In de visie van opiniemaker Ian Buruma wordt de geschiedenis bepaald door het witte, christelijke Westen, daarbij gesteund door de ‘Joden,’ met een hoofdletter omdat hij joden buiten Israel allereerst als ‘Jood’ ziet, inclusief zichzelf, aangezien zijn overgrootouders van moederskant ‘German Jews’ waren. In The New York Times Magazine van 29 november 2016 geeft Buruma onder de kop ‘The End of the Anglo-American Order’ de volgende voorstelling van zaken:
A month before Trump’s election and three months after the Brexit vote, I visited the great military historian Sir Michael Howard at his home in rural England. As a young man, Howard fought the Germans as an officer in the British Army. He landed in Italy in 1943 and took part in the decisive battle of Salerno, for which he was awarded the Military Cross. John Wayne and Kenneth More were a fantasy. Sir Michael was the real thing. He is 95 years old.
After lunch at a local pub, just a few miles from where my grandparents used to live, we talked about Brexit, the war, American politics, Europe and our families. The setting could not have been more English, with the pale autumn sun setting over the rolling hills of Berkshire. Like my great-grandparents, Sir Michael’s maternal grandparents were German Jews who moved to England, where they did very well. Like mine, his family of immigrants became utterly British. In addition to being Regius professor of history at Oxford University, Howard taught at Yale. He knows America well and has no illusions about the ‘special relationship,’ which he believes was invented by Churchill and was always much overblown.
Sitting in his drawing room, with books piled up around us, many of them about World War II, I wanted to hear his thoughts on Brexit. He replied in a tone of resigned melancholy more than outrage. Brexit, he said, ‘is accelerating the disintegration of the Western world.’ Contemplating that world, so carefully constructed after the war he fought in, he said: ‘Perhaps it was just a bubble in an ocean.’ I asked him about the special Anglo-American relationship. ‘Ah, “the special relationship,”’ he said. ‘It was a necessary myth, a bit like Christianity. But now where do we go?’
Where indeed? The last hope of the West might be Germany, the country that Michael Howard fought against and that I hated as a child. Angela Merkel’s message to Trump on the day after his victory was a perfect expression of Western values that are still worth defending. She would welcome a close cooperation with the United States, she said, but only on the basis of ‘democracy, freedom and respect for the law and the dignity of man, independent of origin, skin color, religion, gender, sexual orientation or political views.’ Merkel spoke as the true heiress of the Atlantic Charter.
Germany, too, once thought it was the exceptional nation. This ended in a worldwide catastrophe. The Germans learned their lesson. They no longer wanted to be exceptional in any way, which is why they were so keen to be embedded in a unified Europe. The last thing Germans wanted was to lead other countries, especially in any military sense. This is the way Germany’s neighbors wished it as well. Pax Americana seemed vastly preferable to a revival of German exceptionalism. I still think so. But looking once more at that photograph of the Donald and Farage, baring their teeth in glee, thumbs held high, with the gold from the elevator door glinting in their hair, I wonder whether Germany might not be compelled to question a lesson it learned a little too well.
Kennelijk is deze joodse achtergrond voor hem buitengewoon relevant, aangezien Buruma dit tweemaal laat weten: 'Like my great-grandparents, Sir Michael’s maternal grandparents were German Jews who moved to England,' en eerder in hetzelfde artikel dat ‘Jews from Russia or Lithuania, or from Germany, like my own great-grandparents, flocked to Britain as immigrants in the hope that they, too, could become English gentlemen.’ Waarom oordeelt Ian Buruma, telg van een oer-Friese familie, het van zo groot belang om tegenover het lezerspubliek van The New York Times Magazine te benadrukken dat hij van moederzijde een ‘Joodse’ achtergrond heeft? De reden is eenvoudigweg dat The New York Times een krant is met een traditiegetrouw hoog percentage joodse medewerkers, een feit dat door de redactie met de nodige zelfspot wordt behandeld, zoals ik in 1974 ontdekte toen ik de redactieburelen nabij Times Square bezocht. Door het ‘Joodse’ te beklemtonen wil Buruma het doen voorkomen dat hij er echt bij hoort. Sterker nog: de kern van zijn betoog is een waarschuwing aan de ‘Anglo-Amerikaanse Joden,’ die zo succesvol geïntegreerd zijn in de machtsstructuur dat zij nu in de VS de dienst lijken uit te maken. Niet echt natuurlijk, want er is altijd nog de ‘deep state,’ maar zolang neoconservatieve en neoliberale joodse Amerikanen en joodse Engelsen de 'deep state' blijven dienen, mogen ze meedoen, en fungeren ze als ‘shtadlonus,’ de ‘hofjoden,’ over wie Hannah Arendt schreef in haar in 1945 geschreven essay Het Zionisme Bij Nader Inzien. Want ondanks Ian Buruma’s lofzang op de ‘relatively open' zogeheten 'Anglo-Amerikaanse' samenlevingen, was in werkelijkheid de situatie ondermeer als volgt:
Not until the early 1960's did Yale University end an informal admissions policy that restricted Jewish enrollment to about 10 percent, according to a new book published by Yale University Press.
