The American Israel Public Affairs Lobby...
Posted by deleted 10 years, 2 months ago to Politics
Did you know that…
That one of the most powerful lobbying groups in America is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)?
That it does not make contributions to election campaigns, but maintains on its Web site details of how every member of Congress voted on “AIPAC” issues and publishes a brochure on candidates who complied—or did not--that is scrutinized, according to the “Washington Post,” by thousands of potential campaign donors?
Since 1990, pro-Israeli interests have contributed $57 million to federal political candidates?
AIPAC lobbying for foreign aid from America to Israel procures about $3 billion a year, so that Israel in total has gotten more foreign aid since World War II than any other recipient (about $108 billion)?
That in 1992, AIPAC president David Steiner was forced to resign because he was taped boasting that he “met with [then Bush Secretary of State] Jim Baker and I cut a deal with him. I got, besides the $3 billion, you know they're looking for the Jewish votes, and I'll tell him whatever he wants to hear ... Besides the $10 billion in loan guarantees which was a fabulous thing, $3 billion in foreign, in military aid, and I got almost a billion dollars in other goodies that people don't even know about...”?
That in the same taped conversation, Steiner said he was "negotiating" with the incoming Clinton administration its choice of a Secretary of State and a head of the National Security Agency, and that AIPAC had placed "a dozen people in [the Clinton] campaign, in the headquarters... in Little Rock, and they're all going to get big jobs..."?
That in 2005, an AIPAC policy director, Steven Rosen, and an AIPAC senior Iran analyst, Keither Weissman, were fired by AIPAC because the FBI was investigating whether or not they passed classified U.S. information to the government of Israel?
That they were indicted, AIPAC agreed to pay the legal fees for Weissman's defense through appeal, if necessary, but charges were subsequently dropped?
That the same year the Justice Department arrested Lawrence Anthony Franklin, a U.S. Air Force Reserves colonel working in the Pentagon , and charged him with providing classified national defense information to Israel, at which point he described a luncheon meeting where he passed government secrets to AIPAC’s Rosen and Weissman, and was sentenced to 13 years in prison—but all charges against the two former AIPAC employees were dropped in 2009?
Approximately two-thirds of members of Congress attended AIPAC's 2011 policy conference and so did President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Reid, and Speaker of the House Boehner—and that attendance at the council by federal officials is second only to the State of the Union address?
That in a working paper, and then a book, University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer and Harvard University Kennedy School of Government Professor Stephen Walt wrote that: “AIPAC's success is due to its ability to reward legislators and congressional candidates who support its agenda, and to punish those who challenge it. ... AIPAC makes sure that its friends get strong financial support from the myriad pro-Israel [political action committees]. Those seen as hostile to Israel, on the other hand, can be sure that AIPAC will direct campaign contributions to their political opponents. ...
And continued: “The bottom line is that AIPAC, which is a de facto agent for a foreign government, has a stranglehold on the U.S. Congress. Open debate about U.S. policy towards Israel does not occur there, even though that policy has important consequences for the entire world.”
That when an essay based on the paper appeared, with all scholarly references, in the “London Review of Books,” the two scholars—one of whom holds a chair at the Kennedy School at Harvard and is academic dean, there—were labeled by prominent scholars and writers as “Crackpot” (Martin Peretz), “could have been written by the less intelligent members of Hamas” (Alan Dershowitz), “as scholarly as…McCarthy…and just as nutty” (Max Boot), “puts The Protocols of the Elders of Zion to shame (Josef Joffe), “dishonest so-called intellectuals…entitled to their stupidity” (NY Rep. Eliot Engel)…
That when the U.S. and European allies, plus the U.N. Atomic Energy Agency, reached an agreement with Iran to curtail its work on enrichment of uranium (-feared by Israel and many others to be preparatory to creating a nuclear weapon)-- and to open its scientific and technological facilities to international inspection—in exchange for lifting stringent economic embargoes on Iran—AIPAC immediately lobbied in Congress for legislation (Menendez-Kirk bill) that would continue and strengthen the sanctions against Iran—and kill the proposed agreement?
That AIPAC had prepared a massive campaign by members to lobby Senate and House members for the bill but suffered one of its very rare defeats when President Obama said in his State of the Union that the bill was not in “our national interests” and its Democratic supporters abandoned it?
That former and current members of the House and Senate have argued that AIPAC must be designated a lobby for a foreign government, so it can continue all its education and advocacy, but cannot directly or indirectly intervene in U.S. political campaigns?
That one of the most powerful lobbying groups in America is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)?
That it does not make contributions to election campaigns, but maintains on its Web site details of how every member of Congress voted on “AIPAC” issues and publishes a brochure on candidates who complied—or did not--that is scrutinized, according to the “Washington Post,” by thousands of potential campaign donors?
Since 1990, pro-Israeli interests have contributed $57 million to federal political candidates?
