Poetry for Palestine

Bended Knees: Zionist Power in American Politics

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24236.htm

Notes

Bended Knees: Zionist Power in American Politics

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24236.htm

Demystifying a Racial Doctrine:

The
big challenge for opponents of Judeo-Zionist hegemony is demystifying
its ideological bases. Zionists and their media camp followers always highlight
“Jewishness” and the disproportionate number of notable, successful
scientists and public figures with whom the Zionists self-identify
(even if the said individual have no identification with anything
remotely “Jewish” beyond some distant ancestry). In contrast, to
highlight the “Jewishness” (and Israel-centricity) of notorious
swindlers, spies, warmongers, gangsters, drug or arms traffickers is be
labeled anti-Semitic. Selective ethnic identity is crucial to maintaining and perpetuating the racist myth of Jewish superiority and the corollary of power and prestige, based on special meritorious qualities.
One of the key components of Zionist-Jewish ideology and Israeli power
is precisely the racist myth of the Jewish moral and intellectual
superiority – not the guns, money and backing of Washington and the
ZPC’s central location within the US elite social structure.

There are two options for those interested in demystifying Zionist-Jewish hegemony: One
could eliminate all ethnic labels or one could insist that labels be
applied to all individuals including the most nefarious, grotesque and
embarrassing.

Despite cracks in the Zionist monolith and the emergence of public critics within and without the Jewish community,⁵³ especially among young former Jews, who prefer to assimilate with their fellow-citizens (the passive majority), still up to a third of US Jews remain hard-core backers of the ZPC with Israel as their most enduring political loyalty. While not discounting the psychological gratifications, which accompany beliefs in a mythical biblical past, there are real material benefits to joining the Israel First Power Configuration. While it is true Zionists contribute
money and time to promoting the Israeli agenda, there are also powerful
material incentives, especially the benefits accruing from exclusive
identification and membership in a cohesive configuration, which
empowers its members, finances electoral campaigns and is
well-connected among political leaders, as well as financial, real
estate and insurance moguls. The spinoffs and payoffs for upwardly
mobile Zionist activists can be lucrative and career-enhancing.
Ambitious politicians, who measure up and toe the line, are likely to
tap into substantial funding and favorable media coverage. Networks,
which work for Israel, enhance Jewish-Zionist prestige while providing
emotional gratification and vicarious pleasure in sharing the thrill
of Israel’s bloody military victories and its forceful expansion of the
“fatherland”. Not a few careers have advanced through the “contacts”
made at the national and regional Zionist meetings. This is especially
the case for many, otherwise mediocre, political candidates facing
competitive elections. Active membership in a powerful Zionist
organization may protect the careers of lackluster, or even
incompetent, performers in some academic or professional settings where
the threat of a lawsuit charging anti-Semitism can ensure contract
renewal.

Zionist
racist ideology, with its implicit and explicit emphasis on Jews as
“special people” ordained by God, as well as the media’s bias toward
presenting a selectively positive ethno-religious identity,
provides symbolic gratification to lower middle class Jews, who sell
Israel bonds, write letters to politicians, heckle critics of the
Jewish state and march under the flag of Israel. They are likely to
play a role at the grassroots level in bullying family members,
neighbors and colleagues to join the cause or refrain from voicing
criticism of Israel. Recently, more than a few Seders have led to
family bust-ups over issues like the massacre of Palestinian civilians
in Gaza, the Goldstone Report and the Ben-ami Kadish spy episode.

The
success of the ZPC in projecting power and shaping US policy depends,
in large part, on the financial clout of its millionaire financiers,
its penetration of the state apparatus and the interlock of the
corporate-political directorate. However, equally important is the
grassroots work of hundreds of thousands of middle and lower middle
class activists. The effective exercise of power by the Zionist elites
is based on the vertical ties between the leaders and followers,
especially in mobilizing for Israel’s high priority campaigns
promoting dubious causes – like Israeli repudiation of moderate US
policies toward Jewish colonial settler expansion or calls for more restraint from
killing civilians in Palestine and elsewhere. It is highly unlikely
that any changes can be induced among the Zionist elite; but there are
reasons to believe that some sections of the rank and file can be
influenced by anti-Zionist Jews and non-Jews. This is especially true
at a time when Israeli political leaders have embraced such openly
ultra-rightist postures.

Zionist Hegemony is Vulnerable

Several
developments encourage the hope that these vertical links can be
weakened. Over the past 5 years, numerous articles, books and videos
critical of Israel have broken through Zionist censorship. Equally
important, the emergence of new activist Jewish anti-Zionist
organizations and the vast increase in member organizations supporting
a boycott and divestment campaign against Israeli products, companies
and cultural institutions have broken the ZPC stranglehold on public
opinion.⁵⁴ Faced with growing opposition in civil society the ZPC has escalated its repressive efforts to ban publication of critical authors, fire academics and savage journalists and politicians.⁵⁵ Simultaneously a concerted effort has been made to encourage its ideological ‘attack dogs’ in academia suppress any
critical discussion of the issues that most discredit the Israeli
state, namely the recent Israeli massacres in Gaza, the brutal
expansion of settlements in the West Bank, the Goldstone Report on Israeli war crimes and Israel’s well-orchestrated push for war against Iran.⁵⁶

Zionist Intellectuals: In Defense of Terror:

The
ZPC has long established a near stranglehold on the major media outlets
for opinion and analysis on the Middle East and especially on issues,
which Israel’s foreign office has given high priority. As a result Israel First academics and pundits monopolize the editorial and opinion pages of the Washington Post, the Murdoch chain, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, ­Newsweek, and other print outlets.⁵⁷ The spread of Zionist extremism is evident in two recent feature articles published by Newsweek
(December 21, 2009), glorifying the neo-fascist head of the Israeli
secret police, Mossad, Meir Dagan for his success in assassinating
political adversaries in violation of national boundaries and his close
ties with US Treasury official and Zionist zealot Stuart Levey, who is
in charge of blackmailing Iran’s trade and investment partners, in
order to strangle the Iranian economy and impoverish seventy million of
its people. The Newsweek authors of these articles are
rightwing Israel and US Zionists. Notorious Zionist news anchors, like
Ted Koppel and Wolf Blitzer, parrot the Israeli-ZPC line in the major
media (Fox News, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, BBC) as well as secondary outlets
(National “Public” Radio).⁵⁸
The result is self-styled “experts” of dubious loyalty to the America,
but with strong ties to Israel and Zionist propaganda institutes, grind
out opinion pieces which defend the Israeli regime’s most atrocious war
crimes and land grabs.⁵⁹
Numerous professors from the most prestigious universities hack out
op-ed pieces defending Israel’s assault on Gaza, fabricating judicial
precedents, and citing “Just War” theory.⁶⁰ Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, when confronted by near universal support for the Goldstone Report,
ordered the ZPC to denigrate Justice Goldstone, the basis and legality
of the Report and falsify its contents. When the extreme militarists,
like Netanyahu, passed the word to Israel’s mouthpieces in North
America, they unleashed the ZPC’s entire stable of academics,
journalists and propagandists. Over one hundred op-ed pieces in the
major media savaged the Report, slandered Goldstone and defended
Israeli terror attacks, which destroyed the entire human infrastructure
of the Gaza.⁶¹
No Israeli crime was too great to cause any Harvard, Yale, Princeton or
John Hopkins Zionist academic to rethink their bind subordination to
the Jewish state. They parroted Netanyahu’s line that the massacre over
one thousand civilians and the brutalization of hundreds of thousands
was an exercise of “Israel’s right to self-defense”. Few of the
Jewish and non-Jewish academics, who dared to criticize Israel’s
terrorist policy, cited the weakest section of the Goldstone Report
– its amalgamating Israel’s all-out terror bombing of Palestinian
neighborhoods, schools, hospitals, mosques and farms, with Hamas’
futile and ineffective retaliatory rockets falling mostly on empty
Israeli fields. Few if any raised their voices against the domestic
propaganda arm of Israeli war crimes – the Presidents of the 51 Major
Jewish American Organizations. Needless to say, with few domestic
critics willing to even identify their opponents, the ZPC secured over 90% of the US Congress in favor of Israel’s repudiations of the Goldstone Report, which they had never even read.⁶²

