08/26/14 – M.J. Rosenberg – The Scott Horton Show

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Anyway, talking with MJ Rosenberg about the power of the Israel lobby in the United States and this great article that ran in the New Yorker here.
It's really notable for its admissions, but we won't dwell on those.
There's so much important stuff in here.
And where we left off, it was Netanyahu who made up a lie and ratted you out to Sapphire.
Sapphire apparently believed you that he was being lied to, because why would anybody believe anything that Benjamin Netanyahu says, MJ?
And so you got away.
You escaped by the skin of your teeth back then when you were a staffer on Capitol Hill.
But just a little bit of a slice of life of how the Israel lobby operates in Washington, D.C.
And now I guess I want to ask you a broad question here.
You know, off the top of your head, if you can remember and think back to reading this new article in the New Yorker, what really stood out to you as the most important thing that people need to understand?
I think, you know, the question of whether nowadays American Jews are kind of changing their mind about AIPAC and Israel, that kind of thing, that's sort of beside the point to me.
There's so much about the actual operation of the lobby and the measure of its influence in America to talk about, you know?
But what do you think is most notable?
Well, you know, I think that the editors of the New Yorker, you know, they made the headline or the title imply that AIPAC is weakening.
And they had one instance in the article talking about AIPAC's inability to block Iran, to block negotiations over Iran's nuclear program as evidence that it's getting weaker.
But taking the whole article, the whole thing together, to me what struck me is how incredibly powerful they are.
I just saw it, you know, I thought that the article itself undermined the title of the article.
Yeah, so yes, I think it's true.
And it quotes Shimon Peres even saying that young Jews and young people in general are totally turned off by Israel these days.
But I don't think that matters.
What matters is the money and the PACs.
And the thing that's really terrific about the article is that the author Connie Brush explains how the money is raised and how the money is bundled, and it's not coming through PACs.
And she also points out that there's no way to track the money.
You know, AIPAC will often say, well, even if we control the PACs, which we don't, all the PACs added up together only produce this amount of money, you know, Israel money, to candidates.
And that's true.
But what the article points out is most of the money is given by individual people who get together with their other millionaire friends, bundle a ton of money, and then give it to members of Congress to buy them.
It's the first time I've ever seen it explained.
There's even a story in it how, you know, how they, even in tiny places, or tiny at least in terms of Jewish community, like Lubbock, Texas, which is named in the article, get 12 people together, and they say, okay, we're going to pool our money, and we're going to buy our congressmen.
I mean, it's just, that's the thing that stands out to me.
And the backdrop of the article for me is this awful, this Gaza slaughter that's been going on.
And the United States hasn't criticized Israel at all.
In fact, we keep sending them the weapons to continue to perpetrate the slaughter.
So I think, and that wouldn't be happening if AIPAC didn't control our foreign policy on the Middle East.
So I think the article is great for anyone who just wants to understand how it works, and that it's totally bipartisan, both sides, one side's as bad as the other, and we're truly screwed.
Yeah.
Now, see, that's the thing of it to me is when you talk about all the bundling and all the organization, and AIPAC has this kind of shadow PAC that just sort of helps organize the other PACs and that kind of thing.
I think what you're telling me, MJ, as a real expert on this matter, I mean, you can say definitively about this kind of thing.
You can measure it from where you're sitting.
What you're basically telling me is they have a complete lock on the Congress.
The American people, other than the Israel lobby, are basically helpless on any Middle East policy.
We have no say in it whatsoever, because they decide.
And as it says in this article here, they're even to the right of the Israeli government on any given issue and are perfectly willing to be, too.
Yeah, I mean, one thing that was really striking to me was Netanyahu, and I think this is a year ago or 2013, Netanyahu was speaking to the AIPAC conference.
And, you know, almost the entire Congress shows up for their big dinner.
No other lobby comes close to having this.
We're talking about hundreds of members of Congress who show up there to honor the prime minister of Israel.
And they jump up and they stand up and they cheer for anything he says.
And at one point, he gave lip service to the idea of peace with the Palestinians.
Just lip service.
He doesn't mean it.
That confused the AIPAC crowd.
What does that mean?
We're not for peace.
So they're totally silent when he expected applause for the idea of peace.
And he said, it's okay, you can applaud.
I mean.
We're all just playing.
We're all just playing and you're a bunch of, and you know, you're my agents, you know, you AIPAC of the agents, and Congress are your puppets.
And here's what you can applaud and here's what you can't applaud.
It's just awful.
Another story that was pretty shocking in there was about how this year Congress was going out for the summer and it had some big items on the agenda that were needed to, you know, they needed to get finished before they go away for that long break.
One of them was, it was a legislation to deal with the immigration issue with all those kids at our borders.
And, you know, an emergency measure, something that most people and people of both parties wanted, but they couldn't get around to it.
So they adjourned anyway.
