Sorry I'm late.
I had to stop by the Wax Museum again and give the finger to FDR.
We know Al-Qaeda, Zawahiri is supporting the opposition in Syria.
Are we supporting Al-Qaeda in Syria?
It's a proud day for America and by God we've kicked Vietnam syndrome once and for all.
Thank you very, very much.
I say it, I say it again.
You've been had.
You've been took.
You've been hoodwinked.
These witnesses are trying to simply deny things that just about everybody else accepts as fact.
He came, he saw us, he died.
We ain't killing they army, but we killing them.
We be on CNN like Say Our Name been saying, say it three times.
The meeting of the largest armies in the history of the world.
Then there's going to be an invasion.
All right you guys, introducing Grant F. Smith.
He runs the Institute for Research Middle Eastern Policy.
Institute for Research Middle Eastern Policy, that's IRMEP, I-R-M-E-P.org, I-R-M-E-P.org.
And well really what he does is he specializes in Freedom of Information Act and other ways of corralling official government documents on the subject of the history of the Israel lobby in the United States.
And of course especially their crimes that they commit in this country on behalf of Israel.
His latest book is called The Big Israel about the Israel lobby.
Before that it was Divert about how they stole weapons-grade uranium from the Pneumec plant in Western Pennsylvania.
And anyway on and on like that.
Welcome back to the show, how you doing Grant?
Hey I'm doing great Scott, thanks for having me on again.
Hell yeah, you know what I forgot to say was we reprint or just print everything that you write at, everything that he writes, you write, at antiwar.com and including this one which will be up by the time anybody hears this poll.
Americans would cut Middle East war spending.
So uh we're going to talk about that in a second.
But first you do a conference every year about the role of the Israel lobby in American foreign policy and you've done this for the past oh I don't know how many years.
And I don't mean just you, I also mean everybody that's worked with you on this project which I'm happy to give you plenty of time to talk about them too.
Wormia and all these great groups.
Tell us about the events as you've done them.
Tell us about what is coming up next year and how people can participate, would you please?
Yeah absolutely and thanks.
This conference is in its fifth year now, so we've done four of them so far, every single one at the National Press Club.
And it happens right before the national conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee which is the umbrella lobbying group for a large number of organizations that really press Congress and the White House for a pro-Israel agenda.
And so you're right, we bring together a whole range of people from many different organizations to talk about the APAC agenda and talk about what would be a better policy set for the United States.
And so we've had Gideon Levy from Haaretz, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson who was right-hand man who I know you've interviewed of Colin Powell when they made that presentation to the UN about Iraq WMDs that didn't exist.
Rula Jibril who was an outstanding journalist in mainstream media until she started talking too much about the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Maria Lahoud has been from Palestine Legal talking about academic attempts to shut down debate on campuses several times.
Susan Abuhawa, Haweida Raff, people of great familiarity with the region, Stephen Walt, John Mearsheimer, MJ Rosenberg used to work at APAC.
So people from a lot of different organizations.
Philip Weiss of course has talked a couple of times from Mondo Weiss, that great place, to really drill down on the agenda and propose better solutions.
And that includes presentation of polling results, examination of little known facts about things that are never talked about, such as the Israeli nuclear weapons program.
We've had former members of Congress, Paul Finley, Nick Rahal, Jim Moran come in and talk about the pressures that they're under whenever they try to do something more productive and more aligned with broader interests, the pressure they come under as congressmen.
So it is a fantastic conference.
We encourage people to come.
We always get a really nice quantity of people who've never been to this.
It's on March 2nd at the National Press Club.
Tickets are on sale right now.
It does cost money to put this on and we don't have a giant pot of money sitting around to pay for all of this.
So discount early bird tickets are on sale until the 23rd of this month and people can go to israellobbyandamericanpolicy.org.
I know you've said before that's a horribly long URL, but at least it's easy to remember.
And the questions we're going to be talking about are really, what is the estimated cost and trajectory of major Israel lobby initiatives that are in the legislative pipeline?
The biggest one is the Israel Anti-Boycott Act law, which has already had some impact as state legislatures have passed it.
And they're saying in faraway places like Texas that you have to sign a waiver before you receive any aid for flooding.
So that's a real thing.
What impact are initiatives such as trying to encourage the U.S. to attack Iran, this whole pivot with the release of Bin Laden information from the CIA, which is being funneled to places like the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, urging the U.S. to attack Iran and make a case for that.
What impact is that having?
Who's really promoting that?
How's American public opinion shifting?
What do people really think about aid to Israel?
What do people really think about trust in coverage by the mainstream news media?
What's the level of capture of U.S. institutions?
What are people doing to push back?
What's happening on campus?
What's going on with peace and human rights activities?
What's going on in the world of arts?
How are artists pushing back against policies?
And really, you know, asking basic questions like is, for example, the level of influence from a place like Russia any greater than the influence that's constantly exerted by Israel?
What's happening with the $38 billion aid pledge?
Things like that.
So there'll be a lot of new faces, new speakers at this conference, a few who have been here before but are just so current and on the ball with ongoing research that we got to have them back.
We'll be announcing that first week of December, that lineup of incredible, incredible speakers.
So I do hope that people think about this.
We're announcing it early.
