If Israeli apartheid were to disappear, oil and trade would still flow from the Middle East towards the West, write Jean Bricmont and Diana Johnstone.
By Jean Bricmont and Diana Johnstone
Special to Consortium News
Why does the United States give total support to Israel?
In answer, there is a common myth shared by both champions and radical critics of the Zionist state which needs to be dispelled.
The myth is that Israel is a major U.S. strategic asset, described as a sort of unsinkable American aircraft carrier vital to Washington’s interests in the Middle East.
The line of argument of those who share this myth is to show that the United States has economic and strategic interests in the oil-rich Middle East (which nobody denies) and to quote American (and, of course, Israeli) political figures who claim that Israel is the best or even the sole U.S. ally in the region.
For example U.S. President Joe Biden has gone so far as to say that if Israel didn’t exist the U.S. should have invented it.
But the crucial evidence, totally missing from their analysis, is the slightest example of Israel actually serving American interests in the region.
If no examples are given, it’s simply because there are none. Israel has never fired a shot on behalf of the United States or brought a drop of oil under U.S. control.
We can start with a common sense argument: If the U.S. is interested in Middle East oil, why would it support a country that is hated (for whatever reasons) by all the populations of the oil producing countries?
In the 1950s, such was the reasoning of most U.S. experts, who put good relations with Arab countries ahead of support to Israel. This no doubt helps explain why AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, was founded in 1963, to align U.S. policy with that of Israel.
1967 War & After
U.S. support for Israel took off after the 1967 war. Israel’s success dealt a fatal blow to the Arab nationalism embodied by Egypt’s Gamal Nasser, which some U.S. policy-makers falsely saw as a potential communist threat (which they saw just about everywhere).
But the war was waged by Israel for its own interests and expansion, with no benefit to the United States.
On the contrary: a remarkable official silence has been maintained over the fact that in the course of that short war, the American intelligence gathering ship USS Liberty, which was spying on the conflict, was shelled for several hours by the Israeli air force, with the obvious intention to sink it, killing 34 sailors and wounding 174.
Damage to USS Liberty, June 1967. (Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
Had there been no survivors, Egypt could have been accused (making it a “false flag” operation). The survivors were ordered not to speak about it, and the incident was never fully investigated, accepting the official Israeli explanation that it was a “mistake.” In any case, Israel’s behavior was not exactly that of a precious ally.
When Israel attacked Lebanon in 2006, that country’s government was perfectly “pro-Western.” What’s more, during the 1991 war against Iraq over Kuwait, the United States insisted that Israel should not participate, because such involvement would have collapsed their Arab anti-Iraq coalition. Again, it’s hard here to see Israel as an indispensable “ally.”
U.S. post-9/11 wars have targeted Israel’s enemies — Iraq, Libya, Syria — with no advantage to U.S. oil companies, on the contrary. The question arises whether the U.S. choice of enemies in the Middle East has not been determined by the interests of a foreign government, contrary to American interests in the region.
Washington & Gaza Today
Now we come to the current situation: what interest does the United States have in the slaughter being perpetrated in Gaza?
In reality, what Washington is doing is trying to maintain good relations with their Arab allies (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States) by pretending to seek a compromise while exerting no effective pressure on Israel – for instance, by cutting off funds.
And why don’t they? The answer is obvious but saying so is politically incorrect, and is rarely discussed by defenders of the myth, except to refute it. It is the action of the pro-Israeli lobby, which de facto controls Congress and without which no president can really act.
[See: Israel Lobby’s Disastrous Domination]
The lobby is no secret conspiracy. It is openly coordinated by AIPAC, which spreads billionaire donations throughout the U.S. political system and dictates the line to take on Israel to ensure a successful career.
Outside annual AIPAC meeting in Washington, March 2016. (Susan Melkisethian, Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Control is virtually complete over the two parties represented in Congress.
It is achieved primarily through the funding of election campaigns. All those who comply can count on campaign donations, while anyone daring to defy the lobby’s injunctions would quickly be challenged by a very well-funded opponent in the next primary election, thus losing support of his or her own party in the next election — as happened to Georgia representative Cynthia McKinney in 2002.
