Shalom Center
Israel, Iraq, and U.S. Jews
by ARTHUR WASKOW
June 2004
Recently Senator "Fritz" Hollings of North Carolina, a six-term, pro-labor, pro-civil-liberties and pro-civil-rights
Senator who is retiring this year, politically an heir of the
New Deal and the Great Society, said he thought a desire to
protect Israel was one of the main motives -- perhaps the main
one -- of those who pressed for war against Iraq.
These were the "neo-conservatives" and theorists of the
Project for a New American Century who were urging the US to
attack Iraq long before the beginning of the Bush II
Administration, and who got key jobs under Rumsfeld and
Cheney.
The Senator said he voted for the war originally because he
believed Administration claims of deadly weapons in Iraq.
Since he now knows this was false, he said he believed other
means of protecting Israel would have been preferable, that
military force never can alone bring peace, and that many in
Congress are overawed by AIPAC's power and its insistence
that the only policy for protecting Israel is the one it
urges.
General Anthony Zinni headed all US forces in the Middle East
region till he said in public that if the US really wanted to
occupy and control Iraq, it would take hundreds of thousands
more troops than the Bush Administration was claiming. He was
fired. He was right.
He also, in a recent television interview, said he thought one
of the motives of the PNAC people who pressed for the Iraq War
was protection of Israel.
Because of these comments, some Jews and some Bush supporters
have accused the Senator and the General of anti-Semitism and
being possessed by the dybbuk of "conspiracy theory."
How to assess these comments and these accusations?
I think that the Project for a New American Century was indeed
at the heart of the Bush Administration's decision to attack
Iraq.
PNAC's theorists became key actors in the Bush
Administration, and their outlook became official US/ Bush
policy. They are not really Republicans. They called
themselves "the Vulcans." I call them the Dominator Party.
War. Torture. Despoiling and poisoning the Earth. Invading
human rights and civil liberties. Invading the privacy of
citizens while hiding the acts of government. Stealing from
the poor to enrich the super-rich. All policies of Domination.
Their decision for war had nothing to do with Iraqi weapons of
mass destruction or Iraqi connections with Al Qaeda . Neither
of those existed. Citing them was merely the way to win
support from an America traumatized by 9/11.
And it had nothing to do with Saddam's being a brutal
dictator. The US has worked with dozens of brutal dictators in
the last 50 years, including Saddam Hussein himself when he
was fighting Iran.
The Dominator Party focused on securing US domination of the
world, including the power to prevent any other state/s from
even beginning to challenge that domination.
To do that, the US would need to control the broader Middle
East. It is the key source of the most crucial strategic
commodity in the world -- oil. And world oil reserves are
tapering off. If you are not willing to pursue new means of
powering the world like renewable energy, you had better
control every source of oil there is.
When the Dominator Party talked about "democratizing" the
Middle East, they meant installing governments "friendly" to
the US. Supportive of, not to say subservient to, US policy.
(Remember how enraged they were when democratic pressures in
France, Germany, Turkey, and Spain brought their governments
to oppose the US war against Iraq.)
And the closest US ally in the Middle East was Israel.
In Israel, not only the right-wing government but also many
other Israelis saw Iraq looming as a long-range danger to
Israel.
But Israel could not attack Iraq on its own, without inflaming
even more hostility against Israel. So these Israelis saw an
American attack on Iraq as good for Israel, and indeed Israel
was the only nation in the world where an overwhelming
proportion of the population supported the US war.
Many but not all of the Dominators ALSO had strong connections
with Israeli right-wing politicians. For them, "supporting
Israel" did not mean supporting the Israel of Rabin or Sarid
or Aloni or Peace Now.
Their basic approach to life and politics -- domination by
military means -- powered BOTH their support of right-wing
Israeli policies toward the Palestinians and their support for
US efforts to dominate the world.
At minimum, these two drives for domination worked in tandem,
independent of each other -- until they converged in policy
toward Iraq.
It is also possible that the "Dominator Party" consciously
believed that the two outlooks strengthened each other: that
they supported US domination of the world and especially the
Middle East as in part a boon to Israel, and supported
Israel's direct occupation of the Palestinians and its
military dominance over most of the Middle East as a boon to
the US.