AIPAC lobbying for foreign aid from America to Israel procures about $3 billion a year, so that Israel in total has gotten more foreign aid since World War II than any other recipient (about $108 billion)?
That in 1992, AIPAC president David Steiner was forced to resign because he was taped boasting that he “met with [then Bush Secretary of State] Jim Baker and I cut a deal with him. I got, besides the $3 billion, you know they're looking for the Jewish votes, and I'll tell him whatever he wants to hear ... Besides the $10 billion in loan guarantees which was a fabulous thing, $3 billion in foreign, in military aid, and I got almost a billion dollars in other goodies that people don't even know about...”?
That in the same taped conversation, Steiner said he was "negotiating" with the incoming Clinton administration its choice of a Secretary of State and a head of the National Security Agency, and that AIPAC had placed "a dozen people in [the Clinton] campaign, in the headquarters... in Little Rock, and they're all going to get big jobs..."?
That in 2005, an AIPAC policy director, Steven Rosen, and an AIPAC senior Iran analyst, Keither Weissman, were fired by AIPAC because the FBI was investigating whether or not they passed classified U.S. information to the government of Israel?
That they were indicted, AIPAC agreed to pay the legal fees for Weissman's defense through appeal, if necessary, but charges were subsequently dropped?
That the same year the Justice Department arrested Lawrence Anthony Franklin, a U.S. Air Force Reserves colonel working in the Pentagon , and charged him with providing classified national defense information to Israel, at which point he described a luncheon meeting where he passed government secrets to AIPAC’s Rosen and Weissman, and was sentenced to 13 years in prison—but all charges against the two former AIPAC employees were dropped in 2009?
Approximately two-thirds of members of Congress attended AIPAC's 2011 policy conference and so did President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Reid, and Speaker of the House Boehner—and that attendance at the council by federal officials is second only to the State of the Union address?
That in a working paper, and then a book, University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer and Harvard University Kennedy School of Government Professor Stephen Walt wrote that: “AIPAC's success is due to its ability to reward legislators and congressional candidates who support its agenda, and to punish those who challenge it. ... AIPAC makes sure that its friends get strong financial support from the myriad pro-Israel [political action committees]. Those seen as hostile to Israel, on the other hand, can be sure that AIPAC will direct campaign contributions to their political opponents. ...
And continued: “The bottom line is that AIPAC, which is a de facto agent for a foreign government, has a stranglehold on the U.S. Congress. Open debate about U.S. policy towards Israel does not occur there, even though that policy has important consequences for the entire world.”
That when an essay based on the paper appeared, with all scholarly references, in the “London Review of Books,” the two scholars—one of whom holds a chair at the Kennedy School at Harvard and is academic dean, there—were labeled by prominent scholars and writers as “Crackpot” (Martin Peretz), “could have been written by the less intelligent members of Hamas” (Alan Dershowitz), “as scholarly as…McCarthy…and just as nutty” (Max Boot), “puts The Protocols of the Elders of Zion to shame (Josef Joffe), “dishonest so-called intellectuals…entitled to their stupidity” (NY Rep. Eliot Engel)…
That when the U.S. and European allies, plus the U.N. Atomic Energy Agency, reached an agreement with Iran to curtail its work on enrichment of uranium (-feared by Israel and many others to be preparatory to creating a nuclear weapon)-- and to open its scientific and technological facilities to international inspection—in exchange for lifting stringent economic embargoes on Iran—AIPAC immediately lobbied in Congress for legislation (Menendez-Kirk bill) that would continue and strengthen the sanctions against Iran—and kill the proposed agreement?
That AIPAC had prepared a massive campaign by members to lobby Senate and House members for the bill but suffered one of its very rare defeats when President Obama said in his State of the Union that the bill was not in “our national interests” and its Democratic supporters abandoned it?
That former and current members of the House and Senate have argued that AIPAC must be designated a lobby for a foreign government, so it can continue all its education and advocacy, but cannot directly or indirectly intervene in U.S. political campaigns?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cou...
from Wikipedia.
This list shows that India receives more monetary aid than Israe. Afghanistan gets almost 2.5 times more.
If your point is that foreign aid should stop, I agree. If it is aid to Israel only should stop, then I disagree.
"In 1992, AIPAC president David Steiner was forced to resign after he was recorded boasting about his political influence in obtaining aid for Israel. Steiner also claimed that he had
[quote] met with (then Bush U.S. Secretary of State) Jim Baker and I cut a deal with him. I got, besides the $3 billion, you know they're looking for the Jewish votes, and I'll tell him whatever he wants to hear ... Besides the $10 billion in loan guarantees which was a fabulous thing, $3 billion in foreign, in military aid, and I got almost a billion dollars in other goodies that people don't even know about. [end quote]
Steiner also claimed to be "negotiating" with the incoming Clinton administration over who Clinton would appoint as Secretary of State and Secretary of the National Security Agency. Steiner stated that AIPAC had "a dozen people in [the Clinton] campaign, in the headquarters... in Little Rock, and they're all going to get big jobs."