[See: Zionist Suppression in Congress and US Congress: ‘We Stand With Genocide’]
The lobby also animates smear campaigns against any critic of Israel, as seen recently in the attacks on university presidents (Harvard, MIT, Pennsylvania) for not having sufficiently cracked down on alleged student “anti-Semitism” on their campuses.
There are several books that explain in detail how the lobby works:
- They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel’s Lobby (1985) by Paul Findley, a Republican congressman from Illinois, who details how the lobby politically “liquidated” all those who wanted a different policy in the Middle East, precisely because they wanted to defend the interests of the United States.
- The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt (2007) a comprehensive and well sourced book on the functioning and the effects of the lobby.
- Against Our Better Judgment : The hidden history of how the U.S. was used to create Israël, by Alison Weir, 2014, which goes back to the Balfour declaration.
One can also watch hidden-camera reports by Al Jazeera on the lobby’s work in the U.S. and Britain.
The way the Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn was “eliminated” politically rests entirely on the lobby’s action and campaigns against his (imaginary) anti-Semitism. The same process is currently underway in France with Jean-Luc Mélenchon and his France Insoumise party.
American presidents as different as Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter have complained that their actions were hampered by the lobby. In fact, every American president has wanted to get rid of the “Palestinian problem” (through the two-state solution) but has been impeded by Congress.
As for Congress itself, let us quote very explicit insider testimony, that of James Abourezk, who was first a congressman and then a senator from South Dakota in the 1970s and who sent this letter in 2006 to Jeff Blankfort, an anti-Zionist activist:
“I can tell you from personal experience that, at least in the Congress, the support Israel has in that body is based completely on political fear — fear of defeat by anyone who does not do what Israel wants done. I can also tell you that very few members of Congress — at least when I served there — have any affection for Israel or for its Lobby. What they have is contempt, but it is silenced by fear of being found out exactly how they feel.
I’ve heard too many cloakroom conversations in which members of the Senate will voice their bitter feelings about how they’re pushed around by the Lobby to think otherwise. In private one hears the dislike of Israel and the tactics of the Lobby, but not one of them is willing to risk the Lobby’s animosity by making their feelings public.
Thus, I see no desire on the part of Members of Congress to further any U.S. imperial dreams by using Israel as their pit bull. The only exceptions to that rule are the feelings of Jewish members, who, I believe, are sincere in their efforts to keep U.S. money flowing to Israel.”
AIPAC Suppression
Abourezk added that the Lobby made every effort to suppress even a single voice of congressional dissent – as his own – that might question annual appropriations to Israel, so that
“if Congress is completely silent on the issue, the press will have no one to quote, which effectively silences the press as well. Any journalists or editors who step out of line are quickly brought under control by well organized economic pressure against the newspaper caught sinning.”
Abourezk once traveled through the Middle East with a reporter who wrote honestly about what he saw. As a result, newspaper executives received threats from several of their large advertisers that their advertising would be terminated if they continued publishing the journalist’s articles.
Abourezk circa 1977. (Handout photo, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)
“I do not recall a single instance where any administration saw the need for Israel’s military power to advance U.S. Imperial interests. In fact, as we saw in the Gulf War, Israel’s involvement was detrimental to what Bush, Sr. wanted to accomplish in that war. They had, as you might remember, to suppress any Israeli assistance so that the coalition would not be destroyed by their involvement.
So far as the argument that we need to use Israel as a base for U.S. operations, I’m not aware of any U.S. bases there of any kind. The U.S. has enough military bases, and fleets, in the area to be able to handle any kind of military needs without using Israel. In fact I can’t think of an instance where the U.S. would want to involve Israel militarily for fear of upsetting the current allies the U.S. has, i.e., Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. The public in those countries would not allow the monarchies to continue their alliance with the U.S. should Israel become involved.”
Abourezk said that U.S. encouragement in its invasions of Lebanon “was merely an extension of the U.S. policy of helping Israel because of the Lobby’s continual pressure. … Lebanon always has been a ‘throw away’ country so far as the Congress is concerned, that is, what happens there has no effect on U.S. interests. There is no Lebanon Lobby.”
