Opinion

Understanding how the Zionist lobby continues to shape US foreign policy

The domestic crisis in the United States mirrors the escalating danger in the Middle East. Drawing the lines which connect the two reveal a disturbing picture. The influence of the Zionist lobby has distorted the truth in service of a donor class which dominates U.S. media and politics alike.  
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Frank
Wright
Frank Wright

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(LifeSiteNews) –– When former Supreme Commander of Allied Forces General Dwight D. Eisenhower left the office of president in 1961, he issued a stern warning of the danger to democracy presented by “the military-industrial complex.”  

Eisenhower describes dark forces which many would agree shape our politics today. 

“We face a hostile ideology: global in scope atheistic in character ruthless in purpose and insidious in method. Unhappily the danger it poses promises to be of indefinite duration.” 

His speech is most famous for his warning of the threat to democracy presented by the growing “economic, political, and even spiritual” power of the “military industrial complex.” 

With the enormous industry of war we see today having captured the political and media class, his prediction appears to have come true. He said, “The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.” 

Finally, he moved to the significance of the information war, which has been prosecuted in recent years with exceptional aggression in democracies. He says our hope lies on “[o]nly an alert and knowledgeable citizenry” to prevent  the “… mortgage [of] the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage.” 

It is this loss – of everything of value – which is risked in the current domination of U.S. politics by the death industry. American politics is frightfully no longer shaped by American interests, values or ideals.  

Its public opinion and political action is especially prompted by the interests of Israeli Zionists. 

The censorship-industrial complex suppresses dissent, excludes the obvious, and calls reasoned objection anything from extremism to “conspiracy theory” to downright treason. The latest example of the labelling of truths inconvenient to power as hatred is the passing in the American congress of a bill to criminalise criticism of the foreign nation of Israel. Why would the United States government take such extreme measures, threatening its own constitution in the process? 

READ: War on truth: How the censorship-industrial complex threatens to end free speech as we know it 

As the Jewish journalist Max Blumenthal points out in this latest interview with Judge Antony Napolitano, U.S. politics is directed by Israel, and not towards the interests of the American people. 

Now a new Act has been passed by Congress to criminalize the mention of this and other obvious facts. 

Regime newswire the Associated Press said the Antisemitism Awareness Act came partly in response to widespread and mounting student protests across the U.S. against Israel’s genocide in Gaza. 

“The House passed legislation Wednesday that would establish a broader definition of antisemitism for the Department of Education to enforce anti-discrimination laws, the latest response from lawmakers to a nationwide student protest movement over the Israel-Hamas war.” 

This “broader definition,” which could see the Gospels criminalized, includes holding the Israeli government and its leader to account for war crimes. Netanyahu said that the international criminal court’s investigation of his actions was “pure antisemitism.” 

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The International Criminal Court is considering issuing arrest warrants against Netanyahu, other members of his government, and against serving members of the Israeli military. On May 1, Netanyahu described this as an “outrage of historic proportions,” saying courts such as the ICC were set up in the wake of “[t]he Holocaust… to prevent future genocides.” 

“In targeting Israel, the ICC would be targeting all democracies,” claimed Netanyahu. His remarks recall the objection of Jewish academic Norman Finkelstein, who argued in his book The Holocaust Industry that “the Holocaust…has been instrumentalised to shield Israel from criticism” and to confer political and financial gain on those who use it in this way. 

Yet Netanyahu’s claim that it is the Israelis – and Jews generally, not the Palestinians – who are facing “genocide,” is now echoed by new laws in the U.S. 

The Gospels are ‘antisemitic?’

Florida Republican Representative Matt Gaetz has described the Antisemitism Awareness Act as a “ridiculous hate speech bill,” echoing the fear that it threatens to make the teachings of Christ unlawful. 

“Antisemitism is wrong, but this legislation is written without regard for the Constitution, common sense, or even the common understanding of the meaning of words. The Gospel itself would meet the definition of antisemitism under the terms of this bill!”  

A reaction to campus ‘antisemitism’  

Campuses across the U.S. have seen law enforcement deploy snipers at universities including those in Ohio, Indiana and at UCLA.  

Armed shock troops filed into Columbia in a crackdown remarkably absent from recent protest movements, such as those over the death of George Floyd. 

With 100 students arrested at Columbia University in New York, one Jewish student spoke of his fears that protestors would be killed by police. As the U.K.’s Independent reported on May 1, “Jonathan Ben-Menachem, a PhD student at Columbia, said he feared a repeat of the bloody crackdowns that marred that era.” 

“We’re terrified that there’s going to be a second Kent State at Columbia,” he said, referring to the killing of four unarmed college students at Kent State University in Ohio in 1970 during protests over the Vietnam War.

A Jewish view of the protests  

Ben-Menachem, who is researching a doctorate in the politics of American criminalization at Columbia, published his own article on the framing of the protests as “anti-semitic.” 

