AIPAC & Anti-Semitism

[Holden Caulfield]

Do our esteemed comrades feel that statements along the lines of:



The House of Representatives of the American “superpower” did the bidding of its master, AIPAC, and voted 344 to 36 to condemn the Goldstone Report.


play on anti-semetic feelings and, perhaps, repressed prejudice?

It appears that the author is saying that the Jewish-Zionist Lobby control America, that American elected delegates are 'servile' to their Jewish paymasters.

[FreeFocus]

I think it's a mistaken view that Israel controls the US when it's clear that Israel is basically just an extension of the US. Israel is a garrison state, in essence.

I wouldn't consider what you quoted to be playing up antisemitism, unless something else was coupled with it. It's a fact that the Zionist lobby has coerced members of Congress into voting for pro-Israel measures, and they do so by threatening to campaign against them or cut off funding. Nonetheless, to suggest this changes geopolitical reality is absurd. Israel is a US puppet.

[Sasha]

yeah, this is crossing the border from anti-israelism/anti-zionism into the realms of anti-semitism.

besides, the constant denial of the fact that america itself has an significant imperialist intrest in the exsistance and survival of the israeli apartheid state and maybe is the bigger player in the game between these two states smacks of to much ZOG/elders of zion shite anyway.

[h0m0revolutionary]

No i don't think it's anti-semtitic at all.

It's incorrect, but not anti-semitic.

I mean seriously, sometimes our own movement is just as bad as the zionists in this regard, far too quick to shout jew-baiter.

[Die Rote Fahne]

The Israeli Lobby is a very powerful one in the USA. That, combined with the USA being imperialist means that it usually gets what it wants.

Check out:

"Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land"

and

"Occupation 101"

[bcbm]

I mean seriously, sometimes our own movement is just as bad as the zionists in this regard, far too quick to shout jew-baiter.

actually i think the opposite is true, we're far too eager to dismiss anti-semitism as simply being some sort of misinformed or misguided anti-zionism, even when it showcases all of the traditional characteristics. i think the idea that aipac (ie, jews) control america is certainly a modern version of anti-semitic conspiracy theories like the learned protocols of the elders of zion.


The Israeli Lobby is a very powerful one in the USA. It usually gets what it wants.

israel receives support because us imperialism has a strong interest in maintaining a foothold in the middle east. if aipac dissapeared i doubt this would change.

[GPDP]

The U.S. Government defending Israel and condemning well-documented criticism with little more than lies? Color me surprised!

The view that Israel controls the U.S. is so widespread within the left, it's actually sickening. However, it's not ALWAYS thinly-veiled anti-semitism, though such feelings do manifest themselves frequently. Sometimes, it's actually fervent anti-Zionism that leads to this view.

Take my radical left-wing professor, a vehement anti-Zionist. He constantly criticizes Israel, though he believes Israel does have a right to exist alongside an independent Palestine (kinda like our site founder Malte, really). Even so, he does hold on to the belief that the Israeli lobby controls U.S. interests and foreign policy in the region, and that neocons go along with it because of their religious beliefs and what they supposedly perceive as their mission to help Israel secure the creation of Greater Israel. He even went as far as to state "in this case, I think it's the tail that wags the dog" when I challenged that view. It's a shame, because he's usually spot-on in matters of foreign policy. Just not here.

Chomsky has it right, I believe. Israel is supported not because of AIPAC and other pro-Israel lobbies (other lobbies, such as the oil lobby, are far more powerful) or due to kooky religious myths, but because Israel is a vital puppet for U.S. interests in the region.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEJ4OfbFZF0

[The Ungovernable Farce]

Do our esteemed comrades feel that statements along the lines of:
play on anti-semetic feelings and, perhaps, repressed prejudice?

I'd say so. Would be good to have a bit more context, but it looks like it to me. It certainly displays a woeful failure to develop a materialist analysis of how imperialism actually works.

[Holden Caulfield]

I'd say so. Would be good to have a bit more context, but it looks like it to me. It certainly displays a woeful failure to develop a materialist analysis of how imperialism actually works.

I doubt i could find the source again, i found it in an article on Counterpunch.org

[Reuben]

Counterpunch are scum who have printed articles by bona fide anti-semites such as gilad atzmon. They are an embarrassment to the left and the anti-zionist movement

[TC]

What? AIPAC is an extremely effective lobbying group, Israel is not 'merely' a puppet of America - it has its own institutional interests just like the American ruling class does - often they align, sometimes they don't precisely (America's ruling class has a lot of interests in the Arab dictatorships as well), and AIPAC is in fact effective at ensuring that congress continues to subsidize and support Israel far beyond its usefulness to America. Pretending that Israel is simply an American puppet state or that the Israeli lobby has no effect on US behavior is to deny the political reality for the sake of having a convenient ideological barrier between leftist anti-zionists and the anti-semetic boggiemen used to surpress them.

Of course Israel is useful to the U.S., but its not so singularly useful especially with Iraq as a puppet state, to think that it would receive anywhere near the amount of American money and diplomatic support that it does without a powerful pro-Israel lobby that can affect U.S. congressional reelection chances and therefore U.S. congressional behavior.

Just look at AIPAC's website to see its achievements: "http://www.aipac.org/about_AIPAC/default.asp"

And the pro-Israel lobby is far from the only lobbying group capable of steering U.S. foreign policy in ways that don't precisely mechanistically align with pure economic interests. Another one thats obvious is the Miami gusano lobby that makes terrorizing Cuba a far bigger part of the U.S. agenda than it otherwise would be. Another is the anti-abortion and anti-gay christian wackos.

Where the bourgeois economic interests are not actively undermined, well organized well funded political pressure groups are certainly able to divert legislative resources to pet causes, in fact this is where politics in the U.S. actually plays out because core economic interests are not contestable in elections.