[News] US's Role in the Creation of the State of Israel - The Origins of the Israel Lobby in the US
Anti-Imperialist News
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Fri Mar 21 12:15:49 EDT 2014
Weekend Edition March 21-23, 2014
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*America's Role in the Creation of the State of Israel*
The Origins of the Israel Lobby in the US
by ALISON WEIR
The immediate precursor to today's pro-Israel lobby began in 1939[i]
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under the leadership of Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver, originally from
Lithuania. He created the American Zionist Emergency Council (AZEC),
which by 1943 had acquired a budget of half a million dollars at a time
when a nickel bought a loaf of bread.[ii]
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In addition to this money, Zionists [adherents of "political Zionism," a
movement to create a Jewish state in Palestine] had become influential
in creating a fundraising umbrella organization, the United Jewish
Appeal, in 1939[iii]
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giving them access to the organization's gargantuan financial resources:
$14 million in 1941, $150 million by 1948. This was four times more than
Americans contributed to the Red Cross and was the equivalent of
approximately $1.5 billion today.[iv]
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With its extraordinary funding, AZEC embarked on a campaign to target
every sector of American society, ordering that local committees be set
up in every Jewish community in the nation [for decades the larger
majority of Jewish Americans had been either non-Zionits or actively
anti-Zionist]. In the words of AZEC organizer Sy Kenen, it launched "a
political and public relations offensive to capture the support of
Congressmen, clergy, editors, professors, business and labor."[v]
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AZEC instructed activists to "make direct contact with your local
Congressman or Senator" and to go after union members, wives and parents
of servicemen, and Jewish war veterans. AZEC provided activists with
form letters to use and schedules of anti-Zionist lecture tours to
oppose and disrupt.
A measure of its power came in 1945 when Silver disliked a British move
that would be harmful to Zionists. AZEC booked Madison Square Garden,
ordered advertisements, and mailed 250,000 announcements -- the first
day. By the second day they had organized demonstrations in 30 cities, a
letter-writing campaign, and convinced 27 U.S. Senators to give
speeches.[vi]
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Grassroots Zionist action groups were organized with more than 400 local
committees under 76 state and regional branches. AZEC funded books,
articles and academic studies; millions of pamphlets were distributed.
There were massive petition and letter writing campaigns. AZEC targeted
college presidents and deans, managing to get more than 150 to sign one
petition.[vii]
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Rabbi Elmer Berger, executive director of the American Council for
Judaism, which opposed Zionism in the 1940s and '50s, writes in his
memoirs that there was a "ubiquitous propaganda campaign reaching just
about every point of political leverage in the country."[viii]
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The Zionist Organization of America bragged of the "immensity of our
operations and their diversity" in its 48^th Annual Report, stating, "We
reach into every department of American life..."[ix]
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Berger and other anti-Zionist Jewish Americans tried to organize against
"the deception and cynicism with which the Zionist machine operated,"
but failed to obtain anywhere near their level of funding. Among other
things, would-be dissenters were afraid of "the savagery of personal
attacks" anti-Zionists endured.[x]
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Berger writes that when he and a colleague opposed a Zionist resolution
in Congress, Emanuel Celler, a New York Democrat who was to serve in
Congress for almost 50 years, told them: "They ought to take you b...s
out and shoot you."[xi]
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When it was unclear that President Harry Truman would support Zionism,
Cellar and a committee of Zionists told him that they had persuaded
Dewey to support the Zionist policy and demanded that Truman also take
this stand. Cellar reportedly pounded on Truman's table and said that if
Truman did not do so, "We'll run you out of town.[xii]
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Jacob Javits, another well-known senator, this time Republican, told a
Zionist women's group: "We'll fight to death and make a Jewish State in
Palestine if it's the last thing that we do."[xiii]
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Richard Stevens, author of /American Zionism and U.S. Foreign Policy,
1942-1947/, reports that Zionists infiltrated the boards of several
Jewish schools that they felt didn't sufficiently promote the Zionist
cause. When this didn't work, Stevens writes, they would start their own
pro-Zionist schools.[xiv]
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Stevens writes that in 1943-44 the ZOA distributed over a million
leaflets and pamphlets to public libraries, chaplains, community
centers, educators, ministers, writers and "others who might further the
Zionist cause."[xv]
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Alfred Lilienthal, who had worked in the State Department, served in the
U.S. Army in the Middle East from 1943-45, and became a member of the
anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism, reports that Zionist monthly
sales of books totaled between 3,000 and 4,000 throughout 1944-45.
