Doug Henwood writes (addressing Brad Mayer):
> Your foregrounding of Israeli "influence" is, you know,
> icky. It's too close to the Counterpunch line -- that Israel
> and a small group of rich American Jews have hijacked
> U.S. policy against our national interests -- which is too
> close to classic anti-Semitic discourse for my taste. The
> U.S. doesn't need lessons in imperial brutality from
> anyone.
Agreed. And as far as CounterPunch goes, their indulgence of right-wing creeps who support this line (Justin Raimondo, Ron Paul, etc.) -- apparently just to be cute -- got to be too much for me, especially when combined with their idiocies about this year's elections.
That said, US-Israeli relations are a complicated affair, no? The late Israel Shahak, who analyzed all of this very capably, put an emphasis on Israel's autonomous interests, which do often have a "wag the dog" aspect to them. This is not unusual phenomenon, where fanatical minorities form an alliance of convenience with imperialism but seek to push imperialist policy in an even more aggressive direction, often for parochial ends and against the imperialist power's own broader interests. The right-wing Cubans and the "China lobby" of old come to mind.
The old right in the US was very strong in its support for Taiwan in alliance with the "China lobby," but broader US interests eventually won out on that one. This is not at all so in the case of Cuba -- for while the US has an interest in undermining Cuba's potential example, its policy has also isolated the US diplomatically to its own detriment, and interfered with the business opportunities of many capitalist circles in the US. Would US Cuba policy be as ridiculous as it is -- and would presidential candidates like John Kerry be saying such ludicrous things about Venezuela -- if it weren't for the Miami gusanos? I doubt it.
Similarly, I'm sure that the US would support Israel fairly strongly even without the influence of AIPAC. But would US policy be as ridiculous as it is without the influence of "the Lobby"? It's an embarrassment for the US and for its conservative allies in the Middle East (the House of Saud, the Hashemites, etc.), and indeed, those political figures who are closest to the Lobby -- whether a certain kind of liberal, as typified by everyone from Tom Hayden to Chuck Schumer; or the "neoconservatives" who have become notorious more recently -- have a tendency to launch wide-ranging blunderbuss attacks on close US allies, particularly the Saudis as of late. That's not in the best interests of making sure that oil imperialism runs smoothly; it's the insertion of the parochial interests of a US client into US politics, even where the political preoccupations of the client clash with broader US interests.
It's arguable that this is politically analogous to the "pieds noir" of Algeria, the colonists who held out for "Algerie Francaise" even when it had become clearly untenable, and who very nearly overthrew the French government, too.
- - - - - John Lacny http://www.johnlacny.com
People of the US, unite and defeat the Bush regime and all its running dogs!