NY real estate developer Haim Katz told The Washington Times that he taped the conversation because "as someone Jewish, I am concerned when a small group has a disproportionate power. I think that hurts everyone, including Jews. If David Steiner wants to talk about the incredible, disproportionate clout AIPAC has, the public should know about it."
And that, apart from the endless diversion and charges of anti-semitism is the point, isn't it?
Dealing with illegal alien invaders IS an issue, and it's quite a simple issue, until those who want the unearned begin manipulating the situation.
We're not "giving", we're lending. Israel then pays back the loan.
Problem?
But the fact that you cannot see your nose in front of your nose shows it is not worth explaining it to you.
Whether or not you think the US should be guaranteeing some other country's borrowing from international creditors is a different question altogether. The point is, it isn't foreign aid and it isn't "giving."
Evidence? Or are we supposed to accept your arbitrary accusation as being sufficient correspondence to reality?
The agreement you tout was bullshit. There's no way Iran is going to comply... except the same way Syria is complying with disposing of WMDs... superficially.
Anyone who is as "nutty" as McCarthy is a prescient hero; McCarthy outed communists.
One acronym for you: CAIR.
I'd far prefer Jews influencing the WH policy than Moslems.
This is just yet another antisemitic rant.
Get it through your thick skull; the U.S. has said there will be an Israel. End of discussion. Whatever has to be done to preserve Israel is to be done, because we said that there will be an Israel, and our will is not to be thwarted by a pack of hateful Bedouins.
Moslems are the enemy, Israel is a strategic ally in the Crusade.
I'm not sure that I see the connection to The Gulch.
On my political right there is WD, an (otherwise) Objectivist writer, who is distinguished on this site with a string of anti-Israel threads. Do those arguments and sources check out? No they do not. The arguments are interesting only if you start out biased, the sources are the usual ranters, one I found earlier was an Iranian government news agency.
On my religious right there is EF who has over-reached on this site with long boring posts opposing evolution. Some of the stuff was correct, much misinterpretation, some, dressed in authoritative words I know to be concocted. His (or her) arguments and sources given in this thread stand up. Unfortunately (over)enthusiasm for taking a side there diminishes credibility here.
It has been suggested that one person we know, the other we do not. This is not relevant nor is it correct, 'Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them'. Evaluate only on what you see here.
As to a name-for the discussion to be relevant, I agree, no need to know the person't identity. But when someone discredits a person publicly, calling their education and professional life into question personally on this forum-I say state your name.
So, do you have the same issue with France, Germany, England, pretty much all of Scandinavia being socialist?
*I* advocate a strong U.S. presence in the middle east; that doesn't make me an Israeli or up to anything sinister (left-handed).
Yes, I have a problem with socialist nations. But I understand who our allies are, including Israel. I only wanted for WD to be able to make an argument here and we would address it and discuss. I am critical of my damned country-why can't I be critical of other countries?
You've said that you don't live in the United States. With your views, I'm not sure you can sincerely say you call any country "my country".
You can be critical of other countries. But picking on Israel has additional complications, since A) it is the refuge of Jews persecuted around the world for centuries and B) (and more important) we said there will be an Israel. We didn't say there will be a France or Sweden.
I await with impatience your thread bashing France or the other plethora of socialist nations who lobby the shit out of us and to whom we give bazillions of dollars.
Nobody's suggested in recent years that Frenchmen are secretly controlling the world from the shadows, as is a common suggestion with regard to Jews, Zionists and Israelis. But this rhetoric critical of Israeli lobbying activities smacks of that same kind of nut-job conspiracy theory.
Speaking of which, I wonder if WD is really Mel Gibson incognito?
First, last...
I guess they don't teach this anymore...
The western world is largely right-handed because being left handed in Roman times was equated with being evil; the Church adopted this belief for some reason after it took over Rome. Apparently they were prescient of Hollywood. Anyway, in modern times, of course, being on the left is enough to make you evil. In Roman times, the cure for being sinister, or left handed, was to lop it off.
Dexter = right handed. Sinister = left handed. That's where "sinister plots" comes into being.
On the gripping hand, however...
We've argued this before; There is no "rights" mechanism in nature.
it's my country alright-no matter where I am
How can you have "economic freedom" (as bullshit a term as "social justice", IMO) when women can't travel alone, and homosexuals are killed for being homosexual? Not a lot of San Francisco-style bathhouses in the middle east, I would guess... maybe Maph could start a chain of them in the UAE or Jordan.
Bit of trivia: I once knew a guy who was 37th in line for the throne of Bahrain. He ran six banks.
THEY are the enemy, not Israel. What proof has anyone that Israel is out to destroy the U.S.? Shall I point to the words of Moslem leaders around the globe over the years?
I'm far more concerned about the goings-on of the NSA, and of the WH giving our money and technology to Egypt, Libya and other enemies, than with Israel lobbying.
