Israel can and must act in her own best interests.
By Ted Belman
-
Carpe diem quam minimum credula postero – “Seize the day, trusting as little as possible in the future.” Horace.
As I read Ettinger’s excellent piece below, I was reminded of other historical facts having to do with limiting Jewish settlement, emigration or immigration. Even before the British Mandate, Britain was actively limiting Jewish immigration to Palestine. Stalin also prevented Jewish emigration. The Mandate didn’t change much. Britain continued to limit immigration and so so did Russia/USSR right up to its downfall. Remember the “Let my people go” campaign in the seventies.
Haj Amin el Husseini, the grand Mufti of Jerusalem and confidant of Hitler, led a full scale Arab revolt against the Jews between 1936 and 1939 causing much Jewish bloodshed. In response the Peel Commission was set up and recommended limiting Jewish immigration to Palestine. Just what the Arabs wanted. In fact, the Peel Commission even recommended the abolition of the Mandate and recommended two states. Ben Gurion fought hard to maintain Jewish immigration and even supported partition while most of the Zionist movement did not. To his chagrin, friends of Zionism in England including Churchill and Lloyd George persuaded the British Parliament to vote against partition.
In 1938, Ben Gurion commented on Chamberlain’s “Peace in our time” and said “They handed Czechoslovakia over. Why shouldn’t they do the same with us?”
Shortly thereafter Ben Gurion made his case to Malcolm MacDonald, the Colonial Secretary, who suggested, that the Arab and Muslim world could rise up and threaten the British Empire and therefore to prevent this, Britain had to make sure that the Jews in Palestine remained a minority. In other words Britain was against the creation of a Jewish state.
During the war, the world conspired to prevent Jews from escaping Europe to Palestine. Britain, even after the war, actively attempted to limit Jewish immigration to Palestine. Remember the DP Camps in Cypress and “Exodus”.
It was due to Jewish resistance after the war that the British turned the matter over to the UN which ultimately voted for the partition that the British Parliament had turned down.. Ben Gurion preferred half a loaf to no loaf and so declared the State of Israel.
The Law of Return was quickly passed welcoming all “Jews” to come to Israel. All you needed to be eligible was one Jewish grandparent.
After the Six Day War in ‘67 the World attempted to prevent Jewish settlement of Judea and Samaria even though Jews had the legal right to do so stemming from the British Mandate. Neither Res 242 nor the Oslo Accords made mention of restricting such settlement, so the international community tried to brand the settlements as illegal pursuant to the Geneva Convention. Many legal scholars beg to differ with this and argue convincingly that the Convention doesn’t make settlements illegal.
Prior to the Roadmap, in response to atrocities the Arabs committed with their suicide bombers, the Mitchell Report rewarded them by recommending a settlement freeze just like the Peel Commission did. This freeze was incorporated into the Roadmap which came into existence in 2003.
Another refrain that developed particularly after the Roadmap, was that no one, meaning Israel, should do anything, meaning settle the land, to prejudge the outcome. Of course the Arabs could do anything they wanted to prejudge the outcome and the US cooperated with them. A case in point is opening her Consulate in Jerusalem to serve the Arabs while at the same time refusing to open her Embassy in Jerusalem to serve the Israelis. The US also supports illegal Arab construction and condemns Jewish construction, legal or otherwise.
The demand in the Roadmap that Palestine be “viable” and “contiguous” also prejudges the outcome as does the demand that Jerusalem be divided.
And now Obama is demanding a settlement freeze. Fortunately he doesn’t have the support in the US or in Israel to bring it about.
As Ettinger points out, Israel can and must resist the pressure and act in her own best interests.
US Pressure on Israel - A Guide for the Perplexed
By Yoram Ettinger,
Fact: In 1950, the US Administration pressured Israel to refrain from Jewish construction in Jerusalem and from declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel - Prime Minister Ben Gurion built, relocated government agencies and thousands of immigrants to Jerusalem and declared Jerusalem the capital of the Jewish State. In 1967, the US Administration pressured against annexation of East Jerusalem - Prime Minister Eshkol annexed, reunited Jerusalem, and built the formidable Ramat Eshkol neighborhood. In 1970, the US Administration pressured Israel to relinquish control over parts of Jerusalem - Prime Minister Golda Meir constructed the neighborhoods of Gilo, Ramot and Neveh Yaakov (current population over 100,000!). The US Administration pressured, Israel constructed, Jerusalem expanded and the Jewish State earned strategic respect.
Fact: In 1948, the US Department of State, Pentagon and CIA pressured Ben Gurion to avoid a declaration of independence. In 1961, President Kennedy pressured to stop the construction of Israel’s nuclear reactor. In 1967, President Johnson pressured against pre-empting the Egypt-Syria-Jordan military offensive. In 1977, President Carter pressured Prime Minister Begin to abstain from direct negotiation with President Sadat and participate, instead, in an international conference, focusing on the Palestinian issue and Jerusalem. In 1981, President Reagan pressured Prime Minister Begin against bombing Iraq’s nuclear reactor.
Defiance of pressure entails short-term cost but enhances long-term national security. Submission to pressure exacerbates pressure. Fending off pressure is required, in order to attain strategic goals. Avoiding pressure - through concessions - leads to departure from strategic goals.
Fact: US public and Congressional support of Israel is robust. “The Rasmussen Report” documents a 70% support (Aug. 10, 2009) and “Gallup” ranks Israel as the fourth-favored ally (March 3, 2009). 71 Senators signed an August 10, 2009 letter calling upon President Obama to shift pressure from Israel to Arab countries. The Democratic Chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, Howard Berman, called upon Obama to end his preoccupation with settlements. The Democratic Majority Leader, Steny Hoyer, resents Obama’s opposition to Jewish construction in East Jerusalem. The strongest (Democratic) Senator, Daniel Inouye, Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, is the most effective supporter of the US-Israel connection since 1948. Obama cannot get his legislative agenda without Inouye’s support. While Congress has reservations about Israel’s settlements policy, Congress opposes sanctions against Israel.
