antisemitism in the air

Brett Stephens, "Rhymes With Fagin"

Wall Street Journal, September 7. 2010

If you're a reader of a certain age, you might understand the headline.

In May 1977, when Menachem Begin was elected Israel's prime minister, Time
magazine set out to describe the man, beginning with the correct
pronunciation of his last name: "Rhymes with Fagin
," the
editors explained, invoking the character from Oliver Twist. Modern Israeli
leader; archetypal Jewish lowlife: Get it?

The magazine's other characterization of Begin was that he was "dangerous."
A year later, he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Egypt's Anwar Sadat.

Maybe there's something in the magazine's DNA. This week, readers were
treated to a cover story by Karl Vick titled, suggestively, "Why Israel
Doesn't Care About Peace." That's one way for Time to address the current
state of negotiations between the Jewish state and its neighbors, which
otherwise barely rate a mention in the article.

Mr. Vick's essay draws on the testimony of a pair of real estate agents, a
columnist for a left-leaning newspaper, and a few others to explain that
Israelis are too blissed-out by the fruits of their economic prosperity to
pay much attention to the subject of peace, much less whatever sad things
may transpire among their neighbors in Ramallah and Gaza. "We're not really
that into the peace process," says Gadi Baltiansky, a peace activist quoted
in the story. "We are really, really into the water sports."

It's hard to say what to make of this, since the article concludes by
contradicting its central thesis: "For all the surf breaks, the palms and
the coffee, the conflict is never truly done, never far away," Mr. Vick
writes.

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Indeed it isn't: Nearly every Israeli has a child, sibling, boyfriend or
parent in the army. Nearly every Israeli has been to the funeral of a fallen
soldier, or a friend killed in a terrorist attack. Most Israeli homes and
businesses come equipped with safe rooms or bomb shelters; every Israeli
owns a gas mask. The whole country exists under the encroaching shadows of
Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and the prospect of a nuclear Iran. How
many Americans, to say nothing of Europeans, can say the same about their
own lives?

Yet when it comes to scoring cheap shots against the Jewish state, Time is
not the sort of magazine to allow the obvious to disturb a prejudiced
hypothesis. Can the magazine point to equally pointed cover stories about
internal Palestinian affairs and what, perchance, they mean for the peace
process? I checked: It last did so in April 2002 with a largely sympathetic
portrait of Yasser Arafat "All Boxed In" by an invading Israeli army.

That's a pity, journalistically speaking, because the stew of Palestinian
politics tells us something important about the wider drift of the Arab
world, not least the ways in which Iran has seized the mantle of
anti-Western radicalism to make ideological inroads among Sunnis. But
raising that line of inquiry probably asks too much of a magazine whose
circulation is in steep decline, and whose journalism is now the subject of
parodies in The Onion. (Recent headline: "TIME Announces New Version of
Magazine Aimed at Adults.")

Journalism aside, there's also a moral dimension here, especially for a
magazine that recently devoted its cover to the question of whether
Americans are "Islamophobic." That dimension is known as the
delegitimization of Israel-the idea that the country ought not to exist.
Insisting that Israel be wiped off the map, as Iran's leaders do with such
numbing frequency, is one method of delegitimization. Suggesting that
Israelis don't care about peace-not all of them, of course; there's always a
remnant of politically anguished Israelis to be found, quoted and celebrated
for the purposes of native standing and moral cover-is another.

Which of these methods does more lasting harm, the malignly blunt or the
well-meaningly insidious? Probably the latter: It shapes a climate of
supposedly respectable opinion that doesn't hesitate to tar one nation the
way it never would any other. Or did I somehow miss the Time covers devoted
to why Russians don't care about democracy, or Kenyans about corruption?

This has consequences.

Last week, a man named Karel de Gucht told a radio station in Belgium that
the current round of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations were certain to
founder upon the stubbornness of Jews. "There is indeed a belief-it's
difficult to describe it otherwise-among most Jews that they are right," he
explained. "So it's not easy to have, even with moderate Jews, a rational
discussion about what is happening in the Middle East."

Mr. de Gucht sounds like a neo-Nazi; in fact, he is the trade commissioner
of the European Union. How does a paladin like him come to say something
like that? Because it's really not that far from the sorts of things that
already are being written; that are, as they say, "in the air." Like the
cover of a magazine that will someday cause a future editor of Time
(assuming there is one) to hang her head in shame.