The book, ‘Joining the Club,’ which began as a sophomore term paper by Dan A. Oren, a 1979 Yale graduate, documents anti-Semitism reaching from fraternity brothers to board trustees. Much of the research is based on university documents.
One document, a folder now in the university archives, labeled ‘Jewish Problem,’ contains a memo from the admissions chairman of 1922 urging limits on 'the alien and unwashed element.' The next year, the admissions committee enacted the 'Limitation of Numbers' policy, an informal quota. Jewish enrollment was held to about 10 percent for four decades.
'There were vicious, ugly forms of discrimination at Yale, as with the larger society,’ the current Yale University Secretary, John A. Wilkinson, said. 'It's part of our history, and we should face up to it.’
The book, he said, has uncovered 'what we've all suspected and some have known for a long time.’
http://www.nytimes.com/1986/03/04/nyregion/yale-s-limit-on-jewish-enrollment-lasted-until-early-1960-s-book-says.html
Natuurlijk is het eeuwenoude 'Anglo-Amerikaanse' antisemitisme niet in één klap verdwenen, het is ondergronds gegaan. Voor een aanzienlijk deel wordt het nu op de Semitische Arabieren geprojecteerd. Vanzelfsprekend kan een cultuur die zich ‘exceptionalistisch’ beschouwd, superieur aan alle andere, niet zonder een als inferieur beschouwde groep bestaan. Inmiddels geldt voor joodse Amerikanen dat zij tot ‘de club zijn toegetreden,’ zoals de titel van het bij Yale University Press uitgegeven boek luidt. Niet alleen zijn zij tot de elites toegetreden, maar zij bezitten daar een onevenredig grote invloed. Bill Clinton sprak uit ervaring toen hij verklaarde dat de joodse pressiegroep AIPAC 'beter dan wie dan ook in deze stad lobbyt… U bent verbluffend effectief geweest.’ Niemand verbaasde zich over de woorden van de oud-president, wiens verkiezingscampagnes mede door de Israëllobby werden gefinancierd en wiens Midden-Oosten politiek door rijke joodse Amerikanen sterk beïnvloed was. In 2003 omschreef de toenmalige Nationaal Veiligheidsadviseur Condoleezza Rice AIPAC als ‘een grote aanwinst voor ons land,’ en de hoofdredacteur van het joodse dagblad The Forward, J.J. Goldberg, concludeerde dat
Israël vooral geluk heeft dat AIPAC in dit land bestaat om Israëls zaak te vertegenwoordigen. AIPAC werkt hard om er zeker van te zijn dat Amerika in grote lijnen Israëls kijk op de wereld en het Midden-Oosten bekrachtigt… AIPAC heeft veel invloed op de buitenlandse politiek.
De Amerikaanse auteur Martin Sieff, destijds ‘Managing Editor for International Affairs’ bij het persbureau UPC, constateerde in 1999 dat de
macht van AIPAC om financiële steun te mobiliseren voor pro-Israëlkandidaten… zo groot is dat dit jaar, zoals gebruikelijk, ongeveer de helft van de leden van de Senaat en een een derde van het Huis van Afgevaardigden verwacht worden… bij het politieke banket van AIPAC’s jaarlijkse conferentie.
