NOAM CHOMSKY AND THE PRO-ISRAEL LOBBY
"Reflexes that ordinarily spring automatically to the defense of open
debate and free enquiry shut down—at least among much of America's
political elite—once the subject turns to Israel, and above all the pro-Israel
lobby's role in shaping US foreign policy... Moral blackmail—the fear that
any criticism of Israeli policy and US support for it will lead to charges of
anti-Semitism—is a powerful disincentive to publish dissenting views. It
is also leading to the silencing of policy debate on American university
campuses, partly as the result of targeted campaigns against the
dissenters...Nothing, moreover, is more damaging to US interests than the
inability to have a proper debate about the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict...Bullying Americans into consensus on Israeli policy is bad for
Israel and makes it impossible for America to articulate its own national
interests...." Financial Times, Editorial, Saturday, April 01, 2006.
Introduction
Noam Chomsky has been called the leading US intellectual by pundits
and even some sectors of the mass media. He has a large audience
throughout the world, especially in academic circles, in large part because of
his vocal criticism of US foreign policy and many of the injustices resulting
from those policies. Chomsky has been reviled by all of the major Jewish
and pro-Israel organizations and media for his criticism of Israeli policy to-
ward the Palestinians, even as he has defended the existence of the Zionist
state of Israel. Despite his respected reputation for documenting, dissecting,
and exposing the hypocrisy of the US and European regimes and acutely
analyzing the intellectual deceptions of imperial apologists, these analytical
virtues are totally absent when it comes to discussing the formulation of US
foreign policy in the Middle East, particularly the role of his own ethnic group, or
the Jewish pro-Israel Lobby and their Zionist supporters in the government. This
political blindness is not unknown or uncommon. History is replete with
intellectual critics of all imperialisms except their own, staunch opponents of
the abuses of power by others, but not of one's own kin and kind. Chomsky's
Noam Chomsky and the Pro-Israel Lobby
long history of denying the power and role of the pro-Israel lobby in decisively
shaping US Middle East policy culminated in his recent conjoining with the
US Zionist propaganda machine in attacking a study critical of the Israeli
Lobby. I am referring to the essay published by the London Review of Books
entitled "The Israel Lobby" by Professor John Mearsheimer of the University of
Chicago and Professor Stephan Walt, the Academic Dean of the Kennedy
School of Government at Harvard University. (A complete version of the study
was published by the Kennedy School of Government in March 2006.)
Chomsky's speeches and writing on the Lobby emphasize a number
of dubious propositions:
1) The pro-Israel Lobby is just like any other lobby; it has no special
influence or place in US politics.
2) The power of the groups backing the Israel Lobby are no more
powerful than other influential pressure groups.
3) The Lobby's agenda succeeds because it coincides with the
interests of the dominant powers and interests of the US State.
4) The Lobby's weakness is demonstrated by the fact that Israel is
'merely a tool' of US empire-building to be used when needed and
otherwise marginalized.
5) The major forces shaping US Middle East policy are "big oil" and
the "military-industrial complex", neither of which is connected to the
pro-Israel Lobby.
6) The interests of the US generally coincide with the interests of Israel.
7) The Iraq War, the threats to Syria and Iran, are primarily a product of
"oil interests" and the "military-industrial complex" and not due to the
role of the pro-Israel Lobby or its collaborators in the Pentagon and
other government agencies. [Afghanistan was a likely target for Big Oil,
which supported Taliban diplomacy for sometime, before UNOCAL advocated
for regime change.]
8) The US behavior in the Middle East is similar to policies that it has
pursued elsewhere in the world, and this policy precedes the Lobby.
While in general Chomsky has deliberately refrained from specifically
discussing the pro-Israel Lobby in his speeches, interviews, and publications
analyzing US policy toward the Middle East, when he does, he follows the
above-mentioned repertory.
The problem of war and peace in the Middle East and the role of the
Israel Lobby is too serious to be marginalized as an afterthought. Restrictions
on our right to speak freely and critically regarding Israeli and the
Lobby's policies severely reduces the possibilities for political action. Repression
of free thought allows for the formulation and enactment of policies
that are damaging to the interests of the American people, particularly where
their best interests may diverge from those of their elites.
It is incumbent therefore to specify and examine the fifteen erroneous
theses of the highly respected Professor Chomsky in order to move ahead and
confront the Lobby's threats to peace abroad and civil liberties at home.