Richard Stevens reports that Zionists subsidized books by non-Jewish
authors that supported the Zionist agenda. They would then promote these
books jointly with commercial publishers. Several of them became best
sellers.[xvi]
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*Zionists manufacture Christian support*
AZEC founder Silver and other Zionists played a significant role in
creating Christian support for Zionism.
Secret Zionist funds, eventually reaching $150,000 in 1946, were used to
revive an elitist Protestant group, the American Palestine Committee.
This group had originally been founded in 1932 by Emanuel Neumann, a
member of the Executive of the Zionist Organization. The objective was
to organize a group of prominent (mainly non-Jewish) Americans in moral
and political support of Zionism. Frankfurter was one of the main
speakers at its launch.[xvii]
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Silver's headquarters issued a directive saying, "In every community an
American Christian Palestine Committee must be immediately
organized."[xviii]
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Author Peter Grose reports that the Christian committee's operations
"were hardly autonomous. Zionist headquarters thought nothing of placing
newspaper advertisements on the clergymen's behalf without bothering to
consult them in advance, until one of the committee's leaders meekly
asked at least for prior notice before public statements were made in
their name."[xix]
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AZEC formed another group among clergymen, the Christian Council on
Palestine. An internal AZEC memo stated that the aim of both groups was
to "crystallize the sympathy of Christian America for our cause."[xx]
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By the end of World War II the Christian Council on Palestine had grown
to 3,000 members and the American Palestine Committee boasted a
membership of 6,500 public figures, including senators, congressmen,
cabinet members, governors, state officers, mayors, jurists, clergymen,
educators, writers, publishers, and civic and industrial leaders.
Historian Richard Stevens explains that Christian support was largely
gained by exploiting their wish to help people in need. Steven writes
that Zionists would proclaim "the tragic plight of refugees fleeing from
persecution and finding no home," thus linking the refugee problem with
Palestine as allegedly the only solution.[xxi]
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Stevens writes that the reason for this strategy was clear: "...while
many Americans might not support the creation of a Jewish state,
traditional American humanitarianism could be exploited in favor of the
Zionist cause through the refugee problems."[xxii]
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Few if any of these Christian supporters had any idea that the creation
of the Jewish state would entail a massive expulsion of hundreds of
thousands of non-Jews, who made up the large majority of Palestine's
population, creating a new and much longer lasting refugee problem.
Nor did they learn that during and after Israel's founding 1947-49 war,
Zionist forces attacked a number of Christian sites. Donald Neff, former
/Time Magazine/ Jerusalem bureau chief and author of five books on
Israel-Palestine, reports in detail on Zionist attacks on Christian
sites in May 1948, the month of Israel's birth.
Neff tells us that a group of Christian leaders complained that month
that Zionists had killed and wounded hundreds of people, including
children, refugees and clergy, at Christian churches and humanitarian
institutions.
For example, the group charged that "'many children were killed or
wounded' by Jewish shells on the Convent of Orthodox Copts...; eight
refugees were killed and about 120 wounded at the Orthodox
Armenian Convent...; and that Father Pierre Somi, secretary to the
Bishop, had been killed and two wounded at the Orthodox Syrian Church of
St. Mark."