In 1992 moest David Steiner als president van AIPAC terugtreden nadat was uitgelekt dat er geluidsopnamen bestonden waarop hij vertelt over zijn grote politieke invloed. Zo had hij verklaard dat hij ‘een deal had gesloten’ met de regering-Bush senior om meer geld aan Israël te geven. Hij had gezorgd voor ‘bijna een miljard dollar aan spullen,’ en ‘onderhandelde’ met de aantredende regering-Clinton over de benoeming van een pro-Israël minister van Buitenlandse Zaken. ‘Wij hebben een tiental mensen in zijn [Clintons] hoofdkwartier en ze gaan allemaal hoge posten krijgen.’ De goed geïnformeerde journalist Michael Massing schreef in The New York Review of Books dat een staflid uit het Congres hem verteld had dat ‘we op meer dan de helft van het Huis van Afgevaardigden kunnen rekenen – 250 tot 300 leden – om voor elkaar te krijgen wat AIPAC wil.’ Steven Rosen, de voormalige AIPAC-medewerker die werd aangeklaagd wegens het - naar verluidt - doorspelen van geheime Amerikaanse staatsdocumenten aan Israël, zei tijdens een diner met een journalist van The New Yorker: ‘Binnen 24 uur hebben wij de handtekeningen van 70 senatoren (van de in totaal 100, svh) op dit servet staan als dat zou moeten.’ De voormalige Democratische senator Ernest Hollings vatte de joods-zionistische invloed als volgt samen: ‘Er is geen andere Israël politiek mogelijk dan die welke AIPAC hier bepaalt.’ Het zijn al deze feiten die ertoe leidden dat Ehud Olmert als Israelische premier eens publiekelijk verklaarde: ‘Dank God dat wij AIPAC hebben, de grootste verdediger en vriend die we in de hele wereld hebben.’ Begin maart 2015 demonstreerde de Israëlische premier Netanyahu nog eens dat de joodse lobby in de VS één van de machtigste zo niet de machtigste groepering is, toen hij tijdens ‘a joint meeting of the Congress’ in totaal ‘26 standing ovations’ kreeg van de Amerikaanse volksvertegenwoordigers, terwijl toch de ‘joden’ in de VS, of in elk geval degenen die daarvoor doorgaan, slechts twee procent van de bevolking vormen. Netanyahu's vertoning, die tevens een tik op de vingers was van president Obama, werd door de joods-Amerikaanse komiek Jon Stewart veelzeggend gekwalificeerd als de 'longest blowjob a Jewish man has ever received.’ Een half jaar eerder had de Amerikaanse journalist/schrijver Chris Hedges het volgende verklaard:
I would like to begin by speaking about the people of Gaza. Their suffering is not an abstraction to me. I was the Middle East bureau chief for The New York Times. I spent seven years in the region. I speak Arabic. And for much of that time I was in Gaza, including when Israeli fighter jets and soldiers were attacking it.
I have stood over the bodies, including the bodies of children, left behind by Israeli airstrikes and assaults. I have watched mothers and fathers cradle their dead and bloodied boys and girls in their arms, convulsed by an indescribable grief, shrieking in pitiful cries to an indifferent universe.
And in this charnel house, this open-air prison where 1.8 million people, nearly half of them children, live trapped in an Israeli ghetto, I have witnessed the crimes of occupation — the food shortage, the stifling overcrowding, the contaminated water, the lack of health services, the crippling poverty, the endemic unemployment, the fear and the despair. As I have witnessed this mass of human suffering I have heard from the power elites in Jerusalem and Washington the lies told to justify state terror.
An impoverished, captive people that lack an army, a navy, an air force, mechanized units, drones, artillery and any semblance of command and control do not pose a threat to Israel. And Israel’s indiscriminate use of modern, industrial weapons to kill hundreds of innocents, wound thousands more and make tens of thousands of families homeless is not a war. It is state-sponsored terror and state-sponsored murder.
The abject failure by our political class to acknowledge this fact, a fact that to most of the rest of the world is obvious, exposes the awful banality of our political system, the cynical abandonment of the most vulnerable of the earth for campaign contributions. Money, after all, has replaced the vote.
The refusal to speak out for the people of Gaza is not tangential to our political life. The pathetic, Stalinist-like plebiscite in the [U.S.] Senate, where all 100 senators trotted out like AIPAC windup dolls to cheer on the Israeli bombing of homes, apartment blocks, schools—where hundreds of terrified families were taking shelter—water treatment plants, power stations, hospitals, and of course boys playing soccer on a beach, exposes the surrender of our political class to cash-rich lobbying groups and corporate power. The people of Gaza are expendable. They are poor. They are powerless. And they have no money. Just like the poor people of color in this country whose bodies, locked in cages, enrich the prison-industrial complex.
