Thread: AIPAC

Soros adds voice to debate over Israel lobby

By Bernd Debusmann, Special Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The billionaire investor George Soros has added his voice to a heated but little-noticed debate over the role of Israel's powerful lobby in shaping Washington policy in a way critics say hurts U.S. national interests and stifles debate.


In the current issue of the New York Review of Books, Soros takes issue with "the pervasive influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)" in Washington and says the Bush administration's close ties with Israel are obstacles to a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.


Soros, who is Jewish but not often engaged in Israel affairs, echoed arguments that have fueled a passionate debate conducted largely in the rarefied world of academia, foreign policy think tanks and parts of the U.S. Jewish community.


"The pro-Israel lobby has been remarkably successful in suppressing criticism," wrote Soros.

Politicians challenge it at their peril and dissenters risk personal vilification, he said.


AIPAC has consistently declined comment on such charges, but many of its supporters have been vocal in dismissing them. Historian Michael Oren, speaking at AIPAC's 2007 conference in March, said the group was not merely a lobby for Israel. "It is the embodiment of a conviction as old as this (American) nation itself that belief in the Jewish state is tantamount to belief in these United States," he said in a keynote speech.


The long-simmering debate bubbled to the surface a year ago, when two prominent academics, Stephen Walt of Harvard and John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, published a 12,500-word essay entitled "The Israel Lobby" and featuring the fiercest criticism of AIPAC since it was founded in 1953.


AIPAC now has more than 100,000 members and is rated one of the most influential special interest groups in the United States, its political clout comparable with such lobbies as the National Rifle Association.

The two academics said that b][pressure from Israel and its lobby in Washington played an important role in President George W. Bush's decision to attack Iraq, an arch-enemy of Israel, in 2003[/b]

Mearsheimer and Walt found no takers for their essay in the U.S. publishing world.



When it was eventually published in the London Review of Books, they noted it would be hard to imagine any mainstream media outlet in the United States publishing such a piece.



That influence is reflected by the fact that Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. aid in the world.

Entire & Link: http://today.reuters.com/news/articl...1-ArticlePage4

I would agree with Soros, but add that AIPAC is fueling our entire Mideast military policy, not just the Palestinian issue. Every politician running for president (with the exception of the ones who can't win such as Ron Paul(R) and Mike Gravel(D)) are bought by AIPAC the way hookers are bought out of Nana Plaza.

I just don't understand the love affair with throwing our entire reputation and foreign policy down the toilet for a nation of merely 6 million people.

Originally Posted by surasak

I just don't understand the love affair with throwing our entire reputation and foreign policy down the toilet for a nation of merely 6 million people.

You probably wouldn't.
But, it might have something to do with the Holocaust and 'Never Again'?

They should have carved a nice big chunk of GERMANY out and gave it to the jews

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Originally Posted by surasak

I just don't understand the love affair with throwing our entire reputation and foreign policy down the toilet for a nation of merely 6 million people.

You probably wouldn't.
But, it might have something to do with the Holocaust and 'Never Again'?

Stalin killed more Russians, Mao killed more Chinese, yet why didn't we carve out pieces of Russia or China to save the poor Russians or Chinese so it would happen 'never again?'

I think the 'never again' or Holocaust excuse is bullshit.

Why do the Jews get special treatment while other atrocities during and since WWII are ignored?

Hmmmm.

^
G_D's chosen people?

^^ stalin and mao were also killing there own people !!

...which means that others' lives aren't as worthy as a Jew's?

I will never understand the US unilateral support for whatever Israel does. Just look at the UN voting record- the US and Israel stand out like two hypocritical, sore thumbs.
Why not just land for peace? How do you expect the Muslim world to buy your version of 'freedom and democracy' when it is so obviously a hypocricy?

^^ if you insist

Originally Posted by surasak

...which means that others' lives aren't as worthy as a Jew's?

Who's doing the sucide bombings?
Who has turned that desert into a Garden?
Who wants to wipe Israel off the map?
Who are the dregs of the Arab world?

Originally Posted by surasak

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Originally Posted by surasak

I just don't understand the love affair with throwing our entire reputation and foreign policy down the toilet for a nation of merely 6 million people.

You probably wouldn't.
But, it might have something to do with the Holocaust and 'Never Again'?

Stalin killed more Russians, Mao killed more Chinese, yet why didn't we carve out pieces of Russia or China to save the poor Russians or Chinese so it would happen 'never again?'

I think the 'never again' or Holocaust excuse is bullshit.