"The group's statement said Arab forces had abided by their promise to
respect Christian institutions, but that the Jews had forcefully
occupied Christian structures and been indiscriminate in shelling
churches," reports Neff. He quotes a Catholic priest: "'Jewish soldiers
broke down the doors of my church and robbed many precious and sacred
objects. Then they threw the statues of Christ down into a nearby
garden.' [The priest] added that Jewish leaders had reassured that
religious buildings would be respected, 'but their deeds do not
correspond to their words.'"[xxiii]
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After Zionist soldiers invaded and looted a convent in Tiberias, the
U.S. Consulate sent a bitter dispatch back to the State
Department complaining of "the Jewish attitude in Jerusalem towards
Christian institutions."[xxiv]
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An American Christian Biblical scholar concurred, reporting that a
friend in Jerusalem had been told, "When we get control you can take
your dead Christ and go home."[xxv]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_edn25>
*Zionist Colonization Efforts in Palestine*
In order to reach their goal of a Jewish state in Palestine, Zionists
needed to clear the land of Muslim and Christian inhabitants and replace
them with Jewish immigrants.
This was a tall order, as Muslims and Christians accounted for more than
95 percent of the population of Palestine.[xxvi]
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Zionists planned to try first to buy up the land until the previous
inhabitants had emigrated; failing this, they would use violence to
force them out. This dual strategy was discussed in various written
documents cited by numerous Palestinian and Israeli historians.[xxvii]
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As this colonial project grew, the indigenous Palestinians reacted with
occasional bouts of violence; Zionists had anticipated this since people
usually resist being expelled from their land.
When the buyout effort was able to obtain only a few percent of the
land, Zionists created a number of terrorist groups to fight against
both the Palestinians and the British. Terrorist and future Israeli
Prime Minister Menachem Begin later bragged that Zionists had brought
terrorism both to the Middle East and to the world at large.[xxviii]
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By the eve of the creation of Israel, the Zionist immigration and buyout
project had increased the Jewish population of Palestine to 30
percent[xxix]
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and land ownership from 1 percent to approximately 6-7 percent.[xxx]
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This was in 1947, when the British at last announced that they would end
their control of Palestine. Britain turned the territory's fate over to
the United Nations.
Since a founding principle of the UN was "self-determination of
peoples," one would have expected to the UN to support fair, democratic
elections in which inhabitants could create their own independent
country.[xxxi]
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Instead, Zionists pushed for a General Assembly resolution to give them
a disproportionate 55 percent of Palestine.[xxxii]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_edn32>[xxxiii]
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(While they rarely announced this publicly, their plan, stated in
journal entries and letters, was to later take the rest of
Palestine.[xxxiv]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_edn34>)
*U.S. Officials oppose creation of Israel*
The U.S. State Department opposed this partition plan strenuously,
considering Zionism contrary to both fundamental American principles and
U.S. interests.
For example, the director of the State Department's Office of Near
Eastern and African Affairs consistently recommended against supporting
a Jewish state in Palestine. The director, named Loy Henderson, warned
that the creation of such a state would go against locals' wishes,
imperil U.S. interests and violate democratic principles.
Henderson emphasized that the U.S. would lose moral standing in the
world if it supported Zionism:
"At the present time the United States has a moral prestige in the
Near and Middle East unequaled by that of any other great power. We
would lose that prestige and would be likely for many years to be
considered as a betrayer of the high principles which we ourselves
have enunciated during the period of the [second world] war."[xxxv]
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When Zionists pushed the partition plan in the UN, Henderson recommended
strongly against supporting their proposal, saying that such a
partition would have to be implemented by force and was "not based on
any principle." He warned that partition "would guarantee that the
Palestine problem would be permanent and still more complicated in the
future..."
Henderson elaborated further on how plans to partition Palestine would
violate American and UN principles:
"...[Proposals for partition] are in definite contravention to
various principles laid down in the [UN] Charter as well as to
principles on which American concepts of Government are based. These
proposals, for instance, ignore such principles as
self-determination and majority rule. They recognize the principle
of a theocratic racial state and even go so far in several instances
as to discriminate on grounds of religion and race..."[xxxvi]
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Zionists attacked Henderson virulently, calling him "anti-Semitic,"
demanding his resignation, and threatening his family. They pressured
the State Department to transfer him elsewhere; one analyst describes
this as "the historic game of musical chairs" in which officials who
recommended Middle East policies "consistent with the nation's
interests" were moved on.[xxxvii]
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In 1948 Truman sent Henderson to the slopes of the Himalayas, as
Ambassador to Nepal (then officially
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/149591092X/counterpunchmaga>under India).[xxxviii]
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(In recent years, at times virtually every State Department country desk
has been directed by a Zionist.)[xxxix]
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But Henderson was far from alone in making his recommendations. He wrote
that his views were not only those of the entire Near East Division but
were shared by "nearly every member of the Foreign Service or of the
[State] Department who has worked to any appreciable extent on Near
Eastern problems."[xl]
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He wasn't exaggerating. Official after official and agency after agency
opposed Zionism.
