From: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Israel/TheyDareToSpeakOut.html

They Dare To Speak Out

People and Institutions Confront Israel's Lobby

by Paul Findley

(member of U.S. House of Representatives for 22 years)

Lawrence Hill Books, 1985, paperback (2003)

pvii
Shortly after World War II, a small band of United States partisans for Israel marshaled self-discipline and commitment so effectively that they succeeded in ending free and open debate in America whenever Middle East issues are considered.

Their primary goal was to assure broad, substantial, unconditional, and ultimately blind support for Israel by the U.S. government. In seeking that goal, these partisans forced a severe anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bias into U.S. Middle East policy that has since raised costly economic, political, and military barriers to the American national interest. The most harmful part of this process was the disappearance of unfettered discussion of the United States' relationship to the Arab-Israeli conflict. These biases and restrictions, though unwritten, are as effective as if they had been carved in stone. Even in the legislative chambers on Capitol Hill, the nation's highest and most hallowed halls of debate, discussion on the Middle East is virtually nonexistent.

p27
AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee] is only a part of the Israeli lobby, but in terms of having a direct effect on public policy it is clearly the most important. The organization has deepened and extended its influence in recent years. It is no overstatement to say that AIPAC has effectively gained control of virtually all of Capitol Hill's action on Middle East policy. Almost without exception, House and Senate members do its bidding, because most of them consider AIPAC to be the direct Capitol Hill representative of a political force that can make or break their chances at election time.

Whether based on fact or fancy, the perception is what counts: AIPAC means power-raw, intimidating power. Its promotional literature regularly cites a tribute published in the New York Times: "The most powerful, best-run and effective foreign policy interest group in Washington." A former congressman, Paul N. "Pete" McCloskey, puts it more directly: Congress is "terrorized" by AIPAC.

p29
Don Beraus, former ambassador to Sudan an retired career diplomat

At the State Department we used to predict that if Israel's prime minister should announce that the world is flat, within twenty-four hours Congress would pass a resolution congratulating him on the discovery.

p49
an Ohio congressman

AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee] is the most influential lobby on Capitol Hill... But what distresses me is the inability of American policy makers, because of the influence of AIPAC, to distinguish between our national interest and Israel's national interest.

p50
after AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee] blocked a $1.6 billion arms sale to Jordan King Hussein complained

The United States is not free to move except within the limits of what AIPAC, the Zionists, and the State of Israel determine for it.

p55
Representative Paul "Pete" McCloskey, in an article for the New York Times, 1982

If the United States is to work effectively toward peace in the Mideast, the power of this lobby [AIPAC] must be recognized and countered in open and fair debate. I had hoped that the American Jewish community had matured to the point where its lobbying efforts could be described and debated without raising the red flag of anti-Semitism...

p91
J. William Fulbright - The Dissenter

"When all of us are dead, the only one they'll remember is Bill Fulbright." The tribute by Idaho Senator Frank Church, a fellow Democrat, was amply justified. As much as any man of his time, J. William Fulbright shaped this nation's attitudes on the proper exercise of its power in a world made acutely dangerous by nuclear weapons. Dissent was a hallmark of his career, but it was dissent with distinction. The fact was that Fulbright was usually right.

He first gained national attention by condemning the "swinish blight" of McCarthyism." In 1954, while many Americans cheered the crusade of the Wisconsin senator's Permanent Investigations Subcommittee, Fulbright cast the lone vote against a measure to continue the subcommittee's funding. Because of this vote, he was accused of being "a communist, a fellow traveler, an atheist, [and] a man beneath contempt.""

Fulbright opposed U.S. intervention in Cuba in 1961 and in the Dominican Republic four years later, and was ahead of his time in calling for détente with the Soviet Union and a diplomatic opening with China. When he proposed a different system for selecting presidents, an offended Harry Truman called him "that overeducated Oxford s.o.b." Twenty-five years later, in 1974, the New York Times recognized Fulbright as "the most outspoken critic of American foreign policy of this generation.

His deepest and most abiding interest was the advancement of international understanding through education, and thousands of young people have broadened their vision through the scholarships that bear his name. 46 But Fulbright also became well known for his outspoken opposition to the Vietnam War as "an endless, futile war... debilitating and indecent"-a stand that put him at odds with a former colleague and close friend, President Lyndon B. Johnson. President Johnson believed that America was embarked on a noble mission in Southeast Asia against an international communist conspiracy. Fulbright put no stock in the conspiracy theory, feared the war might broaden into a showdown with China, and saw it as an exercise in "the arrogance of power."

In 1963 Fulbright chaired an investigation that brought to public attention the exceptional tax treatment of contributions to Israel and aroused the ire of the Jewish community." The investigation was managed by Walter Pincus, a journalist Fulbright hired after reading a Pincus study of lobbying. Pincus recalls that Fulbright gave him a free hand, letting him choose the ten prime lobbying activities to be examined and backing him throughout the controversial investigation. One of the groups chosen by Pincus, himself Jewish, was the Jewish Telegraph Agency, which was at that time a principal instrument of the Israeli lobby. Both Fulbright and Pincus were accused of trying to destroy the Jewish Telegraph Agency and of being anti-Semitic."