Write to bstephens@wsj.com

Time magazine's antisemitism

why the "peace" talks will fail

Time's latest blood libel

Just Out: TIME Magazine's Latest Blood Libel About Israel
by Phyllis Chesler
September 4, 2010
http://www.phyllis-chesler.com/848/time-magazine-blood-libel


The September 13, 2010 issue of TIME Magazine arrived yesterday. The cover
story is titled "Why Israel Doesn't Care About Peace" and is illustrated by
a large Jewish star composed of daisies. Yes, daises=97as in "counting
daisies, don't have a care in the world."
This is precisely the point of Karl Vick's article. He writes:
Israelis are no longer preoccupied with the matter [of peace with the
Palestinians]. They're otherwise engaged: They're making money; they're
enjoying the rays of the late summer =85 they have moved on.
Vick quotes an Israeli real estate agent in Ashdod, one Eli, who tells him:
People are indifferent. They don't care if there's going to be war. They
don't care if there's going to be peace. They don't care. They live in the
day.
According to Vick, Israelis don't care about peace, peace negotiations, or
about the Palestinians because they are simply having too good a time:
sunbathing, swimming, caf=E9-hopping, profiting from start-up companies, an=
d,
according to polls cited by Vick, utterly disconnected from "politics;"
indeed Vick suggests that Israelis resemble Californians more than they
resemble Egyptians. These are all points which scream: Israel does not fit
in; if Israelis were only more impoverished, more indolent, and
paradoxically, even more "laid back," they might be recognizable as
indigenous to the region, a true part of the Middle East.
These are Vick's thoughts, not mine.
Of course, Jews are the original Palestinians and the most indigenous of th=
e
region's inhabitants; yes, there are many impoverished Israelis, both Jews
and non-Jews; and, let's not forget that there are even some Israelis who
remain permanently on high alert for the next terrorist attack, permanently
scarred by the last ones. For a moment, let's forget about all that. Allow
me to ask: Why doesn't Vick also point out that Palestinians are leading th=
e
high life on the West Bank and in sumptuous villas on both the West Bank an=
d
in Gaza; that they, too, are sunbathing, swimming, shopping, dining out, an=
d
relaxing at the beach=97at least as much as the Islamist thugs who run the
lives of Palestinians will allow it?
Vick and his editors at TIME seem to think that showing six photos of
Israelis at leisure: blowing smoke on a beach chair, lounging on a beach
chair, resting in an army uniform on the beach without a chair, playing wit=
h
one's baby in a stroller, sitting at a caf=E9=97are proof that Israelis are
engaging in activities which are not admirable, are, in fact, "proof" that
they are not suffering but rather, proof that Israelis simply don't care
about peace with the Palestinians. And Vick brings in polls as well as
expert and person-in-the-street opinions to back up this claim.
Vick writes that real estate is booming, as is business in general, Israeli
"brainiacs" have helped their nation avoid the economic disasters that have
plunged Europe and America into a recession. He literally writes this.
"Israel avoided the debt traps that dragged the U.S. and Europe into
recession. It is known as a start-up nation=97second only to the U.S.
companies listed on the Nasdaq exchange."
Is Vick aware that, consciously or not, intentionally or not, he is countin=
g
on the world's long-held resentment about Jewish creativity, genius, and
scientific and economic success=97counting on the world's willingness to
scapegoat Israel once again for crimes that it has not committed? Or becaus=
e
Jews seem to "know something," maybe they are channeling God directly and
thus, the deck is stacked against non-Jews. Vick presents Israel's "success=
"
as somehow unseemly, because it makes other nations look bad. Does he harbo=
r
the suspicion that Jewish prosperity has been "stolen" from non-Jews or is
he merely advertising that Jewish gold is there, ripe for the taking?
Buried=97but really buried-- in Vick's four page cover piece are snippets o=
f
true facts: That the Israelis are weary of peace negotiations which never
succeed because the Palestinians do not want peace; that Arabs and
Palestinians want to destroy the Jewish state and as many Jews as possible.
But Vick fails to convey that negotiations cannot work as long as the
ultra-Nazified Arab Islamic propaganda against Jews and Israel continues to
turn out children who hate Jews and who become human homicide bombs,
snipers, kidnappers, kassam rocket throwers, etc.
Here is what Vick utterly fails to comprehend, namely, that the Israelis ar=
e
not merely tired, disenchanted, living in la-la land a la southern
Californians (hence, the Jewish star made of daisies on the cover). The
Israelis are actually showing the entire world how to embrace life, even as
they live, trembling, in the shadow of death. They are teaching the world
how to "love life more than they fear death." A new and wonderful book A Ne=
w
Shoah. The Untold Story of Israel's Victims of Terrorism by Italian
journalist Giulio Meotti, which is not yet out, makes precisely this point.
The Jewish insistence on life may be the key to our survival as a people
despite ceaseless persecution. It might be the lesson, the model, for all
humanity in an era of genocides, civil wars, torture chambers, tyrannies,
and totalitarian regimes. Why is TIME turning things on their head and
refusing to recognize the courage and the heroism of Jewish Israelis who
choose to live in the moment when the moment is all they have? Against all
odds, the Jews simply refuse to give up. As Meotti writes of the numerous
victims of terrorism during the ongoing Intifada of 2000, "Israel teaches
the world love of life, not in the sense of a banal joie de vivre, but as a
solemn celebration."
Meotti begins where I began in early 2004, when I wrote about a new
Holocaust in the pages of The Jewish Press, a Holocaust which is now based
in Israel. At the time, I was not heard beyond a small circle. I did what
Meotti now does in his opening pages. Meotti fully understands that Israel
is the "first country ever to experience suicide terrorism on a mass scale:
that more than 150 suicide attacks have been carried out plus 500 have been
prevented." According to Meotti, there have been "1,723 people (murdered)
and 10,000 injured" in Israel. Meotti does what I did: He converts these
numbers into the demographic equivalent of attacks on Americans. When I did
so there were somewhat fewer people in both categories. Thus, Meotti writes
that in American population terms, this means that "74,000 Americans" would
have been killed and "400,000 injured."
Vick does not factor this grave reality into his article. Nor does he seem
to know how high the Jewish population growth was in the DP camps right
after the Holocaust. Can he comprehend that permanently endangered Jews=97a
people that has survived as a people for nearly six thousand years=97the
Chosen People=97have always chosen life in the moment, have chosen to seize
life with both hands, even as they memorialize their dead and make sense of
their persecution in a way that illuminates this particular Hell for all
humanity?
What Meotti is doing is remembering the lives and the deaths of the Israeli
victims of Palestinian terrorism during the last decade. I have only read
the first few chapters but cannot put it down. These are unknown stories,
unnamed victims, whose mortal remains have often evaporated, disintegrated
as surely as those Jews who literally went up in smoke during the Nazi
Holocaust. His stories are mainly of victims who were unarmed and helpless
and who, it turns out, were actually exceptionally kind to others, often to
the very Arab Palestinians who shot them down, bludgeoned them to death, or
blew them up into unrecognizable bone fragments, drops of blood, perhaps a
few teeth.
I look forward to completing Meotti's book. I hope that people more fully
understand that TIME Magazine as well as countless other media in the
Western world, can no longer be trusted to tell the truth.

