26. (Part 1)
GOVERNMENT
"Washington is an easy place to
be Jewish these
days.There
are some 200,000
Jews living in
the area, making
this the
seventh-largest
Jewish community
in North America
... No
one would dispute
that area Jews
are disproportionately
represented in
the upper echelons
of law, politics,
medicine,
science, journalism,
accounting, and
other professions."
[The Washington DC Jewish
community includes
"at least 62 synagogues"
and "32 Jewish
preschool and
day schools."]
-- Barbara Matusow,
MAY 2000, p. 79]
"Jewish organizations
like to deny that
there is such
a thing as a Jewish
lobby,
which is, of course,
nonsense, but
it may fairly
be said that the
massive strength
of the Zionist
lobby is of comparatively
recent origin."
Chaim Bermant,
1977, p. 253
"Oscar Cohen,
a long-time official
of the Anti-Defamation
League, wrote
to a
friend that by
the 1970s organized
American Jewry
had become 'an
agency of
the Israeli government
.. follow[ing]
its directions
from day to day.'"
-- Peter Novick,
1999, p. 149
"The president
of the United
States is concerned
about our intelligence.
He goes
to the president
of Israel and
asks him to share
the secrets of
Mossad, the Israeli
intelligence agency.
The Israeli president
is unable to help
him but suggests
something. He
tells the president,
'If you want to
know anything,
just go to the
synagogue. The
Jews there know
everything.' The
president dresses
up in a skull
cap, beard, and
all the accoutrements
of the religious
Jew and goes to
a temple.
He sits down next
to an old Jew
and says, 'What's
happening?' The
old Jew says,
'The president
is going to be
here.'"
-- joke by Jewish
comedian Milton
Berle, 1996,
p. 310
"With money in hand, you can demand."
-- Old Yiddish folk saying,
[KUMOVE, S., 1985,
p. 178]
-- common folk wisdom about any given political
situation
"No election [in modern
America]," says
Lenni Brenner, "would
be thought complete
without the domestic
politicians, down
to the ranks of
mayors and city
council members,
rushing to appear
before Jewish organizations
to reaffirm their
fealty to 'the only
democracy in the
Middle East.'" [BRENNER,
p. 9] "While some
Jewish agencies
have persistently
denied the existence
of a Jewish vote,"
says Stephen Isaacs,
"just as persistently
the politicians
have pandered specifically
to 'Jewish' interests
and issues. The
pandering has been
especially observable
since 1948, when
the state of Israel
was created." [ISAACS,
p. 142]
"The percentage of
Jews ... who involve
themselves in party
affairs as policy-makers
and fund-raisers,"
noted Will Maslow,
general counsel of
the American Jewish
Congress, "is probably
higher than any other
racial, religious,
or ethnic group. The
result is that Jews
play a role in the
political life of
the country whose
significance far transcends
their proportion of
the total population."
[BRENNER, p. 121]
There are,
suggested the 1999
Jewish Democratic
Council executive
director, Ira Foreman,
a "disproportionate
number of opinion
leaders among Jews."
[ROTH, B., 10-11-99]
Jewish theologian
and political activist
Seymour Siegel suggested
that the "messianic
drive is present in
many great Jews. Having
lost the faith that
there is a God, but
not wanting to give
up messianism, they
go into politics ..."
[ISAACS, p.
20] "The pursuit of
salvation through
politics is a modern
disease," wrote Norman
Podhoretz, "And a
lot of Jews are infected
with it." [ISAACS,
p. 26]
"American Jewry
cannot claim the dubious
distinction of being
normal," notes Henry
Feingold, "It is,
to be sure, shaped
by the American society
with which it casts
its lot; but it also
has, as part of it,
Jewish connections,
a long separate history
of its own that shapes
its vision. It lives
delicately suspended
between two cultural
pulls, the Jewish
and the American.
It's that connection
to k'lal
Yisrael, the mysterious
tie that binds Jews
everywhere together,
and that also determines
its unique political
character ... It is
also that connection
that compels American
Jewry to exert a special
effort to influence
the United States
government ... United
States foreign policy
contains the most
discernible signs
of a specific Jewish
influence." [FEINGOLD,
p. 115] Jewish influence in American popular
culture and government
is so great that sociologist
Irving Horowitz even
felt comfortable asserting
that "the critique
of American imperialism,
reformism, and welfarism
readily spills into
a critique of America's
Jewish element." [HOROWITZ,
I., p. 91]
So what is the main
Jewish concern in
high level American
politics? Crime? Pollution?