Chomsky's Fifteen Theses
1) Chomsky claims that the Lobby is just another lobby in Washington.
Yet he fails to observe that the Lobby has secured the biggest Congres
sional majorities in favor of allocating three times the annual foreign aid desig
nated to all of Africa, Asia and Latin America to Israel (over 100 billion dollars
over the past 40 years). The Lobby has 150 full time functionaries working for
the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), accompanied by an
army of lobbyists from all the major Jewish organizations (Anti-Defamation
League, B'nai Brith, American Jewish Committee, etc.) and the nationwide,
regional, and local Jewish Federations which hew closely to the line of the
"majors", are active in policy and local opinion on Israel, and promote and finance
legislative candidates on the basis of their adherence to the Lobby's party
line. No other lobby combines the wealth, grass roots networks, media
access, legislative muscle and single-minded purpose of the pro-Israel Lobby.
2) Chomsky fails to analyze the near unanimous Congressional majorities
which yearly support all the pro-Israel military, economic, immigration
privileges, and aid promoted by the Lobby. He fails to examine the list of over
100 successful legislative initiatives publicized yearly by AIPAC even in years of
budgetary crisis, disintegrating domestic health services, and war-induced
military losses.
3) Chomsky's cliche-ridden attribution of war aims to "Big Oil" is...
No other lobby combines the wealth, grass roots networks, media access,
legislative muscle and single-minded purpose of the pro-Israel Lobby.
...totally unsubstantiated. In fact the US-Middle East wars prejudice the oil
interests in several strategic senses. The wars generate generalized hostility to
oil companies with long-term relations with Arab countries. The wars result
in undermining the likelihood of new contracts opening in Arab countries for US oil
investments. US oil companies have been much friendlier to peacefully resolving
conflicts than Israel and especially its Lobbyists as any reading of the
specialized oil industry journals and spokespeople emphasize. Chomsky
chooses to totally ignore the pro-war activities and propaganda of the leading
Jewish pro-Israel organizations and the absence of pro-war proposals in Big
Oil's media, and their beleaguered attempt to continue linkages with Arab
regimes opposed to Israel's belligerent hegemonic ambitions. Contrary to
Chomsky, by going to war in the Middle East, the US sacrifices the vital
interests of the oil companies in favor of Israel's quest for Middle East hegemony,
responding to the call and at the behest of the pro-Israel lobby. In the lobbying
contest there is absolutely no contest between the pro-Israel power bloc and
the oil companies whether the issue is war or oil contracts. The former always
predominate. But Chomsky never examines the comparative strength of the
two lobbies regarding US policy toward the Middle East. In general this usually
busy researcher devoted to uncovering obscure documentation is particularly lax
when it come to uncovering readily available documents, which shred his
assertions about Big Oil and the Israel Lobby.
4) Chomsky refuses to analyze the diplomatic disadvantages that
accrue to the US in vetoing Security Council resolutions condemning
Israel's systematic violations of human rights. Neither the military-industrial
complex nor Big Oil has a stranglehold on US voting behavior in
the UN. The pro-Israel lobbies are the only major force pressuring for the
vetoes—against the US' closest allies, world public opinion and at the cost of
whatever role the US could play as a 'mediator' between the Arabic-Islamic
world and Israel. The public defense of Israeli crimes has nowhere been so
evident—or disadvantageous to US global standing—as its refusal to con-
demn the Israeli strikes on the civilians of Lebanon.
5) Again, for one so rigorous as Chomsky, it is striking that he fails to
discuss the role of the Lobby in electing Congress people, their funding of...
Chomsky chooses to totally ignore the pro-war activities and propaganda of
the leading Jewish pro-Israel organizations and the absence of pro-
war proposals in Big Oil's media.
Chomsky refuses to analyze the
diplomatic disadvantages that
accrue to the US in vetoing
Security Council resolutions
condemning Israel.
...pro-Israel candidates and the over fifty-million dollars they spend on the po-
litical parties, candidates and propaganda campaigns. The result is a 90%
congressional vote on high priority items pushed by the Lobby and affiliated
local and regional pro-Israel federations. The congressional vote on a mea-
sure with genocidal consequences—to cut off all aid to the Palestinians
pushed by AIPAC and all the Jewish majors-was approved by a vote of 361
to 37 with 9 abstentions. The Jewish right wing regime overrode the tiny liberal group of Jewish opponents allied with the Catholic Church and the World Council of Churches, referred to by the Jerusalem Post as "leftists".
