Is the Israel Lobby Just another Lobby?

A Brief Thought on the Current Discussion of the Israel Lobby
by Joachim Martillo (ThorsProvoni@aol.com)

 
On page 16 of "The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy" (http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP06-011/$File/rwp_06_011_walt.pdf), Professors Walt and Mearsheimer make a demonstrably false statement, "For the most part, the individuals and groups that comprise the Lobby are doing what other special interest groups do, just much better."

Cecile Surasky analyses the behavior of the ADL in "Islamic rights group CAIR says "ADL Seeks to Hinder Legal Rights of U.S. Muslims"" (http://www.muzzlewatch.com/?p=232) and points out:

The ADL's deliberate conflation of criticism of Israel, and anti-Semitism, validates CAIR's charges that this is not a civil rights issue but a political one.

The ADL won't get very far saying "We hate CAIR because we disagree with their political analysis," but they will get far using the ultimate weapon at their disposal: calling them terrorists.

And this is terrible for everyone, when people of all faiths and ethnicities should be working together to root out all forms of brutal killing of civilians, whether by individuals, groups or states.

To be sure the United States is at war and sensitivities are justifiably high in the post 9/11 era. And, it is a war we have in large part exacerbated through bringing chaos to Iraq, and our tendency to demonize Muslims, who comprise some 1.5 billion people throughout the world.

The desire to create a false consensus on Israeli policy has led to numerous efforts to silence dissent–we at Jewish Voice for Peace know this because it has happened to us repeatedly, and in ways we never imagined.

But efforts to silence Muslims and people of Arab descent who refuse to toe the party line reach an order of a completely different magnitude: they are not just silenced, but criminalized. At stake is not just free speech, but actual lives and livelihoods. 

The Agricultural lobby simple does not threaten any segment of the US citizenry in the way that the Israel Lobby does.

Since slavery there has been no US lobby like the Israel Lobby. The Israel Lobby demonizes Arabs and Muslims the way John C. Calhoun dehumanized African slaves.

Obviously Calhoun did not want the slaves to be freed. The Israel lobby does not want Arab and Muslim Americans to be free to exercise their rights to participate fully in American society and politics.

The US congress criminalized this sort of conspiracy against rights, but the Israel Lobby is perpetrating something far more sinister than simple civil rights violations or even threats against life and livelihood.

Using a state of war to subvert the US government clandestinely to serve a foreign government's interests and to negate the constitutional rights of American citizens is getting real close to an attempt to put down the US government. It is time to research the case law, for the Israel Lobby is treading very close to a violation of Title 18.2384 Seditious Conspiracy. At the very least the Israel Lobby and the Organized Jewish Community can probably be nailed for major violations of the US tax code with regard to the deductibility of contributions to 501(c)(3) organizations.

It has to constitute high crimes and misdemeanors for a sitting president to surround himself with advisors that are engaged in conspiracy against rights and very close to seditious conspiracy.

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