Through The Glass Darkly

[Ace Hanlon]

A most interesting comment posted on Glen Greenwald's site by an apparent Washington insider.


One point that is not widely known, because people are too [scared] discreet to say it out loud

How deeply official Washington, London, Brussels, Europe hates the Israelis. I am not talking a little annoyance – they outright hate the Israelis. The reason is the craven and servile behaviour demanded by the Israelis and their shills. I remember a late Pentagon General Counsel, the top career attorney for the US DOD who had been their through Reagan, Bush I and Clinton telling me how annoyed he was that the early Clinton administration had not yet learned about Netanyahu –dating back to Reagan he kept a list of every US soldier whose death could be directly attributed to Netanyahu (and Pollard continued presence in Jail is because of this) -- and I recall it was over 30. Diplomats who dealt with Netanyahu in DC and Europe described him as an almost compulsive liar - and I know this from people who were in meetings with him where they describe people as struck dumb by his outrageous mendacity, his bald faced lying (and Israelis I know wonder if he is in fact sane, since some of it is pointless.) By the way, he has made this lying part of the Israeli diplomatic culture, another reason they are detested.

Now you have the juvenile boast by an Israeli Prime Minister that demanded that Bush interrupt a speech to get him to overrule Rice and stop the US voting for the UN Cease Fiore resolution (showing that the President of the United States carries his spittoon.) A story that is almost certainly true, and that probably left her and numerous people in DC spitting mad. I have heard so many stories about the appalling Wurmsers, husband and wife, and their behavior -- they are hard to describe.

The point that I am making is that privately, official Washington almost to a man and woman agreed with John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt’ Israel Lobby – and everybody read it. But they agreed quietly, while openly condemning it.

Meanwhile around the world, government after government deeply resents the pressure brought through Washington for them to tone down criticism of the Israelis. The way in which stories are whipped up of anti-Semitism in this country or that country (always front page in a US newspaper) – noting of course that whipping up ideas of anti-Semitism creates a solidarity effect so that the 70% odd of US Jews that disagree with Israeli policy and AIPAC, and almost 90% or Europeans feel obliged to toe the party-line.

The real issue though is that you cannot be so hated as the Israelis are in DC, bully so many politicians, be regarded as complete liars, without their being an eventual backlash. The day that Israel loses seriously its support in US public opinion, it will quite literally reap the whirlwind. There is an astonishing level of anger in DC at the way the Israelis behave, and deep anger in capitals all around the world. They are on a precipice here.