Why the talks will fail because of Palestinian insistence on" RETURN"

Israel Resource Review

Monograph: As Negotiations Resume: The Palestinian Authority Stand on the “Right of Return”
By Arliene Kushner, Senior Research Policy Analyst, Center for Near East Policy Research
Sat Sep 3 2010

Mahmoud Abbas

Of primary interest when examining the position of the Palestinian Authority with regard to the “right of return” is the stand of Mahmoud Abbas (aka Abu Mazen), president of the PA.

Abbas’s position on the matter is of long-standing and far precedes his presidency.

qIn 2000, as Secretary General of the PLO Executive Committee, he wrote about the issues confronted in Camp David. As to the “right of return,” he said:

“We encountered, and will encounter in the future, fierce resistance on this subject from the Israeli government, because the bottom line is that [the return of refugees] means altering the demographic character [of Israel] that the Israelis hope to preserve.

“...It is noteworthy in this matter, and this is also what we clarified to the Israelis, that the Right of Return means a return to Israel and not to the Palestinian State... When we talk about the Right of Return, we talk about the return of refugees to Israel, because Israel was the one who deported them and it is in Israel that their property is found...”[1]

In 2003, he told heads and leaders of the Popular Councils in the Gaza Strip Refugee Camps:

"Peace will not be achieved without the refugees getting back their sacred rights, which cannot be touched... It is the individual right of every refugee, and no one can reach an agreement in this matter without his consent."[2]

A day after the Fatah movement chose Mahmoud Abbas as its candidate for the January elections for PA president (to replace a deceased Arafat), in late November 2004, he told the PA legislature that he would follow in Yasser Arafat's footsteps and demand that Israel recognize the right of return of Palestinian refugees to Israel.

