From:
Israel’s Willing Executioners: AIPAC Invades Washington
(Global Research) -- by James Petras and Robin Eastman Abaya --
Introduction: A Week of National Humiliation:
From March 4th to March 9th, 2012, 13,000 militant Israel Firsters, took over “political Washington”[1] and imposed a foreign regime’s (Israel) political agenda to the rousing applause and appreciation of their captive vassal US legislators and executives who crowded the halls and platforms groveling for the imperious nods of their visiting Israeli overlords[2].
The annual meeting of the American (sic) Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is the most outrageous public display of Zionist pro-Israeli power as it shapes US foreign policy. The sole purpose of AIPAC is to ensure Israel ’s unchallenged military and political power over a huge region from North Africa to the Persian Gulf . Over three quarters of the US Congress members paraded themselves before the AIPAC, as well as President Obama and Vice President Biden and any high ranking Cabinet members in any way related to US foreign policy (Secretary of State Clinton, Secretary of Defense Panetta included). They all loudly parroted the political agenda and military priorities that the AIPAC has imposed on the United States[3].
AIPAC: A launch pad for Israeli Leaders
The AIPAC gathering is clearly not a meeting of “just another lobby”[4]: It is the launch pad used by Israel ’s top political and military leaders to drag the US into another major war in the Middle East – this time against Iran[5]. Shimon Peres, Israel ’s President opened the conference, setting the militarist tone and political framework for US President Obama who followed, slavishly echoing the language and substance of the Israeli leader[6]. The following day the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, spoke, and forcefully laid out the line for a US war against Iran [7]with thousands of prominent and respectable Jewish Americans, Israel Firsters, leaping to their feet dozens of times in fanatic support for a US war – a war, in which few, if any, of them, their children, relatives or friends will suffer loss of life or limb[8]. This was the same Bibi Netanyahu who once opined that the 9-11 attack on the US benefited Israel because it linked the US closer to Israeli interests.
Not since the War of 1812, which saw the British occupation and burning of Washington , has the US capital been so utterly humiliated by a foreign power. Unlike the British crown, which then negotiated a peace settlement, allowing the US to regain its sovereignty and capital, the Israeli leaders and their rabid “fifth column” demand a military agreement, in which Israel dictates the terms under which the US goes to war with Iran .
Israeli leaders have not secured the submission of the US because of Israel ’s military, economic or political superiority: They have a puny economy, a fraction of the US nuclear weapons and have few allies and even less public approval in the international community. But they do have at least a half million fanatical, unconditional Zionist militants in the United States , including thousands of loyal multi-millionaires and billionaires who fund the campaign of both Democrat and Republican parties[9]. AIPAC is the vanguard of Israel ’s shock troops in the US . Highly disciplined and organized, AIPAC lobbyists invade the offices of every Congressperson armed with a legislative script carefully prepared by and for the State of Israel[10]. They have secured the full commitment of most members of Congress for Israel ’s agenda waving both dollar signs and stars (of David). As past history has amply demonstrated, Congressional staff or legislators who dare hesitate or ask for time to reflect, rapidly find themselves on the receiving end of AIPAC’s political bullying and threats which usually secure acquiescence. Refusal to capitulate to AIPAC means the end of a political career in Washington .
The Israeli (and therefore AIPAC’s) agenda is to pursue an unprovoked war, either initiated by the US or as part of a US-backed Israeli sneak attack, against the sovereign Islamic Republic of Iran[11]. Iran is targeted today because the other opponents of Israel’s colonization of Palestine have been destroyed in previous Zionist-backed US wars, namely Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya and the ongoing proxy war against the Assad regime in Syria[12].
Today Israeli leaders insist that Iran should be violently denied what over 120 other nations practice freely: the legal enrichment of uranium for medical, commercial and scientific purposes. Past Israeli propaganda, echoed by the 52 Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations, falsely claimed Iran possessed nuclear weapons or … was in the process of manufacturing them and therefore posed an ‘existential’ threat to Israeli. Even the mere ‘capacity’ to enrich uranium for medical purposes (many times below the level needed for a weapon) is presented as a major threat to the Jewish State. Meanwhile, the 27 US intelligence agencies (in their yearly ‘findings’) and even the US-influenced International Atomic Energy Agency have found no such evidence of an ongoing weapons program – thus the need for bizarre terms like ‘existential threat’...
While much has been made of the influence AIPAC exercises over the US Congress and Executive via ‘lobbying’, better termed intimidation and pressure tactics, a great part of its success is based on the larger Zionist matrix of power operating within the government, civil society and the economy. When AIPAC lobbyists approach Congress members with Israeli-dictated foreign policy priorities in hand, they coordinate and are given a major platform by the forty-plus elected Zionist legislators who, just happen, to occupy strategic positions, such as the chairpersons of Congressional committees dealing with foreign policy, especially policy related to the Middle East . In other words, AIPAC’s conquest of Congress is ‘by invitation’. The relation is ‘reciprocal’. AIPAC and the 52 Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations and various fundraisers mobilize money and activists to help elect the reliable Zionists to office. Once in place, they openly collaborate in writing pro-Israel legislation and ensuring that ‘majorities’ vote the ‘right way’[17].
Mark Dubowitz, executive director of “Foundation for Defense of Democracies” helped write the latest ( Iran ) sanctions bill … (Financial Times March 6, 2012, pg. 9). The “Foundation” is better known as an unconditional and unquestioning promoter of Israel ’s agenda. Dubowitz is one of many un-elected ‘legislators’ who write and promote laws at Israel ’s behest. The legislation to impose sanctions on Iran , authored by Dubowitz, is designed to brutalize and starve 75 million Iranian citizens into submission to further Israel ’s goal of unquestioned supremacy in the Middle East .