In 1947 the CIA reported that Zionist leadership was pursuing objectives
that would endanger both Jews and "the strategic interests of the
Western powers in the Near and Middle East."[xli]
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Ambassador Henry F. Grady, who has been called "America's top diplomatic
soldier for a critical period of the Cold War," headed a 1946 commission
aimed at coming up with a solution for Palestine. Grady later wrote
about the Zionist lobby and its damaging effect on U.S. national interests.
"I have had a good deal of experience with lobbies but this group
started where those of my experience had ended," wrote Grady. "I have
headed a number of government missions but in no other have I ever
experienced so much disloyalty.... [I]n the United States, since there
is no political force to counterbalance Zionism, its campaigns are apt
to be decisive."[xlii]
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Grady concluded that without Zionist pressure, the U.S. would not have
had "the ill-will with the Arab states, which are of such strategic
importance in our 'cold war' with the soviets."[xliii]
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Former Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson also opposed Zionism.
Acheson's biographer writes that Acheson "worried that the West would
pay a high price for Israel." Another author, John Mulhall, records
Acheson's warning of the danger for U.S. interests:
"...to transform [Palestine] into a Jewish State capable of
receiving a million or more immigrants would vastly exacerbate the
political problem and imperil not only American but all Western
interests in the Near East."[xliv]
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The Joint Chiefs of Staff reported in late 1947, "A decision to
partition Palestine, if the decision were supported by the United
States, would prejudice United States strategic interests in the Near
and Middle East" to the point that "United States influence in the area
would be curtailed to that which could be maintained by military
force."[xlv]
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The Joint Chiefs issued at least sixteen papers on the Palestine issue
following World War II. They were particularly concerned that the
Zionist goal was to involve the U.S.
One 1948 paper predicted that "the Zionist strategy will seek to involve
[the United States] in a continuously widening and deepening series of
operations intended to secure maximum Jewish objectives."[xlvi]
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The CIA stated that Zionist leadership was pursuing objectives that
would endanger both Jews and "the strategic interests of the Western
powers in the Near and Middle East."[xlvii]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_edn47>
The head of the State Department's Division of Near Eastern Affairs,
Gordon P. Merriam, warned against the partition plan on moral grounds:
"U.S. support for partition of Palestine as a solution to that
problem can be justified only on the basis of Arab and Jewish
consent. Otherwise we should violate the principle of
self-determination which has been written into the Atlantic Charter,
the declaration of the United Nations, and the United Nations
Charter -- a principle that is deeply embedded in our foreign
policy. Even a United Nations determination in favor of
partition would be, in the absence of such consent, a stultification
and violation of UN's own charter." [xlviii]
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Merriam added that without consent, "bloodshed and chaos" would follow,
a tragically accurate prediction.
An internal State Department memorandum accurately predicted how Israel
would be born through armed aggression masked as defense:
"...the Jews will be the actual aggressors against the Arabs.
However, the Jews will claim that they are merely defending the
boundaries of a state which were traced by the UN.... In the event
of such Arab outside aid the Jews will come running to the Security
Council with the claim that their state is the object of armed
aggression and will use every means to obscure the fact that it is
their own armed aggression against the Arabs inside which is the
cause of Arab counter-attack."[xlix]
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And American Vice Consul William J. Porter foresaw one last outcome of
the "partition" plan: that no Arab state would actually ever come to be
in Palestine.[l]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_edn50>
/This essay is excerpted from Alison Weir's Against Our Better Judgment:
How the US was Used to Create Israel
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/149591092X/counterpunchmaga>./
/*Alison Weir* is the president of the Council for the National Interest
<http://www.councilforthenationalinterest.org/new/> and executive
director of If Americans Knew <http://ifamericansknew.org/>./
/Citations for this excerpt, which also contain additional information,
are available in the book
<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/149591092X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=149591092X&linkCode=as2&tag=ifamericankne-20>.
