by James Petras

Clarity Press, 191pp., £ 8.79, November 2006, 978-0932863515

Review by Muhammad Idrees Ahmad 15 January 2007

The ruckus occasioned by the publication of the Mearsheimer & Walt paper in the London Review of Books -- specifically, their claim that the war against Iraq would not have happened absent pressure from the Israel Lobby -- would have one believe that their thesis is in some way novel. It is not. What is new, however, is that for the first time someone from the heart of the establishment is making an argument that had hitherto remained confined to the margins. Many, like Robert Fisk, wrote persuasively about it, but there were few takers. Only old school conservatives, foreign policy realists -- James Baker, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Brent Scowcroft, Anthony Zinni et al -- and sections of the Left recognized that the neocon plan for reshaping the Middle-East had for its primary aim extending Israel's regional hegemony by eliminating a potential Arab deterrent.

While many welcomed Mearsheimer & Walt's contribution, objections were immediately raised about its provenance. As loyalists of the US imperial project, their conclusions may be accurate, but there are legitimate reasons to be wary of their motivations; as proponents of US "national interest" they see Israel as a liability insofar as it hampers US relations with right-wing Arab regimes and consequently its hegemonic ambitions. Rather than dismissing their conclusions, therefore, it is necessary that the issue be looked at from the perspective of universally recognized principles of justice and human rights. This service, at last, has been rendered by James Petras in his new book The Power of Israel in the United States.

James Petras, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Binghamton University, is an author of 62 books and numerous articles in professional journals, national press, magazines and the web. With an exceptional reccord of confronting some the most challenging questions of our times, James Petras now brings his superlative analytical skills to bear on the most pressing contemporary issue: the conflict in the Middle East. With a bloody disaster unfolding in Iraq, Lebanon in ruins and a creeping genocide in Palestine, some elements of the American political elite, even now, are determined to drag the country into a potentially apocalyptic confrontation with Iran. With business, military and diplomatic elites all opposed, only the Israel Lobby and its vanguard, the neocons, are egging the Bush administration on towards a new war. It is imperative then that the methods and composition of this pernicious political force be exposed, confronted and neutralized . It is the first of these tasks, that Petras undertakes with remarkable alacrity -- and effectiveness -- in this book.

Petras dispatches the popular myth that Big Oil dragged the United States into the war against Iraq. His research of hundreds of articles, industry journals and press releases reveal no evidence that big oil had an interest in the prosecution of this war. Far from it, the industry had been urging the US government to lift sanctions in order to secure new concessions. There is also no evidence that Iraq had any reservations about selling oil to its erstwhile patrons in the US and UK.

As Petras demonstrates, the policy was mostly formulated by a small group of unaccountable neoconservative political appointees and rammed through in the face of strong resistance from career civil and military professionals in the State and Defence departments. The architects of the war in the administration were Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, who have no connections to the oil industry. Their devotion to Israel, however, is well established. The same is true of Elliot Abrams and Douglas Feith, strong proponents of “Jewish Purity” and Israeli expansion and settlement policy.

Petras offers a lucid description of the structure of this parallel system that was developed to bypass normal channels of checks and balances. The intelligence used in the case for war was furnished by the Office of Special Plans, established by Wolfowitz and Feith at the Pentagon’s Near East and South Asia affairs section. OSP was headed by Abram Shulsky who ran it with fellow neocon William Luti. The unit cherry picked intelligence and used uncorroborated evidence to prepare talking points which were then passed on to the vice-Presidents office via Irving “Scooter” Libby – another Zionist zealot.

At the State Department, another neocon John Bolton was strategically located to coordinate with the Pentagon and the vice-President’s office. The case was further reinforced by Richard Perle , chairman of the Defense Policy Board, and other neocons on the board, such as Kenneth Adelman, Eliot Cohen and James Woolsey, .