Oh, btw, there are no new wars in the middle east. There's just the ancient war that's gone on since the seventh century Just different battlefields.
On the contrary, that was all I found when I went Googling. Perhaps your Googling skills are not up to par. Or perhaps you're checking the sites that Donway likes to visit — such as the WRMEA — which are already anti-Israel.
Obviously, if you're simply checking those sites, then you'll wind up with the same sort of misinformation you had when you declared on another thread that Darwinian evolution MUST be true since it's the only way to explain why there are no palm trees in Alaska.
You were wrong then. You are wrong now.
No incentive for innovation like howling madmen at your front door... and back door... and side windows...
"you're a nutcase," "you are also a fraud..." Are there any rules of discourage on Galt's Gulch? By the way, the "Daily Journalist" asked me if they could republish some of my articles, including one on "Crony Capitalism." I said yes. I have not gone beyond that. But you notice that some defenders of AIPAC immediately see if they can use the ad hominem argument... Google the guy's name, see if there is any possibility of a guilt-by-association argument. I suggest that Galt's Gulch might consider some rules of discourse.
For 12 years John Galt worked for Taggart Transcontinental as he stalked Dagny, cloaked in the "anonymity" of a common worker. She had to work like hell to find out his identity.
So, do you call the NSA every time you use your cell phone, since you're so opposed to being anonymous?
Typical.
When an anti-Semite can't answer (or won't answer) his critics, he always runs to some authority figure to try to shut them up.
Mearsheimer and Walt have been discredited as being just plain deceptive. Why not admit it?
If you can find some time in between posting puff-pieces on bitcoin, maybe you can revive some James Forrestal conspiracy theories about Zionist agents influencing US policy and surveilling him when he was being committed for insanity.
Looking forward to being vastly entertained.
Once again EconomicFreedom has destroyed another post. His comments are not insightful, they are not designed to further intelligent conversation, they are not polite, and they are not really on point and he has no interest in Ayn Rand or Objectivism. Please leave.
I merely call 'em as I see 'em. If Donway is an anti-Semite, he should simply admit it, instead of hiding behind the rationalization of "I'm only criticizing the Israel Lobby."
Good grief. Linking to the WRMEA, whose former executive editor, Richard Corliss, was a guest speaker at a well-known revisionist organization (the IHR) promoting propaganda denying the Holocaust via junk scholarship (under the phony aegis of "academic freedom"), ought to make you wonder about Donway's scholarship, not to mention his intellectual integrity.
That should be "Richard Curtiss," not "Corliss."
Discover-the-Networks has this to say about the late Curtiss and his publication, "Washington Report on Middle East Affairs" (WRMEA):
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/print...
"As noted earlier, CNI [Council for the National Interest] has close ties to the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WRMEA), whose content is intensely hostile to Israel. In the 1990s, WRMEA published numerous CNI articles and newsletters; the journal even shared the same office address as CNI for a number of years. Today Richard Curtiss and Andrew Killgore, a pair of self-described "outspoken Arabists," serve as WRMEA’s Executive Editor and Publisher, respectively.
CNI’s operations are funded mostly by individual donations; it also receives a small amount of foundation support.
CNI rents space in its Washington, DC office to the anti-Israel organization Partners for Peace."
And from an IDF soldier's personal blog from 2005:
http://onlyinisrael.blogspot.com/2005/05...
"Anyone who has been in Internet political chat long enough has encountered at least once the "Washington Report". It's website is notorious for posting anti-Israeli propaganda, and occasionaly pro-terrorist one. But If you start digging, even a bit, the roots of it all just come up.
The easiest thing would be to look at the people who make that magazine. Just at a first look the name of Laila Al-Arian pops up. That ought to ring a bell. You see, her father, Sami Al-Arian is the leader of the Islamic Jihad in the US. He's currently in court for directing funds and leading the Palestinian Islamic Jihad:
"The Tampa cell was primarily responsible for raising money and serving as a communications center for the Islamic Jihad during the mid-1990s, Assistant U.S. Attorney Terry Furr told a judge during a pretrial hearing for former University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian and three other men."
So his daughter is Editorial Assistant for the "Washington Report". Looking at the other board members you can find Andrew Killgore, a former US ambassador to Qatar. The other thing he's famous for is for being on Saudi payroll and lying about it.
Moving on to the Executive Editor, Richard H. Curtiss. And hey, What do you know, he writes for ArabNews. A simple search on their site shows atleast a dozen of his articles there, among them "The Nexus of the Neocon Network in Washington" and "Iraq: What Saddam Did and What Neocons Want to Do". Not surprisingly he blames Israel for "forcing" the US to invade Iraq to ensure it's oil sources (never mind the fact we get our oil mostly from South America). ArabNews is a Saudi government publication. It's reporters are government paid, and so is Richard H. Curtiss.