“The public must realize that far from being an asset, Israel is a chronic liability that squanders billions of American dollars, drags the United States into wars and whose genocidal treatment of the Palestinians is radically destroying America’s moral pretensions in most of the world.”
Alleged Strategic Value
The alleged strategic value of Israel is just one among many examples of claiming that some imperial/colonial project is necessary for the global capitalist system.
The Vietnam war was justified in part by the domino theory: all of South-East Asia would become communist if Vietnam “fell.” The only domino that fell was Cambodia, as a result of U.S. bombing, after victorious Vietnam intervened to overthrow a genocidal regime there.
South African apartheid was supported by the West, in part out of fear of communism, but the end of apartheid had no dramatic effect on capitalist imperialism in Africa.
If Israeli apartheid were to disappear in Palestine, oil and trade would still flow from the Middle East towards the West, and there would be no attempts by Houthis to block shipments in the Red Sea.
A realistic analysis shows that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and aggressive policies toward its neighbors are entirely detrimental to American interests in the Middle East, which the current crisis only serves to highlight even more.
The trouble with the “Israel as U.S. aircraft carrier” thesis is that while it’s very comfortable for its defenders, it is also very damaging for the Palestinian cause.
It’s comfortable because it doesn’t risk incurring accusations of anti-Semitism, as it shifts responsibility for Israeli atrocities to American imperialism and its multinational corporations.
On the other hand, if you emphasize the Lobby’s leading role in U.S. Middle East policy, you will be accused of echoing fantasies and “conspiracy theories” about “Jewish power” dating from times when there was no Israel and thus no Israel Lobby.
Rejection of discredited stereotypes is no reason to ignore the facts of the unprecedented relationship that has developed between the United States and Israel.
Harm to Palestinian Cause
The “Israel as U.S. aircraft carrier” is precisely an Israeli argument designed to win over total U.S. political, financial and military support.
Thus it is no wonder that echoing that argument is extremely harmful to the Palestinian cause. If it were true, how could we hope to end this American support to Israel?
Persuade the American population to revolt against something said to be highly beneficial to U.S. interests? Or wait for American imperialism to collapse? That’s not likely to happen any time soon.
But if the power of the lobby is the key to U.S. support, then the strategy to be followed is much simpler and has a much greater chance of success: we need simply to dare speak out and tell the truth.
The public must realize that far from being an asset, Israel is a chronic liability that squanders billions of American dollars, drags the United States into wars and whose genocidal treatment of the Palestinians is radically destroying America’s moral pretensions in most of the world.
Once this is understood, support for Israel will collapse, and voters may put enough pressure on the national elite, the administration and even the intimidated Congress to reorient U.S. policy in line with genuine national interests.
There are signs that part of the economic ruling class is moving this way: Elon Musk’s defense of free speech on social networks is a step in the right direction (to the rage of Israel’s supporters).
Although Donald Trump, as president, did all he could for Israel, his popular slogan “America First” means something quite different, as understood by anti-interventionists on the right such as Tucker Carlson.
Unfortunately, many on the left cling to an ostensibly “Marxist” view that U.S. support for Israel must be motivated by economic interests, by capitalist profits, by control of the flow of Middle Eastern oil. This belief is not only unsupported factually, it amounts to an invitation to U.S. rulers to keep it up.
With worldwide indignation rising against the genocidal assault on Gaza, how is it possible for any American to claim that Israel is “acting in American interests?” Israel is responsible for its crimes, and it is both true and in the U.S. national interest to recognize that far from being a strategic asset, Israel is America’s No. 1 liability.
Jean Bricmont is professor of theoretical physics at the Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium), and author of numerous articles and books, including Humanitarian Imperialism, La République des Censeurs,and Fashionable Nonsense (with Alan Sokal).
