TylerMC/domestic policy

Also from Jeff Blankfort: This is a very important article by Michael Massing who has previously written about the lobby for The Nation. Yet, the scope and power of the lobby is such that important elements have not been included, such as the American Jewish Committee, the ADL, the close to 200 Jewish Community Relations Councils, ad federations and other religious and secular Jewish organizations that are important and active components of the lobby.

Yet, even without them, the power of the lobby is evident. Regarding the war on Iraq, there remain signigicantly more sources within the Israeli press, as well as the US Jewish press which I used in my own article about the war in Iraq being for Israel. These articles have made Mearsheimer and Walt's case even stronger yet are totally ignored by their critics from the right and the left such as Stephen Zunes, Joseph Massad, Noam Chomsky, Phyllis Bennis, and As'sad AbuKhalil. END JEFF

For me, this segment presented new information. I look forward to the day, which will come when somebody disects how The Lobby and others work. Anyway, I found the following paragraphs rather enlightening.

AIPAC claims to represent most of the Jewish community. Its executive committee has a couple of hundred members representing a wide spectrum of American Jewish opinion, from the dovish Americans for Peace Now to the militantly right-wing Zionist Organization of America. Four times a year this group meets to decide AIPAC policy. According to several former AIPAC officials I have talked to, however, the executive committee has little real power. Rather, power rests with the fifty-odd-member board of directors, which is selected not according to how well they represent AIPAC's members but according to how much money they give and raise.

Reflecting this, the board is thick with corporate lawyers, Wall Street investors, business executives, and heirs to family fortunes. Within the board itself, power is concentrated in an extremely rich subgroup, known as the "minyan club." And, within that group, four members are dominant: Robert Asher, a retired lighting fixtures dealer in Chicago; Edward Levy, a building supplies executive in Detroit; Mayer "Bubba" Mitchell, a construction materials dealer in Mobile, Alabama; and Larry Weinberg, a real estate developer in Los Angeles (and a former owner of the Portland Trail Blazers). Asher, Levy, and Mitchell are loyal Republicans; Weinberg is a Scoop Jackson Democrat who has moved rightward over the years.

The "Gang of Four," as these men are known, do not share the general interest of a large part of the Jewish community in promoting peace in the Middle East. Rather, they seek to keep Israel strong, the Palestinians weak, and the United States from exerting pressure on Israel. AIPAC's director, Howard Kohr, is a conservative Republican long used to doing the Gang of Four's bidding. For many years Steven Rosen, AIPAC's director of foreign policy issues, was the main power on the staff, helping to shape the Gang of Four's pro-Likud beliefs into practical measures that AIPAC could promote in Congress. (In 2005, Rosen and fellow AIPAC analyst Keith Weissman left the organization and were soon after indicted by federal authorities for receiving classified national security information and passing it on to foreign (Israeli) officials.)

AIPAC's defenders like to argue that its success is explained by its ability to exploit the organizing opportunities available in democratic America. To some extent, this is true. AIPAC has a formidable network of supporters throughout the US. Its 100,000 members--up 60 percent from five years ago --are guided by AIPAC's nine regional offices, its ten satellite offices, and its one-hundred-person-plus Washington staff, a highly professional group that includes lobbyists, researchers, analysts, organizers, and publicists, backed by an enormous $47 million annual budget. AIPAC's staff is famous on Capitol Hill for its skill in gathering up-to-the-minute information about Middle Eastern affairs and working it up into neatly digestible and carefully slanted policy packages, on which many congressional staffers have come to rely.

Mearsheimer and Walt finally address their critics in this letter. I was curious what they were going to do with people like Dershowitz whom have been so discredited on the issue of Israel and history that it isn't worth debating them. They took the intellectual's way through.

One of my favorite quotes is thus:
"All Truth passes through three stages.
First it is ridiculed
Second, it is violently opposed.
Third, it is accepted as self-evident"

Arthur Schnpenhauer, 1788-1860

In case you're wondering, when it comes to THE LOBBY, we are still in the Ridiculed to Violently opposed. My experience has shown that once exposed to the truth on this issue it takes about 18 months to come around. Everyone goes through denial, (goes against the accepted story so can't be true), then comes confusion which tends to be depressing...this is the longest segment because you're testing the thesis and beginning to research quite a bit. Then the anger...rage if you're not careful, hits. Anger over the magnitude of the lie. Anger over the wasted lives. Anger over the system upholding the lie. Anger at the press. Anger at the Congress, Anger at the Church and justifiably, anger at Zionism. People go one of two ways when the anger hits. Either they get motivated and do something, (write, become activists, teach, learn more, challenge etc...) or a small percentage take that anger and turn it into hatred, the real anti-semitism. I've seen both outcomes with people I know. The problem is the system endeavors to make any questioning of this relationship between Israel and the US anti-semitism. It isn't, but that's how desperate they are to protect Zionism. They've also tried to make discussions involving the differences between the Christian faith and Jewish faiths anti-semitic. They are not. There is a reason Christians are Christian. There is a reason Jews are Jews. His name is Jesus Christ and he's either the Messiah or a Mad man, can't be anything else.

