From the beginning of Zionism, the Zionists have always been backed by a tremendous amount of money and political clout, which they have used with great efficiency and ruthlessness. One well known example is the Zionist lobby, AIPAC, one of the most powerful lobbying organizations in the United States. Often, what results from AIPAC’s arm-twisting of politicians is intense hostility and animosity from those politicians. These sentiments often metastasize into anti-Semitism.
An inside look at AIPAC’s political muscle was unwittingly granted when in 1992, Chaim Katz, a New York businessman, secretly recorded a phone conversation with David Steiner, the president of AIPAC, and released it to the Washington Post. [1] Among the things Steiner said to Katz:
I got, besides the $3 billion, you know they’re looking for the Jewish votes, and I’ll tell him whatever he wants to hear ... Besides the $10 billion in loan guarantees which was a fabulous thing, $3 billion in foreign, in military aid, and I got almost a billion dollars in other goodies that people don’t even know about ... I’ve got a whole shopping list of things ... I have friends on the Clinton campaign, close associates ... I’ve known Bill for seven, eight years from the National Governors Association. I know him on a personal basis ... We have a dozen people in the campaign, in the headquarters, in Little Rock, and they’re all going to get big jobs ... I also work with a think tank, the Washington Institute. I have Michael Mandelbaum and Martin Indyk being foreign policy advisers ... We have Bill Clinton’s ear. I talked to Bill Clinton. He’s going to be very good for us ... A girl who worked for me at AIPAC stood up for them at their wedding. Hillary lived with her. I mean we have those relationships ... One of my officers, Monte Friedkin, is one of the biggest fund-raisers for them. I mean, I have people like that all over the country ... He’s said he’s going to help us. He’s got something in his heart for the Jews, he has Jewish friends ... Clinton is the best guy for us ... We’re just negotiating. We’re more interested right now in the secretary of state and the secretary of National Security Agency ... I’ve got a list. But I really can’t go through it. I’m not allowed to talk about it … [2]
Katz told the Washington Times that he taped the conversation because “as someone Jewish, I am concerned when a small group has disproportionate power. I think that hurts everyone, including Jews. If David Steiner wants to talk about the incredible, disproportionate clout AIPAC has, the public should know about it.” [3]
Zionists do not deny playing the Jewish power game in national and even international affairs. Just as Herzl played on the anti-Semitic perception of Jewish power, confirming and encouraging it, the Zionists have followed in his footsteps. It is a Zionist tradition to encourage the world to believe that they wield the power of world Jewry, that world Jewry has much more power than they actually do, and to use that illusion of power wielded by the Zionists to lobby for their causes.
Zionists do wield considerable power, but the problem is exacerbated by their tendency to inflate their power by casting all Jewry as their constituents. Examples of this behavior are abundant.
In 2003 British politician Tam Dalyell accused Tony Blair of buckling to pressure from “the Jewish lobby.” For referring to the Zionist lobby as the “Jewish Lobby,” Dalyell was accused of anti-Semitism. Blaming Jews for the acts of Zionists, his accusers claimed, is anti-Semitic. That is true, of course, as the Zionists do not, in fact, represent world Jewry. Journalist Paul Foot observed that Dalyell was “wrong to complain about Jewish pressure. But that is a mistake that is constantly encouraged by the Zionists.”[4]
In other words, it is wrong to blame all Jews for the acts of the Zionists. But this “mistake” that so many people make is something the Zionists actively foster by claiming that Zionism is Judaism, and that Israel represents all Jews.
[1] http://www.washingtonreport.me/1992–december/january-1993/jews-and- israel.html [2] The Complete Unexpurgated AIPAC Tape [3] http://www.washingtonreport.me/1992–december/january-1993/jews-and- israel.html [4] Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism in Historical Perspective: Convergence and Divergence, p. 137.
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