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Old July 20th, 2013 #1
Karl Radl
The Epitome of Evil
 
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Join Date: Aug 2007
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Default James Petras, the Israel Lobby and the Jews

James Petras, the Israel Lobby and the Jews


The Marxist sociologist James Petras is one of those proverbial white elephants on the left who purchase into a relatively barmy ideology replete with demonstratively false assumptions (such as the denial of the animality of man) and with an appalling failure rate in practicality, but yet act like autistic savants on one or two issues. Petras; a fairly distinguished leftist academically, for all his ideological baggage that identifies him as a relatively orthodox Marxist-Leninist: is actually one of the most intelligent critics of the Israel Lobby.

In many respects the problems with Petras' ideological framework; i.e. Marxist class analysis, actually serve as a boon to his analysis of the Israel Lobby. This is because Petras; unlike so many, knows that; like any good Marxist political theorist does, he has to account for political fashion, a constantly evolving elite political class, the origin of that political class, different schools of opinion within that class and also the power of lobbies, vested interests and most fundamental of all: money. (1)

In essence Petras sees the political system of the United States not as a monolith, but as a hydra with each head in competition for predominance over the others: sometimes allying with another head while other times attacking it dependent on the head's perceived interests of the moment.

By doing this Petras removes the common misconception of the all-powerful Israel Lobby from the equation and replaces it with a far more nuanced and realistic picture with an extremely powerful series of competing groups that fight over the assignation of credit/blame, private donations, access to/'face time' with American institutions, the trust of the Israeli government and so on.

Petras further introduces the concepts of a transitional elite into the equation by suggesting that we view the power of the Israel Lobby in the context of a transition of power from the 1980s onwards between a traditional manufacturing elite (i.e. American old money who tended to be relatively hostile to Zionism and sometimes to jews writ large) and a new elite of super-wealthy financial services and technology entrepreneurs and executives (i.e. American new money who tend to be jewish or extremely philo-Semitic and who are ardent as well as outspoken Zionists as a rule).

The introduction of this transitional elite allows Petras to chart the growth of the Israel Lobby and also fundamentally why it is so powerful. Petras here complements the work of Norman Finkelstein who has indicated that the Israel Lobby; such as it has become, came out of an imperative for Israel to maintain significant influence in the United States in the wake of disastrous vocal American opposition to the Ango-French and Israeli invasion of Egypt during the Suez crisis in 1956 and the fact that the Eisenhower administration forced the Israelis to withdraw from occupied in Sinai in 1957.

By 1967 however Israeli influence had increased dramatically as is shown by the USS Liberty incident where the Israeli air force and navy cold-bloodily murdered dozens of; as well as wounding over a hundred, American naval personnel after their initial unprovoked bombing of the USS Liberty, while it was in international waters. This was also further demonstrated in 1972 when the United States rashly and otherwise inexplicably threatened nuclear intervention to protect Israel when it was losing the Yom Kippur war. (2)

Petras uses a clever analogy to demonstrate the unprecedented nature of the United States' reaction to the bombing of its ship and the murder of its military personal by its erstwhile ally (i.e. by covering it up, threatening the survivors with courts martial if they should talk about it and quietly receiving an apology and a small amount of monetary compensation): in so far as he compares it to the way the United States has tended to behave in Latin America and how this behaviour is usually reversed to reflect the respective diplomatic/military power rules with the United States being the aggressor and Latin American countries the victim.

However with this incident suddenly the United States plays the part of the militarily weak and diplomatically impotent country and Israel plays the part of the proverbial 'Imperialist bully'. Petras rightly comments that this sudden change in roles is clearly an indicator of the power of Israel in the United States, because it is such an glaring anomaly and cannot be explained in any way other than there being a powerful pro-Israel lobby in the United States. (3)

Having demonstrated the unprecedented nature of Israeli political influence; as well as having charted the (losing) struggle of the FBI, the Justice Department and State Department against the growth of the Israel Lobby and Israeli espionage networks (4) (although he leaves out the CIA's own [losing] war against Israeli intelligence), (5) Petras then ties the rise of the different elements of the Israel Lobby and the change in the balance of power among the elite from American old money; who were often hostile to Israel although not necessarily to jews, to predominately jewish finance capitalists together.

