The Iran deal

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Things may unravel but at least there is hope. Perhaps this is what is most threatening to Netanyahu. He has never been willing to test the Palestinians in a serious way — test their good faith, test ending the humiliations of the occupation, test from strength the power of justice and peace. He has preferred domination, preferred the Palestinians down and under pressure. Obama and Kerry have invited Netanyahu to think again — and not just about Iran. Nothing, to judge by the hyperventilating Israeli rhetoric, could be more disconcerting. Roger Cohen - New York Times

If a diplomatic solution to the Iran nuclear issue is blocked and war follows, Israel will be accused of dragging America into a conflict. But if Mr Netanyahu confronts the Obama administration through the US Congress – and loses – the fabled power of the Israel lobby may never be quite the same again. Gideon Rachman - Financial Times

High political drama is in the offing, it appears that the President of the United States has (with appropriate deviousness) lured Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu into a decisive political battle on a battlefield of the president's choosing; with world political opinion on Obama's side and the American people recently having firmly signaled the US Congress their strongest reluctance to any more military involvement in the Middle East.

Obama just might win this one.

At this point what I find most truly interesting about the Iran deal as how secretly it was worked up... and that the Israelis apparently were kept in the dark... This is leading to a direct conflict between the United States and Israel... If Obama loses this test of strength, nothing much will have changed, every US president who has ever confronted them directly, has been defeated by the AIPAC or had their careers ruined, (with the exception of Eisenhower, when he pinned their ears back during the Suez crisis), but if Obama wins, that victory will mark a sea change in American politics. DS

Netanyahu's target is Obama, not Iran

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It cannot be denied that the Holocaust theme has served Netanyahu well politically. As many commentators have pointed out, Netanyahu has succeeded in reframing political discourse on the Middle East: this visit to the U.S. was the first in a long time in which the Palestinian issue was completely off the table. Nobody even raised the question of settlement construction or the old question how to bring Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiation table. Instead of being on the defensive on the Palestinian issue, Netanyahu is now on the offensive on Iran. By invoking the allied power’s failure to disrupt the Nazis sending millions to concentration camps in 1944, he is reminding the Free World of a horrible mistake, and demanding that this mistake not be repeated. Carlo Strenger - Haaretz

Observing Netanyahu's continuous invocation of the Holocaust and the imminent threat of Iran annihilating the Jewish people, it is passing curious to note that much of the most qualified Israeli military and intelligence community is openly against attacking Iran and neither are most Israelis.

Most Israelis believe that if the United States does not attack Iran's nuclear facilities, Israel must no try to do so alone, according to a Haaretz poll.

This lack of enthusiasm by informed Israelis and the Israeli street at such a moment of declared existential threat,  makes me suspect that Iran is not really Bibi's true objective, that is to say, this hysterical lead up to war is merely a tactical "feint" to distract world attention from his true strategic objective.

I believe that the prime strategic objective of Netanyahu, and the hard Israeli right wing that he represents, is to prevent, at any cost, the  final delimitation of Israel's borders. Because any "two state" solution of the Palestinian problem, however modest and fudged it might be, would create a Palestinian state in "Judea" and "Samaria", whose boundaries would be sanctioned by the United Nations. This would mean kissing goodbye, or putting on ice, any hope of finally creating the ultra-right dream of "Greater Israel".

What is Greater Israel? Lets look at this map from Wikipedia Commons:

"Greater Israel" - Wikipedia Commons

As you can see from the map or from the Wikipedia article, we are talking here about "Biblical" Israel.

The Bible contains three geographical definitions of the Land of Israel. The first, found in Genesis 15:18-21, is vague. It describes a large territory, "from the brook of Egypt to the Euphrates", comprising all of modern-day Israel, the Palestinian Territories, and Lebanon, as well as large parts of Syria, Jordan, and Egypt. The proportion of current Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey included in this territory is debatable. The other two definitions are found in Numbers 34:1-15 and Ezekiel 47:13-20 and describe a smaller territory

Now, polls usually show that most Israelis would accept, perhaps welcome, a two state solution, based on the 1967 frontiers, with "minor adjustments"(the devil being in the details). That being so, it isn't difficult to see that a lot of the pressure to keep a settlement of the Palestinian problem from being solved is coming from outside Israel. In fact, much of the sound and fury is coming from right wing, American, Jewish people, who are doubly adamant supporters, having, as many Israelis note, no actual skin in the game. This reminds me of how rich Irish-Americans used to raise money to finance and arm the IRA.

A prime example of this group of "more Zionist than thou" Americans would be casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who someone no less than George W. Bush, described as a "crazy Jewish billionaire". Adelson, the third richest man in the USA, who according to The New Yorker, "is fiercely opposed to a two-state solution", is bankrolling the campaign of Newt Gingrich to the tune of millions upon millions of dollars, in order to have him describe the Palestinians as an "invented people". Gingrich is not going to be the Republican candidate, but he is setting the tone: no Republican would like to appear less pro-Israel than Newt Gingrich in an election year, all of them are accusing Obama of selling out Israel. With Netanyahu feeding the hysteria these attacks and calls for war with Iran, will become even more shrill.

Well, obviously the President of the United States, today Barack Obama, is going to come into any issue touching foreign affairs, but why would the Israel Lobby and Netanyahu have any beef with such a malleable pragmatist as Barack Obama, someone who is easily as adept as any other American politician in swearing eternal fealty to Israel?

The first reason is that he is on track to win a second and final term as president.

The first two years of any US president's second term of office is famously/notoriously the only time when he is free to lead, or get anything important done. In his first term, he spends four years running for reelection and during the last two years of a hypothetical second term he is considered a "lame duck" who becomes daily more irrelevant as the excruciatingly, interminable American presidential cycle kicks in once more and begins to dilute and drain out his power and relevance. The sixth and seventh year of a US presidency are the dangerous years, this is when a president might actually do something in the genuine public interest. Some of these people even begin to think about their "legacy", like an aging lady of the evening who begins going to church, presidents suddenly aspire to virtue... Very dangerous that legacy stuff.

So from the point of anyone who influences politics by funding politician's election campaigns, first term presidents are to be greatly preferred to second term presidents. Obvious, right? So Obama, despite all his professed love for Israel, has that against him from get-go this year.

This takes us back to the Middle East and the second reason for trying to derail Obama.

As you may have noticed the Middle East is on the boil, and how to stabilize the most important oil and gas producing region on earth is a  priority for everybody, everywhere, now, with the world economy teetering on the brink of a great depression. 

After, supporting tyrannical Arab regimes for decades, invading Iraq and botching up the occupation and never missing a chance to kowtow to the Israelis, America's credibility at present is as low as a snake's abdomen. Except for killing people and blowing things up, nobody is expecting much from the USA these days in the Middle East.

There is one thing that has worldwide support and universal approval,  something, which would at least give the USA a minimum of credibility and that something would be to finally "solve" the Palestinian problem and give them a state of their own... and the six and seventh year of a second term American president would make that something look doable

Now cynics among you will point out that all the versions of that proposed state that the USA has ever put forward added up to miserable little unarmed bantustans cut up by Israeli security roads, without control over the water under them and without sovereignty over the airspace above them... And I doubt if even the most "liberated" version of Barack Obama would ask for much more than that. And even something that mild and decaffeinated would probably justify his heretofore absurd Nobel Peace Prize and refurbish his tattered image as "The One".

Why should this be such a huge problem?

Because, even such a pitiful, Swiss cheese, scrap of a state would finally and unambiguously establish the frontiers of Israel and put paid to the dream of Eretz Yisrael Ha-Shlema  (greater Israel).

