Armenian holocaust not recognised by Bush

President George W Bush has urged US legislators not to pass a resolution declaring the massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire to be genocide.  “This resolution is not the right response to these historic mass killings,” he said hours before a vote by the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Such a move, already taken by France’s parliament, would do “great harm” to US relations with Turkey, Mr Bush added.

Turkey disputes the scale of the 1915-1917 massacre.  Armenia alleges that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed in an organised campaign to force them out of what is now eastern Turkey. That is strongly denied by Turkey which says that large numbers of Turks and Armenians were killed in the chaos surrounding World War I and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire when Armenians rose up. 

 Speaking before Mr Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the passing of the resolution would be “very problematic” for US policy in the Middle East.  The bill must be approved by the Foreign Affairs Committee before it can be debated on the floor of the House of Representatives. Even if it passes and is then adopted by the House, the bill will not be binding. Mr Bush has made clear that he also opposes it. 

 But the BBC’s Sarah Rainsford, in Istanbul, says that this will have little impact on the reaction in Turkey. Ankara has pulled out all the stops to prevent the genocide resolution reaching Congress for a vote, she adds.  Politicians have travelled to Washington to lobby lawmakers, while the country’s prime minister and president have both contacted Mr Bush.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul warned of “serious problems that will emerge in bilateral relations if the bill is adopted”.  All this comes on top of mounting anger that the US is not doing enough to counter the Kurdish separatist PKK group, which mounts deadly attacks on Turkey from inside Iraq, our correspondent says.

The issue has been kept alive by the powerful Armenian diaspora. Twice as large as the population of Armenia itself, over recent years it has stepped up efforts to get Western parliaments to recognise those events as genocide, and has even sought to link it to Turkey’s efforts to join the European Union. 

 Last year, the lower house of the French parliament declared the killings a genocide. Ankara argues that there were massacres by both sides at the time but completely rejects the allegation that there was a state policy to kill Armenians.  Some Turks fear if those events are recognised as genocide, that could open the door to claims for compensation or even territory, our analyst says.  And that taps into fears, deep in Turkey’s political psyche, about the possible dismemberment of the country. 

 Only two years ago it seemed that a long standing taboo had been broken when academics were allowed to hold a conference in Turkey discussing the mass killings of Armenians at that time.

But since then rising nationalism inside Turkey itself has effectively halted further debate, our analyst adds.

As always the cheap politics prevail. To keep US access to Turkish airfield this administration is willing to go far in supporting deception and lies for its own benefit.

War on terror - The case of impotence

Fox News presented their viewers another feel-good report. Frances Townsend told “FOX News Sunday”, two weeks ago,  that the tape from bin Laden was made recently, possibly in the last several months. While the intelligence community is still evaluating the tape to determine the terror leader’s health, possible whereabouts and other details, it does not appear to be a trigger for an attack.“There’s nothing overtly obvious in the tape that would suggest this is a trigger for an attack…..this tape appears to be nothing more than threats. It’s propaganda on their part…This is about the best he can do…This is a man on a run, from a cave, who’s virtually impotent other than these tapes.”

First, we all are glad and safer knowing the tape is being reviewed so carefully. Who knows? Maybe liberals mingle with the evidence in their wicked attempt to gain…something?The statement has skillfully combined the atmosphere from previous brilliant statements that fed US public not so long ago; déjà vu of “bring’em on” and “last throes”.

The “impotence” of bin Laden and his followers was somehow contradicted with the statement in next paragraph: “…the homeland security adviser acknowledged that the latest National Intelligence Estimate shows the terror group has gained some capability and operational leadership”.

So, are they on the run and on their last throes or are they improving their ability to continue  vicious attacks? Are we all confused or simply don’t understand the complex reality? Let’s keep reading this enlightening report.“…The United States is safer than it was after Sept. 11, 2001…and comments like one by Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards suggesting the contrary are “irresponsible and unwarranted” and “not supported by facts.”

We are safer apparently because there were no major attacks on our soil; this argument has been re-circulated for more than 3 years now. Let us think for a moment. The first World Trade Center attack took place in 1993. Until 2001 we had no Homeland Security, our borders were open, Saudis could get  visa through expedited process, a courtesy of the administration, public awareness was minimal….and yet it took terrorists 8 full years to prepare 9/11 crime. We are about to pass a 6 year mark of the attack.

Do we have enough evidence we are safer than prior to 9/11? Do we have ANY evidence to support the claim? Or, we are simply expressing our social phenomenon of  short attention span and impatience?