The unemployment rolls?
The economy? Racism?
"In the world of big-league
Jewish politics,"
noted the Baltimore
Jewish Times in
1996, "one question
overshadows all others,
year after year: how
friendly is the current
[White House] administration
of Jewish and pro-Israel
interests? Jewish
leaders may be interested
in a host of domestic
and international
issues. But in the
end, an unfriendly
administration, or
one that sends mixed
signals, becomes the
central organizing
principle of Jewish
political life." [BESSER
[LOVE], p. 34]
"[Israel supporters']
influence," wrote
former United States
Congressman Paul Findley
in the 1980s, "is
pervasive throughout
the government and
in almost every aspect
of life, private and
public, across the
United States." [FINDLEY,
p. xxvi]
Behind the
scenes Jewish American
political and economic
lobbying for governmental
concessions to Jewish
concerns has a long
history. In 1906,
for example, financier
Jacob Schiff and other wealthy Jews
formed the American
Jewish Committee,
initially to help
fellow Jews across
the world in Russia.
One way to accomplish
this was to put severe
economic pressure
on the Tsar's economy.
American President
Taft, however, was
not receptive to Jewish
demands for an abrogation
of the Russo-American
trade treaty. "Calling
upon friends and resources,"
says Edwin Black,
"the [Jewish] Committee
began a widespread
public appeal to have
Congress force the
President to end commercial
relations with Russia.
Within weeks, House
and Senate abrogation
resolutions -- each
personally approved
by the Committee --
were prepared." [BLACK,
p. 31] The rescinding
of the treaty passed
in a vote shortly
thereafter.
Powerful financier
Bernard Baruch
(whose father was
a South Carolina member
of the Ku Klux Klan)
[COIT, M., p. 12-13]
was head of President
Woodrow Wilson's War
Industries Board during
World War I. [PLESUR,
M. 1982, p. 86] A
1957 dust jacket blurb
for his biography
notes that "for nearly
fifty years Bernard
M. Baruch has
been almost as well
known to most Americans
as that of the President
of the United States,
and yet he has never
held an elective office
... Mr. Baruch
is best known in the
role of 'adviser'
not only to six Presidents,
but to Cabinet members,
congressmen, generals,
diplomats and party
leaders ... As Chairman
of the War Industries
Board in the First
World War, he controlled
the entire industrial
establishment of the
country." [COIT, M.,
1957]
Jeffrey
Potter notes his influence
in the Franklin D.
Roosevelt administration,
when, in 1944, the
President fell ill:
"The condition was
serious enough for
hijm to go to Bernie
Baruch's plantation,
Hobcaw,
in South Carolina,
for recuperation.
FDR didn't really
like his host, [Jewish
media mogul] Dorothy
[Schiff] explained,
as both he and Eleanor
thought Baruch too
conservative, but
he was a source of
campaign funding."
[POTTER, J., 1976,
p. 194] (Schiff was
also an influential
friend of Roosevelt:
"By the time Dorothy
visited [Roosevelt]
at Warm Springs,
Georgia, a few
weeks before Christmas,
1938, she no longer
felt ill at ease.
As usual, she had
to make her own travel
arrangement, and it
never occurred
to her to wonder why
it wasn't done for
her. She now suspects
[Roosevelt]
was afraid to have
it known that it was
always at his invitation
that they met.") [POTTER,
J., 1976, p. 155]
Another such case
is that of Jewish
Supreme Court Justice
Louis
Brandeis, "one
of [President Woodrow]
Wilson's key advisers."
[MURPHY, B., 1983,
p. 27] "After
meeting with Jacob
de Haas, a former
secretary to [Zionist
leader] Theodore
Herzl in 1912,"
notes current Jewish
Supreme Court Justice
Stephen Breyer, "[Brandeis] joined the American Federation of Zionists
and started making
public remarks in
support of Zionism
... In 1917 ... his
intervention with
President Wilson helped
secure American support
for the Balfour Declaration
[in support of a Jewish
state in Palestine],
thereby assuring its
issuance. In 1938,
not long before his
death, he called upon
President Roosevelt,
seeking FDR's public
diplomatic support
for allowing more
Jewish refugees to
travel to Palestine."
