Finkelstein gives Israeli-American relations lecture (USS Liberty and9/11 mentioned as well)

Finkelstein gives Israeli-American relations lecture

http://media.sundial.csun.edu/media/...-3221274.shtml

Cynthia Gomez

Issue date: 2/20/08 Section: News


Norman G. Finkelstein spoke at the Musical Recital Hall during his
second speech at CSUN, titled, "The Coming Break-up of American
Zionism," which was attended by about 30 people on Feb. 13.
[Click to enlarge]



Media Credit: Mildred Martin / Staff Photographer
[Click to enlarge]


In a series of lectures last week, Norman Finkelstein, a noted
political scholar and a former professor at DePaul University of
Chicago, presented a lecture titled, "A Critique on the Walt-
Mearsheimer Thesis," which focuses on the "core" thesis of a work that
touches on Israeli lobby ties with American foreign policy.

"His case shows the difficulty of making wise decisions about teachers
and students who work in political areas of scholarship," said Provost
and Vice President of Academic Affairs Harry Hellenbrand, who invited
Finkelstein to speak at CSUN.

The thesis comes from a working paper titled, "The Israel Lobby,"
written by John Mearsheimer, a professor from the University of
Chicago, and Stephen Walt, a professor from Harvard University.

Finkelstein explained why he only focused on the thesis of the paper.
"I wanted to avoid all of the nuances because I think a lot of the
nuances are not really nuances, but efforts to detect themselves in
the politically correct environment," Finkelstein said. He later
explained why he does not support the thesis.

"I should be supporting (it), but the (fact of) the matter is, I don't
determine my allegiances by ethnicities," he said. "I determine my
allegiances by where the facts take me and in looking through the
(working paper) and reading it very carefully, I simply was not
convinced by the core thesis."

Finkelstein explained the argument both Mearsheimer and Walt have
discussed in the thesis.

"The thrust of their argument was there is this powerful lobby in the
United States," he said. "It is, they called it, the Israel lobby, but
that in itself is an euphemism of sorts because clearly they believe
the core of that lobby is American Jews or some American Jews. There
qualification is important...they're promoting Israel's agenda."

Finkelstein said promoting Israel's agenda is "half of the problem,"
but the other half of the problem is that Israel's agenda is contrary
to the best interest of the United States...so in promoting Israel's
agenda, they are effectively underlying what they call U.S. national
interests in the world."

The first argument that Finkelstein focused on was of the beginning of
the main thesis made by Mearsheimer and Walt, which is "U.S. support
of Israel does not serve U.S. national interest."

"They say that Israel was a strategic asset for the United States
during the Cold War," he said stating that he was using Mearsheimer's
and Walt's words and not his own. "Mainly it acted as a check on
soviet expansion in the Middle East."

Finkelstein said he disagreed with Mearsheimer's and Walt's argument
because it is "not what Israel's utility was to the U.S." He added
that the main concern of the U.S. in the Middle East was anti-western
nationalism and not soviet expansion. "That is, the U.S. was fearful
that an independent autonomous power may emerge in the Middle East
that will threat its strategic interests, most notable, oil,"
Finkelstein said.

"Secondly, Israel offers advantages to the west or to the U.S. which
cannot be duplicated anywhere else in the Middle East," Finkelstein
said. "You often hear the argument, 'Why is the United States
investing so much in Israel and alienating the Arab regimes?' Doesn't
it make much more sense for the United States to work with the
neighboring Arab countries rather than work with Israel, from the
point of view of our national interest?"

Finkelstein said the problem behind Mearsheimer's and Walt's argument
is that it "completely misunderstands the special utility and the
special value of Israel."

"Israel's special value for the U.S., which can't be duplicated
anywhere in the Middle East is that fundamentally, Israel was a
creation of the Western world," he said. He added that since 1967
Israel has been culturally, economically and politically in parole to
the United States. "Unlike anywhere else in the Arab world, where you
may have a regime which is committed to the U.S., you don't have
populations committed to the U.S. and therefore the support of those
countries can disappear overnight," Finkelstein said.

The political scholar disagreed with Mearsheimer's and Walt's claim
that the "U.S. allies with Israel."

"Now to demonstrate that the U.S. allies with Israel distorts the
American national interest, which is what Mearsheimer and Walt claim,"
Finkelstein said. "You have to show that U.S. policy in the Arab world
would be different were it not for Israel. That seems to me an obvious
requirement."

