Pro-Israel Groups Behind Push for War on Iran
By Michael Collins Piper
American Free Press
February 19, 2007
“While Jewish communal leaders focus most of their current lobbying efforts on pressing the United States to take a tough line against Iran and its nuclear program, some are privately voicing fears that they will be accused of driving America into a war with the regime in Tehran.”
With that amazing admission – presented here unedited in any way – one of the most distinguished Jewish community newspapers in America – the New York-based Forward – acknowledged on Feb. 2 that it is the leaders of American Jewish organizations who are pushing bellicose U.S. policies against Iran that are being carried out by the Bush administration.
This confirms what American Free Press has been saying from the very beginning.
Forward admitted that what has been referred to as “the Jewish Lobby” fears a “public backlash” from Americans who do not believe that a war against Iran is in America’s best interests and that many Americans now believe (or are increasingly starting to believe) the argument – put forth even before the United States invaded Iraq – that it was pro-Israel advocacy groups that were largely responsible for the ongoing debacle in Iraq.
However, according to Forward those whom it described as “Jewish groups” are now trying to convince the American public of the validity of their own pet conspiracy theory that Iran is not only a threat to Israel – their primary interest – but also to the West and even “pro-American Sunni Muslim states in the region.”
In other words, pro-Israel Jewish groups in the United States are actually saying that Muslim states such as, for example, Saudi Arabia – a longtime target of Israeli ire – need to be protected, too. Evidently, since Saudi Arabia is indeed fearful of a powerful Iran – nuclear-armed or otherwise – Israel and its proponents now believe that they can make it appear as though a U.S. attack on Iran is more than just “another war for Israel.”
Forward even cited Jess Hordes, an official of the Washington office of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), who claimed that “it is a fact that Iran is a danger to the whole world.” Hordes claimed that this rhetoric is not intended to “hide our concerns about Israel,” but his protests ring hollow since it is clear that it has been the pro-Israel lobby’s concerns about Iran that have been driving current American policy toward Iran just as it was that same lobby’s concerns about Iraq that drove American policy toward that now-vanquished Arab republic.
Forward itself went so far as to admit, in candid terms, that “many advocacy efforts, even when not linked to Israel, carry indelibly Jewish fingerprints” and that “Jewish groups are indeed playing a lead role in pressing for a hard line on Iran.”
(For more on the Zionist origins of the ongoing plan to attack Iran as part of a broad-ranging effort to defend the interests of Israel, see the accompanying story.-Ed.)
Citing a recent speech in Israel by Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Forward noted that Hoenlein is particularly distressed that many highly placed individuals of some renown – ranging from former President Jimmy Carter to retired Gen. Wesley Clark (who said that “New York money people” were behind the push for war against Iran) to former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter and professors Stephen Walt (of Harvard) and John Mearsheimer (of the University of Chicago) – have all questioned the power of the Israeli lobby in dictating U.S. policy toward Iran and Iraq.
In addition, former Secretary of State Colin Powell is said to have alleged that “the JINSA crowd,” referring to the Jewish Institute for National security Affairs, played a major part in stoking up the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which Powell long vehemently opposed but later supported, resulting in his own loss of public credibility as a consequence.
Hoenlein and other leaders of the wealthy and powerful Jewish community are now echoing earlier suggestions, previously put forth by their colleagues, that key figures in America’s policy-making elites are now openly criticizing Zionist power in America. This, according to Hoenlein, “is a cancer that starts from the top and works its way down. It poisons the opinions among elites which trickle down into society.
Forward noted that two Israeli authors, Michael Oren and Yossi Klein Halevi, associates of the Shalem Center, a Jerusalem-based think tank, say that Iran, in Forward‘s assessment of their claims, is “the main threat to Israeli survival, regional stability and to the entire world order.” Forward points out that, “This theme has been echoed in publications and press releases put out by most major Jewish groups, including [the American Israel Public Affairs Committee] and the Conference of Presidents.”
The Forward Article:
Jewish Groups Fear Public Backlash Over Iran
Article Source: American Free Press
