It has been over a week since the lobby that deems itself "pro-Israel" began its recent effort to suppress the views of those of us it considers Israel haters, self-hating Jews or -- in a most ridiculous twist given that most of us are Jews -- "anti-Semites."
The effort to silence us now stems from (1) the determination to defeat President Obama, and (2) the need to intimidate us as the lobby and its congressional acolytes cowboy up for a bombing campaign against Iran.
I am one of the least significant figures to come under attack.
The bill of particulars against me is that I use the term "Israel firster" to describe those who consistently -- and without exception -- thwart the efforts of U.S. Presidents to achieve Middle East peace. (Worse, according to Fox News, I "defiantly" refuse to back down).
I view their goals as those of the Israeli right: to maintain the occupation and prevent diplomacy with Iran.
These people (take a look at Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post) think nothing of attacking the President of the United States in the most vicious of terms but condemn anyone with the temerity to criticize anything done by the prime minister of Israel.
As I have explained, it is not Israel they put first but the Israeli right. (They had no objection to criticism of Yitzhak Rabin, whose pursuit of peace with the Palestinians led to him being portrayed, including by Israel's current prime minister, as an enemy of Israel.)
After a week attacking me, they have turned their guns to bigger prey. The new target is New York Times' columnist Thomas Friedman who is under attack for writing a column denouncing Israel's foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman for praising the recent Russian election as "absolutely fair, free and democratic" and lamenting a host of anti-democratic actions in Israel (all of which have been roundly condemned inside the country).
The Friedman quote that absolutely drove the pro-Likud right crazy was directed at Benyamin Netanyahu:
I sure hope that Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, understands that the standing ovation he got in Congress this year was not for his politics. That ovation was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.
For this, Commentary called Friedman a practitioner of the "new anti-Semitism" with virtually all the usual suspects following suit.
Tom Friedman is an anti-Semite! Imagine.
It feels ridiculous even rebutting this outlandish charge. Tom Friedman has, for virtually his entire career, been condemned by real anti-Israel types as an apologist for Israel. He's Jewish (although the crazies now call Jews anti-Semites!), he became a journalist through his involvement with Israel, he and his family are huge donors to pro-Israel causes, and he hardly publishes a column without reference to one of his Israeli pals at Hebrew or Haifa University.
If Tom Friedman is an anti-Semite, there is no such thing; the charge has simply lost its meaning. I don't think Tom would object if I said that not only does he not hate Israel, he loves Israel and makes no effort to hide it.
As for his quote about the lobby and Netanyahu's ovation at that joint session. Everyone knows that the only reason there even was a (rare) joint meeting of Congress honoring Netanyahu (for what?) was because John Boehner and Eric Cantor wanted to make it harder for the president to promote an Israeli-Palestinian agreement by demonstrating that Congress supported Bibi and not Obama.
And it was because they wanted to put on a show for the lobby. No one in the Republican congressional leadership even implied otherwise.
The pro-Bibi ovation was about as sincere and free of political considerations (i.e, campaign donations) as Newt Gingrich's sudden announcement that Palestinians are an "invented people."
But the silly attack on Tom Friedman wasn't enough.
On Thursday, the rightwing Republican Emergency Committee for Israel ran ads across the country (including a full page in the New York Times) denouncing the Obama administration (specifically the President, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta) for treating Israel like a "punching bag."
The administration's sin, as always, is that it has (intermittently, in my opinion) tried to get Israel back to negotiations and has (very intermittently) cited Israel for human rights violations. The attack on all three is particularly dumb but the one on Hillary Clinton takes the cake (has there ever been an American political figure more outspokenly pro-Israel?).
As for treating Israel like a punching bag, what a joke! The pro-Israel peace camp (of which I am a member in good standing) has consistently denounced the Obama administration for never criticizing Israeli policies.
