ZGram - 8/18/2004 - "Paul Eisen: Jewish Power" - Part II

[zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org]

Zgram - Where Truth is Destiny:  Now more than ever!

August 18, 2004

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

This is Part II of the Paul Eisen essay that was went to the 
Zundelsite yesterday and which I am passing on in five parts. 

As you continue reading, you will be amazed at the insights this essay reveals.

[START]

Zionism as Jewish empowerment in statehood changes everything. Israel 
is not just any state, it is a Jewish state and this means more than 
just a state for Jews. This Jewish state is built on traditions and 
modes of thought that have evolved amongst Jews for centuries - 
amongst which are the notions that Jews are special and that their 
suffering is special. By their own reckoning, Jews are "a nation that 
dwells alone" it is "us and them" and, in many cases, "us or them". 
And these tendencies are translated into the modern state of Israel. 
This is a state that knows no boundaries. It is a state that both 
believes, and uses as justification for its own aggression, the 
notion that its very survival is always at stake, so anything is 
justified to ensure that survival. Israel is a state that manifestly 
believes that the rules of both law and humanity, applicable to all 
other states, do not apply to it.

Their own worst nightmare

It is a terrible irony that this empowerment of Jews most resemble 
those empowerments under which Jews have suffered the most. Empowered 
Christianity, also a marriage of faith and power, enforced its 
ideology and pursued its dissidents and enemies with no greater 
fervor than has empowered Judaism. In its zeal and self belief, 
Zionism has come to resemble the most brutal and relentless of modern 
ideologies. But unlike the brutal rationality of Stalinism, willing 
to sacrifice millions for political and economic revolution, this 
Jewish ideology, in its zealotry and irrationality, resembles more 
the National Socialism which condemned millions for the attainment of 
a nonsensical racial and ethnic supremacy. 

[Ingrid's comment here:  The preceding sentence is the RKPS - the 
Requisite Paragraph Kneefall Symptom - I described to you before. 
Ignore it if you can!  The rest of it is excellent!]

Of course there are differences but there are also similarities. 
National Socialism, like Zionism, another blend of mysticism and 
power, gained credibility as a means to right wrongs done to a 
victimized people. National Socialism, like Zionism, also sought to 
maintain the racial/ethnic purity of one group and to maintain the 
rights of that ethnic group over others, and National Socialism, like 
Zionism, also proposed an almost mystical attachment of that group to 
a land. Also, both National Socialism and Zionism shared a common 
interest - to separate Jews from non-Jews, in this case to remove 
Jews from Europe - and actively co-operated in the attainment of this 
aim. And if the similarity between these two ideologies is simply too 
great and too bitter to accept, one may ask what National Socialism 
with its uniforms, flags and mobilized youth must have looked like to 
those Germans, desperate after Versailles and the ravages of 
post-First World War Germany. Perhaps not so different from how the 
uniforms, flags and marching youth of pre- and post-state Zionism 
must have looked to Jews after their history of suffering, and 
particularly after the Holocaust.  [Ooops!  Another RKPSŠsorry!]

This is, for Jews, their own worst nightmare: the thing they love the 
most has become the thing they hate the most.  And for those Jews and 
others, who shrink from the comparison, let them ask themselves this: 
What would an average German, an enthusiastic Nazi even, have said 
in, say, 1938 had they been confronted with the possibility of an 
Auschwitz? They would have thought that you were stark, staring mad. 

American Jews and Jewish America

At the heart of the conflict is the relationship between Israel and 
America. The statistics - billions in aid and loans, UN vetoes, etc., 
etc. need not be repeated here - American support for Israel seems 
limitless. But what is the nature of this support? For many, perhaps 
most, the answer is relatively simple. Israel is a client state of 
America, serving American interests or, more particularly, the 
interests of its power elites. This view is underpinned by the 
obvious importance of oil, the huge strategic importance of the 
region and the fact that, if Israel did not further the interests of 
those who control America, then we can be sure America would not 
support Israel. Also, there is no doubt that, in the IDF, America has 
found a marvellously flexible and effective force, easily aroused and 
let loose whenever any group of Arabs get a little above themselves.

But is this the whole story? Does Israel really serve America's 
interests and is their relationship wholly based on the sharing of 
these interests? Consider how much in terms of goodwill from other 
nations America loses by its support for Israel, and consider the 
power and influence of the "Jewish", "Zionist" or "pro-Israel" lobby, 
as when many an otherwise responsible lawmaker, faced with the 
prospect of an intervention in their re-election campaign from the 
Jewish lobby, seems happy to put his or her re-election prospects way 
in front of what is good for America.

The details of the workings of AIPAC and others, and the mechanics by 
which these groups exert pressure on America's lawmakers and 
governors, have been dealt with elsewhere; we need only note that 
this interest group is undoubtedly extraordinarily effective and 
successful. Not just a small group of Jews supporting Israel, as its 
supporters would have us believe, these are powerful and committed 
ideologues: billionaires, media magnates, politicians, activists and 
religious leaders. In any event, the power of the Jewish lobby to 
make or break pretty well any public figure is legendary - not for 
nothing is it often referred to simply as "The Lobby".

But again, there may be far more to the Israel/U.S. relationship than 
just a commonality of interest and the effectiveness of certain 
interest groups. That support for Israel must be in the interests of 
those who control America is certainly true, but who controls America?

Perhaps the real relationship is not between Israel and America but 
between Jews and America.

