- The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy
- Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 496 pp.
- CLR Rating:
The Bully of the Middle East
One of the myths surrounding the creation of the State of Israel is that the Zionists fought a war of independence in 1948, and won against heavy odds. The Israeli narrative has been that Israel was a David struggling for its independence against the Arab Goliath. It is a great story, but that is exactly what it is—a story. As Mearsheimer and Walt detail in their book on the Israel Lobby, the Zionist armies outnumbered the Arab armies, they were better trained and had better equipment and weapons.
What is more accurate historically is that Israel became the bully of the Middle East, starting even before May 15, 1948, when it declared itself a state. The full details of what the Zionist movement did to grab the Palestinians’ land are outlined in Ilan Pappe’s book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, from which Mearsheimer and Walt quote in their narrative on the Israeli Lobby.
My real Middle East education began during a trip I took through the Middle East in 1973. When I returned from the trip in early 1974, I held a press conference at the Federal Press Club in Washington, D.C. I related to those gathered there that every single Arab leader I met with, including Yasir Arafat, told me that each was ready to make peace with Israel, to begin commercial trade with it, on the condition that Israel withdraw to the pre-1967 borders, and allow a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.
Amazingly, the Arab leaders I talked to, including Arafat, were willing to concede the land that Israel had already taken by force in 1947 and 1948. That was the same offer King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia made to Israel last year—an offer that was scoffed at by Israel and ignored by the United States.
When I related what I had heard in the Arab countries to the gathered journalists and others interested in the issue at the Press Club, a short reporter rose to ask me a few hostile questions, after which he left. His name was Wolf Blitzer, at that time a writer for the AIPAC newsletter, The Near East Report. The headline of his story was, “Abourezk Sells Out to the Arabs.”
Israel Critics Begin on the Defensive
Mearsheimer and Walt have written an excellent exposition of the Israel Lobby, both in articles and in their most recent book. But they have had to spend a great deal of words and time assuring their readers that they are not anti-Semites, an accusation that has been the main force of the attack on them by the Israel Lobby. There is a well-rehearsed chorus of Israel supporters lying in wait for whoever dares to criticize Israel’s policies, ready to pounce, catlike, and with great force on the unfortunate miscreant. What is interesting is that I have yet to see any of Mearsheimer and Walt’s pro-Israel critics challenge the accuracy of what they have written. Those critics rely on the charge of anti-Semitism, as well as vague, unspecified allegations of inaccuracies in what they have written.
To most people, the charge of racism is a frightening thing, something which no self-respecting person wants attached to them, a feeling of which defenders of Israel are well aware. In America, academics, journalists and politicians have been trained to tip-toe around the subject lest they have to spend all their time denying the allegations of racism against them. The attacks from the Lobby’s hit men come at a fast and a vicious pace, which results in the unfortunate writer spending as much time defending himself or herself as the time spent on the original writing itself.
I read Alan Dershowitz’ screed against Mearsheimer and Walt’s original paper. Dershowitz selects a few points in their paper, then focuses his attack on those few points. Even then he doesn’t get it right. Dershowitz has the same problem here as he has had over the years. He has difficulty with telling the truth in his criticism of the two authors.
For a number of years I was the target of the same accusations because I’ve expressed my strong disagreement with Israel’s actions.
Joe Rauh, the celebrated civil rights attorney in Washington, D.C., once patronized me with an unsolicited comment, “Jim I never let them call you an anti-Semite.” Joe never stayed around long enough to learn that I never let “them” call me a racist. I am emotionally secure enough know that I am not a racist, and I refuse to allow Israel’s supporters to brand me as such. I cannot agree that criticism of Israel’s policies equals racism, as the Anti-Defamation League is fond of telling us. I feel a responsibility to continue to discuss both America’s and Israel’s failed policies in the Middle East.
The distraction caused by personal attacks on critics of Israel is, of course, intended to get everyone off the subject of whether or not America’s overdone support for whatever Israel does is good for America. That is something no one in the Lobby wants to hear—a real debate on the issue. As someone once said, the Lobby does its best work out of the public’s eye. That kind of anonymity disguises the kind of work done by the Lobby—frightening and intimidating officeholders in order to keep American taxpayers’ money flowing to Israel.
Mearsheimer and Walt’s main argument is that American support for Israel is not in America’s best interests.
I agree.
Seeking to Justify the Money Sent To Israel
The authors have done a bang-up job of research. Their book is packed, no, it is crammed, both with the manner in which America supports Israel’s aggressions, as well as with the negative consequences to our country of such support. The facts they include in their book are almost overwhelming, but they are necessary for people to understand what is at stake.
In order to mask the kind of mugging the Lobby undertakes on members of Congress, it’s necessary for supporters of Israel to explain American generosity in ways other than how the Lobby intimidates members of Congress, and presidential candidates as well.
I saw an example of that during the 1970s. While I was waiting my turn to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I listened to a State Department official struggling to answer questions from New York’s Senator Jack Javits, a member of the Committee.
“I want you to tell this committee the ways in which Israel is a strategic asset to the United States,” Javits told the official.
The bureaucrat stumbled over his words, finally admitting that he was unable to think of any such ways. Remember, this was during the 1970s, at the height of the cold war with the Soviet Union when Israel was heralded by its supporters as a bulwark against the Soviets.
Javits continued to press him. “I’m going to ask you again. Tell us how Israel is a strategic asset to the United States.” The hapless bureaucrat continued to stutter, eventually giving up, as did Javits. This was a time when some were questioning the value of our financial, military and political support of Israel. The lack of a proper answer by the bureaucrat didn’t really matter, as Congressional support for Israel was maintained at a high level, despite the pitiful State Department fellow who couldn’t think of a reason to justify our aid. The Mearsheimer/Walt book does outline some of the help Israel has given the United States. However, they point out, what little help we have received has come at an almost unbearably high price to America.
Israel provided us with embarrassingly little intelligence on the Arab countries, but they did report to the U.S. what they were told by Russian Jewish immigrants. And, as the 1991 Gulf War showed, we refused Israel’s military help against Saddam Hussein for fear of alienating Arab allies who had joined the coalition against Saddam Hussein.
Israel has had a practice for years of trying to empty out the West Bank of its young Palestinian men. When a young Palestinian would leave home to go to college in another country, the Shin Bet would visit the young man’s parents, telling them that their son was wanted for unspecified crimes that were made up on the spot. The reaction of the parents was predictable. They would get word to their son that the Shin Bet was looking for him, and that he should never come back to Palestine.
One such Palestinian, Sami Ismail, who was attending college in Michigan in the 1970s, learned that his father was seriously ill. He immediately made plans to return to the West Bank for what he was certain would be his father’s funeral. The FBI, which obviously had been watching Sami, informed the Shin Bet that he was on his way back to Israel. He was arrested at the Tel Aviv airport and put in prison. After being beaten and tortured, he was, a few years later, released and is now back in Michigan.
During a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee with the FBI counterterrorism director at that time, I asked him to meet with me privately in an office behind the Committee room. There he admitted to me that the FBI had sent information on Sami Ismail’s travel plans to Israel, which resulted in his arrest and imprisonment when he arrived.
The price America has paid for America’s support for Israel is reflected in the almost universal hatred for our government both by Arabs in the Middle East, and by Moslems around the world. There is no question that we are blamed for the bombings and invasions of Lebanon and Syria—which are accomplished with American weapons. Although the average American may not know why we are so unpopular around the world, every single person in the Middle East is able to discuss at length the cluster munitions and other American weapons that Israel drops in civilian areas. Cluster bombs are a particular cruel weapon, maiming and killing small children who pick up the bomblets, as well as the American made jets and bombs that routinely kill Arabs. Beyond cluster weapons, when Israel occupied Southern Lebanon from 1982 to 2000, it planted land mines throughout the area it controlled, and to this day refuses to provide a map to the Lebanese government of where they are planted. Periodically, Lebanese farmers come away with their legs blown off, or they are killed by the hidden exploding mines.
During my first trip to Lebanon in 1973, while on my way by car for my first visit to my parents’ village in the South, we stopped at the neighboring village of Mimas, where the Mayor had caused a banner to be stretched across the road, adjacent to a bomb crater. The banner read, in Arabic, “Welcome Sheikh Senator James Abourezk,” and in English, “Fantome Jets Made in USA.”
The mayor’s speech articulated what the villagers were obviously thinking. “We used to think of America as a haven for those of us from Lebanon who went there from this village. We always loved America. Now we think of it as an oppressor.”
A Long Line of U.S. Support for Israel’s Aggressions
Our governments, from the time of Lyndon Johnson up to the present, have sent weapons to Israel with which to bomb Arab lands, have vetoed United Nations Security Council resolutions calling Israel to account for its aggressions, and have sent American taxpayers’ money for their weapons stockpile. The money sent by our Congress has created a higher living standard in Israel than many people in America enjoy.
It was President Lyndon Johnson who, when the U.S.S. Liberty came under deadly attack in 1967 by the Israeli military, killing 134 American sailors and wounding many more, prevented American fighter jets from going to the crew’s rescue. Following the killing and wounding of so many American sailors by Israeli jets and torpedo boats, the crew was ordered not to speak of the assault. Although the Liberty incident is one of the more shameful in our country’s history, there has never been an official U.S. government investigation of the attack, despite the many requests by the surviving crew members.
Although Nixon had no love for Israel, he did have Henry Kissinger pulling his strings, convincing Nixon that an Israeli defeat during the 1973 War would embolden the Soviet Union. Israel had run out of equipment and weapons during the War, and Kissinger’s intervention resulted in Nixon ordering a massive airlift of replacement weapons, allowing Israel to defeat both Egypt and Syria.
George W. Bush, an evangelical who is disguised as a President, has provided whatever support Israel might want, including the disgusting delay of a requested cease fire in the 2006 Lebanese War, betting that Israel would demolish Hizbollah’s military if only it were allowed more time. The time given to Israel by Bush resulted only in additional destruction of Lebanon’s infrastructure, with Israel giving up in the end, without the victory both it and Bush had hoped for.