What
is striking about the vast majority of Zionist academic apologists of
terrorism is their shoddy scholarship, their tendentious and illogical
arguments and de-contextualized analogies. Their ‘persuasiveness’ is
based on the fact that their ‘line’ is reinforced by the mass media and enforced
by the ZPC’s political thuggery and character assassination of
potential critics. Their repeated presence in the media gives the
appearance of legitimacy in defending violations of international law.
Their prestigious positions provide a veneer of expertise or knowledge
even as their research in the region is based on flawed premises,
including disproven religious legends and colonial mythology.⁶³
As Zionist academics become more deeply involved in justifying the
expansionist Zionist claims, Israeli conquests and brutal militarism
there is an accompanying marked deterioration of intellectual
standards. Over time prestigious positions become linked with
mediocrity. Academic degrees, awards and badges of merit are harnessed
to hack writing and political hatchet jobs. Noted critics, who exempt
Israeli war crimes and terror, are still published by prestigious
publishers, despite their shabby intellectual output. Promotions and
academic chairs are secured by eminently distinguished apologists of
dubious morality. Their blind support and defense of the practices of a
terror state puts the lie to their claims to high ethical and scholarly
standards.

The American Zionist academic elite fits Adorno’s authoritarian personality: at the throat of the American polity and at the feet of the Israeli – ZPC elite.⁶⁴
Arrogant posturing, angry polemics and emotional ejaculations cover up
for their lack of substantive arguments. Where bullying fails, soothing
rhetoric which speaks to values, dialogue and cooperation accompanies a
blind eye to the relentless Israeli uprooting of Arab residents from
Palestinian/Jerusalem. Princeton academics cite classical political
theorists in defense of gun-toting Jewish settlers who brutalize
shepherds, threaten school girls and up-root centuries-old Palestinian
olive groves.

The Globalization of Zionist Power

From
the Israeli fatherland to the nerve centers of Zionist power in the US,
using the experiences and drawing on the support of the ZPC, pro-Israel
influence has spread to important political institutions in England,
Canada, France, Netherlands, Russia and more recently South America. In
England, leaders and deputies from both the Conservative and Labor
party accept millions in campaign funds from billionaire Zionists, paid
junkets to Israel and other payoffs in exchange for supporting Israel’s
most egregious acts of violence in Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank.⁶⁵ Zionist front groups like the “Conservative Friends (flunkeys) of Israel” and “Labor Friends (flunkeys)
of Israel” ensure that the incumbent regimes and the opposition put
Israeli trade and militarist interests at the center of British Middle
East Policy.⁶⁶

In
Canada under the Conservative Harper regime, Zionists have secured
unprecedented influence and diplomatic and material support for
Israel’s top priorities.⁶⁷ These include support for the annexation of most of Palestinian East Jerusalem; repudiation of the Goldstone Report;
support for Israeli war crimes during the 2008/09 invasion of Gaza;
Israel’s invasion of Lebanon and pending legislations criminalizing
criticism of Zionism as “anti-Semitism” among a host of other
pro-Israel acts, decrees and trade privileges. The opposition Liberal
and New Democratic parties compete with the Conservatives in pandering
to the pro-Israel power configurations in order to secure campaign
financing from millionaire real estate, financial and media moguls. In
contrast, major Canadian trade unions and anti-Zionist Jewish campus
and community organizations have organized boycotts of Israeli goods
and academic organizations serving the bloody occupation. In France,
life-long Zionist zealot, Foreign Minister Bernard “Bernie” Kouchner,
has embraced Netanyahu’s extreme position of “unconditional
negotiations” which allows massive land seizures and the construction
of ‘Jews-only’ apartment complexes on illegally confiscated
Palestinian land to continue while endless inconsequential “peace”
negotiations take place.⁶⁸ This position has been supported by Uber-Zionist Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.

In
Russia, eight of the top nine billionaire oligarchs have claimed dual
Israeli citizenship. They illegally and violently seized hundreds of
billions of dollars worth of formerly state-owned mines, factories and
banks, and then transferred part of their illicit fortunes to overseas
banks in Israel, the US, London and the money-laundering offshore
island states and tax-havens. Zionist power peaked during the debauched
Presidency of Yeltsin in the 1990’s, but residual influence is evident
in the Putin-Mevedev regime. This is particularly apparent in the US-
Russian accords to increase sanctions on Iran, a policy that
jeopardizes billions of dollars in Russian investments and trade with
Iran. Russia has resolutely refused to pressure Israel over its
colonial settlement expansion. In a similar manner, Israel retains a
decisive influence over Holland and Germany’s Middle East policy, via
the exploitation of the Holocaust Memory, the Ann Frank legacy and the
pressure of pro-Israel economic sectors.

The
newest example of the “globalization” of Zionist power and the drive
for new Israeli spheres of influence is found in Latin America. Major
US Zionist organizations have contributed substantial financial
resources to building, advising and orienting their counterparts,
especially in Argentina, Brazil and Peru, while engaging in a
systematic effort to curry favor with the US by demonizing President
Chavez for his forthright defense of Palestinian rights and
condemnation of Israel’s crimes against humanity during its blitz of
Gaza.⁶⁹
For these acts of courage the 51 US Jewish organizations branded Chavez
an “anti-Semitic”, even going so far as to accuse him of fomenting an assault on a Jewish community center in Caracas. When the arsonists were arrested, the assault was revealed to have been carried out by center employees hired by the local Jewish notables. ⁷⁰

Global
Zionism has targeted Argentina and Brazil. Argentinean Jews have a
history of ambiguous feelings toward the state of Israel and Zionism.
Early twentieth century Jews established farming and cattle ranches –
the legendary “Jewish Gauchos”– while urban artisans and working class
Jews were active in socialist, anarchist, communist and left wing
Yiddish organizations. The mid-century generation (1940-60) of
professionals, businesspeople, academics and bankers divided between
leftist anti-Zionists and Zionists. Both suffered attacks from the
pro-fascist sectors of the dominant mass-based populist Peronist
regime. The 1960’s to 1970’s saw a profound generational split –
characteristic of all Argentinean society – especially under the
military dictatorships of (1966 – 1973) and (1976 – 82). A significant
contingent of university-based students and professors, psychologists
and professionals of Jewish ancestry joined urban guerrillas and
radical mass movements and suffered “disproportionate” number of
deaths by torture and ‘disappearances’. During the worst years of
terror, the Israeli government retained relations with the bloodiest of
the military regimes (Videla, 1976), overlooking its anti-Semitic
proclivities in order to trade in arms and military technologies. At
the same time, Israel promoted Jewish immigration to Israel, securing
passage of Zionist and non-Zionist Jews to Israel.

The
decimation of the generation of young non-Zionist Argentine
revolutionaries of Jewish ancestry and the subsequent post-dictatorial
neo-liberal electoral regimes, saw the rise of new groups of wealthy
Argentine Zionist Jews who grew to dominate local community
organizations. They deepened ties with Israel and more recently
established extensive links with the US ZPC. Once again, however, under
the pro-Israel Menem regime (1980-90) anti-Semitic terrorists bombed a
major Jewish civic center killing and maiming scores of Jews in
downtown Buenos Aires. Investigations of police complicity were aborted
by the Menem regime. Israel ‘overlooked’ Menem’s “negligence” and
instead exploited Jewish fear to offer extremely favorable terms for
Argentine Jews to immigrate (including paid travel, subsidized housing
in the occupied territories – education, jobs etc.).⁷¹
The decline of leftwing activity during the1980’s and 1990’s was
accompanied by the de-radicalization of secular Jewish offspring,
especially in the professional classes. With de-industrialization,
Jews, who had formed the backbone of the previous progressive national
bourgeoisie, turned to emigration, finance, real estate and Zionism.⁷²
The severe depression and financial crash of 2001 – 2002 led to the
mass impoverishment of all Argentines (poverty levels hit 50% in
December 2001 – 2002) including otherwise prosperous middle class Jews.⁷³
They joined the popular mass neighborhood assemblies calling for the
return of their savings, the end of neo-liberal policies and
politicians and the restoration of their jobs.

