Mr Brzezinski has been accused of being 'anti-Israel' by
some Jewish academics, writers and bloggers
Posted on 05/27/2008 7:09:52 AM PDT by yankeedame
By Alex Spillius in Washington
Last Updated: 1:04PM BST 27/05/2008
A foreign policy expert consulted by Senator Barack Obama, the leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, has accused members of the American Jewish establishment of "McCarthyism" in its attitude towards critics of Israel.
Mr Brzezinski has been accused of being 'anti-Israel' by
some Jewish academics, writers and bloggers
Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former national security adviser, said that the pro-Israel lobby in the US was too powerful, while the slur of anti-Semitism was too readily used whenever its power was called into question.
Presenting a solution for the Middle East, he listed historical compromises that had to be made by Israelis and Palestinians but accused the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) – the largest and most influential Jewish lobby group – of obstructing peace efforts.
He said: "Aipac has consistently opposed a two-state solution and a lot of members of Congress have been intimidated and I don't think that's healthy."
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He added that other country-specific lobbies, such as the Cuban-Americans, the Armenians and the Irish, had also exerted undue influence in Washington.
Mr Brzezinski, who served under President Jimmy Carter, was a key player in the 1978 Camp David Accords and remains an important voice in the US foreign policy establishment.
An active author and analyst at 80, he is close enough to Mr Obama that his remarks may feed fears in the American-Jewish community that the senator would soften America's traditional strong pro-Israeli stance if he became president.
This perception has been created in part by Mr Obama's professed willingness to talk to Iran and partly by other foreign policy associates.
In recent weeks, Mr Obama has courted the Jewish vote and, on Israel's 60th anniversary, underlined the need for the US to show "unshakeable" support.
Mr Brzezinski has been accused of being "anti-Israel" by some Jewish academics, writers and bloggers after criticising Israel for excessive use of force and unwillingness to compromise.
Last year, censure of him reached new heights when he defended John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, two academics who had criticised the pro-Israel lobby and were accused of questioning the right of the state of Israel to exist.
Mr Brzezinski said "it's not unique to the Jewish community – but there is a McCarthyite tendency among some people in the Jewish community", referring to the Republican senator who led the anti-Communist witch hunt in the 1950s.
"They operate not by arguing but by slandering, vilifying, demonising. They very promptly wheel out anti-Semitism. There is an element of paranoia in this inclination to view any serious attempt at a compromised peace as somehow directed against Israel."
Although Mr Brzezinski is not a formal day-to-day adviser and stressed he doesn't speak for the campaign, he said that he "talks to" Mr Obama.
He endorsed the Illinois senator, lauding him as "head and shoulders" above his opponents. He said that he was the only candidate who understood "what is new and distinctive about our age".
In turn, Mr Obama has praised Mr Brzezinski as "someone I have learned an immense amount from" and "one of our most outstanding scholars and thinkers".
They share very similar views on the folly of the Iraq war.
Robert Malley, a Middle East expert, recently quit as an Obama adviser after it emerged that he was talking to Hamas, the militant Palestinian group, as part of his work for the International Crisis Group.
Senator John McCain, who would be Mr Obama's Republican opponent for the White House, is expected to focus on the 46-year-old senator's lack of foreign policy experience and supposed weakness towards enemies.
In recent weeks Mr Obama has courted the Jewish vote and on Israel’s 60th anniversary underlined the need for the US to show “unshakeable” support.
But as president, he will need the support of Aipac and other groups, which may be hard to achieve given his associations.
In Mr Brzezinski’s view, whoever is the next US leader must persuasively propose the following dramatic steps to peace: a) Palestinians give up the right of return from Jordan b) demilitarise of the Palestinian state c) Israel share Jerusalem d) Israel return to its pre-1967 war borders with “equitable adjustments”.
If this agenda is pursued, in time “Israel and Palestine could be the Singapore of the Middle East and that is in the interests of the US”, he said.
Liberals aka American Gestapo
More evidence that Osama Obama is a radical nut case:
Ah, Brzezinski, the architect of disaster. This git is more senile than Jimmy Al-Carter.
Ping.
When the gemstone of your resume is that you were a foreign policy advisor to Jimmy Carter you have become a joke.
Picture: Brzez is being laughed at while giving a talk on foreign policy. He pulls out a gun and puts it to his temple. The laughing continues so Brzez says, “Don’t laugh. You’re next”.
Go ahead Barry. Blame the Jews! God help this nation IF he wins. islam will flourish in America!
A Jimmuh Carter advisor, anti-Israel??? Why who could possibly believe that! I always love the articles which blithely proclaim that McCarthy led nothing but witch hunts. It always goes unreported just how many witches he truly found. Anyhow, Farakhan and Khadafi are about the only two I can think of who haven’t been mentioned as official Obama advisors. Maybe they’re just waiting in the wings, ready to be trotted out when things really start to heat up...like when Olmert decides defending Israel might actually be an alternative.
Maybe Brzezinski is anti-Semitic; or maybe he is just an ignoramus; or both.
Palestinians give up the right of return from Jordan
. Isn't this an interesting idea! Just the ones from Jordan. I don't think that even Yasser thought of this one. But Israel has to take in everyone who wants in from Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, and I guess those who walk from Jordan into Syria first. Maybe he wants to exclude those in Jordan because he views them as the least hostile toward Israel?
Israel share Jerusalem
Why? Should we share San Diego with the Mexicans? I mean so far as sovereignty is concerned. We know some Mexicans want sovereignty over San Diego. Mexicans seem to be able to come and go as they please in San Diego, just as the Muslims seem to be able to come and go as they please in Jerusalem except when they throw rocks down upon the Kotel, or wear bomb belts. For the great foreign policy scholar this seems just too much of a restriction.
Israel return to its pre-1967 war borders with “equitable adjustments"
Why? Is there an historical precedent for this anywhere? Why, exactly, should Israel give up anything it conquered as result of it's defensive war in 1967?
And one last question: Is having Zbigniew Brzezinski as a senior foreign policy adviser sufficiently disqualifying for Jews who care about Israel to reject Obama, or is the unrestricted ability to have an abortion, which you will never get and which probably won't be changed in any case that, so important that you would rather see the slow death of Israel advanced by our own government?
ML/NJ
“McCarthyism” - the first refuge of a liberal who has no argument against legitimate criticism. And coming from Brzezinski- the worst NSA in our nation’s history serving (arguably) its worst President, his words carry all the weight of hydrogen -the lightest of gases.
Zbig let’s the anti-Israel cat out of the bag. Are American Jews paying attention, or are they all embarrassed by the existence of Israel?
We all remember Zbig’s foreign policy successes during the Carter Administration. Liberal thinkers like him are so far gone in their thought processes that there is little hope of bringing them back to reality. They have convinced themselves that the problem is not the myriad of people who want to destroy Israel, but Israel itself.
Zbig can always find comfort from like-minded “progressives” and “intellectuals” who rant and rave about the existence of Israel.
The article about this raving, drooling, rabid anti-Semite is a not-so-coincidental companion piece to one about his equally rabid, hateful anti-Semitic sponsor Carter announcing to the world that Israel has 150 nuclear weapons.
These stinking piles of effluvium have apparently taken it upon themselves to further the cause of the obliteration of Israel in order to take the heat off the muslim terrorist groups in the US who likely sponsor them.
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