During a memorial for Arafat, who died November 11, 2004, Abbas declared "We promise you [Arafat] that our heart will not rest until we achieve the right of return for our people and end the tragic refugee issue."[3]

And so has Abbas continued this theme over subsequent years.

At the Cairo Conference for “Palestinian National Dialogue, in mid-March 2005, at which Abbas led the PLO/PA faction, a declaration was made reinforcing the Palestinian demand for refugees to "return to their homes" in the current State of Israel.[4]

A subsequent Palestinian National Dialogue Conference - sponsored by PA President Mahmoud Abbas - was held in Ramallah and Gaza on May 25-26, 2006. At the end of the Conference, a statement outlining its principles was released. Among them:

“...the right of return is a sacred right of the Palestinian refugees.

“...The national dialogue conference rejects all attempts that aim to cancel the right of return of refugees and that aims to disperse the refugees in the various countries of the world. The national dialogue conference affirms that the right of refugees is a sacred right in their homeland and it is a collective and individual right that no force in the world can cancel the right of our people and the right of our refugees in their homeland and in their lands and homes.”[5]

At a public rally in the beginning of 2007, Abbas declared: “The issue of the refugees is non-negotiable... We... reject any attempt to resettle the refugees in other countries”[6]

With regard to the failed negotiations with Olmert, 2008, journalist Ben-Dror Yemini wrote: “Abu Mazen insisted on mass return of the refugees. That was the reason why Abu Mazen discarded the proposal and not, as proclaimed, due to Olmert’s waning days as prime minister. Abu Mazen said so himself, in his own voice.”[7]

At the Fatah Conference held in August 2009, Abbas reaffirmed Fatah’s commitment to the peace process and the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel on the basis of the 1967 borders (sic), with Jerusalem as its capital, and the right of return for Palestinian exiles. [8]

In the weeks and months leading up to the Proximity Talks with Israel, and now, presumably, direct talks, Abbas has repeatedly included “right of return” among the demands of the PA:

* Aides say Abbas wants guarantees that any such talks would quickly move to seeking final agreements on the core issues of the conflict - borders, settlements, right of return for Palestinian refugees and Jerusalem.[9]

* Binyamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas will open negotiations on 'core issues' in ... for a demilitarized Palestine, and the right of return for refugees.[10]

* “There is simply no evidence that any behind-the-scenes progress has been made on key ‘final status’ issues (borders, Jerusalem, the Palestinians’ ‘right to return’ to Israel)...”[11]


Writes Sami Moubyed, echoing many analysts:

“Abbas has no war medals on his neatly pressed Western suit, making it very difficult - if not impossible - for him to make any concessions on peace, and get away with it before ordinary Palestinians.

“Making peace needs decorated war heroes - Arafat would not have been able go to Oslo in 1993 without having led the Palestinian resistance for 30 years. Otherwise, he would have been labeled as a traitor by his own people. Arafat was a man who could take decisions, and bear the consequences. He would say: ‘Only this hand [waving his right hand], can sign a peace treaty with Israel!’

“If Abbas decides to make concessions to Israel, and signs a flawed peace treaty, he risks being killed by an extremist Palestinian. Precisely by his death, Arafat has marked the ‘red lines’ of Palestinian politics. What he did not concede during his lifetime nobody will be able to give after his death: abandoning Jerusalem as the capital of the ‘State of Palestine.’ and the right of return for refugees.[12]

Others

It is instructive to consider, as well, statements on the issue of “return” made by other members of Fatah/the PLO/the PA.

Perhaps most striking, and revealing is the statement made by Sakher Habash, member of the Fatah Central Committee, in the course of a seminar on "The Palestinian Refugee from the Political Parties' Perspective," held at Al-Najah University in Shechem in 1998:

“...To us, the refugees issue is the winning card which means the end of the Israeli state. They have, therefore, refused to solve it this way. Meanwhile, we should not seek negotiable solutions.”[13] (Emphasis added)

A number of statements by relevant sources were released on Nakba Day, May 15, 2010 (Nakba: the “Catastrophe” - the day of mourning Israel’s founding).

Fatah released a statement declaring that:

"it will continue struggling until the principle of right of return as well as freedom and independence for the Palestinian people are achieved.