Those protecting the faith supremacy of Zionism's last ditch effort as this ship starts to sink is to try to make questioning the political movement of Zionism, which incorporates fascism, theocracy, militarism and elements of a representative republic to create a government which calls itself democratic. The problem is, a country cannot be a theocracy, Jewish or any other faith, and be a democracy. No country can. The reason is a democracy requires all inclusion, all equal. A theocracy by its very nature excludes based on faith. Put it this way. If you are a Christian or Muslim 'citizen' living in Israel you cannot travel, work, attend school, purchase a home or business, or even rent a home or business in 93% of the country.

Why? It's all 'Jewish Only'. No Muslims or Christians allowed. That seperating who can go where and do what based on faith, (or race) is a key characteristic of fascism which requires a priviledged class, (in this case Jewish) and a subordinate class, (in this case anyone not Jewish). The wall they're building is even more obvious.

The good news is, once you realize how bad, racist, disgusting, unfair, just plain evil and hideous Zionism is, (unfortunately it is not the Leon Uris fairytale...which is a wonderful story with a great soundtrack and movie too) you won't care what they call you... Defamation is the only defense they have. Their arguments are built on lies, aparthied, racism, entitlement and other very un-Jewish and un-Christian ideas. Each of these justifications disintegrates like rice paper in the rain. You see it for what it is: plain old racism.

So go get a bucket and start watering.

The tide is turning. The truth is getting out and I do believe in the next fifteen years this will end and end well. There are enough good people in Israel, the United States and around the world who are willing to say enough, put up with the feeble attempts of slander and libel used to protect the lie and begin working toward justice.

This paper by M/W has gone a long way to breaking down those barriers...they're Rosa Parks and the rest of us are jumping on board for the ride.

I met with Alison Weir about a month and a half ago and was speaking to her about the 39 American citizens killed by Israel which I documented in the article "Where American Lives Do Not Count". couplescompany.com/Features/Politics/2006/SacraficeAmericans.htm [couplescompany.com/Features/Politics/2006/SacraficeAmericans.htm]

Suffice it to say, I was shocked to learn that Israel regularly imprisons and tortures American citizens and our Government ignores it. According to statements by our own officials, they do not even know how many Americans are currently being held in Israeli prisons...because Israel isn't required to follow the 48 hour notification of detention we require all other nations, (and other nations also expect) to follow. This article details some of those cases.

This little gem will help you figure out who has bought or funds your favorite (or most reviled) public official. Rather enlightening to say the least!

And Finally, Congresspedia is similar to Wikipedia in that people can add information and details about all members of our legislature. This is a good place to start if you're researching someone...just use the same caution you use with Wikipedia. Since individuals post, always back up a piece of information, especially if it is damning with two other sources before quoting it. At least this service will point you in directions you may not have thought of.

Philip Weiss does a phenominal job taking the last six weeks of international fighting on the Mearsheimer/Walt paper. Extremely comprehensive...I have to say of the nearly 100 opinions and articles I've read on this, this is the best one to date.

Meanwhile...The Lobby in Canada is trying to equate criticizing The Lobby with, I am not kidding. The Lobby in Canada says criticizing The Lobby creates terrorism. jewishbulletin.ca/Archives/April06/archives06Apr28-11.html [jewishbulletin.ca/Archives/April06/archives06Apr28-11.html]

Are we laughing yet? (because I'm rolling around in hysterics now!)

Here's the preface you won't see with the article:

Ron Saba, Montreal Planet Magazine

I kid you not. In a fairly transparent ploy, the pro-Israel lobby is trying to bring pressure on the government to silence Canadians' criticism of Israel's actions and to also provide financing for their private security above and beyond what the RCMP and local police provide to all of us.

In the first volley in what might become a campaign, the following editorial titled "Obligation to protect" appeared in the Jewish Independent.

The article more or less claims that criticism of Israel causes terrorist acts. It's as if the pro-Israel lobby is taking their cue from the notorious Richard Perle, who called Pullitzer Prize Winning journalist Seymour Hersh a terrorist on national TV because of one of Hersh's articles.

Think for a moment what this means for Canadians. A Canadian group is calling for the Canadian government to silence criticism of a foreign country by other Canadians.

