Republican Congressman Exposes Powerful Israel Lobby's Bullying Tactics
In a rare act of courage by a serving congressman, Rep Thomas Massie of Kentucky has detailed strong-arm tactics of the Israel lobby to ensure unquestioning support for Israel. He said that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), also known as the Israel lobby, is unique in that it has designated representatives (Massie calls them "AIPAC persons") assigned to each Republican member of Congress to ensure the lawmakers vote for bills Israel supports. Massie has now banned his assigned "AIPAC Person" from his office.
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| AIPAC Guy Threatening US Politician. Source: Jake Shields |
In spite of working on behalf of a foreign government, "AIPAC persons" are not registered as foreign agents under FARA (Foreign Agents Registration Act). Others, such as Paul Manafort (working for Russia) and Ghulam Nabi Fai (representing Pakistan's interests), have been prosecuted, convicted and jailed for violating FARA. No other foreign country has such an organization focusing individually on each member of Congress. There is no British person or Russian person or Chinese person assigned to each member of Congress, Massie says. He has so far defied and survived the onslaught of the Israel lobby which has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in attack ads against him to defeat him in his district. He won over 70% of the votes cast in the recent primary against his Republican challenger funded by AIPAC. Massie is a serious technology entrepreneur and a businessman. He is a graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with several inventions to his credit. He is a libertarian who opposes all foreign aid to any country, not just Israel.
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| Rep Thomas Massie (R-Ky) |
When asked why other members of Congress do not talk about it, here's how Massie explained it to Tucker Carlson: "It doesn’t benefit anybody. Why would they want to tell their constituents that they’ve basically got a buddy system with somebody who’s representing a foreign country? It doesn’t benefit the congressman for people to know that. So they’re not going to tell you that".
Massie said the current Congress has spent more time in support of Israel than on any other issues, including domestic issues, in the last year, raising the question as to who do these Congressmen really work for: the American people who sent them to Washington to solve their problems or a foreign government?
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| Israel is the Largest Recipient of US Foreign Aid. Source: CFR |
Massie cited several bills recently passed by the US Congress under pressure from AIPAC. Among them are billions of dollars in aid to Israel, the TikTok ban and the bill against anti-semitism which Massie describes as a ban on the New Testament that says "Jews killed Jesus". Massie has called the TikTok ban a "Trojan Horse" for First Amendment rights of free speech.
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| Congressman Massie's Tweet. Source: X |
Massie is also opposed to aiding Israel because, as he puts it: "Approximately 1% of Gaza’s CIVILIAN population has been wiped out by Israel in 7 months. We should not fund this war".
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| US Military Aid to Israel. Source: CFR |
Here's part of the exchange between Carlson and Massie that occurred on the Tucker Carlson show:
MASSIE: It’s like your babysitter. Your AIPAC babysitter who is always talking to you for AIPAC. They’re probably a constituent in your district, but they are, you know, firmly embedded in AIPAC.
CARLSON: And every member has something like this.
MASSIE: Every Re– I don’t know how it works on the Democrats’ side. But that’s how it works on the Republican side. And when they come to D.C., you go have lunch with them. And they’ve got your cell number and you have conversations with them. So I’ve had like–
CARLSON: That’s absolutely crazy.
MASSIE: I’ve had four members of Congress say, “I’ll talk to my AIPAC person.” And like that’s clearly what we call them, my AIPAC guy. I’ll talk to my AIPAC guy and see if I can get them to, you know, dial those ads back.
CARLSON: Why have I never heard this before?
MASSIE: It doesn’t benefit anybody. Why would they want to tell their constituents that they’ve basically got a buddy system with somebody who’s representing a foreign country? It doesn’t benefit the congressman for people to know that. So they’re not going to tell you that.
The Israel lobby showers its friendly politicians with money from wealthy Jewish donors. It also works to ensure the defeat of those politicians who dare to speak out against Israeli policies in the Middle East. As one former Democratic senator, Ernest Hollings, put it on leaving office, ‘you can’t have an Israeli policy other than what AIPAC gives you around here.’ Or as Ariel Sharon once told an American audience, ‘when people ask me how they can help Israel, I tell them: “Help AIPAC.”’
President Jimmy Carter who helped broker peace between Israel and Egypt knows the Israel lobby well. He told Amy Goodman of "Democracy Now" many years ago: "I think it’s accurate to say that not a single member of Congress with whom I’m familiar would possibly speak out and call for Israel to withdraw to their legal boundaries or to publicize the plight of the Palestinians or even to call publicly and repeatedly for good faith peace talks..... And I would say that if any member of Congress did speak out, as I’ve just described, they would probably not be back in the Congress the next term ".
The fact that Republican Congressman Massie and several progressive Democratic Congresspeople are questioning the power of the Israel lobby in shaping the US Middle East policy is an indication of a growing rebellion against the strong-arm tactics used by AIPAC to bully US elected representatives to blindly support Israel. Could it be that the mortal fear of the AIPAC is just beginning recede in Washington DC? Or is it something similar to what is happening on the US college and university campuses?
Here's a link to the full video of Tucker Carlson's interview with Rep Thomas Massie:
https://youtu.be/omBSEuFTYEo?si=8FF8UEwrwYS_IP82
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Comments
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/09/aipac-republican-donors-democratic-primaries-00162404
AIPAC sees support for Israel as bipartisan, and its donors come from both parties. But its practice of sending money from GOP donors into Democratic races has enraged progressives.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee has become a fundraising juggernaut in recent years, raising more money for candidates than any similar organization this cycle as part of its mission to back candidates who support Israel.
It’s the rare political organization that still garners support from Republican and Democratic donors while supporting candidates from both parties. But its primary focus has been leveraging its weight in competitive Democratic primaries, spending millions to boost moderates over progressives who have been critical of Israel.
That has made AIPAC the biggest source of Republican money flowing into competitive Democratic primaries this year, according to a POLITICO analysis of campaign finance data — and drawn outrage from the left over what it sees as GOP meddling in Democratic contests.
Nearly half of AIPAC donors to Democratic candidates this year have some recent history of giving to Republican campaigns or committees.
Criticism from the left has intensified as the partisan politics around U.S. support for Israel have shifted in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel. Israel’s subsequent invasion of Gaza, and its mounting civilian casualties, have led even Democrats who have long favored Israel to question whether the U.S. can continue its level of support.
AIPAC still sees support for Israel as an issue that transcends partisanship. And its focus on Democratic primaries comes as it tries to ensure voters in blue districts elect Democrats who are aligned with its vision for supporting Israel.
“AIPAC donors are single-issue donors,” said Doug Forand, a strategist working with the campaign of George Latimer, a Democrat whose challenge of progressive New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman has drawn more support from AIPAC than any other campaign this cycle.
