Behind the scenes with Israel's campus lobby

[luckytxn 2,264]

Over the past year, I have obtained public records that shed light on how the Israel lobby works on US campuses. At UC Berkeley, my alma mater, as well as at UC Hastings School of Law, the documents reveal how the Israel lobby pressures university administrators to interfere with campus activity - both academic and political - that addresses Israel's policies towards and treatment of the Palestinian people.

My requests were made in the shadow of two high-profile backlash campaigns to counter events at UC Berkeley and UC Hastings School of Law. In March 2011, esteemed legal academics and practitioners attended a conference called "Litigating Palestine" at UC Hastings School of Law.

On the eve of the conference, the UC Hastings Board of Directors voted in a closed emergency meeting to withdraw its sponsorship of the event without explanation. Though the conference was permitted to proceed, the Dean of the Law School was asked not to give opening remarks as planned.

A year earlier, a historic decision by UC Berkeley's student government to divest from companies profiting from Israeli human rights violations and war crimes and occupation was overturned in response to similar pressure. Though the bill initially passed with a 16-4 majority, the student body president vetoed it and, after weeks of intense lobbying, the student senate was one vote short of overcoming the veto.

Though the fact of lobby pressure is a matter of common knowledge, it requires demystification. The records I obtained tend to reveal some of the ways in which the lobby actually applies its pressure. They contain valuable lessons for those who wish to defeat it. I draw several hypotheses from these documents.

Foremost among them is the proposition that the lobby's influence stems primarily from the fact that, despite public criticism, it is largely uncontested by organised campaigns. Subject to intense pressure, university administrators often make decisions they do not like because they feel they have no other choice.

No Arab, Muslim, or progressive Jewish voices

In hundreds of pages I obtained from UC Berkeley, UC office of the president, and UC Hastings School of Law, I saw communications between the highest level university administrators - people who students can rarely meet or address - and lobbyists in Washington DC at the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, the Zionist Organisation of America, and more.

Yet not a single letter came to these administrators on issues like UC Berkeley's divestment campaign or the UC Hastings' conference from similarly high-profile national community organisations like the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee, the Arab American Institute, the Council for American-Islamic Relations, or the Muslim Public Affairs Council.

As a result, university administrators were presented with a one-sided view and the impression that the only organised feedback was negative. In both cases, they ultimately adopted the view in front of them, caving into pressure on policy decisions without making an effort to solicit the input of other groups.

Where issues were clearly important not only to Jews but also to Arabs, Muslims, and others, administrators only took into consideration the position represented by the Israel lobby. But there is no rational reason why one group's perspective should be privileged over the others.

Israeli government on US campuses

Pro-Palestinian campus groups must find a language of protest that administrators respond to [GALLO/GETTY]

In some cases, the relationship was inappropriately cozy. On March 18, 2010, hours after the student government passed the divestment initiative at UC Berkeley, the Israeli consul in Northern California had called the chancellor's office to request a meeting.

A meeting was not possible at the time, but the chancellor's office faxed a letter to Israeli Consul General Akiva Tor the same day and a direct phone call was arranged the next day. In the letter, written in Chancellor Robert Birgeneau's name and addressed to Akiva Tor, the university distanced itself from the student government's decision and conveyed a willingness to express its opposition to any concerned party.

The next day, March 19, 2010, UC Berkeley spokesman Dan Mogulof wrote to Dean of Students Jonathan Poullard and Dean of Equity and Inclusion Gibor Basri: "The consulate is quite pleased with this approach and understands that issuing a proactive statement to the press at this point would only serve to catalyse coverage that, so far, is non-existent in mainstream media."

Mogulof's email gives the impression that the chancellor's office adopted a media strategy of silence in consultation with the Israeli consul general. Their mutual silence on the matter was aimed at reducing the likelihood that the national press would cover the historic 16-4 vote by UC Berkeley's student government to divest from twocompanies due to Israel's violations of international law.

Power, not rational argument

But, overwhelmingly, the correspondence between third parties and university administrators was more mundane. Communication mainly took place in the form of phone calls, letters, and press advisories, consisting of little more than the expression of displeasure and a request for meetings or corrective action. Often, alumni sent messages threatening to withhold future gifts if corrective action was not taken.

