Unjustified Attacks on Chomsky
By Blankfort and Neumann

From Larry Hochman:

To introduce myself, I am Larry Hochman from the Detroit/Ann Arbor area. I am a physicist, former physics professor, present lawyer, member of National Lawyers Guild, candidate for vice-president (in Michigan) in 1968 on the New Politics/Peace and Freedom Party ticket, and author of a 1967 pamphlet "Zionism and the Israeli State" published by the Radical Education Project.

Michael Neumann contends that the US is the pawn of Israel.

Jeff Blankfort appears to believe the same thing.

Neumann lauds Blankfort.

Blankfort savages Neumann.

Both Neumann and Blankfort savage Chomsky. Unjustifiably.

Neumann posits that US support for Israel is against the interests of the US ruling class. I disagree but at least it is arguable that he knows the true intrests of the rulers better than the rulers do. His lesson from that, however, is that the left could and should help the Palestinian cause by lecturing the US ruling class on how it can best reinforce its empire - that, to me, is patent nonsense.

(Chomsky would probably not say "patent nonsense," but something like "untenable" - he is calmer and more even-tempered than I and than Blankfort who sometimes enlists vituperation.)

Blankfort contends that the left, and not only the Jewish left, is silenced by its conscious or subconscious - what? Love for Israel? Jewish identity? Fear of the label of anti-Semitism? My experience is totally different. I do not know any RADICAL Jews who are pro-Israel or pro-Zionist. Liberal Jews and non-radical anti-war Jews, yes.

I created a sign with which I marched in DC, Detroit, Ann Arbor, Royal Oak and with which a friend of mine marched in New York. There was admiration for the message and zero opposition. People smiled and photographed it. The sign has a straight line drawn from DC (with an American flag) to London (with the Union Jack), and another straight line drawn from London to Tel Aviv (with the Israeli flag). The two lines form an angle greater than 90 degrees, i.e. "obtuse." Under the map is the legend "OBTUSE ANGLE OF EVIL." I experienced none of the negativity and fear that Blankfort did on the west coast.

As Alex Cockburn stated in the April 18 Nation, the "role of the pro-Israel neocons in pushing for war on Iraq has been exhaustively documented." As he also wrote:

Much of the dedication in this antiwar movement, as with every other leftist, antiwar, progressive and peace movement in the past century here, is provided by Jews and Jewish organizations. To take the issue of Israel/ Palestine, look at Jews Against the Occupation...One of the founders of the amazingly courageous International Solidarity Movement is Adam Shapiro, and a significant percentage of their activists are Jewish These people are putting their life on the line every day in the way Rachel Corrie did.

In an interesting article in the May 5 Nation by Philip Green, "Anti-Semitism,' Israel and the Left," he wrote that "it is not anti-Semitic to say, as [Congressman] Moran perhaps intended to say and as is often said on the left, that 'the Jewish lobby is one of the biggest obstacles to a rational American Middle East policy'." (I take issue with the contention that the policy of the US oligarchy is not rational from their perspective.} Further:

"[T]he simple nationalistic equation of "Israel" and "Jewish" has a lot to answer for. To the extent that self-anointed JEWISH SPOKESPERSONS, with the opportnistic assis-tance of the right, HAVE WORKED TO MAKE ISRAEL AND JEWISHNESS SYNONYMOUS, it is they-and not the left-who have sown the dangerous seed of new waves of anti Semitism." (my emphasis).

That is very well-put and well-taken. I do take issue with Green's defense of AIPAC members from the charge of "dual loyalty." Clearly AIPAC's "loyalty" is with Israel. I have no qualms about throwing the accusation of "dual loyalty" in the faces of those who proclaim ANY loyalty. "Loyalty" to what? A government? People? An economic system? Trees and mountains? Is a nation more deserving of "loyalty" than a football team? How can one take "pride" in being a [you name it]? Is an accident of birth some accomplishment or achievement?

At the head of the alleged coterie of "Jew absolvers," apparently, is Noam Chomsky (in Blankfort's mind). That charge against Chomsky is garbage - or patent nonsense. The one response on 4-19-03 in "shamireaders" (which I assume is the site of Israel Shamir who, when he is intelligible, is incredible) which I found worth reading is that of James Essig. (Anybody know his E-mail?) That is one response that Blankfort chose not to answer.

If Chomsky told Blankfort it was "not useful" to debate him, perhaps it was because of Blankfort's tone and tenor - e.g. "Judeo/Nazi," stuff that I would sometimes like to say but don't because it is not terribly effective. Neumann's valid accusation that I emloy "rhetoric" applies to Blankfort as well. Maybe Chomsky, with his careful scholarship and tight, even tedious at times, analysis, doesn't want to engage with Blankfort's lapses into bombast. Who knows?

Blankfort pulls a few Chomsky sentences from over the years and turns on its head Chomsky's true position which is four-square anti-imperialist, anti-Zionist, anti-Israel and anti-the American/Jewish cabal which so heavily influences (a) the US ruling class, (b) the US Jewish community, and (c) the US non-Jewish community.

