Alan Hart

After his appointment as Chairman of the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs, California’s representative Howard Berman told The Forward, “Even before I was a Democrat, I was a Zionist.” This is the man, one of the Zionist lobby’s most influential stooges in Congress, who introduced House Resolution 1734 which gives President Obama his new orders.

Thoroughly disingenuous, the resolution, which was drafted by AIPAC and in my view is an indication of panic on its part, was approved unanimously by the House of Representatives on 15 December. It

• strongly and unequivocally opposes any attempt to seek recognition of a Palestinian state by the United Nations or other international forums;
• calls upon the Administration to continue its opposition to the unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state;
• calls upon the Administration to affirm that the United States would deny any recognition, legitimacy, or support of any kind to any unilaterally declared ‘‘Palestinian state” and would urge other responsible nations to follow suit, and to make clear that any such unilateral declaration would constitute a grievous violation of the principles underlying the Oslo Accords and the Middle East peace process;
• calls upon the Administration to affirm that the United States will oppose any attempt to seek recognition of a Palestinian state by the United Nations or other international forums and will veto any resolution to that end by the United Nations Security Council (my emphasis added);
• calls upon the President and the Secretary of State to lead a high-level diplomatic effort to encourage the European Union and other responsible nations to strongly and unequivocally oppose the unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state or any attempt to seek recognition of a Palestinian state by the United Nations or other international forums; and
• supports the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the achievement of a true and lasting peace through direct negotiations between the parties.

As M.J. Rosenberg predicted (http://america-hijacked.com/2010/12/15/aipacs-palestinian-bashing-bill-rushed-to-floor-today) the Berman bill passed overwhelmingly, actually unanimously, “because that is how things work in a city where policy is driven by campaign contributions – and not just on this issue.” He added: “The only difference between how AIPAC lobbyists dictate U.S. Middle East policy and pretty much every other major lobby is that AIPAC works to advance the interests of a foreign country. In other words, comparisons to the National Rifle Association would only be applicable if the gun owners that the NRA claims to represent lived in, say, Greece. Oh, and NRA-backed bills usually take longer than a day to get to the House floor.” (My emphasis added).

What Rosenberg thinks and writes is particularly interesting because in the early 1980s he was editor of AIPAC’s weekly newsletter Near East Report.

He noted that as is usual with Berman, “his resolution exclusively blames Palestinians for the collapse of peace talks; not a word of criticism of Israel appears.”

He went on: “There is only one reason that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations collapsed. It is the power of the ‘pro-Israel lobby’, led by AIPAC, which prevents the United States from saying publicly what it says privately: that resolution of a conflict which is so damaging to U.S. interests is consistently being blocked by the intransigence of the Netanyahu government and its determination to maintain the occupation.” (My emphasis added).

For now, Rosenberg says, the bottom line is money. “The U.S. government dances to Israel’s tune because it is afraid to risk campaign contributions.” But he also gives optimism a voice (as I sometimes do).

“It doesn’t have to be that way. If the administration and Congress put U.S. interests (and Israel’s too) over the craving for campaign contributions, the United States could tell the Israeli government that, from now on, our aid package comes with strings. Like an IMF loan (although aid to Israel is a gift, not a loan), we could say that in exchange for our billions, our UN vetoes of resolutions criticizing Israel, and our silence in the face of war crimes like Gaza, we want Israel to end the occupation within, say, 24 months. And Israel would have to comply because our military assistance is, as AIPAC likes to call it, ‘Israel’s lifeline.’”

I would like Rosenberg to be right about how Israel’s leaders would respond to real American pressure, but I am very far from convinced that he is. As my regular readers know, I think there is a possibility, even a probability, that if real American push came to Zionist shove, the preference of Israel’s deluded leaders would be to tell the American president of the moment (and the whole world) to go to hell. Whether or not they would actually do so would depend, I imagine, on the state of Israeli (Jewish) public opinion at the time. If most Israeli Jews were still as brainwashed by Zionist propaganda as they are today, they would probably back the mad men who lead them.

Question: Why do I think that Berman’s resolution is an indication of AIPAC panic?

The answer, most of it, is in my last post which was headlined Obama’s last card – Will he play it? My main point was that because he does not have to honour the promises made to Netanyahu to secure his delivery of a 90-day freeze on illegal settlement activity on the occupied West Bank, Obama is free to discontinue the presidential practise of vetoing Security Council resolutions which are critical of Israel.

My speculation is that AIPAC drafted House resolution 1734 and then got Berman to rush it through because it feared that Obama is thinking about instructing the US ambassador to the UN to the effect that there will be no further American veto on Security Council resolutions which are critical of Israel and/or call for the recognition of a Palestinian state inside 1967 (pre-war) borders.

So the question waiting for an answer is – Will Obama obey Zionism’s latest orders?

UPDATE

Josh Ruebner is the National Advocacy Director of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, a national coalition of more than 325 organizations working to change U.S. policy toward Israel/Palestine. In his account for AJPME of the hustled introduction and passage of Berman’s resolution, he explains why he thinks what happened is an indication that AIPAC “is losing its grip”. (Or as I put it, is beginning to panic).

If you liked this post, then...

• Share it with others using this button:
• Comment on it using the form below.
• Subscribe to my blog via email or RSS to get "new post" alerts.
• Follow me on Twitter (@alanauthor).