Support among Jews for an American military strike against Iran has declined during the past year, according to an annual survey of American Jewish opinion released Monday. The survey, commissioned by the American Jewish Committee, found that only 38% of American Jews support American military action, down from 49% last year. .. … Forward

It’s the political contest everyone enters. It happens every four years (and just about every year in between). Republicans and Democrats line up for the prize. Who can show they’re support for Israel more openly? Will it be Republicans? Or can the Democrats’ one upmanship win out this time? AIPAC will be the judge, with Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid as headliners to this year’s event, which was held last week. Pelosi reportedly was booed. Juan Cole cites the uninvited guest: Iraq, then goes on to talk about the changes brewing for the Jewish lobby. It’s not because of the corporate hack pack either. It’s because of some very brave bloggers who happen to be Jewish, which inoculates them from what a Scots-Irish broad like myself takes on the chin. There’s a fresh debate starting, which isn’t the same old, same old. It’s happening
partly because of Iraq, but also because of the talk of a brewing conflict with Iran. Voices are growing louder. The conversation began with a bang earlier this year.

It began here, with UPI Editor at Large Arnaud de Borchgrave.

Continued here, through Arianna Huffington’s back and forth with Wesley Clark.

However, it exploded over this comment:

“You just have to read what’s in the Israeli press. The Jewish community is divided but there is so much pressure being channeled from the New York money people to the office seekers.” – Wesley Clark

Then Matthew Yglesias weighed in.

The Jewish community, in short, is divided on the issue. It’s also true that most major American Jewish organizations cater to the views of extremely wealthy major donors whose political views are well to the right of the bulk of American Jews, one of the most liberal ethnic groups in the country. Furthermore, it’s true that major Jewish organizations are trying to push the country into war. And, last, it’s true that if you read the Israeli press you’ll see that right-wing Israeli politicians are anticipating a military confrontation with Iran. … Everything Clark said, in short, is true. What’s more, everybody knows it’s true. The worst that can truthfully be said about Clark is that he expressed himself in a slightly odd way. This, it seems clear, he did because it’s a sensitive issue and he worried that if he spoke plainly he’d be accused of trafficking in anti-Semitism. So he spoke unclearly and, for his trouble, got accused of trafficking in anti-Semitism.

Of course, the conservatives couldn’t wait to weigh in either. This was their chance to say it. Republicans are more pro Israel than Democrats. Now Republicans were sure Wesley Clark had proved the point.

It’s interesting to see a Democratic presidential hopeful denounce “the New York money people,” people whom Clark spent some time with in 2003-04. It’s a sign that pro-Israel sentiment is not as strong in Democratic politics as it used to be. As I’ve pointed out, rank-and-file Republicans are now more pro-Israel than rank-and-file Democrats. BaroneBlog

There’s no evidence that Democrats are willing to re-establish the honest broker in the Middle East that has served this country, Israel and the world so well before Mr. Bush blasted into the Middle East with his mind closed and guns blazing. Weighing heavily on the side of Israel is the only way to survive the debate,
especially going into ’08.

Stoller makes the point.

Barack Obama wants missile defense systems for Israel and the Arrow. Thankfully, he trumpets diplomacy as well. Good to know. That M.J. Rosenberg gave him credit for “no Palestinian-bashing” offers the dirty window into this world.

Edwards talked about poverty in his speech. But it’s hard to see how he could talk about poverty without mentioning the Palestinians. Oh, right, he was speaking at AIPAC.

Clinton says no military action on Iran without Congress’s permission. (No one has been stronger on this subject that James Webb.) However, to AIPAC in February, Clinton also said this: Make no mistake, Iran poses a threat not only to Israel, but to the entire Middle East and beyond, including the U.S. I don’t need to remind this group that about a month ago the Iranian government hosted a conference in Tehran whose sole purpose was to deny the Holocaust. …

If Clinton thinks Iran is that big of a threat, one wonders how Pakistan rates. Oh, that’s right, it doesn’t.

John Edwards and Hillary Clinton continue to use right-wing, always favorable, tried and true talking points.