Well, I randomly picked out a sentence or two from Chomsky's "World Order Old and New," 1996, p. 293-294. He agrees with one Avi Sarit from an article (Haaretz and NYT): "We believe with absolute certitude now with the White House and Senate and...Pentagon and New York Times that the lives of Arabs do not count as much as ours...We believe with absolute certitude that when we have AIPAC, Bronfman, ADL, Dimona, Holocaust Museums, we have the right to tell 400,000 people to flee and the riught to rain 16,000 bombs on their villages...to kill without any guilt." Chomsky notes that Israel's actions are essentially unchecked, that "Israel inherited [from the US] the right to do as it chooses."

I do not contend that that is a ringing emphasis on the all-powerful AIPAC which leads Uncle Sam by a ring throush his nose and makes him jump through hoops. But Chomsky gives his imprimatur to the notion that AIPAC is one important component cementing the US to Israel. He does not hem. He does not haw. He straightforwardly empraces Sarit's sardonic, but telling, depiction of the ugly state of affairs.

It is gross and incomprehensible overkill for Blankfort to spend his entire 11 pages attacking Chomsky.

The whole issue is a matter of EMPHASIS. Is AIPAC, etc., responsible for 55% of US middle-east policy? 95%? Whatever percentage, the left should fight it. If Blankfort is right as to the overwhelming pre-eminence of US-Jewish influence, I suppose we should fight it even harder. HOW? And, pray tell, how would knowing the correct percentage make it any easier to combat?

It is off-putting how often Blankfort's responses are such as "too absurd to discuss" or lamentations that he has "space limitations."

As to Neumann, at every march/demonstration I have participated in there were abundant "Justice for Palestinians"-type signs and banners.

To repeat what I E-mailed to Neumann on 4-17-03, if Israel, AIPAC, and Jewish money control the US agenda in the mid-east, AND IF that agenda is contrary to the interests of the US ruling class, as Neumann believes, some weird questions arise. Sholdn't the left be HAPPY that the US empire is ignorantly defeating its intrests? How much should that happiness be tempered by SADNESS that the Palestinians are paying for it? Or should we say, "Hey, US ruling class, abandon your Israeli liability, embrace Palestinians, further your own hegemonic interests, extend your economic, military and political power in the mid-east? " And leave it at that? Or should we add: "Be advised, because we do not want to be deceptive to the US masses, that we don't REALLY want to further your global designs and after Israel is cut down to size and Palestinians are stated and sated, we are going to overthrow you."

IF NEUMANN (AND BLANKFORT??) IS/ARE CORRECT, THE LEFT IS IN A TOTAL QUANDARY with No Exit.

Well-known names that come to my mind who are serious, committed and rational advocates for the Palestinians are Chomsky, Cockburn and Said. That is the case whether or not they agree with me on all or some of the following:

- Support for Israel has been and continues to be in the "national" interest of the US ruling class.

- The US ruling class dominates Israeli policy and Israel is a useful tool for it, despite recalcitrance.

- Israel, with 5 million Jews and all its armaments, logistical skills, etc., is a REGIONAL power and can never be anything more than that; it is not a co-equal of the US ruling class with its 280 million compliant inhabitants, its massive economy, its nuclear arsenal.

- AIPAC, organized US Jewry, etc. can "control" 70-90% of Congress. Congress, however, is the absolute toady of the executive most of the time. AIPAC, etc., does NOT usually control the executive. When there is a plethora of Jews in the cabinet (Clinton) or in the second-level executive echelon (as at present), it is because the dominant US ruling class INVITED THE JEWS IN.

- The issue is CLASS, not ethno/nationality. Paraphrasing Debs's call to the workers that "we have a world to win," the US hegemon, gentile and Jewish, has a WORLD to exploit, dominate, frighten, oppress, keep poor---to hear all you internetters, one would think Israel and the Arabs are the only items on the US power elite's agenda.

My view is modulated but not changed by J.J. Goldberg's "Jewish Power" and Edward Tivnan's "The Lobby," which I have read and written on to Abdeen Jabara, and by Stephen Green's "Taking Sides" which I skimmed. Goldberg and Tivnan lead me to conclude:

a. US Jews are A powerful force. b. Neither author claims that US Jews are a DECISIVE force. c. Jewish money can defeat "foes" of Israel. d. Jewish money can insure the reelection of pro-Israel Congresspersons. e. Congressional resolutions can stay the hand of SOME presidential initiatives.

Goldberg, in a New York Times op-ed, contended that a protest from AIPAC "raises the political cost" for the US government to do anything that Israel opposes. It does not mean that US administrations will not accept that cost, has not accepted it and acted, and will not in future accept that political cost and so act again.

Perhaps the most telling negation of the notion of Israeli/Jewish "control" of US policy is found at pp. 213-214:

"...AIPAC could be a useful ally. Given its awesome reputation ...on Capitol Hill....and...its close ties to the Democrats the lobby could often sell administration policies that the White House it- self could not sell. AIPAC was regularly enlisted to line up congressinal support for the overall foreign-aid package, an unpopular program with little grass-roots backing outside the Jewish community...Through the 1980s, AIPAC lobbyists regularly helped the Reagan administration line up Democratic congressional support on unlikely issues from Central America to sub-Saharan Africa...Israel and America embarked on a series of joint adventures, both overt and covert, aiding the Nicaraguan contras, training security forces in Zaire, sending arms secretly to Iran."