Diana Johnstone was press secretary of the Green Group in the European Parliament from 1989 to 1996. In her latest book, Circle in the Darkness: Memoirs of a World Watcher(Clarity Press, 2020), she recounts key episodes in the transformation of the German Green Party from a peace to a war party. Her other books include Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions (Pluto/Monthly Review) and in co-authorship with her father, Paul H. Johnstone, From MAD to Madness: Inside Pentagon Nuclear War Planning (Clarity Press). She can be reached at [email protected]
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
While I agree with the authors basic premise (i.e. – that Israel’s benefit to US interests in the ME is highly exaggerated and the AIPAC’s influence in the US is way too strong), I personally would liked to have seen more quantitative figures. Comparing AIPAC’s budget/expenditures with the average campaign costs for a U.S. senator or representative, for instance. A good comparison of a similar (though domestic) PAC would be with the NRA in US politics.
“The public must realize that far from being an asset, Israel is a chronic liability that squanders billions of American dollars, drags the United States into wars and whose genocidal treatment of the Palestinians is radically destroying America’s moral pretensions in most of the world.”
Heart of the piece, boldly stated.
In general, article doesn’t tell us anything we don’t already know. The absence of substantive discussion of overlapping financial, military, technological and intelligence interests renders it mostly useless. That the authors choose to blithely dismiss these factors – “U.S. support for Israel must be motivated by economic interests” is “factually incorrect” – is just bizarre.
Of course the most telling, and vacuous, assertion they make is that there are “signs” members of the economic ruling class are moving in the right direction. What signs are there? Oh just one, and that is Elon Musk embracing free speech!! Apparently Musk visiting Israel during a campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing and X being an utter cesspool where unhinged Zionist psychopaths can promote genocide and ethnic cleansing … is free speech that is the beginning of the end for AIPAC’s dominance of US politics.
The sheer hypocrisy of pseudo-liberal thinkers.
The following is almost a full Art tickle, and may be read as such, except for the serious parts!
Who made the ‘mythtake’ in the beginning….
“The myth is that Israel is a major U.S. strategic asset…” in reality, is no myth!
Up until this exceptionally dynamic moment in history, Israel like all other American ‘partners’ has been used by the U.S. for its own ends. The myth ‘lies’ in the delusional American mind.
Israel, under the current fascist, ultra-nationalist leadership, has long ago woken-up to this fact, and turned the tables on America.
The question is: when will the U.S. wake up to its usurpative interfering behaviors in supposedly sovereign countries the world over, and realize, that era is finally coming to a crashing close; to the catastrophic detriment of humanity at-large, unless America will relent in its ways and concede that concessions are required for ‘life’ on the planet to continue?
America, for too long now has been the global “rogue state” (the late William ‘Bill’ Blum et.al).
The real truth lies in the fact that “If Israeli apartheid were to disappear, oil and trade would still flow from the Middle East towards the West” and that is all they care about! All other commodities – human beings at the top of the list – can be dispensed with.
Massively contributing to, and fully supporting apart-hate genocidal practices, is one way of keeping the flow flowing!
Israel as “U.S. Aircraft Carrier” in the ‘Middle East’ was a Western colonial invention. It was constructed with rational foresight, way before Joe Biden lost his, if he ever had any; at the close of WW II after the holocaust of that war; as soon as Israel became a state, if not before that.
Joe Biden has always been a puppet on the strings of his masters, only now he has become entangled in his own neurological strings. Even the puppet masters now fear they know not what his next mentally defective gyrations will produce. Or perhaps the hidden government sees this as an asset to be used to its advantage.
(Dementia is a real tragedy of human fate, and by abusing this man, as his party is doing, sickens the sensitive heart. There is no conscience! Without conscience there compassion does not exist. He has been made the laughing stock of the world. This shell of a man is the most powerful person in the world???)
This is the laughable in the tragicomedy of life.
The jokes on us! We laugh, when we need to be crying for reality and scared sh.tless.
“If no examples are given, it’s simply because there are none. Israel has never fired a shot…“
Here’s an example: The U.S. has been attempting to dominate and control the flow of “Middle East” oil since long before the state of Israel even existed. This fact is in no way historical myth! The ‘Middle East’ is in fact a construct of the Western mindset, as are all the countries in Africa for another exam pill.
As for “common sense argument”: Prior to British conniving in handling Palestine on-paper, abracadabra, in actuality it handed it over, lock stock and barrel to the new State of Israel, formally founded in 1948.
The Semitic populations of the Levant and the Arabian peninsula got on well enough with the handful of those Semites of the Jewish faith, who had been an integral part of the area, having lived there for centuries.