Discounted bulk orders can be obtained by writing
orders at ifamericansknew.org <mailto:orders at ifamericansknew.org>/
*Notes.*
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[i]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref1>
"American Zionist Movement (AZM)," /Jewish Virtual Library/, 2008,
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0002_0_00978.html.
[ii]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref2>
Neff, /Pillars/, 23.
The executive secretary of AZEC was a man named Isaiah Kenen, who went
on to found today's American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC),
rated as one of the most powerful lobbying organization in the U.S.
Grant Smith, in his book /Declassified Deceptions: the Secret History of
Isaiah L. Kenen// and the Rise of the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee/ (Washington, D.C.: Institute for Research: Middle Eastern
Policy, 2007) describes Kenen's activities in detail, particularly how
he worked to elude U.S. legal requirements that he register as a foreign
agent.
[iii]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref3>
Elmer Berger, /Memoirs of an Anti-Zionist// Jew/ (Beirut: Institute for
Palestine Studies, 1978), 9.
Originally there had been two organizations, the United Palestine Appeal
(the main Zionist fund-raising effort in the U.S.) and the American
Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which was dominated by non-Zionists
and which raised more money. Its purpose was to "provide assistance to
Jews in the countries in which they lived, hoping to facilitate their
eventual integration into those societies." Berger reports, "Never at a
loss for maneuver -- or dissembling-- however, the Zionist manager
persuaded the 'big givers' that a 'united campaign' would be more
efficient than the competing, double campaigns," and they managed to
push through the creation of the United Jewish Appeal.
[iv]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref4>
Christison, /Perceptions/, 73; Wilson, /Decision on Palestine/, 134.
Wilson reports that Zionists, wishing to pressure the U.S. government to
support partition and end its arms embargo, raised $35 million (the
equivalent of $349 million today) in just two weeks for the United
Jewish Appeal in just two weeks.
[v]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref5>
Neff, /Pillars/, 23; Tivnan, /The Lobby/, 24.
[vi]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref6>
Tivnan, /The Lobby/, 24
[vii]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref7>
Neff, /Pillars/, 23.
[viii]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref8>
Berger, /Memoirs/, 11.
In 1947 the American Council for Judaism submitted a 27-page memorandum
to the UN opposing Zionism. ACJ President Lessing J. Rosenwald railed
against what he termed Zionists' "anti-Semitic racialist lie that Jews
the world over were a separate, national body."
Smith, /Declassified Deceptions/, 29.
[ix]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref9>
Stevens, /American Zionism/, 101.
[x]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref10>
Berger, /Memoirs/, 17.
[xi]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref11>
Berger, /Memoirs/, 22.
[xii]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref12>
Wright, /Zionist// Cover-up/,/ /25.
Wright was General staff G-2 Middle East specialist, Washington,
1945-46; Bureau Near East-South Asian-African Affairs Department of
State, since 1946, country specialist 1946-47, advisor U.N. affairs,
1947-50, advisor on intelligence 1950-55. He retired from the State
Department in 1966.
[xiii]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref13>
Lilienthal, /What Price Israel/, 63.
[xiv]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref14>
Stevens, /American Zionism/, 24.
[xv]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref15>
Stevens, /American Zionism/, 22.
[xvi]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref16>
Stevens, /American Zionism/,/ /22-23.
[xvii]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref17>
Neff, /Pillars/, 23.
Herbert Hoover, "Message to the American Palestine Committee, January
17, 1932," /The American Presidency Project/,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=23121.
