1. Why the best explanation of Western support for Israel is ‘Jewish power,’ not ‘Imperialism’
I started with Mearsheimer & Walt’s 2007 The Israel Lobby. I used their argument in a critique of Chomsy’s Fateful Triangle, which was published online in 2010, first on Palestine Think Tank, then on Dissident Voice, and finally, The Jay Report: https://thejayreport.com/2020/05/17/an-article-of-mine-from-2010/. Mearsheimer & Walt are more moderate than I am – they don’t talk about ‘Jewish power.’
But the three of us agree that the main reason the USA backs Israel, is the power of the Israel Lobby. Since all the Western countries, bar Israel, are submissive to the USA, I only discuss the American branch of the Lobby.
Why do I defend the ‘Jewish power’ explanation? Because it is less complex, and requires fewer assumptions, than the alternative. To summarize:
American politicians fall over each other to propose laws giving special rights to Jews. The university sector is under assault, driven by the claim that Jews don’t feel safe on campus, following peaceful protests against genocide. Several people have been arrested, and some threatened with deportation, for allegedly saying they support Hamas.
No evidence has been produced showing that any of the accused have said anything in favour of Hamas, and
it is legal to say “up with Hamas.”
In May 2025, Congress briefly considered a bill which would make it a criminal offence, punishable by up to twenty years imprisonment, to advocate a boycott of Israeli products. The less draconian, but still unconstitutional, Antisemitism Awareness Act, has a better chance of becoming law.
These examples of politicians’ behaviour are clear attempts to violate the First Amendment to the Constitution. Legislators know this, yet they continue to attempt to make an exception; to ban speech which might undermine Jewish interests.
Is the above
an elaborate charade to make it look as if the Lobby can determine US policy regarding Israel, or
is the most economical/parsimonious/likely explanation that Jewish power trumps American interests?
I can’t prove that this grovelling is genuine; one could believe that it’s fake. I can only argue that the more parsimonious explanation is that it is what it appears — the USA’s relationship to Israel is dictated by Jewish interests.
The right mostly claims Israel is an ally; the left tends to argue it is in the interests of US imperialism to throw money at the Jewish state. The right-wing and left-wing arguments prop each other up.
Consider the vacuity of the responses from left or right to the question of what Israel actually does for the empire it allegedly serves. They are reduced to waffling about oil, hegemony, democracy… but Israel is not a ‘forward base.’ It does not contribute troops to US adventures. It does not protect oilfields. Caitlin Johnstone, who defends the view that Israel serves the USA, points out that Israel attacks countries in the USA’s crosshairs. What she doesn’t see is that this ‘evidence’ is equally compatible with
Israel attacks countries the USA considers enemies, on behalf of the USA, or
the countries Israel attacks are considered enemies by the USA, because the USA supports Israel.
To find out whether the dog wags the tail, or vice-versa, we need to look at the internals of US politics. Other allies really are allies; they actually serve US interests. Israel needs a powerful, well-funded lobby to bribe, cajole, blackmail and threaten anyone who makes even accurate, mild criticisms – “it’s the Benjamins” – because it is not really an ally.
2. Avoidance of the ‘Jewish power’ hypothesis
I have defended the ‘Jewish power’ hypothesis to left-wing critics of Zionism many times. But they never try to answer it – they just continue assuming that Israel is acting for US imperialism.
‘It is important to stress the primary role of imperialism in this analysis, which means rejecting explanations that emphasize the supposed power of a “Zionist lobby,” or, worse, a “Jewish lobby.”’ – International Socialism 181, 2024, page 45.
I suspect the reason for leftists’ inability to respond rationally is that their real motive is emotional. They have internalised the idea that talk of ‘Jewish power’ and a ‘Jewish lobby’ is ‘antisemitic.’ This signals to Jewish supremacists that they take the allegation seriously.
The Gaza genocide is the greatest crime committed by a Western country since world war two. The most notorious American crime in Vietnam was at My Lai. Since 7/10/2023, there has been a My Lai every day in Palestine. The sadism with which Jews celebrate the deaths and injuries they are causing exceeds that of the Nazis. Jewish racism is in a league of its own.
It might be objected that the rulers of the Western countries support Israel to the hilt, and are therefore just as culpable. True – but there is a big difference between being a member of the racial group with power, and one of its poodles. Gentile supporters of Israel are like Chief Buthelezi, the Zulu politician who served the white apartheid regime. This means one might be able to help undermine support for Israel by persuading goyim that it is not in their ethnic interests, and that they are being used. It is difficult for the anti-imperialist left to argue like that.
3. The eternal victim narrative
I know that not all Jews are racial supremacists. I just encountered a number of anti-Zionist Jews at the first Jewish Anti-Zionist conference in Vienna, in June 2025: https://www.juedisch-antizionistisch.at/en.
Reuven Abergel, founder of Israel’s Black Panthers, narrated a variant of the eternal victim story. He is a Moroccan Arab Jew who migrated to Israel in the fifties. His main schtick was to point out how the Arab Jews (Mizrahi) provided cheap labour for Israel, and suffered from racial discrimination. He said the European Jews (Ashkenazi) drove a wedge between the Mizrahi and Palestinian communities – “they sent us to the same villages where Palestinians had been expelled.” The Ashkenazi did this because they suffered from a “disease” which they got from living in Europe.
Another contributor argued that, because Arabic is the first language of the Mizrahi, and because they’d lived happily in Arab lands until Western colonialism spoiled everything, the real oppression is Arabs being oppressed by Europeans. This ignores the fact that, as soon as you are born, you are either a Jew or a goy, in the eyes of the Israeli government. You might be Tunisian, but if you are also Jewish, you have the privilege of automatic citizenship of a Western economy, backed to the hilt by all the other Western countries. And, for whatever reason, those people who classify themselves as ‘Jewish’ tend to have a strong sense of ethnic identity.
Abergel added that, after the 1967 war, the Arab Jews became as racist as the rest. Another speaker, a woman from an Jewish-Egyptian family, said the Mizrahi are the most vicious Zionists.
At the other extreme, some anti-Zionist analysts appeal to Jews to stop supporting Zionism because it is harmful to Jews:
I wrote that Jonathan K Cook tried to persuade influential Jews to “stand foursquare against Israel.” I have a screenshot, but he appears to have deleted the tweet, so I won’t post it.
For the most part, Jews aren’t listening to these sincere, but naive, anti-Zionist voices. The genocide in Palestine is not antisemitic, but philosemitic – it’s in Jewish interests. By exterminating the untermenschen, they get more lebensraum.
It is not necessarily true that, if you give a racial group special rights, it will take advantage. Since the end of world war two, Europeans have voluntarily relinquished all their ethnic advantages. But the same period saw the rise of Jewish privilege; while white apartheid states were abandoned, the Jewish equivalent was backed to the hilt.
The fear of stating the obvious – the existence of Jewish power – is a consequence of Jewish power. We need to lose that fear.
Censorship, Fake Hate Crimes, and the Israel Lobby
A 2008 pamphlet arguing that support for the genocidal ideology of Zionism is related to the Allied narrative of WWII
Originally, this was a printed pamphlet, and a series of pages on the website pacificaforum.org. Herein, I’ve recreated it as one article.
Anti-fascists celebrate the bombing of Dresden
To Preman, who first pointed me in the right direction
No copyright – this pamphlet may be reproduced in full by anyone
What is Anti-Fascism?
The phrase ‘anti-fascism’ suggests opposition to fascism. If that were all there was to it, it wouldn’t be worth writing about. Almost everyone who has heard of fascism is opposed to it. It is known as one of the main causes of World War II and the concentration camps in which millions died.
But anti-fascism has always meant more than simply opposition to fascism.
Before World War II, anti-fascism was the slogan which recruited people across Europe and America to travel to Spain to oppose General Franco’s coup against the left-wing government. It was clear even at the time to a small group of ultra-leftists in France and Italy that it was a mistake to volunteer for this apparently noble cause. Their critique sounds kind of retro today, but with the benefit of hindsight, it is obvious that they were right. Today, we can see that those who volunteered for the ‘International Brigades’ under a coalition of anarchist and communist leaders fought and died for a cause that was not only doomed, but worse than useless, even if it had succeeded.
Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell and Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls are great novels about the Spanish Civil War. They are also accurate accounts of how the Communist Party, controlled by the Soviet Union, used the volunteers as cannon-fodder, then murdered its political rivals within the left-wing coalition or abandoned them to the right-wing forces they were fighting.
So Franco won, massacred his opponents, and established a military dictatorship which kept Spain in the middle ages for forty years. What is uncontested is that he refused to enter Spain into World War II on the side of Hitler, who respected Spain’s neutrality. Had the left won the Spanish Civil War, the government would have been a puppet of Moscow. Spain would probably have been forced to enter the war on the side of the Allies, and many more Spaniards would have died.
The extent to which people were inspired by anti-fascism during World War II can be exaggerated. For example, most of the Russian soldiers fighting the Germans at Stalingrad weren’t motivated by left-wing propaganda; they were marched to the front at gunpoint. But after the war, anti-fascism was found to be useful to the victors, and given a new lease of life. During the Nuremberg trials of the Nazi leaders, if any crime could be attributed to the Allies, the USA and the Soviet Union, as well as to the Axis powers, the charge was dropped. Thus air force commander Göring was not tried for bombing cities, nor admiral Dönitz for sinking civilian ships, since the Allies committed both these war crimes too. Göring was sentenced to death for his minor role in the Holocaust, though his bombing campaigns were by far his greatest crimes.
