Who's the dog? Who's the
tail?
By Uri Avnery, 22.4.06
I DON'T usually tell these stories, because they might
give rise to the suspicion that I am paranoid.
For example: 27 years ago,
I was invited to give a lecture-tour in 30 American universities, including all
the most prestigious ones - Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Berkeley and so on.
My host was the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a respected non-Jewish
organization, but the lectures themselves were to be held under the auspices of
the Jewish Bet-Hillel chaplains.
On arrival at the
airport in New York I was met by one of the organizers. "There is a slight
hitch," he told me, "29 of the Rabbis have cancelled your
lecture."
In the end, all the
lectures did take place, under the auspices of Christian chaplains. When we
came to the lone Rabbi who had not cancelled my lecture, he told me the secret:
the lectures had been forbidden in a confidential letter from the
Anti-Defamation League, the thought-police of the Jewish establishment. The
salient phrase has stuck to my memory: "While it cannot be said that
Member of the Knesset Avnery is a traitor, yet…"
AND ANOTHER story from real life: a year later I went to
Washington DC in order to "sell" the Two-State solution, which at the
time was considered an outlandish, not to say crazy, idea. In the course of the
visit, the Quakers were so kind as to arrange a press conference for me.
When I arrived, I was
amazed. The hall was crammed full, practically all the important American media
were represented. Many had come straight from a press conference held by Golda
Meir, who was also in town. The event was to last an hour, as is usual, but the
journalists did not let go. They bombarded me with questions for another two
hours. Clearly, what I had to say was quite new to them and they were
interested.
I was curious how this
would be reported in the media. And indeed, the reaction was stunning: not a
word appeared in any of the newspapers, on radio or TV. Not one single word.
By the way, three years
ago I again held a press conference, this time on Capitol Hill in Washington.
It was an exact replica of the last time: the crowd of reporters, their obvious
interest, the continuation of the conference well beyond the appointed time -
and not a single word in the media.
I COULD tell some more stories like these, but the point
is made. I recount them only in connection with the scandal recently caused by
two American professors, Stephen Walt of Harvard and John Mearsheimer of the
University of Chicago. They published a research
paper on the influence of the Israel lobby in the United States.
In 80 pages, 40 of them
footnotes and sources, the two show how the pro-Israel lobby exercises
unbridled power in the US capital, how it terrorizes the members of the Senate
and the House of Representatives, how the White House dances to its tune (if
indeed a house can dance), how the important media obey its orders and how the
universities, too, live in fear of it.
The paper caused a
storm. And I don't mean the predictable wild attacks by the "friends of
Israel" - which means almost all politicians, journalists and professors.
These pelted the authors with all the usual accusations: that they were anti-Semites,
that they were resurrecting the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and so
forth. There was something paradoxical
in these attacks, since they only illustrated the authors' case.
But the debate that
fascinates me is of a different nature. It broke out between senior
intellectuals, from the legendary Noam Chomsky, the guru of the Left throughout
the world (including Israel), to progressive websites everywhere. The bone of
contention: the conclusion of the paper that the Jewish-Israeli lobby dominates
US foreign policy and subjugates it to Israeli interests - in glaring
contradiction to the national interest of the US itself. A case in point: the
American assault on Iraq.
Chomsky and others rose
up against this assertion. They do not deny the factual findings of the two
professors, but object to their conclusions. In their view, it is not the
Israel lobby that directs American policy, but the interests of the big
corporations that dominate the American empire and exploit Israel for their own
selfish aims.
Simply put: does the dog
wag its tail, or does the tail wag its dog?
I AM NERVOUS about sticking my head into a debate between such
illustrious intellectuals, but I feel obliged to express my view nevertheless.
I'll start with the Jew,
who went to the Rabbi and complained about his neighbor. "You are
right'" the Rabbi declared. Then came the neighbor and denounced the
complainant. "You are right'" the Rabbi announced. "But how can
that be," exclaimed the Rabbi's wife, "Only one of the two can be
right!" "You are right, too," the Rabbi said.
I find myself in a
similar situation. I think that both sides are right (and hope to be right,
myself, too).
