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MicrosoftInternetExplorer4
Chomsky on Oil and the Israel
Lobby
by M. Shahid Alam
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MicrosoftInternetExplorer4
Muslim
Alliance <[log in to unmask]
(Friday, January
30, 2009)
In the slow evolution of US relations with Israel
since 1948, as the latter mutated from a strategic liability to a strategic
asset, Israel and
its Jewish allies in the United States
have always occupied the driver’s seat.
President Truman had shepherded the creation of Israel
in 1947 not because the American establishment saw it as a strategic asset;
this much is clear. “No one,” writes Cheryl Rubenberg, “not even the Israelis
themselves, argues that the United States
supported the creation of the Jewish state for reasons of security or national
interest.”[1] Domestic politics, in an election year, was the primary force
behind President Truman’s decision to support the creation of Israel.
In addition, the damage to US interests due to the creation of Israel
– although massive – was not immediate. This was expected to unfold slowly: and
its first blows would be borne by20the British who were still the paramount
power in the region.
Nevertheless, soon after he had helped to create Israel,
President Truman moved decisively to appear to distance the United
States from the new state. Instead of
committing American troops to protect Israel,
when it fought against five Arab armies, he imposed an even-handed arms embargo
on both sides in the conflict. Had Israel
been dismantled [at birth], President Truman would have urged steps to protect
the Jewish colonists in Palestine,
but he would have accepted a premature end to the Zionist state as fait
accompli. Zionist pressures failed to persuade President Truman to lift the
arms embargo. Ironically, military deliveries from Czechoslovakia
may have saved the day for Israel.
Once Israel
had defeated the armies of Arab proto-states and expelled the Palestinians to
emerge as an exclusively Jewish colonial-settler state in 1949, these brute
facts would work in its favor. Led by the United
States, the Western powers would recognize Israel,
aware that they would have to defend this liability. At the same time, the
humiliation of defeat had given an impetus to Arab nationalists across the
region, who directed their anger against Israel
and its Western sponsors.
This placed Israel
in a strong position to accelerate its transformation into a strategic asset.
In tandem with the Jewish lobby in the United
States, Israel
sought to maximize th
e assistance it could receive from the West through
policies that stoked Arab nationalism; and as Israel's
military superiority grew this emboldened it to increase its aggressive posture
towards the Arabs. Israel
had the power to set in motion a vicious circle that would soon create the Arab
threat against which it would defend the West. As a result, at various points
during the 1950s, France,
the United States,
and Britain
began to regard Israel
as a strategic asset.
America's
embrace of Israel
did not begin in 1967. Israel's
victory in the June War only accelerated a process that had been underway since
its creation – even before its creation. Indeed, the Zionists had decided in
1939 to pursue the United States
as their new mother country; they knew that they could use the very large and
influential population of American Jews to win official US backing for their
goals.
This paid off handsomely in 1948; but thereafter, the United
States sought to contain the damage that
would flow from the creation of Israel.
However, these efforts would be self-defeating; the die had been cast. Israel
– not the United States
– was in the driver’s seat; and Israel
would seek to maximize the negative fallout from its creation. As Israel
succeeded in augmenting – within limits – the Arab threat to itself and the United
States, the Jewish lobby would regain
confidence; it would re-or
ganize to reinforce Israel's
claim that it was now a strategic asset.
We have here another vicious circle – virtuous, for Israel.
The Jewish lobby would gain strength as the Arab-cum-Soviet threat to the Middle
East grew. When Israel
scaled back the Arab threat in 1967, the Jewish lobby would step in to spend
the political capital the Jewish state had garnered in the United
States. The Israeli capture of Jerusalem
in 1967 also energized the Christian Zionists, who, with encouragement from
Jewish Zionists, would organize, enter into Republican politics, and soon
become a major ally of the Jewish lobby. The sky was now the limit for Israel
and the Zionists in the United States.
The special relationship would become more special under every new presidency.
Several writers on the American left have pooh-poohed the charge that the
Jewish lobby has been a leading force shaping America's
Middle East policy. They argue that the United
States has supported Israel
because of the convergence of their interests in the region. [2] Oil, primarily
Saudi Arabian oil, they maintain correctly, is “a stupendous source of
strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history.”[3]
Incorrectly, however, they insist that this is what has driven US
policy towards the Middle East.