Fact: Following the 1991 Gulf War, Israel asked for emergency assistance, which Bush/Baker rejected, Congress supported and Israel received $650MN in cash and $700MN in military systems. In 1990, Bush/Baker attempted to cut 5% of the foreign aid to Israel, on account of Israel’s settlements activity. Congress opposed and the initiative was rescinded. The Legislature and the Executive are equal-in-power and fully independent of each other. The US Congress has been a systematic bastion of support of the Jewish State since before 1948.
Fact: President Obama has been transformed from a coattail President to an anchor-chained President, taking a dive from a 65% approval rating in January to less than 50% in September, the sharpest decline in recent decades, other than President Ford’s (due to his pardon of Nixon). Thus, Democratic House candidates/members are experiencing the lowest ebb in two years, while Republicans enjoy a systematic edge. Obama is confronted by an effective Blue Dog Democratic opposition.
Fact: President Obama exercises psychological pressure against Israel. He cannot exert an effective tangible pressure. He was not elected to uproot Jewish settlements and prevent Jewish construction in Jerusalem. His political future - and that of Democratic legislators - does not depend on these issues. The Arab-Israeli conflict is not among Obama’s top priorities, and his position on Israel is not compatible with most Democrats. Obama
needs the support of Israel’s friends on Capitol Hill, in order to advance his primary domestic and national security/international agendas.
Ted
You mean they were preventing emigration before 1922.
Was it an issue?
This was the period just after the Revolution and the period when Russia was fighting against 16 outside capitalist states.
Thy were hanging on trying to survive.
Comment by Felix Quigley — September 12, 2009 @ 11:51 am
I am reading a biography of Ben Gurion. The author says Ben Gurion turned against the communist revoltion in the twenties, recognizing it for what it had become and reports that when Stalin took over from Lenin, he writes “The Russian leaders, it now seems, would never let his people go.” No explanation or citation is given.
Comment by Ted Belman — September 12, 2009 @ 12:01 pm
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No Felix we are talking about your commie paradise before and after 1922!
By David harris:
In 1974, I traveled to the USSR for the first time, part of a US-Soviet teachers’ exchange program. I was sent to School No. 185 in Leningrad.
Shortly after arriving, I was walking in the hallway when a young girl passed by and quietly put a piece of paper in my hand. When I was alone, I read the note. It said: “David Harris, I feel you are a Jew. If I’m right, please know that my family are refuseniks. Won’t you come visit us?”
I did. It was one of several such families I eventually met. Why did they want to leave? Her father, an engineer, explained that his children had no future in the Soviet Union. The barriers were too high, anti-Semitism too endemic.
So why were they denied the right to emigrate?
I asked the girl, who was about 14 at the time, why she thought I was Jewish and risked approaching me.
She told me that in the USSR no one in their right mind would give a boy the first name David unless he was Jewish, or else they’d cripple him for life. She assumed it was probably the same in other countries.
It’s why she and other students insisted that Abraham Lincoln was the first Jewish president. Nothing I said could convince them otherwise.
The plight of the engineer’s family was but one episode in a difficult history, involving millions and spanning centuries.
It’s hard to know where the story begins.
Perhaps in 1648, when the Ukrainian Cossacks, led by Bogdan Khmelnitsky, went on a murderous rampage and killed as many as 100,000 Jews.
Or in 1791, when Catherine the Great created the Pale of Settlement, forcing Jews to live in this confined space for well over a century.
Or in 1827, when Czar Nicholas I began conscripting Jewish boys into the army for a 25-year tour, during which every effort was made to convert them to Christianity.
Or in 1881, when the assassination of Czar Alexander II triggered a deadly wave of pogroms, which would recur in the ensuing decades, often led by the Black Hundreds, whose slogan was, “Kill the Yids and save Mother Russia!”
Or that same year, when Konstantin Pobedonostsev, the Procurator of the Holy Synod, argued that the Jewish problem could be solved only if one third of Russia’s Jews emigrated, one third converted and one third perished.
Or in 1903, when the czarist secret police fabricated the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which claimed that Jews plotted to control the world.
Or in 1911, when Mendel Beilis was arrested in Kiev and put on trial for the supposed ritual murder of a Christian child - a blood libel.
Or in 1917, when Jews were accorded equal rights, creating the short-lived hope that better times were ahead.
Or in 1918, when that hope was proven illusory, as the Civil War resulted in an estimated 2,000 pogroms and tens of thousands of Jewish deaths.
Or in the 1920s, when emigration was no longer possible, and it became clear that Jewish religious life in the Soviet Union would be proscribed.
Or in the 1930s, the decade of the Great Terror, when many Jews were among the millions purged by Stalin.
Or in the 1940s, when Soviet Jews fought valiantly in the Red Army, losing hundreds of thousands of lives and winning a disproportionate share of medals of valor, only to return home to taunts that they had sat out the war in Tashkent.
Or in 1948, when Solomon Mikhoels, the legendary actor and chair of the wartime Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, was killed on Stalin’s orders in a feigned traffic accident.
Or the same year, when Golda Meir, as Israel’s first ambassador to the Soviet Union, came to Moscow’s only remaining synagogue, alarming the Kremlin when 50,000 Jews took to the streets to welcome her.
Or in 1952, when Mikhoels’ colleagues, having been charged with “treason,” “bourgeois nationalism,” or other crimes against the state, were executed in the “night of the murdered poets.”
Or in those years when the first copies of Leon Uris’s Exodus, the story of Israel’s birth, began circulating in Russian in samizdat, or self-publication, awakening kinship with the Jewish state.
Or in 1967, when Israel, faced with extinction by enemies armed with Soviet weaponry, vanquished the threat in just six days, electrifying Soviet Jews.
Whatever the cause, by 1971, there was a full-fledged Soviet Jewry movement in the USSR and a growing support network around the world.
For the next two decades, history was written.
Soviet Jews cried out in Russian, “Otpusti narod moy.”