I find the contention that Israel armed the "contras," etc., in order to further its arms industry lacking merit. Why didn't it arm the Sandinistas or the Angolan government? Israel cares nothing about Nicaragua or the Congo. It was a lackey to the US, doing US bidding in the "national interest" of US capital. As Nixon argued, Israel after 1970 was not merely a worthy cause; it was "a strategic Cold War asset...America needed Israel as much as Israel needed America," Goldberg, p. 199.

To the question "If support for Israel is in the US national interest, why is there such a huge lobbying organization and PACs working to get the US government to support Israel?" Goldberg gives the answer in one word: "insurance." At pp. 266-272 he states that one brings coals to Newcastle to insure that people already predisposed to your interests STAY in power.

One could ask the same question: why a gun lobby, a milk-price support lobby, etc., since their interests always overwhelmingly prevail? Answer: to keep it that way, to try to squelch any grass-roots challenge, and so forth.

Another reason: there can always be COMPETING perceived US "national interests," e.g. the AWACS sale to Saudi Arabia. Both that sale and continued underwriting of Israel were perceived by the US to be in its "national interest." The US thought Israel already strong and secure enough to tolerate the sale. To AIPAC, Israel could never be strong enough.

Yet another reason - to help the US government "avoid mistakes" such as forcing Israeli withdrawal from Sinai in 1957 and thus building up Nasser, Goldberg at p. 157.

George Ball in "The Passionate Attachment" (1992) makes a cogent point at pp. 224-225. (SEE FOOTNOTE)

As to Stephen Green, his examples are unpersuasive. At p. 224 he claims that the Eshkol government acted in ways that ignored US "national security interests." He does not say HOW the US so-called "public policy" on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, while covertly abetting Israel's nuclear program, harmed the US ruling class's real or perceived "national security interests."

I disagree that peace negotiations in the mid-east is a "long-term US objective," p. 245. So if Israel thwarted them in 1967, it was no skin off the US nose. I disagree that US "national security interests" had not been well served by "pandering to Israel." (Note Green's continuous inclusion of "security" - as opposed to "profit" interest or "hegemonic" interest?)

There are three blurbs on the back cover of Green's book. Richard Falk calls the book an "expose" of the US "enabling Israel's militarism," which bespeaks US noblesse oblige, and says nothing about US national interests vis a vis Israel. J. William Fulbright learns that the US has "been led astray from our nation's interest in the Middle East." George Ball learns that the US must develop a mid-east policy "designed to advance its own interests." Neither Fulbright nor Ball show any alleged "harm" to US interests or define those interests. I must assume they know that US ruling class interests are profit and control.

I do find noteworthy two observations of Green . At p. 180: with Johnson "obsessed" with the Vietnam war, "Israel's military leaders offered to impose stability upon the peoples and countries of the Middle East-it was to be a 'Pax Hebraeca'." That speaks to at least a coalescence of interests between the US and Israel. At p. 250-251" "In all respects except one, ISRAEL HAS BECOME AMERICA'S CLIENT STATE.' [The one exception was failing to assist in Vietnam.] That conclusion is opposite to the proposition for which Mr. Blankfort (I think it was he) cited Stephen Green's book., "Taking Sides."

I am a novice at this technology. Please pass on to other interested persons.

FOOTNOTE: Ball states that "Support for Israel as a matter of conviction as opposed to mere political expediency is very shallow-not more than 15 percent or so of each House of Congress. It is easy to get one hundred senators to sign a letter supporting some pro-Israel position when there is not, at present, any serious or focused countervailing pressure to oppose AIPAC-sponsored policies. But, should the Jewish community become divided and flag in its pro-Israel zeal, or should significant groups begin to express opposition, such congressional support could melt away with lighting (SIC) speed. American opinion has a tendency to veer suddenly from one extreme to another and many congressmen today tend to resemble weathervanes rather than lawmakers with strong convictions." What that says to me is that the Jewish pressure-aspect of US support for Israel could decrease. I suppose sol. But the national interest-aspect of US support is likely to remain vibrant for the foreseeable future. Israel is a western outpost. It is a fetter to Arab unity, to any new nationalist Nasserism, to any build-up of Arab strength (e.g. the destruction of Iraq's reactor). Israel stands as a walled city, the message being that it is strong, it is rich, it has a standard of living impossible if based on Levantine resources, that it is not to be crossed, and that what goes for Israel is a microcosm of what goes for the US imperium. That is as true now as it was when the USSR existed. Israel's role is not negated because it has never shed a drop of blood for the United States.

From: Jeffrey Blankfort < jab@tucradio.org >

Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2003 23:54:25 -0700

To: Israel Shamir < shamir@home.se >, Dochoch29@aol.com , jab@tucradio.org , Amjabara@aol.com , mneumann@trentu.ca , ffresheye@comcast.net , megiddo@umich.edu , vpapakhi@co.wayne.mi.us , hersko@umich.edu , jherrada@umich.edu , pwerbe@yahoo.com

Cc: rbleier@igc.org

Subject: Re: Fw: Unjustified Attacks on Chomsky By Blankfort and Neumann

Dear Israel,

Thank you for forwarding this. It is clear from the length and the vehemence with which Mr. Hochman has attacked me and my criticism of Noam Chomsky that I have, as they say, pushed his button. I will address his criticisms, point by point.

Israel Shamir wrote:

Will you respond, dear Jeff?

