(cross posted at Dkos) President Obama and AG Holder can do the USA and Israel both a big favor by blocking the flow of money from nutball American right wingers to nutball Israeli right wingers. Why does Israel have an extremist right-wing neo-con like Netanyau as Prime Minister? Because US citizens got tax exemptions for funding the Israeli right. Extremist United States citizens and organizations are key financial supporters of extremist radical Israeli settlers. An Israeli organization that calls on Israeli soldiers to mutiny if ordered to stop settler expansion depends on funding from US 501(c3) tax exempt “charities”. The odious gambling magnate Sheldon Adelson, a good buddy of Tom Delay funds an extremist newspaper, media campaign, and political activity.
In fact, Adelson worked hard to get rid of Olmert and replace him with Netanyahu. The insane “Reverend” Hagee funds every violent, crazy right wing religious nut he can find in Israel.
Not only does this tsunami of American right wing money distort and deeply damage Israels’ democratic institutions, but it forms a seamless mesh with neo-con, paleo-con, and militia organizations in the United States.
Adelson’s massive funding of Republicans is, of course, his right. But he should not be turning our ally into another experiment in right wing nutbar social engineering. And funding of organizations that call for violence against Israeli peace activists, Palestinians civilians, and anyone else with the temerity to dissent from their psychotic agenda is something that the US government can stop.
Well, not only that, but a huge amount of the funding for Israel’s illegal colonization of the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem (and ALL of Israel’s building and colonization is absolutely illegal) comes from uber-right-wing Jewish and Christian sources in the United States, and yes, they manage to get a tax break for it. And by the way, these guys make the neocons look positively progressive.
The weirdest thing is the so-called “Christian Zionists”, including the wacko Hagee. They just LOOOOVE the Jews, and they support Israel because in their crazed minds they are helping to bring about the “end of days” which will result in, among other things, the complete and final obliteration of the Jewish people – the REAL “final solution”. In other words, they are using the Jews as the instrument of their own destruction, which is kind of the ultimate in anti-Semitism, isn’t it? And yet, the Zionists embrace them and welcome their “support”.
They’re all crazy, every last one of them.
I have explained to a number of “conservative” Jews that a theory in which salvation depends on the surviving population of Jews all being in Israel has a number of unpleasant implementation strategies.
The Israelis who take Hagee’s money don’t care what he says about anyone because they are goal directed and don’t believe any of his garbage about end days. You see, in the final analysis, they know they are more clever and more privileged in divine matters. For whatever reason, he voluntarily drums up support for Israel in the US and bank rolls the real estate bonanza in the occupied lands of the Palestinians. That’s all that interests Israeli colonists and their supporters. How many of Hagee’s friends/supportors are profiting from the theft of Palestinian land? Let’s just dump the whole anti-semitism meme and deal with a country called Israel. The new switcheroo in Israel is that ‘some media’ are playing up, trying to create, a crisis between the US and Israel because they want to sabotage the peace talks. I just heard in on the BBC. The statement might even make Karl Rove’s eyes pop out.
In the end, we have only ourselves to blame for the injustices perpetrated against the Palestinian people over the past 60 years. We funded a large part of the occupation and colonialism that has characterized Israeli-Palestinian relations. We knew about the ethnic cleansing, the home demolitions, the destruction of Palestinian farms and orchards, the killing carried out in the name of colonization…we knew it all. Yet we continued to fund Israel and permitted others to fund settlements on Palestinian land as charitiable deductions.
America has done wrong because all of these activities werre contrary to our democratic principles and support of human rights internationally. We accepted that Israel was an exception, and paid for it dearly in terms of our security. We are slowly beginning to understand that we have been played by a small foreign country, Israel.
quite often as a willing participant, though.
It is a strange brew here. In part, our (small) part in making the holocaust worse, plus, the natural behavior of America when helping the underdog, added to, a very effective campaign by AIPAC and others to turn that natural alliance into something quite different.
That last part has caused problems for the US, and even our military realizes the danger in being seen as a virtual puppet of Israel.
Norman Finkelstein has written extensively about the use of the Holocaust (as repeated in Netanyahu’s speech at AIPAC a few days ago) to justify the most horrific abuses of human rights in the Middle East. Nothing more about that needs to be said: it’s a grand distortion of morality and ethics.
“even our military realizes the danger in being seen as a virtual puppet of Israel.”
Frankly, we have been seen that way for decades. The ability of AIPAC to write and get its legislation passed in the House and Senate (like the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act) during the Bush administration is just one measure of their power. I suspect that the military has long realized the danger of US support of the Israeli colonization of Palestinian lands, even as a contributor to terrorist recuiting and ultimately 9/11, but it just didn’t have the courage to say so, until now, that is.
Frankly, I think that’s a stupid analysis. Great powers do not act out of guilt. Anyone who has any knowledge about the actions of the US military/economic empire over the last 50 years who thinks that tender feelings about the Holocaust play a significant part in decision making needs to stop sniffing glue. The reality is that Israeli neo-cons are a comprador part of the US Republican party which has multinational manifestations. Adelson assisted US neo-cons and Israeli looney toons in replacing Olmert with their picked dog.