Forand noted that most of the AIPAC donors to the campaign are Democrats, “but for those who are not, this may be the first time they’ve given to a pro-choice, pro-LGBTQIA+, pro-labor, anti-gun Democrat, but their goal is simply to protect Israel’s right to exist and they are donating to ensure that can happen.”
But progressives see AIPAC’s form of support for Israel as out of step with Democratic voters, particularly in the liberal districts where the group is directing the most funds. A partisan gap in support for Israel has grown dramatically in recent years, with growing numbers of Democrats questioning what was once a bipartisan position. Democrats are now more likely to say they sympathize with Palestinians than Israelis, driven in part by low levels of support for Israel among young voters.
https://www.newsweek.com/thomas-massie-fights-pro-israel-group-united-democracy-project-1844742
Massie, a Kentucky Republican, is among a handful of lawmakers opposing military aid to Israel amid its war with Hamas, citing his concerns about the economic impact Republican leadership's $14.5 billion aid package would have on Americans. His opposition sparked pushback from the pro-Israel lobby, including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a major political donor that has donated tens of millions of dollars into elections in recent campaign cycles.
The AIPAC-affiliated United Democracy Project is running advertisements targeting Massie in his northern Kentucky Congressional district. The advertisement compares his votes to progressive Democratic Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, members of the so-called "Squad," calling his record on Israel a "disgrace."
Massie responded to the advertisement Thursday night in a post X, formerly Twitter, writing: "Why does Israel historically get more foreign aid than any other country? Because they have the most aggressive lobbyists working for them. I voted NOT to send another $14.3 billion overseas, so now they're running ads on radio, TV, and [F]acebook. I won't vote to give them your $."
A spokesperson for AIPAC responded to Massie in a statement to Newsweek.
"It is a simple fact that Representative Massie is aligned with the most extremist fringe in Congress by refusing to stand with Israel in its fight against Hamas. We will not be deterred by his malicious attacks in our work as citizen activists supporting America's ally, Israel," the statement reads.
https://www.declassifieduk.org/israel-lobby-funded-a-quarter-of-british-mps/
Some 180 of Britain’s 650 MPs in the last parliament accepted funding from pro-Israel lobby groups or individuals during their political career, Declassified can reveal.
That includes 130 Conservative MPs, 41 Labour MPs and three Liberal Democrats.
Three members of the DUP, two independents and Reform’s only MP complete the list.
The total value of the donations from pro-Israel groups, individuals, and Israeli state institutions amounts to over one million pounds.
Between them, the politicians made over 240 paid-for trips to Israel, at a cost of over half a million pounds.
Some of those trips involved visits to the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and a small number were co-sponsored by groups which do not form part of the Israel lobby.
Remarkably, fifteen MPs have accepted funding to travel to Israel amid the Gaza genocide.
Huda Ammori, the co-founder of the direct action network Palestine Action, told Declassified: “Accepting funding from a lobby group on behalf of the perpetrators of a genocide should immediately bar anyone from standing as an MP.
“To see how politicians continue to travel to Israel and engage with the genocide lobby explains why our government continues to defy international law by facilitating Israel’s war crimes”.
The full list of MPs can be accessed at the foot of this article. Around 47 of them are not standing for re-election.
No MPs from the Scottish National Party, Sinn Fein, Plaid Cymru, SDLP, Alba, Greens, Alliance or Workers Party received hospitality or funding from the lobby.
https://sputnikglobe.com/20240520/us-congressman-says-countries-tired-of-inflation-tax-could-abandon-us-dollar-1118547041.html
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - Countries are growing weary of the US dollar and could abandon the currency due to inflation, US Congressman Thomas Massie said on Monday.
“The whole world is holding dollars, so when we devalue the dollar, we’re not just taxing our own people, we’re taxing the entire world,” Massie said in an interview with Glenn Beck.
“The rest of the world is getting tired of being used that way… and when they start using alternate forms of money to do their transactions, or holding different assets in their own sovereign wealth funds, then we’re not going to be able to do that trick on anybody except for US citizens.”
Last week, Massie introduced bills to audit and abolish the Federal Reserve, citing their contribution to inflation. The Federal Reserve devalued the dollar and enabled free money policies that caused high inflation, Massie said.
The legislation to end the Federal Reserve now has over 20 cosponsors in the House of Representatives, Massie said.
https://x.com/SputnikInt/status/1790041974902247876
By Karen Attiah
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/06/11/bowman-congress-aipac-millions/
“Shut up or else” is the message a pro-Israel lobby is sending to Black lawmakers in America who are critical of what’s happening in Gaza. The front line is New York’s 16th Congressional District, where Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D) is facing one of the most expensive primary challenges in history.
The conservative pro-Israel lobbying giant AIPAC announced this spring that it would take extraordinary steps to remove progressive lawmakers who have called for a cease-fire in Gaza. Through a new super PAC called the United Democracy Project, funded primarily by right-wing billionaires, the group has pledged to spend $100 million this year to oust candidates it considers unsupportive of Israel.
Keep in mind: The Biden administration backs a plan for Gaza that would include a cease-fire, and polls show Americans increasingly support a cease-fire. Yet AIPAC is going full steam ahead. Bowman is the lobby’s first major target. As the June 25 primary approaches, the two-term congressman is facing what could prove to be the most expensive primary challenge in history. AIPAC has pledged to spend, through the super PAC, up to $25 million to elect Westchester County Executive George Latimer.
It’s hard to overstate the importance of the Bowman vs. Latimer showdown for progressives. The outcome represents much more than just the issue of money in politics. It raises concerns about right-wing money being funneled into Democratic primaries and tests the ability of AIPAC to shield Israel from criticism. But bigger than that, it is a test of how far America’s right wing will go to crush progressive movements. No one should be surprised that a Black politician is the canary in the coal mine.
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Because on the issue of Israel and Gaza in particular, Black leaders have become targets in more ways than one. A majority of the primary challengers funded by AIPAC are opposed by candidates of color (Cori Bush of Missouri, who also called for a cease-fire, is next on AIPAC’s list later this summer). The New York Times reported that a large number of Black lawmakers were targeted in an Israeli-commissioned social media influence campaign designed to gin up support for the war effort.
Meanwhile, the Congressional Black Caucus has largely been silent on Black incumbents under threat. AIPAC boasts that it is the top fundraiser for Congressional Black Caucus members. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), who has endorsed Bowman for reelection, is one of the top recipients of AIPAC funds. Even the NAACP released a statement urging the Biden administration to stop sending weapons to Israel and push for a cease-fire — and yet the Congressional Black Caucus can’t (or won’t) protect its own members?