1967 War & After
But the war was waged by Israel for its own interests and expansion, with no benefit to the United States.
Does the proxy war being waged by the U.S. against Russia, have any benefits for the Ukrainian people?
The USS Liberty disaster in 1967 was a black op affair carried out with the connivance of U.S. President Lyndon Baines Johnson!
The Israeli’s were not the first and only scum to initiate operations applying the methodologies of a ‘Hannibal Directive’ on both soldiers and civilians!
LBJ was the same type of national patriot as is Israels Netanyahu today.
They care less for their citizenry than they do for their own skins.
“U.S. post-9/11 wars have targeted Israel’s enemies — Iraq, Libya, Syria — with no advantage to U.S. oil companies, on the contrary”.
This is a serious statement??? The fact is that after the U.S.’s illegal invasion of Iraq, it took over control of all of Iraq’s oils revenues and resources, as it did in Libya and Syria where today it still controls Syria’s most productive oil fields.
By hook or ‘by ass’ seems to be the theme running through this article.
I am afraid to read any further into this article in order to prevent myself from vomiting.
The writer of this comment admits to being anti Fascist, anti Imperialist, and anti Zionist!
This is a devastatingly accurate article. All Americans should read it…including those in Congress.
Our entire government from elected officials to the deep state has been infected a Zionist disease…spread by fear of being named “anti-semitic”.
This article sounds to me like the story about the donkey, equally hungry and thirsty, who died in front of a pail of water and a bale of hay….
Let us not be the donkey. Opposing the version of ‘Israel as US carrier’ to ‘America driven by Zionist lobby’ takes us nowhere. Politics and geopolitics are a little bit more complex than just that.
Let us for exemple consider the argument that, after the 67 war, Israël has been a potent deterrent to Arab states taking on a tangent from US influence…. Had it focussed on the links between the Arab monarchies or other fantoche regime of the regions and the western imperialism, this article could have gained in interest. But it chooses to target the ‘Zionist lobby’ as the essential factor explaining why the US regime is organising a genocide in front of the world.
None of the 2 stances (the US carrier or the Zionist lobby) are valid in isolation. But there is a definite risk in endorsing the latter. Which is to find ourselves joigning hands with antisemitic populists.
So for those who want to understand more about the ‘special’ relationship between the USA and the now fascist Zionist regime holding Israel, they can look somewhere else. One good start could be there : hxxps://www.commondreams.org/opinion/israel-us-strategic-interest
Thank you all the same to Consortium News for bringing this article. CN remains a prime outlet for the anti-imperialist movement!
Donors matter more than voters, sadly. Unless there’s a huge outcry/understanding, as the authors advocate.
“I’ve heard too many cloakroom conversations in which members of the Senate will voice their bitter feelings about how they’re pushed around by the Lobby to think otherwise. In private one hears the dislike of Israel and the tactics of the Lobby, but not one of them is willing to risk the Lobby’s animosity by making their feelings public.”
That, all too often, is how politics works.
Similarly, ask yourself this question:
How many Republican members of Congress really believe that Trump won the 2020 presidential election?
I would say that it is probably very few. The rest know that they would face a primary challenge if they said otherwise.
Trump’s first ‘stolen election’ claim related to the Iowa Republican caucus of 2016 when he was narrowly defeated by Ted Cruz.
“Israel is responsible for its crimes.” No. The United States, more than complicit, is a willing partner in Israel’s crimes.
As an ally, has Israel EVER fought and died alongside the US in ANY of America’s unending wars for “Democracy?” I have been told by religious Jews “no offense, but non-Jews have no souls and are animals”, much like religious Christians who spot parallel nonsense about all Jews going to Hell.
Thanks for this article which no doubt will be condemned as anti-Semitic rather than anti-Israel. Most Americans have moved to a non-interventionist America-first posture; our government of course is bribed to support non-American, even anti-American interests. Torture was horrific; now our government have become NAZIs?
Seriously, it’s just war for war’s sake, getting that sweet trillion/yr defense budget free cash flow. But now that US foreign policy seems all tanked up with no place to kill, they are switching the gravy train tracks to the medical industry… and Trump is their chump.