----- Original Message -----

From: Dochoch29@aol.com

To: Amjabara@aol.com

Cc: JAB@tuckaradio.org ; mneumann@trentu.ca ; ffresheye@comcast.net ; shamireaders-owner@yahoo groups.com ; megiddo@umich.edu ; vpapakhi@co.wayne.mi.us ; hersko@umich.edu ; jherrada@umich.edu ; pwerbe@yahoo.com ; Dochoch29@aol.com

Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2003 11:44 AM

Subject: Unjustified Attacks on Chomsky By Blankfort and Neumann

To introduce myself, I am Larry Hochman from the Detroit/Ann Arbor area. I am a physicist, former physics professor, present lawyer, member of National Lawyers Guild, candidate for vice-president (in Michigan) in 1968 on the New Politics/Peace and Freedom Party ticket, and author of a 1967 pamphlet "Zionism and the Israeli State" published by the Radical Education Project.

Michael Neumann contends that the US is the pawn of Israel.

Jeff Blankfort appears to believe the same thing.

Since every US president since Nixon has made a public effort to get Israel to withdraw from the Occupied West Bank and Gaza and everyone has failed while some have been humiliated, I would suggest that while the US is not Israel's "pawn," a term neither used by Michael Neumann (as far as I recall), nor by me, Israel's interest in holding on to that land has overcome US efforts to get them out of it, regardless of what the outcome would mean for the Palestinians. That suggests a power relationship quite different that what you and Chomsky and virtually the entire Left, such as it is, would have us believe.

With this mindset, it is understandable that you and the estimable Noam would overlook an article that was published in the April 8, 2002, edition of the International Herald Tribune, presumably from the Washington Post of the same day, which described the rage of the CIA at Sharon for having demolished the Palestinian security building it had built for Arafat's police in Ramallah and had launched unprovoked attacks on PA police officers some of whom had been trained at Langley.

Now, there is no "liberation leader," if I may call Arafat that, for sake of an argument as opposed to the truth, who has so openly embraced the CIA as he has, and it should have been quite clear from what he and the CIA were doing that the US intelligence had great plans for the truncated Palestinian state which quite likely would have become the US client state that Israel is supposed to be but never has been. Sharon, not being bogged down in the Chomskyist mindset, was anxious to destroy any possibility of a sibling rivalry so he killed the baby in its crib. That this series of incidents was ignored by those doing Palestine support work comes as no surprise, since anything that tends to contradict their view of the power relationship tends to be ignored.

Neumann lauds Blankfort.

Blankfort savages Neumann.

Only in your mind and only based on your own anger at what I have written. Michael didn't think so and we now have a warm email relationship.

Both Neumann and Blankfort savage Chomsky. Unjustifiably.

Savage, professor? I defy you to find anything in either Michael's or my work, that could fit the definition of "savage." Do you really think what he or I wrote was "cruel" or "pitiless" (Webster) or were just engaging in hyperbole. The truth is that I went far easier on Chomsky than I might have, simply based on his introduction to The New Intifada in which he twisted history repeatedly to make his fundamental point; that Israel is basically doing the bidding of the U.S. I am sorry if I offend you by repeating the word "absurd," but that is what it is. And since Chomsky is held in such high regard, his position has effectively steered the movement from investigating the Israel lobby and how its influences the US body politic, not to mention its culture.

Neumann posits that US support for Israel is against the interests of the US ruling class. I disagree but at least it is arguable that he knows the true intrests of the rulers better than the rulers do. His lesson from that, however, is that the left could and should help the Palestinian cause by lecturing the US ruling class on how it can best reinforce its empire -- that, to me, is patent nonsense.

(Chomsky would probably not say "patent nonsense," but something like "untenable" -- he is calmer and more even-tempered than I and than Blankfort who sometimes enlists vituperation.)

Now it's "vituperation," defined by Webster as "bitter, abusive, language." Please, professor, provide me with an example.

Blankfort contends that the left, and not only the Jewish left, is silenced by its conscious or subconscious -- what? Love for Israel? Jewish identity? Fear of the label of anti-Semitism? My experience is totally different. I do not know any RADICAL Jews who are pro-Israel or pro-Zionist. Liberal Jews and non-radical anti-war Jews, yes.

I don't know how long you have been engaged in Palestinian support work, but mine goes back 33 years. I don't know any radical Jews who are pro-Israel or pro-Zionist but within the number of Jewish activists engaged in Palestinian solidarity work, the truly radical are few and far between. But that doesn't mean that at some subconscious level, the specter of anti-semitism doesn't occur to them. Certainly, that's how people like Dick Becker of the IAC-ANSWER respond when the subject is brought up and helps to explain why the subject of the lobby has NEVER been a subject on any program produced by the solidarity movement as far as I have been able to determine, with one exception, and that one exception was last year in California's Marin Co. when Alison Weir, who is not Jewish, put on a program in which I appeared with Palestinian lawyer Rajah Shehadeh, Palestinian Professor Jess Ghannam, and Israeli PhD candidate Yael Ben-zvi and spoke about the lobby before more than 200 folks, many of whom were Jewish, and who gave me, to the surprise of all of us, a rousing applause. In fact, we agreed that I should speak last because the topic of the lobby was so controversial that we were afraid, in what is normally Zionized Marin, that my talk, if I went first, would cause the meeting to break up. I describe this in some detail because it goes to prove my point, i.e., that "Leftists" such as yourself are the biggest blockers of the truth. Sorry if you think is "savage" or "vituperative."