Each country had its specific contribution to make to the war effort – the Americans had their atom bombs, the Russians liked their rape, and the Germans’ specialty was genocide. In practice, the German Holocaust was little different from what the Allies were doing at the same time: the German government murdered many innocent civilians from Germany and neighboring countries using poison gas and other methods, and the Allies did the same thing using bombs. But British schoolchildren are taken on trips to see the ruins of Belsen, but not Dresden. This one-sided interpretation of history is enforced by law in Germany and Austria. Anti-fascism has become a central pillar of the official version of history under whose influence we have all been raised. When an Australian historian was arrested in London recently for holocaust denial, it was not for denying the genocide of the Tasmanian aborigines.
Why anti-fascism, rather than anti-communism or anti-democracy? No-one actually argues that bombing people is less barbaric than gassing them, yet that is what, implicitly, we are being told when we are taught to hate Hitler but to respect Roosevelt. This is anti-fascism – not just opposition to one set of war criminals, but support for the other set. Anti-fascists cannot claim to be opposed to both sides – why would they call themselves ‘anti-fascists’ if they do not believe fascism is worse than other forms of civilization, if they do not believe that gassing Jews is worse than burning Germans to death? This immediately raises the worst aspect of anti-fascism. The phrase we have all learned, ‘The Holocaust’, means the attempted genocide of the Jews, excluding other holocausts, excluding other categories whom the Nazis attempted to wipe out, and excluding the equally monstrous crimes of the Allies. Anti-fascism discriminates in favor of Jews.
This hypocritical, self-righteous, discriminatory, racist perspective also supports vigilance (and often violence) against individuals and small groups of alleged fascists in the world today. It means exaggerating their importance, and blaming them for ‘hate crimes’, many of which turn out to be fake. We are urged to be on guard against the non-existent threat of the emergence of a major racist movement. When a lone lunatic commits a crime against a minority person, the media make out its a movement. And the reason the media exaggerate the threat of hate crimes is because it sells, and it sells because we believe – we, with our selective moral attitudes, keep anti-fascism alive:
The US media ran a series of stories about ‘black churches’ being burned down by racists. It turned out that kids were setting fire to churches at random, indifferent to the buildings’ ethnicity.
French Jews faked an anti-semitic attack by Muslims on the Metro – the media devoted a lot more space to the alleged attack than to the subsequent police announcement that it was made up
A black woman in Oregon put a burning cross in her own front yard to try to claim she was a victim of racists
Jews in London invented cases of racial harassment
A black man was injured in a fight in an Oregon town. He told police nothing racist was said – it just happened that the other participants were white. Despite this clarification, local anti-fascists continue to use it as an example of a ‘hate crime’ in their efforts to suppress freedom of speech.
A black teenager in New York claimed she suffered a horrific assault by a group of white men including the assistant district attorney. After an emotional campaign on her behalf by black politicians, she was found to have invented the incident in its entirety.
A Jewish couple in Oregon set fire to their own apartment and scratched swastikas on their car and claimed it was a hate crime
Another black woman, in North Carolina, claimed to have been raped by several white students from an Ivy League university. Despite obvious inconsistencies in her story, the police proceeded. The students were subjected to trial by media, but in the end, she was proven to be lying.
I could go on. In fact, I will. Where hate crimes are not simply invented, they are often exaggerated. A California woman was convicted of the capital crime of murder because her dog went berserk and killed another woman. The woman was criminally irresponsible in allowing a large dangerous dog to roam free, but there was not a shred of evidence she had deliberately set the dog on the victim. The reason the jury came to such an unjustified verdict was the campaign in the media to make the accident a ‘hate crime’ – the victim was a lesbian, and the dog-owner’s husband is a lawyer, some of whose clients belong to a prison gang called the Aryan Brotherhood. The murder conviction was overturned on appeal. A well-publicized case in Portland, Oregon, in 1988, where an Ethiopian man, Mulugeta Seraw, was killed, a skinhead was found guilty of premeditated murder, and a racist group, White Aryan Resistance, was sued by the Southern Poverty Law Center for allegedly contributing to his death, illustrates the dangers of exaggerating the organized racist threat. A more detailed account can be found at the end of this booklet, but to summarize:
Seraw was killed in an unplanned street brawl, not a premeditated lynching
It was manslaughter, not murder
The racist group did not contribute to his death
An even graver example of what can happen when anti-fascism affects the legal system is the death of Vicki Weaver, who, with her husband and children, were besieged in a remote Idaho cabin in 1992, where clearly they were not doing anyone any harm. The FBI shot her dead while she held her baby in her arms because of the racist views of her husband. Some anti-fascists say they do not support state-organized anti-fascism. They believe ‘the community’ should confront ‘the racists’, not rely on the police to do it. They criticize the police for not going far enough. It is not clear what they would have done to the Weaver family.
But the major consequence of anti-fascism today is even more serious: it helps the state of Israel ensure the continuation of uncritical support in Western countries for its ongoing program of ethnic cleansing. Anti-fascism, by making the murder of Jews by the Germans more of a crime than the murder of Germans by the Allies, effectively implies pro-Jewish racism. Zionism is the implementation of that particular form of racism. Anti-fascism is used to suppress speech which could undermine support for Israel in the West.
A peace activist shot trying to save children from Israeli bullets
The clearest example is Germany. It is difficult to overestimate how deeply Zionism is rooted in this country, whose politicians are trying to persuade the European Union to adopt a law making it illegal to deny Israel’s right to exist – the primary victims of this law will be Muslims. This angst permeates German society, especially the left:
‘The basic opinions of the Anti-Germans include support of the state of Israel and – although this is only true for some – American foreign policy such as the 2003 invasion of Iraq, a critique of mainstream left anti-capitalist views, which are thought to be simplistic and structurally anti-Semitic, and a critique of anti-Semitism, which is considered to be deeply rooted in German cultural history’ (Wikipedia)
As a result, opposition to Zionism in Germany, one of Israel’s main supporters, is difficult, radical websites and journals have suppressed articles about Israeli war crimes and protests against them, and some Germans even commemorate the bombing of Dresden and other Allied war crimes. Why do Western countries make such efforts to prosecute Serbs for ethnically cleansing Muslims, but support Jews doing exactly the same thing? If Turkey joins the European Union, it will contain some countries in which it is illegal to deny the genocide of the Jews, and another where it is illegal to assert that the genocide of the Armenians happened!
All these aspects of anti-fascism – a lack of skepticism about alleged hate crimes, overestimating the threat of right-wing violence, a one-sided view of World War II, the belief that crimes against Jews are worse than crimes against other people, the belief that crimes committed by Jews are not as bad as crimes committed by other people, and the censorship of speech which could offend Israel’s supporters – reinforce each other.
A Note on the Title The title of this booklet is taken from Wilhelm Reich’s book The Mass Psychology of Fascism, a product of anti-fascism in the thirties, but the content bears no resemblance, so anyone reading this pamphlet thinking they are getting a treatise on psychology will be disappointed. But having got this far, they have probably already paid for it. However, the title is semi-serious, because there is a psychological aspect to the way anti-fascism undermines a rational analysis of how Western societies work. In particular, the social pressure not to question the burden of supporting Israel is enormous, at all levels of society. How can the Anti-Defamation League, which seeks to undermine the First Amendment, the foundation of academic freedom, persuade academics to apologize for teaching students about Israel’s crimes? Why would theaters suppress a play about a US citizen murdered by the Israeli armed forces, in order to avoid hurting Jewish feelings? Why do US presidents grovel before the leaders of a far smaller country dependent on the generosity of US taxpayers? The irrational in politics is never so clear as when discussing the power of the Israel Lobby.
Oil, War and the Lobby
Only a few years ago, because of the power of the Israel Lobby, it was almost impossible to acknowledge the power of the Israel Lobby. At the top end of American society, several politicians have had their careers terminated after mildly criticizing US Israel policy. At the other end, I remember arguing that the Israel Lobby was the main cause of the invasion of Iraq at an activist meeting.
The responses to my arguments were
that’s ridiculous
you’re mad
you’re a Nazi
Since the failure of the Iraq war, it has become easier to argue that US foreign policy in the Middle East is generally subservient to the interests of a foreign power, Israel. The turning point was the widely positive reception Mearsheimer and Walt’s The Israel Lobby received when it was published in 2007, in spite of a virtual media blackout. Before explaining how Israel has become the most important consideration for US policies in the Middle East, they show how these policies cannot be explained by the phrase ‘war for oil’. This is my explanation:
Before the attack on Iraq in 2003, those who claimed it was a war for oil, which includes both supporters and opponents of war, said that conquering Iraq’s oilfields would reduce the price of oil, by increasing the supply, benefiting the economy. Following the invasion, the price of oil rose considerably, and the oil industry made record profits. The ‘war for oil’ chorus then claimed what they meant was it was a war for the oil industry. Both president Bush and vice-president Cheney used to work in that industry, you see. Say no more.
More recently, the oil industry raised the price of oil dramatically after an unusually aggressive speech against Iran by an Israeli cabinet member. This had the effect of warning the world of the disastrous economic consequences of a military attack on Iran. Price-fixing by the oil industry is illegal, so I do not for a moment suggest it was a deliberate warning.
In the Iran-Iraq war from 1980 to 1988, the USA supported Iraq with varying degrees of enthusiasm
The Iraqi attack on Kuwait in 1991 started as a dispute over an oilfield, but Saddam Hussein’s concern over working class unrest internally was a more important reason for the war. The US government told Iraq it would remain neutral, but after the invasion, led an international force to drive Iraq out of Kuwait. If the USA had supported Iraq instead of Kuwait, it would also have been called a war for oil, with equal justification.
Five years after the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, some western companies are signing contracts to pump Iraqi oil and gas. For some, this is overwhelming evidence that it was a war for oil.