And in my humble opinion, it is the fear of that, and not the fear of a nuclear Holocaust that is behind Netanyahu's hysterical push toward war. He is trying to create a damned if you do and damned if you don't scenario for Barack Obama to see if he can derail his reelection and get himself another first term president to manipulate at will. DS

The Arab Spring, Israel, the dollar and gasoline: "Horror on K-Street"

Arm wrestling?

In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.(...) Iran announced late last month that its foreign currency reserves would henceforth be held in euros rather than dollars. Bankers remember, of course, what happened to the last Middle East oil producer to sell its oil in euros rather than dollars. A few months after Saddam Hussein trumpeted his decision, the Americans and British invaded Iraq.  Robert Fisk - Independent

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The US dollar is not in good shape, the sharpest speculators like Soro's old sidekick Jim Rodgers or Pimco's Bill Gross call the US currency "debased" and are unloading them as fast as they can.  Oil producing countries are especially "long" on dollars, as dollars are the only currency in which oil is traded. The United States has dominated the world's access to the world's most important center of oil production, the Middle East,  since World War II, and just as much or more than its military might the US dollar has defined that domination.

It might not be an exaggeration to say that with America's humongous debt and overextended military, having the world's most essential commodity, oil, bought and sold in dollars, of which the United States can print as many as it likes, is the most important remaining pillar of America's imperial status. As it stands, any country that wants to buy oil has to change their currency into dollars to do so...  If the USA had to change dollars to another currency in order to buy oil, it might find itself in a similar situation to the emperor whose new clothes turned out to be his birthday suit.

Cutting to the chase: If this happened Americans might find themselves facing Wiemar-like inflation. It is not very difficult to predict that if Americans cannot afford gasoline to go to and from work,supposing they still have work to go to,  that they will vote out of office anyone who happens to be occupying the White House at  the time. This sort of thing will concentrate a president's mind wonderfully... Even if he finds himself helpless to do anything about it.

Now we are faced with what is called the "Arab Spring".

Before we go on much further talking about said "spring", let us see what the word "spring" means... as you can see below it means almost anything you'd like it to mean. Have a look, take your time:

spring  (sprng)
v. sprang (sprng) or sprung (sprng), sprung, spring·ing, springs
v.intr.
1. To move upward or forward in a single quick motion or a series of such motions; leap.
2. To move suddenly on or as if on a spring: The door sprang shut. The emergency room team sprang into action.
3. To appear or come into being quickly: New businesses were springing up rapidly. See Synonyms at stem1.
4. To issue or emerge suddenly: A cry sprang from her lips. A thought springs to mind.
5. To extend or curve upward, as an arch.
6. To arise from a source; develop.
7. To become warped, split, or cracked. Used of wood.
8. To move out of place; come loose, as parts of a mechanism.
9. Slang To pay another's expenses: He offered to spring for the dinner.
v.tr.
1. To cause to leap, dart, or come forth suddenly.
2. To jump over; vault.
3. To release from a checked or inoperative position; actuate: spring a trap.
4.
a. To cause to warp, split, or crack, as a mast.
b. To bend by force.
5. To present or disclose unexpectedly or suddenly: "He sprung on the world this novel approach to political journalism" (Curtis Wilkie).
6. Slang To cause to be released from prison or other confinement.
n.
1. An elastic device, such as a coil of wire, that regains its original shape after being compressed or extended.
2. An actuating force or factor; a motive.
3.
a. Elasticity; resilience.
b. Energetic bounce: a spring to one's step.
4. The act or an instance of jumping or leaping.
5. A usually rapid return to normal shape after removal of stress; recoil.
6. A small stream of water flowing naturally from the earth.
7. A source, origin, or beginning.
8.
a. The season of the year, occurring between winter and summer, during which the weather becomes warmer and plants revive, extending in the Northern Hemisphere from the vernal equinox to the summer solstice and popularly considered to comprise March, April, and May.
b. A time of growth and renewal.
9. A warping, bending, or cracking, as that caused by excessive force.
10. Architecture The point at which an arch or vault rises from its support.
adj.
1. Of or acting like a spring; resilient.
2. Having or supported by springs: a spring mattress.
3.
a. Of, relating to, occurring in, or appropriate to the season of spring: spring showers; spring planting.
b. Grown during the season of spring: spring crops.
The Free Dictionary

Perhaps the most relevant definition as far as America's future role in the "new" Middle East is concerned would be definition number eight in the above verb list: "To move out of place; come loose, as parts of a mechanism." 

That "coming loose",  is really what is happening: America's foreign policy in the Middle East, elaborated over decades, is being destabilized and deconstructed and it is extremely doubtful that new governments resulting from this destabilization will be more ductile and cooperative in complying with American designs than the security states they replace.  Instead of its shining moral and democratic example, it may be the weakening of America's power grip that is helping to drive event in the Middle East.  

In short, the weakness of the dollar, military weariness, and America's mountainous debt, more than its love of democracy, are what the US brings to the "Arab Spring". 

And now in a "perfect storm" of American domestic politics, the future price of gasoline meets the Israel lobby, a film that might be entitled "Horror on K-Street".

The crunch for the USA in the Middle East comes in September, when the UN General Assembly -- where the US has no veto -- is set to recognize Palestine as an independent, sovereign state, whose frontiers will be those of 1967 and whose capital will be Jerusalem. This will mean that 1/2 million Israelis will be illegally occupying the territory of a UN member state and this will convert Israel into an instant "pariah state". The US and Israel will naturally vote against this and as it stacks up today they will be accompanied by the likes of Guatemala, Tonga and Vanuatu... a disaster... even Britain and France are set to vote for the recognition of a Palestinian state. 

Everybody, everywhere would like a peaceful and quiet Middle East, where the oil flows freely like the biblical milk and honey and the Palestine question is a major obstacle to this, because it has become perfectly obvious that Israel is only using the "Peace Process" to kill time while they carve up and colonize the occupied (sorry, "disputed") territories bit by bit... "creating facts" they call it... "one hill at a time"... it has been going on since before WWI and it is obvious that the USA is unable to make them stop. Seeing the tail so blatantly wagging the dog gives the new Arab democracies little motivation to go against their public opinion and cut the US any slack at all. The USA is not seen to holding any solutions for the problems of the Middle East, neither those of the new democracies, nor those of the remaining autocracies (read Saudi Arabia) but rather part of the problem.

Oil even more than money makes the world go round. For most of the world the choice between cheap oil and Israel is a no-brainer, but the American political system is paralyzed by its myriad lobbies and political action committees, like the NRA or AARP or in this case, the  American Israel Political Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

AIPAC works tirelessly to insure that American's notorious love of cheap gasoline doesn't trump their legendary. love of Israel. Unfortunately for Israel there is no such thing as a CHIPAC (China Israel Public Affairs Committee) or much less a BRICIPAC or a even a European EUIPAC so Obama is left holding the bag. If one day the President of the United States announces that the frontiers of any Palestinian state will be the frontiers of 1967, the next day he has to back down.

So that is the lay of the land: oil may be sold in a basket of currencies, which will mean a dollar in free fall, which will mean the end of "happy motoring" and Israel will have become a pariah state in a sea of hostile new democracies, mostly because the American political system is terminally paralyzed. DS

What Obama could learn from Bush

Why is this woman always laughing so hilariously?

I never thought I'd write the following words, but is it possible that Obama's handling of the I-P peace process might actually end up being worse than George Bush's?  Stephen M. Walt

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In his blog in Foreign Policy magazine, one of the sharpest critics of George W. Bush's policies in the Middle East, Stephen M. Walt, linked to a pair of devastatingly critical attacks on President Obama's treatment of the Israel/Palestine conflict by Tony Karon of Time magazine and by Robert Dreyfuss of The Nation.

