Study shows undue Israeli influence on U.S. policy

Study shows undue Israeli influence on U.S. policy

By PAUL FINDLEY

Published Wednesday, April 19, 2006

 http://www.sj-r.com/sections/opinion/stories/83937.asp

Words spoken years ago by George W. Ball, a distinguished diplomat, author
and champion of human rights, have vivid, new currency: “When Israel’s
interests are being considered, members of Congress act like trained poodles. They
jump dutifully through hoops held by Israel’s lobby.”

In the same interview, Ball said, “The lobby’s most powerful instrument of
intimidation is the reckless charge of anti-Semitism.” Sadly, his words ring
true today, verified by my own experiences and those of many of my colleagues in
the U.S. legislature.

Ball could have added that, except for exuberant praise of Israel, the
poodles remain mute at all times lest they lapse into free speech and say something
that will spoil their chances for re-election.

The fear of being charged with anti-Semitism outranks all other worries that
bedevil politicians, and the lobby has marketed it so efficiently that a wall
of silence shields the American people from awareness of the lobby’s
activities and U.S. complicity in Israel’s longstanding abuse of international law and
Arab human rights, violations that the rest of the world follows with dismay
and anger.

Fear of the anti-Semitism stain is intensified these days, because the lobby
has succeeded in redefining anti-Semitism to include any criticism of Israeli
behavior, an inferred threat that prompts all major media to ignore or
sanitize reports of Israeli violations. I know. I have experienced that fear myself
and have observed closely as others, in Congress and out, have remained silent.

My authority for making these statements comes from being a close student of
the lobby for over 30 years, the first 22 as a member of Congress. The lobby
leaders chose me as their No. 1 target because I met unashamedly with PLO
leader Yasser Arafat and later demanded the suspension of U.S. aid to Israel for
its unlawful use of U.S.-donated military supplies.

In 1982, when the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the main
center of Israeli lobbying in Washington, claimed credit for keeping me from
election to a 12th term in the House of Representatives, I became the lobby’s
prize trophy. Two years later, Sen. Charles Percy, who was also guilty of
failing to toe AIPAC line, joined me on the trophy shelf. Our fate has, no doubt,
discouraged others from speaking out about Israel’s misbehavior.

Israel’s U.S. lobby is peerless among the hundreds of lobbies in our nation’
s capital for one main reason: It alone is armed with the ultimate persuader,
an ample supply of indictments for anti-Semitism.

The supply promotes automatic cooperation when legislation on behalf of
Israel moves forward. It is the modern-day Sword of Damocles, a fearsome instrument
that hangs over almost every head in our government. Until recently, it
seemed to cow all of the nation’s prestigious scholars, except for a few hardy ones
like professor Noam Chomsky of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and
Juan Cole of the University of Michigan.

Last month, in a rare burst of academic candor, two other distinguished
professors, John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen M. Walt of
Harvard’s Kennedy School, broke the silence with the publication of their
81-page, heavily footnoted study titled “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.
”

In the study, they conclude that the flagrant, longstanding, unconditional
pro-Israel bias in U.S. Middle East policy has enabled Israel to tilt U.S.
policy in ways that benefit Israel to the disadvantage of U.S. national interests,
luring America even into costly wars and a rising tide of ill fame worldwide.
They pin much of the blame on the influence of Israel’s U.S. lobby. One of
their most significant conclusions: “The U.S. has a terrorism problem in good
part because it is so closely allied with Israel.”

Mearsheimer and Walt quickly discovered why most of their academic colleagues
behave much like the political poodles on Capitol Hill. Their study instantly
became controversial, the subject of a vigorous, often vitriolic, discussion
of Israel’s role in U.S. foreign policy, the first since the Jewish state came
into being in 1948.

First published in the respected London Review of Books because no U.S.
periodical was brave enough to give it a public audience, the study provoked such
strong trans-Atlantic shock waves, thanks mainly to the Internet, that the
wielders of the modern Sword of Damocles have gone public with a barrage of
full-throated epithets, charging Mearsheimer and Walt with “ignorant propaganda,
academic garbage, anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist drivel.”

The Harvard Crimson quoted Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz as labeling the
authors “liars” and “bigots.”

Two other academics, in a letter to the London Review of Books, wrote
ominously: “Accusations of powerful Jews behind the scenes are part of the most
dangerous traditions of modern anti-Semitism.” They overlooked the fact that the
lobby also includes powerful Christians.

In a New York Daily News piece, less strident critic Harvard professor David
Gergen rebuked the authors by declaring that “over the course of four tours in
the White House I never once saw a decision in the Oval Office to tilt U.S.
foreign policy in favor of Israel at the expense of America’s interest.” An
experienced politician himself, Gergen must know that such tilts would never be
recorded for anyone to see, even in the privacy of the Oval Office.

In the column, Gergen mistakenly credited President Reagan with stopping
Israel’s 1982 bloody assault on Lebanon. To the contrary, Israeli Prime Minister
Menachem Begin was defiant, conveying his refusal in these words: “Nobody,
nobody is going to bring Israel to her knees. You must have forgotten that the
Jews kneel but to God.”

No matter what lies ahead, Mearsheimer and Walt have already well served the
public. Their initiative has broken through a dangerous wall of silence.
Thanks to publicity arising from their study, many thousands of U.S. citizens are
aware for the first time that a domestic lobby on behalf of Israel exerts a
significant role in forming U.S. Middle East policy, even on decisions of war.
They are also now aware that religious communities - minority elements of both
Christianity and Judaism - are the main pillars of the lobby.

This knowledge may bestir enough public curiosity to prompt a civilized and
edifying public debate. It is difficult to conceive of a topic more urgently
worthy of open, unfettered public examination.

Paul Findley was a member of Illinois’ congressional delegation from 1961-83.
He is the author of the bestseller, “They Dare to Speak Out: People and
Institutions Confront Israel’s Lobby.” He and Mrs. Findley reside in Jacksonville.
His e-mail address is Findley1@Verizon.net.
Received on Mon Apr 24 08:20:38 2006