When Technocrats Sunk Their Claws Into President Donald Trump And He Rolled Over
https://www.technocracy.news/when-technocrats-sunk-their-claws-into-president-donald-trump-and-he-rolled-over/
? Trump signed Executive Order 13887 well before COVID hit
? It set the stage for mRNA and DNA injections
? It turned over design, manufacturing and distribution to the military
? It set up a huge private-public partnership with Big Pharma
? It set up a task force co-headed by the Secretary of Defense
? Operation Warp Speed confirmed the design, manufacturing and distribution by the military
“The EO 13887 that Trump signed on Sept. 19, 2019, was just before COVID hit. It was one month BEFORE the now-infamous Event 201 role-playing exercise where the elitist response to COVID was carefully laid out. It was before anyone in the public sphere had even conceived that there was a new “vaccine” technology based on genetic engineering that would soon spring into existence, turning Americans into guinea pigs without so much as an “informed consent” form. Safe and effective, they said. No matter that you would get your shot under an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA), in lieu of any safety trials. Trust us, they said.”
The author’s claim that assuming economic interests is ‘Marxist’ is a superficial understanding of Marx. The economic interests of the politicians bought by the Zionist lobby is also understood my a Marxist analysis. We must see that ‘economic interest’ is a rather vague and very extensive term.
Exactly! Vague and in the final analysis unsupportable. The real situation is that the Jewish lobby (which became the Zionist lobby in the mid 19th c ) has long had full control. Capitalism is the rule of the most powerful by any viable means the situation needs. The richest Jewish families the Rothschilds etc are some of the names. Many are unknown and while there might be some minor rivalry inside this all powerful mob when psh come to shove they act as a unified whole. The Neocons are and long have been the controlling power in the US. If Trump gets elected by the way he will rock many boats but not this unsinkable fleet
My curiosity compels me to inquire of the authors of this bizarre treatise as to rather they have actually-comprehensively read the bibliographical references cited as supportive references in their text; and additionally what individual or entity is the quotation“The Myth of Israel as ‘US Aircraft Carrier’ in Middle East” borrowed from or attributed to?
Historical revisionism and religious dogmatic cultism are products of human fiction, not elements of informed reason.
As Usual,
EA
Thanks for this clear presentation of the overwhelming evidence that US wars in the Middle East are solely to benefit Israel, and against the interests of the US. That has been the assessment of US security experts going all the way back to the illegal establishment of Israel.
Consequently, in my view all members of Congress who vote to support Israel are guilty of treason. They are selling out their country, betraying their oath of office, and betraying the US Constitution to benefit a blatantly criminal foreign entity. It’s well-known most of them do this for campaign money.
It’s also obvious by now that the entire corporate media is an integral part of this highly organized machinery, controlled by the same criminals.
This is all especially true today as Israel commits glaring crimes against humanity, supported by many in Congress. Those members are guilty of both crimes against humanity and treason.
Speaking as someone who took an oath to defend the Constitution against enemies foreign and domestic, all such members deserve to be in prison. Some, due to their especially egregious complicity in crimes against humanity and treason, may warrant execution. Studies have shown that when government crimes go unpunished, such crimes increase. When such crimes are punished, they diminish. Members of Congress need to know that such egregious crimes will have severe consequences.
Yes, they are commiting treason. For money, too. That’s how corrupt the American experiment has become.
The Zionists take part of the 3 billion per year the USA donates to them and use it to bribe the members of Congress to act favourably to wards the Zion state. The Zionists therefore obtain the best government the USA taxpayer’s money can buy.
Thank you, thank you, Diane and Jean for giving us a clear explanation of the why and how America is controlled by Israel through AIPAC and the Zionists. Shame on our government elected officials including our Presidents for participating in and supporting Israel.
Article omits that the USS Liberty was in international waters when attacked.
It also omits that the USS Liberty was flying the colors of the USA and that the jets which were launched from an American aircraft carrier to defend her were recalled.
The only reason I can think of in which the USA would kowtow would be the threat of some entity having control of our economy and could crash it at will.
