The wealthy Jewish lobby in Britain working under the title of the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) has been tipped as the Conservative Party's paymaster.
The CFI as described by British political analysts is beyond doubt the most well- connected and probably the best funded of all Westminster lobbying groups. It works in support of the interests of the Israeli regime.
The CFI's finances may be legal but they are hardly transparent as the lobbying group is an unincorporated association. This is how the British media report about CFI's financial transactions.
The register of MPs' interests shows that CFI board members and their businesses gave the Conservatives over 2 million pounds in the last 8 years.
The reports also say more than 30,000 pound from CFI members went to campaign funds of the members of Prime Minister David Cameron's team when he was first elected as the party leader in2005.
Also in 2005, Cameron himself had received 15,000 pound from a pro-Israeli lobby facilitator. The facilitator had also donated 50,000 pounds to the Conservative Central Office.
“Donations from all CFI members and their businesses to the Conservative Party of Britain have topped over 10 million pounds over the past 8 years”, according to reliable sources inside the UK.
Here's an example of how the pro-Israeli lobby works in the UK.
After the 22-day Israeli war on the Gaza Strip a fact-finding team was appointed to conduct an inquiry into the war and identify the culprits.
A few weeks since the UN was to vote on a resolution following judge Goldstone's report who condemned Israel for abusing human rights in Gaza, the CFI ran up to now foreign secretary William Hague office and after consulting with David Cameron, he gave them this quote:
“Unless the draft resolution is redrafted to reflect the role that Hamas played in starting the conflict we would recommend that the British government vote to reject the resolution”.
But, it was under former Prime Minister Tony Blair that the Israel lobby first acquired real influence in government. Former chairman of the Labour friends of Israel John Mandelson boasted:
“Zionism is pervasive in new Labour, it's automatic that Blair will come to Labour friends of Israel's meetings”.
Shortly before Blair became Labour party leader in 1994 he met Michael Levy the pop music millionaire at a social event arranged by the Israeli embassy. They became friends, played tennis and Levy became Blair's fundraiser. It's estimated that he raised almost 15 million pounds for Labour before the row over cash for peerages.
When Tony Blair became prime minister in 1997, he awarded Michael Levy a life peerage and made him his special envoy to the Middle East, but because Levy was unpaid and working directly to the prime minister, what he negotiated between the Israeli entity and Arabs on behalf of Britain was kept secret.
WASHINGTON, Dec 1 (IPS) - The Nov. 25 announcement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of a ”moratorium” on settlement construction brought very different responses from the Jewish American ”pro-Israel” groups J-Street and the heavyweight American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), calling attention to the increasing divide within the American Jewish community.
Both AIPAC and J Street welcomed Netanyahu's decision to halt new building projects in West Bank settlements, but the two groups had sharply contrasting messages about what the next step should be.
AIPAC pointedly called on Palestinians to make immediate concessions to move the peace process forward, stating, ”the Palestinians must meet their reciprocal obligations, come to the negotiating table, and cease incitement against Israel at home and in international bodies”.
J Street took a much different approach, emphasising that U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell ”is correct to note that in halting some settlement construction for a limited time, this Israeli government has taken a step forward. However, this is not the full settlement freeze called for by the United States and does not address the deteriorating situation in East Jerusalem.”
The emergence of these differing viewpoints - emanating from organisations that both identify as ”pro-Israel” - forms the basis of Dan Fleshler's new book, ”Transforming America's Israel Lobby: The Limits of Its Power and the Potential for Change”.
Fleshler has worked with a number of left-of-centre American Jewish groups and serves on the boards of Ameinu, Americans for Peace Now and the Givat Haviva Educational Foundation, and is a member of Brit Tzedek v'Shalom.
Fleshler makes the case that although Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, in their controversial 2007 book ”The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy”, portray the largely right-wing and Israeli Likud Party-aligned ”Israel Lobby” as an overwhelming force for any dissenting voices to go up against, this portrayal of AIPAC and its allies is largely ”smoke and mirrors”.
The real question, argues Fleshler, is ”Why have American Jews let the lobby speak for them?” even when the money and power behind the lobby is far less than many other lobby groups in Washington and opinion polls of American Jews suggest that they are politically to the left of the stances taken by the lobby's biggest voices.
Fleshler's book examines the terrain of American Jewish organisations' stances on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including the ”Far Left or Religious Anti-Zionist”, which includes Jewish Voices for Peace; the ”Pro-Israel Left”, which includes J Street; the ”Centre Left”, which includes the Union of Reform Judaism; the ”Centre”, which includes the Anti-Defamation League; the ”Centre Right”, which includes AIPAC; and the ”Far Right”, which includes American Friends of Likud and the Zionist Organization of America.