The techniques are startling - not only in their simplicity (similar campaigns might be replicated by well-networked Arab, Muslim, and progressive Jewish organisations) - but also for their lack of sound argument.

Letters relied heavily on misrepresentations of the Israeli/Palestinian issue or the specific actions they attacked. Others, in equating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, rely on logical fallacies and non sequitur. Many contained shocking undertones of racism, bigotry, and unfair ad hominem attacks. Yet they managed to persuade university administrators to take reactionary steps, not through the power of reason but by using power as reason.

At UC Hastings, for example, the campaign to stop the conference began when a member of the Hastings Foundation's Board of Advisors threatened to resign from her position if sponsorship of the conference was not withdrawn. She offered no fair criticism of the conference, but quickly organised a campaign of alumni to withhold support if action was not taken to stop the conference or withdraw sponsorship. Many letters came into UC Hastings, and they often provoked the concern of administrators even when the same administrators disliked the style and substance of their engagement.

Students alone

The other overarching theme evident from these documents is that university administrators care more about third-party organisations and alumni than student opinion. Despite turnout of thousands of students at UC Berkeley's student government to support divestment, and only a fraction of that number in opposition, at no time were university administrators seriously engaging with supporters of the initiative. Instead, they gave their full attention to off-campus organisations.

Moreover, while grassroots organisations at UC Berkeley were focusing their efforts horizontally on the student government, the Israel lobby went over the heads of the student body directly to university administrators.

They knew administrators had a greater sense of responsibility to them than ordinary students, who do not feel the pressure of alumni anger and potential institutional instability. Perhaps they already knew these people were also their allies - Chancellor Birgeneau, for example, privately expressed support for the student body president's decision to veto the divestment resolution, despite publicly remaining neutral on the issue.

The effect of this divergence in strategy - focus on the grassroots versus focus on institutional engagement - is evident in the aftermath of Berkeley divestment. Palestine solidarity groups more or less ceased their engagement with the institution. In contrast, the Israel lobby continued the conversation for weeks afterwards.

Chancellor Birgeneau met with Israeli Consul General Akiva Tor on June 18, 2010, several months after the divestment resolution had already been overturned. The reason for the meeting was that "The Consul General feels strongly that the campus has not made an effort to work with the local Jewish community" on the issue of divestment.

Tor must not have thought that the local Jewish community included groups like Jewish Voice for Peace and Kesher Enoshi, many of whose members, in addition to Israeli and Jewish members of Students for Justice in Palestine, supported the bid.

Chancellor Birgeneau was joined at the meeting by a team of the highest-level administrators, including three Vice Chancellors, an Associate Chancellor, a Dean, and a Director. Tor, for his part, led a delegation of the CEO of the Jewish Community Federation, the executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council, and the executive director of the Berkeley Hillel. Notably absent were any students.

I am aware of no similar meeting between Chancellor Birgeneau and off-campus individuals or organisations representing a pro-divestment viewpoint.

Institutional fidelity

Pro-Israel campus groups have the support of powerful lobbies and wealthy supporters [GALLO/GETTY]

For the most part, university administrators made their decisions on the basis of two things:

First, they worked to avoid negative publicity. UC Hastings Dean Frank Wu instructed his staff to "keep track of the negative effects of the conference", including "not just tangible costs, but intangible costs". Intangible costs, presumably, referred to reputational costs.

They were particularly concerned that national media would pay attention. As previously mentioned, UC Berkeley deliberately refrained from issuing a statement about the divestment bill in order to avoid catching the attention of national media. University administrators were hyper-aware of media coverage, even as they ignored thousands of individual emails from students and their supporters.

This fact suggests that university-based activists and organisations should be conscious of the potential for publicity campaigns to grant them greater negotiating power on their own campuses. National organisations like the ADC and CAIR should consider helping them by issuing press releases and media advisories that may help provoke national media coverage. An otherwise local issue can become a matter of national import by the mere fact that a high-profile national organisation sees fit to intervene. The ADL uses this strategy to great effect.

Second, administrators paid great attention to the impact alumni displeasure could have on funding. Correspondence from alumni donors was taken most seriously. At UC Berkeley and UC Hastings, administrators received emails and letters from angry alumni who promised never to donate again if divestment succeeded at UC Berkeley and if the conference proceeded at UC Hastings. Low-level administrators often forwarded these missives to the highest officials.

