Image via VoltaireNet.org
By Stephen Lendman
August 26, 2010
James Petras’ powerful 2006 book titled, “The Power of Israel in the United States” explained the enormous Jewish Lobby influence on US Middle East policies. Often harming American interests, they’re pursued anyway because of its grassroots and high-level control over government, the business community, academia, the clergy and mass media since at least the 1960s.
Intolerant of opposing views, they’re suppressed for its own agenda, funded by PR propaganda domestically and overseas, America’s top publications paid off to go along, now revealed by a secret document subpoenaed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (FRC) investigation into the American Zionist Council (AZC), AIPAC’s parent lobbying arm.
“Between 1962 – 1963, the FRC subpoenaed” AZC’s internal documents, examining their activities as “registered agents of foreign principals,” learning that over $5 million in tax exempt (and perhaps overseas funds) “had been laundered through the Jewish Agency’s American Section into the (AZC).”
The Agency is a quasi-Israeli government branch, funded to review legislation ahead of its submission to the Knesset under its Covenant Agreement – in violation of IRS regulations regarding tax exempt charitable funds and the 1938 Foreign Agents Registration Act.
No matter. Israel got a pass to act illegally for nearly 50 years, doing it today more egregiously than ever. In 1962, after being ordered to register as a foreign agent, AZC transferred its responsibilities to AIPAC, “which refuses to register as (an Israeli) foreign agent” and gets away with it.
In November/December 1960, news and editorial content covered Israel’s new nuclear reactor (for peace, not bombs they said), Arab refugees when the General Assembly was discussing them, the Eichmann case, Israel’s aid to African states, and seating the UAR in the Security Council, reports presenting one-sided, pro-Israeli propaganda.
“It can be said that the press of the nation, during 1960, has by and large shown sympathy and understanding of Israel’s position.” Arab views have been largely “counteracted.”
“The US contingent of 60 Mayors returned from Israel where they attended (an earlier) Conference….While (there), a number of them were interviewed by (US reporters) who sent (pro-Israeli) stories back to their hometown papers; they were also recorded in interviews for local radio stations.”
Other plans were made to have those attending meet with Jewish and Christian audiences to disseminate friendly Israeli commentaries. In addition, opinion makers are invited to Israel at government expense, paid off to report friendly stories. An Israeli student got a scholarship “to transfer to the Monterey Peninsula College where propaganda carried on by three Arab professors has been most hurtful.”
Other schools were infiltrated the same way. Further, “We continue to cultivate (pay off) faculty people in many areas and are making progress here….our friends in San Francisco (are trying) to persuade Stanford to drop Fayez Sayeh from the faculty on the grounds that he is a paid propagandist rather than an objective academician.” Efforts at other US schools were similar – pressure to fire Arab professors, replacing them with pro-Israeli ones.
“Prof. Arnold Toynbee was invited to spend about five months in this country….When (his) accusations first broke in the press, we (enlisted) major non-Zionist groups and evolved a common policy (to):
– Discourage all Jewish (organizations) from issuing invitations to Toynbee;
– Monitor all (his) public appearances and refrain from bringing up the subject of Israel or the Jews unless Toynbee raises the subject in his presentation.”
Overall, measures were taken to counteract his unfriendly Israeli positions, the same policy used against all critical public figures, strike back to discredit them.
Calling the American Council for Judaism (ACJ) “the most effective anti-Zionist and anti-Israeli force on the American scene,” efforts were made to give them “much more attention….than in the past.”
Bribing major US publications and their writers helped do it, including at the Reader’s Digest, Atlantic Monthly, Look, Holiday, Parade, Saturday Review, the New York Times Magazine, and various women’s and business ones. Today, the entire US major media serve as Israel’s PR arm, its mouthpiece, the fruition of efforts begun 50 years ago.
Earlier, and of course now, TV shows were also arranged, and “We continue to counteract Arab speakers wherever they appear, by placing our own speakers on the same platforms….” In addition, “Mailings have gone out to public opinion molders dealing with current issues….”