"The return of the Palestinian refugee to his or her home is a constant right that can never be debated and a solution to the refugees issue would never be fair as long as it doesn't include all their historic rights," said the Fatah statement.[14]

Abbas Zaki, member of the Fatah central committee and the former PLO representative in Lebanon:

“We believe wholeheartedly that the Right of Return is guaranteed by our will, by our weapons, and by our faith...The use of weapons alone will not bring results, and the use of politics without weapons will not bring results. We act on the basis of our extensive experience. We analyze our situation carefully. We know what climate leads to victory and what climate leads to suicide. We talk politics, but our principles are clear.”[15] (Emphasis added)

The PA held a central rally in Ramallah, attended by members of the PLO Executive Committee and the Fatah Central Committee. Participants held keys representing their lost homes in Israel, and speakers emphasized the refugees' right to regain their houses and lands and to receive compensation. One of the placards held aloft said "We will return to Haifa, Akko, Lod, Ramle, and Nazareth."[16]

Fatah and Hamas members held a joint march in Gaza under the heading "United, We Shall Return."[17]

The PLO international relations department stated in an official communiqué: "The refugee problem is sacrosanct, and is a top priority for the PLO leadership, which rejects the [option of] settling the refugees permanently in their host countries. The refugees have a legitimate right to return to the homes from which they were expelled... in accordance with [U.N.] Resolutions 194, 242 and 338 and the Arab peace initiative."[18]

Hani Al-Masri, an official in the Palestinian Information Ministry and a columnist for the PA daily Al-Ayyam, wrote: "The Palestinian problem cannot be resolved without finding a just solution to the refugee problem, because [the right of return] is a natural, historical and legal right, and is included in international resolutions. U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194 stipulates that the refugees must return to their homes and to the property from which they were expelled, and in addition must be compensated.[19]

Adel Abd Al-Rahman, columnist for the PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, wrote: "One must defend the right that is sacred to every Palestinian, namely [the right] to return to his homeland, the land of his fathers, based on [his] natural and legal right to [his] land, history and identity, and based on U.N. resolutions, particularly Resolution 194... The right of return is a sacred right that no force or country - not even the Palestinian politicians - can revoke, because it is a political right of the Palestinians as a collective, as well as an individual right, and nobody can [waive it] on behalf [of the individual in question, not even] his father or mother. The right belongs not only to the refugees who were expelled in 1948, but to anyone whose father or mother is Palestinian, regardless of when and where he was born - for Palestine is Arab and Palestinian land, and it belongs to all Palestinians regardless of faith, race, color, gender, or political or ideological orientation...

"[Even] if the Palestinian leadership reaches a historic agreement with the state of Israel, this does not invalidate the Palestinian right of return. Every Palestinian may demand to return to his city, village, or [place of] origin, and [he may voice this demand] from any platform or at any international, national, or regional court, in order to realize the right of return and utilize every means in the struggle to return to the land of his fathers."[20] (Emphasis added)

[1] Al-Hayat (London), November 24, 2000, as reported in MEMRI Special Dispatch #157, November 28, 2000.

[2] Al-HayatAl-Jadida (PA), October 25, 2002, cited in MEMRI Special Report # 15, April 29, 2003.

[3] AP report carried by Haaretz, November 23, 2004.

[4] Michael Widlanski, ‘In Arafat’s Footsteps,” Frontpage Magazine, April 8, 2005.

[5] Political Affairs Magazine, June 2, 2006.

[6] Khaled Abu Toameh, ‘Abbas: Aim guns against occupation,’ Jerusalem Post, January 11, 2007. Abbas made his statement at a public rally.

[7] Ben-Dror Yemini, Maariv, March 31, 2010.

[8] Carnegie Endowment for Peace, Web Commentary, August 17, 2009.

[9] Modhammed Assadi, Reuters, February 19, 2010.

[10] The Guardian (UK), August 20, 2010.

[11] John Bolton, NY Daily News, August 25, 2010.

[12] Intifada - Voice of Palestine, September 1, 2010.

[13] Jerusalem Newswire, November 24, 2004. Was originally on the website of Fatah on August 12, 1998:
www.fateh.org/e_public/refugees.htm - cited by IMRA: http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=22901.

[14] English People Daily, May 16, 2010.

[15] Interview to NBN TV in Lebanon on April 9, 2008, as reported by MEMRI in Report # 1896. Zaki was PLO representative to Lebanon when he gave this interview.

[16] Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (PA), May 18, 2010; WAFA (PA), May 17, 2010, both cited by MEMRI, Special Dispatch No. 2995, June 3, 2010.

[17] Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (PA), May 16, 2010, cited by MEMRI, Special Dispatch No. 2995, June 3, 2010.

[18] WAFA (PA), May 13, 2010, as cited by MEMRI, Special Dispatch No. 2995, June 3, 2010.

