Better lives for our children’s grandchildren · by some friends

2 Responses to “15. In defense of Jeffrey Blankfort’s 17 Apr 2006 “Counterpunch” article”

1. John Spritzler Says:
   April 21st, 2006 at 5:23 am

   [ This article is on the web (with active links) at newdemocracyworld.org/War/Which%20Direction%20Anti-Zionism.htm ]

   After Walt and Mearsheimer: Which Direction for the Anti-Zionist Movement?

   by John Spritzler

   April 4, 2006

   [newdemocracyworld.org]

   When John J. Mearsheimer from the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government published their article–The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy–with copious footnotes online at the KSG and without the footnotes at the London Review of Books, they became the first academics with sterling credentials in the United States to advocate the previously taboo notion that the Israel Lobby controls U.S. Middle East foreign policy to the detriment of the American “national interest.” Walt and Mearsheimer (W & M), it is important to note, never defined “national interest,” because their audience is the class of powerful people in the United States who control the government and corporations and major universities and who have already defined “national interest,” in practice, as their interests, not the very conflicting interests and values of ordinary working class people–Americans or otherwise.

   Nonetheless, when W & M published, all hell broke loose. Pro-Zionists accused Walt and Mearsheimer of being everything from incompetent to anti-Semitic for daring to say anything negative about Israel and its famous Lobby.

   Among anti-Zionists (of whom I count myself one), however, there has been a long-running debate about the W & M thesis: some agree with W & M that Israel is the dog that wags the U.S. tail, and others (myself included) say it is the other way around. Among anti-Zionists the question has been far from merely an academic exercise in sociology because the kind of political organizing one does depends in important ways on the view one holds on this question. As I have written previously, the “Israel is the dog” view is the basis for allying with “pro-American” elements of the American corporate/government elite against the Israel Lobby, whereas the contrary view is the basis for building a pro-working class movement against the entire American corporate/government elite.

   The stark contrast between these two different kinds of anti-Zionist organizing, and the magnitude of what is at stake, have come into sharp relief recently with the publication of anti-Zionist defenses of W & M, in particular a recent article by Jim Petras, which I will examine here for this very reason.

   Whether W & M are right or wrong, about whether Israel is the dog that wags the U.S. tail or vice versa, is less important than whether or not the anti-Zionist movement we seek to build is pro-working class and anti-capitalist.

   Who among us, for example, wants to build a movement to protect the U.S. oil corporations, or the U.S. arms corporations, or any other segment of the American plutocracy from their enemies, Zionist or otherwise? Not I. Would the corporate elite who own General Motors and Delphi and Ford stop destroying the lives of American workers as they are now doing if only we could kick the Israel Lobby out? I don’t think so. Would they stop using the World Bank and IMF to squeeze to death–economically and often literally–masses of people in Latin America and Africa if only the Israel Lobby were removed from the U.S.? Obviously not.

   Is there any segment of the American plutocracy which shares our opposition to racism and oppression anywhere, be it Palestine, Indonesia, Bolivia…or the United States? Are the gentile billionaire families in the United States just waiting for us to get the Zionists off their backs so they can join us in fighting for a more equal and democratic world? Hardly.

   But when I read the praise of W & M coming from anti-Zionist quarters I cringe when the arguments advanced adopt a framework in which the conflict is characterized predominantly as the Zionists versus the American corporate capitalist elite.

   For example, there is a recent article by Jim Petras, called Noam Chomsky and the Pro-Israel Lobby: Fourteen Erroneous Theses. This article alarms me because it makes it harder rather than easier to organize a pro-working class and anti-capitalist movement against Zionism. It takes the form of a critique of Noam Chomsky’s rebuttal of W & M. (Life gets a bit complicated here because I have many bones to pick with Chomsky also. Whether Chomsky is right or wrong about the dog/tail question, for sure he is wrong in failing to oppose the existence of a Jewish state in Palestine. I also think his explanation of why Israel is the tail and not the dog misses the mark in important respects. And I thought he was wrong for going along with the Anybody But Bush line in 2004. But Chomsky is not the subject here. Petras and the kind of movement we are building is.)

