from NY to Israel Sultan Reveals
The Stories Behind the News

Posted: 25 Aug 2009 07:17 PM PDT

There are two interconnected lies that reside at the heart of
any American discussion about Israel. The first lie is that the road to
peace in the Middle East lies through Israel. The second lie is that
Israel controls American policy toward itself. Those lies are not the
product of ignorance or misunderstanding, they are the product of an
effective propaganda campaign by the unofficial suit and tie spokesmen of
the Saudi lobby who dominate American policy in the Middle East. The goal
of that campaign has been to make Israel seem like the axis on which the
Middle East and America turn, in order to put Israel on the firing line.
And it is a campaign that has been wickedly successful up until now.

Let's take a moment to examine those lies now.

Within the
Middle East, Israel is physically insignificant. At 8500 square miles,
Israel could not just fit comfortably into Pennsylvania, it is 1/5th the
size of Jordan, 1/8th the size of Syria and 1/12th the size of Egypt.
Simply put, Israel is smaller in land and population than every country
that borders it. If you looked at the Middle East from space, you could
easily put a fingernail across all of Israel.

Israel has beaten all
of these countries in wars and has the best military in the region, but
that is because if it didn't, it wouldn't exist. Israel's military is not
the product of a will to conquer, but of an attempt to maintain its own
territorial integrity and protect its citizens from attack. Israel's
neighbors have never needed to work as hard or spend as much to maintain
their own armed forces, because they don't truly need them. For them a
strong army is not a survival strategy, it is optional.

All those
who rant endlessly about Israel's settlements in the West Bank and Gaza as
proof of Israel's desire to seize land, forget that Jordan annexed the
West Bank only two years after its forces captured it in the 1948 War of
Independence. Israel has not annexed the West Bank even after more than 40
years, and has continued to offer it in peace negotiations year after
year. That is not the policy of an aggressive land hungry regime. It is
not the behavior of a country that keeps its neighbors up late at night.
While Israel's leaders have spent over half a century staying up late at
night worrying about a war, Israel's neighbors know that war is their
choice.

But what this means in practice is that Israel has very
little influence beyond its own borders. With a small size, no
expansionist program beyond its own territory, and as one of only two
non-Arab states and the only non-Muslim state in the region... Israel's
impact on the rest of the Middle East is surprisingly limited. To get a
proper picture of Israel's role in the Middle East, imagine plopping
Singapore in the middle of a wartorn part of Africa. It can be attacked,
it can fight back, but it cannot have any real local
influence.

That is why Israel remains an outsider in the political
trends and turmoil of the region. The shift between Arab Nationalism and
Islamism, the coups and the bloodletting between Shiite and Sunni, are all
events that Israel watches from a distance. Israel is not a political
participant in the ideological conflicts of the Middle East, because it
does not share a common religion or ethnicity or much of anything with its
neighbors. Its diplomatic relations are primarily formal, not intimate. As
a result Israel has very little political influence on the Middle East,
and what little influence it has, is on its immediate neighbors, such as
Lebanon and Jordan, who are fairly small on the scale of the Middle East
as well.

Furthermore Israel and its neighbors are in part of the
Middle East that has become largely irrelevant because of its lack of oil.
While Egypt and Jordan were once considered major regional players, both
have long ago been sidelined by the oil rich Saudi Arabia, Iran and the
UAE. None of these countries share a common border with Israel. While
diplomats and pundits obsess over the West Bank and Gaza, what happens
there has virtually no impact on what happens where the oil and power
lie.

Not only does the road to peace in the Middle East not run
through Israel, it doesn't even run anywhere near Israel. A quick
look at a map shows you just how off the beaten path Israel is when it
comes to the true token of global power, oil. And it is not some Elders of
Zion fantasy of the Israel lobby that defines global power to the Middle
East, it is who has the oil. And while Israel has plenty of olive
oil, it has none of the kind of oil that the world is interested in.

