RICHARD BAEHR: WHO BUYS INFLUENCE IN THE UNITED STATES?
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Who buys influence in the US?
In 2006, Harvard Professor Steven Walt, and University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer published a long article in the London Review of Books on the “Israel Lobby,” a preview of a much longer book by the same name the two professors coauthored two years later. The highlycontroversial book alleged that U.S. Middle East policy had gone off the rails because of the power of the domestic Israel lobby, which had inordinate influence on American foreign policy, particularly in Congress. The bogeyman for Walt and Mearsheimer was of course the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The authors went further than that, though, effectively blaming the Iraq War in 2003 on a collection of pro-Israel Jewish neocons who were all but accused of working for Israel by beating the drums for that war. Of course Israelis officials were highly skeptical about the Iraq invasion, but why let facts interfere with conclusions?
The idea that somehow President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Secretary of State Colin Powell, had no policy of their own on Iraq, and hence were easy prey to become the tools of a few Jewish writers — Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle among them, was absurd on its face. But the argument was manna from heaven for every anti-Semite who has always believed in Jewish conspiracy theories, and now could hang onto one tossed out by two well-known professors from very distinguished universities.
The Walt-Mearsheimer article and book were filled with factual errors, and nonsensical arguments that led others to advance even more absurd accusations — such as the charge that the long dead political philosopher Leo Strauss was really responsible for the Iraq War, since some of his students were neocons and supported the war (along, of course, with 85 percent of the American population and a heavy majority in Congress at the time).
Regardless of its merits, the Walt-Mearsheimer thesis was believed by its proponents and supporters to have been a courageous attempt to tell the truth about something supposedly everyone else was fearful of discussing. What brave men! With Israel in complete control of the U.S. Congress, it was clear that members of the Senate and the House understood that to oppose Israel meant certain death at the next election as a result of a shift in campaign funds, or maybe Hamas-style public execution for violating a curfew.
Over the last eight years, the Walt-Mearsheimer argument has become conventional wisdom, since conventional wisdom means the wisdom of the Left on foreign policy, and bashing Israel has become a litmus test for full-fledged membership in what Professor Judith Butler calls “the global Left.”
In a long article in The New Yorker, Connie Bruck rehashes all the old Walt-Mearsheimer arguments about AIPAC power, while acknowledging that the group’s influence may be declining, due to unease among younger and more liberal Jews about Israeli policies which are supposedly fraying the ties between AIPAC and members of the Democratic Party. The reality is that AIPAC decided to pull its punches the last few years and not challenge President Barack Obama for fear of angering a man who seemed to be easily enraged by the actions of Israel, most recently for defending itself against Hamas terror attacks. The president’s anger against the Islamic State group for chopping off the heads of American journalists seemed to be somewhat more moderated (except for some displeasure with the brief interference they caused with his golfing holiday).
What has happened with AIPAC is a lowering of the bar of what it means to be considered pro-Israel in Congress. If a foreign aid bill is the measure of Israel’s power, it is easy to be pro-Israel, and everyone can be judged a friend, even Obama.
Of course, AIPAC itself never contributes to political campaigns of any kind. Its members make contributions, as do millions of other Americans, including many large contributors to candidates, political parties and their committees, and political action committees for any number of “persuasion” objectives. Hollywood liberals giving to Democrats of every kind, and green energy enthusiasts doing the same, dwarf the money contributed by pro-Israel contributors in recent election cycles. This has not stopped Israel bashers such as Roger Cohen and Tom Friedman of The New York Times from claiming that Congress is “Israeli-controlled property,” since there has to be an irrational explanation for why so many elected officials see the world differently than they do. Cohen, in his latest article, can only point to one comment on AIPAC influence by one former Democratic member of the House, Brian Baird, and another by one current member, John Yarmuth (who seems to win regularly by large margins regardless of his views on Israel). It must be that the pro-Israel lobby is doing a really great job stifling critical comments about Israel by other members of Congress, as they do on university campuses and in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the major networks and the all cable news channels, and magazines.