Iraq and Syria have provided no benefit to US oil companies? Really? That’s quite a bold assertion, I’m gonna need a more elaborate argument to take it seriously. I can’t imagine that the reason the US military is currently illegally occupying Syrian oilfields is because it has nothing to do with oil.
It matters not a whit if US oil companies are or aren’t operating in Iraq or Syria. Oil is a global market, and any oil from anywhere is part of the package. The US is the “protector” of the sources of oil for its EU allies. And that “protector” status for its most important allies involves Middle East oil and Israel.
Money and the Israel lobby are not the whole story. The largest pro-Israel voting bloc in the United States, by far, is comprised of evangelical Christians. They and their pastoral leaders have abundant clout in DC. In contrast, many American Jews stand in opposition to Israel’s actions, both before and after October 7. This is especially true of younger generations.
Very true. the so-called Christians are a big factor for domestic support. Also, the US has engaged in mass slaughter, war crimes and the whole nine yards before The Lobby became a force. Bombing Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos into the Stone Age had nothing to do with The Lobby. The Lobby is part of MICIMATT, we can ask Ray McGovern.
Some folks may find it emotionally and psychologically comforting to blame The Lobby and Israel for the evil of US foreign policy, and somehow the good ol USA is an unwitting victim. No doubt there is plenty of blame to go around, as I outlined below, but institutionalized corruption is at the heart of the problem, IMO
We need a thorough examination of the actual power of Evangelical Christians in perpetuating the disastrous US policy vis-a-vis Israel.
I have heard all about the prayer breakfasts in DC, etc.
But I think it comes down to the money: How man;y of these Christian Congresspeople are on the AIPAC tit? I bet all of them, but would like confirmation of who funds their election campaigns; who pays for their jaunts to Occupied Palestine; who provides them with additional political and other perks?
We need to have a list of these people and an accounting of their funding.
My bet is on finding that they are all beholden to AIPAC and other Jewish organizations, regardless of their religious professions. IOW, useful idiots.
Try having in depth conversations with Jewish person about Israel founding and the fantastical messianic myths in which it was based, the Nakba, AIPAC the genocide in Palestine and get back to us on that difference.
Ya’ know, all those Congresspeople that supposedly despise toadying to Israel ought to band together, like AIPAC, and vote for AIPAC, to be treated as the foreign agent they are. As long as the brave Paul Findlayies, Cynthia McKinnyies, etc., act as individuals, they will continue to be picked off as they arise. And the Christian Right ought to read their Bibles more intelligently. The coming of Christ (parousia) all happen when God wants to send Jesus again. Do you not realize we Gentiles were incorporated into. Israel based on the decision of the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15)? Did we too have to Israel to induce God to send Jesus? I’m sorry, but this is absurd.
Without question, the Israel lobby controls who is and who is not elected to high office in the U.S. This article argues that the resulting fanatical support for Israel by the U.S. elected state does not benefit the hegemon, where benefit is measured in oil flows and positive relations with the U.S. among neighboring countries in the region.
If this argument is correct, one would expect that the unelected U.S. security state would do what is necessary to identify the Israel lobby as a foreign agent, force it to register under FARA, and thus prevent it from funding and withholding money from U.S. politicians and freeing the U.S. elected state from its influence. But is has not.
It therefore seems to me that the regional instability, political divisions, and easily exploitable hatred for the U.S. among some factions (“They hate us for our freedoms.”) that U.S. support for unrelenting Israeli crimes engenders serves the interests of the hegemon.
Also, U.S. wars in Libya (eliminate an independent leader), Syria and Iraq (weaken Russian allies), and hostility to Iran (another Russian ally) in my opinion do not support the claim that the Israel lobby, which indeed does control the U.S. elected government, is not doing domestic dirty work for the U.S. security state — because U.S. actions in Libya, Syria, Iraq, and Iran can be explained without reference to Israeli interests.
In my opinion, Israel is a forward base for projecting U.S. influence in Eurasia and containing (i.e., dividing; for example Pakistan and India) Eurasian powers.
Thanks for this coherent analysis.
Its premise is of course that the interests of the Deep State do not overlap with the interests of regular American citizens.
This recognition is the key to the popularity of Donald Trump.