We want people to think about coming to Washington, D.C., book their travel and enjoy an incredible conference and lunch and reception from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. when you can really talk to a lot of the speakers.
Most of them stay all day.
We even have exhibitors, book sales, all sorts of merchandise and things you might not expect to find at a conference that drills down on policy.
But you'd be amazed, a lot of complimentary things that go along with this.
So March 2 at the National Press Club.
Man.
Hey, can I come and have a table and sell some books?
I don't know, Scott.
I've read your book and it's not about the Israel.
No, we could, you know, your book's already on sale.
Actually, my book starts with Israel.
Yeah, you already know.
You already tweeted out that your book is at the top of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.
Yeah, well, that was they'll be selling your book.
But no, you're welcome to come again, man.
You came to the first one.
You were there.
You were there at the at the creation, Scott.
I think it was the second or third one.
2014.
It was fun, though.
That was good.
It is.
It's always a packed house.
There's a lot of energy.
This is about hearing from people that you just never see on mainstream media.
And and they'll explain why.
But it's an incredible, incredible event for alternative voices.
And it has an impact.
It gets out, gets a lot of interesting media attention.
You know, even The Washington Post and C-SPAN and others.
You can't really not pay attention to it when you've got such incredible speakers and all they have to do is come downstairs and eat a lunch and listen.
So it's it's really it's an incredible opportunity to to really change the debate and get away from, you know, sort of stayed old thinking and hear some new voices again in in the context of Apex's biggest gathering in this town.
Well, and in the context of the National Press Club and as you say, all these, you know, very highbrow people that you invite to come and give talks of this thing.
I think by doing this year after year, you really set an example and a precedent of how serious this issue is and how seriously it must be taken.
It is.
And every single survey that we've done has indicated that the single biggest comment is, I'm just amazed that you can do this because nobody else has.
And that's true.
So it's got to be done.
We're committed to doing it.
You know what?
Maybe I'm begging the question here for the new people listening.
And there are a lot of new people all the time listening to this show.
What's with the chip on your shoulder about Israel anyway?
How come we're not picking on France?
Well, let me tell you, I had a conversation this morning, in fact, with the Obama administration's head of the National Security Division at the Justice Department.
And I asked her a simple question.
I said, look, in the 9-11 report, it said a lot of the motivation for the September 11 attacks by the hijackers, a lot of the extremism that they were generating was a reflection of their disappointment with the U.S. and its one-sided, unconditional support of Israel.
And I said, I'm curious why, if you want to be countering violent extremism and terrorism, you don't tackle some of the causes.
And I asked her why it is that if she was the head and in charge of administering the Foreign Agents Registration Act, that the Justice Department didn't consider the fact that in 1962, the Justice Department told an organization that was started by a former Israeli government employee by the name of Sai Kenan, an organization which was ordered to register on November 22 of 1962, why they didn't enforce their own Foreign Agents Registration Act order on this organization, this organization that has really kept the United States from being a better player in the Middle East, particularly the Israel-Palestine conflict.
I asked her why the Justice Department has never enforced its order that AIPAC registers an Israeli foreign agent.
Now, again, this is the umbrella organization of the entire Israel lobby in the United States.
Do you know what she said?
No.
Scott, you don't know what she said.
She said the following.
I was sitting back.
I had to sit up and hit the button.
Okay.
I wasn't even born in 1962, but now we're starting to take it seriously.
As you can see, the Russian foreign agents are now being compelled to register.
That's it.
So, you know, one of the problems we have in this country is that we don't even enforce laws on the books.
We don't even enforce foreign agent registration orders that we've already issued as a country.
And because one entity, AIPAC, which does not represent, by the way, the Jewish community, which does not represent anybody but a fairly small group of big donors, have allowed them to take a major role in campaign finance, the U.S. can't do anything about the Israel-Palestine conflicts because it is totally beholden to one side.
And you can see that whenever you look at members of Congress talking about this issue.
So that's one reason.
But there's been a lot of other things that have caused this problem, whether it's, again, the things in my books, diversion of weapons-grade uranium and the U.S. government doesn't do anything about it, or whether it's just campaign finance violations that have never been seriously dealt with, whether it's election rigging in California, espionage, trying to gin up a U.S. war with Iran by taking documents from the EOD and trying to spin them in the Washington Post.
There's just been an incredible amount of organized influence and semi-espionage that's been going on.
It's got to stop.
And some of that gets discussed at the conference.
It's a major subject of the research that I do.
There's a lot of traction around it, too.
People are starting to take an interest in this now that there are more channels for discussing it.
So you mentioned about how unrepresentative of the American Jewish community the organized Israel affinity groups, as you call them, are.
And so I was going to bring that up at the end of talking about this article, but it's a good segue either way, I guess.
So let's talk about, and I know you haven't done your own polling on those questions, but I know you're really familiar with that stuff.
And I think it's a really important part of this discussion.
And then we can get into this new article that you have about broader American opinions about intervention in the Middle East these days.
Yeah, absolutely.
I think one of the fallacies that's out there, and it's out there because some of the biggest organizations promoting Israel policies in this country incessantly claim this, and that is that they represent the entire American Jewish community when they lobby for things either like aid or like restrictions on free speech, such as they testified for last week in the House Judiciary Committee.
There's this claim of representation.