Worse, the Lobby almost shuts down the political system as a tool through
which the American people democratically assert their preferences on
major issues—witness the near-unanimous support of the Democratic Party
for the Iraq war, and even a possible war against Iran, despite polls that now
indicate that a majority of Americans desire otherwise.
6) Nor does he undertake to analyze the cases of candidates defeated
by the Lobby, or the abject apologies extracted from Congress people who
have dared to question the policies and tactics of the Lobby, and the
intimidation effect of its 'exemplary punishments' on the rest of Congress.
The "snowball" effect of punishment and payoffs is one reason for the
unprecedented majorities in favor of all of AlPAC's initiatives. Chomsky's
feeble attempts to equate AlPAC's pro-Israel initiatives with broader US policy
interests is patently absurd to anyone who studies the alignment of policy
groups associated with designing, pressuring, backing and co-sponsoring
AlPAC's measures: the reach of the Jewish lobby far exceeds its electoral
constituency—as the one million dollar slush fund to defeat incumbent Georgia
Congresswoman, Cynthia McKinney demonstrated. That she was
subsequently re-elected on the basis of low keying her criticism of Israel
reveals the Lobby's impact even on consequential Democrats.
7) Chomsky ignores the unmatchable power of elite convocation
that the Lobby has. The AIPAC annual meeting draws all the major leaders in
Congress, key members of the Cabinet, over half of all members of Congress
who pledge unconditional support for Israel and even identify Israel's interests
as US interests. No other lobby can secure this degree of attendance of the
political elite, this degree of abject servility, for so many years, among both
major parties. What is particularly important to bear in mind is that the
"Jewish electorate" is less than 5% of the total electorate, while practicing
Jews number less than 2% of the population, of which not all are 'Israel
Firsters'. None of the major lobbies like the NRA, AARP, the National...
Chomsky fails to discuss
the role of the Lobby in
electing Congresspeople
and its impact on them.
...Association of Manufacturers, the National Chamber of Commerce, can con-
voke such a vast array of political leaders, let alone secure their uncondi-
tional support for favorable legislation and Executive orders. No less an
authority than the former Prime Minister of Israel, Ariel Sharon, boasted of
the power of the pro-Israel lobby over US Middle East policy. Chomsky merely asserts that the Pro-Israel lobby is just like any other lobby, without any serious effort to
compare their relative influence, power of convocation and bi-partisan support,
or effectiveness in securing high priority legislation.
8) In his analysis of the run-up to the US-Iraq War, Chomsky's otherwise
meticulous review of foreign policy documents, analysis of political linkages
between policymakers and power centers is totally abandoned in favor of
impressionistic commentaries completely devoid of any empirical basis. The
principal governmental architects of the war, the intellectual promoters of the
war, their publicly enunciated published strategies for the war were all deeply
attached to the Israel Lobby and worked for the Israeli state. Wolfowitz,
number 2 in the Pentagon, Douglas Feith, number 3 in the Pentagon, Richard
Perle, head of the Defense Policy Board, Elliot Abrams in charge of Near East
and North African Affairs for the National Security Council, and dozens of other
key operatives in the government and ideologues in the mass media were
lifelong fanatical activists in favor of Israel, some of whom had lost security
clearances in previous administrations for handing over documents to the
Israeli government. Chomsky ignores the key strategy documents written
by Perle, Wurmser, Feith and other ZionCons in the late 1990s demanding
bellicose action against Iraq, Iran, and Syria, which they subsequently
implemented when they took power with Bush's election. How can a first rate
intellectual critic of US foreign policy ignore, as Chomsky totally ignores,
the disinformation office set up in the Pentagon by ultra Zionist Douglas
Feith—the so-called 'Office of Special Plans'—run by fellow ZionCon
Abram Shulsky to channel bogus "data" to the White House—bypassing and
discrediting CIA and military intelligence which contradicted their
disinformation? Non-Zionist specialist in the Pentagon's Middle East office
Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski described in great detail the easy and constant
flow of Mossad and Israeli military officers in and out of Feith's office, while
critical US experts were virtually barred. None of these...