BY
ED MCNALLY
https://jacobin.com/2024/05/isreal-lobby-western-strategic-interests
If the settler-colonial project in Palestine is to be dismantled, then defeating the Israel lobby in the West must be one of our tasks. “Truth,” Frantz Fanon wrote, “is what hastens the dislocation of the colonial regime . . . and good is quite simply what hurts them most.”
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How should we explain the unflagging and disastrous Western backing of Israel? The Israel lobby plays a huge role, persuading lawmakers that support for Israel is still in the strategic interests of their countries.
Back in 2017, an Israeli diplomat in London was recorded demanding action against Alan Duncan, then a British foreign office minister. Soon after, Duncan went to brief the department’s ranking civil servant on the revelation, recalling the exchange in his diary: “I teasingly remind[ed] him . . . of what I said to him on my first day as a minister. ‘Simon. . . didn’t I tell you? The CFI [Conservative Friends of Israel] and the Israelis think they control the Foreign Office. And they do!’”
For some on the Left, complaints like Duncan’s exemplify wrongheaded conspiratorial theories about the omnipotence of Israel and its lobby. We are told by such opponents of the Israel lobby thesis that the tail cannot wag the dog and that Israel serves American strategic interests — then, now, and forever more.
“The value to US imperial power of Israel — a dependable, militarily powerful ally in a geostrategically crucial region of the world — is perfectly obvious, and requires no lobbying to be understood,” the British commentator David Wearing writes. In a book-length study of the lobby released last year, scholar Hil Aked argues similarly. Suggestions that support for Israel is contrary to American national interests and that the lobby bears responsibility for this distortion, Aked insists, are “problematic”: misguided “progressive nationalism” at best, “potentially xenophobic in tone” at worst. These are predetermined political rehearsals, at some remove from concrete analysis of the concrete situation.
Similarly, Andreas Malm recently dedicated a significant portion of an essay — about the Gaza genocide and its antecedence in combined histories of colonial and ecological catastrophe — to repudiating the lobby thesis. He concurs with the claim of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah that “Israel used to be a tool at the hands of the British, and now it is a tool in the hands of America.” Malm counterposes “the distortionist theory of the lobby” to “the instrumentalist theory of empire and entity,” and finds in favor of the latter, arguing that it is vindicated by “evidence from the deep past, as well as from the recent past and present.”
Yet these repudiations of the Israel lobby thesis fall short both analytically and strategically. In the world conjured by such arguments, there is a preformed and basically unchanging US imperial interest, always served by unconditional support of Israel. This is the putative base, which the ideological attachment of American elites to Israel faithfully mirrors. Often this fixed imperial interest is simply taken for granted, with its articulation by US leaders standing in for anything approaching substantiating evidence or rigorous investigation. Thus can Malm take Joe Biden at his word when he parrots his long-held view that “were there not an Israel . . . the United States would have to go out and invent an Israel,” so unswervingly and effectively does the entity serve the empire.
BY
ED MCNALLY
https://jacobin.com/2024/05/isreal-lobby-western-strategic-interests
If the settler-colonial project in Palestine is to be dismantled, then defeating the Israel lobby in the West must be one of our tasks. “Truth,” Frantz Fanon wrote, “is what hastens the dislocation of the colonial regime . . . and good is quite simply what hurts them most.”
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Yet these repudiations of the Israel lobby thesis fall short both analytically and strategically. In the world conjured by such arguments, there is a preformed and basically unchanging US imperial interest, always served by unconditional support of Israel. This is the putative base, which the ideological attachment of American elites to Israel faithfully mirrors. Often this fixed imperial interest is simply taken for granted, with its articulation by US leaders standing in for anything approaching substantiating evidence or rigorous investigation. Thus can Malm take Joe Biden at his word when he parrots his long-held view that “were there not an Israel . . . the United States would have to go out and invent an Israel,” so unswervingly and effectively does the entity serve the empire.
There are many pitfalls of reading the existing interests of the American empire off cherry-picked pronunciations from certain of its leaders. Most obviously, US leaders are more than capable not only of making disastrous strategic miscalculations, but of clinging onto wrongheaded conceptions about the interests of the empire they superintend. This is not something we typically have trouble accepting. There were all variety of pseudomaterialist theories about the imperial interests that supposedly drove George W. Bush to invade Iraq, for instance, but few would now question that the war — and perhaps post 9/11 adventurism more widely — was a net-negative for American power. Here was a disastrous ideological crusade, based on self-defeating hubris about the world-making potential of shock-and-awe military interventions.
In other words: of course many American leaders, Joe Biden today foremost among them, firmly believe that Israel is an effective imperial outpost, and a worthy investment. But they could well be wrong. Questioning the strategic self-conceptions of imperial rulers is not a case, as one determined opponent of the lobby thesis has it, of “whisper[ing] to the exterminationist class that their calculus is off,” but rather a matter of insisting on a serious, integrated understanding of the enemy — generally worth more, as Perry Anderson once insisted, than “bulletins to boost doubtful morale.”
Another glaring problem with taking Biden at his word is that two can play the game of archival hook-a-duck. Take this 1975 remark from Henry Kissinger, which would seem to directly contradict arguments about Israel as a major strategic asset for America, precisely when the case was strongest, during the Cold War: “Israeli strength does not prevent the spread of communism in the Arab world. . . . So it is difficult to claim that a strong Israel serves American interests because it prevents the spread of communism in the Arab world. It does not. It provides for the survival of Israel.” Today we could point to huge dissent in the US State Department over Biden’s Gaza policy and to a chorus within the world of US “national security” expertise about the strategic perils of unflinching support for Israel.
At a more fundamental level, left opposition to the Israel lobby thesis often rests on an outmoded and mechanical view of imperial power. First: in an overdetermined political field such as that of the American imperial state, ideological forces — Biden’s aspic-preserved Zionism, for one — can have determinant material affects detrimental to the empire’s hegemonic position and its twenty-first century shelf-life. It is this realm in which Israel and the lobby exerts its force.
BY
ED MCNALLY
https://jacobin.com/2024/05/isreal-lobby-western-strategic-interests
If the settler-colonial project in Palestine is to be dismantled, then defeating the Israel lobby in the West must be one of our tasks. “Truth,” Frantz Fanon wrote, “is what hastens the dislocation of the colonial regime . . . and good is quite simply what hurts them most.”
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Second, by definition, the image of an unchanging American imperial interest always well-served by support for Israel is sustainable only in the absence of any conjunctural understanding: there is no attempt to grasp, theoretically or empirically, the contemporary workings of US empire. There are all number of reasons to question Israel’s utility to its American benefactors today. The Eastern Mediterranean, and even the Persian Gulf (though Israel was never of much value in the latter), are of greatly decreased strategic significance. Meanwhile, Washington is facing imperial overstretch by trying to compete on three major fronts at once — Eastern Europe, East Asia, and the Middle East — all against the backdrop of degradedmilitary-industrial capacity.