And so at the same time, for example, that you found the Anti-Defamation League, AIPAC, the American Jewish Committee, and the Conference of Presidents of major Jewish organizations telling the press, telling Congress that they did not want them to pass the JCPOA to the Iran nuclear deal, you had the American Jewish community with 59% support for the JCPOA.
And that was over and above 53% general American support.
So not only did they support it much more than the general American public, they were completely at odds with these organizations that claimed to represent them.
And just to elaborate for a second, the JCPOA, that's Obama's nuclear deal with Iran that the lobby and the Israeli government opposed so strongly.
Right.
And so they in effect were being disenfranchised every time these organizations went to Congress or lobbied the president saying, well, no, we represent this group and you've got to do this on behalf of us.
And, you know, what they did last week in their testimony to the House Judiciary Committee, trying to get a piece of legislation out of that committee for a floor vote was the exact same thing.
There's a video out, in fact, where you have one of the lobbyists claiming, no, we represent, we are the representatives of the Jewish community here.
And he was called on it by one of his fellow panelists, a professor from Wake Forest University, the head of the Jewish Studies Department, who said, no, you're not.
I don't see J Street here.
I don't see JVP here.
I don't see, you know, my students here.
And what he was channeling was really the fact, and this is statistically verifiable in the Pew Research Center's poll on Jewish American beliefs, which came out in 2013, which is that 82% of the Jewish community does not belong to these organizations.
So if you apply that to the entire population, the ones who do belong to organizations such as AJC and AIPAC and all these lobbies is about 774,000.
It's only 18% of this small population.
And within the general population of Jewish Americans, most are either somewhat or not all that attached to Israel.
57% have never been there.
44% say settlement building is a bad idea.
So a lot of the things that these organizations are promoting are directly opposed by the people they say they represent.
And you can see that firsthand at the conference with some of the speakers we have come in from the American Council for Judaism and other organizations, JVP speakers have spoken.
I mean, they come in and they understand this, but they're not as well funded.
They don't have the Sheldon Adelson's.
They don't have the Haim Saban's behind their organizations.
And so they're smaller, they're more representative and they do excellent work.
Well, I'd like to point out that this shouldn't be counterintuitive to anyone either.
I mean, everybody knows that as the old saying goes, I think this is an old saying.
I've certainly heard it for a long time that American Jews earn income or however it's phrased like Republicans, but they, or like wasps, but they vote like Puerto Ricans, right?
And they make upper middle-class incomes, but they always support basically the civil rights candidate.
They're civil rights liberals for good or for ill for all the good and bad that comes with being center leftists.
They believe in universal rights and that goes for the Palestinians.
It's obvious.
It's as simple as that.
That's true.
And so it's, I don't know, I guess it's just not intuitive for a lot of people.
Um, so, you know, frankly, some of them are surprised, uh, at the number again, even at this conference, the number of excellent speakers who come and talk about these issues, frankly, you know, a lot of, a lot of Americans who are interested in this stuff, they never hear that in Washington.
I mean, really APAC and a lot of these other organizations and the think tanks and Brookings and AEI.
I mean, occasionally they'll have someone like Shibley Telhami come over and he really breaks it down and really shows how little support there is for these policies in his polling, which is incredible.
Uh, but they always seem to manage to misname his presentation and have it on a, you know, Saturday evening or it's, uh, you know, not, not promoted and publicized.
And so it should be a lot more intuitive and a lot more well-known than it actually is.
Um, so there's a lot of money that's, that's trying to do again, but a lot of these organizations testifying before the house judiciary committee last week were doing, which is saying, no, no, we are the sole voice of this community and we want you to implement these extreme militaristic programs in the region.
And it's, uh, you know, it's, it's way past due that people just start discarding that and moving on.
Well, one thing that I think has gotten noticed in the news is that there are a lot of Jews involved with, or I don't know the total number, but plenty enough to be noticed, involved in the BDS movement.
And, and they have good reasons for it too, right?
It's, um, it's against the occupation and the mistreatment of the Palestinians, the denial of their rights.
And how do you bury that?
Right?
Like, how do you spin that?
Oh, well, they're just self-hating Jews or whatever.
Come on thousands of them.
And they're organized and they're working with Palestinians in this movement to boycott Israel, which people take as really, I think a lot bigger deal than it really is.
But I don't know.
Um, it seems like both sides kind of overreact about how important it is in the real world, but, um, I, I have noticed people, you know, it raises eyebrows and it should be, you know, if people are honest about it and, and really want to understand, well, why would that be?
How could that be?
That they would not just not identify with Israel and the right-wing position on Israel, but join in a boycott against it.
It's worth hearing them out.
And I think anybody who is honest would be convinced that, oh, it's because what the government of Israel is doing to the people, Palestine is wrong.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, what they're facing though, Scott, is an incredible, incredible campaign against them saying essentially that, you know, everybody in this group is expressing their inherent antisemitism by boycotting Israel.
I mean, that's their position and that's, that's what you're going to see over, uh, the airwaves and on the radio is that these are either Palestinians or self-hating Jews who are involved in this, who are motivated by malice and they have no moral standing to do this.
And so.
Except they're, you know, they're idealistic college kids, so it's just, it doesn't stick.
Well, that's why, that is why the lobby, if you look at their direct mail, and I happen to get a lot of it, the review, they're terrified by that campus movement.