Pincus remembers, "Several senators urged that the inquiry into the Jewish operation be dropped. Senators Hubert Humphrey and Bourke Hickenlooper [senior Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee] were among them. Fuibright refused."

The Fuibright hearings also exposed massive funding illegally channeled into the American Zionist Council by Israel." More than five million dollars had been secretly poured into the council for spending on public relations firms and pro-Israel propaganda before Fulbright's committee closed down the operation.

Despite his concern over the pro-Israeli lobby, Fulbright took the exceptional step of recommending that the United States guarantee Israeli's borders." In a major address in 1970 he proposed an American-Israeli treaty, under which the United States would commit itself to intervene militarily if necessary to "guarantee the territory and independence of Israel" within the lands it held before the 1967 war. The treaty, he said, should be a supplement to a peace settlement arranged by the United Nations. The purpose of his proposal was to destroy the arguments of those who maintained that Israel needed the captured territory for its security.

Fulbright saw Israel's withdrawal from the Arab lands it occupied in the 1967 war as the key to peace: Israel could not occupy Arab territory and have peace too. He said that Israeli policy in establishing settlements on the territories "has been characterized by lack of flexibility and foresight." Discounting early threats by some Arab leaders to destroy the state of Israel, Fuibright noted that both President Nasser of the United Arab Republic and King Hussein of Jordan had in effect repudiated such Draconian threats, "but the Israelis seem not to have noticed the disavowals."

During the 1970s Fulbright repeatedly took exception to the contention that the Middle East crisis was a test of American resolve against Soviet interventionism. In 1971 he accused Israel of "communist-baiting humbuggery" and argued that continuing Middle East tension, in fact, only benefited Soviet interests."

Appearing on CBS television's Face the Nation in 1973, Fulbright declared that the Senate was "subservient" to Israeli policies that were inimical to American interests." He said that the United States bore "a very great share of the responsibility" for the continuation of Middle East violence. "It's quite obvious [that] without the all-out support by the United States in money and weapons and so on, the Israelis couldn't do what they've been doing."

Fuibright said that the United States failed to pressure Israel for a negotiated settlement, because:

The great majority of the Senate of the United States-somewhere around 80 percent-are completely in support of Israel, anything Israel wants. This has been demonstrated time and time again, and this has made it difficult for our government.

The senator claimed that "Israel controls the Senate" and warned, "We should be more concerned about the United States' interests." Six weeks after his Face the Nation appearance, Fulbright again expressed alarm over Israeli occupation of Arab territories." He charged that the United States had given Israel "unlimited support for unlimited expansion.

His criticism of Israeli policy caused stirrings back home. 17 Jews who had supported him in the past became restless. After years of easy election victories, trouble loomed for Fuibright in 1974. Encouraged, in part, by the growing Jewish disenchantment with Fuibright, on the eve of the deadline for filing petitions of candidacy in the Democratic primary Governor Dale Bumpers surprised the political world by becoming a challenger for Fuibright's Senate seat. Fulbright hadn't expected the governor to run, but recognized immediately that the popular young governor posed a serious challenge: "He had lots of hair [in contrast to Fulbright], he looked good on television, and he'd never done anything to offend anyone."

There were other factors. Walter Pincus, who later became a Washington Post reporter, believed that Fulbright's decision to take a golfing holiday in Bermuda just before the primary deadline may have helped convince Bumpers that Fulbright would not work hard for the nomination. It was also the year of Watergate-a bad year for incumbents. In his campaign, Bumpers pointed with alarm to the "mess in Washington" and called for a change. The New York Times reported that he "skillfully exploited an old feeling that Mr. Fulbright ... spent all his time dining with Henry Kissinger and fretting over the Middle East.

The attitude of Jewish voters, both inside Arkansas and beyond, was also a significant factor. "I don't think Bumpers would have run without that encouragement," said Fulbright. Following the election, a national Jewish organization actually claimed credit for the young governor's stunning upset victory. Fulbright had a copy of a memorandum circulated in May 1974 to the national board of directors of B'nai B'rith. Marked "confidential," the memo from Secretary-General Herman Edelsberg, announced that ". . . all of the indications suggest that our actions in support of Governor Bumpers will result in the ousting of Mr. Fulbright from his key position in the Senate. "6' Edelsberg later rejected the memorandum as "phony."

Following his defeat, Fulbright continued to speak out, decrying Israeli stubbornness and warning of the Israeli lobby. In a speech just before the end of his Senate term, he warned, "Endlessly pressing the United States for money and arms-and invariably getting all and more than she asks-Israel makes bad use of a good friend." His central concern was that the Middle East conflict might flare into nuclear war. 64 He warned somberly that "Israel's supporters in the United States ... by ) underwriting intransigence, are encouraging a course which must lead toward her destruction-and just possibly ours as well."

