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Voice of Palestine

How the Israel Lobby Took Control of U.S. Foreign Policy

By Jeff Gates

Biden

In the early 1960s, Senator William J. Fulbright fought to force the American Zionist Council to register as agents of a foreign government. The Council eluded registration by reorganizing as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. AIPAC has since become what Fulbright most feared: a foreign agent dominating American foreign policy while disguised as a domestic lobby.

Israelis and pro-Israelis object when they hear that charge. How, they ask, can we so few wield such influence over so many? Answer: it’s all in the math. And in the single-issue advocacy brought to bear on U.S. policy-making by dozens of ‘domestic’ organizations that now compose the Israel lobby, with AIPAC its most visible force.

The political math was enabled by Senator John McCain whose support for all things Israeli ensured him the GOP nomination to succeed Christian-Zionist G.W. Bush. McCain’s style of campaign finance reform proved a perfect fit for the Diaspora-based fundraising on which the lobby relies. Co-sponsored by Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, this change in federal election law typifies how Israeli influence became systemic.

‘McCain-Feingold’ raised the amount (from $1,000 to $2,300) that candidates can receive from individuals in primary and general elections. A couple can now contribute a combined $9,200 to federal candidates: $4,600 in each of the primary and general elections. Primary elections, usuall low-budget, are particularly easy to sway.

Importantly for the Diaspora, this change also doubled the funds candidates can receive without regard to where those contributors reside. A candidate in Iowa, say, may have only a few pro-Israeli constituents. When campaign support is provided by a nationwide network of pro-Israelis, that candidate can more easily be persuaded to support policies sought by Tel Aviv.

Diaspora-based fundraising has long been used by the lobby with force-multiplying success to shape U.S. foreign policy. Under the guise of reform, John McCain doubled the financial resources that the lobby can deploy to elect and retain its supporters.

Fulbright was Right

The influence-peddling process works like this. Candidates are summoned for in-depth AIPAC interviews. Those found sufficiently committed to Israel’s agenda are provided a list of donors likely to “max out” their campaign contributions. Or the process can be made even easier when AIPAC-approved candidates are given the name of a “bundler.”

Bundlers raise funds from the Diaspora and bundle those contributions to present them to the candidate. No quid pro quo need be mentioned. After McCain-Feingold became law in 2003, AIPAC-identified bundlers could raise $1 million-plus for AIPAC-approved candidates simply by contacting ten like-minded supporters. Here’s the math:

The bundler and spouse “max out” for $9,200 and call ten others, say in Manhattan, Miami, and Beverly Hills. Each of them max out ($10 x $9,200) and call ten others for a total of 11. [111 x $9,200 = $1,021,200.]

Imagine the incentive to do well in the AIPAC interview. One call from the lobby and a candidate can collect enough cash to mount a credible campaign in most Congressional districts. From Tel Aviv’s perspective, that political leverage is leveraged yet again because fewer than ten percent of the 435 House races are competitive in any election cycle (typically 35 to 50).

Additional force-multipliers come from: (a) sustaining this financial focus over multiple cycles, (b) using funds to gain and retain seniority for those serving on Congressional committees key to promoting Israeli goals, and (c) opposing any candidates who question those goals.

Jewish Achievement reports that 42% of the largest political donors to the 2000 election cycle were Jewish, including four of the top five. That compares to less than 2% of Americans who are Jewish. Of the Forbes 400 richest Americans, 25% are Jewish according to Michael Steinhardt, a key funder of the Democratic Leadership Council. The DLC was led by Jewish Zionist Senator Joe Lieberman when he resigned in 2000 to run as vice president with pro-Israeli presidential candidate Al Gore.

Money was never a constraint. Pro-Israeli donors were limited only by how much they could lawfully contribute to AIPAC-screened candidates. McCain-Feingold raised a key limit. The full impact of this foreign influence has yet to be tallied. What’s known, however, is sufficient to apply the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Of the top 50 neoconservatives who advocated war in Iraq, 26 were Jewish (52%).

Harry Truman, a Christian Zionist, remains one of the more notable recipients of funds. In 1948, he was trailing badly in the polls and in fundraising. His prospects brightened dramatically in May after he recognized as a legitimate state an enclave of Jewish extremists who originally planned to settle in Argentina before putting their sights on Palestine.

That recognition was opposed by Secretary of State George C. Marshall, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the bulk of the diplomatic corps, the fledgling Central Intelligence Agency and numerous distinguished Americans, including moderate and secular Jews concerned at the troubles that were certain to follow. Not until 1984 was it revealed that a network of Jewish Zionists had funded Truman’s campaign by financially refueling his whistle-stop campaign train with $400,000 in cash ($3 million in 2009 dollars).

To buy time on the public’s airwaves, money raised from the Israel lobby’s network is paid to media outlets largely owned or managed by members of the same network. Presidents, Senators and Congressmen come and go but those who collect the checks rack up the favors that amass lasting political influence.

The U.S. system of government is meant to ensure that members of the House represent the concerns of Americans who reside in Congressional districts—not a nationally dispersed network (a Diaspora) committed to advancing the agenda of a foreign nation. Federal elections are meant to hold Senators accountable to constituents who reside in the states they represent—not out-of-state residents or a foreign government.

In practical effect, McCain-Feingold hastened a retreat from representative government by granting a nationwide network of foreign agents disproportionate influence over elections in every state and Congressional district. Campaign finance ‘reform’ enabled this network to amass even more political clout—wielding influence disproportionate to their numbers, indifferent to their place of residence and often contrary to America’s interests.

