>-I can't agree with you about the power and significance of the
>-Israel lobby. It's full-funded, well-organized, and extremely effective,
>and
>-has the support of almost all of organzed, and I emphasize _organized_
>-American Jewry...You know that votes count, but
>-organization decides, as we say in Chicago.
>
>I'm sorry but there is a real historic amnesia about how recent the
>full-blooded support for Israel from the United States dates from.
I am well aware that the aggressive organized American Jewish support for any aweful thing the Israeli govt do dates from 1967. Did I say anything to the contrary? Moreover, this is not news, it's not even seriously disputed anywhere, so far as I know. What's your point?
It was only with
>Nixon and the 1973 war that US support for Israel ramped up-- the modern
>support for Israel was the convergence of the pro-Israeli "Scoop Jackson"
>wing of Democrats with neo-realists in the Nixon camp and the new Jewish
>neoconservatives who were just moving into the Republican camp. It was not
>"organized Jewry" but organized neoconservative Jewry who figured out that
>a
>strategic alliance with fundamentalist Christians and military hawks could
>deliver the permanent support for Israel they desired.
Ah, herewe disagree on two things. The 73 war solidified the rally round the Mogen David effect, but it was created in 67. I remember it very well. I was only, what 10 at the time, but I and everyother Jewisj boy in America all of a sudden started playing Moye Dayan, the synagogues were full of evil Eyptians propaganda. I distinctly recall my Hebrew school curriculum--in place, with textbooks--full of crap about the land without people for the people without a land, making the desert bloom, bla bla bla, and this was all well before 73 because I was bar mitzpha in 1970, and didn't go to Hebrew school after I started HS in 1971.
I swallowed all this stuff then, as did my parents, I don't want to imply I was a premature antiZionist. In my case it collapsed after a single argument in my first year in grad school (1979, when a classmate who was not a leftist forcefully pointed out to me that I could hardly reconcile my emerging Marxism with support for Israelu colonialism. AFterthat talk I went home and the next morning called the UJA, asked if the money I'd pledged was going to the settlements, when they said it was, cancelled the pledge. With my parents, it took the Invasion of Lebanon. Course they never ededup as far to the left as me.
> It was only with Reagan's administration that full-throated
>unwavering support of Israel became the policy of the United States as the
>neoconservative Jewish, Christian fundamentalist, military hawk alliance
>took over US foreign policy.
Doesn't alter my point that tyhe organized American Jewish community is in there pitching and matters a lot.
>
>Now I don't dispute that most Jews, especially organized Jewish groups,
>support Israel, but that is different from saying the "Jewish Lobby" runs
>US
>policy, especially when that is said without regard to the other non-Jewish
>groups, with a lot more influence, who have their own interests in Israel.
>
I didn't say that it did, that would be silly.
> >And what "silence" of the left on Israel? Almost every major left
> >organization condems Israel's policies. The National Lawyers Guild
>-It's not like the Guild is representative of a wide spectrum of opinion.
>DSA
>-is pretty wishy-washy at best on this.
>
>First, the Guild had as large a membership in the 80s as DSA (both around
>10,000 members), so while it's a professional slice of the left, I don't
>think it is necessarily unrepresentative. Yes, DSA was particularly
>wishy-washy, but they are not the only groups on the left and many
>progressives condemned Israeli's policies over the years.
Well, we (the Guild) are not so large now, though DSA probably is almost as large. Many leftists have condemned Israeli policies, but it's hardly as unanimous as left principles would indicate.
Remember that
>Jesse Jackson was rather prominently pro-Palestinian during his runs for
>the
>Presidency and many people supported him despite (or because of) those
>positions.
>
>
I was very active in the RC in both 1984 and 1988, and just speaking for
Michigan, Jackson's pro-Plaestinian views were not a plus in getting white
support for his candidacies. I was rathera popint man on the issue, as
people figured that because I wa Jewisj, I could say negative things about
Israel's policies in public. I caught a lot of flack for it, a LOT of flack.
James Abourazek, that was the ex-Congressmen's name. Wrote a book, didn't he? Something about daring to speak out.
jks
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