes to send to a U.S. president when they believe he is not acting in Israel's best interests. One of the most notable was the letter of 76 of them addressed to President Gerald Ford on May 21, 1975 after Ford had suspended aid to Israel and was about to make a major speech re-assessing the US-Israel relationship and calling on Israel to return to the 1967 borders. The letter warned Ford against making any changes in the strong US-Israel relationship. Ford never gave the speech and no president has dared to make such a threat again.

Mitchell Bard, a former editor of AIPAC's Near East Report, explains that the source of the lobby's power is that "Jews have devoted themselves to politics with almost religious fervor." Though the Jewish population in the United States is roughly six million, or a little over 2 % of the U.S. population, almost 90 percent live in twelve key electoral college states. "These states alone," writes Bard, "are worth enough electoral votes to elect the president. If you add the non-Jews shown by opinion polls to be as pro-Israel as Jews, it is clear Israel has the support of one of the largest veto groups in the country." Bard points out what has been obvious to political observers for years. Jewish political activism obliges members of Congress to consider what a mixed voting record on Israel-related issues may mean to their political future. There are no benefits for those who openly criticize Israel and "considerable costs in both loss of money and votes from Jews and non-Jews alike." For a member of Congress, even to call for even-handedness towards both the Israelis and Palestinians is enough to be targeted for defeat. Consequently, politicians at every level of government tend to be more responsive to the concerns of Jewish voters than to the larger segments of their constituencies who pay more attention to "reality" TV, soap operas, professional sports, and their mobile phones than they do to electoral politics.

While the fact "that the campaign contribution is a major key to Jewish power...[is] one of the worst-kept secrets in American Jewish politics," as JJ Goldberg, noted in his book, Jewish Power, it was not considered enough by Israel's supporters in the years immediately following Israel's establishment. What was thought necessary was for Jewish groups to create a supra-organizational structure that would work to ensure that no sector of American life would be immune from its influence. Although this structure has evolved over time and while the scope of its activities have expanded and become more sophisticated, its modus operandi has remained largely unchanged. This was revealed in a Senate Committee on Foreign Relations hearing in 1963, a time when U.S. financial assistance and political support for Israel was minimal compared to what it would become, and it was still possible for at least one elected legislator to publicly criticize Israel on the floor of Congress. The retaliation would come later. Thus, in May 1963, Sen. J.W. Fulbright, an Arkansas Democrat, chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations initiated a series of hearings concerning the activities of foreign agents in the US to determine if more restrictive laws needed to be put in place.

Among the groups under investigation were those of the young Israel lobby, including the supra-organizational structure or umbrella group, the American Zionist Council (AZC), and AIPAC that at the time was little more than a one man organization. At the time, the AZC was comprised of eight other groups; only two are major players today, the extreme right-wing Zionist Organization of America, and the Women's Zionist Organization of America, better known as Hadassah. As the American Zionist Committee for Public Affairs, AIPAC had been launched in 1951 as the lobbying arm of the American Zionist Council, but separated itself from the AZC in 1954 so as not to jeopardize the tax-exempt status of the other organizations by its lobbying efforts. It dropped "Zionist" from its name and became AIPAC in 1959. The separation was largely cosmetic. While AIPAC would focus its efforts on Congress, the other groups would take their lobbying for Israel along the length and breadth of American society. This became clear from the program of a single committee of the AZC that was presented at the Senate hearing. It should be noted that at the time Israel was under no external danger and the Palestine Liberation Organization did not exist.

The Americam Zionist Council's Committee on Information and Public Relations would carry "on a major part of its work through highly specialized subcommittees composed of professionals in specific areas of activity who volunteer their services..." Its targets for the 1962/63 budgetary year were magazines, and their editors; TV, radio and films; Christian religious groups; academia, at every level; the daily press; book publishing and promotion; expanding its already active speakers bureau; liaison with organizations, both on the national and local levels, especially those with an international relations programs with special attention to "the Negro community;" "issuance of special material and guidance on controversial issues such as Arab refugees, Syrian-Israeli situation, etc.," subsidizing trips to Israel for "individual public opinion molders to help provide them with an experience in Israel...and organizing tours "in which public opinion molders will participate [and] provide suitable arrangements in Israel for handling American visitors;... counteracting the opposition" (which was minimal at the time but they were taking no chances), "the monitoring and counteraction of all activities carried out here by the Arabs, American Friends of the Middle East and other hostile groups" and finally number twelve labeled "Miscellaneous," which included "Answering requests for information and providing suitable literature for the many thousands of requests annually received."

Those were their targets 44 years ago. Let's see how far they have come... The first item was magazines and cultivating their editors. While a several of the most important magazines of that day are no longer published, those that exist today such as Newsweek, Time, US News & World Report, and the Weekly Standard are either Jewish owned or managed with Jews furnishing a substantial portion of their editorial staffs. While the fact that someone is Jewish does not necessarily mean he or she is an active Zionist, my observations, over the years, indicate that most are sympathetic to Israel and, at the very least, for their own self-interest, will know how to spin a story. Television, Radio and Films were dominated by Jews then, but are more strongly in support Israel now, from ownership, to management, to news direction. This is a prime source of pro-Israel propaganda and influence.

Christian religious groups have been a challenge for the lobby as various denominations have, over the years, sought to take a balanced position on the Israel-Palestine conflict. This, for Zionists, is an act of "anti-Semitism." By and large, however, the Zionists have made sure their relations to the most of the Christian denominations is one in which Christian guilt for centuries of Jewish persecution is never far from the table. Their biggest success has been with the addition of the Christian evangelicals to the ranks of the Zionist movement, which provides massive voter support in rural America where few Jews live. Among the more liberal denominations, the Zionists have had to work overtime recently to keep the Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and Congregationalists, from approving or implementing plans that would have them divest from US companies profiting from the occupation.

Academia has long been a major battle ground between the Zionists and supporters of Palestine. In recent years, the battle over divestment and what can or cannot be taught about the Israel-Palestine conflict have been the main issues. The Zionists had already been extremely active before the present intifada but shortly after Israel was widely criticized for its attack on, Jenin in April 2002, 26 of the campus groups led by Hillel and off-campus organizations, led by AIPAC, the ADL and the AJC formed the Israel Campus Coalition. They have so far been able to turn back all attempts at divestment on the universirt campuses as they have in the churches.

In the battle over teaching content, the ADL had a head start. In the early Eighties, it became the first organization to publish a list of pro-Arab professors and activists and distribute it to their members and to the media. The most recent group, Campus Watch, went so far as to put their addresses on its web site until obliged to remove them. In the academic arena, the AJC and Campus Watch have been pushing Congress to pass legislation that would require monitoring of Middle East studies in the universities to make sure that professors are not indoctrinating their students with anti-Israel or anti-US "propaganda." Since this would clearly violate the 1st amendment and curtail the free speech of professors in the classroom, the legislation is stalled in the Senate. Most recently, the lobby scored an important victory when it was able to prevent Yale university, the nation's oldest, from hiring University of Michigan professor and Middle East expert, Juan Cole, even though Cole had been recommended by the university's hiring committees. His crime? He is critical of Israel and of the lobby and a supporter of the Palestinians.

