Conference Video: Israel’s Influence: Good or Bad for America?

“Israel’s Influence: Good or Bad for America?” was the theme of a daylong conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, on March 18, 2016.

The Conference archive is available on YouTube below:

Speakers included Antiwar.com’s Justin Raimondo, as well as Gideon Levy, Susan Abulhawa, Philip Weiss, Rula Jebreal, Huwaida Arraf, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Kirk James Beattie, Grant Smith Catherine Jordan, Maria LaHood, Roger J. Mattson, Tareq Radi, Janet McMahon, Delinda C. Hanley, and Dale Sprusansky.

“Israel’s Influence” is co-sponsored by the American Educational Trust, publisher of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, and the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep). Attendees receive lunch and an invitation to a special attendee-speaker reception.

Expert panelists and keynote speakers analyzed the enormous impact Israel’s influence has on Congress, establishment media, academia and other major institutions. They will explore the costs and benefits in terms of foreign aid and covert intelligence, foreign policy, America’s regional and global standing, and unbiased news reporting.

American taxpayers provide Israel with more than $3.1 billion annually in military aid. Since 1948 Israel has received far more than any other country, despite polls showing that most Americans oppose such aid. Israel and its U.S. supporters are now lobbying for a $1 billion increase—to $4.5 billion yearly—as “compensation” for the recently concluded nuclear deal with Iran, despite Israel and its lobby’s overt attempts to prevent it. What Israeli assumptions about America drive this?

In 2001 Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who characterized the 9/11 attacks on America as “good” for Israel, stated, “I know what America is. America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction.”

The lobby in charge of moving America is vast and powerful. It will raise and spend another estimated $4.1 billion in 2016 charitable contributions to indirectly subsidize Israeli institutions such as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), finance U.S. Israel advocacy, lobby local, state and federal officials, and support Israel-centric “education” programs. Some of this “education” supports pro-Israel programs in schools, colleges and universities. It also covers training federal and local law enforcement officials to focus on American Muslim and Arab communities as potential terrorist and “violent extremist” threats.

History reveals that Israel and its lobby are most influential when they can point to—or, in the case of the Iran nuclear threat, manufacture—an existential crisis that allegedly threatens Israel or the U.S. What could the U.S. do differently without the constant influence of Israel and its advocacy campaigns? What actions can Americans take, especially leading up to the ballot box?

In 2012, delegates to the Democratic National Convention opposed by voice vote a plank naming Jerusalem the “undivided capital of Israel”—though party bosses eventually passed the measure. Key constituents who are younger, more ethnically diverse, and focused on justice reject the party’s traditionally unconditional support for Israel. On the Republican side, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu enjoys higher approval ratings than the American president. In polls, many Republicans would side with Israel even if it meant siding against their own country. Yet some powerful conservative forces are rallying against elite US foreign policy consensus. They reject the neoconservative principle of “primacy” and unquestioned alliances which are “all cost and no benefit.” What do these seismic shifts portend for Israel?

9 thoughts on “Conference Video: Israel’s Influence: Good or Bad for America?”

  1. Israel is a racist apartheid state with powerful tentacles in this country. It’s going to take a concentrated effort from both the left and the right to chop those tentacles off and slay that twisted beast called Zionism.

    This conference is a good start. Knowledge is power. The smarter the people of this country get, the weaker the Israeli kracken gets.

    1. Fuck you with your approval process. I won’t bother posting here or donating anymore, thank you.

      1. That’s up to you, but before you go, please be aware that since we switched commenting systems, we are having to go through the whitelisting process all over again. I’m pretty sure you were previously whitelisted and will be glad to get that done again. In fact, it will be done in about five seconds.

  2. What a great line up of speakers this year!

    Hope to make it to the next one. DC ain’t THAT far from Michigan.

  3. The only way to turn the American people against Israel is to expose Israel’s role in 9/11, its spying on the US, and the past history of false flag attacks, such as the USS Liberty. Yet the progressives are terrified of being called anti Semites and can’t bring themselves to even discuss Israel’s destructive agency against the US. They keep thinking that people will turn as soon as they learn what Israel has done and is doing to the Palestinians, but it never happens, never happens.

    1. I’m no progressive but I am a socialist/anarchist/leftist/whatever and I’m down for all of that sh*t. Not everyone one the left is Bernie-duped MSNBC numb-skull just about 75%….

      Damn, that made me sad. I’m gonna go watch cartoons now.

  4. Israel is a state that only serves its own interests. The sheer disdain it has for the US, and its “so-called” allies is evident in its criminal terrorist behavior AGAINST the UN, and the Palestinians. AIPAC, JINSA, and the ADL are the most egregious, and undermining lobby’s in the US. Israel has done nothing for the US or anyone but connive, blackmail, and steal.

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