    Signs of the Times for Tue, 21 Feb 2006

    The Chomsky/Blankfort Polemic
    Réseau Voltaire
    February 20, 2006

    Tel-Aviv and Washington are linked in the Middle East. That's a fact.
    But the importance of this link in Washington's colonial politics is
    being debated in the anti-imperialist movement. For the US, Jewish,
    anti-Zionist journalist Jeffrey Blankfort, Israeli influence is central
    to US policy and the anti-war movement has failed because of its
    inability to understand the importance of this lobby. Having developed a
    radical approach to this question, going so far as to deny the energy
    factor in the war in Iraq, Mr. Blankfort nonetheless opens interesting
    paths on Zionist influence in the United States. We reproduce an
    interview he gave to journalist Silvia Cattori.

    Jeffrey Blankfort is a US journalist and producer of radio programs on
    KPOO in San Francisco and KZYX in Mendocino, in Northern California, and
    was formerly at KPFT/Pacifica in Houston, until they purged the
    political programming to better lull their listeners to sleep with
    music. Engaged in the political fight in favor of the Palestinians and
    for the creation of one binational state in Palestine since the 70s, he
    has become one of the favorite targets of US Zionists while also
    attracting the animosity of a part of the US left grouped around Noam
    Chomsky, who reproaches Blankfort for his "lobby obsession". He was
    editor of the Middle East Labor Bulletin and co-founder of the Labor
    Committee of the Middle East. Also, he was a founding member of the
    November 29 Coalition on Palestine.

    Silvia Cattori : Washington and Tel-Aviv are intensifying their threats
    against Iran. In your opinion, does Israel have a precise national
    interest in weakening, or destroying, numerous Arab neighbors and to
    what degree does it succeed in orienting US policy towards new
    aggression in the Middle East?

    Jeffrey Blankfort : My position is, and I have written an article about
    it, that the war in Iraq was not a war for oil, but was a war conceived
    by the neo-cons and the pro-Israeli lobby in the United States to
    benefit Israel, and to elevate Israel to a very important position in
    the Middle East, as a part of a plan to achieve overall US global
    control. This is what was called for in the document of the "Project for
    a New American Century” or PNAC. And even though a number of prominent
    people, politicians as well as military people, have said that this was
    a war for Israel, the anti-war movement will not consider that at all.

    And right at this moment, the only segment of the American society that
    is pushing the US administration to confront Iran, happens to be the
    Jewish establishment or the lobby, whose main focus for months – groups
    like AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, but also other
    Jewish organizations-- has been to prevent Iran from getting nuclear
    weapons.

    The left and the anti-war movement are so focused on blaming everything
    on US imperialism on one hand, and avoiding the provoking of what they
    fear will be "anti-Semitism" on the other, that they have gone further
    from putting any blame on Israel than have elements of the mainstream.
    And so, having paid no price for pushing the US into the war in Iraq –
    and not only this war, but the first Gulf war – they are preparing to do
    the same with Iran. There is no lobby like it.

    S.C. - In other words, the US has become a satellite of Israel and acts
    in function with Israel's interests? Is this thesis not the opposite of
    that of Chomsky and of the left in general, for whom it is the US that
    uses Israel? That there is a convergence of interests between the US and
    Israel, and that Israel is simply the US's cop on the ground in exchange
    for services rendered by the US in the Middle East?

    Jeffrey Blankfort : Yes, Chomsky tends to simplify US politics, blaming
    everything on the elites and whoever is in the White House while
    avoiding the role of Congress. Today, eleven members of the Senate are
    Jewish, that is 11 % of the 100 members while only 2 % of the American
    population is Jewish. He and his supporters, either directly or
    indirectly, raise the spectre of anti-Semitism, of provoking
    anti-Semitism, and what happens is that people keep their mouth shut.
    Now, Chomsky, who was a Zionist when he was younger--he lived in Israel,
    he has friends in Israel, was considering moving to Israel-- admitted in
    1974 that this might influence his perspective – and he wanted his
    readers to know that. He wrote this in 1974 and yet few people who read
    Chomsky today know that. They do not know that he was Zionist, that he
    considered living in Israel.