Patai, ed. "American Palestine Committee," /Encyclopaedia of
Zionism// and Israel/, accessed January 1, 2014,
http://www.iahushua.com/Zion/zionhol10.html.
[xviii]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref18>
Neff, /Pillars/, 23-24.
[xix]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref19>
Grose, /Mind of America/, 173.
[xx]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref20>
Neff, /Pillars/, 23-24.
[xxi]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref21>
Stevens, /American Zionism/, 28.
[xxii]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref22>
Stevens, /American Zionism/, 28.
Joseph M. Canfield, /The Incredible Scofield// and His Book/ (Vallecito,
CA: Ross House Books, 2004).
Researchers may wish to explore an interesting though speculative
discussion about what might have been an earlier effort by Zionists to
influence Christians. Many years before AZEC targeted Christians, an
annotated version of the bible known as the Scofield Reference Bible had
been published, which pushed what was a previously somewhat fringe
"dispensationalist" theology calling for the Jewish "return" to Palestine.
Some analysts have raised questions about Cyrus Scofield and how and why
the Oxford University Press published his book. Scofield, a Texas
preacher who had been something of a shyster and criminal and had
abandoned his first wife and children (when his wife then filed for
divorce, the court ruled in her favor, noting that Scofield was "...not
a fit person to have custody of the children"). (Canfield, /Incredible
Scofield/, 113) He mysteriously became a member of an exclusive New York
men's club in 1901. Biographer Joseph Canfield comments:
"The admission of Scofield to the Lotus Club, which could not have been
sought by Scofield, strengthens the suspicion that has cropped up
before, that someone was directing the career of C. I. Scofield."
(Canfield, /Incredible Scofield/, 220)
Canfield suggests that Wall Street lawyer Samuel Untermyer, who was also
a member of the Lotus Club, may have played a role in Scofield's
project, writing that "Scofield's theology was most helpful in getting
Fundamentalist Christians to back the international interest in one of
Untermyer's pet projects -- the Zionist Movement." (Canfield,
/Incredible Scofield/, 219)
Professor David Lutz, in "Unjust War Theory: Christian Zionism and the
Road to Jerusalem," writes: "Untermyer used Scofield, a Kansas city
lawyer with no formal training in theology, to inject Zionist ideas into
American Protestantism. Untermyer and other wealthy and influential
Zionists whom he introduced to Scofield promoted and funded the latter's
career, including travel in Europe."
David Lutz, "Unjust War Theory: Christian Zionism and the Road to
Jerusalem," in /Neo-Conned! Again: Hypocrisy, Lawlessness, and the Rape
of Iraq, /ed./ /D. Liam O'Huallachain and J. Forrest Sharpe (Vienna, VA:
Light in the Darkness Publications, 2005), 127-169.
According to the Untermyer Gardens Conservancy website, Untermyer "was a
partner in the law firm of Guggenheimer, Untermyer & Marshall, and was
the first lawyer in America to earn a one million dollar fee on a single
case. He was also an astute investor, and became extremely wealthy.
He was instrumental in the establishment of the Federal Reserve System,
was an influential Democrat and a close ally of Woodrow Wilson.
The bio continues: "Samuel Untermyer was one of the most prominent Jews
of his day in America. He was a prominent Zionist, and was President of
the Keren Hayesod. In addition, he was the national leader of an
unsuccessful movement in the early 1930's for a worldwide boycott of
Germany, and called for the destruction of Hitler's regime."
"Samuel Untermyer," /Untermyer// Gardens Conservancy/, accessed January
1, 2014,
http://www.untermyergardens.org/samuel-untermyer.html.
Irish journalist Maidhc Ó Cathail suggests that "absent such powerful
connections, it is hard to imagine 'this peer among scalawags' ever
getting a contract with Oxford University Press to publish his bible."
Maidhc O Cathail, "Zionism's Un-Christian Bible," /Middle East Online/,
November 25, 1999,
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=35914.
[xxiii]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref23>
Donald Neff, "Christians Discriminated Against By Israel," in /Fifty
Years of Israel/ (Michigan: American Educational Trust, 1998).