Pondering the future from his office three blocks north of the White House on a bright winter day in 1983, Fulbright saw little hope that Capitol Hill would effectively challenge the Israeli lobby:

It's suicide for politicians to oppose them. The only possibility would be someone like Eisenhower, who already feels secure. Eisenhower had already made his reputation. He was already a great man in the eyes of the country, and he wasn't afraid of anybody. He said what he believed."

Then he added a somewhat more optimistic note: "I believe a president could do this. He wouldn't have to be named Eisenhower." Fulbright cited a missed opportunity:

I went to Jerry Ford after he took office in 1975. I was out of office then. I had been to the Middle East and visited with some of the leading figures. I came back and told the president, 'Look, I think these [Arab] leaders are willing to accept Israel, but the Israelis have got to go back to the 1967 borders. The problem can be solved if you are willing to take a position on it.

Fulbright predicted that the American people would back Ford if he demanded that Israel cooperate. He reminded him that Eisenhower was reelected by a large margin immediately after he forced Israel to withdraw after invading Egypt:

Taking a stand against Israel didn't hurt Eisenhower. He carried New York with its big Jewish population. I told Ford I didn't think he would be defeated if he put it the right way. He should say Israel had to go back to the 1967 borders; if it didn't, no more arms or money. That's just the way Eisenhower did it. And Israel would have to cooperate. And politically, in the coming campaign, I told him he should say he was for Israel, but he was for America first.

Ford, Fuibright recalled, listened courteously but was noncommittal. "Of course he didn't take my advice," said Fulbright. Yet his determination in the face of such disappointment echoes through one of his last statements as a U.S. senator:

History casts no doubt at all on the ability of human beings to deal rationally with their problems, but the greatest doubt on their will to do so. The signals of the past are thus clouded and ambiguous, suggesting hope but not confidence in the triumph of reason. With nothing to lose in any event, it seems well worth a try. 66

Fulbright died on February 9, 1995, ending one of the most illustrious careers in American politics. Reared in the segregationist South, he left an imposing legacy as a fearless, scholarly, and determined champion of human rights at home and abroad.

p118
journalist Charles Bartlett about JFK

[JFK] said if he ever did get to be president, he would push for a law that would subsidize presidential campaigns out of the U.S. Treasury. He added that whatever the cost of this subsidy, it would insulate future presidential candidates from ... [financial] pressure and save the country a lot of grief in the long run.

p123
Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to Henry Luce, owner of Time magazine

I am aware how almost impossible it is in this country to carry out a foreign policy not approved by the Jews.

p127

Not only do Israel's American supporters have powerful influence with many members of the Congress, but practically no actions touching Israel's interests can be taken, or even discussed, within the executive branch without it being quickly known to the Israeli government.

... Israelis have been so long conditioned to expect that Americans will support their country, no matter how often it disregards American advice and protests and America's own interests.

p131
George Ball, former deputy secretary of state under two presidents and former US ambassador to the United Nations, in an article in the Washington Post, 1977

When leading members of the American Jewish community give [Israel's] government uncritical arid unqualified approbation and encouragement for whatever it chooses to do, while striving so far as possible to overwhelm any criticism of its actions in Congress and in the public media, they are, in my view, doing neither themselves nor the United States a favor.

p131
George Ball, former deputy secretary of state under two presidents and former US ambassador to the United Nations, in an article in the Washington Post, 1977

[President Ronald Reagan] did not demand, as he should have done under the law, that we would exact the penalties provided unless the Israelis stopped murdering civilians with the weapons we had provided them solely for self-defense. Instead he bought them off by committing our own marines to maintain order while we persuaded the PLO leaders to leave rather than face martyrdom.

p151
Les Janka, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense who is a specialist in Middle East policy

You have to understand that the Israelis operate in the Pentagon very professionally, and in an omnipresent way. They have enough of their people who understand our system well, and they have made friends at all levels, from top to bottom. They just interact with the system in a constant, continuous way that keeps the pressure on.

p159
a Newsweek article, 1979

With the help of American Jews in and out of government, the Mossad looks for any softening in U.S. support and tries to get any technical intelligence the administration is unwilling to give to Israel. "The Mossad can go to any distinguished American Jew and ask for his help," says a former CIA agent. The appeal is a simple one: "When the call went out and no one heeded it, the Holocaust resulted." The United States tolerates the Mossad's operations on American soil partly because of reluctance to anger the American Jewish community.

p159
a senior State Department official who held the high career positions related to the Middle East, 1979

I urged several times that the United States quit trying to keep secrets from Israel. Let them have everything. They always get what they want anyway. When we try to keep secrets, it always backfires.

p160
a secret analysis prepared by the CIA in 1979 titled 'Israel: Foreign Intelligence and Security Services'

In carrying out its mission to collect positive intelligence, the principal function of the Mossad is to conduct agent operations against the Arab nations and their official representatives and installations throughout the world, particularly in Western Europe and the United States .... Objectives in Western countries are equally important (as in the USSR and East Europe) to the Israeli intelligence service. The Mossad collects intelligence regarding Western, Vatican, and UN policies toward the Near East; promotes arms deals for the benefit of the IDF; and acquires data for silencing anti-Israel factions in the West.

p160
a secret analysis prepared by the CIA in 1979 titled 'Israel: Foreign Intelligence and Security Services'