The above argument  reminds me quite revealing comment our previous Pope made soon after his election. He was asked whether now, having a Pope from the other side of the iron curtain,  the Church will intensify its efforts in fight communism. The Pope’s comment: “…we are patient, very patient with our progress in that direction. For us, the Church, it may take a year, 10 years or 200 years but we will prevail…”

Townsend recycled old  White House mantra and  called the war in Iraq “… a “propaganda tool” used by enemies” and objected to a Washington Post op-ed written by Lee Hamilton and James Baker, co-chairmen of the Iraq Study Group, who called the Iraq war a distraction in the War on Terror.  “It is not a distraction but an integral part of the war effort,” she added.

So much for impotence.

War hero John Bolton calls for war with Iran

John Bolton barks again.

Bolton, one of the signatory of infamous Project for a New American Century and accomplished military expert and  war “hero” who, while supporting Vietnam war, declined to enter combat duty enlisting in the National Guard to attend a  law school, plays his “ neocon blues” for the UK audience.

John Bolton: ‘I think we have to look at a limited strike against their nuclear facilities.’

 

John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, told Tory delegates today that efforts by the UK and the EU to negotiate with Iran had failed and that he saw no alternative to a pre-emptive strike on suspected nuclear facilities in the country.

Mr Bolton, who was addressing a fringe meeting organised by Lord (Michael) Ancram, said that the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was “pushing out” and “is not receiving adequate push-back” from the west.

“I don’t think the use of military force is an attractive option, but I would tell you I don’t know what the alternative is. Because life is about choices, I think we have to consider the use of military force. I think we have to look at a limited strike against their nuclear facilities.”

He added that any strike should be followed by an attempt to remove the “source of the problem”, Mr Ahmadinejad. “If we were to strike Iran it should be accompanied by an effort at regime change … The US once had the capability to engineer the clandestine overthrow of governments. I wish we could get it back.”

The fact that intelligence about Iran’s nuclear activity was partial should not be used as an excuse not to act, Mr Bolton insisted. “Intelligence can be wrong in more than one direction.” He asked how the British government would respond if terrorists exploded a nuclear device at home. “‘It’s only Manchester?’ … Responding after they’re used is unacceptable.”

Mr Bolton, now a fellow at the conservative thinktank the American Enterprise Institute and the author of a forthcoming book called Surrender is Not an Option, was applauded by delegates when he described the UN as “fundamentally irrelevant”.

Defending the decision to invade Iraq, he mocked the Foreign Office’s “softly softly” approach to Iran’s imprisonment of 15 British sailors accused of straying into Iranian waters in April this year. They were released after Mr Ahmadinejad announced he was making a “gift” to the British people. “They [Iran] got no response from the UK or the US. If you were the Iranian leader, what conclusion do you draw?”

Mr Bolton said he did not really want “to get into the specifics of your own internal politics here” and made no comment on David Cameron’s foreign policy. But he said that Gordon Brown’s performance under pressure had not been tested and he hoped that Britain would not withdraw from Iraq. “There is too much of a view in Europe that you have passed beyond history,” Mr Bolton told delegates. “That everything can be worked out by negotiation … Democrats or Republicans, we [Americans] don’t see it that way.”  However, he praised the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and his forthright criticism of Iran in recent weeks.

Raising the spectre of George Bush’s “axis of evil”, Mr Bolton said that Kim Jong-il’s regime in North Korea was akin to a “prison camp” and that he would “sell anything to anyone”. Those who thought North Korea would give up its nuclear capability voluntarily were wrong, he said.

The regime had made similar promises during the past decade. Only reunification between North and South Korea could resolve the problem. That could be achieved “if China were to get serious” and cut off fuel supplies to Mr Kim, but the country feared a reunited Korea.

Mr Bolton told an inquiring delegate that he was not and had never been a neoconservative: “I’m not even a Reagan conservative. I’m a [Barry] Goldwater conservative. They [neocons] have somewhat - I would say excessively - Wilsonian views about the benefits of democracy.” However, the threat to world peace did not come from neoconservatives but from the perception that “we have passed beyond history”, he said.

The meeting was organised by the Global Strategy Forum, of which Lord Ancram is chairman. Earlier this month, the former Conservative deputy leader criticised the direction in which David Cameron was taking the party and for “trashing” its Thatcherite heritage.

Time has come for our regime change.

Iraq war - the truth exposed

There have been many theories and guesses on why Bush & Co decided to stir the Middle East, invade Iraq, then threaten Syria and Iran. All the speculations feed the discussions, dominate the news and thrive as a subject all over the blogosphere. And yet, only a detailed and painstaking analysis of the events allowed us to connect the dots.

We have discovered the hidden truth, the real reason for the invasion and occupation disguised as a democracy-spreading mission, regime change endeavor  and a crusade securing our national interests. In his infinite wisdom, President Bush took very seriously, and humbly, the national threat number one; a calamity that kills hundred times more American citizens than those evil-made IEDs popping out on the streets of occupied Baghdad. Quietly, building his legacy, Mr. Bush declared the war on obesity.