And then somebody realized, oh my God, we have to give more money to Israel to help them fight the war.
So they come back the next day with only five members of Congress, actually on the floor, actually in the Senate, and they just pass it unanimously.
So the top priority of the United States government this July, number one priority, was getting Israel more aid because they were in the middle of this war they started.
I mean, come on.
Well, you know, this is, I don't know of any other interest in Washington, D.C. that's been pushing for America to support the rebels against Assad this whole time, even when we've known for three years straight now that these guys are the cousins of the 9-11 attackers, the al-Nusra Front, and then ISIS.
And it's only because that's what Israel wants, as far as I can tell, M.J.?
Well, if Israel wanted us to be going after ISIS, we'd be going after them.
Israel is perfectly content with ISIS there.
ISIS is not a threat to them, per se.
They have no long-term vision.
Of course it is a threat to them in the long term, but they don't think that way.
They think in terms of, you know, they only think in terms of the Palestinians.
So, no, if AIPAC wanted to make a priority, the anti-Assad rebels and ISIS, they would have.
But we wouldn't have.
But AIPAC's not interested in it, so ISIS and those guys, well, they get a pass.
I don't know if you've seen...
It's kind of amazing, because if you think of it from U.S. interests, ISIS says their enemy is everybody, including the United States.
I mean, they say they want to raise their flag over the White House and everything.
Okay.
And that's what the caliphate means.
I mean, it's a bunch of crap, that language.
They're not really any kind of real caliphate, but that's the language they use, which implies they're looking for control, you know, to beat everybody and do terrorism everywhere.
Hamas, on the other hand, is only interested in one spot of land, Palestine.
And yet it's Hamas that is the enemy of the entire United States Congress, and it's ISIS that they're not interested in.
Right.
It's crazy.
Well, in fact, it's kind of ironic.
It looks to me like they're basically, I mean, I'll call it in my own terms, maybe not legal definition, but I don't know, at least lowercase t treason that they've been guilty of the last three years, supporting those loyal to bin Laden and Zawahiri up until April 2013, they were loyal to Zawahiri anyway.
And then the ISIS that broke off from Nusra, they're even worse than Nusra and along the very same lines.
But it seems to me like because that's what Israel wants and because they dominate Washington, D.C. so thoroughly that Assad and Iran and Hezbollah are the enemy at all costs, as Michael Oren said, I prefer these bad guys to those bad guys because those bad guys are backed by Iran.
That's actually the only thing that's keeping us from a full-scale war against the Islamic State right now.
It's actually helping to keep the peace because their lying narrative is so damn confused at this point, they don't know what to do.
They're trying to figure out how to paper over their pivot back by saying, well, you know, we should have backed the moderates more and whatever, whatever.
But basically everybody can tell.
A year ago, they wanted to overthrow Assad, which would have only benefited ISIS.
So how do they admit that they have to change their mind now?
They can only do it in such a slow, clumsy way that at least it's taking them a while to get the war started.
It could be worse because of their treason.
Well, you know, if AIPAC was really running this one, this whole ISIS-Syria thing, it would be different because they're much more efficient.
The administration is just like bumbling along.
But when AIPAC decides to target Iran, you know it.
There's like one line from the United States Congress.
Iran is the enemy.
But this one, they're a little bit confused.
It is really remarkable that the Israelis do not perceive the threat from ISIS.
I mean, really?
Really?
You don't think that these guys, after they took out Syria, they can go over and take out Jordan?
And they're next door to Israel?
Well, maybe they just want an excuse to annex the east bank of the Jordan River, too, there.
Yeah, either annex it.
No, I don't think it's annex it.
I think it would be eventually to drive the Palestinians into it.
And then they say, you know, that's the old Ariel Sharon thing.
Jordan is the Palestinian state.
You know, and if ISIS took over, we could say, okay, why don't you just go over there?
It's just, the whole thing is just so crazy.
And it's hard to imagine what American policy on the Middle East would be if it wasn't, if this lobby didn't exist.
All we know is it would be very different than what we see now.
And maybe the president of the United States might have said one single word about the 500 Palestinian kids killed in Gaza.
Not a word.
It's just, it's just awesome, the complete control that they have.
Right.
And again, this article in the New Yorker, and what's the author's name?
I know you know her.
Her name is Connie Brooke.
Connie Brooke, right.
And her husband is former Congressman Mel Levine, who was very, very, from California, who was very, very close to the lobby.
So she knows what she's talking about.
Not only from the interviews, but she also is married to some guy who's serving, a good guy who's serving in Congress, and knows these people.
Right.
Well, I mean, and some of the quotes in here, MJ, we cannot let Israel determine when and where the U.S. goes to war.
That's Dianne Feinstein talking.
Holy crap.
And then, and I've heard that one before, but have forgotten it at least.