Israel’s long-rogue, now genocidal, behavior renders unthinkable the kind of wider regional stability, made possible by improved Arabian Gulf relations with Iran, that America needs to comfortably “draw-down” from the Middle East militarily. In this connection, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt’s point in The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy about the circularity of arguments for Israel’s strategic importance seems especially pertinent: “Israel is portrayed as a vital ally for dealing with its dangerous neighbours, but the commitment to Israel is an important reason why the United States sees these states as threats in the first place.”
Lastly, the notion that the “tail can never wag the dog,” while generally a well-intended anti-conspiracist aphorism, elides decades of innovation in the historical study of empires, focused on how imperial peripheries and outposts have acted on metropolitan centers. Margins matter: the supplicants might not be omnipotent, but nor are the masters. “Who’s the fucking superpower here?” Bill Clinton despaired to advisors after meeting Isreali prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
What of the politics? Much of the lobby’s work consists in persuading — carrot and stick — Western leaders and legislators that supporting Israel is in the strategic interests of their countries. When it comes to public opinion, the lobby faces a harder task than ever: as the genocide in Gaza continues, majorities are becoming receptive to the demands of the Palestine solidarity movement. In this context, the Left nodding along as Biden repeats that Israel is a trusty guarantor of American interests seems politically foolish.
Conspiracist views about the totality of Israel’s “control” are disempowering, but so too are these stale notions of US empire as a frozen monolith — the latter often accompanied by grandiose rhetoric implying the Palestinians must await the toppling of Western civilization in its entirety for their deliverance from Zionism.
It so happens that concrete analysis points toward Israel’s increasing strategic superfluity to the American empire, and so suggests a heightened role for the lobby in ensuring continued sponsorship. But the empirical understanding one reaches about the US-Israel relationship and its nature is in a sense secondary: insofar as it is engaged in the strong and slow work of mass politics, the Left should advance ethical and strategic arguments against support for Israel regardless.
If the settler-colonial project in Palestine is to be dismantled, then defeating the Israel lobby in the West must be one of our tasks. “Truth,” Frantz Fanon wrote, “is what hastens the dislocation of the colonial regime . . . and good is quite simply what hurts them most.”
The Tucker Carlson Show
https://www.happyscribe.com/public/the-tucker-carlson-show/glenn-greenwald-antisemitism-attacks-on-free-speech-and-everything-you-need-to-know-about-brazil
.... Like, almost none, because hearing chants that are pro palestinian or anti israeli make them feel vulnerable. Like the conservatives in Congress, like Elise Stefanik and Virginia, all Mike Johnson, they had, like, a horde of jewish students from Harvard coming and saying, I don't feel safe at my school. The very things that conservatives have been mocking so viciously, when that came from black students or trans students or immigrants or Muslims or whatever, the hypocrisy, the stench of it is suffocating and nauseating.
[00:28:31]
From my perspective as an american, I think you can have any opinion you want on Israel. I'm not actually that interested. I personally like Israel. Whatever the red line for me is, this is my country. My birthright is free speech. God gave me that right. You cannot take it away. And if you're telling me what I'm allowed to say in my country, you're my enemy. It's just kind of that simple. You can't tell me what to say or think, period. Because I'm an american.
[00:28:56]
Exactly. And. But if there were a consistent standard, like, let's say there were consistent, period.
[00:29:00]
Like, let's just walk back from there.
[00:29:02]
Right. But if there were some consistent standard, like, western Europeans have hate speech laws, whatever that kind of. They don't really apply them consistently. But at least there's, like, a dogma. Like, hate speech is not part of free speech in the United States. We don't have a hate speech exception to the first. There is no such thing. So if you suddenly now start, you know, and it's not just in the discourse, they're passing laws. Oh, I mean, where, like, Greg Abbott issued an executive order that said there will be no more anti semitism, meaning anti semitism speech, antisemitic speech, or ideas allowed in the state of Texas. And you have, I don't know if you saw the video this week, but there was a video emerging where a school administrator went to a group of palestinian protesters and said, I just want you to know, if you chant from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free or globalized, the intifada, you will be turned over to law enforcement. We will call the police on you and you will be arrested and held legally accountable. That is now a crime. In Texas. They passed a law.
[00:30:04]
Is that actually true?
[00:30:05]
Yes. Yes. Yes. I mean, the whole point of Greg Abbott's executive order was to say no anti semitic speech is permissible in Texas any longer. You're allowed to have anti black racist speech. You're allowed to have anti muslim speech. You're allowed to have white, anti gay speech. You can have anti white speech. You just can't be anti semitic to the point where these students are now being told that if they do these political chants, no violence, no obstruction of buildings, nothing illegal, the chants themselves, the ideas themselves will be decreed illegal. Now, as you say, like, you don't have to hate Israel or whatever, but we talk all the time like you have at every pro Israel rally in the United States. You will hear people saying, wipe out all the Arabs. Turn Gaza into a parking lot. Gaza belongs to Israel. We constantly talk about bombing this country, bombing that country. We're always advocating violence against this group, against this country. You know, this country is illegitimate. There's only one country that has the protection of these laws, which is the country of Israel.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-755035
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war on Israeli democracy is turning Jews and other supporters away from Israel at an alarming rate, raising the question of whether they will find another home or just go away.
For half a century, their home was the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), where support for Israel had been single-mindedly bipartisan. The lobby group was careful not to rate or endorse candidates, and largely kept hands off when it came to campaign contributions until it felt threatened by a small rival.
I spent the 1980s as the organization’s legislative director, and am very proud of my bipartisan group of lobbyists who put aside our own politics for the good of the cause. All of us got occasional flak from friends and family for working with lawmakers with whom we often disagreed on so many other, unrelated issues.
Has AIPAC become a pro-Netanyahu, anti-Israel lobbying group?
No longer. AIPAC has plunged into partisanship with a hard turn to the Right, embracing Evangelical Christians, hardline conservative Republicans, and election deniers whose views on everything but Israel were largely anathema to the mainstream Jewish community.
The group apparently shared Netanyahu’s view that those groups were a more reliable base, more inclined toward his thinking than those argumentative Jews and liberals. The lobby’s leadership at the staff and donor levels were predominantly right wing and in tune with Likud and Republican brands.
Netanyahu cultivated a close relationship with congressional Republicans and conservative AIPAC figures when he was number two at the Israeli embassy in Washington in the early 1980s. That led to a dramatic turning point in the US-Israel relationship in 2015, when the prime minister blind-sided then-president Barack Obama by accepting the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives’ invitation to help lead the GOP opposition, in coordination with AIPAC, to the administration’s Iran nuclear agreement.