"If you're claiming that Israel is distorting U.S. policy in the
Middle East then you would have to show that whether or not for
Israel, U.S. policy would be fundamentally different," Finkelstein
said, "but if you look at the historical record, there's just no
evidence for that."

Finkelstein said he disagreed with Mearsheimer's and Walt's claim that
"the U.S. supports Israel despite its powerful impact due to the
Israel lobby."

"As I've already said, fundamentally I think that's mistaken," he
said. "The U.S. supports Israel when it's useful to U.S. fundamental
interests. However, and here I have to be a little bit more settle in
the argument because that's what the evidence requires, I do think
it's the case that the U.S. supports Israeli policy in the occupied
territories due to the lobby."

Finkelstein clarified his statement, saying, "When it comes to broad
regional fundamental interests, Iraq, Iran, South Arabia oil, it is
U.S. national interests that take priority," he said. "When it comes
to a local question like Israel and occupied territories, there I
think it is a true that it's the lobby that is destroying U.S. policy
because the obvious question you would ask yourself is, I think, 'What
does the U.S. stand to gain from the settlements that Israel is
building?' The answer quite obviously is nothing."

Later in the lecture, Finkelstein argued Mearsheimer's and Walt's
claim that the Israel lobby was the "driving force behind the Iraq
War." "The main architects of the war are always said to be Mr.
Rumsfeld and Mr. Cheney," Finkelstein said. "Well everyone in this
room knows Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Cheney are not Jewish and they don't
fit the profile of these Jewish neoconservatives. So how do
Mearsheimer and Walt reconcile? (Rumsfeld and Cheney) are obviously
not Jewish neoconservatives, and yet you say it was the Jewish
neoconservatives who caused the war?"

A question-and-answer session followed after Finkelstein's lecture.
James Morris, 44, said he agreed and disagreed with Finkelstein's
arguments.

"I think some of his arguments about the Palestinian situation and the
lobbying influencing what happens in occupied territories are
accurate," Morris said, "but then again if he uses the same argument
with the lobby and how it influences our policy and occupied
territories. And about that time the attack on the USS Liberty
happened and that's been covered up ever since."

"Also, you had 9/11 that happened," Morris said. "If you look at the
paperwork that's out there and the scholarly publications...our support
of Israel resulted not only the attack on the World Trade Center in
'93 but in 9/11. So that's not in our national interest. So when he's
trying to say that we can't define that term, it's not in our national
interest, right? So supporting Israel...was a direct result for the
plotters of those attacks."

Morris commented on Finkelstein's arguments about Jewish
neoconservatives. He wanted to rebut Finkelstein's argument that
Rumsfeld and Cheney were supposedly not part of the neoconservative
moment, said Morris.

"They've been associated with it for years," he said.

Morris said he was upset because he was "cut off" while asking a
question to Finkelstein.

"I have a great deal of respect for Provost Hellenbrand, how he hosted
this event, but he cut me off when I was trying to make my points to
rebut," Morris said. "I didn't get a chance to finish my question. He
cut me off. He said let's take one point at a time. I was cut off and
I never came back to be able to make the rest of the question."

Mujahidul Haque, a political science major, said the lecture was
informative to him and that some of Finkelstein's arguments caught his
attention.

"What he said pretty much about the Jewish neoconservatives," Haque
said, "I think all the neoconservatives are pretty much the same. I
don't think I would want to separate the Jewish and Christian
neoconservatives (from each other). The all have the same agenda.
Other than that, I pretty much agreed with everything else he said."

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Additional on Mearsheimer/Walt:

http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=49800

Video that gets to the Israel question:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1bm2GPoFfg

Additional at the following URL:

http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=39590


Ron Paul supporters on the street out in front of the Reagan Library
in Simi Valley (California) during the Republican debate:

Ron Paul supporters in front of the Reagan Library (additional pics
via this URL as well)

http://s261.photobucket.com/albums/i...w¤t=Reagan.jpg

Here is a tiny URL for the above one:

http://tinyurl.com/2hpz4p

VIDEO: A Clean Break and A Pretext for War, read James Bamford (Ron
Paul mentioned):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNN9cMvnHdc

http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot....ean-break.html

http://www.tinyurl.com/2mnptm


Neocon Zionist Threat to America:

http://NEOCONZIONISTTHREAT.BLOGSPOT.COM