    In fact, for years he did not speak about Israel while he was speaking
    out about the US in Central America and Vietnam. It was a mutual friend
    of ours, Dr. Israel Shahak, who convinced Chomsky that he should speak
    up against what Israel is doing to the Palestinians. It is interesting
    that the most important book that Chomsky wrote about the
    Israeli-Palestinian issue, The Fateful Triangle, begins actually with a
    defence of Israel, a defence in the sense that while acknowledging all
    the Israeli crimes against the Palestinians, he blames the US for
    allowing it to happen. Now, this defence, I would say, could be used by
    Pinochet in Chile or any dictator the US has supported around the world,
    to take the primary responsibility from them and place it on the US. And
    I don’t buy this. And most people who understand the situation, don’t
    buy it either when they come to look at it. A number of friends of mine,
    who are friends of Chomsky, have come to agree with me. The problem is,
    I would say, as fellow academics, that they don't feel comfortable
    criticizing Chomsky, particularly since he is often attacked by the
    right wing.

    He has defended many people who have been under attack and has thus
    gained their loyalty. He also has been a mentor to a number of
    academics, and ironically, Chomsky has been the doorway for so many
    people to become involved in politics. They read Chomsky, and they
    become excited about political work. And it is only later, if they are
    fortunate, that they discover that Chomsky not only opens the door, he
    closes it as well!

    S.C. - Which would mean that Chomsky gives less importance to the
    pro-Israeli lobby than it has? Has Chomsky upheld unjust options for the
    Palestinians in order to preserve Israel, for which he has an emotional
    attachment? Is this a unique case or has Chomsky defended the indefensible?

    Jeffrey Blankfort : For the most part. On most other subjects, he is
    more open. On this particular one, he won’t even debate the issue. In
    1991 we had an exchange that was published in a left newspaper in New
    York, the National Guardian, and a friend there wanted to set up a
    debate between Chomsky and myself on the issue of the Israel lobby at
    the Socialist Scholars Conference. Chomsky refused, writing "that it
    would not be useful." After his refusal, I asked a professor in
    California, Joel Beinin, whom I know, and who takes Chomsky’s position,
    if he would debate me. His response was identical: "it would not be
    useful !"

    S.C. – On Iran, which today is caught in a vise, is Chomsky, in your
    opinion, also minimizing the role of the lobby acting in favor of Israel
    in the United States ?

    Jeffrey Blankfort : Regarding Iran, Chomsky and the others seem to be
    ignoring the campaign that the lobby is waging to get us into another
    war, one that will be far more catastrophic than the disaster that has
    taken place in Iraq. There is a coalition of the 12 leading Jewish
    women's organizations, representing a million Jewish women, calling
    itself "One Voice for Israel," that formed in 2002 in response to the
    bad publicity Israel received over the destruction of Jenin. Each year,
    in what it calls "Take-5," it gets it gets it members to call the White
    House at the same time and then on another day, to do the same to
    Congress. Each time they have done it, they have tied up the Capitol
    switchboard. It is one of the ways in which they show their power.

    This coming February 22nd, they will be phoning President Bush to
    express their opinion on what he should do about Iran, and its
    development of nuclear energy or weapons. This a kind of operation that
    goes on all the time, but it is not even an issue or even known about by
    the anti-war movement, or by the left, and Professor Chomsky has written
    to me and others that he is not interested in the issue.

    When two years ago, the same person who invited him to have a debate
    with me in 1991, asked Chomsky again if he would do it, he refused,
    dismissing my "preoccupation" with the lobby. He also writes that he
    refuses to read the article that I wrote about him. This is hardly the
    response of an intellectual. I find it interesting that he is willing to
    debate Alan Dershowitz, because that is fairly easy, but he won't debate
    someone on the left or at least on this issue. And that is where the
    debate should take place.