Netanyahu already had a reputation for meddling in US partisan politics on behalf of Republicans, and this brought further deterioration in relations with American Jewry and the Democratic Party for which Jews traditionally cast nearly three out of every four of their votes.
Israeli premiers Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, Ehud Olmert, Ehud Barak, and even Ariel Sharon complained that AIPAC, in cahoots with Netanyahu, consistently worked against their peace policies, which had broad support among Jews and Democrats.
If Iran was a turning point, the assault on democracy and Israel’s independent judiciary may be a breaking point.
A Haaretz editorial this week called AIPAC “the pro-Netanyahu, anti-Israel lobby.” It accused the group of “helping” Netanyahu “perpetuate a coup” to “destroy democracy” in Israel by trying to soften Democratic opposition to his assault on the justice system.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/why-pro-israel-groups-arent-going-after-ilhan-omar-after-helping-oust-others-in-squad/
Patrick Dorton, a spokesman for the United Democracy Project, a political action committee affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee that poured millions into the Bowman and Bush primaries, confirmed that the PAC was not involved in Omar’s race, but would not elaborate. AIPAC PAC, which is also associated with the lobby, and Democratic Majority for Israel, another pro-Israel PAC involved in targeting Bowman and Bush, likewise would not explain why they were ignoring Samuels this time around.
In 2022, pro-Israel givers rued not noticing earlier how well Samuels was doing. UDP dumped $350,000 in the race in its last few days. But it was not enough to get Samuels over the line, a regret pro-Israel fund-raisers continue to nurture.
UDP is a Super PAC that by law may raise unlimited funds, and this year, it and its allies started targeting vulnerable officeholders early. They spent more than $14 million defeating New York’s Jamaal Bowman in June, and more than $9 million defeating Missouri’s Cori Bush this week. (Both candidates were seen as vulnerable for reasons beyond their esteem among pro-Israel voters.)
But the pro-Israel strategist said the elements that favored Samuels in 2022 — and that pro-Israel donors noticed too late — were simply not in place this time.
For one, Samuels is trailing Omar substantially in the polls. In Bowman’s and Bush’s races, the numbers were in pro-Israel groups’ favor: Bowman had consistently trailed challenger George Latimer in polls, while Wesley Bell, who beat Bush, ran a close race before pulling ahead. Omar’s campaign, by contrast, says she’s beating Samuels by 25 percentage points.
In addition, in 2022, Omar was substantially outraising Samuels — but not spending the money. Joelle Stangler, Omar’s campaign manager, told Mother Jones this week that the campaign recognized it “took our foot off the gas” in 2022 — in other words, it was overconfident of a win.
This time around, the campaign is not repeating that mistake. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Jewish de facto leader of congressional progressives, has campaigned for her. And her campaign has highlighted far-right Republicans who have called on Minnesotans to back Samuels in the open primary, in which members of all parties can vote.
“Don Samuels and his conservative benefactors have a common enemy – DFL candidates and values,” an Omar campaign document said, using the acronym for the Minnesota affiliate of the Democratic Party. The document listed donors to Samuels who have given to Republicans, a tactic Bowman and Bush also employed.
https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-804047
British rock guitar legend Eric Clapton moved one step closer to Roger Watersterritory last week, telling an interviewer that “Israel is running the world, Israel is running the show.”
The 79-year-old musician, who has recently performed playing a guitar painted in the colors of the Palestinian flag, was interviewed on May 22 by David Spuria, an American Youtuber who hosts the popular Real Music Observer show.
Talking about the recent campus protests in the US against Israel, Clapton criticized the Senate hearings in which university presidents were asked about antisemitism on campus.
Clapton criticizes Senate hearings
“I was so enthused about what was going on at Columbia [University] and elsewhere. And then what I couldn’t believe, because it freaked me out, were the Senate hearings, which were like the Nuremberg trials, you know?” he said.
“The Senate committee chairman asked pointed questions to presidents of universities, saying, ‘I just want to hear yes or no. Don’t talk to me about context. Yes or no, are you promoting antisemitism on your campus?’ And I thought, what is this, the Spanish Inquisition? And it is! It’s AIPAC, it’s the lobby. Israel is running the show. Israel is running the world.”
Talking about the guitar painted with the Palestinian flag colors, Clapton said, “We’re doing a thing now on this tour that I wrote originally as a tribute to Jeff Beck [who died in 2023]. I performed it at a tribute concert and then I didn’t play it anymore. But for this tour I’m doing it under a different guise. It’s the same tune, but I devoted it to the situation in Gaza. It’s called ‘Blue Dust’ because that’s what’s probably going to be left there. And I play a guitar that’s painted like the Palestinian flag.”
Late last year, Clapton released a song called “Voice of a Child,” accompanied by a video featuring images of extensive destruction in Gaza that ignored the October 7 massacre committed by Hamas terrorists, which sparked the war.
In last week’s interview, Clapton also questioned the West’s support for Ukraine in its war with Russia. Talking about Russian President Vladimir Putin, he said, “he always tells you what he intends to do, and he tells the truth. So he gives you plenty of warning.”
https://www.tiktok.com/@lyon5947/video/7401982391167880480?_r=1&_t=8oqZitivIUA
by William Hartung
https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhartung/2024/09/26/is-the-uae-a-force-for-stability-in-the-middle-east/
During a White House visit earlier this week, President Biden and UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan expressed their desire to intensify cooperation between their two nations on a variety of fronts. Most notably, President Biden designated the UAE as a Major Defense Partner, which the White House said “will allow for unprecedented cooperation through joint training, exercises, and military-to-military collaboration, between the military forces of the United States, the UAE, and India, as well as other common military partners, in furtherance of regional stability.” But the UAE’s recent track record raises serious doubts about its interest in promoting stability in the Middle East, and highlights its pursuit of its own narrow interests, often through military means. The new designation amounts to a virtual endorsement of the UAE’s aggressive, destabilizing history in the Middle East and North Africa.
With Israel escalating its Mideast war into Lebanon and the presidential campaign heating up, the news that the United States is strengthening its alliance with the United Arab Emirates is far off most people’s radar. But it shouldn’t be. The Biden administration’s decision to double down on its relationship with the UAE is yet another example of its misguided approach to the region, from enabling Israeli aggression in Gaza and Lebanon to attempting to broker a normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Far from sowing the seeds of stability and peace, the administration’s maneuvers are bolstering three of the most disruptive, destabilizing states in the region – in essence rewarding them for their recent histories of aggression and human rights abuses.
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Is this the record of a nation that is likely to be a force for peace and stability in the region? The UAE has its own agenda – developing a security network and port access across the Persian Gulf and North Africa – that may or may not coincide with U.S. policy or long-term U.S. interests.
