CALL
ME INDISPENSABLE
I'll
tell you where: a little over a week after the
amazing story of Israel's e-mail hijinks hit the pages
of Insight, the magazine published by the Washington
Times, the two "major" presidential candidates were falling
all over themselves sucking up to Israel and its amen-corner
in the US – with neither even alluding to the biggest spy
scandal in years. A less edifying spectacle hasn't been seen
in years. Such are the joys of being the "indispensable nation,"
as our vainglorious secretary of state once put it.
DUBYA'S
PLEDGE
In
a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC),
presumptive GOP presidential candidate George "Dubya" Bush
set
a new standard for groveling: his critique of the Clinton
administration's famously pro-Israel foreign policy was that
it was not pro-Israel enough. The Clintonians, averred Dubya,
were guilty of trying to hold Israel to "plans and timetables"
for implementing the US-sponsored peace process. In return
for pumping enough money to pay off the US national debt several
times over into Israel's socialist economy, Americans should
expect . . . nothing. Not only that, but they must do
nothing when it comes to trying to influence Israeli policy:
"A clear and bad example" of Clinton's alleged hostility to
Israel "was the administration's attempt to take sides in
the most recent Israeli election. America should not interfere
in Israel's democratic process, and America will not interfere
in Israeli elections when I'm the president." In this, Bush
was echoing the criticism
leveled at Clinton by American supporters of the ultranationalist
Likud party, who saw in the arrival of James Carville –
among other top Democratic political consultants – in
the camp of Prime Minister Barak's Labor Party evidence of
Washington's heavy hand. Utterly impervious to irony, like
any normal American youngster, Dubya deplored alleged "interference"
in Israeli politics in front of a group whose influence in
Washington has done more to utilize American electoral politics
on behalf of Israel than any other – and whose influence
is legendary.
A
TWO-WAY STREET
No
more interference in Israeli elections? Okay, it's a deal
– on the condition that the reverse is also true. Let's
make the principle of nonintervention a two-way street. AIPAC
is, of course, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee,
and American citizens have the right to speak out on behalf
of whatever foreign policy initiatives they believe to be
correct. But when such groups put the interests of a country
other than the US at the very top of their agenda, when nary
a sliver of daylight can be found between their stance and
that of a foreign power – whether it be the old Soviet
Union, the principality of Monaco, or the state of Israel
– then Americans have a right to call them on it. Except
for just one little problem: those few American politicians
who have were ambushed and smeared so effectively that they
were soon driven out of politics – ex-Senator Charles
Percy, former Rep. Pete
McCloskey, and former Rep. Paul
Findley come immediately to mind.
A
RISKY SCHEME
The
President did not hide his sympathy for Barak over the ultra-hawkish
Benjamin Netanyahu – who opposed the peace process from
the very beginning – but since we are footing Israel's
bills would it be an egregious act of anti-Semitism to seek
to have some say in how the money is spent? This is
not an unreasonable position to take, and would even seem
to have some real political resonance – but if you think
Al the Bore will take advantage of any opportunity
to get his foot in the door of the Oval Office, and pump up
his sinking poll numbers – all the while showing his
loyalty to the administration – then you don't realize
the power of what Pat Buchanan rightly called Israel's "amen
corner" in the US. This is one advantage the cowardly Gore
would never use – speaking truth to power is a
little too much of a "risky scheme," as he would no doubt
put it.
ON
BENDED KNEE
In
a speech to AIPAC the following week, Gore
got down on bended knee and proclaimed his fealty in terms
that rivaled Dubya's in their obsequiousness – with an
edge of viciousness the naïve Bush could never achieve
(or sink to). Gore attacked Dubya's father for supposedly
trying to "bully" Israel and for ignoring the alleged pleas
of the Israeli government to become ensnared in the so-called
peace process: "In 1991," he declared, "I vividly remember
standing up against a group of administration foreign policy
advisors who promoted the insulting concept of linkage, which
tried to use loan guarantees as a stick to bully Israel."
Oh, but never fear, Gore the suck-up is here: "We defeated
them," he burbled, "we stopped them." News reports described
the ensuing applause as "enthusiastic."