Chomsky merely asserts that the Pro-
Israel lobby is just like any other
lobby, without any serious effort to
compare their relative influence.
How can a first rate intellectual critic of
US foreign policy ignore the Office of
Special Plans set up in the Pentagon by
ultra Zionist Douglas Feith?
...key policymakers promoting the war had any connection to the military-
industrial complex or Big Oil, but all were deeply and actively tied to the
State of Israel and backed by the Lobby. Astonishingly Chomsky, famous for
his criticism of intellectuals enamored with imperial power and uncritical aca-
demics, pursues a similar path when it concerns pro-Israel intellectuals in
power and their Zionist academic colleagues. The problem is not only the
"lobby" pressuring from outside, but their counterparts within the State.
9) Chomsky frequently criticized the half-hearted criticism by liber
als of US foreign policy, yet he nowhere raises a single peep about the
absolute silence of Jewish progressives about the major role of the Lobby in
promoting the invasion of Iraq. At no point does he engage in debate or
criticism of the scores of Israel First academic supporters of war with Iraq,
Iran or Syria. Instead his criticism of the war revolves around the role of Party
leaders, the Bush Administration, etc... without any attempt to understand
the organized basis and ideological mentors of the militarists.
10) Chomsky fails to analyze the impact of the concerted and unin
terrupted campaign organized by all major US pro-Israel lobbies and person
alities to silence criticism of Israel and the Lobby's support for the war.
Chomsky's refusal to criticize the Lobby's abuse of anti-Semitism to destroy
our civil liberties, hound academics out of the universities and other positions
for criticizing Israel and the Lobby, is most evident in the recent smear cam
paign of Professors Walt and Mearsheimer. When the Lobby successfully
pressured Harvard to disclaim Professor Walt and may have eventually forced
his resignation from the Deanship at the Kennedy School at Harvard, despite
Walt's own disclaimer, Chomsky joined the Lobby in condemning their extensive
critical scholarship and meticulous analysis. At no point does
Chomsky deal with the central facts of their analysis about the Lobby's
contemporary power over US Middle East policy The irony is
Chomsky, himself an occasional victim of academic Zionist hatchet
jobs, this time is on the givers' end.
11) Chomsky fails to assess the power of the Lobby in comparison
with other institutional forces. For example top US Generals have frequently
complained that Israeli armed forces receive new high tech military hardware
before it has become operational in the US. Thanks to the Lobby, their
complaints are rarely heeded. US defense industries (some of whom have
joint production contracts with Israeli military industries) have bitterly complained...
Chomsky fails to analyze the impact
of the concerted and uninterrupted
campaign organized by all major US
pro-Israel lobbies and personalities to
silence criticism of Israel.
...of Israel's unfair competition, violation of trade agreements, and the
illegal sale of high tech weaponry to China. Under threat from the Pentagon of
losing all their lucrative ties, Israel canceled sales to China, while the Lobby
looked on... During the run-up to the US invasion of Iraq, many active and
retired military officials and CIA analysts opposed the war, and questioned
the assumptions and projections of the pro-Israel ideologues in the
Pentagon. They were overruled, their advice dismissed by the ZionCons and
belittled by their ideological backers writing in the major print media. The
ZionCons in the government successfully overcame their institutional critics in
large part because their opinion and policies toward the war were uncritically
accepted by the mass media and particularly by the New York Times whose
primary war propagandist, Judith Miller, had close links with the Lobby. These
are well-known historical linkages and debates of which a close reader of the
mass media like Chomsky would have been aware. But Chomsky deliber-
ately chose to omit and deny these, substituting more 'selective' criticism of
the Iraq war based on the exclusion of vital facts.
12) What passes for Chomsky's 'refutation' of the power of the Lobby is
a superficial historical review of US-Israel relations citing the occasional
conflict of interests in which, even more occasionally, the pro-Israel lobby failed to
get its way. Chomsky's historical arguments resemble a lawyer's brief more
than a comprehensive review of the power of the Lobby. For example, while
indeed, in 1956 the US objected to the joint French-British-Israeli attack on
Egypt, does this mitigate the fact that over the next 50 years the US financed
and supplied the Israeli war machine to the tune of $70 billion dollars, thanks
largely to the pressure of the Lobby? In fact, in 1967 the Israeli air force bombed
the US intelligence gathering ship, the USS Liberty, in international waters and
strafed US Naval personnel, killing or wounding over 200 sailors and officers.