For overweight Americans relief is on the way, in the shape of ever-higher gasoline prices. Rising prices could force obese Americans to hit the street

Getting out the car to drive downtown for a super-sized plate full of fatty fast-food is the highlight of the day for many Americans. The result is a public health crisis with four out of 10 American adults already overweight or heading that way.

After consuming mountains of chips, fried meat and baked goods all washed down with corn-sweetened soft drinks, overweight Americans then worry which best-selling diet book will help them see their toes again. It turns out that higher gas prices can slim down more than the wallets of the overweight.

The ever-rising cost of filling up their cars is prompting millions of Americans to pack their own lunch and walk to the bus.

The statistics are dramatic: they show that when gasoline prices have risen in the US, obesity has shown a corresponding fall of as much as 10 per cent according to a new study, A Silver Lining? The Connection between Gas Prices and Obesity.

The study’s author, Charles Courtemanche, from the University of Washington, St Louis, said his inspiration came when he was filling up his car: “I was pumping gas one day, thinking with gas prices so high I may have to take the Metro,” he said.

After figuring out that he would get an extra 30 minutes of exercise per day by walking to and from the Metro, he correlated statistics for obesity and petrol prices in America.

American obesity rates began to rise sharply in the early 1980s. Part of this has been blamed on an overworked population demanding convenience foods – prepared, packaged products and restaurant meals that contain more calories than home-cooked meals.

According to Marion Nestle, of New York University, the arrival of the Reagan administration in 1980 brought government subsidies for farmers who grew more food. Fast-food companies reacted by serving larger portions and inventing snacks. The calories available per capita nearly doubled to 3,900 a day and a crisis was born.

But, to his shock, Mr Courtemanche found that 13 per cent of the rise in obesity between 1979 and 2004 could be attributed to the falling price of gasoline. “First, if a person uses public transportation, such as subways, buses, trolleys or rail services, the need to move to and from the public transit stops is likely to result in additional walking, again decreasing weight,” he said.

“Second, since the opportunity cost of eating out at restaurants rises when the price of gas increases, people may substitute eating out to preparing their own meals at home, which tend to be healthier.”

Now gas prices are on the rise again, reaching a record high of $3.22 per gallon in May 2007, and so according to the theory, obesity levels should now be falling. “The recent spike in gas prices may have the ’silver lining’ of reducing obesity in the coming years,” the study said. It calculated that an increase of $1 per gallon in real gasoline prices would reduce US obesity by 15 per cent after five years. That would save 16,000 lives and $17bn a year, according to the research.

Mr Courtemanche said he had already received hate mail for suggesting that high petrol prices are good for Americans. “One person yelled at me: ‘So now I’m supposed to be happy about gas prices!’” he said.

Some 59 million Americans are overweight. Almost 65 per cent are either obese or overweight, 10-30lb over a healthy weight, with greater chances of developing diabetes, heart disease, and some types of cancer. And it is not just adults. Some obese children in the US knock back two or three bottles of cola a day, equivalent to 1,000 calories.

Most US cities do not have good public transport networks, although they are improving. As more people react to the “sticker shock” of paying more than $3 a gallon by opting to walk, take the bus, or even cycle, planners anticipate pressure for better public transport.

So, to all of you, liberal nitwits; before criticizing our scholarly president, do your homework, analyze all the facts, do not settle for mere appearances and politicize our crusade. Yes, this and upcoming wars in the Middle East are about the oil. We all know this. But it is not what you, bloody liberals, think and bark about. It is to save our people, our children and future generations, to curb their appetites and rescue our healthcare from skyrocketing costs of bariatric surgeries.

Blackwater - black deeds for rent

  Blackwater USA’s mercenary mission in Iraq is very much in the news this week, and rightly so. The private military contractor’s war-for-profit program, which has been so brilliantly exposed by Jeremy Scahill, may finally get a measure of the official scrutiny it merits as the corporation scrambles to undo the revocation by the Iraqi government of its license to operate in that country.

There will be official inquiries in Baghdad, and in Washington. The U.S. Congress might actually provide some of the oversight that is its responsibility. Perhaps, and this is a big “perhaps,” Blackwater’s “troops” could come home before the U.S. soldiers who have been forced to fight, and die, in defense of these international rent-a-cops.  But it is not the specific story of Blackwater that matters so much as the broader story of imperial excess that it illustrates. 