The next administration needs to take a careful look at U.S. security policy in the Middle East and recalibrate its relationships with governments engaged in aggression and human rights abuses, from Israel to Saudi Arabia to the UAE. Continuing down the current path is a recipe for continuing war and dangerous escalation.
@KerryBurgess
My goodness, this was 10 years ago. How prophetic. This man (Phil Giraldi) knew his stuff. It's a shame that the US doesn't have people like this anymore
https://x.com/KerryBurgess/status/1842547446766780811
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After a full day of protesting outside AIPAC’s annual conference, CODEPINK members and supporters gathered at Busboys and Poets in Washington, DC on the evening of March 1 for a discussion on the Israel lobby. The event featured remarks by former CIA case officer and current executive director of the Council for the National Interest Phil Giraldi and peace activist Miko Peled, author of The General’s Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine (available from AET’s Middle East Books and More).
Giraldi began by arguing that the lobby is destructive for Americans, Israelis and Palestinians alike. The lobby, he explained, pushes the U.S. to pursue pro-Israel policies that harm its image, cause pain and suffering for Palestinians, and provide cover for the Israeli government to enact ill-advised and self-defeating policies.
Questioning the basis of the U.S.-Israel “special relationship,” Giraldi said that “Israel is no ally and never has been.” He described the bilateral relationship as “garbage,” as it heavily favors Israel.
The self-professed Jewish state has a massive spying operation in the U.S., pushes the U.S. into costly wars, and shares phony intelligence, Giraldi explained.
“When I was a CIA officer,” he recalled, “I used to see the intelligence that Israel passed to us. It was a joke. Every Israeli intelligence report that came to the United States was…essentially pushing an Israeli point of view, lying about what Arabs and the Iranians were up to and trying to convince Americans that there was some kind of threat coming from that direction. The only threat was coming from Israel.”
Domestically, Giraldi noted, the lobby has many levers of power: it maintains a stranglehold over Congress and the media, has been able to insert pro-Israel political appointees into the State Department, and helps facilitate close relations between Israeli security services and American police.
Despite this influence, Giraldi believes AIPAC’s days are numbered. “In my opinion, AIPAC and the rest of the Israel lobby is basically dead….but will take a long time to roll over,” he said. “I believe this because the task of defending what Israel does is beyond all credibility now. There’s just no way this thing can be sustained forever.”
Peled agreed with Giraldi’s assessment and proceeded to make an even bolder statement: “I have no doubt that within the next decade we are going to see the fall of Zionism in Palestine just like we saw the fall of apartheid in South Africa.”
This is not soon enough, however, he said, as “many Palestinians are still going to die” in the intervening years.
How does Peled believe Zionism will collapse? “I think what will bring them down is their arrogance and their stupidity,” he said. Israel does not appreciate the strides being made by the nonviolent movement in the West Bank, the significance of the unification of Israeli Arabs, or the momentum of the international solidarity movement, Peled explained.
AIPAC and its allies will not go down without a fight, however. Peled said the lobby is well versed at vilifying individuals and groups that question the Zionist narrative. The likes of Rasmea Odeh and Sami Al-Arian have been successfully depicted as threats, he pointed out, not only to Zionism, but also to American security. In reality, “the only threat [these individuals pose] is to the Zionist narrative,” Peled opined.
https://www.wrmea.org/2015-may/phil-giraldi-and-miko-peled-critique-the-israel-lobby.html
@Gentilenewsnet
But when I say this it's an antisemitic conspiracy theory.
https://x.com/Gentilenewsnet/status/1846975999650804034
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Rabbi Shmuley
@RabbiShmuley
Incredible. The new Prime Minister of Britain has a Jewish wife who is actively involved in the Jewish community and keeps tradition and observes the sabbath. President Biden has two of three of his children who married Jew’s. President Trump has a Jewish daughter and Jewish grandchildren. Kamala Harris is married to a committed Jewish husband.
https://x.com/RabbiShmuley/status/1810353861116223661
@theintercept
How Does AIPAC Shape Washington? We Tracked Every Dollar. https://interc.pt/3YE465D by
@akela_lacy
https://x.com/theintercept/status/1849486930364272670
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https://theintercept.com/2024/10/24/aipac-spending-congress-elections-israel/?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=theintercept&utm_source=twitter
When it rolled out its new strategy in the 2022 election cycle, AIPAC found immediate success. The lobbying group and another pro-Israel group, Democratic Majority for Israel, defeated Reps. Andy Levin, D-Mich., and Marie Newman, D-Ill., who were outspoken in their criticism of unconditional U.S. military funding for Israel. The campaign to defeat Levin marked a significant push from AIPAC to repress criticism of Israel even from Jewish members of Congress.
Ahead of the 2024 cycle and amid growing public outrage over Israel’s war on Gaza, AIPAC made a bold pronouncement: Through its United Democracy Project arm and AIPAC PAC, it would spend $100 million on elections, about one-sixth of what outside groups spent on the 2020 presidential election.
There are few congressional races that AIPAC sat out this year. Of the 469 seats up for reelection this year, AIPAC has spent money on more than 80 percent: 389 races in total. AIPAC has sought influence over 363 seats in the House and 26 in the Senate.
Of the 389 candidates AIPAC funded, 57 did not face a primary. Of the primary elections that did take place, 88 candidates had no opponent.
The size of AIPAC’s war chest means it can pick and choose the races in which it is most likely to succeed — boosting its image as a kingmaker and its influence among candidates and members, while simultaneously hiking up the cost of criticizing U.S. policy toward Israel.
Funding Both Parties
AIPAC’s approach to electoral spending is bipartisan. The group has funded Republican, Democrat, and independent candidates alike. AIPAC PAC supported 233 Republicans with a total of more than $17 million in funds, 152 Democrats who received more than $28 million in sum, and three independents: Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, and Angus King of Maine, who got just under $300,000 between them. (Spending not covered in this analysis includes AIPAC PAC contributions that were refunded in 2023 or 2024 or those that went to other PACs and political organizations, such as the National Republican Senatorial Committee or the centrist Democratic nonprofit fundraising platform Democracy Engine.)
Ultimately, this is the story of how the Israel lobby undermined America, wrecked the Middle East, and set a series of international crimes against humanity in motion.
JEFFREY D. SACHS
Nov 21, 2024
Common Dreams
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/icc-arrest-warrant-netanyahu
It’s official now. America’s closest ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the one accorded more than 50 standing ovations in Congress just months ago, is under indictment by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity and war crimes. America must take note: the U.S. Government is complicit in Netanyahu’s war crimes and has fully partnered in Netanyahu’s violent rampage across the Middle East.