A priori, this is an odd position to maintain, since Britain – up
until 1948 – had managed quite well=2
0to maintain complete control over Middle
Eastern oil, a dominance the United States could not sustain ‘despite’ the
‘strategic support’ of Israel. Successively, they argue, Western control over
oil came under threat from Arab nationalism and militant Islamism. Israel
has demonstrated its strategic value by holding in check and, later, defeating,
the Arab nationalist challenge. Since then, Israel
has fought the Islamist challenge to US
hegemony over the region.
It may be useful to examine Noam Chomsky’s analysis of this relationship,
since he enjoys iconic status amongst both liberal and leftists in the United
States. Chomsky frames his analysis of
‘causal factors’ behind the special relationship as essentially a choice
between “domestic pressure groups” and “US strategic interests.” He finds two
limitations in the argument that the “American Jewish community” is the chief
protagonist of the special relationship between Israel
and the United States.
First, “it underestimates the scope of the “support for Israel,”
and second, it overestimates the role of political pressure groups in
decision-making.” Chomsky points out that the Israel
lobby is “far broader” than the American Jewish community; it embraces liberal
opinion, labor leaders, Christian fundamentalists, conservative hawks, and
“fervent cold warriors of all stripes.”[4] While this broad
er definition of the
Israel lobby is
appropriate, and this is what most users of the term have in mind, Chomsky
thinks that the presence of this “far broader” support for Israel
diminishes the role that American Jews play in this lobby.
Two hidden assumptions underpin Chomsky’s claim that a broader Israel
lobby shifts the locus of lobbying to non-Jewish groups. First, he fails to
account for the strong overlap – barring the Christian fundamentalists –
between the American Jewish community and the other domestic pressure groups he
enumerates. In the United States,
this overlap has existed since the early decades of the twentieth century, and
increased considerably in the post-War period. It is scarcely to be doubted
that Jews hold – and deservedly so – a disproportionate share of the leadership
positions in corporations, the labor movement, and those professions that shape
public discourse. Starting in the 1980s, the ascendancy of Jewish
neoconservatives – together with their think tanks - gave American Jews an
equally influential voice in conservative circles. Certainly, the weight of
Jewish neoconservative opinion during the early years of President Bush – both
inside and outside his administration – has been second to that of none. The
substantial Jewish presence in the leadership circles of the other pressure
groups undermines Chomsky’s contention that the pro-Israeli group is “far
broader9
D than the American Jewish community.
There is a second problem with Chomsky’s argument. Implicitly, he assumes
that the different pro-Israeli groups have existed, acted and evolved independently
of each other; alternatively, the impact of the lobbying efforts of these
groups is merely additive. This ignores the galvanizing role that Jewish
organizations have played in mobilizing Gentile opinion behind the Zionist
project. The activism of the American Jews – as individuals and groups - has
operated at several levels. Certainly, the leaders of the Zionist movement have
directed a large part of their energies to lobbying at the highest levels of
official decision-making. At the same time, they have created, and they
orchestrate, a layered network of Zionist organizations who have worked very
hard to create support for their aims in the broader American civil society.
American Jews have worked through several channels to influence civil
society. As growing numbers of American Jews embraced Zionist goals during the
1940s, as their commitment to Zionism deepened, this forced the largest Jewish
organizations to embrace Zionist goals. In addition, since their earliest days,
the Zionists have created the organizations, allies, networks and ideas that
would translate into media, congressional and presidential support for the
Zionist project. In addition, since Jewish Americans made up a growing fraction
of the activists and leaders in various branches of civil society20– the labor,
civil rights and feminist movements – it was natural that the major organs of
civil society came to embrace Zionist aims. It makes little sense, then, to
maintain that the pro-Israeli positions of mainstream American organizations
had emerged independently of the activism of the American Jewish community.
Does our contention fail in the case of the Christian Evangelicals because
of the absence of Jews in their ranks? In this case, the movement has received
the strongest impetus from the ingathering of Jews that has proceeded in Israel
since the late nineteenth century. The dispensationalist stream within
Protestant Christians in the United States
– who believe that the ingathering of Jews in Israel
will precede the Second Coming – has been energized by every Zionist success on
the ground. They have viewed these successes - the launching of Zionism, the
Balfour Declaration, the creation of Israel, the capture of Jerusalem, ‘Judea’
and ‘Samaria’ in 1967 – as so many confirmations of their dispensationalist
eschatology. The movement expanded with every Zionist victory. At the same
time, it would be utterly naïve to rule out direct relations between the
Zionists and the leaders of the evangelical movement. The Zionists have rarely
shrunk from accepting support even when it has come from groups with unedifying
beliefs.
