Israel's Lethal Hold Over the United States By Paul J. Balles

Israel's Lethal Hold Over the United States

By Paul J. Balles

Redress, May 29, 2008

Paul J. Balles considers the cost to the USA of its open-ended support of Israel. He urges scholars and journalists to join the likes of John Mearsheimer, Stephen Walt and James Petras in exposing the cost of the pro-Israel lobby to America and the American people.

Here's a timeline without times, but with the order of things:

Israel wants to rid occupied Palestine of the Palestinians. It's called ethnic cleansing.

Israel can't get rid of the Palestinians as long as there's a threat of missile attacks from Arab or Islamic countries assumed to be hostile.

Arab countries like Iraq, or Islamic countries like Iran, assumed to be hostile, would not use weapons of mass destruction against Israel as long as Palestinians would also be massacred.

The potential threat must be eliminated, according to Israel who once bombed a nuclear plant in Iraq in a pre-emptive attack to remove an assumed potential threat.

Israel insists that America hasn't done enough to eliminate the threat to Israel from two of the members of Bush's "axis of evil" – Iraq and Iran.

America ignores the potential cost to Americans to satisfy the wishes of Israel. The costs are great not only the costs of military occupation, but the loss of a potential oil source that could have kept the price of oil down to 40 dollars a barrel.

Dr Salameh, director of the UK-based Oil Market Consultancy Service, says:

Iraq had offered the United States a deal, three years before the war, that would have opened up 10 new giant oil fields on 'generous' terms in return for the lifting of sanctions. This would certainly have prevented the steep rise of the oil price, but the US had a different idea. It planned to occupy Iraq and annex its oil.

Iran is developing nuclear power. Israel insists that America sponsor sanctions against Iran leading to bombing of Iran's nuclear plants, "Everything is on the table," says the American leadership.

Why? Iran is no threat to America. Journalist Charley Reese asks:

So what are the capabilities of Iran? It has no nuclear weapons. We have about 3,000 or more. One American submarine could destroy the entire country of Iran and its population. Iran has no missiles that could reach us. It has no aircraft that could reach us. Its army couldn't even defeat Iraq.

"Why has the United States been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of another state?" ask scholars John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt. Their answer: the influence of the pro-Israel lobby.

In the two years since Mearsheimer and Walt published their study, it hasn't been successfully challenged but, even more significantly, it hasn't affected any reduction in the influence of the Israeli lobby.

All of the timeline items and comments mentioned above have been observed and recorded by highly respected scholars and journalists in foreign journals or newspapers and on the Internet.

One of those scholars is James Petras, whose book The Power of Israel in the United States should have been a best-selling guide to correcting the "influence problem" in America. It has added to the verbal artillery of those of us who would like to see real change.

Petras asks, "Who benefited from the Iraq war? His answer: "The only major beneficiary of the war has been the state of Israel." He provides a thorough analysis and incontrovertible evidence to support that conclusion.

Professor Petras makes it equally clear that "Israel's political and military leadership have repeatedly and openly declared their preparation to militarily attack Iran in the immediate future. Again, the support offered by Petras is conclusive.

When are other scholars and journalists going to join the truth seekers and speak out? If they're believers in the truth, they should join together in their willingness to resist the naysayers and lobbyists. Costly silence is inexcusable.

Paul J. Balles is a retired American university professor and freelance writer who has lived in the Middle East for many years. For more information, see http://www.pballes.com.