For 30 years the Israel Lobby has induced the U.S. to fight wars on Israel’s behalf designed to prevent the emergence of a Palestinian State. Netanyahu, who first came to power in 1996, and has been prime minister for 17 years since then, has been the main cheerleader for U.S.-backed wars in the Middle East. The result has been a disaster for the U.S. and a bloody catastrophe not only for the Palestinian people but for the entire Middle East.
These have not been wars to defend Israel, but rather wars to topple governments that oppose Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people. Israel viciously opposes the two-state solution called for by international law, the Arab Peace Initiative, the G20, the BRICS, the OIC, and the UN General Assembly. Israel’s intransigence, and its brutal suppression of the Palestinian people, has given rise to several militant resistance movements since the beginning of the occupation. These movements are backed by several countries in the region.
The obvious solution to the Israel-Palestine crisis is to implement the two-state solution and to demilitarize the militant groups as part of the implementation process.
Israel’s approach, especially under Netanyahu, is to overthrow foreign governments that oppose Israel’s domination, and recreate the map of a “New Middle East” without a Palestinian State. Rather than making peace, Netanyahu makes endless war.
What is shocking is that Washington has turned the U.S. military and federal budget over to Netanyahu for his disastrous wars. The history of the Israel lobby’s complete takeover of Washington can be found in the remarkable new book by Ilan Pappé, Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic (2024).
Netanyahu repeatedly told the American people that they would be the beneficiaries of his policies. In fact, Netanyahu has been an unmitigated disaster for the American people, bleeding the U.S. Treasury of trillions of dollars, squandering America’s standing in the world, making the U.S. complicit in his genocidal policies, and bringing the world closer to World War III.
If Trump wants to make America great again, the first thing he should do is to make America sovereign again, by ending Washington’s subservience to the Israel Lobby.
The Israel Lobby not only controls the votes in Congress but places hardline backers of Israel into key national security posts. These have included Madeleine Albright (Secretary of State for Clinton), Lewis Libby (Chief of Staff of Vice President Cheney), Victoria Nuland (Deputy National Security Advisor of Cheney, NATO Ambassador of Bush Jr., Assistant Secretary of State for Obama, Under-Secretary of State for Biden), Paul Wolfowitz (Under-Secretary of Defense for Bush Sr., Deputy Secretary of Defense for Bush Jr.), Douglas Feith (Under-Secretary of Defense for Bush Jr.), Abram Shulsky (Director of the Office of Special Plans, Department of Defense for Bush Jr.), Elliott Abrams (Deputy National Security Advisor for Bush Jr.), Richard Perle (Chairman of the Defense National Policy Board for Bush Jr.), Amos Hochstein (Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State for Biden), and Antony Blinken (Secretary of State for Biden).
@RnaudBertrand
Quite a sign when Stephen Walt, one of the most renowned scholars of international relations in the world (and Harvard professor), writes an article in Foreign Policy arguing that "Noam Chomsky has been proved right":
https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/11/15/chomsky-foreign-policy-book-review-american-idealism/
Walt agrees with Chomsky that "the claim that U.S. foreign policy is guided by the lofty ideals of democracy, freedom, the rule of law, human rights" is "nonsense".
As he explains, all of US history proves the contrary, from the "genocidal campaign against the indigenous population" the country was founded upon, to the fact it intervened militarily "to thwart democratic processes in many countries, and waged or backed wars that killed millions of people in Indochina, Latin America, and the Middle East."
Walt also agrees with Chomsky that this is enabled by a massive brainwashing campaign on the US population: "government institutions work overtime to 'manufacture consent' by classifying information, prosecuting leakers, lying to the public, and refusing to be held accountable even when things go wrong or malfeasance is exposed. Their efforts are aided by a generally compliant media, which repeats government talking points uncritically and only rarely questions the official narrative."
Walt concludes: "If I were asked whether a student would learn more about U.S. foreign policy by reading [Chomsky's] book or by reading a collection of the essays that current and former U.S. officials occasionally write in journals such as Foreign Affairs or the Atlantic, Chomsky and Robinson would win hands down. I wouldn’t have written that last sentence when I began my career 40 years ago. I’ve been paying attention, however, and my thinking has evolved as the evidence has piled up."
https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1863383555386273996
By Stephen M. Walt, a columnist at Foreign Policy and the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University
https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/11/15/chomsky-foreign-policy-book-review-american-idealism/
The writer’s new argument for left-wing foreign policy has earned a mainstream hearing.
For more than half a century, Noam Chomsky has been arguably the world’s most persistent, uncompromising, and intellectually respected critic of contemporary U.S. foreign policy. In a steady stream of books, articles, interviews, and speeches, he has repeatedly sought to expose Washington’s costly and inhumane approach to the rest of the world, an approach he believes has harmed millions and is contrary to the United States’ professed values. As co-author Nathan J. Robinson writes in the preface, The Myth of American Idealism was written to “draw insights from across [Chomsky’s] body of work into a single volume that could introduce people to his central critiques of U.S. foreign policy.” It accomplishes that task admirably.
As the title suggests, the central target of the book is the claim that U.S. foreign policy is guided by the lofty ideals of democracy, freedom, the rule of law, human rights, etc. For those who subscribe to this view, the damage the United States has sometimes inflicted on other countries was the unintended and much regretted result of actions taken for noble purposes and with the best of intentions. Americans are constantly reminded by their leaders that they are an “indispensable nation” and “the greatest force for freedom the world has ever known,” and assuredthat moral principles will be at the “center of U.S. foreign policy.” Such self-congratulatory justifications are then endlessly echoed by a chorus of politicians and establishment intellectuals.
For Chomsky and Robinson, these claims are nonsense. Not only did the young American republic fulfill its Manifest Destiny by waging a genocidal campaign against the indigenous population, but it has since backed a bevy of brutal dictatorships, intervened to thwart democratic processes in many countries, and waged or backed wars that killed millions of people in Indochina, Latin America, and the Middle East, all while falsely claiming to be defending freedom, democracy, human rights, and other cherished ideals. U.S. officials are quick to condemn others when they violate international law, but they refuse to join the International Criminal Court, the Law of the Sea Treaty, and many other global conventions. Nor do they hesitate to violate the United Nations Charter themselves, as U.S. President Bill Clinton did when he went to war against Serbia in 1999 or as President George W. Bush did when he invaded Iraq in 2003. Even when undeniably evil acts are exposed—such as the My Lai massacre, the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, and the CIA’s torture program—it is low-level personnel who get punished while the architects of these policies remain respected members of the establishment.
The record of hypocrisy recounted by Chomsky and Robinson is sobering and convincing. No open-minded reader could absorb this book and continue to believe the pious rationales that U.S. leaders invoke to justify their bare-knuckled actions.