Mossad activities are generally conducted through Israeli official and semiofficial establishments - deep cover enterprises in the form of firms and organizations, some especially created for, or adaptable to, a specific objective-and penetrations effected within non-Zionist national and international Jewish organizations .... Official organizations used for cover are: Israeli purchasing missions and Israeli government tourist offices, El Al, and Zim offices. Israeli construction firms, industrial groups and international trade organizations also provide nonofficial cover. Individuals working under deep or illegal cover are normally charged with penetrating objectives that require a long-range, more subtle approach, or with activities in which the Israeli government can never admit complicity.

p161
a secret analysis prepared by the CIA in 1979 titled 'Israel: Foreign Intelligence and Security Services'

In addition to the large-scale acquisition of published scientific papers and technical journals from all over the world through overt channel he Israelis devote a considerable portion of their covert operations to obtaining scientific and technical intelligence. This had included attempts to penetrate certain classified defense projects in the United States and other Western nations.

The Israeli security authorities (in Israel) also seek evidence of illicit love affairs which can be used as leverage to enlist cooperation. In one instance, Shin Bet (the domestic Israeli intelligence agency) tried to penetrate the U.S. Consulate General in Jerusalem through a clerical employee who was having an affair with a Jerusalem girl. They rigged a fake abortion case against the employee in an unsuccessful effort to recruit him. Before this attempt at blackmail, they had tried to get the Israeli girl to elicit information from her boyfriend.

p162
a senior official in the Department of State, 1980

We have to assume that they have wiretaps all over town. In my work I frequently pick up highly sensitive information coming back to me in conversations with people who have no right to have these secrets.

p163
To strike back at government officials considered to be unsympathetic to Israeli needs, the pro-Israel lobby singles them out for personal attack and even the wrecking of their careers. In January 1977 a broad-scale purge was attempted immediately after the inauguration of President Carter. The perpetrator was Senator Richard Stone of Florida, a Democrat, a passionate supporter of Israel."' When he was newly installed as chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on the Middle East, he brought along with him a "hit list." In his view, fifteen officials were not sufficiently supportive of Israel and its weapons needs, and he wanted them transferred to positions where their views would create no problems for Israel. Marked for removal were William Quandt, Brzezinski's assistant for Middle East matters, and Les Janka, who had served on the National Security Council under Ford. The others were career military officers, most of them colonels. Stone's demands were rejected by Brzezinski. According to a senior White House official, "after pressing reasonably hard for several days," the senator gave up. Although unsuccessful, his demands caused a stir. One officer says, "I find it very ironic that a U.S. senator goes to a U.S. president's national security adviser and tells him to fire Americans for insufficient loyalty to another country."

p167
John C. West, US ambassador to Saudi Arabia in 1979

We would never put anything in any cable what was critical of Israel. Still, because of the grapevine, there was never any secret from the government of Israel. The Israelis knew everything, usually by the time it got to Washington.

p173
Admiral Thomas Moorer recalls a dramatic example of Israeli lobby power from his days as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. At the time of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, Mordecai Gur, the defense attaché at the Israeli embassy who later became commander-in-chief of Israeli forces, came to Moorer demanding that the United States provide Israel with aircraft that were equipped with a high technology air-to-surface anti-tank missile called the Maverick. At the time, the U.S. had only one squadron so equipped. Moorer recalled telling Gur:

I can't let you have those aircraft. We have just one squadron. Besides, we've been testifying before the Congress, convincing them we need this equipment. If we gave you our only squadron, Congress would raise hell with us.

Moorer looked at me with a steady, piercing gaze that must have kept a generation of ensigns trembling in their boots. "And do you know what he said? Gur told me, 'You get us the airplanes; I'll take care of the Congress." Moorer paused, then added, "And he did." America's only squadron equipped with Mavericks went to Israel.

Moorer, speaking in his office in Washington as a senior counselor at the Georgetown University Center for Strategic and International Studies, said he strongly opposed the transfer but was overruled by "political expediency at the presidential level." He notes that President Richard Nixon was then in the throes of Watergate. "But," he added:

I've never seen a president - I don't care who he is - stand up to them [the Israelis]. It just boggles your mind. They always get what they want. The Israelis know what is going on all the time. I got to the point where I wasn't writing anything down. If the American people understood what a grip those people have got on our government, they would rise up in arms. Our citizens don't have any idea what goes on.

p175
A former high-ranking official in security affairs cited the intimidating effect of this procession on career specialists:

When you have to explain your position day after day, week after week, to American Jewish groups-first, say, from Kansas City, then Chicago, then East Overshoe-you see what you are up against. These are people from different parts of the country, but they come in with the very same information, the same set of questions, the same criticism. They know what you have done even in private meetings. They will say, "Mr. Smith, we understand that in interagency meetings, you frequently take a hard line against technology transfers to Israel. We'd like you to explain yourself." They keep you on the defensive.

p177
a State Department official

One has to keep in mind the constant character of this [Jewish] pressure. The public affairs staff of the Near East Bureau in the State Department figures it will spend about 75 percent of its time dealing with Jewish groups. Hundreds of such groups get appointments in the executive branch each year.