The findings of the two
professors are right to the last detail. Every Senator and Congressman knows
that criticizing the Israeli government is political suicide. Two of them, a
Senator and a Congressman, tried - and were politically executed. The Jewish
lobby was fully mobilized against them and hounded them out of office. This was
done openly, to set a public example. If the Israeli government wanted a law
tomorrow annulling the Ten Commandments, 95 Senators (at least) would sign the
bill forthwith.
President Bush, for
example, has withdrawn from all the established American positions regarding our
conflict. He accepts automatically the positions of our government, be they as
they may. Almost all the American media are closed to Palestinians and Israeli
peace activists. As to professors - almost all of them know which side of their
bread is peanut-buttered. If, in spite of that, somebody dares to open their
mouth against the Israeli policy - as happens once every few years - they are
smothered under a volley of denunciations: anti-Semite, Holocaust denier,
neo-Nazi.
By the way, American
guests in Israel, who know that at home it is forbidden to mention the
influence of the Jewish-Israeli lobby, are dumbfounded to see that here the
lobby does not hide its power in Washington but openly boasts of it.
The question, therefore,
is not whether the two professors are right in their findings. The question is
what conclusions can be drawn from them.
LET'S TAKE the Iraq affair. Who is the dog? Who the tail?
The Israeli government
prayed for this attack, which has eliminated the strategic threat posed by Iraq.
America was pushed into the war by a group of Neo-Conservatives, almost all of
them Jews, who had a huge influence on the White House. In the past, some of
them had acted as advisers to Binyamin Netanyahu.
On the face of it, a clear
case. The pro-Israeli lobby pushed for the war, Israel is its main beneficiary.
If the war ends in a disaster for America, Israel will undoubtedly be blamed.
Really? What about the
American aim of getting their hands on the main oil reserves of the world, in
order to dominate the world economy? What about the aim of placing an American
garrison in the center of the main oil-producing area, on top of the Iraqi oil,
between the oil of Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Caspian Sea? What about the
immense influence of the big oil companies on the Bush family? What about the
big multinational corporations, whose outstanding representative is Dick
Cheney, that hoped to make hundreds of billions from the "reconstruction
of Iraq"?
The lesson of the Iraq
affair is that the American-Israeli connection is strongest when it seems that
American interests and Israeli Interests are one (irrespective of whether that
is really the case in the long run). The US uses Israel to dominate the Middle
East, Israel uses the US to dominate Palestine.
But if something
exceptional happens, such as the Jonathan Pollard espionage affair or the sale
of an Israeli spy plane to China, and a gap opens between the interests of the
two sides, America is quite capable of slapping Israel in the face.
AMERICAN-ISRAELI relations are indeed unique. It seems that they
have no precedent in history. It is as if King Herod had given orders to
Augustus Caesar and appointed the members of the Roman senate.
I don't think that this
phenomenon can be wholly explained by economic interests. Even the most
orthodox Marxist must recognize that it also has a spiritual dimension. It is
no accident that American (as well as British) fundamentalist Christians
invented the Zionist idea well before Theodor Herzl hit upon it. The
evangelical lobby is no less important in today's Washington than the Zionist
one. According to its ideology, the Jews must take possession of all the Holy
Land in order to make the Second Coming of Christ possible (and then - the part
they don't shout about - some Jews will become Christians and the rest will be
annihilated at Armaggedon, today's Meggido in Northern Israel).
At the basis of the
phenomenon lies the uncanny similarity between the two national-religious
stories, the American myth and the Israeli. In both, pioneers persecuted for
their religion reached the shores of the Promised Land. They were forced to
defend themselves against the "savage" natives, who were out to
destroy them. They redeemed the land, made the desert bloom, created, with
God's help, a flourishing, democratic and moral society.
Both societies live in a
state of denial and unconscious guilt feelings - over there because of the
genocide committed against the Native Americans and the horrifying slavery of
the blacks, here because of the uprooting of half the Palestinian people and
the oppression of the other half. Both here and there, people believe in an
eternal war between the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness.
ANYHOW, THE American-Israeli symbiosis is unique and far too
complex a phenomenon to be described as a simple conspiracy. I am sure that the
two professors did not mean to do so.
The dog wags the tail
and the tail wags the dog. They wag each other.