Diaspora

Zionism Unmasked

While Zionism is clearly a nationalist ideology, that narrow framing does the term an injustice as it is so much more.

Zionism is more accurately described as a strategy for targeting thought and emotion as a means to influence behavior. Naïve Jews were its first victims when induced to identify with an enclave in the Middle East that President Harry Truman, a Christian Zionist, was induced to recognize as a “state.”

Zionism is first and foremost a mental state that manifests as a dispersed form of internalized nationalism—a Diaspora—that binds to an extremist enclave those who may never set foot there. After 1967, this “state” became the “Land of Israel” based on a more expansive area seized by Israel Defense Forces along with other occupied lands that Zionists claim a god gave them.

Zionism recruits by sustaining a shared sense of insecurity within the broader Jewish community. It progresses by marketing its perceived vulnerability and victimhood among those on whom it relies for financial, military and diplomatic support.

When, as now, policies of the Zionist state come under attack, media campaigns herald an outbreak of anti-Semitism and hatred—not for Zionism but for Jews, enhancing recruitment.

By choosing to identify their interests with those of Zionism, Jews choose to make themselves feel insecure. Zionism relies for its success not only on deception but also on self-deceit.

Many well-informed Jews opposed Israel’s founding in 1948. By 1967, Jewish-Americans were active in the civil rights movement. With the Six-Day War, that activism became problematic. How could Jews back civil rights for Blacks while Zionism denied those rights to Palestinians?

That era marked a turning point both for Zionism and legitimate Judaism as many Jews abandoned civil rights activism when they could no longer reconcile their activism with Israeli oppression. Thus the present mental state of Barack Obama’s many Jewish Zionist advisers.

The Six-Day War induced more Jews to identify with Zionism as a defender of Jews. Yet now we know that war was a long-planned land grab destined to outrage Arabs and Muslims. When combined with a murderous occupation, decades of Israeli provocations were guaranteed to evoke the violent reactions required to rationalize a “war on terrorism.”

In terms of game theory war planning, today’s results were perfectly predictable—mathematically model-able within an acceptable range of probabilities. Once again Zionism targeted thought and emotion to manipulate behavior by provoking antagonism and evoking extremism—the two key ingredients required to plausibly proclaim their insecurity.

When your numbers are few and your ambitions vast, what choice did Zionists have but to seduce and deceive a super power so that our military would wage their wars for Greater Israel?

Peace is the Opponent

Peace is a perilous ‘state’ to be avoided at any cost by a nationalist ideology that thrives on serial crises wed to a perpetual state of conflict and fear. To realize the Zionist goal of hegemony over the Middle East requires a series of plausible Evil Doers and a persuasive narrative. Could Zionism be the reason we segued so seamlessly from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism? See: How Israel Wages War on the U.S.

Instead of the anticipated post-Cold War “peace dividend, the U.S. finds itself waging what Nobel economist Joe Stiglitz calls The $3 Trillion War—all of it borrowed, including $700 billion in interest expense.

In hindsight, the phony intelligence that induced us to war in the Middle East was traceable to Israelis, pro-Israelis or assets developed for that purpose such as Iraqi liar Ahmad Chalabi.

Other than those sharing a Zionist mental state, who had the means, motive, opportunity and, importantly, the stable nation-state intelligence to conduct such operations inside the U.S.?

Yet even now those responsible elude accountability and even scrutiny as cries of “anti-Semitism” are deployed to intimidate and misdirect—by manipulating thought and emotion.

At the end of World War II, the U.S. claimed 50% of the world’s productive power, ensuring we would have the world’s top-rated government bonds for at least two generations. When the Cold War drew to a costly close in 1989, the U.S. had spent $15.9 trillion on defense since 1948 (in 2010 dollars). Now a potential war without end has taken its place.

Americans have been induced to believe that the Zionist state is an ally. We are not alone in viewing Israel as a legitimate nation and a noble experiment to provide a “homeland” for a victimized people. That alluring storyline victimized the broader Jewish community while also laying waste to the nation that was first deceived to extend to Zionists the hand of friendship.

To escape the ravages of Zionism requires that we concede its duplicitous nature and make its operations transparent so that its perpetrators become apparent. As a long-deceived global public grasps its costs in blood and treasure, this mental state will be seen for what it is: a criminal state.

The Psychopath Within

In the clinical psychiatric literature, this “state” features interpersonal traits such as superficial charm, pathological lying, egocentricity, lack of remorse, and callousness that are regarded as characteristic of psychopaths. In order to betray, psychopaths first befriend. In order to defraud, they first establish a relationship of trust. Sound familiar?

Those who share such a mental state will happily incite hatred to catalyze a reaction and then claim they are the victims of hate. For those inhabiting this mental state, it appears rational and even desirable to provoke a response and then claim to be a target of anti-Semites. Inside this internal state, self-absorption is all-encompassing with arrogance its most visible trait.

Law is irrelevant to those who consider themselves above the law. Morality and conscience are of no concern to those who consider themselves The Chosen—by a god of their own choosing. Such a nationalist ideology has no place in a system of nation states dedicated to the rule of law.

Those sharing such a “state” pose too great a peril to be an object of pity or compassion. Accountability is the only appropriate response along with an initiative—deploying force as required—to secure any weapons of mass destruction that may be in their possession.

Such a state cannot be delegitimized because any legitimacy attained was integral to the fraud it inflicted on the community of nations. The issue at hand is how best to protect a peace-seeking world from a psychopathic ideology that assumed the appearance of legitimacy so that a Christian Zionist president could be deceived to recognize as a nation a criminal state.