Tony Karon summed up the general drift of both articles with this phrase:

The Obama Administration's bid to relaunch an Israeli-Palestinian peace process is falling apart faster than you can say settlement freeze — in no small part because President Barack Obama began his effort by saying settlement freeze.

And as we read in his quote above, Walt then compares Obama's handling of the Middle East unfavorably with Bush's.

And this brings me to the title of my post: "What Obama could learn from Bush".

We could sum up George W. Bush's policy in the Middle East succinctly as, to let the Israelis do anything they wanted, no matter how outrageous and give them all the military aid they ever requested and give them diplomatic cover in the UN or any other international body wherever their behavior might be questioned, at the same time putting them off from carrying out a catastrophic attack on Iran... all the while wrapping this mishgoss up in a mixture of the language of Wilsonian democracy and the Book of Revelations.

What did he achieve by this?

Basically he kept AIPAC off his back and this allowed him to pursue his main goals without being disturbed.

What were those goals, if to the public eye everything he and his administration ever did reeked of failure?

Here we enter the perilous jungle of politic-fiction and have to speculate without access to any inside information.

In my experience the most valuable guides in doing so are, first, Ockham's Razor plus Sherlock Homes's rough and ready dictum of eliminating the impossible and whatever you see left... is what you get.

Using this method, I begin with a risky hypothesis: George W. Bush is not as stupid as he looks. Which I then follow with a simple observation of fact: Richard Cheney neither looks stupid nor is rumored to be stupid.

From there I make a huge leap toward a totally libelous and unprovable (for the moment) supposition: That they were both in it for the money.

Imagine for a moment that both Bush and Cheney received a commission of 0.3 percent in some numbered offshore bank account for every discretionary contract they awarded for the reconstruction of Iraq. That would add up to a pretty penny and suddenly everything we have lived through since 9-11 would make more sense. What to everyone else would appear a total failure would in fact be a huge -- if private -- success.

Now, I don't think for a moment that Obama is on the take, so what can he learn from Bush?

Bush's lesson, if my wacky, just for the sake of argument, hypothesis is correct, is that to succeed you have to keep your eye on the main chance and establish priorities so that all your projects don't start bumping into each other in the dark.

By giving Israel and AIPAC everything they wanted Bush was able to secure their support or indifference on a raft of domestic issues. It always seemed strange to me that despite his total incompetent bumbling he endured relatively little pressure until the economy tanked.

That is the lesson.

Bush learned it from his dad, who always believed that his attempt at a settlement freeze is what cost him his reelection, despite having won a war and with the economy recovering.

It goes like this:

To succeed in freezing the settlements you have to confront AIPAC, to confront AIPAC, you have to be so popular, so powerful that you can frighten the senators and congressmen more than AIPAC does and so popular that you can drown out AIPAC's echochamber, Rupert Murdoch's Fox, which is what empowers the AstroTurf, teabagger-type, movements, that somehow spring up so spontaneously.

So Obama has gotten it all backwards. First he should have, left the Israelis alone while he passed health legislation and reined in Wall Street and reactivated Main Street and got people jobs and then with his popularity soaring, he might have had some chance of winning a fight with AIPAC.

Now, as it is, just to survive politically, just to have any chance of second term, he finally may have to let the Israelis invade Lebanon and Gaza again this spring to prepare the ground for a full scale war with Iran this coming summer. Make no mistake Iran is the big one and Obama's power to control  the situation and avoid a catastrophe is weakening by the moment. DS

The elephant in the room

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I have written reams about America and Israel's tragic folie à deux, which is slowly destroying the political health of the USA and may end up literally destroying Israel.

The other day I ran across the video I am showing above these lines.

It is a Dutch TV documentary about "The America, Israel, Public Affairs, Committee" (AIPAC). There is a running commentary in the Dutch language, but since in this version there are English subtitles of the Dutch commentary, and all of those interviewed are speaking in English, it is like watching a normal American "in depth" news piece.

This documentary is about the most succinct and balanced exposition of the whole question that I have yet seen.

What is amazing is that something as balanced as this would be impossible to see in the USA.

Americans are always saying, "it's a free country", but believe me, I have experienced a very serious dictatorship (Franco's) and at least on the subject of the relations between Israel and the United States, America is in no way, "a free country".

I think with oil at $146 (today), that if Israel attacks Iran or if the United States attacks Iran at the behest of Israel and if that attack and the ensuing conflict pushes oil over $200 and that in turn brings on something bigger than just a normal recession, then there is going to be terrible social-cultural backlash against those responsible and that in turn will rend America's social fabric to shreds.

The knock on effects of such a backlash are difficult to imagine, but they would surely take the United States over some kind of edge and into a fall from grace and innocence from which it would never recover, because somehow, as the Dutch film explains very well, since the 1970s America and Israel have become of one flesh, joined at the hip. I have even compared the relationship of The USA and Israel to that of Sinbad the Sailor and the Old Man of the Sea.

If you find the film as interesting as I do, I suggest passing the link along.

Here is the YouTube link. DS

Al Naqba-lite

Arab leaders and commentators reacted with anger and disbelief at Obama's speech -- the worst thing to happen to us since the 1967 Six-Day War (in which they lost the West Bank and East Jerusalem to Israel), said Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator. Arnaud de Borchgrave - UPI

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The coming years ahead are going to be fraught with danger.

The possibility of an economic crisis rivaling the 1930s and wars of every type, in every clime loom before us.

Whatever the American dream is or ever was, in the near future it will have to "split the difference" with the "Chinese Dream"... whatever that might be.

Steadiness and predictability become cardinal virtues in the midst of such poisonous complexity.

I think the last thing that America and the world need at this moment is a content-free, US president-lite, bereft of principals or experience.

That he might also be "charismatic" would make it even worse: in fact much, much, worse...

Can you imagine how much worse it would have been if George Bush, besides being incompetent, had also been "charismatic"?

Many people in America and around the world are projecting their hopes and dreams on Barack Obama... his AIPAC performance proves that those hopes and dreams are misplaced. DS

Sandy Tolan: "Undivided" Allegiance: The Meaning of Obama's AIPAC Moment - Huffington Post Abstract: Obama's AIPAC speech sent shock waves throughout much of the Arab World, where the prospect of an African-American president with a rich international background seemed, to them, to promise a more balanced U.S. policy in the Middle East. "A slap in the face," said the Kuwaiti paper al-Watan. "An oath of allegiance by the U.S. presidency to AIPAC," declared the Lebanese opposition paper, Al-Safir. Others downplayed the remark, believing that any Democratic administration will be an improvement over eight years of Bush policy. Former Palestinian labor secretary Ghassan Khatib said Obama's speech "stressed more that anything else his intention to engage, which is the most important need." And Obama, a day after the speech, attempted to soften his remarks, saying, "Obviously it's going to be up to the parties to negotiate a range of these issues. And Jerusalem will be part of those negotiations." Yet he added that Israel has a "legitimate claim" to all of Jerusalem, a comment which will do little to tamp down Arab anxieties. Why, then, would Obama, with all the expectation of a more even-handed presidency, and the promise to help repair the U.S.'s shredded image in the Arab and Muslim worlds, seek, in the words of Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, to be "more Israeli than the Israelis"? Part of the answer may boil down to crude electoral politics, especially in Florida, where Obama's strategists seem to be calculating that the five percent of Jewish voters there could swing the entire election for the Democrats. But in deeper ways, Obama seems to be running as fast as he can from the friendships and affinities he has developed and expressed for Arabs in the past, including his statement in Iowa early in the campaign that "no one is suffering more than the Palestinians." The senator's AIPAC "corrective" is an effort -- stay tuned for more -- to be less like the "other," and more like "us." But are "we" truly so narrow-minded as to reject the aspirations of all such "others", or to ever consider their hopes and dreams? Apparently, Obama, tacking right, thinks the answer is yes. READ IT ALL

Obama commits to eternal war

Any agreement with the Palestinian people must preserve Israel's identity as a Jewish state, with secure, recognized and defensible borders. Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided," he said. (emphasis mine)

Israel calls the city its undivided and eternal capital, but this status has never been recognized internationally. Palestinians want East Jerusalem, captured by Israel at war in 1967, for a future capital." Barack Obama, speaking to AIPAC, June, 4th, 2008 - Reuters

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First things first.