The Johnson Administration in a historically unprecedented move refused
to retaliate and silenced the survivors of the unprovoked attack with threats
of 'court-martial'. No subsequent administration has ever raised the issue,
let alone conducted an official Congressional investigation, even as they
escalated aid to Israel and prepared to use nuclear weapons to defend Israel
when it seem to be losing the Yom Kippur War in 1972. The US defense of
Israel led to the very costly Arab oil boycott, which brought on a massive
increase in the price of oil, and the animosity of former Arab allies,
threatening global monetary stability. In other words, in this as in many other
cases, the pro-Israel lobby was more influential than the US armed forces in
shaping US response to an Israeli act of aggression against American
servicemen operating in international waters. In recent years, the power of
the Lobby has seriously inhibited the FBI's prosecution of the scores of
Israeli spies who entered the US in 2001. The most that was done was
their quiet deportation. The recent arrest of two AIPAC officials for handing confidential government documents over to Israeli embassy officials has led the pro-Israel lobby to mobilize a massive mediacampaign in their defense, converting an act of espionage against the USinto an 'exercise of free speech'. Editorials and op-ed articles in favor of
dismissal of the charges have appeared in most of the leading newspapers in
what must be the most unprecedented campaign in favor of agents of a
foreign government in US history. The power of the propaganda reach of the
Lobby far exceeds any countervailing power, even though the case against
the AIPAC officials is very strong, and includes the testimony of the key
Pentagon official convicted of handing them the documents.
13) Chomsky, a highly reputable critic of the bias of the mass media,
attributes corporate ties to their anti-worker news reports. However when it
comes to the overwhelming pro-Israel bias he has never analyzed the influence
of the Israel Lobby, the link between the pro-Israel media elite and the pro-
Israel bias. Merely a blind spot or a case of ideologically driven intellectual
amnesia...?
14) Chomsky cites Israel's importance for US imperial strategy in
weakening Arab nationalism, its role in providing military aid and military
advisers to totalitarian terrorist regimes (Guatemala, Argentina, Colombia,
Chile, Bolivia and so on) when the US Congress imposes restrictions to
direct US involvement. There is little doubt that Israel serves US imperial
purposes, especially in situations where bloody politics are involved. But
this ignores the corollary that Israel benefited from doing so (and perhaps did so
for this very reason)—it increased military revenues, gained backers favoring
Israel's colonial policies, provided markets for Israeli arms dealers and in
general established the appearance of a quid pro quo in what would other-
wise demonstrably be a ludicrously one-sided relationship. However a more
comprehensive analysis of US interests demonstrates that the costs of
supporting Israel far exceed the occasional benefit, whether we consider
advantages to US imperial goals or even more so from the vantage point of a
democratic foreign policy. With regard to the costly and destructive wars
against Iraq, following Israel's lead and its lobbies, the pro-Israel policy has
severely undermined US military capacity to defend the empire elsewhere,
has led to a loss of its prestige and perception of its power, and discredited
US claims to be a champion of freedom and democracy. From the viewpoint of
democratic foreign policy it has strengthened the militarist wing of the
government and undermined democratic freedoms at home. Israel benefits
of course because the war destroyed a major secular adversary and allowed it
to tighten its stranglehold on the Occupied Territories.
Leftist apologists for what Israelis call the US "Jewish Lobby" like Noam
Chomsky and Steve Zunes argue that US behavior in the Middle East is
similar to policies that it has pursued elsewhere in the world, and this
general policy is said to precede the lobby. This argument goes against
most of US post-World War Two history. Voluminous evidence demonstrates
that the US opposed colonialism and communism in Asia, Africa and Latin
America, seeking to replace European and Japanese colonial regimes, to
open markets and investment opportunities for US multinational corpora-
tions. Israel is the only colonial power opposing non-communist movements
that the US has supported. For example during the Suez crises of 1956,
when Britain, France and Israel invaded and occupied the Egyptian Suez and
Sinai, the US opposed their effort to restore colonial rule. Subsequently by
the late 1960's as the Jewish Lobby increased its power the US supported
with arms, billions of dollars and diplomacy Israeli colonization, territorial
grabs, and air assaults throughout the Middle East—a policy which it did not
and does not support any place else in the world, particularly colonial state
attacks aimed against some countries which have ties to US oil companies.
