The Jerusalem Post gives us an article about Turkish officials placing the blame on Congress’ Armenian genocide bill at the feet of American Jewish groups. In other words, if something bad happens to somebody, it is the Jews’ fault.
In an interview with the liberal Islamic Zaman newspaper on the eve of the resolution’s approval October 10 by the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said he had told American Jewish leaders that a genocide bill would strengthen the public perception in Turkey that “Armenian and Jewish lobbies unite forces against Turks.” Babacan added, “We have told them that we cannot explain it to the public in Turkey if a road accident happens. We have told them that we cannot keep the Jewish people out of this.”
The Turkish public seems to have absorbed that message.
An on-line survey by Zaman’s English-language edition asking why Turks believed the bill succeeded showed that 22 percent of respondents chose “Jews’ having legitimized the genocide claims” – second only to “Turkey’s negligence.”
This is not so different than the recent articles proposing that Putin is giving favor to Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, “an associate of Arcady Gaydamak” and who is from the Russian Jewish Congress over his previous favorite, Chabad’s Rabbi Berel Lazar, an associate of Lev Leviev. because Lazar had not “produced” more favorable results in the US.
However, the Jewish community in Russia believes that Lazar was passed over because he did not do a good enough job improving Russia’s image in the eyes of the United States Congress and American Jewish communities, failing to portray Russia as a nation that is not anti-Semitic.
This is the same theory proposed to us by the Americans Walt and Mearsheimer, who conveniently forget all mention of Arab, Saudi, defense industry or big oil influence on US foreign policy and instead focus their attacks on the Jewish community and its influence. According to this theory, Jewish influence can move mountains, and certainly the American government. Of course, this influence is considered positive when things go the way these folks want, and pernicious when things go against their wishes.
Jews, Jews, Jews!
Anybody else getting a pit in their stomach?
You are wrong, Aaron. They do claim that Jews run US foreign policy in the Middle East.
They cover their asses by giving the usual “not all Jews do it” speech, but their paper is full of examples of Jews influencing foreign policy and politics.
The section of their paper called “What is the Lobby” is where their claims begin. They state on page 14 that 36% of American Jews “‘are not very’ or ‘not at all’ emotionally attached to Israel.” They imply that if the most they can find is 36% of Jews, not all of whom reject affinity for Israel, this indicates that the other 64% of Jews feel strongly enough about Israel to be “the Lobby” and even from among those other 36% there may also be some support. They support this claim in the next paragraph (also page 14) by stating that it doesn’t matter much where Jews reside on the political spectrum with respect to Israel and the Palestinians, Jewish Americans still seek “steadfast US support for Israel.”
On Page 15, they state, “Jewish Americans have formed an impressive array of organizations to influence American foreign policy.” There is no “some,” “many,” “sometimes,” or “it is possible” before the words “Jewish Americans.”
The next paragraph mentions Christian Zionists, a group that will be mentioned again briefly twice more in their paper, but the bulk of the accusations target American Jews who work together with Israeli Jews. There are many Christian Zionists in the US but the paper emphasizes Jews, many of whom are supposed to be “the core” of “the Lobby” according to this paper.
On page 16, they write, “There is nothing improper about American Jews and their Christian allies attempting to sway US foreign policy towards Israel.” There is no “some,” “many,” “sometimes,” or “it is possible” before the words “American Jews,” but the language implies that the only Christians who are guilty are those who are the Jews’ allies.
On page 17, after brief mention of a Christian Zionist politician, the large part of the discussion turns to a large number Jewish congressional staffers, and on page 18 to large sums of Jewish money donated to politicians via AIPAC and “the influence Jewish voters have on presidential elections. Despite their small numbers (less than 3 percent), they make large campaign contributions to…both parties.” They continue to list more than half of Democratic contributions as coming from Jews, and that because of “high Jewish turnout in key states…Presidential candidates go to great lengths not to antagonize Jewish voters.” Not “some” Jewish voters or “a percentage” of Jewish voters, or any other hint that there isn’t a bloc of Jews holding sway over all politicians.
Then Walt & Mearsheimer list, on page 19, “pro-Israel” individuals who are desirable for “the Lobby” to have in positions of power in administrations and list 3 Jews in the Clinton administration and 6 out of 7 in the Bush administration. One Christian is mentioned and there is silence about the fact that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Clinton and all of the other decision makers are not Jewish.
They accuse Washington think tanks of coming under Jewish influence, the media of being influenced by Jews, and academia for suffering attacks by Jews. They say (page 23) that “a number of Jewish philanthropists have established Israel studies programs (in addition to the roughly 130 Jewish studies programs that already exist) so as to increase the number of Israel-friendly scholars on campus.” So even if Walt doesn’t bring up that his chair is funded by a Zionist Jew, he states that Israel Studies programs and even Jewish studies programs are inherently biased and violate academic neutrality by serving universities with “Israel-friendly” scholars. They don’t say this might be the case in some instances but assert a sweeping condemnation with Jews as the guilty party.
Aaron, please don’t preach about “inventing anti-Jews” and “how much fun it is to play the victim” when there is no need to invent anything and it is far from fun to be the target of anybody’s attacks on us.
It is, I suppose, pointless to note, once again, that W & M DO NOT CLAIM JEWS RUN US ME POLICY. They say the opposite, that the policies of “The Israel Lobby” often run counter to US Jewish opinion, the Iraq invasion and West bak settlements being two obvious examples.
I don’t think it helps us to invent anti-Jews where they don’t actually exist, no matter how much fun it is to play the victim.
a tad of irony, TM, sorry if you’re feeling “rickrolled”. At least in part the subject of the post is about getting the Jews to deliver one’s political goals; a fair description? So how is what CAMERA is up to different? Because they believe what they do is actually good for the Jews?
not to make light of your post, which is well-put & well-taken.
Cute, but not what CAMERA said or even what that fool, Weiss, said. I congratulate you, though, for getting me to click on a link and wasting a couple of minutes of my life without being even close to the subject of this post.
whaddya gonna do, when even CAMERA is blaming the Jews?