JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: ON JONATHAN COOK'S NOTION THAT AMERICA'S ISRAEL LOBBY IS WEAKENING - WHY I THINK THIS A FALSE NOTION - MAYBE ONE DAY THERE WILL BE A BACKLASH IF ISRAEL KEEPS OVERPLAYING ITS HAND - BUT RIGHT NOW AMERICANS RESEMBLE A HERD QUIETLY GRAZING WHILE JUST OVER THE HILLS VICIOUS ARMIES CLASH AND THREATEN THE FUTURE

John Chuckman


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JONATHAN COOK IN CONSORTIUM NEWS



“UK Israel Lobby Adds Muscle as US Lobby Weakens

“British politics are being plunged into a stifling silence on the longest example of mass human rights abuses sanctioned by the West in modern history”



Worth reading, as are most things Jonathan Cook writes.

But I'm not sure I accept his notion of The Lobby's hold in the United States weakening in any way.

Yes, there finally are a few people in Congress who speak truth for the first time ever.

But look at the choke-hold Israel has on the county, despite those minor influences.

Many of Trump's most senior appointments are people serving Israeli interests to a record degree - Bolton, Pompeo, Abrahams, Kushner, and others.

And look at the things, not his to legally dispose of at all, that Trump has "given" Israel. It's shocking, but there are almost no voices in the United States saying so.

And by all accounts, Trump's big "peace plan" could have been written by members of Netanyahu's staff. There is no pretense of working with two sides to solve a problem involving two sides.

We have matters like Trump's "Syria withdrawal" reduced to dust under Israeli influence, for there is no other serious known interest keeping American military, illegally, in northwestern Syria.

Israel just wants instability for Syria and to deprive that state of the use of its own resources. It's just gangsterism, but America fully goes along.

And the steady drumbeat against law-abiding Iran is becoming deafening.

There is only one interest pushing this pointlessly destructive policy, Israel with its intense desire to dominate its region and benefit from all the favor of the United States in doing so.

America’s own long-term interests all dictate that it should work to establish good relations with Iran, a major and peaceful state with many things to offer in trade and friendship, but America cannot do so under Israel’s withering influence. It just keeps flagellating itself to exhibit its reverence towards one small and extremely belligerent state.

Israel is under absolutely no threat from Iran. It's just empty rhetoric, an excuse for itself promoting threats and belligerence.

Imagine a non-nuclear state attacking a nuclear state such as Israel, one with a sizable arsenal? One, moreover, doubly protected by America's nuclear arsenal. It's a darkly laughable idea, but it is never laughed at by anyone in Washington, it is only ritualistically honored and repeated.

Israel's destructive viewpoint prevails in almost all important matters. Even much of America’s intense Russophobia reflects stoking by Israeli interests. Israel simply views Russia, without saying so publicly, as a big stumbling block to the kind of American international dominance Israel would be very happy seeing.

There is not much to be hopeful about that I see. Perhaps, if Israel keeps so grotesquely over-playing its hand, there will be a backlash in the United States. But that’s only a “perhaps.” Americans, on the whole, just go right along with things, much resembling a herd of cattle quietly grazing in a pasture while just over the distant hills, vicious armies clash and threaten their future.