When Philip Giraldi wrote this article in September, 2009, The Best Congress AIPAC Can Buy, one just might have regarded it as cynical and perhaps over the top. While “many Americans who thought that the health care debate was important must have wondered where their congressmen were in early August during the first two weeks of the House of Representatives recess:” visiting Israel, he said. “House Minority whip Eric Cantor headed the Republican group, and House Majority leader Steny Hoyer,” who claimed on the trip that he was more Jewish than Jewish representatives, n/t, “led the Democrats.”

Now we have a more transparent battle going on in California between candidates in the Republican primary running for the Senate from California, as to who loves Israel more. As just reported by the Associated Press, the Senate debate focuses on support for Israel, not medical care reform.

03/06/2010

SACRAMENTO (AP) — Former congressman Tom Campbell on Friday used the first debate in the California Senate race to demand that his challengers not engage in a “whispering campaign” claiming he is against Israel or is an anti-Semite. Campbell and his two opponents in the Republican primary, former Hewlett Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina and state Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, participated in their first debate, organized by Sacramento radio station KTKZ-AM. Fiorina joined by telephone.

Campbell requested the debate after his opponents began questioning his support for Israel. Their attacks were based on his voting record when he served in the House of Representatives and on campaign money given by a donor who later was revealed to have ties to a U.S.-listed terrorist organization.

The attacks on Campbell took a sharper turn after the Los Angeles Times reported that Fiorina’s campaign manager, Marty Wilson, told former California secretary of state Bruce McPherson that Campbell was an anti-Semite. Wilson denied he had said it, but the report spread quickly across the Internet and worked its way into news stories.

Fiorina and DeVore subsequently questioned whether Campbell was sufficiently supportive of Israel during his five terms in office. “There’s no place for calling me an anti-Semite and then denying it,” Campbell said about a topic that dominated the first half of the hour-long debate. Fiorina said her campaign manager assured her he did not accuse Campbell of being anti-Semitic. But she said Campbell had voted to cut foreign aid to Israel, and that he was one of only 34 members of Congress who voted against Jerusalem being the undivided capital of Israel.

(snip)

Campbell said he has never flinched from showing strong military support for Israel.

Writing on Counterpunch, Alison Weir, proprietor of the anti-propaganda site, If Americans Knew, which is focused on censorship and propaganda prevalent among US media sources concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, recently talked about her “Relationship” With Tom Campbell.

In it we find a candidate turning the tables on principle in order to qualify as AIPAC approved for a Senate run. Sadly we are reminded here of Jimmy Carter’s recent apology for “stigmatizing Israel” in his book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, believed motivated by not wishing to become a factor in his grandson’s run for the Georgia State Senate from a heavily Jewish district. It was a sad rejoinder to the career of a former president, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, who put “human rights” into the vocabulary of American foreign policy, but especially since the prospect of Apartheid is now inevitable given successive announcements by the Netanyahu government, and about which Ehud Barak, Israel’s Defense Minister, just warned.

On this California primary race, Weir wrote,

It’s interesting to find myself a small factor in the California race for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate. But before I get to that, it’s necessary to take a look at the campaigns themselves, and the system in which they’re running.

An outside observer might be forgiven for being confused about which nation these candidates are seeking to serve. Rather than competing over who is the most loyal Californian and patriotic American, these would-be Senators seem often to be competing over who is the most supportive of a foreign regime.

Odder still, the regime being fervently endorsed has a record of taking actions that are deeply contrary to principles most Americans hold dear, and on top of that, has a track record of undertaking activities that are extremely damaging to the US, including:

Spying on our government and industry and stealing American technology;

Passing on American secrets to others, including to nations perceived as our most dangerous political and economic competitors;

Killing American servicemen and citizens; even while receiving more US tax money than any other nation on earth; and

Ignoring demands and pleas by virtually every U.S. president over the past few decades to end diverse illegal actions that have caused incalculable tragedy, destabilized the region and world, demonstrated ruthless cruelty against entire victim populations, and created escalating enmity toward the United States, whose lobby-promulgated assistance (at least $7 million per day) enables its actions.

Normally, one would expect candidates to denounce such a nation; at minimum, one would expect them to distance themselves from it. But not this one. This one is Israel, which, despite being one of the world’s smallest nations, can claim the most powerful and pervasive foreign lobby in the United States.

