Dissident Veteran For Peace

It pays to read the Israeli and American Jewish press, which is usually far more informative about Zionist activities than the mainstream American press. For instance, at the end of a recent blog post by Ha'aretz's Chief U.S. Correspondent, Shmuel Rosner, we find this telling statement:

... Israel has ceased its efforts at psychological warfare aimed at arousing Western public opinion and governments to action via implied threats of an Israeli attack [against Iran].

As was obvious to many, scare-mongering and saber-rattling against Iran--"psychological warfare"--is orchestrated by Israel in cooperation with the Zionist fifth column here in the United States. These people don't have dual loyalties--they are loyal to Israel. Any appearance of loyalty to the US is just that--appearance--and merely a matter of expediency.

George Bush carried out the mission with gusto and actually had to be told to chill out lest the American masses should snap out of the stupor and figure out that US foreign policy has been hijacked by Zionists. A May 12, 2006, headline in the Forward read "Groups to Bush: Drop Iran-Israel Linkage." Ori Nir reported:

WASHINGTON — Jewish community leaders have urged the White House to refrain from publicly pledging to defend Israel against possible Iranian hostilities, senior Jewish activists told the Forward.

Messages were passed to the White House through several channels, Jewish activists said. And it seems to have worked: Speaking before the annual conference of the American Jewish Committee in Washington last week — his most recent address before a Jewish audience — President Bush talked about America's commitment to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and about his administration's commitment to Israeli security, but he did not link the two, as he has several times in recent months.

"We are basically telling the president: We appreciate it, we welcome it. But, hey, because there is this debate on Iraq, where people are trying to put the blame on us, maybe you shouldn't say it that often or that loud," said Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. "Within the Jewish community there is a real sense of 'thank you but no thank you.'"

Communal leaders say that although they deeply appreciate the president's repeated promises to come to Israel's defense, public declarations to that effect do more harm than good. Such statements, they say, create an impression that the United States is considering a military option against Iran for the sake of Israel — and could lead to American Jews being blamed for any negative consequences of an American strike against Iran.

Jewish activists are concerned that "there would be [a scenario] just like with Iraq: the idea that somehow the Jewish community and the neoconservatives have dragged the United States into a conflict with Iran," said Martin Raffel, associate executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, a policy coordinating organization that brings together 13 national Jewish agencies and 123 local Jewish communities. "And if things go badly and our people are killed, then who is to blame?" ...

On June 9, 2006, in "Bush Overture To Iran Splits Israel, Neocons--Olmert Asks Groups To Keep Low Profile" Ori Nir reported:

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration's offer to open direct talks with Iran and reward Tehran if it stops enriching uranium is exposing a policy rift between neoconservatives on one hand, and the Israeli government and Jewish organizations on the other.

Neoconservative analysts are blasting the administration, saying that holding talks with the Islamic regime would serve only to embolden it and undermine the anti-fundamentalist opposition in Iran. They argue that America's ultimate goal should be to change Tehran's theocratic regime. ...

The split appears to fly in the face of recent high-profile efforts to paint the pro-Israel lobby as a seamless network dominated by Jewish organizations and neoconservatives coordinating their activities with the Israeli government. Most notably, such a view was advanced by two highly respected academics — John Mearsheimer, a top international relations theorist based at the University of Chicago, and Stephen Walt, former academic dean of Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government — in a research paper released in March. [Contra Nir, Mearsheimer and Walt write: "We use 'the Lobby' as a convenient shorthand term for the loose coalition of individuals and organizations who actively work to shape U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction. Our use of this term is not meant to suggest that the Lobby is a unified movement with a central leadership, or that individuals within it do not disagree on certain issues."--VFPD] The Walt-Mearsheimer paper has triggered an escalating debate on the influence of Israel and Jewish organizations that has spilled over onto the opinion pages of major publications, including The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Recently, with such scrutiny mounting, Israeli leaders asked American Jewish organizations to lower their profile on the Iran issue, the Forward has learned.

In one notable example, a delegation of leaders from the American Jewish Congress met with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert shortly before returning to the United States. When asked how he thinks Jewish groups should pursue the Iran issue, Olmert reportedly implied that he would prefer a low profile, according to one source familiar with the proceedings. [emphasis added] ...

Israel's support for Rice and Olmert's request for Jewish groups to take a lower profile are being well received by many Jewish groups. Already, some Jewish groups had been asking the White House to stop suggesting that American efforts to block Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons are motivated primarily by a desire to protect Israel. ...

Nir misstates the case when he writes: "The split appears to fly in the face of recent high-profile efforts to paint the pro-Israel lobby as a seamless network dominated by Jewish organizations and neoconservatives coordinating their activities with the Israeli government." I know of no one who claims the Israel Lobby is a "seamless network"--it would be more vulnerable and easy to expose if it were. Nevertheless, it is not inconceivable that some small part of this "split" is actually a sham contrived in response to the unwelcome attention generated by Mearsheimer and Walt. In any case, it is clear that there is no real difference within Zionist ranks over hostility to Iran--that is a given--the differences arise over what type of attack to mount against Iran, when, and how.

See also: The Israel Lobby and the US War Against Iraq

Labels: Iran, Israel, Neoconservatives, War, Zionism