Jewish Power in America by Henry Feingold

Author:Henry Feingold [Feingold, Henry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Asia, General
ISBN: 9781412808354
Google: MgXmnQEACAAJ
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
Published: 2008-01-15T03:26:58+00:00

Notes

1. The term Israel lobby refers primarily to the activities of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which is registered as a lobby. Few would argue that AIPAC is a communal voice. Opposition to AIPAC originated within the community when the Tikkun group challenged its role. More recently, George Soros, the billionaire Holocaust survivor, has announced the establishment of a new foundation to counteract “the influence” of AIPAC.

2. There have been alternative images. The establishment of the state marks the return of the Jewish people to an organization rooted in space rather than time. It views exilic Jewry as held together by history, memory, and faith, which are operative anywhere and do not require physical cohesion in one territory. They view Jews as the first world people. Not all considered the post-Holocaust Jewish reversion to space as a boon. Marxists, in particular, extolled the Jewish ability to leapfrog over the onerous bourgeois national stage. The ultra-religious, like Agudath, also viewed the Zionist return to statehood without the coming of the Messiah as a form of idolatry and remain opposed to the Jewish state to this day.

3. See Zvi Ganin, An Uneasy Relationship: American Jewish Leadership and Israel, 1948-1957 (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2005), 107-148.

4. There exists peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan and a modus vivendi with Saudi Arabia, but they produce only a “cold” peace.

5. Until recently, Israel was the recipient of the highest amount of grants and loans extended by the American government to any nation. Egypt has recently become a close second. It is likely that budgetary politics might yield a more realistic picture of the relationship between Israel and the United States. Few of the dollars that flow to Israel are for welfare or economic development. The overwhelming portion of American aid is for the purchase of advanced military equipment such as fighter aircraft, in a word for matters of security.

6. See Cyrus Adler and Aaron Margalith, With Firmness in the Right: American Diplomatic Action Affecting Jews, 1840-1945, (New York: Arno Press, 1977). It catalogues such intercessions.

7. Quoted in Kenton J. Klymer, “Anti-Semitism in the late Nineteenth Century: The Case of John Hay,” Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, LX, (June 1971), 349.

8. Google: Soviet Jewry, Israel Hasbara Committee, “Correspondence Re: The Israel Lobby,” from Middle East Quarterly.

9. The spending of the real estate interests, pharmaceuticals industry, and the legal profession make AIPAC look like minor leaguers in the lobbying business.

10. In fairness, Mearsheimer argues not that there is Jewish control of policy, but an unwholesome, one-sided influence. But there are Jewish scholars, like Tony Judt and others, who have argued that the creation of Israel was a mistake. Even among the neocons, the initial support of the Iraq war soon gave way to an unhappiness with the way the war was being managed, and a reversion to their original preference for nation-building in Iran rather than Iraq. It was, after all, Iran that would soon possess the WMDs vainly sought in Iraq.

11. See Tony Kushner and Alisa Solomon, eds.

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