And there's some others like that, where the Congress is really expressing in their own words some very powerful members of the House and the Senate, expressing in their own words just how wrapped up in what AIPAC wants they are, and whether they're struggling with it, or whether they're wholly loyal to it, or whatever the context here is, just really enlightening, I think, for people.
You know, I think that, remember that part in the article about that young congressman from Texas who voted against the, who voted against the extra money for Israel last month, and had this whole part about how the other congressman said, Don't do it!
Don't do it!
You're going to be the end of you!
And he said, I wish I remembered his name, because he deserves some publicity.
He said, No, I've got to do it.
And he voted right.
Now he says, Well, he thinks he'll be all right.
He thinks he'll win.
But AIPAC is going after him.
Right.
No exceptions.
They can't let him make an example.
It doesn't matter who you are or what you do.
Oh, and the attacks on Wasserman Schultz, that was the one that exploded my brain, was the way that they went after her for standing with the president on the Iran talks.
Yeah, she is.
And she is, like, totally them.
She is, I would say she's the queen of AIPAC.
But when she supported her president, they threatened her, too.
Yeah, mercilessly.
Because nobody is immune to it.
And when she says, Me?
You know, that quote, You would do this to me?
Yeah, they would.
Yeah, and of course, that implies it's okay for them to do it to all the people who are not her.
Right.
But me, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, I'm a wholly owned subsidiary of you.
I mean, it's pretty remarkable.
I mean, they're, you know, they're really, it's quite a remarkable lobby.
Because I can't think, first of all, even the word lobby barely does anything.
I mean, it hasn't come close to talking about how powerful it is.
But there's, this is one that both parties completely, you know, the, you know, if you look at other lobbies, manufacturing, gun lobbies, whatever, their chamber of commerce, environmental lobby, they're usually one party or the other.
This is everybody in both parties.
So if someone says, Well, I'm going to join the alternative lobby.
There is no alternative lobby.
It's AIPAC.
Robbie Melvin's issue, it's AIPAC.
And that's not true of any other lobby.
So in other words, you'll hear debates on these issues on the Sunday shows.
Sometimes they'll go back and forth.
There's no back and forth on this issue.
There's one side.
And if you're on the other side, and by the other side, I would say that makes the threshold very low.
If you're on the other side, i.e. you have compassion for the people of Gaza, you're anti-American, you're anti-Israeli, you're anti-Semitic.
That's how bad it is.
And I know because I get called all those things.
But I don't care.
And here's the thing.
As long as I'm keeping you through the break here a little over time, MJ, one of the things that really stands out here is the shame of Barack Obama and just how terrified he is to stand up to Netanyahu and really the chutzpah of Netanyahu where his attitude is like, I don't care what you're the president of.
No, you heard me.
No.
And gimme.
And Obama can't do anything, basically, but what he says.
And, I mean, that's not really true.
I guess part of the story here is that Obama is getting his way on Iran.
But still, it's shocking enough the story of just how hard Netanyahu and AIPAC, acting on his behalf, pushed back and has tried to sabotage the talks.
But, you know, the thing now is that they think they can wait it out until Hillary Clinton gets there.
Hillary Clinton is totally with them on the Iran thing.
She has taken every opportunity to talk about, you know, to take a harder line than Obama.
Netanyahu and that whole crew are banking on Hillary Clinton being the next president.
And then, look, George W. Bush would not allow them to attack Iran.
Obama wouldn't allow them to attack Iran.
Hillary Clinton will allow them to attack Iran.
I have no doubt about that.
Because I don't think there's anyone, any candidate, who's ever run for president of this country who was as much in AIPAC's pocket as Hillary Clinton.
And, in other words, you ain't seen nothing yet.
Oh, man.
All right.
Well, thanks very much.
I'm sorry I kept you so far over time.
Great talking to you again, MJ.
Take care.
You too.
All right.
That's MJ Rosenberg.
Twitter at MJ, like Homer J. Simpson, MJ Rosenberg.
And, well, I'm about to tweet him, so you can find his Twitter address there.
And also his website is MJRosenberg.com.
And you can find him at The Huffington Post.
And he is mentioned in this new article at The New Yorker, which is just chock full of insights, even though there are some omissions.
But still, it's good.
It's by Connie Bruck at The New Yorker.
Friends of Israel, are American Jews turning against AIPAC?
Oh, John Kerry's Mideast peace talks have gone nowhere.
Hey, all.
Scott Horton here for the Council for the National Interest, at councilforthenationalinterest.org.
U.S. military and financial support for Israel's permanent occupations of the West Bank and Gaza Strip is immoral, and it threatens national security by helping generate terrorist attacks against our country.
And face it, it's bad for Israel, too.
Without our unlimited support, they would have much more incentive to reach a lasting peace with their neighbors.
It's past time for us to make our government stop making matters worse.
Help support CNI at councilforthenationalinterest.org.
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