The
subsequent economic recovery and commodity boom (2003 – 2008) led to a
sharp de-radicalization and the ascendance of Jewish Zionist bankers,
real estate and media moguls as principle leaders in the Argentine
community. Their influential role in business and the center-left
Kirchner regime led to a shift toward closer relations with the ZPC –
including increased efforts to include Israel as a member of the
regional integration treaty MERCOSUR.⁷⁴
From the US side, the ZPC – especially the ADL and AIPAC, through their
servile Secretary of State Clinton and US Congressional clients,
fabricated an Islamic Iranian terrorist conspiracy in Latin America,
especially in the region of the Argentine-Brazilian – Paraguayan
frontier. On October 27, 2009, Zionist Congressman Elliot Engle, head
of the Subcommittee on Western Hemispheric Affairs of the Foreign
Relations Committee, opened hearings focusing on “Iran’s expanding
influence in Latin America”, calling new trade ties between Iran and
Brazil a threat to the region and the security of the US”.⁷⁵

Faced
with the leftist regimes in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador opposed to
US and Israeli colonial wars and with Brazil and Argentina’s public
opposing Israel’s crimes in Gaza, Israel launched its US and Latin
American agents on a propaganda blitz to counter the overwhelming
public rejection of Israeli policies. President Shamir followed a
disastrous failed tour by thuggish Zio-fascist Foreign Minister
Lieberman, gaining trade and investment concessions in Brazil and
Argentina.⁷⁶
Shamir’s visit benefited especially through the contacts and leverage
of local millionaire and billionaire Zionist business leaders.
Nevertheless, Brazil, which has major trade and investment ties
especially in gas and oil with Iran, has no intention of pandering to
Israel.⁷⁷ In Argentina, the Zionist connection continues to limit any major openings to the Arab-Iranian investments.

Overall,
the Zionist offensive and expanding local power base has resulted in
mixed results: a major outflow of supporters in Venezuela and
diminished influence in Bolivia and Ecuador. In contrast, Zionists have
increased their influence in Brazil and Argentina.

The
enormous growth of Israeli power in Europe and the US, and the new
Zionist offensive in Latin America is part of the “globalization” of
Zionism. But the process is not linear. An especially hard sell
for overseas Zionists are the repeated horrendous massacres by Israeli
military forces, the blatant dispossession of Palestinians and the
aggressive militarism pushed by the ZPC and Israel in the Middle East
and South Asia. As a result, public hostility is growing world-wide;
and there is a profound disconnect between the 80% to 90% Israeli Jews
who defend Gaza war crimes and land seizures and the rest of the world.⁷⁸ This is evidenced by the United Nations General Assembly vote on the Goldstone Report,
which was endorsed by an almost ten to one margin. Moreover, in the
case of the leftist regimes in Latin America, there is a significant
reversal of Zionist influence. There are equally important cracks in
the Zionist monolith among North American Jews and former Zionist
fellow travelers. The continued “failure of the nerve” or “intellectual
treason”⁷⁹
of the American left academics and their “Marxist” journals to even
discuss the role of the ZPC in making war policy has not stopped a
breakthrough of Zionist critics, even in some mass media outlets.

Jewish-Zionist Cultural-Political Hegemony in the US

Jewish
Zionist hegemony over the political narrative in the US has grown in
recent years, evidenced by the support or, at most, tepid criticism,
found in the major literary and political journals and magazines.⁸⁰
In the beginning the ZPC imposed their view that Israeli conquest and
wars against the native people of Palestine and its Muslim neighbors
was a war of “national liberation” or “independence”. This first phase
culminated with Jewish-Zionist success in convincing President Johnson
to cover up Israel’s bombing of the USS Liberty during the Seven Day
War.⁸¹
From the 1970-90 Zionist-Jewish hegemony extended from its traditional
bastion in the film, TV and radio mass media to a whole series of
former left-of-center and conservative weekly and monthly publications
and the establishment of new publications on the far right.⁸² The formerly liberal New Republic became a pulpit for virulent attacks on any critics of Israel.⁸³ Commentary,
formerly a liberal cultural journal, became a mouthpiece for
neo-conservative apologists of Israeli wars … and war crimes …The
conservative National Review moved firmly into the ‘Israel
First’ camp, purging any critical dissent on Israel and its
unconditional supporters in the US. As Zionist hegemony in intellectual
and popular cultural print and mass media was established, committed
Israel-Firsters gained influential positions in US State Department and
foreign policy apparatus.⁸⁴ “Think Tanks”, thinly veiled propaganda mills, produced pro-Israel position papers.⁸⁵
Their staff elbowed their way into the mass media as “experts” and into
foreign policy advisory positions serving various politicians and
Administrations. They rose to the highest levels of government in the
Clinton Administration and expanded further during the Bush-Obama
regimes.⁸⁶
Zionist entry into key positions of structural political power mirrored
their long march through the cultural institutions. Their influence was
reinforced by billionaire Jewish-Zionists’ contributions to established
think tanks, like the Brookings Institute, and to both political
parties. Contributions influenced the nominations and candidates for
office from local mayors to the Presidency of the United States.

It is estimated that as high as 60% of Democratic Party contributions came from Israel First
benefactors, securing an automatic 90% Congressional vote on whatever
issue the Israeli Foreign Office marks as priority for its US Fifth
Column.⁸⁷
With very rare exceptions neither liberal, progressive, radical or
“Marxist” writers, academics, editors, journalists broach the issue of
Zionist-Jewish cultural-political hegemony, nor its economic structural
underpinnings.⁸⁸
The “left” is equally hegemonized by Zionist-Jewish influence, to the
point that not a few join the vile ad hominem chorus slandering critics
of the ZPC as “veering on anti-Semitism:…⁸⁹

Even
today, at the end of the first year of the Obama regime, the Zionist
presence in strategic positions in foreign policy making has been
ignored by leftist and liberal critics of US Middle East policy. Few,
if any critics, look at the structural determinants of that policy. One is more likely to find “data” in the business press. For example, an article in the Financial Times,
criticizing President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s
“inconsistent” position on Israeli settlements in Palestine’s West
Bank, points to the “…problems with the administrations message –
including its inconsistent policy on Israel-Palestine – can be traced
back to the White House, where Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel (dual
Israeli-US citizen) keeps a firm grip on foreign policy. Some
ex-diplomats say they have never seen power so centralized … Mrs.
Clinton’s own deputy, Jim Steinberg, is widely perceived as a White
House enforcer, who polices even relatively minor policy statements
that often leaves State Department spokesmen (sic) mouthing near
meaningless talking points.”⁹⁰
Emanuel has been active in the Israeli military and is suspected of
ties to its spy agency (MOSSAD). Steinberg is just a high powered
“native born” Israel Firster, marginalizing the State Department from
any alternative policies to pandering to Israel and its US Fifth Column.

Hegemonized
American liberals and leftists maintain their “support” for Israel on
the basis of the fiction that the “bad” Israelis are the fanatical Likud
party leaders while Labor and Kadima party leaders and the Israeli
people want peace and a just settlement. Unfortunately for these
supporters of “progressive” Zionism, the Defense Minister Barak who
directed the bloody massacre in Gaza is the leader of the Labor Party
and is backed by his party in support of all the new aggressive Israeli
land seizures and colonial settlements. The genocidal wars and violent
settlements have the support of the vast majority of the
Israeli Jewish population. Public opinion polls carried out by the
Israel National News published in mid-November 2009 reveals that 53.2%
of Israeli’s say the solution to the conflict with the Palestinian
people is their forceful dispossession and ethnic cleansing –
“transfer” is the Zionist euphemism for a crime against humanity.⁹¹ Such are the “just wars” receiving unconditional support by the ‘51’ Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations.