    S.C. – Do you think that other countries have their equivalent of AIPAC?

    Jeffrey Blankfort : AIPAC is very unusual because while it is a
    registered lobby for Israel, it does not have to register as a foreign
    lobby. And that gives it a unique situation in the country. In every
    hearing in the Congress that involves Middle East issues, you have staff
    members of AIPAC sitting in these committee hearings. No other lobbies,
    foreign lobbies, have this privilege. And they also write the
    legislation that Congress passes regarding the Middle East. For example,
    the recent Syrian Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration
    Act, which was passed a couple of years ago and which lead to what we
    see in Lebanon and Syria today was written by AIPAC which later bragged
    about it. It is not a secret. The only people that pretend they don't
    know it is the Left. It's on AIPAC's website, it is in their
    publications. AIPAC also provides interns - young, bright Jewish college
    students to work in the offices of members of Congress. They go to a
    member of Congress and say: "We have this young person who is interested
    in working on Capitol Hill, they will come one year and they will work
    in your office." No member of Congress is about to refuse a volunteer.

    Also AIPAC has a special foundation that provides free trips for members
    of Congress to Israel. Last year over a hundred members of Congress went
    to Israel, on a free trip, paid for by this foundation. Now there is a
    big debate about such trips in Congress paid for by various lobbies, but
    I do not believe that anything is going to happen there that would
    negatively affect AIPAC. Congress will make an exception when it comes
    to Israel. What is interesting is we have a country to the South of us
    called Mexico. Mexico is far more important to the United States, to our
    economy, and also there are many more people of Mexican-American
    extraction than Jews.

    There are thousands of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans who work here and
    are responsible for growing and picking the farm produce in the United
    States. And yet we don’t have Congressional delegations going to Mexico,
    we don’t have Congress talking about the importance of Mexico. If they
    go to Mexico, they go for a vacation, and yet here the focus is on
    Israel simply because of two things: money and intimidation. The
    Democratic Party has for years relied on wealthy Jewish donors for the
    majority of its contributions. AIPAC itself does not give money. AIPAC
    coordinates where the money should go, so if you are a wealthy Jewish
    donor and you want to do something to help Israel’s cause, AIPAC will
    let you know where to give it. Also, around the country, there are now
    about three dozen political action committees or PACs that exist only to
    give money to candidates who support Israel. None of them are identified
    by a name that has anything to do with Israel; so here in California we
    have something called the Northern Californians for Good Government”.
    You have in St.Louis, Missouri, the St. Louisans for Good Government.
    The biggest one is called the National PAC, NPAC. Then you have the
    Hudson Valley Political Action committee, Desert Caucus, et cetera.

    If you look at the name of these committees, you have no idea what they
    are for, whereas the other lobbies identify themselves by their special
    interest. Why not Jewish supporters of Israel? But even more important
    for Democrats, and for some Republicans, is the money contributed by
    individual Jews. For example, in 2002, an Egyptian-born Israeli, named
    Haim Saban, who came to the United States and made billions of dollars
    with a Saturday morning children's program, gave $12.3 million dollars
    to the Democratic party, which was only about a million and a half
    dollars less than the arm manufacturers political action committees gave
    to the both political parties.

    Now, this is just one man. And also Haim Saban, who founded the Saban
    Institute at the Brookings Institute which deals with Israeli issues,is
    also a big supporter AIPAC, and he funds events in Washington where
    AIPAC trains college students for pro-Israel advocacy. University
    campuses are a main battleground for the Jewish forces lobbying for
    Israel they have come together as the Israel Campus Coalition, 28
    organizations, including AIPAC with Israel at the top of their agenda.

    Today, a main lobby focus is to get to the colleges campuses to stop
    divestment programs directed towards Israel. They also are trying to
    influence the next generation of community leaders who are in the
    universities at the moment to act in Israel's behalf.

