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.