Unlike most of the rest of Asia, Latin America and Africa where the US has
developed close ties with elected neo-liberal regimes, the US cannot replicate
this policy in the Middle East because electoral processes result in negative
outcomes, in part because of the US ties to the Israeli colonial state and its
policy of territorial conquest. The major premise of US imperial foreign policy
is to extract huge profits from Africa, Latin America and Asia— which is
routinely accomplished, except in relation to Israel, which extracts from $3 to
$10 billion dollars of tribute each and every year. This is so evident as to be
ridiculous. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal (April 12, 2006),
Israeli Prime Minister Olmert announced he would seek $10 billion (USD) to
relocate 70,000 Jewish colonists in the West Bank. The Jewish Lobby
immediately lined up scores of Congress people to support the outrageous
Israeli proposal, at a time when hundreds of thousands of Hurricane Katrina
victims are without any housing, employment or future. Never has the US
engaged in an imperial war in which its major economic interests have
either opposed that war or remained silent. If we examine the cases cited
by Chomsky and his acolytes:
Guatemala 1954, Iran 1954 and Chile 1973, the major economic groups supported US intervention: United Fruit in Guatemala, Standard Oil in Iran, Anaconda and ITT in Chile. In the current Middle East and South Asian wars there is no comparable influence by major economic (oil) associations or even individualenterprises. Chomsky has not cited a single public statement or confidentialmemo or oil industry lobby, which is pushing the war agenda. In contrast there are over 2000 statements, press releases, conferences, interviews, op-eds articles, documents by all the major Jewish lobbies and their leaders
which promoted the Iraq invasion and presently promote a pre-emptive attack on
Iran. No other foreign policy area in the recent history of the United States has
been subject to such a long-term, large-scale propaganda effort by a lobby
acting on behalf of a foreign power, as is the case of the Jewish Lobby on
behalf of Israel. The analogies with the old China lobby are laughable— both
in terms of scope and influence in Congress. Likewise the anti-Castro lobby
has failed to block $1 billion USD in US exports to Cuba backed by a
formidable array of business interests. Moreover the anti-Cuban lobby does
not pursue the state policies of a foreign government, and lacks the financing,
media influence, and organization of the pro-Israel Jewish Lobby. Except in the
Caribbean and Central America, the US has not invaded or gone to war to
overthrow a regime in Latin America, unlike the case in the Middle East. The
US utilizes domestic surrogates, military officials in alliance with local ruling
classes, to depose nationalist or democratic regimes. In the case of Iraq,
however, the US has engaged in a direct military invasion, and it plans future
air and land wars against Iran and Syria. The different strategies reflect
different policies designed by policymakers with conflicting priorities in US
empire building: the neo-cons seek to destroy Israeli adversaries even if
it means prejudicing US economic interests, while the neo-colonialists seek o conquer resources, not territories. US foreign policy frequently involves debates, discussion, alternatives—even within the framework of empire
building. There is no such debate on the Middle East, which involves policy
related to Israel. The Lobby mobilizes between 90 to 98 per cent of Congress
members. US behavior in the United Nations on human rights resolutions,
sanctions, and peace proposals affecting Israeli colonial policy is profoundly
influenced by the Lobby. On no other foreign policy issue has the US used its
veto to protect a consistent violator of international law as it has with Israel.
Except for the resounding UN opposition to the US economic blockade of
Cuba, only the US policy condoning Israeli colonial expansion and violent
intervention in Palestine has evoked such worldwide opposition. To conflate
US imperial policies, policymakers and relations with Israel as similar to its
configuration related to the rest of the world is historically false, empirically
without foundation, and lacking in any analytical sophistication. No other
regional foreign policy had so many key policymakers in the State Department and Pentagon organically linked and politically loyal to a foreign state as is the case in the contemporary Middle East. No other foreign policy area has been so uncon-
tested in the mass media as is the Israeli colonial expansion and its sus-
tained violation of human rights. US Middle East experts who are not uncon-
ditional supporters of Israel are labeled by the Lobby as "Arabists" or worse,
"Anti-Semites", and have been totally marginalized in the State Department,
the military and the CIA or driven from Congressional office. On no other
regional policy area has this occurred. To argue that US Middle East policy is
the same imperial policy applied elsewhere is to ignore the different alignments
and power groups involved in determining policy and more importantly, the uses
to which imperial power is applied and for what interests.