This then forms a picture of the evolution of the Israel Lobby throughout the last half century from its origins as an Israeli initiative amongst its jewish supporters in America to the modern hydra that seeks to silence by force or subterfuge all those who oppose its perceptions of Israel's interests in the United States.

I would add to Petras' picture however as I think we need to qualify two things in our understanding of the Israel Lobby.

In the first instance: the Lobby is not a monolith, but rather a series of interlinking primarily jewish organizations which have changed over time and will continue to change. Some of the original organizations that formed part of the Israel Lobby in 1957 have retained or extended their influence in that time. A notable organization of this type would be the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai Brith, which is the foremost of the jewish 'watchdog' groups and has; as one of its primary goals, tried to influence United States domestic policy by seeking to (unsuccessfully) forge close ties with the FBI.

Others however have not fared so well and become increasingly marginal. Two notable organizations of this type were and are rivals of the Anti-Defamation League: the American Jewish Committee and the American Jewish Congress. In 1957 both of these organizations had sizable 'watchdog' operations much as the Anti-Defamation League did, but had begun to lose the fight for primacy against the Anti-Defamation League as early as 1941. When the FBI chose to embarrassingly ask the Anti-Defamation League for its files on patriots and nationalists as opposed to ask for those of the American Jewish Committee or the American Jewish Congress.

The American Jewish Committee has been in free-fall decline since about the 1960s-1970s due to poor leadership and its increasingly inability to change its focus and today it has become almost a non-entity. The American Jewish Congress experienced a similar crisis about the same time as the American Jewish Committee, but unlike its rival it increasingly wound up its 'watchdog' operations (conceding that territory to the Anti-Defamation League) while it shifted its resources into jewish communal affairs and also in acting as a jewish grass roots activism organization as well as organizing free holidays in Israel (dressed up as 'fact finding') for politicians and influential individuals at the county and state level (with which it has had some success).

Conversely some organizations which form part of the Israel Lobby; such as J-Street (the 'liberal' version of AIPAC), are new and have only been created relatively recently.

This then helps us understand that the Israel Lobby is not a monolith, but rather is a series of interlocking organizations that compete against each other for finite funding, membership, 'face time' and so on. They are often ruthless in this competition and will not stop at using the tools they use against opponents of Israel against each other should they another organization step on their proverbial toes.

In the second instance: that the link between the new; jewish dominated, financier/entrepreneurial elite and the Israel Lobby is the crucial component in the success of the Israel Lobby. This is due to the fact that this new elite acts as both the financial support; via donations and financial lobbying, and the wider lobbying base (via owning media companies, sitting on the board of public and private organizations unrelated to Israel, being idealised as the 'elite of society' and so on) for the Israel Lobby. If it was not for this elite then the Israel Lobby would have little of the power it currently has as it is this elite, which acts as an effective political block against legal attempts to curtail the activities or bring down the Israel Lobby.

It is this elite who support and propagate pro-Israel ideas among non-jewish groups and in particular among conservative Christians as they have both money and influence with which they can in turn support these conservative Christians in their own aspirations, which creates a quid pro quo political relationship at first, but has now become unbalanced due to the increasing power of this jewish elite and the dependence of conservative Christians on their influence for their own influence in other areas of policy that they are also ideologically interested in.

However should these conservative Christians cease to have significant support among the non-jews of America: it is quite reasonable to suppose that they would be abandoned by this jewish elite precisely because they have nothing left with which they can barter with this elite for their support in other areas of policy-making.

Now consider what I have outlined above in terms of Petras' conception of the Israel Lobby and my extension of his ideas: we can see that the Israel Lobby acts in an organic evolutionary way. In that it slowly sheds decaying organizations like human beings shed skin, but yet new skin grows in their place or other skin stretches to cover the hole. At the same time every element of the Israel Lobby is competing against the other elements for a finite amount of resources, activists, supporters, 'face time' and recognition. Their success or failure in winning the most they can of these finite quantities decide their place in the Israel Lobby and how they are perceived by other elements of that lobby.

