War on Terrorism

What Price Israel?

In the aftermath of 9/11, the people of the United States and their institutions struggled against disruptive forces. The nation was suddenly at war. Muslims and people of Arab ancestry found themselves constantly on the defensive as racial and ethnic profiling became facts of life. So did long lines at airports and anxiety about where terrorists may strike next. Spending for military purposes soared, plunging government surpluses into red ink. Funds for education and social services were cut.

Some people considered these disruptions to be byproducts of the U.S. government's decades-long blind support of Israel, but most Americans were not even aware of the nature and extent of this support. For many years, U.S. financial support for this small nation amounted to an annual minimum of $3 billion. During the Clinton administration the annual outlay exceeded $4 billion.

Money was only part of United States support for Israel. The U.S. government often donated additional military weapons for Israel. In its diplomacy, it almost always sided with Israel, even when the American position was opposed by almost every other nation.

This deep attachment to Israel began as soon as the state came into being fifty-four years ago. Backed by a small but passionately committed minority of America's Jews, augmented later by growing groups of fundamentalist Christians, the lobby of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) steadily strengthened its manipulation of U.S. political institutions into unconditional support of Israel's subjugation of the Palestinian people and the forcible takeover of Arab land. This transition occurred with little awareness by the American people, except those of Arab ancestry and Muslim affiliation.

Throughout the years, America's national leaders acted as if they were oblivious of the violations of international law perpetrated against the Palestinians by every Israeli government since the creation to the Jewish state. With only two brief exceptions years ago when the U.S. government sold military aircraft to Saudi Arabia, Israel's lobby always got what it wanted.

After 9/11, lobby influence was nowhere more apparent than on Capitol Hill. Even as evidence of worldwide outrage against U.S. complicity with Israel's assault on the West Bank and Gaza mounted, a large majority of members of both the House of Representatives and the Senate remained beholden to AIPAC. They blocked any fair and open discussion of the U.S. national interest on Middle East policies, giving their allegiance on these issues to AIPAC, rather than to their home constituencies.

In the spring of 2002, when Israel's invasion of the West Bank was in full force, lobby influence remained so overwhelming that almost the entire membership of Congress approved what I believe to be the most biased resolution on the Middle East in the institution's history. As discussed earlier, similar resolutions in both chambers heaped unstinting praise on the Israeli aggressors and harsh blame on Palestinians victims. In the House, only 21 of the 435 members noted no. Dr. James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, while deploring the spectacle, noted that several House members voted present and others did not vote. Still others announced their opposition, then, incredibly voted yes. I found the voting record depressing, but Zogby cited a silver lining: "My estimate is that about 100 members displayed their opposition in one way or another. I interpret the vote as a sign of rising opposition to U.S. Middle East policies." In the 100-member Senate, Robert C. Byrd (D-WV) and Earnest Hollings (D-SC) provided the only negative votes.

No one in Washington was surprised by this legislative outrage, because every Congress since the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower proceeded with a similar disregard of reality. It was simply the latest evidence that Capitol Hill is truly Israeli-occupied territory. Members of Congress are well informed about the true interests of the United States in the Middle East, but they are so intimidated they obey lobby direction. Based on my long, intimate experience in the Capitol Hill legislative process, I believe that most of those who cast affirmative votes on the resolutions privately resented being pressured by AIPAC and were embarrassed by having to vote against U.S. interests. Scores of times over the years, I have sat in committee and in the chamber of the House of Representatives as my colleagues behaved, as an undersecretary of state once described them, like "trained poodles" jumping through hoops held for them by AIPAC.

By voting affirmative on the biased resolutions in 2002, members of Congress ignored the centrality of the Palestinian plight in the hearts of many millions of people throughout the world, including Muslims and Arabs, who are closely linked across borders by religion and race. Also deeply distressed were millions of other people of conscience, many of them Christians and Jews. I estimate that at least 1.5 billion people rated the fate of the Palestinians and their religious shrines in Jerusalem as issues that towered in importance over all others, including Bush's war on terrorism. They blamed the catastrophe in the Middle East on the United States as well as on Israel. But only a tiny band of America's elected leaders seemed to care - or know.