If Blackwater, with an assist from the U.S. government, beats back the attempt by the Iraqis to regulate the firm’s activities — as now appears likely, considering Friday’s report that the firm has resumed guarding U.S. State Department convoys in Baghdad , we will have all the confirmation that is needed of the great truth of the U.S. occupation of Iraq: This is a colonial endeavor no different than that of the British Empire against America’s founding generation revolted. 

But even if Blackwater loses its fight to stay, even if the corporation is forced to shut down its multi- billion dollar, U.S. Treasury-funded operation in Iraq, the brief “accountability moment” may not be sufficient to open up the necessary debate about Iraq’s colonial status. The danger, for Iraq and the United States, that honest assessment of the crisis will lose out to face-saving gestures designed to foster the fantasy of Iraqi independence. It is not enough that Blackwater is shamed and perhaps sanctioned.

A Blackwater exit from Iraq will mean little if its mercenary contracts are merely taken over by one or more of the 140 other U.S.-sanctioned private security firms operating in that country — such as Vice President Dick Cheney’s Halliburton. Whatever the precise play out of this Blackwater moment may be, the likelihood is that the colonial enterprise will continue. That’s because, in the absence of intense pressure from grassroots activists and the media,

Congress is unlikely to go beyond a scratch at the surface of what is actually going on in Iraq. The deeper discussion requires that a discussion about the substance that no less a figure than former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan describes as the reason for the invasion and occupation of this particular Middle Eastern land: oil The Rev.

Martin Luther King Jr. aptly observed that “colonialism was made for domination and for exploitation,” and there is no substance that the Bush- Cheney administration is more interested in dominating and exploiting than oil. Thus, while it is right to pay close attention to the emerging discussion about Blackwater’s wicked work in Iraq, Americans would do well to pay an equal measure of attention to the still largely submerged discussion about an Iraqi oil deal that will pay huge benefits to the Hunt Oil Company, a Texas firm closely linked to the administration.

How closely? When he was running Halliburton, Cheney invited Hunt Oil Company CEO Ray Hunt to serve on the firm’s board of directors. Hunt, a “Bush Pioneer” fund raiser during the 2000 campaign recently donated the tidy sum of $35 million to George W.’s presidential library building fund. The new “production sharing agreement” between Hunt Oil and the Kurdistan Regional Government puts one of the administration’s favorite firms in a position to reap immeasurable profits while undermining essential efforts to assure that Iraq’s oil revenues will be shared by all Iraqis.

Hunt’s deal upsets hopes that Iraq’s mineral wealth might ultimately be a source of stability, replacing the promise of economic equity with the prospect of a black-gold rush that will only widen inequalities and heighten ethnic and regional resentments. The Hunt deal is so sleazy and so at odds with the stated goals of the Iraqi government and the U.S. regarding shared oil revenues that even Bush acknowledges that U.S. embassy officials in Baghdad are deeply concerned.

What Bush and Cheney won’t mention is the fact that Iraq’s oil minister, Hussain al- Shahristani, says the deal is illegal. Unfortunately, as with the Blackwater imbroglio, however, there is no assurance that the stance of the Iraqi government is definitional with regard to what happens in Iraq.

All indications are that what happens in Washington matters most. And that is why it is so very disturbing that, for the most part, members of Congress, even members who say they do not want the United States to have a long-term presence in Iraq  have been slow to start talking about Hunt’s oil rigging. 

One House member who has raised the alarm is Ohio Democrat Dennis Kucinich, who in his capacity as a key member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has asked the committee’s chairman, California Democrat Henry Waxman, to launch an investigation into the Hunt Oil deal. “As I have said for five years, this war is about oil,” argues Kucinich, who is mounting an anti-war bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, declared on the floor of the House this week. “The Bush Administration desires private control of Iraqi oil, but we have no right to force Iraq to give up control of their oil. We have no right to set preconditions to Iraq which lead Iraq to giving up control of their oil.

The Constitution of Iraq designates that the oil of Iraq is the property for all Iraqi people.” With that in mind, Kucinich explains, “I am calling for a Congressional investigation to determine the role the Administration may have played in the Hunt-Kurdistan deal, the effect the deal will have on the oil revenue sharing plan and the attempt by the Administration to privatize Iraqi oil.” 

Waxman has been ahead of the curve on Blackwater, seeking testimony from the firm’s chairman at hearings scheduled for early October. But Waxman needs to expand his focus, and the way to do that is by heeding Kucinich’s call for an investigation into the Hunt deal. That inquiry should begin with two fundamental questions: 

Who runs Iraq, the Iraqis or their colonial overlords in Washington? And, if the claim is that the Iraqis are in charge, then why is Ray Hunt about to start steering revenues from that country’s immense oil wealth into the same Texas bank accounts that have so generously funded the campaigns of George Bush and Dick Cheney?