No Palestinian leader is ever going to sign any agreement giving an "undivided" Jerusalem to Israel, because if he did so he would be signing his own death sentence. Not only would no Palestinian ever accept it, no Muslim anywhere in the world would ever accept it either.

That means that with Barack Obama as president there is no hope for peace in the Middle East. Absolutely that simple.

One thing is to guarantee Israel's existence or threaten Iran with sanctions or even attack, and quite another is to commit the United States to a policy which mortally offends every Muslim in the world... forever and ever, amen.

By choosing to award a holy city disputed by two religions exclusively to one of the religions, Barack Obama, having no other legitimacy to make that gift than America's military force, is committing the United States of America to a role in a religious war, as a belligerent in that war. By making this commitment, Barack Obama is literally declaring jihad against Islam... forever and ever, amen.

Doing this legitimizes Islamic radicals and terrorists everywhere... forever and ever, amen.

By endorsing this position, which is totally outside international law, Barack Obama has forfeited any credibility he might have ever had to provide a new direction to American foreign policy. DS

AIPAC day in Washington

It was Christmas Day in the harem,

The eunuchs were all standing round,

With dozens of naked women

All scattered on the ground;

When in came the mighty Sultan

To gaze at his marble halls.

He said: "What do you want for Christmas lads?"

And the eunuchs they all shouted:

"TIDINGS OF COMFORT AND JOY..."

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It was AIPAC day in Washington and all the candidates were standing round...

Rather than rant on tiresomely, I thought I would just collage the whole thing. DS

Jewish Telegraph Agency
As 5,000 AIPAC activists ascend Capitol Hill this week, they will be pushing a multifaceted agenda with a clear bottom line: It's the sanctions, stupid.

Some new wrinkles in the lobbying blitz that traditionally follows the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee policy forum deal with the role of Arab nations in advancing Israel-Arab peace and with securing a pledged increase in U.S. assistance to Israel.(....)After two days of sessions heavily weighted toward considering the possibility of a nuclear threat, 5,000 of the 7,000 activists will head to 500 meetings on the Hill armed with talking points for a bill that has languished in the U.S. Senate since it passed overwhelmingly in the House of Representatives last year.

The Iran Counter Proliferation Act would expand existing sanctions by hitting companies and nations that deal with Iran's energy sector. It also would cut off Iran entirely from the U.S. finance system.

Bolstering that bill is a nonbinding resolution put forward last week by U.S. Reps. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.) and Mike Pence (R-Ind.). The resolution urges President Bush to immediately impose some of the sanctions in the Counter Proliferation Act and adds the new proposal: cut off the export of refined petroleum to Iran.

"Despite sitting on some of the largest oil reserves in the world, Iran has been forced to import 40 percent of its refined petroleum -- gasoline and diesel -- because of a lack of investment in its oil refining infrastructure," states the memo prepared for AIPAC activists. "Limiting Iran’s ability to import gasoline will severely impact Iran’s economy and could lead to dramatically greater domestic pressure on the regime to change course."

The language of the congressional resolution is sensitive to the political realities of a presidential campaign that has made the possibility of war against Iran a partisan issue: It explicitly counts out military action -- a point hammered home in the AIPAC talking points.

Asia Times
It has become relatively fashionable for some members of the Israeli lobby to deny any involvement in the build-up towards the war on Iraq. But few remember what AIPAC executive director Howard Kohr told the New York Sun in January 2003: "Quietly lobbying Congress to approve the use of force in Iraq was one of AIPAC's successes over the past year."

And in a New Yorker profile of Steven Rosen, AIPAC's policy director during the run-up to the war on Iraqi, it was stated that "AIPAC lobbied Congress in favor of the Iraqi war".

Compare it with a 2007 Gallup study based on 13 different polls, according to which 77% of American Jews were opposed to the Iraq war, compared to 52% of Americans.

The Forward
The Arizona senator received a standing ovation when he blasted Obama for not supporting a Senate resolution demanding the designation of Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terror group.(...) On the issue of the Iraq war, McCain made an attempt to present the current situation in relation to Israel’s security, arguing that Obama’s call for a gradual troop reduction would cause a “catastrophe” that would “profoundly affect the security of the United States, Israel and our other friends.”

McCain’s reference to the possible danger a withdrawal would pose to Israel was greeted with applause from the audience. A similar case was made last year at the Aipac conference by both Vice President Dick Cheney and by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Aipac’s annual policy conference, which is traditionally one of Washington’s biggest political events, is attracting even more media attention this year, due to the expected appearance of all three presidential candidates.

Wall Street Journal
Both Republicans and Democrats view Jewish-Americans as key swing voters in the presidential election. Jewish-Americans have leaned toward Democrats due to their liberal stances on domestic issues, such as abortion and immigration. But Sen. McCain's backers believe their candidate's hard-line approach to securing Israel could cause some Jewish-Americans to cross party lines.

The strategy to woo Jewish voters could be crucial in Florida, according to Adam Hasner, the majority leader in the state's House of Representatives, who is leading the McCain campaign's Jewish outreach there.

Joschka Fischer, Beirut Star
Although it is acknowledged in Israel that an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would involve grave and hard-to-assess risks, the choice between acceptance of an Iranian bomb and an attempt at its military destruction, with all the attendant consequences, is clear. Israel won't stand by and wait for matters to take their course.

Arnaud De Borchgrave, Middle East Times
The Israeli air force has fine-tuned aerial bombardments of Iran's key nuclear facilities. But these number at least 27 that are widely scattered, and built underground close to population centers. Iran would then assume that such an operation could not take place without a green light from the White House. And the mullahs' formidable retaliatory capabilities with asymmetric warfare would then target the United States and its Persian Gulf allies. Oil at $400 wouldn't take long.

Nouriel Roubini
The Bush administration whose hands have been tied by the new National Intelligence Estimate (that argued that Iran had suspended its program of development of nuclear weapons) would thus be able to strike Iran – via Israel - before the end of its term. Such October surprise by Israel would also certainly lead to the election of McCain and defeat of Obama as a national security crisis of such an extent would doom the chances of Democrats to win the White House. So both Israel – that prefers McCain to Obama and is hurried to act as it is wary of the constraints that an Obama presidency may put on its ability to act against Iran – and the Bush administration would guarantee the election of McCain.

Now, it is not certain – as argued by Fischer – that Israel will strike that early; this is just a guess and a prediction by one observer even if many others think likewise. But if such action were to be taken by Israel the consequences outlined above would be the clear outcome: a major global recession, wars throughout the Middle East (Iran, Iraq, Gaza, Lebanon, Israel, etc.) and a major increase in geopolitical instability.

The Fifth Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor
When I was a little advanced into the island, I saw an old man who appeared very weak and feeble. He sat upon the bank of a stream, and at first I took him to be one who had been shipwrecked like myself. I went towards him and saluted him, but he only bowed his head a little. I asked him what he did there, but instead of answering he made a sign for me to take him upon my back and carry him over the brook, signifying that it was to gather fruit.

