Days after Donald Trump’s election victory, American Zionists moved quickly to ensure that Israeli interests were fully-guarded by the new administration.
The Zionist Organisation of America wasted no time, hobnobbing with notorious racists, also known for their anti-Jewish agendas. ZOA’s annual gala on November 20 hosted none other than Steve Bannon, a leader in the so-called alt-right, otherwise known as white supremacy in the US.
Watching top Israeli officials and leaders of the Jewish community in the United States hosting Bannon at ZOA’s annual gala appeared perplexing to some.
But Bannon’s ties with Zionists go back well before the Trump victory. In fact, Israel has never had a problem with true anti-Semites, but has merely rebranded any criticism of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land as anti-Semitism.
Mondoweiss, the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, explained the love affair between Israel and anti-Semites: “From Russian Tzars to the Nazis to Mussolini to the colonial British Empire to the Christian Right-Christian Zionists; [the Zionists’] embracing of Trump and renowned reactionary political strategist Steve Bannon is no exception.”
Israeli commentator Gideon Levy agrees. In an article published by Haaretz on November 21, Levy wrote, “When friendship for Israel is judged solely on the basis of support for the occupation, Israel has no friends other than racists and nationalists.”
Speaking in the White House on February 15, in a joint press conference with President Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked Trump for his hospitality, then uttered these words: “Israel has no better ally than the United States. And I want to assure you, the United States has no better ally than Israel.”
The US has indeed been a supporter of Israel, offering it over $3.1 billion (Dh11.38 billion) in financial assistance each year for the last a few decades, an amount that dramatically increased under President Barack Obama to $3.8 billion.
However, Israel has not been an equally strong ally to the US. Apart from the various serious episodes of Israeli spying on Washington and bartering US secrets and technologies with Russia and China, Israel has been the cause of instability in the Middle East.
Since the Second World War, the US has vied to control the region and its resources and prop-up its allies, while maintaining a degree of ‘stability’ so the US can conduct its business unhindered.
Nevertheless, Israel remained on the war path. Wars that Israel couldn’t fight on its own, required American intervention on Israel’s behalf as was the case in Iraq. The outcome was disastrous for US foreign policy.
In March 2010, General David Petraeus, then head of the US Central Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee during a testimony that Israel had become a liability for the US, which has in turn become a challenge to the “security and stability” which his country aimed to achieve.
He said: “Israeli-Palestinian tensions often flare into violence and large-scale armed confrontations. The conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of US favouritism for Israel. Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of US partnerships with governments and peoples in the AOR [Area of Operations] and weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world.”
The Israeli lobby attacked Petraeus. Abe Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which often mischaracterises its role as that of combating racism in the US lashed out at the American commander, calling his conclusions “dangerous and counterproductive.”
In the US, no one is immune to Israeli criticism, including the president himself. A particularly telling episode took place early 2015 when then-House-Speaker John Boehner plotted with then-Israel’s ambassador to Washington, Ron Dermer, to arrange a visit and a speech before Congress for Netanyahu, in defiance of President Obama.
Netanyahu raged before a united Congress (with a few exceptions) that repeatedly endowed the Israeli Prime Minister with many standing ovations as he belittled their president and strongly criticised US foreign policy on Iran.
Obama felt isolated and politically targeted.
But how did Israel achieve such commanding influence over US foreign policy?
In an article entitled: “Steve Bannon’s web of weirdness: Meet the bizarre billionaires behind the president-elect’s chief strategist,” Heather Digby Patron named a few of these ‘bizarre billionaires’. They included, Sheldon Adelson, a right-wing billionaire with a gambling empire, who is “singularly focused on the state of Israel”.
Adelson’s relations with Bannon (and Trump) preceded Trump’s victory, and seemed to take little notice of the fact that Bannon and his ilk were viewed by many American Jews as racist anti-Semites with a menacing agenda.
Adelson, however, obsessed with shielding Israel’s militant Zionist agenda, trumped all other seemingly irritants such as racism. But the gambling mogul is not the exception among leading Zionists in the US.
Thus, it is no surprise that Adelson is funding a massively rich campaign and lavish conferences to combat the influence of the civil society-powered Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS), while plotting with American elements that consider the word ‘Jew’ an expletive.
By putting Israel and Zionism first, these individuals, powerful lobby groups, hundreds of think-tanks, thousands of networks across the country and their allies among the Jewish right, are now the main players in any matter concerning US foreign policy in the Middle East, and Israel’s political and security interests.
In their seminal article, ‘The Israel Lobby’, two prominent American scholars, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, took on the painstaking task of deconstructing the power of the ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ Israel lobby that has grown exponentially in recent years.
“Jewish Americans have set up an impressive array of organisations to influence American foreign policy, of which Aipac [the American Israel Public Affairs Committee] is the most powerful and best known,” they wrote.
According to Fortune Magazine’s 1997 issue, Aipac is considered the second-most powerful lobby in Washington, an assessment that was upheld by the National Journal Study in March 2005.
‘The Lobby’ also relies on Christian evangelists who have long advocated the return of Jews to Palestine so as to fulfil some Biblical prophecy pertaining to the end of times.
Moreover, the lobby is no longer satisfied with attempting to sway Washington, but “also strives to ensure that public discourse portrays Israel in a positive light, by repeating myths about its founding and by promoting its point of view in policy debates,” stated ‘The Israel Lobby’.
This is why the lobby is currently mobilising to stop and even criminalise the BDS movement, for, even if it failed to nudge US foreign policy in a more sensible direction, BDS is succeeding in creating more platforms for open discussions on many university campuses and some media platforms.
The lobby was established decades ago, and is a combination of many forces and backed by ‘bizarre billionaires’ and a dark agenda. The outcome of this lobbying has played a significant role in a horrendous foreign policy that has killed, wounded and displaced millions.
Only a better and more honest understanding of the rule of the lobby can serve as a first step towards its dismantling. Dr Ramzy Baroud is an internationally-syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an author of several books and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story.