What Freedom of Speech? Part V

The historical record strongly suggests that neither Jewish neo-conservatives in particular nor mainstream Jewish intellectuals generally have a primary allegiance to Israel ­ in fact, any allegiance to Israel. Mainstream Jewish intellectuals became “pro”-Israel after the June 1967 war when Israel became the U.S.A.’ s strategic asset in the Middle East, i.e., when it was safe and reaped benefits. To credit them with ideological conviction is, in my opinion, very naive.

They’re no more committed to Zionism than the neo-conservatives among them were once committed to Trotskyism; their only ism is opportunism.

As psychological types, these newly minted Lovers of Zion most resemble the Jewish police in the Warsaw ghetto. “Each day, to save his own skin, every Jewish policeman brought seven sacrificial lives to the extermination altar,” a leader of the Resistance ruefully recalled. “There were policemen who offered their own aged parents, with the excuse that they would die soon anyhow.” Jewish neo-conservatives watch over the U.S. “national” interest, which is the source of their power and privilege, and in the Middle East it happens that this “national” interest largely coincides with Israel’s “national” interest. If ever these interests clashed, who can doubt that, to save their own skins, they’ll do exactly what they’re ordered to do, with gusto?

Unlike elsewhere in the Middle East, U.S. elite policy in the Israel-Palestine conflict would almost certainly not be the same without the Lobby. What does the U.S.A. gain from the Israeli settlements and occupation? In terms of alienating the Arab world, it’s had something to lose. The Lobby probably can’t muster sufficient power to jeopardize a fundamental American interest, but it can significantly raise the threshold before U.S. elites are prepared to act ­ i.e., order Israel out of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, as the U.S. finally pressured the Indonesians out of Occupied East Timor.

Whereas Israel doesn’t have many options if the U.S. does finally give the order to pack up, the U.S. won’t do so until and unless the Israeli occupation becomes a major liability for it: on account of the Lobby the point at which “until and unless” is reached significantly differs. Without the Lobby and in the face of widespread Arab resentment, the U.S. would perhaps have ordered Israel to end the occupation by now, sparing Palestinians much suffering;

In the current “either-or” debate on whether the Lobby affects U.S. Middle East policy at the elite level, it’s been lost on many of the interlocutors that a crucial dimension of this debate should be the extent to which the Lobby stifles free and open public discussion on the subject. For in terms of trying to broaden public discussion here on the Israel-Palestine conflict the Lobby makes a huge and baneful difference. Especially since U.S. elites have no entrenched interest in the Israeli occupation, the mobilization of public opinion can have a real impact on policy-making ­ which is why the Lobby invests so much energy in suppressing discussion.

What Freedom of Speech? Part IV

Why the blackout? For one thing, reporting on these groups is not easy. AIPAC’s power makes potential sources reluctant to discuss the organization on the record, and employees who leave it usually sign pledges of silence. AIPAC officials themselves rarely give interviews, and the organization even resists divulging its board of directors. Journalists, meanwhile, are often loath to write about the influence of organized Jewry. Throughout the Arab world, the “Jewish lobby” is seen as the root of all evil in the Middle East, and many reporters and editors–especially Jewish ones–worry about feeding such stereotypes. In the end, though, the main obstacle to covering these groups is fear. Jewish organizations are quick to detect bias in the coverage of the Middle East, and quick to complain about it. That’s especially true of late. As the Forward observed in late April, “rooting out perceived anti-Israel bias in the media has become for many American Jews the most direct and emotional outlet for connecting with the conflict 6,000 miles away.” Recently, an estimated 1,000 subscribers to the Los Angeles Times suspended home delivery for a day to protest what they considered the paper’s pro-Palestinian coverage. The Chicago Tribune, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Miami Herald have all been hit by similar protests, and NPR has received thousands of e-mails complaining about its reports from the Middle East. Do such protests have an effect? Consider the recent experience of the New York Times. On May 6 the paper ran two photographs of a pro-Israel parade in Manhattan. Both showed the parade in the background and anti-Israel protesters prominently in the foreground. The paper, which for weeks has been threatened with a boycott by Jewish readers, was deluged with protests. On May 7 the Times ran an abject apology. That caused much consternation in the newsroom, with some reporters and editors feeling that the paper had buckled before an influential constituency. “It’s very intimidating,” said a correspondent at another large daily who is familiar with the incident. Newspapers, he added, are “afraid” of organizations like AIPAC and the Presidents Conference. “The pressure from these groups is relentless. Editors would just as soon not touch them.”

Needless to say, US support for Israel is the product of many factors–Israel’s status as the sole democracy in the Middle East, its value as a US strategic ally and widespread horror over Palestinian suicide bombers. But the power of the pro-Israel lobby is an important element as well. Indeed, it’s impossible to understand the Bush Administration’s tender treatment of the Sharon government without taking into account the influence of groups like AIPAC. Isn’t it time they were exposed to the daylight?

