The Freeman Affair and the Israel Lobby
3/16/2009 11:11:01 AM

Soon after he was elected I saw George W. Bush being asked a question about Palestinians at a news conference. He said the parties in that region had to solve their own problems. It meant that the United States would withdraw from any helpful role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A boxing match image came to my mind with a very big guy in one corner (Israel) and a very little guy in the other (Palestinians). Not quite a fair fight. Actually Bush did what his neoconservative advisors wanted, strong and unquestioning support for the right-wing elements in Israel no matter what. Don't talk, kill them. Israel has become what Naomi Kline says is a military industrial state. After nine years of this wrong policy we see that the problems there have only worsened.

With a new president it would seem it is time to question the Bush policy. An indication of change was signalled by the nomination of Charles Freeman as director of the National Intelligence Council, a key post coordinating intelligence activity for the government. But then a smear campaign was begun by the "Israel Lobby" and Freeman finally withdrew his name for the position. The whole matter has become known as "The Freeman Affair" and has been recently documented by Robert Dreyfuss.

I have read the book by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt called The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. No one reading this book can deny the power of what they call the Israel Lobby on members of both parties, though many of the people influenced by the lobby try to argue that it doesn't exist and argue that those who talk about the lobby are inventing conspiracies. But what is not adequately understood in the United States is that it is not just "support for Israel" that is at issue, it is support of a particular flavor of right-wing, belligerent, neoconservative policy in Israel that is at issue. Now the Freeman Affair is exposing the fact that there is such a lobby and it is very powerful, it was able to bring down the appointment of a very capable foreign policy expert in the Obama administration because he was not far enough to the right to satisfy the Israel Lobby. Dreyfuss thinks this may be the beginning of the end of its power.

This is due to the fact that Charles Freeman did not leave quietly. He "let loose with a broadside against his enemies" as Tom Engelhardt says in introducing the Dreyfuss report. In this broadside Freeman says: "The tactics of the Israel lobby plumb the depths of dishonor and indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the willful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the truth," wrote Freeman. "The aim of this lobby is control of the policy process through the exercise of a veto over the appointment of people who dispute the wisdom of its views." Dreyfuss thinks this clear statement of Freeman has the potential to change politics in Washington D.C. about Israel.

This is because the Israel Lobby may get the kind of right-wing administration it wants in Israel if Likud Party leader Bibi Netanyahu is elected in the upcoming elections. He and even more extreme leaders of the ruling coalition will push for even more radical actions than the recent Israeli assault on Gaza, which caused much concern among Americans about what Israel is doing.

The Dreyfuss article names many of the players and organizations in this whole episode. It is an affair to remember as relations between the United States and Israel unfold over the coming months and years.


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