The news editor in the magazine? Richard H.Curtiss' daughter, Delinda C. Hanley. She's also, not surprisingly a reporter for the Saudi governments' mouthpiece, Arabnews and writes regularly on the site, her contributions ranging from accusing Jewish scientists of poisoning Arab colleagues with anthrax…
...Asma Yousef, their Advertising director who happens to broadcast for Islamic Broadcast Network (which was closed meanwhile) and is also responsible for including an ad to a holocaust denial book inside the WRMEA.
"The Washington Report has also carried ads for Roger Garaudy’s notorious book The Founding Myths of Israeli Policy, which denies the Holocaust. In 1998 a French court convicted Garaudy of “challenging crimes against humanity,” of “racial libel,” and of questioning “the Nazi policy of exterminating the Jews,”
* * * * * * * * * *
And this, from the "Publisher's Page" of the WRMEA, June-July 1997:
http://www.wrmea.org/wrmea-archives/187-...
"We're Defending Our Own Sovereignty.
The mainstream media and Congress always were Israeli-occupied territory. Now so are the White House and the State Department. There are so many facts others seem unwilling to collect, and so much that no one else dares to say. Read this issue and you'll see what we mean. Right now."
From the "Publisher's Page of the WRMEA, January-February 1997:
http://www.wrmea.org/wrmea-archives/184-...
"Israel’s Likud government almost certainly will begin looking for a chance, during the chaos it is orchestrating, to begin on a mass scale what the Likud Party calls the “transfer” of the Palestinians. The Serbs called it “ethnic cleansing,” Hitler called it “the final solution,” the world calls it genocide. They’re all synonyms for the deadly program Binyamin Netanyhu seems to be setting in motion, while the Clinton administration says not a word."
And here's a nice little bit of Holocaust Denying that appeared in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (a source cited approvingly by Walter Donway) in the May-June 1998 issue, in an article written by William Hughes:
http://www.wrmea.org/wrmea-archives/194-...
"Meanwhile, the Washington Times has reported (7/17/90) that one million Jews died at Auschwitz, a Polish death camp, and not the four million originally claimed by the Zionists. Three hundred thousand non-Jews also perished there.
Researchers at Israel’s Yad Vashem memorial have admitted the new Polish figures were correct. This new evidence, if true, would cut in half the Zionists’ original claim that six million Jews had died under the Nazi regime. It would also raise the questions of, “Why did the Zionists grossly exaggerate the original numbers of Jewish victims?”"
* * * * * * * * * *
It doesn't cut anything in half. The original number of 4 million gassed at Auschwitz did not come from "Zionists" but from the former commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Hoess, who quoted that number in his Nuremberg trial testimony, and who quoted the 4 million number in his autobiography "Commandant of Auschwitz." That number was also an estimate made by Soviet Red Army forces that liberated the camp in 1945. With more careful research after the war, it was shown that the camp records were sloppy, the Soviet estimate incorrect, and Hoess's testimony incorrect — but that has been known for a long, long time, and it doesn't change the final number of 5-6 million exterminated. (Some scholars claim a lower number of 5.xxx million; others claim a number above 6 million. An exact number will never be known but it clearly lies somewhere between those two extremes). Additionally, what came to light with further research, was the fact that far more Jews had been exterminated by mobile killing squads manned by the SS known as "Special Action Groups" (einsatzgruppen) during the Nazi invasion of Russia. Again, this has long been known — by Yad Vashem and everyone else — so to suggest that Jewish historical organizations such as Yad Vashem had hidden the lower number of deaths at Auschwitz and then hesitatingly admitted it is false. The "six million" figure comes from summing up the deaths at the extermination camps, plus the deaths from the einsatzgruppen (victims were simply shot in the head and buried in mass graves), plus those who died from starvation and disease in the forced ghettoes (e.g., the Warsaw ghetto). No Jewish organization or academic historian ever claimed that six million Jews were killed specifically *in the camps*, though Holocaust deniers would like you to believe that.
It's standard rhetoric on the part of Holocaust deniers to claim that "some" Jews died in the Holocaust ("mainly from cholera", they assert), though not the immense number of 5-6 million cited by all other academic historians. (The implication being that the higher number is simply propaganda for the sake of sympathy and foreign aid.) Deniers also claimed — until about 2002 — that eye-witness reports by prisoners of Auschwitz that they saw guards or "sonderkommandos" on the roofs of buildings (the gas chambers) open canisters of pellets that they poured down narrow chutes, are fabrications, because inspection of the dynamited remains of the chambers did not reveal the existence of the chutes (deniers used to chant in their journals, "No holes, no Holocaust!"). However, computer reconstructions of the gas chamber remains, done in 2002, prove that the narrow square openings were there, and in fact, still exist (though badly mangled by the dynamite the fleeing Nazis used to conceal the evidence of the attempted extermination from the advancing allied armies).
No I haven't. I just don't play the game your wife does ("Walter Donway simply CAN'T be anti-Semitic! I mean . . . I mean . . . I've read his poetry! He helped found the Atlas Society!").