The
point is that not even the Israeli-Jewish majority’s embrace of a
totalitarian final solution shakes Zionist hegemony in the US. The
embrace of inconvenient positions, such as genocide approval, is not
publicized in the Zionist mass media. Instead we continue to hear the
chattering classes mouthing the clichés of a “dialogue” and “negotiated
solution” between the expropriators and the dispossessed.

The
question of Zionist cultural and political hegemony, where it is even
been acknowledged by non-Jews and Jews, revolves around several
mistaken partially distorted conceptions. One key idea held by
anti-Semites and Zionists alike is that Jews possess special qualities
(“blood” or “genetic”). Many cite the importance of a Jewish historical
tradition, which emphasizes education and learning. Others still, claim
success and power comes from knowledge, merit and achievement. Recent
studies refute the idea of a special, unique Jewish “gene pool” – as
most contemporary Askanazi Jews are descendants of Central Asian
Khazari converts to Judaism in the 8^th Century A.D., who subsequently were pushed into Eastern Europe by the Mongols and beyond.⁹²
Israelis are not descendants of the ancient Jews of Israel, many of
whom converted to Christianity and later Islam and whose descendants
are most certainly the modern-day Palestinians (as conceded by early
Zionists myth-makers, like David Ben-Gurion).

Secondly,
for over one thousand years Jewish “scholarship” revolved around
sterile debates and exegeses of the minutiae of the Talmud and bodies
of law based on religious myths. Critical philosophers like Spinoza
were looked at as renegades. The rise of scholarship and scientific
thinking among Jews coincided with the growth of the Enlightenment and
the establishment of liberal laws, which opened doors for promising
Jewish scholars, scientists to break out of the sterile confines of the
Rabbinal intellectual ghettos. Many of the great thinkers were called
“Jews” because of their ancestry, like Spinoza, Karl Marx and Leon
Trotsky although they did not practice Judaism nor identify as “Jews”.
Recognition and success of Jews came from business and financial
activity as well as from occupations like money managers in the West
and overseers of feudal lords in Poland.⁹³ A Jewish authored scholarly history of the Jewish people was not written till the 19^th century and even then it treated biblical legends as fact.⁹⁴

Equally
questionable is the notion that the rise of Jewish-Zionist hegemony is
a product of “merit” or “achievement”. But here we must distinguish
between the mass of Jews who occupy middle or lower middleclass
positions in society and those few individuals who have made major
contributions. Moreover it is important to not confuse the rise of
individuals to economic power through the exploitation of labor, the
extraction of rent from tenants and speculation and achievement through
“merit”, namely, skills applied to advancing knowledge for the greater
good of working people. Zionists’ “superior race” theorists lump
successful Wall Street speculators with innovative scholars as examples
of “Jewish superiority” justifying or “explaining” hegemony. Zionist
race theories, which claim a homogenous ‘Jewish’ people bound by common
history and horizontal and vertical ties, is more an ideological
manifesto ignoring profound class and even ideological divisions (at
least in the past and perhaps emerging today).

Jewish-Zionist
hegemony in the US is the result of a supra or meta-historical
mythology with mystical religious foundations in the Old Testament. The
rise of American Zionism is tied to a virulent exclusivist tribal
religious loyalty to Israel as the “mother state”. The driving force of
US Zionism is the subordination of US civil society
organizations and the instrumentalization of the US military and
economic resources to service Israeli colonial expansion and
projections of power in the Middle East.

What
needs to be understood is that the present subjection of our Middle
East policy to the Zionist Power Configuration is a result of the
latter’s accumulation of power and political-cultural conditions within
the US, which weakened the articulation of alternative values and
policies and a defense of American working class interests embodied in
a democratic foreign policy.

The Decline of US National Identity and Working Class Politics

The rise of Zionism, as a virulent form of tribal-religious identity linked to a foreign state and its successful exercise of hegemony
within US society, has been facilitated by the abdication by the US
ruling class ‘establishment’ of any ‘national’ identity and its interlocking economic ties with Zionist power brokers in strategic economic sectors.

The
“globalization” of US capitalism, the process of world wide empire
building, has shifted the focus of the US ruling class toward international
issues, as the center of its concerns, even as it intervenes in
domestic economic policies to secure state protection, subsidies and
bailouts, none which trespass on Zionist priorities. Going “global” and
the emergence of “global consciousness” has worked against challenging
the Zionist pursuit of the colonial agenda of the state of Israel. The
ZPC has filled a ‘power vacuum’ left by the ‘globalized elite’ and has
been able to instill and impose a Zionist conception of US “national interest” relatively uncontested.

The
rise of the Zionist business elites into the top echelon of investment
banking, financial institutions, real estate and insurance led to the
inter-mixing of Zionist and non-Zionist members of the ruling class, in
which one side had a deep and abiding political commitment to Israel,
while the other sector gave exclusive primacy to the accumulation of
wealth and guaranteeing that state economic policy ensured profits, a
deregulated financial sector and bank bailouts, policies which they
shared with their Zionist partners. Given the low salience of Israeli
politics, the non-Zionist sectors of the ruling class were not willing
or able to engage in a fight with their Zionist financial colleagues.⁹⁵

However,
there are divisions, both in government and within policy advisory
bodies, over Zionist control. As mentioned earlier, the 16 major
intelligence agencies issued a report on Iran’s nuclear program in late
2007, which debunked the Israeli-Zionist claims of an active Iranian
nuclear weapons program. Likewise a Pew Foundation Study of the
Council on Foreign Relations, taken between October 2 – November 16,
2009, found that over two-thirds of its members (67 percent) believe
the US favored Israel too much – yet the same percentages claimed Obama
is “striking the right balance” and “Iran is a major threat to US
interest”(Jeff Blankfort “What the US Elite Really Thinks About Israel”
Counterpunch 12/8/09). What is striking about these ‘dissident’
opinions within the policy elite is that they have had no impact on
Obama’s subservience to Israel on all major issues promoted by the ZPC.
Whatever the CFR “really thinks” has not “really” affected the power of
the ZPC to shape policy via its stooges in Congress and its assets in
State (Clinton) and Treasury (Stuart Levey). In other words, Zionist
power at the top is uncontested and free to work the lower echelons of
the political system and class structure for its own interest. This
includes the wholesale purchase of political parties and the retail
buyout of congressional politicians on key foreign policy committees.
The latter is facilitated by the success of the Israel First Political
Action committees (PAC) which promotes the selection of Zionist
Congress people to key committee posts. Four of the top fifteen
Congress people funded by Wall Street speculators are Zionists. Eleven
of the top fifteen are Democrats, who receive 60% of their
contributions from Zionist multi-millionaires in Los Angeles, New York,
and south Florida and other metropolitan centers.⁹⁶

The political class,
party leaders, executive and congress people, have also eschewed
pro-American working class economic policies, endogenous growth and the
avoidance of foreign entanglements (interventionism). The political
class – particularly its dominant sector – favors military driven
empire building – undermining any popular democratic definition of
‘national interest’. Moreover, the military nature of empire building resonates
with the Zionist-Israeli projection of regional military power and
hegemony. Military-driven imperialism weakens any effort to develop
alternative US overseas economic interests and policies, especially
with Moslem and Middle East oil countries, to counter Israeli-Zionist
policies designed to privilege Israeli military expansion and colonial
interests.

If
the majority of the US ruling class has surrendered to the Zionist
definitions of US Middle East policy, and facilitated the rise of
Zionist hegemony, the decline of the values embedded in working class
solidarity and defense of republican virtues and interests has opened
the door for the minority of Zionist cadres to influence mass culture
and civil society organizations and divert American trade union pension
funds to Israeli investments with no opposition. For decades,
predominantly Afro-American and Hispanic female workers in garments,
textiles and related activities have been members of trade unions run
by Zionist functionaries, who channeled hundreds of millions of member
pension funds and dues into purchasing Israel bonds, rather than
building co-operative housing as was done previously when the union
workers were mostly Jews. Many current (minority) leaders of trade
unions and Afro-Hispanic ethnic organizations have been co-opted by the
ZPC though junkets to Israel and subject to propaganda campaigns
promoting Israeli interests. In universities, municipal politics,
professional associations, Israel Firsters operate to stifle
any debate, let alone criticism, of Israeli war crimes. Zionists in
America are the most pernicious force eliminating debate on American
democratic foreign policy options in the Middle East and favoring
unconditional submission to Israel. Millions of individuals, who may
question the “Israel First” option, are frightened, intimidated
and/or unwilling to face the onslaught of organized, zealous
Zionist-Jewish notables, who can and will influence their employers and
jeopardize their jobs and promotions.