Conquering the daily press has been at times a contest, but the lobby has emerged a clear winner. With ownership of the two most influential papers in the country, the New York Times and the Washington Post historically in Jewish hands, with pro-Israel columnists for both of those papers syndicated in hundreds of other papers across the country, the pro-Israel position is the only one that America reads on both its editorial and op-ed pages. The news, as well, is given a pro-Israel slant but this is not enough for the Zionist media monitoring groups, CAMERA and Honest Reporting. They accuse both papers of having an anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian bias. This, of course, is nonsense, but it serves to keep them in line.

Any survey of book titles will reveal yet another success of the lobby. While there have been a plethora of books about Israel and Jewish culture, nothing has been more successful than promoting books about the Jewish holocaust and the output appears to be never-ending. Moreover, it is the rare American child that can go through public school without an intense study of the holocaust through the diary of Ann Frank. For them, that is the story of the Second World War. More time, in fact, is spent by American school children studying the holocaust than the genocide of the Native Americans and the three and a half centuries of slavery and the decades of racism that followed. Before they get out of college students will also have read and experienced the maudlin recriminations of Eli Wiesel against the non-Jewish world for not coming to the aid of the Jews. Wiesel is now a permanent fixture on the American cultural scene.

I'll not go through all the rest of AZC's program except to point out that its liaisons with the African-American community, and more recently with the emerging Latin-American population, have been of major importance to the lobby's leadership. While left-wing Jews played important roles in America's civil rights struggles, controlling the black political agenda and determining its leadership have long been major goals of the lobby. It has succeeded in achieving both. Contributions from wealthy pro-Israel Jewish businessmen provide key financial support for black churches and keeps their pastors quiet, while providing campaign funding and key data bases for aspiring black politicians insures their loyalty to their donors, if not to Israel. Those who refuse to genuflect to the lobby, which required their withholding of criticism when Israel was providing arms to apartheid South Africa, find themselves accused of "anti-Semitism" and targeted for political extinction.

What remains today is what I have called "the invisible plantation." The only member of Congress not on that plantation at the moment is Cynthia McKinney from Atlanta, Georgia. They defeated her in 2002 for criticizing Israel and the war on Iraq but she battled back to regain her seat in 2004, much to the unhappiness of not only the lobby but also the Democratic Party. They are gunning for her again in Georgia's July 18 primary.

Finally, and what is most disturbing, what distinguishes the Israel Lobby from all the others is that it has no significant opposition. In fact, it was only this spring, with the publication of a paper entitled The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy in the London Review of Books by Professors John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Steven Walt, of Harvard, that the subject of the lobby's power and influence over US Middle East policy became an acceptable subject for public debate. In their paper, the professors asserted, with considerable evidence, that US support for Israel over the years has not been in America's national interest and the present war in Iraq was essentially initiated in Israel's behalf and argued, effectively, against the notion of Israel serving as "strategic asset" of the US at the present time.

That the article had to come to light in London, after being rejected by the Atlantic magazine in the US, is a telling commentary on the degree to which discussion of the lobby has been a taboo subject in American political circles. Those circles include not just the supporters of Israel and the politicians and the media over which they maintain their influence, but the American left and its leading icon, Prof. Noam Chomsky. While praising the two professors for having raised the issue, he proceeded to casually dismiss their thesis without addressing its key points. This was no surprise. For more than 30 years, in countless books, speeches, and interviews, Professor Chomsky has maintained that Israel is a "strategic asset" of the US, that it serves as Washington's "cop on the beat" in the Middle East, and that the lobby is not really a factor in Washington's foreign policy deliberations. It only seems so, he insists, because its positions tend to agree with those of America's ruling elites. It is also important to note that he strongly opposes any form of economic pressure being brought against Israel, be it, boycott, divestment, or South African type sanctions. With so much invested in his position Professor Chomsky is not about to change his mind at this point. Nor, apparently, will other professors such as Stephen Zunes who have rigidly adopted his viewpoint.

But what is more important and unfortunate, that has also been the position taken by the anti-war and Palestine solidarity movements. Rather than welcoming the opportunity to criticize or even discuss the lobby's role that has been afforded by the Mearsheimer-Walt paper, they have either ignored it or, like Chomsky and Zunes, insisted that the problem is not the lobby, but US imperialism (as if the two were mutually exclusive) which is an easy target but provides little foundation for concrete political action. The fact that the Palestine support movement in the United States has been an utter failure to this point in time, I believe, can be traced, in a large part, to its refusal to acknowledge the power of the Israel lobby and to challenge that power either locally and nationally.

It is interesting to note that in 1971, three years before Chomsky published his first book on the subject, Roger Hilsman, who had been a State Department official in charge of intelligence under the Kennedy administration wrote:

"It is obvious to even the most casual observer, for example, that United States foreign policy in the Middle East, where oil reigns supreme, has been more responsive to the pressures of the American Jewish community and their natural desire to support Israel than it has to American oil interests."
Stephen Green, whose ground-breaking research into State Department documents, was incorporated in his superb book, Taking Sides: America's Secret Relations with Militant Israel, put it in a more nuanced way:

"Since 1953," he wrote, "Israel, and friends of Israel in America, have determined the broad outlines of US policy in the region. It has been left to American presidents to implement that policy, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, and to deal with tactical issues."
The late Professor Edward Said did not mince words on the issue. In 2001, in his contribution to The New Intifada, entitled, appropriately, "America's Last Taboo," he rhetorically asked: "What explains this [present] state of affairs? The answer lies in the power of Zionist organizations in American politics, whose role throughout the "peace process" has never been sufficiently addressed -- a neglect that is absolutely astonishing, given the policy of the PLO has been in essence to throw our fate as a people into the lap of the United States, without any strategic awareness of how American policy is dominated by a small minority whose views about the Middle East are in some ways more extreme than those of Likud itself.

And on the subject of AIPAC, Said wrote:

" [T]he American Israel Public Affairs Committee -- AIPAC -- has for years been the most powerful single lobby in Washington. Drawing on a well-organized, well-connected, highly visible and wealthy Jewish population, AIPAC inspires an awed fear and respect across the political spectrum. Who is going to stand up to this Moloch on behalf of the Palestinians, when they can offer nothing, and AIPAC can destroy a professional career at the drop of a checkbook? In the past, one or two members of Congress did resist AIPAC openly, but the many political action committees controlled by AIPAC made sure they were never re-elected... If such is the material of the legislature, what can be expected of the executive?"
Professor Said's opinion, like the others, fell on largely deaf ears.