In one of the more disgusting moments of pandering to Israel’s supporters, at the time that Prime Minister Sharon had ordered destruction of the West Bank village of Jenin, Bush announced that Sharon was “a man of peace.”
Some U.S. Senators have been unable to wait for weapons’ requests from Israel before swinging into action, as Senator Scoop Jackson did in 1972. He offered an amendment to Israeli aid legislation that was being considered on the Senate floor, an amendment that was neither solicited by Israel nor by the State Department, which added $500 million to the appropriation for fighter jets. Of course, it passed with no opposition.
The power of the Israeli Lobby is legendary on Capitol Hill. During the 1970s, when Gerald Ford was president, both he and Kissinger ordered that weapons shipments to Israel be stopped, hoping to force Israel to accede to Ford’s wishes during a set of peace negotiations. The Israeli Lobby circulated a letter to Ford, threatening him with unspecified political consequences, signed by 76 U.S. Senators.
On the night before the letter was released to the press, I had dinner with one Senator who told me that he was not about to sign it, as he knew how it would be used. The next day I saw his name on the list, and I asked him what had happened to change his mind. “I began getting calls from my home state. They were lawyers, doctors and other professional people who had actually taken time off from their practice to campaign for me. They were not just ordinary citizens, but people who had sacrificed to help me get elected. There was no way I could turn them down.”
In the privacy of the Senate cloakroom one can hear the animosity that surfaces against the Israeli Lobby. But in public these same Senators will pander in the most undignified manner.
For most members of Congress a vote for Israel is counted as a throw away vote. It has been all benefit for them, with no cost, as the Arabs had no effective lobby, and a vote for Israel would cost the Congressperson very little, if anything at all. Conversely, a vote against legislation that Israel’s Lobby wants brings political threats and retaliation that no one in Congress wants to deal with.
With the exceptional success the Lobby has enjoyed over the years comes a certain amount of arrogance. It was that arrogance that resulted in the arrest and indictment of two of the principal lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). They have been accused of receiving highly classified information on Iran that was given to them by Larry Franklin, a U.S. government official. Franklin has been convicted and is serving time in prison, but the trial of the two Israeli Lobbyists has been delayed, and delayed again.
Years ago, Michael Saba, a blond haired Lebanese from North Dakota sat in the coffee shop of a Washington, D.C. hotel, listening to a Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer imparting what he believed was classified information to two Israelis. Saba has written a book about the effort to get the Justice Department to take some kind of action. The staffer was eventually terminated from his job on the Senate staff, but he is still around Washington.
Jonathan Pollard, an employee of the U.S. Navy, was convicted of selling a truckload of America’s secrets to Israel. Pollard is now serving a life sentence, with little hope of parole. That has not stopped Israel and its supporters from requesting that he be released and sent to Israel to finish his sentence, a request that has been refused by the U.S. government. One of the Justice Department’s parole attorneys told me, several years ago, that releasing Pollard would bring about a revolution inside the U.S. government by people whose departments were injured by his spying.
America Fighting Israel’s Battles
One of the main lines of attack on Mearsheimer and Walt is their proposition that Israel manages to get America to fight its battles for it, with Iraq being a prime example. As with Iran today, the Israelis are neither shy nor secretive about trying to push America into invading that branch of the Axis of Evil. Now that Iraq has turned to mush, Israel and its Lobby are pulling back from its support of that war. But we can tell what the Israeli government is thinking when we listen to Senator Joe Lieberman, who has been shouting from tall buildings that America must forcibly and violently deal with Iran now. Both Lieberman and President Bush have called forth the image of a mushroom cloud if something is not done to stop the Iranians. The warnings have a familiar sound to them, very much like the warnings Bush trumpeted before he ordered the invasion of Iraq.
Double Standard in the Middle East
What neither Lieberman, nor Bush, nor the other components of the Lobby want the public to know is that both Iran and Syria have proposed a nuclear weapons free Middle East. One supposes the reason that proposition has never seen the light of day is that Israel would have to give up the 200 plus nuclear warheads that it has stockpiled in recent years. But despite such a proposal being the answer to stopping Iran’s nuclear ambitions, neither the Bush Administration nor the American media have given this proposal anything but silence.
The ferocity of President Bush’s attacks on Iran and its nuclear potential is noticeable because of the President’s, and the media’s, total silence on the issue of Israel’s nuclear weapons, which are most likely the reason Iran wants to enter into a Middle East nuclear arms race. Here, the double standard is most obvious. Israel, known for its aggressive behavior in the Middle East, beginning with its 1948 capture of Palestine by force of arms, is rarely mentioned either by American politicians or by the American media as a danger to peace. Assuming that Iran is indeed developing a nuclear weapon, the country can hardly threaten the United States for the reason that it, like Iraq before it, has no means of delivery beyond its immediate neighborhood. Even though there is a limited threat to its neighbors, including Israel, it is important to contain the development of nuclear weapons, but unless we are willing to contain Israel’s nuclear threat, it will be impossible to do anything with Iran, short of a war. Despite what Israel wants, Americans have no need for another quagmire, which surely would be the result of an attack on Iran.
Nancy Pelosi earlier addressed the recent AIPAC convention in Washington, and was booed by the audience when she opposed Bush’s escalation of the Iraq War. Not long after that disapproval, a harrowing experience for a Congressperson, she withdrew a requirement that had been tacked onto legislation requiring the President to get Congressional permission to make war on Iran. Obviously, Pelosi knew what was good for her and for her political party.
How To Keep Congresspeople in Line
The Lobby will not tolerate even one dissenting voice against Israel in the Congress. When members of Congress are silent on this issue, the press is unable to write a story quoting officeholders. That is the major reason there is little official criticism of Israel’s actions, and criticism comes only from non-official voices, which deprives the media of an official source for their stories. Thus, any such dissenting voice is a prime candidate for silencing at next election time. Both Congressman Earl Hilliard and Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney learned this lesson the hard way. Money from contributors all over the country poured into the campaign treasuries of their opponents, a great deal of the money directed by the Lobby. And they both lost. Of course, Congresswoman McKinney did not help herself when she tried to humiliate a capitol policeman before she was once more turned out of office.
When someone wants to run for Congress and is looking for campaign money, the potential candidate is inevitably directed to AIPAC or to one of the other components of the Israel Lobby. Both political parties know that there is money readily available from the Lobby, depending on how cooperative the candidate will be.
But the money does not come free. The Lobby first demands that the candidate give them something in writing detailing how the candidate might vote on issues important to Israel, such as appropriating money for Israel from the U.S. Treasury. Very few candidates refuse to provide such commitments, and those who do refuse have difficulty raising early money from other sources.
The initial commitment is the beginning of the slippery slope for candidates who get elected and are sworn in. Ever after, when a vote critical to Israel comes up, the officeholder is paid a visit by one of the Lobby’s operatives on Capitol Hill, with a reminder of his or her commitment. This was the treatment I was given when I first ran for the U.S. Senate, and I’m told that very little has changed since then.
Those officeholders who stray from the reservation are threatened with defeat, and if that doesn’t work, money directed by the Lobby flows to their opposition in the next election cycle. Cynthia McKinney no doubt can tell stories about this very effective method, as can Paul Findley and a few others.
The leaders of the Lobby spend a great deal of time denying that theirs is a powerful force on Capitol Hill, but occasionally the arrogance of some of the staff people breaks through to make their boasting public. But whoever denies the power of the Lobby is not being truthful, especially when one considers that if any other country oppressed and colonized other people, the U.S. would seriously consider sending in troops to remedy the situation. In Israel’s case, the U.S. happily sends taxpayer’s money to enable its occupation of Palestinians, with all the brutality that comes with such an occupation. Those who deny the political reach of the Lobby overlook the unbelievable pandering by Congresspeople to Israel. At times, these panderers appear to love Israel more than they do their own country.
I served in Congress at a time when I.L. “Sy” Kenan was the head of AIPAC. He would constantly send a message with people who he knew were my friends that, “Tell Abourezk I’m going to get him.”
And Spencer Rich, a Washington Post reporter, followed up on a story that the Lobby had fed to a small weekly newspaper in Maryland, edited by a defrocked Episcopal priest named Lester Kinsolving. The story was about my oldest son, then a teenager, who had left home and was living on food stamps on one of South Dakota’s Indian reservations. Spencer called me several times at home wanting me to comment on his story in the making, but I refused. When the story appeared in the Post, headlined “Senator’s Son On Foodstamps,” it set off an uproar that did not quickly die down. Senators McGovern and Ribicoff took to the Senate floor to denounce the Post, accusing the newspaper of trying to damage the food stamp program, which both Senators had championed.
One of the Post’s editors, a friend of mine, complained to Ben Bradlee, to no avail. Then a writer for the Style Section of the paper, Tom Zito, called me to tell me how repulsed he was by the story. I had never met Mr. Zito before that, but his actions were most admirable. When he complained to Bradlee, he was told that to even things out, Zito should find children of other famous people who were on food stamps and write a story about them. Zito found that Bradlee’s daughter had been living in Oregon on food stamps, which promptly ended that search for justice.
But there were times when I turned the Lobby’s animosity to my own benefit. In 1974, when Sen. Sam Ervin retired, there was an open seat on the Senate Judiciary Committee to which I wanted to be assigned. I sought out Dave Brody, one of the Israeli Lobbyists working the Senate, and told him that I was thinking of asking for assignment to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, unless, that is, he might help me get the assignment to the Judiciary Committee. My rival for the assignment was Senator Jim Allen of Alabama, who was not to the taste of the Lobbyists, so Brody and his colleagues campaigned hard, resulting in my appointment to the Judiciary Committee.