Even the administration's demand for a measly 90-day settlement freeze was dropped when Netanyahu balked. I guess that is why even the ultra-right Elliot Abrams (a board member of the Emergency Committee for Israel) says that under Obama the strategic relationship between Israel and the United States has reached an all-time high, and why Netanyahu himself said in September that Obama has earned a "badge of honor" for his support for Israel.
So why all the hate from the right?
The reason is simple.
It is not that the targets of its wrath are anti-Israel; that is demonstrably false.
It is that some of us (Friedman, for instance) oppose the status quo that the warhawks treasure above all else. The hawks support the unsustainable occupation and the heightened tensions (and hence the likelihood of war) with Iran. To put it simply, the right is coming at us because we object to those policies that could lead to Israel's destruction.
I often recall a similar situation back in 1971. Israel at that time was riding high and feeling pretty invulnerable. Still in a technical state of war with Egypt, it was separated from its enemy by the Israeli-controlled Sinai Peninsula, which was four times the size of Israel itself.
President Anwar Sadat, already contemplating a peace deal with Israel, sent word to the Israeli government that if Israel would pull back two miles from the Suez Canal (allowing Egypt to reopen it), he would commence negotiations with Israel.
The United States immediately sent an envoy to Jerusalem to ask the Israelis to at least consider Sadat's offer. What's two miles? Israel would still have the rest and, maybe, peace with the most powerful Arab nation.
Israel said absolutely not. It was strong; Egypt was weak. The United States told the Israelis that if it refused to consider Sadat's offer, he might go to war to recover the land. The Israelis scoffed.
Two years later, on October 6, 1973, Sadat led an Egyptian attack to regain the Sinai and came very close to conquering Israel itself. After three weeks, Israel prevailed -- with the invaluable aid of the U.S. -- at the cost of 3,000 soldiers. Ultimately it also had to give up not just two miles of the Sinai but the whole peninsula altogether.
All this could have been avoided if Israel had simply told the United States that yes, it would consider Sadat's offer.
Needless to say, AIPAC and the other organizations that believe one must never, ever question an Israeli leader -- along with their devotees in Congress -- supported Israel's incredibly stupid and ultimately tragic decision to reject Sadat's overture. When the U.S. administration asked for the lobby's support in getting Israel to consider Sadat's offer, the lobby said no. It stood with the Israeli government, right or, in that case, tragically wrong.
And thousands of Israeli kids grew up with missing fathers.
Of course, the lobby and its cutouts in Congress never apologized for backing the worst decision Israel has ever made (so far).
It occurs to me that one of the reasons I feel so strongly about the necessity of Israel pursuing peace is that I remember (although not as clearly as an Israeli) what October 6, 1973 felt like.
It was Yom Kippur. We were in synagogue. In came the amazing and utterly shocking news that Israel was under attack and that all its positions along the Suez Canal had fallen. Casualties were high. With the exception of November 22, 1963 and 9/11, I cannot remember a worse day.
The problem with the right-wingers is that, when it comes to the Middle East, they remember nothing. Lucky them.
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For background on Yom Kippur War, this is the book. October Earthquake by Zeev Schiff
Follow MJ Rosenberg on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mjayrosenberg
Israel is a democracy and has a coalition government which reflects the views of the majority of Israeli voters. If Mr. Friedman and Mr. Rosenberg are true supporters of Israel, they should support whatever position its freely elected government takes. It is a cowardly thing to try influencing the future of a whole country they so dearly love without paying the price in case they are wrong. If they want to influence or change the current government of Israel, they should permanently move there, take the Israeli citizenship and renounce their US one. Otherwise, just shut up.
You are correct, Ms. Harper. The members of the Israeli media should refrain from influencing American policy. I do take exception to your use of the word "chickenhawks". Firstly, name-calling is not going to make your arguments more valid. Secondly, absolute majority of Israeli men and women serve in the Army, and then, for many decades, remain Army reservists. One would be hard-pressed to find an Israeli without a combat experience. Are they "chickenhawks"? Really?