Thus, it should come as no surprise that in the absence of any organized public opposition and the abject default to it by those purporting to support the Palestinian cause, the Israel Lobby has had no trouble maintaining its control over the US Congress, and essentially US Middle East policy while making the political costs of any president that opposed it, a predictable defeat at the polls on election day. Every president beginning with Richard Nixon has made at least a half-hearted effort to get Israel to leave the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights, not for the benefit of the Palestinians, but to improve America's regional interests and each has been thwarted by the lobby. The exception was Jimmy Carter, a political outsider, who forced Menachem Begin to evacuate the Sinai in exchange for the Camp David peace treaty with Egypt and in 1978, to rub it in, ordered him to withdraw his troops from Lebanon after Israel's first invasion of its northern neighbor. The lobby was not pleased with Camp David and with Carter's other efforts to pressure Israel and he paid for it at the polls in 1980 when he received only 48% of the Jewish vote, the lowest for any Democrat since they started keeping count.

Given the situation, I have described, the outlook for changing American policy in terms of providing even a modicum of justice to the Palestinians is not bright. What is left for us to do is explain why and to challenge those on our side who stubbornly control the message to face the truth or get out of the way.


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Anonymous (February 23, 2007 @ 11:50am):

It's amazing the lies and deliberate distortions posted by the Israel supporters here. Arafat turned down 90% of the West Bank? That's not what the Israeli Foreign Minister at the time said. He said he too would have rejected it had he been in Arafat's shoes. That's not what the Israeli press said. They also pointed out how lopsided the offered deal was. So why do we keep hearing these lies? Israel has a simply amazing propaganda machine, one which rants about anti-semitism whenever someone exposes it. As for blood on your hands, Israel put admitted terrorists like Begin, Shamir and Sharon in the PM's office. Arafat never came close to their record of bloodshed. How many suicide bombers does it take to equal the death toll Israel extracted at Dier Yassin? 10? 20? At the King David Hotel? 10? 15? At the Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps? 100? 1000? It all comes down to this: Israel needs lebensraum, and the Palestinian untermenschen will just have provide it. And all the while, the US media and the other supporters of Israel will swear that if Israel liquidates just a few more Palestinians, all will be well in the Middles East.

Anonymous (February 23, 2007 @ 3:25pm):



Let us consider the following pronouncements of both Jewish and Gentile world figures
...in solemn memory of the hundreds of millions of Gentile victims of Jewish persecution






Exhibit 1(b): Quotations Baring the Nature of the Jew



Israel Cohen, A Racial Program For The 20th Century (1912) quoted by Congressman Abernathy, Congressional Record (1957), p. 8559

We must realize that our party's most powerful weapon is racial tension. By propounding into the consciousness of the dark races that for centuries they have been oppressed by the whites, we can mould them to the program of the Communist Party. In America we will aim for subtle victory. While inflaming the Negro minority against the whites, we will endeavor to install in the whites a guilt complex for their exploitation of the Negroes. We will aid the Negroes to rise in prominence in every walk of life, in the professions and in the world of sports and entertainment. With this prestige, the Negro will be able to intermarry with the whites and begin a process which will deliver America to our cause.




Voltaire

Why are the Jews hated? It is the inevitable result of their laws; they either have to conquer everybody or be hated by the whole human race . . .

The Jewish nation dares to display an irreconcilable hatred toward all nations, and revolts against all masters; always superstitious, always greedy for the well-being enjoyed by others, always barbarous - cringing in misfortune and insolent in prosperity....

You seem to me to be the maddest of the lot. The Kaffirs, the Hottentots, and the Negroes of Guinea are much more reasonable and more honest people than your ancestors, the Jews. You have surpassed all nations in impertinent fables, in bad conduct and in barbarism....




Henry Ford

The practical application of the Cabalist knowledge is manifested in the use made of it, through the ages, by Jews to gain influence both in the higher spheres of Gentile life and over the masses. Sovereigns and Popes, both, usually had one or more Jews as astrologers and advisers, and they frequently gave Jews control over their very life by employing them as physicians. Political power was thus gained by Jews in almost every Gentile country alongside with financial power, since Jewish court-bankers manipulated state funds and taxes.


Gore Vidal

...no other minority in American history has ever hijacked so much money from the American taxpayers in order to invest in a "homeland." It is as if the American taxpayer had been obliged to support the Pope in his reconquest of the Papal States simply because one third of our people are Roman Catholic. Had this been attempted, there would have been a great uproar and Congress would have said no. But a religious minority of less than two per cent has bought or intimidated seventy senators (the necessary two thirds to overcome an unlikely presidential veto) while enjoying support of the media.


Karl Marx

Religion is the opiate of the people, and for that reason it is to be used as a principal means of disarming the gentile, and, once in power, through the pulpit and prayers, to keep him subjugated and subdued.




Richard M. Cohen, CBS News senior producer

We are going to impose our agenda on the coverage by dealing with issues and subjects that we choose."


Richard Salant, former president of CBS News

Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they ought to have.


Mark Twain

You will say that the Jew is everywhere numerically feeble. When I read in the Cyclopedia Britannica that the Jewish population of the United States was 250,000, I wrote to the editor and explained to him that I was personally acquainted with more Jews than that, and that his figures were without a doubt a misprint for 25,000,000. People told me that they had reasons to suspect that for business reasons, many Jews did not report themselves as Jews. It looks plausible. I am strongly of the opinion that we have an immense Jewish population in America. I am assured by men competent to speak that the Jews are exceedingly active in politics.

Every nation hates each other, but they all hate the Jew.

Can fanaticism alone account for the persecution of the Jews? It is now my conviction that it is responsible for hardly any of it. In this connection I call to mind Genesis, chapter 47. We have all read the story of the years of plenty and the years of famine in Egypt, and now Joseph with that opportunity made a corner of broken hearts, and the crusts of the poor, and human liberty - a corner whereby he took the nation's money all away, to the last penny; took a nation's livelihood all away, to the last hoof; took a nation's land away, to the last acre. Then took the nation itself, buying it for bread, man by man, woman by woman, child by child, till all were slaves; a corner which took everything, leaving nothing, a corner so stupendous that, by comparison with it, the most gigantic corners in subsequent history are but baby things; for it dealt in hundreds of millions of bushels, and its profits were reckoned by hundreds of millions of dollars, and it was a disaster so crushing that its effects have not wholly disappeared from Egypt today, more than 3,000 years after the event....

I am convinced that the persecution of the Jew is not in any large degree due to religious prejudice. No, the Jew is a money-getter. He made it the end and aim of his life. He was at it in Rome. He has been at it ever since. His success has made the whole human race his enemy.


Valadimir Jabotinsky, in Mascha Rjetsch, January, 1934

LETTER: JEWISH DECLARATION OF WAR, 1933

The fight against Germany has now been waged for months by every Jewish community, on every conference, in all Labor Unions and by every single Jew in the world. There are reasons for the assumption that our share in this fight is of general importance. We shall start a spiritual and material war of the whole world against Germany. Germany is striving to become once again a great nation, and to recover her lost territories as well as her colonies. But our Jewish interests call for the complete destruction of Germany.


Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburg, New York Times, June 6, 1989

We have to recognize that Jewish blood and the blood of a goy are not the same thing.


Rabbi Yaacov Perrin, New York Daily News, Feb. 28, 1994

One million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail.


H.L. Mencken

I am one of the few Goyim who have ever actually tackled the Talmud. I suppose you now expect me to add that it is a profound and noble work, worthy of hard study by all other Goyim. Unhappily, my report must differ from this expectation. It seems to me, save for a few bright spots, to be quite indistinguishable from rubbish . . .


Rabbi Lewis Browne

The old dream of a Messiah who would bring justice and freedom to all men, was perverted into an ache for a ruthless conqueror, a war lord, who would wade in the blood of every heathen who refused to bring sacrifices to Jerusalem three times a year! The Jews alone were considered blessed; the goyim, the Gentiles, were all accursed.



Anthony Hargis

The Mosaic tax code is strikingly similar to the American tax code. Both are voluntary, that is, both offer alternatives to choose from: according to the Mosaic code, one can choose to pay the tax or suffer "utter desolation"; under the American system, one can choose to pay the tax or suffer "utter desolation." . . . That the Mosaic code is an elaborate tax code should not surprise us; for, it was written by a race of tax collectors....

Abram, the first Jew or Hebrew (he fathered the Jewish God...) went to Egypt and became a major tax-collector (or tax farmer) in exchange for prostituting his wife, Sarai, to the pharaoh. The Bible, of course, does not describe it in such indelicate terms. . . When Joseph went to Egypt, he became the head tax collector over all Egypt, subordinate only to the pharaoh and priests [Genesis 41:39-45] . . . Thus, it is entirely possible that, from the time of Joseph to the time of Moses, the Israelites were employed in Egypt primarily as tax collectors. The story of how Joseph was sold into slavery was probably fabricated for the purpose of "justifying" his career as a tax collector for the pharaoh.


Bernard Lazare, a Jew

Karl Marx was a clear and lucid Talmudist . . . full of that old Hebrew materialism which ever dreams of a paradise on earth and always rejects the chance of a Garden of Eden after death.


Mortimer Adler

Marx was really the last of the great Hebrew prophets.


Reinhold Niebur, Speech before the Jewish Institute of Religion, New York, October 3, 1934

Marxism is the modern form of Jewish prophecy.


Winston Churchill, Illustrated Sunday Herald, Feb. 8, 1920

There is no need to exaggerate the part played in the creation of Bolshevism and in the actual bringing about of the Russian Revolution by these international and for the most part atheistical Jews. . . .

In the Soviet institutions the predominance of Jews is even more astonishing. And the prominent, if not indeed, theprincipal, part in the system of terrorism applied by the Extraordinary Commissions for Combating Counter-Revolution has been taken by Jews, and in some notable cases by Jewesses.

The same evil prominence was obtained by Jews in the brief period of terror during which Bela Kun [Cohen] ruled in Hungary. The same phenomenon has been presented in Germany (especially in Bavaria), so far as this madness has been allowed to prey upon the temporary prostration of the German people.

. . . The fact that in many cases Jewish interests and Jewish places of worship are excepted by the Bolsheviks from their universal hostility has tended more and more to associate the Jewish race in Russia with villainies which are now being perpetrated . . . Needless to say, the most intense passions of revenge have been excited in the breasts of the Russian people.


The American Hebrew, Sept. 10, 1920

The Bolshevik revolution in Russia was the work of Jewish brains, of Jewish Dissatisfaction, of Jewish planning, whose work is to create a new order in the world. What was performed in so excellent a way in Russia, thanks to Jewish brains, and because of Jewish dissatisfaction and by Jewish planning, shall also through the same Jewish mental and physical forces become a reality all over the world.


Dr. Oscar Levy, a Jew, "Preface" to The World Significance of the Russian Revolution by George Pitt-Rivers, 1920

Bolshevism is a religion and a faith. How could those half-converted believers dream to vanquish the "Truthful" and the "Faithful" of their own creed, those holy crusaders, who had gathered around the Red standard of the prophet Karl Marx, and who fought under the daring guidance of those experienced officers of all latter-day revolutions - the Jews?


The Jewish Chronicle, Sept. 22, 1922

The Bolshevist officials of Russia are Jews. The Russian Revolution with all its ghastly horrors was a Jewish movement.


Rabbi Lewis Browne

Many Jewish names stand out prominently in those history-making revolutions. There are first the names of several Berlin Jewesses, Henrietta Herz, Rahel Levin, and Moses Mendelssohn's daughters. . . . Almost every great man of the period - for instance, Goethe, Schleiermacher, Victor Hugo, and Schlegel - seems to have made the acquaintance of these Jewesses at one time or another.

...Karl Marx, Ferdinand Lassalle, Johann Jacoby, Gabriel Riesser, Adolphe Cremieux, Signora Nathan - all these of Jewish lineage played important roles in the social struggle that went on throughout Europe in this period....

Jewish histories rarely mention the name of this man, Karl Marx, though in his life and spirit he was far truer to the mission of Israel than most of those who were forever talking of it. He was born in Germany in 1818, and belonged to an old rabbinical family. He was not himself reared a Jew, however, but while still a child was baptized a Christian by his father. Yet the rebel sould of the Jew flamed in him throughout his days, for he was always a "troubler" in Europe. He was banished from one land to another, and he was arrested and imprisoned many times.


Maurice Samuel, You Gentiles

Our Jewishness is not a creed: it is our totality. A Jew is a Jew in everything. We cannot conceive of a duality - religion and life, the sacred and the secular. I might say, "We and God grew up together." In the heart of any pious Jew, God is a Jew. Jews alone understand the universality of God....

We Jews pay little attention to the afterlife. We thank God for having made us different from you . .

Repudiation of the Jewish religion does not alter the Jew.



Henry Waton, Jewish Communist in America, A Program for the Jews

Communism is the destiny of mankind.

There is one work on sociology, and only one work, and that is Marx's Capital. Only a Jew could write this work.

The Jews are the highest and most cultured people on earth . . . The Jews have a right to subordinate to themselves the rest of mankind and to be the masters over the whole earth. The Jews will become masters over the whole earth, and they will subordinate to themselves all nations, not by material power, not by brute force, but by light, knowledge, understanding, humanity, peace, justice and progress. . . .

The Jews shall inherit the earth, and . . . all other races will either disappear altogether or they will become Jews.


Michael Hoffman

The Jewish Bolsheviks regarded politics as a branch of Gentile pest control. Hatred of Christians, especially the peasant "bourgeoisie" was their prime motivation. The systematic destruction of the Christian peasantry of Russia as so many vermin, beginning with Lenin's attack on them in the summer of 1918 and his forced starvation in 1921, has been almost completely ignored in Western history....