After having read Israeli historian Ilan Pappe’s book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, then reading an inept attack on Mearsheimer and Walt by Alan Dershowitz, I’m led to wonder when the truth will finally out on the issue of Israel’s transgressions. I have to believe that the ferocity of the Lobby’s attack on President Jimmy Carter for his book outlining Israel’s apartheid in the Occupied Territories has helped the sales of the book. Similarly, I prefer to believe that Dershowitz cannot help but realize that his public opposition is making the Mearsheimer-Walt book a hot item. But for someone who is presumably smart enough to teach law at Harvard University, his assault on the authors is a major public relations error.
In his attack, Dershowitz claimed that Ben Gurion and his minions were trying, in 1947 and 1948, to be very fair to the Palestinians, but the Palestinians instead chose militancy when they refused to agree to the 1947 partition of Palestine as suggested by the UN General Assembly. (UN General Assembly resolutions are non-binding, but Israel and its supporters continue to claim—wrongly–that the UN created Israel). That position puts Dershowitz’ arrogance on display. Who but a blind supporter of Israel would convince themselves that taking 56% of Palestine for the Yishuv and leaving 44% for the native Palestinians is a fair division? Who but a blind supporter of Israel would be surprised that the Palestinians would resist such a land grab in any way they possibly could?
As Ilan Pappe pointed out in his well researched book, Ben Gurion and his followers executed a plan of ethnic cleansing—Plan Dalet– a plan that was years in the making by the Zionist movement, the result of which would be a State of Israel with few or no Palestinians remaining in it to muck things up. The brutality with which the Zionist armies and terror groups both killed and chased the Palestinians out of Palestine is matched only by the brutality of Israel’s current occupation of the West Bank and Gaza (which is the largest open air prison in the world).
Pappe relates how the Zionists poisoned the water in one Palestinian community, as well as the terror tactics used by the Irgun and Stern Gang to frighten Palestinians into leaving Palestine.
In his review of The Israel Lobby in the New Yorker Magazine, David Remnick writes that the authors failed to talk about Palestinian terrorism, and Arafat’s refusal to accept a valid offer of land and peace by Israel.
Palestinians, as Ilan Pappe has recorded, were generally a peaceful people, most of the time failing to rise to the bait laid out by the Zionist military during its ethnic cleansing operations. Pappe records that Ben-Gurion wanted the Palestinians to resist, thereby giving his army an excuse to cleanse them either by killing or by deportation. Palestinians were so docile for the most part that Ben-Gurion ultimately ordered that the cleansing should take place even if there were no provocations by the Arabs. It was only after the nations of the world acceded to Israel’s wishes on taking their land that eventually the Palestinian liberation groups took form. Although Middle East terrorism was invented by the Zionist groups, namely those led by Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, (both were elected as Prime Ministers of Israel) terrorism that helped them gain the land they stole from the Palestinians, one only hears about Palestinian resistance, with the United States cooperating by naming the Palestinian resistance groups as “terrorists.”
With respect to Arafat’s declining the so-called offer from Israel to settle the matter, I refer the readers to Clayton Swisher’s well documented account—The Truth About Camp David–of the Camp David and Syrian-Israeli summit meetings in which Prime Minister Barak backed away from agreements he had earlier committed to President Clinton, making the meetings failures. Swisher reports that Dennis Ross, ostensibly a neutral American mediator at the meetings, managed to convince the media that it was the Syrians and the Palestinians who refused these, “excellent offers.”
Arafat knew that if he accepted the deeply flawed offer by Israel, his own people would have killed him. The offer amounted to a complete surrender by the Palestinians.
The benefit of the Mearsheimer-Walt study of the influence of the Lobby on American foreign policy is that hopefully enough Americans will read it so they can convince their representatives in Washington, D.C. to stop enabling Israel’s aggression and brutality. Only when the U.S. stops sending money, arms and giving political support to Israel will that brutality end.
Full Disclosure
In the interest of full disclosure, I am an Arab American. My parents immigrated to America from South Lebanon, eventually settling in South Dakota on the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation, where I was born. I was the founder and for many years the Chairman of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
My education on the Middle East did not start at my father’s knee. I began learning about the Arab-Israeli conflict after I took office as a U.S. Representative in 1971. As a U.S. Senator, I made a trip through the Arab Countries in late 1973, after the Arab-Israeli war of that year, meeting with the leaders of all the major Middle East countries, with the exception of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. I visited Egypt but not the other Arab countries in North Africa. I also visited Israel, but it was a short, and very unsatisfying visit.
September 10th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
It is sad, but not surprising, that the California Literary Review would choose a man who believes the Jews are behind 9/11 to review this book.
Here is a transcript of a recent interview with James Abourezk on Hezbollah TV via elderofziyon.blogspot.com
Interviewer: “You also called Hizbullah and Hamas ‘resistance fighters.’”
James Abourezk: “They are.”
Interviewer: “While the U.S. administration brands them as ‘terrorist organizations’…”
James Abourezk: “That was done at the request of Israel. That name was done at the request of Israel - that the United States calls them terrorist organizations.”
….
Interviewer: “Here I need to ask you something, which is growing and escalating in the Western world, and particularly in the U.S., which is this immense wave of anti-Arab, anti-Muslim sentiment, lumping all Arabs together as ‘terrorists.’ This was clearly manifested in movies and TV series, like 24. Why? Why now? Is it just after 9/11?”
James Abourezk: “No, it’s after the Soviet Union collapsed. The Zionists were looking around for another enemy to have, because to them the Soviet Union was an enemy because they wouldn’t allow Jewish emigration. So they used that as an organizing tool, basically, and when the Soviet Union collapsed, there was no more organizing about the Soviet Union. So they looked around, and they said: Well, the Muslims. Let’s find the Arabs and the Muslims, and make them the boogeyman. And that’s what they did.”
Interviewer: “But why did this sentiment of hatred increase after 9/11?”
James Abourezk: “Well, because the Arabs who were involved in 9/11 cooperated with the Zionists, actually. It was a cooperation. They gave them the perfect excuse to denounce all Arabs. It’s a racist sort of thing, really racist - you know, picking out these 19 or 20 terrorists - they were terrorists - and saying all the Arabs are like them. So, you know, people in America don’t really look at it that deeply, and they accept what the government and the press are saying.”[...]
Interviewer: “So who is controlling who?”
James Abourezk: “The lobby is controlling the Congress.”
Interviewer: “But you said that the U.S. is not in need of Israel, but rather, Israel needs the U.S.”
James Abourezk: “Yes, that’s right. But how they…”
Interviewer: “It’s very paradoxical.”
James Abourezk: “Well, how they fulfill that need is by pressuring Congress to support Israel. The chief objective of the Israeli lobby is to keep the American taxpayers’ money flowing to Israel. That’s the chief objective. They stop anybody who criticizes Israel, so that may stop the money from flowing. That’s why they attack people who attack Israel.”[...]
September 10th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
Surely among California’s large population there existed one or more potential reviewers who could bring a sense of fairness and objectivity to the review of an important book. The California Literary Review has heaped shame on itself.
September 10th, 2007 at 9:03 pm
Abourezk wrote:
“Arafat knew that if he accepted the deeply flawed offer by Israel, his own people would have killed him. The offer amounted to a complete surrender by the Palestinians.”
His own people would have killed him! How is that for a cultural norm? Certainly belies the overall impression Abourezk would like to project. In the West we don’t assassinate our politicians when we disagree with them - we vote them out of office. No wonder its been so hard to negotiate.
“Fantome Jets Made in USA.”
Odd - because Phantoms were made by France. Someone got that wrong. I guess they hate us because we’re French, peut-être?
September 10th, 2007 at 11:48 pm
I think we can take the above comments as confirmation of Senator Abourezk’s claim: “The distraction caused by personal attacks on critics of Israel is, of course, intended to get everyone off the subject of whether or not America’s overdone support for whatever Israel does is good for America.”
We’ve got a problem in this country, and until we figure out how to discuss Zionism things aren’t going to get better. Thanks for your effort, Senator. Perhaps with the professors’ new book we’ll be able to start a discussion of what America’s real interests are.
September 10th, 2007 at 11:57 pm
Thanks for a fine review of the excellent piece of scholarship. Finally, cracks are appearing in the taboo against criticism of Israeli policy.
September 11th, 2007 at 3:46 am
Kudos to CLR for publishing the review for a timely and important book by a person who actually knows what he is talking about. Unfortunately so many other publications have chosen to hand the book to individuals whose superficial knowledge leads them to try to ‘balance’ the well-deserved praise for the book with gratuitous, and nearly always vague assertions of bias.
The book is a must read for students of government, foreign policy, or anyone who cares deeply enough about their country. There is nothing in the book that is not already known. But it is for the first time that someone has addressed the lobby’s power and structure in this detail. It not only lays out the contours of the apparatus that has succeeded in overpowering constitutional checks-and-balances, but also the ideological framework which has created the space for such self-destructive tilt.
CLR, i am sure, will be flooded with flak by the cyber-soldier’s of Israel’s GIYUS.org army, but I hope it does not dissuade it from letting this highly important debate remain open.
September 11th, 2007 at 4:49 am
Response to Kyle: actually Abourezk believes Zionists collaberated with the Arabs who attacked on 9/11, it wouldn’t be the first time zionists have collaberated with terrorists.
September 11th, 2007 at 6:10 am
Shame on the California Literary Review to choose this man - of all Californians - to write the review. And if for some reason he was chosen, he should have been ballanced by another review. Shame.
September 11th, 2007 at 7:25 am
I just can’t get past the first paragraph where Abourezk writes: “the Zionist armies outnumbered the Arab armies, they were better trained and had better equipment and weapons.”
The Zionist army had to be formed from new arrivals. They were less than a million all told. They fought against established countries with vastly larger populations. How on earth could they outnumber them?