[19] Al-Ayyam (PA), May 15, 2010, as cited by MEMRI, Special Dispatch No. 2995, June 3, 2010.

[20] Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (PA), May 16, 2010,, as cited by MEMRI, Special Dispatch No. 2995, June 3, 2010.

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Huge Arab lobby

The Arab Lobby
A new book explores the ‘petrodiplomatic complex’ and Saudi influence on U.S. foreign policy
BY LEE SMITH | Sep 1, 2010 7:00 AM | Print | Email |
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A meeting of Arab foreign ministers at the Saudi embassy in Washington, D.C., 2007.
Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images
One of the characteristic laments of the Arab intelligentsia in both Washington and the Middle East concerns the inability of Arab nations to make their cases to the U.S. public. If only the Arabs weren’t so divided, the refrain goes; if only they better explained themselves and the plight of the Palestinians; if only the Arabs were as clever as the Jews; if only there was an Arab lobby as powerful as the Israel lobby.

But there is an Arab lobby in the United States—one as old as, if not older than, the Israel lobby, and it has helped to shape U.S. foreign policy and economic life since the end of World War II. Mitchell Bard’s The Arab Lobby: The Invisible Alliance That Undermines America’s Interests in the Middle East describes how this Arab lobby—from U.S. foreign service officers, oil companies, Christian anti-Zionists, and Ivy League universities to Gulf Arab states, Arab-American activists and Islamist ideologues—exercises its influence in U.S. politics. The book is already being dismissed by critics as a slapdash attempt by a former AIPAC employee to answer Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer’s 2007 book, The Israel Lobby. But those who actually read the new book will find a serious and timely look at a powerful and remarkably under-studied influence on U.S. foreign policy.

“Unlike Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, I don’t think it’s illegitimate to lobby for one’s interests,” Bard told me on the phone last week. The executive director of the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, Bard wrote his dissertation at UCLA on the limits to domestic influence on U.S. Middle East Policy. “I’ve been writing for more than 20 years about this issue,” he said. “The point of my book is to inform the American public that an Arab lobby exists despite the claims of others that it does not and to explain what its interests are.”

In describing AIPAC’s Arab cousin, Bard draws some useful comparisons between the two lobbies, which are not as similar as one might imagine from his book’s title. AIPAC is a grassroots organization funded by U.S. citizens that represents the broad sentiment of Christians and Jews who are interested in one issue—protecting and promoting the U.S.-Israel relationship. The Arab lobby, by comparison, has little organic U.S. backing and divides its efforts between two causes—oil and Palestine. The former is managed in Washington by what Bard calls the “petrodiplomatic complex” of former U.S. diplomats and intelligence officers, politicians, and defense executives. Funded by oil companies, the weapons industry, and Arab energy producers, mainly Saudi Arabia, it enjoys virtually unlimited financial resources. For instance, AIPAC’s annual operating budget is $60 million a year—pocket change to a Saudi prince, like Alwaleed Bin Talal, who in 2005 gave $20 million apiece to Georgetown and Harvard.

The Palestinian issue is paramount to the Arab-American sector of the Arab lobby. However, just as the Palestinians are divided against themselves—between Hamas and Fatah, among contending Fatah factions, as well as among competing clans—it is not the Palestinian cause that unites the Arabs or Arab-Americans but anti-Israel sentiment. The same goes for many of the Arab lobby’s domestic anti-Zionist partners, some of whom are motivated by religious conviction, especially the Presbyterians, and others by political ideology, but all of whom can agree on disliking first the idea and then the reality of a Jewish state.

The Arab lobby’s Palestine agenda, then, tends to be negative and, as Bard writes, “aimed at undermining the US-Israel relationship,” only rarely promoting a positive vision of a Palestinian state as a regional beacon of social justice or economic development, or defending the rights of Palestinian journalists, Christians, or other endangered social groups against the threats of the Palestinian political leadership. This part of the Arab lobby, writes Bard, “is small and mostly impotent.”

The real power is in the hands of the Arab lobby’s oil sector, the role of which is to keep the Arab oil producers happy by ensuring that Americans stay addicted to oil, that the defense industry keeps its production lines open, and that the image of Arab states stays polished, even for state sponsors of terror, like Saudi Arabia, and states whose rule is founded on flagrant social inequalities, the torture of dissidents and unbelievers, and other practices that most Americans rightly find abhorrent.