In the current fractious debate over the role of the Israel Lobby in the formulation and execution of US policies in the Middle East, the “either-or” framework, giving primacy to either the Israel Lobby or to U.S. strategic interests, isn’t very useful.

Apart from the Israel-Palestine conflict, fundamental U.S. policy in the Middle East hasn’t been affected by the Lobby. For different reasons, both U.S. and Israeli elites have always believed that the Arabs need to be kept subordinate. However, once the U.S. solidified its alliance with Israel after June 1967, it began to look at Israelis ­ and Israelis projected themselves ­ as experts on the “Arab mind.” Accordingly, the alliance with Israel has abetted the most truculent U.S. policies, Israelis believing that “Arabs only understand the language of force” and every few years this or that Arab country needs to be smashed up. The spectrum of U.S. policy differences might be narrow, but in terms of impact on the real lives of real people in the Arab world these differences are probably meaningful, the Israeli influence making things worse.

The claim that Israel has become a liability for U.S. “national” interests in the Middle East misses the bigger picture. Sometimes what’s most obvious escapes the eye. Israel is the only stable and secure base for projecting U.S. power in this region. Every other country the U.S. relies on might, for all anyone knows, fall out of U.S. control tomorrow. The U.S.A. discovered this to its horror in 1979, after immense investment in the Shah. On the other hand, Israel was a creation of the West; it’s in every respect ­ culturally, politically, economically ­ in thrall to the West, notably the U.S.

 This is true not just at the level of a corrupt leadership, as elsewhere in the Middle East but ­ what’s most important ­ at the popular level. Israel’s pro-American orientation exists not just among Israeli elites but also among the whole population. Come what may in Israel, it’s inconceivable that this fundamental orientation will change. Combined with its overwhelming military power, this makes Israel a unique and irreplaceable American asset in the Middle East.

In this regard, it’s useful to recall the rationale behind British support for Zionism. Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann once asked a British official why the British continued to support Zionism despite Arab opposition. Didn’t it make more sense for them to keep Palestine but drop support for Zionism? “Although such an attitude may afford a temporary relief and may quiet Arabs for a short time,” the official replied, “it will certainly not settle the question as the Arabs don’t want the British in Palestine, and after having their way with the Jews, they would attack the British position, as the Moslems are doing in Mesopotamia, Egypt and India.”

Another British official judged retrospectively that, however much Arab resentment it provoked, British support for Zionism was prudent policy, for it established in the midst of an “uncertain Arab world a well-to-do educated, modern community, ultimately bound to be dependent on the British Empire.”

 

Were it even possible, the British had little interest in promoting real Jewish-Arab cooperation because it would inevitably lessen this dependence. Similarly, the U.S. doesn’t want an Israel truly at peace with the Arabs, for such an Israel could loosen its bonds of dependence on the U.S. , making it a less reliable proxy. This is one reason why the claim that Jewish elites are “pro”-Israel makes little sense. They are “pro” an Israel that is useful to the U.S. and, therefore, useful to them. What use would a Paul Wolfowitz have of an Israel living peacefully with its Arab neighbors and less willing to do the U.S.’s bidding?

War dance

As in 2002, time has come for the US to question anything  related to the UN attempts to prevent another illigal war, this time with Iran. And, as before an unprovoked attack on Iraq, the players are the same: Chief of IAEA Mohamed ElBaradei and the State Department. My deep concern is that the undermining of the UN is a clear sign that the preparation for another war has reached the implementation stage. 

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has attacked the head of the UN nuclear watchdog for urging caution in the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program. She said diplomacy was best left to diplomats, not a technical body such as the International Atomic Energy Agency.  The criticism came after IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said force should be a last resort in the Iran dispute. He dismissed talk of military action in Iran as “hype” and urged people not to forget the lessons of war in Iraq.  

Ms Rice maintained that “all options” were on the table to resolve the stand-off over Iran’s refusal to end its uranium-enrichment work.

With usual posturing and arrogance characteristicof  Bush administration, Rice made the following statement:“It is not up to anybody to diminish or to begin to cut back on the obligations that the Iranians have been ordered to take…The US was committed to a diplomatic resolution but diplomacy had to have “a set of teeth” and incentives to work”  

She added a warning: “The IAEA is not in the business of diplomacy. The IAEA is a technical agency that has a board of governors of which the United States is a member,”

 Ms Rice made the comments while travelling (where else?) but to Israel in another failing attempt to restart Middle East peace talks. Iran denies it is trying to acquire nuclear weapons, insisting it wants nuclear power to generate electricity for civilian use. 