Zionist armament was paid for by charity from some of the 12 million Jews remaining on the planet after the defeat of the Third Reich. Doubtless, some rich Jews gave a lot of money but it’s a real stretch that this could somehow exceed the armaments of Arab countries like Egypt with an existing, equipped military. This particularly as the British were actively trying to keep the Jews disarmed prior to 1948. (See Nation Magazine, May 8, 1948.)
The Zionists lost 1% of their population in the 1948 War; that’s like the U.S. losing 3 million soldiers. We are to believe that Israel entered the war without a care in the world; also that no-one noticed this situation until now.
It seems that a couple of Ivy League professors have decided to write a new “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” but directed against Israel, heavens, not at Jews. And if Ivy League professors can do that, it’s quite fitting that the California Literary Review would have Abourezk review this book. It’s one way to go down in history.
September 11th, 2007 at 10:28 am
I do believe Brad is calling the authors “antisemitic.” How original. Like the Otto Preminger-inspired version of Middle East history that he’s peddling, I think most Americans are tired of that bullying.
Referring to the lobby’s effects, Paul Findley once called our Congress Israeli-occupied territory. I appreciate Abourezk’s anecdotes of what it’s like to actually live under that occupation. As for Ari’s call for balance, I for one don’t find any shortage of pro-Israeli voices in the U.S. media. Who would have thought, for example, that the Wolf Blitzer who explains the world to us each night began his career working for AIPAC.
September 11th, 2007 at 10:44 am
Response to Pete: The Zionist (aka Jews who believe Israel should not be driven into the sea) did not commit or “collaborate” 9/11. We also did not “collaborate” with Hitler (another common blood libel).
Incidentally, assuming the Jews are as nasty as you imply, do you think Bin Laden would work with those evil Zionists? And do you really need Jews to storm planes with box cutters?
And what is a patriotic American senator doing on Hezbollah TV anyways? Did we suddenly forgive them for blowing up over 200 American soldiers in Beirut?
September 11th, 2007 at 10:59 am
Can you dispute what I actually said about the history Alana?
And no, I did not call W&M antisemitic but I expected someone to say I had. Congratulations. To call someone antisemitic (for any reason) these days is proof of being evil. Nelson Mandela can call the US racist, CAIR labels people Islamophobic with gay abandon but there are no antisemites left. People like you need only infer the accusation in order to discredit.
Strange world.
September 11th, 2007 at 11:27 am
When Kyle opens his comment with the accusation that I believe Jews were behind 9/11, he makes my point for me.
That is something that I have never said. Kyle’s accusation is one of the ways Israel’s supporters use to silence dissent–that is attributing something to me that is not true.
As for David Justman’s comments that we (meaning, I guess, the United States,) do not kill our leaders if we disagree, we vote them out of office. Now that’s a statement with which Jack Kennedy would have liked to agree. Mr. Justman and I most likely will never know what it’s like to live inside a revolutionary group.
And Brad Brzezinski should know that I wrote of the opposing armies when I said Israel’s military outnumbered the Arab armies. That’s a fact he cannot refute. To make his point that what I said was inaccurate, he decided to compare populations instead of armies.
September 11th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
I concede the technicality of Mr. Abourezk’s point about populations vs. armies. As it turns out, the Jewish regular forces were about half the size of the Arab forces but there were extra part time (rag-tag) forces tasked to defending their own settlements; this included men and women.
However:
> The Arab forces included the British trained and led Arab Legion, nearly equal in size to the Israeli regular force.
> The size of the Arab force was limited primarily by Egypt’s decision to send only a small force. I.e. the Israelis must have been expecting to face even larger numbers.
> The Arab forces were established armies. Israel had to throw together a militia mostly of new arrivals.
> According to John Westwood’s treatment, the Israelis were grossly under-armed (as one would expect given the logistics I explained earlier). He cites:
- 2,000 total rifles and machine guns
- Ammunition for only a few days
- No armoured units (except for some home-armoured trucks)
- 11 civilian light aircraft
The fact is the Israelis won purely because they were desperate and the Arab forces were fighting an unnecessary war at the behest of their leaders.
What’s truly evil is the twisting of facts and logic to make it seem that a mighty Jewish force with malice aforethought, crushed weaker Arab armies then lied about it to elicit sympathy. What purpose is this trying to serve?
September 11th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
Kyle quoted the MEMRI translation of Abourezk’s interview with his friends at Hezbollah.
If Abourezk want to dispute MEMRI’s transcript (found at http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=SD170807 ) the video, which is in English, can be seen at http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1551.htm. The exact quote is “the Arabs who were involved in 9/11 cooperated with the Zionists, actually. It was a cooperation.”
Unless I am mistaken about the meaning of the word “actually” this is exactly what Mr. Abourezk is saying.
Of course, while I am sure that he can quibble about whether he meant that literally, when he in that same interview refuses to call Hamas “terrorists” - preferring to refer to them as heroic “freedom fighters” - which shows that Mr. Abourezk’s definition of terrorism is fairly elastic, twistable in ways to make Jews into terrorists while absolving Arabs who were behind countless suicide bombings against civilians.
Perhaps the evil Zionists who control the world and the media managed to edit the interview with Al Manar to make Mr. Abourezk look like he supports terrorists from Hamas and Hezbollah.
September 11th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
Anyone else notice how hard it is to discuss the question of U.S. policy toward Israel?
I’m writing this on the anniversary of 9-11. That’s the day we are told “changed everything,” but for some reason we’ve never been allowed to discuss the reasons behind it. Instead we got “They hate our freedoms,” and any mention of Middle East policy and Israeli expansionism is called “anti-Semitic.”
Time for a frank discussion of Zionism and the price America (and the world) is paying for it’s one-sided foreign policy. Hats off to professors Mearsheimer and Walt for daring to open the debate.
September 11th, 2007 at 6:57 pm
By the way, Ilan Pappe himself admits that his “history” is not based as much on facts as on how he wants to perceive them: “My [pro-Palestinian] bias is apparent despite the desire of my peers that I stick to facts and the ‘truth’ when reconstructing past realities. I view any such construction as vain and presumptuous. This book is written by one who admits compassion for the colonized not the colonizer; who sympathizes with the occupied not the occupiers; and sides with the workers not the bosses. He feels for women in distress, and has little admiration for men in command…. Mine is a subjective approach….” In other words, he is a fraud as a historian and he uses whatever facts he uncovers in only one direction: to demonize Israel. Which is very similar to how Abourezk seems to write, judging from his “review.”
It is not surprising that Abourezk chooses to base his claims about Zionist atrocities on such a flimsy basis - and Pappe’s description of “Plan Dalet” is just one of his more egregious attempts to build a case for ethnic cleansing when there was none. How effective can Israel’s supposed “ethnic cleansing” be Israel now has more Arab citizens than the total number of Palestinian Arabs in 1948?
I must say, though, that I was amused that Abourzek mentions Jonathan Pollard. One would think that with such an all powerful set of Elders of Zion running the United States government, they would have managed to get him pardoned by now!
September 11th, 2007 at 8:41 pm
Elder wrote: “Anything but the subject of American policy towards Israel, PLEASE.”
September 11th, 2007 at 11:40 pm
Regarding the reviewer Abourezk’s own comment posted today, 9-11, at 11:27 a.m., in which he denies having said Jews were behind 9/11, in light of the MEMRI translation of his comments I’m wondering if this is a case of the common semantic deflection technique used by many who say things like “I’m not against Jews, just Zionists” or “I didn’t say Jews were behind 9/11, just Zionists,” arguing that not all Jews are Zionists and not all Zionists are Jews.
Such quibbling over words often seems to be for the purpose of obfuscation, such as when Arab Jew haters claim “I can’t be an antisemite, when I myself am a Semite!” Though technically correct, the poorly chosen word “antisemite” does now have a recognized meaning of Jew-hater, and these pseudo-intellectual semantic denials are more often than not (but not always) flimsy coverups for Jew hatred.
September 12th, 2007 at 12:29 am
LOL, reader. I do take requests.
The best response I’ve seen is Dore Gold’s article here:
http://jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DRIT=2&DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=376&PID=0&IID=1795&TTL=Understanding_the_U.S.-Israel_Alliance:_An_Israeli_Response_to_the_Walt-Mearsheimer_Claim
If you want to know chapter and verse of what the US gets out of its relationship with Israel, that’s a great place to start.
Another good point is made here:http://www.commentarymagazine.com/contentions/index.php/pollak/902
“It is no exaggeration to say that France’s Middle East politics are exemplary of the kind of foreign policy Walt and Mearsheimer claim will best serve American interests. But what, after all, did France gain for all its legendary favoritism toward the Arab world? Absolutely nothing—except, I suppose, revenue from arms sales during the Iran-Iraq war (overtly to Saddam Hussein and covertly to Khomeini). France, as with so many Western countries, has found it difficult to convince Middle East thugs to return its affections.”
Ditto for Denmark - one of the most tolerant and pro-Arab nations in the planet, but a single cartoon causes death threats - and deaths. What a realistic policy!
My question is, why do we want America to be even-handed towards a people who celebrate American and Western deaths?
I have news for you: Israel is only the “little Satan.” America is the “big Satan,” and if Israel would disappear tomorrow it would not make any difference at all as to how Arabs think of the US - and the West as a whole. The West symbolizes humiliation for Arabs and that is not going to go away without a wholesale change in the way most ordinary Arabs think. There are group psychologies at work here, and we don’t understand them as badly as they don’t understand us.
I hope that’s enough for you to start with, reader. My blog elaborates at length on many of these issues.
September 12th, 2007 at 7:09 am
The Senator provides personal experience, insider insight, knowledge and facts to support is arguments. I find none of this in any of the attacks above that would dispel his claims; rather, the vitoilc stands as yet another support for the truth to his writings.
Apparently, some still believe there is mileage left in the old adage “if you can’t attack the message, attack the messenger”. I sense they are the same folk that still believe everyone will shy away if called anti semitic. Fortunately, such worn tactics will not keep people from seeking the truth.
