As a duel national born in a country fond of trumpeting its special relationship with the United States, I’m familiar with the ways foreign leaders can often embarrass themselves (and those they represent) by going too far in their expressions of affection for Uncle Sam. During his brief tenure as British prime minister, Gordon Brown for instance was no less gushing than his predecessors in saying how much he admired the United States. It didn’t do him much good though when it came to improving his access to the White House.
The one exception in special relationships, as James Fallows notes, is that between the United States and Israel and in this case the starry-eyed lover is the one that on all other occasions maintains the dignity of a great power.
In the diplomatic tone from which Fallows never strays, he referred to the “oddity” of the AIPAC appearances by U.S. politicians.
Of course politicians aspiring to any office, including the presidency, plead for support from any number of groups. Even sitting presidents, with all their augustness and power, do something similar, especially at re-election time. Barack Obama would be crazy not to remind everyone in Michigan how he pushed for the auto-bailout bill — or not to tell an AARP convention or a university crowd, respectively, about what he has done on Social Security and student-loan programs. I have seen Bill Clinton in front of black organizations, arguing that he had been their dependable tribune.
What I found odd about the AIPAC performance is that an American president was expected to make similar pleas about his reliability in support of another country’s government. Let’s imagine that Barack Obama’s next big speech is to the National Council of La Raza. We would expect him to remind the crowd what he has done on immigration and affirmative-action issues, and to contrast that with the Republicans. We would not expect him to say that he has stood with the government of Mexico “every single time.” Before a Korean-American group, we would expect him to talk about what he has done for peace on the Korean peninsula, for trade agreements, against the North Korean threat, and so on. We would never hear him say that his policies have been indistinguishable from the Republic of Korea’s. So on down a list of foreign states.
My premise is that sovereign nations are sometimes bound by formal alliances (as the US is with its NATO partners, but is not with Israel), and other times by values, ethnicity, heritage, interests, and ideals (a combination of which usually binds the U.S. to Israel, and to many other states). But their interests are not identical — a point that is obvious, and that Prime Minister Netanyahu himself made in his latest AIPAC speech. Therefore to me it seems undignified to put an American president in a setting where he is expected to proclaim “every single time” adherence to the interests and policies of another state.
It’s time to cut the strings once and for all. Let Israel swim or sink, but without the help of the U.S. In fact, let the whole of the M.E. do the same, because the course that has been in effect for I can’t count the years, is nothing short of failure that has/is draining treasure from the country.
“values, (ethnicity), heritage, interests, and ideals” If those of the USA are those of Israel, no wonder the USA is as reviled by most of the world as it now is. Self absorption, certainty of being right, belligerence, interference in private life, warmongering, stealing land from others. Not exactly some values to be proud of.
WHAT MR. FALLOW WON’T EVER CONSIDER IN CURRENT DEBATE
What we ALL repeatedly fail to appreciate– Zionist Jihadis included– is that the issue is not Israel’s security but SUBMISSIVE BOWING to a people steeped in a Holocaust Complex that we could never satiate to the point where they feel “safe” because they want to feel unsafe. That alone brings them unity, cash from the faithful and submission from the “dumb goyim,” none of whicah Zionists trust. We could discuss the psychology of this forever, but for the Zionists the real issue is simply this: IF WE GOT THESE DUMB GOYIM TO GO TO WAR WITH IRAQ ON OUR WORD AND NOTHING ELSE, THEN WHY NOT PUSH THEM TO DO THE SAME WITH IRAN? AFTERALL, IF AFTER IRAQ AMERICANS WON’T GO AFTER IRAN IT COULD ONLY MEANS THAT *OUR* MAD DOG ON *OUR* CHAIN DOESN’T BITE. That could lead us to a Holocaust!