Mr ElBaradei won the 2005 Nobel peace prize for his work with the IAEA to prevent nuclear energy being used for military purposes.

 Are the American people falling for this one? Or do we even matter?

What Freedom of Speech? Part III

On May 2, 2006 the Senate, in a vote of 94 to 2, and the House, 352 to 21, expressed unqualified support for Israel in its recent military actions against the Palestinians. The resolutions were so strong that the Bush Administration–hardly a slouch when it comes to supporting Israel, attempted to soften its language so as to have more room in getting peace talks going. But its pleas were rejected, and members of Congress from Joe Lieberman to Tom DeLay competed to heap praise on Ariel Sharon and disdain on Yasir Arafat. Reporting on the vote, the New York Times noted that one of the few dissenters, Senator Ernest Hollings of South Carolina, “suggested that many senators were after campaign contributions.”

Aside from that brief reference, however, the Times made no mention of the role that money, or lobbying in general, may have played in the lopsided vote. More specifically, the Times made no mention of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. It’s a remarkable “oversight”.  AIPAC is widely regarded as the most powerful foreign-policy lobby in Washington. Its 60,000 members shower millions of dollars on hundreds of members of Congress on both sides of the aisle. It also maintains a network of wealthy and influential citizens around the country, whom it can regularly mobilize to support its main goal, which is making sure there is “no daylight” between the policies of Israel and of the United States.

So, when Congress votes so decisively in support of Israel, it’s no accident. Yet, surveying US newspaper coverage of the Middle East in recent months, I found next to nothing about AIPAC and its influence. The one account of any substance appeared in the Washington Post, in late April 2006. Reporting on AIPAC’s annual conference, correspondent Mike Allen noted that the attendees included half the Senate, ninety members of the House and thirteen senior Administration officials, including White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, who drew a standing ovation when he declared in Hebrew, “The people of Israel live.” Showing its “clout,” Allen wrote, AIPAC held “a lively roll call of the hundreds of dignitaries, with individual cheers for each.” Even this article, however, failed to probe beneath the surface and examine the lobbying and fundraising techniques AIPAC uses to lock up support in Congress.

AIPAC is not the only pro-Israel organization to escape scrutiny. The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, though little known to the general public, has tremendous influence in Washington, especially with the executive branch. Based in New York, the conference is supposed to give voice to the fifty-two Jewish organizations that sit on its board, but in reality it tends to reflect the views of its executive vice chairman, Malcolm Hoenlein. Hoenlein has long had close ties to Israel’s Likud Party. In the 1990s he helped raise money for settlers’ groups on the West Bank, and today he regularly refers to that region as “Judea and Samaria,” a biblically inspired catch phrase used by conservatives to justify the presence of Jewish settlers there. A skilled and articulate operative, Hoenlein uses his access to the State Department, Pentagon and National Security Council to push for a strong Israel. He’s so effective at it that the Jewish newspaper the Forward, in its annual list of the fifty most important American Jews, has ranked Hoenlein first.

Hoenlein showed his organizing skills in April 2006, when he helped convene the large pro-Israel rally on Capitol Hill. While the event itself was widely covered, Hoenlein, and the conference, remained invisible. An informal survey of recent coverage turned up not a single in-depth piece about Hoenlein and how he has used the Presidents Conference to keep the Bush Administration from putting too much pressure on the Israeli government.

What Freedom of Speech? Part II

The authors ask why this is the case, and argue that strategically there is no reason for it. The end of the cold war removed a central justification for the special relationship, as Israel no longer provided the US with a barrier to communism in the region. Post 9/11, the US and Israel are presented as partners against terrorism, but America’s vulnerability to attack partly stems from its support for Israel, which has provoked hostility in the Muslim world. Nor is there a moral argument for indiscriminately backing Israel - as a towering military presence in the Middle East, Israel is no longer under existential threat.

So what explains this ongoing largesse? The authors conclude that the answer lies with the Israel lobby, a loose coalition of individuals and organisations that wants US leaders to treat Israel as though it were the 51st state. The lobby stifles debate, inhibits criticism of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands and maintains the special relationship despite the fact that it has become a liability both for the US and for Israel itself.

In its transition from literary journal essay to stand-alone book, the authors have made a few telling alterations of presentation and emphasis. The most vivid is that in the body of the text they have demoted lobby to lower case: the Israel Lobby has become the Israel lobby. Walt sees that as the most minor of changes, remarking that: “John and I don’t even remember how the capital L got used in the first place.”