[xxiv]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref24>
Stephen Green, Taking Sides: America's Secret Relations with a Militant
Israel (Brattleboro: Amana, 1988), 20.
[xxv]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref25>
Millar Burrows, /Palestine// Is Our Business/ (Philadelphia:
Westminster, 1949), 116.
[xxvi]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref26>
See citation 7.
[xxvii]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref27>
Ilan Pappé, /The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine/ (Oxford: Oneworld, 2007).
Masalha Nur, /Expulsion of the Palestinians: The Concept of "Transfer"
in Zionist// Political Thought, 1882-1948/, 4th Ed. (Washington, DC:
Inst. for Palestine Studies, 2001).
Mazin Qumsiyeh, Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human Rights and the
Israeli-Palestinian Struggle (London: Pluto, 2004).
Mazin Qumsiyeh, "Palestinian Refugees Right to Return and Repatriation"
in /Sharing the Land of Canaan /(London: Pluto, 2004). Online at
http://ifamericansknew.org/history/ref-qumsiyeh.html.
[xxviii]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref28>
Russell Warren Howe, "Fighting the 'soldiers of Occupation' From WWII to
the Intifada," in /Seeing the Light: Personal Encounters with the Middle
East and Islam/, Ed. Richard H. Curtiss and Janet McMahon (Washington,
D.C.: American Educational Trust, 1997), 38-39.
Warren and his film crew were filming an interview with Begin in 1974.
"The red light had come on, under the lens. Without preamble, I turned
my shoulder to the camera, stared straight into Begin's eyes, and asked:
'How does it feel, in the light of all that's going on, to be the father
of terrorism in the Middle East?' 'In the Middle East?' he bellowed, in
his thick, cartoon accent. 'In all the world.'"
[xxix]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref29>
McCarthy, /Population of Palestine/, 35.
[xxx]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref30>
British Mandatory Commission, A Survey of Palestine: Prepared in
December 1945 and January 1946 for the Information of the Anglo-American
Committee of Inquiry (Washington, D.C.: Institute for Palestine Studies,
1991), 243-267.
This gives Jewish ownership in 1945 as approximately six percent.
A UN map showing percentages of each district can be seen at
http://domino.un.org/maps/m0094.jpg.
Israeli author Baruch Kimmerling gives the landownership in 1947 as
seven percent.
Robert J. Brym, review of /Zionism// and Territory: The
Socio-Territorial Dimensions of Zionist// Politics,/ by
Baruch Kimmerling, /The Canadian Journal of Sociology /11, no. 1 (1986), 80.
It is interesting to note that the Arab position was largely based on
democratic principles. At a British conference on Palestine in 1946,
Arabs presented a proposal "calling for the termination of the Mandate
and the independence of Palestine as a unitary state, with a provisional
governing council composed of seven Arabs and three Jews." (Wilson,
/Decision on Palestine/, 97)
[xxxi]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref31>
"Charter of the United Nations: Chapter I, Purposes and Principles."
UN News Center, accessed January 1, 2014,
http://www.un.org/en/documents/charter/chapter1.shtml.
[xxxii]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref32>
"United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181," The Avalon
Project,/ /accessed January 1, 2014,
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/un/res181.htm.
"UN Partition Plan,"/ BBC News/, November 29, 2001,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/middle_east/israel_and_the_palestinians/key_documents/1681322.stm.
For a US equivalent, see:
"UN Partition Applied To US," Palestine Remembered, September 10, 2001,
http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Maps/Story581.html.
[xxxiii]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref33>
Neff, /Pillars/, 41.
[xxxiv]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref34>
Noam Chomsky, The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and the
Palestinians (Boston: South End, 1983), 161.
"In internal discussion in 1938 [David Ben-Gurion] stated that 'after we
become a strong force, as a result of the creation of a state, we shall
abolish partition and expand into the whole of Palestine.'"
[xxxv]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref35>
Neff, /Pillars/, 30-31.
[xxxvi]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref36>
Neff, /Pillars/, 46-47.