I believed him really to stand in need of my help, so took him upon my back, and having carried him over, bade him get down, and for that end stooped that he might get off with ease: but instead of that (which I laugh at every time I think of it), the old man, who to me had appeared very decrepit, clasped his legs nimbly about my neck, and then I perceived his skin to resemble that of a cow. He sat astride upon my shoulders, and held my throat so tight that I thought he would have strangled me, the fright of which made me faint away and fall down.

Notwithstanding my fainting, the ill-natured old fellow kept fast about my neck, but opened his legs a little to give me time to recover my breath. When I had done so, he thrust one of his feet against my stomach, and struck me so rudely on the side with the other, that he forced me to rise up against my will. Having got up, he made me walk under the trees, and forced me now and then to stop, to gather and eat fruit such as we found. He never left me all day, and when I lay down to rest by night, he laid himself down with me, always holding fast about my neck. Every morning he pushed me to make me wake, and afterwards obliged me to get up and walk, and pressed me with his feet. You may judge then what trouble I was in, to be loaded with such a burden as I could by no means rid myself of.

For the lack of CHIPAC

Chinese kosher takeout in Jerusalem

Roger Cohen writes in the New York Times
It’s the end of the era of the white man.(...) The West’s moment, I thought, is passing. Money and might are increasingly elsewhere. America’s little dose of socialism from Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson might stave off the worst but cannot halt the trend.(...) Asian statistics can be numbing. With one third of humanity, the numbers get big. There are now 450 million cell phones in China.(...) By 2030, India will probably overtake Japan as the world’s third-largest economy behind the United States and China. (...) What you feel in Asia, said Claude Smadja, a prominent global strategist, is “a burst of energy, of new dreams, and the end of the era of Western domination and the white man.”(...) Everything passes. In the 17th century, China and India accounted for more than half the world’s economic output. After a modest interlude, the pendulum is swinging back to them at a speed the West has not grasped. It’s the end of the era of the white man; and, before it even began in earnest, of the white woman, too.

David Seaton's News Links
The US presidential campaign drags on, taking on more of an "out of body", purgatorial aspect daily: casting a drugged, dreamlike, veil of censorship over the discussion of America's role in the world. A discussion which the Bush presidency had heretofore so productively stimulated.

Most affected and surrounded by taboos at presidential campaigning time is, of course, the Middle East and the relationship between Israel and the USA. Mearsheimer and Walt, Jimmy Carter, James Baker and even hapless Zbigniew Brzezinski have all become as radioactive as the Reverend Wright... Joe Lieberman doesn't let "maverick" John McCain out of his sight.

The relationship with Israel and its effect on America's role in the world is a forbidden topic which has to treated gingerly and tiptoed around with euphemisms like "neocon", which is a little like a circus veterinarian having to speak elliptically of elephants: "can I say large? oops, did I say large?".

Anyone who is interested in this relationship will find no more interesting reading than in one of web's better blogs, "Mondo Weiss", by Philip Weiss, essential daily reading for anyone with a finger on the pulse of America's zeitgeist. The relationship is in crisis whether it can be spoken about or not. Because, as Roger Cohen writes in the New York Times, this is the end of the era of the white man.

In the end, the rise of China will settle the Middle East.

It probably won't be to the Israeli's satisfaction, because the eventual existence of a China Israel Public Action Committee or "CHIPAC" is doubtful.

The invasion and occupation of Iraq was supposed to set in motion a domino effect which would lead to new democratic regimes in Iran and the Arab world that would recognize the state of Israel. Instead it has only hastened the decline of American influence there and around the world. Among the beneficiaries of this decline are the Chinese and among the biggest losers are certainly the Israelis who have bet all their chips on American hegemony and their ability to manage it.

The only possible interest that the Chinese have in the Middle East is regional stability and a steady flow of oil without political risk. The only thing the Chinese want from the Israelis, military electronics, the US won't let them buy. What do they care about Israel? China is the ultimate obstacle to neocolonial "values-based, gunboat diplomacy"; the giant defender of the Treaty of Westphalia. A treaty that ended a war without end.

Probably a lot of Israel's present behavior is explained by the hysteria-producing feeling that this is the "last dance": the "last days" of the White Man's Burden. The feeling of having made flesh the slogan for Sam Peckinpah's classic western, "The Wild Bunch"... "they came too late, they stayed too long."

In a few years the Israelis simply won't have the same levers of power in their hands they do today and they will be forced to make what Ariel Sharon called "painful concessions", only a bit more painful than Sharon ever dreamed (dreams?).

This is not a plot or a conspiracy, it is simply that the world is not longer a white soliloquy. What was abnormal was that China wasn't a central player in world affairs. The "Judeo-Christian" canon is no longer the universal instruction book.

Israel, a tiny country without raw materials for China's industry, with its eternal distortion of the Middle East and its interference in internal American politics, is nothing more than a pain in the ass to the Chinese. The Chinese aren't antisemites, one round eyed "foreign devil" is probably much the same as another to the inhabitants of the Kingdom of the Center. China certainly cannot be shamed by our demons either.

If anything were ever in America's interest it is to have peaceful relations with China. The people you step on going up are the people you meet on your way down. However there are countless Hollywood stars and a multitude of pundits and politicians of both parties that are eager to confront China at every turn: it is certainly bi-partisan, stretching from Madelene Albright in the Democrats to the Republican neocons. Both Obama and McCain want to increase the size of America's ground forces. All of them seem eager to involve the United States in dozens of Wilsonian armed goose chases around the globe. it reminds me of the famous riddle, "how do you hide a circus elephant on 5th Avenue?". The answer is, of course, "in a parade of circus elephants". DS

Armenia outs AIPAC

David Seaton's News Links

One of the most interesting things that comes out of the Armenian vote is that it is now obvious that AIPAC is NOT repeat NOT an Israel lobby. AIPAC is not even really a Jewish lobby, it's an AIPAC lobby. It exists for it's own promotion, Israel is merely a pretext, not an end in itself.

Israel is the last country in the world that wants problems with Turkey. You could say that in the long run Israel's survival in the Middle East depends more on Turkey than on the USA.

If AIPAC had really put Israel first they would have used their influence to block the resolution, but they didn't do it because that would have put a major dent in their Holocaust shakedown. So this affair at least has the merit of showing us everybody's true colors.

In a sort of perverse way the Armenian resolution has put to rest the "double loyalty" accusation. AIPAC's loyalty is only to AIPAC, not to Israel. For AIPAC Israel is simply another instrument in its moral-blackmail toolbox, to be sacrificed to "higher" interests whenever necessary. All you can say to the Israelis is mazel tov, with friends like these...

After this rant.

JUST FOR THE RECORD:
One thing I'd like to make clear is that I don't begrudge in any way the success that Jewish people enjoy in the USA. I am not worried at all about the influence that such an industrious minority has carved out for themselves. Nor do I think it abnormal that they feel concern for Israel. I have Irish-American relatives that used to pass the hat for the IRA. Rather I am worried about my own tribe.

Mine is a tribe that once produced, in no particular order, Emerson, Melville, Edison, Ford, Graham Bell, Mencken, Carnegie, Jefferson, Franklin, Thoreau, Whitman, William and Henry James, John Dewey, Oliver Wendell Holmes jr., Lincoln, Roosevelt, Hemingway and John Ford to name just a few. Now about all we can cough up is a parasitic geek like Bill Gates.What has happened to my tribe? Is it something "they" put in the hamburgers?

I am grateful to America's Jews for taking up the slack and filling the vacuum produced by the decadence of my tribe. Without its Jews, the United States would be like an obese version of Australia. The problem is with America's institutions, not the with the people who game them. There is a humorous Spanish saying, "contra el vicio de pedir está la virtud de no dar", "against the sin of begging, is the virtue of not giving". Or as Nancy Reagan has it, "just say no". DS

The Soros antenna

David Seaton's News Links

George Soros has one of the world's most highly developed senses of where things are going to be in the future. Whether those things are currency futures or political ideas, his antenna are legendary.

