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Call it "Jewish", not "Israel" Lobby: Chomsky's complicity through silence

Kim Petersen | 27.05.2006 16:26

The paper titled "The Israel Lobby and U.S.
Foreign Policy" by professors John Mearsheimer
Stephen Walt has pushed the topic of the "Israel
lobby" and its influence over US foreign policy
into a more prominent spotlight.


Prominent scholar Noam Chomsky is a steadfast
denier of the efficacy of such a lobby - so much
so that he titled his rejoinder to Marsheimer
and Walt: "The Israel Lobby?" Chomsky circumspectly stays away from defining "the lobby" and refers to it as such throughout his article.

In his book, Fateful Triangle: The United States,
Israel & The Palestinians, Chomsky devotes a
section of a chapter to "Domestic Pressure Groups
and their Interests," but only by way of quoting
Seth Tillman does he use the wording, "Israeli Lobby." Chomsky discusses 'Jewish interests' being 'Israel's
interests' but only through quoting others.

One is hard-pressed to find instances of Chomsky,
himself, using the wording "Israeli lobby." In a
personal communication to Jeff Blankfort, a
staunch critic of the lobby, Chomsky does,
however, acknowledge such a lobby by name.
Skirting the issue of whether the state designated
"Israel" is legitimate or not (is there a legal or
moral basis for one group of people to claim
another people's homeland based on spurious
historical rights? The present author maintains
there is not), there is still the matter of what
"Israel" is. Conventionally, a state is
constituted as a geographic entity and its
population. Disregarding the fact that the state
of "Israel" has refused to define its borders, it
must be noted that the population of "Israel" is
heterogeneous. Although it defines itself as a
Jewish state, approximately 20 percent of its
population is Arab and practices mainly Islam.
Given that most of Palestine has been annexed to
the state of "Israel" through violent force and
that the Palestinians who were not ethnically
cleansed had "Israeli" citizenship bestowed upon
them, it seems rather a leap of folly to refer to
an "Israel Lobby." No one will argue that the
"Israel Lobby" is representing the interests of
"Arab-Israelis." As well as being inaccurate, to
refer to an "Israel Lobby" is disingenuous or
worse.
"Israel" has been declared a Jewish state by its
Zionist rulers. But Jews are not a monolith and
neither are "Israelis."

Since the "Israel Lobby" does not represent
"Arab-Israeli" interests, and since it represents
Jewish interests worldwide, the label "Jewish
lobby" (there is no need to capitalize the "l")
would be much more accurate. Also, "Zionist lobby"
would seem to be less accurate because the lobby's
goals are not limited to Zionism but include
policies dedicated to the interests of certain
Jewish "elites". So long as it is not implied that
all Jews (since modern Jews never formed a
coherent ethnic or national group, but are peoples
who have shared somewhat the same religion, how
can one address them as a homogenous group? For
instance, if a Ukrainian Jew renounces Judaism and
declares atheism, then why should he be treated as
a Jew that he is no longer?) are included as lobby
members, then there is no reason not to label the
"Jewish lobby" for what it is. Most people would
not, after all, object to the label "Catholic
lobby" or "Arab lobby," so why should the label
"Jewish lobby" be controversial?

Regarding the labeling, Blum responds, "I used
'Israel Lobby' because that's what the authors of
the report I referred to used. And the purpose of
the lobby is to help Israel, not Jews per se."
With all due respect to the incisive
anti-imperialist Blum, he is remarkably off base
when he says: "the purpose of the lobby is to help
Israel." Since, as stated, approximately one-fifth
of "Israelis" are Arabs, and since the lobby has
no intention of helping them whatsoever, the
purpose as stated by Blum is, intentionally or
not, fallacious. To be factually accurate, one
should state that the intention is to help the
"Jews of Israel" and not "Israel" per se. Blum,
however, does see merit in changing the
designation of the "Israel lobby."
Why the reluctance to clearly and accurately apply
labels to crime-sanctioning entities? In the case
of "Israel," Chomsky noted the "general and often
effective" Zionist use of ad hominem to silence
dissent. Those people of conscience who dare
to rebuke the crimes committed by the Zionists
must not cower at the insidious Zionist tactic of
smearing its critics as "anti-Semites."