[xxxvii]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref37>
Berger, /Memoirs/, 21.
Berger writes that in a personal conversation with him, Henderson had said:
"I hope you and your associates will persevere. And my reason for
wishing this is perhaps less related to what I consider American
interests in the Middle East than what I fear I see on the domestic
scene. The United States is a great power. Somehow it will surmount even
its most foolish policy errors in the Middle East. But in the process
there is a great danger of creating divisiveness and anti-Semitism among
our own people. And if this danger materializes to a serious extent, we
have seen in Germany and in Europe that the ability of a nation to
survive the consequences is in serious question."
[xxxviii]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref38>
Richard D. McKinzie, "Oral History Interview with Edwin M.
Wright," /Truman// Library/, Wooster, OH, July 26, 1974,
http://www.trumanlibrary.org/oralhist/wright.htm.
"Mr. Henderson was, therefore, told, 'You've got to leave the State
Department or the Zionists are going to keep after us.' The State
Department suggested he be sent as an ambassador to Turkey. The Zionists
had a clearance process going and they said, 'No, that's too near the
Middle East, we want to get him completely away from the Middle East.'
The result was that they sent him as ambassador to India to get him out
of the area completely."
[xxxix]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref39>
Revealed during conversation with State Department associate.
[xl]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref40>
Neff, /Pillars/, 46; Wilson, /Decision/, 117; Wright,
/Zionist// Cover-up/,/ /21.
[xli]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref41>
Green, /Taking Sides/,/ /20.
[xlii]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref42>
Henry Grady, "Chapter 9," /Adventures in Diplomacy /(unpublished
manuscript),/ /(Washington D.C.: Truman Library, n.d.), 170. Online at
http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/israel/large/documents/index.php?documentdate=0000-00-00&documentid=4-7&studycollectionid=ROI&pagenumber=1
<http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/israel/large/documents/index.php?documentdate=0000-00-00&documentid=4-7&studycollectionid=ROI&pagenumber=1>.
Henry Francis Grady and John T. McNay, /The Memoirs of Ambassador Henry
F. Grady//: from the Great War// to the Cold War/ (Columbia, MO:
University of Missouri, 2009). Online at
http://books.google.com/books?id=7BKTLX0mppoC&hl=en
<http://books.google.com/books?id=7BKTLX0mppoC&hl=en>.
[xliii]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref43>
Grady, /Adventures/, 166.
Benzion Netanyahu, a Zionist who travelled to the US from Palestine to
propagandize Americans and father of future Israeli Prime Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu, tried -- unsuccessfully -- to use the Cold War as a
rationale for the U.S. to support Israel. Netanyahu believed that
"arguments appealing to American fears of Soviet expansion" would be the
best way to win over U.S. officials. He used this argument in 1947 in
meetings with Loy Henderson and General Dwight Eisenhower, but found no
takers, (though Eisenhower arranged for him to meet with someone else).
(Medoff, /Militant Zionism/, 146)
[xliv]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref44>
Mulhall, /America/, 130.
Robert L. Beisner, /Dean Acheson//: a Life in the Cold War/ (Oxford:
Oxford UP, 2006), 215.
[xlv]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref45>
Mark Perry, "Petraeus wasn't the first," /Foreign Policy/, April 2,
2010,
http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/04/01/petraeus_wasnt_the_first.
[xlvi]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref46>
Perry, "Petraeus wasn't the first."
The paper speculated that the eventual goal was sovereignty over "Eretz
Israel," which included Transjordan and parts of Lebanon and Syria.
[xlvii]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref47>
Green, /Taking Sides/, 20.
[xlviii]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref48>
Neff, /Pillars/, 42-43.
[xlix]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref49>
Neff, /Pillars/, 65. Citation: "Draft Memorandum by the Director of
the Office of United Nations Affairs (Rusk) to the Under Secretary of
State (Lovett)," Secret, Washington May 4, 1948, /FRUS 1948/, pp. 894-95.
[l]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/the-origins-of-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us/#_ednref50>
Wilson, /Decision on Palestine/, 131.
--
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