“As to what to do, we should not take anything off the table,” Edwards said. “More serious sanctions need to be undertaken, which cannot happen unless Russia and China are seriously on board, which has not happened up until now. I would not want to say in advance what we would do, and what I would do as president, but there are other steps that need to be taken. For example, we need to support direct engagement with the Iranians, we need to be tough. But I think it is a strategic mistake to avoid engagement with Iran.” …”U.S. policy must be clear and unequivocal,” Clinton told the crowd. “We cannot, we should not, we must not, permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons, and in dealing with this threat, as I have said for a very long time, no option can be taken off the table.” Talk to Tehran, But Keep All Options Open

The Edwards – Clinton contest over who would be a better commander in chief for Israel is real. All options open may thrill audiences and the Jewish lobby, but it’s 20th century language in a modern era that requires more depth and courage, let me add. Does anyone really believe any American president would ever take the military option “off the table”? It’s absurd to posture. Whoever suggested such a thing would not survive the rhetorical onslaught that would follow.

Wesley Clark is a general and didn’t survive being honest, having to apologize for his candor. (UPDATE: Some believe Clark made more of a clarification than an apology, but regardless, Clark had to come out and at the very least vigorously defend his remarks.) Democrats are forever circling the wagons around AIPAC.

However, when it comes to posturing, no one is worse than Dick Cheney. But could anyone be more ignorant about the Middle East than the vice president? If you had any doubt, all you had to do was read his speech to AIPAC on March 12th to have it drilled home. This section in particular was a head turner.

In 2006, freedom’s enemies struck back with new tactics and greater fury. In Lebanon, Hezbollah terrorists who are supported by Iran and Syria, attacked Israel, killing Israelis and sending rockets into civilian areas and have since worked to undermine Lebanon’s democratically elected government. Also in 2006, Taliban and al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan waged a new offensive against Afghanistan and NATO forces. In Iraq, Sunni and Shia extremists engaged in escalating sectarian struggle that continues to this day. Vice President Dick Cheney

Devoid of reality, Cheney forgets to mention Mr. Olmert’s part in the Lebanon defeat of Israel, which was embarrassing politically and strategically, which we talked about continually when it blew up. As for Afghanistan, Bush-Cheney are responsible for not completing the job before they launched an attack on
Saddam. As for the Sunni and Shia “extremists” battling each other “to this day,” well, it’s hard to know where to start. But it’s the depiction of the “freedom’s enemies” striking Israel, without the context of Olmert’s abject incompetence that drives home the Administration talking points.

That’s because no one is allowed to forcefully take up a different position where Israel is concerned, mentioning that a regional war, as well as any military option directed at Iran, would do Israel a lot more harm than good. Shall we even talk what this would mean for America? But that’s like beginning a dialogue on Israeli settlements and also adding that Palestinians are being crushed under the horrendous weight of poverty. Insults and slurs start flying immediately.

When Wes Clark dared to speak out against the Israeli lobby on Iran, the torrent of abuse hurled in his direction was spine chilling. Then came Jimmy Carter’s book, which had people running for cover and quitting him en masse, because he dared to discuss the issues. Republicans don’t have the moral courage to open up a real dialogue about the Middle East, because they wouldn’t know an honest broker if Dick Cheney shot him in the face. The Democrats seem just as bad, because they are unwilling to support Israel while also reminding Israelis and other advocates the damage being done to us all under the Israel lobby’s current policies, which all politicians must support or risk political oblivion. Iran or bust isn’t good for anyone, least of all Israel.

As illustrated with the Clark brouhaha, there are emerging voices on the block that aren’t willing to take the inalterably intolerable foreign policy debacle in which we are current entrenched in the Middle East and project it into the future. Enter some very courageous Jewish men of the blogs, who have decided the talk on Iran is one ratchet too far.