Here is the most genocidal political movement in world history, which created the largest concentration camps and the most horrendous slave labor system of the 20th century, in which millions of Christians were slaughtered....

This was a movement staffed in its upper echelons by Jewish Communists, and yet the world is comparatively silent about the holocaust and war crimes this thoroughly kosher system inflicted and the identity of the persons who were its architects. ...

The Jewish extraction of Lenin's mother has long been known to many Russian historians and party bureaucrats with access to inside information. (Cf. "Who was a Jew? Why, Lenin of Course!", Jerusalem Post International Edition, Jan. 26, 1991, and Dimitry Volkogonov, Lenin: A New Biography.)


Henry Ford, 1922

If it is "anti-Semitism" to say that communism in the United States is Jewish, so be it; but to the unprejudiced mind it will look very much like Americanism. Communism all over the world, not in Russia only, is Jewish.


Revilo Oliver

Mr. Carynnyk collected abundant evidence that the "Nazis" could not possibly have had anything to do with the murder of a probable total of millions of Ukrainians by the Soviet Secret Police in the period before 1941. A writer for Commentary could not be expected to remind his readers that the Secret Police, though known under various names and supposedly reformed at times, was always under the command of Jews, directed even locally by Jews, and largely staffed by Jews, although it included some especially vicious Mongoloids and Turkics (Tartars et al.) and Slavs, but he does remark that the murders, like the preceding starvation of Ukrainians, were specifically authorized by Stalin's [Jewish] brother-in-law, Lazarus Kaganovich...


David Ash, Jewish author of Beware of God

During World War I, "The Bankers"...financed and engineered the Russian Revolution. Lenin was sent across Europe into Russia in a sealed train with $5-$6 million in gold. The operation was arranged with the German High Command and funded by Max Warburg....

Meanwhile, Jacob Schiff financed Leon Trotsky.

According to The New York Journal-American of February 3, 1949, Jacob's grandson, John Schiff, is said to have remarked: "The old man sank about $20 million for the final triumph of Bolshevism in Russia."...


Zenaide Ragozin

In Kief and Odessa the riots broke out...and took a rather more malignant character: more personal outrages were committed; the troops and police were resisted, so that several hundred people [i.e., Russians] were killed and about two hundred wounded... "When I reached the corn-bazaar," writes a special correspondent of the "Golos," from Kief, "the Jewish shops were already demolished and plundered; the mob was just attacking the public-houses [taverns and liquor stores - virtually all owned by Jews]...

"Throughout the uproar I could clearly distinguish the shouts coming from all sides. 'The Jews have lorded it over us long enough!' 'It is our turn now!' 'They have got everything into their own hands!' 'Life is too dear!' 'They grind us to death!' etc. Some well-intentioned persons went about amongst groups of idlers...and tried to dissuade them: 'How can you be so foolish? Don't you know you will be punished?' The reply in almost every case amounted to this: 'No matter; we will take our punishment - it will be only once. The Jews torture us all our lives'..."


Theodore Herzl, founder of Zionism, The Jewish State

The Jewish question exists wherever Jews are to be found in large numbers. Wherever it does not exist it is brought in by immigrating Jews...Every nation in whose midst Jews live is, either covertly or openly, anti-Semitic...Anti-Semitism increases day by day and hour by hour among the nations; indeed, it is bound to increase because the causes of its growth continue to exist and cannot be removed.... Its immediate cause is ourexcessive production of mediocre intellects, who cannot find an outlet downwards or upwards - that is to say, no wholesome outlet in either direction. When we sink, we become a revolutionary proletariat, the subordinate officers of all revolutionary parties; at the same time, when we rise, there rises also our terrible power of the purse.


H.G. Wells, The Anatomy of Frustration

Zionism is an expression of Jewish refusal to assimilate. If the Jews have suffered, it is because they have regarded themselves as a chosen people.


George Bernard Shaw, Literary Digest, Oct. 12, 1932

This craving for bouquets by Jews is a symptom of racial degeneration. The Jews are worse than my own people. Those Jews who still want to be the chosen race (chosen by the late Lord Balfour) can go to Palestine and stew in their own juice. The rest had better stop being Jews and start being human beings.


H.G. Wells

If it is proper to "reconstitute" a Jewish state which has not existed for 2,000 years, why not go back another thousand years, and reconstitute the Canaanite state?


Strabo, 1st cent. Greek geographer, Geographica

There is hardly any place on the whole of the earth which is not dominated by the Jews.


Benjamin Disraeli, a Jewish "convert" to Christianity, Lord George Bentininck, A Political Biography

You never observe a great intellectual movement in Europe in which the Jews do not greatly participate. The first Jesuits were Jews; that mysterious Russian Diplomacy which so alarms Western Europe is organised and principally carried on by Jews; that mighty revolution which is at this moment preparing in Germany, and which will be, in fact, a second and greater Reformation, and of which so little is as yet known in England, is entirely developing under the auspices of Jews, who almost monopolise the professional chairs of Germany....

The influence of the Jews may be traced in the last outbreak of the destructive principle in Europe. An insurrection takes place against tradition and aristocracy, against religion and property. Destruction of the Semitic principle, extirpation of the Jewish religion, whether in the Mosaic or the Christian form, the natural equality of man and the abrogation of property, are proclaimed by secret societies who form provisionaly governments, and men of Jewish race are found at the head of every one of them....


Baruch Levy, Letter to Karl Marx, La Revue de Paris, p. 54, June 1, 1928

The Jewish people as a whole will be its own Messiah. It will attain world dominion by the dissolution of other races, by the abolition of frontiers, the annihilation of monarchy, and by the establishment of a world republic in which the Jews will everywhere exercise the privilege of citizenship. In this new world order the Children of Israel will furnish all the leaders without encountering opposition. The Governments of the different peoples forming the world republic will fall without difficulty into the hands of the Jews. It will then be possible for the Jewish rulers to abolish private property, and everywhere to make use of the resources of the state. Thus will the promise of the Talmud be fulfilled, in which is said that when the Messianic time is come the Jews will have all the property of the whole world in their hands.

Alleged quote from a Jewish banker by the Comte de Saint-Aulaire in Geneve contre la Paix Libraire Plan, Paris, 1936

Marxism, you say, is the bitterest opponent of capitalism, which is sacred to us. For the simple reason that they are opposite poles, they deliver over to us the two poles of the earth and permit us to be its axis. These two opposites, Bolshevism and ourselves, find ourselves identified in the Internationale. And these two opposites, the doctrine of the two poles of society, meet in their unity of purpose, the renewal of the world from above by the control of wealth, and from below by revolution.


Oscar Levy, 20th cent. Jewish-British writer

There is scarcely an event in modern Europe that cannot be traced back to the Jews. Take the Great War that appears to have come to an end. Ask yourself what were its causes and reasons...All latter-day ideas and movements have originally sprung from a Jewish source for the simple reason that the Semitic idea has finally conquered - conquered through Christianity, which, as Disraeli pointed out long ago, is nothing but "Judaism for the people."