[BREYER, p. 18] [De Haas actually became Brandeis's secretary.] [MURPHY, B.,
1983, p. 26] "Since
Brandeis,"
notes Kevin Avruch
about the Zionist
currents in American
government, "the Zionist
movement in America
functioned effectively
as banker for the
world [Zionist] movement
and as a fulcrum
for the political
leverage sometimes
needed to mobilize
American presidents
and public opinion
in support of the
Jewish cause." [AVRUCH,
K., 1981, p. 32] "
By 1956, American
Secretary of State
John Foster Dulles
complained that "I
am aware of how almost
impossible it is in
this country to carry
out a foreign policy
not approved by the
Jews." [SORIN, p.
216] On another occasion,
long before Jews had
built their modern
political machine,
he complained about
the "terrific control
the Jews have over
the news media and
the barrage which
the Jews have built
up on Congressmen
... I am very much
concerned over the
fact that the Jewish
influence here is
completely dominating
the scene and making
it almost impossible
to get Congress to
do anything they don't
approve of. The Israeli
Embassy is practically
dictating to Congress
through influential
Jewish people in the
country." [FINDLEY,
DEL, p. 105]
In 1984, Admiral
Thomas Moorer, former
Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, complained
that
"I've never
seen a President --
I don't care who he
is -- stand up to
[the
Jews]
... They always get
what they want. The
Israelis know what
is
going
on all the time. I
got to the point where
I wouldn't write anything
down.
If the American people
understood what a
grip these people
have got
on our government,
they would rise up
in arms." [CURTISS,
p. 267]
Another former Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, General
George J. Brown, told
an audience at Duke
University that "[the
Jewish lobby] is so
strong you wouldn't
believe now. We have
the Israelis coming
to us for equipment.
We say we can't possibly
get the Congress to
support that. They
say, 'Don't worry
about the Congress.'
This is somebody from
another country, but
they can do it." [CURTISS,
p. 267] Brown's comments
almost cost him his
job when Jewish lobbying
groups attacked him
with charges of anti-Semitism.
A distinction must
be made, wrote Republican
Senator Charles Matthias,
"between ethnicity,
which enriches American
life and culture,
and organized ethnic
interest groups, which
sometimes press causes
that derogate from
the national interest."
American elected politicians,
adds the senator,
"have been subjected
to recurrent pressures
from what has come
to be known as the
Israel lobby." [BLITZER,
p. 134]
"During the 1944 presidential
campaign," notes Steven
Spiegel, "[Franklin
D.] Roosevelt was
pressured into promising
to work for the establishment
of Palestine as a
free and democratic
Jewish commonwealth
[i.e., modern Israel]." [SPIEGEL, S., p. 12] "There were so many Jews in Roosevelt's
advisory entourage
-- Samuel Rosenman, Benjamin Cohen, Felix Frankfurter, David Lilienthal, Bernard Baruch, Anne Rosenberg, Sidney Hillman, and David Niles," says Jewish scholar Barnet
Litvinoff, "as well
[Louis]
Brandeis,
[Henry] Morgenthau [Roosevelt's Secretary of
Treasury from 1933-45],
and [Herbert] Lehman [the governor of New York] --
that many people believed
that the President
himself must be descended
from German Jews."
[LITVINOFF, S., p.
41]
("During the
war, Republican campaigners,
referring to Roosevelt's
prominent Jewish associate
Sidney Hillman,
put up billboards
across the nation:
'It's Your Country--
Why Let Sidney Hillman
Run It?") [NOVICK,
P., 1999, p. 42] "David
Lilienthal was
chosen by Roosevelt
to direct the Tennessee
Valley Authority,
an agency that virtually
reshaped the role
of government toward
business. Later, he
was also chairman
of the Atomic Energy
Commission." [PLESUR,
M., 1982, p. 142]
At least three of
Roosevelt's "Palace
Guard", reputedly
his seven "most intimate
advisers," were Jewish
(Frankfurter, Niles, and Rosenman). [MURPHY, B., 1983, p. 257]
Rosenman
was an official Roosevelt
speechwriter; Frankfurter,
a Supreme Court justice,
was an unofficial
one. The judge also
"gradually advanced
himself till he was
virtually an informal
campaign manager [of
Roosevelt's presidential
campaign], playing
a central role in
every aspect of the
campaign, from drafting
speeches to plotting
election strategy.