Surely the most depressing aspect of Bard’s book is his depiction of the craven subservience of so many U.S. diplomats and officials to the Saudi royal family. “Even when the Saudis had no money, and they only started to pump oil,” Bard told me, “a fear permeated the State Department that if we didn’t give in to them, we would lose our interest there. And the Saudis were clever about exploiting our fear. First they said they’d go with the British instead of us, then they threatened that they’d go with the Soviet Union, even as they portrayed themselves as anti-Communist and said they needed U.S. weapons to defend themselves against Moscow.”

Bard says that the Saudis are using the Iran threat now in similar ways. “The U.S. knows that in the end we have to defend the royal family,” he said. “The Saudis just want the latest toys and act like petulant children until they get them. Then the U.S. tells the Israelis not to worry when they sell the Saudis weapons because they can’t use them, but we go to Congress and say Riyadh needs these arms for their defense.”

With all the demands for U.S. presidents to pressure Israel, it’s worth noting that U.S. officials have rarely done anything but accommodate the Saudis. The one striking exception, as Bard notes, was John F. Kennedy’s demand that Saudi Arabia abolish slavery. Typically, U.S.-Saudi relations have been conducted in the dark, a trend that started in July 1945, when President Harry Truman approved construction of the Dhahran air base using existing War Department funds to evade congressional oversight. This became a precedent for keeping most of the U.S.-Saudi relationship secret, or at least beyond public scrutiny. For years, the U.S. government acceded to the wishes of the Saudis and other Gulf states to conceal information about Arab investments in the United States, and even U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia were classified between 1950 and 1972.

Today the unspoken issue is Saudi support for terror. Were U.S. officials to complain about how the kingdom funds jihad against the United States and its allies, “there’s a fear,” says Bard, “that the Saudis may punish us by withdrawing some of their billions of dollars in investments, cut U.S. companies out of deals to explore for gas or oil, or take other measures to damage our interests.”

Nor are the Saudis shy about promising to unleash jihad against those who cross their path, as when they threatened the British government when it was investigating the unsavory details of a Saudi arms purchase from a British weapons maker.

Given the nature of the Saudi regime, it is little wonder that the oil lobby prefers to work in the shadows. As one publicist explained in laying out his PR strategy for Riyadh: “Saudi Arabia has a need to influence the few that influence the many, rather than the need to influence the many to whom the few must respond.”

“This is a fairly smart lobbying tactic,” Bard told me. “It is very difficult to take a democratic approach, when most people don’t take your position.”

The story of the Arab lobby is also a story about Washington, more specifically an influential segment of the U.S. political elite that has contempt for the rubes who don’t understand that it is in the U.S. national interest to lean on the Zionists in order to make the Middle East’s Muslim Arab majority happy.

Bard believes that the Arabs and their Washington handlers were spitting in the wind of a post-World War II history that had turned in favor of the Jews. The Arabs, Bard writes, were “convinced that the United States supported the Zionists because of their propaganda. … Consequently, [the Arabs] never understood the depth of Americans’ feeling for the justness of the Zionist cause.”

Perhaps that is true, but it’s worth remembering that at the same time the Zionists succeeded in lobbying the Truman Administration to support a Jewish state, there was still widespread anti-Semitism throughout America, even as the horrors of the Final Solution were becoming known to the general public. It is comforting to believe that the 63 percent of Americans, according to a recent Gallup poll, who side with Israel rather than the Palestinians are now and will always be stalwart friends of the Jews. But in the end all we know for certain about Americans is that they can smell what stinks. The Saudi lobby pays Washington power-brokers to talk over the heads of ordinary Americans because the latter have enough horse sense to know that a regime that withholds the rights of women as well as those of its Shia minority, outlaws the practice of Christianity and Judaism, and promotes anti-American causes is not in any meaningful sense of the term a U.S. ally.

As Bard’s book documents, the Saudis’ well-paid American agents have been making the same arguments for 60 years. The reason their message is not getting through is not that Americans are stupid and susceptible to Zionist propaganda or that the Jews who “control” Congress and the media are blocking access to the truth. The majority of Americans haven’t yet joined in the chorus led by Walt, Mearsheimer, and their cohort because Americans simply do not like to be threatened by extortionists who warn that if you don’t do what we say we will turn off your lights and shut down your car engines, and if you don’t change your position on Israel, we will kill you.