I created a sign with which I marched in DC, Detroit, Ann Arbor, Royal Oak and with which a friend of mine marched in New York. There was admiration for the message and zero opposition. People smiled and photographed it. The sign has a straight line drawn from DC (with an American flag) to London (with the Union Jack), and another straight line drawn from London to Tel Aviv (with the Israeli flag). The two lines form an angle greater than 90 degrees, i.e. "obtuse." Under the map is the legend "OBTUSE ANGLE OF EVIL." I experienced none of the negativity and fear that Blankfort did on the west coast.

Great sign. Those who saw it got the message as more and more people are. But I'm not clear what this has to do with my argument.

As Alex Cockburn stated in the April 18 Nation, the "role of the pro-Israel neocons in pushing for war on Iraq has been exhaustively documented." As he also wrote:

"Much of the dedication in this antiwar movement, as with every other leftist, antiwar, progressive and peace movement in the past century here, is provided by Jews and Jewish organizations. To take the issue of Israel/ Palestine, look at Jews Against the Occupation ... One of the founders of the amazingly courageous International Solidarity Movement is Adam Shapiro, and a significant percentage of their activists are Jewish These people are putting their life on the line every day in the way Rachel Corrie did."

I am in complete agreement with that statement and Alexander is one of the few voices on the Left with the courage to speak out against the Israel lobby, but the "role of the pro-Israel neo-cons" has not been documented by the Left but by such folks as Bill and Kathy Christison, formerly with the CIA, Jason Vest, in the Nation, and several leading British journalists such as Robert Fisk. It certainly wasn't mentioned at any of the anti-war rallies out on the West Coast.

In an interesting article in the May 5 Nation by Philip Green, "Anti-Semitism,' Israel and the Left," he wrote that "it is not anti-Semitic to say, as [Congressman] Moran perhaps intended to say and as is often said on the left, that 'the Jewish lobby is one of the biggest obstacles to a rational American Middle East policy'." (I take issue with the contention that the policy of the US oligarchy is not rational from their perspective.} Further:

"[T]he simple nationalistic equation of "Israel" and "Jewish" has a lot to answer for. To the extent that self-anointed JEWISH SPOKESPERSONS, with the opportnistic assis- tance of the right, HAVE WORKED TO MAKE ISRAEL AND JEWISHNESS SYNONYMOUS, it is they-and not the left-who have sown the dangerous seed of new waves of anti Semitism."

I agree. When it comes to the organized American Jewish community, all of whose organizations devote the most significant portion of their time in defending Israel and intimidating its critics, Israel and Jewishness have become synonymous (my emphasis).

That is very well-put and well-taken. I do take issue with Green's defense of AIPAC members from the charge of "dual loyalty." Clearly AIPAC's "loyalty" is with Israel. I have no qualms about throwing the accusation of "dual loyalty" in the faces of those who proclaim ANY loyalty. "Loyalty" to what? A government? People? An economic system? Trees and mountains? Is a nation more deserving of "loyalty" than a football team? How can one take "pride" in being a [you name it]? Is an accident of birth some accomplishment or achievement?

Agreed.

At the head of the alleged coterie of "Jew absolvers," apparently, is Noam Chomsky (in Blankfort's mind). That charge against Chomsky is garbage -- or patent nonsense. The one response on 4-19-03 in "shamireaders" (which I assume is the site of Israel Shamir who, when he is intelligible, is incredible) which I found worth reading is that of James Essig. (Anybody know his E-mail?) That is one response that Blankfort chose not to answer.

Excuse me if I infer from Chomsky's insistence that Israel is simply serving US demands as a client state absolves American Jews from a primary responsibility. I think anyone who does not know the source of what Chomsky wrote and who understands the English language would agree with me if they saw his writings on the subject quoted anonymously. If I did not answer Essig (and since you didn't repeat what you wrote) I will assume that I thought my answers to the other critics covered his message as well

If Chomsky told Blankfort it was "not useful" to debate him, perhaps it was because of Blankfort's tone and tenor -- e.g. "Judeo/Nazi," stuff that I would sometimes like to say but don't because it is not terribly effective.

Judeo-Nazi is a term used in Israel where, to their credit, some Israelis tend to describe things as they are, and what is universally referred to the "Jewish lobby" in the US is scorned for the negative role it has played in Israeli politics. In 1991, in the Middle East Labor Bulletin, which I edited, I did a special section of how Israelis, leading journalists and a rabbi, viewed the lobby. When I went on the Pacifica station KPFA and read from some of the selections, I was told that they sounded like "classic anti-semitism."

That certainly wasn't the reason he refused to debate me since not only were we on friendly terms but he also made small but regular contributions to the MELB when I sent my subscribers (which he was) a request for money.

Neumann's valid accusation that I emloy "rhetoric" applies to Blankfort as well. Maybe Chomsky, with his careful scholarship and tight, even tedious at times, analysis, doesn't want to engage with Blankfort's lapses into bombast. Who knows?

Savage, vituperative, and now "bombast" ("unimportant or silly speech, pompous.") Bunker-busting bombast, eh?