(snip)

Today there are dozens, at least, of political action groups for Israel, most hidden under deceptive names such as Northern Californians for Good Government. They raise massive amounts of money for candidates who pass the Israel test, and massive amounts of money for the opponents of those who don’t.

Well, we knew about the Lobby long before this California Republican primary. And even though Weir’s review of the strong influence of Zionist lobbying on our government going back to the 19th century is interesting, what about Tom Campbell?

California Campaigning, Israel, and me

My contact with Campbell dates to spring 2001. I had just returned from traveling as a freelance reporter throughout Gaza and the West Bank. I had seen and photographed destroyed homes, devastated neighborhoods, razed agricultural lands, children who had been shot by invading Israeli forces (all before a single Palestinian rocket had been fired).

Upon my return I had been invited by a student group at UC Berkeley to give a talk about my trip, the first speech I’ve ever given in my life. I spoke and showed my photos for close to an hour and a half in a packed lecture hall.

Afterwards, numerous attendees came up to speak with me; some had been crying. The regional director for the Council for American Islamic Relations asked me if I would be willing to give my talk at a public event scheduled a month later in the San Jose area. I said yes.

Diverse governmental officials, media people, and others attended this event. There were two other speakers: former Illinois Republican Congressman Paul Findley and Tom Campbell.

During his speech, Campbell described a telling incident during his Congressional career. The lobby had pushed Congress to give additional money to Israel on top of its uniquely immense annual allotment. Campbell proposed that this extra money be used instead to avert the defunding of a program that worked to prevent blindness in Africa.

Campbell said that many of his fellow Representatives privately told him they thought this was a wonderful plan, complimented him on his courage in proposing it, but said they didn’t dare vote for it. In the end, just 12 others cast affirmative votes. (Israel may wish to thank the lobby and 88 American Senators for its increased wealth; an untold number of blind people may have less reason for gratitude.)

When it was my turn to speak, I described what I had seen in the Palestinian Territories, showed my photographs, and read a sort of letter I had written to the American people. To my surprise, I received a standing ovation from, it appeared to me, everyone in the room. One of the first on his feet was Tom Campbell. Afterwards, a friend asked him if he would write an endorsement of my presentation, which he graciously did. Later, when I founded If Americans Knew and we created a website, we placed his comment in the “About Us” section.

Now, nine years later, this endorsement is being used to attack Campbell.

Articles discussing it have appeared on numerous blogs and websites, including those of Commentary and National Interest; a Sacramento radio host and the Weekly Standard have interviewed me about my “relationship with Tom Campbell.” Some fanatically pro-Israel bloggers seem exceedingly focused on it, and on me.

The reality is that I haven’t seen or spoken with Tom Campbell since the 2001 event.

In the years since, I’ve been saddened but not surprised, given the reality and power of the pro-Israel machine in our society and media, to see him backpedaling on what seemed to be genuine efforts toward practical and principled positions. While he has not denied his endorsement of my talk, he responds to queries, “I never stated agreement with any statement made by Alison Weir.”

Like virtually anyone who wishes to attain major office, Campbell emphasizes his bonafides on Israel, stating:

…..never voted against military aid to Israel;

…..would support an Israeli military attack on Iran (even though it is Israel that possesses nuclear weapons, refuses to sign the non-proliferation pact, is in violation of a multitude of UN resolutions, and regularly attacks its neighbors);

…..supports recognizing Jerusalem as the Israeli capital and moving the US embassy there; even though Jerusalem was to have been a shared city for the Muslims, Christians, and Jews who long inhabited it and for whom it is sacred, and even though a large portion of Jerusalem is, according to international law, Palestinian land illegally annexed by Israel. All previous US presidents have refused to do this.

…..is even more pro-Israel than Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer, (which, if it is true, is a notable accomplishment.)

In the meantime, and until more Americans across the political spectrum wake up and make their desires known, the Israel lobby and its dedicated bloggers may ease their collective mind. Indications are that both parties are, once again, sewn up.

In passing, Weir tells a story about Menachem Begin on Israel’s control of American politics.

The degree to which the Israel lobby has succeeded in dominating American politics is encapsulated in an apocryphal story about Menachem Begin, a member of a notorious Zionist terrorist gang in pre-Israel Palestine who went on to be elected Prime Minister of Israel. When an American supporter is said to have suggested that Israel become the 51st state, Begin is described as evincing shock: “What?! Then we would only have two senators!”

So goes the California Republican primary for the Senate. Another Israel story.

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