Caving in on a more accurate wording of a lobby
that, among its positions, advocates ethnic
cleansing and killing of an indigenous people, and
practices racism against those indigenous
remaining in their homeland, is complicity through
silence.


Kim Petersen
- e-mail: kim@dissidentvoice.org.
- Homepage: http://www.dissidentvoice.org

Comments

Hide the following 4 comments

Indy moderators, pls read...

27.05.2006 19:33

Oh god again and again and again! How many times is the Mearsheimer and Walt theory going to be posted on indymedia?? Regardless of what the merits of it are, is there not an indymedia rule that says to only post things once?!? Its one thing to believe that Israel and Chomsky have taken over America's foreign policy and discourse, but its another thing to clog up the fucking indymedia timeline!

indy regular


An attempt at an explanation (forms of human orgainzation)

28.05.2006 13:02

"since modern Jews never formed a coherent ethnic or national group, but are peoples
who have shared somewhat the same religion, how can one address them as a homogenous group?"

Nation states, ethnic groups, etc. are not the ONLY forms by which humans organize themsleves. There are also "tribal" peoples.

The difficulty in perceiving "the Jews" this way is that while none of the characteristics of this tribe are unique, many of them are unusual (possessed by only a small percentage of tribes) and the combination of chracterisitics is certainly unique.

1) A very LARGE tribe. Most tribal peoples are of the order of a couple thousand to a couple hundre thousand. There are only a dozen or so tribes comparable in size to the Jews.

2) Multiethnic. Again rather rare and not coming into being the way it usually does (incoming refugees). But you can find other tribes that are multiethnic (not even all speaking the same language).

3) Multiracial. Like number "2", rare but not unknown. It is far from clear that racial difference gets presrerved among Jews except by geographical separation.

4) A tribal religion. Some tribes have a religion unique to the tribe but many do not. Quite a few that do handle this similarly to the Jews (a person cannot "convert" tot he reliigon without being adopted into the tribe). This also confuses people who cannot seem to understand that a tribe defines its own "membership rules" and that they don't have to make sense to your way of thinking.

This last is important when trying to understand examples like "the Jew who became an atheist" (why still considered Jewish) and why this is different from "the Jew who became a Christian", why the status of the latter isn't final till after death and why the status of this person's children depends upon the person's sex, etc. BUT (and this is a very big but) recent history (as the Jews with their loing history think of recent) also served to reinforce the idea that one could not cease being a Jew -- the reality that OTHERS did not recognize the change of status either.

Mike Novack
mail e-mail: stepbystpefarm mtdata.com


The antisemite propaganda show

30.05.2006 09:54

This article is another fine example for the usual antisemite rhethoric. While the author Kim Petersen is pretty quirky in finding arguments to delegitimize the legitimacy of Israel, he doesn´t even think of the fact, that his "another people's homeland" description of Palestine is nothing than a construct. This idea is pretty similar to ethno-nationalist concepts used by neo-nazi parties in Europe: each people has the "right to live on the soil its blood is connected with": England for the English, Germany for the Germans and Palestine for the Palestinians.
Also the rest of his arguments is the usual rhethoric used by antisemites trying to cover up their anti-jewish resentment as anti-zionism. This is followed by the usual racial studies trying to show that "Jews are not a monolith". This whole approach is not even anti-nationalist trying to show that all nations are constructs but just having the nationalist/ anti-imperialist approach to delegitimize Israel to justify the existence of a Palestinian states based on racial concepts. Sorry, this has nothing to do with working on peace in the middle east but is pure hate speech.

Kim Petersen also interviewed Israel Shamir, an icon for radical antisemites from left to right, who defends even convicted holocaust-denier and icon of the extreme right David Irving. More infos on Israel Shamir over here:
 http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2005/09/israel_shamir_a.html

Jake Snyder
- Homepage: http://https://www.adf-berlin.de/


Call it...

01.06.2006 22:56

The usual anti-semitism that passes IMC admins unnoticed! oy!

A Kike-Lieber