The Question of Dual Loyalities

Allegiance to Israel Threatens Safety of Jews in America

General Ulysses Grant who issued an order expelling the Jews from Mississippi, Kentucky, and Tennessee, the most anti-Semitic official order in American history because of Jewish clothing manufacturers' decision to move southern cotton northwar

It is a long-standing canard of anti-Semites that Jews are not members of the nations amongst whom they live but constitute a separate race/nation.  Hence Germans of the Jewish  Faith were transformed by the Nuremberg Laws into being Jews who resided, as subjects not citizens in Germany.

It was the basis of Emancipation that Jews were part of the nations amongst which they lived.  They may not owe loyalty to the particular state, especially if they were socialists or communists, because the State is an instrument of class domination.  But Jews no more owed a loyalty to another state, still less constitution a separate nation, than Catholics or Protestans.

The annual Israel Day parade in New York - a disgusting mixture of racism and chauvinism

The Zionists hated Emancipation, the idea of equal political and civil rights and the removal   of political disabilities on Jews.  Theodor Herzl, founder of Political Zionism held, absurdly that ‘anti-Semitism is a consequence of the Emancipation of the Jews.’ [Diaries, p.9] In his  pamphlet Der Judenstaat (The State of the Jews) He wrote that ‘‘In the principle countries where anti-Semitism prevails, it does so as a result of the emancipation of the Jews.’ [p.25] The anti-Semites agreed.

Eduord Drumont, the leading anti-Dreyfusard and a vicious anti-Semite, had written La France Juive, [Jewish France] one the 2 major works of anti-Semitism in the 19th Century, (the other was Houston Stuart Chamberlains Myths of the 19th Century) which sold 100,000 in its first edition.  He was in total agreement with Herzl. ‘According to Drumont ‘the emancipation of the Jews in 1791 was a blunder.’ [Alex, Bein, Biography of Theodor Herzl p.80].  Unsurprisingly Drumont might been a virulent anti-Semites, editing the anti-Semitic daily La Libre Parole, but he and Herzl got on famously. 
Herzl persuaded Drumont, via another anti-Semite, Daudet, to review the Jewish State in La Libre Parole, which he did on January 15 1897.  Herzl was ecstatic about ‘Drumont’s highly flattering editorial about me and promises more.’  [Drumont] "praised the Zionists of Herzl's persuasion for not seeing in us fanatics ... but citizens who exercise the right of self-defense." [Desmond Stewart, Theodor Herzl, Artist and Politician, 251].

Bush & Netanyahu - Israel serves US strategic interests in the region

Although most Zionists are unaware of it, a key concept in Zionist theology is the ‘negation of the Diaspora', a rejection of Jewish existence outside Israel.  Its most articulate advocate today is the Zionist author A B Yehoshua and and academic Anita Shapira. Speaking to a meeting of the British Zionist Youth Council, Yehoshua described the Jewish Diaspora as a "cancer connected to the mainstream of the Jewish people."  Jewish Chronicle 22 December 1989.

Idiotic chauvinists and racists cover themselves in the Zionist and US flags - or the 'butcher's apron' as Irish Republicans used to describe the Union Jack.

 Its classic Zionist exponent was Jacob Klatzkin, co-founder of the Encyclopaedia Judaica and editor of the Zionist Organisation paper Die Welt (1909-11). In a collection of essays, Boundaries (Tehumim), 1914-21, he wrote that "Galut can only drag out the disgrace of our people and sustain the existence of a people disfigured in both body and soul, in a word, of a horror. At the very most it can maintain us in a state of national impurity and breed some sort of outlandish creature in an environment of disintegration of cultures, of darkening spiritual horizons. The result will be something neither Jewish nor gentile - in any case. '-not a pure national type. Perhaps it is conceivable that, even after the disintegration of our national existence in foreign lands, there will remain for many generations some sort of oddity among the peoples going by the name of Jew." The Zionist Idea, A Hertzberg, 1959, Atheneum, p.323, NY.  Zionism's negation of the Jewish diaspora rested on a caricature of Jews that was a reflection of anti-Semitism. 