September 12th, 2007 at 8:56 am
Too bad CLR got a reviewer for a serious book, a man whom recent comments have shown him to be on the opposite side of America in the war on terror.
September 12th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Whenever the topic of the Israel lobby comes up, I think of two recent events:
In 2004 Howard Dean said he “favored an even-handed approach toward the Palestinian/Israeli issue.” For espousing this radical position he was accused of “hostility to Israel” and promptly forced to apologize.
Earlier this year, we saw the friends of Israel came down like a ton of bricks on Barack Obama for reportedly saying the rather obvious truth about the Middle East that “nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people.”
The problem with the lobby is not that they’re advocating policies for Israel’s benefit. That’s their right to do. It’s their attempt to censor all discussion of Israel. This is leaving Americans without the information necessary to make wise decisions in America’s best interest.
They’re eager to export democracy to any and all of Israel’s regional rivals, but ultimately they have little respect for it here in America.
September 12th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
Lauren T: I see the “pro-Israeli” side as simply wanting the truth to be told. For example, take the “nobody suffers as much as the Palestinians” statement:
What about Darfurians or Congolese?
On the Human Development Index (http://hdr.undp.org/) Palestine comes ahead of Syria, Egypt, India, Pakistan, South Africa …. well 77 countries. I understand the problems but on a survival basis they simply are not in extremis.
Furthermore, even if there is an attempt to censor, is it any worse than the hullabaloo and even violence that surrounds pro-Israeli speakers? Netanyahu was prevented from speaking at 2 Canadian campuses a couple of years ago and there were riots. Check out some of the stories and videos about Daniel Pipes’ appearances. How about the UK publisher of “Alms for Jihad” suddenly withdrawing the book after a lawsuit by a Saudi Prince? CAIR is constantly suing people and calling Islamophobia.
It’s a very one-sided way you have of looking at things.
September 12th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
In a sense Abourezk’s review is a compliment to the
book rather than a review of it. He dscribes what
it is like to be a Senator strongly influenced
by a powerful lobby.
Some of the criticisms both of the book and
of the reviewer are clearly wrong. Many words
and phrases in common use depend on an individual
use and can vary with time.
Thus we may all say;
I am a statesman
Your are a freedom fighter
He is a terrorist
In 1946 the King David Hotel was blown up. I,
living in UK, was taught that it was a terrorist
act. Mr Netanyahu in public in Jerusalem on
the 60th anniversary effectively called them
freedom fighters
In 1948 Albert Einstein and other American
Jewish intellectuals warned the US people
against Mr Begin and his part in an article
in the NY Times. 30 years later the Israeli
people elected him Prime Minister,
Who changed? You, me, him? Or merely a
definition?
September 12th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
Richard Wilson: you have raised deep ponderables. How fortunate that I am here to be thy guide and thy light.
The motivation for the Jewish terror was based in promises made by the British to the Jews and then broken, the imminence of them attaining their own state and yes, the recent memory of the Holocaust. The objective was for the British to leave. See my first comment in this series about how the British were attempting to stop the Jews from arming although all knew a war coming. The reference I cited also tells of Nazi officers going to assist the Arabs with British knowledge. I don’t like to excuse terror and indeed, some of the Jewish terror was completely inexcusable. Nonetheless there was a clear and attainable goal and that goal was met. The Jewish leadership also ordered the King David Hotel bombing not to proceed and dismantled the terror groups immediately after the declaration of independence. (See the Altalena affair for a clear example of the rejection of terror.)
For comparison, I ask the purpose of Palestinian rocketing and other terror attacks after Israel left Gaza. Clearly, they invite Israel to return. Remember, the British were destined to leave the Middle East. Israelis have nowhere to go. Furthermore, the Hamas leadership praises terror acts as with the recent rocketing of an army base. Even the “good” leader, the Holocaust denying Abbas, urges his people to turn their guns on Zionists instead of on each other. During various peace processes, we have heard that the Palestinian leadership is unable to stop the various terror groups; we are supposed to understand this and forgive and Israel is expected to cope with the subsequent massacres. Western hypocrisy is characterised by calls for Israeli restraint just this week after the rocketing I mentioned. In 2000, Ariel Sharon’s walk to the Dome of the Rock (Judaism’s holiest site) is said to have sparked the 2nd Intifada and the west accepts this as understandable. (No need to even get into the acknowledgement by a Palestinian official that the whole thing was planned.)
I maintain that if the west refused to accept such compromises & told the Palestinians and the Arab League to behave properly, there is a chance that the matter could be settled. Recall that in the early part of the last century, some local Arab leaders were excited by the prospect of an influx of Europeans bringing money and know-how. How tragic that the vainglorious needs of the potentates led to the rejection of these ideals. How tragic too that an entire Palestinian population has been subjected to decades of vile brainwashing by their leaders and Israel is forced to adopt harsh measures to control the resulting behaviour.
September 13th, 2007 at 6:56 am
I can’t think of anyone more qualified to write a review of this book than James Abourezk, who knows from personal experience what it’s like to be targeted by the Lobby for speaking truth to power. His review is insightful and measured. The book relates well-documented facts about the Lobby’s disproportionate influence in American politics, Abourezk merely illustrates and expands on them. Comments attacking Abourezk’s motives instead of debating the influence of the Lobby and its detrimental consequences for our country are par for the course.
September 13th, 2007 at 9:37 am
The subject here is a highly controversial book; a reviewer has been chosen who is known to be on side with the author. One could have a neutral reviewer or one from each side or all three. What has been done here means the CLR is keen to promote the views of the book and is using its cachet to do so under the pretense of objective critique.
This is a propaganda method and its acceptance by commenters here means you all support unfair practices yourselves while condemning them by your dreaded Lobby.
That’s all I have to say on this matter.
September 13th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
Having worked as a Senate staffer myself I agree entirely with the observations of the Senator. Thank you sir for speaking out!
September 13th, 2007 at 2:00 pm
Brad stated: “The subject here is a highly controversial book; a reviewer has been chosen who is known to be on side with the author. One could have a neutral reviewer or one from each side or all three.”
I would respond that Abourezk and the authors are on the side of the truth. It’s not difficult to discern where the truth lies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As long as Israelis are cleansing Arabs from their own land, Israel is the aggressor. Bottom line: there is no possible moral equivalence among sides. If Israel is the aggressor, there can be no just resolution until the Israelis and their Lobby back off.
September 13th, 2007 at 11:11 pm
Anyone still needing some confirmation of the stranglehold of the lobby over our Congress, might like to read this interview with 17-year veteran Jim Moran (D-Va.) with Rabbi Lerner at Tikkun–
http://www.tikkun.org/magazine/tik0709/frontpage/israellobby
(It’s at the bottom of a long review of the same book that Senator Abourezk has discussed.)
September 15th, 2007 at 9:46 am
I appreciated Sen. Abourezk’s thoughtful review of a long-overdue exposure of the israeli lobby. The facts are simple: a minority of Americans are able to manipulate our political system in order to advance a cause which is harmful to the whole. Only when the degree to which this cause is harmful becomes widely understood will the situation change. As long as the U.S. continues to support the world’s only notable colonialist regime we will be the target of that regime’s oponents. All the bluster and bullying can not change reality.
September 15th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
For the past several hundred years at least and perhaps far more, polemical writings about Jews have been the prelude to discrimination, pogroms and even genocide. (If you are unable to use Google to find many examples of this, you need to take info science 101,)
Most of the comments I read here show a shocking insensitivity to the reactions of the Jewish community to Walt and Mearsheimer’s work.
September 15th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
S. Silverstein’s comments betray the typical ethno-centrism of most zionists. He is quick to comment on the “insensitivity” of others to jewish concerns but nowhere comments on the lack of sensitivity displayed by many jews and their christian supporters to those wronged by Israeli policies, not to mention the lack of sensitivity to those Americans who are being unwillingly sacrificed in furtherance of zionist aspirations.
September 15th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
#41 lost to #42 due to fact he did not support the American loan guarantee to that $3b loan coming up for Israel.
He was very popular as a Gulf War prez, then when he announced non-support for the loan guarantee, his face disappeared off the front pages of the US newspapers and Clinton was their man. #41 was suddenly a criminal for saying “read my lips, no new taxes”, anything and everything negative of him, about him was news. Clinton got 1 key vote, did not win with American votes, but the electoral college did the charm for him. And #42 smoked the cigar, used its tube for other reasons.
September 15th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
S. Silverstein, you imply that Walt and Mearsheimer’s book qualifies as a “polemical writing” that is a prelude to discrimination, pogroms and even genocide against Jews. Does Israeli apartheid also meet your definition of polemical? Israeli racist policies toward Arabs, not public discussion of them, may some day provoke the reactions you fear the most.
You also say that comments in this thread show shocking insensitivity to the reactions of the Jewish community, but your comments imply a shocking insensitivity to the Palestinian struggle against Israeli expansionism.
September 15th, 2007 at 9:43 pm
The Senator speaks the truth, and the virulent response directed against him only highlights just how impossible it has become to criticize Israel today. Israel may very well be the last sacred cow in American politics.
In today’s America, I can criticize the President. I can criticize members of Congress. I can heep abuse on our closest allies, from Great Britain to Canada.
But God forbid I should utter a single negative word about Israel’s ongoing oppression of Palestinians.