ON
PASSIONATE ATTACHMENTS
In
the skewed moral universe of Al Gore, if Israel uses American
taxpayers' money to build "settlements" for religious fanatics
intent on driving every Arab out of Palestine, it would be
"insulting" to even raise questions about it – let alone
cut down or even eliminate such dubious subsidies. To expect
or ask the Israelis to moderate their militant policies, to
attach any sort of condition to our continuing generosity,
to apply the same moral and political standards by which all
other countries are judged – to ask anything of
Israel would be a mortal insult, according to Gore. Like Bush,
his love for Israel is "unconditional." But this kind of unconditional
love for a foreign nation is precisely what worried the Founders
of this country, most notably George Washington, who warned
in his "Farewell Address" against "passionate attachments"
as well as "inveterate antipathies" to nations other than
our own:
"The
Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred,
or an habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. . . to
its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient
to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. . . . [Such
a] passionate attachment . . . produces a variety of evils,.
Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion
of an imaginary common interest … where no real common interest
exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays
the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of
the latter, without adequate inducement or justification."
A
PERVERSE RELATIONSHIP
A
more succinct and picture-perfect description of America's
relationship with Israel would be a hard assignment for any
writer. But even in his worst nightmare, Washington could
not have imagined the perversity of the "habitual fondness"
embodied in the US-Israeli relationship. As the two major
party presidential candidates were engaged in a groveling
contest in Washington D.C., the site of the AIPAC confab,
in another part of town an editor of the Washington Times
wondered
aloud why the biggest spy scandal story to come along
in years had been met with a resounding . . . silence.
"Now
that the FBI has confirmed the outline of an Insight exclusive – that its famed Division 5 counterintelligence group was
probing suspected eavesdropping by Israeli agents on top-level
U.S. government telecommunications traffic – why hasn't the
rest of the press followed? Especially since the FBI also
has confirmed that this is still an open investigation – even
though, according to an Associated Press story, insufficient
details had been confirmed to support the allegation. So what
has the FBI been probing for nearly 3 years?"
CLINTON'S
HARD DRIVE
Only
the New York Times ran with a garbled version, but
in the rest of the media it was as if the news had never been
reported: not a single other major news source carried a word
of the Washington Times story, apart from the AP (which
typically ran the administration's denials). And a shocking
story it is. Israeli agents have reportedly penetrated the
phone and e-mail facilities of the State Department, Defense,
the Justice Department – and the White House. So the
Israeli cabinet gets to listen in on Janet Reno while she
"negotiates" with Elian's Miami relatives even as her stormtroopers
kick down the door: and who knows what kind of e-mail
they intercepted from the President's "hard drive"? We've
heard the Lewinsky tapes – now it's on to the Lewinsky
e-mails. Will we get to hear Bill and Monica having phone
sex? Nobody really cares anymore. But what I really
look forward to hearing is the phone call from Hillary when
she demanded
the bombing of Yugoslavia as the price of her love:
"If
you really really love me, Bill, you'll do this for
me. It's either their blood – or yours. Now which will
it be?"
OPPOSITION
RESEARCH
Working
under diplomatic cover at the Israeli Embassy, agents of the
Mossad, Israel's intelligence service, have the goods not
only on Clinton but on his entire administration. No wonder
Bush is declaring his unconditional love for the state of
Israel: he could use a little "opposition research," and under
certain circumstances the Mossad might be more than willing
to provide it – but of course we must never interfere
in their elections.
BAFFLED
Paul
M. Rodriguez, the Washington Times managing editor,
trenchantly underscores the hypocrisy and groupthink of the
American news media, even as it seems to baffle him:
"Consider
the Wen Ho Lee case: Never has so much reporting been done
with so few facts and so much speculation. That's news – but
an even larger counterintelligence operation by the FBI into
suspected spying on the State Department and the White House
isn't?"