They cried out in the Hebrew they were beginning to learn clandestinely, “Shelach et ami.”
And they cried out in English for the world to hear the famous Biblical words, “Let my people go.”
These Soviet Jews, few in number at first, were extraordinarily brave.
They challenged the power of the state - not just of any state, but the might of the Soviet Union.
Couldn’t the Kremlin simply crush them, make examples of them? And hadn’t the word “emigration” been missing from the Soviet lexicon for decades?
Repatriation to Israel, as the first activists demanded, seemed absurd. After 1967, there weren’t even diplomatic ties.
And yet, and yet, they weren’t crushed. Their numbers grew. The word “emigration” surfaced. And Israel became the overwhelmingly preferred destination for those who began leaving in 1971.
Many paid a heavy price.
Thousands were not fortunate enough to get permission to leave. Either they ended up in limbo, often for many years, as refuseniks. Or they became Prisoners of Zion, jailed for their activism and beliefs.
But nothing deterred them. And they knew they were not alone.
Jews from around the world, unwilling to sit silently while millions were once again targeted, organized, rallied, petitioned, fasted, lobbied, advocated and traveled.
Governments responded, most notably the United States and Israel, but others as well.
For our country, the plight of Soviet Jews became a central item on our bilateral agenda and for the Congress.
Israel, despite the absence of direct links with the USSR, found many ways to give hope and support to Jews in the Soviet Union.
The Helsinki Final Act, signed in 1975 by 35 nations, including the USSR and all of Europe, gave the Soviet Jewry movement an additional lever by calling for the protection of human rights.
And countless non-Jews responded.
From Martin Luther King, Jr. to Bayard Rustin, from Sister Ann Gillen to Father Robert Drinan, they represented many races, religions and creeds.
They stood up, their voices were heard and their message was clear - Let them live freely as Jews in the Soviet Union, or let them go.
Try as the Soviet Union might, it could not quell the growing storm of protest.
If the Kremlin relaxed its stance on emigration, as it did in 1973 and 1979, more Jews rushed to seek permission to leave.
If it tightened its stance, as it did after the Moscow Olympics in 1980, then the global outcry intensified.
And so we come at last to the Reagan-Gorbachev era. Few could have predicted its auspicious outcome.
Certainly, when we were asked to organize a mass rally in Washington, on the eve of President Gorbachev’s first visit in 1987, little could we have foreseen the extraordinary events of the next four years.
And little could I have imagined, as the chief organizer for that rally, as the son of one of the last emigrants from the Soviet Union in the Stalin era, and as a person who was expelled from the USSR in 1974 because of my contact with Jews, that I would be here today in the presence of Mikhail Gorbachev.
We had about five weeks to organize the rally from scratch. The largest Jewish rally in Washington till then had only drawn 12-14,000 people, which didn’t give us much hope. Plus, it was slated for December, with its notoriously tricky weather. And, not for the first time, it wasn’t easy to get Jewish groups to put aside differences and unite around a shared goal.
But Natan Sharansky, released from the Gulag the previous year, kept pushing our sights higher. We set a goal of 250,000 people, never really believing we’d reach it. In fact, we exceeded it.
People from all walks of life came. They felt they had to be there. They understood that silence or indifference to human suffering is never an answer.
And they were joined by Vice President Bush and a parade of Washington dignitaries.
Of course, only President Gorbachev knows the degree to which this and other rallies and protests affected the decision-making of the Kremlin.
I do know that, for the mood and morale of Soviet Jews, they were vitally important.
The knowledge that the United States stood with them in their struggle was extraordinarily powerful. And there are few American officials who embody that support more than George Shultz.
No words are sufficient to describe the central role he played, or the message he sent, when, as secretary of state, he hosted a Passover Seder for Soviet Jewish activists at the American Embassy in Moscow in 1987.
At a moment when the world needs symbols of hope and possibility, today’s lunch couldn’t be better timed.
It’s a perfect reminder of the power of individuals to dream dreams and fulfill them, as Soviet Jews did.
And of the capacity of true statesmen to chart a brighter future and achieve it, as our two distinguished guests did so magnificently.
Comment by yamit82 — September 12, 2009 @ 1:23 pm
The real Moses of Russian Jewry:
Rabbi Kahane founded The Jewish Defense League in The United States in 1968 to combat the rampant growth of Anti-Semitism in the inner cities. At that time, the poor and elderly Jews were easy targets for Jew hating, mostly black thugs. Rabbi Kahane rescued these abandoned Jews and changed the image of the weak and vulnerable Jew to one of a mighty fighter who strikes back fiercely against tyrants. Jew-haters around the world soon began to respect and fear the wrath and retribution of Kahane’s Chaya Squad, a group within the JDL, which succeeded in instilling fear in the hearts of the would-be criminals against Jews.
The JDL was the first group to really bring world attention to the plight of Soviet Jewry. They did so by engaging in unconventional and often violent tactics which succeeded in highlighting the plight of millions of oppressed Jews, suffering behind The Iron Curtain. The JDL succeeded in moving the issue off of the back pages and on to the front pages, where it belonged. Kahane was the “Moses” for Russian Jewry. It wasn’t long before the major Jewish Establishment organizations were embarrassed and forced into action, after so many years of apathy and indifference.
Russian Jews started to make aliyah by the hundreds of thousands, thanks to Rabbi Kahane’s dedication and vision. But as Rabbi Kahane said, “More than what we did for Russian Jewry was what they did for the young and lost American Jewish youth who finally had a Jewish cause to fight for, and boy did they fight, without sleep and at a risk to their freedom they did that which their parents never did for their Jewish brothers and sisters who perished during the Holocaust.”.
Opposition to Soviet policies
Initially, the League was connected to a series of terrorist attacks against Soviet interests in the United States, protesting that country’s repression of Soviet Jews, who were often jailed and refused exit visas. The JDL decided that violence was necessary to draw attention to their plight, reasoning that Moscow would respond to the strain on Soviet–United States relations by allowing more emigration to Israel.