Juist daarom spelen de Palestijnse bevolking en de Amerikaanse moslims geen rol van betekenis in de Amerikaanse en trouwens ook in de Europese politiek. De joods-zionistische lobby is te invloedrijk. Al in 1985 verscheen een 362 pagina’s tellende studie over de buitensporige invloed van deze pressiegroep, getiteld They Dare To Speak Out. People and Institutions Confront Israel's Lobby. Het was geschreven door Paul Findley, 22 jaar lang een vooraanstaand Congreslid en 'senior member of the House Middle East Committee.' Mei 2003 verscheen bij de Chicago Review Press de volgende beschrijving van Findley’s boek:
The first book to speak out against the pervasive influence of the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on American politics, policy, and institutions resonates today as never before. With careful documentation and specific case histories, former congressman Paul Findley demonstrates how the Israel lobby helps to shape important aspects of U.S. foreign policy and influences congressional, senatorial, and even presidential elections. Described are the undue influence AIPAC exerts in the Senate and the House and the pressure AIPAC brings to bear on university professors and journalists who seem too sympathetic to Arab and Islamic states and too critical of Israel and its policies. Along with many longtime outspoken critics, new voices speaking out include former President Jimmy Carter, U.S. Representative Cynthia McKinney, Senator Robert Byrd, prominent Arab-American Dr. Ziad Asali, Rabbi Michael Lerner, and journalist Charles Reese. In addition, the lack of open debate among politicians with regard to the U.S. policy in the Middle East is lamented, and AIPAC is blamed in part for this censorship. Connections are drawn between America’s unconditional support of Israel and the raging anti-American passions around the world — and ultimately the tragic events of 9/11.
Paul Findley's uitgebreid gedocumenteerd onderzoek toont aan hoe Amerikaanse volksvertegenwoordigers door de pro-Israel lobby permanent onder druk worden gezet en zelfs politiek gechanteerd. Zo beschreef hij het lot van één van de belangrijkste naoorlogse senatoren, te weten William Fulbright de ‘longest serving chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’ en 30 jaar lang lid van het Amerikaanse Congres. Dat hij één van de meest gerespecteerde senatoren was uit de Amerikaanse geschiedenis blijkt tevens uit de opmerking van de bekende senator Frank Church, 'candidate for the Democratic nomination in the 1976 presidential election, losing to Jimmy Carter. He is known for heading the Church Committee, which investigated abuses in the U.S. intelligence agencies.' Church verklaarde: 'When all of us are dead, the only one they'll remember is Bill Fulbright.' Om een waarheidsgetrouw beeld te krijgen van William Fulbright, naar wie het 'prestigieuze Amerikaanse uitwisselingsprogramma voor studenten in het Hoger Onderwijs, het zogenaamde Fulbright-programma, werd genoemd,' blijf ik wat langer bij hem stilstaan. Bovendien laat zijn loopbaan zo duidelijk het verzet zien tegen de corrumpering van de Amerikaanse politiek. Eerst een fragment uit Fulbright's boek The Pentagon Propaganda Machine (1971):
Since the 1950s, as we have moved from crisis to crisis, the constitutional responsibilities of the Congress have been eroded in dangerous measure by the diversion of power to the President and the Joint Chiefs and the Department of State.
It seems to me we have grown distressingly used to war… War and the military have become a part of our environment, like pollution.
Violence is our most important product. We have been spending nearly $80 billion a year on the military, which is more than the profits of all American business, or, to make another comparison, is almost as much as the total spending of the federal, state, and local governments for health, education, old age and retirement benefits, housing, and agriculture. Until the past session of the Congress, these billions have been provided to the military with virtually no questions asked.
The military has been operating for years in that Elysium of the public relations man, a seller's market. Take the climate into which the Sentinel ABM program was introduced. Many people looked on it, as they now look on Safeguard, not as a weapon but as a means of prosperity. For the industrialist it meant profits; for the worker new jobs and the prospect of higher wages; for the politician a new installation or defense order with which to ingratiate himself with his constituents… There are 22,000 major corporate defense contractors and another 100,000 subcontractors. Defense plants or installations are located in 363 of the country's 435 congressional districts. Even before it turns its attention to the public-at-large, the military has a large and sympathetic audience for its message.
These millions of Americans who have a vested interest in the expensive weapons systems spawned by our global military involvements are as much a part of the military-industrial complex as the generals and the corporation heads. In turn they have become a powerful force for the perpetuation of those involvements, and have had an indirect influence on a weapons development policy that has driven the United States into a spiraling arms race with the Soviet Union and made us the world's major salesman of armaments…
Militarism has been creeping up on us during the past thirty years… Today we have more than 3.5 million men in uniform and nearly 28 million veterans of the armed forces in the civilian population… The American public has become so conditioned by crises, by warnings, by words that there are few, other than the young, who protest against what is happening.
The situation is such that last year Senator Allen J. Ellender of Louisiana, hardly an apostle of the New Left, felt constrained to say:
‘For almost twenty years now, many of us in the Congress have more or less blindly followed our military spokesmen. Some have become captives of the military. We are on the verge of turning into a military nation.’