Notably, administrators paid attention to these angry letters even when they used blatantly racist, hateful, and vitriolic language. University administrators opted to take the safer path even without proof that the number of alumni cutting ties would be sufficient to endanger the university.

These patterns teach an important lesson. University administrators typically do not censor perceived support for Palestinians because they themselves support Israel. They do it because they feel, rightly or wrongly, that their duty to alumni requires them to do it. While that reality is embarrassing because it means many university administrators lack solid judgment or a realistic assessment of institutional well being, it is promising because it means opportunities exist to change the situation.

While Palestine solidarity groups use moralistic language about human rights and progressive values, institutional administrators think in terms of funding, reputation, and legal obligations. Pro-Palestine groups must figure out how to deploy two parallel arguments.

One is the argument about the immorality of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians and the Palestinian struggle for freedom. The other is an argument about proper and responsible institutional behaviour requiring adherence to the ethical duty not to contribute to oppression.

There are also university-specific arguments that stress the importance of free speech and academic inquiry on campus. These arguments must be harmonised in order to lead to more progressive policies on Israel.

It is not clear that these aims can be accomplished with a strictly identity-based theory of organising. Out of all correspondence I obtained from UC Hastings, only one letter came from an Arab alumnus who promised to halt donations because the school withdrew its support from the Litigating Palestine conference. While this is surely a sign that Arab alumni are generally not as organised or engaged, it is not clear that, if they were, they would have the numerical force necessary to counter the influence of the Israel lobby.

Rather than reducing the Palestinian issue from a human rights and ethical issue to an "Arab", "Muslim", or "Jewish" issue, it is more important to build bridges with other communities and interest groups on the basis of shared values.

Yaman Salahi is a third-year Arab-American student at Yale Law School and a member of Students for Justice in Palestine.

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/09/201192384847314840.htmlLink:

[scandal 951]

http://www.jstreetu.org/about/who-we-are

About J Street U

J Street U Mission Statement

J Street U is a student-driven network of activists organizing on campuses across North America for peace, security and social justice in Israel, the future state of Palestine and across the Middle East.

As supporters of Israel, we are firmly committed to protecting the future of the State of Israel as a Jewish democratic homeland. We believe the fates of a secure Israel and a viable Palestinian state are intertwined. The peace and security of both peoples is achievable only through a negotiated, two-state solution.

J Street U is committed to creating an alternate approach to Israel advocacy that embraces open dialogue and constructive activism, and that warrants critical analysis of policies – be they Israeli, Palestinian, American or other.

J Street U presents students with an opportunity to engage voices from both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide on campus. Polarizing voices claiming exclusively “pro-Israel” or “pro-Palestinian” positions have come to dominate the discourse on many campuses across North America, obscuring the complexity of the conflict and subsequently alienating significant numbers of students.

J Street U provides guidance, education and resources to students who seek to impart a progressive voice into the debate about Israel. We seek to empower student activists to advocate on campus, in their communities and on Capitol Hill for vigorous and sustained US leadership in facilitating a negotiated, two-state resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

J Street Education Fund Mission Statement

The J Street Education Fund, Inc, (JSEF) seeks to raise awareness among policy makers, community leaders and the broader public about issues related to Israel and the Middle East. Specifically, JSEF aims to build broad popular support for US policies that advance a lasting resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. JSEF’s pro-Israel advocacy emphasizes the importance of a peaceful resolution to Israel’s conflicts in order to ensure the long-term survival of a vibrant Jewish and democratic homeland.

Our Roots

Founded in 2004 by veteran members of the Israeli left and their American supporters – Ameinu, Meretz USA, Habonim Dror North America and Hashomer Hatzair North America – the Union of Progressive Zionists (UPZ) was created to present students on campus with an alternative to the extremist voices from both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian debate. This national network of student activists was active as the UPZ for 5 years and in May 2009, the UPZ became the J Street Education Fund, Inc. (JSEF) and all UPZ campus activities were incorporated into JSEF as “J Street U.”

[ready4ONE 5,400]

The Palestinians do have some points in the great debate, but honestly the PR campaign alleging an all encompassing Zionist Conspiracy controlling all aspects of American politics and education is more than a bit over the top.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

The Palestinians do have some points in the great debate, but honestly the PR campaign alleging an all encompassing Zionist Conspiracy controlling all aspects of American politics and education is more than a bit over the top.

