On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 10:51 AM, c b <cb31450 at gmail.com> wrote:
> http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/01/201311075440294575.html
>
>
> Obama defeats the Israel Lobby
> As long as Israel's security is not put at risk - "and no president
> would put it at risk" - the president will prevail.
>
> "The Department of Defence personifies US national security and once
> President Obama made clear that he would nominate Hagel, the game was
> over," writes author [Reuters]
>
> In 1983 or thereabouts, during my four year stint at AIPAC, the
> powerful organisation that is the main component of the pro-Israel
> lobby, I asked Tom Dine, its executive director, if a president of the
> United States could ever successfully challenge Israel's behaviour
> even in cases when US national security interests were clearly at
> stake.
>
> My question related specifically to the occupation of the West Bank
> and Gaza that began in 1967 and which seemingly made an
> Israeli-Palestinian agreement impossible. It also was, as it is now,
> the primary source of Arab and Muslim anger against the United States.
>
> The reason for my question was my fear that the power of the lobby was
> such that a president could not prevail against it.
>
> Even matters that did not directly affect Israel like US arms sales to
> allies like Jordan and Saudi Arabia, would meet massive resistance
> from Israel, the lobby and its huge chorus of supporters in Congress.
>
> How, I asked Dine, could the United States ever get Israel to actually
> yield occupied territory if it became clear that the Arabs were ready
> for peace, as in fact became the case after the 1993 Oslo agreement
> between Israel and the PLO?
>
> Dine responded that although he hoped the day would come when Israeli
> leaders (and hence the lobby) would be ready for "compromise", he did
> not think a president could make Israel do anything it didn't want to
> do given the power of the organisation he led and "our friends in
> Congress".
>
> But then he added a caveat: "Of course, if a president pushed hard
> enough, and told the American people that the Israeli-Palestinian
> conflict was damaging US interests and that he had a plan to end it,
> he would prevail."
>
> He elaborated: "By that I mean AIPAC would have no choice but to
> support him. We can never defeat a president who reaches over the
> heads of AIPAC and Congress and invokes his prerogatives as president
> of the United States or, even more, the national interest.
>
> The logic behind Dine's thinking was simply that American Jews would
> never allow themselves to be perceived as putting Israel's interests
> over America's because (1) that would be bad for Jews and (2) American
> Jews are Americans before they are anything else.
>
> It is fine to strongly support the Israeli government even when it is
> at odds with the US government - but only up to a point. The point is
> when that support clearly contradicts US interests, as defined by the
> president.
>
> Inside Story US 2012 - What role does the
> pro-Israel lobby play?
>
> That is why the lobby was so outraged when Reagan administration
> officials suggested the lobby's opposition to an arms sale to Saudi
> Arabia represented the wrong answer to the question of "Reagan or
> Begin?" That little phrase - "Reagan or Begin" - won the battle for
> the administration.
>
> That is why any criticism of the lobby that even hints at the lobby's
> putting Israel's interests above America's produces such fury, hence
> the recent hysteria over the use of the term "Israel Firster".
>
> American Jews will not tolerate the suggestion that they are anything
> but good Americans. Fighting a president over a national security
> issue is simply not sustainable.
>
> Although a president's choice for Secretary of Defence is not in
> really a national security issue, it does get to the question of an
> American president and his security prerogatives. After all, the
> Department of Defence personifies US national security. Once President
> Obama made clear that he would nominate Hagel, the game was over.
>
> Of course, the lobby claims that it actually did not fight to prevent
> the naming of Hagel. That is just silly. As someone who worked at
> AIPAC, in Congress and the State Department for 20 years, I know more
> than most that, when it comes to the Israel issue, nothing happens
> without the lobby's involvement.
>
> AIPAC is, like most professional lobbies, highly protective of its
> role. Its associates and friends, widely quoted in the media as
> demanding that Hagel not be appointed, would never have been so
> aggressive without AIPAC's go-ahead. That is how it works. It always
> has.
>
> Frankly, I am surprised that the president went ahead over the lobby's
> opposition. I am well-known for my belief that it could not be beaten,
> although I have always offered the caveat that it would be if a
> president fought back hard.
>
> Obama did, and Chuck Hagel will almost surely be the next Secretary of
> Defence.
>
> That is good news but far less significant than the implications for
> peace. As Dine told me all those years ago, if a president pushes for
> a peace agreement that advances US interests while not harming
> Israel's, he will prevail.
>
> That means that he can insist on an end to the occupation and the
> creation of a viable Palestinian state in the lands Israel has
> occupied since 1967. As long as Israel's security is not put at risk
> (and no president would put it at risk), the president will prevail.
> This is especially the case because an end to the occupation (with
> security guarantees for Israel and the new state) would advance
> Israel's security not damage it.
>
> The lobby will not be able to block a president determined to end the
> Israeli-Palestinian conflict on terms fair to both sides. It is like
> the father of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl, said: "If you will it, it
> is no dream."
>
> It is, as Obama demonstrated with Hagel, just a matter of will.
>
> MJ Rosenberg served as a Senior Foreign Policy Fellow with Media
> Matters Action Network and prior to that worked on Capitol Hill for
> various Democratic members of the House and Senate for 15 years. He
> was also a Clinton political appointee at USAID.
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-- Robert Naiman Policy Director Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org naiman at justforeignpolicy.org