The right wing advocates of "Greater Israel" that make up the back bone of AIPAC, themselves a minority of a minority, are driving Israel off a cliff and pulling the United States after it. As the disaster deepens this could have a devastating effect on America's vibrant Jewish community, something that in turn would have a devastating effect on American society in general. This is what I think Soros's antenna are picking up.

As rich as any of the AIPAC core members, he is a formidable opponent not to be trifled with and, along with former president Jimmy Carter and professors Mearsheimer and Walt, he is helping to make a frank conversation about US/Israeli relations possible. DS

Soros adds voice to debate over Israel lobby - Reuters
Abstract: The billionaire investor George Soros has added his voice to a heated but little-noticed debate over the role of Israel's powerful lobby in shaping Washington policy in a way critics say hurts U.S. national interests and stifles debate. In the current issue of the New York Review of Books, Soros takes issue with "the pervasive influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)" in Washington and says the Bush administration's close ties with Israel are obstacles to a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. Soros, who is Jewish but not often engaged in Israel affairs, echoed arguments that have fueled a passionate debate conducted largely in the rarefied world of academia, foreign policy think tanks and parts of the U.S. Jewish community. "The pro-Israel lobby has been remarkably successful in suppressing criticism," wrote Soros. Politicians challenge it at their peril and dissenters risk personal vilification, he said.(...) The long-simmering debate bubbled to the surface a year ago, when two prominent academics, Stephen Walt of Harvard and John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, published a 12,500-word essay entitled "The Israel Lobby" and featuring the fiercest criticism of AIPAC since it was founded in 1953. AIPAC now has more than 100,000 members and is rated one of the most influential special interest groups in the United States, its political clout comparable with such lobbies as the National Rifle Association. Its annual conference in Washington attracts a Who's Who of American politics, both Republicans and Democrats. Mearsheimer and Walt said the lobby had persuaded successive administrations to align themselves too closely with Israel. "The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread 'democracy' has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardized not only U.S. security but much of the rest of the world," they wrote. No other lobby group has managed to divert U.S. foreign policy so far from the U.S. national interest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that U.S. interests and those of Israel are essentially identical, they wrote. Once considered an honest broker in the Middle East, the United States is now seen in much of the Arab world as an unquestioning backer of Israel, according to international opinion polls.(...) The two academics said that pressure from Israel and its lobby in Washington played an important role in President George W. Bush's decision to attack Iraq, an arch-enemy of Israel, in 2003. Mearsheimer and Walt found no takers for their essay in the U.S. publishing world. When it was eventually published in the London Review of Books, they noted it would be hard to imagine any mainstream media outlet in the United States publishing such a piece.(...) In his contribution to the debate, Soros said: "A much-needed self-examination of American policy in the Middle East has started in this country; but it can't make much headway as long as AIPAC retains powerful influence in both the Democratic and Republican parties." That influence is reflected by the fact that Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. aid in the world.(...) According to Oren, the pro-AIPAC historian, the Carter book and the Mearsheimer-Walt paper had the same "insidious thesis" and suffered from the same flaw -- ignoring oil as a driving element in U.S. policies on the Middle East. READ IT ALL

Terror... developing a taste

Un chien andalou - Luis Buñuel, Salvador Dalí (1929)

David Seaton's News Links

I live in Spain, a country which has been living under the threat of terrorism for the last three decades, with hundreds of victims of every category, generals, admirals, soldiers, policemen, housewives, politicians and children... and that was before the March 11th, 2004 Al Qaeda attack. That attack was the bloodiest terrorist attack in European history.

Now the people of Spain hate terrorism and by extension terrorists, but there is no culture of paranoia and after the Al Qaeda bombings there was no singling out of Muslims for discrimination, there were no incidents of attacks on mosques or on Muslims... This despite the fact that there are many Moroccans living and working in Spain and the sight of women and girls wearing the hijab is a common one on Spanish streets and in Spanish public schools.

Now this is not because of some great love lost between the Spanish and the Muslims; quite the contrary, as they have been fighting each other tooth and nail off and on for over a thousand years. What doesn't exist in Spain yet is a paranoia industry similar to what Zbigniew Brzezinski describes in the article I've selected below and although there are people probably desirous of starting one, there is a great resistance in Spanish society, both high and low, up till now, against setting in motion such sinister forces.

The United States does have such a paranoia industry operating in universities, news media, the entertainment industry and it is working overtime. As Brzezinski points out, it is destroying the country. Certainly anyone who is looking for a winning subject for a monographic blog would do well to devote themselves to investigating this paranoia in depth and providing the rest of us with a reliable road map to that swamp. Who is behind it, who profits from it and where do they take those profits? The whole world needs the answers. DS

Zbigniew Brzezinski: Terrorized by 'War on Terror'- Washington Post Abstract: The "war on terror" has created a culture of fear in America. The Bush administration's elevation of these three words into a national mantra since the horrific events of 9/11 has had a pernicious impact on American democracy, on America's psyche and on U.S. standing in the world. Using this phrase has actually undermined our ability to effectively confront the real challenges we face from fanatics who may use terrorism against us. The damage these three words have done -- a classic self-inflicted wound -- is infinitely greater than any wild dreams entertained by the fanatical perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks when they were plotting against us in distant Afghan caves. The phrase itself is meaningless. It defines neither a geographic context nor our presumed enemies. Terrorism is not an enemy but a technique of warfare -- political intimidation through the killing of unarmed non-combatants.(...) The culture of fear is like a genie that has been let out of its bottle. It acquires a life of its own -- and can become demoralizing. America today is not the self-confident and determined nation that responded to Pearl Harbor; nor is it the America that heard from its leader, at another moment of crisis, the powerful words "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself"; nor is it the calm America that waged the Cold War with quiet persistence despite the knowledge that a real war could be initiated abruptly within minutes and prompt the death of 100 million Americans within just a few hours. We are now divided, uncertain and potentially very susceptible to panic in the event of another terrorist act in the United States itself. That is the result of five years of almost continuous national brainwashing on the subject of terror, quite unlike the more muted reactions of several other nations (Britain, Spain, Italy, Germany, Japan, to mention just a few) that also have suffered painful terrorist acts. In his latest justification for his war in Iraq, President Bush even claims absurdly that he has to continue waging it lest al-Qaeda cross the Atlantic to launch a war of terror here in the United States. Such fear-mongering, reinforced by security entrepreneurs, the mass media and the entertainment industry, generates its own momentum. The terror entrepreneurs, usually described as experts on terrorism, are necessarily engaged in competition to justify their existence. Hence their task is to convince the public that it faces new threats. That puts a premium on the presentation of credible scenarios of ever-more-horrifying acts of violence, sometimes even with blueprints for their implementation. That America has become insecure and more paranoid is hardly debatable. A recent study reported that in 2003, Congress identified 160 sites as potentially important national targets for would-be terrorists. With lobbyists weighing in, by the end of that year the list had grown to 1,849; by the end of 2004, to 28,360; by 2005, to 77,769. The national database of possible targets now has some 300,000 items in it, including the Sears Tower in Chicago and an Illinois Apple and Pork Festival. Just last week, here in Washington, on my way to visit a journalistic office, I had to pass through one of the absurd "security checks" that have proliferated in almost all the privately owned office buildings in this capital -- and in New York City. A uniformed guard required me to fill out a form, show an I.D. and in this case explain in writing the purpose of my visit. Would a visiting terrorist indicate in writing that the purpose is "to blow up the building"? Would the guard be able to arrest such a self-confessing, would-be suicide bomber? To make matters more absurd, large department stores, with their crowds of shoppers, do not have any comparable procedures. Nor do concert halls or movie theaters. Yet such "security" procedures have become routine, wasting hundreds of millions of dollars and further contributing to a siege mentality.(...) The entertainment industry has also jumped into the act. Hence the TV serials and films in which the evil characters have recognizable Arab features, sometimes highlighted by religious gestures, that exploit public anxiety and stimulate Islamophobia. Arab facial stereotypes, particularly in newspaper cartoons, have at times been rendered in a manner sadly reminiscent of the Nazi anti-Semitic campaigns. Lately, even some college student organizations have become involved in such propagation, apparently oblivious to the menacing connection between the stimulation of racial and religious hatreds and the unleashing of the unprecedented crimes of the Holocaust.
The atmosphere generated by the "war on terror" has encouraged legal and political harassment of Arab Americans (generally loyal Americans) for conduct that has not been unique to them. A case in point is the reported harassment of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) for its attempts to emulate, not very successfully, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Some House Republicans recently described CAIR members as "terrorist apologists" who should not be allowed to use a Capitol meeting room for a panel discussion. Social discrimination, for example toward Muslim air travelers, has also been its unintended byproduct. Not surprisingly, animus toward the United States even among Muslims otherwise not particularly concerned with the Middle East has intensified, while America's reputation as a leader in fostering constructive interracial and interreligious relations has suffered egregiously.The record is even more troubling in the general area of civil rights. The culture of fear has bred intolerance, suspicion of foreigners and the adoption of legal procedures that undermine fundamental notions of justice. Innocent until proven guilty has been diluted if not undone, with some -- even U.S. citizens -- incarcerated for lengthy periods of time without effective and prompt access to due process.(...) And the resentment is not limited to Muslims. A recent BBC poll of 28,000 people in 27 countries that sought respondents' assessments of the role of states in international affairs resulted in Israel, Iran and the United States being rated (in that order) as the states with "the most negative influence on the world." Alas, for some that is the new axis of evil! The events of 9/11 could have resulted in a truly global solidarity against extremism and terrorism. A global alliance of moderates, including Muslim ones, engaged in a deliberate campaign both to extirpate the specific terrorist networks and to terminate the political conflicts that spawn terrorism would have been more productive than a demagogically proclaimed and largely solitary U.S. "war on terror" against "Islamo-fascism." Only a confidently determined and reasonable America can promote genuine international security which then leaves no political space for terrorism. Where is the U.S. leader ready to say, "Enough of this hysteria, stop this paranoia"? Even in the face of future terrorist attacks, the likelihood of which cannot be denied, let us show some sense. Let us be true to our traditions. READ IT ALL

