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"Israeli Lobby" Didn't Con Bush into Invading Iraq
(Newsday) James Klurfield - A controversial, at times vicious, article in the London Review of Books argues that the Israeli lobby in Washington has somehow forced the U.S. government to favor Israel's interests over its own. Unfortunately the article is riddled with factual errors and comes off more as a polemic than a reasoned argument. The authors are shockingly naive in their understanding of American ethnic politics or, for that matter, how policy is made in Washington. They are also blind to the implications of their charges of dual loyalty of American Jews who have served in government or think tanks or worked for the media. In that, there is the noxious odor of anti-Semitism, intended or not. After the 1967 war, when Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Israel accepted the UN plan for an exchange of that land in return for peace. The Arab response was the famous three no's: no negotiations, no recognition, no peace. Every time there has been a real attempt to negotiate land for peace, Israel has responded positively, whether it be after Egyptian President Anwar Sadat went to Jerusalem in 1977 or the Oslo Accords of 1992. The authors contend the neo-conservative Israeli lobby forced the Bush administration into invading Iraq to help Israel. This borders on silly. The decision was made by President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, none of them part of the neo-conservative, pro-Israel cabal that the authors say pushed the nation to war.