    S.C. - To help the Palestinians get justice, those who support them --
    or who at least pretend to -- must speak the truth. However, it seems as
    if, even in their own camp, this truth is suffocated. Do you think that
    in the US, as in Europe, this solidarity has failed because it is led by
    people who are there to put breaks on any criticism of Israel? Do you
    think Chomsky's influence is exercised in this way?

    Jeffrey Blankfort : The pro-Palestinian movement has been totally
    ineffectual here for a couple of reasons. One is they refuse to
    recognize the role the lobby plays. That‘s like going out to play a
    football game, but you don’t go to the stadium, you go a shopping mall
    instead. If you are not on the field where the game is played you are
    not going to win.

    So here is the most powerful lobby in the United States, which the
    Palestinian solidarity movement has ignored with the exception of an
    occasional picket of AIPAC. One of the reasons is it has been influenced
    by certain ideological Marxist groups that are still living in another
    day and age where lobbies did not play a part. I have been told by
    political activists that to talk about the lobby is not Marxist, or talk
    about the lobby is not socialist. And my response is that it exists,
    it’s real, and that is what's important. Also, there are many
    self-styled Jewish anti-Zionists in the leadership positions in the
    movement who claim that to blame the lobby is to provoke anti-Semitism.
    In this, they are what I call, "Jewish exceptionalists" who bar any
    criticism from acts that Jews do collectively, such as lobbying for
    Israel which makes them, in practice, scarcely distinguishable from Zionists

    And what happens is I hear all of these people dismissing the lobby and
    quoting Chomsky verbatim without even mentioning his name.

    His influence on them is so critical, so powerful, that they internalize
    Chomsky. And so what happens is you have a movement that refuses to
    recognize the major opponent of the Palestinians on American soil.

    Chomsky came out against divestment at MIT, the Massachusetts Institute
    of Technology, where he teaches, and where he was able to water down a
    divestment resolution. Then he came out two weeks later and attacked the
    whole divestment issue. He is against sanctions against Israel, he is
    against divestment, he has not revealed any kind of agenda that would
    change things other than having people “write letters to the editor”.

    He never mentions Congress, he never mentions the Appropriation
    committees. If he mentions aid to Congress, he won’t say you have to
    stop it. He will mention it like it a fact of life, like it’s raining or
    it’s sunny. I wrote to him about this and he was not very friendly when
    he wrote back.

    In 1988-95 I published a magazine called the Middle East Labor Bulletin
    which Chomsky subscribed to. In the magazine I had a special section on
    the Israel lobby and Congress, in which I revealed the names of the
    Congress people who were in bed with the lobby and I published the
    sources, most of which came from the Jewish press. So anyone reading the
    magazine would have had ample proof about control by the lobby of
    Congress. I recently reread some of the issues published twelve years
    ago, and they could have been written today, so he can't play ignorant.
    I just believe his early Zionist leanings and his fears for the future
    of Jews is so great that it's like he's a child refusing to face the
    truth. It is unfortunate.

    Chomsky is what we call here in this country, a gatekeeper. He is also a
    gatekeeper on another critical subject, the events of 9/11, dismissing
    the many questions that have been raised about the official narrative of
    the Bush administration on the attack on the World Trade Centre. Chomsky
    says there is no basis to question Mr. Bush's 9/11 story. So most of the
    criticism that he is getting is from people who have been doing research
    on 9/11, while he continues to say the story that the Bush
    administration has told is the truth. So the role he pushes today on the
    international stage is, as far as I am concerned, a reactionary one.

    He says a lot of very positive things much of which I agree with, and
    again, I know many people who say they were introduced to the political
    world by Chomsky. He has clearly turned people on. But today, it may be
    a dialectical situation, now he turns people off, or in the wrong direction.

    S.C. – Is your thesis on Chomsky, that he ignores the influence of AIPAC
    and other similar institutions in US wars in the Middle East, and has a
    negative impact on solidarity movements, shared by many other intellectuals?