In November 1961, the Atlantic Monthly was paid off to run a pro-Israeli “64-page Supplement, (featuring) some of Israel’s top names.” Earlier in September, the Atlantic ran a “20-page article on “The Arabs of Palestine” which is “one of the best (we’ve seen done) on the subject.” Jack Anderson also did a friendly piece for Parade Publications after returning from Israel.
In addition, AZC officials arranged speaking engagements for pro-Israeli figures throughout the country. Their mission – counteract “anti-Israeli propaganda….a careful check of newspapers, bulletins and confidential sources of our own (can) give us reliable information on the movements and itineraries of these propagandists.” Community contacts were then alerted to furnish speakers to discredit them.
AZC’s Research Bureau also analyzed books and articles on Israel. “When a book is favorable, it is recommended. When (it’s not), it is analyzed and distortions are pointed up by providing the factual data required, so that our local Councils will be prepared to react….Further, we (arrange) book presentations (in) community and university libraries….”
Written for the AZC, Marc Siegel’s play, “A Message from Dimona” was described by The New York Times as a “story of a new city in the Israeli desert,” suppressing the reactor’s bomb-making purpose, Israel’s open secret, well known, but not discussed.
“The nuclear reactor story inspired (other) editorial writers, columnists, science writers and cartoonists. Most of (them) accept(ed) the thesis that the reactor was being built for peaceful purposes and not for bombs….Drew Pearson’s syndicated column justified Israel’s secrecy; (science writer) William Laurence in the New York Times stressed Israel’s peaceful intent.”
In 1945, the same William Laurence led a double life as both Times science writer and shill on the War Department’s payroll. Writing press releases for the Manhattan Project, he mislead the public, sold the program, lied about Alamorgordo, NM tests and the Hiroshima/Nagasaki horrors. He also denied what historian/attorney Jonathan M. Weisgall later called the “silent nuclear terror of radioactivity and radiation” – that it condemns exposed people to a slow, painful death, but it benefited Laurence.
He won a Pulitzer Prize for his lying, and got to fly on the plane that bombed Nagasaki, later describing the experience in The Times with religious awe. Today, the entire US major media cheer-lead for Israel, even its most unjustifiable, unconscionable, criminal acts. Entirely suppressed is its history of international law violations, including:
– a violence doctrine over peace;
– crimes of war and against humanity;
– excessive force and abuse;
– collective punishment and economic strangulation;
– expanding illegal settlements;
– dispossessions and home demolitions;
– mass arrests and political imprisonments;
– targeted assassinations and torture;
– land theft and crop destruction;
– policies of closure, separation, isolation, checkpoints, ghettoization and curfews;
– denial of the most fundamental human rights and civil liberties; and
– an overall Kafkaesque “matrix of control” designed to crush Palestinians’ will to resist.
In the old days, journalists were bought off to ignore them. They now do it willingly and reflexively, knowing the consequences otherwise, the Israeli Lobby’s power to remove unfriendly voices – from Congress, academia and the media.
Demanded is that Israel be portrayed as peaceful, never aggressive, surrounded, beleaguered, and victimized, acting solely in self-defense. In contrast, Palestinians are called militant terrorist threats to Israeli security, its propaganda machine relentless in pounding that message, the Senate’s investigation failing to expose and halt it.
As a result, it’s more virulent and pervasive than ever, what no congressional committee will touch, what no major media report will reveal. Israel’s power in America suppresses everything unfavorable, willing fourth estate stooges going along, or else.
It’s why Project Censored warns about a “truth emergency,” the urgency for media reform, and need for a cadre to do what all responsible journalists should – their job, what’s sorely absent in America, especially in reports about Israel.
Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday through Friday at 10am US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on world and national topics. All programs are archived for easy listening.
The Hunger Site
August 28, 2010 at 7:07 am
J Street is the new lobbying group with progressive views on Israel. Jeremy Ben-Ami, founder and executive director set forth its purpose: “We’re trying to redefine what it means to be pro-Israel. You don’t have to be noncritical. You don’t have to adopt the party line. It’s not, ‘Israel, right or wrong.’ ”
As far as I can tell, JStreet favors the freezing of Israel settlements and a two-state solution based on 1967 borders with negotiated land swaps with Jerusalem as the shared capital, and engaging with Hamas at least indirectly through intermediaries. JSreet does not want to appear anti-AIPAC. But notably, its views are closer to Obama’s than AIPAC’s.