Blankfort pulls a few Chomsky sentences from over the years and turns on its head Chomsky's true position which is four-square anti-imperialist, anti-Zionist, anti-Israel and anti-the American/Jewish cabal which so heavily influences (a) the US ruling class, (b) the US Jewish community, and (c) the US non-Jewish community.

On P. 39 of the Fateful Triangle, Chomsky assumes the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state within its 1967 borders. That, my friend, makes him a Zionist, as it does anyone who supports a two-state solution. I will grant that he is against Israeli policies, but not that he is anti-Israel, per se. And since I never hear him talk about the American/Jewish cabal or mention it in his writings, perhaps, you would provide me with the evidence. Not that I don't believe it, but if he doesn't write or say it, it's meaningless.

Well, I randomly picked out a sentence or two from Chomsky's "World Order Old and New," 1996, p. 293-294. He agrees with one Avi Sarit from an article (Haaretz and NYT): "We believe with absolute certitude now with the White House and Senate and ... Pentagon and New York Times that the lives of Arabs do not count as much as ours ... We believe with absolute certitude that when we have AIPAC, Bronfman, ADL, Dimona, Holocaust Museums, we have the right to tell 400,000 people to flee and the riught to rain 16,000 bombs on their villages ... to kill without any guilt." Chomsky notes that Israel's actions are essentially unchecked, that "Israel inherited [from the US] the right to do as it chooses."

I admit I have not read that quote but it leads me to wonder what comes next? Does he explain why Israel has the right to do as it chooses?

I do not contend that that is a ringing emphasis on the all-powerful AIPAC which leads Uncle Sam by a ring through his nose and makes him jump through hoops. But Chomsky gives his imprimatur to the notion that AIPAC is one important component cementing the US to Israel. He does not hem. He does not haw. He straightforwardly embraces Sarit's sardonic, but telling, depiction of the ugly state of affairs.

Wonderful. Perhaps, one day, he will put it his own words, and mention the subject the again. That's 1997 and right at the moment, we have 75 US senators and at least 262 House members who have written a letter to Bush telling his to drop the "road map" business. When one considers how pathetic the "road map" is in the first place, you realize the power that the lobby can mobilize. It was a similar letter to Daddy Bush calling for Israel to get $10 billion in loan guarantees in 1991 that he ignored and challenged, that led to his defeat in 1992. And by the way, I notice that you make no reference to any of the historical arguments I presented in my critique, including the comparison of the action of both Bushes..

It is gross and incomprehensible overkill for Blankfort to spend his entire 11 pages attacking Chomsky.

Now it's "savage, vituperative, bombast, gross and incomprehensible," but it ain't true. All 11 pages? No way.

The whole issue is a matter of EMPHASIS. Is AIPAC, etc., responsible for 55% of US middle-east policy? 95% ? Whatever percentage, the left should fight it. If Blankfort is right as to the overwhelming pre-eminence of US-Jewish influence, I suppose we should fight it even harder. HOW? And, pray tell, how would knowing the correct percentage make it any easier to combat?

Well, first of all, the Left, such as it is, and with a few exceptions, doesn't even acknowledge that the problem exists. And you seem to be fighting against raising the problem, so that puts you arm in arm with Dick Becker, and ANSWER, not to mention Michael Lerner, or is that a low blow? How do we fight it? First, by not attacking the messenger. Second, have major forums on the subject with various positions being represented, Third, hold politicians who blindly support Israel to the same standards of those who supported apartheid in South Africa. That the Left, with but a handful of exceptions has never done that, indicates, if nothing else, the level of anti-Arab racism that permeates the Left. Fourth, picket the offices of Jewish organizations and federations that support Israel much as similar offices of South African airlines were picketed during the anti-apartheid struggles. And knowing the percentage of power of, let us say, the lobby over the Democrats, would blow people's minds and make them look at the system with new eyes.

It is off-putting how often Blankfort's responses are such as "too absurd to discuss" or lamentations that he has "space limitations."

Sorry, there are some things that are too absurd to discuss and the comparison with Powell and Rice representing African-American power in contrast to Jewish power, was not only absurd, but it was ridiculous.

As to Neumann, at every march/demonstration I have participated in there were abundant "Justice for Palestinians"-type signs and banners.

So what? No one is arguing that there aren't people out there for Palestine. But the signs, themselves, are hardly enough. Why was such a slogan not on the flyers of the main anti-war marches? Why is there not a national campaign to stop all aid to Israel. Period?

To repeat what I E-mailed to Neumann on 4-17-03, if Israel, AIPAC, and Jewish money control the US agenda in the mid-east, AND IF that agenda is contrary to the interests of the US ruling class, as Neumann believes, some weird questions arise. Shouldn't the left be HAPPY that the US empire is ignorantly defeating its interests? How much should that happiness be tempered by SADNESS that the Palestinians are paying for it? Or should we say, "Hey, US ruling class, abandon your Israeli liability, embrace Palestinians, further your own hegemonic interests, extend your economic, military and political power in the mid-east? " And leave it at that? Or should we add: "Be advised, because we do not want to be deceptive to the US masses, that we don't REALLY want to further your global designs and after Israel is cut down to size and Palestinians are stated and sated, we are going to overthrow you."

If Israel did not exist, is very likely that the US would have had no problem in establishing military bases throughout the Middle East during the Cold War. But the question must be asked: Why, if Israel is such an important beachhead for US interests in the Middle East, has virtually every Secretary of State since 1948, with only one or two exceptions, found Israel to be a major headache and source of repeated battles with the Israel controlled Congress?