    Jeffrey Blankfort: I am in a minority, but I do have an extensive
    mailing list, I do have a radio program, actually I have two radio
    programs, and one radio program happens to be in an area which is not
    Israeli occupied territory and where I can talk about the lobby, I can
    talk about Israel the way I am talking about it now. The Zionists tried
    to get me off the air but they were not effective.

    One of the ways they intimidate people is through the various Jewish
    organizations. Each has taken on a different role to play. One important
    one is the Anti-Defamation League, whose main job is to defame,
    intimidate and spy on people who are critical of Israel. I was one of
    them who was spied on.

    Its agent infiltrated our organization, the Labor Committee on the
    Middle East of which I was the co-founder in 1987. Then we learned that
    they were spying on hundreds of organizations across the political
    spectrum and thousands of individuals, twelve thousand individuals, six
    hundred organizations.

    I was able to get my ADL files to find out that they had spied on me
    illegally, and I sued them.

    I went out to court with two other activists and after ten years they
    agreed to settle without me having to sign a confidentiality agreement.
    So I always talk about this organization.

    The person who spied on me for the ADL, was also working for South
    African intelligence. We had a big anti-apartheid movement in this
    country. Basically, Israel, the Israel lobby and South Africa were on
    the same page, very close allies. They were allies socially, culturally
    and militarily. This is something that unfortunately the anti-apartheid
    movement also refused to deal with because of Zionist pressure.

    I would say the problem with building a real political movement in the
    United States is blocked by Zionists and their refusal, like Chomsky, to
    openly deal with Zionism and its role in this country.

    Back in 1988, when in the early months of the first Intifada, the
    anti-intervention movement refused to support a demand that Israel end
    its occupation of Palestinian land, a Native American a leader told me
    that the problem with the American movement was that there are too many
    Liberal Zionists in it. And this is the truth.

    I never use his name, because if I publish it, he will then be attacked
    as being anti-Semitic.

    I have been attacked as a self-hating Jew, as an anti-Semite, but it
    does not matter to me because I consider the accusation of anti-Semitism
    to be the first refuge of scoundrels. Patriotism is the last refuge,
    anti-Semitism is the first. In this country it has been used to silence
    so many people. And this is one of the reasons I am against specifically
    Jewish organizations wanting to lead the fight for Palestine. What
    happens is that there are many anti-Zionist Jews, or who claim to be
    anti-Zionist, who say "we, as anti-Zionists Jews, should provide the
    leadership so that other people will see that not all the Jews are for
    Israel”.

    And I am totally against that because all Americans pay their taxes and
    thus support Israel. And this is an American issue. And by putting it
    out that Jews are the leaders, that Jews, anti Zionists Jews are doing
    this, what it says to non-Jews is: they can do this because they are
    Jewish. It has been tried, so far it has been a failure.

    So when I speak, I speak not as a Jew, but as a human being. That's why
    when I first went to the Middle East in 1970, to Lebanon and Jordan, I
    did not tell people I was Jewish. I did not go there as a Jew, I went
    there as a journalist.

    It was not important to be South African to oppose apartheid, it was not
    necessary to be a Nicaraguan to oppose the Contras, or to be a
    Vietnamese to oppose the Vietnam war. What does being Jewish have to do
    with opposing what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians. In fact,
    Jews should be very careful about the leadership role. It is not the
    place for Jews, for people who identify as Jews. The irony is that the
    people who are most quoted, who speak most on this issue in the US are
    all Jews who are ultimately protective of Israel.

    Chomsky, of course, is the most important one. They criticize Israel,
    you see, because that's important, you have to do that, but they deflect
    the main responsibility on to the US and thus while not absolving
    Israel, shield it from punishment such as sanctions, boycotts and
    divestment.