   Petras emphasizes the wrong things. He agrees with W & M that the Israel Lobby made the U.S. invade Iraq, and then he emphasizes the importance of understanding that American oil corporations and arms corporations were hurt by the Zionists because of this. “In fact,” he says, “the US-Middle East wars prejudice the oil interests in several strategic senses.” He paints a picture in which our oil and arms corporation executives are the good guy victims, telling us that “US oil companies have been much friendlier to peacefully resolving conflicts than Israel …,” that “the US sacrifices the vital interests of the oil companies in favor of Israel’s quest for Middle East hegemony,” and that “top US Generals have frequently complained that Israeli armed forces receive new high tech military hardware before it has become operational in the US” and “US defense industries (some of whom have joint production contracts with Israeli military industries) have bitterly complained of Israel’s unfair competition, violation of trade agreements and the illegal sale of high tech weaponry to China.” Americans, to their credit, have always been suspicious of the “arms merchants.” Americans demonstrated against Dow Chemical and its napalm in the 60’s. Today they are trying to stop military recruiting. I don’t know anybody who supports the continued stockpiling of thousands of American nuclear weapons. The latest high tech military hardware is aimed against innocent people whether Israel or the U.S. military gets it first. I sure hope we don’t turn around and start feeling sorry now for arms corporations like Dow and Northrop and our pro-capitalist generals because the Zionists supposedly are making life hard for them.

   What about our government’s notorious support for dictatorships? Petras complains that Israel is making our government incur the “animosity of former Arab allies” (all of which, he fails to point out, are anti-democratic oppressive regimes.) Is that the goal–to dump the Zionists so we can cozy up to the Saudi Royal family more easily? (As I argue elsewhere, in reality the Saudi royals benefit from U.S. support of Israel.)

   Petras’s point is that all Americans–pro-working class or anti-working class, pro-imperialist or anti-imperialist, it makes no difference–should unite against the fundamental problem in the United States, which is not corporate control or inequality or capitalism but Zionist control. “The pro-Israel policy,” Petras tells us, “has severely undermined US military capacity to defend the empire…” and, he points out, “has led to a loss of prestige and discredited US claims to be a champion of freedom and democracy.” As one who has spent the better part of my life trying to help Americans understand that our government is not really about defending democracy and freedom, this last complaint by Petras really must make one wonder what kind of a movement is he trying to build? Is he saying that U.S. imperialism from the Spanish American War to the present was all about spreading democracy and freedom and we should be angry at the Israel Lobby for making it harder for people to grasp this wonderful truth?

   I am glad Petras is against Israel’s ethnic cleansing and the U.S. vetoing of U.N. resolutions condemning it, but Good Grief!, look at his reasons for being against these things: “The end result is the weakening of international law and increased volatility in an area of great strategic importance.” I can understand American imperialists worrying about “volatility” because that means mass popular movements that challenge the power of elite ruling classes. I was part of the “volatility” of the 1960’s in the United States, however, and proud of it. The Vietnamese peasants’ “volatility” kept LBJ awake at night worrying. Good for them, I say. Yes, ordinary people in Palestine and Egypt and Qatar and Saudi Arabia are indeed volatile. I’m glad. Petras, however, worries about it. (Petras is also strangely worried about the weakening of “international law.” Despite those of us who try to cite never-enforced international laws like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to organize against Zionist racism, the fact is that international law IN PRACTICE is legalistic cover used to legitimize the attacks on working class people around the world by the World Trade Organization, U.N. military forces, the World Bank, the IMF etc. Can anybody who remembers the brutal killing of millions of Iraqis by UN sanctions still speak fondly of the UN and it’s “law”?)

   To conclude, I don’t mind terribly that Petras disagrees with me about why George Bush supports Israel and invades Iraq. But I do mind if this disagreement leads him to try to shape the anti-Zionist movement into one that aims to unite with the American plutocracy around the idea of speaking out only against Zionism but keeping silent about (or downplaying–same thing) how that plutocracy attacks working people at home and abroad. That would be a disaster.

