Is there a strong Jewish lobby in America or not?

[Jaga]

For you to judge. There are some commentaries - very negative or positve about the raport of two important professors about Jewish Lobby.

I chose this article since.... it gives the arguments both ways (and it is very confusing) so that I cannot be accused by anybody of being pro and anti (like these journalists from SLC):

www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_3647160
the beginning:

The idea of a powerful "Jewish lobby" that has its gnarled fingers in the machinery of the government is an old and repugnant canard. Along with the Jews who supposedly own the media and those who reputedly control the banks, the cabal of sinister, third-column Hebrews who whisper into the ears of our leaders is a classic in the traditional checklist of anti-Semitic fulminations.

....

the end:
Support for Walt and Mearsheimer has been somewhat muted, perhaps not surprisingly. In Haaretz, Daniel Levy, a former aide to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, wrote that although the article was "harsh" and "jarring," it should nevertheless "serve as a wake-up call, on both sides of the ocean."
It seems silly to deny that a powerful lobby on behalf of Israel exists. The real question is how pernicious it is. Does it, in fact, persuade us to act counter to our national interest -- or is it a positive thing, as publisher Mortimer Zuckerman suggests?

READ THE REPORT:
www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mear01_.html

[Jaga]

This is actually much more interesting commentary:

Overstating Jewish Power
Mearsheimer and Walt give too much credit to the Israeli lobby.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, March 27, 2006, at 1:47 PM ET


It's slightly hard to understand the fuss generated by the article on the Israeli lobby produced by the joint labors of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt that was published in the London Review of Books. My guess is that the Harvard logo has something to do with it, but then I don't understand why the doings of that campus get so much media attention, either.

The essay itself, mostly a very average "realist" and centrist critique of the influence of Israel, contains much that is true and a little that is original. But what is original is not true and what is true is not original.

Everybody knows that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and other Jewish organizations exert a vast influence over Middle East policy, especially on Capitol Hill. The influence is not as total, perhaps, as that exerted by Cuban exiles over Cuba policy, but it is an impressive demonstration of strength by an ethnic minority. Almost everybody also concedes that the Israeli occupation has been a moral and political catastrophe and has implicated the United States in a sordid and costly morass. I would have gone further than Mearsheimer and Walt and pointed up the role of Israel in supporting apartheid in South Africa, in providing arms and training for dictators in Congo and Guatemala, and helping reactionary circles in America do their dirty work—most notably during the Iran-Contra assault on the Constitution and in the emergence of the alliance between Likud and the Christian right. Counterarguments concerning Israel's help in the Cold War and in the region do not really outweigh these points.

However, Mearsheimer and Walt present the situation as one where the Jewish tail wags the American dog, and where the United States has gone to war in Iraq to gratify Ariel Sharon, and where the alliance between the two countries has brought down on us the wrath of Osama Bin Laden. This is partly misleading and partly creepy. If the Jewish stranglehold on policy has been so absolute since the days of Harry Truman, then what was Gen. Eisenhower thinking when, on the eve of an election 50 years ago, he peremptorily ordered Ben Gurion out of Sinai and Gaza on pain of canceling the sale of Israeli bonds? On the next occasion when Israel went to war with its neighbors, 11 years later, President Lyndon Johnson was much more lenient, but a strong motive of his policy (undetermined by Israel) was to win Jewish support for the war the "realists" were then waging in Vietnam. (He didn't get the support, except from Rabbi Meir Kahane.)


www.slate.com/id/2138741/

[sciwriter]

Jaga, interesting articles! IMO Arab influence is stroger than Jewishinfluence in USA. Oil importers in USA buy Mideast oil cheap and resell it on the global market for enormous profits. Carl

[sciwriter]

I think that AIPAC (pro-Israel lobby) is wasteful, and detrimental to Israel. IMO the Arab oil producing States, notably Saudi Arabia, have more influence than Israel in the USA. This is mainly because USA OIL importers buy Mideast oil cheap and sell it on the world market at enormous profit.
Israel survives mainly because it helps ensure some independence of its Arab neighbors from control by Europe and America. It provides computer, telecommunications and medical technology and other non-military technology to the Arabs which they would otherwise have to obtain from outsiders.
If theArabs didn't want Israel to exist, they would destroy it economically. For example, during the Mideast war in 1973, Nixon & Kissinger considered withdrawing support from Israel and let the Arabs win because this support was too costly. Kissinger said: "Let the Israelis bleed a little." But the Arabs refused because USA would demand total control of their oil. So OPEC leader: Sheik Yamani rejected this offer on TV.
Carl

[Jaga]

Carl,

yes and no. The most prominent figures of government like Collin Powell and Condolezza visited AIPAC conferences frequently but I did not hear about them being present in any other ethnic conferences.