Outside, an eco-chamber consisting of influential think-tanks – such as WINEP, JINSA, CSP, Brookings Institution, AEI, and well placed columnists and commentators – such as Charles Krauthammer, George Will, William Safire, Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami,  further amplified the threat of the non-existent WMDs and Saddam-Al-Qaidah link with a deluge of alarmist reports and widely circulated op-eds. The warnings were further echoed by mainstream Jewish organizations such as ADL, CPMJO, AJC, ADL and ZOA and their activists - doctors, dentists, philanthropists, real estate magnates, financiers, journalists, media magnates and academics. In the end, as Petras argues, the relentless campaign waged by what he describes as the Zionist Power Configuration overwhelmed resistance.

The first part of The Power of Israel in the United States is an analytical tour de force that exposes the manner in which Zionist interests have embedded themselves in the US political system and manipulate its processes. Many important issues from which other intellectuals have hitherto shied away are dealt with compellingly in successive chapters. Beginning with the pertinent and timely question of the real beneficiaries of the Iraq war, Petras proceeds to demolish the conventional view of Israel as a proxy for US imperialism. Far from behaving as a loyal surrogate, he reveals, Israel has used its clout in the US to draw a massive annual tribute and ensure its regional hegemony. It receives the latest in American military technology and benefits from the R&D to bolster its own burgeoning military industry. Massive loan guarantees, resettlement assistance and loan waivers are other channels through which money has been siphoned to Israel. The labour movement in the US is also beholden to Israeli interests as the retirement funds of the AFL-CIO are invested in Israel Bonds, thus making the retirement benefits of American workers conditional on the health of Israeli economy.

Petras reveals that the Zionist Power Configuration is intent on creating a US-Israeli co-prosperity sphere in the middle-east, and towards this end, it doesn't just influence US foreign policy but often formulates it - as in the case of the war against Iraq. Shedding further light on the composition of the Lobby he shows that it is more than just AIPAC, CPMJO, AJC, ADL or ZOA; there are many federations and councils at the State, City and Local level all of which identify US interests with Israel's interests. Money plays an important role as close to 60% of the funds for the Democratic Party and 35% for the Republican Party come from pro-Israel Jews. But for every dollar spent, Israel receives $50 in aid. This influence is also pervasive in the media and academy where it gets to set the parameters of debate on all issues bearing on Israel. Dissenting voices are discredited through charges of anti-Semitism and debate is stifled through censorship and intimidation. The country's major media, such as New York Times and Washington Post manifest a discernible pro-Israel bias.

Through his analysis of the Libby affair and the AIPAC spy trial, Petras reveals that resistance to the Zionist encroachment on the US political system is already manifesting itself with FBI using the opportunity provided by the debacle in Iraq to start investigating the role of key Zioncons in manufacturing the case against Iraq. The pace and scope suggest however that FBI has to tread carefully as a single misstep could bring powerful friends of the lobby in the Congress and Washington - who, even then, were flocking to the AIPAC annual conference en masse - down hard on the investigation. The Mearsheimer & Walt paper in itself is a sign of the growing disenchantment with America's compromised political system.

In the second part of the book, Petras focuses his attention on the brutal wars waged by Israel that the Lobby helps facilitate. Beginning with America's own wars in Central America and elsewhere, Petras shows a line of continuity between the house of horrors of yore with the torture, assassination and genocide of today. While the horror show employs many of the same actors, Petras argues, the directors and producers have change. In the past it was fanatic anti-Communism and defence of corporate interests that provided the agency, today it is Zionist militarism. Many of the apologists for today's horrors come in the respected garbs of academics, intellectuals and lawyers from some of americas most prestigious institutions.

Petras describes in vivid detail the recent assault on Gaza - "Israel's Final Solution" - as destroying the elementary conditions of Palestinian survival. The horrors were then replicated in Lebanon with large scale indiscriminate destruction killing more than 1300 innocent people. These atrocities were not just supported, but cheered on from the sidelines as Israel's supporters in the United States rushed shipments of new weapons and secured resolutions of support. The mainstream media abetted the crimes with uncritical reproduction of the official Israeli narrative. Petras's brief review of the BBC - considered a reputed media organization - is telling.