Conclusion: Alternatives to Zionist Hegemony

In
other countries, especially where independent class conscious trade
unions, autonomous and organized anti-Zionist professional and academic
groups exist, Zionist power in civil society is contested, challenged
and its heinous blackballing of critics is weakened. Where
internationalist movements are strong, as in support for Palestinian
resistance to Israeli colonialism, the local ZPC has not been able to
use their economic power and media ownership to impose their hegemony
over civil society. This is especially true in those locales where the
international solidarity movement is active in impacting society.

While
there are pockets of international solidarity among some universities
and trade unions in the US, especially the dock and warehouse workers
in San Francisco, the major potential counterweight to Zionist Israel
First hegemony in the US would be in a revival of patriotic working class consciousness.
America’s “special relation” with Israel has been at an enormous cost
to the working class, amounting to over $1.5 trillion dollars in
foreign aid, loan guarantees, hijacked technological innovations, lost
overseas investment opportunities, not to mention the wars on Israel’s
behalf and the lost lives in fighting Israel’s war in Iraq. There is a
‘material base’ for a mass patriotic working people’s revolt against
the crass submission of the entire political class to the ZPC and its
patrons in Tel-Aviv. But today tens of millions of Americans are
disillusioned with “patriotic” appeals, whose purpose is to promote
imperial wars (including ironically wars for Israel) at the expense of
their living standards. Right wing pro-capitalist politicians use
patriotic rhetoric to deflect attention from the domestic failures of
capitalism and the massive transfers of wealth to Goldman-Sachs and
other Wall Street speculators. The devaluation of “patriotism” is evident in the right wing’s perverse manipulation of ‘nationalism’
to turn native born workers against immigrant workers, instead of
against the ZPC’s costly pro-Israel agenda. This, in turn, hinders the
growth of a national popular movement against the Wall Street
speculators at home and the wars for Israel and Empire abroad.

What is striking about the lack
of mass based movements against Wall Street is the fact that literally
less than 5% of the population even trusts the financial sector. A vast
outpouring of letters and protests denounced Obama’s initial bank
bailout plan, forcing a temporary postponement. Unorganized mass
resentment persists and is smoldering, waiting for effective popular
organization.

Likewise, family and relatives of the Zionist power configuration, in and out of the government, who promote
US wars for Israel in the Middle East, are rarely to be found in the
Armed Forces, least of all at the frontlines (or for that matter in any
war zone). If we exclude non-Zionist Jews – mostly immigrants from the
former Eastern Bloc and USSR – the figure would be one-thirtieth of one
percent. It is a biting irony that more American Zionists are more
eager to join the Israeli ‘Defense’ Forces than to put on an American
uniform. Yet Zionists in public office, in the Pentagon, executive
branch and the White House, who design and promote war policies and
military-driven sanctions, are in the forefront of shedding American
working class lives, especially now when jobless American workers,
including many minorities, are forced to seek employment in the
military. A soldier’s anti-war movement could be organized and
energized under the banner: “A Zionist war is a not the American workers’ fight” if the left and pacifists were not so beholden to their Jewish colleagues ‘sensibilities”. The anti-war leaders have been reluctant to raise the issue of the Zionist/ Israeli influence in promoting US war policies.

Genuine
patriotic solidarity is weak at the top and bottom, lacking any
meaningful recall of our anti-colonial, anti-slavery, anti-imperialist
and anti-fascist identity. In contrast, the Zionist fifth column
is driven by a powerful mythological-tribal race-driven identity, which
in some cases is religious driven and in others embedded in a
deep-rooted secular sense of racial superiority.

Israeli
hegemony, embedded in a Zion-centric cultural universe, has not been
challenged by Anglo-America’s flaccid intellectuals. Their intellectual
cowardice is covered by a thin veneer of “cosmopolitan” impotence.
Their pusillanimous silence and even complicity is intended to ‘protect the sensitivities’
of their Zionist colleagues regarding any forthright critique of
Zionist power in America. Only a revived working class movement, which
recovers its historical memory of class solidarity and inspires the
popular imagination with an independent American republic free from
foreign dictates, will be able to displace Zionist hegemony and Wall
Street pillage.⁹⁷

Our
study raises several central questions that need to be addressed by
Americans concerned about Zionist power and hegemony over public debate
regarding US wars for Israel in the Middle East.

Can we oppose Israeli war crimes and expansion and US government support of Israel by confronting the ZPC?

Can we open a debate on US, Middle East policy by fighting Zionist authoritarianism, witch hunts and hate crimes?

Can
we discuss and propose a democratic foreign policy, which opposes
military intervention, sanctions and economic blockades, by tackling
American militarists and Israel’s foreign agents?

If we answer in the affirmative, what can be done?

What practical measures can be pursued and supported?

We can educate the American public about the Obama regime’s charade – of talking peace to the American people while supporting
the Israeli war machine; of talking about an evenhanded Middle East
policy while appointing committed Zionists to top policy positions.

We
can demand the Justice Department enforce the Foreign Agents
Registration Act toward the ‘51 Presidents of Major American Jewish
Organizations’ and especially AIPAC.

We should oppose all dual citizens’ appointments to key policymaking posts.

We should demand that Undersecretary of Treasury and Israel Firster
Stuart Levey be investigated and prosecuted for gross malfeasance of
office for his refusal to investigate the illegal billion-dollar money
laundering operations by US Zionists in the funding of illegal Jewish
settlements in the West Bank and for his promotion of economic
sanctions against trade with Iran, which have cost US workers thousands
of jobs and the crippled US economy billions of dollars in lost trade.

We
should oppose military and economic aid to Israel, especially when the
average per capita income of Israeli’s exceeds that of 40% of Americans.

We
should demand the end of trade privileges for Israel in light of the
US’ multi-billion dollars trade deficit with Israel, which has
destroyed tens of thousands of American jobs in industry and services.

We
should combat widespread Zionist hate propaganda, organized and
publicized by the ZPC, against Muslin Americans and Arab American,
their cultural foundations and charities.

We
should demystify Zionist claims that the Jews’ ancestral homeland is
Israel, rather then North Africa and Central Asia, and that there is no
historic basis for the Right of Return.

We
should support the class and popular struggle against finance, real
estate and insurance billionaires (Wall Street) for their pillage of
the American economy and exploitation of American workers and for their
corruption of American politicians to serve their interests and US and Israeli war aims.

Note: James Petras’ last book, Global Depression and Regional Wars (Atlanta, Clarity Press, 2009) is the third in a series, including Zionism, Militarism and the Decline of US Power (Atlanta, Clarity Press 2008) and The Power of Israel in the United States (Atlanta, Clarity Press 2006), analyzing the influence of militarism and Zionism in American foreign policy.

.

 

Bended Knees: Zionist Power in American Politics

By James Petras

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24236.htm

“Obama want to see a stop to settlements: Not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions”. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, May 2009

“What the prime minister has offered in specifics of a restraint on the policy of settlements…..is unprecedented, there has never been a precondition, it’s always been an issue within negotiations.” Hillary Clinton, BBC, November 1, 2009 (my emphasis)

“The US administration understands what we have always said … that the real obstacle to negotiations is the Palestinians (calling for a freeze on settlements)”. Israeli Minister of Science and Technology Daniel Hershkowitz, November 1, 2009 (my addition).

“America, stop sucking up to Israel!” Gideon Levy, Israeli journalist, Haaretz, November 1, 2009.

“US Zionists are sticking it to America, 24/7”, Anonymous Staff Official, Washington D. C., October 31, 2009.

