[lbo-talk] Chomsky: Israel Lobby ?

andie nachgeborenen andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com
Thu Mar 30 11:58:35 PST 2006


Don't forget that domestic policy plays a large role in US foreign policy. The organized pro-Israel lobby is like the pro-gun and anti-abortion lobbies, espousing positions that are opposed by a diffuse and comparatively unorganized majority (in the case of Israel, even a majority of American Jews) and whose positions are either neutral with respect to ruling class interest (guns) or actively opposed to them (anti-abortion). However, the Jacobin-Bolshevik organization of AIPAC, like the NRA and the antiabortionists, carries a lot of clout with the policymakers. In addition, the Christian Right has climbed on the pro-Zionist bandwagon, expecting Armageddon (the Meggido valley, actually) to start any old day.

The situation was similar, if you want a foreign policy example, with various weapons systems like star wars or the Stealth bomber (or it it the fighter) that is only stealthy if it doesn't rain -- these provide pork to investors in defense companies, but large scale spending on useless weapons directed at no threat is demonstrably harmful to the economy and competitiveness of US capital.

I'm not saying in the manner of Seymour Melman that domestic policy explains all of foreign policy, but I am saying it is a mistake to forget its importance.

Moreoever once should not underestimate the role of sheer inertia. Israel was useful to the Us from 1967 through at least the mid 1990s. Changing course on an old ally is not so easy unless it's one of our pet third world dictatorships that Americans can't tell one from the other - Iraq, Afghanistan (remember the freedom fighters who were equivalent to the founding fathers?). Israel, howver, is full of white people who speak English, many from Brooklyn and Queens, and has general recognition and powerful supporters.

--- Carl Remick <carlremick at hotmail.com> wrote:


> >From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
> >
> >Carl Remick wrote:
> >
> >>You're focusing on a point that is marginal at
> best to Alam's central
> >>argument, which is that present-day Israel
> subverts the US's obvious
> >>material interests, i.e.:
> >>
> >>"The obvious American path [to world domination],
> if we started carte
> >>blanche, would be to actually get 300 of the 306
> million people in an
> >>oil-rich region on your side as much as possible;
> to get the side that
> >>actually has the oil to tolerate you - you know,
> the dozens of countries
> >>versus ... just the one without any oil.
> Otherwise, you end up with some
> >>nasty stuff: mass riots ostensibly over cartoons,
> a totally unstable
> >>simmering Arab world with creaky despots sitting
> on a pot of boiling
> >>Islamists, a fanatical Iranian regime which
> nonetheless understands that
> >>another country owning 200 nuclear warheads
> legitimizes its own possession
> >>of such arms - and so on."
> >>
> >>QED I'd say.
> >
> >Gee, that Zionist lobby is pretty damned clever!
> They've really put one
> >over on the US bourgeoisie, haven't they?
> >
> >How can people believe this nonsense? How can you
> argue that the US elite
> >has systematically and persistently misunderstood
> its interests for almost
> >40 years? That makes sense if you believe in the
> sinister conspiratorial
> >effectiveness of The Jews; otherwise, it makes
> none.
>
> You're as fixated on the rearview mirror as Carrol,
> Doug. Whatever cold war
> strategic value the aircraft carrier USS Israel had
> is long gone. Israel is
> an expensive strategic liability to the US now, a
> valueless burden at a time
> that the US should be buddying up to the Islamic
> states that control the oil
> the US desperately needs.
>
> As I noted in an earlier post, I do not see the US
> as a noble innocent
> conned into an evil policy by the nefarious
> Israelis. Iraq was a folie à
> deux no question. The US was spoiling for a fight
> well before 9/11 for
> various reasons: (1) It was puffed up with imperial
> pride due to the ease
> of the NATO Balkans war; (2) the US establishment
> wanted the public to stop
> thinking as greedy investors (due to the stockmarket
> collapse and permanent
> loss of retirement funds) and start thinking as
> selfless patriots; and (3)
> the military was eager for another turkey shoot like
> Serbia, Grenada or
> Panama so they could try out their latest stuff and
> justify demands for
> increased funding. Israel's neocon champions simply
> acted as a trigger for
> a bomb that was ready to go off.
>
> Carl
>
>
> ___________________________________
>
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>

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