Tuesday, May 1, 2018
Philip Giraldi (2017): America's Jews are Driving America's Wars
America's Jews Are Driving America's Wars
Shouldn't they recuse themselves when dealing with the Middle East?
UPDATE: On the morning of September 21st Phil Giraldi was fired over the phone by The American Conservative, where he had been a regular contributor for fourteen years. He was told that “America’s Jews Are Driving America’s Wars” was unacceptable. The TAC management and board appear to have forgotten that the magazine was launched with an article by founder Pat Buchanan entitled “Whose War?” which largely made the same claims that Giraldi made about the Jewish push for another war, in that case with Iraq. Buchanan was vilified and denounced as an anti-Semite by many of the same people who are now similarly attacking Giraldi.
I
spoke recently at a conference on America’s war party where afterwards
an elderly gentleman came up to me and asked, “Why doesn’t anyone ever
speak honestly about the six-hundred-pound gorilla in the room? Nobody
has mentioned Israel in this conference and we all know it’s American
Jews with all their money and power who are supporting every war in the
Middle East for Netanyahu? Shouldn’t we start calling them out and not
letting them get away with it?”
It
was a question combined with a comment that I have heard many times
before and my answer is always the same: any organization that aspires
to be heard on foreign policy knows that to touch the live wire of
Israel and American Jews guarantees a quick trip to obscurity. Jewish
groups and deep pocket individual donors not only control the
politicians, they own and run the media and entertainment industries,
meaning that no one will hear about or from the offending party ever
again. They are particularly sensitive on the issue of so-called “dual
loyalty,” particularly as the expression itself is a bit of a sham since
it is pretty clear that some of them only have real loyalty to Israel.
Most recently, some pundits, including myself, have been warning of
an impending war with Iran. To be sure, the urging to strike Iran comes
from many quarters, to include generals in the Administration who
always think first in terms of settling problems through force, from a
Saudi government obsessed with fear over Iranian hegemony, and, of
course, from Israel itself. But what makes the war engine run is
provided by American Jews who have taken upon themselves the onerous
task of starting a war with a country that does not conceivably threaten
the United States. They have been very successful at faking the Iranian
threat, so much so that nearly all Republican and most Democratic
congressmen as well as much of the media seem to be convinced that Iran
needs to be dealt with firmly, most definitely by using the U.S.
military, and the sooner the better.
And
while they are doing it, the issue that nearly all the Iran haters are
Jewish has somehow fallen out of sight, as if it does not matter. But it
should matter. A recent article in the New Yorker on
stopping the impending war with Iran strangely suggests that the
current generation “Iran hawks” might be a force of moderation regarding
policy options given the lessons learned from Iraq. The article cites
as hardliners on Iran David Frum, Max Boot, Bill Kristol and Bret
Stephens.
Daniel Larison over at The American Conservative has a good review of the New Yorker piece
entitled “Yes, Iran Hawks Want Conflict with Iran,” which identifies
the four above cited hawks by name before describing them as “…a Who’s
Who of consistently lousy foreign policy thinking. If they have been
right about any major foreign policy issue in the last twenty years, it
would be news to the entire world. Every single one of them hates the
nuclear deal with Iran with a passion, and they have argued in favor of
military action against Iran at one point or another. There is zero
evidence that any of them would oppose attacking Iran.”
And
I would add a few more names, Mark Dubowitz, Michael Ledeen and Reuel
Marc Gerecht of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies; Daniel Pipes
of the Middle East Forum; John Podhoretz of Commentary magazine;
Elliot Abrams of the Council on Foreign Relations; Meyrav Wurmser of
the Middle East Media Research Institute; Kimberly Kagan of the
Institute for the Study of War; and Frederick Kagan, Danielle Pletka and
David Wurmser of the American Enterprise Institute. And you can also
throw into the hopper entire organizations like The American Israel
Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Washington Institute for Near East
Policy (WINEP) and the Hudson Institute. And yep, they’re all Jewish,
plus most of them would self-describe as neo-conservatives. And I might
add that only one of the named individuals has ever served in any branch
of the American military – David Wurmser was once in the Navy reserve.