December 21, 2009 "Information Clearing House" — The
discussion of Zionist Power Configuration (ZPC) in the US political
system revolves around several essential issues, including:

1. The claims by the ZPC that it represents Jewish opinion and values as well as its authority to speak for the interests of the American people.

2. Measuring the power of the ZPC and determining its influence over policy, appointments and political institutions.

3. The
   question of whether the ZPC is a legitimate part of the US political
   system, another lobby, or something very different, an unregistered
   agent of a foreign power (Israel).

4. The scope and depth of the ZPC influence in US politics beyond the focus on its “lobbying” in Washington on a “single issue”.

5. The
   organizational weapons and techniques utilized by the ZPC to maximize
   influence and deny voice and influence to critics of Israel and itself.

6. The
   similarities of the organizational linkages of the Israel-Zionist
   relationship to the Russian – Stalinist Communist Parties of the 1930’s.

Method: Public Records, Ethnic Neutral Sources and Citations

The case against the Zionist Power Configuration is based on the open record
of publications, speeches, articles, interviews and sources available
to the general public (and any interested reader). Many facts and data
are drawn from Zionist and Israeli sources as well as mainstream
publications and writings by critical journalists and analysts.¹ We do not privilege
the statements by Jews, whether they are critics or supporters of the
State of Israel, as most “progressive” writers do. The pursuit of truth
is not an “ethnic science”, an approach that smacks of Nazi and Zionist
racial theories. Indeed, nothing reveals the extreme Zionist power or
cultural hegemony over the debate on Israel and American Zionism so
much as the constant reliance, reference and citation of the “Jewish”
authorship of critical articles, even when publications by non-Jews are
better documented, of earlier publication, and better argued.

The ethnic (Jewish) label attached to writings and intellectual and political activity is selectively
applied: the ethnic labels are applied to ‘positive outcomes’ as part
of a general campaign exalting the “superiority” of the “race”; and
disregarded in the face of ‘negative outcomes’ and activities (e.g.
financial swindles, Russian oligarchs, espionage agents). In fact the
“double standard” is buttressed by savage attacks by the ZPC on those
who, following the ethnic labeling tradition, actually mention the
Jewish background of mediocrities and war criminals as well as peace
and justice advocates.

We will begin by questioning and challenging the representativeness of the ZPC in the United States today.

Zionists and the Jewish Communities in America

The 51 Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organization (PMAJO) claim to speak for all Jews in the US.²
A major study in the north Boston region found that less than 25% of
Jews belong to a synagogue, fewer (10%) contribute to the Jewish
Federation and over 50% do not accept rabbinical Zionist precepts
against inter-marriage with non-Jews.³ According to the Jewish Telegraph Agency
(12/4/2009) conservative synagogues have declined by almost 25% from
800 to 650 over the past decade. Even most striking many prominent
individuals who may be of Jewish parentage, no longer consider
themselves “Jews” despite frequent claims by Zionists that their
achievements are a product or a result of their being “Jewish”. Near
majorities of young people of Jewish ancestry do not identify with
Judaism and are critical or indifferent to Zionist appeals for Israel.
They have no involvement in Jewish centered civic activities.⁴
A small, but vocal, group of Jews are organized and active critics of
the entire Zionist apparatus, rejecting the idea of Israel as an
exclusive ethno-religious state and supporting a secular democratic
republic in Palestine. ⁵ In addition several Orthodox Jewish sects view the ‘state of Israel’ as a form of blasphemy and call for its destruction.⁶

The
“51” misrepresent their actual numbers and claim to speak for 6 million
US Jews. At best they may speak for less than half of the imputed
population and even then their support waxes and wanes according to the
issue, the timing and the place and varies in intensity. The power of
the “51” is not a result of its representativeness of the Jewish community at large, but the location
of its followers in the power structure and the intensity and
quasi-religious fervor of their activists. Their political power
resides in their singular forces in pursuit of the interests of the
State of Israel and the control and influence in media; their
nationwide networks and the wealth and financial power of contributors.
Their capacity to browbeat apathetic Jews into making contributions and
lending support adds organizational muscle. Their willing use of force,
money and media slander intimidates any and all critics, including
dissident politicians, media, journalists and professors.⁷

At
most there are probably no more than 500,000 Jews who actively back the
“51” – but what a half million! Given the low level of political
participation of the US population in general, the relative low
saliency of Middle East issues to most Americans and the one-sided
pro-Israel mass media propaganda, which misinforms the public, the
Zionist zealots have little competition. They have a free hand in
penetrating and influencing political, social and cultural institutions
in line with the policies dictated by their Israeli influenced leaders
among the “51”.

The issue of the limited representativeness of the Zionist organization must be separated from the exercise of power.
By leveraging non-Zionist, non-Jewish civic organizations, political
institutions, pension funds, trade unions etc. the ZPC magnifies its
power beyond its numbers⁸.

The limited representativeness
of the “51” is compensated by the silence and apathy of the majority of
Jews and non-Jewish/Jews, who either are not willing to challenge ZPC
claims or are immersed in private concerns, careers or other unrelated
civic issues.

The ‘51’s hundreds of thousands of activists are strategically placed in institutions, as well as geographically,
with a centralized command capable of mobilizing money, media attention
and political leverage in any priority, political, cultural or social
arena⁹.
The ‘51’ organizations are not merely a “lobby” in the sense of having
paid officials operating to influence congressional votes.¹⁰
They include religious, civic, charitable, ideological, cultural and
social organizations unified and unconditionally committed to following
the zigzags of Israeli political directives¹¹.
The actual structure resembles a ‘power configuration’ that reaches
from small chapters in municipalities to statewide confederations, as
well as national organizations, each with its own budget, its own
ideological watchdogs and appropriate levels of power.

The
power for Israel is exercised by elected and appointed Zionist
officials, especially those in positions that have any relevance to
Israeli interests. These “interests” include direct aid to Israel,
sanctions and wars against Israel’s Middle East and Asian adversaries,
American pension fund investments in Israel, boycotts of companies
trading with Israeli-designated adversary countries and many other
strategic concerns.

The key to the power of the Zionist Power Configuration is that it is a mass grassroots organization,
bolstered by the financial support by scores of millionaires and dozens
of billionaires and a complicit mass media. These political resources
translate into tremendous leverage over the far more numerous
non-Zionist electorates, the mass media spectators and the upwardly
mobile politicians.

The ZPC illustrates clearly how “numbers” in the abstract do not count,¹²
especially in a permeable electoral system like the US, where money,
organization, discipline and ethno-religious fanaticism define the
boundaries, issues and acceptable policies.

The ZPC as Foreign Agents of the Israeli State

The recent decision of the US Congress to repudiate (HR 867) the findings of Israeli war crimes in the official Final Report of the United Nations’ Fact Finding Mission on the 2009 Gaza Conflict by a vote of 344 – 36 is a measure of the power of the ZPC.¹³ The report, also known as the “Goldstone Report”,
after its principle author Justice Richard Goldstone, was released on
September 15, 2009, amid a carefully orchestrated campaign to discredit
its findings and its authors. What is even more important than the US
Congressional vote of condemnation is the fact that the campaign was
publically ordered from Israel, directed by the Presidents of the ‘51’
and obediently and enthusiastically carried out by several hundred
thousand Zionist activists, throughout the country. The ‘51’ and the
mass of Zionist zealots were openly defending Israeli state terror and
crimes against humanity. Their defense of war crimes never evoked a
second thought. What mattered was their ability to pressure, threaten,
cajole and promise future funds to Congressional representatives in
order to secure their vote against Justice Goldstone. Blind obedience
to Israeli dictates was evident in the fact that many Congresspersons
proudly confessed to never having even read the Goldstone Report
and that none dared question the egregious fabrications, which its two
uber-Zionist Congressional sponsors, (Representatives H.L. Berman,
D-California and G.L. Ackermann, D-New York), of the House Resolution
867, concocted.¹⁴
The US Congress, in fact, almost unanimously rejected the eminent
Justice Goldstone’s request to present his findings in person.