As if it wasn't enough that our media and airwaves are subject to intense levels of censorship and propaganda, we now are witnessing a push for "thought police" and the silencing of free speech by one of the most powerful and politically well connected lobbies in Canada.

Orwell is surely rolling over in his grave. And fascism is not far off.

My friend and veteran journalist Jeff Blankfort does such a good job explaining this article...I'll let his comments guide you through.

"Gabriel Ash has provided one of the more interesting commentaries on the Mearsheimer-Walt paper on the Israel Lobby, comparing it with other powerful lobbies such as that of the health industry which has made sure that the US would be and would remain the only country in the so-called developed world in which the access to health care is not considered a basic right. By describing nationally guaranteed health insurance as "socialized medicine" for more than six decades and having used the same tactics in demonizing anything "socialized" or connected to socialism as AIPAC has in demonizing the Palestinians, they have achieved the same degree of success.

There are, however, some qualitative differences. The Israel Lobby is much more than a tiny group of elites, as posited by Ash, and, in fact, is a well coordinated and dedicated network of a half dozen or so major organizations, about 60 smaller ones, and at the grassroots level, in key cities, a couple of hundred community relations councils and federations, and several thousand synagogues which tend to be very political. And that doesn't include the think tanks that are not officially connected to the Jewish community, like the AEI, the Hudson Inst., the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy, and, of course, the AIPAC initiated Washington Inst. for Near East Policy.

Nevertheless, in sheer economic power, it is dwarfed by the Health Industry lobby which is made up of the Pharmaceutical industry, the American Medical and American Dental Associations and the Hospital Association of America, and yet. through its individual donors and PACs, the Israel lobby contributes more money to presidential and congressional campaigns than does the Health Industry lobby. Moreover, apart from individual doctors ,dentists and pharmacists, the Health lobby doesn't have a grassroots network. While it has proven its ability to prevent any grassroots effort for a genuine national health program from emerging from Congress, it has not been able to silence political and public dissent on the issue as has the Israel Lobby on the question of US support for Israel. No other lobby, in fact, has had the same success in being able to do that. One might say that on this level, at least, the Israel Lobby is the more powerful lobby. If, as I and and a growing number of others have said or written, the current war on Iraq was conceived and pushed by the Israel Lobby as a war for Israel, and there is considerable evidence that it was, the ultimate effects on the US may come to rival the detrimental effects that the lack of a health care program has had on the American people, and particularly so, if the Lobby is successful in getting the US to attack Iran which has been the main item on its agenda since the invasion of Iraq.

Ash argues that the name of certain lobbies is misleading which is true. The Health industry lobby is the nation's foremost opponent of good health. The Cuban lobby is really the anti-Cuban lobby but, although many Israelis and some American Jews would and have argued differently, the same cannot be said for the Israel lobby. Without the Israel lobby, Israel would long ago have been out of all the occupied territories. Beginning with Nixon, every president until Clinton has made an effort to get Israel to withdraw, not to benefit the Palestinians, but to benefit America's perceived "national interest," in the Middle East, the one that Mearsheimer and Walt are referring to which would assure US and Western countries continued access to the region's oil and gas in a stabilized environment. (This critical bit of history has been largely buried not by the Zionists, but the leading "authorities" on the Left.)

Without the massive aid packages and the billions in loan guarantees and guaranteed bonds, $25.4 billion since 1988, none of which are debated in Congress (or opposed by the anti-war movement of which both UFPJ and ANSWER, as well as their predecessors, must be held accountable) , the Israeli economy would have gone belly-up before the tech boom. Can one imagine any country operating a national stock market that guaranteed investors that they couldn't lose money? Well, Israel did, and guess who bailed them out back in the early 80s, and that's another story that has slipped beneath the cracks. Can one imagine, as well, that had there been no Israel Lobby in 1967, that Israel would have gotten away with its hour and a half attack on the USS Liberty that took the lives of 34 sailors and left 171 wounded and the survivors forbidden on the threat of court-martial not to talk about it? The zionized Left still refuses to talk about it." JB

From Moral Vacuity to Righteousness
An Israel Accountability Act

You'll notice there is no mention in the mainstream media about this but the fact that it happened, even if the Congress was scared off by threats and FOX News' admonishment to see none be re-elected is good indication the cracks in the damn are widdening as is the courage of our representatives, however brief. Frankly it doesn't matter what FOX news does, (they only reach about 5% of the population). If we constituents let our representatives know we support thier efforts to 1) Place US interests First 2) Hold Israel to the same standards as all other nations 3) Refuse to allow a foreign nation and its lobby tell them what to do...we (Americans) may finally start to get our representatives back.