Rabbi Lewis Browne, Stranger Than Fiction

The other nations might have chariots and battering rams, but they, the Hebrews so they now told themselves alone had the Right. Just what Right was, they hardly stopped to define except perhaps that it meant the favor of the God who commanded fair play to equals and mercy to the weak. But whatever it was, they believed, that by the grace of the God of Heaven and Earth, they had it and with it they believed they would conquer. With it Babylonia would be humbled and they themselves would be released. And with it some day they would be triumphant in all the earth: their spirit, their ideals, their God, would reign supreme. Jerusalem would become the center of the world, and the Temple would become a house of prayer for all nations. They, the Jews, who were now scattered and broken, who were being spat upon and laughed at, they in the end would be the mightiest conquerors of all! And in 538 B.C. Cyrus of Persia captured Babylon and set the exiles free. They were free now to conquer the world with Right.


Rabbi Haim Levi

Through one of the children of Adam, a nation was formed by G-d himself, bearing His own name, to be His particular witness, and to ultimately give birth to the Messiah, the eternal prince and Savior of the world. This nation, which G-d Himself named "Israel," and which has Jerusalem as its eternal capital, is destined to inherit the earth, according to the promises of G-d. ...

What does it mean, Salvation is of the Jews? [Jn. 4:22] It means that G-d prepared the Nation of Israel, the Jews, for the purpose of bringing the message of salvation and the means of salvation for the whole earth. At the same time he used our rebellion, to scatter us over the whole world, to see if the nations of the world would recognize us as the people of the Bible.


Rabbi Michael Higger, The Jewish Utopia

A model ideal state will gradually spread its teachings and influence from nation to nation...the people of Israel will thus conquer the nations of the earth...all other peoples will be known by their detestable practices and idolatry [Christians and all others are idolaters]...they will be destroyed and will disappear from earth before the ushering in of the ideal era. To understand the Rabbinic conception of an ideal world it will help us if we can imagine a hand passing from land to land, country to country, marking righteous or wicked on the foreheads of each one of the inhabitants of the earthly globe.


Tony Greenstein

Not only are cries of "Back to the Gas Chambers" against anti-war/peace activists common in Israel today, but the use of Holocaust symbolism and imagery by one group against another is extremely common. Reference to the Holocaust, and the desire to make one's opponents suffer as Jews suffered under the Nazis, seems to mediate virtually all conflict within the Jewish sector of Israel. At times of crisis in the relations between Orthodox and Secular Jews, the latter take to daubing swastikas on the walls of and even arson of synagogues, the defiling of prayer books, scrolls and religious artefacts. Orthodox Jews do likewise to their secular counterparts and religious fascists paint swastikas on Christian churches (ironically the most pro-Zionist ones). And Oriental Jews, for whom the Holocaust was a European affair, paint slogans such as "Ashkenazim - Back to Auschwitz" on the latters' cars and buildings.


Charles Lindbergh, August 23, 1939

We are disturbed about the effect of the Jewish influence in our press, radio and motion pictures. It may become very serious. [Fulton] Lewis told us of one instance where the Jewish advertising firms threatened to remove all their advertising from the Mutual system if a certain feature were permitted to go on the air. The threat was powerful enough to have the feature removed.


Marcus Eli Ravage, a Jew, Century Magazine

You make much noise and fury about the undue Jewish influence in your theaters and movie places. Granted, your complaint is well-founded. But what is that compared with our staggering influence in your churches, your schools, your laws and your government, and the very thoughts you think?

You believe "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion." But what is that beside the unquestionable and historic conspiracy we have carried out, and which we have never denied because you have never had the courage to charge us with it?


Michael Medved, Jewish writer, "Jews Run Hollywood - So What?", Moment, August 1996

It makes no sense at all to try to deny the reality of Jewish power and prominence in popular culture. Any list of the most influential production executives at each of the major movie studios will produce a heavy majority of recognizably Jewish names.


Ben Klassen

One of the outstanding fortés of the Jews is the skillful manipulation of propaganda. However, the record of the Hebrews and their history shows that all the Jewish claims of culture are entirely without foundation. The Horizon Book of Christianity, a standard reference work, says "The Jews began as an agglomeration of small tribes who later attained independence only in the interlude between the rise and fall of great empires. They have bequeathed no monuments testifying to magnificence. There are no tombs of Hebrew kings with chaplets of gold and chariots studded with jewels. Palestine archeology has unearthed no statues of David or Solomon, but only water pots like the one from which Rebecca watered the camels of Abraham's servants."

The Oriental Institute of Chicago contains one of the world's most outstanding collections of the fine arts, specializing in Egyptian, Syrian and other cultures of the Near East, in the area which the Jews claim as that of their origin. One would expect to find the Jewish contribution to civilization well represented there. After walking through vast halls filled with great works of art, splendid statues, exquisite jewels, and other artifacts from the tombs of Egyptian and Assyrian conquerors, we come to the Jewish exhibit. Here we find a glass case filled with broken bits of clay pots,crude, undecorated, and unglazed utensils which might have come down to us from the Stone Age. This is the great Jewish "culture" about which the Jews brag so flagrantly and it is about all they have to offer.

The fact is that the Jews were known throughout ancient history only as destroyers. They produced no art, founded no dynasties, built no great cities, and, alone of all the ancient peoples, had no talent for the finer things of culture or civilized life. Yet today we will hear the Jews boast loud and long about how they are the sole torchbearers of civilization.


Quoted from Gregor Shwarz Bostunitch: Die Freimaurerei, 1928; The Secret Powers Behind Revolution, by Vicomte Leon De Poncins, P. 101)

Masonry is a Jewish institution, whose history, degrees, charges, passwords and explanation are Jewish from beginning to end.


Rabbi Spitz, American Hebrew, March 1, 1946

American Jewry too must come to grips with our contemporary anti-Semites. We must fill our jails with anti-Semitic gangsters, we must fill our insane asylums with anti-Semitic lunatics, we must combat every alien Jew-hater, we must harass and prosecute our Jew baiters to the extreme limits of the laws, we must humble and shame our anti-Semitic hoodlums to such an extent that none will wish to dare to become "fellow-travelers."


Oscar Levy, a Jew

If you are an anti-Semite, I, the Semite, am an anti-Semite too, and a much more fervent one than ever you are. We have erred, my friend, we have grievously erred....


Carl Jung, Two Essays on Analytical Psychology

It is quite unpardonable to accept the conclusions of a Jewish psychology as generally valid. Nobody would dream of taking Chinese or Indian psychology as binding upon ourselves. The cheap accusation of anti-Semitism that has been leveled at me on the ground of this criticism is about as intelligent as accusing me of an anti-Chinese prejudice.


