Response to Blankfort's Reply Re. Chomsky, and Blankfort's Second Reply

I apologize for the use of hyperbolic language such as "savage" ("fierce - American Heritage Dictionary) and "vituperation." Many years ago James MacManus, editor of the National Guardian (NG), refused to publish a letter of mine saying he was not in the business of printing "vituperation and canard." I refrained from accusing you of "canard." (The NG had condemned the last-minute intervention of two Tennessee lawyers who obtained a stay of execution of the Rosenbergs from Justice William Douglas because they were "interlopers" and their legal argument was devoid of political content. I. F. Stone condemned the NG for its callousness and he in turn was "savaged" for his humanity. It was my letter in support of Stone that elicited the epithets.)

With that diversion out of the way, let me say that you don't know my "mindset" or the deep anger and hatred I have for Zionism for the devastation it has brought on the Palestinians and others and for how it has transformed and uglified a major portion of the Jewish people. To be lumped with Chomsky does not offend me. I am very respectful of him but not worshipful. But I can only speak for myself. I am not the least bit concerned lest I be called a self-hating Jew. The "specter of anti-semitism," whether creating or nurturing it, is not a concern of mine. (Is that the "Specter haunting the Jewish left?") I don't know your credentials to delve into my "subconscious."

In fact in a letter I sent to Alex Cockburn on 4-23 I stated, INTER ALIA, "Aside from his observations which are contrary to mine, Blankfort is very persuasive." So put my hyperbole in perspective. (I capitalize because I have not learned to under or overline.)

You refer to my "vehemence," to having "pushed my button," to my "anger" at you. I think that is akin to saying I doth protest too much. That way, you can never lose your argument because you contend that strong opposition to it shows sensitivity or nervousness and thus proves your point. That's pretty neat. It's the "Blankfort paradox," right up there with Zeno.

How can I "prove" to you - and why need I? - that I really believe that Israel is "serving US demands [interests] as a client state," that I am not motivated to "absolve American Jews from a primary responsibility," and that if I thought US Jewry was in charge I would say so? I can't. In any event you should distinguish which Jews you are talking about as Cockburn does.) Would it help to quote Hertz, "Pentateuch and Haftoralus," p. 314 on Leviticus XIX, 18: "Those who have been downtrodden prove to be the worst oppressors when they acquire power over anyone." I don't think it's a universal maxim.

You seem so disparaging of the left. Is there no sunshine? Do you WANT to believe that except for a handful it is all worthless? If so, a better maxim than Hertz's is "you can't reason a person out of a position that he/she hasn't reasoned himself into."

I came out of the Hashomer Hatzair (HH) movement, from age 11, and spent a year at Kibbutz Merchavia. (That, by the way, is a similar history to Chomsky's - "A Life of Dissent" by Barsky.) Despite your charge, I am NOT for a 2-state solution. I was and am for a unitary state. For all its faults and contradictions, and for its present indistinguishability from Labor, HH once stood for a bi-national, secular, Marxist state in Palestine.

There is a new Jewish peace group trying to form in Ann Arbor. After attending a couple meetings I sent the following on 4-11 to the involved people: "I would proclaim ourselves anti-imperialist which includes being anti-Israel and anti-Zionist. I would have the group not only call for ending the occupation but for an offer to all expelled Palestinian refugees to return ... I would reinstate the truism that "Zionism is racism" and add that Zionism is murder and expropriation ... ."

I received a reply from one marcher stating that our message should "not be an anti-Israel one as such, as opposed to a protest at the behavior of the current government. I will resign ... if I feel this vital distinction is not upheld ... [and] sets us apart from our fellow Jews in town and assumes our members are all anti-Zionists."

I responded by saying that the group might just as well join the establishment Jewish groups rather than seek recruits and if that's where they were at I would resign. I wrote further:

"I have no desire to shill for the broken-bones policy of Rabin, the weapons of mass destruction acquisition of Peres, the accelerated settlements policy of Barak, the "there are no Palestinians" declaration of Meir, or the planned dispossession and expulsion of Palestinians by Ben-Gurion and Alon. I SUBMIT THAT ONE CANNOT DECRY THOSE POLICIES WITHOUT BEING "ANTI-ISRAEL." To oppose the racism that says a Jew from Brooklyn or Birobidjan can be an Israeli citizen but not an expelled Arab or her descendants IS anti-Israel and IS anti-Zionist. That is a proposition that has to be faced forthrightly."

I went on to condemn Israel's Bantustan policy and called for the right of return for the expelled Palestinians. I continued:

"My lifespan does not encompass biblical lore. But it does encompass a tiny, religious, non-Zionist Jewish community living with Arabs who had been there for centuries, never indepndent, under Ottoman then British rule, never being consulted as to their willingness to harbor a European Jewry facing persecution, coming with western skills and capital to a biblical domain which inevitably they would dominate, despite all twists and turns."

I suddenly feel like I'm expounding my credentials in an application for a job.

I suggest that the efforts of US presidents to get Israeli withdrawal, and the heartaches and headaches of secretaries of state, have been largely for show.

I cite "Zionist sources" because Goldberg and Tivnan were recommended to me by my dear friend Abdeen Jabara for the proposition that the Jewish lobby/Israel largely controls the American mid-east agenda. I focused on portions of the writings that I thought tended to argue to the contrary.

Thus, Goldberg and Tivnan are not MY arrows. I submit that your barb "you don't have much in your quiver" is a lot nastier than calling one "vituperative" or "bombastic" or a "savager." Downright shitty, sir.