By the way: read about free senators trips from a Jewish newspaper and see my signature:

www.forward.com/articles/7506

WASHINGTON — Jewish organizations played a leading role in defeating the effort, launched in response to the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, to ban privately funded trips for members of Congress.

In the past five years, Aipac and its affiliated American Israel Education Foundation spent almost $1.1 million dollars on trips — most of them to Israel — for members of Congress, according to PoliticalMoneyLine, a Washington lobbying and campaign finance watchdog organization. Aipac is second only to the well-funded Aspen Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, which has spent close to $ 3.5 million on trips for members of Congress since 2000

[george]

Of course Jewish influeunce is great in America! To the tune of about five billion dollars per year! If thats not influence i don't know what is.

[sciwriter]

Jaga and George: Those Jewish lobbyists are bad guys and IMO should be resisted. Arab lobbyists work through oil men, e.g., Bush and Cheney. Carl

[Jaga]

Read more:

Bush: We'll Protect Israel
By FORWARD STAFF
March 24, 2006

President Bush suggested this week that Israeli security was a main reason for America's effort to block Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons....
www.forward.com/articles/7543

[kaima]

george said:

Of course Jewish influeunce is great in America! To the tune of about five billion dollars per year! If thats not influence i don't know what is.

There seems to be no real logic behind our total support and money investment in Israel. It is a tiny mid-east country with no oil. We can't use their country or military as an allie because we have to stay on working terms with the neighboring oil producers. One desert tribe more or less should make little difference to us. It is almost as if we have guilt like the Germans for what their ancestors did 70 years ago. Oh, and now it seems that some fundamentalist Christians in America seem to feel we have an obligation to help God along in creating biblical conditions for the End of the World. Do you really think He needs help? I don't.

Kai

[sciwriter]

IMO USA needs Israel because of The following. Carl:

1: they are our ally
2: they are the only democracy in the region
3: they've supported us before when it was difficult and dangerous for them to do so
4: apparently the same people who want to destroy Israel also want to destroy us.
5: America loves the underdog.
6. Israel has offered peace many times, and has been rejected many times. The fact that they are willing to trade land for peace was established when they made peace with Egypt, then returned the Sinai.


"Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude."
-Alexis de Tocqueville

[bescheid]

Jaga

How so very timely! Of this discussion. It is interesting of the standards we each and all, my self included, hold in regards to an Israeli question.

I do realize that at times, I bring into a discussion, my own personal feelings. It is not a question of debate of lose/win or how ever, it is just my own expression of intrinsic feelings on a given subject.

I am learning from the attention of others in this subject.

For one thing, the power of debate, may not ever be underestimated, and when powered with leverage and skill, is a very aw some event. The Israelis have not let this go un-noticed. They have developed it and perfected this art.

From the stand point of the American view (from the terrace) a question must first be asked and realized from the out set:

Who are we?

Well, of course, we are Americans! But, what of the Israelis? Who are they. Well, a redundant question of a fools choice! But, is it for sure?

One point of question is very easily understood:

We, meaning Christians are relative only to the Israelis, we are the people of the book! The Bible people, that being of both the Israelis and Christians.

Relative to this, then it is a natural event, that Jews will protect Christians and Christians will protect Jews (Israelis), that is a recognized situation that simply sticks in the craws of the Arabs in resentment and distrust.

The below is information, that is all it is.

To know your friends, it is best to stay close to them.

To understand your enemies, it is better to stay closer to them.

For now they own the keys of the land in oil, the following day, what then will they own?

www.abbc2.com/islam/english/toread/whorules.htm

Charles

[sciwriter]

Charles, well said! IMO when the oil in Mideast runs out, there will be peace. Carl

[Jaga]

sciwriter said:

1: they are our ally
2: they are the only democracy in the region
3: they've supported us before when it was difficult and dangerous for them to do so
4: apparently the same people who want to destroy ... also want to destroy us.
5: America loves the underdog.

Carl,

it is interesting but this almost sound like Poland. We are a new democracy in the region, majority of Poles love America, we were always an ally, Poles were fighting for American freedom.

Now, tell me - why we donot get all these money?

[sciwriter]

Jaga, well said! Today Poland's existence is not threatened. Carl

[Jaga]

bescheid said:

Relative to this, then it is a natural event, that Jews will protect Christians and Christians will protect Jews (Israelis), that is a recognized situation that simply sticks in the craws of the Arabs in resentment and distrust.

The below is information, that is all it is.

To know your friends, it is best to stay close to them.

To understand your enemies, it is better to stay closer to them.

For now they own the keys of the land in oil, the following day, what then will they own?

www.abbc2.com/islam/english/toread/whorules.htm

Charles

Charles,

yes of course I agree that Jews are the elder brothers of Christians. But just recently I heard that if a person is born to a Jewish mother and he is muslim - he is still acknowledged as a Jew, the same to the atheist. But if a person is a Christian born to a Jewish mother - he is not considered a Jew, do you know why?