Paul Wolfowitz, one of the architects of the Iraq war, said it was a war for oil both before and after the invasion. Those who triumphantly cite these claims as evidence that the war was all about oil forget two things: the man is a rabid Zionist, and a congenital liar. Only about fifteen percent of US domestic oil consumption comes from the Middle East. If civilian oil was the primary determinant of US policy in the Middle East, it would have similar policies toward the oil-producing countries in the region. In fact, its policies toward the three leading Middle East oil producers are as diverse as can be: hostility to Iran, war against Iraq, and friendliness to Saudi Arabia.
The military importance of oil is a different matter. Realizing that penetrating this aspect of the ‘war for oil’ hypothesis is beyond my own modest abilities, I humbly approached the work of the esteemed Noam Chomsky. Of all the insights which this towering intellect has contributed to the community, surely none compares to his finding that military forces use lots of oil. Not satisfied with this feat of scholarship, Chomsky goes further, to note that the military consider it a good idea to grab oil for yourself whilst denying it to your enemy. So far, so good. The only difficulty is when he tries to test his theory’s predictions against actual US behavior. He claims that the USA invaded Iraq in 2003 in order to ‘control’ its oil, and that of nearby countries, for military purposes. What he somehow fails to explain is how few oil producing countries the USA has even attacked, let alone controlled, over the last century, for most of which it has been the world’s greatest power. The USA turned down an easy opportunity to occupy Iraq after winning the 1991 war. Did it really take the Pentagon until 2003 to work out that it uses a lot of oil?
To summarize, the ‘war for oil’ theory predicts that, in a conflict in an oil-producing region, the USA will support one side or the other, may occupy one of them, oil companies will invest in the region, and the result will be a rise, or a fall, in the price of oil. I won’t insult the reader’s intelligence by explaining why this invalidates the theory.
What about the ‘Israel Lobby’ theory?
The most advanced version of this theory is Mearsheimer and Walt’s. It says that the Lobby is the most powerful influence on US Middle East policy, but that the USA is capable of reducing or eliminating that influence. This theory predicts that, where the USA’s interests conflict with Israel’s, the former will usually support the latter, but that, in some cases, the USA, or parts of it, will act in its own interests.
The predictions of this theory are confirmed by reality:
a) The USA sometimes tries to restrain Israel, but is then forced to backtrack. More often, it supports Israel to the hilt, even when Israel’s actions damage America’s plans. Mearsheimer and Walt remind us that, shortly after September 11th 2001, president Bush tried to persuade Israel to call a halt to settlements in the West Bank and make various other concessions to the Palestinians, as a way of helping reduce support for Islamic extremism. Uncooperative and ungrateful as ever for the vast resources America gives it in return for nothing, Israel rudely rebuffed the world’s supposedly most powerful man, refused to meet his envoy, and forced him to drop his requests for restraint. A humbled Bush invited Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon to the White House, and called him a ‘man of peace’. Translation: sorry for the interruption, keep on killing, we won’t interfere again.
b) But, as the theory predicts, there are exceptions. The most outstanding is America’s cuddly relationship with Saudi Arabia, a country with a dim view of Israel. Though the US does not give to the Saudis vast quantities of the most modern weaponry, as it does to the Israelis, it does sell them warplanes and co-operate with them in numerous other ways, to the chagrin of Zionists, liberals and Osama bin Laden.
Chomsky doesn’t like the Israel Lobby theory. He assumes that Israeli and US interests coincide. His blind spot derives from treating the US political system as, well, a system. Picture a visitor from another planet looking at a car traveling slowly, making a loud noise, and emitting a lot of black smoke. The alien, using his x-ray vision, analyzes the car’s engine, carburetor and spark plugs, and describes how the vehicle is perfectly designed to travel slowly, make a loud noise, and emit a lot of black smoke. This analogy illustrates the logical fallacy called functionalism – you cannot say if a system is functioning correctly unless you know what it is designed for. For Marxists, the system is the executive committee of the ruling class – it serves capitalism. For liberals like Mearsheimer and Walt, it is supposed to serve ‘the people’. Chomsky does on occasion admit to the influence of the Israel Lobby in the USA, but his theory only allows him to see it as part of the system – he says the Lobby makes the system act in its own interests – by supporting Israel. He notes that the USA often approves Israeli actions in advance – and concludes that shows that Israel obeys the USA. Mearsheimer, Walt and I have proven him wrong – on numerous occasions, when Israel has acted, US politicians, including presidents, have made mild criticisms, the US Israel Lobby has mobilized, and the US politicians have apologized. Unless you believe that this is an elaborate charade to cover the fact that Israel obeys the USA, you find the Israel Lobby is like the engine of a car traveling slowly, making a loud noise, and a lot of black smoke.
On the website Counterpunch and elsewhere, Michael Neumann, Jeffrey Blankfort and others have run rings around the party line defended by Chomsky and similar hacks, that Middle East policy is primarily about oil, elites and hegemony. The complacent platitudes of Chomsky and his disciples are not merely mistakes, nor merely products of dishonesty – there is an element of consciously avoiding a challenge to the power of the Lobby because of cowardice – they refuse to debate the question. Leaving these faint-hearts behind, we – the vanguard – defend the view that, thanks to its Lobby, the greatest influence on US policy in the Middle East is that of Israel, a foreign country with completely different interests, at the expense of good relations with nations and movements with similar interests, and lots of oil.
Whether you believe the US political system is designed to serve the interests of the capitalist elite or the interests of the huddled masses, no honest observer can avoid the conclusion that the Israel Lobby is dysfunctional for that system: the tail wags the dog. The dogma that Israel is a strategic asset of the USA is a dangerous error, because it makes opposing uncritical support for Zionism sound more difficult than it actually is. Some of Chomsky’s followers go so far as to claim that Israel is a victim of US policies in the Middle East – by ‘goading’ it to drop cluster-bombs on Lebanese schoolchildren, the USA forces Israel to stir up hatred against itself, taking the heat off the USA. I’m not making this up.
None of this means the war in Iraq has really benefited Israel. Mearsheimer and Walt argue that the US Israel Lobby is not a perfect cipher for Israeli interests: the Lobby was the prime mover of the Iraq disaster. If Iraq is a little confusing, the case of Iran is clear as glass: US and Israeli interests are completely different. The USA can choose whether to be on good or bad terms with the Islamic Republic, basing its choice on calculated self-interest, whereas Israel faces the problem that Muslims cannot, on principle, recognize a Jewish state on their land. When vice-president Dick Cheney was a businessman, he opposed sanctions against Iran, on the grounds that they are bad for business. When he became a politician, dependent on the democratic system, he had to support sanctions and warmongering. When George Bush Senior was standing for re-election, he had to apologize to the Lobby after he mentioned its influence and was accused of anti-semitism. Jimmy Carter, subjected to the same outrageous slander, did not have to apologize, since he is not seeking office. Bush Junior was able to defy the Israeli war drive against Iran during 2008 for the same reason.
Giving the lie to Chomsky’s ‘analysis’, big corporations and some of the undemocratic parts of the state, such as the intelligence services, are currently more likely to resist the war drive than the elected bits, which are most subject to the pressure of the Israel Lobby. It was the combined weight of all sixteen American intelligence services which leashed the dogs of war at the end of 2007 with a devastating report which said that Iran has no nuclear weapons program. The Lobby was furious – the centerpiece of its war drive, after the exposure of its lies about Iraq, was a stream of fabrications about the Iranian menace – but there wasn’t much it could do until the election season came around the following year, when it made the candidates for president appear at its conference and compete with each other to make fawning speeches in support of Israel.
The question has become not if Israel is the primary influence on US policy in the Middle East, but how. We have a partial answer in the Mearsheimer and Walt bestseller – it’s the Lobby’s mastery of the electoral process. But this wouldn’t work if the allegation of ‘anti-semitism’ directed at any legislator who makes a mild criticism of Israel and its Lobby were ignored, as they would be if the democratic system was simply a tool of the ruling class. It’s the irrational deference to Israel which needs explaining. This pamphlet is intended to be a modest step forward – by mixing the critique of anti-fascism developed in the thirties with anti-Zionist theory and a bit of half-serious psychology, I hope to stimulate readers to think critically about this difficult question.
The inability of today’s activists to challenge the Israel Lobby goes some way toward explaining the absence of an anti-war movement today. In the seventies, the American ‘movement’ was the envy of the world, as it helped end the Vietnam war. Did the rise of sensitivity, the notion that how someone feels about an issue is as valid as a scientific fact, make this movement more, or less, effective? The Lobby is not only a key issue in opposing war today, it is also the most effective litmus test separating those who want to change the world from those who want to feel good about themselves.
Many of those who follow anti-fascism would deny they are allies of the Israel Lobby. They believe they are just as much opposed to the oppression of Palestinians by Jews as they are opposed to white supremacy in Western countries. But, just as it was not possible to fight against Franco in Spain in the 1930’s ‘autonomously’ of the communist party, so today one cannot consistently single out fascism as a unique evil without simultaneously abetting the influence of Zionism. This consequence is quite logical: anti-fascism promotes the idea that murdering Jews is worse than murdering German or Japanese people. This is pro-Jewish racism. Support for the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians follows as night follows day.
