Sadly, Obama panders to AIPAC

Original Link: http://garypatrickgarry.com/2008/06/05/sadly-obama-panders-to-aipac/

Someone could read my blog of late and say, hey, all you write about is the way that the Zionists control the United States government. The fact is, if you want to write commentaries on the political news in this presidential election year, that is where the candidates themselves lead you.

Barack Obama spoke to AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) yesterday and effectively squashed any hope for peace in the Middle East. He assured the Zionists present that there would be no splitting of Jerusalem to ensure the Palestinians a capital in Arab East Jerusalem, an issue that has been at the heart of any potential long term peace agreement. This is what Mr. Obama said:

“Let me be clear. Israel’s security is sacrosanct. It is non-negotiable. The Palestinians need a state that is contiguous and cohesive, and that allows them to prosper – but any agreement with the Palestinian people must preserve Israel’s identity as a Jewish state, with secure, recognized and defensible borders. Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided. “

In response, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was quoted thusly in a Reuters piece by Mohammed Assadi:

“This statement is totally rejected. The whole world knows that East Jerusalem, holy Jerusalem, was occupied in 1967 and we will not accept a Palestinian state without having Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state.”

Much of my enthusiasm for the Obama campaign has evaporated as a result of his AIPAC speech. Apparently, there is no “change” in the offing when it comes to Obama and the root cause of terrorism and warfare in the Middle East.

What is AIPAC? It was founded back in 1953 as the American Zionist Committee for Public Affairs by Isaiah Kenen. It is presently comprised of neocons, Jewish groups, and strangely enough, many Christian conservatives. AIPAC’s purpose is to lobby United States government officials to support the aims of Zionists in Israel. Though AIPAC as a body does not directly donate money to political campaigns, its membership has contributed “$56.8 million in individual, group, and soft money contributions to federal candidates and party committees since 1990″ and its 50 board members have donated an average of $72,000 each to campaigns and PACs between 2000 and 2004 (Wikipedia).


Henry Siegman is the former head of the American Jewish Congress, and an expert on Middle Eastern Affairs. He was quoted in a piece by Ari Berman (”AIPAC’S Dangerous Grip on Washington“) that appeared in TheNation.com in the summer of 2006:

“The Bush Administration is bad enough in tolerating measures they would not accept anywhere else but Israel. But the Congress, if anything, is urging the Administration on and criticizing them even at their most accommodating. When it comes to the Israeli-Arab conflict, the terms of debate are so influenced by organized Jewish groups, like AIPAC, that to be critical of Israel is to deny oneself the ability to succeed in American politics.”

I was shocked to read in the same article that AIPAC actually writes Senate resolutions. When Israel bombed Lebanon in 2006, a nonbinding resolution was passed by the Senate in a unanimous vote,

“condemning Hamas and Hezbollah and their state sponsors and supporting Israel’s exercise of its right to self-defense.”

Zbiegniew Brzezinski, a national security adviser during Jimmy Carter’s administration, said at the time:

“They [Congress] were given a resolution by AIPAC. They didn’t prepare one.”

Wow.

I want to reiterate the fact that I have nothing against Jews. But I also have absolutely nothing against Arabs. I just want fair representation in my government, and I don’t think that Jewish life is somehow more valuable than Arab life. There are just over 6.1 million Jews in America. That is 2% of the American population. Estimates vary, but it looks like there are about half as many Muslims in America. Why is our political process so beholden to Jewish interests? African Americans comprise 13% of the American population. Why aren’t African interests 6 times more important to American politicians than those of the state of Israel?

When young people take their oath upon entering the military, do they have to swear that they are willing to die for the interests of the Zionist state of Israel? Apparently Senator Obama thinks so. Below is a quote from his AIPAC speech yesterday (full text of Obama AIPAC speech here):

“Finally, let there be no doubt: I will always keep the threat of military action on the table to defend our security and our ally Israel.”

Shouldn’t the American people get the chance to vote on whether or not we want to become a dual nation state, the United States of Israel?

The Jewish Post reports that there are about 1,500 Jews in the United States military. There are about 2.8 million people in the American military on both active and reserve duty, so about .054% of the United States military is Jewish.

One of the major reasons why people are reluctant to go to war, and traditionally do so only under the most dire of circumstances, is because they don’t want to fight the war and risk death and catastrophic injury. Here in America, we have a tiny group of people who are dictating our foreign policy who actually have the power to send our kids to fight for the interests of their “homeland” while their kids do anything but. It’s easy to be a hawk when some poor goy is going to be doing the fighting.

Pointing out problems is relatively easy. Solutions can be more challenging, but my suggestion is that people start talking about the undue influence that AIPAC has in America. I know there are many blogs that do, but the key thing here is not to be marginalized as “anti-Semitic.” The Jewish lobby repeats that term so often that it serves to shield them from the truth. If we proceed with the actual truth as our shield, theirs will soften to the point of worthless putty.

When people write things like “All Jews this and all Jews that” they lose credibility. There are many people who are Jewish who openly agree with much of what I am writing. There are more that see the truth but know that they will be alienated by their communities and lose their standing in the network from which they derive their privilege and status if they do the right thing and support equality. I am not resonant with anyone who hates. My intention is to see peace and equality on earth, and clearly, when 2% of a country’s population wields the type of power that the Jewish people in America enjoy, you don’t have equality, and you aren’t living in a democracy. And as long as this tiny, closed, elitist group is calling the shots, you will never have peace.