September 16th, 2007 at 2:51 am
As a former student of Mearsheimer and Walt and a Mid-East scholar at UC Berkeley, it was refreshing to read such a lucid and informed review in the CLR. The vitriol with which Likudniks in this country attack any criticism of the well documented atrocities and militancy of the Israeli right is underscored in some of the responses here and proves the critics of this lobby right. We are the worlds most diverse country, yet a pro-Likud and pro-Armageddon Evangelical minority has used our resources to launch an openly declared racially and religiously charged “civilizational” war against 1.5 billion Muslims which started long before the blowback of 9-11. We dont allow ultra-nationalist militants in the Irish, Greek, or even White supremacists movements to control our foreign policy. Yet this is exactly the case with militant extremists like Norman Podhoretz, Douglas Feith, Eliot Abrams, John Bolton, Pat Robertson, and the Rev. John Hagee when it comes to America’s disastrous Mid-East policy. Even as the Iraq quagmire continues to fester, they are planning an even greater war with Iran which will inevitably lead to massive retaliation from the Muslim world, (as many of us Mid-East experts warned at the start of Desert Storm in 1990), and imperil even American democracy at home. When will the majority of Americans who dont believe in the ultra-nationalism of Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky and the Likud bloc or the Armageddon theology of some Southern Evangelical churches finally stand up and say enough is enough?
September 16th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
I can’t help but notice that, for all of the supposed “vitriol” my posts here contained, not one of those who are defending Abourezk has been able to find anything that I have written about him or his sources that is incorrect.
It is also a bit humorous to see that somehow the all-powerful Israel Lobby, of which I seem to be a part, manages to not only let books like Walt/Mearsheimer’s and Jimmy Carter’s to be published, but also allows them to be best sellers. We are so sloppy that we even allow a forum such as this to exist, where people openly defend a person - who is on video supporting terrorists - as a purveyor of truth and a great person to review a book that blames all of America’s problems on a small cabal of Zionists.
We Lobbyists must be slipping badly!
September 16th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
In Elders last post at 12:16 he confirms what most people say. If you cannot find many holes in the story then go after the author….well done Mr Elder
September 16th, 2007 at 3:19 pm
Elder, you say that Abourezk is on video supporting terrorists. How typical. Your arguments lack merit so you resort to smear tactics. Moreover, who is really guilty of supporting terrorists? The supporters of Israeli ethnic cleansing or those who oppose it? Those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
September 16th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
I probably should stay out of it, but my fundamental premise is that ever since the Jews decided to stop being a series of tribes and become a state, they should have accepted the responsibility that comes with being a state. That is, a state has to be judged by other states as to whether it is violating international law, the Geneva conventions and the UN charter. That is what being a state means in the international arena. In other words, they must take their lumps like any other state. I don’t see Israel doing this. Criticism, backed by facts, is not met with a statesmanlike response, but by demonizing and shrill cries of anti-Semitism. That response does not honor the Israeli name.
September 16th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
Why did seven well equipped Arab armies attempt to destroy the poorly armed and newly founded ‘Jewish State’?
The baseless myth, of how the Arab armies wanted to destroy the ‘Jewish State’, has been propagated in all sectors of the Israeli society, especially in its school system, military boot camps, and media. As it will be proven below, this myth was deemed necessary by most Zionists to legitimize their continued USURPATION of the Palestinian people’s political, civil, and economic rights.
Often when Israelis and Zionists are confronted with facts contrary to their liking, they counter by accusing the sources of fabrication or being part of the “anti-Semitic” Arab propaganda. To avoid such a “confusion”, we’ll directly quote two of the most prominent pro-Israeli historians, Martin Van Creveld (the renowned Israeli military strategist and historian) and Martin Gilbert, who wrote:
“In the Event of invading [Arab] forces were limited to approximately 30,000 men. The strongest [consider this fact while reading the next quote] single contingent was the Jordanian one, already described. Next came Egyptians with 5,500 men, then the Iraqis with 4,500 who ….. were joined by perhaps 3,000 local irregulars. The total was thus around eight rather under strength brigades, some of them definitely of second-and even third-rate quality. To these must be added approximately 2,000 Lebanese (one brigade) and 6,000 Syrians (three brigades). Thus, even though the Arab countries [population] outnumbered the Yishuv by better then forty-to-one, in terms of military manpower available for combat in Palestine the two sides were fairly evenly matched. As time went on and both sides sent reinforcements the balance changed in the Jews’ favor; by October they had almost 90,000 men and women under arms, the Arabs only 68,000.” (The Sword And The Olive, p. 77-78)
“Senior Hagana commanders met with committee [UN Special Committee On Palestine-UNSCOP] members in Jerusalem’s Talpiot quarter in similarly surreptitious circumstances to express confidence that Jewish forces, which they numbered at 90,000, including 35,000 reservists, could overcome any Arab assault should it come to war.” (Jerusalem Post)
“Ben-Gurion made serious efforts, shortly before the United Nations vote on the Partition proposal, to seek the neutrality of King Abdullah of Transjordan, whose British trained and officered army, the Arab Legion, was the STRONGEST fighting force in the Middle East. The king had long been at loggerheads with Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem, for the moral leadership of the Arabs of the whole region. Abdullah’s secret interlocutor was to be Golda Meir:”‘ …… He [King Abudullah] soon made the heart of the matter clear: he would not join in any Arab attack on us. He would always remain our friend, he said, and like us, he wanted peace more than anything else. After all, we had a common foe, the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini.’”(Israel: A History, p.149-150)
“As for Abdullah’s Arab Legion, it had fought better than any other Arab force. Yet on scarcely any occasion had the Arab Legion attempted to conquer territories allotted to the Jews by the partition plan, preferring to stay on the defensive.” (The Sword And The Olive, p. 95)
“…. there was no common military headquarters, no attempts at coordinating the offenses of the Arab armies, and … not even a regular liaison service for sharing enemy intelligence.” (The Sword And The Olive, p. 83)
“Perhaps the most important [of the Arab armies problems] was a crippled shortage of ammunition, owing to the international arms embargo …, in the case of the Iraqis and Egyptians, long lines of communications. For example, after February 25, 1948, the Arab Legion received no new ammunition for its 20mm guns. Some of the ammunition used by the Iraqi artillery was more than thirty years old; the Syrians had no ammunition for their heavy 155mm guns. Whereas Jewish stockpiles were growing all the times [especially the big arms shipment from Czechoslovakia in May 1948], the enemies were so depleted they stole ammunition shipments for each other. In addition, they were ill-coordinated, technically incompetent, slow, ponderous, badly led, and unable to cope with night operations that willy-nilly, constituted the IDF’s expertise.” (The Sword And The Olive, p. 95-96)
full article:
http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Palestine-Remembered/Story457.html
September 17th, 2007 at 12:57 am
stop the weapons that you give them and the money then everything else will take care itself.
what America is doing right know is these lot are standing on top of our head and America is still giving them a hand..not a fair fight one might say.
thanks to Mr Walts and Mear atlast they have awaking the dead American souls…i knew there was a god somewhere on these planet.
ayyub
September 17th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
Gordon, not only did I say that Mr. Abourezk supports terrorists, I quoted the transcript and gave the URL of the video where he calls Hamas “resistance fighters” rather than the far more accurate “terrorists.”
If quoting Mr. Abourezk and inviting people to watch the video that he made for Hezbollah TV is considered a “smear tactic,” then I must be guilty.
Atheo, you are correct in that the Arab armies in 1948 were poorly organized with the exception of the Transjordanian Arab Legion. That has no bearing whatsoever on the Arab desire to utterly destroy Israel, which is incontrovertible.
But if you doubt it, here’s a quote from May 15, 1948, when the Arab League Secretary General Abdul Razek Azzam Pasha announced the intention to wage “a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades.”
If you need a few dozen other quotes from Arab leaders determined to not only destroy Israel but also to wipe out any vestiges of Jews from the area, just ask. I’ll be happy to educate you, as well as Mr. Abourezk, if he is still lurking about.
September 17th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
For anyone who is interested in following up on how Israel created itself as a state, please allow me to recommend some books that will inform you.
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, by Ilan Pappe (an Israeli historian,who also enumertes the relative size of the opposing military).
Taking Sides, by Steven Green. (An American writer)
Any of Israeli historian Tom Segev’s books.
I believe these books, plus the Donald Neff Trilogy, can be ordered from the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, http://www.middleeastbooks.com. That organization has an extensive book list, all of such books are at a discounted price. Donald Neff used to be Time Magazine’s Jerusalem correspondent until he quit time and began writing Middle East history.
One other point–The UN General Assembly passed a partition plan in 1947, but General Assembly votes are non-binding, unlike Security Council votes which are binding. Thus, the myth that the UN created Israel is just that–a myth. If such votes were binding, then Israel would be forced to obey the dozens of General Assembly votes passed since then that have favored Israel’s withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders, all of them ignored by Israel. There have also been dozens of Security Council votes criticizing Israel for committing war crimes, etc., all of which have been vetoed by the United States.
Ilan Pappe’s book on ethnic cleansing is particularly shocking to read. Pappe recounts the horrendous slaughter, accompanied by a campaign of fear by the Zionist armies and terror groups designed to drive the Palestinians out of Palestine in order to create a majority Jewish state.
Another book that may now be out of print is: Terror Out of Zion, by J. Bowyer Bell (St. Martin’s Press), which carefully details the terrorism wrought by Zionist terror groups, such as the Irgun and the Stern Gang. Menachem Begin, leader of the Irgun, was elected Israel’s Prime Minister in the 1970s, and Yitzak Shamir, one of the troika who led the Stern Gang, also was elected as Prime Minister of Israel.
I became friends with Nathan Yalin Mor, who was also one of the Troika running the Stern Gang, however, since he later had become a “peacenik,” opting for peace between
Jews and Arabs, he was sort of persona non grata in Washington, D.C. It was up to me to make appointments for him when he wanted to see someone in our government, as none of the Jewish groups would even speak to him. The tribulations of someone who wants peace are somewhat remarkable. I once asked him if the Stern Gang had sent letter bombs to British politicians in the 1940s, as Sir Christopher Mayhew told me that his secretary opened one and was injured by doing so. Nathan said, “yes, we sent lots of letter bombs.”
September 17th, 2007 at 6:28 pm
I already addressed Ilan Pappe’s lack of interest in historical truth.