I F NEUMANN (AND BLANKFORT??) IS/ARE CORRECT, THE LEFT IS IN A TOTAL QUANDARY with No Exit.

It does seem that way. As I wrote in my article, the Palestinian support movement has been an "utter failure" and, with all due respect, your attack on me and Michael Neumann helps to understand why.

Well-known names that come to my mind who are serious, committed and rational advocates for the Palestinians are Chomsky, Cockburn and Said. That is the case whether or not they agree with me on all or some of the following:

Said repeatedly talks about the Israel lobby in the same vein as I have and Cockburn has begun to do so as well in the last year. And add to that list, Chomsky's friend some-time co-author, Ed Herman, but only Chomsky's position is acceptable, as I pointed out in my article.

-- Support for Israel has been and continues to be in the "national" interest of the US ruling class.

-- The US ruling class dominates Israeli policy and Israel is a useful tool for it, despite recalcitrance.

Excuse me, but may I suggest that many Jews are part of that "ruling class," and that control of virtually every form of media assures them a seat at the table.

-- Israel, with 5 million Jews and all its armaments, logistical skills, etc., is a REGIONAL power and can never be anything more than that; it is not a co-equal of the US ruling class with its 280 million compliant inhabitants, its massive economy, its nuclear arsenal.

-- AIPAC, organized US Jewry, etc. can "control" 70-90% of Congress. Congress, however, is the absolute toady of the executive most of the time. AIPAC, etc., does NOT usually control the executive. When there is a plethora of Jews in the cabinet (Clinton) or in the second-level executive echelon (as at present), it is because the dominant US ruling class INVITED THE JEWS IN.

Congress is the toady of the Executive except when it comes to issues concerning Israel and Palestine and if you haven't understood that from the books you have read or skimmed through on the lobby, I am not going to repeat them here.

-- The issue is CLASS, not ethno/nationality. Paraphrasing Debs's call to the workers that "we have a world to win," the US hegemon, gentile and Jewish, has a WORLD to exploit, dominate, frighten, oppress, keep poor---to hear all you internetters, one would think Israel and the Arabs are the only items on the US power elite's agenda.

Of course, class plays a role and explains the rightward directions of American Jews who are the wealthiest segment of society, but to say that the fact that the overwhelming majority of neo-cons who have written the script for the war in Iraq are Jewish is a matter of class and not their being Jewish is to quote myself, "patently absurd." Period.

My view is modulated but not changed by J.J. Goldberg's "Jewish Power" and Edward Tivnan's "The Lobby," which I have read and written on to Abdeen Jabara, and by Stephen Green's "Taking Sides" which I skimmed. Goldberg and Tivnan lead me to conclude:

a. US Jews are A powerful force.

b. Neither author claims that US Jews are a DECISIVE force.

c. Jewish money can defeat "foes" of Israel.

d. Jewish money can insure the reelection of pro-Israel Congresspersons.

e. Congressional resolutions can stay the hand of SOME presidential initiatives.

Goldberg, in a New York Times op-ed, contended that a protest from AIPAC "raises the political cost" for the US government to do anything that Israel opposes. It does not mean that US administrations will not accept that cost, has not accepted it and acted, and will not in future accept that political cost and so act again.

JJ Goldberg is a Zionist and is book was a clever way of co-opting the subject. Imagine had a non-Jew, or more to the point an anti-Zionist written a book entitled, "Jewish Power." Do you think it would get published or reviewed? Please.

Perhaps the most telling negation of the notion of Israeli/Jewish "control" of US policy is found at pp. 213-214:

"... AIPAC could be a useful ally. Given its awesome reputation ... on Capitol Hill ... and ... its close ties to the Democrats the lobby could often sell administration policies that the White House it- self could not sell. AIPAC was regularly enlisted to line up congressional support for the overall foreign-aid package, an unpopular program with little grass-roots backing outside the Jewish community ... Through the 1980s, AIPAC lobbyists regularly helped the Reagan administration line up Democratic congressional support on unlikely issues from Central America to sub-Saharan Africa ... Israel and America embarked on a series of joint adventures, both overt and covert, aiding the Nicaraguan contras, training security forces in Zaire, sending arms secretly to Iran."

Again, I find it interesting that you are using the words of a Zionist to make your point. The reality is that the contra funding was defeated and led to Contragate.

I find the contention that Israel armed the "contras," etc., in order to further its arms industry lacking merit. Why didn't it arm the Sandinistas or the Angolan government? Israel cares nothing about Nicaragua or the Congo. It was a lackey to the US, doing US bidding in the "national interest" of US capital. As Nixon argued, Israel after 1970 was not merely a worthy cause; it was "a strategic Cold War asset ... America needed Israel as much as Israel needed America," Goldberg, p. 199.

Ah, Goldberg, again. You should have a better source. Israel didn't arm the Sandinistas because not only did not the latter have the money, but they supported the PLO. Not only could they make more money selling arms to UNITA as well as RENAMO, but Israel was also working in behalf of their close allies in South Africa, in pursuit of their own interests and the lobby in the US was able to intimidate the Congressional Black Caucus in to keeping silent about Israel's arms trade with South Africa. Even Randall Robinson was afraid to talk about it.