Since the 70's, the Middle East's real power struggle has
shifted to the oil rich states, to Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf
states. Iran and Iraq chose to build up their armies, Saudi Arabia and the
Gulf states instead built up their political influence in Washington D.C.
and let the United States fight for them. This strategy paid off in the
Gulf War and Operation Iraqi Freedom when Kuwait was liberated and Saudi
Arabia got Saddam's boot off its throat. Israel was never at risk of
anything more than bomb blasts and rocket shelling from Saddam. By
contrast Saudi Arabia and Kuwait had their survival at stake.

With
Saddam gone, Iran and Saudi Arabia are funding Sunni and Shiite
insurgencies within Iraq in order to seize Saddam's oil. As a fallback
position in case Iran manages to swallow Iraq and then moves on to them,
the Sheiks and Princes continue buying huge stakes in American and
European companies and property, in case they suddenly find themselves
having to take a quick plane trip away from the region.

Remove
Israel from the region, as so many diplomats and pundits would like to,
and this picture remains exactly the same. How influential is Israel in
the region then, and why does the path to Middle Eastern peace run through
it? The answer is that it doesn't. Some diplomats choose to blame
America's alliance with Israel for its image problems, but alliances are
dictated by interests. American's alliance with Israel, much like Saudi
Arabia's alliance with America, are the products of interests, not
emotions. Iran's hostility to America is the product of religious
hostility, historical animosity and its own desire to grab as much of the
Middle East for itself as it can.

Let's turn to Washington then.
The myth of the All-Powerful Israel lobby has been extensively marketed
for decades. But let's actually take a look at how powerful this lobby
is.

If the so-called Israel Lobby is so powerful, why after all
these decades, has the United States failed to recognize Jerusalem as
Israel's capital? Presidential candidates routinely visit AIPAC to promise
that Jerusalem will be recognized as Israel's capitol. Bill Clinton did
it, Bush promised that it would be one of his first acts in office, Obama
implied it. And once in office, not only did they not keep the promise,
but they routinely signed waivers to prevent Jerusalem from being treated
as Israel's capital.

There is only one nation whose capital is not
recognized by the United States. That nation is also the one who the
wisdom of the mainstream media and many of the suit and tie unofficial
members of the Saudi lobby, would have you believe controls America. The
narrative of the powerful Israel lobby before whom everyone in D.C.
trembles cannot be reconciled with this simple fact, or with many
others.

For example, in every peace agreement completely under US
mediation, Israel has given up land and never gained any permanent
territory. If Israel were as expansionist and as in control of the United
States government, should it not have been the other way around? Yet at
Camp David, Carter pressured Begin into turning over land that was several
times the size of Israel. Carter did not pressure Sadat to turn over land
to Israel. The last four US administrations have pressured Israel into a
peace process with the PLO that required Israel to transfer a sizable
portion of land to their control. At no point in time were Egypt and
Jordan expected to do the same. Does this sound like the product of an
all-powerful Israel lobby.

Defenders of the "Israel Runs
Washington" meme will argue that the US should have pressured Israel to do
much more. As if Israel could do anymore without committing suicide. But
then why hasn't the United States pressured Turkey to stop its occupation
of Cyprus or demanded that Spain create a state for the Basque? Either the
Turkish Lobby or the Spanish Lobby is far more powerful than the Israel
Lobby, or Israel is singled out because of pressure from a much stronger
lobby, the Saudi Lobby.

What the "Israel Lobby" mainly deals with
is the back and forth arms trade between the United States and Israel,
partially packaged as foreign aid, and non-binding congressional
resolutions that have as much force as a municipal resolution naming
Tuesday, Global Twig Day. Most congressmen identify as Pro-Israel, mainly
because it's easy, costs them nothing and lets them pick up a few votes
here and there. It is easy enough to vote on or co-sponsor the occasional
pro-Israel resolution that does nothing but gather dust in the record
cabinets, because it has no actual application. It is so ridiculously easy
that even Barack Obama has done it. And it's so meaningless that no
President takes them seriously. Any measure that actually has legislative
force is routinely crafted so that the President can waive it or set it
aside if it interferes with administration policy. Which is exactly what
happens much of the time.