The unconditional commitment to the Israeli colonial state has eroded
US relations with the richest and most populous states in the Arab and
Islamic world. In market terms, the difference is between hundreds of billions of
dollars in sales versus defending a receiver of massive US aid handouts. The
economic losses far outweigh any small-scale questionable military benefits. The
Arab states are net buyers of US military hardware. The Israeli arms industry is a
stiff competitor.
US oil and gas companies are net losers in terms of investments,
profits and markets because of the US ties to Israel which, because of its
small market, has little to offer in each of the above categories. Big Oil was
indeed interested in investing in Saddam's Iraq—it was excluded by US policy
banning US corporations from entering that market. The ban was part of the
ZionCon strategy dating back to the Clinton Presidency, itself heavily
influenced by the pro-Israel lobby and Middle East policymakers (Holbrooke,
Albright, Ross, Indyck, Sandy Berger etc). That France, China, Russia, Japan
and several other countries had an interest in Iraq oil and have signed several
billion-dollar oil contracts with Iran is not the cause of US war policy but the
consequence of it. Certainly big US oil companies could compete and have
a better than even chance of competing successfully for exploration contracts
under normal market conditions if the US war policy did not prohibit them.
The role of the ZionCons in power in diminishing the US MNC presence in
the Iranian oil fields demonstrates the supremacy of the Jewish Lobby over
Big Oil.
The argument that the war policy was designed to keep global oil
trading in US dollars when Saddam was thinking of moving into Euros or that
the dollar-denominated oil trade is threatened by Iran's proposed oil bourse
has no basis. Saddam's or Iran's moving to the Euro would have minimal or no
impact on the currency market, accounting for less than 1 % of currency
transactions. The big holders of dollars, by a multiple of a hundred, are the
Asians (China, Japan, Taiwan etc), the Middle Eastern oil countries led by
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, etc.—none of whom are known to be unloading dollars
or following Iran's, or earlier, Saddam's monetary agenda. To do so would
require a major wrench in their present relations with the US, one which
would be fraught with consequences.
Finally the Lobby's effective campaign to secure US vetoes against
international resolutions condemning Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestin-
ians and its assault on Lebanon puts the US publicly and very visibly on the
side of widespread, legalized torture, legalized extrajudicial executions, and
massive illegal population displacement, i.e. of war crimes, and crimes against
humanity. The end result is the weakening of international law and increased
volatility in an area of great strategic importance. Chomsky takes no ac-
count of the geo-strategic and energy costs, the losses in our domestic
freedoms resulting directly from the Middle East wars for Israel and even less of
the rise of a virulent form of Zionist neo-McCarthyism spreading throughout our
academic, artistic, and other public and private institutions. If anything
demonstrates the Zionists' growing power and authoritarian reach, the brutal
and successful campaign against Professors Mearsheimer and Walt confirm it,
in spades.
Conclusion
In normal times one would give little attention to academic polemics
unless they have important political consequences. In this case, however,
Noam Chomsky is an icon of what stands for the US anti-war movements and
intellectual dissent. That he has chosen to absolve the pro-Israel Lobby and its
affiliated groups and media auxiliaries is an important political event, especially
when questions of war and peace hang in the balance, and when the majority
of Americans oppose the war. Giving a 'free ride' to the principal authors,
architects and lobbyists in favor of the war is a positive obstacle to achieving
clarity about whom we are fighting and why. To ignore the pro-Israel Lobby is to
allow it a free hand in pushing for the invasion of Iran and Syria. Worse, to
distract from its responsibility by pointing to bogus enemies is to weaken our
understanding not only of the war, but also of the enemies of freedom in this
country. Most of all it allows a foreign government a privileged position in
dictating our Middle East policy, while proposing police state methods and
legislation to inhibit debate and dissent. Let me conclude by saying that the
peace and justice movements, at home and abroad, are bigger than any
individual or intellectual—no matter what their past credentials.
Yesterday the major Zionist organizations told us whom we may or
may not criticize in the Middle East, today they tell us whom we may criti-
cize in the United States, tomorrow they will tell us to bend our heads and
submit to their lies and deceptions in order to engage in new wars of con-
quest at the service of a morally repugnant colonial regime.
P.S - Chomsky doesn't care who might of killed JFK or who might of did 9/11.
there doesn't seem to be anything here