To the question "If support for Israel is in the US national interest, why is there such a huge lobbying organization and PACs working to get the US government to support Israel?" Goldberg gives the answer in one word: "insurance." At pp. 266-272 he states that one brings coals to Newcastle to insure that people already predisposed to your interests STAY in power.

If all you have to fall back on are the arguments of a committed Zionist like Goldberg, you don't have much in your quiver. What the lobby does is make it impossible for a member of Congress to stand up and publicly criticize Israel without the fear of being targeted for defeat. And if there wasn't a lobby to keep them in line, the American public might know what the lobby has been doing, how much money has been going to Israel, how unions and state and city governments had gambled the retirement incomes of their workers on the health of the Israeli economy through the purchase, as a political favor, of billions of dollars of Israel Bonds, and the word "treason" would not be spoken with a whisper.

One could ask the same question: why a gun lobby, a milk-price support lobby, etc., since their interests always overwhelmingly prevail? Answer: to keep it that way, to try to squelch any grass-roots challenge, and so forth.

Another reason: there can always be COMPETING perceived US "national interests," e.g. the AWACS sale to Saudi Arabia. Both that sale and continued underwriting of Israel were perceived by the US to be in its "national interest." The US thought Israel already strong and secure enough to tolerate the sale. To AIPAC, Israel could never be strong enough.

The defeat over the AWACS spurred the lobby to "get" congress members who voted for it in the next election, like Chuck Percy.

Yet another reason -- to help the US government "avoid mistakes" such as forcing Israeli withdrawal from Sinai in 1957 and thus building up Nasser, Goldberg at p. 157.

Exactly.

George Ball in "The Passionate Attachment" (1992) makes a cogent point at pp. 224-225. (SEE FOOTNOTE)

As to Stephen Green, his examples are unpersuasive. At p. 224 he claims that the Eshkol government acted in ways that ignored US "national security interests." He does not say HOW the US so-called "public policy" on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, while covertly abetting Israel's nuclear program, harmed the US ruling class's real or perceived "national security interests."

I disagree that peace negotiations in the mid-east is a "long-term US objective," p. 245. So if Israel thwarted them in 1967, it was no skin off the US nose. I disagree that US "national security interests" had not been well served by "pandering to Israel." (Note Green's continuous inclusion of "security" - as opposed to "profit" interest or "hegemonic" interest?)

You may disagree, but one president after another since Nixon has attempted to have "peace negotiations" and Israel has shot all of them down. Oslo was a triumph for Israel since Arafat agreed to give up Palestinian territory.

There are three blurbs on the back cover of Green's book. Richard Falk calls the book an "expose" of the US "enabling Israel's militarism," which bespeaks US noblesse oblige, and says nothing about US national interests vis a vis Israel. J. William Fulbright learns that the US has "been led astray from our nation's interest in the Middle East." George Ball learns that the US must develop a mid-east policy "designed to advance its own interests." Neither Fulbright nor Ball show any alleged "harm" to US interests or define those interests. I must assume they know that US ruling class interests are profit and control.

You quote selectively. Don't assume anything.

I do find noteworthy two observations of Green . At p. 180: with Johnson "obsessed" with the Vietnam war, "Israel's military leaders offered to impose stability upon the peoples and countries of the Middle East-it was to be a 'Pax Hebraeca'." That speaks to at least a coalescence of interests between the US and Israel. At p. 250-251" "In all respects except one, ISRAEL HAS BECOME AMERICA'S CLIENT STATE.' [The one exception was failing to assist in Vietnam.] That conclusion is opposite to the proposition for which Mr. Blankfort (I think it was he) cited Stephen Green's book., "Taking Sides."

I just looked up that reference and Green's definition of a "client" was in terms of those US providing aid to Israel and taking care of its needs as if it was a "welfare client" and the US was its intake worker. You should be more careful in citing our references.

I am a novice at this technology. Please pass on to other interested persons.

I am curious as to whether you have ever written anything before about the Israel lobby, or was it my piece and Michael Neumann's that brought you to the barricades?

Jeff Blankfort

FOOTNOTE: Ball states that "Support for Israel as a matter of conviction as opposed to mere political expediency is very shallow-not more than 15 percent or so of each House of Congress. It is easy to get one hundred senators to sign a letter supporting some pro-Israel position when there is not, at present, any serious or focused countervailing pressure to oppose AIPAC-sponsored policies. But, should the Jewish community become divided and flag in its pro-Israel zeal, or should significant groups begin to express opposition, such congressional support could melt away with lighting (SIC) speed. American opinion has a tendency to veer suddenly from one extreme to another and many congressmen today tend to resemble weathervanes rather than lawmakers with strong convictions."

What that says to me is that the Jewish pressure-aspect of US support for Israel could decrease. I suppose sol. But the national interest-aspect of US support is likely to remain vibrant for the foreseeable future. Israel is a western outpost. It is a fetter to Arab unity, to any new nationalist Nasserism, to any build-up of Arab strength (e.g. the destruction of Iraq's reactor). Israel stands as a walled city, the message being that it is strong, it is rich, it has a standard of living impossible if based on Levantine resources, that it is not to be crossed, and that what goes for Israel is a microcosm of what goes for the US imperium. That is as true now as it was when the USSR existed. Israel's role is not negated because it has never shed a drop of blood for the United States.



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