Liberal anti-fascists don’t realize this, but Zionists certainly do. Roughly speaking, anti-fascists can be categorized as follows, in increasing order of their grasp of logic:
Radical anti-fascists, mostly anarchist
Liberal goody-goodies, with names like ‘The Coalition for Human Dignity’
Nationwide Zionist pressure groups such as the Anti-Defamation League
These different strands of anti-fascism have more in common than they admit –
they greatly exaggerate the danger from white extremists They support the moral panics which frequently appear in the media, alternative and corporate alike, claiming fascists are about to make an appearance. A few years ago, the good people of Portland were urged to gather in Gabriel Park, a wealthy part of town, to head off a rumored invasion by ‘Nazi skinheads’, who, it was claimed, would represent a danger to the Jewish population of the area. As if the police would allow teenagers, even those with unorthodox views on German history, to terrorize a well-heeled district. Claims of racist activity in poorer, blacker areas are more plausible, but here, too, anti-fascism exaggerates. When a shotgun was fired randomly at a house in North Portland, and some white kids were arrested for the offense, ‘Hate-Free Zone’ posters appeared, and the local TV, newspapers and alternative websites buzzed with excitement, as if one random, victimless shooting was another Kristallnacht, though there was no evidence of racist intent. Yet when a black youth shoots another dead, the silence is deafening. Another aspect of the inherent racism of anti-fascism is shown – ‘black-on-black’ violence is not important to anti-fascists. This bias mirrors the attitude of traditional racists that what ‘they’ do among themselves doesn’t matter to ‘us’. If Ethiopian Mulugeta Seraw had been killed by African-Americans, or if he were white, he would not have become a cause célèbre.
they are deliberately vague about what crimes these ‘Nazis’ are guilty of Anti-fascists write and talk about ‘Nazi activity’, consciously blurring the distinction between expressing an opinion and conspiring to commit criminal violence. Expressing the view that races are more important than they really are, and that some are more important than others, is not a crime, neither in law nor in reality. Those who want to ban racism on the grounds that it spreads ‘hate’ could easily go on to ban Marxist and similar ideas which promote class conflict. Moreover, it is wrong in principle to ban racist theory. A scientific approach to racism says it is unlikely that a racist theory is both valid and true. Anti-fascism cannot tolerate this ambiguity. James Watson, one of the discoverers of the structure of DNA, was fired for saying that some racist ideas might be true. Zionism should not be suppressed on the grounds that it is racist. Whether the USA will indefinitely tolerate agents of a foreign power actively undermining its constitution is another matter.
they tell lies about their opponents One of the techniques used by anti-fascists is to smear all their targets as ‘Nazis’. Any historian who doubts the official story of The Holocaust in all its gory detail, lampshades and all, is condemned as a Nazi sympathizer. In Britain, the ‘Anti-Nazi League’ claims that the British National Party is ‘Nazi’. This used to be almost a half-truth. The BNP’s predecessor, the National Front, was founded by outright National Socialists. There are photographs of these clowns wearing Nazi uniforms – in Britain in the nineteen-fifties! It took a long time to live that one down – but the BNP finally found an opportunity to break with its anti-semitic antecedents, in the war on terror. In 2006, following the Israeli attack on Lebanon, the BNP enthusiastically supported it, seeing it as part of the war against Muslims at home and abroad, and made a final purge of anti-Jewish attitudes amongst its membership. For the BNP, support for Israel went along with abandoning anti-semitism.
they attempt to police all opponents of anti-fascism, not just fascists Anti-fascists are in favor of suppressing debate. Their position ‘No Platform for Racists’ gives power to those who define what is racist, the product of negotiations between leftist hacks and Zionist lawyers. They don’t want you to read this pamphlet. It’s not that they disagree with what I say – they want to suppress it altogether, so you can neither agree nor disagree. The editors of the Indymedia left wing websites have deleted articles which they claimed were racist, but which clearly weren’t. It is easy to predict how anti-fascists will distort the argument in this pamphlet. They will claim I am saying ‘Zionists will accuse us of anti-semitism anyway, so we may as well be anti-semitic’. This is not the case.
Anti-fascists make great efforts to persuade us that they are not aiding ‘the state’ in general, seemingly unaware that their lies and distortions serve the interests of one state in particular. They encourage attacks on fascists, legal and otherwise, on the grounds that fascists spread violent ideas, but do nothing to oppose Zionists doing the same thing, on a bigger scale, and with more effect.
A poster produced by Zionists sadistically celebrating the death of Rachel Corrie, a peace activist killed by an Israeli bulldozer
When the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League decided to use the death of Mulugeta Seraw to attack freedom of speech, they chose to prosecute the White Aryan Resistance, not because this group was actually involved in Seraw’s death, not because they thought this prosecution would prevent further deaths, but because fascists are, to say the least, unpopular, so the public were more likely to tolerate this blatant attack on the First Amendment. Following this victory for anti-fascism, Zionists started a campaign to purge academia of critics of Israel. Some were fired, others forced to say they would stop spreading ‘hate’ in order to keep their jobs. Some even adopted Chomsky’s views. As a result of its decision to tackle the Israel/Palestine question, the University of Oregon’s Pacifica Forum is currently subject to a campaign by the SPLC and the local anti-fascists of the ‘Anti-Hate Task Force’ to smear it as anti-semitic and persuade the University to close it down, by linking it to a series of alleged ‘hate crimes’.
Anti-fascism, by its nature, is part of the fabric of emotional manipulation which gives Israel more funding from the USA than all other countries put together. This is what gives Israel its license to kill, and its ability to suppress freedom to criticize it. Opposition to this machinery of repression, hate and war cannot be combined with spreading the ideas which support it, or the emotions which support the ideas which support it.
Racially-motivated violence is not the major form of violence. Even at its height, skinhead violence was not the number one killer. Why not campaign against other social phenomena which cause violence, such as the illegality of drugs? The appeal of anti-fascism is not rational calculation of what is the greater social evil. Its appeal is that it gives you a warm fuzzy feeling – you can feel you are fighting against racism, one of the most pernicious aspects of this society, while in reality you are doing the exact opposite. Mountaineers know that a warm fuzzy feeling is the penultimate stage of hypothermia. They also know to hang on to their icepicks when navigating a slippery slope…
First We Take Manhattan
Defenders of Israel routinely try to disarm its critics by accusing them of anti-semitism. But most critics of Israel are simply opposed to the crimes of this state, not to the ethno-religious group to which many of its inhabitants belong. It is like saying that the movement against apartheid was motivated by prejudice against the Afrikaaners, the Dutch-speaking white South Africans who supported it. One of the main motives for opposing Israel or Israel’s behavior is opposition to racism, since it is as clear as day that one of the main characteristics of the state of Israel is its racism – it favors Jews over Palestinians, to put it mildly. But the US government has consistently opposed the characterization of Zionism as a form of racism on the international stage – the opposite of its behavior regarding racial segregation in South Africa. Yet, in contrast to Israel, the USA had an interest in supporting the South African apartheid regime, which fought Russia’s allies in Africa. This divergence cannot be explained by calling it ‘capitalism’ – why is the USA so supportive of Israeli capitalism, when it was so critical of apartheid capitalism? All the ‘materialist’ explanations of the West’s support for Israel amount to circular arguments, and should not be taken seriously: behind the absence of logic is a lack of valor.
The problem is emotional and psychological. Even when allegations of anti-semitism are ridiculous, we tend to take them seriously, because of the pro-Jewish racism which is embedded in our culture. As a result, pro-Palestinian activists make an effort to deny that they are anti-Jewish.
There are some important exceptions, who have consciously rejected being concerned about the danger of anti-semitism in the Palestinian solidarity movement. One example is Gilad Atzmon, an ex-soldier from Israel, and a major jazz musician. In a witty and provocative way, he says we tend to be more concerned about the false issue of anti-semitism than we are about the real issue of Jewish racism. Furthermore, he argues that it is impossible to be an anti-Zionist, non-religious Jew. He says there are three kinds of people in the world who identify themselves as Jewish –
Zionists
Religious Jews who oppose Zionism for theological reasons
Secular Jews who claim to be against Zionism but aren’t really
Not surprisingly, this hypothesis was unwelcome to groups like Jews Against Zionism, who denounce Atzmon around the Palestine solidarity movement as ‘a notorious anti-semite’. Frequent ‘demands’ are made that he be banned from this meeting or that website, because he criticizes Jewish identity as such, not just its most successful product, apartheid in Palestine. Just as the Israel Lobby proves its power by suppressing those who criticize its power, so Atzmon’s opponents show their chutzpah by censoring those who criticize their hypocrisy.
Another good example in support of Atzmon’s thesis about the vacuity of Jewish anti-Zionism is the case of Lenni Brenner, whose Zionism in the Age of the Dictators is available on a German website, marxists.de. Brenner shows how Zionists, far from being defenders of the Jewish people, collaborated with their worst enemies, the Nazis. Particularly gruesome is the example of Hungarian Zionists, led by Rezso Kasztner, arranging to have 600 Jews saved, to travel to Palestine, in return for abandoning 450,000 to their deaths. The Zionists were more concerned about creating a Jewish state than they were about saving Jewish lives. Brenner’s aim is to turn Jews against Zionism on the grounds that it sometimes goes against their interests. This won’t wash. In the first place, Zionists could answer, ‘yes, we did collaborate with the Nazis during World War II, but we have learned since then never to give an inch to our enemies (the Palestinians, the Iranians, the goyim)‘. But more importantly, Brenner’s argument amounts to saying ‘Don’t support the Zionist gang of ethnic cleansers, murderers and promoters of a nuclear holocaust – they collaborated with the enemies of the Jews!’. Which implies that, if these ethnic cleansers, murderers, and holocaust-mongers didn’t collaborate with Jews’ enemies, they wouldn’t be so bad. Brenner’s argument is tactical: Zionism was a bad tactic from the viewpoint of Jews. He tries to persuade Jews not to support apartheid because it doesn’t work. Brenner showed his true colors when he joined the ranks of those ‘demanding’ the suppression of Atzmon’s articles, to protect you and I from his treif thoughts.