Despite the wide range of positions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict within the American Jewish community, the ”Centre” of the organised American Jewish community - which also includes the American Jewish Congress, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the American Zionist Movement, B'nai Brith, Hadassah, and United Jewish Communities - hold the most influence and receive the most fundraising dollars.
Notably, AIPAC, seen as the figurehead of the ”Israel Lobby” by Walt and Mearsheimer, stands to the right of most of these groups.
AIPAC's strength lies in its ability to give American Jews a link to Israel when increasing numbers of American Jews are finding themselves detached from the narrative of Israel's founding and the Holocaust.
”Another important aspect of American Jews' Israel narrative is that it is secondhand,” writes Fleshler. AIPAC and the most mainstream American Jewish organisations give their membership an opportunity to rally around Israel but leaves them in a ”rhetorical time warp” or ”diaspora lag”, where controversial topics often remain verboten even when they have been publicly discussed in the Israeli media.
Such issues have included discussions of a Palestinian state, talking to the PLO, and negotiating with Hamas.
AIPAC may have a strong lobbying presence on Capitol Hill but its greatest strength, suggests Fleshler, is the fact that with few opposing lobbies within the Jewish community, there is often no need for AIPAC to actively lobby politicians to vote in line with its positions.
Just the fact that it exists and is able to muster public support when needed is motivation enough for a large number of U.S. politicians to fall in line with AIPACs positions.
Fleshler extends his theory that AIPAC and the ”Israel Lobby” have magnified their perceived influence through ”smoke and mirrors” by leveraging long-held anti-Semitic stereotypes about Jewish control of the media and economy.
He discusses how bundled campaign contributions coming from out-of-state Jewish donors to a congressional candidate with few Jews in his or her district helps confirm the myth of Jewish money even when the total sum of money may be relatively small.
”They have an atomic bomb of fear,” Jeremy Rabinowitz, former chief of staff to Rep. Lois Capps, a California Democrat, told Fleshler about AIPAC. ”People think they can defeat incumbents and blow up campaigns. It's a weapon members [of the House and Senate] think they will use. But it's just not true that the Jewish community will sweep in and go after you if you don't vote the way AIPAC wants you to... That's a myth.”
Ultimately Fleshler makes a strong case for American Jewish organisations which represent constituencies who are concerned about human rights in Israel, settlement expansion, and the furthering of the peace process to make more noise and stand up to the mainstream ”Israel Lobby”.
Groups such as J Street (on which Fleshler sits on the advisory council) should speak up and give politicians ”cover” for taking stances which pressure Israel to give up its settlements, and promote the formation of a viable Palestinian state, the book argues.
While rejecting Walt and Mearsheimer's portrayal of the ”Israel Lobby” as overwhelmingly powerful, Fleshler does borrow a page from their argument in suggesting that American Jews should lobby for U.S. interests in the Middle East instead of framing their interests as ”Is it good for Israel?”.
Fleshler attributes this idea to Daniel Levy, the former Israeli peace negotiator.
”If you are an American Jew, your first priority should be to lobby for what makes sense for America,” Levy told Fleshler. ”Israel and its leaders have created conditions for a narrative that places policy within the frame of 'Is it good for Israel?' I don't think that is healthy for either country.”
While it's important to hear an influential and knowledgeable Israeli speak candidly on these matters, it might have been suitable to offer Walt and Mearsheimer some credit for bringing such issues into the mainstream and working to distance an objective discussion of U.S. interests in the Middle East from the omnipresent charges of anti-Semitism when anyone tries to differentiate between U.S. and Israeli interests.
While Fleshler makes a strong case that standing up to the conventional American Jewish lobby in Washington is far less costly than both its proponents and opponents might lead the public to believe, his book offers few concrete suggestions on how a centre-left coalition within the American Jewish community might gain greater influence.
J Street's successful inaugural conference in October รป the group planned for 1,000 conference delegates but over 1,500 attended - suggests there might be both the energy and political will for a ”transformation” of the ”Israel Lobby” along the lines of Fleshler's suggestion. However, it is too early to tell if such a coalition can hold together or exert the influence - be it real or imaginary - which the conventional lobby holds over the U.S.'s Middle East policy.
Despite Fleshler's cogent argument that the ”Israel Lobby” is ”smoke and mirrors” and ”puffery”, J Street and its centre-left coalition face a difficult, expensive and time-consuming challenge as they move to bring a ”Pro-Israel, Pro-Peace” voice to the ongoing saga of U.S.-Israel relations.