This militarism that has crept up on us is bringing about profound changes in the character of our society and government-changes that are slowly undermining democratic procedure and values.
James William Fulbright. The Pentagon Propaganda Machine. 1971
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Pentagon_military/Pentagon_Propaganda_JWF.html En: http://eca.state.gov/fulbright/about-fulbright/history/j-william-fulbright En: http://www.amazon.com/Pentagon-propaganda-machine-William-Fulbright/dp/0871405229
Fulbright was een ware democraat, zoals ondermeer keer op keer bleek uit zijn kritische opstelling tegenover fanatisme. Paul Findley in They Dare To Speak Out:
Fulbright first gained national attention by condemning the 'swinish blight' of McCarthyism. (de heksenjacht op progressieve Amerikanen. svh) In 1954 while many Americans cheered the crusade of the Wisconsin Senator's Permanent Investigations Subcommittee, Fulbright cast the lone vote against a measure to continue the subcommittees funding. Because of this vote he was accused of being 'a Communist, a fellow traveler, an atheist, [and] a man beneath contempt.'
Fulbright opposed U.S. intervention in Cuba in 1961 and in the Dominican Republic four years later, and was ahead of his time in calling for detente with the Soviet Union and a diplomatic opening with China. When he proposed a different system for selecting presidents, Harry Truman was offended and called him 'that over-educated Oxford son of a bitch.' Twenty-five years later, in 1974, the New York Times recognized him as 'the most outspoken critic of American foreign policy of his generation.
His deepest and most abiding interest is the advancement of international understanding through education, and thousands of young people have broadened their vision through the scholarships that bear his name. But Fulbright became well known for his outspoken opposition to the Vietnam War as 'an endless, futile war, […] debilitating and indecent' — a stand which put him at odds with a former colleague and close friend, President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Fulbright geloofde niet in de zogeheten 'dominotheorie' — de doctrine van de toenmalige westerse elites — die ervan uitging dat het communisme alle landen in het grondstoffenrijke Zuid-Oost Azië één voor één in handen zou krijgen, zodra er maar één van die landen communistisch zou worden. Hij begreep onmiddellijk dat hier sprake was van datgene wat hij de 'arrogance of power' noemde van de Amerikaanse politieke, economische en financiële machthebbers. Even kritisch stond hij tegenover de verregaande zionistische invloed op de Amerikaanse buitenlandse politiek. Findley:
In 1963 Fulbright chaired an investigation that brought to public attention the exceptional tax treatment of contributions to Israel and aroused the ire of the Jewish community. The investigation was managed by Walter Pincus, a journalist Fulbright hired after reading a Pincus study of lobbying. Pincus recalls that Fulbright gave him a free hand, letting him choose the ten prime lobbying activities to be examined and backing him throughout the controversial investigation. One of the groups chosen by Pincus, himself Jewish, was the Jewish Telegraph Agency — at that time a principal instrument of the Israeli lobby. Both Fulbright and Pincus were accused of trying to destroy the Jewish Telegraph Agency and of being anti-Semitic.
Pincus remembers, 'Several Senators urged that the inquiry into the Jewish operation be dropped. Senators Hubert Humphrey and Bourke Hickenlooper (senior Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee) were among them. Fulbright refused.'
The Fulbright hearings also exposed the massive funding illegally channelled into the American Zionist Council by Israel. More than five million dollars had been secretly poured into the Council for spending on public relations firms and pro-Israel propaganda before Fulbright's committee closed down the operation.
Despite his concern over the pro-Israel lobby, Fulbright took the exceptional step of recommending that the United States guarantee Israeli's borders. In a major address in 1970 he proposed an American-Israeli treaty under which the United States would commit itself to intervene militarily if necessary to 'guarantee the territory and independence of Israel' within the lands it held before the 1967 war.
Maar zoals nu duidelijk is geworden, willen de zionistische extremisten deze ‘garantie’ juist niet, omdat voor het chronisch met waterschaarste kampende Israel, de Westbank, met zijn omvangrijke aquifers, wordt geclaimd als onvervreemdbaar Joods. Vanuit die optiek moet het bericht worden geïnterpreteerd op de voorpagina van de International New York Times van dinsdag 17 maart 2015, dat 'Netanyahu says he won't back state for Palestinians.' Vandaar ook dat de grenzen van de meeste illegale Joodse nederzettingen parallel lopen met de ondergrondse watervoorraden. Findley schreef in They Dare To Speak Out over Fulbright's voorstel voor een Amerikaans-Israelisch verdrag dat de 'Joodse staat' zou beschermen:
The treaty, he said, should be a supplement to a peace settlement arranged by the United Nations. The purpose of his proposal was to destroy the arguments of those who maintained that Israel needed the captured territory for its security.
