March 28, 2007
Kristoffer Larsson | togethernet
The role played by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in the push for attacks on Iraq and Iran is increasingly being elucidated from diverse sources, including mainstream Jewish writers (see below).
Accordingly, this is a particularly good time to distribute additional information to your community on the Israeli factor in Middle East wars and US policy formation on the region. Below are some of our best booklets on this subject:
* Iraq, Palestine, and the Israel Lobby
* Serving Two Flags: Neo-Cons, Israel and the Bush Administration
* Biased Thinktanks Dictate US Foreign Policy
* A Rose by Another Name: The Bush Administration's Dual Loyalties
[also available as .pdf files from IAK]
The People Who Pushed for the War (excerpted from "A Rose by Another Name") Download
As always, you can download these and print them out yourself (or have a local copy shop do so), or you can order them from us, the more the better! (If you have trouble coming up with the requested donation, we'll try to help you with this).
(If you prefer, you can simply email your order to orders@ifamericansknew.org. (Don't forget to give us your mailing address.)
If the media are not going to inform the public fully and accurately, then it's up to all of us to do so!
Forwarded message from Council for the National Interest Foundation:
March 22, 2007
George Soros, the billionaire financier and founder of the Open Society Institute that has promoted democracy in eastern Europe and central Asia, has finally turned his attention to Israel, whose intransigence toward the new unity government in Palestine was scathingly critiqued in an article in a recent issue of the New York Review of Books.
Also condemned was the US government (White House and Congress) for being enthralled to the Israel Lobby that works against the long-term good of both Israel and the United States. Soros concludes, "[The American Israel Public Affairs Committee] under its current leadership has clearly exceeded its mission, and far from guaranteeing Israel's existence, has endangered it."
Soros' critique discusses missed opportunities, including the 2002 Arab League offer of peace for a return to the 1967 borders (the essence of the UN Security Council Resolution 242), the failure to talk to Hamas, and the heavy handed response to Hezbollah in the summer of 2006. "The current policy of not seeking a political solution but pursuing military escalation - not just an eye for an eye but roughly speaking ten Palestinian lives for every Israeli one - has reached a particularly dangerous point... Israel's existence is more endangered than at any time since its birth." For this, he writes, AIPAC is primarily responsible for its role in stifling a much-needed debate in the US on the issue of Palestinian rights.
Soros also raises the way in which critics of Israel are regularly condemned as anti-Semites, and mentions how he himself, a Jew, has been subjected to a "torrent of slanders" as a result of his willingness to discuss alternative views. He ends sadly by noting, "I am a fervent advocate of critical thinking. I have supported dissidents in many countries. I took a stand against President Bush when he said that those who don't support his policies are supporting the terrorists. I cannot remain silent now when the pro-Israel lobby is one of the last unexposed redoubts of this dogmatic way of thinking. I speak out with some trepidation because I am exposing myself to further attacks that are likely to render me less effective in pursuing many other causes in which I am engaged; but dissidents I have supported have taken far greater risks."
For a view of the reaction in the
Jewish press, read Nathan Guttman in The Forward discussing
Soros, a recent column in the New York Times by Nicholas
Kristof (also criticizing Israel), an article in the
Economist (in which CNI was referenced) criticizing the
Israel Lobby, and a similar article in the web site Salon.
Source: togethernet