As a result most congressmen can mention
a pro-Israel bill that they voted on or co-sponsored around election time
to gullible Jewish audiences who fail to understand that the 2012 Israel
Friendship Act or the 2043 No Money Given to Terrorists, We Really Mean It
This Time Act, has as much practical utility as a cell phone in the
Sahara. And few of these same congressmen are actually pro-Israel when it
matters. They're pro-Israel when it's an exercise in public relations.
That is not what a powerful lobby's grip on a government looks like. If
you want to see that, take a look at the lobbyists for the pharmaceutical
industry or the cable industry. Or the Saudi lobby, which doesn't waste
time holding rubber chicken dinners for politicians, but instead has built
a massive contact base of unofficial suit and tie lobbyists, former
politicians, diplomats and journalists who are expert at peddling the
Saudi agenda.

To determine the power of a lobby, you look at what it can do
when it matters, and when the odds are against it. The one direct
collision between the Pro-Israel lobby and the Saudi lobby over the AWACS
sale to Saudi Arabia, ended with a Saudi victory, despite overall public
and congressional opposition to the sale. The Pro-Israel lobby was vocal
and public. The Saudi lobby was in control behind the scenes. And just as
it had when Saudi Arabia took over ARAMCO, and forced the United States to
pay for it too... the Saudi Lobby won.

That is what a lobby that
controls Washington D.C. does. It doesn't put out a nameplate. It doesn't
waste time on rubber chicken dinners. It instead funds a host of
organizations officially headed up by Americans with influence and power
in Washington D.C. It gives them the funds to cultivate ties, to build
think tanks and to build relationships behind the scenes. It doesn't care
whether it's dealing with Republicans or Democrats. Come one, come all. We
can put you to use too. And it makes sure that nobody pays very much
attention to what is going on. Instead it dips into well worn propaganda
to spread the idea that the Jews control Washington D.C., knowing that
there will be plenty of eager takers to polish and pass on the meme.

If you look at what some of the most powerful people in the last
few administrations had in common, the simple answer is oil. Saudi oil.
The woman in control of foreign policy in the second half of the Bush
Administration, Condoleeza Rice, did not have her name on an Israeli oil
tanker, but a Chevron oil tanker, the former parent company of ARAMCO. The
man quietly dominating US foreign policy under Obama, James L. Jones did
not serve on the board of directors of Manischewitz, he served on the same
Chevron board of directors that Rice had formerly served on. And Rice did
everything but outright appoint him as her replacement.

But of
course no one could possibly believe a wild conspiracy theory like that,
not when the obvious answer is that the Israel Lobby controls Washington
D.C. and keeps demanding that administration after administration force it
to hand over land to its worst enemies. And for some reason forces
successive administrations to not recognize its own capital city,
encourages them to constantly threaten it and prevent it from defending
itself.

The Pro-Israel Lobby is a charade, a showpiece for people
with too much time on their hands and too little subtlety. If half the
claims about the Israel Lobby were true, Israel would be four times the
size it is today, with secure borders and no terrorist problem. Instead
Israel has been pressured like no other country has, to appease and
accommodate terrorists at the expense of the lives of its citizens, its
national security and even its survival... by a foreign policy crafted to
fulfill Saudi interests.

The Big Israel Lie is that Israel is powerful in
Washington and mighty in the Middle East. The real truth is that Israel is
a tiny country that commands emotional affinity from a limited percentage
of Jews and Christians, whose diplomacy abroad is clumsy, and whose
regional influence is small, whose military is handicapped by liberal
handwringing and whose leaders would rather negotiate than fight... until
there is no other choice.

This lie is meant to make Israel seem
strong, in order to place it at the center of every problem and turn it
into the nail that needs to be hammered down for everything to stand
straight. But the easiest way to clear up the lie is to simply look at the
reality of the Middle East and see that Israel vanishes beneath a single
fingernail.