   ————————————–

   John Spritzler is the author of The People As Enemy: The Leaders’ Hidden Agenda In World War II, and a Research Scientist at the Harvard School of Public Health.

   www.newdemocracyworld.org

2. liz burbank Says:
   May 1st, 2006 at 1:25 pm

   re: The Last Taboo?2006 April 29th, 8:54 am · by billtempler
   Posting 20. to The Jewish-Israel Lobby, by Bill Templer, pwgd.org/gs/

   Bill,

   Taking it out of context and adding the paragraph [below-my emphasis] from my commentary “Cui Bono: Thoughts on the ‘Ferment Over the Israeli Lobby’ “, to the conclusion of your piece supporting Israel and emphasizing an alleged hidden danger of ‘anti-semitism’ in the “debate” gives the very misleading impression that I’m in basic accord with your position.
   I am not. My political position, made clear in my Digest, has always been unequivocal support for the Palestinian national liberation struggle and condemnation of ‘Israel’ as an illegitimate, racist, U.S.-client entity. My commentary as a whole from which you excerpted the quote makes this– and my position on the whole bogus “Israel lobby” issue– clear. Therefore in the interests of accuracy and honesty, please post this comment along with my commentary [below] in its entirety and for further info: www.lizburbankdigest.blogspot.com

   liz burbank

   from my 4/29/6 Digest: editorial commentary:

   Wow, what a story, what a deal, a rabbit-out-of-the-hat trick. History’s most powerful–and most desperately embattled– world-dominant imperialist superpower hijacked — by the ‘lobby’ of its dependent attack-dog racist client-state, it’s rulers mere pawns and/or traitors manipulated by some evil traitor jews ‘lobbying’ against its own american ‘national’ interests! Great fodder for cartoons — which, as threats to ‘national security’ will of course
   not be permitted ‘free expression’ in the U.S., Israel or other western capitalism-only democracies.

   Just a few thoughts on this hot new ‘issue’. Where from and why now this debate instigated by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt [M&W] via the Harvard Kennedy School– one of many university state assets? Asking CUI BONO sheds necessary light on murky things. Who benefits when — at the nadir of its global domination agenda, foiled in Iraq, facing increasing state opposition from Iran, Korea, Latin America and others organizing against the u.s. juggernaut, as well as confronted with severe internal contradictions bordering on a ‘constitutional crisis’ and massive popular opposition worldwide– the cause of the war against Iraq and all other elements of the u.s. crisis are illegitimately framed as a faux-legitimate question: has an ‘Israeli lobby’ forced the U.S. to act against its own imperial interests? First the absurdity of pretending U.S. imperialist interests are not necessarily pro-Israel/zionist, that some alien ‘lobby’ like a fifth column has snuck in to steal the show and that u.s. ‘national” imperialist interests are not international–and capitalist interests could ever be synonymous with the interests of the people in its nation-state or any other nation or people. Who benefits when the entire history of U.S. pro-zionism is turned into its opposite, big lie style, in the name of academic debate and freedom of expression? Why do too many arguing against M&W’s original thesis not expose its fundamental fallacy, arguing instead around the edges about the details not the substance, thus breathing more life into this Big Lie at the ‘heart’ of the u.s. agenda?

   Since 9/11, but in the works long before, the global role of imperialist state agents in academia expanded sharply under the aegis of “war on terrorism” –whose pretext and purpose is to “justify” the elimination of all opposition as “terrorist”. “You’re either with us or you’re with the terrorists” was a most unacademically succinctly phrased official U.S. position. That some of the imperialist architects and strategists are jewish, is incidental to the fact that u.s. imperialism is pro-israeli /zionist–and these strategic masterminds are profoundly pro-u.s. global domination. Their ‘jewish identification’ works to the advantage of both u.s. and israel. The extreme arm of u.s. imperialism appeals to its social base with tactics like David Horowitz “anti-terrorist” Campus crusade and HR 3077. The mainstream who still bothers cannot hear a mainstream capitalist “news” report not informed by academic, think-tank or other “expert consultants” , frequently ex-military, propagandizing every issue in accord with the “anti-terrorism” strategy of U.S imperialism. The position of this strata is necessary to and being fought for by anti-imperialist-zionists and reactionaries. Magic tricks like this faux issue play a critical role in shifting the real debate to favorable grounds for the U.S. –winning or losing–potential allies. This commentary, like all the participation in this issue, is part of that struggle.