    S.C. – You just said that you were accused of anti-Semitism. Venezuelan
    president Hugo Chavez, for example, was recently accused by the French
    dailies "Liberation" and "Le Monde" of having uttered "anti-Semitic"
    remarks. Do you not think that this accusation has become more difficult
    to exploit in the face of a pubic opinion that has discovered that it
    has been manipulated for political ends?

    Jeffrey Blankfort : Well, they see it, but they are afraid to speak of
    it. Because the price for criticizing Jews, as Jews, is big in the US.
    But also, as you see, in France, in Germany, in Canada, and so on,
    Austria. You can criticize any other national group, but to criticize
    Jews collectively, not Jews as Jews, but the Jewish establishment is to
    jeopardize your career.

    So even if, privately, people say one thing, they won't say it publicly.
    I occasional help to get progressive Palestinians and Israelis interview
    ed by the media in the San Francisco area. It used to be more open, I
    would say, on mainstream radio than it is today. Back in 1984, I was
    able to place an Israeli soldier, a reservist, who refused to serve in
    Lebanon, on the biggest radio talk show in San Francisco. He told the
    truth about the Lebanon war, that the Palestinians were not shelling
    Lebanon, and in second hour of the program, which was broadcast to a
    national audience, someone, with a strong accent, called and asked "who
    is responsible for putting this communist on the air?" The talk show
    host said that he was, but in fact it was the producer who had arranged
    for my friend to be on the air. Very soon afterward, that talk show
    host, who was the most popular radio programmer in San Francisco, was
    replaced by a Zionist who is there to this day and who is such a Zionist
    that every year, when they have an Israeli Day celebration in San
    Francisco, he is the master of ceremonies. On the airwaves, on the major
    networks, you will find either among the owners or the more important
    decision making positions, people who are clearly Zionists. The head of
    CBS news, Leslie Moonves, for example, is the great-nephew of David Ben
    Gurion.

    Most people cannot or don't want to believe it when I speak of Jewish
    influence in the media. I read the Jewish press, and they have
    information on that subject that does not get published in the
    mainstream press. This is basically where I get most of my information,
    and I have found it to be credible. One paper that is particularly
    useful is the Forward, a Jewish weekly that is like the Wall Street
    Journal for Jews, because it has a lot of good information that you
    don’t find in any other publication.

    What is most interesting is that most of the people I know, who are
    fighting for the Palestinians in the US, never read the Jewish press.
    And to me, if you don’t do that, you are not serious. Because we cannot
    do anything in this country about what is happening in Palestine
    directly. But what we can do in the United States is work to weaken
    Israel’s support here, to expose the Israel lobby and undermine Israel's
    position in the United States. When we weaken Israel’s support, we
    strengthen the Palestinian position.

    SC : Aren't a number of people, touched by the misery of the
    Palestinians and the Iraqis, more and more conscious that the media lies?

    Jeffrey Blankfort : Well, of course, the newspapers are lying, but while
    there is more information on the internet, that, too, even from our
    side, is not always reliable and we have to be careful not just to
    believe something we read there because it is what we want to believe.

    The Bay Area, used to have seven or eight newspapers. Now there are
    barely two and a half. And they have become more like English tabloids,
    they are competing with television. Unlike Europe, the quality of
    television here is very poor, and people have become addicted to it. And
    they are also addicted to portable musical instruments like CD and MP3
    players, and now there is the iPod. It is not very promising and also
    the political arena here doesn’t give much opportunity to play. We have
    two parties that, essentially, are the same, two wings of the capitalist
    party. One pacifies the people, that's the Democrats, and the other
    eliminates them, that's the Republicans. They argue or pretend to about
    domestic issues, but when it comes to Israel they lock arms together. So
    for example you may have women in Congress fighting for the right to
    have an abortion. They join with the most right wing, anti-women members
    of Congress in the Senate when it comes to supporting Israel. This is
    never commented on or discussed within the left! It is very depressing
    because I don’t see much change although there were a couple of protests
    at local AIPAC meetings, but there is no clear connection made between
    the lobby and Congress and what is going on in Israel-Palestine. And I
    don’t see much improvement taking place. So, I cannot even say what can
    happen that will change it. At some point, there will be a change. I
    don’t know how it’s going to come around, how it’s going to come about.
    But I don’t see at the moment any bright prospect for the future.