In a similar sleight of hand, Noam Chomsky claims that the ‘apartheid wall’ which Israel constructed in the West Bank is designed to steal Palestinian land and water, not for Israel’s security, as the government claims. He employs the logical fallacy known as a ‘false dichotomy’ to do this – pretending that the wall is either for security or for robbing the Palestinians. In fact, it does both, but its primary purpose, in which it has been highly successful, is to defend Israelis against suicide bombers. Chomsky can’t admit it is for Israel’s security, and condemn it too. Some of his adherents criticize Israel’s policies of murder, torture and so on, on the grounds that they are bad for its security. In other words, if they were good for Israel’s security, they would support them.
Like Atzmon, Jeffrey Blankfort, one of America’s brave critics of Israel, argues that it is very difficult to have a Jewish identity separate from Zionism:
‘The distinction that we are always careful to make between being Jewish and being Zionist is essentially deceptive and that while all Jews are not Zionists, the organized Jewish communities throughout the world, despite whatever differences they may have, are totally behind the Zionist project.’
Do I agree? I don’t know – but I’m not going to allow fake anti-Zionists to prevent me from finding out by blackmailing me with fear of anti-semitism. It is this irrational fear which holds us back from effectively challenging Zionism.
URL of Duke
The following quotation typifies the apologetic attitude to Israel which I believe has been a major obstacle to the success of Palestinian solidarity:
‘Unfortunately, groups that assert Palestinian human rights and criticize Israel often attract and can be co-opted by people holding anti-Semitic and other racist viewpoints… That allows legitimate and necessary criticism of Israel’s policies to be dismissed as anti-Semitic by Israel apologists, denying Israel the corrective feedback that might save it from the worldwide disrespect it now suffers and the self-degrading and ultimately self-destructive path it has pursued from its beginnings…’
This is from a letter to an Oregon newspaper. You can find variants of it all over the place. It argues that the Palestinian solidarity movement needs to demonstrate its moral purity to the ethnic cleansers of Palestine. Israel’s supporters have already successfully labeled its critics as anti-semitic and rendered sympathy for the Palestinians completely ineffective throughout the Western world. How could the solidarity movement be less effective if it were less concerned about anti-semitism?
An academic in Britain was suspended from her union after posting a link to an article on a fascist website, which she found by googling the phrase ‘humanitarian disaster in Gaza’. She didn’t know it was run by fascists – she just read the one article, and it contained nothing offensive. Zionists and leftists in the union saw her link and went ballistic, and she apologized – but they didn’t reinstate her – an example of the futility of kowtowing to these people. A better approach would be to insist on her right to link to whomever she likes. Is it her fault if some opponents of Israeli influence are fascists? The union, the Universities and Colleges Union, was the first to call for a boycott of Israel, but it lacks the courage to stand firm against the predictable chorus of ‘anti-semitism’. The union gives Zionists the message that it will try hard to satisfy their complaints. Almost all of Palestinian solidarity waves the same white flag.
Suppose you found a coherent article by a fascist containing valid arguments about the Israel/Palestine issue? Are you worried that you will accept everything fascists say if you accept anything they say? Or are you really afraid of what people might think? I know I am – of course Zionists and their friends would distort what I am saying, would use my reference to a fascist article to try to claim that I am a fascist myself. But that is going to happen anyway. I have already been accused of anti-semitism by more than one ex-comrade. I don’t waste time trying to placate Zionists and their poodles.
Mearsheimer and Walt cringe when critics point out that their The Israel Lobby was well-received among fascists, but they should stand their ground. Instead of apologizing and backtracking, we should oppose the Zionists as provocatively as possible. It’s not just what you say, it’s how you say it – we should make clear our contempt for Israel’s fifth column in the tone as well as in the content of our message.
A play about Rachel Corrie, an American peace activist killed by the Israeli army, was called off in several North American cities out of concern for the sensitivities of Jewish groups. For those who would like to see the play, there are two possible responses. One is to argue rationally:
‘Theaters gave in to Zionist pressure, not Jewish sensitivity – many Jews are deeply concerned about Israeli atrocities…’
The more effective approach is to become insensitive.
An admirable example of a step in the right direction is the response of the anti-war discussion group ‘Pacifica Forum’ at the University of Oregon to Zionist critics who labeled it anti-semitic in the local media. The Forum invited holocaust revisionists – historians who question aspects of the official holocaust narrative – to talk about the Israel Lobby and freedom of speech. As a result, the Southern Poverty Law Center has added the Pacifica Forum to its list of ‘hate groups’. When the SPLC, one of the Lobby’s poisonous snakes, crawled out of the swamps of Alabama and slithered in our direction, we felt shivers of both revulsion and excitement. How different from the situation at the same university four years earlier, when a professor was accused of anti-semitism, and ended up signing an agreement repeating the lies of anti-fascism, expressing
‘…his horror at the wave of anti-Semitic events around the world in recent years’
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign in Britain showed the same paralyzing deference to the feelings of sensitive Jewish princesses by wasting valuable time discussing whether to invite Gilad Atzmon to its conference, because it took the allegations of anti-semitism seriously. Indymedia deleted an article by me, because I argued that anti-semitism is no big deal, which they interpreted as promoting it. The editors of this site are so pro-semitic they interpret indifference as antipathy.
Palestinians too suffer from sensitivity. For example, Yasser `Arafat said
‘Zionism is an ideology that is imperialist, colonialist, racist; it is profoundly reactionary and discriminatory; it is united with antisemitism in its retrograde tenets and is, when all is said and done, another side of the same base coin’
How fair-minded this sounds in comparison to the lies Israel heaped on `Arafat’s head. How balanced and objective. How warm and fuzzy. And how wrong! One problem with this approach is its lack of proportion. Zionism and anti-semitism are not two sides of the same coin – Zionism is much worse than anti-semitism. Anti-semitism today doesn’t result in gas chambers, as it did sixty-five years ago, but Zionism is killing people right now, with bullets, bombs, starvation and disease, and suppressing our ability to stop it, with censorship and blackmail.
The idea that anti-semitism and Zionism are on the same side is only true in the sense that all violently opposed forces reinforce each other. Of course Zionism helps encourage anti-semitism, and benefits from it – but its main products are murder, dispossession and forcing children to grow up in a concentration camp, the Gaza strip, and in similar conditions in the West Bank and in refugee camps in neighboring countries. The fact that some of the children who survive this experience grow up with an attitude toward Jews is hardly the main problem. It is an inconvenient truth that for a section of the Western public, an increase in anti-semitism would lead to a decrease in support for Israel, so Zionism and anti-semitism are sometimes on opposite sides of the fence, rather than two sides of the same coin. It follows that it is impossible to be equally opposed to Zionism and to anti-semitism. To oppose the influence of Israel, to undermine support for ethnic cleansing and war in the Middle East, it is necessary to abandon anti-fascism and everything that goes with it.
First, They Came For The Fascists…
Mulugeta Seraw
An instructive example of a moral panic which united the police, the left and the media in an anti-fascist witch-hunt against hate crimes is the case of Mulugeta Seraw. In 1988, in Portland, Oregon, Seraw, an Ethiopian immigrant, was killed in a drunken dispute over a parking space. Four skinheads were convicted of murder, one of them, Kenneth Mieske, sentenced to thirty years in prison, and the organization White Aryan Resistance was successfully sued for $12.5 million by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League. Elinor Langer’s book about the case, A Hundred Little Hitlers, is a rare example of authentic journalism – she even spells Blood and Honour correctly. More importantly, she goes beyond her own liberal attitudes, and discovers that:
Seraw was killed in an unplanned street brawl, not a premeditated lynching
It was manslaughter, not murder – this distinction is very important in the USA, where a conviction for first-degree murder is very difficult to live down, especially if you are executed
The Southern Poverty Law Center was lying when it claimed that White Aryan Resistance sent agents to Portland to commit racially-motivated violent crimes – in truth, despite its name, WAR carefully avoided illegality
The prosecution of WAR set a precedent whereby civil law can be used to convict someone of what is really a criminal offense, with a much lower standard of proof
The fascists lost the case because of the hysteria stirred up by the media, politicians, the police and anti-fascists, and because they could not afford a lawyer to counter the wealthy Zionists who prosecuted them. And, it has to be said, because they are not the sharpest tools in the shed.
Neither are some anti-fascists. Those who have read Langer’s analysis don’t understand it any better than the people who wrote the book’s cover notes or the reviewers in the local press, which give the impression that she blindly follows the anti-fascist party line. A good example can be found in an article in the Portland anarchist magazine Little Beirut which simply repeats the SPLC’s distortions in more radical-sounding language (president Bush once described Portland as ‘Little Beirut’, though ‘Little Tel Aviv’ would be nearer the mark). The article, Anti-fascist organizing in Portland 1988-1993, contains no trace of an admission that Mieske’s conviction was unjust, nor that there is anything wrong with evicting a family from its home for its opinions – instead, it celebrates the persecution of Mieske and WAR, and complains that the SPLC’s attack on freedom didn’t go far enough:
‘Tom Metzger, who rightfully occupies center stage in her book, may have been convicted in trial and Ken Mieske, who killed Mulegeta Seraw, may be rotting in Oregon State Penitentiary, but white supremacy and the neo-fascist movement were untouched by the legal machinations.’