[MURPHY, B., 1983,
p. 194-195, 205] "Roosevelt
surrounded himself
with so many unmistakably
Jewish advisers,"
notes Barbara Matusow,
"that his enemies
took to branding his
programs the 'Jew
Deal.'" [MATUSOW,
B., MAY 2000, p. 79]
"During the Roosevelt
presidency," notes
Doris Kearns Goodwin,
"though Jews constituted
only 3 percent of
the U.S. population,
they represented nearly
15 percent of Roosevelt's
top appointments.
Indeed, so prominent
were Jews in the Roosevelt
administration that
bigots routinely referred
to the New Deal as
the Jew Deal and charged
that Roosevelt was
himself a Jew."
[GOODWIN, D.K.,
1995, p. 102] Leo
Rosten was a "popular
Jewish writer" and
head of the Office
of War Information's
'Nature of the Enemy'
department. [NOVICK,
P., 1999, p. 27] In
1943, William Bullitt,
a former ambassador
was complaining that
"the Roosevelt administration's
emphasis on the European
war as opposed to
the Asian one was
the result of Jewish
influence." [NOVICK,
P., 1999, p. 28]
Roosevelt himself
once joked, when running
into Samuel
Rosenman, Stephen
Wise (a rabbi
and World Zionist
Organization president)
and Nahum Goldmann (who succeeded Wise
in the Zionist group)
outside his weekend
home in the country
(where Rosenman rented a home nearby): "Carry
on, boys, Sam
will tell me what
to do on Monday ...
Imagine what [Nazi
leader] Goebbels would
pay for a photo of
this scene: the President
of the United States
taking his instructions
from the three Elders
of Zion." [GOLDMANN,
N., 1978, p. 156]
(Decades earlier,
President Theodore Roosevelt's Jewish circle
included Oscar
Solomon Strauss,
the Secretary of Commerce
and Labor who declined
an offer to become
the country's Secretary
of Treasury. "He was
afraid," says the
director of the American
Jewish Historical
Society, Michael Feldman,
"too close an association
of Jews and money
would be bad for the
image of the Jew."
[LIEBLICH, J., 8-19-2000,
p. A10] Earlier
there was Julius
Rosenwald, the
Sears-Roebuck mogul:
"An unabashed admirer
of the solid conservatism
of William Howard
Taft, and one of his
most loyal supporters
within the Jewish
community, Rosenwald
contributed generously
to the campaigns of
every Republican candidate
of his era. He was
an especially ardent
backer of his friend
Herbert Hoover, contributing
$50,000 to Hoover's
1928 presidential
campaign and becoming
a close adviser and
confidant during his
presidency.") [DALIN,
D., 1998] Close to
Hoover was also Lewis
Strauss, Hoover's
"private secretary"
and "lifelong friend
and trusted confidant."
"Strauss' volunteer
job would not only
start a lifelong friendship
with Hoover but also
open up channels of
cooperation and amity
between Hoover and
leading members of
the jewish community."
[WENTLING, S., 2000,
p. 377, 382] "In March
1919, as the feast
of Passover approached,
Hoover was asked to
ensure that the Jews
of Poland received
flour in time to make
Passover bread. The
chief readily complied."
[WENTLING, S., 2000,
p. 383]
As early as
the 1940s, Zionist
propaganda to move
American foreign policy
to Zionist dictates
was massively orchestrated.
As Melvin Urofsky
notes
"Zionist groups organized
massive petition and
letter-writing campaigns.
President Roosevelt
received one such
petition in January
1945
seconding the Biltmore
program [favorable
policy to the Jews
in then-
Palestine] and signed
by more than 150 college
presidents and deans
and 1,800 faculty
members drawn from
250 colleges and universities
in 45 states. A total
of 41 state legislatures
and hundreds of municipalities,
representing more
than 90 per cent of
the nation's population,
approved
pro-Zionist resolutions."