Soros on AIPAC... power shifts

David Seaton's News Links

What George Soros says, in his NYRB piece abstracted below, is what you can read in any progressive blog, or in any European, (or for that matter Israeli) newspaper.

The significance is that these home truths are being stated by George Soros in a prestigious American publication. Important people with worldwide prestige, like Soros, Judt or Carter are stepping forward to criticize AIPAC following the pioneering report by Mearsheimer and Walt. They step forward knowing full well the kind of slander and insults they are going to be subjected to. They also know that those insults and slander prove every criticism of theirs to be true.

They are doing something very brave and at the same of vital importance, because AIPAC is one of the most sinister organizations in contemporary America.

One thing that I think should be made clear, although AIPAC is Jewish, it is much more an American phenomena than a Jewish phenomena. It has everything to do with the masculine identity crisis of middle aged, American white men of all denominations and much less about Judaism or antisemitism... The cloak of victim-hood obtained by the Jewish identity is just a convenient disguise for a type of behavior much too familiar in American life and which would not be acceptable if not for that mantle. With the Iraq war the AIPAC has gone "A Bridge Too Far". George Soros, who really knows from personal experience what true antisemitism is, knows that this is a matter that the Jewish community itself must clean up before the damage spreads. DS
George Soros: On Israel, America and AIPAC - New York Review of Books

Abstract: The Bush administration is once again in the process of committing a major policy blunder in the Middle East, one that is liable to have disastrous consequences and is not receiving the attention it should. This time it concerns the Israeli–Palestinian relationship. The Bush administration is actively supporting the Israeli government in its refusal to recognize a Palestinian unity government that includes Hamas, which the US State Department considers a terrorist organization. This precludes any progress toward a peace settlement at a time when progress on the Palestinian problem could help avert a conflagration in the greater Middle East.(...) While other problem areas of the Middle East are freely discussed, criticism of our policies toward Israel is very muted indeed. The debate in Israel about Israeli policy is much more open and vigorous than in the United States. This is all the more remarkable because Palestine is the issue that more than any other currently divides the United States from Europe. Some European governments, according to reports, would like to end the economic boycott of Hamas once a unity government is successfully established. But the US has said it would not. One explanation is to be found in the pervasive influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which strongly affects both the Democratic and the Republican parties.[2] AIPAC's mission is to ensure American support for Israel but in recent years it has overreached itself. It became closely allied with the neocons and was an enthusiastic supporter of the invasion of Iraq. It actively lobbied for the confirmation of John Bolton as US ambassador to the United Nations. It continues to oppose any dialogue with a Palestinian government that includes Hamas. More recently, it was among the pressure groups that prevailed upon the Democratic House leadership to drop the requirement that the President obtain congressional approval before taking military action against Iran. AIPAC under its current leadership has clearly exceeded its mission, and far from guaranteeing Israel's existence, has endangered it.(...) The pro-Israel lobby has been remarkably successful in suppressing criticism.[4] Politicians challenge it at their peril because of the lobby's ability to influence political contributions. When Howard Dean called for an evenhanded policy toward Israel in 2004, his chances of getting the nomination were badly damaged (although it was his attempt, after his defeat in Iowa, to shout above the crowd that sealed his fate). Academics had their advancement blocked and think-tank experts their funding withdrawn when they stepped too far out of line. Following his criticism of repressive Israeli policy on the West Bank, former president Jimmy Carter has suffered the loss of some of the financial backers of his center.(...) Whether the Democratic Party can liberate itself from AIPAC's influence is highly doubtful. Any politician who dares to expose AIPAC's influence would incur its wrath; so very few can be expected to do so. It is up to the American Jewish community itself to rein in the organization that claims to represent it. But this is not possible without first disposing of the most insidious argument put forward by the defenders of the current policies: that the critics of Israel's policies of occupation, control, and repression on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem and Gaza engender anti-Semitism. The opposite is the case. One of the myths propagated by the enemies of Israel is that there is an all-powerful Zionist conspiracy. That is a false accusation. Nevertheless, that AIPAC has been so successful in suppressing criticism has lent some credence to such false beliefs. Demolishing the wall of silence that has protected AIPAC would help lay them to rest. A debate within the Jewish community, instead of fomenting anti-Semitism, would only help diminish it.
READ IT ALL

Hillary and the dogs of war

David Seaton's News Links

Now, if you read this article from last week's, The Forward you will understand immediately why despite all the best advice of civilian and military experts the future war with Iran is still very much on the cards. And if you read the aforementioned article and you still think Hillary Clinton's your favorite for the presidency of the United States of America and the commander and chief of its mastodontic armed forces, that is to say, "the decider", well... (words fail).

Facing such an organized campaign to take the country to war, seeing the class of spineless, careerist politicians that are pushing themselves forward to "lead" us all and how they prostitute their votes, what can be done?