I hope readers don’t think I chose Little Beirut deliberately because it is so imbecilic, in order to discredit anti-fascism. I recommend the New Abolitionist group as a more coherent example of a bunch of do-gooders who have listened to too many Neil Young albums, flogging the dead horse of white supremacy –
James Watson, the discoverer of the mechanism by which genetic information is transmitted, lost his job for suggesting that black people might be less intelligent than white people. This genius, whose contribution to understanding life is only surpassed by Darwin and perhaps Mendel, had a lecture tour of the UK canceled, and when he returned to the USA, was fired under pressure from the thought police.
people have been evicted from their home for expressing pro-white racist opinions
a woman was murdered by the FBI because her husband was a white separatist
when liberal academics Mearsheimer and Walt appeared in US cities to promote their bestseller The Israel Lobby, attempts to publicize the event in the local media were often censored
the murder of an American woman by the Israeli army is described as ‘controversial’ in the US media – just like the bombing of Dresden
fascists fare less well in court cases than anti-fascists
implausible accounts of hate crimes are taken seriously by the police
If the North Carolina cops can be politically blackmailed into framing rich white kids on behalf of a clearly unreliable black witness, white power is not the problem. One indication that Jewish, and not white, privilege is more powerful, is how difficult it is to oppose the former, and how easy it is to oppose the latter. This difficulty is both social and psychological. You will get into trouble if you concentrate on criticizing Israel and its supporters. It is also psychologically difficult, even to say the phrase ‘Jewish supremacy’, despite the fact that is obviously as valid a concept as ‘white supremacy’. Today, anyone who argued for the return of apartheid in South Africa would be called a ‘white supremacist’, without hesitation. Supporters of the master race in Israel today should be called ‘Jewish supremacists’, with equal justification, but they are spared this unflattering deconstruction. This in itself is evidence of Jewish privilege. If you held a meeting about white supremacy, the meeting would not be besieged by white supremacists claiming that white supremacy does not exist. If you held a meeting about Jewish supremacy, you would be besieged by Jewish supremacists claiming that Jewish supremacy does not exist. Even if you believe that ethnic privilege and oppression are not particularly useful concepts, it is still revealing that some of these concepts are easier to discuss rationally than others.
The phrase ‘Jewish supremacy’ clearly describes the situation in the Middle East – one small group gains advantages by racially oppressing the rest of the population. The term ‘Jewish privilege’ is more accurate to describe the situation in Western countries. In either case, the word ‘Zionism’ is too mild – it suggests people who are befuddled by an ideology, rather than people benefiting from murder and theft. Thanks to deference to their feelings, Jews, and only Jews, can suppress debate and information which might undermine support for the country in which they, and only they, hold a privileged position; the position of deciding life or death for other people.
So what should you do about hate crimes? The same things as you would do about other violent crimes. An attack on an innocent black person should be treated in the same way as an attack on an innocent white person. Most people I know are more likely to be assaulted by black youths or by the police than by fascists. The only political violence I have encountered was when I was threatened by anarchists for exposing a left-wing group which gave information to the police. And that was before I wrote The Mass Psychology of Anti-Fascism…
Jay Knott, October 2008
About the Author
‘the only difference is I got the balls to say it…’
Jay Knott runs the Insensitivity Program at the University of Oregon. The name is a pseudonym, in order to make it harder for organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League to spy on him, harass his employer, and so on.
‘Basically, this pamphlet makes the error of blaming US Middle East policy on the so-called Israel Lobby, deflecting attention from the oil industry, letting corporate elites off the hook, and running the risk of playing into the hands of people who hide behind freedom of speech to preach intolerance, diminishing our sense of safety and diversity, and allowing right-wing Zionists to tar all critics of their actions with the same brush, causing legitimate and necessary criticism to be dismissed by apologists for Israel, denying it the corrective feedback that might save it from the worldwide disrespect it now suffers’ Z Magazine
“It seemed like that word ‘anti-semite’ had so much power over all the people in the gathering” – a reporter on KBOO radio describing the way the allegation of anti-semitism was used to shut up a major campaigner against support for Israeli war crimes, in a supposedly ‘anti-racist’ meeting, in Portland, in April 2010. As if to confirm the power of Zionism in the left, the report was censored.
This is a review of the pamphlet “The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere” – by April Rosenblum, April 2007, available from http://thepast.info, subtitled ‘Making resistance to antisemitism part of all our movements‘. It’s part of my ongoing effort to expose the blind spot the American left has for Zionism.
So why do I bother deconstructing crypto-Zionism? First of all, I’ve noticed that there are few people in the world smart enough to do this, and I’m one of them. I care about peace with the Islamic world, a clear priority for the inhabitants of Westen Europe and North America since September 11th 2001.
In some ways, April’s pamphlet is the antithesis of my “The Mass Psychology of Anti-Fascism“, which I produced a year later. I was unaware of April’s effort at the time, otherwise I would have incorporated an uncompromising attack on her pamphlet into mine.
A Zionist thinktank called “The Israel Project” produced a booklet on how to fool the American pc left. April’s pamphlet implements their recommendations. It is basically a Zionist tract in the guise of modern leftism, with lots of references to ‘oppression’ and so on.
I found out about it via a Zionist supporter of the violent leftist group ‘Anti-Racist Action’, accusing anti-war activists in Portland, Oregon, of being anti-semitic. Someone linked to April’s pamphlet via a posting on Indymedia.
Though I reject the politics of “The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere“, I am grateful to this individual for having pointed me in this direction. This sugary concoction of self-serving Jewish particularism summarizes better than anything else I have read the attitudes which prevent the anti-racist left from opposing Zionism, by far the most important form of racial violence and discrimination in the Western world. There is more racism among Jews than among all other Western people combined. I can’t speak about Sudan or the Amazon rainforest, but I know Western Europe and North America, I understand Israel, and I am familiar with the Left. I can’t help being part of this society – it’s my duty to fight against the terrible errors which lead us to participate in the genocide of the Palestinian people.
I am not advocating anti-semitism. I am advocating much less concern about it than there is at the moment. This is especially true of the Palestine solidarity movement – our aim is to support the Palestinians against the Jews, and that’s it. Worrying about anti-semitism has not helped this movement: it only enables Zionists and anti-fascists to attack pro-Palestinian advocates.
Being concerned about anti-semitism means supporters of Palestinian rights spend a lot of time and energy defending themselves against this smear. In a left-wing meeting in America, it is enough for a Zionist to call someone ‘anti-semitic’ to shut down debate, divert people from the real problem of Jewish racism, and divide people. This gives power to Zionists. Our aim is to reduce Zionist power. Defending ourselves against the canard hasn’t worked. We need a different approach. We need to flaunt our contempt for the charge of anti-semitism, and laugh at it. We need to not care about it. One example is to make a point of defending the freedom of speech of Holocaust revisionists. This exposes the Zionists hiding in the left, who call us ‘fascists’ just for listening to such controversial speakers. We need to challenge the official story of World War Two, on which much of Israel’s cultural hegemony depends.
On to April’s pamphlet.
The first thing to note is the pamphlet’s style. It is written and laid out like the famous ‘For Dummies’ series (Theoretical Physics for Dummies, etc.). It uses a deceptively casual, friendly tone to try to dictate ideas to the reader, rather than explain them. It pretends it is possible to present complex ideas in a simplistic style with lots of assertions, sidebars and pictures, no attempt to falsify hypotheses, and statements too vague to be testable.
“In the basic ways that it plays out, antisemitism is not so different from the ways that many diaspora communities get scapegoated throughout the world.” (page 4)
So does that mean it is similar to the scapegoating of the Overseas Chinese in Malaya in 1969, or that of Indians in East Africa? No, that is not what April means. If it were, it would mean that anti-semitism is an example of an ethno-economic entity being on the receiving end of resentment from the oppressed. Malays attacked Chinese and Africans attacked Indians because they were privileged. Their wealth was built on oppressing the poor. Admittedly, the ruling elites were even more culpable, but one can understand the resentment toward the middlemen without in any way justifying the violence. But try saying there was a ‘grain of truth’ in equivalent resentment against the Jewish middle class in Russia, Spain and Germany. Of course, that is not what April is saying. She’s saying anti-semitism is special.
This pamphlet is an example of what Gilad Atzmon calls ‘crypto-Zionism’ – a failed attempt to separate Jewish identity from Jewish racism. It is Jewish supremacy disguised as schmaltzy left-wing morality.
April really believes Jews are oppressed. Everything they do, they are victims. When they become rich and rip off other people, it’s because the ruling classes are using them as scapegoats, to divert the poor from their real enemies to the Jews. She says that attacking ‘the Jews’ is a way of diverting people from their real enemy – capitalism. But this simply isn’t true for the Palestinians. Noam Chomsky uses his fame and eloquence to divert people in the opposite direction – he tries to deny the existence of the Israel Lobby, blaming everything on US imperialism.
The idea that anti-semitism is a form of oppression in the Western world today is absurd. There is class oppression, obviously: people mostly go to work because they have no property. There are also irrational forms of hatred, like homophobia. There are hangovers from the past, like racism against black people. But for a Jew to promote the idea that anti-semitism in the West today has anything in common with these real forms of hate against innocent people is hypocritical whining.
The most important form of racial discrimination in the Western countries today is pro-semitism, or philosemitism, to give it its correct name – discriminating in favor of Jews. Whereas the West ditched white apartheid twenty-five years ago, it still supports Jewish apartheid to the hilt, sending the Jewish racist state more money than all other countries combined.
Jews are often involved in campaigns for civil rights for others, as April’s pamphlet reminds us.
“An amazing ½ to ⅔ of the whole Civil Rights workers who went south for instance, are estimated to have been Jews – despite being just 2-3% of the US population… We fought not only because we longed for a better, more beautiful world, but out of deep faith that freedom for all peoples would also, finally, bring freedom and safety for Jews” (page 16).
Not only did Jews want a better, more beautiful world, but in addition, they wanted safety for Jews.