Fulbright saw Israel's withdrawal from the Arab lands it occupied in the 1967 war as the key to peace: Israel could not occupy Arab territory and have peace too. He said that Israeli policy in establishing settlements on the territories 'has been characterized by lack of flexibility and foresight.' Discounting early threats by some Arab leaders to destroy the state of Israel, Fulbright noted that both President Nasser of the United Arab Republic and King Hussein of Jordan had in effect repudiated such Draconian threats, 'but the Israelis seem not to have noticed the disavowals.'
During the 1970s Fulbright repeatedly took exception to the contention that the Middle East crisis was a test of American resolve against Soviet interventionism. In 1971 he accused Israel of 'communist-baiting humbuggery' and argued that continuing Middle East tension, in fact, only benefited Soviet interests.
Appearing on CBS television's Face the Nation in 1973, Fulbright declared that the Senate was 'subservient' to Israeli policies that were inimical to American interests. He said that the United States bore 'a very great share of the responsibility' for the continuation of Middle East violence. 'It's quite obvious [that] without the all-out support by the United States in money and weapons and so on, the Israelis couldn't do what they've been doing.'
Fulbright said that the United States failed to pressure Israel for a negotiated settlement, because:
The great majority of the Senate of the United States-somewhere around 80 percent-are completely in support of Israel, anything Israel wants. This has been demonstrated time and time again, and this has made it difficult for our government.
The senator claimed that 'Israel controls the Senate' and warned, 'We should be more concerned about the United States' interests.' Six weeks after his 'Face the Nation' appearance, Fulbright again expressed alarm over Israeli occupation of Arab territories. He charged that the United States had given Israel 'unlimited support for unlimited expansion.'
His criticism of Israeli policy caused stirrings back home. 17 Jews who had supported him in the past became restless. After years of easy election victories, trouble loomed for Fulbright in 1974. Encouraged, in part, by the growing Jewish disenchantment with Fulbright, on the eve of the deadline for filing petitions of candidacy in the Democratic primary Governor Dale Bumpers surprised the political world by becoming a challenger for Fulbright's Senate seat.
Dale Bumpers werd werd naar voren geschoven met steun van de zionistische lobby om de kritische stem van Fulbright in de Senaat tot zwijgen te brengen, zoals blijkt uit de feiten. Findley:
Following the election, a national Jewish organization actually claimed credit for the young governor's stunning upset victory. Fulbright had a copy of a memorandum circulated in May 1974 to the national board of directors of B'nai B'rith. Marked 'confidential,' the memo from Secretary-General Herman Edelsberg, announced that 'all of the indications suggest that our actions in support of Governor Bumpers will result in the ousting of Mr. Fulbright from his key position in the Senate.' Edelsberg later rejected the memorandum as 'phony.'
Following his defeat, Fulbright continued to speak out, decrying Israeli stubbornness and warning of the Israeli lobby. In a speech just before the end of his Senate term, he warned, 'Endlessly pressing the United States for money and arms-and invariably getting all and more than she asks-Israel makes bad use of a good friend.' His central concern was that the Middle East conflict might flare into nuclear war. He warned somberly that 'Israel's supporters in the United States... by underwriting intransigence, are encouraging a course which must lead toward her destruction-and just possibly ours as well.'
Pondering the future from his office three blocks north of the White House on a bright winter day in 1983, Fulbright saw little hope that Capitol Hill would effectively challenge the Israeli lobby:
'It's suicide for politicians to oppose them. The only possibility would be someone like Eisenhower, who already feels secure. Eisenhower had already made his reputation. He was already a great man in the eyes of the country, and he wasn't afraid of anybody. He said what he believed.'
Then he added a somewhat more optimistic note: 'I believe a president could do this. He wouldn't have to be named Eisenhower.' Fulbright cited a missed opportunity:
'I went to Jerry Ford after he took office in 1975. I was out of office then. I had been to the Middle East and visited with some of the leading figures. I came back and told the president, 'Look, I think these [Arab] leaders are willing to accept Israel, but the Israelis have got to go back to the 1967 borders. The problem can be solved if you are willing to take a position on it.'