How many nations can get caught spying on us yet don't pay a price? Israel has been busted several times for espionage at the highest levels of US military secrets yet we still give them billions of dollars ever year.

How much over the top? How many nations are against Palestinians having their own country other than Israel and the US? Why does the US give 3 billion dollars a year to Israel? Why is the US press afraid to criticize Israeli policies? Why is it that you see movies, books, and hours of programs in regards to the Holocaust yet you see nothing about the Bolsheviks who killed far more people, were around longer than the NAZI's and not only butchered millions of people but played a major part in the entire relocation of ethnic groups? Bolshevism was primarily a Jewish thing to begin with yet no nothing about the crimes committed by the perps.

Schindler List was a hit yet where's the movies about Jewish Bolsheviks starving to death millions of Ukrainians to the point they were committing cannibalism? We still read about Jewish organizations hunting pseudo NAZI's yet Israel doesn't have a problem harboring Jewish Bolshevik war criminals who are guilty of butchering of Eastern Europeans.

You need to connect the dots. The US is the back bone of Israel. No US, then no Israel. Hollywood, the US press/media, ...it goes deep and I mean really deep. When you read about a Jewish organization and it's goals to help with peace in the middle east...don't buy that garbage for one minute. The Jews in the US used the same technique when they were giving the Bolsheviks in Russia tens of millions of dollars in the beginning of the Bolshevik movement until 1948 knowing that millions of people were being butchered in the most barbaric of ways with the help of that money. Whenever you hear a Ashkenazi Jew mention the Holocaust ask that same person about the 20+ million people dead at the hands of the Bolsheviks. Hitler had a lot of help from Eastern and Central Europeans in regards to the Holocaust but why did he get so much help? Maybe because those same people saw Jewish camp guards deport entire family's in the middle of winter to Siberian labor camps knowing that most of those people would never survive the trip.

Edited September 27, 2011 by Why_Me

[kytwell 179]

How many nations can get caught spying on us yet don't pay a price? Israel has been busted several times for espionage at the highest levels of US military secrets yet we still give them billions of dollars ever year.

How about an outright attack on one of our ships?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/margolis12.html

http://www.usslibertyveterans.org/

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

How about an outright attack on one of our ships?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/margolis12.html

http://www.usslibertyveterans.org/

Yet no consequences for Israel. Those pilots knew what they were doing, it was an obvious lie yet no pay back whatsoever.

[kytwell 179]

Yet no consequences for Israel. Those pilots knew what they were doing, it was an obvious lie yet no pay back whatsoever.

I have watched a documentary on this tragedy several times and they were machine gunning down our men in life rafts. Absolutely disgusting! They must have some juicy dirt on us as we have been used for far too long.

[^_^ 5,021]

I have watched a documentary on this tragedy several times and they were machine gunning down our men in life rafts. Absolutely disgusting! They must have some juicy dirt on us as we have been used for far too long.

They have the President's real real real real birth certificate.

[luckytxn 2,264]

I have watched a documentary on this tragedy several times and they were machine gunning down our men in life rafts. Absolutely disgusting! They must have some juicy dirt on us as we have been used for far too long.

I have wondered why Israel was even created in the first place. Was it guilt we felt? Maybe it was more of hope all Jews would just up and move to Israel? Have no idea but after pretty much my whole life hearing and seeing about Israel's side and struggles in our media with very little views on the other side I started to seek out and find their side to try to have balance. I have learned much and more to go.

It does puzzle me that Israel's lobby is so powerful but I have learned that everything here is all about power. As usual if one follows the money then it becomes clear. The article twice mentioned that Palestine needed to group and pool their resources and start lobbying. And by lobbying I mean they need to do it the American way. Money.

[ready4ONE 5,400]

Appendix II

THE JEWISH-CONSPIRACY THEORY OF THE BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION

There is an extensive literature in English, French, and German reflecting the argument that the Bolshevik Revolution was the result of a "Jewish conspiracy"; more specifically, a conspiracy by Jewish world bankers. Generally, world control is seen as the ultimate objective; the Bolshevik Revolution was but one phase of a wider program that supposedly reflects an age-old religious struggle between Christianity and the "forces of darkness."