Your wife iconstantly confuses her own subjective cognitive dissonance ("How could someone who declares himself an Objective and writes poetry also be anti-Semitic? It can't be!") with reality. In reality, great Nobel laureates in science and literature have been anti-Semites. Get over it.
>His comments are not insightful,
Sure they are! You're just to dimwitted to grasp the insights.
>they are not designed to further intelligent conversation,
What would you know about intelligent conversation?
My purpose in this thread was to expose Donway's anti-Semitism by calling him out on it. He confirmed it by trying to defend it via linking to the WRMEA, which is anti-Israel and anti-Semitic. I also corrected your wife's simpleminded assumption that anti-Semitism requires the use of slurs. It does not.
>they are not polite,
They are as polite as need be when exposing anti-Semitism masquerading as objective scholarship.
>and they are not really on point
The point of Donway's post was to claim that AIPAC was an agent of a foreign government whose interests differ from those of the US. Nothing new was asserted. All of his talking points are old and were made by others — most of whom (such as the unsavory lot at the WRMEA) are de facto anti-Semites.
>and he has no interest in Ayn Rand or Objectivism.
Sure I do. I was involved with Objectivism long before you were; heard Miss Rand speak live at the Ford Hall Forum several times (have her autograph on my 1st edition, hardbound copy of Atlas Shrugged); went to her funeral (open casket) at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Home in NYC; attended lectures by Peikoff, George Reisman, know Allan Blumenthal, etc., etc.
Actually, it is YOU who bring nothing to the discussion, being an especially bland example of a philosophical "Yes Man."
>Please leave.
LOL! Can't handle the challenge, eh?
I'll make a deal:
I'll leave, and you go fuck yourself, OK?
(That was polite, no?)
That you won't call him out on it shows your true colors, too.
btw I have read many articles, novels and poetry by W donway. I have watched some of his presentations given at the Atlas Summit. He is a founding member of the Atlas Society. I have never read or heard him say anything remotely racist. One can criticize the policies of a nation without it immediately escalating to such accusations. One begins to wonder what your intent is. Perhaps to shut him up? How is that objective? Stick to your argument and leave off the character assaisinations. After all some have the guts to put their name behind their opinion, while you cowardly lash out without putting your name behind anything here on this site.
Ah!
>He is a founding member of the Atlas Society.
Ooooh!
>I have never read or heard him say anything remotely racist.
I never claimed he was racist. I claimed he was anti-Semitic.
And in any case, one need not use traditional slurs to show one's true colors. In Donway's case, I use his shoddy research and my judgment regarding the company he keeps (vis-a-vis his citations to a hate-journal masquerading as a slick, serious, academic publication).
>One can criticize the policies of a nation…
What the hell are you talking about? Donway did not criticize the actual policies of any nation. He *fabricated* a policy on the part of Israel, that a privately-financed lobby in the US is actually an "agent of a foreign government", implying that the Israeli government pays AIPAC to influence American politicians, via financial reward and punishment, for the sake of forcing US foreign policy to align itself specifically with Israeli interests. That's not a criticism of the policies of a nation; it's an accusation, and it happens to be false. That he tried to support his position by citing a journal that is notoriously both anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian, shows that he either grabbed the first link that he Googled (in which case, his research is simply haphazard and slipshod); or — as I believe — he's probably well acquainted with WRMEA and approves of its position on issues (in which case, he is simply a modern anti-Semite, hiding under cover of doing "serious, scholarly, cool, objective analysis of political issues." But, if so, then why cite from a journal known for outright falsehoods regarding Israel, as well as for its articles suggesting that nefarious Zionists have lied about the numbers exterminated by Nazi atrocities?
I don't understand your position (unless, of course, you're simply defending him because he's associated with the Atlas Society). The evidence on this thread is clear: either Donway is shoddy, or he's an anti-Semite. You don't recognize anti-Semites (or racists) by whether or not they use slurs. Talk about a definition by non-essentials!
2. Ayn Rand changed her name. She was known publicly as Ayn Rand. Her scholarly works were published under her chosen name.
3.as usual, you deflect questions. Why don't you tell us who you are?
That's a riot!
By your lights, then, Ayn Rand must have been a coward, right? She published her opinions on things but never used her real name: Alicia Rosenbaum.
Steiner, as you will see, tried to make it all go away. But remember: he wasn't an assistant in fundraising at AIPAC. He was president.
http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_contex...
"Washington Report on Middle East Affairs
The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs is a magazine published 10 times a year in Washington, DC which promotes a virulently anti-Israel position."
http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_contex...
"In recent years [Kate] Seelye* has written for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs [WRMEA], in one article accusing Israel of engaging in state-sponsored terrorism. The Washington Report is an extremist magazine which has referred to Jewish supporters of Israel as a “cancer” and as “Israel-firsters,” and has carried ads for Roger Garaudy’s notorious book, The Founding Myths of Israeli Policy, which denies the Holocaust. That NPR would hire a contributor to such a magazine, that it would welcome such extreme partisans, is testament to the network’s own highly partisan agenda."