Noam Chomsky raises a second objection against the ability of the=2
0Jewish
lobby to influence policy on its own steam. “No pressure group,” he
maintains, “will dominate access to public opinion or maintain consistent
influence over policy-making unless its aims are close to those of elite
elements with real power (emphases added).”[5] One problem with this
argument is easily stated. It pits the Jewish lobby as one “pressure group” –
amongst many – arrayed against all the others that hold the real power. This
equation of the Jewish lobby with a narrowly defined “pressure group” is
misleading. We have argued – a position that is well supported by the evidence
– that Jewish protagonists of Zionism have worked through many different
channels to influence public opinion, the composition of political classes, and
political decisions. They work through the organs that shape public opinion to
determine what Americans know about Israel,
how they think about Israel,
and what they can say about it. This is no little Cuban lobby, Polish
lobby or Korean lobby. Once we recognize the scale of financial resources the
Jewish lobby commands, the array of political forces it can mobilize, and the
tools it commands to direct public opinion on the Middle East,
we would shrink from calling it a lobby.
Chomsky quickly proceeds to undermine his own argument about “elite elements
with real power.” He explains that the “[elite] elements are not uniform
in in
terests or (in the case of shared interests) in tactical judgments; and on
some issues, such as this one [policy towards Israel],
they have often been divided.”[6] Yet, despite the differences in their
interests, their tactics, and their divisions, Chomsky maintains that these
“elite elements” have “real power.” Oddly, these “divided” elites – whoever
they are – exercise the power of veto over the multi-faceted Jewish lobby with
its deep pockets, hierarchical organizations, and influence over key organs of
civil society, campaign contributions, popular votes, etc.
Chomsky’s argument shifts again – a second time in the same paragraph – away
from “elite elements” to “America's changing conceptions of its
political-strategic interests” in the Middle East.[6] This suggests a new
theory of the chief determinant of US policy towards Israel. At the heart of
these “political-strategic interests” is the oil wealth of the Middle
East – and the twin threats to American control over this oil
wealth from Arab nationalists and the Soviets. Presumably, Israel
protects these “political-strategic interests” by holding the Arabs and
the Soviets at bay. Chomsky conveniently forgets that the Arab nationalist
threat to US interests in the Middle East was – in large part – the product of
Israel's insertion into the region, its ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, an
d
its aggressive posture towards Arabs since its creation. It is unnecessary to
account for the Soviet threat, since they entered the region on the back of
Arab nationalist discontent. Indeed, had Israel never been created, it is more
than likely that all the states in the Middle East – just like Turkey
and Pakistan – would have remained firmly within the Western sphere of
influence.
In another attempt to convince his readers that oil has driven US
policy towards the Middle East, Chomsky claims that the United
States was “committed to win and keep this
prize [Saudi oil].” Presumably, the United
States could not keep this “prize” without
help from Israel.
This argument fails because it ignores history. Starting in 1933, American
oil corporations – who later merged to form Aramco – gained exclusive
rights to explore, produce and market Saudi oil. Saudi
Arabia first acquired a 25 percent ownership
stake in Aramco in 1973. Had there emerged an Arab nationalist threat to
US control over Saudi oil in the 1950s – in the absence of Israel – the United
States could have handled it by establishing one or more military bases in
Saudi Arabia or, preferably, in one of the Emirates, since American military
presence in Saudi Arabia might inflame Islamic sentiments. Far from helping
entrench American control of Saudi oil, Israel,
by radicalizing Arab nationalism, gave Sa
udi
Arabia the excuse to first gain a 25 percent
stake in Aramco and then nationalize it in 1988.