Surely you are not overlooking the unquestioning support Israel has received decade after decade after decade from Democrats. Al Gore used to get tears in his eyes talking about his love for Israel. Then there is Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, the list goes on and on. And Bill Clinton played Israel’s game beautifully during his presidency, pretending to be an “honest broker” when it was obvious whose side he was on. You can’t blame the Republicans for this. In fact, Republican presidents have stood up to Israel more than Democrats have. Eisenhower did, and G.H.W. Bush lost his second term in part because of that.
Tears in eyes are all very nice, but in the history of the world, states operate on a much colder set of principles. If Israel had not been useful for the exercise of US power, it would have long ago been tearfully, sorrowfully, nostalgically tossed in the garbage can.
And just how did Israel help the US to extend its powers and influence. Granted, most people now believe that American Neocons were acting on behalf of Israel when they pushed Bush-Cheney into invading Iraq. But just how was that invasion a strategic benefit to the US, given the false basis on which it was justified. Oil? That’s a possibility even though we were already benefitting from Iraqi oil before the invasion.
Bill Clinton, a Democratic president, is viewed by many Palestinian politicians as having dealt their cause for freedom and self-determination its greatest blow. During Clinton’s administration, the number of settlements and settlers moving into the Palestinian territories DOUBLED. Clinton embraced Oslo knowing full well that the accords permitted Israel to colonize the most strategic areas of the West Bank, those which surrounding Jerusalem, apparently in an attempt to isolate it from Palestinian controlled regions.
Israel has not been useful to the US as far as strategic influence, military or whatever. American military bases in the Middle East were not situated in Israel, but in Saudi Arabia and then Bahrain and Kuwait, I believe. American carriers that operated in the region as during the Iraq war, did not operate off or near Israel. Israel did not provide any support to our armed forces.
And so on.
I dunno: why would a great power dependent on one set of client states for a critical product foster a second, militarily powerful state next door to them? That would be something startlingly new, like divide and rule or something. Why would the US give billions of aid/military aide to Egypt and sell the most advanced materials to Saudi Arabia, but still support Israel, a client state that cannot, despite the delusions of its current managers, decide to find other customers?
Why that would have been like the English building up Moslem and Sikh militaries in India to try to control the Hindu majority or pitting Hasau in Nigeria against Ibo. Everyone knows imperial military policy is determined by Jewish lobbying, not cold calculation.
The large amount of aid to Egypt is its reward for the treaty with Israel, for maintaining diplomatic relations with it (the apartment I stay in in Cairo is across the street from the Israeli embassy, and I cannot open my bedroom curtains without having the Israeli flag right in my face), and for acting as Israel’s lackey with respect to Gaza.
That’s part of it, but there’s also that canal, the counterweight to Libya and pressure on Sudan, the extensions down the horn of Africa, the danger of the Muslim brotherhood and similar organizations for Saudi clients, 6th fleet ports, and of course the role of Egypt as a market for US exports.
Of course the vital Cairo, Aden, Mangalore pepper trade may restart at any time too.
I’m also not convinced that Egypt is “acting as Israel’s lackey” re Gaza. The interests of the rulers of Egypt and Hamas are not coincident.
My tendency is to believe that whenever states act inhumanely, it is because of their own perceived self-interest.
Your posts imply a great deal of ignorance about recent Middle East history, which Hurria has attempted to inform you of.
So tell us, why do you think that Egypt is building a wall to prevent Palestinian tunneling into the Rafah area?
You seem to believe that the natural course of events is for the Egyptian elite to place the interests of the Palestinian people above their own. My impression is that government don’t work that way.
No one is suggesting that the Egyptian “elite”, which you oddly seem to conflate with the Egyptian government, are placing the interests of the Palestinian people above their own.
Oh, Egypt most certainly is acting as Israel’s lackey with regard to its border with Gaza. Anyone who really wants to can observe how Israel, often along with the United States, in certain instances puts extreme pressure on Egypt to keep the Gazans imprisoned and to prevent the passage of goods and human rights groups, and Egypt responds to that pressure.
“…whenever states act inhumanely, it is because of their own perceived self-interest.“
And you don’t think it is in the Egyptian State’s actual and perceived self-interest to keep Israel and the United States happy?
Yes, but they also do not want a successful palestinian state on their border any more than the israelis do.
Thanks for the correction on Muslim. :o}
Egypt became one of the largest recipients of U.S. aid as a direct result of its treaty with Israel.
PS The word is Muslim, not Mozlem.
You seem to have missed my point completely.
I think that we get confused referring to “Israel” or the “US” as if they were unitary. Clearly the current israeli ruling parties are closely tied to the US Republican party/neo-con+evangelical group. Other interests in Israel are not.
My point was that Israel’s goals and the actions they have taken to achieve them along with U.S. support of those goals and actions have remained consistent regardless of which “interests” were in power in either country.
It’s not just AIPAC, nor do I agree that it is in any way natural U.S. behaviour to support the underdog. If it were, the U.S. would be all over the Palestinian cause by now.