DE BORCHGRAVE: Attack plans spiked (Washington Times)?

DE BORCHGRAVE: Attack plans spiked (be sure to scroll down to the
comments section as well)?

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008


http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...-plans-spiked/

See Video: Neocons Pushed Us into War with Iraq and Now with Iran!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbxD5...x=0&playnext=1

Here is a tiny URL for the above one:

http://tinyurl.com/5johhg

http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot....with-iraq.html

Here is a tiny URL for the above one:

http://tinyurl.com/5aspp5

Additional linked via the pics at the following URLs:

http://neoconzionistthreat.com

http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot.com



Looking Into the Lobby

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual conference is
one of Washington’s most important—and least reported—events.

by Philip Weiss

For three days in the capital in early June, suspense built over the
question of how the American Israel Public Affairs Committee
conference would greet Barack Obama. There was a lot of grousing about
Obama in the hallways of the Washington Convention Center, and AIPAC
officials repeatedly warned the faithful to be respectful. “We are not
a debate society or a protest movement. … our goal is to have a friend
in the White House,” executive director Howard Kohr said in a strict
tone. It wasn’t hard to imagine things going poorly: Obama gets booed
on national television. He feels insulted. Conservative Jewish donors
and voters turn off to Obama. He becomes president without their
support. AIPAC has no friend in the Oval Office.

But of course, Obama complied. His speech became the annual example
the conference provides of a powerful man truckling. Two years ago, it
was Vice President Cheney’s red-meat speech attacking the
Palestinians. Last year, it was Pastor John Hagee’s scary speech
saying that giving the Arabs any part of Jerusalem was the same as
giving it to the Taliban. Obama took a similar line. He suggested that
he would use force to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, made no
mention of Palestinian human rights, and said that Jerusalem “must
remain undivided,” a statement so disastrous to the peace process that
his staff rescinded it the next day. Big deal. The actual meeting had
gone swimmingly.

This was my first AIPAC conference, and the first surprise was how
blatant the business of wielding influence is. The conference makes no
bones about this function, the most savage expression of which is the
Tuesday dinner at which AIPAC performs its “roll call,” where the
names of all the politicians who have come to the conference are read
off from the stage by three barkers in near auctioneer fashion. The
pols try to outdo one another in I-love-Israel encomia. House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi surely won the day when she teared up while dangling the
dogtags of three Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah and Hamas two
years ago.

The second big surprise was that apart from coverage of the headline
speakers, the AIPAC conference is a media no man’s land. It would be
hard to imagine a more naked exhibition of political power: a
convention of 7,000 mostly rich people, with more than half the
Congress in attendance, as well as all the major presidential
candidates, the prime minister of Israel, the minority leader, the
majority leader, and the speaker of the House. Yet there is precious
little journalism about the spectacle in full. The reason seems
obvious: the press would have to write openly about a forbidden
subject, Jewish influence. They would have to take on an unpleasant
informative task that they have instead left to two international
relations scholars in their 50s—Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer,
authors of last year’s book The Israel Lobby.

The press is missing a phantasmagorical event. Imagine a basement
meeting in the Warsaw Ghetto transplanted to the biggest hall in
Vegas, and you have something of the feeling of the thing. The staging
is faultless. Little documentaries called “Zionist Stories” play on
the Jumbotron, complete with footage of Auschwitz, and then the
subject of the documentary comes out on stage to thundering applause.
There is breakout session after breakout session on Middle East policy
and Jewish identity and anti-Semitism, with star turns by Natan
Sharansky, Bill Kristol, and Leon Wieseltier. The press was excluded
from “Advanced Lobbying Techniques,” but still this is a feast of the
political condition. And posh. The roll call is described by AIPAC as
the largest seated dinner in Washington. The wine flows. I went about
in a daze of awe and admiration.

My awe was for men like Haim Saban, a toymaker and giant donor to the
Democratic Party. After his Zionist story, Saban came out on stage
wearing a platinum tie and white shirt and silver gray suit. He has
wonderful presence and something of an Arab look—black-haired, wide
forehead. He was surrounded by 200 college students, veterans of the
Saban Leadership Seminars he sponsors at AIPAC.

On Middle East policy, Saban is barely distinguishable from his
Republican counterparts, who are there in equal force. The main hall
of the conference was filled with lavishly-produced banners featuring
AIPAC donors, not a few with trophy wives, alongside statements of
their mission. There was Donald Diamond, an Arizona real estate
developer whom the New York Times recently profiled on the front page
after he raised $250,000 for John McCain. The Times said nothing in
its piece about Diamond’s Israel work. But that was all the banner was
about. “The U.S.-Israel relationship is the single most important
determinant of democracy in the world, and we must commit to securing
it,” Diamond wrote. “It is so obvious to us that the Jewish community
is a family and that we have to take care of each other.”

I was writing that down when an AIPAC spokesman stopped to check my
credentials. The audience for this stuff isn’t the public, it’s people
in the hall—other rich Jews who might put AIPAC in their wills.

At most conventions, people gather out of self-interest. Therein lies
my admiration: the AIPAC’ers didn’t come for selfish reasons. They are
devoutly concerned with the lives of people they don’t know, very far
away. Yes, people with whom they feel tribal kinship. When Israelis
came out on the dais to speak, they were almost invariably overwhelmed
by the generosity, if not the Vegas schmaltz. “There is a tremendous
amount of love in this place,” Meir Nissensohn, an Israeli executive
of IBM, said in wonder. “If it was a beaker, it would explode.” Even a
sharp critic like myself of what AIPAC is doing to American policy in
the Middle East was frequently moved by the pure loving feeling that
surrounds you at every moment.

Among the devout there is only one real issue: What is the latest
AIPAC line? This is the organization’s function. After consulting
closely with the Israeli political leadership (leaning toward the
right wing), AIPAC regurgitates a simple version of Israeli policy to
its followers, who in turn regurgitate that line to American
politicians. AIPAC’ers do this with the conviction that Israel’s life
is on the line. “It is we that are the guardians of that
relationship,” AIPAC president David Victor said. James Tisch, the
Lowes executive and leader in the Jewish community, warned the
audience that it might be 1939 all over again were it not for them.

AIPAC makes sure the Israeli line is America’s line by cultivating
politicians before they reach the national scene. Victor described
this process when he warned the audience that 10 percent of Congress
will be new next year because so many seats are open: “Do we know
them? Do they know us? Have they

__________________________________________

Philip Weiss is at work on a book about Jewish issues. He blogs at
www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/



--------------------------------------------------------



Date: Monday, July 7, 2008, 2:29 PM

Commentary: Guns of August spiked?



http://www.upi.com/Emerging_Threats/...8101215458112/

-----------------------------------------------------------------


Stop The AIPAC sponsored "Iran War Resolution"



http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/zone0...ic.php?t=91563


Additional about AIPAC's push for the coming war with Iran via the
following URL (be sure to access the Scott Ritter youtubes linked at
the top of the comments section as well):



AIPAC Pushing US to War with Iran for Israel:



http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot....with-iran.html



Hedges: It's Insane to Attack Iran:



http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot....tack-iran.html



Bob Barr: Attacking Iran Highly Irresponsible and Detrimental:



http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot....an-highly.html



McCain's loyalty is to Israel first and foremost:



http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot....ubscribe..html