As the new kid on the block, it is unclear how much influence it has or will have on U.S;-Israeli relations. But it is encouraging that J Street is even on the scene. Obama met with both AIPAC and J Street.
August 27, 2010 at 5:32 pm
Ralph,
Thus is birthed ‘J Street’? Any chance they’ll approach AIPAC in influence?
h.
August 27, 2010 at 1:02 pm
American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is a self-described pro-Israel lobby and now claims 100,000 members. American Jewish voters are traditionally liberal and Democratic, but as Israel moved to the right, AIPAC increasingly leaned toward the Republican Party, which from the time of Ronald Reagan is seen as more staunchly pro-Israel than were the Democrats. AIPAC has began to work with the evangelicals who form the Republican base and tend to be pro-Israel. This may have implications for the next presidential election.
August 27, 2010 at 10:51 am
Exactly. You got it, h.
August 27, 2010 at 10:14 am
Marc,
You weren’t invited to the Guardian in 2000? There were 17 candidates as I recall. How many were invited?
They can do it cause they’re a for-profit I understand. My bugaboo this year is the non-profits like Shaw’s and the League of Women Voters who use public monies to favor specific candidates.
On Israel? Robert, not only do the religious Right and their leaders not wish Israel well, they pray every day for it’s destruction. You can’t have the Rapture without Armageddon and you can’t have Armageddon without the destruction of Israel. If I read my bible wrong would somebody please correct me?
How about those Giants?
h.
August 27, 2010 at 9:31 am
Good call Marc– it is important to differentiate Zonism from Judaism and Israel.
I tend to think many people ascribe more power and influence to Israel than exists. I have long thought that criminals in our own government cheer when Israel is made into a reliable scapegoat.
I think Zionists, neocons, and their ilk care as much about Israel as people who direct American imperialism (the so-called Wasjhington/K Street/Wall Street/Corporate-Financial-Military elites) care about America.
If it suited them, they would sacrifice Israel as swiftly as Hitler did Germany.
The obeisance Obama, Pelosi, indeed virtually if not all our government representatives accord Israel is superficial because it forgets what we since WWII admonish ourselves never to forget: that all people have potential to become monsters or to promote peace.
By their fruits ye shall know them.
August 26, 2010 at 6:23 pm
Randy Shaw and the THC are a lot like Israel. Our tax dollars go to support Israel and the THC. Israel and the THC then turn around and use US taxpayer dollars to mount public and political relations campaigns designed to keep them firmly at the public teat.
Thus, US taxpayers continually subsidize all sorts of activity with our tax dollars that does not solve problems, in fact, often creates new problems and makes sure that we throw good money after bad.
This is what corruption looks like.
-marc
August 26, 2010 at 1:47 pm
When Obama was elected president, I hoped for a neutral U.S. policy in all things Middle East or at least a less pro-Israel approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His June 2009 Cairo Islam speech calling for a Palestinian state and a freeze on Israeli settlements was a good beginning. And there is some indication that the Obama administration has attempted to moderate the U.S. policy toward Israel or at least redefine what it means to be pro-Israel in reconition that real progress in the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations is vital to regain U.S. credibility in the Middle East. The fallout from Israel’s 2006 war with Lebanon, its 2009 invasion of the Gaza strip, and its attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla made many Americans view the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a new light. Before, it was David (Israel) versus Goliath (the Arab ring states). For many, Israel is now seen as the neighborhood bully. But as Mr. Lendman points out, Israel’s influence in our political life is too invasive to make any significant change in our pro-Israel stance.
August 26, 2010 at 12:45 pm
Kindly refrain from referring to the Zionist lobby as the Jewish lobby.
Zionism is a secular political project that is supported by and benefits Jew and gentile alike.
Jews and Jewish people are religious and ethnic designations respectively.
-marc