This force-multiplier is now wielded in plain sight, with impunity and under cover of free speech, free elections, free press and even the freedom of religion. Therein lies the perils of an entangled alliance that induced the U.S. to invade Iraq and now seeks war with Iran. By allowing foreign agents to operate as a domestic lobby, the U.S. was induced to confuse Zionist interests with its own.Share


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Jeff Gates

Jeff Gates

Jeff Gates: A widely acclaimed author, attorney, investment banker, educator and consultant to government, corporate and union leaders worldwide, Jeff Gates’ latest book is Guilt By Association—How Deception and Self-Deceit Took America to War (2008). His previous books include Democracy at Risk: Rescuing Main Street From Wall Street and The Ownership Solution: Toward a Shared Capitalism for the 21st Century. For two decades, an adviser to policy-makers worldwide. Counsel to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee (1980-87)

For more information:   www.criminalstate.com

July 17, 2009 - Posted by Elias | NEWS & POLITICS | , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

7 Comments »

  1. Mr. Gates’ article is soooo right on. We have been taken over by the very and “passionate attachment to a foreign nation” and “entangling alliance” which Washington and Jefferson feared and counseled against. It gets worse: I’m just completing “Guilt by Association,” and in it Mr. Gates tracks, with amazing precision and with voluminous end notes, a web of international financial thievery and corporatocratic machinations of evil that boggle the sane mind. We must — must — retrieve our supposed representative democracy from these miscreants. It may already be too late, their power and connections are so vast and psychotically executed among themselves….

    Comment by Robert H. Stiver | July 18, 2009

  2. As the outpour of a media bliss falls upon the ears of the world citizenry these years since the nation of Israel seized the land from the Palestinians; the refrain has been focused upon Israeli security and their twisting the arms of political leaders everywhere to affirm, “Our right to exist.” Reaching back into a time when the struggle of Afro-Americans still dominated the national stage, the fearful paranoia of those who set forth a pro-Israeli agenda, caused them to flagrantly dismiss the laws of this land and they invaded the home and privacy of Andrew Young, former American ambassador to the United Nations, and African-American citizen seeking to reach out to the Palestinian cause; thus leading to Ambassador Young’s being forced from office. This wrenching experience for me who is a black man should be no less painful in this day as we learn “How the Israeli Lobby Took Control of U.S. Foreign Policy.

    Marveling at this national pre-occupation of Israel with its security and the horrendous things which they do to ‘defend themselves’ I sought out deeper understanding of a phenomena no other nation in history, to my limited knowledge, has had such a message or overwhelming pre-occupation. Turning to look upon the spiritual dynamics I considered how scripture declared Israel was to be a holy people who reflected the highest in God when they kept the covenant. But, what we recognize in this day and age was first outlined and declared in the Old Testament scriptures: And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the LORD shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind: And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life: In the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning! for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see.

    I conclude that the defensive strategies of the pro-Israeli agenda are ineffectual and built upon the wrong premises. Rather than murdering, raping and subjugating the Palestinians to sub-human status for Israel’s continuance as a nation. Perhaps it would be appropriate to determine how can those tenants defined as curses within scripture be removed, thereby allowing that this deviant behavior no longer is necessary? Just as they were singled out to be a holy and righteous nation throughout the generations, it appears they are being preserved to show forth the righteous judgment of God as he deals with their sin, violation and inability to keep all of the Law of the Covenant. The challenge therefore is spiritual and not a rush to arms.

    Instantly I set myself at odds with my beloved who believe differently than myself, but I will defer to those who are Christian more so to consider my position. God brought me into a dream where I was elevated up above the earth and could look down and see madness, pollution and a people scattered and divided like sheep without a shepherd. Then the Lord caused me to look and see the source of the utterance, “There is no hope for mankind but the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost, and there I beheld their likeness. I crafted a prayer not long ago as I grieved the state of the Palestinian people and now set forth the notion that we all come together with a global prayer agenda directed against the ungodly darkness prevailing in the state of American politics as touching the hurting peoples of the world, and specifically Gaza.

    Comment by Don Corder | July 18, 2009

  3. Gandhi said that there will always be tyrants, but that Truth and Love will always win. I join the Palestinian people in truth and love as do so many millions. We are radiate children of God. We approach each day with a fresh outlook. Not accepting the tyranny that surrounds us no matter where we are.

    Comment by Patricia Blair | July 18, 2009

  4. Very enlightening and sad.

    Comment by Lee | August 12, 2009

  5. [...] Attorney General Robert Kennedy joined Fulbright in that quest. That effort was thwarted by the Israel lobby and then by the death of President Kennedy. Thereafter, concerns about the impact of Zionist influence on U.S. policy making continued to grow. By 1973, Fulbright could announce with confidence: “Israel controls the U.S. Senate.” In 1974, he lost his Senate seat. [See: “How the Israel Lobby Took Control of U.S. Foreign Policy.”] [...]

    Pingback by At What Cost the Israel Lobby? : Criminal State | October 12, 2009

  6. It is time for the americans to wake up !

    Comment by mohammad | November 20, 2009

  7. Any criticism against Israel’s bullying of the Palestinians, or any other legitimate inquiry concerning its aggresive behaviors toward its neighbors, is ignored by our local newspaper. I have written letters expressing my feelings about Israel’s policies as well as pointing out that “as our closest ally” I can find no statistical evidence that Israel has supported us with manpower (fighting men and women) in our war with Iraq or Afghanistan. If Israel decides, on her own, to attack Iraq I wonder whether the US will be asked to furnish young lives to clean up after them (if it doesn’t bring on WWIII).

    Comment by Gene Johnson | November 26, 2009


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