In the UN National Assembly, the Zionists were able to leverage the US to vote against the Goldstone Report,
which in turn secured the vote of several Eastern European client
states, insignificant island dependencies and the predictable Western
European “Allies”. This amounted to a total of 18 votes against the 114 UN members who endorsed the Report’s
thorough documentation of Israeli war crimes and state terrorism, an
endorsement which represented over 80% of the world’s population.¹⁵

The ZPC is powerful but not omnipotent.
It controls the US Congress and Executive and has decisive influence in
the mass media, but there are important fissures in the monolith, as a
number of Jewish organizations and individuals, revolted by Israel’s
mass killings in Gaza and the ZPC unconditional support, have spoken
out in support of the Goldstone Report.¹⁶
More importantly, major national trade/union federations in Canada,
Ireland, Great Britain, France and Italy, along with numerous human
rights organizations, support a global boycott and disinvestment
campaign against Israeli products.¹⁷
Judicial processes are proceeding in various European countries to
arrest and put on trial top Israeli officials involved in the Gaza
massacre.¹⁸

The
United States, under the tutelage of the ZPC, remains as the center of
Israeli power and the sole reliable backer of Israeli war aims in the
Middle East, especially with regard to Iran. The power of Israel over
Washington’s Middle East policy is in direct relation to the strategic
influence of the ZPC. The denial of the power of the ZPC by seemingly “progressive” and “leftist”
writers and journalists has been one of the principal obstacles
undermining efforts to effectively counter US government support for
Israeli war crimes, the expansion of colonial settlements in the West
Bank and the military/sanctions policies toward Iran.¹⁹

Israeli Power over US Middle Policy: The Centrality of the ZPC.

The
manifestations of Israeli power over the US are public, visible,
outrageous and unprecedented in the annals of US foreign relations.²⁰ Israeli power is wielded directly through its subordinated political arm, the ZPC, which in turn facilitates the direct intervention of the Israeli state in the internal politics of the US. Let us examine several crucial empirical indicators of Israeli power in the US.

On
November 9, 2009, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed
the mass based Jewish Federation (JF) of North America General Assembly
and thanked US President Obama and the US Congress for repudiating the Goldstone Report.
The Israeli head of state then told his US followers to increase their
efforts to influence US policy to “stop Teheran from realizing its
nuclear ambitions”.²¹
The previous day, Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, Michael
Oren, told the same Jewish Federation to “press for sanctions on Iran
and condemn the findings of the United Nations commission on Gaza.²²
Speaking as a tribal chieftain dictating orders to the loyal overseas
followers, Oren stated, “Our strength derives from the belief that we
have a right to independence in our tribal land, the land of Israel…”²³
Israel is the only country that can intervene in the internal politics
of the US, counting on a powerful political organization, to shape US
policy to serve its state interests.

By
drawing on the now discredited myth that American Jews’ tribal ancestry
is rooted in Israel, rather than Central Asia, Khazaran, reinforces the
idea that Israel and not the United States – is the true ‘homeland’ of
American Jews and therefore it is their right and duty to obey the
dictates of the Israeli state.²⁴
Each year dozens of Israeli state officials visit the US and directly
intervene in US political debates, congressional hearings and executive
policy making – with nary a whisper of protest, let alone censure from
the US State Department. Any other country’s officials who so
flagrantly intervene in US politics would be declared persona non grata and expelled from the country. In contrast, because of the power of the ZPC, Israeli civilians and military officials are invited
to intervene in US policy making, to set the agenda for numerous
Zionist officials in and out of public office and to bludgeon and
praise those who criticize or oppose Israeli dictates.²⁵
The repeated public statements by Israeli officials that the primary
loyalty of American Jews is to Israel and its policies – in other
words, that they should act as a fifth column for Israel – is
incompatible with the notion of citizenship everywhere except for this
small group in the US.²⁶
One could imagine the outcry (and brutal reprisals) if any political
leader from a Moslem country called on their co-religionists to pursue
its state interests. What is striking then about the ZPC is that it openly and publically organizes meetings, follows orders and pursues policies dictated by Israeli public officials and yet is not registered as a foreign agent, let alone prosecuted for acting, by its own admission, on behalf of a foreign power.²⁷

The ZPC: Lobby or Unregistered Foreign Agents?

Based
on its organizational structure and political aims, the pro-Israel
social-political configuration cannot be reduced to a common “lobby”.
The mass activist organizational structure encompassing and penetrating
civic, political, cultural institutions and media outlets resembles a
power configuration that works within and outside of Washington to
shape political decisions relevant to Israel.²⁸
Equally important it plays a major role in shaping the opinions and
behavior of public opinion and civic society organizations. Secondly,
unlike American lobbies, it acts to shape US foreign policy in the interest of
a foreign military power, up to and including decisions on promoting
war and imposing sanctions against Israel’s opponents, prejudicing the
lives and security of thousands of American working people and
taxpayers. Thirdly, the term “lobby” does not ordinarily encompass the
virulent repressive activities pursued by the ZPC against critical
writers, cultural figures, academics and others in American society who
question Israeli policy. The ZPC not only acts a foreign agent for
Israel today, but has been openly doing so over fifty years.²⁹ In the 1960’s the Justice Department attempted to enforce the 1938 Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA)
against the current American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)’s
predecessor, the American Zionist Council (AZC), but was blocked by
pro-Israel politicians.

The ZPC no only publically gives unconditional support to Israeli policy but engages in espionage
on behalf of Israel as several prominent members of the ZPC and Mossad
have testified. One of America’s leading experts on Israel’s “lobby”
Grant Smith, who has amassed a vast archive of declassified official US
documents on Israeli-Zionist activities in the US, cites numerous cases
in which AIPAC purloined internal classified government documents in
order to further Israeli trade privileges n the 1980’s.³⁰
A leader of the Zionist Organization of America was implicated in the
illegal transfer of US government uranium to Israel in 1956. In 2005
Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, leaders in AIPAC, admitted to receiving
a confidential document relating to US-Iran policy, transmitting it to
an Israeli embassy official.³¹
From 1979 to 1985, senior US Army Weapons Engineer Ben-ami Kadish, an
American Zionist and former member of the fanatical Jewish Haganah
militia in British Mandate Palestine, handed critical confidential
documents on an enormous number of US weapons systems over to agents
from the Israeli embassy.³²
These were then believed to have been passed to the Soviet Union in
order to influence their policy on immigration to Israel. Under the
influence of the Zionist-infested Justice Department, Kadish got off
with a $50,000 fine and not a single day in jail – for handing scores
of crucial US military secrets to Israel.

Ben-ami
Kadish’s fellow spy, American Zionist Jonathan Pollard, shared the same
Mossad handler in the 1980s. Pollard, who worked as an analyst for US
Naval intelligence, provided the Israelis with crate-loads of
classified military and intelligence documents filled with top secret
information on US policy in the Middle East, weapons systems, US agents
in the Soviet Union and any and all relevant strategic objects of
interest to his Israeli handlers.³³

On
October 29, 2009, the Justice Department charged Stewart David Nozette,
a Defense Department scientist, with attempting to transmit classified
information to an Israeli Mossad agent. Nozette, an American Zionist,
did not act strictly out of tribal loyalties to the Jewish State. Like
Pollard, he asked for money and an Israeli passport (Boston Globe 10/20/09). According to former Mossad agent Victor Ostrtovsky, the spy agency recruits thousands of overseas Zionist sayanim
(Hebrew for ‘helpers’) who “must be 100 percent Jewish” for Israeli
Mossad operations, which may include terrorism. (See Ostrovsky, By Way of Deception
(New York: St Martin’s Press 1990, pp 86 – 88). In 2001 Fox News
investigative reporter, Carl Cameron, reported that scores of Israeli
spies were rounded up and deported in the aftermath of 9/11, including
five Mossad agents videoing the World Trade Center bombing.³⁴

Industrial
and political spying is not uncommon among states, even between allies.
What is striking is that representatives of an organized
ethno-religious group, the major American Zionist organizations, have
expressed sympathy and solidarity with such spies as Ben-ami Kadish,
Jonathan Pollard and others, even defending their acts of espionage as
a significant contribution to US – Israeli relations.³⁵
The implication, or better still, the explication for this perverse
thinking is that for the leading American Zionist organizations, spying
for Israel, is part and parcel of their primary loyalty to the Jewish
state. Zionist primary loyalty to Israel is not confined to mainline
American Jewish organizations.