[UROFSKY, M., 1978,
p. 34] )
Roosevelt was, of
course, a Democrat.
From the Republican
Zionist side against
Roosevelt, Arthur
Hertzberg notes the
case of Rabbi Abba
Hillel Silver,
president of the Central
Conference of American
Rabbis:
"[Silver] remained a factor in Republican
politics, because
he could
and did produce
the necessary Jewish
votes in Ohio, especially
for his friends
in the [politician]
Taft family. As a
Zionist leader he
translated this
power into political
leverage against Franklin
Delano
Roosevelt, when
the latter faltered
on Zionist issues."
[NEUSNER,
J., 1972, p.
40]
In the next American
presidency, notes
Steven Spiegel, "it
is astonishing that
[President Truman]
was not more pro-Zionist,
given the pressures
on him ... [SPIEGEL,
S., p. 16] ... Truman
was often bitter about
the Zionist pressures
on him. 'If Jesus
Christ couldn't satisfy
them here on earth,'
he is reported to
have exclaimed, 'how
the hell am I supposed
to?'" [SPIEGEL, S.,
p. 20] Under Truman, a Jewish White House officer,
David
Niles, "was strongly
committed to the Zionist
cause; he was not
only prepared to argue
with the President
in favor of a Jewish
state but to counter
the effects of the
[White House] bureaucracy
... [SPIEGEL, S.,
p. 17] ... [Niles'] modus operandi seems to have
been to act for the
president as long
as Truman had not
ordered him against
a particular action
... Truman does not
seem to have known
precisely what Niles was doing." [SPIEGEL, S., p.
29]
"Our great stroke
of luck," wrote World
Zionist Organization
president Nahum Goldmann,
"was that Roosevelt
was replaced by Harry
Truman ... He said:
'My friends are Jews,
the Jews want partition
[in Palestine], all
right, they can have
it' ... The president
had a Jewish childhood
friend called Jacobson, his co-partner in a shop
before we went into
politics, and it is
partly due to this
man that we got the
Negev [desert as part
of modern Israel]."
[GOLDMANN, N., 1978,
p. 33] Eddie Jacobson, member of a B'nai B'rith
lodge in Kansas City,
flew to Washington
DC to expressly implore
Truman to see Zionist
leader Chaim Weizmann.
As Melvin Urofsky
notes:
"Although Truman was
always glad to see
old friends, as soon
as
Jacobson started talking about Palestine,
the President tensed
and
said that he would
rather not discuss
the subject, letting
the whole
problem run its course
in the United Nations.
But Jacobson, by
now very self-conscious,
would not stop, even
when Truman
started complaining
about 'how disrespectful
and how mean' some
of the Jewish spokesmen
had been." [UROFSKY,
1978, p. 165]
Theo
Thackery, the non-Jewish
husband of Dorothy
Schiff (then-owner
of the New York
Post and granddaughter
of famous Jewish investment
banker Jacob Schiff),
explains an incident
he had with President
Harry Truman in the
White House:
"Almost
immediately in the
conversation [Truman]
said, 'Now Thackery,
if only the goddamn
New York Jews would
just shut their goddamn
mouths
and quit hollering
... They're screwing
up the situation,
and I could get along
with them, if they
would just get together
and decide what the
hell they
want. They're all
over the lot, the
goddamn Jews, and
here you are, not
even a Jew, representing
the spearhead that's
causing all kinds
of hell.'
I
had to say, 'Well,
Mr. President, you
make it impossible
for me to
continue this conversation.
I've got to assume
by 'goddamn New York
Jews' you must mean
my wife, who is a
Jew. I know you better
than to
believe that you are
consciously anti-Semitic,
but I consider it
absolutely outrageous.'
Immediately, I went
to his press secretary
and the chairman
of the Democratic
National Committee.
I told them I'd had
this absolutely
terrible conversation
with the President
and suggested he be
advised more clearly
on such matters.'"
[POTTER, J., 1976,
p. 202-203]
Melvin Urofsky notes the
successful Zionist
pressures upon American
government towards
the founding of the
modern Jewish state
of Israel (in 1948):
"Edwin M. Wright has
charged that 'the
Zionist propaganda
machine
was efficient and
thorough, blanketing
the American political
processes
in systematic campa