… the tremendously well-funded propaganda edifice of the Israel lobby, from AIPAC and the Anti-Defamation League to the American Jewish Committee and multiple other groups, whose dank worldview reaches deep into the conservative think tanks and the upper echelons of the Bush administration. The AIPAC sensibility is expressed in cruder form by right-wing talk-radio hosts who every day try to soften up their listeners to the idea of American nuclear strikes against Muslim cities. But this hopeless view of the world, however much it is amplified by today’s Jewish establishment, is not the only perspective of American Jews. Indeed it is not even the majority view. A poll by the American Jewish Committee revealed that support among Jews for a military strike against Iran had dropped from 49 percent last year to 38 percent at present. One could argue that the dovish sentiment expressed by the commenter on the Klein blog is not only more grounded in history, human nature, and the particular Jewish experience than the one we hear from the American Jewish establishment before which Clinton, Edwards, Romney, and Giuliani kowtow. Is it really practical to think that Israel’s long-term security needs can be satisfied by having the United States smash the country’s potential enemies as they arise, again and again? The blogosphere is playing a role in bringing to the fore these kinds of dissenting views—though they may be majority views—letting them circulate and evolve under the test of critical argument. But even without the blogs, there have been signs that the lobby’s edifice is cracking. How else can one interpret the amazing document published by the American Jewish Committee last month, which accused several prominent American Jews of “anti-Semitism” because of their criticisms of current Israeli policies? It is one thing to claim that Christians who criticize Israel or the American relationship to Israel are motivated by anti-Semitism; this has long been a standard rhetorical tactic. But to wield that word against Jews—several of them very prominent in journalism, culture and academia—seemed so silly as to be a symptom of something like panic, as if the traditional big powers feel the debate about Israel and American foreign policy is veering out of their control. …Yglesias is on to something important here, though the situation is more complicated than he described. Both Jews and gentiles have been raising the volume of discussion about the American-Israeli relationship and Israeli policies. On the Jewish side, there is a profusion of important peace-oriented websites. The explosion of interest in the Walt-Mearsheimer essay and Jimmy Carter’s book evince a Christian awakening of the Mideast’s critical importance. The perilous present geopolitical context explains this: a great many people wouldn’t risk the opprobrium of the lobby for the sake of the Palestinians, who often wage their struggle far less impressively than one might wish. But letting the lobby influence American foreign policy toward Iraq raises the stakes mightily. Allowing Bibi Netanyahu and his American allies to call the tune of U.S. policy toward Iran is far too much to bear. … .. Bloggers vs. the Lobby Israel’s propaganda fortress faces a surprising new challenge.

Do yourself a favor, read the whole article. It mentions quite a few progressive bloggers taking up the Jewish ATM charge. That’s right. Keep. Reading.

And of course, it all revolves around Iran.

It goes without saying that there are other factions and motives behind the push for war with Iran besides right-wing Jewish groups. There is the generic warmongering, militarism and oil-driven expansionism represented by Dick Cheney. And there are the post-9/11 hysterics and bigots who crave ever-expanding warfare and slaughter of Muslims in the Middle East for reasons having nothing to do with Israel. There are evangelical Christians who crave more Middle Eastern war on religious and theological grounds, and there are some who just believe that the U.S. can and should wage war against whatever countries seem not like to us. And, it should also be noted, a huge portion of American Jews, if not the majority, do not share this agenda. Nonetheless, the influence of self-proclaimed “pro-Israeli” American Jewish groups in helping to push the country into what looks more and more every day to be an inevitable conflict with Iran is very significant and cannot be ignored. Enforced orthodoxies and Iran, by Glen Greenwald

In the Greenwald post above, before he went to Salon.com, he quotes from a NY Sun article: “New York is the ATM for American politicians. Large amounts of money come from the Jewish community…”

So, according to The New York Sun (and the sources it cites): (1) financial support from groups like AIPAC is indispensable for presidential candidates; (2) the New York Jewish community of “influential” donors is a key part of the “ATM for American politicians”; (3) the issue which they care about most is Iran; and (4) they want a hawkish, hard-line position taken against Iran. And the presidential candidates — such as Clinton and Edwards — are embracing AIPAC’s anti-Iran position in order to curry favor with that group. If any public figure made those same points, they would be excoriated, accused of all sorts of heinous crimes, and forced into repentance rituals (ask Wes Clark). … .. Glenn Greenwald

I offer this round up today because the American policy in the Middle East is in crisis and the dishonesty and lack of transparency and candor offered by every single one of our politicians does not bode well for us going forward. “Take no options” off the table is unacceptable rhetoric in the shadow of the disastrous war in Iraq. The reality of our candidates parading in front of AIPAC to out muscle the other is a deplorable state of presidential affairs, especially considering that they all could save time and just read from the same script. Engagement and diplomacy seem to be added as an embarrassment.

The only hope is progressive bloggers who have the courage to unmask the enforced orthodoxies, to quote Glenn, so that the conversation is at least allowed. Only then can we turn into a new direction and encourage our leaders to remember that supporting Israel doesn’t mean we set our rhetoric on lock and load for the rest of the region. This is especially important as we look to a post Olmert
Israel, as his incompetence and ineffectual leadership open out on to …. what exactly? The worst could be yet to come.

Share