Fulbright predicted that the American people would back Ford if he demanded that Israel cooperate. He reminded him that Eisenhower was reelected by a large margin immediately after he forced Israel to withdraw after invading Egypt:
'Taking a stand against Israel didn't hurt Eisenhower. He carried New York with its big Jewish population. I told Ford I didn't think he would be defeated if he put it the right way. He should say Israel had to go back to the 1967 borders; if it didn't, no more arms or money. That's just the way Eisenhower did it. And Israel would have to cooperate. And politically, in the coming campaign, I told him he should say he was for Israel, but he was for America first.'
Ford, Fulbright recalled, listened courteously but was noncommittal. 'Of course he didn't take my advice,' said Fulbright. Yet his determination in the face of such disappointment echoes through one of his last statements as a U.S. senator:
'History casts no doubt at all on the ability of human beings to deal rationally with their problems, but the greatest doubt on their will to do so. The signals of the past are thus clouded and ambiguous, suggesting hope but not confidence in the triumph of reason. With nothing to lose in any event, it seems well worth a try.'
Fulbright died on February 9, 1995, ending one of the most illustrious careers in American politics. Reared in the segregationist South, he left an imposing legacy as a fearless, scholarly, and determined champion of human rights at home and abroad.
Fulbright's voorspelling dat ‘[i]t’s suicide for politicians to oppose' de joods-zionistische lobby is juist gebleken, zo juist dat in 2015 zelfs een Amerikaanse president in het Congres bestraffend kon worden toegesproken door een extremistische zionist als premier Netanyahu, die daarvoor beloond werd met een 'ovationele bijval,’ aldus de mainstream pers. De enige waarheidsgetrouwe conclusie is dan ook dat 'money talks' in een corrupte 'democratie.' Ian Buruma’s bewering dat de VS een ‘relatively open’ maatschappij is, negeert het feit dat een burger zonder geld, en dus zonder de juiste contacten, de weg naar de top hermetisch afgesloten ziet, tenzij hij of zij zo rücksichtslos is dat ze alles op hun weg naar boven vertrappen, ten koste van elk greintje moraliteit. Dinsdag 25 juli 2017 werd bekend dat
[a]ll 100 senators sign letter against U.N. actions to bring Israel to account. The unusual unanimity expands on the fierce denunciation of U.N. treatment of Israel mounted by Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, this year. The letter praises Haley for that effort, which she has said is intended to show that the United States will not ‘put up with’ the bashing of its close ally.
The United States has long been Israel’s chief defender at the United Nations, including regularly vetoing measures at the Security Council that were critical of Israel.
In December, the lame duck Obama administration chose to abstain on such a resolution, allowing it to pass. The measure addressed Jewish home building in the occupied West Bank, and the U.S. action was a sign of President Barack Obama’s deep frustration with what he saw as Israeli action that threatened an eventual peace deal.
De website ‘Mondoweiss’ meldde:
This Senate letter of last Thursday, signed by all hundred senators, berates the UN Secretary General over criticism of Israel at the U.N. and supports Ambassador Nikki Haley’s determination to root out ‘anti-Israel bias’ and ‘anti-Semitism in all its forms’ — which means undue focus of Israel. The U.N.’s actions on Israel, the senators say,
‘have at times reinforced the broader scourge of anti-Semitism.’
All 100 Senators line up behind two Trump officials. First, Nikki Haley:
‘We commend the words of our nation’s ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley, who recently stated, “It is the UN’s anti-Israel bias that is long overdue for change.”’
Haley made that comment in a February 17 appearance at which she characterized the UN Security Council resolution against settlements of last December, which the Obama administration allowed to pass, as a ‘terrible mistake.’
Zodra het de ‘Joodse staat’ Israel betreft heerst er in het Amerikaanse Congres regelmatig een kadaverdiscipline, onder zowel Democraten als Republikeinen, en getuigt — volgens de volksvertegenwoordiging — de oproep aan Israel om zich aan het internationaal recht te houden van ‘anti-Semitism.’ Het is onder de gegeven omstandigheden ondenkbaar hoeveel meer macht een kleine tribale lobbygroep kan wensen. Amerikaanse Congresleden zijn zelfs bereid om hun grondwet te schenden door het recht op meningsuiting te verbieden zodra het Israel aangaat. De zoon van een beroemde Israëlische generaal, de auteur en mensenrechten-activist Miko Peled, schreef eind juli 2017 hierover het volgende:
Repressing free speech is undemocratic, that was established in the First Amendment a long time ago, and the right to boycott is enshrined within that amendment, including the right to boycott Israeli products. It was also established long ago that all men and women, including Palestinians, are created equal and are deserving of the same rights to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
For many decades now, Jews around the world, including staunch Zionist Jews like the late Dr. Nahum Goldman and Professor Yishayahu Leibovitch had opposed the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and building Jewish settlements there – as have Israeli generals, former Mossad chiefs and countless lesser known Jewish people. But over the last fifty years consecutive Israeli governments of all parties have built Jewish settlements in the West Bank and no amount of talking and negotiating has made the slightest difference.