It wasn’t the other way round. They didn’t fight for a better, more beautiful world because it is in Jewish interests to undermine white dominance by advancing the interests of other minorities. Never mind the fact that American Jews are liberal on the US immigration question and not so liberal when it comes to immigration into Israel. Anyone who says that is anti-semitic, aren’t they? So there’s no need to even think about the double standard involved.
In the 1930’s, American Jews were left-wing. So what changed? Why did they move to the right?
Why is the most important Jewish movement in the world today Zionism, and the most important in the USA, neo-conservatism? According to “The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere“, it’s because Jews were persecuted during McCarthyism – two of them were even executed for “supposedly” passing nuclear secrets to the Russians.
April effectively says – if the left allows such vicious anti-semitic pogroms as the execution of the Rosenbergs for handing over nuclear weapon secrets to Russia, well, it can only expect Jews to move to the right, exert influence in the media, use everyone else’s money to support Israel’s war crimes, and send our sons and daughters to die. It’s all because we allow the oppression of Jews.
I oppose the death penalty, but Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were traitors, and April is being dishonest in implying otherwise. In fact, they were Jewish commie traitors. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s true.
She only notices when the Soviet Union was anti-semitic. Never mind when it was pro-semitic, supported the foundation of the state of Israel, and helped Jews oppress other inhabitants of Eastern Europe. If she admitted this, she would say the Jews were being ‘used’ by the Stalinist apparatus. She perpetuates the story we have all heard about the Eastern Front – everyone was guilty, except the Jews, who were always victims. Finally, after 1945, they’d had enough, and founded the state of Israel.
It gets worse.
“Any Jew who comes to understand the nature of their oppression – and who realizes that the liberation of their people touches them more deeply than any clinging attachment to the status quo – cannot help but become a radical. Plenty of Jews haven’t yet had that ‘click’ of awareness” (page 17).
So the problem with Paul Wolfowitz, the bulldozer driver who killed Rachel Corrie, and supporters of the Anti-Defamation League, is that they don’t realize that ‘the liberation of their people’ ‘touches them more deeply’ than the advantages they gain by supporting, or presiding over, ethnic cleansing, by Jews, of Palestinians, using the wealth of white Europeans.
They haven’t yet had that ‘click’ of awareness.
But April and other radical Jews have had it. They ‘realize‘ that the ‘liberation of their people‘ is better served by combatting anti-semitism in the left.
At least white South Africans were honest. They were either honest racists, or honest anti-racists. They didn’t join the anti-apartheid movement in order to cure it of any anti-white prejudice it might contain.
April asks us to ‘bring an understanding of Jewish oppression into Israel/Palestine work‘. Surely that would exclude an understanding of Jewish supremacy?
How does the “understanding of Jewish oppression” help the Palestinians get their rights? Not at all. The problem with the left is not that it tolerates anti-semitism, but that it cares about it.
The traditional anti-racism of the West – undermining white privilege – has failed completely to make a dent in Jewish privilege, Jewish apartheid, and the tremendous support for it in the Western world.
It’s time to ditch that approach and try another. White ethnic interests do not always coincide with Jewish ones. This is certainly true on the Israel/Palestine question, so why should pro-Palestinian activists be afraid of pointing this out? Christianity, whether liberal or conservative, is no friend of Israel. So why not say so? If there are conservative interests opposed to Zionism, then they should be utilized. Never mind the pious humbug called ‘principles’. You know what they say about making an omelette.
According to this pamphlet, part of the problem with anti-Jewish oppression is ‘it allows Jews success’: “Many oppressions rely on keeping the targeted group of people poor” (page 8). Conversely, oppressors tend to be successful. Success makes you an oppressor, whereas failure makes you oppressed. Except for Jews. Jews are victims, even when they are successful.
The ‘middleman’ in early capitalism and the ‘court Jew’ in late feudalism were victims too. When they exploited the poor, they were being used. Perhaps they were. So were the Chinese middle class in Malaya, the Indians in East Africa, the Koreans in Compton, and so on. But they were active agents of oppression too – they weren’t just victims. This ambiguous position is easy to explain in relation to all these middle-class ethno-economic entities – except for the Jews. If you apply the same principles to the Jews you apply to Asian middle classes, you are threatened with loss of your job or even violence. I have clear examples of both of these forms of discrimination.
April claims reasonable liberal complaints about Zionist power are anti-semitic – for example, the argument that the deaths of Jewish children are reported many times more than the deaths of Palestinian children in the media. This is one of the most obvious indicators of Jewish power in the US media, publicized by such moderate organizations as “If Americans Knew“. But for April, it’s an age-old anti-Jewish smear. Never mind the Palestinian children – what’s important is to protect Jews.
According to April, Jews in America after World War II “knew they’d better not rock the boat“. Try telling that to the survivors of the USS Liberty, attacked by Israel in 1967, with the loss of thirty-four men. The Jews didn’t just ‘rock the boat’, they nearly sunk it. American Jews are so powerful, the attack was covered up. What would happen to any other nation attacking an American spy ship?
“For Jews who struggle for social justice, that means we often stay quiet about anti-Jewish oppression” (page 9). You could have fooled me.
The Naqba, the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in 1948 by the Jews, was caused, naturally, according to April, by anti-semitism. The poor Jewish survivors of the Holocaust could hardly help themselves emigrating to Palestine and driving out the population of the area. April believes the oppression of the Palestinians is not caused by pro-semitism, but by anti-semitism.
April explicitly says you can criticise some Israeli policies, but not the nation itself. You should not say ‘Zionism is a form of racism’.
She complains bitterly about ‘anti-semitism’ at the UN Conference on Racism, which was boycotted by the major powers because of their pro-Israel stance. because it would contain ‘Israel-bashers’.
They were not concerned about ‘South Africa-bashers’ at conferences against apartheid. Britain, the USA, Australia etc. all condemned South African apartheid, and boycotted it until it fell down. The white countries got rid of the most egregious example of white racism. They find it much harder to get rid of the blatant Jewish racism of Israeli apartheid.
Still, April complains of being oppressed, and I think she believes it. Self-deception is the best form of deception, and it has been a very successful Jewish strategy.
“Zionism is not an insult… it’s a nationalism, and, as so often happens with nationalisms, it has not fully liberated its people and has oppressed others in the process” (page 22). Poor Palestinians. Oppressed in the process of ‘not fully liberating’ Jews.
She tries to tie valid criticisms of Israeli barbarism, such as a cartoon of Ariel Sharon eating children, to ‘blood libels’ such as those used against Jews in Russia and Germany in the 19th and 20th centuries. A similar argument was used against those who accused Israel of stealing organs from Palestinians. All I can say is, if you want to stop anti-semitic stereotypes, stop conforming to them.
The weakest point in her pamphlet concerns the Lobby. There is a well-documented idea that politicians have to obey a small clique of powerful Jews, the Israel Lobby, when deciding Israel policy, even when it goes against the USA’s interest. She says this idea is anti-semitic. I hope not, since it’s true. Mearsheimer and Walt’s ‘The Israel Lobby‘, which defends this ‘tail wagging the dog’ hypothesis, is a well-referenced, moderate, academic work, not a piece of Nazi propaganda. If we follow April’s advice, we will be unable to consider the Israel Lobby theory, and a host of other valid questions, because we will be afraid of what these ideas might ‘lead to’. This would impede our attempts to understand, and undermine, the USA’s unconditional support for Israeli aggression. Conversely, if we do want to understand, and undermine, this support, we must reject her call to ‘make resistance to antisemitism part of all our movements‘.
Perhaps realizing the danger of this conclusion, she tries to blackmail us into agreeing with her position; if we don’t ‘make resistance to antisemitism part of all our movements‘, Jews will feel bad and move to the right. And it will be our fault. We must therefore stop ‘anti-Jewish rhetoric’ among pro-Palestinian campaigners, by saying Jews will feel isolated, and support “building up a militarized Israel, with rights reserved for Jews”. We wouldn’t want them to do that, now, would we?
Ethnic cleansing, racial supremacy and mass murder by Jews are the fault of everyone else, April would have us believe. For how long have Jewish activists sung this refrain? How much longer are we going to put up with it? Do we have to wait ’til the last Palestinian is expelled from Palestine, it is illegal to criticize Israel in Europe, and American Muslims are rounded up and put in camps?
She doesn’t attempt to argue against the explanation for the 2003 invasion of Iraq that the US government was maneuvered into it by the Jewish neo-conservative movement. She doesn’t need to – since it’s anti-semitic, it can’t possibly be true.
Same with the ‘myth’ that Hollywood and the media are under Jewish control. She doesn’t provide statistics to refute this idea – she doesn’t need to – she informs us that it makes her feel oppressed, so it can’t possibly be true.
Notice that I am not saying that all these stories about Jewish power are true. I’m saying that, in order to investigate whether they are true, we have to become less concerned about anti-semitism. And I am saying that we should investigate them, since they are a matter of life and death for Palestinians.
April and her friends, whether they know it or not, provide left cover for Israel. Their efforts are holding back the creation of a new anti-apartheid movement.
Like all crypto-Zionists, April refers to ‘the Occupation‘ – the idea that Israel’s rightful borders are the ones she had before the six-day war in 1967, when she annexed the West Bank, etc. – the idea that ethnic cleansing was OK up ’til 1967 but not thereafter. This is a fallback position, in case Israel has to give up the ‘occupied territories’, to make it look like a Jewish racist state with the 1967 borders is legitimate. It’s like the position of some of the Afrikaaners who wanted a small white state after the fall of apartheid. Jewish progressives are the equivalent of white racists – except they want the lion’s share of Palestine, not just a fair slice of the pie. Actually, they want the whole enchilada, but they might have to make do with the main course, leaving a few crumbs for the Palestinians.