Every bus trip, every shop or cafe visit could be their last. I think these people have earned the right to decide for themselves what course of action to take.
To say that the only AMERICAN thing to do was fall behind our broken (at the time? hopefully?) government as they cooked up the lies they used to start that war is actually inherently UNAMERICAN.
To suggest "supporting Israel" can only take the form of blindly supporting the settler supporter Government as they preside over the illegal subjugation of millions of innocents in an effort to expand Israel that will (if successful) Actually lead to Israel as an apartheid state with an Arab majority in which massive forced transfers or genocide are the only remaining solutions to change the "facts" on the ground is a travesty. OPPOSING that government and it's actions is the only sensible course, and that is why EVERY SINGLE OTHER NATION ON EARTH opposes their actions, do not recognize the settlements as legitimate, and call for the end of the settlements and occupation and the institution of a Palestinian state on 67 borders, as the PRESIDENT, as MOST recent presidents have suggested.
This passes for logic? Even in the rarefied utopian peace-at-costs plasma this must come across as delusional. It sounds a lot like: if only Israel would suspend settlement construction for 10 months, the Palestinians would agree to come to the negotiation table and we can have peace on Earth. But wait. That is exactly what Israel did and still no negotiations? The Israel faulters, still blame Israel.
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Foreign%20Relations/Israels%20Foreign%20Relations%20since%201947/1947-1974/28%20The%20Jarring%20initiative%20and%20the%20response-%208%20Febr
And yeah, you know what we Canadians have learned? Even a promise to ethnically cleanse fewer occupied peoples with whom we have violated treaties has not reduced their strident demands to have something resembling enough land to live on prosperously.
Refusing to back down is one thing, but doing so DEFIANTLY? whats the world coming to, lol.
http://info.jpost.com/C003/Supplements/MOTY/
Tom Freidman has said the unspeakable and he wasn't given the Goldstone treatment. Hillary criticized laws that forced women to the back of the bus and now rabbis are agreeing with her.
America's college campuses are not terrified to allow Norman Finkelstein to "Spew his vile anti-semitic self-hating vicious hate speech". Sooner or later an MSM pundit will speak honestly about the conflict and allow someone like Karen Finney or Glenn Greenwalt to speak about it with Rachel.
Look to be honest I like Obama. I had high hopes that when he won office his popularity would enable him to bring about change in the middle east, sadly it turned out to be case of ooops no we can't.
So longs as the Israeli right wing is in control and they are left within there own comfort zone there is no desire for change or peace or an end to the occupation. In this Obama has not done enough.
http://mondoweiss.net/2011/12/how-a-comic-book-healed-the-wounds-of-normalization.html
lson
Adelson founded the right wing newspaper.Israel Hayom, or Israel Today which supports Netenyahu without question.
Adelson donated $100 million to Birthright Israel to make sure Jewish teens develop a strong attachment to Israel.
He's cartoon character that helps foment hatred of Israel.
The Yankees can't buy a championship every year and neither can Murdoch and the Koch Brothers.
So, what planet do you live on?
Hypothetically speaking, if there will ever be peace between state of Israel and Palestine, it would be difficult for US congress to continue spending $3.3 billions of US taxpayers money in foreign aid that we don't have to the state of Israel.
http://www.wrmea.org/special-topics/9748-us-aid-to-israel.html
As long as there as the Israel-Palestin conflict continued, US taxpayers money kept pouring in with no questions and the neocons like it that way.
The best hope for peace doesn't involve demonizing the other side.
To the left
The Saudi peace plan could be a place to start negotiation - but Fatah and Hamas want those to be the minimum Israel will do.
The Saudi Peace plan has always been a non-starter if that is the minimum.
Now with the Arab League busy with problems in their own country is the time for Abbas and Fatah to step up and do what is best for their people...
The peace process awaits a true partner in peace to join Israel - and good place to start might be http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/images/iht_daily/D171209/olmertmap.pdf