The argument and its variants can be found in the most surprising places and from quite surprising persons. In February 1920 Winston Churchill wrote an article — rarely cited today — for the London Illustrated Sunday Herald entitled "Zionism Versus Bolshevism." In this' article Churchill concluded that it was "particularly important... that the National Jews in every country who are loyal to the land of their adoption should come forward on every occasion . . . and take a prominent part in every measure for combatting the Bolshevik conspiracy." Churchill draws a line between "national Jews" and what he calls "international Jews." He argues that the "international and for the most atheistical Jews" certainly had a "very great" role in the creation of Bolshevism and bringing about the Russian Revolution. He asserts (contrary to fact) that with the exception of Lenin, "the majority" of the leading figures in the revolution were Jewish, and adds (also contrary to fact) that in many cases Jewish interests and Jewish places of worship were excepted by the Bolsheviks from their policies of seizure. Churchill calls the international Jews a "sinister confederacy" emergent from the persecuted populations of countries where Jews have been persecuted on account of their race. Winston Churchill traces this movement back to Spartacus-Weishaupt, throws his literary net around Trotsky, Bela Kun, Rosa Luxemburg, and Emma Goldman, and charges: "This world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing."

Churchill then argues that this conspiratorial Spartacus-Weishaupt group has been the mainspring of every subversive movement in the nineteenth century. While pointing out that Zionism and Bolshevism are competing for the soul of the Jewish people, Churchill (in 1920) was preoccupied with the role of the Jew in the Bolshevik Revolution and the existence of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy.

Another well-known author in the 1920s, Henry Wickham Steed describes in the second volume of his Through 30 Years 1892-1922 (p. 302) how he attempted to bring the Jewish-conspiracy concept to the attention of Colonel Edward M. House and President Woodrow Wilson. One day in March 1919 Wickham Steed called Colonel House and found him disturbed over Steed's recent criticism of U.S. recognition of the Bolsheviks. Steed pointed out to House that Wilson would be discredited among the many peoples and nations of Europe and "insisted that, unknown to him, the prime movers were Jacob Schiff, Warburg and other international financiers, who wished above all to bolster up the Jewish Bolshevists in order to secure a field for German and Jewish exploitation of Russia."1 According to Steed, Colonel House argued for the establishment of economic relations with the Soviet Union.

Probably the most superficially damning collection of documents on the Jewish conspiracy is in the State Department Decimal File (861.00/5339). The central document is one entitled "Bolshevism and Judaism," dated November 13, 1918. The text is in the form of a report, which states that the revolution in Russia was engineered "in February 1916" and "it was found that the following persons and firms were engaged in this destructive work":

(1) Jacob Schiff Jew

(2) Kuhn, Loeb & Company Jewish Firm

Management:  Jacob Schiff Jew

Felix Warburg Jew

Otto H. Kahn Jew

Mortimer L. Schiff Jew

Jerome J. Hanauer Jew

(3) Guggenheim  Jew

(4) Max Breitung Jew

(5) Isaac Seligman Jew

The report goes on to assert that there can be no doubt that the Russian Revolution was started and engineered by this group and that in April 1917

Jacob Schiff in fact made a public announcement and it was due to his financial influence that the Russian revolution was successfully accomplished and in the Spring 1917 Jacob Schitf started to finance Trotsky, a Jew, for the purpose of accomplishing a social revolution in Russia.

The report contains other miscellaneous information about Max Warburg's financing of Trotsky, the role of the Rheinish-Westphalian syndicate and Olof Aschberg of the Nya Banken (Stockholm) together with Jivotovsky. The anonymous author (actually employed by the U.S. War Trade Board)2 states that the links between these organizations and their financing of the Bolshevik Revolution show how "the link between Jewish multi-millionaires and Jewish proletarians was forged." The report goes on to list a large number of Bolsheviks who were also Jews and then describes the actions of Paul Warburg, Judus Magnes, Kuhn, Loeb & Company, and Speyer & Company.