They really are afraid that they've lost control of the narrative to the extent that they want to cut off federal funding to any universities that allow, uh, protests and controversial speakers, well, controversial to them, uh, or, you know, engagements on campus over this issue.
And so they're working as hard as they can to again, position these groups as, as being malicious when essentially they're taking probably the only route, the only Avenue left to them, given the way the Congress has been sewn up by the campaign contribution network, uh, and pushing back.
So they're afraid of it.
You're right.
It is mainly symbolic at this point.
Uh, but you can believe me.
Israel doesn't need us, right?
Like if you go back 20 years to the clean break by Wormser, it's of course, it's, we need to overthrow all these regimes and everything, but it also says we need to, you know, privatize our economy more and, you know, wean ourselves from dependence on America.
So we can be an independent state over here and not, you know, have to rely on our, you know, allies is one thing, but satellite of an empire is something else.
We don't want that.
So it was kind of, you know, an argument for them taking care of their own business and leaving us out.
And I at least like the second half.
Well, there are a lot of Israelis who think that they should go their own way, but to say that they don't need the United States, uh, they are heavily dependent on diplomatic cover.
Well, yeah, no, that's true.
I guess I was just thinking they already have so many M16s and F16s.
What else do they need at this point?
You know, they don't have any enemies in the region.
They really need the United States because number one, the United States doesn't get anything from Israel.
Um, and it's just a fact that they don't have anything the United States needs.
Um, and that's kind of listed in my article, whereas it does need some things from some of these other countries that it allows itself to be influenced by, but it's not really dependent on the Israelis for anything, but the Israelis without the United States do not have the influence that they need to exert, uh, to maintain their present, uh, strategic hegemony.
So, right.
Yeah.
Then again, if they gave up the West bank and Gaza and had peace with the Palestinians and let them have independence, and if they made peace with their neighbors, which they already have a deal with Jordan and Egypt, it seems like they could get along with, you know, the end of the day, they can cut a deal with Hezbollah.
They're not going to go away.
They're not going to probably wipe them out in some massive campaign.
So, you know, what's the opposite of that?
Figure out a way to live in peace.
I mean, we're, they presumably want their country to last for hundreds of years into the future.
Right.
So going to have to figure out something.
I don't know.
Well, that would be nice.
And most, uh, I think most would prefer to have a normal relationship and not have the U S playing this role of enabler.
Um, but, uh, it's, uh, it's pretty clear that in, within Israel, there are a lot of leaders who really believe that they should be able to continue to avail themselves of all of the resources of the United States, uh, at the UN in Congress, the treasury department, uh, what have you access to this incredible flow of charitable contributions.
Um, I, I don't see them giving that up willingly.
Uh, and certainly not if they want to keep some of these territories.
So I don't see that happening.
Yeah.
And just like you're saying, uh, therefore the occupation and going to end either.
It works too well.
This iron triangle, all the weapon sales and all the money, all the Sheldon Adelson's free newspaper, he gives out over there and all of this kind of thing.
It's, you know, um, it's an, yeah, it's an incredible, incredible thing that's been constructed, but the lobby itself and the fact that AIPAC comes to Washington in force with 20,000 people reveals you don't need that show of force and that money and that infrastructure.
If the value of Israel to the United States is inherently obvious to everybody, you know, the fact, yeah, the fact of the, the national convention that happens in Washington every March, uh, is such a huge part of AIPACs budget followed by the lobbying day really reveals the lack of any real strategic interest the U S has in keeping this going.
And I think that's becoming obvious as well.
You know, we don't do this conference right before AIPAC for no reason.
It's to contextualize all of that.
Right.
Well, and you know, I'll tell you what people have asked me a lot lately about, well, how do they do it?
And what's so magical about it?
And I mostly just give cause first of all, I don't want to sound like a kook, but I'm also not one.
Um, so I mostly give the Stephen Walt answer, which is, Hey, in a democracy, the squeaky wheel gets the grease and the Israel lobby, they get work done.
You know, I remember when I was a kid, my mom would do the March of dimes and they would all have these telephone trees where they all called each other to raise a little bit of money for the March of dimes, whatever the hell that is, some charity for, you know, sick people or whatever.
Um, and, but so that's how the Israel lobby does it.
They have telephone trees and they have email lists and they do the work.
When they get the call, then they pick up their piece of paper and they make the call.
And, and you know, I guess it's sort of legendary, right?
There are vendettas against lowly house members who would dare vote against them on anything that you're getting primaried next time.
That's it.
And if you defeat your primary opponent and your general election opponent, we'll see you in two years, pal.
And that, and that's just effective.
Now, I think you kind of argue that, yeah, and that's great.
And the NRA and the AARP and agribusiness and city group and Lockheed are all very effective lobbies too, in all that way.
But you think there's more to it than that?
And this is really what you write all your books about is crimes.
Yeah, I write, I don't write about that.
I mean, I acknowledge that.
I mean, I've seen that too, and they are excellent at coordination.
They're up against extremely weak, underfunded opposition, although that's changing because of the cost of all of this.
And they do, I mean, there's a lot of integration, coordination, and the fact that AIPAC can be putting together legislation, even as 50 of the top donors of any particular recalcitrant congressperson are calling them and wanting to meet them over this issue.