During the Rosen-Weissman trial, numerous prominent Jewish leftist (including Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman) publicly defended the procuring of confidential documents and their handing over to a foreign (Israeli) government as a matter of “free speech” and “freedom of the press”.³⁶
Rosen in his civil suit again his firing by AIPAC (to deflect FBI
investigators) claimed that his dealing of US government documents to
Israeli officials was “common practice” AIPAC officials.³⁷

Top
Zionist leaders in the Bush and Obama administration have a long
history of work for and with Israel, including in some cases activity,
which has caused them to lose security clearances and/or to come under
investigation.³⁸
Two top Pentagon officials in the Bush administration, Former
Undersecretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and Assistant Secretary of
Defense, Douglas Feith are cases in point. Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm
Emmanuel spent time in the Israeli armed forces and has long been
suspected of ties to Mossad.³⁹
Stuart Levey, a top US Treasury Department official involving in
enforcing sanctions against Iran, has spent nearly a decade in close
collaboration with MOSSAD, a point he brags about.⁴⁰
During the Bush (Jr.) Presidency, non-Zionist officials in the Pentagon
and CIA complained of being sidelined by top Zionist officials, who set
up their own intelligence offices run by their own fellow Zionist
policymakers.⁴¹ Wolfowitz and Feith set up the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans
run by Abram Shulsky. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, an official in the
Pentagon at the time, complained of being marginalized and supplanted
by Israeli officers who had unfettered access to the highest Pentagon
officials.⁴² The November 2007 United States National Intelligence Estimate Report
(NIE) on the Iranian nuclear program was savaged by all the major
Jewish American organizations, and their cohorts in Congress and the
Executive branch because the report concluded that Iran had suspended
its nuclear weapons development since 2003.⁴³
The major Zionist organizations and their supporters in the US
government favored Israeli intelligence disinformation claiming an
active nuclear weapons program that threatened US security. In short
order the NIE report, prepared by 16 major US Government
intelligence agencies, was pushed aside and US policy followed the lead
of the Zionist-backed Israeli claims of a “secret” Iranian weapons
program despite the absence of any hard data.

Leveraging Power

The
key to Zionist power in shaping US policy toward the Mid-East,
Arab-Muslim relations and toward “third parties” affecting Israeli
policy is the combined influence of Zionists in executive
offices (Treasury, State, National Security, Pentagon, etc.) and
Congress, especially leading committees relevant to Israeli interests,
and as well as the mass organizations in civil society (the ‘51’ major
American Jewish organizations) and Zionist control over the mass media.⁴⁴
Zionist power and control in these crucial areas spreads out into
influencing academic activity, including the repression of Israeli
critics, the censoring of publications, manipulation of professional
societies, trade unions and state and union pension funds, whose
members are overwhelmingly neither Jewish nor Zionist.

The result is that the Zionist Power Configurations automatic and unquestioning support
for the crimes and treason, including Zionist espionage for Israel
within the US and the universally-condemned Israel war crimes, goes
uncontested in the mass media, the Congress, and even the small
political and literary journals on the ‘Left’. This uncontested support
of espionage by foreign power acting through public organizations is
unique in US history. In the past organizations acting as surrogates
for a foreign power were condemned, ostracized, suppressed, prosecuted
and subject to mass public outrage. It is a “tribute” to the power of
ZPC that none of that occurs today. As a footnote to history, it is the
first time that practically all Marxist journals, monthlies,
bi-monthlies, quarterlies and annuals and their leading contributors
have avoided a serious critique of the ZPC. On the contrary, the sparse
articles which purport to deal with Middle East policies cover-up the
role of the ZPC in shaping US policy.⁴⁵

There
is evidence that, even in the most radical publications of “critical
writing”, fellow traveling editors, who otherwise claim
“internationalist” and “working class” allegiances, are not willing to
confront the ZPC war makers who promote wars in the Middle East, funded
by American taxpayers and fought by 99.9% non Jewish/non-Zionist working class Americans in uniform.

The Interlocking Directorate: Establishing Zionist Hegemony

Several critical analysts have identified some of the key issues and institutions under Zionist influence.⁴⁶ Some have identified AIPAC as an influential pro-Israel lobby. Others have noted the pro-Israel bias of the mass media.⁴⁷ A very few have even identified Zionist predominance in media ownership.⁴⁸

Others,
especially during the Bush presidency, noted the influence of key
Zionists in the Pentagon, especially their role in promoting the US
invasion of Iraq.⁴⁹ The narrow focus of their otherwise valuable critiques fails to account for structural continuities over time and place: the long-term, large-scale presence of unconditional Israel Fisters
across administrations especially over the past two decades. Moreover,
while case studies of Zionist influence over specific policy issues,
such as the recent Congressional repudiation of the Goldstone Report
and support for Israeli war crimes, are useful, the larger theoretical
and empirical phenomenon of the growing chain of issues over ever more extended policy areas of interest to Israel (and therefore the ZPC) is ignored.⁵⁰ In a word, the problem of ZPC power in the US is not confined to a single issue lobby.
This narrow approach obfuscates the systemic role of the ZPC in
effectively disenfranchising the great majority of the American wage
and salaried people (at the expense of their living standards),
increasing war taxes for the middle class and blocking investment
opportunities for corporate America in countries designated (by Israel)
as “security threats” (adversaries of Israeli colonial expansion).

The
career patterns of leading Zionists include movers from business (Wall
Street, Corporate law firms) to government; another pattern involves
Zionist academics who move to the executive branch and then on to
corporate or Zionist think tanks. Others follow a career combining
academic – propagandist – journalist policy consultant positions, often
prominent on the television political ‘talk’ shows. The leading media
moguls combine roles as CEO’s – propagandists – and Israel advocates.
The overlap of career positions creates a network of shared ideologies, defined by ‘what is best for Israel’ (Israel First).
The shared “world view” creates a cohesive group that sets the
boundaries of US policy debate. Congressional behavior, Executive
policy makers and intellectual discourse are confined by these
ZPC-determined parameters. In effect pro-Israel career patterns and
projections of power have established a kind of Judeo-Zionist hegemony
of US public life.

Ethno-sizing Truth

One
of the extreme manifestations of Zionist-Jewish hegemony is found in
the fear and trepidation with which critics of Israeli policy approach
the issue. Most seek to “Judaize” any criticism, instead of
seeking and citing truth, facts or analyses on their own merits. They
support their statements by citing Israeli sources and Jewish
writers, even if earlier non-Jewish, non-Israeli writers and analysts
have raised the same issues and may have provided a more systematic and
consequential critique.⁵¹ This “tactic” of seeking to play off critical Jews against the ZPC and Israel is debatable
if not counter-productive, regressive and serves to re-enforce the
pervasive fear of the ZPC. The proponents of this approach, assuming
they are not ignorant of non-Jewish critics, argue that by citing the
Jewish background of the critics of Israel, they disarm the ZPC charge
of “anti-Semitism”. They further argue that by putting an ethnic ‘spin’
or ‘ethnicizing’ the critique they are responding to “Jewish
sensibilities” and are more likely to get a hearing from Jews and their
sympathizers.⁵²

These arguments are plausible but
deeply flawed. Committed Zionists, meaning the entire ZPC, dismiss
Jewish and non-Jewish critics with equal ferocity: the former as
“self-hating Jews”, the latter as “anti-Semites”. Sacrificing truth and
principled criticism to shield “Jewish sensibilities” means refraining
from challenging their residual tribal sympathies to a ‘Zion-centric’
view of the world. If the central problem is Zionist hegemony of US
culture and especially foreign policy in the Middle East (and wherever
else Israel dictates), it ill behooves us to pander to amorphous ‘special sensitivities’ of the few Jewish dissidents who demand ethnically-based critiques.

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