Georges Sorel

No one among us would think of regarding the Jews as enemies of our country if they would consent to live as ordinary citizens, following any honorable trade, performing their religious activities, and contributing to general culture as much as possible; but unfortunately the Jewish intellectuals consider themselves little Messiahs, and their nation thinks itself obliged to support them in their expeditions.


Daniel Halevy, a Jew, Luttes et problemes, 1911

Antisemitism is a very plausible attitude, and to a certain extent a prudent one.


H.G. Wells, Nov. 11, 1933

A careful study of anti-Semitic prejudice and accusations might be of great value to many Jews, who do not adequately realize the irritations they inflict.


H.L. Mencken, Minority Report

The Jewish theory that the Goyim envy the superior ability of Jews is not borne out by the facts. Most Goyim, in fact, deny that the Jew is superior, and point in evidence to his failure to take the first prizes: he has to be content with the seconds. No Jewish composer hsa ever come within miles of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms; no Jew has ever challenged the top-flight painters of the world, and no Jewish scientist has ever equalled Newton, Darwin, Pasteur or Mendel. In the latter bracket such apparent exceptions as Ehrlich, Freud and Einstein are only apparent. Freud was nine-tenths quack, and there is sound reason for believing that even Einstein will not hold up:in the long run his curved space may be classed with the psychosomatic bumps of Gall and Spurzheim. But whether this inferiority of the Jew is real or only a delusion, it must be manifest that it is generally accepted. The Goy does not, in fact, believe that the Jew is better than the non-Jew; the most he will admit is that the Jew is smarter at achieving worldly success. But this he ascribes to sharp practices, not to superior abilities.


Joseph Sobran

Not only persecution of Jews but any critical mention of Jewish power in the media and politics is roundly condemned as "anti-semitism." But there isn't even a term of opprobrium for participation in the mass murder of Christians.

.... It's permissible to discuss the power of every other group, from the Black Muslims to the Christian Right, but the much greater power of the Jewish Establishment is off-limits. That, in fact, is the chief measure of its power: its ability to impose its own taboos while tearing down the taboos of others - you might almost say its prerogative of offending. You can read articles in Jewish-controlled publications from the Times to Commentary blaming Christianity for the Holocaust or accusing Pope PiusXII of indifference to it, but don't look for articles in any major publication that wants to stay in business examining the Jewish role in Communism and liberalism, however temperately....

The single most powerful Jewish lobbying group is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which, as its former director Thomas Dine openly boasted, controls Congress. At a time when even Medicare may face budget cuts, aid to Israel remains untouchable. If the Israelis were to begin "ethnic cleansing" against Arabs in Israel and the occupied lands, it is inconceivable that any American political figure would demand the kind of military strike now being urged against the Serbs in ex-Yugoslavia.

Jewish-owned publications like The Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, The Atlantic Monthly, U.S. News & World Report, the New York Post, and New York's Daily News emit relentless pro-Israel propaganda; so do such pundits as William Safire, A.M. Rosenthal, Charles Krauthammer, Jeane Kirkpatrick, and George Will, to name a few.


Kevin MacDonald, Separation and Its Discontents, p. 28

The social identity theory of anti-Semitism is highly compatible with supposing that anti-Semitism will be a very common characteristic of human societies, for the following reasons: (1) Jewish cultural separatism results in both Jews and gentiles developing stereotypically negative attitudes toward outgroup members and the culture of the outgroup; (2) resource and reproductive competition between groups has been a common component of Jewish/gentile relationships; (3) because of Jewish within-group cooperation and altruism, as well as eugenic and cultural practices tending to result in high levels of intelligence and resource acquisition abilities among Jews, Jews are highly adept in resource competition with gentiles... Also they are adept at other activities, such as influencing culture, developing political and intellectual movements, and advocating specific policies, such as immigration policy, that result in conflicts of interest with segments of the gentile population."

This view of anti-Semitism runs contrary to an important strand of Jewish historiography and apologetics that attempts to show that anti-Semitism is a peculiarly Western phenomenon; or that it results from certain unique and unfortunate aspects of Christian religious ideology; or that it results from the peculiar social class profile of Jews in capitalist societies; or even that it results from pathological parent-child relations and sexual repressions. On the contrary there is evidence for anti-Semitism in a very wide range of both Western and non-Western societies, in Christian and non-Christian societies, and in pre-capitalist, capitalist, ad sociealist societies. It has occurred even in the most cohesive and well-functioning families. ...

The remarkable thing about anti-Semitism is that there is an overwhelming similarity in the complaints made about Jews in different places adn over very long stretches of historical time. These complaints may be seen as independent replications that together give credence to the proposal that, while exaggerations and falsehoods may well color these attitudes, several prominent themes of anti-Semitic writings have had a firm basis in the reality of Judaism as a group evolutionary strategy. ...

The history of anti-Semitism is thus a sort of expanded version of Harris's...findings that although German anti-Semitism underwent vast changes between 1850 and the 1920s in terms of political organization and extrenal factors that exacerbated or mitigated anti-Semtiism at particuarly times, the complaints about jews were remarkably the same. These themes, including the 'alienness' of Jews, Jewish economic, political, or cultural domination, the idea that Jews possess negative personality traits making them willing to engage in unscrupulous economic exploitation of gentiles, and Jewish disloyalty, continue to figure prominently in anti-Semitism around the world. (Separation and Its Discontents, p. 33)


Chaim Weizmann, Trial and Error, 1949, p. 90

Whenever the quantity of Jews in any country reaches the saturation point, that country reacts against them.... [This] reaction...cannot be looked upon as anti-Semitism in the ordinary or vulgar sense of that word; it is a universal social and economic concomitant of Jewish immigration and we cannot shake it off.








Anonymous (February 24, 2007 @ 3:40am):

I sent this comment separately to Mr. Szarzynski. Freedom, justice, peace for the Palestinians!

Young Mr. Szarzynski, thank you for your indelibly honest and courageous review of President Carter's "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" along with your mature observations of the horrific situation of the tormented Christians and Muslims of Palestine. I note your majors; I suggest that you add geopolitical science as a strong minor...or convert to it as your major and an eventual stellar career!

I have suffered with the Palestinians since 1964-65, when the Army sent me to Monterey, CA, to learn, via immersion, the Arabic language and culture. That experience changed my life. You have already become more engaged in and articulate regarding the historic injustice done to the Palestinians than 99 percent of our fellow Americans. Remain strong, remain aware, remain compassionate, and above all retain your principled voice in a sea of lies and callous disregard for the legitimate rights and aspirations for a brave people.

If you've not read these books, I recommend them strongly:
Ilan Pappe, "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine"
Susan Nathan, "The Other Side of Israel" (note to President Carter: Ms. Nathan makes it indubitably clear that Palestinian "citizens" of Militant Zionist Israel are themselves victims of apartheid and are at serious risk of the decades-long lust of Militant Zionists to ethnically cleanse the Holy Land of all but Jews)

Best regards and aloha from Hawaii (where I have much empathy for and interaction with another occupied people)...Bob S.