I mean, that's something that no other interest that is more peace oriented could do.
I mean, they can't, there's no phone tree for the peace movement to do that.
But I focus on the fact that, again, this whole organization, AIPAC, was set up with foreign funding.
It was engaged in activities that called the attention of the Justice Department, the fact that they were lobbying with foreign funds, that they weren't registering as foreign agents, although they were being coordinated by a foreign agent.
And again, all of the things that resulted from that, including, again, the trade deal, the espionage that took place to pass that thing, how bad it's been.
I mean, they do things that are above board and legitimate, but they've done a lot of other things to obtain undue influence.
And the saying goes, break the law to seize power and all other cases observe it.
Well, I think that the reckoning for those violations has never, never appeared.
And that needs, Americans need to know about that.
But no, I acknowledged fully, but I do disagree with the Mearsheimer and Walt thesis.
And I've told them this, that this is not as American as apple pie.
There's a reason the Justice Department ordered them to register as foreign agents.
And the coordination is ongoing.
This idea that the Justice Department...
Well, now, so tell me what exact difference that makes.
So if we're talking about the French and the French lobby in America are all registered as foreign agents, then that means that what they're not available or the law won't allow them to put together the kind of groups that AIPAC does and do the work that AIPAC does?
No, all the Foreign Agents Registration Act does is say, look, if you're the French government or a quasi governmental entity, and you want to lobby Congress in the United States, you've got to file as a foreign agent and disclose your activities and expenditures.
It doesn't prevent anything.
And so, you know, what you see in the case of countries like Pakistan or countries like China and even Saudi Arabia, which is mentioned in my article, they hire lobbying firms and they spend a lot of money and then reporters say, oh, look, look how much money they're spending to do this and that and the other thing.
Well, Israel doesn't do that.
They don't do that.
They meet constantly with the leadership of all of these organizations.
They coordinate, they plan, and all of that stuff is still covered by FARA, but they don't disclose any of that.
And it's not, at this point, it's not even about the money.
These organizations are self-funded.
But if you're in close coordination with a foreign government in your lobbying activities, you've got to disclose that.
And that's why, you know, again, the arguments we're making is essentially that 1962 Foreign Agents Registration Act order, those things don't expire.
You know, we still believe that that is valid and should be enforced.
We think AIPAC should be registering.
And by the way, so do a lot of former Congress people, such as Paul Finley and some of these others I mentioned who came to the conference, as well as a former AIPAC employee, MJ Rosenberg, who said, you know what, they really ought to be registering as foreign agents.
And he says that on the basis of having worked there.
I mean, it's just so clear that since their role is what it is, which is getting this enormous foreign aid package every single year and then passing all of these other diplomatic support of Israel type pieces of legislation, that's their goal.
They're foreign agents and they do it in coordination with the foreign government, case closed.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, this part's gonna bum Bill Kristol out.
Not that he listens.
Hey, man, tell me about this polling that you've done and what it reveals about American general popular opinion type attitudes on these questions now.
Okay, well, we've done a whole series of polls and it was really started back in 2014 because nobody else was asking pointed questions.
And the very first questions we asked back that year was very simple.
It was, do you believe Iran has nuclear weapons?
And this was in September, 2014 and 58.5% of Americans said yes.
And they said yes, because all they heard all day were the words nuclear Iran, Iran nuclear.
And so many came to the conclusion, just like they came to the conclusion in 2002 when they heard Iraq, WMD, that Iraq was also a nuclear power.
They believed it.
And so we thought that was important to pull.
Americans become scared again because of a lot of these disinformation campaigns that come out of places like the foundation for defensive democracies and Frank Gaffney's shop and when app, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy that they develop false beliefs.
And so do you believe Israel has nuclear weapons?
Well, actually, they actually, the American public 63.9% of them back in 2014 said, well, of course they do.
So it's not like they're completely misinformed, even though nobody talks about that, they at least know that that's true.
So we've done a number of polls.
Uh, the most startling results of course, are that the, the American public does not believe we should be giving so much foreign aid to Israel.
They believe that the U S should have more distance, more daylight between U S policy and Israel.
Um, they believe that, uh, Congress should discuss Israel's nuclear weapons when they debate it's qualitative military edge and aid.
So they believe all sorts of things.
The latest poll, which, uh, I told you about, which just finished today asked a pretty interesting question, uh, about American viewpoints, uh, of government expenditures.
And the question was which expenditure category should Congress cut to make government more responsive to the American people and reduce the budget deficit.
And 42% of Americans given the choices that we gave them said we should be cutting us military actions in the middle East.
So that was twice as much as the second category, which was, we should cut housing assistance, education, transport, and health was, we should cut that 10.8% said that Medicaid and supplemental nutrition, 9.3%.
And it goes, goes down from there.
So a bunch of very clearly defined, normally broken out parts of the budget.
Plus we threw in this thing that nobody in Congress was debating cutting, which was us military action.
And lo and behold, most Americans statistically significant poll said, why don't we cut that?
And that's the sort of thing you see.
I mean, Gallup doesn't really poll this.
The Chicago council poll on middle East doesn't poll this.
And they're very misleading in the way they ask about aid so that they can say the American support aid to Israel, which they don't.