p185
In a 1986 statement to the press, Israeli Embassy spokesman Yossi Gal said

The [Jonathan] Pollard [spy] affair was an unauthorized deviation from the clear-cut Israeli policy of not conducting any espionage activity whatsoever in the United States or activities against the interests of the United States, given that the United States is a true friend of Israel.

p185
a U.S. government official

The Mossad is the most active foreign intelligence service on U.S. soil.

p185
reporter Charles Babcock of the Washington Post

[The] remarkable intelligence harvest [for Israel] is provided largely not by paid agents, but by an unofficial network of sympathetic American officials who work in the Pentagon, the State Department, congressional offices, the National Security Council, and even the U.S. intelligence agencies.

p185
a 1996 U.S. government report

[Israel] conducts the most aggressive espionage operation against the United States of any U.S. ally.

p210
In 1979 AIPAC established its Political Leadership Development Program (PLDP), which trains student activists on how to increase pro-Israeli influence on campus.

... In 1983 AIPAC distributed to students and faculty around the country a ten-page questionnaire on political activism on their campuses. Its instructions included: "Please name any individual faculty who assist anti-Israel groups. How is this assistance offered? What are the propaganda themes?" The survey results formed the body of the AIPAC College Guide: Exposing the Anti-Israel Campaign on Campus, published in April 1984. While AIPAC claimed to respect the right of all to free speech, number eight on its list of ten suggested "modes of response" to pro-Palestinian events or speakers on campus reads: "Attempt to prevent."

Number ten on the same list is "creative packaging." Edward Said, a professor of comparative literature at Columbia University who frequently speaks on campuses in support of the Palestinian cause, described a case of "creative packaging" at the University of Washington, where he spoke in early 1983:

They stood at the door of the auditorium and distributed a blue leaflet that seemed like a program, but it was in fact a denunciation of me as a "terrorist." There were quotations from the PLO, and things that I had said were mixed in with things they claimed the PLO had said about murdering Jews. The idea was to intimidate me and to intimidate the audience from attending.'

Said reported another experience at the University of Florida, where the group protesting Said's talk was led by a professor of philosophy:

They [pro-Israel student activists organized by AIPAC] tried to disrupt the meeting and the professor finally had to be taken out by the police. It was one of the ugliest things - not just heckling, but interrupting and standing up and shouting. It's pure fascism, outright hooliganism.

p214
Noam Chomsky was leaked a copy of his ADL [Anti-Defamation League] file which contained about a hundred pages of material

Virtually every talk I give is monitored [by the ADL] and reports of their alleged contents (sometimes ludicrously, even comically distorted) are sent on to the [Anti-Defamation] League, to be incorporated in my file.

When I give a talk at a university or elsewhere, it is common for a group to distribute literature, invariably unsigned, containing a collection of attacks on me spiced with "quotes" (generally fabricated) from what I am alleged to have said here and there. I have no doubt that the source is the ADL, and / often the people distributing the unsigned literature acknowledge the fact. These practices are vicious and serve to intimidate many people. They are, of course, not illegal. If the ADL chooses to behave in this fashion, it has a right to do so, but this should also be exposed.

p247
Francis A. Boyle, a professor of international law at the University of Illinois, advised the Palestinian delegation to the Middle East peace negotiations in Washington, D.C., from 1991 to 1993 - urging the Palestinians to reject what became the Oslo Accords

They are offering you a Bantustan. As you know, the Israelis had very close relations with the Afrikaner Apartheid regime in South Africa. It appears they have studied the Bantustan system quite closely. So it is a Bantustan that they are offering you.

p247
Francis A. Boyle, a professor of international law at the University of Illinois

There are 149 substantive articles of the Fourth Geneva Convention that protect the rights of almost every one of these Palestinians living in occupied Palestine. The Israeli government is currently violating, and has been since 1967, almost each and every one of these.

p247
Francis A. Boyle, a professor of international law at the University of Illinois

It can be fairly said that U.S. Middle East policy has not shown one iota of respect for international law.

p247
Francis A. Boyle, a professor of international law at the University of Illinois

I have been accused of being everything but a child molester because of my public support for the Palestinian people. I have seen every known principle of academic integrity and academic freedom violated in order to suppress the basic rights of the Palestinian people. In fact, there is no such thing as academic integrity and academic freedom in the United States when it comes to asserting the rights of the Palestinian people under international law.

p251
Jerry Falwell

I don't think America could turn its back on the people of Israel and survive. God deals with nations in relation to how those nations deal with the Jews.

p281
A scholarly study by Vincent James Abramo a veteran federal employee showed that the settlements are deep rooted in religion. A little-noted factor in the Middle East imbroglio is the rising power of ultraorthodox Jews in Israeli and U.S. politics. Their core beliefs demand implacable opposition to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on any part of the West Bank, part of the area seized by Israeli forces in the June 1967 Arab-Israeli war and identified in the Bible as Judea and Samara. Ultra-orthodox interpretations of Judaic law that are found in the Torah, Talmud, and Halakhah prohibit Jews from sharing power with non-Jews in the "Land of Israel."