Yes, the Stern Gang engaged in terror. This is not news. What is manifestly a lie is the idea that the Zionists engaged in “ethnic cleansing,” a reprehensible slander that is shown to be false by the simple fact that there are 1.2 million Arabs living in Israel today. If anyone should be accused of “ethnic cleansing” it would be the Arab world that expelled nearly every Jew in the years following 1948. The Old City of Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria became literally Judenrein under “moderate” Jordanian rule - not a single Jew was left in those areas, and every single synagogue in the Old City was demolished within days of Jordanian control in 1948.
Other Arab atrocities that Mr. Abourezk wants to sweep under the rug started in 1886 with the first Arab attacks on a Jewish settlement, and they escalated in 1921, 1929 with the horrendous massacres in Hebron and elsewhere (ancient Jewish communities that had lived in Palestine for centuries), the 1936-39 reign of terror where thousands were killed including from Arab infighting, and no shortage of Arab massacres of Jewish civilians in 1947-48 including Hadassah Hospital.
I have spent much time reading contemporaneous accounts of the events in newspapers from the 1930s and 1940s and the Zionists (at least the ones that wrote for the Palestine Post) consistently wanted to live in peace with their Arab neighbors. The archives are online so if you want to find counterexamples, feel free. Yes, not every single Jew acted in an exemplary manner - real life doesn’t allow such neat categorizations - but the vast majority of Zionists considered the terror attacks from Irgun and Stern to be outrageous and did not celebrate them, as too many Arabs have been wont to do whenever Jews or Westerners are murdered.
In other words, Abourezk is cherry-picking the facts that fit his agenda and is not only ignoring the rich history of Arab terror that continues on to this day, he appears to embrace it when the perpetrators are Hamas and Hezbollah (we unfortunately do not have a record of his opinion of Islamic Jihad, PFLP, Al Aqsa Brigades, or any of dozens of other groups.) Israel has time and time again offered real concessions for real peace and it has been rejected by the Arabs, and very often the people who suffer most are the very Palestinians that the Arabs pretend to care so much about.
For more details about the history of the entire Palestinian Arab people - and I am far more sympathetic to them than you might think, although their leaders have been atrocious for decades - I have been writing a series of postings about them. Check out http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2007/05/psychological-history-of-palestinian.html
And if you find any mistakes, please let me know. Unlike some people, I really do care about the truth.
September 17th, 2007 at 9:44 pm
Elder said: “If quoting Mr. Abourezk and inviting people to watch the video that he made for Hezbollah TV is considered a “smear tactic,” then I must be guilty.”
Yes, Elder, you’re guilty of smear tactics and hypocrisy as well. If you insist on using the “supporter of terrorists” smear, you should apply it to yourself, since you support ethnic cleansers and terrorists who are trying to drive Arabs from the West Bank. To figure out who the real terrorists are, all you have to do is ask who has troops, settlers, and an apartheid wall on whose territory? Hint: not the Palestinians.
September 17th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
While I would applaud Mr. Abourezk for taking the time to ‘respond’ to the comments here I wonder why he says nothing about the video of himself referring to those who opening call for the genocide of Jews and the martyrdom of those fanatics willing to carry out such barbaric acts as “freedom fighters’. This video as well as other documents are quite clear. Why may I ask haven’t these critical points been addressed?
No one posting here has said a blessed thing about the facts brought up about the authors clear and present bias against Israel and by extention Jews.
It would appear the ones who support this review have little to say of any substance and that makes the point of those who refer to this as simple bigoty sound quite credible.
Have you anything to say of substance? As for the poster from Berkeley I believe you have the most inane comment. Can you refute a single thing that Elder has said if you are a mid east ’scholar’ one would hope you had more to say that was a true debate. Simply calling oneself a ’scholar’ is quite silly.
September 17th, 2007 at 10:41 pm
Allow me to postscript that with all due respect to you senator I wonder what you have to say about the tape of you referring to them as ‘freedom fighters’. Seems you are busted and now staying silent. Why don’t you comment on the transcript posted by Kyle? You called in a ’smear’ Elder posted the evidence and you run and hide! What do you say? Looks to me like you are guilty.
September 17th, 2007 at 10:59 pm
Did anyone else note that the review author refered to Wolf Blitzer a Jewish report as ’short’ and asking ‘argumenative’ questions? Talk about stereotypes! What if a writer were to say black people have rhythm or that Hispanics were lazy? This is about the same level of bigotry made so clear by this review. What a sad day that this would be the choice of a once great literary publication. I can’t believe they printed that.
September 18th, 2007 at 3:38 am
In my last post I asked the following question and not surprisingly, neither Elder nor Callie knew the answer: “who has troops, settlers, and an apartheid wall on whose territory?” Surprise answer: Israel. Elder and Callie, there are terrorists on both sides. The difference is that the Zionists started the terrorism, and have institutionalized it, to carry out a governmental policy of ethnic cleansing of the West Bank.You’re not even honest about it, but try to cloak your support for terrorists with brazen hypocrisy.
Sure, the best defense is always a good offense. And when you’re at fault, trying to shift blame to others is a tried and true tactic. The terrorists and their supporters, like you, Elder and Callie, always try to distract others from their own evildoing, like a pickpocket who yells “thief, thief!” and points at someone else when caught redhanded. We’re wise to your tricks, and we despise what you’re doing to the Palestinians and, if you’re Americans, to your own country.
September 18th, 2007 at 4:46 am
As an antidote to the Abourezk’s recommended Middle East book list, I offer a link to a few books selected from my library that offer an opposing view to that of Abourezk, feel free to browse around–some are on the legal land rights of Israel, while others focus on moral, historical, and/or theological claims. Some are comprehensive, others more targeted. There’s also a Karsh book (Fabricating History) that deals with the whole revisionist history (”New Historians”) controversy:
AntidoteToAbourezkList
September 18th, 2007 at 11:36 am
Gordon:
My apologies for not answering a flawed question. It is flawed because it makes an amazing number of erroneous assumptions for such a short question:
* That the West Bank is legally “Palestinian” Arab territory;
* That Israel’s defensive fence is somehow connected to “apartheid”;
* That Jews are simply not allowed to live in historically Jewish areas, a very racist argument.
Space and time here do not permit me to prove each of these wrong, and I prefer to have an audience that is receptive to learning facts rather than those parroting hateful talking points (like “apartheid wall.”) My blog does address many of these issues much more comprehensively and if you are interested I can point to articles that do an even better job.
Cheers!
September 19th, 2007 at 12:01 am
I for one as a Lebanese Christian am shocked and totally appalled at the choice of this person for a reviewer of the book in question. When will Americans be willing to give a voice to those in the Arab American community who are not certified members of the lunatic fringe such as Mr. Abourezk? Do you at this publication honestly think that by asking someone who so sickening refers to Hizbollah as ‘freedom fighters’ and ‘couragous’ to review something about Israel that you are somehow hip or cool? How horrid that those who beat the drums for Hizbollah, Al Queda and war and ignorance are given a forum for their absurd views.
This man does not speak for me or for my people. He is a total disgrace to the community of Arab Americans to which he pretends to represent. We in Lebanon do NOT see Hizbollah as heros Mr Abourezk! Get your facts straight.
And instead of demonizing Israel how about talking about the real issures facing Lebanon? Infant mortality, the lack of security brought about by fanatics from Iran who you clearly adore and the ravaged economy you who live in the US have no interest in. Shame on you. You are a disgrace to the people of Lebanon and a puppet of facists.
Answer the question asked you by those who post here including the tape of you on Hizbollah TV then show your evil face in Lebanon again.
September 19th, 2007 at 10:16 pm
I have to agree with ANTONIO. If Israel wants to be a state, act like a state and stop whining. Don’t be surprised if the neighbors get mad when you try to take their land. Don’t expect people to accept ALL of your rationalizations when you don’t accept ANY of theirs.
You can criticize Nigeria without being a racist, but criticize Israel and all heck breaks loose.
I came here because I wanted to read a review from a different perspective. I can get the Israeli perspective anywhere.
September 20th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
THE ISRAEL LOBBY and US FOREIGN POLICY May be the most important book of our time. It has sparked a debate which could possibly save America and Israel while bringing peace and prosperity to the Greater Middle East.
I hope that all presidential candidates and politicians will read every word…
September 21st, 2007 at 11:50 am
I neglected to mention one other book that will help those who are historically deprived with respect to the Middle East. It is: “The Truth About Camp David,” by Clayton Swisher, who interviewed dozens of witnesses to the events both at the U.S.- Syrian summit when Ehud Barak backed away from a promise of a deal, and the Palestinian-Israeli talks later. Unfortunately, as Swisher points out, Israel’s negotiators refused to compromise, but Dennis Ross, who was supposedly a neutral U.S. mediator, got to the press first and told the world that both the Syrians and the Palestinians refused the best deal they were ever offered–just the opposite of what happened.
Also, my regards to the person who claims to be Wolf Blitzer’s mother. Not realizing that my description of him could be interpreted as anti-Semitic, I had said he was short and asked hostile questions. I probably should have said he was just “not tall,” and that his questions were as “sweet as honey.”
But you can see how easy it is to be thrown off the subject. We are now discussing Wolf Blitzer’s height rather than his work for the Israeli Lobby back then.
As well, Alan Dershowitz attacked my in his column which he wrote for the Jerusalem Post. I tried to respond with a comment, but apparently Arabs are not allowed onto that website.
Mr. Dershowitz came up with something original–he said my remarks on a television interview I did with Almanar television, which is actually Hisbollah’s station, were anti-Semitic.
I had always thought that Mr. Dershowitz and I could have been friends, except for his support of torture, his efforts to have Norman Finkelstein thrown off the faculty of De Paul University, his plagiarism, which Norman caught him doing, and his defense of O.J. Simpson during the famous murder trial. Mr. Dershowitz will most likely be busy now with O.J.’s latest venture into the world of crime.