Even though Trump if elected will very likely continue the Deep State’s chaos policy.
I would love to see a response from the authors of the article to Mr. Appledorf’s analysis.
Yep. It’s time for our government to consider the welfare of its own citizens for a change.
What would Stephen Miller Say? Would the ADL care about what he’d say?
The defense of capitalism in this article is truly bewildering.
The authors conflate U.S. interests with Corporate interests. Corporate interests, in particular the defense industry, have great interest in selling arms to Israel. This is why U.S. funds Israel. The USS Liberty incident is a perfect example. Congress was about to vote on an aid package to Israel, had word of the USS Liberty incident gotten out, Congress would have voted it down.
Look at the funding and continual support for Ukraine. Ukraine servers no strategic interest for the United States. But Corporate interests, interests of defense contractors, most certainly.
What U.S. interests were served when the U.S. blew up the Nord stream pipepline? None, but Corporate interests, oil companies are now sending LNG to Europe and are charging a mint.
Saying Israel is a land Aircraft Carrier does not make Americans believe it is essential to support Israel. Quite the opposite. It is such a derogatory term that it would make people cringe, because that’s how U.S. sees Israel, not as country, not as a people, but as a military asset.
Bravo bravo!
Johnstone and Bricmont, bravo!, for slaying the Chomsky line that Israel merely acts as an appendage of Washington imperialism. This canard was always an obvious distortion that blatantly downplayed the power of the Zionist power configuration (see Professsor James Petras’ dynamite books by Clarity Press).
Thank you for this essay; now the truth is finally getting out to more and more people.
The finest and most important article of 2024 thus far.
What a remarkable piece! Two authors whom I used to respect seem to have lost any sense of how the world works. Almost every analytical point they make is incorrect, but it would take an equally long article to refute them all. Perhaps this quotation can serve to expose the error from which all the others flow:
“The alleged strategic value of Israel is just one among many examples of claiming that some imperial/colonial project is necessary for the global capitalist system.”
So the imperial project of the core capitalist nations is not integral to the global capitalist system? It exists only in our imagination? Perhaps capitalism doesn’t exist either! By abandoning this elementary insight, you have ended up in an intellectual cul de sac wherein even hoary nonsense about elders and their protocols can find a home.
This article raises some good points for discussion. This debate has been going on for many years and it is not clear-cut. Ali Abunimah, Norman Finkelstein, Walt and Mearsheimer, and many others have written and spoken about it.
What is often overlooked is that the US Congress is institutionally corrupt and has been “captured” by private interests in general. The Lobby is one of those interests that also represents the CONVERGENT interests of the MICIMATT (aka MIC), BigFinance, BigMedia and contrary to Ms. Johnstone’s article, BigOil,
(Also: The oligarchy own each others equity: the “cross sectoral ownership” means that if MICIMATT profits, so does BigMedia, BigTech, BigOil etc. and not to mention the no-bid US govt. contracts)
The article outlines that US oil companies did not benefit from US foreign policy, however as Henry Kissinger pointed out decades ago: US hegemony is about controlling the FLOW of oil, not necessarily direct ownership. Same with food and other international commodities.
Also not mentioned often: Israel and its sphere of influence/terror is smack dab in the way of China’s Belt and Road. Israel’s control helps to form a blockade against Chinese interests. Iran is also in a strategic position in this regard. US enmity toward Iran is not just for Israel’s benefit.
I have heard knee-jerk reactions of “the Jews control…” While folks like prof. Finkelstein have pointed out that Jews do indeed have disproportionate influence in certain centers of power, this is not an adequate explanation. Of course this sort of simplification borders on genuine anti-Semitism as it casts all Jews as Zionist sociopaths.
Not to be a fence-sitter, but it appears that both “sides” of the debate raise valid points, and neither offer a complete explanation.
As for Israel serving the “national interest” : that depends on who you ask. What is the “national interest”? To the oligarchy that rules the country, the national interest is whatever reaps the highest profits and RoI.
I agree with most of your excellent points, but the one about the so called national interest is probably the most important because it is so seldom pointed out. The phrase, “in the national interest”, really means “in the interest of the ruling class”.