   But beyond the imperialist academic agents and apologists instigators of this new ‘debate’, is the broader role and relationship of the liberal-left intelligentsia (including ‘The Nation’ and other liberal-lefts helping out by hungrily gobbling it up and dishing it out as if it’s a legitimate question) and of the petit bourgeoisie overall, to capitalist-imperialism — especially as it shifts gears from bourgeois- democratic to fascist mode. To just outline it in a few words: as the crisis of capitalism deepens, so do class contradictions so we see a growing left chorus shamelessly jump onboard and join in obscuring the real issue by hook or crook: how the interests of israel, its client-state, are essential to the u.s. “middle east’ and global domination agenda, with the ‘eretz israel’ agenda being a perfect fit, strategically drawn up and overseen by u.s. imperialism [for ex. see * below], worth whatever costs to expand and ’secure’ the U.S. “new world order”, dependent –in it’s fascistic wetdreams– on controlling the major energy/oil/resources for its imperial leverage.

   The intensely contradictory class nature and role of the liberal petit-bourgeois intelligentsia in particular is magnified–for better and worse–in times of capitalist crises. Torn between upward class strivings and its fear of de-classing, losing its class-race privilege, between its hatred for the ‘excesses’ of capitalism and its reformist impulses to make it more palatable, the middle class is not monolithic in its material or ideal relations to capitalism. But generally it is torn between opposing imperialism –or capitulating to it piecemeal by issue, or entirely. In left circles capitulation on this issue frequently maintains its ‘oppositional’ face with the old intellectual trick of ‘analyzing’ imperialism as a separate “foreign interventionist policy”, distinct from and correctable within the very system generating the problems, as if it is somehow immune to the inherently expansionist nature of capitalist accumulation –and thus to the systemic nature of the capitalist-imperialist system itself. By inverting the name and rules of the game, this ‘issue’ provides cover and ammunition for those in the middle to come over to imperialism’s side under-cover, for the intelligentsia already firmly committed to this system like Dershowitz et al it provides room for variations on the same side of this specious argument, and for the overt fascists, including the jewish zionists among them, it posits jews, not imperialist zionism as the enemy. Anti-jew raving reactionaries are fed some fuel by this and the white supremacist anti-immigrant war. Making an israeli ‘lobby’ the issue and making the terms of the terms of this set-up debate ‘either-or’, ‘yes-no’ takes U.S. imperialism off the hot-seat. [Similar in effect to how Zarqawi psyops creates a bogeyman and cipher for U.S. state-terrorism.]

   In this imbroglio, a capitalist-loving section of the intelligentsia reveals its loyalties by indirectly coming to the rescue politically of the embattled ruling class in a time of urgent need. [Digests available on my currently disabled blog www.lizburbankdigest.blogspot.com and more recent digests have focused on two relevant issues: the embedded intelligentsia’s role in the state’s NGO “strategic non-violence” operations and and the intensifying war against academia, but barely begin to deal with this crucial issue which will be taken up in future editions.] Meanwhile this vicious deception must be exposed and opposed because it aids our real enemies and because this strata’s role and influence is critical, beyond its own academic circles, in general media propaganda, and in broad mass movements as well as revolutionary working class and anti-imperialist movements. Beyond protecting its own capitalist class interests, this latest foray is a major side-winder attack on the Palestinian, Iraqi, Nepalese, on all other genuine anti-imperialist/zionist academics and struggles and the millions more inspired and influenced by them worldwide.

   Which is precisely the point. By design or default, this timely sneak attack has all the earmarks –and intended effects –of a psyops job–soon to be translated undoubtedly via the capitalist media for broader consumption.

   * A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm
   www.israeleconomy.org/strat1.htm
   Following is a report prepared by The U.S. Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies’ “Study Group on a New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000.” is the framework for a series of follow-up reports on U.S. strategy.

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