Israel claims that it has a small Arab minority sometimes called ‘The Arabs of Israel’ and that they enjoy full citizenship rights. However, these are Palestinian Arabs and although they hold Israeli citizenship they do not enjoy the same rights as Israeli Jewish citizens. They live in separate cities and separate communities, go to different schools are given far less opportunities and poverty levels are considerably higher among them. From laws that limit who they may marry and where they may live to laws that limit their right to commemorate the ‘Naqba,’ the catastrophe that befell Palestinians when Israel was established, Palestinian citizens of Israel face discrimination at every stage of their lives, and still Israeli law makers continue to pass laws that discriminate against them at an alarming speed.
The Right of Return of Palestinians who were displaced in 1948 has been enshrined in article 11 of UN resolution 194. Furthermore, according to a report by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia the Law of Return, ‘conferring on Jews worldwide the right to enter Israel and obtain Israeli citizenship regardless of their countries of origin and whether or not they can show links to Israel-Palestine, while withholding any comparable right from Palestinians, including those with documented ancestral homes in the country.’ This was correctly referred to as a policy of ‘demographic engineering meant to uphold Israel’s status as the Jewish state.’
BDS have arguably become the three most controversial letters in the alphabet. Representing the call by Palestinian civil society to impose boycott, to divest and to impose sanctions on the State of Israel and companies that profit from the Israeli occupation. This call seeks to remedy the three conditions described above without harming or depriving anyone of their rights. BDS is controversial mostly because the call has been widely misrepresented. But the demands of the BDS movement neither express or intend any racism or violence towards anyone, they are as follows:
1 Ending the occupation.
2 Equal rights to all Palestinians.
3 Return of the Palestinian refugees.
According to a letter submitted by the ACLU to members of the US Senate, ’S. 720 Israel Anti-Boycott Act is a bill that seeks to criminalize the call for BDS.’ It states that it ‘would punish businesses and individuals based solely on their political point of view’ and ‘Such a penalty is in direct violation of the First Amendment.’ The letter ends by urging senators to oppose the bill.
In speech made by Senator Chuck Schumer (joodse Democraat. svh), one of the co-sponsors of this bill, regarding BDS at the American Jewish Committee’s Global Forum on June 5, 2017, the Senator from New York said, ‘There is no greater example than this insidious effort to harm the Jewish state than through the boycotts, divestment and sanctions.’ However, in reading the demands of the BDS call, it is clear that its goals are to improve the conditions which Israel has imposed on Palestinians and to repair inequities which Israeli governments are unwilling to address. There is no question that all efforts to get Israel to repair the inequities without pressure, had been exhausted.
Schumer refers to BDS as ‘a modern form of anti-Semitism.’ Indeed, a modern form which does not incite against Jews, does not call for the killing of or discrimination against Jews but instead demands that all people who reside in Palestine/Israel enjoy the same rights and privileges.
De hierboven beschreven realiteit werpt een scherp licht op Ian Buruma’s artikel in The New York Times, waarin hij zich, als zoon van een joodse moeder, in de rol van potentiële slachtoffer plaatst. De strekking van zijn verhaal is namelijk kortweg dat ‘Joden,’ net als zijn voorouders, naar ‘relatief open’ Angelsaksische samenlevingen emigreerden om daar ware yankees of ‘English gentlemen’ te kunnen worden, maar dat zij nu door de opkomst van fenomenen als Trump en Farage geconfronteerd worden met het versnellen van ‘the disintegration of the Western world.’ Die ‘desintegratie van de westerse wereld’ bedreigt de positie van de oude machtselites, waardoor ondermeer de rol van de ‘shtadlonus,’ de vroegere ‘hofjoden’ die volgens Hannah Arendt alleen kunnen gedijen zodra ze een beschermheer hebben, uitgespeeld raakt. De houding van Ian Buruma roept een wezenlijke vraag op die door de sociale wetenschappen herhaaldelijk is gesteld, namelijk de vraag of de mens in een geglobaliseerde wereld in staat is tribale loyaliteiten te overstijgen, en werkelijk bij machte is om universele waarden universeel toe te passen. Daarover later meer.