On 29 November 1970, a bomb exploded outside the Manhattan offices of the Soviet airline, Aeroflot. An anonymous caller to the Associated Press claimed responsibility and used the JDL slogan Never again!. Another bomb attack, on January 8, 1971 outside of the Soviet cultural center in Washington, D.C., was followed by a similar phone call, including the JDL slogan. A JDL spokesperson denied JDL involvement in the bombing, but refused to condemn it. In 1970, Soviet agents forged and sent threatening letters to Arab missions claiming to be from the JDL to discredit it. They also were ordered to bomb a target in the “Negro section of New York” and blame it on the JDL.
In 1971, a JDL member allegedly fired a rifle into the Soviet Union’s mission office at the United Nations. In 1972, two JDL members were arrested and charged with bomb possession and burglary in a conspiracy to blow up the Long Island residence of the Soviet Mission to the UN. The two JDL members pled guilty and were sentenced to serve three years in prison for one, and a year and a day for the other. In 1975, JDL leader Meir Kahane was accused of conspiring to kidnap a Soviet diplomat, bomb the Iraqi embassy in Washington, and ship arms abroad from Israel. A hearing was held to revoke Kahane’s probation for a 1971 firebomb-making incident. He was found guilty of violating probation and served a one year prison sentence.
During the 1980s, past-JDL chair Victor Vancier, who is currently chair of the Jewish Task Force, and two other former JDL members were arrested in connection with six incidents; a 1984 firebombing of an automobile at a Soviet diplomatic residence, the 1985 and 1986 fire and pipe bombings of a rival JDL member’s cars, the 1986 firebombing at a hall where the Soviet State Symphony Orchestra was performing, and two 1986 detonations of tear gas grenades to protest performances by Soviet dance companies. In a 1984 interview with Washington Post correspondent Carla Hall, Meir Kahane admitted that the JDL “bombed the Russian mission in New York, the Russian cultural mission here [Washington] in 1971, the Soviet trade offices.”
The JDL was angry at music impresario Sol Hurok for bringing artists from the Soviet Union to the United States. In 1972, a bomb was planted in his Manhattan office, killing a secretary who happened to be Jewish. Hurok and twelve others were injured. Jerome Zeller of the JDL was indicted for the bombing. Kahane admitted involvement in 1992.
Rabbi Kahane was jailed many times and was sentenced to prison terms for his actions related to the campaign on behalf of Soviet Jews.
Good Jews
Comment by yamit82 — September 12, 2009 @ 2:07 pm
[...] Israel can and must act in her own best interests. [...]
Pingback by Four Left Wing Myths About Israel — Winds Of Jihad By SheikYerMami — September 12, 2009 @ 4:42 pm
Ted
Forgive my presumption but I have `placed some words in heavy italic above
These words bring us to the crux of the issue.
Basically Ted there are those who say that the seeds of Stalinism were contained inside the Bolshevik Revolution itself
And those who say that Stalinism was a phenomenon which can only be understood in the social conditions which were forced onto the Russian state and with that the serious revision of basic Marxist theory by the Stalinist tendency.
In fact Stalin simply did not take over, from Lenin, and the history bears this out.
Yamit82
I tend to despair of ever the truth arising from you and even from david harris who is a clever man and writer
take this from above
I make these points
1. It seems from above that 1917 did do something for the Jews
2. the reference to 1918 and the Civil War. 1. it is a feature of the “Whites” to stir uop antisemitism 2. This was not so much civil war as the invasion of Russia by 16 armies, including US, Britain, japan, France
3. The reference to 1920s, in what context, what year etc. This is not unimportant.
Comment by Felix Quigley — September 13, 2009 @ 11:46 am
The other thing is this
The October revolution was supported internationally, even by workers in Ireland.
But the country was almost immediately invaded.
It is not easy to find out WHO invaded. But in Wikipedia the effects of this civil war are clearly put
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Civil_War
That is a good description.
But it leaves out
1. Who made the October revolution? It was the always small Russian workers in the cities and large rural complexes
2. Result by 1922? You could say this small working class was wiped out
Only a fool would say that all of this had no bearing on politics.
Comment by Felix Quigley — September 13, 2009 @ 11:58 am
Yet you see for the committed anti communist it is precisely these kinds of facts that are left out. Deliberately? I would say!
Comment by Felix Quigley — September 13, 2009 @ 11:59 am
Felix nice history overview but nothing you say refutes anything I have written no what I posted from Harris. I don’t even attempt to refute or confirm whatever you write here as it bears no relevance to my contention the Russia and the Ukraine were two of the most antisemitic countries ever. That the plight of the Jews was little better if not worse under the Soviets than under the Czars. My maternal grandfather fled the Russian Army (deserted) in 1905 after being inducted as a Jew for 24 years. Can you understand that there is no positive nostalgia by any Jew for any country in Europe especially not Russia and the Ukraine. If it was so good for the Jews wouldn’t you think there would be some just a little? A Russian antisemite is a Russian antisemite whether a Communist or Capitalist. It’s in the DNA, the soul of the Barbarians. That includes my fried all your beautiful Serbs Croatians, Bosnians and all the rest of the Slavic Balkans. All of Europe for that matter.
Ask any Russian emigre’ what their opinion of your communism and your Trotsky is and if they don’t punch you out you will at least get an unpleasant earful from them. They lived under your definition of workers paradise, they were educated under that system with all the State Brainwashing assets from Birth. Replacing one form of Tyranny for another is not what will attract the masses and the Chinese workers who are todays staunchest capitalists.