Diaspora

How the Israel Lobby Took Control of U.S. Foreign Policy

In the early 1960s, Senator William J. Fulbright fought to force the American Zionist Council to register as agents of a foreign government. The Council eluded registration by reorganizing as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. AIPAC has since become what Fulbright most feared: a foreign agent dominating American foreign policy while disguised as a domestic lobby.

Israelis and pro-Israelis object when they hear that charge. How, they ask, can we so few wield such influence over so many? Answer: it’s all in the math. And in the single-issue advocacy brought to bear on U.S. policy-making by dozens of ‘domestic’ organizations that now compose the Israel lobby, with AIPAC its most visible force.

The political math was enabled by Senator John McCain whose support for all things Israeli ensured him the GOP nomination to succeed Christian-Zionist G.W. Bush. McCain’s style of campaign finance reform proved a perfect fit for the Diaspora-based fundraising on which the lobby relies. Co-sponsored by Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, this change in federal election law typifies how Israeli influence became systemic.

‘McCain-Feingold’ raised the amount (from $1,000 to $2,300) that candidates can receive from individuals in primary and general elections. A couple can now contribute a combined $9,200 to federal candidates: $4,600 in each of the primary and general elections. Primary elections, usually low-budget, are particularly easy to sway.

Importantly for the Diaspora, this change also doubled the funds candidates can receive without regard to where those contributors reside. A candidate in Iowa, say, may have only a few pro-Israeli constituents. When campaign support is provided by a nationwide network of pro-Israelis, that candidate can more easily be persuaded to support policies sought by Tel Aviv.

Diaspora-based fundraising has long been used by the lobby with force-multiplying success to shape U.S. foreign policy. Under the guise of reform, John McCain doubled the financial resources that the lobby can deploy to elect and retain its supporters.

Fulbright was Right

The influence-peddling process works like this. Candidates are summoned for in-depth AIPAC interviews. Those found sufficiently committed to Israel’s agenda are provided a list of donors likely to “max out” their campaign contributions. Or the process can be made even easier when AIPAC-approved candidates are given the name of a “bundler.”

Bundlers raise funds from the Diaspora and bundle those contributions to present them to the candidate. No quid pro quo need be mentioned. After McCain-Feingold became law in 2003, AIPAC-identified bundlers could raise $1 million-plus for AIPAC-approved candidates simply by contacting ten like-minded supporters. Here’s the math:

The bundler and spouse “max out” for $9,200 and call ten others, say in Manhattan, Miami, and Beverly Hills. Each of them max out (10 x $9,200) and call ten others for a total of 11. [111 x $9,200 = $1,021,200.]

Imagine the incentive to do well in the AIPAC interview. One call from the lobby and a candidate can collect enough cash to mount a credible campaign in most Congressional districts. From Tel Aviv’s perspective, that political leverage is leveraged yet again because fewer than ten percent of the 435 House races are competitive in any election cycle (typically 35 to 50).

Additional force-multipliers come from: (a) sustaining this financial focus over multiple cycles, (b) using funds to gain and retain seniority for those serving on Congressional committees key to promoting Israeli goals, and (c) opposing candidates who question those goals.

Jewish Achievement reports that 42% of the largest political donors to the 2000 election cycle were Jewish, including four of the top five. That compares to less than 2% of Americans who are Jewish. Of the Forbes 400 richest Americans, 25% are Jewish according to Michael Steinhardt, a key funder of the Democratic Leadership Council. The DLC was led by Jewish Zionist Senator Joe Lieberman when he resigned in 2000 to run as vice president with pro-Israeli presidential candidate Al Gore.

Money was never a constraint. Pro-Israeli donors were limited only by how much they could lawfully contribute to AIPAC-screened candidates. McCain-Feingold raised a key limit. The full impact of this foreign influence has yet to be tallied. What’s known, however, is sufficient to apply the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Of the top 50 neoconservatives who advocated war in Iraq, 26 were Jewish (52%).

Harry Truman, a Christian Zionist, remains one of the more notable recipients of funds. In 1948, he was trailing badly in the polls and in fundraising. His prospects brightened dramatically in May after he recognized as a legitimate state an enclave of Jewish extremists who originally planned to settle in Argentina before putting their sights on Palestine.

That recognition was opposed by Secretary of State George C. Marshall, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the bulk of the diplomatic corps, the fledgling Central Intelligence Agency and numerous distinguished Americans, including moderate and secular Jews concerned at the troubles that were certain to follow. Not until 1984 was it revealed that a network of Jewish Zionists had funded Truman’s campaign by financially refueling his whistle-stop campaign train with $400,000 in cash ($3 million in 2009 dollars).

To buy time on the public’s airwaves, money raised from the Israel lobby’s network is paid to media outlets largely owned or managed by members of the same network. Presidents, Senators and Congressmen come and go but those who collect the checks rack up the favors that amass lasting political influence.

The U.S. system of government is meant to ensure that members of the House represent the concerns of Americans who reside in Congressional districts—not a nationally dispersed network (a Diaspora) committed to advancing the agenda of a foreign nation. Federal elections are meant to hold Senators accountable to constituents who reside in the states they represent—not out-of-state residents or a foreign government.

In practical effect, McCain-Feingold hastened a retreat from representative government by granting a nationwide network of foreign agents disproportionate influence over elections in every state and Congressional district. Campaign finance ‘reform’ enabled this network to amass even more political clout—wielding influence disproportionate to their numbers, indifferent to their place of residence and often contrary to America’s interests.

This force-multiplier is now wielded in plain sight, with impunity and under cover of free speech, free elections, free press and even the freedom of religion. Therein lies the perils of an entangled alliance that induced the U.S. to invade Iraq and now seeks war with Iran. By allowing foreign agents to operate as a domestic lobby, the U.S. was induced to confuse Zionist interests with its own.