Zionism needs Israeli Jews to feel frightened
I used to believe the short answer was the stranglehold on American policy for the Middle East of the Zionist lobby and its stooges in Congress. There’s no mystery about the prime source of the lobby’s power. It’s money to fund election campaigns. If you were an American and announced that you were going to run for Congress or any other significant public office, you’d be approached by the lobby. It would tell you the policy position on Israel and then offer you a choice. If you supported Israel, you would receive all the campaign funding you needed to defeat your opponent. If you were not interested, the funding would go to your opponent to enable him or her to defeat you. That’s an over-simplification of how the system works but it’s also the essence of the reality.
Incidentally, I do NOT blame the Zionist lobby for playing the game the way it does. It is only playing according to The System’s rules. I blame America’s pork-barrel system of politics which puts what passes for democracy up for sale to the highest bidders. It just so happens that the Zionist lobby in association with its Christian fundamentalist allies is one of the highest bidders, if not the highest. If I had the opportunity to advise an American president, I would say to him or her: “The best thing you could do for your country is to give it some real democracy by putting an end to your corrupt, pork-barrel politics.”
Today, and as I indicated in my recent article from you quoted, Zionism and Peace Are Incompatible, I am beginning to think that the awesome influence of the Zionist lobby may not be the complete explanation of the lack of political will. Because it is obviously not in America’s own best interests to go on supporting Israel right or wrong and making enemies of 1.4 billion Muslims by so doing, the question I am asking myself is this: Could it be that all American presidents are frightened of confronting Zionism because they know there is nothing nuclear-armed Israeli leaders would not do if they were seriously pressed to make peace on terms which they believed in their own deluded minds would put Israel’s security at risk?
That question was provoked by my recall of a statement made to me in a BBC Panorama interview by Golda Meir when she was prime minister. At a point I interrupted her to say: “I just want to be sure that I understand what you’re saying… You are saying that in a doomsday situation Israel would be prepared to take the region and the world down with it?” Without the shortest of pauses for reflection, and in the gravel voice that could charm or intimidate American presidents according to need, she replied: “Yes! That’s exactly what I am saying.”
In those days Panorama, the BBC’s flagship current affairs program, was transmitted on a Monday evening at 8.10pm. By 10.0pm, The Times, then a seriously good newspaper not the Murdoch product it is today, had changed its lead editorial to quote what Golda had said to me. It then added its own opinion. “We had better believe her.”
Exactly what I am saying comes down to this. Even if an American president was free to read the riot act to Israel, if only to best protect America’s own real interests, it does not follow that its leaders would say: “Okay. We’ll do what you want.” In my view it’s possible, even probable, that they would say: “Mr. President, go to hell. If you push us too far, we’ll create mayhem in the region.”
The pro-Palestinian journalist and activist Jeffrey Blankfort told me in a recent interview about the efforts made by the previous United State presidents to hold back the influence of Israel and Zionist lobby over the U.S. Congress. He cited the confrontation of George Bush Sr. with the Zionist network in 1991 and 1992 when he denied Israel its request for $10 billion in loan guarantees; however, Mr. Bush was eventually forced to surrender and endorse the loan. Will the same fate await President Obama who is said to be determined to put forward a proposal for the establishment of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders in the Security Council?
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