The Israel Lobby Controversy: Elite Factionalism or Elite

Conspiracy Theory?
[...] Aside from viewing The Israel Lobby controversy as confirming the unpalatable anti-
Semitic nightmares of David Duke and others, there are from a conspiratorial perspective
at least two more plausible ways of interpreting the storm.
The first is to see The Israel Lobby as a well-crafted attempt to divert blame for the costly
debacle that the invasion of Iraq has become from the rest of the Establishment,
especially the oil lobby, to the age-old scapegoat, the Jews (Zunes 2006a; Peretz 2006).
In this counter-narrative Israel is the victim. Consider Zunes’ commentary on Israel’s
recent attack on Lebanon - a military adventure he suggests Israel instigated “largely at
the behest of the United States” - where Israel is painted as a U.S. “proxy in the Middle
East.” Zunes contends this use of Israel “corresponds to historic anti-Semitism” with the
ruling elite using the Jews as the “most visible agents of the oppressive social order,”
who were always “convenient scapegoats” when the elites were seeking to redirect the
anger of the restive masses. So now the scapegoating continues, evident in the blame
placed on the “Zionist lobby” by Establishment critics (Zunes 2006b).
The second and more plausible interpretation (in this author’s opinion) is that the
Mearsheimer-Walt paper is another salvo in an ongoing struggle between competing
elites for control of the War on Terror. Rather than the U.S. power-elite being a
monolithic entity, the increasingly shrill dispute over The Israel Lobby paper reveals that
the fissures at the highest levels of the food chain have become deep and suppurating.
Rather than being a crude attempt to unfairly smear a single ethnic lobby, there really is
an Israel Lobby (as AIPAC’s own website proudly attests), which has been successful
(despite some exaggerations), and not surprisingly its agenda is opposed by elements in
the Establishment. The paper suggested that the usual suspects in most conspiratorial
accounts of the “New World Order” — the Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral
Commission and Bilderbergers — have some serious competition when it comes to
influencing American foreign policy.
Continuing on with the argument raised in an earlier piece (Banyan 2006), it is the
contention of this article that while the Mearsheimer-Walt article perhaps overstates the
influence of the Israel Lobby, it exposes an aspect of elite factionalism missing from most
mainstream and alternative narratives of the seemingly endless War on Terror.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 15th, 2009 at 6:03 pm and is filed under Parapolitics, power elite. You
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One Response to “The Israel Lobby Controversy: Elite Factionalism or Elite
Conspiracy Theory?”

1. thegrofaz Says:
April 17th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
This is the best flat out refutation of Monolithic Conspiracy Theory that I’ve read yet. A
researcher addressing this issue is a rare treat. Marked ideological divisions are, of
course, acknowledge in the realm of ostensible politics, but in the behind the curtains
world of deep political research, the appearance of internal conflict amongst the Elite is
far too often written off as a mere smoke screen.
When trying to get a handle on divisions in the upper echelons of power, Zionism seems
the best place to start. Generalizing the situation, it seems the Neo-Cons are basically for
a sort of Pax-Americana in which Israel gets a favored Nation status, where as the
Globalist prefer a socialistic, United Nations style New World Order. The Israel Lobby
isn’t beneath exploiting Evangelic pre-millenarianism as a way of gaining the political
and financial support of Christian Zionism. The Globalist crowd seems to favor a vague,
New Age, spirituality to unite the world’s various belief systems into one.
Sorting out who’s on what side at what time is certainly a confusing task, but it needs to
be further pursued for a greater understanding of affairs to be achieved within the patriot
movement. The contentious nature of the Israel issue within the conspiracy community
recently became evident in the conflict between Jeff Rense and Alex Jones, with Rense
posting articles by Nathanael Kapner, attacking Jones as a Zionist shill. Ironically, several
days later, mainstream media would try to lump Jones in with the anti-Semitic, white
supremacist stormfront.org web page, after a rampaging gunman was found to frequent
both Stormfront and Jones own site. The ridiculousness of both accusation should be
evident to anyone remotely familiar with Jones.
It is likely that Jones infrequent engagement of the “Zionist question” stems less from
him being a secret agent of the Mossad and more from the divisive nature of the issue
within the conspiracy community itself. Kapner being more on the fringes couldn’t care
less and has defined himself as a believer in a Monolithic Jewish conspiracy. If the topic
of Zionism can be grappled with and properly untangled it will represent a real maturing
within the “conspiracy theory movement”, casting off both the blind, complete and
unconditional supporters of the Israel government and the Jew bashing racists as well.