The Lobby

Presentation at the National Summit to Reassess the U.S.-Israel “Special Relationship” on March 7, 2014 at the National Press Club.

There is nothing better than a scandal every week. A juicy scandal excites people, engages the media, takes our minds off matters like war and peace, occupation and apartheid. Like panem et circenses (bread and entertainment) in ancient Rome.
This week we had several scandals to occupy us. Ehud Olmert, a former prime minister, was convicted of taking huge bribes when he was the mayor of Jerusalem. He was paid for approving a monstrous building complex on the highest hill of West Jerusalem, visible from a great distance.

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

As Iran and the world powers resume nuclear talks in Vienna with the hope of reaching a comprehensive agreement over Iran’s nuclear program by mid-July, the Israelis and their lobbyists in Washington are intensifying their efforts to scuttle the talks. In addition to all the efforts in the US Congress to impose additional sanctions on Iran, thus bringing the talks to a premature end, there are indications that Israel and her friends are continuing with various acts of sabotage against Iranian nuclear facilities.

This month, campaigner for Palestinian rights Alison Weir has scored a double against the Israel Lobby. The first goal was organizing the first-ever National Summit to Reassess the U.S.-Israel ‘Special Relationship’. A summary of this conference by Harry Clark can be found Dissident Voice.

Since the early 1990s, Israel, US, and their submissive European allies, supported by their uncritical and subservient media, have been peddling allegations, fabrications, accusations, and lies that the government of Iran was pursuing a secret, military adjunct to its regularly inspected civilian nuclear program.

In his farewell address in 1796, George Washington warned the nation he had served as its first president against a “passionate attachment” or “inveterate hatred” toward any nation. Some Americans were impassioned about revolutionary France. Within a few years, agents of foreign minister Talleyrand would boast to American diplomats of French power within the United States, and demand large bribes and loans to advance relations.

The Syrian civil war, insurrection, rebellion, revolt, uprising, call it what you will, was not home grown in Syria by Syrians with differing outlooks as to how their nation should be governed—as the mainstream media would have you believe—it was part of a strategy pre-planned by vicious, sociopathic foreigners called Neocons,  and they began their planning in 1991, following the first invasion of Iraq, code-named: Desert Storm.  To date, the major beneficiary of their diabolical planning has been Zionist Apartheid Israel, but that may be coming to an end.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is still one of the most powerful lobby organizations in the country, but fortunately, it is starting to lose its iron-clad grip on our policymakers. AIPAC lost the fight to stop Chuck Hagel from being confirmed as Secretary of Defense; it lost the push for the US military to attack Syria, and it is losing its effort to derail nuclear talks with Iran.

Michael Ratner: President Obama and New York mayor de Blasio’s statements in blanket support of Israel enables it’s violations of Palestinians’ rights.