The overwhelming majority of Jews in America live their lives just 
like any other Americans. They've done well and are undoubtedly 
pleased that America supports their fellow Jews in Israel but that's 
as far as it goes. Nonetheless, an awful lot of Jews certainly do 
control an awful lot of America - not the industrial muscle of 
America - the steel, transport, etc., nor the oil and arms 
industries, those traditional money-spinners. No, if Jews have 
influence anywhere in America, it's not over its muscle and sinew but 
over its blood and its brain. It is in finance and the media that we 
find a great many Jews in very influential positions. Lists abound 
(though you have to go to some pretty unpopular websites to find 
them) of Jews, prominent in financial and cultural life: Jews in 
banks; Jews in Forbes Magazine's Richest Americans; Jews in 
Hollywood; Jews in TV; Jewish journalists, writers, critics, etc., 
etc.

Nor have Jews been slow in exploiting their position. Jews have not 
hesitated to use whatever resources they have to advance their 
interests as they see them. Nor does one need to subscribe to any 
conspiracy theory to note how natural it is for Jews in the media to 
promote Jews and their values as positive and worthy of emulation. 
When did anyone last see a Jew portrayed in anything other than a 
favourable light? Jews are clever, moral, interesting, intense, warm, 
witty, complex, ethical, contradictory, prophetic, infuriating, 
sometimes irritating, but always utterly engaging.  Nor is it any 
wonder that Jews in influential positions are inclined to promote 
what they see as Jewish collective interests. Is it really all that 
incredible that Jewish advisers around the Presidency bear Israel's 
interests at heart when they advise the President on foreign affairs?

But so what? So there are a lot of Jews with a lot of money, and a 
lot of Jews with a lot to say and the means to say it. If Jews by 
virtue of their ability and use of resources (Š) promote what they 
perceive as their own collective interest, what's wrong with that? 
First, with some notable exceptions, the vast majority of Jews can, 
in good faith, lay hands on hearts and swear that they never take 
decisions or actions with collective Jewish interests in mind, 
certainly not consciously. And even if they did, they are acting no 
differently from anyone else. With a few exceptions, Jews have earned 
their advantageous positions. They came with nothing, played 
according to the rules and, if they use their influence to further 
what they perceive as Jewish interests, what's so special about that? 
Do not the Poles, the Ukrainians, the Gun lobby, the Christian 
Evangelicals also not work to further their group interests?

The difference between Jews and other groups is that they probably do 
it better. Jews are, by pretty well any criteria, easily the most 
successful ethnic group in America and, for whatever reason, have 
been extraordinarily successful in promoting themselves both 
individually and collectively. And there would probably be nothing 
wrong with this were it not for the fact that these same people who 
exert so much control and influence over American life also seem to 
refuse to be held accountable. It is the surreptitiousness with which 
Jews are perceived to have achieved their success which arouses 
suspicion. Jews certainly seem cagey about the influence they have. 
Just breathe the words "Jewish power" and wait for the reaction. They 
claim it's because this charge has so often been used as a precursor 
to discrimination and violence against them, but never consider the 
possibility that their own reluctance to discuss the power they wield 
arouses suspicion and even hostility.

But there is another claim, subtler and more worrying. This is that 
it doesn't exist; that Jews do not wield power, that there is no 
Jewish lobby; that Jews in America do not exert power and influence 
to advance Jewish interests, even that there are no such things as 
Jewish interests! There are no Jewish interests in the war in Iraq, 
there are no Jewish interests in America; most amazing, there are no 
Jewish interests even in Israel and Palestine. There is no Jewish 
collective. Jews do not act together to advance their aims. They even 
say that the pro-Israeli lobby has actually not all that much to do 
with Jews, that the Jewishness of Israel is irrelevant and the Public 
Affairs Committees (PACs) which lobby so hard for Israel are in fact 
doing no more than supporting an ally and thus looking after 
America's best interests even to the extent of concealing their true 
purpose behind names such as "American for Better Citizenship", 
"Citizen's Organised PAC" or the "National PAC" - none of which make 
one reference in their titles to Israel, Zionism or Jews. Similarly, 
Jews and Jewish organisations are said to be not so much furthering 
Jewish interests and values as American, or, even, universal 
interests and values. So, the major Holocaust Museum, styled as a 
"Museum of Tolerance", focuses not only on anti-Semitism, but on 
every kind of intolerance known to mankind (except that shown by Jews 
to non-Jews in Israel and Palestine). Similarly, the Anti-Defamation 
League is but an organisation for the promotion of universal 
principles of tolerance and justice, not just for Jews but for 
everyone.

This conflation of Jewish interests with American interests is 
nowhere more stark than in present American foreign policy. If ever 
an image was reminiscent of a Jewish world conspiracy, the spectacle 
of the Jewish neo-cons gathered around the current presidency and 
directing policy in the Middle East, this must be it. But we are told 
that the fact that the Jewish neo-cons, many with links with right 
wing political groups within Israel, are in the forefront of urging a 
pro-Israel policy, is but a coincidence, and any suggestion that 
these figures might be influenced by their Jewishness and their links 
with Israel is immediately marginalised as reviving old anti-Semitic 
myths about Jewish dual loyalty. The idea that American intervention 
in Iraq, the one viable military counterweight to Israeli hegemony in 
the Middle East and therefore an inspiration to Arab and Palestinian 
resistance, primarily serves Israeli rather than American interests 
has also been consigned to the nether world of mediaeval anti-Semitic 
myth. The suggestion that those Jews around the president act from 
motives other than those to promote the interests of all Americans is 
just anti-Semitic raving. And maybe they're right. Perhaps those who 
promote Jewish interests are in fact promoting American interests 
because, for now at least, they appear to be one and the same.

[END]

Tomorrow:  Part III of the Paul Eisen essay