JEWISH BILLIONAIRE ATTACKS ISRAEL LOBBY IN AMERICA

Jewish billionaire, George Soros, has invited the wrath of the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee by publicly claiming it silences critics of Israel and has too much influence within America’s two main parties.
According to Soros, in an article in the New York Review of Books, anyone who confronts AIPAC invites its wrath with the result that few people are prepared to question its power over America’s Middle East policy. He feels it is time American Jews “reined in” AIPAC which has been at the center of a major spying scandal in the past year. Two of its senior executives were accused of passing US secrets to a Mossad agent within the Israeli embassy in Washington. That fact, however, did not deter many leading republicans and democrats, including Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice and the Clintons from continuing to support the organization. Its annual meeting in Washington is attended by the high and mighty from Capitol Hill. During this year’s conference, AIPAC lobbied for the US to stand firm with Israel and refuse to accept the new Palestinian national unity government – a stance not supported by most European and Arab states.
Soros knew that by standing up to AIPAC he was placing himself in the firing line. That was the fate of former president, Jimmy Carter, a year ago when he accused Israel of imposing a form of apartheid on Palestinians by continuing to encircle Palestinian territory with a wall that has been condemned by the International Court in The Hague. Carter was branded an Anti-Semite and has since admitted the level of vitriol directed at him was something he had never before experienced. In his opinion, it was all because he did something most Americans and the American media have been frightened to do. He questioned Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. It was clear to him that the Israel lobby intimidated and silenced critics of Israel by accusing them of being Anti-Semites. Carter quickly found he had few friends in Washington. Bill Clinton, whose wife Hilary needs the Jewish vote in her run for the presidency, distanced himself from Carter’s remarks and senior figures connected to Carter’s presidential library resigned.
None of that bothered Soros. He was quickly becoming familiar with the tactics of the pro-Israel lobby. In February, Martin Perez at the New Republic described him as “a cog in the Hitlerite wheel.” It was the type of low brow, thuggish comment Soros had come to expect from people who could not tolerate genuine debate. In his New York Review of Books article, Soros made it clear that anyone who challenged AIPAC or Israeli policy was sure to be subjected to a campaign of vilification. He added that Democratic and Republican politicians were so well acquainted with the risks of taking on the Jewish lobby and that they were part of a wall of silence surrounding the activities of AIPAC. As a consequence, AIPAC’s hardline policies hurt Israel and it was time for American Jews to speak out against the lobby group.
It is important to see Soros’ political view in a wider context. He is Jewish but admits he is not a practicing Jew, nor a Zionist. He is also one of the Democratic Party’s most generous benefactors. Recently he openly supported presidential candidate, Barack Obama, but Obama was careful not to alienate the Jewish lobby by insisting he did not subscribe to the Soros thesis about the need for debate about Israeli foreign policy. Soros says he cares about his fellow Jews and for that reason believes Israel must rid itself of its innate militarism. In particular, he asserts that policies, which lead to the killing of ten Palestinians for every Israeli and the virtual destruction of the civilian infrastructure of Lebanon, cannot be justified. He warns that if Israel continues to silence debate on these issues it will find itself in the same position that America found itself in during the lead up to the 2003 Iraq invasion. The Bush administration silenced critics by accusing them of being unpatriotic and then launched an invasion that may well turn out to be one of the greatest blunders in US history. Likewise, Israel, through groups like AIPAC, continues to charge that its critics are its enemies. In so doing, it risks not seeing the bigger picture and could well make errors of judgment that will endanger its security and that of the region.
Soros is greatly troubled by the power AIPAC wields within the Democratic Party and the likelihood that democrats will not be willing or able to alter that reality. While he is heartened that a debate is beginning in America about US Middle East policy, he nevertheless warns it will go nowhere “as long as AIPAC retains powerful influence” within the two parties on Capitol Hill. Democrats, he points out, have made promises about change but promises will prove hollow unless they become reality. Anyway, little headway will be made until Democrats “resist the dictates of AIPAC,” which he also calls “pervasive.”
He would earnestly love to see a wide ranging debate in America on Israeli policy in the Middle East region. He also wants Israel to abandon its biblical “eye for an eye” philosophy in favor of intelligent diplomacy. In his view, the Bush administration is going down a dangerous road by adopting the Israeli hardline strateg of not recognizing the new Palestinian government. He points to the fact the Saudis managed to bring that unity government into being, believing it was better for Middle East stability and a necessary precursor to an eventual settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. Soros claims the recent meeting between Condoleezza Rice, the Israel Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert and Palestinian president, Abu Abbas, was “an empty formality” because it did not include Hamas which is a central element of the new Palestinian political entity.
Soros is not the only one taking heat from the Jewish lobby in the US and the Israeli media. Pulitzer Prize columnist, Nicholas Kristof, was recently lambasted by the New York Sun for “spreading a blood libel.” His perceived sin was that he dared to suggest in a New York Times article that American politicians “muzzled themselves” when it came to talking about Israel. He also said there was “no serious political debate among Democrats or Republicans about our policy towards Israelis and Palestinians.”
The Economist, one of Europe’s most highly respected magazines recently stated that it was time for America to have an open debate about its role in the Middle East and if AIPAC was to remain “such a mighty force” in American politics it had to play a positive role in that debate. Predictably, The Economist came in for a torrent of criticism but so too did the prominent website Salon.com. It carried an article by Gary Kamiya who said it was time for American Jews to say to AIPAC: “Not in my name!” He argued that American Jews had to seriously challenge the myth that AIPAC’s policies reflected the views of the wider Jewish community.
The developing debate about AIPAC, which is being described in some circles as “near nuclear” because of vehement reactions from the Jewish lobby, may well have its roots in an event last year. In March 2006, two political scientists, John Mearsheimer of Chicago University and Stephen Walt of Harvard were viciously attacked in Jewish outlets for a document they published, claiming that Israeli influence pushed America into the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and America’s unquestioning support for Israel was not strategic. It served to increased the threat of terrorism to the US. The Walt-Mearsheimer thesis also exposed the brutality of Israeli military policies and questioned the myth that Israel was David fighting Goliath. The academics thought the opposite was true and Israel was the Goliath in the Middle East. Those assertions placed the two academics in the center of a firestorm of criticism and charges they were Anti-Semites. Many fellow academics who agreed with them were much too frightened to come out publicly and say so.
As this latest debate involving Soros rages, AIPAC will either take center stage or sit back and hope it fizzles out. It knows it has unquestioning support in the corridors of power in Washington and within the media. In 1997 when Fortune magazine polled members of Congress about the most powerful lobbying organizations in Washington, AIPAC came in second. Since then little has changed.