These individuals largely constitute a cabal of sanctimonious chairborne
warriors who prefer to do the heavy thinking while they let others do
the fighting and dying.
So
it is safe to say that much of the agitation to do something about Iran
comes from Israel and from American Jews. Indeed, I would opine that
most of the fury from Congress re Iran comes from the same source, with
AIPAC showering our Solons on the Potomac with “fact sheets” explaining
how Iran is worthy of annihilation because it has pledged to “destroy
Israel,” which is both a lie and an impossibility as Tehran does not
have the resources to carry out such a task. The AIPAC lies are then
picked up and replayed by an obliging media, where nearly every “expert”
who speaks about the Middle East on television and radio or who is
interviewed for newspaper stories is Jewish.
One
might also add that neocons as a group were founded by Jews and are
largely Jewish, hence their universal attachment to the state of Israel.
They first rose into prominence when they obtained a number of national
security positions during the Reagan Administration and their
ascendancy was completed when they staffed senior positions in the
Pentagon and White House under George W. Bush. Recall for a moment Paul
Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, and Scooter Libby. Yes, all Jewish and all
conduits for the false information that led to a war that has spread and
effectively destroyed much of the Middle East. Except for Israel, of
course. Philip Zelikow, also Jewish, in a moment of candor, admitted that the Iraq War, in his opinion, was fought for Israel.
Add
to the folly a Jewish U.S. Ambassador to Israel who identifies with the
most right-wing Israeli settler elements, a White House appointed chief
negotiator who is Jewish and a Jewish son-in-law who is also involved
in formulating Middle East policy. Is anyone providing an alternative
viewpoint to eternal and uncritical support for Benjamin Netanyahu and
his kleptocratic regime of racist thugs? I think not.
There
are a couple of simple fixes for the dominant involvement of American
Jews in foreign policy issues where they have a personal interest due to
their ethnicity or family ties. First of all, don’t put them into
national security positions involving the Middle East, where they will
potentially be conflicted. Let them worry instead about North Korea,
which does not have a Jewish minority and which was not involved in the
holocaust. This type of solution was, in fact, somewhat of a policy
regarding the U.S. Ambassador position in Israel. No Jew was appointed
to avoid any conflict of interest prior to 1995, an understanding that
was violated by Bill Clinton (wouldn’t you know it!) who named Martin
Indyk to the post. Indyk was not even an American citizen at the time
and had to be naturalized quickly prior to being approved by congress.
Those
American Jews who are strongly attached to Israel and somehow find
themselves in senior policy making positions involving the Middle East
and who actually possess any integrity on the issue should recuse
themselves, just as any judge would do if he were presiding over a case
in which he had a personal interest. Any American should be free to
exercise first amendment rights to debate possible options regarding
policy, up to and including embracing positions that damage the United
States and benefit a foreign nation. But if he or she is in a position
to actually create those policies, he or she should butt out and leave
the policy generation to those who have no personal baggage.
For
those American Jews who lack any shred of integrity, the media should
be required to label them at the bottom of the television screen
whenever they pop up, e.g. Bill Kristol is “Jewish and an outspoken
supporter of the state of Israel.” That would be kind-of-like a warning
label on a bottle of rat poison – translating roughly as “ingest even
the tiniest little dosage of the nonsense spewed by Bill Kristol at your
own peril.”
As
none of the above is likely to happen, the only alternative is for
American citizens who are tired of having their country’s national
security interests hijacked by a group that is in thrall to a foreign
government to become more assertive about what is happening. Shine a
little light into the darkness and recognize who is being diddled and by
whom. Call it like it is. And if someone’s feelings are hurt, too bad.
We don’t need a war with Iran because Israel wants one and some rich and
powerful American Jews are happy to deliver. Seriously, we don’t need
it.
[Editor's note: This article (originally published 19 September 2017) garnered 1,292 comments, which are accessible here and which I highly recommend reading.]
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