Anonymous (February 24, 2007 @ 9:50am):

President Jimmy Carter's views (and Kyle's assessment) are supported by hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Bellicose supporters of Israel have not been able to refute anything other then to argue about the word "Apartheid" because the age old usual strategy of calling people "Anti-Semitic" has worn out. In fact, Carter did not go far enough in criticizing Israel; the books could have been named "Palestinian Holocaust".

Zionist supporters of Israel are not even patriotic to America. They plunder American resources and pamper to 5 million Israelis Jews even at a detriment to 300 million Americans and billions of Muslims and others worldwide. Weren't Israelis found spying in the U.S. during 9/11 and stealing military secrets? Israel and its (American Jewish) supporters also led us to war in Iraq (a country that never did any harm to the USA) and have brought unending death and destruction to millions of people (except Jews) and now are trying to do the same in Iran.

Creation of Israel is the cause of conflicts in the Middle East and the cause of grief to the Palestinians and even to the Americans. Israel is at best a pest on America and at most a malignant cancer. To recover, America needs to dissociate itself from this tumor Israel: no more financial and military aid to Israel; divestment; international sanctions until Israel complies with international laws and UN resolutions; inspection and nuclear disarmament of Israel and yes, throw out all the Zionists supporters, in America, and send them to Israel.
SK (usa)

Anonymous (February 24, 2007 @ 12:00pm):



Jimmy Carter opened the window, but I am blowing the doors off the Holocaust hangover that knee-jerks with attacks anyone who criticizes the Israeli GOVERNMENT and labels them an anti-Semite.

I am a grandaughter of a Polish Jew and I had relatives that were fried because good people did nothing for a very long time.

I have been to the OPT four times since June 2005 and have been reporting on the APARTHEID in the 'Holy' Land-which is in pieces on WAWA:

http://www.wearewideawake.org

I am a PRO-BONO civilian journalist/blogger doing what the MSM has failed at.

My second book, "MEMOIRS of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory" was released one week ago:

I tell of my experiences and interviews with ISM/International Solidarity Movement,

Anarchists Against the Wall,

Jeff Halper/Founder and Coordinator of ICAHD:Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions,

Sabeel-Arabic for THE WAY,

And the whistleblower of Israel's WMD Program-Mordechai Vanunu who has been on trial for FREEDOM of SPEECH for over a year for speaking to the media in 2004.

"30 Minutes with Vanunu" is streaming freely on WAWA:
http://www.wearewideawake.org/


I am going after the neo-con's the neo-christian zionists and Hillary Clinton big time!

It is their hypocrisy and denial of the facts on the ground that are at the root of the holocaust hangover which allows Israel to get away with murder, to deny the indigenous people of that land human rights and blatantly disregards International Law.

In solidarity "we have it in our power to begin the world again."-Tom Paine


Do Something-
check me out
e
WAWA:
http://www.wearewideawake.org

--
In Solidarity "we have it in our power to begin the world again."-Tom Paine
Do Something
e
WAWA:
http://www.wearewideawake.org/

Anonymous (February 24, 2007 @ 12:24pm):

Over sixty million people died during World War Two in the bitter struggle against National Socialism to prove that there was no such thing as a chosen or Master race.

How many deaths will it take this time before the unholy alliance of Christian/Jewish Zionism is put out of the worlds misery!!!!!

Anonymous (February 24, 2007 @ 1:03pm):

The Great Yitzhak Shamir often said that "Poles sucked in Anti-Semitism with their mothers' milk."

Mr. Szarzynski's hate soaked drivel only demonstrate that Mr. Shamir was right!

Why is Kyle Szarzynski not promptly expelled from your school and forced to take an occupation most suitable for his kind...like picking crops with the migrant workers.

Anonymous (February 25, 2007 @ 3:21pm):

Hey 2/24 1:03, say what you want about the Poles in history, at least they're not responsible for the crimes against humanity that the Jews have committed. The occupation of Palestinan land and the oppression of the people over the last 60 years is a crime that pales in comparison to anything the Poles have done over this period.

So stop whining about anti-Semitism, it doesn't exist in any meaningful capacity in Europe (or the US). Face up to bigotry that you're people seem so intent on embracing.

Anonymous (February 26, 2007 @ 2:56pm):

COUNTERPUNCH Review of "Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine"

Weekend Edition

January 27 / 28, 2007



Ilan Pappe and the Nakba Deniers

THE ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINE

By John Whitbeck

For anyone who possesses a strong stomach and an equally strong desire to know the truth, I strongly recommend Israeli historian Ilan Pappe's new book "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine", which makes painstakingly and painfully clear the extent to which the expulsion of the great majority of Palestinians from their homes and homeland between 1947 and 1949 (an expulsion absolutely essential to create a "Jewish state" in a country where, in 1947, the population was still 70% Muslim and Christian and these non-Jews still owned 94% of the land) was meticulously planned, programmed and documented, ruthlessly carried out and, thereafter, efficiently covered up, sanitized, erased from minds and memories and, to the extent necessary, denied. Pappe also makes clear that the cleansing spirit and cleansing practices have continued ever since, with public discussion in Israel of the "demographic threat" posed by those Palestinians still remaining in Palestine never more openly conducted and with a recent poll showing 68% of Israeli Jews in favor of expelling all Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Unfortunately, this book, published in England (and available from amazon.com), is highly likely to go unreviewed and largely unnoticed in the United States, a country where objective historical truth is much less popular than "revealed truth" and pure fantasy and where the Israel-First Lobby starts with a distinct home-field advantage in pursuing its successful efforts to convince American public opinion that American interests and values are identical to Israeli interests and values and to make American foreign policy and America's wars indistinguishable from Israeli foreign policy and Israel's wars.

While most of mankind, being comprised of peoples who have themselves been the victims of colonialism and racism, views racial-supremicist settler-colonial states founded upon the genocide or ethnic cleansing of an indigenous population as an abomination, Americans, exceptionally, are favorably inclined toward such states. The reason is simple. Until very recently, America was itself such a state, and the official Israeli narrative replicates the widely accepted American narrative of brave pioneers bringing civilization and economic advancement to a backward and savage land.

Furthermore, notwithstanding its history, America, as a nation, appears to have no regrets and to be troubled by no sense of national guilt. While, for reasons having less to do with bearing universal witness against man's inhumanity toward his fellow man than with justifying one particular instance of such inhumanity, there is a Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, there are no museums there devoted to the genocide of the Native Americans, to slavery or to the century of legalized segregation which followed abolition.

In addition, a significant proportion of the American population embraces a perverted interpretation of Christianity which ignores the humane message of Jesus Christ and the Golden Rule and focuses the devotions of its adherents not on God but, rather, on "God's Chosen People", through whose success in ethnically cleansing Palestine and provoking cataclysmic warfare these so-called "C