*Leftist pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel journalist for National Public Radio.
The former executive editor, Richard Holden Curtiss (died last year), was a guest speaker at the Institute for Historical Review, a notorious anti-Semitic organization whose main occupation was denying the Holocaust, claiming it was a conspiratorial fabrication on the part of "Zionists" in order to bilk West Germany for reparations, and the US for billions in aid.
In this link,
http://archive.adl.org/learn/ext_us/hist...
…you will see some of the "great" names of other noted (and notorious) guest speakers:
Arthur Butz (professor of engineering and a Holocaust denier. Wrote "The Hoax of the Twentieth Century").
Robert Faurisson (a French revisionist historian and Holocaust denier. Noam Chomsky, by the way, intentionally published an article on politics in Faurisson's magazine in order to show solidarity for the cause of "academic freedom").
David Irving (revisionist historian, pro-Hitler, anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, Holocaust denier. He sued (and lost) several well-known journalists for libel when they called him a dangerous manipulator of historical facts for the sake of pushing a political agenda — one of whom was the American Deborah Lipstadt, who wrote "Beyond Belief" and "Denying the Holocaust"; and another was Gitta Sereny, the adopted step-daughter of Ludwig von Mises. Mises's wife was Margit Sereny.)
Fred A. Leuchter (a rather creepy fellow, who maintained and repaired gas chambers for the California penal system. Since he was supposedly an "expert" on gas chambers, he worked with the Institute for HIstorical Review to perform some chemical tests for cyanide (Zyklon B) at the dynamited remains of the gas chambers at Auschwitz. He claimed that the residues proved that the levels of Zyklon B weren't even high enough to kill lice, which was the intended usage for the poison. Alas, he hadn't done his homework: it turns out that humans are *far* more sensitive to the pesticide than are the pests, and can die with a *far* lower does than is required to kill lice. His work has been debunked numerous times.)
Ernst Zundel (pamphleteer and Holocaust denier).
Just Google these names and you'll see they're an unsavory lot of cranks.
Just keep in mind that among them was Richard H. Curtiss, former executive editor of the Washington Review of Middle East Affairs, linked to enthusiastically by Walter Donway.
from "Israel Lobby" Redux
Jacob Laksin
FrontPageMag
"To appreciate how Mearsheimer and Walt conceived their argument in The Israel Lobby, and to get a sense of their scholarly standards, consider this: Their text contains no interviews with members of the “Israel Lobby,” the government, or the national media that the lobby is alleged to have in its pocket. Instead, it draws for its substance on, among other secondary sources, the polemics of Norman Finkelstein*, Chomsky’s* Fateful Triangle, and Tony Judt’s* essay in the Nation. An undergraduate history major would properly be flunked for submitting such a hack job. It says nothing good about the worlds of publishing and academia that Mearsheimer and Walt got a book contract instead.
Ultimately, the fact that the “Israel Lobby” is mostly fiction should upset no one more than the authors themselves. At least if there were a group capable of silencing all disagreement, they might have been spared a great deal of embarrassment.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
*Norman Finklestein is a revisionist at DePaul University who believes Israel is an "apartheid state". Noam Chomsky is a revisionist crackpot linguist who believes Israel is a dictatorship but that North Korea is a workers' paradise. Tony Judt is a British journalist who wrote an anti-Israel piece for the far-left progressive rag, "The Nation."
Note well: Mearsheimer and Walt used deceptive scholarship in their article and book, yet Donway holds them up as examples of "objective" scholarship worthy of admiration. We already know about the deception of Mearsheimer and Walt, but the lead post in this thread should tell you all you need to know about the fraudulence of Walter Donway.
The Daily Journalist, indeed!
just cracked the new book-looking forward to your essay
In the case of Mearsheimer and Walt, specifically, their "overall logic" rested precisely on deceptive, out-of-context quotes, as well as no interviews with anyone at AIPAC. Not exactly objective scholarship.
Your statement is the same as that made by that other great example of sharp reasoning, Dan Rather, after the scandal regarding Bush43 and his service at the Texas Air National Guard. When it came out that Rather had been scammed, he announced (paraphrasing), "Sure, the information we received was fraudulent. But it COULD have been true! I mean, those fraudulent typed statements were the kind of thing that GW Bush COULD have made, since he's that type of person. This little detail of fraudulent evidence that we mistakenly took to be real doesn't destroy our overall logic or the case we've made against Bush."
Right.
>You question the Israel narrative…
What the heck is "the Israel narrative"?
You're a wing-nut. Is this really the best that Brown University could do?
And lastly: what happened to that "TAKE NOTE" bit regarding the "only time" you will reply to a charge of anti-Semitism? Looks as if that's out the window.
I'd rather give money to hardworking Israelis trying to build a civilization amid 10th century barbarians than give it to welfare parasites and food stamp queens here at home.