You are wrong in your assertion about the quote from Stephen Green. His contention that Israel has become America's client state "IN ALL RESPECTS EXCEPT ONE," logically can only refer to Israel's failure to assist in Vietnam, as discussed at the bottom of p. 249 and top of p. 250: "To Johnson ... the Israelis [were] ungrateful ... 'Dammit, they want me to protect Israel, but they don't want me to do anything in Vietnam.' In the summer of 1966 Israel did finally agree to assist the 'free-world effort' in Vietnam. They agreed to accept eight Vietnamese trainees in dry-land farming. And there was a condition. The US government had to ensure that there would be no publicity about the matter." I think that one who looks carefully at context and, throwing back your expression, "who understands the English language," would realize that Green's less than masterful sentence does not use "client" in the welfare/intake worker sense no matter that those words conclude his sentence.

Blankfort's response:

First, I appreciate you sending me a political bio sufficient to establish your credentials. Such credentials are not likely to enhance anyone's career inside or outside of academia so I presume, or hope, rather, that you have tenure.

Obviously, we are clearly on the same page on virtually every aspect of the Israel-Palestine conflict, save one, and that is the measure of the power relationship between the US and Israel. Who is right or wrong on this issue is not merely an academic exercise for those supporting Palestinian rights but the foundation for whatever political action we may take.

Thus far, since the Palestine support movement, and that includes most of its Palestinian component has adopted Chomsky's position that Israel has been serving US interests as a client state much like other client states, such as El Salvador or Guatemala have done in the past, and that as Chomsky repeated last year in opposing an international boycott of Israeli academics, the US administration determines the limits of the envelope in which Israel can function and that neither the Congress (which he rarely, if ever mentions, or the Israel lobby has, in the long run, much to say about it.

What this has led to during the course of our struggle for Palestinian rights is ignoring of both members of Congress and the lobby and such institutions as the Jewish National Fund, or the ADL, etc., as targets of either protest or political pressure. And more than that, total ignorance on the part of the movement of what the lobby is and what it has been doing while the movement, myopic, has been looking in the other direction. What is indeed extraordinary and inexcusable has been the failure to make the issue of aid and tax-deductible donations to Israel not only a major campaign focus, but a focus of any importance at all.

Moreover, as I pointed out, the subject has been censored by the purported leaders of the movement, such as IAC-ANSWER and ISO on the West Coast and presumably, on the East Coast as well. One of the spokespersons for Students for Justice in Palestine who had claimed that the belief that the Israel lobby had any unusual power was "non-Marxist," agreed to have a forum with me on the subject, but within a half hour an email came back from him saying the had a change of mind that the group would be too busy with other important matters.

I had Stephen Zunes agree to a debate/discussion although he wanted Tikkun or the AFSC to be a co-sponsor because he was afraid that I would pack the audience with supporters of my position. I agreed to the AFSC and asked for a date around May 15th, but it looks like it won't happen because it has been five or six weeks since our last email exchange. One would think the discussion of the role of the Israel lobby and of the relative powers of Israel and the US would be an important issue for the movement. That it is never even discussed outside of an email list like this should raise serious questions about the movement's leadership, particularly when, as I wrote in my article, it has been such an utter failure.

One of the critical points of our disagreement and mine with Chomsky is how serious were the efforts of the various presidents to stop Israeli settlements and to get Israel out of the Occupied Territories. I cannot seriously believe that all of these individuals, from Nixon on, would have willingly experienced international humiliation simply for "show." A whole book could have been written about Carter's battles with Begin and the lobby and how he paid for it at the polls with only 42% of the Jewish vote, the lowest in modern times.

For the facts concerning the US-Israel relationship under the first Bush administration, I recommend Moshe Arens' "Broken Covenant" and a close reading of the Ball's "The Passionate Attachment" which, however, is a most difficult book to find.

As to who am I. I am and have been a journalist, a photographer and am now a radio program host on radio stations in San Francisco and Mendocino in Northern California. I was raised in a non-Zionist left household in which my father, who would become a blacklisted writer, actively supported a bi-national socialist state but became quickly turned off after visits to our home by some of the Zionist leaders in the 47-48 period such as the Haganah's head, Moshe Sneh.

My activity in behalf of the Palestinian cause began with a four month trip to Lebanon and Jordan in the summer of 1970 which ended with the beginning of Black September in Amman. It hasn't stopped since. In 1983 I went back again for four months, divided between Israel and Lebanon which it was then still occupying. In Israel, I found the most overt racism that I had ever seen as well as some serious anti-Zionists including a few among the members of Yesh G'vul who I interviewed. I should say that the awareness of the lobby and its power is far greater among Israeli academics then it is among the movement here.

In August, 1987, I co-founded the Labor Committee on the Middle East and in the following Spring became the editor of the Middle East Labor Bulletin, which we published until 1995 when our fiscal sponsor went out of business, and the movement collapsed totally in the post-Oslo period. During the first Intifada our small independent group organized most of the anti-Israel protest rallies in the Bay Area.

I tried to get Global Exchange to become our fiscal sponsor but taking up the issue of Palestine was to hot for them back in 1995, so they declined, saying they were not going provide any more fiscal sponsorships (which are necessary conduits for tax-deductible donations). Now, a little late, Global Exchange has recognized the issue. So I don't find your house party to be an empty gesture.

Jeff Blankfort