MORE IN: AIPAC, ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT, ARABS, JOHN J. MEARSHEIMER, MITCHELL BARD, SAUDI ARABIA, STEPHEN WALT, U.S. FOREIGN POLICY

Defeat the Nation of Islam Congressman in Indy

The most important & least known House Race in America

America and indeed the world, anxiously awaits the outcome of the 2010 midterm elections. The political and social direction of the Republic is on the line. Republican versus Democrat, Conservative versus Liberal, RINO versus Tea Party and the beat goes on. Millions of dollars are flowing into campaign chests; miles of print espousing opinions grace the pages of newspapers, magazines and blogs; thousands of hours of programming on radio and television debate the issues, from the ridiculous to the sublime. Volunteers and professionals are burning up the phone lines and the postal delivery folks are bent over with the weight of direct mail appeals.

Meanwhile, the most important House race in the whole country is being totally ignored. A race which exemplifies the ying and the yang. A race which incorporates every exciting and essential element on the political radar screen. A race which will separate hacks from heroes, principle from pragmatism, love of country from lust for power. A race between the power of politicians and the power of the people.

Populist Republican, Dr. Marvin Scott is attempting to wrest the Indiana 7th District from the clutches of a liberal Democrat dynasty. Julia Carson was elected in 1996 and served until her death in 2007. Andre Carson, her grandson, was elected to serve the remainder of her term in a special election and was overwhelmingly reelected in 2008, thanks to the Barack Obama landslide.

Dr. Scott, a tenured professor of Sociology at Butler University, was the Republican nominee for Senate in 2004. He is an extraordinary example of the American Dream. Born to proud, but not formally educated parents in the segregated south, Dr. Scott learned to be a proud American. Robert and Gertrude Scott taught their seven children to appreciate what you have and strive to earn what you want. Three of their children earned PHd’s or finished all the requirements and one of their grandchildren was Flo-Jo, the Olympic champion.

Andre Carson voted 98.9% of the time with Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He has earned high marks from Organized Labor, Pro Choice organizations, Gun Control Groups, Muslim groups (he is one of two Muslims in the House), Homosexual support groups, Tax Increase lobbies, Arab & Anti Israel groups (Carson earned a 100% rating from the Arab American League) and the NAACP. Andre Carson is a proud member of the Progressive Caucus in Congress.

Marvin Scott is a Constitutional Conservative. He passionately believes that America is the land of opportunity. He is a fiscal and social conservative. He has never been embraced by the Republican power people but is loved by the Tea Party folks. Dr. Scott is a true gentleman, but not a coward. He gets standing ovations from the everyday folk and deafening silence from the DC insiders. His motto is “It is never right to do wrong, and it is never wrong to do right”. He publically commits to term limits and is an unabashed supporter of Israel.

This race is very winnable by Dr. Scott, because of his huge name recognition, the frustration with Andre Carson (he is the one who lied when he claimed the “N” word was used 15 times at a Tea Party rally in DC), the mood of the country, the unpopularity of President Obama, the changes in the District (only 25% black, only 53% Democrat), the fact that Marvin Scott is a black man so the “race” card is eliminated, the high unemployment rate (60+%) among black youth, the strong 2nd Amendment sentiment, the fact that Andre Carson voted for the Health Care Bill with its unconstitutional personal mandates and the publically funded abortion provisions, and Andre Carson’s condemnation of Israel in a letter signed by him and 53 other anti-Israel members of Congress. Andre Carson‘s personal relationship with the hateful Louis Farrakhan and Farrakhan’s endorsement of him, plus Carson’s sponsorship of the J Street Gala Dinner are very troubling for most citizens. 2010 brings with it photo ID requirements which will cut down on the aggressive cheating carried out in the past in this District. Andre Carson supports open borders, a path to citizenship for illegals and a weakened national defense. Dr. Marvin Scott believes in securing our borders, enforcing our laws and strengthening our National Defense.

The “Power” Republicans have done their best to discourage donors to Dr. Marvin Scott’s campaign. Congressmen Mike Pence and Dan Burton have been the notable exceptions. Insiders claim the district cannot be won, but ignore the fact that no Democrat has won the 7th in an off year election by more than 10,000 votes. The reality is, that Power Republicans don’t want to encourage Democrat turnout by backing a vigorous campaign. They have been cowed by the possibility of being called racists and they want a Republican who is a ring kisser. Dr. Scott is a happily married man with 4 children and he is allergic to chapstick.

Will this, the year of the people, end this progressive liberal dynasty?
Will the people’s frustration with RINO like positions and politicians explode at the ballot box? That is the question, you are the answer. Get informed, get involved, get Andre Carson out and Dr. Marvin Scott & the Constitution back in the United States House of Representatives.