So a dying organization like the American Jewish Committee is accorded little respect and is brashly shoved out of the way at proverbial feeding time by the bigger and more vocal elements of the Israel Lobby; such as the Anti-Defamation League, and only gets the left-overs. Thus creating a cycle of decline and failure.

While a growing organization like the American-Israeli Political Action Committee (AIPAC) has quite the opposite problem in that it gets a lion's share at proverbial feeding time, but because of its size: it is the principal target of upcoming groups; such as J-Street, seeking to take AIPAC's share as their own. It also faces the problem of whether it should fight other large groups in order to expand or whether it should use its resources to try and increase the pool of available resources to it by building further connections to untapped resource reserves (the most obvious example is the resources of conservative Christians and another is; ironically, American trade unions) through the intercession of the jewish financier/entrepreneur elite.

This then boils down to different elements competing with; and fighting, each other for their share of the spoils, while also fulfilling different functions on behalf of Israel and engaging in intellectual and political conflicts with the opponents of Israel. In essence the Israel Lobby forms a kind of defense line around Israel, but like any defense line: it has strong and weak points as well as better and weaker elements.

This then brings us onto an aspect of Petras' work that one cannot but respect him for. Petras goes further than Mearsheimer and Walt in identifying the key component behind the success of the Israel Lobby as being the success of the jews in America as well as the power and influence that this success has brought them as part of the new elite. He doesn't shirk from calling a spade a spade: he refers several times to the fact that the Israel Lobby is really the jewish lobby and that the Christian Zionists are a separate lobby who act as an ancillary to this jewish lobby.

Petras points out correctly; and in some detail, that; as before stated, without the socio-cultural as well as the political domination of the elite class by the jews: then the Israel Lobby would not be able to effect the kind of powerful impact that they historically and currently have. This is wholly correct as it concretely identifies that there are two issues that need to be considered in relation to the problem of the Israel Lobby.

The first of these is the simple fact that there is a lobby for the state of Israel; primarily made up of jewish organizations and staffed by jews, which disproportionately influences American foreign policy in relation to the Middle East in Israel's favour as well as American domestic policy in relation to Israeli economic and intelligence activities.

The second of these is the more revolutionary understanding; in relation to anti-Zionism, that this lobby has a wealthy and influential committed; primarily jewish, supporter base at the very apex of American society in the new financier/entrepreneur elite. This committed supporter base acts as the medium through which the elements of the Israel Lobby dominate the government of the United States. Through both overt political and intellectual support for Israel and all things perceived to be its interest as well as reflecting Israeli; and more broadly jewish, ideological preoccupations in their day-to-day activities such as the obsession of American media with jewish victim hood and the 'holocaust' in direct contrast to the tiny percentage of the American population who are jews.

These narratives are likely unconscious, but as these narratives are the norms of this predominately jewish elite class then they are reflected in the forms of transmission of socio-cultural entertainment or education that they own or are influential in. The consequence of this unconscious narrative selection is that pro-Israel views are promoted and that there is a form of self-censorship practised by those are beholden to this elite class not dissimilar to that which is usually suggested to be practised in totalitarian states and/or dictatorships.

This predominately jewish elite class then forms what Petras calls a 'transmission belt' to the wider American audience in that its financial and entrepreneurial domination of the American economic and political system means that it acts as a filter through which discourse naturally runs. This is because a media firm is run for profit, but it is also run to promulgate a particular point of view or general ideological position. There is no objective way of putting together television, radio, magazine, newspaper, book or website content, but rather the content is selected by pushing it through an ideological filter and what makes each individual 'transmission' different is the brand attached to it.

Branding is very simply the label attached to a political concept, a firm, a book, a organization or even an individual in order to make the object to which it is attached identifiable and to acquire repeat consumers by creating brand differentiation. Or in other words: making something stand out as seemingly unique and interesting thus generating an increased level of interest and consumption of products (be they essays or chocolate bars) associated with that brand (thus increasing the value of the brand).