ISRAEL
AND THE CLINTON DOCTRINE
The
hypocritical irony of the vaunted "Clinton Doctrine," which
pledges intervention against any and all instances of state-sponsored
repression against "ethnic or religious minorities," is nowhere
more evident than in the Middle East, that bastion of religious
and ethnic persecution and hatred. All of our staunchest allies
in the region – Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey –
ruthlessly and openly practice various degrees of religious
and ethnic warfare on resident minorities. The Saudis have
an outright ban on non-Islamic religious activity: US troops
stationed there to protect Riyadh against the depredations
of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden are forbidden from wearing
either crucifixes or stars of David. Turkey's militant secularists
unhesitatingly repress all Islamic parties, forbid the wearing
of the chafor, and have for years carried out a pogrom against
the Kurds rivaled in scope and murderousness only by their
earlier slaughter of the Armenians. As for Israel, it is defined
by its religious identity: the right of return is extended
to all Jews, but Gentiles are excluded. The longstanding repression
of the Palestinians, and the Israeli Arabs, is inherent in
the very concept of Zionism as the political extension of
a religious-messianic faith. Palestinians are persecuted not
only for their ethnicity and political affiliations by the
Israeli government, but also on account of their religion.
According to the Clinton Doctrine, this is a no-no. So why
isn't Hillary on the phone demanding a blood sacrifice to
the god of diversity? When can we expect the bombs to fall
on Tel Aviv?
DIVERGENCE
The
argument that Israel is an island of democracy in a sea of
authoritarianism, and that, furthermore, the bond between
our two countries is indissoluble, held up for as long as
the cold war lasted. In the worldwide struggle with the Soviet
Union, Israel provided the US with an invaluable strategic
base in the Middle East against the Soviet-influenced pan-Arabist
movements that swept through the region in the late fifties
and early sixties. The congruence of our interests, while
not always perfectly aligned, were taken for granted. But
the fall of the Berlin Wall and the implosion of the Communist
empire changed all that forever. The Israelis recognize it,
which is why they insist on playing us off against China,
selling AWACs and advanced missile technology to that country
over US protests. Why don't we recognize the growing
divergence of US and Israeli interests?
THE
FORBIDDEN SUBJECT
The
reason is, in large part, because all discussion of the issue
is forbidden. Anyone who raises the issue is viciously attacked
as an "anti-Semite." Pat Buchanan has been subjected to a
hate campaign of tidal wave proportions for daring to point
out that any organized pressure group that equates the interests
of a foreign nation with our own – whether it be Israel,
or the Grand Duchy of Liechtenstein – is not only in
error but a danger to the Republic. The Middle East, and particularly
the area formerly known as Palestine, is a viper's nest of
religious and ethnic bigotry, a hatred so corrosive that it
has the power to reach into the very center of American political
life and incite the passions of the people in ways that are
unhealthy and unsustainable in a democratic society. As stories
of the torture inflicted on native villagers by the Israeli-supported
South Lebanon Army – as reported,
for example, by Robert Fisk for the (London) Independent
– Americans are beginning to wake up and ask a question
that none of the "major" party suck-ups would dare to utter:
why are we letting ourselves get dragged into this?
NADA
LOTTA
The
"peace process" initiated by this administration, and its
predecessors, is completely phony – and endless. It seems
like I've been reading about this perpetual "process" since
early childhood. Always there is a "peace conference," the
shaking of hands, the photo-ops – and no action. Nada,
nothing, zilch. As for who is responsible for the impasse,
that is the subject of another column. But essentially, it
doesn't matter, because none of it is our business anyway.
In the phrase popularized by Chalmers
Johnson's excellent new book, the "blowback" from America's
unconditional love affair with Israel has been horrific –
terrorism directed at Americans throughout the world, regional
instability, threatened oil supplies, and the ever-present
threat of a Mideast war sparking a larger conflict –
and long ago passed the threshold of rational tolerance.
SOMETIME
NEVER
While
the Republican and Democratic candidates for President declare
their unconditional love for Israel, their willingness to
overlook anything and everything in pursuit of a selfless
devotion, such passionate attachments, as Washington knew,
are dangerous – and, in the post-cold war world, one
could make the case that such sentiments are close to treasonous.
Why is the Federal Bureau of Investigation denying that there
is anything to this story – while acknowledging that
an investigation is indeed underway? Where is the Justice
Department in all this – when are they going to launch
their own investigation? And what about Congress? There is
some interest on Capitol Hill, but we'll have to wait and
see what develops: I wouldn't bet the ranch on a congressional
investigation, or even open hearings, although the intelligence
committees of both houses have reportedly been fully briefed.
But what about the American people – when are they going
to be fully briefed? If that job is up to the American news
media, then the answer, as we have seen, is: never.
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