One Jew did make a differece in fucking good old mother Russia:
Jacob Schiff
http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?s=Jacob%20Schiff&gwp=16
During the Russo-Japanese War, in 1904 and 1905, in perhaps his most famous financial action, Schiff, again through Kuhn, Loeb & Co., extended a critical series of loans to Japan, in the amount of $200 million.[15] He was willing to extend this loan due, in part, to his belief that gold is not as important as national effort and desire, in helping win a war, and due to the apparent underdog status of Japan at the time; no European nation had yet been defeated by a non-European nation in a modern, full-scale war. It is quite likely Schiff also saw this loan as a means of avenging, on behalf of the Jewish people, the anti-Semitic actions of the Tsarist regime, specifically the then-recent pogroms in Kishinev.
This loan attracted worldwide attention, and had major consequences. Japan won the war, thanks in large part to the purchase of munitions made possible by Schiff’s loan, and elements of its government took this as evidence of the power of Jews all around the world, of their loyalty to one another, and as proof of the truth of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This thinking later led to the failed Fugu Plan, which would have saved many thousands of Jews from the Holocaust, bringing them to Japan-controlled China to work for the benefit of Japan’s economy. In 1905, Schiff was awarded the Japanese Order of the Sacred Treasure;[16] in 1907 he was honored with the Japanese Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star.[17] Schiff was the first foreigner to have been personally awarded the Order by Emperor Meiji in the Imperial Palace.[18]
I love this story!
Comment by yamit82 — September 13, 2009 @ 1:41 pm
Watch Live here:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/133402
Jewish bloggers will meet in Jerusalem on Sunday for the Second International Jewish Bloggers Convention, organized by the Nefesh B’Nefesh aliyah organization. Hundreds of bloggers are expected to turn out for the event, and dozens more will take part online.
Israel National News will feature live footage of the event on Sunday.
The convention’s workshops, on topics from “making money by blogging” to “standing up for Israel,” filled quickly this year after last year’s successful conference. However, bloggers are still invited to register for other aspects of the event, which will include networking, speeches, panels and comedy.
Comment by yamit82 — September 13, 2009 @ 2:30 pm
I don’t like Ettinger. He is a corrupted past Israeli diplomat whose job was to lobby congress. What successes can he claim in that position? He is a typical know it all blowhard who when he had the responsibility failed and never admits or takes credit for his own failure but afterwards capitalizes on his tenure to claim to be an expert on American politics. Well I know enough about American Politics and Israeli politics to say he doesen’t.
Now Sultan Knish does seem to know something of the real world of American and Israeli politics and he spells it out here bluntly. I agree with every word. I would like to hear from anyone a contra argument to Knish.
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2009/08/big-israel-lie.html FULL TEXT
Since the 70’s, the Middle East’s real power struggle has shifted to the oil rich states, to Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. Iran and Iraq chose to build up their armies, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states instead built up their political influence in Washington D.C. and let the United States fight for them. This strategy paid off in the Gulf War and Operation Iraqi Freedom when Kuwait was liberated and Saudi Arabia got Saddam’s boot off its throat. Israel was never at risk of anything more than bomb blasts and rocket shelling from Saddam. By contrast Saudi Arabia and Kuwait had their survival at stake.
With Saddam gone, Iran and Saudi Arabia are funding Sunni and Shiite insurgencies within Iraq in order to seize Saddam’s oil. As a fallback position in case Iran manages to swallow Iraq and then moves on to them, the Sheiks and Princes continue buying huge stakes in American and European companies and property, in case they suddenly find themselves having to take a quick plane trip away from the region.
The myth of the All-Powerful Israel lobby has been extensively marketed for decades. But let’s actually take a look at how powerful this lobby is.
If the so-called Israel Lobby is so powerful, why after all these decades, has the United States failed to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital? Presidential candidates routinely visit AIPAC to promise that Jerusalem will be recognized as Israel’s capitol. Bill Clinton did it, Bush promised that it would be one of his first acts in office, Obama implied it. And once in office, not only did they not keep the promise, but they routinely signed waivers to prevent Jerusalem from being treated as Israel’s capital.
There is only one nation whose capital is not recognized by the United States. That nation is also the one who the wisdom of the mainstream media and many of the suit and tie unofficial members of the Saudi lobby, would have you believe controls America. The narrative of the powerful Israel lobby before whom everyone in D.C. trembles cannot be reconciled with this simple fact, or with many others.
For example, in every peace agreement completely under US mediation, Israel has given up land and never gained any permanent territory. If Israel were as expansionist and as in control of the United States government, should it not have been the other way around? Yet at Camp David, Carter pressured Begin into turning over land that was several times the size of Israel. Carter did not pressure Sadat to turn over land to Israel. The last four US administrations have pressured Israel into a peace process with the PLO that required Israel to transfer a sizable portion of land to their control. At no point in time were Egypt and Jordan expected to do the same. Does this sound like the product of an all-powerful Israel lobby.
Defenders of the “Israel Runs Washington” meme will argue that the US should have pressured Israel to do much more. As if Israel could do anymore without committing suicide. But then why hasn’t the United States pressured Turkey to stop its occupation of Cyprus or demanded that Spain create a state for the Basque? Either the Turkish Lobby or the Spanish Lobby is far more powerful than the Israel Lobby, or Israel is singled out because of pressure from a much stronger lobby, the Saudi Lobby.
What the “Israel Lobby” mainly deals with is the back and forth arms trade between the United States and Israel, partially packaged as foreign aid, and non-binding congressional resolutions that have as much force as a municipal resolution naming Tuesday, Global Twig Day. Most congressmen identify as Pro-Israel, mainly because it’s easy, costs them nothing and lets them pick up a few votes here and there. It is easy enough to vote on or co-sponsor the occasional pro-Israel resolution that does nothing but gather dust in the record cabinets, because it has no actual application. It is so ridiculously easy that even Barack Obama has done it. And it’s so meaningless that no President takes them seriously. Any measure that actually has legislative force is routinely crafted so that the President can waive it or set it aside if it interferes with administration policy. Which is exactly what happens much of the time.
To determine the power of a lobby, you look at what it can do when it matters, and when the odds are against it. The one direct collision between the Pro-Israel lobby and the Saudi lobby over the AWACS sale to Saudi Arabia, ended with a Saudi victory, despite overall public and congressional opposition to the sale. The Pro-Israel lobby was vocal and public. The Saudi lobby was in control behind the scenes. And just as it had when Saudi Arabia took over ARAMCO, and forced the United States to pay for it too… the Saudi Lobby won.
