AIPAC “Money People” and the Iran Attack

Iran does not have a single nuclear bomb. Iran is experiencing apparently insurmountable problems enriching uranium. Ahmadinejad did not call for Israel to be “wiped off the map.” Instead, he quoted Khomeini who declared the “regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time.” The words “Israel” and “map” were inserted by the New York Times, based on a deliberate mistranslation by MEMRI, an organization run by a former Israeli intelligence officer.

Iran is not helping the Sunni resistance in Iraq, a claim almost as absurd as Saddam and Osama cooking up the attacks of September 11, 2001. Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, admitted at a Pentagon news conference that he had no evidence of the Iranian government sending military equipment or personnel into Iraq—and yet, in the corporate media, this illogical fallacy and the fiction Iran is well on its way to manufacturing a nuke are accepted as demonstrable fact.

In response to the charge of Holocaust denial, Iranian Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki “repudiated that his state would want the Jewish state Israel ‘wiped off the map” and declared “Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had been misunderstood. ‘Nobody can erase a country from the map.’ Ahmadinejad was not thinking of the state of Israel but of their regime…. We do not accredit this regime to be legitimate.’”

“Ahmadinejad did not refer to Israel the country or Israel the land mass, but the Israeli regime,” writes Arash Norouzi, co-founder of the Mossadegh Project. “This is a vastly significant distinction, as one cannot wipe a regime off the map. Ahmadinejad does not even refer to Israel by name, he instead uses the specific phrase ‘rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods’ (regime occupying Jerusalem). The mistranslated ‘wiped off the map’ quote attributed to Iran’s President has been spread worldwide, repeated thousands of times in international media, and prompted the denouncements of numerous world leaders. Virtually every major and minor media outlet has published or broadcast this false statement to the masses. Big news agencies such as The Associated Press and Reuters refer to the misquote, literally, on an almost daily basis.”

In response to the other commonly repeated myth—Ahmadinejad is a Holocaust denier—Manuchehr Mottaki “accepted that the Holocaust really took place in a way that six million Jews were murdered during the era of National Socialism.” Ahmadinejad, according to Anneliese Fikentscher and Andreas Neumann, “speaks of the exploitation of the Holocaust,” its rendering from historical fact to exploitable myth and propaganda stratagem (for an American perspective on this, see Norman Finkelstein). “By the use of misrepresentation and adulteration it apparently succeeded to constitute the statements of the Iranian President to be part and parcel of the currently fought propaganda battle,” write Fikentscher and Neumann.

However, in the context of the impending Iran attack, correcting the deliberate and thus tactical misrepresentations attributed to Ahmadinejad would be nothing less than an exercise in futility, as the political establishment and the corporate media continue to “broadcast this false statement to the masses,” as Norouzi explains, “on an almost daily basis.”

For instance, consider Hillary Clinton’s recent speech, delivered to the AIPAC gathered.

“Calling Iran a danger to the U.S. and one of Israel’s greatest threats, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday that ‘no option can be taken off the table’ when dealing with that nation,” reports the Washington Post. “U.S. policy must be clear and unequivocal: We cannot, we should not, we must not permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons. In dealing with this threat … no option can be taken off the table,” including the “option” of slaughtering Iranian innocents. In addition to repeating the nuclear bomb canard, Clinton exploited the baseless accusation of Holocaust denial. “To deny the Holocaust places Iran’s leadership in company with the most despicable bigots and historical revisionists,” the latter prosecuted and imprisoned in Europe for the crime of historical research, now considered “despicable” bigotry if it questions the Holocaust orthodoxy.

One cannot help but ask if Clinton is running for political office in the United States or Israel. But then, as Wesley Clark made the mistake of stating during an interview with Arianna Huffington in response to a United Press International column by Arnaud de Borchgrave, “New York money people” are providing “office seekers” with an infusion of cash. “The phrase ‘New York money people’ struck unpleasant chords with many pro-Israel activists. They interpreted it as referring to the Jewish community, which is known for its significant financial donations to political candidates,” writes Nathan Guttman.

In regard to the influence of “New York money people” and the orchestrated stampede to invade Iran, undeniably led by Likud Zionists in Israel—and no shortage of Kadima and Labor Israelis—Matthew Yglesias, a Jew, writes: “Everything Clark said … is true. What’s more, everybody knows it’s true…. Clark did not stigmatize American Jews. Indeed, he went out of his way to note that the American Jewish community is divided on the issue [of attacking Iran]…. If you’re offering commentary that’s supportive of America’s soi-disant [claimed without justification] ‘pro-Israel’ forces … it’s considered perfectly acceptable to note, albeit elliptically, that said forces are influential in the Democratic Party in part because they contribute large sums of money to Democratic politicians who are willing to toe the line. If, by contrast, one observes this fact by way of criticizing the influence of ‘pro-Israel’ forces, you’re denounced as an anti-Semite.”

It is precisely “pro-Israel,” “New York money people,” “influential in the Democratic Party” who are calling the shots, demanding Democrats “toe the line.” David Shipler, writing for the New Yorks Times in 1987, noted, AIPAC “has gained power to influence a presidential candidate’s choice of staff, to block practically any arms sale to an Arab country, and to serve as a catalyst for intimate military relations between the Pentagon and the Israeli army. Its leading officials are consulted by State Department and White House policy makers, by senators and generals.”

Since 1987, AIPAC—formerly the American Zionist Committee for Public Affairs—has increased its influence to such a degree that it runs the foreign policy of the United States, particularly in relation to issues concerning the Middle East. As the parade of above mentioned Democrat and Republican presidential hopefuls before the “money people” of AIPAC demonstrates, the lobby not only “has gained power to influence a presidential candidate’s choice of staff,” but indeed has the influence to decide presidential elections with the persuasive rattle of its “ATM for American politicians.”

It appears, however, the AIPAC “money people” are less than satisfied with Hillary. “Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton drew grumbles at a pro-Israel dinner in Times Square … when she encouraged ‘engaging’ with Iran before taking stronger action [i.e., bombing the country to smithereens] to keep it nuke-free,” reports the New York Sun. “Clinton’s remarks at the Marriott Marquis were met with little applause, and after she left the stage, several people said they were put off by the presidential candidate” because “the pro-Israel crowd wanted to hear tougher rhetoric.” In other words, they want assurances Iran will be attacked and grandmothers and toddlers slaughtered in large numbers.

Obviously, for AIPAC, demonstrably the most influential lobbying cabal in Washington, only dyed-in-the-wool neocons need apply for the presidential selection process.