In April 2002, a convention of Sharon's Likud Party voted to oppose Palestinian statehood. The vote was seen as an appeal for continued support from ultraorthodox Jews and as an intra-party victory for former Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, who was expected to oppose Sharon in the next Israeli election. Always a factor in Israeli politics, orthodox Jews became a powerhouse in the past decade. In his study of Orthodox Judaism, Abramo wrote: "The success of the religious parties in the 1996 and 1999 Israeli national elections vastly increased the influence of orthodox Jews in the Israeli political process. Politically influential and highly visible orthodox rabbis seek to convince Israel's religiously observant Jews that the Messiah will not arrive until Jews establish themselves as sole rulers in the biblical Land of Israel. They believe that any governmental compromise to return biblical lands to the Palestinians in exchange for a peace agreement is, in the eyes of God, a treacherous and punishable act. The orthodox are committed to derailing all Israeli government and international peace initiatives that would force them to give up any part of Jewish sovereignty, political autonomy, and administrative control over all of Israel's biblical land." Abramo estimated that 20 percent of Israel's Jewish population is committed to these beliefs and ideology. This small percentage has proved adequate to be decisive in close elections.

Orthodox Jews promoted the expansion of settlements and sanctioned violent acts by Jewish extremists. The Orthodox goal is simply the expulsion of the Palestinians from the West Bank. The late Professor Israel Shahak, a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp who became a leading champion of Palestinian rights, wrote of Orthodox leaders: "All were outwardly dovish but employed formulas which could be manipulated in the most extreme anti-Arab sense." In 1993, they mobilized against the Oslo Accords, which contemplated an eventual Palestinian state in the West Bank. They can be expected to marshal all possible resources against U.S. pressure for a Palestine state.

The ruthless tactics employed by Israel's right-wing Orthodox parties assure that they will remain a major factor in Israeli politics for years to come, no matter what Israeli party coalitions may be established.

Abramo warned of possible Jewish violence in the United States: "Continued U.S. pressure to compromise on East Jerusalem, the Temple Mount, and the right of return for an estimated 3.2 million Palestinians creates a scenario that could see the United States as a potential target of Jewish extremism in the future."

Aramo deplored the U.S. tendency to perceive Israel "as a likeminded country with similar democratic values." He warned, "This mirror-imaging has proven to be dangerous and misleading, because it deflects attention away from the powerful undercurrent of [orthodox Jewish] religion as a driving force in Israeli political life."

p283
Every government of Israel gives high priority to maintaining unity among U.S. Jews. This unity is regarded as a main line of Israel's defense-second in importance only to the Israeli army-and essential to retaining the support that Israel must have from the United States government.

American Jews are made to feel guilty about enjoying safety and the good life in the United States while their fellow Jews in Israel hold the ramparts, pay high taxes, and fight wars. As Rabbi Balfour Brickner stated: "We hide behind the argument that it is not for us to speak our minds because the Israelis have to pay the price." One Jewish reporter attributed Jewish silence to an organized enforcement campaign: "I have often been told-verbally, in Jewish publications and in synagogues - that even if I have doubts about the Israeli government and its treatment of Palestinians, I should keep quiet about it and be steadfast in my support of a nation that needs to exist."

For most Jews, open criticism of Israeli policy is unthinkable. The theme is survival - survival of the Zionist dream, of Judaism, of Jews themselves.

p286
Roberta. Strauss Feuerlicht in a book that was critical of Israel "The Fate of the Jews"

Opposition to Zionism or criticism of Israel is now heresy and cause for excommunication.

p286
Roberta. Strauss Feuerlicht in a book that was critical of Israel "The Fate of the Jews"

Israel shields itself from legitimate criticism by calling her critics anti-Semitic; it is a form of McCarthyism and fatally effective.

p287
Paul Findley

In my [Paul Findley] twenty-two years in Congress, I can recall no entry in the Congressional Record that discloses a speech that was critical of Israeli policy and was presented by a Jewish member of the House or Senate. Jewish members may voice discontent in private conversation but never on the public record. Only a few Jewish academicians, such as Noam Chomsky, a distinguished linguist, have spoken out. Most of those are, like Chomsky, protected in their careers by tenure and are thus able to become controversial without jeopardizing their positions.

p287
Richard Cohen of the Washington Post, during Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon

[In the U.S.] dissent becomes treason - and treason not to a state or even an ideal (Zionism), but to a people. There is tremendous pressure for conformity, to show a united front and to adopt the view that what is best for Israel is something only the government there can know.

p288
Richard Cohen of the Washington Post, in an April 2002 editorial in the Washington Post entitled "Who's AntiSemitic?

Here [in the U.S.] criticism of Israel, particularly anti-Zionism, is equated with anti-Semitism. The Anti-Defamation League, one of the most important Jewish organizations, comes right out and says so. "Anti-Zionism is showing its true colors as deep-rooted anti-Semitism," the organization says.

p288
Richard Cohen of the Washington Post, in an April 2002 editorial in the Washington Post entitled "Who's AntiSemitic?