    S.C. – If the orientation of the media doesn't change, and if the
    influence of the pro-Israeli lobby continues apace in the States without
    ever being denounced by the left, don't you think that will give Israel
    a free hand to continue to foment wars against Iran, Syria, and Palestine?

    Jeffrey Blankfort : The neo-cons who are almost exclusively Jewish and
    the Israel lobby got the US into the war in Iraq. The father of the
    President, the first George Bush was against it, the oil companies were
    against it. And despite the fact that the war is going so badly, they
    did not have to pay a political price because only a few isolated
    columnists, and but a few from the left, and none representing the
    anti-war movement in this country, wrote articles about that. So now,
    the same forces are now pushing for a US confrontation with Iran,
    although I don’t think that will happen, simply because the United
    States is bogged down in Iraq. Besides, should the US attack Iran, the
    troops that the US has trained in Iraq who are very pro-Iranian and
    connected to the two parties the SCIRI and the Dawa that were founded in
    Iran in 1982 and fought on the side of Iran against Saddam, will
    certainly respond and Iraq will explode even more than it already has.
    That is why I don't think the US is going to do it, even though
    everybody over here seems to think so. But if the US does attack Iran,
    that is the ultimate proof that the Zionist lobby has total control over
    US policy, and I don't think it is at that point now. What is happening
    is interesting: Bush is weak at the moment, Republicans are deserting
    him, he has lost votes in Congress, he will get his Supreme Court
    Justice, Alito, approved but AIPAC has criticized him for being soft on
    Iran; AIPAC has criticized him publicly for not pushing Iran before the
    Security Council, even though AIPAC knows that if the US brought Iran
    before the Security Council they w ill not get the vote against Iran.
    There is considerable speculation that Israel will attack Iran, even if
    the US is hesitant, because this is an election year and Israel knows
    and the lobby knows that anything Israel does at such times will be
    applauded by Congress and we may end up with the same result in Iraq.

    It's interesting that newspapers note as do newscasters on the air, that
    no criticism is likely to be made of Israel by the president or members
    of Congress during an election year but they never explain why. The
    left, led by Chomsky, pretends to be unaware that the question even
    exists. The irony is, if you read the mainstream press, you will find
    more about what is going on in terms of the lobby, than if you read the
    left press, such as it is. The newspaper, The Forward, is a more
    important newspaper to read because it tells what’s going on with the
    lobby, and more recently the investigation into AIPAC which the left,
    again, pays no attention to. Others ask, if AIPAC is so strong, why
    would they investigate AIPAC ? My response is there are people in
    Washington, in the intelligence department, in the intelligence agencies
    who, for their own reasons, are very much worried about the
    Israelization of US foreign policy. And these people in Washington, or
    people who used to work in Washington, have had a long term fight
    against the Israel lobby. The left, again, is not a participant in this,
    unfortunately. And this is why you have people who know what Israel is
    doing in Washington, what the lobby is doing in Washington and they want
    to stop it.

    S.C. – To come back to that which separates you from Chomsky on the
    Palestinian question, could we say that you want the Palestinians to win
    while Chomsky doesn't want the Israelis to lose?

    Jeffrey Blankfort : I wouldn't put it exactly that way but I do believe
    that the Palestinians have the priority to decide what happens in Israel
    and Palestine and that Chomsky is more concerned about the future of
    Israel and the welfare of Jews. He opposes a one-state solution and I
    believe single state is the only answer but I don’t argue here for that
    because we are not the ones to determine that. But I do give the
    priority to the Palestinians and he gives it to the Israelis. And that's
    the difference between us.