The answer is in an article in this week's Forward (here is the link). Here is a short quote:

While Jewish communal leaders focus most of their current lobbying efforts on pressing the United States to take a tough line against Iran and its nuclear program, some are privately voicing fears that they will be accused of driving America into a war with the regime in Tehran.

Jimmy Carter,Wesley Clark and professors Mearsheimer and Walt have with great risk and sacrifice, broken the taboo and made the Zionist Lobby's role in dragging the US into war, finally a topic of "polite" conversation and that is just what we have to do. Talk about it, politely... a lot. A lot, politely, but a lot. DS

Hillary the Favorite in Race for Jewish Donations - The Forward (hat to Phil Weiss)
Abstract: New York’s junior senator, Hillary Rodham Clinton, is expected to snare the lion’s share of the Jewish community’s substantial political donations in the race for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. Democratic activists and operatives said Clinton will pull in large quantities of cash among Jewish donors not only because of what they described as her strong positions on Israel and domestic matters of interest to Jews, but also because of longtime ties with these activists dating back to her husband’s administration.(...) The haul is important: Strategists say that serious candidates will need to raise at least $50 million — and probably more like $100 million — by the end of the year. They say that money from Jewish donors constitutes about half the donations given to national Democratic candidates (an extremely large pot of gelt long coveted by the GOP). Clinton will get most of the Jewish community’s money, “first, because she’s going to receive the lion’s share of all [Democratic] political money, and second, because she and her husband are enormously popular with the Jewish community,” said Democratic strategist Steve Rabinowitz, a Clinton supporter.(...) Among the top Jewish fundraisers who political hands expect to line up with Clinton’s campaign is New Jersey lawyer Lionel Kaplan, a former president of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee who raised money for the former first lady’s 2006 Senate race. Also expected to turn up in Clinton’s camp is Massachusetts businessman Steve Grossman, another former Aipac president who chaired the Democratic National Committee in the late 1990s. Grossman told the Forward that he’s “not formally committed,” but he added that “everyone knows I’m close to the Clintons.”
(there's lots more - READ IT ALL)

Notes of a Bushophobe - 1

David Seaton's News Links
As time wears on and nerves wear thin, the question keeps repeating like a cucumber salad: "how did it happen, why is Bush where he is"? To me it is the biggest question of his presidency and its answers could be potentially some of the most revealing x-ray shots of twentyfirst century America, its society and politics. I just have to get started chewing on this theme. The following is just a series of notes and in no way a finished product. As the ideas work up into shape, I will continue to post more "Notes of a Bushophobe" with their appropriate number added on. I would be happy and indeed grateful if readers tore apart my arguments or helped me to support them with their information and links. I promise to publish all comments that aren't obscene (unless they are very funny) or personally abusive. Perhaps the way I reason will reveal more about me than about my subject, but here is a rough outline of my unfolding bushology or metabushology. None of this is terribly original, but I just have to have some method developed to make sense of such a bizarre use of the US presidency. I can't continue to just content myself with ad hoc and ad hominem attacks, pleasurable as they are.

To begin with, the question is why George W. Bush?

I shall not beat around the bush (giggle). It seems to me that the prime mover in bushology is the family's unmatched skill at raising money. None of them, beginning with George H.W. Bush, right down to Jeb, is at all charismatic or even attractive, none of them speak very well or even deliver their writer's material very well. but they always show up with a lot of other people's money when campaigning starts. They have a huge network of "rangers" and "pioneers" who work very hard to raise money for them. Why do they do this? As you may have observed on intense introspection or from what the email universities call "life experience", very few people part with money without hoping for something in return... even noble charities would probably wither if they were not also tax shelters.

Let us look, then, at "exhibit-A", at what I consider one of the most, if not the most revealing thing that George W. Bush ever said in public. It was during the 2000 campaign, long before Osama bin Laden added the flavor of tragedy to American life that makes the Clinton years look in retrospect like the "Roaring Twenties"... partying before the great depression. Bush was speaking at the "Alfred E. Smith Memorial Dinner" on October 20th 2000. Here is the quote from CBS News:

Bush gazed around the diamond-studded $800-a-plate crowd and commented on the wealth on display. "This is an impressive crowd - the haves and the have-mores," quipped the GOP standard-bearer. "Some people call you the elites; I call you my base."

If we test everything that Bush has ever done since then against that remark, it all falls into place. With this remark in hand let us imagine what the Rangers and the Pioneers expect in return for their money? Here are some easy items:

• Lower the taxes of the super-rich
  
• Destroy expensive entitlements
• Degrade the federal government
• Eliminate inheritance tax
  
• Tort reform
  

He hasn't managed all of it, but he has never flagged in his efforts to get as much of it done as he could and I imagine that the Rangers and the Pioneers feel they have gotten their money's worth. One of the most interesting examples to support my theory or "bushology" is that when he won the 2004 election against the hapless John F. Kerry and with a war going on he decided that he had "political capital" that he was going to "spend" on... trashing Social Security. His answer to war of course, was to lower those taxes for his Rangers.

If you look at him like that, as a faithful servant of wealth (especially inherited) his is in no way a "failed" presidency. When he finally leaves office I think his "legacy" will be secure among those he moves and cherishes. Even though most of humanity will consider him the worst president of the US to ever have held that office, among the one per-cent of America's people who are his true base, he will remain forever a revered icon; the anti Franklin Delano (that man) Roosevelt.

So how did he get into the war in Iraq?

They say his father, George H.W. Bush always maintains that pressuring Israel cost him his second term. The "Lobby" did him. For Dubya to escape that fate and get his real agenda completed, I believe that he and Karl Rove decided that instead of James Baker's hostile (fuck the Jews) attitude, that Bush 43 would give the Israelis everything they wanted. For a Republican satisfying the American Jewish community is not as easy as it might seem. American Jewish people are very liberal, they are not against entitlements or unions, they are concerned about poverty and racism and are not totally adverse to big government or even paying the taxes it costs to get it. As Baker also observed to complete his famous quote, "they don't vote for us". And of course among their number are some of America's most efficient and distinguished trial lawyers. Bush's real agenda, then, is not all that attractive for America's Jewish people. The only way to keep them busy and out his hair was to pander to the Jewish community's Achilles heel, Israel.

Israel is a huge subject unto itself that I often cover at length and this is not the place to go into detail. So lets treat it here with analogy and metaphor. Israel has painted itself into a terrible corner, its political life has been degraded and corrupted out of all recognition, it is moving swiftly toward pariah nation status. Keeping Israel's international reputation afloat is like flying a lead balloon and its very existence is threatened by the Islamic renaissance taking place all over the world. For many, perhaps most, American Jews, this is troubling. For some this problem is like a huge toothache, the kind of toothache that doesn't let a person think straight. Bush simply avoids problems by giving the Israelis all they want when they want it. In return they tell American Jews to "go easy" on Bush. And in support, neocon publicists have given him some of the "vision thing" his father lacked. This has been vital in confusing public opinion. Bush and those around him are desperately inarticulate. The Weekly Standard crowd has given him stirring lines to speak.

In short, the game plan is: give the Israelis Iraq/Iran and thus get the American Jewish community out of Bush's hair in order for him to complete his real program and at the same time dress up his administration's limp rhetoric. If this is really in Israel's or the American Jewish community's true interest, Bush could care less. He is like some pill dispensing, "doctor feel-good", the patient's health is not the true object of his practice. He doesn't care about the Middle East's tragedy, the death and destruction or the final fate of Israel. He keeps his eye on the ball and someday that small but hardy band of billionaires will whisper in his ear, "Thanks a million brother, for a job well done!" And he will be happy with that, he doesn't care what the rest of humanity does or feels.

Well that is the rough start of trying to build a theory of George W. Bush. Thank you for bearing with me, as I struggle to make some sense of it all. DS