And that's for no better reason that it pisses the 10th century barbarians off so... wonderfully... much.
Had you done your homework, you would have learned that most of that foreign aid was in the form of *loans*, which Israel repaid.
You're also not mentioning that the Arab countries not only have received direct aid from the US, but also from the former Soviet Union, Asian countries, and many European nations.
A small omission of fact on your part.
Those petrodollars they enjoy are the result of US going THERE to acquire oil, and compensating them both with dollars for the oil, and technology for extracting and refining it. They couldn't have done it on their own.
It's like we not only taught them how to fish, but provided them with the fishing tackle, and paid them handsomely for the fish they catch.
Meaning what? We cut them a deal on the loans out of our own interests? Since when is it bad to profit with other than cash?
Now, demonstrate your objectivity by doing an equally damning hit piece on CAIR.
There is no power over US foreign policy peculiar to AIPAC. That you concentrate on a privately funded lobby for Israeli interests over government-funded lobbies for Saudi Arabian ones (to take just one other example) rather proves to everyone that Jewish interests irritate you, while Arabic/Islamic ones do not.
Additionally, Donway is a sometime contributor to The Daily Journalist, which also boasts a wing-nut contributor like Tony Greenstein ("a founding member of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in Britain and Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods").
http://thedailyjournalist.com/wc-n-4/
>Anyone should be embarrassed to resort to that argument,
I'm not. Nice try at a digression, though.
>indicating, as it does, the lack of anything else to say.
The articles to which I linked have lots to say, especially about the deceptive scholarship of Mearsheimer and Walt, both of whom you mentioned approvingly on your Facebook post. Since they have been exposed as frauds (shoddy, at best), it means either that you didn't do your homework, or that you are also a fraud (or shoddy, at best). I'll accept either answer.
>There is no charge that AIPAC is a secret organization exercising secret power;
Straw-man. I never claimed that you, Mearsheimer, or Walt, wrote that AIPAC was secret. Guess what? Most old-fashioned, garden-variety anti-Semitism never claimed that "Jewish control" of international banking or the media was secret, either. Even the old, fraudulent "Protocols of Zion" merely claimed that its author had overheard a secret meeting of a Sanhedren plot at world takeover by Jews through finance and journalism. (Except, of course, that the Sanhedren had been defunct for almost 2 thousand years by the time the "Protocols" appeared. A small detail.)
>there is the charge that it represents the government of a foreign power, albeit a valued ally,
It's privately funded — not government subsidized by Israel — so it represents the interests of those private individuals contributing their money. It so happens most of the contributors are Jews concerned with political issues affecting other Jews and affecting the state of Israel. That doesn't mean it "represents a foreign power." You're simply a nutcase if you don't see the difference between the two.
Saudi Arabia has a lobby that *is* directly subsidized by the Saudi government, and directly influences congressmen, senators, and (quite likely) POTUS. I don't see any criticisms of them. Private lobbies, such as the NRA (firearms), the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (liquor), AARP (retirees), etc. represent private interests of concern to its members. Um, so what, Walter.
Additionally, the reason AIPAC cannot be redesigned as an agent of a foreign government (FARA) is that it is privately funded from individual donations. It isn't funded by the Israeli government.
If your point is that we should do away with the lobby system entirely, that's one thing (except, alas, the First Amendment of the US Constitution says that it is the right of the people to "petition Congress". If you want to abolish lobbying, you'll have to amend, or abolish, that clause in the First Amendment). To concentrate only on a privately funded lobby representing Israeli interests as being especially nefarious, or destructive of US interests, is quite another.
>and should be re-categorized as lobbyist for a foreign government.
Except (as posted above) it is not funded by a foreign government. It's funded by private individuals. Sorry. No special exceptions here for Jews or for the state of Israel.
>If readers take the trouble to look at some of the points I listed . . .
You mean, you get the fun of "listing points" and asserting accusations, and everyone else has to "take the trouble" of looking them up on the Web? Here's a better idea: provide evidence for what you assert. Mearsheimer and Walt won't do, because they've already been debunked as being deceptive, mainly by taking little slivers of statements made by various Israeli officials out of context, in order to make it appear as if they were saying the opposite of what they actually said had they been honest and quoted the entire statements. It's an old trick. Apparently, you fell for it.
>TAKE NOTE: This is the only time I will reply to a comment that levels charges of anti-semitism.
Bye! And good riddance.
Here are two links on Mearsheimer and Walt, and several others analyzing their joint article on a putative "Israel Lobby" that first appeared in the London Review of Books:
John Mearsheimer
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/indiv...
Stephen M. Walt
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/indiv...
The Fraudulent Scholarship of Professors Walt and Mearsheimer
http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_contex...
Roundup of the Walt and Mearsheimer "Israel Lobby" Controversy
http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_contex...
Mearsheimer’s Blunder
http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_contex...
"Israel Lobby" Redux
http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArti...