http://www.frumforum.com/american-mid-east-policy-no-israel-lobby-just-self-interest Building a conservatism that can win again Sat, 11 Feb 2012 17:50:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 http://www.frumforum.com/american-mid-east-policy-no-israel-lobby-just-self-interest/comment-page-1#comment-64896 Jim Thu, 17 Sep 2009 01:31:17 +0000 http://www.newmajority.com/?p=12155#comment-64896 If the separation of church and state is a core tenet of what it means to be an American, then shouldn't the U.S. be pursuing, among other things, a post-Jewish Israel? If the separation of church and state is a core tenet of what it means to be an American, then shouldn’t the U.S. be pursuing, among other things, a post-Jewish Israel?

]]> http://www.frumforum.com/american-mid-east-policy-no-israel-lobby-just-self-interest/comment-page-1#comment-64870 clare.spark Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:12:21 +0000 http://www.newmajority.com/?p=12155#comment-64870 I don't understand your question. I reframed the way the Mid-East conflict is framed in the media and in the schools, a definition of the situation that I have studied intensively. The article on which you commented simply reviewed the importance of Mid-East sources of oil to this country even before the Cold War. Has that dependence changed? But the persons you named in your comment believe that the Israel lobby is so powerful that it can make the U.S. dance to its tune, and against its interests. I demonstrated that the support for Israel in 1948 was not the result of imagined Jewish power (e.g. New York Jewish votes to elect Truman), but to prevent the USSR from controlling the oil resources of the region, to the exclusion of the U.S. and its ally Great Britain. The article was intended to correct common themes in journalism that report the fighting between Israelis and Palestinians as part of a cycle of violence, with its assumption of moral equivalence between the damages inflicted by both parties. Also I wished to identify the corporatist liberal assumption that parties to conflicts are irrational, and need the services of a rational, neutral mediator to enforce a compromise. I could have said much more about the role of the U.N. in the late 1940s, but wanted to be brief. If your point is that Israel and the U.S. have different interests, then you should say what they are. I don’t understand your question. I reframed the way the Mid-East conflict is framed in the media and in the schools, a definition of the situation that I have studied intensively.
The article on which you commented simply reviewed the importance of Mid-East sources of oil to this country even before the Cold War. Has that dependence changed? But the persons you named in your comment believe that the Israel lobby is so powerful that it can make the U.S. dance to its tune, and against its interests. I demonstrated that the support for Israel in 1948 was not the result of imagined Jewish power (e.g. New York Jewish votes to elect Truman), but to prevent the USSR from controlling the oil resources of the region, to the exclusion of the U.S. and its ally Great Britain.
The article was intended to correct common themes in journalism that report the fighting between Israelis and Palestinians as part of a cycle of violence, with its assumption of moral equivalence between the damages inflicted by both parties. Also I wished to identify the corporatist liberal assumption that parties to conflicts are irrational, and need the services of a rational, neutral mediator to enforce a compromise.
I could have said much more about the role of the U.N. in the late 1940s, but wanted to be brief. If your point is that Israel and the U.S. have different interests, then you should say what they are.

]]> http://www.frumforum.com/american-mid-east-policy-no-israel-lobby-just-self-interest/comment-page-1#comment-64658 Ploni Almoni Tue, 15 Sep 2009 12:21:03 +0000 http://www.newmajority.com/?p=12155#comment-64658 I don't see how US interests in the Middle East during the Cold War are relevant to what you call the "current misconceptions" of Traficant, Buchanan, Walt, and Mearsheimer, two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Assuming you're correct that the US acted rationally in its own interests during the Cold War, how does that refute the argument that post-Cold War policy is not in the United States' interest? I don’t see how US interests in the Middle East during the Cold War are relevant to what you call the “current misconceptions” of Traficant, Buchanan, Walt, and Mearsheimer, two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Assuming you’re correct that the US acted rationally in its own interests during the Cold War, how does that refute the argument that post-Cold War policy is not in the United States’ interest?

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