To protest living conditions on the West Bank is not anti-Semitism. To condemn the increasing encroachment of Jewish settlements is not anti-Semitism.

p293
Nahum Goldmann, played a crucial role in the founding of Israel, in 1980

The time may not be far off when American public opinion will be sick and tired of the demands of Israel and the aggressiveness of American Jewry.

p305
I.F. Stone

The Jewish people are apprehensive, fearful. They are afraid about the future. They feel they are at war, and many of them feel they have to fight and keep fighting.

p305
I.F. Stone

Finding an American publishing house willing to publish a book that departs from the standard Israeli line is about as easy as selling a thoughtful exposition of atheism to the Osservatore Romano in Vatican City.

p350
[The] deep attachment to Israel began as soon as the state carne into being fifty-four years ago. Backed by a small but passionately committed minority of America's Jews, augmented later by growing groups of fundamentalist Christians, the lobby of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) steadily strengthened its manipulation of U.S. political institutions into unconditional support of Israel's subjugation of the Palestinian people and the forcible takeover of Arab land. This transition occurred with little awareness by the American people, except those of Arab ancestry and Muslim affiliation.

Throughout the years, America's national leaders acted as if they were oblivious of the violations of international law perpetrated against the Palestinians by every Israeli government since the creation of the Jewish state. With only two brief exceptions years ago when the U.S. government sold military aircraft to Saudi Arabia, Israel's lobby always got what it wanted.

After 9/11, lobby influence was nowhere more apparent than on Capitol Hill. Even as evidence of worldwide outrage against U.S. complicity with Israel's assault on the West Bank and Gaza mounted, a large majority of members of both the House of Representatives and the Senate remained beholden to AIPAC. They blocked any fair and open discussion of the U.S. national interest on Middle East policies, giving their allegiance on these issues to AIPAC, rather than to their home constituencies.

p351
Capitol Hill is truly Israeli-occupied territory.

p351
Capitol Hill is truly Israeli-occupied territory. Members of Congress are well informed about the true interests of the United States in the Middle East, but they are so intimidated they obey lobby direction [AIPAC]. Based on my long, intimate experience in the Capitol Hill legislative process, I believe that most of those who cast affirmative votes on the resolutions privately resented being pressured by AIPAC and were embarrassed by having to vote against U.S. interests. Scores of times over the years, I have sat in committee and in the chamber of the House of Representatives as my colleagues behaved, as an undersecretary of state once described them, like "trained poodles" jumping through hoops held for them by AIPAC.

p356
Why, in the wake of 9/11, did no one ponder the question "why?" Why did America and its leaders remain silent about Arab and Muslim grievances?

Perhaps it was partly, if not mostly, because Muslims are often considered "different," if not dangerous, by the general public-most of whom, I must add, have never knowingly met a Muslim or read a verse from the Qur'an. In research done for my book, Silent No More, I learned that Muslims were unfairly linked with terrorism long before 9/11. Misperceptions of Muslims as being less than human were nurtured by heavy television coverage of the suicide bombings in Israel that were carried out by individual Palestinian Muslims, while scenes of Palestinian suffering and death seldom reached American homes. Few Americans seemed aware that Palestinians had no weapons to defend themselves against heavily armed Israeli forces marauding through the West Bank and Gaza.

From its founding in 1948, Israel's government has treated Palestinians as inferior human beings that it was entitled to subjugate. Years ago, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir even denied that a Palestinian nationality existed. Her denial buttressed the fiction that Israel came into being in 1948 in "a land without people," a false notion that has been kept alive ever since in Israeli schoolbooks. Even the Palestinians, who can vote in Israeli elections, are set apart from Jewish citizens: Their cars display distinctive license plates. They are denied important social services. They have difficulty buying any real estate and, in effect, can live only in restricted residential areas. They are rarely able to secure construction and remodeling permits while Jews receive them without delay.

This process of colonial domination and intellectual brutality advanced the destruction of the Palestinian national identity in the perception of the American people: Palestinians are not viewed as human beings struggling for freedom; they are portrayed as anti-Jewish terrorists who hate freedom. Columbia University professor Edward Said, born in Palestine, called Israel's treatment of Palestinians "dehumanization on a vast scale." He added, "The intellectual suppression of the Palestinians that has occurred because of Zionist education has produced an unreflecting, dangerously skewed sense of reality in which whatever Israel does it does as a victim .... This has nothing to do with reality, obviously enough, but rather with a kind of hallucinatory state that overrides history and facts with a supreme unthinking narcissism."

p357
The U.S. media played a role in America's failure to explore and address Arab grievances. After 9/11, several television commentators rejected as "appeasement of terrorists" steps that would take Arab grievances into consideration. Their reasoning for this was the invariably uttered sound bite: "That is exactly what the terrorists want us to do." To the commentators, responding to legitimate grievances would be tantamount to caving in to the enemy. Except for a few dissenting voices, the misinformed American people seemed to agree.

