The Israeli Stranglehold

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS - Counterpunch

 

Dec. 14, 09

 

"Settlers attack West Bank mosque and burn holy Muslim books” was a London Times headline on December 11, 2009.

 

These attacks, together with the demolition of Palestinian homes, the uprooting of Palestinians’ olive groves, the innumerable checkpoints that prevent Palestinians from accessing schools, work, and medical care, the Israeli Wall that denies Palestinians access to the land stolen from them, and the isolation and blockade of the Gaza Ghetto, are part of the Israeli government’s policy of genocide for the Palestinians.

 

The Israel Lobby has such power over America that even former President Jimmy Carter, a good friend of Israel, is demonized for using the polite term--apartheid--for the genocide that has occurred over the decades during which American “Christian” preachers, together with bought-and-paid-for politicians, justified Israel’s policy of slow genocide for Palestine.

 

Israelis who still have a moral conscience--a small part of the population--endeavor to use moral protests against the inhumanity of the Israeli government. Israelis Jeff Halper and Angela Godfrey-Goldstein lead the Israeli Committee Against House Demolition (ICAHD), a non-violent, direct-action group established to oppose and resist Israeli demolition of Palestinian homes in the Occupied Territories.

 

Under international law an occupier by military force is forbidden to steal the occupied land. The US, however, has protected Israel’s violation of international law for decades by vetoing UN resolutions. Israel has been able to steal Palestine from the Palestinians, because the US government used its power to prevent Israel from being held accountable under international law.

 

In March 2003 American citizen Rachel Corrie stood in front of an Israeli bulldozer, made by Caterpillar and sent to destroy a Palestinian home. Her courageous act of defiance was regarded as an annoyance, and she was run over and murdered by the Israeli bulldozer operator. Israel suffered no consequences for its murder of an American citizen who had a moral conscience.

 

In the Israeli-controlled American media, we hear endlessly that Palestinians are terrorists who strap on explosives in order to kill innocent Israelis and who terrorize Israeli towns by firing rockets into them. One look at the maps above is enough to make clear who the real terrorist is. The success of Israeli propaganda in the face of totally obvious facts damns the ignorance and unconcern of the American people.

 

The Israeli newspaper, Ha'aretz, which also has a moral conscience and is intelligent to boot, wrote on December 4, 2009: “Every appointee to the American government must endure a thorough background check by the American Jewish community.”

 

Ha'aretz notes that any American that the President of the United States proposes for an appointment to his government is subject to the approval of the Israel Lobby, which can blackball appointees at will. Ha'aretz gives the example of Charles Freeman, whom President Obama intended to appoint as head of the National Intelligence Council. The Israel Lobby proved, again, that it was more powerful than a mere American President and prevented the appointment, citing Freeman’s “anti-israel leaning.” In other words, because Freeman was not an overboard apologist for Israel’s crimes he was unacceptable to the Israel Lobby.

 

Ha'aretz reports: “The next attempt to appoint an intelligence aide, in this case, former Republican senator Chuck Hagel, also resulted in vast criticism over his not having a pro-Israel record.” The Israel Lobby has blocked Hagel’s appointment by President Obama. Hagel doesn’t want to start a war with Iran for Israel’s benefit and was blackballed by Morton A. Klein, the president of the Zionist Organization of America. Hagel, it seems, “refused to sign a letter calling on then-president George Bush to speak about Iran’s nuclear program at the G8 summit that year.”

 

Now it is a Jewish daughter of a Holocaust survivor, Hannah Rosenthal, whose appointment to head the US Office to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, an office that is another indication of America’s puppet state status, is under attack. Rosenthal was the head of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs during 2000-2005. Her black mark came from serving on the advisory board of the J Street Lobby, a recently-formed American Jewish organization formed in opposition to AIPAC’s murderous militarism.

 

The Israel Lobby’s opposition to Hannah Rosenthal shows that no moral person can survive the Israel Lobby’s blackball. The US, “the world’s only superpower,” has no independent voice in Middle Eastern affairs. The real power rests in the hands of the settler thug, Avigdor Lieberman, Deputy Prime Minister of Israel and Minister of Foreign Affairs. This is the man who controls the Obama government’s Middle East policy.

 

Lieberman forced the “all-powerful President of the US, Barack Omama,” to rescind his order to Israel to halt the illegal settler settlements on occupied Palestinian land. Obama was given the bird and submitted to his master.

 

Macho Americans who prance around as if they owned the world are nothing but the puppets of Israel. The US is not a country. It is a colony.