That is what a lobby that controls Washington D.C. does. It doesn’t put out a nameplate. It doesn’t waste time on rubber chicken dinners. It instead funds a host of organizations officially headed up by Americans with influence and power in Washington D.C. It gives them the funds to cultivate ties, to build think tanks and to build relationships behind the scenes. It doesn’t care whether it’s dealing with Republicans or Democrats. Come one, come all. We can put you to use too. And it makes sure that nobody pays very much attention to what is going on. Instead it dips into well worn propaganda to spread the idea that the Jews control Washington D.C., knowing that there will be plenty of eager takers to polish and pass on the meme.
If you look at what some of the most powerful people in the last few administrations had in common, the simple answer is oil. Saudi oil. The woman in control of foreign policy in the second half of the Bush Administration, Condoleeza Rice, did not have her name on an Israeli oil tanker, but a Chevron oil tanker, the former parent company of ARAMCO. The man quietly dominating US foreign policy under Obama, James L. Jones did not serve on the board of directors of Manischewitz, he served on the same Chevron board of directors that Rice had formerly served on. And Rice did everything but outright appoint him as her replacement.
But of course no one could possibly believe a wild conspiracy theory like that, not when the obvious answer is that the Israel Lobby controls Washington D.C. and keeps demanding that administration after administration force it to hand over land to its worst enemies. And for some reason forces successive administrations to not recognize its own capital city, encourages them to constantly threaten it and prevent it from defending itself.
The Big Israel Lie is that Israel is powerful in Washington and mighty in the Middle East. The real truth is that Israel is a tiny country that commands emotional affinity from a limited percentage of Jews and Christians, whose diplomacy abroad is clumsy, and whose regional influence is small, whose military is handicapped by liberal handwringing and whose leaders would rather negotiate than fight… until there is no other choice.
Comment by yamit82 — September 13, 2009 @ 4:39 pm
By the Way Last Week was the Sweet Sixteen Birthday of OSLO> You know the agreement BB promised to kill but keeps perpetuating it in spite of his past promises (lies)!
Sep 10, 2009 11:09 | Updated Sep 13, 2009 12:18
Another Tack: Unhappy birthday, bitter 16
By SARAH HONIG
“Tra-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la happy birthday sweet 16,” Neil Sedaka crooned his way to pop-culture immortality in those antediluvian days of 1961. Sixteen years are indeed a milestone. Any girl born this week in 1993 is, to borrow from yesteryear’s hit-song lyrics, “not a baby anymore.” She might well have “turned into the prettiest girl” and into “just a teenage dream.”
But not all birthdays are sweet at 16. Some stick painfully in the craw. Sometimes what grew up before our very eyes is nothing less than a teenage nightmare, certainly nothing to rejoice about.
Such is the pitiless pseudo-peace conceived clandestinely in Oslo, imposed undemocratically on hapless Israelis and launched festively on the White House lawn on September 13, 1993.
Worst of all, this misshapen 16-year-old grotesque has changed our circumstances forever. The cataclysmic chain reaction it set off rages still. Thus far nobody has possessed the pluck to snuff the monstrosity. Even those who once pronounced it dead, like Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, now make nice and vow to nurture it.
NEARLY NINE years ago, when campaigning for seeming superhawk Ariel Sharon, Netanyahu declared that “Oslo is dead. The Palestinians quashed the deal they themselves signed.” On that occasion he set three conditions for restarting talks: “an absolute cease-fire, a fundamental revamp of the message broadcast by the Palestinian leadership to its people, and testing these conditions over a prolonged period - not just two or three weeks.”
He stressed that “no real coexistence can emerge from a situation in which Palestinians speak war and Israelis speak peace. Only after thorough and unambiguous overhauls of Palestinian intentions and behavior can we return to a clean negotiating table.”
In actual fact, however, rather than being unceremoniously disposed of and buried, the Oslo ghoul mushroomed hideously from atrocity to atrocity. After two intifadas, nearly 2,000 Israeli dead, the attendant betrayal and folly of disengagement, the Hamas takeover of Gaza (which resulted from disengagement) and an ever-burgeoning series of egregious Israeli concessions (all of which the Palestinians disdainfully rebuffed), it can be confidently concluded that our geopolitical situation has never been this bad.
We mechanically move, as if mesmerized, from debilitating delusion to devastating weakness.
Given everything that transpired, it’s hard to recall how much better things were in the summer of 1993, before the Oslo newborn was underhandedly unleashed on unsuspecting us.
The first intifada had been quelled. The PLO was down and out, crumbling and deprecated even in the Arab milieu. Yasser Arafat and 50,000 of his henchmen hadn’t yet been imported here to set up their corrupt latifundia. The Palestinian state was a chimera. “Family reunions” hadn’t yet added 150,000 Arabs to Israel’s population.
Our deterrent was unshaken. Israel controlled all terror breeding grounds from south Lebanon to Gaza and all Judea and Samaria nooks. Islamofascist suicide bombings and unilateral Israeli retreats weren’t the vogue. No sane overseas democracy considered a full Israeli withdrawal to the untenable 1949 armistice lines a feasible realistic probability. No foreign government seriously assumed that halting all settlement construction is an acceptable proposition for Israel. None presented settlements as the conflict’s underlying root-evil.
Israel’s very right to exist wasn’t challenged in respectable society. Israeli academics weren’t ostracized as they are these days. Campuses worldwide weren’t off-limits to pro-Israel opinion. Israel wasn’t lustily demonized in what appear to be pluralist liberal environments. The Jewish state wasn’t the universally reviled pariah. To be sure, it was never the international community’s favorite child, but nothing approached the current isolation, venom and delegitimization.
