Does `everyone know’ that the Israel lobby blocked US policy regarding settlements? Well, I was out of town so maybe I’m just learning.
Philip Weiss wrote this short article on Tom Friedman back on August 2, 2009, but I can’t believe it was so widely missed. Did the Israel lobby intervene to get Obama to back off his Cairo mandate concerning settlements?
According to Friedman, the answer is ‘yes’. The so-called settlement freeze is now down to the question whether it will be for six months or one year. But it goes much further than that.
This report from the Institute for Middle East Understanding makes evident that the settlement freeze is just another Israeli ploy, like the delay tactics used in the past to continue the colonization with eyes wide shut, in plain view.
In what has been interpreted as a sign of compromise with President Barack Obama, Israeli Housing Minister Ariel Atias claims that settlement construction is in a “waiting period.” But according to Israel’s Peace Now, 1000 housing units are currently under construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. And just one day after Israeli officials leaked news of a so-called limited settlement freeze, Ha’aretz’s business supplement, The Marker, reported that the Israeli government is expected to invite bids for 450 new housing units in the East Jerusalem settlement of Pisgat Ze’ev.
The Palestinians are not fooled.
Here’s Philip Weiss’ brief piece on Tom Friedman’s expose of the Israel lobby, as if Hoyer’s recent AIPAC funded trip to Israel in the company of 29 Democratic congressmen was not clue enough.
Obama’s pressure has finally broken a leading Israel lobbyist: Tom Friedman in the Times today. Note the frank references to the Israel lobby and its influence in the Bush administration. Not long ago Friedman dismissed this sort of talk as “conspiracy theory” in the Arab world. Soon he’ll be quoting Walt and Mearsheimer. About time. Take it away, Tom:
For years, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the pro-Israel lobby, rather than urging Israel to halt this corrosive process, used their influence to mindlessly protect Israel from U.S. pressure on this issue and to dissuade American officials and diplomats from speaking out against settlements. Everyone in Washington knows this, and a lot of people — people who care about Israel — are sick of it…
Bottom line: Israelis need to understand this is not the Bush administration anymore, where they had the run of the White House; they have a real problem with America on settlements.
How long before Friedman does a column explaining what he told Ari Shavit in Haaretz, that if you had kidnaped 25 neoconservatives within a mile of his D.C. office before the Iraq war, the war wouldn’t have happened? A statement of the Israel lobby’s influence.
Lest we believe that Weiss is grateful for Friedman’s letting us know about the Israel lobby intervention, more recently he excoriated him for his actions as a snoop for the Israeli military.
At the same time Friedman was talking down the Israel lobby, he proportedly “gave a private chalk-talk to Israel’s military brass” about what he had learned from his recent trips to Arab nations. Check Philip Weiss’s site, Mondoweiss, for the full story.