So, you know, we asked Americans and this is without most Americans, I think, even knowing that since nine 11, each taxpayer has been put on the hook for the equivalent of $23,000 to pay for all of these wars.
So even, even not knowing how much they're on the hook for, they seem to know that, uh, it's not something that they should pay for and they don't want to pay for it.
But the article goes into why they don't have a choice.
And that's the sad thing.
So, yeah, well, first of all, before we talk about why they can't do anything about it, I think I know what you're going to say.
Um, let's go back to the fact of, Hey, look, we're in the future and everybody's finally sick of it.
There's no anti-war movement to speak of.
Not really.
Um, the left-wingers kind of are, I guess, well, I mean the left half, not just leftists, but liberals and progressives and leftists.
They're all mostly anti-war by default, although they'll look the other way for Obama by and large and that kind of thing, but they're not really pro-war that much.
Um, I mean the democratic party leaders are, but I mean the, the real human beings aren't.
And then now the right-wingers are finally sick of it too.
And that's really the, that's really the big thing.
And that's the thing that it's got to be capitalized on better, you know?
Um, cause after all, I mean, geez, they said they were going to kick these terrorists ass and everything, but that was 16 years ago.
What are we doing, man?
You know, people gotta be wondering, you don't have to know anything about this to start wondering what's taking so long, you know?
It's like sitting at the doctor's office.
What's going on back there?
All right.
So now tell me what is going on back there?
Well, I mean, I listened to you give a whole bunch of reasons for how the U.S. is just getting incredibly entangled in the region and how it's only getting worse.
But I, yeah, I really don't think we're going to be able to look back in 10 years and see that, um, you know, you mentioned the conservative side of the equation.
I don't see that the narrative even can change on that end, uh, because to the extent that, and this is show, this shows up constantly in Shibley Telhami's polls to the extent that you've got this, uh, Christian Zionist movement in the United States and Kufi testified on Capitol Hill last week and their representatives, Christians United for Israel, uh, your friends, Dr. Hagee down there in Texas, they claim they have 3.8 million members and they're part of an $80 million wave that's been courted and convinced, um, that they've got to be, uh, the U.S. has to be militarily engaged in the Middle East, uh, just on religious grounds, the second coming and whatnot.
So I don't see what's going to change that.
Um, that has become such an important part of that entire faith movement that it's, it's really difficult for me to see how that particular part, and I consider that part of the Israel lobby, it's not financially relevant at all.
It doesn't produce any of the money that Congress needs, but it produces a lot of votes that they need.
So if you look at somebody like, uh, vice president Pence and others, they care a lot about that.
And the Congress people listening to this testimony and this urging by these Israel lobby groups on Capitol Hill last week, uh, they respond to that argument that no, the U.S. can never leave because there are these issues, these dispensationalist issues at play.
Um, I, I do think though that progressives are getting sick of being part of a party, the democratic party, which is so beholden to these issues.
It's all about money.
Uh, there, there are no arguments.
You know what, let me ask you, man, if you had a pie chart of the American right, you know, from the Republican party over to Spencer or whatever, uh, how big of a chunk of that pie chart, you know, what percent do you think are really represented by or under the influence of those Hageeites?
Cause it seems like another major constituency of the right is the military and people who care about the dead ones and the maimed ones, especially when they're now, I don't know how many million men, a few million people at least have deployed over there to Iraq and Afghanistan and come back by now.
Yeah.
Well, um, I, many of whom are, you know, jaded by now too, you know?
Sure.
I don't know.
Every time I look at the polling on this, on these issues, uh, of the, of Middle East and see things like the majority, um, on the conservative side would side, uh, with, uh, you know, attacking Iran if Israel attacked Iran, even if it was going to harm the United States and they're for it.
I mean, it's, I don't, I haven't seen those figures change that sort of reflexive, yeah, you know, militarism mixed with dispensationalism mixed with kind of a unquestioning idea that this is patriotism.
I don't see it changing.
And the polls are just, uh, you know, the polls are the polls.
So, um, I always read too much into, um, Donald Trump denouncing the butches and their wars and the winning South Carolina so badly the next day, you know, where it was, he won 60 and the other 17 guys shared 40 or whatever it was.
And maybe I just, maybe the reality there is he also said a lot of pro war stuff.
And that was the part that they liked.
Yeah.
You know, he took both sides of every, he took all sides of every issue.
And so, you know, maybe they overlooked him insulting Bush and Bush's war rather than really, you know, uh, being attracted to that kind of a narrative.
Right.
Right.
All right.
Well, I think the only thing we have to go on are credible polls and, you know, done by people with a track record and organizations are the track record.
I, uh, it's complicated though.
And a lot of people got it wrong, obviously last time around, at least on the presidential level.
Right.
All right, man.
So, and now, so what about the Saudis?
Cause there's a Saudi lobby and I guess it already was, or it used to be anyway, maybe it's less now, but it used to be the Israel was really tight with the Turks.
And so the Turkish lobby was sort of an auxiliary Israel lobby.
They could kind of gang up on certain issues anyway.
Um, but so what about the Saudis now?
Cause it sure seems like, well, not just the current kingdom, but the up and coming kingdom are really friends with Netanyahu and his regime there.
That is what it seems.
