Israel Nawaz Octopus (1)

In the previous articles, we have consistently discussed the historical causes and individual roles that have led to a situation where today, the United States appears more pro-Israel than Israel itself. Now, we will examine why, despite constituting merely two percent of the American population, there is a perception that the pro-Israel American Jewish lobby is the third invisible pillar of the American establishment, after Congress and the White House.

Using the term “Jewish lobby” alone is not appropriate for advancing scholarly discourse. Like any community, American Jews are not a monolithic entity. In this spectrum, there are Jewish organizations and individuals who are staunchly anti-Zionist. They strongly oppose Israel’s policies against Palestine and stand with the Palestinian cause. Figures such as Bernie Sanders and Noam Chomsky, while Jewish, are on Israel’s list of critics. Hence, the term “pro-Israel American lobby” is more balanced and allows for a broader analysis of pro-Israel actors, rather than confining the discussion to a narrow alley.

The pro-Israel lobby is actually like a multi-armed octopus. One arm consists of followers of the Evangelical Church in America, who consider themselves Christian Zionists. Approximately seven million members of this church actively participate in an organization called Christians United for Israel. These seven million votes are very significant in congressional and presidential elections.

The second important arm of this octopus is the powerful lobbying group known as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Its branches are actively involved in promoting the election of pro-Israel members of Congress and making it difficult for anti-Israel candidates to win. AIPAC’s budget runs into millions of dollars.

The third arm of the octopus consists of American corporate sector companies whose boardrooms are dominated by pro-Israel Jewish or non-Jewish members, or companies that have close collaborations with Israeli high-tech firms.

Meanwhile, in relation to the Middle East, the oil lobby and, most importantly, American arms manufacturers serve as additional arms of this octopus. Another powerful arm is composed of pro-Israel officials holding key policymaking positions within the American bureaucracy.

When this octopus tightens its grip on the electoral system, Capitol Hill (Congress), and the White House using all its arms, the outcome manifests as a staunchly pro-Israel policy. Going forward, we will examine each actor individually. But as you know, no analysis is complete without a historical background.

Similar to other denominations, followers of the Evangelical Church also believe that before the Day of Judgment, there will be the advent of Jesus. This advent will occur when the Jews in Palestine succeed in rebuilding the Temple of Solomon, which has been destroyed twice in the past 2,500 years. When Jesus reappears, the entire humanity, including the Jews, will embrace the teachings of Christianity.

However, the third temple can only be built if, according to the Old Testament, the Jews are granted the restoration of their former empire from Iraq to Egypt, and God’s chosen people become strong enough to construct the temple. Therefore, it is the religious duty of the entire Christian world to strengthen Israel in every way and support it.

In light of this belief, 53 years before the birth of Zionism, in 1844, George Bush, a professor of the Department of Bible at New York University and an ancestor of the present Bush family, published a book titled “The Valley of Vision” on the advent of Israel and Jesus. Within the next twenty years, one million copies of this book were sold.

Its essence was that the restoration of the lost glory of the Jews, who have been outcasts for many centuries, is a religious duty for all of us. It is through this chosen people of God that our connection with the Almighty can be strengthened.

In 1891, a leading advocate of the Second Coming, William Blackstone, submitted a petition to President Benjamin Harrison, demanding that the U.S. government persuade the Ottoman Empire that the land of Palestine belongs to the Jews. Six years after this petition, in 1897, the first World Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, resolved to accelerate efforts to obtain a separate national homeland for the Jews.

The conference was attended by prominent Jewish families who played a significant role in the European economy at that time, including the Rothschild family. To understand the economic power of the Rothschilds, one should note that they had been lending war funds to European monarchies from the Napoleonic Wars in the 19th century to the First World War. Consequently, this family had unrestricted access to every European court.

In 1917, the famous letter from British Foreign Secretary Lord Arthur Balfour, promising to help establish a Jewish national home in Palestine after the war, was addressed to Lord Walter Rothschild. Balfour and Walter were close friends of Chaim Weizmann, a founder of the Zionist movement and a chemist. Walter Rothschild was the financial lifeblood of the Zionist movement.

The popularity of Zionism in the United States began to spread before the First World War. A Supreme Court Justice (from 1916 to 1939), Louis Brandeis, formed a Zionist committee to raise substantial funds for assisting Jews in war-torn European countries. This committee made the first successful attempt to sway the American Congress in favor of its stance.

Consequently, five years after the Balfour Declaration, on September 21, 1922, both houses of the U.S. Congress passed a resolution overwhelmingly supporting the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine. On the same day, the League of Nations, the predecessor of the United Nations, appointed Britain as the custodian of Palestine, a region of the defeated Ottoman Empire. British forces had already occupied Palestine in 1917.

After the end of the Second World War, waves of Jews liberated from Nazi camps began to arrive at the Palestinian coast with British support on ships. Under the auspices of the United Nations, the veto-wielding power Britain, along with its ally France, nationalist China, and the overseeing veto power of the United States, divided Palestine into two parts without consulting the Palestinians. Fifty-five percent of Palestine was allocated to ten percent of the Jewish population, while forty-five percent was given to ninety percent of the Arab population. Following the adoption of this resolution, armed Jewish groups began expelling the Palestinian population from the allocated areas, forcing 750,000 Palestinians to leave.

Six months after the partition resolution was passed, on May 15, 1948, the establishment of Israel was declared, and within the next two years, Israel had seized seventy percent of the area allocated to the Arabs.

To legitimize this unlawful occupation, it became necessary to keep the government and elected members of the world’s most powerful nation continuously in check. Thus, a broader American pro-Israel lobby, the octopus, was born.

To be continued…