More substantially, perhaps, they have used the extra space to make several robust disclaimers, insisting that they have never questioned the right of Israel to exist or the legitimacy of the Israel lobby itself. They have also filed down some of the more jagged edges of their argument, such as their position on the role the lobby played in the build-up to the Iraq war. They still maintain that the war would “almost certainly not have occurred” were it not for the Israel lobby, but they soften the claim by adding that America’s belligerent mood in the aftermath of the attacks on New York and Washington also had much to do with it.

Such nuances make for a more sophisticated read, but they fall far short of the revisions - the authors would say capitulations - that would be needed to satisfy their detractors.

Foxman is one of the most vocal critics. His new book, timed specifically to counteract the arrival on bookshelves of The Israel Lobby, pulls no punches. Its title is representative of the tone of the book: The Deadliest Lies. “This is a big lie that the Jewish people have lived with throughout history,” he tells me from his New York office. “Up to now these anti-semitic canards have been heard on the fringes, but to have two respected academics repeat them legitimises the debate and penetrates the mainstream.”

More measured - though still forceful - criticism of the Mearsheimer and Walt book has come from those titans of US journalism, the New York Times and the New Yorker. The Times’ book critic William Grimes takes a swipe at the authors’ claim that it is time for the US to treat Israel as a normal country: “But it’s not. And America won’t. That’s realism.” David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker, suggests none too flatteringly that the book is symptomatic of a polarised era in which Americans are searching for an explanation to the evils of the times.

In the swirl of debate, the squabbling parties keep coming back to the core concept of an Israel lobby, case notwithstanding.

The authors have been meticulously careful in the book to stress that they see the lobby as a loose coalition. It is not a single, unified movement and it is certainly not a cabal or conspiracy. Yet no matter how profuse their disclaimers, they have not assuaged those antagonists for whom any lumping together of Jews or Jewish interest groups sets alarm bells ringing. “Visit any anti-semitic website and you’ll hear the same old themes: the Jews have too much power; they exercise political influence not as individual citizens but as a cabal,” writes Foxman. “Walt and Mearsheimer sound all the same notes, with a subtlety and pseudo-scholarly style that makes their poison all the more dangerous.”

In our conversation, Walt accepts the phrase “the lobby” is “an awkward term as many of the groups and people in it don’t operate on Capitol Hill. It’s shorthand - you could call it the pro-Israel movement”. One wonders why he and his co-author have stuck with it, then, when it has allowed their detractors to smear other more credible parts of their argument.

Take the slanging match over the causes of the Iraq war. Walt and Mearsheimer rightly lay a large part of the blame for this disastrous escapade on the neoconservatives within the Bush administration, but they then go on to define those neocons as an integral part of the Israel lobby. Books have been written about the various motivations of the neocons. Sympathy for Israel is one, but there are many others - the desire to spread democracy, a belief in the positive uses of military intervention, denigration of international institutions. To suggest that the neocons and the Israel lobby are one and the same is a conflation too far.

But the authors have brought into the open aspects of American intellectual life that needed airing. They cast light on the overweening activities of specific pro-Israeli groups, most importantly the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Aipac is a self-avowed lobby (it calls itself America’s pro-Israel lobby) and has been ranked the second most powerful such body in the US. With a staff of more than 150 and a budget of $60m, it wields extensive influence among Congressmen, working to ensure criticism of Israel is rarely aired on Capitol Hill. The Guardian invited it to comment, but it declined.

Though Foxman insists the furore is proof that debate is alive and kicking, Walt and Mearsheimer have also put their finger on the limits of acceptable discourse in the US. It is notable that none of the candidates standing for president in 2008 have a word of criticism for Israeli state behaviour; this week Barack Obama pulled an advert for his campaign from the Amazon page selling The Israel Lobby, denouncing the book as “just wrong”.

So what happened to America’s commitment to free speech, the First Amendment? “We knew from De Tocqueville this country is driven by conformity,” Judt says. “The law can’t make people speak out - it can only prevent people from stopping free speech. What’s happened is not censorship, but self-censorship.” Judt believes that a few well-organised groups including Aipac have succeeded in proscribing debate.

 He recalls a prominent Democratic senator confiding to him that he would never criticise Israel in public. “He told me that if he did so, for the rest of his career he would never be able to get a majority for what he cared about. He would be cut off at the knees.”

In the final chapter of the book, Walt and Mearsheimer make a shopping list of reforms. They call for: a two-state solution to the Middle East crisis; greater separation of US foreign policy from Israel for both nations’ sake; and campaign finance reform to reduce the power of pro-Israeli groups.

Nothing outlandish, or even controversial, there. Coming at the end of such a bumpy ride of claim and counter-claim, the conclusion feels almost disappointingly gentle. That in itself bears eloquent witness to the state of affairs in America today, where thoughts considered unremarkable elsewhere are deemed beyond the pale.