In light of the accepted wisdom on Israel’s straitjacket on the levers of American policy, it is of great interest to see a long New York Times article on which countries are trying to buy influence among the major think tanks in Washington, D.C., to influence American foreign policy, foreign aid and trade policy. One country whose name does not appear on the list is Israel. On the other hand, Qatar, a nation that hosts and either funds directly or facilitates the fundraising for pretty much every vicious Islamic terrorist group in the world, is a big giver to the think tanks — including $14 million over four years to the respected Brookings Institution.
This has left a negative impression with some observers: “Joseph Sandler, a lawyer and expert on the statute that governs Americans lobbying for foreign governments, said the arrangements between the countries and think tanks ‘opened a whole new window into an aspect of the influence-buying in Washington that has not previously been exposed.’
”‘It is particularly egregious because with a law firm or lobbying firm, you expect them to be an advocate,’ Mr. Sandler added. ‘Think tanks have this patina of academic neutrality and objectivity, and that is being compromised.'”
Sandler is referring, of course, to the huge public relations effort and direct lobbying efforts in which many wealthy Arab nations and Iran have invested in recent decades. The ultimate target of both of these efforts — the lobbying and now the think tank dollars, is to shift views in Congress or the executive branch. A general public relations campaign on TV and in magazines directed at the American population, lauding the greatness of Saudi Arabian society or Qatar might not work that well, but when congressmen know they can retire (or when beaten in an election) quickly get lucrative jobs in lobbying organizations or think tanks, or even universities funded by the Saudis (and the Gulf States), there might be a greater openness for their agenda among sitting members.
While former top State Department official Martin Indyk was high pressuring Israel, and regularly attacking the country the past few months in both on- and off-the-record comments to journalists, he was also on the payroll of Brookings, heavily funded by Hamas-backer Qatar. Could the Indyk-Qatar relationship have anything to do with recent enormous U.S. arms sales to Qatar, or to Secretary of State John Kerry pushing the Qatar/Turkey/Hamas cease-fire plan during the Israel-Hamas war, which Israeli officials found wholly objectionable and believed to be an attempt to undermine Egypt and its cease-fire efforts?
According to an article that recently appeared in The Algemeiner, ”Prof. Gerald Steinberg, president of Jerusalem-based funding watchdog, NGO-Monitor, told The Algemeiner that, ‘Indyk’s Brookings activities have been a part of the focus of this article, and the fact that Qatar is a primary funder of Brookings and that Qatar is also a major funder of Hamas are very clear conflicts of interest that Indyk never acknowledged, which makes all of the activities even more problematic than before.’
”‘Indyk was never forthcoming about that issue, and that’s the overall criticism that he’s faced,’ Steinberg said.
“Steinberg says that the report exposes a wider issue of NGO influence on U.S. and Israeli politics.
”‘This is a problem that Israel has faced for 20 years, and now it’s clear that this is something that the Americans are waking up to,’ he noted.
”‘This isn’t just about Qatar,’ he said. ‘It’s about Norway, it’s about the European Union.’
”‘And, of course, they’re heavily manipulating Israeli politics in a much more intensive effort, basically to control the Israeli democratic process on issues like war and peace, and boundaries.’
“Steinberg said that such issues ‘…have to be addressed just like funding for academic programs that specialize in the Middle East and are funded by Saudi Arabia, or other oil-rich countries; all are problematic because they inevitably have the spin the donor puts on them.’”
The critics of the Israel lobby will of course respond that this think tank funding is one of the few vehicles left for influencing the debate given AIPAC’s power. They thereby admit, of course, that support for honest intellectual research is not the objective of the financial support for think tanks, but rather lobbying, in a slightly more nuanced form with a patina of scholarship attached.
It is, obviously, no such thing. But then again, had Brookings been asked to assist FIFA in selecting a host country for the 2022 World Cup, do you think they might have come up with Qatar? As for the FIFA voters, you can bet they stuck to the objective merits of the various contenders as well. (120 degree heat at game time? Check.) Is Qatar trying to buy its way to an expanded international role and influence? That seems clear. But remember, Israel is calling all the shots that count.
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