Outside Washington, the strongest American supporters of the
right-wing Sharon government were the "Christian right," for
its own theological reasons, and right-wing American Jews.
They became strong supporters of a US attack on Iraq.
Even the many American Jews who supported middle-of-the-road
Israeli thought and politics felt tugged toward the view that
nullifying Iraq as a threat to Israel was a good idea. Some
of them even hoped peace with the Palestinians would result.
So here is where motives and goals get tangled.
I do not think the PNAC "Dominator Party" that became so
crucial in the Bush Administration chose the war against Iraq
simply to benefit Israel.
There is no evidence that the power-players who hired the PNAC
people - Bush himself, Cheyney, Rumsfeld - gave a monkey's
fart in Hell about Israel, pro or con. They had their eye on
being the biggest Cowboys in history - riding the biggest
horse in history.
In their radio fantasy, "Hiyo Silver" was the United States of
America, to help them herd all those mooing cattle like a
Cowboy can. Maybe Israel could have a bit role as Tonto.
Only the French, Germans, Russians, Chinese, Turks, and even
Iraqis turned out not to be mere cattle. It just didn't work
to sing, "Git along, little dogie, git along, git along; it's
yer misfortune and none of my own."
The Dominators' attempt at a cattle drive was not only
misfortunate for Iraqis but for the American people - and the
Dominators themselves.
Both strands of their outlook flowed from their basic view
that military power is trumps, that the world's one military
superpower can control the world.
They were wrong. Their arrogance bred stupidity, because the
arrogant ignore all versions of reality except the one that
confirms their arrogance. The arrogant won't listen.
They thought Iraq was easily conquerable. They were wrong.
They ignored the central teaching of all spiritual traditions:
Arrogance leads to self-destruction, whether in individuals or
nations. Pharaoh's army is drownded. The Cross defeats and
transforms the Empire. God and Mohammed triumph over the
powerful bosses who drove him out of Mecca.
So I think Senator Hollings and General Zinni were correct in
noticing that some of the PNAC Dominator Party were in part
moved to favor attacking Iraq to protect Israel.
But to the degree they think the war was solely motivated by
that desire, I think their assessment is incorrect.
Does that mean I think their assessment is anti-Semitic? No.
I am sure there are some anti-Semites who, now that the Iraq
war turns out to have been a disaster born of arrogant self-
delusion, are glad to blame it on "the Jews."
But that does not mean that it is anti-Semitic for someone to
look at the evidence and see a desire to support Israel as a
major reason for the war.
Once the Jewish people decided to create a Jewish nation-state
and to enter the cock-fight of international politics, we took
on the sour as well as the sweet.
It is no conspiracy theory, no purulent anti-Semitic eruption,
to assess how US policy is shaped by the US alliance with
Israel, and to assert that the US might have made a disastrous
mistake by undertaking a war that Israel supported for its own
reasons.
When Senator Hollings says that AIPAC and other Israel-
oriented lobbies make a huge difference in US politics, I
think he is correct. AIPAC itself boasts about its power.
That is not alleging a "conspiracy." AIPAC's lobbying is
legitimate. It does what various interest groups in the
American polity are supposed to do.
But AIPAC, like any other interest-group lobbyist, can make a
horrendous mistake about what will benefit the United States
and even its own interest group. As AARP did about the
Medicare bill. It is not "conspiracy theory" to say that
AARP has a huge amount of clout in Congress, and that it took
a position on Medicare that was bad for seniors and bad for
the country -- and that its support enabled a bad bill to win.
There are only two reasons I can think of to accuse such
statements as those of Senator Hollings and General Zinni of
being anti-Semitic.
One is stark fear in the Jewish community. The most wounded
nerve, now again suffering real twinges -- synagogue bombings,
for example -- responds to any painful criticism as anti-
Semitism. I have compassion for such spasms of fear, but that
does not mean we should surrender to them.
The other reason is sheer intimidation, to halt criticism of
the Iraq war or the alliance between the Bush and Sharon
right-wing governments.
For this I have no compassion.
Shalom, Arthur
more info at http://www.shalomctr.org/index.cfm/action/read/section/iraq/
article/article620.html
Back