Past record suggests Israel has more influence with U.S. than U.S. has with Israel.
– under-secretary-of-state James E. Webb to secretary-of-state Dean Acheson1
A recent review of Alison Weir’s book, Against Our Better Judgment: The hidden history of how the U.S. was used to create Israel, appeared on Dissident Voice that drew the ire of the author. I decided to find out myself what the book is about. I agree with reviewer Jay Knott’s assessment: Weir’s book is “devastating.”
Weir has taken the reader on a historical overview of major Jewish personalities, beginning with Louis Brandeis and Felix Frankfurter, who organized Zionist networks in the United States that eventually became a powerful lobby that wields preponderant influence over the US government.
The lobbyists are described as violating ethical standards. This is not surprising given the the false flags against fellow Jews, conniving with Nazis against the wishes of fellow Jews, but worst of all must be the brutal (bloodthirsty is actually the adjective that comes to mind when reading the details of the) massacres of Palestinians, their dispossession, and their expulsion from their homeland.
The formation of a Jewish state would also violate ethical standards; it would violate the UN charter; (location 699) it would lead to a prejudiced stance for the US (and other states that supported partition) and scorn in the Arab and Muslim countries, and it is difficult to finagle how that would be in the interest of the United States.
Weir tells of a State Department memorandum that reveals Jewish scheming to mask aggression as defense to give rise to Israel. (location 740)
Zionist Jews practiced terrorism, and many of these terrorists would later become prime ministers of Israel. Menachem Begin even revelled in being called the father of terrorism in the Middle East, which he corrected to be in all the world. (location 901)
One quibble is that Weir appears to provide ethical cover for famous American personalities who gave succour to Zionists — the cover of ignorance. For example, Weir writes, that Eleanor Roosevelt ignored advice to pull support from a project whose profits would go to funding terrorism because “she was apparently unaware that it [the warning] was well founded.” (location 942) How Weir arrived at the apparent unawareness of Ms. Roosevelt is unclear. What is clear is that Roosevelt was warned of malevolent violence and, at the very least, she chose not to check on the veracity of these most serious charges. Consequently, it smacks like a lame excuse to exculpate an American icon from support of Zionist terrorism. The same occurs with Richard Nixon. Weir writes, “It appears that Nixon was unaware of [his close friend Baruch] Korff’s terror-connected past.” (location 1037) As a reader, I am left wondering how is it that Nixon was unaware. Politicians live and breathe plausible deniability. From the mouths of politicians there is little plausiblity about this; moreover, claiming ignorance hardly attests to a politician’s competence.
However, Weir does expose the Lobby, its unethicality, the swaying of US politicians, the insouciance of most Israeli Jews to the injustices suffered by Palestinians. She points to the stifling control of the mass media by Zionists, the smearing of anti-racists as anti-Semites, and the willingness to do whatever it takes – humanity be damned – to thieve real estate.
Weir is quite dead-on in her book. She addresses Zionist power, but it is clear for anyone reading the book that the Zionists are by and large Jews. Jews, as Weir exemplifies, were also victims of the Zionists — further corroboration that is unhelpful to try and scapegoat an entire people by claiming some sort of moral homogeneity.
Knott’s review had a criticism of Against Our Better Judgment:
Weir gives the impression America is inhabited by well-meaning, simple, Christian folk, who are manipulated into supporting the oppression of the Palestinians by dishonest, clever Jews. But what about Americans who support the ethnic cleansing of Palestine because they think it defends American interests? The problem with pointing out, correctly, that it does not in fact defend those interests, is that it leaves these people thinking that if it were in American interests, it would be worth supporting.
Weir did not describe or imply that any folk were “simple.” This was a poor choice of word by the reviewer. The problem lies in defining “American interests.” From the preceding blockquote, when it comes to supporting Zionism, one needs to differentiate between Christian interests and American interests, the latter of which should be construed to mean the interests of American elitists. Christians are obviously a hodge-podge as well. Certainly not all Christians support Zionism, and as Weir made known in her book, Christians have often been the target of Zionist Jews.
Weir has indeed succeeded in her goal to provide “a concise, clear sketch of what has been going on” in historical Palestine. Against Our Better Judgment is a brilliant introduction to Zionism, the Lobby, and Israel/Palestine. It is well referenced, and read those references because there is a wealth of information.
- Quoted in Alison Weir, Against Our Better Judgment: The hidden history of how the U.S. was used to create Israel (2014): location 809.