By Stephen M. Walt, a columnist at Foreign Policy and the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University
https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/11/15/chomsky-foreign-policy-book-review-american-idealism/
The book is less persuasive, however, when it tries to explain why U.S. officials act this way. Chomsky and Robinson argue that the “the public’s role in decision-making is limited” and that “foreign policy is designed and implemented by small groups who derive their power from domestic sources.” In their view, U.S. foreign policy is largely the servant of corporate interests—the military-industrial complex, energy companies, and “major corporations, banks, investment firms, … and policy-oriented intellectuals who do the bidding of those who own and manage the private empires that govern most aspects of our lives.”
The importance of special interests is beyond question, as is the broader public’s limited role, but the picture is more complicated than they suggest. For starters, when corporate profits and national security interests clash, the former often lose out. For example, when Dick Cheney ran Halliburton, an oil-services company in the 1990s, he complained about the “sanction-happy” foreign policy that prevented the company from making money in Iran. Other U.S. oil companies would have liked to invest there, as well, but U.S. sanctions remained firmly in place. Similarly, tech companies like Apple oppose recent U.S. efforts to limit China’s access to advanced technologies because these restrictions threaten their bottom line. The restrictions might indeed be misguided, but the point is that corporate interests do not always call the tune.
Chomsky and Robinson also acknowledge that other great powers acted in much the same way that the United States has, and these states also invented elaborate moral justifications—the “white man’s burden,” la mission civilisatrice, the need to protect socialism—to whitewash their atrocious conduct. Given that this behavior preceded the emergence of modern corporate capitalism (let alone the military-industrial complex), it suggests that these policies have more to do with the logic of great power competition than the specific demands of the corporate United States. And if noncapitalist powers acted in similar ways, then something else is encouraging states to jettison their values to gain an edge on rivals, or to prevent them from gaining a similar edge themselves. For realists, that something else is the fear of what might happen if other states became stronger and decided to use their power in harmful ways.
Their portrait of the people who implement these policies will also strike some readers as simplistic. In their telling, U.S. officials are supremely cynical: They understand they are doing bad things for purely selfish reasons and don’t care much about the consequences for others. But many of them undoubtedly believe that what they are doing is both good for the United States and the world, and that the conduct of foreign policy inevitably involves painful trade-offs. They might be deluding themselves, but other thoughtful critics of U.S. foreign policy—such as Hans Morgenthau—readily acknowledged the impossibility of preserving one’s moral purity in the realm of politics. Chomsky and Robinson say very little about the potential costs or negative consequences of the policies they prefer—in their world, the trade-off between what is moral and what might be advantageous largely disappears.
The Myth of American Idealism raises two further puzzles, but only one is addressed in any detail. The first puzzle is: Why do Americans tolerate policies that are costly, often unsuccessful, and morally horrendous? Ordinary citizens could benefit in countless ways from the trillions of dollars that have been lavished on an overstuffed military or squandered in unnecessary and failed wars, yet voters continue to choose politicians who give them more of the same. How come?
By Stephen M. Walt, a columnist at Foreign Policy and the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University
https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/11/15/chomsky-foreign-policy-book-review-american-idealism/
Their answer, which is generally persuasive, is twofold. First, ordinary citizens lack the political mechanisms to shape policy, in part because a supine U.S. Congress has allowed presidents to usurp its constitutional authority over declarations of war and to cloak all manner of dubious actions under a deep veil of secrecy. Second, government institutions work overtime to “manufacture consent” by classifying information, prosecuting leakers, lying to the public, and refusing to be held accountable even when things go wrong or malfeasance is exposed. Their efforts are aided by a generally compliant media, which repeats government talking points uncritically and only rarely questions the official narrative.
Having written about these phenomena myself, I found their portrait of how the foreign-policy establishment purveys and defends its world view to be broadly accurate. That said, it is not obvious that greater public awareness would lead to better U.S. policies. Chomsky and Robinson believe that if more Americans understood what their government was doing, they would raise their voices and demand change. I would like to think so, but it is possible that a better-informed public would favor a foreign policy that was even more selfish, shortsighted, and immoral, especially if they believed that Chomsky and Robinson’s prescriptions would require them to make costly or painful adjustments. Former U.S. President Donald Trump has never expressed the slightest commitment to any ideal other than naked self-interest, yet he commands the loyalty of more than half the U.S. electorate.
One might also question whether the traditional elite’s ability to manufacture consent is waning as news sources multiply and mainstream media is increasingly mistrusted. For that matter, is the problem the manufacture of consent or the specific policies for which public consent has been obtained in the past? If people like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, or Jeff Bezos emerge as the core of a new elite, they are likely to favor a less interventionist foreign policy that is closer (though hardly identical) to what Chomsky and Robinson would like to see. If that were to occur, would Chomsky and Robinson still decry this new elite’s ability to manufacture consent for policies they might support?
The second puzzle—which is not addressed in any detail—concerns the rest of the world. If U.S. foreign policy “endangers the world” (as the subtitle of this book proclaims), why aren’t more states trying to stop it? Washington faces several serious adversaries at present, but it still has a lot of genuine and enthusiastic allies. Some of its partners might be opportunistic, or perhaps intimidated by the United States’ vast power, but not every pro-American leader is a tame dupe or a self-interested comprador. Global surveys still show a surprising degree of support and admiration for the United States, even though the populations of some areas (such as the Middle East) are deeply and justifiably angered by what the country is doing. The United States’ global image has also exhibited striking resilience in the past: It plummeted while George W. Bush was president and recoveredsharply as soon as voters elected Barack Obama.
In many parts of the world, the concern is not the oppressive nature of U.S. power but rather the possibility that its power will be withdrawn. Chomsky and Robinson are correct that the United States has done many bad things over the past century, but it must have been done a few things right, as well. The positive aspects of U.S. foreign policy get short shrift in this book, and that omission is its greatest limitation.
By Stephen M. Walt, a columnist at Foreign Policy and the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University
https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/11/15/chomsky-foreign-policy-book-review-american-idealism/
Despite these reservations, The Myth of American Idealism is a valuable work that provides an able introduction to Chomsky’s thinking. Indeed, if I were asked whether a student would learn more about U.S. foreign policy by reading this book or by reading a collection of the essays that current and former U.S. officials occasionally write in journals such as Foreign Affairs or the Atlantic, Chomsky and Robinson would win hands down.
I wouldn’t have written that last sentence when I began my career 40 years ago. I’ve been paying attention, however, and my thinking has evolved as the evidence has piled up. It is regrettable but revealing that a perspective on U.S. foreign policy once confined to the margins of left-wing discourse in the United States is now more credible than the shopworn platitudes that many senior U.S. officials rely on to defend their actions.