A corporation's value; for example, is partly calculated based on the value of the brands it owns and this in turn is measured by the brand consumption and of research into general consumer perceptions of the brand. This means that single corporations often own many different brands which may be competing against each other, but in reality are aimed at a different market segment to the other brand. This then enables firms to use different brands with different brand images to act as specialist mechanisms to target particular market segments and allows concentrated investment; both of capital and time, and strategies in building that brand image to best target that specific audience.

The consequence of this in terms of Petras' suggestion of the 'transmission belt' is clear in that; as only six companies control more or less the entire American television and radio network, while there many different brands through which the message can be transmitted to the American people: it is fundamentally the same message because these six organizations are either owned or heavily influenced by this predominately jewish elite class.

In essence what Petras is suggesting means that the problem is two fold; as I have said, with the first part of the problem being the most recognized and commented upon, while the second of the problem (that of the predominately jewish elite class) is not.

This is in part due to this political class' social, cultural, economic and political domination as it has marginalized and demonised all discussions about itself and its power styling them as 'anti-Semitic', 'conspiracy theories', 'rehashes of the Protocols of Zion', 'neo-Nazi' and so on. These ideological memes are used as weapons by this predominately jewish political class in defense of itself and as a ideological weapon to split opposition to Israel into two camps: the kept anti-Zionists who are ideologically moderate and politically incapable; as leaders, of combating the Israel Lobby and the true anti-Zionists who are ideologically firm and potentially politically capable; as leaders, of combating the Israel Lobby.

Splitting these two camps is part of the function of this 'transmission belt' as it brands as anti-Zionist neutral/slightly positive views on Israel (hence the common allegation that NBC is anti-Israel) while branding as Zionist very positive/laudatory views on Israel (a good example being Fox). This creates the false impression that neutrality is anti-Zionist, while anything strong positive is Zionist and thus allows the Israel Lobby to frame anything more anti-Israel than simple neutrality as being 'anti-Semitic'.

This then creates the narrative for socio-cultural entertainment by suggesting to the audience that they have a choice of views in relation to Israel (which are filtered through different commercial brands) when in reality the 'transmission belt' have de-legitimized anti-Zionist discourse and labelled neutral discourse as such. In other words: it creates the illusion of choice when there is in fact none as conservative political philosopher James Burnham hypothesized was the case in his 'The Machiavellians'.

In effect the 'transmission belt' has moved the goal posts of what it means to be an anti-Zionist so that potentially politically effective anti-Zionists will be split away from non politically effective anti-Zionists. Thus dividing them and reducing their ability to gain political influence or compete for finite resources with the Israel Lobby.

So then we can see how Petras' class-based analysis has actually been an advantage to him in his writing about the Israel Lobby as it has forced him to look where more conventional anti-Zionists have not: the money. In doing so Petras quite rightly noticed the influence of the new financier/entrepreneurial element of the elite class and that this element was predominately jewish as well as being pro-Israel. This in turn allowed him to apply his knowledge of the function of media from a leftist perspective; much of which is derived from Noam Chomsky's work on the subject, and to suggest the idea of a 'transmission belt' formed by what is often called the mainstream media (or MSM for short).

In doing so we may reasonably say that Petras has brought a lot of insight and much needed clear thinking to the study of the Israel Lobby and the jewish domination of American social-cultural and political life. It also informs us that in order to fight Israel then we must also combat both the Israel Lobby itself as well as this jewish domination as to fight one is only to fight one half of the problem and victory will be even more difficult to attain.

To fight them both is the way forward and also allows the individual concerned to clearly identify why they are being subject to the negative social sanctions and stereotyping that they are and be able to respond better to that in both public and private situations.


References


(1) James Petras, 2007, 'Rulers and Ruled in the US Empire: Bankers, Zionists, Militants', 1st Edition, Clarity Press: Atlanta, pp. 15-28
(2) James Petras, 2006, 'The Power of Israel in the United States', 1st Edition, Clarity Press: Atlanta, p. 175
(3) Ibid, pp. 31-32
(4) Ibid, pp. 73-81
(5) John Loftus, Mark Aarons, 1994, 'The Secret War against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish People', 1st Edition, St. Martin's Press: New York, pp. 308-323


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This was originally published at the following address: http://semiticcontroversies.blogspot...-and-jews.html
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