Chomsky claims that the United States
was committed to winning and keeping the “stupendous” oil prize. This claim is
not supported by the results that America's
Middle Eastern policy has produced on the ground over the years. If the United
States was indeed committed to this goal, it
would have pursued a Middle East policy that could be
expected to maximize – with the lowest risks of failure – the access of US
oil corporations to exploration, production and distribution rights over oil in
this region. This is not the case.[7]
In creating, aiding and arming Israel,
the United States
has followed a policy that could easily have been foreseen to produce, as it
did produce, exactly the opposite effects. It gave a boost to Arab nationalism,
radicalized it, and led within a few years to the Arab nationalist takeover of
three of the four key states in the Arab world. In turn, this contributed to
the nationalization of oil wealth even in those Arab countries that remained
clients of the United States, not to speak of countries that were taken over by
Arab nationalists , who excluded the US oil corporations from this industry
altogether. In addition, America's
Middle Eastern policy converted the Middle East into a
leading arena of wars. It also became a source of deep tensions between the US
and
the Soviets, since US partisanship of Israel
forced the Arab nationalist regimes to ally themselves with the Soviet
Union. In the October War of 1973, the United
States provoked the Arab nations – because
of its decision to re-supply the Israeli army during the war – to impose a
costly oil embargo against the United States.
In opposition to the pleadings of its oil corporations, the United
States has also prevented them from doing
business with three oil-producing nations in the Middle East
– Iran, Iraq
and Libya.[8]
If oil had been driving America's
Middle East policy, we should have seen the fingerprints
of the oil lobby all over this policy. In recent decades, according to
Mearsheimer and Walt, the oil lobby has directed its efforts “almost entirely
on their commercial interests rather than on broader aspects of foreign
policy.” They focus most of their lobbying efforts on getting the best deals on
tax policies, government regulations, drilling rights, etc. Even the AIPAC
bears witness to this. In the early 1980s, Morris J. Amitay, former executive
director of AIPAC, noted, “We rarely see them [oil corporations] lobbying on
foreign policy issues…In a sense, we have the field to ourselves.”[9]
Why does it matter whether it is oil or the Jewish lobby that determines US
policy towards Israel
and the Middle East?
The answer to this question has important20consequences. It will determine
who is in charge, and, therefore, who should be targeted by people who oppose Israel's
war mongering and its destruction of Palestinian society. If US
policy is driven by America's
strategic interests – and Israel
is a strategic US
asset – opposing this policy will not be easy. If Israel
keeps the oil flowing, keeps it cheap, and keeps down the Arabs and Islamists –
all this for a few billion dollars a year – that is a bargain. In this case,
opponents of this policy face an uphill task. Sure, they can document the
immoral consequences of this policy – as Noam Chomsky and others do. Such moral
arguments, however, will not cut much ice. What are the chances that Americans
can be persuaded to sacrifice their “stupendous prize” because it kills a few
tens of thousands of Arabs?
On the other hand, if the Jewish lobby drives US policy towards the Middle
East, there is some room for optimism. Most importantly, the
opponents of this policy have to dethrone the reigning paradigm, which claims
that Israel is
a strategic asset. In addition, it is necessary to focus attention on each
element of the real costs - economic, political and moral – that Israel
imposes on the United States.
Winning these intellectual arguments will be half the battle won; this will
persuade growing numbers of Americans to oppose a policy because it hurts them.
Simultaneously, those who=2
0seek justice for the Palestinians must organize to
oppose the power of the Israel
lobby and take actions that force Israel
to bear the moral, economic and political consequences of its destructive
policies in the Middle East.
References:
[1]. “Virtually every professional in the foreign affairs bureaucracy,
including the secretaries of state and war (later, defense) and the joint
chiefs of staff, opposed the creation of Israel
from the standpoint of US
national interests (Rubenberg: 1986, 9-10).”
[2]. For criticisms of Chomsky, see James Petras, The Power of Israel in
the United States (Atlanta:
Clarity Press, 2006): 168-81; and Jeff Blankfort, Damage control: Noam
Chomsky and the Israeli-Palestine conflict.
[3]. This assessment comes from a 1945 report of the State Department
(Chomsky: 1999, 17).
[4]. Noam Chomsky, Fateful triangle: 13.
[5]. Noam Chomsky, Fateful triangle: 17.
[6]. Noam Chomsky, Fateful triangle:: 17.
[7]. Noam Chomsky, Fateful triangle:: 17.
[8]. Mearsheimer and Walt, The Israel
lobby and US
foreign policy (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006): 143.
[9]. Mearsheimer and Walt, The Israel
lobby: 145.
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