He did a magnificent job, however, of trying to change the subject of what Israel is doing to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, which is to brutally occupy an unwilling population.
September 23rd, 2007 at 8:43 am
Ah, so now Dennis Ross - who was actually at Camp David - is a liar.
Of course, Mr. Abourezk is silent on whether Bill Clinton is also a liar for saying that Barak accepted Clinton’s plan and Arafat rejected it. But if he accepts the words of graduate student Clayton Swisher over what Clinton and Ross have said, that is indeed what he is saying.
(Swisher seems to base much of account on interviews with Saeb Erekat, who is an accomplished liar in his own right - see http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2007/08/laughing-it-up-with-liar.html for some examples. But Swisher’s agenda is clear when he completely fails to mention the official PLO response to Clinton’s offer, where they reject virtually all of it - and it is still on their web site: http://www.nad-plo.org/inner.php?view=nego_nego_clinton_nclinton2p )
So I just documented proof of what Dennis Ross said from the PLO’s own words that Abourezk’s recommended source inexplicably ignores.
Another innovation brought to us courtesy of Mr. Abourezk is saying that Wolf Blitzer’s “hostility” towards him is evidence that Blitzer is himself a member of that amazingly powerful Lobby. It appears that the definition of this “lobby” has been watered down to pretty much anyone who is not lockstep with the Abourezks of the world in supporting Syrian and Palestinian terror.
Apparently, there is another liar in the room: Mr. Abourezk himself. Dershowitz did not call Abourezk anti-semitic in his article in the Jerusalem Post, although he does broadly imply it - in much the same way Abourezk broadly implies that Jews (i.e., “Zionists”) were behind 9/11. I don’t know whether Abourezk’s comments to JPost were indeed censored, but I for one would love to see him actually address what he said on Al-Manar rather than change the subject repeatedly as he has done on this thread (notice that he chooses to attack the weaker Zionist posters on minor topics and ignores my substantive responses and challenges.)
September 23rd, 2007 at 2:21 pm
Sorry, but I just had to mention a couple of other things:
It is difficult to respond to the accusations that Israel-bashers are fond of hammering away at that the Zionists who built Israel were racist bigots hell-bent on ethnically cleansing Palestine of Arabs. How can someone prove that the mindset of the vast majority of Zionists were the exact opposite, that they truly wanted to live in peace with the Arabs despite the daily terror that the Jews of Palestine were subjected to?
I posted something last week that does in fact go a long way towards proving exactly that - http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2007/09/zionism-and-intense-desire-for-peace.html . I took a single issue of the Zionist Palestine Post from March 10, 1946 and analyzed exactly how the Zionists quoted there, as well as the editors of the paper, wrote about Arabs. The desire to live in peace with the Palestinian Arabs was not just empty words - it was pervasive. I invite anyone to look at the archives of the old Palestine Post and try to find articles that disprove what I am saying. You have two decades of issues available online. The tendency of historians to take individual quotes out of context is reprehensible when it is done for partisan purposes - but here is real source material that cannot be faked that shows, pretty clearly, that Abourezk and Pappe are not being honest in their slander against Zionism.
I also noticed that the Dershowitz column was also published in the Huffington Post, and Abourezk didn’t have a reply printed there either. Is the HuffPo part of the Israel Lobby as well? (I emailed the Jerusalem Post to ask them whether they censored Abourezk’s reply to Dershowitz.)
Cheers!
September 23rd, 2007 at 2:38 pm
My goodness! You’re all still at it. I salute your indefatigability.
Mr. Abourezk’s mention of Camp David piqued my interest as this was the issue that led me to takes sides on the Israeli/Arab confab. Given that we had the Israelis and the Palestinians in failed negotiations, why would one simply believe either side? It seems reasonable to at least turn to the mediators for some understanding. In this case, the two chief functionaries were Clinton and Ross, both of whom categorically blamed Arafat.
Given the enormous cachet that would have attached to solving this issue, it seems highly likely that the mediators did in fact seek a real solution and the balance of probability strongly suggests their accounts should be reliable.
Even if not, even if the stories about how it was a bad deal are true, it was the best offer ever. (I know this because the media in general was quite adamant and even at that time when I paid less attention to world affairs, I knew the general media was hardly pro-Israel.) Given that Israel was bending so far, what on earth was the point of not only not negotiating further, but starting an Intifada? It speaks volumes.
September 23rd, 2007 at 5:41 pm
I’m given to wonder whether both Elder and Brzezinski are in touch with reality. When Dennis Ross left the government, he returned to a component of the Israeli Lobby to work. I guess it’s OK to identify Wolf Blitzer as a part of the Lobby, mostly because he worked for AIPAC. If these folks deny that AIPAC is part of the Lobby, then I find it impossible to continue this debate.
And yes, I think Bill Clinton lied a lot about a lot of issues when he was president.
September 23rd, 2007 at 8:51 pm
Fair enough Mr. Abourezk, but I offered an argument even if Clinton & Ross were wrong. You have not countered what I said for that case.
It also strikes me that if someone working for “a component” of The Lobby is automatically disqualified from talking on this issue, then the same must apply to you on the other side for you have made your biases very plain.
September 23rd, 2007 at 10:21 pm
I appreciate that Mr. Abourezk finally acknowledged a couple of my comments, even if they were extremely peripheral to the major points I was making. (Wolf Blitzer indeed edited an AIPAC newsletter some thirty years ago although he never lobbied for AIPAC, and Dennis Ross indeed works for a pro-Israel think tank now - although I am not aware of any earlier work he may have done for the “Lobby” that Mr. Abourezk implies from the word “returned.”)
The implication that Mr. Abourezk is making, of course, is that anyone who is pro-Israel on any level is assumed to be a liar.
While I gave specific reasons why the books written by Ilan Pappe and Clayton Swisher can be considered unreliable, from their own words and/or omissions as well as my own original research, the best that Mr. Abourezk can do to cast aspersions of Ross’ book is to mention that he now works for that evil “Lobby.” Using that logic, of course, would allow us to assume that Abourezk is equally suspect for being an uncompromising supporter of Arab causes. I prefer to stick with facts, not guilt by association, and any problems I have with Mr. Abourezk come from his own words, most specifically his praise for Hezbollah and Hamas terrorists that was mentioned earlier in this thread and that he has studiously ignored so far.
In the end, the biggest flaw with Abourezk’s positions is that he consistently ascribes the best of intentions to Arab and Muslim countries and the worst of intentions to Israel and, often, the US. In one particularly hilarious paragraph in his review above he says that “both Iran and Syria have proposed a nuclear weapons free Middle East.” The reported events of recent weeks by British journalists who can hardly be considered pro-Israel indicate that not only did Syria have a clandestine nuclear weapons program, but also that there was a major chemical weapons accident this past summer killing dozens of Syrians and Iranian engineers with WMD that were meant to be placed on missiles. But Abourezk, quite willing to publicly assume that anybody who supports Israel is not trustworthy, has no such skepticism about the public pronouncements of dictators and the world’s worst human rights abusers.
This, in a nutshell, is the problem with Mr. Abourezk’s positions on the Middle East and of the “Israel Lobby.”
September 24th, 2007 at 11:48 pm
The author of this article is clearly not motivated or interested in facts or debating them. He is interested in spreading his message which is based upon the perceived political and historical experiences of the Arabs in the Middle-East. The arab world has been blaming Israel for its own failures for years. M&W are just the latest in a long series of bumbling front men and apologits for their cause. People concerned with truth or justice should not pay them respect by legitimizing their misguided beliefs that are based on layer upon layer of nonesense, through debate.
September 26th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
Critical reviewer or partisan advocate?, that is the question.
Words of the “review” and, especailly, the previous words of the reviewer, are hints to the reader whether the “information” presented is reliable. (NOT)
How does help determine the veracity of the W&M book? Maybe at the CLR you expected a rock-solid factual analysis and instead stepped in a flaming bag?
James Abu, you are clear, although won’t admit here, your sympathies lie with the wrong Freedom Fighters. Does Sihan Sirhan qualify as one of your heros too, or will pretend not to recognize RFK’s killer? Right, we should have trusted Arafat more…
This “review” is better known as a “screed” and belongs in amazon.com, not the California Literary Review! Any adults around?
What we really need from CLR is specifics on where W&M are factually correct or flat out wrong, drawing on multiple, reliable sources, and a reasoned analysis of their conclusions. That would be a review.
September 27th, 2007 at 11:15 pm
A hasbarist must NEVER stop talking. The manual insists that they always put in the last word — no matter how embarrassing.
October 2nd, 2007 at 2:40 am
More evidence of the 800 pound gorilla which apparently doesnt exist inspite of what our, or Walt and Mearsheimer’s lying eyes tell us. Just as the NY Times ran an intellectually bankrupt review of the book by Lobby apologist Leslie Gelb denying its efficacy, a front page story highlighted how “Freedoms Watch” is desperately trying to get the US involved in a war with Iran funded to the tune of $200 million by stalwarts of the Republican Jewish Coalition such billionaires Sheldon Adelson and Mel Sembler. What warmongering lobby indeed.
M. R. Khan
October 5th, 2007 at 8:32 am
The energy, irrationality, and vituperativeness of the attacks on Walt & Mearsheimer is a sure sign that an important but long-denied truth has been spoken.
October 22nd, 2007 at 8:30 am
As Mr. Abourezk commented on trying to leave a reply on the J’Post website of Dershowitz. I too tried to leave a comment in support of Mr. Abourezk and my comment was not published. With regards to 9-11 and Israel. No one can refute the fact that the only country who gained by this tragedy was and remains only Israel. You want to call me an anti-semite. Bring it on. As an American, I will no longer accept that support of Israel is part and parcel a requisit condition of my patriotism. I love this country and I will no longer be silenced. Thank you Mr. Abourezk and the authors of The Israel Lobby-is a must read for every American.
December 9th, 2007 at 1:15 pm