In some ways, April’s pamphlet is a parody of itself. If Israel is allowed to continually flout international law, she claims, “some activists start to mistake Jews for a vast powerful network” (page 20). Yes, I must admit to making that mistake myself! Thanks for the correction, April!
The way April uses universal humanism and socialism to cover up her Jewish chauvinism, you might think there was something in the age-old canard about Jews using universalism to cover for their particularism.
I don’t draw that conclusion. I don’t reduce radicalism from the Bolshevik Revolution thru the Vietnam War to ‘Jewish leftism’. But, like anti-semitism, I can only say the best way to oppose this idea it is not to conform to it.
“There’s no shame in thinking critically toward Zionism. But in a world of unresolved antisemitism, there’s also no getting out of fighting this oppression head on” (page 22). I beg to differ. I’ve gotten out of fighting anti-semitism completely, not just ‘head on’. So, according to April, I should feel shame in thinking critically toward Zionism. But somehow, I don’t. I must have something wrong with me.
“There are real reasons why Jews around the world fear losing majority control of Israel. If you fight for the Right to Return, understand the implications it could have for Jews in a world where anti-Jewish oppression has not been solved” (page 23).
In other words, if you don’t consider how Jews feel about it, you have no right to support the Right of Return for Palestinians! This means the ‘Right of Return’ isn’t a right at all. The United Nations resolutions, unconditionally asserting Palestinians’ right to return to the land they were kicked out of in 1948, are wrong, because they don’t consider the implications for Jews.
She argues that “the idea that Jews control the government of the world began with traditional Church authorities passing down images of Jews as a group in league with the Devil” (page 25). Look more closely. First, it takes the most exrteme anti-Zionist position as being mainstream, then it asserts, without evidence, where it ‘began’. This is irrelevant. Present-day analyses of Jewish power should be evaluated on the basis of evidence, not whether they remind us of age-old canards (a canard is a calumny against a cabal).
“It was like somebody flipped a switch“, said a leading campaigner for a boycott of Israeli goods, when she was accused of ‘anti-semitism’ and the audience at a left-wing anti-racist gathering turned against her.
We need to reject this traditional anti-racism. It’s time to rock the boat. And break some eggs.
(This article was originally published on the website Palestine Think Tank, now defunct).
— the language used by American conservatives to justify the current crackdown on free speech?
Republicans opposed cancel culture in academia and elsewhere. Now they are in government, they lecture Europeans about freedom, while organising the biggest crackdown on free speech since McCarthyism: hauling college presidents to inquisitions, firing dissidents, and deporting legal immigrants, for their alleged opinions. There are narrow exceptions to constitutionally protected speech, but these are limited to planning crimes, and incitement to immediate violence. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression explains:
Chutzpah isn’t just a jokey term in Yiddish for breathtaking hypocrisy; it’s a strategy for advancing Jewish interests. It means the only criterion for deciding what to say, write, or advocate, is not “is it true?” but “does it advance Jewish interests?”
How else to describe the Orwellian inversions which we hear and view every day?
— There have been numerous protests in universities, against the Israeli genocide. Zionist Jews and their politicians claim these protests are for the genocide of Jews.
— Politicians have claimed “Israel doesn’t need America; America needs Israel”: the opposite of the truth.
— Zionists claim their critics say “Zionists” when they mean “Jews”; in reality, Zionists say “Jews” when they mean “Zionists.”
— In a double lie, they falsely claim students are breaking the law by expressing sympathy for Hamas, and persuade administrations and government departments to expel and arrest them.
— It is not illegal to express sympathy for Hamas, and
— no evidence of any of those targeted expressing such sympathy has been produced.
The claims of Zionism are ridiculous, yet the most powerful government on earth is completely committed to them.
Government and Zionist proclamations on the “antisemitism crisis” in academia bear a striking resemblance to the campaign against “racism,” which reached a climax during 2020. The premises of both campaigns are false. There is no evidence that George Floyd was murdered for being black. Black students at Yale, Evergreen, etc. have not experienced racial discrimination. Neither have Jews at Harvard, Columbia, etc.. Every protest against the Israeli genocide has included a significant Jewish contingent. What has upset some Jews — the racialists — has been the criticism of Israel. It makes them feel unsafe:
The women who run the universities have accommodated the Jewish supremacists as cravenly as they did other minority activists. But the Jewish assault on freedom is worse than woke. It is backed by the government, and reinforced by the withdrawal of funds from non-compliant institutions, expulsions, arrests, and the threat of deportation. Most importantly, it helps Israel commit genocide, by undermining opposition to it within its most important supporter.
The manipulations of America and other open societies by different minority activists look similar because they exploit the same weakness: the eagerness with which people of European descent, despite, or because of, their unique efforts to end discrimination, are prepared to accept allegations of harbouring prejudice. The nearest thing I am aware of, to an explanation of that weakness, is Individualism and the Western Liberal Tradition, by Kevin MacDonald; I don’t know if I agree with it.
Supporters of Israel refer to it as “the Jewish state.”
Critics rarely use that term. Some even argue “It is not a Jewish state.”
I am a Jew. I renounce slaughter. I renounce genocide, I renounce child murder. I renounce Israel. It is not a Jewish state. There is nothing Jewish about genocide.
The reaason is, these critics are intimidated by the word ‘antisemitism.’ While the left overuses the allegation ‘racism,’ the right cries ‘antisemitism,’ to smear opponents of Israel’s crimes. On 7/10/23, the right adopted a far more comprehensive ‘cancel culture’ than the one they oppose.
When asked why the USA gives unconditional support to Israel, both right and left mostly argue Israel is America’s ally. The right think this is a good thing; the left tends to argue that it is an expression of European colonialism, or a tool of US imperialism. Over and again, one finds leftists on social media labeling Israel ‘white supremacy.’ Apartheid South Africa was an implementation of white supremacy. Israel? White supremacy! The intellectual gymnastics the left performs to avoid the J-word could win Olympic medals.
Almost twenty years ago, Michael Neumann savaged the tactical ineptitude of left-wing anti-Zionists, claiming they put feelings before facts: “What’s the welfare of the Palestinians compared to the left’s emotional commitment to anti-imperialism?”
If Israel is a tool of the US, it follows that patriotic Americans should support Israel. It is both more accurate and more effective to argue that Israel’s relationship to the US is parasitic. Perhaps some on the left are worried that arguing it is unpatriotic to support Israel could lead patriots into… white supremacy. As if that remote possibility is worth considering, in the context of the daily genocide being carried out, not by Nazis or the KKK, but by the Jewish state.
Others argue that the USA supports Israel, even when Israel’s interests are at variance with its own, because US politicians are selected for their eagerness to serve the interests of Jews. The most obvious example of this selection process is the millions of dollars the Jewish organisation AIPAC donates to the campaigns of pro-Israel candidates.
I believe that it’s impossible to resolve this issue by accumulating evidence for one side or the other. For example, the fact that Israel attacks countries which are not US-aligned doesn’t show that it’s doing it on behalf of America, as Caitlin Johnstone believes. It could just as well be that these countries are not US-aligned because the USA supports Israel.
The evidence doesn’t tell us whether the groveling of US politicians toward their Israeli counterparts is a reflection of Jewish power in the USA, or whether they’re just pretending, in order to cover up for the role of Israel in acting for American hegemony in the oil-rich geostrategic blah-blah-blah.
The reason I favour the ‘Jewish power’ explanation of the competition among politicians for who can genuflect to Israel and its supporters most fervently, is that it’s the most parsimonious description of the data.
Mearsheimer and Walt, in their book The Israel Lobby, ask the right question:
– US presidents mildly criticize Israeli policies
– Israeli politicians express open contempt for the supposedly most powerful man in the world, bragging of how ‘The Jewish Lobby’ (their words) will bring this uppity goy into line
– And so it comes to pass…
is this all
1. an elaborate charade to make it look as if the Lobby can determine US policy regarding Israel in order to cover up for US hegemony, by diverting attention to the Jews, or
2. is the most elegant/economical/likely explanation that Jewish power trumps US interests?
Let’s make it simple. Given all the examples of US politicians groveling to Israel, is this a facade to disguise the fact that Israel is really subordinate to the US empire, or is the most parsimonious explanation, that Israel really does tell US politicians what to do?
Since 7/10/23, it has been difficult to keep track of the examples of politicians falling over each other to compete in groveling to the Jewish state and its supporters. To take one example, the Antisemitism Awareness Act passed 320 to 91 in the House of Representatives, though it clearly violates the First Amendment of the US Constitution. For example, it proposes to penalise
“denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.”
(An aside: Caitlin Johnstone, bless her, is a committed critic of Israel. She would argue that claiming Israel is racist does not deny the Jewish people their right to self-determination: https://x.com/caitoz/status/1806497727272071622?t=7DOueWdBMkLCwu8FYNHvNA&s=19. I would rather say I don’t care if it does deny them that right.)
Witness the rabid attacks on academic freedom, with politicians regularly claiming that university protests against genocide are comparable to the genesis of the Nazi party.
It is far more parsimonious to describe the groveling as a result of Jewish power, than to describe it as a facade to make it look like a result of Jewish power.
One reason the Palestine solidarity movement has been so spectacularly unsuccessful, contrasted to the anti-apartheid campaign, is that it doesn’t point to the cause of the problem it is trying to solve: the power of Jews in Western institutions, media, and culture, particularly in the USA. Jewish power is difficult to oppose because of the power of Jews. Part of this power is our fear of repeating what happened when Jews were singled out in the past.
But until we point to the real cause of the West’s support for genocide, we are at best wasting our time.
the jay report 