A READER identified only as Ariadne responded to my Tack on the organ-snatching canard in Sweden by extolling that country’s religious tolerance (as if Jews are merely a religious sect): “You can be Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Wiccan or have no religion at all. All we care about is if you are good people. We do dislike bombs and white phosphorous used on innocent people, and we don’t like countries that can’t take criticism for their actions.”
Behind the facade of broad-mindedness and denial of bias are insinuations that we aren’t “good people.” Ariadne accepts as gospel charges that we fight dirty, that our enemies are “innocent people” and that our objection to blood libel makes us a country “that can’t take criticism.”
In Ariadne’s above few sentences is encapsulated Western Europe’s widespread anti-Israel discourse and much of what we are likewise likely to hear in supposedly erudite American university communities. It almost doesn’t matter what Israel does or how it behaves. It has a priori been accused, judged and resoundingly found guilty with abhorrence unparalleled since the omnipresent anti-Semitic ambiance of the 1930s.
We have indeed come very far from pre-Oslo days; and it was steeply downhill all the time and all the way. Concomitantly, emboldened Palestinians rose to bask in bountiful limelight on the international stage. Those blood-soaked spates of mass homicide that assorted Palestinians sponsor only uplift them farther. Even the initially shunned Hamas is gaining recognition and sympathy.
The dejecting bottom line is that the most extreme Arab terrorist outfit, spouting the most outspoken genocidal hate, cannot set a foot wrong. Even the softest, most yielding Israeli administration - i.e. Ehud Barak’s, Ariel Sharon’s or Ehud Olmert’s - cannot set a foot right, according to damning world opinion. Oslo put the Palestinians on a win-win course and Israel on a lose-lose track.
Every Israeli pullback only escalated terror, which perforce triggered Israeli self-defense, which in the end served to tarnish our reputation even more. Every Israeli concession, even if merely proposed and eventually spitefully refused, only whetted Arab appetites for more. The more that was squeezed from Israel’s eminently squeezable leaders, the more unsustainable our security status became. Yet even ultra-minimalist Israeli red lines - effectively adhering to what the exceptionally dovish Abba Eban dubbed “the Auschwitz borders” - are castigated as proof of Israeli intransigence.
The international community doesn’t denounce all-or-nothing PA rejectionism. It doesn’t question the premise that the PA’s honorable sole aim is to gain self-determination side-by-side with the Jewish state and that it sincerely strives for a historic-territorial reconciliation with Zionist Israel, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.
This Oslo-generated dynamic is the most compelling disincentive for the Palestinians to compromise. They see US President Barack Obama’s unrelenting pressure on Israel even vis-a-vis Jerusalem and they see nothing but a steady erosion of Israel’s positions. Even Netanyahu now hums a different tune, acquiesces to a Palestinian state (albeit with preconditions which are, alas, destined for oblivion) and de facto freezes Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria.
He may argue that it’s temporary and tactical. Yet nothing in this land is more permanent than the temporary. Moreover, all the clever tactical maneuvers Oslo inspired over 16 ghastly maddening years only drove Israel into a deeper, stickier, stinkier morass.
What an unhappy birthday, a bitter 16th.
Comment by yamit82 — September 13, 2009 @ 4:47 pm
Yamit,
Will you or someone explain to me why Israel has to partake in a meeting decided on by Barak HUSSEIN Obama?
What continues to annoy me is Israel being a sovereign nation is being dictated to by tin horn wet behind the ears (and they are big) community organizer posing as a president.
Will HUSSEIN Obama dictate to Canada, GB, France or Germany, not likley.
Israel needs to continue building their communities and taking care of business at home. There is no need to sit down with the Palestinians or any other Arab group until they recognize Israel as a Sovereign Jewish Nation, period. No ands if or buts. Until then, Israel should go about their business.
Comment by rongrand — September 13, 2009 @ 7:59 pm
Don’t Know!
Comment by yamit82 — September 13, 2009 @ 9:59 pm
Yamit, that is the shortest reply I have yet to see you post since I have been on Israpundit.
I figured I could go to my granddaughters soccer game and come back and find a 1000 word document explaining why.
Yamit, am disappointed to say the least.
Comment by rongrand — September 14, 2009 @ 1:54 am
[...] http://www.israpundit.com/2008/?p=16914 September 12, 2009 Israel can and must act in her own best interests. By Ted Belman Carpe diem quam minimum credula postero – “Seize the day, trusting as little as possible in the future.” Horace. As I read Ettinger’s excellent piece below, I was reminded of other historical facts having to do with limiting Jewish settlement, emigration or immigration. Even before the British Mandate, Britain was actively limiting Jewish immigration to Palestine. Stalin also prevented Jewish emigration. The Mandate didn’t change much. Britain continued to limit immigration and so so did Russia/USSR right up to its downfall. Remember the “Let my people go” campaign in the seventies. Haj Amin el Husseini, the grand Mufti of Jerusalem and confidant of Hitler, led a full scale Arab revolt against the Jews between 1936 and 1939 causing much Jewish bloodshed. In response the Peel Commission was set up and recommended limiting Jewish immigration to Palestine. Just what the Arabs wanted. In fact, the Peel Commission even recommended the abolition of the Mandate and recommended two states. Ben Gurion fought hard to maintain Jewish immigration and even supported partition while most of the Zionist movement did not. To his chagrin, friends of Zionism in England including Churchill and Lloyd George persuaded the British Parliament to vote against partition. In 1938, Ben Gurion commented on Chamberlain’s “Peace in our time” and said “They handed Czechoslovakia over. Why shouldn’t they do the same with us?” Shortly thereafter Ben Gurion made his case to Malcolm MacDonald, the Colonial Secretary, who suggested, that the Arab and Muslim world could rise up and threaten the British Empire and therefore to prevent this, Britain had to make sure that the Jews in Palestine remained a minority. In other words Britain was against the creation of a Jewish state. During the war, the world conspired to prevent Jews from escaping Europe to Palestine. Britain, even after the war, actively attempted to limit Jewish immigration to Palestine. Remember the DP Camps in Cypress and “Exodus”. It was due to Jewish resistance after the war that the British turned the matter over to the UN which ultimately voted for the partition that the British Parliament had turned down.. Ben Gurion preferred half a loaf to no loaf and so declared the State of Israel. The Law of Return was quickly passed welcoming all “Jews” to come to Israel. All you needed to be eligible was one Jewish grandparent. After the Six Day War in ‘67 the World attempted to prevent Jewish settlement of Judea and Samaria even though Jews had the legal right to do so stemming from the British Mandate. Neither Res 242 nor the Oslo Accords made mention of restricting such settlement, so the international community tried to brand the settlements as illegal pursuant to the Geneva Convention. Many legal scholars beg to differ with this and argue convincingly that the Convention doesn’t make settlements illegal. Prior to the Roadmap, in response to atrocities the Arabs committed with their suicide bombers, the Mitchell Report rewarded them by recommending a settlement freeze just like the Peel Commission did. This freeze was incorporated into the Roadmap which came into existence in 2003. Another refrain that developed particularly after the Roadmap, was that no one, meaning Israel, should do anything, meaning settle the land, to prejudge the outcome. Of course the Arabs could do anything they wanted to prejudge the outcome and the US cooperated with them. A case in point is opening her Consulate in Jerusalem to serve the Arabs while at the same time refusing to open her Embassy in Jerusalem to serve the Israelis. The US also supports illegal Arab construction and condemns Jewish construction, legal or otherwise. The demand in the Roadmap that Palestine be “viable” and “contiguous” also prejudges the outcome as does the demand that Jerusalem be divided. And now Obama is demanding a settlement freeze. Fortunately he doesn’t have the support in the US or in Israel to bring it about. As Ettinger points out, Israel can and must resist the pressure and act in her own best interests. US Pressure on Israel - A Guide for the Perplexed By Yoram Ettinger, Fact: In 1950, the US Administration pressured Israel to refrain from Jewish construction in Jerusalem and from declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel - Prime Minister Ben Gurion built, relocated government agencies and thousands of immigrants to Jerusalem and declared Jerusalem the capital of the Jewish State. In 1967, the US Administration pressured against annexation of East Jerusalem - Prime Minister Eshkol annexed, reunited Jerusalem, and built the formidable Ramat Eshkol neighborhood. In 1970, the US Administration pressured Israel to relinquish control over parts of Jerusalem - Prime Minister Golda Meir constructed the neighborhoods of Gilo, Ramot and Neveh Yaakov (current population over 100,000!). The US Administration pressured, Israel constructed, Jerusalem expanded and the Jewish State earned strategic respect. Fact: In 1948, the US Department of State, Pentagon and CIA pressured Ben Gurion to avoid a declaration of independence. In 1961, President Kennedy pressured to stop the construction of Israel’s nuclear reactor. In 1967, President Johnson pressured against pre-empting the Egypt-Syria-Jordan military offensive. In 1977, President Carter pressured Prime Minister Begin to abstain from direct negotiation with President Sadat and participate - instead - in an international conference, focusing on the Palestinian issue and Jerusalem. In 1981, President Reagan pressured Prime Minister Begin against bombing Iraq’s nuclear reactor. Defiance of pressure entails short-term cost but enhances long-term national security. Submission to pressure exacerbates pressure. Fending off pressure is required, in order to attain strategic goals. Avoiding pressure - through concessions - leads to departure from strategic goals. Fact: US public and Congressional support of Israel is robust. “The Rasmussen Report” documents a 70% support (Aug. 10, 2009) and “Gallup” ranks Israel as the fourth-favored ally (March 3, 2009). 71 Senators signed an August 10, 2009 letter calling upon President Obama to shift pressure from Israel to Arab countries. The Democratic Chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, Howard Berman, called upon Obama to end his preoccupation with settlements. The Democratic Majority Leader, Steny Hoyer, resents Obama’s opposition to Jewish construction in East Jerusalem. The strongest (Democratic) Senator, Daniel Inouye, Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, is the most effective supporter of the US-Israel connection since 1948. Obama cannot get his legislative agenda without Inouye’s support. While Congress has reservations about Israel’s settlements policy, Congress opposes sanctions against Israel. Fact: Following the 1991 Gulf War, Israel asked for emergency assistance, which Bush/Baker rejected, Congress supported and Israel received $650MN in cash and $700MN in military systems. In 1990, Bush/Baker attempted to cut 5% of the foreign aid to Israel, on account of Israel’s settlements activity. Congress opposed and the initiative was rescinded. The Legislature and the Executive are equal-in-power and fully independent of each other. The US Congress has been a systematic bastion of support of the Jewish State since before 1948. Fact: President Obama has been transformed from a coattail President to an anchor-chained President, taking a dive from a 65% approval rating in January to less than 50% in September, the sharpest decline in recent decades, other than President Ford’s (due to his pardon of Nixon). Thus, Democratic House candidates/members are experiencing the lowest ebb in two years, while Republicans enjoy a systematic edge. Obama is confronted by an effective Blue Dog Democratic opposition. Fact: President Obama exercises psychological pressure against Israel. He cannot exert an effective tangible pressure. He was not elected to uproot Jewish settlements and prevent Jewish construction in Jerusalem. His political future - and that of Democratic legislators - does not depend on these issues. The Arab-Israeli conflict is not among Obama’s top priorities, and his position on Israel is not compatible with most Democrats. Obama needs the support of Israel’s friends on Capitol Hill, in order to advance his primary domestic and national security/international agendas. [...]
Pingback by Vichy — September 14, 2009 @ 1:03 pm
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This not the only disagreement I have. Again I ask where does Obama get off demanding anything with respects to Israel (a sovereign Jewish Nation).
Does Mr. HUSSEIN Obama demand anytning of Canada, GB, France or Germany? Not likely.
He is no more than a community organizer gone astray.
Please Israel get your act together and let this administation know Israel is not a colony of the U.S..
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