p357
Any gesture of fairness to Arabs would be widely misconstrued as hostility toward Israel, and this, in turn, would lead to accusations of anti-Semitism. Speaking up for Arab rights could lead to all kinds of personal losses-businesses, friendships, even social standing. Almost everyone could find an excuse to stay quietly on the sidelines.

p362
James J. David of Marietta, Georgia, a brigadier general in the Georgia National Guard who had extensive experience in Middle East as a U.S. Army officer, in an article, October 2001

The cause of this terrorism [9-11] is our involvement in and support of the criminal behavior of the Israeli government. You can be certain that you will not hear this accusation from the controlled media, but nevertheless, let the truth be known .... The Palestinians and many of their Arab allies have been targets of a half-century of unrelenting Israeli terrorism .... Every Palestinian and Arab is aware that Israel's ... terror could never have occurred without the active financial, military, and diplomatic support of the United States. That is why the Arabs hate us, and that is why they are trying to strike back at us.

p363
James J. David of Marietta, Georgia, a brigadier general in the Georgia National Guard who had extensive experience in Middle East as a U.S. Army officer, in an article, January 2002

The United States' generous handouts to the Jewish state have done nothing but bring more turmoil and violence to the Middle East and to the soil of the United States. If America wants peace in the Middle East and is serious about fighting world terrorism, then it's time to get tough with Israel and end all military and economic aid to the Jewish state.

p363
William Pfaff, International Herald Tribune columnist, September 13, 2001

The only real defense against external attack is a courageous effort to find political solutions for national and ideological conflicts that involve the United States for more than thirty years, the United States has refused to make a genuinely impartial effort to find a resolution to the Mideast conflict. If current speculation about these attacks [9-11] is true, and they do indeed have their genesis in the Israeli-Palestinian struggle, the United States has now been awarded its share in that Middle East tragedy.

p363
Charley Reese, a syndicated columnist

I hope you don't believe the fairy tale that we were attacked because of our wealth or freedom... That is disinformation. We were attacked and will be attacked as long as we support Israel's aggression and occupation of other people and their lands. Personally, I am deeply angered that people I love might / die one day just because a bunch of politicians have their hands in the pockets of the Israeli lobby. That is a sordid, stupid, and useless reason for any American to die.

p364
Nurit Peled-Eichanan, Israeli lecturer and former Israel Knesset member

When you put people under border closure, when you humiliate, starve, and suppress them, when you raze their villages and demolish homes, when they grow up in garbage and in holding pens, that's what happens. Don't blame the extremist group Hamas. We are nurturing the Hamas by what we are doing.

p367
If the United States had refused partnership in Israel's crimes against the Palestinians and other Arabs, would Israel have been able to maintain its subjugation of the Palestinian people decade after decade? Any fair analysis would yield an answer in the negative. In the absence of unconditional U.S. support, Israel would have discarded its ambitions for "Greater Israel" and negotiated the terms of peaceful coexistence with its neighbors years ago.

Would America have suffered 9/11? My answer is no. All evidence that is available today points to 9/11 as being the crime of disaffected Arabs, mainly Saudis, led by Osama bin Laden. According to bin Laden, they were outraged by what he described as the corrupting influence of the United States on the Middle East, particularly its support of Israel's subjugation of Palestinian human rights. If these "corrupting influences" did not exist, and if the U.S. government had dealt with Israel in a normal, traditional way by demanding specific standards of conduct in exchange for U.S. aid, America, in effect, would have blocked Israel's illegal campaign of territorial aggrandizement and retained its great Arab reservoir of goodwill. Barring the absence of some anti-Arab blunder in U.S. policy, Arab terrorists would have no reason to attack the United States.

Of course, the United States government has not refused partnership with Israel. On the contrary, every president and every Congress over the years have reiterated loyal, unconditional support of Israel. These statements are usually cast as assurances of undying support for that nation's security, with no reference to the need of Palestinians for security. Those serving in Congress often publicly declare Israel's right to exist within secure borders, and they probably do so more frequently than they repeat the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States.

I have yet to hear any member of Congress declare the right of Palestinians to exist within secure borders.

p368
America's descent into intimate involvement in Israel's unlawful activities advanced step by step, beginning in 1967. The most basic, fundamental cause of this dreadful decline is the lobby's greatest success: the elimination of free, open, unfettered discussion in the United States about what U.S. policy in the Middle East should be. Israelis enjoy free, rigorous debate of Middle East policy in their parliament, media, and private life, but Israel's U.S. lobby has stifled all such debate in America for nearly forty years.

p369
With few exceptions, members of Congress, presidents, the nation's editorial writers, the ( clergy, and the nation's vast array of nongovernmental advocacy organizations have been afraid to speak out. I cannot recall any of the major \ political players in Washington even noting the absence of unfettered debate. They were afraid to challenge Israel or its U.S. lobby at any level / for fear of being called anti-Semitic. The operative word was fear.

p370
By supporting Israel unconditionally, America turned its back on long-cherished ideals and principles. As expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, all Americans are pledged to stand against bigotry and intolerance and for the rule of law, equal justice for all, and due process even for the most despicable people among us. Instead, year after year, our government has helped Israel violate each of these principles.

Israel watch

Home Page