When a people collectively scare themselves to death because that’s the only way they can be corralled into a tail-to-butt parade unity behind the AIPAC baton, the Zionism needs forever, “THE HOLOCAUST IS COMING, THE HOLOCAUST IS COMING” imagery to keep Jews in line and their mad dog, AMERICA, snarling on command. As an aside, the Israeli obsession with “mensch-hood” is maddening but it is not the essential element of the Holocaust Psychosis; just the opposite, Israel fears an end to its ability to generate fear. Ironically, 70% of the prospective victims of Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust live outside of Israel and are in no danger. This keeps Israel’s Likud leaders up at night as they fear losing control of World Jewry; and they have good reason to be afraid of that for they are losing it!
Fallows is a professional babbler. He’s damn good, even brilliant in his analysis, but without someone publishing his babblings, he’s on the bread line with food stamps like the rest of the folks out there. So, media folks, like politicians, cannot afford to realistically question Zionist power-brokers with endless cash supply and (to their credit) dedicated willingness to spend it on their cause) because that cash is what distinguishes Fallows & Co., the well paid media mavens, from the unemployment line’s manufacturing worker. So the “no-can-touch” issues and the “must-support” mantras will invariably come from media dependents, whatever their views, given how it flows from all cash-dependent presidential candidates (except Ron Paul), also dependent on cash from the same trough.
In the final analysis, one cannot understand the issues of the Middle East unless one understands Zionist history from the start. It’s been an attempt to buy compliance in ant way possible– just as intense before as after the Holocaust. Given Israel’s obsession with: (1)the notion that if you don’t behave like the Nazis, you’ll die again like the Nazis’ victims and (2) the Big Lie that Israel has inflicted on us “dumb goyim”: that unless we enable Israel to dominate the Middle East, the Middle East will destroy the West. Take note of the leading Zionist thesis of “Eurabia”: Europe has been taken over because its “INHERENT” anti-Semitism made it vulnerable to Arab invasion. because so many Europeans see Israel as doing to Arab Semites what was done to Jewish Semites in the Holocaust, Europe has fallen victim to Arab-takeover… hence “Eurabia.” Israeli kids are taught this crap in school!!!!
All the talk about Jihadi operatives terrorizing people in the West disregards that Mossad agents freely terrorize and kill Europeans who don’t comply with Zionism’s demands; it also engages in espionage all over the West; moreover, Israel terrorizes “self-hating” Jews all over the West who question its actions, much as did Communist nations, intimidating East Europeans all over the West.
Does no one see something wrong in how the Holocaust is a private hammer of the Zionists to beat us down with rather than a horrible historic notion we should better understand? Doesn’t anyone wonder why we are forced to listen to an ever more deformed picture of the Holocaust to excuse freedom of action in violation of international law for Israel? Doesn’t anyone note how the neocons push us to behave like the Israelis do with their own Muslims with American Muslims in order to say as they’ve been saying whenever American leaders criticize Israel’s expansion into Arab lands: who are you to criticize us after you did EXACTLY the same thing to the American Indians?
We had better wisen up to these cheap rhetorical tricks so that we don’t resort to killing Jews as a Firth Column because our leaders can’t face the fact that they prostituted American foreign policy for political campaign funds.
RE: “a people steeped in a Holocaust Complex that we could never satiate to the point where they feel ‘safe’ because they want to feel unsafe.” ~ deteodoru
SEE: Israel’s Defense Chief OK’s Hundreds of Israeli Deaths, By Ira Chernus, CommonDreams.org, 11/11/11
ENTIRE COMMENTARY – http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/11-2
ALSO SEE – Iranophobia: The Panic of the Hegemons, by Ira Chernus, Tikkun Magazine, November/December 2010
LINK – http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/iranophobia-the-panic-of-the-hegemons-3
P.S. INTRODUCING MY NEW AVATAR, “NuttyYahoo” by ‘DonkeyHotey’ (JPEG) – http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=3322612500777
Excellent point. It’s worth noting that while Netanyahu made a point of stressing that Israel is a “master of its fate” and not bound to follow US wishes when it thinks its interests demand otherwise, no US politician appearing before AIPAC would even dream of making a similar statement.