AIPAC’s operations are not confined to Congress or to the electoral process. From the Reagan Administration to the Obama Administration, AIPAC has supplied committed Zionists to key positions in the Treasury, State Department, National Security Council and the President’s inner circle of advisors on the Middle East[18]. AIPAC pressure ensures the appointment of Zionists to the executive branch and has led to the creation of special administrative posts designed specifically to pursue Israel ’s agenda. A good example of AIPAC’s success is the post of Undersecretary of Treasury for Terrorism and Intelligence. The position was first held by Stuart Levey, a Zionist zealot, whose whole purpose was to design and implement US (and later EU) sanctions against Iran . His replacement, David Cohen, a clone also from AIPAC, is the author of legislation pushing for punitive sanctions against Syria[19].
Dennis Ross, widely known as ‘Israel’s lawyer’ and a former AIPAC leader, was appointed senior adviser to Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama, was the architect of US support for Israel’s starvation blockade and criminal bombing of Gaza (1999), the murderous invasion of Lebanon (2006). He has provided ‘cover’ for Netanyahu’s massive building of Jews only settlements on occupied Palestinian lands and his cynical ‘peace negotiations’ ploy[20].
Jeffrey Feltman, the current AIPAC front man in the State Department, is the key official in charge of Middle East affairs, especially Lebanon , Syria and Iran[21]. Obama’s own inner circle of advisers is dominated by unconditional Israel supporters, including David Axelrod as chief confidant and the former Presidential Chief of Staff, dual US-Israeli citizen and current Mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel[22]. What is striking is the constant cycle from leadership and activity in Zionist (Israeli-front) organizations, entry into powerful government post, return to one or another pro-Israel think tank, ‘civic organizations’, electoral office or lucrative private practice – all promoting the interests of Tel Aviv.
AIPAC and the 52 Grassroots Organizations
AIPAC’s power in Washington depends on the activism of hundreds of thousands of American Zionists affiliated with organizations under the 52 Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations (MAJO). While there is considerable overlap of membership, MAJO leaders openly serve as a transmission belt for Israel: transmitting the political line from Tel Aviv to their membership, including activist doctors, dentists and stock brokers in New York, Miami, Kansas City, Los Angeles and San Francisco and all points north, south, east and west. When AIPAC has ‘trouble’ securing an elected representative’s sign-on to legislation for sanctions against whichever country is currently targeted by Israel, the reluctant legislator becomes a prime target for local Zionist notables and ‘fund raisers’, who pay them a ‘visit’ to persuade, if possible, threaten retaliation, if necessary. If a legislator still refuses to hew to Israel ’s line, or considers service to a foreign power to be harmful to United States , he/she will soon find that AIPAC has raised millions of dollars to fund a campaign of slander and electoral defeat[23].
Along with these upper middle class ‘grass roots’ activists there are the numerous highly politicized Zionist mega-millionaires and billionaires, like Adelson, Saban and scores of others, who make no bones about being fanatical Israel Firsters and donate millions to Congresspeople willing to subordinate US interests to Israel’s quest for Middle East supremacy[24].
Besides this legal corruption of the political process, there is the issue of illegal espionage and thuggery on AIPAC’s part, most recently evidenced by the ongoing law-suit by one of two former top AIPAC officials, Steven Rosen caught spying for Israel (passing classified documents on US military policy towards Iran ). Rosen, who was acquitted in a highly manipulated ‘trial’, maintains that AIPAC routinely encouraged its officials to secure confidential US government documents for Israel[25].
And then there are the prominent free-lance Zionists, who engage in vicious, highly publicized, political thuggery, physical assaults and blackmail against critics of Israel[26]. The most prominent defamers, like Abraham Foxman of the Anti (sic) Defamation League, Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, Daniel Pipes and David Horowitz, manipulate legions of respectable and wealthy thugs to pressure schools, universities and other employers to censor and fire critics of Israel. These Zionist organizations far exceed the reach and effective blacklisting of an earlier generation of witch hunters, like Senator Joseph McCarthy, who were rank amateurs in comparison. The recent antics of Israel-Firster Andrew Adler, editor of the Atlanta Jewish Times, whose call for the Israeli Mossad to assassinate President Obama[27] led merely to his resignation as editor after several weeks of nervous outrage (but no federal investigation or charges).
What is striking here is that while most respectable Zionists dissociate themselves from AIPAC spies and verbal assassins, the power of the Israel Firsters ensures that such goons and thugs are rarely charged for their crimes and have never gone to jail[28].
The wider impact of Zionist influence and thuggery is evident in the timorous self-censorship of the majority of Americans who privately express fear and loathing at the confrontational, strident and abusive Zionist-Americans pushing a foreign agenda.[29]
Israel, Zionism and the Mass Media
The mass media is a key political resource, which the pro-Israel power configuration exploits to the full. Not a single major print, television, film or radio outlet is willing to provide a balanced account of the Israel-Palestine conflict[30]. Israel ’s dispossession of thousands of Arab families from their homes and the daily terrorist Zionist settler and military assaults against Palestinians protesting land seizures go unreported[31]. The hundreds of nuclear weapons in Israel ’s arsenal are never mentioned while the Jewish State’s hysterical claims that non-nuclear Iran represents an existential threat are repeated and magnified, ad nauseam. The leaders of the 52 know their Goebbels: A lie repeated often enough becomes an accepted truth...MORE...LINK
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