The report ends with a barb at "International Jewry" and places the argument into the context of a Christian-Jewish conflict backed up by quotations from the Protocols of Zion. Accompanying this report is a series of cables between the State Department in Washington and the American embassy in London concerning the steps to be taken with these documents:3

5399 Great Britain, TEL. 3253 i pm

   October 16, 1919 In Confidential File

Secret for Winslow from Wright. Financial aid to Bolshevism & Bolshevik Revolution in Russia from prominent Am. Jews: Jacob Schiff, Felix Warburg, Otto Kahn, Mendell Schiff, Jerome Hanauer, Max Breitung & one of the Guggenheims. Document re- in possession of Brit. police authorities from French sources. Asks for any facts re-.

*  *  *  *  *

Oct. 17 Great Britain TEL. 6084, noon r c-h 5399 Very secret. Wright from Winslow. Financial aid to Bolshevik revolution in Russia from prominent Am. Jews. No proof re- but investigating. Asks to urge Brit. authorities to suspend publication at least until receipt of document by Dept. 

*  *  *  *  *

Nov. 28 Great Britain TEL. 6223 R 5 pro. 5399

FOR WRIGHT. Document re financial aid to Bolsheviki by prominent American jews. Reports — identified as French translation of a statement originally prepared in English by Russian citizen in Am. etc. Seem most unwise to give — the distinction of publicity.

It was agreed to suppress this material and the files conclude, "I think we have the whole thing in cold storage."

Another document marked "Most Secret" is included with this batch of material. The provenance of the document is unknown; it is perhaps FBI or military intelligence. It reviews a translation of the Protocols of the Meetings of the Wise Men of Zion, and concludes:

In this connection a letter was sent to Mr. W. enclosing a memorandum from us with regard to certain information from the American Military Attache to the effect that the British authorities had letters intercepted from various groups of international Jews setting out a scheme for world dominion. Copies of this material will be very useful to us.

This information was apparently developed and a later British intelligence report makes the flat accusation:

SUMMARY: There is now definite evidence that Bolshevism is an international movement controlled by Jews; communications are passing between the leaders in America, France, Russia and England with a view to concerted action....4

However, none of the above statements can be supported with hard empirical evidence. The most significant information is contained in the paragraph to the effect that the British authorities possessed "letters intercepted from various groups of international Jews setting out a scheme for world dominion." If indeed such letters exist, then they would provide support (or nonsupport) for a presently unsubstantiated hypothesis: to wit, that the Bolshevik Revolution and other revolutions are the work of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy.

Moveover, when statements and assertions are not supported by hard evidence and where attempts to unearth hard evidence lead in a circle back to the starting point — particularly when everyone is quoting everyone else — then we must reject the story as spurious. There is no concrete evidence that Jews were involved in the Bolshevik Revolution because they were Jewish. There may indeed have been a higher proportion of Jews involved, but given tsarist treatment of Jews, what else would we expect? There were probably many Englishmen or persons of English origin in the American Revolution fighting the redcoats. So what? Does that make the American Revolution an English conspiracy? Winston Churchill's statement that Jews had a "very great role" in the Bolshevik Revolution is supported only by distorted evidence. The list of Jews involved in the Bolshevik Revolution must be weighed against lists of non-Jews involved in the revolution. When this scientific procedure is adopted, the proportion of foreign Jewish Bolsheviks involved falls to less than twenty percent of the total number of revolutionaries — and these Jews were mostly deported, murdered, or sent to Siberia in the following years. Modern Russia has in fact maintained tsarist anti-Semitism.

It is significant that documents in the State Department files confirm that the investment banker Jacob Schiff, often cited as a source of funds for the Bolshevik Revolution, was in fact against support of the Bolshevik regime.5 This position, as we shall see, was in direct contrast to the Morgan-Rockefeller promotion of the Bolsheviks.

The persistence with which the Jewish-conspiracy myth has been pushed suggests that it may well be a deliberate device to divert attention from the real issues and the real causes. The evidence provided in this book suggests that the New York bankers who were also Jewish had relatively minor roles in supporting the Bolsheviks, while the New York bankers who were also Gentiles (Morgan, Rockefeller, Thompson) had major roles.

What better way to divert attention from the real operators than by the medieval bogeyman of anti-Semitism?

 

Footnotes:

1See Appendix 3 for Schiff's actual role.

2The anonymous author was a Russian employed by the U.S. War Trade Board. One of the three directors of the U.S. War Trade Board at this time was John Foster Dulles.

3U.S. State Dept. Decimal File, 861.00/5399.

