The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy

By Geoffrey Cook, Muslim Media News Service (MMNS)

Santa Rosa (California)–October 27th–Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt traveled twice to the Bay Area within the last month to promote to discuss their new and controversial book on the relationship of the Israeli lobby to American Middle East policy. These authors are considered Realists and Idealists in the academic political science community. They were quite aware of the deep felt views on Israel and the Lobby in this country and on Palestine in the Middle East. Questions presented in this book are is there a Jewish Lobby, and does it affect both nations our external policies?

There is very little formal debate in the U.S. over our “special” relationship with Tel Aviv. Even though “Official America is favorable to Israel,” Seventy-five percent of the common Americans are more even-handed: Most Northern Americans wish a two-state solution although our media favors the Israelis because of the ugly history of Anti-Semiticism in the West.

Israel Lobby puts forth the assertion that the Lobby has been largely negative to both our interests. The US has supported and fueled terrorism through the Settlements that have made the Islamic world furious encouraging attacks against American interests at home and abroad.

Every president since Johnson has encouraged the Jewish state to stop its Settler Colonialism, but Congress only gives them aid to expand their policy.

The Palestinians have been brutally treated. The Israeli-Arab split became a good recruiting tool for Al Qaeda and other groups. Bin-Laden justifies his acts as “payback for the Palestinians.”

Jewish Jerusalem was central to pushing us into the War in Iraq although the Lobby thought Iran was much more dangerous. Tel Aviv forced D.C. to opt for War over diplomacy. Then, the plan between our two nations was to overrun Tehran. This is frightening because this might very well happen now except for the hopeful opposition from our military.

The late PM Rabin stated, “The U.S. support for his [minuscule] State…is important for its [our] Foreign Policy:”

The authors stopped in Berkeley and San Francisco twice over the past month. They demonstrated how our governments lean towards the alliance even though our survival is not in jeopardy!

The Lobby does its work in the open. It is not a centralized organization. Succinctly, it is a collection of organizations that care about the survival of Israel to one extent to the other. Although they are scattered, they work in the open. It must be noted all Jews do not support it. In fact, their most vehement supporters are Fundamentalist Christians. Curiously, a third of American Jews do not concern themselves with Israel to any degree.

The most vicious of the Lobby groups is AIPAC (the American Israel Political Action Committee). They raise a lot of money for Israel. They have literally driven American politicians from office for opposing Tel Aviv positions.

American officials have learned not to cross AIPAC. It is the second most powerful PAC (Lobby) within the U.S. Congress. The second object of AIPAC is to spread Israeli propaganda amongst the American citizenry. Since our media is already open to it, there is not much to do for them. For instance, President Carter, who probably did more for Middle Eastern security than other President, is now being branded as an anti-semite for comparing Tel Aviv’ policies in the West Bank to Apartheid.

9/11 gave the excuse to the Neo-Conservatives (mostly themselves members of the Lobby), enabling them to pull the rest of the nation into a war with Iraq, Israel’s perceived enemy.

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