 The attempt to suggest that Jews have a dual loyalty, to the USA and Israel is a gift to the anti-Semites.  You only need to read articles such as Are Jews Guilty Of Dual Loyalty?  or David Duke’s article Is Discussing Jewish Dual Loyalty Anti-Semitic? to realise whose agenda such questions are meant to serve.

Jonathan Pollard, an American Jew and a member of Naval Intelligence sold US secrets to Israeli and was sentenced to life imprisonment. 

A very real example was the conviction of Jonathan Pollard, a 31 year old American Jew andan employee of US Naval Intelligence who provided Israeli spies with classified American satellite data on the location of Syrian antiaircraft batteries and of Iraqi nuclear test sites. The FBI arrested Pollard in November 1985. An American court sentenced him to life in prison. The Pollard Affair: Was it dual loyalty? Jerusalem Post 2.11.09.

Which is why when the Israeli Embassy distributed a questionnaire to American Jews asking whether they were more loyal to America or Israel, Jewish community leaders, usually quite tame and slavish supporters of all that Israel does, were outrage, as the following article in Ha'aretz describes:

Israel asks U.S. Jews, Israelis: Where do your loyalties lie?

PM orders ministries to stop distributing the survey, which asks questions about dual allegiance and the Jewish lobby in America.

Two sensitive and potentially explosive issues have always clouded the relationship between the Jewish community in the United States and the State of Israel. The first relates to claims of “dual allegiance” to both Israel and the United States; the other concerns the pro-Israel, American “Jewish lobby.” Many of those raising such claims against American Jewry have themselves been accused of anti-Semitism.

So it's strange that representatives of Israel’s immigrant absorption and foreign ministries have just distributed a questionnaire to tens of thousands of Israelis living in the United States and Jewish Americans, which includes problematic questions on exactly these issues, and asks them to indicate where their allegiance would lie in the case of a crisis between the two countries.

On Sunday, following the report of the story in Haaretz, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu directed the ministries to stop distributing the questionnaire. He also ordered that it not be promoted by any official government agency.

The survey was commissioned by the Israeli American Council, a private nonprofit group based in Los Angeles. Its mission is "to build an active and giving Israeli-American community in order to strengthen the State of Israel, our next generation, and to provide a bridge to the Jewish-American community,” according to the IAC website.


The IAC was established by Israelis living in Los Angeles in 2007, and is primarily supported by Israeli-American businessman Haim Saban, who has donated close to a million dollars in the past four years.


In September, the IAC announced plans to expand by establishing new branches throughout the United States. Conducting the survey is seen as part of this process.


According to the IAC, casino mogul Sheldon Adelson has taken it upon himself to help finance the group's expansion.

Adelson, considered one of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s closest allies, owns the pro-Netanyahu free daily Israel Hayom, and donated tens of millions of dollars to Republican candidates in the last U.S. presidential election.

Last Tuesday, the IAC’s chief operating officer, Miri Belsky, sent an email to the Israeli embassy in Washington with a link to the survey, asking that Israeli consulates in the United States be instructed to distribute it. She even asked that the consulates send out four reminders - one every three days – in order to elicit replies from at least 10 percent of their mailing list.

That same day, the Israeli consulates in the United States received instructions from the embassy in Washington and the Immigrant Absorption Ministry’s returning citizens' department to distribute the survey by email to the tens of thousands of Israelis and Jews on their mailing lists.

“The IAC is conducting a survey of Israelis in the United States to map their positions and needs,” read the email the Washington embassy sent to the consulates. “We will be partners in the findings. They are asking for our help in distributing the questionnaires via our communication channels, in order to reach as many Israelis as possible … We thank you for promoting this from today.”

Midgam Research and Consulting, a polling company, has been hired to carry out the survey, which is apparently financed by the IAC but was endorsed by official Israeli government agencies. The symbol of the State of Israel appears on the survey’s opening page, and the questionnaires were sent from official Foreign Ministry email accounts.

However, it is unclear what governmental level approved this move, or whether absorption or foreign ministry officials checked what type of questions would be asked. Only after several of the consulates had already distributed the survey to tens of thousands of recipients did some Israeli diplomats realize the significance, and partially halted its distribution.

“Tell her not to send it out. The questions in this survey are unbearable and not legitimate,” Gil Lainer, consul for public diplomacy at the Israeli Consulate in New York, wrote to one of his colleagues in an email.