4Great Britain, Directorate of Intelligence, A Monthly Review of the Progress of Revolutionary Movements Abroad, no. 9, July 16, 1913 (861.99/5067).

5See Appendix 3.

Source: http://www.reformed-theology.org/html/books/bolshevik_revolution/appendix_02.htm

[mawilson 2,133]

I have wondered why Israel was even created in the first place. Was it guilt we felt? Maybe it was more of hope all Jews would just up and move to Israel? Have no idea but after pretty much my whole life hearing and seeing about Israel's side and struggles in our media with very little views on the other side I started to seek out and find their side to try to have balance. I have learned much and more to go.

It does puzzle me that Israel's lobby is so powerful but I have learned that everything here is all about power. As usual if one follows the money then it becomes clear. The article twice mentioned that Palestine needed to group and pool their resources and start lobbying. And by lobbying I mean they need to do it the American way. Money.

Wow, such deep thoughts. Maybe you should stick to spewing "Obama the Socialist" bile.

[Usui Takumi 1,562]

I have wondered why Israel was even created in the first place. Was it guilt we felt? Maybe it was more of hope all Jews would just up and move to Israel? Have no idea but after pretty much my whole life hearing and seeing about Israel's side and struggles in our media with very little views on the other side I started to seek out and find their side to try to have balance. I have learned much and more to go.

It does puzzle me that Israel's lobby is so powerful but I have learned that everything here is all about power. As usual if one follows the money then it becomes clear. The article twice mentioned that Palestine needed to group and pool their resources and start lobbying. And by lobbying I mean they need to do it the American way. Money.

Israel created itself, as the United States created itself, as Mexico created itself, as Haiti created itself. In fact, if you are using "we" as the United States it wasn't until Kennedy that the US began providing military aid.

[Saddle Bronc 124]

How many nations can get caught spying on us yet don't pay a price? Israel has been busted several times for espionage at the highest levels of US military secrets yet we still give them billions of dollars ever year.

Another nation--Pakistan--has also been caught in that repeatedly:

• several cases of theft of Krytrons by Pakistanis--including Arshad Pervez in 1987 (caught when about to board a PIA flight at JFK)
• it was one of the nations for which articles stated the Pollards were spying when caught (fact: Pollard was no patriot to Israel, he sold any willing bidder)
• A.Q. Khan's nuclear sales network, busted 2004
• Mullen's recent statement that ISI had backed Haqqanis (ISI created Taliban, including Haqqani faction--and has given them much intel)

...

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/margolis12.html

...

Note for you: Eric Margolis lost any semblance of credibility in 1993 when he backed Brian Mulroney's Tories--and practically demanded in an editorial that Canadians (he didn't even bother getting citizenship of Canada) re-elect a party which had misruled the country nine years

also noted--NONE of the sites you mentioned considered that it was because the presence of the Liberty in the Med was due to a peacekeeping attempt by LBJ gone awry (motivation--1966 Tashkent Declaration brokered by Kosygin, which would certainly have bruised his ego)

Edited September 27, 2011 by Saddle Bronc

[kytwell 179]

Note for you: Eric Margolis lost any semblance of credibility in 1993 when he backed Brian Mulroney's Tories--and practically demanded in an editorial that Canadians (he didn't even bother getting citizenship of Canada) re-elect a party which had misruled the country nine years

also noted--NONE of the sites you mentioned considered that it was because the presence of the Liberty in the Med was due to a peacekeeping attempt by LBJ gone awry (motivation--1966 Tashkent Declaration brokered by Kosygin, which would certainly have bruised his ego)

PRO TIP FOR YOU: You did nothing to address the fact Israel sank a ship filled with American Sailors. To discredit sources does nothing to address the fact that Israel sank our ship or killed our men. They then decided to go "aid" them by pumping bullets into the ones who managed to get onto life rafts. Nice ally.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

PRO TIP FOR YOU: You did nothing to address the fact Israel sank a ship filled with American Sailors. To discredit sources does nothing to address the fact that Israel sank our ship or killed our men. They then decided to go "aid" them by pumping bullets into the ones who managed to get onto life rafts. Nice ally.

I know one of those sailors. Strange, but he doesn't blame the "######*". He says he would have done the same thing. That part of the story makes one wonder exactly what he knows that he still isn't saying.

* I am not allowed to used that common military shorthand, less I get suspended again.