And in fact, Barack Ravid of Haaretz, uh, leaked a cable, uh, which he says, uh, shows that Israel is coordinating its diplomatic core in the region to be, you know, supporting the Saudis and trying to get a, a pivot toward confronting Iran.
So they believe it.
Um, as far as the Saudi lobby and a lot of people, uh, Mike Mitchell Bard, for example, uh, who's a big, uh, proponent of Israel who runs a site, uh, claims that it's vast and it's bigger than the Israel lobby and all of this.
And I don't think that's true.
And they don't even really need much of a lobby because they have all of these other levers of influence.
And if you've lived for any period of time in Washington, which I unfortunately have, you find out that as just the top, top buyer of us weapon systems.
I mean, the U S doesn't give the Saudis weapons.
They buy them at the top price and they buy a lot of them and they buy them constantly.
If you read the department of defense notifications of sales, you see that they're top buyers of us merchandise and service exports.
They're top buyers of us treasury securities.
They're willing to boy up the dollar by trading their petroleum in dollars as opposed to another denomination and being the swing producer of OPEC.
They don't have to lobby.
I mean, they, uh, I think it was a former FBI director.
Their money is everywhere and people know it and they know that this incredible wealth that just flows into the U S could easily flow into another, uh, major country.
And so a lot of the reflexive, uh, cover that you see for the Saudis isn't because they have a giant lobby that's effective and in every nook and cranny and, you know, with thousands of bodies and employees, they don't, but they have this incredible wealth that flows into the United States.
And it's been that way, uh, you know, since the thirties, uh, that is just, uh, everybody knows about it and it doesn't, you know, it could go away.
And so there's this incredible desire to uh, shape us policy in ways that will not upset them.
So, you know, that's my reading of it.
And I've researched at a state level, many of the economic impacts that their economy has on the U S economy.
It's real and it produces a lot of jobs in this country.
Now, does Israel produce a lot of jobs in this country?
No.
And we have a trade deficit with Israel.
The trade deficit with the Saudis has essentially gone away with the increase of us energy production.
Uh, and you see this president Trump coming back announcing, you know, hundreds of billions of dollars worth of new weapons sales.
Um, they don't have to have a lobby.
This is, this is something everybody knows about.
All right.
Sorry.
Hang on one more time here real quick.
Hey, you guys buy this book.
No dev, no ops, no it by Hussein Bhattacharni.
It's on amazon.com.
It's in the margin at scotthorton.org just like the war state by my good friend, Mike Swanson, a great history of the rise of the military industrial complex after world war two Roberts and Roberts brokerage Inc.
That's rrbi.co.
See how easy to remember that is if you grew up playing baseball rrbi.co and there's no charge if you buy in Bitcoin.
Liberty stickers.com for your anti-government propaganda.
The bumper sticker.com for pro your band or business propaganda.
3T editing to make your book read good.
Tom woods.com to make your brain know stuff.
Darren's coffee to get you up in the morning.
Go cart galaxy for parts for your mini bikes and go carts.
And if you want a brand spanking new 2018 model website, just go to expand designs.com/Scott and you'll save 500 bucks.
Hey man, as long as we're doing this for an hour, let me ask you this.
What about this new law?
Are they going to try to put people in jail for boycotting Israel or promoting the boycott of Israel?
And for that matter, what about the censorship of voices, especially on the university of California campus system there?
Well, um, there was, there was a case that just came out of San Francisco State University in which, uh, the lawfare projects, which is an Israel affinity organization that tries to sue, uh, you know, students for justice in Palestine and other organizations, sue them if they are too vigorous in their protests of, uh, Israeli, uh, military figures coming onto campus or, you know, do too many marches or too many confrontations.
And they actually sued the board of regents and one professor at SFSU, uh, under the civil rights act for creating a religious discriminatory environment on campus with the idea that, uh, the identity and affiliation with Israel was so strong that it was a religious identity and that these students were violating and threatening, uh, Jewish students on campus.
Well, the judge just threw that out.
Uh, and although the judge said, Hey, uh, you can come back and refile this case, uh, just bring a better case and don't bring such a ridiculous case.
Uh, what a lot of these organizations are counting on is that the antisemitism awareness act, which is, uh, uh, seeking to allow this sort of lawsuit with the power that the title six, um, education or civil rights act includes, uh, the state department's definition of antisemitism, which includes criticism, singling out Israel, uh, passes and becomes federal law.
Then this, this lawsuit in, in California very well could have, uh, provided substantial economic penalties against the university.
Uh, and actually one professor who was named the dependent, the defendant as well.
And so, um, this, this is in flocks, the groups that were at this, uh, again, uh, Senate or congressional judiciary committee hearing were arguing that this, uh, civil rights act needed to include, uh, singling out Israel as an active antisemitism so that they could have just sort of this type of lawsuit go through.
The other major piece of legislation of course is the Israel anti boycott act.
And that is legislation that seeks to alter a number of other different laws so that Americans who participate in economic boycotts of Israel would be subject to up to 20 years in prison and a million dollars in fines.
And that is a federal law that, uh, again is, is, is a sort of repeat of laws that have been passed and I believe more than 20 States which already make this unlawful.
And so, you know, you see this in Kansas where a professor, uh, who wanted to sign a contract to teach was presented with, uh, a statement of form.