One question in the survey asks specifically which side the respondents would support publicly if there was a crisis in the relationship between the United States and Israel. The respondents are also asked to what extent the presidential candidates or Congress members' attitudes toward Israel impact their voting decisions.

They are also asked about the impact of American Jews and U.S. Jewish organizations on American policy, and how Israelis living in the United States and American Jews have an impact on Israel’s strength.

An Immigrant Absorption Ministry spokesperson told Haaretz, “this survey has no connection to the ministry,” but admitted ministry personal were involved in its distribution. “We will check how this hitch occurred.” 

The Foreign Ministry noted that “the survey was distributed by Ella Saban - director of the department for returning Israelis at the Absorption Ministry - to the consulates. It is a project of the Absorption Ministry and the IAC.” However, it noted that the embassy in Washington and the consulates around the U.S. helped circulate the survey.

The IAC replied via its PR, Moshe Debby. “The Israeli American Council initiated and approved the survey and questions,” Debby said. “We drafted the survey and it was distributed by many organizations, including [the Immigrant Absorption Ministry agency] Bait Israeli. The government of Israel was not involved in drafting the survey. We chose to conduct this survey … checking the characteristics of Israelis living in America and their children, to learn about the community’s nature.
 
“We think those questions are legitimate, as they are not influencing the reader to vote one way or another. The survey is totally anonymous and the results are for statistical study. The questions you referred to are questions that many Jews and Israeli Americans are faced with.”

Mira Bar Hillel
Tuesday 29 October 2013

Israel and the US: Drawing up lines of allegiance

Jewish Americans are being asked whether they feel more loyal to the US or Israel – it's hard to imagine the issue being raise at a more sensitive time

 Ask British Jews whether they feel more loyal to this country or to Israel – and expect to be instantly labelled anti-Semitic and sent packing. The same, only more so, applies in the USA.
The issue has always been sensitive. Nowadays, with Israel being increasingly criticised for its harsh treatment of the Palestinians and asking to be allowed to bomb Iran, it is potentially explosive.

When Israeli positions conflict with British ones, nothing is more inflammatory than allegations of “dual allegiance”, not to mention putting Israel first. The pro-Israel lobbyists do their work subtly, although in the US their activities, especially among politicians, attract more attention.

Which makes it even more peculiar that tens of thousands of leaflets have recently been distributed to Jewish Americans, as well as to Israelis living in the United States, asking them to indicate where their allegiance would lie in the case of a crisis between the two countries. Almost incredibly, the leaflet was originally endorsed by representatives of Israel’s Foreign Ministry.

Within days, following the report of the story in the Israeli press, Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu hastily directed the ministry to stop backing the questionnaire, which was commissioned by the Israeli American Council, a private nonprofit group established in Los Angeles in 2007. In September, the IAC announced plans to expand by establishing new branches throughout the United States. The survey is seen as part of this process.

According to the IAC, this expansion is to be sponsored by Vegas casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson.   Adelson, 80, is one of the biggest financial backers of both Netanyahu and Mitt Romney and is said to have spent as much as $100 million trying to help defeat Obama last year. According to a report (by Seth Hanlon, the director of fiscal reform at the Center for American Progress Action Fund), the canny Adelson could have turn that investment into a $2 billion tax cut had Romney been elected.

In Israel, Adelson established and pays for a free newspaper, Hayom, devoted to praising Netanyahu and his controversial wife on a daily basis with endless “scoops” about the First Family.

The 12th richest person in the world with an estimated net worth of $34.4 billion recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal that the one reason why he switched from Democrat to Republican was that Republicans were more supportive of Israel than Democrats. That certainly applied to Romney and Netanyahu, a pair who stayed very close after working together at the Boston Consulting Group in the 70s.

In October 2013 Adelson called upon the US to warn Iran it would use Nuclear missiles if necessary, initially aimed at the desert and subsequently threatening to hit Tehran if it did not halt its nuclear programme . This could have been – and possibly was – scripted by Netanyahu.

I wouldn’t dare ask Sheldon Adelson, whose wife is Israeli, where his allegiances lie. But I would dearly love to hear his answer.