Why do the Jews get special treatment while other atrocities during and since WWII are ignored?

Hmmmm.

In the case of the Soviet Union I think it was carved up to ensure the Soviets no longer kill millions.

Originally Posted by surasak

...which means that others' lives aren't as worthy as a Jew's?

Well, appeasment cost millions of Jews their lives as England and France, allies at the time were hesitating too long - before Hitler started shoving them in gas chambers...

What is the explanation for the U.S. sitting idly by while other millions were killed since WWII? Because they weren't Jews? Was it appeasement that allowed the massacres in Rwanda? Bosnia? China? Russia? The Sudan?

Unless the U.S. is either a majority Jewish nation (or perhaps secretly controlled by the Jews) I see neither a logistical nor logical reason to support a nation whose support has cost us thousands of Americans' lives when we so conveniently do nothing to stop other atrocities.

^ bitch if we do-- bitch if we don't---- some people just like to bitch

The lack of consistency in U.S. foreign policy is a large part of why so many nations view the U.S. with contempt.

Originally Posted by surasak

What is the explanation for the U.S. sitting idly by while other millions were killed since WWII? Because they weren't Jews? Was it appeasement that allowed the massacres in Rwanda? Bosnia? China? Russia? The Sudan?

Unless the U.S. is either a majority Jewish nation (or perhaps secretly controlled by the Jews) I see neither a logistical nor logical reason to support a nation whose support has cost us thousands of Americans' lives when we so conveniently do nothing to stop other atrocities.

Well, guess which nation led to the 'resolution' of Bosnia, eh/

The Euros didn't protect their Jewish citizens other than the Italians. 80% of Italian Jews survived Hitler's reign. Mussolini wouldn't ship them north despite Hitler's insistence. Funny, a country full of Catholics who didn't turn the Jews over.

I think in the case of Jewish people it was decided enough is enough. They know how people feel about them and to what degree people are willing to go. Jews are insuring it never happens again. Is anyone suggesting their right to lobby their politicians should be restricted?

What are the Euros doing about Africa? They're the ones who carved it up, creating arbitrary boundaries, ignoring the established ethnic boundaries and ignoring histories of inter-tribal violence.

Agree with KID.

Originally Posted by surasak

I just don't understand the love affair with throwing our entire reputation and foreign policy down the toilet for a nation of merely 6 million people.

16 April is Holocaust remembrance day

When's the Soviet Gulag Remembrance Day?

If it were not for some people's belief in the Bible would anyone really care? Is it to suggest that the Constitution is not actually the highest law of the land?

The fact that Europe failed to protect the Jews or fails to stop violence in Africa is irrelevent to the foreign policy of the United States.

AFAIC AIPAC and AARP are the two most dangerous lobbies that control so much of what is wrong with the United States today.

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Originally Posted by surasak

...which means that others' lives aren't as worthy as a Jew's?

Who's doing the sucide bombings?
Who has turned that desert into a Garden?
Who wants to wipe Israel off the map?
Who are the dregs of the Arab world?

The Jews were a pioneer of the use of the car bomb as a weapon of terrorism. They were just sensible enough not to be in it when it blew.

Pre Israel Palestine was a perfectly fine place before Zionism. A community of Jews actually lived there unnoppressed by their Arab neighbourse over many centuries. It's no wonder that these 'real' Israelite Jews are mostly peaceniks now.

Most Palestinians do not want to wipe Israel off the Map, they want the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Golan heights returned to them, and the brutal Israeli occupation to cease.

I don't know how you define 'dregs' but if being amongst the most educated, cultured, cosmoplitan, and affluent people in the Arab world meets your definition then I guess it's the Palestinians. The current sad situation is a result of Israeli oppression. These are the ancient Phoenicians you are talking about. They had an advanced culture when our ancestors were daubing themselves with ochre and dancing around fires.

[quote=attaboy;286588]

Originally Posted by surasak

edited: Arabs are not Phoenicians. That is not to say that Palestinains do not have Phoenician blood. Lebanese are more Phoenician then any other group in the area.

Phoenicia, as I understand it, encompassed modern day Lebanon, and a fair chunk of Palestine. Palestinians bloodlines encompass a fair portion of Phoenician blood, at least according to themselves.
The Arab world is suitably complex. Syrians were once 'Assyrians', Iraqi's were once 'Babylonians', Turks were once 'Ottomans' and so on. They are all grouped together as Arabs now, although there are significant genetic differences. I once read that genetically a Palestinian is closer to a Jew than he is to a Saudi.