CiF contributor suggests Obama administration’s sanctions against Iran are result of Israel lobby

Jasmin Ramsey’s profile at the Guardian

The contemporary manifestation of classic antisemitic narratives regarding the injurious effects of Jewish power often include the suggestion that Jews are more loyal to Israel than their own nation.  Such commentary also typically imputes enormous power to Jews who typically represent a tiny fraction of the overall population.

Such a synthesis of disloyalty on one hand and exaggerated power on the other allows the accuser to charge the Jewish community (or those lobbying on behalf of Jewish interests) of working to undermine their nation.

You don’t have to believe in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion to see the hand of Jewry behind undesirable political developments, such as the suggestion (popular several years ago) that Jews working in various positions for former President Bush were responsible for his administration’s decision to invade Iraq.

As Lee Smith observed:

“According to this theory, administration principals like Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice, and the president—policymakers with actual decision-making power—were merely instruments in the control of vast Zionist networks.”

In many European countries the percentage of citizens who believe Europe’s Jews are more loyal to Israel than their own country, and/or have too much power, often exceeds 50%.

The following (Washington’s war of words against Iran, May 8) by CiF contributor Jasmin Ramsey, is a textbook example of the increasing tendency of the Guardian style left to blame organized pro-Israel Jewry for any political phenomena they find displeasing in the United States.

Ramsey, it should be noted, blogs at LobeLog.com – the site of Jim Lobe.  Lobe writes about a number of topics but “exposing” the Israel lobby is a special focus of his, as can be seen by his posts at sites such as Electronic Intifada.  Ramsey herself has posted at Mondoweiss and routinely opines on the threat posed by the Israel lobby at publications such as Al Jazeera.

Ramsey suggests, in her CiF essay, that the President of the United States is not responsible for his own policy regarding Iran, assigning blame instead to a more desirable target.

Her essay, which argues against both economic sanctions and military intervention, includes these passages:

“No single influential figure has made [a U.S.] war with Iran seem like a prospect more than Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu… who inspired more standing ovations during a May 2011 hardline speech to Congress (29 in total) than Obama did during his state of union address in January of that year, and it has been Congress that has been pushing forward the harshest measures against Iran.”

“…discussions of sanctions by the administration remain heavily focused on the punitive element – in response to ongoing pressure from Israel and a seemingly pro-Netanyahu Congress.”

...In the face of intense pressure from Israel and Congress during the influential Aipac conference in March, Obama bragged about imposing “unprecedented, crippling sanctions” on Iran which he said is now “feeling the bite”. [emphasis added]

Ramsey’s argument: Obama’s punitive measures against Iran were enacted not as the result of a rational policy debate within his administration regarding what’s in the best interest of the U.S. but, rather, in response to pressure from the Jewish state and its pro-Netanyahu supporters in Congress.

The commander-in-chief of the strongest nation on earth is putty in the hands of the Jewish state and it’s American “amen corner“.

Ramsey continues with her case that neocons and/or the Israel lobby exercises a dangerous degree of influence over U.S. foreign policy:

“Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a neoconservative-dominated thinktank composed of well-known hawks, has been analogizing sanctions as “silver shrapnel” that that can “injure” Iran for years. Frequently quoted in the media, Dubowitz recently boasted to a Canadian newspaper that the FDD has shared six reports exclusively with the Obama administration and congressional committees advocating harsher sanctions on Iran.”

“[Grecht was] Formerly a director of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), which is best-known for its influence over the Bush administration’s Iraq policy.” [emphasis added]

Conspiracy theories, whether antisemitic or not, are often motivated by intellectual laziness and the need to find a common thread (or root cause) that explains complicated (often unrelated) political problems.

Just as critics of the Israel lobby fail to note that support for Israel among the American electorate is overwhelming (demonstrating that support for the Jewish state in congress merely reflects mainstream public opinion on the issue), those who see the lobby’s influence in Obama’s tough sanctions against Iran similarly don’t consider that such policies reflect the views of most Americans. 

Ramsey’s logic, so typical of those who advance such calumnies, can be boiled down to this:

A) A Non Jewish political leader in the U.S. or Europe supports a foreign policy position.

B) Jews, Zionists and/or the Israeli government previously advocated or lobbied for that same position.

Therefore, (A) must be the result of (B).

However, as the Guardian is continually demonstrating, the absence of facts, evidence or even a coherent argument has never been an obstacle for those committed to the pseudo science of Judeophobic logic.

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