She had the sign saying that she was not a participant in any sort of a boycott of Israel, uh, or call for a boycott of Israel before she could become a contractor.
And she refused to sign it.
And it's now the subject of an ACLU case, uh, against the, uh, state of Kansas.
But these laws at the state level are all over the place.
Uh, the, again, the Israel lobby wants to make these into federal laws.
And if the Israel anti-boycott act passes, it will really strip away the right of Americans to participate in any meaningful way in the BDS movement.
Uh, and that's what it's seeking to do.
The, the antisemitism awareness act, which, uh, passed through the Senate and, uh, was actually passed, uh, in 2016, but that would now have to be re resubmitted and is kind of bottled up in the, um, in Congress's, uh, judicial committee that would have the effect of really making most colleges and universities dependent upon federal funding crack down on, uh, students for justice in Palestine and robust discussion and protests, uh, because they would simply be in too much legal jeopardy to allow those to continue on campus.
So these are serious things, which obviously would be discussed, uh, at our conference.
Well, I wonder, um, I mean, it sounds like on the face of it, no matter what pressure group we're talking about here, anybody messing with free speech is guaranteed to provoke a reaction.
Of course, on the left and the right, everybody's a hypocrite and they only want to cry free speech about their own guy and then call the other guy a hypocrite, but never stand up for the other guy's right to be a hypocrite, you know, or this kind of thing.
People don't seem to really focus on that, but overall, both sides agree.
They want free speech, at least for themselves.
Seems like if there's any part of the bill of rights, we still believe in it's that, you know, separation of church and state hopefully.
And, um, and the right to say what you want or, you know, to organize, to freely associate with, uh, who you want to or who you don't want to freely assemble with who you want to or, or not.
Um, and this kind of thing.
So maybe people will get mad and maybe this will generate backlash and that, Hey Israel, how come you want to outlaw people criticizing you all the time?
I wonder if there's something to criticize there.
It seems like that would be the natural.
It seems like if you were the Israel lobby, wouldn't that be your fear that we might really piss Americans off with this, telling them that they're not allowed to discuss an ongoing military occupation of a civilian population, for example.
Yeah.
And some of the smarter people in the lobby, including one who drafted the, on behalf of the American Jewish committee, drafted the state department definition of anti-Semitism thinks that applying it inside the U S uh, as a, uh, a law targeting campuses as a stupid idea.
But, uh, it's no, it's, I would, I would argue that, that the first amendment is not as robust as you think it is.
I mean, you know, the tradition behind it.
Yeah.
Well, time, times have changed.
I mean, one, uh, New York cable provider.
And I think I mentioned this in one of my articles on the Israel anti-boycott act thought that he had a right of spree free speech to put on this cable network, some Almanar television, uh, perspectives on, uh, Israel's attack attacks on Lebanon over his own cable network.
And because Hezbollah was associated with Almanar, uh, he quickly found himself in jail, uh, for providing material support to a terrorist organization by rebroadcasting some of their videos.
So, you know, the first amendment, it seems really robust, but if you're disenfranchised and saying the wrong things, uh, in this particular environment, which in which, uh, you know, the hype of terrorism and over hyping terrorism is so prevalent.
Yeah.
Don't count on it.
Well, it's a separate thing too.
It's this other law is about really any company or anybody, right?
Not university campuses, but anybody who wants to try to boycott Israel would face sanction, right?
Yeah, essentially.
Um, it's really, it's really robust in, in really altering the, uh, laws that were put in place to combat the Arab boycott of Israel in which they were going to use their purchasing power, uh, to punish Israel for the, uh, um, you know, seizure of all these territories and, and use their economic might to say, if you want to trade with this Arab country, you better not trade with Israel.
And so they're, they're amending a number of different laws to say, well, it's the same thing if you're a U S company and you're observing any sort of boycott or singling out, uh, entities active in, in Israeli controlled territories.
So it's very complicated.
Uh, you can't just download one piece of legislation, uh, the, the anti boycott act and see what it actually does because it's basically saying this is modified.
These words are inserted here.
This is struck and it's Byzantine.
But yeah, that's essentially what it does.
It would end, uh, the BDS movement.
It would stop it in its track.
And most Americans don't want it.
If you explain the outlines of it, uh, and do a poll on it, most Americans think, think it's not something that, uh, should be, uh, should be put into law.
Yep.
All right.
Listen, man, thanks very much for coming back on the show.
Grant.
I always like learning a lot of stuff talking to you.
All right, Scott, much appreciated.
All right.
Uh, it's, uh, when March the what?
March 2nd national press club.
It's from nine o'clock till five o'clock for the core program, five o'clock and excuse me, five o'clock till seven for the reception organized by IRMEP and the Washington report on middle East affairs magazine.
And what's the URL where people can sign up?
That would be Israel lobby and American policy.org.
All right.
Thanks very much, man.
Thanks, Scott.
All right, y'all.
Uh, Grant F. Smith, IRMEP.org.
And you know me, I'm at Scott Horton.org sign up for all the podcast feeds there and all that stuff.
And, uh, check out my book by my book fool's errand time to end the war in Afghanistan.
Everybody likes it.
Fool's errand dot us and, um, read, uh, essays.
I want you to read at antiwar.com and at Libertarian Institute.org and follow me on Twitter at Scott Horton show.
Thanks.