Petras proceeds to expose present machinations by Israel and the lobby to manufacture pretexts for a war against Iran. As the different components of the Israel lobby and their adjuncts in the media ratchet up the fear of an Iranian nuclear threat, they face growing resistance within and outside the administration. The military establishment and sectors of the State Department and CIA in particular are reluctant to sign on, but more importantly, even financial and oil interests have expressed reservations. Only Israel stands to benefit from such a war - as lined out by the neocons in the famous "A Clean Break" document and the Israel Lobby is alone in pushing for this war. As things stand, war seems unlikely since there seems to be no domestic support for it. However, as revealed in the analysis of the Danish cartoons controversy, such support can be easily manufactured. More alarming is the virtual absence of any active opposition to this inexorable push towards war.

Petras is at his finest in the third section of the book where he takes on the “terror experts” (TE) and explores the moral basis of resistance. He exposes these experts as the setup people who provide the vocabulary for war and ideological justifications for torture and rape - by projecting the psycopathy of the executioner onto the victims in a ludicrous combination of old school Orientalism with junk-psychology. Verbal assassins whose credibility is always proportionate to the consistency with which they overlook the rape and torture of their patron states. The systematic failure to establish a causal relationship between the depredations and violence inflicted and the desperate reactions bestows authority. The TE thus were horrified by the pictures of Abu Ghraib, but not by acts, since they showed the homo and heterosexual rape and sequential genital mutilation as merely an extension of their expert prescriptions.

Most of these experts originate of course from the same prestigious think-tanks and institutions that constitute the lobby. Petras's indictment is lucid, penetrating and passionate. He ends by posing some questions to the TE's themselves, and in doing so, he unravels the whole intellectual foundation of their trade.

Unlike the media terrorologists Petras's analysis of the Suicide Bombing phenomena offers a holistic view of the political as well moral basis of such actions. Petras shows that in the course of waging a "total war" the aggressor eliminates the distinction between military and civilian targets. The physical as well as the spiritual universe of the victims is under assault. Borrowing from the doctrine of Israeli colonial occupation, the Anglo American practitioners of total war have stripped the victims of that which sustains the spiritual self. In the end, Petras argues, Suicide Bombing is more than just reciprocal violence, its an attempt to redeem the sacred from the desecrators.

The last part of the book is essentially a recap of the arguments made earlier and a call to arms to all who are serious about confronting the crimes of Zionism. Petras argues that the effectiveness of the anti-War movement has been greatly hampered by the views of one of its greatest icons, Noam Chomsky, who has historically downplayed the role of the lobby. In a point-by-point refutation of Chomsky's "15 erroneous theses" Petras reveals the same shortcomings in his analysis that he has routinely criticized others of. Petras asserts that specious arguments absolving the Israel Lobby of its role in  the machinations for war the anti-War movement is denied the clarity necessary to know the enemy and foil its designs. Ritualistic denunciations of "Big Oil" are convenient and cost-free, and also eminently ineffective. Unless the real source of the war-agenda is identified and challenged, it is unlikely that the next war could be averted. Petras has made an indispensable contribution in this respect by opening up the debate and making a compelling case.

The book is not without its flaws. Many chapters in the book are updates of articles previously published elsewhere and they vary in quality and documentation. Some chapters clearly lack the analytical depth and impeccable scholarship that one has come to expect from Petras. Others, like the chapter on the cartoon controversy makes assertions which are not backed up by evidence. The critiques of BBC and Seymour Hersh are not rigorous - although understandable since they are not central to the book's thesis. There is considerable repetition and other important things such as the composition of various think-tanks, which are central to the Lobby, remain unexplored. There are, however, enough facts packed into this small book to encourage further exploration and open up a more constructive debate.

Muhammad Idrees Ahmad is a researcher at Spinwatch. His regular commentaries appear on The Fanonite