Writing on April 23 for Zeteo on Substack, he said, “I Am a Jewish Student at Columbia. Don’t Believe What You’re Being Told About ‘Campus Antisemitism” 

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Smears from the press and pro-Israel influencers, who have levied charges of antisemitism and violence against Jewish students, are a dangerous distraction from real threats to our safety.

I saw politicians compare student organizers to neo-Nazis and call for a National Guard deployment, apparently ignorant of the lives lost at Kent State and in Charlottesville, and with very little pushback from national media.  

Why would a student movement which obviously includes Jews be framed in this way by the politicians and the mainstream media? 

This is a repulsive form of self-aggrandizement that I can only assume is intended to preserve relationships with influential donors.

Ben-Menachem says it is the police which endanger Jewish people on campus. 

“Calls to more heavily police our campus actively endanger Jewish students, and threaten the regular operations of the university far more gravely than peaceful protests.”  

Secular liberal tests antisemitic claims 

His claim is echoed by that of independent journalist Michael Tracey, who attended protests at Princeton on April 27 in a yarmulke. 

He said “Princeton University security guard says the protest has been ‘very mellow’ and everyone’s been ‘generous’ to his detail deployed to the scene. But I guess I should fabricate some non-existent Chaos and Anti-Semitic Strife to earn my Serious Media Credentials.” 

Tracey then went to Columbia, where he wore a large Star of David and walked around – with no problems at all. 

“I’ve been wearing a nice big Star of David necklace this entire time at Columbia, and oddly experienced no ‘Anti-Semitic Harassment.’ It’s almost like the people who claim to experience such ‘harassment’ deliberately go around trying to provoke it for social media clout.” 

He asked “where’s the evidence?” for these claims of widespread antisemitism on campus, which have seen the U.S. Congress expand the definition of the crime of antisemitism as a result. 

After visiting several campus protests this was his conclusion. 

“Virtually every claimed incident of ‘Anti-Semitism’ on U.S. campuses involves a ‘pro-Israel’ individual going around aggressively promoting their viewpoint, and often deliberately stoking conflict. There is ZERO evidence of anyone being targeted for the sole reason of being Jewish.” 

  

Exporting

Independent journalist Max Blumenthal, who is Jewish himself, reported an obvious incident of provocation on campus by pro-Israel protestors. 

“New York University has built a wall around its campus to contain ‘the terrorists’ staging ‘antisemitic protests,’ according to Real America’s Voice. Its report, which describes “students rioting in support of terrorist organizations” makes no mention of the tactics of pro-Israel demonstrators, whose provocations now include playing the screams of dying children over loudspeakers at those protesting Israel’s ongoing genocide. 

This is the export to the U.S. of a tactic pioneered by the Israeli army to lure Palestinians to their death. Jewish national security writer Spencer Ackerman reported on April 29 how Gaza is a “laboratory of future warfare,” warning that “[w]hat happens in Gaza won’t stay there.” 

Days after his report, the same tactics began to appear on U.S. soil. The insidious spread of terror and polarizing hatred is directly fueled by the deliberate export of the Zionist strategy of escalation. 

As Ben-Menachem shows, it is one whose success rests on a campaign of lies. 

“As this national discourse over ‘campus antisemitism’ reached a boiling point over the weekend, the Gaza Solidarity Encampment saw CUAD organizers lead joint Muslim and Jewish prayer sessions and honor each other’s dead. This is wholesome, human stuff – it doesn’t make for sensationalist headlines about Jew-hating Ivy Leaguers.” 

He says the American public is being misled about the real danger to Jewish students. 

Here’s what you’re not being told: The most pressing threats to our safety as Jewish students do not come from tents on campus.

Instead, they come from the Columbia administration inviting police onto campus, certain faculty members, and third-party organizations that dox undergraduates.

He regrets the need to respond to the false claims of danger made in the media. 

“Frankly, I regret the fact that writing to confirm the safety of Jewish Ivy League students feels justified in the first place.” 

Finally, he notes the near absence of media concern for the destruction of Palestinian life or the levelling of their universities by Israel. 

“I have not seen many pundits hand-wringing over the safety of my Palestinian colleagues mourning the deaths of family members, or the destruction of Gaza’s cherished universities.” 

Ben-Menachem observed the protest movement was growing. 

“And we are not alone. College campuses across the United States have followed Columbia’s lead.” 

He urged his readers to remain focused on reality. 

“And so, it is my hope that we can all learn from their examples to remain clear-eyed about the stakes of this crisis and focus on the actual violence being perpetrated in all of our names.” 

A new onslaught in Gaza

The violence Ben-Menachem refers to is the starvation and bombing of the civilian population of Gaza. Driven south by Israel’s campaign, it is estimated that 1.5 million people – around half of them children – are now concentrated in a city designed for 150,000. 

This city, Rafah, is the target of a renewed assault that Netanyahu has assured his coalition partners is coming soon. Netanyahu has assured his coalition partners that a military assault on Rafah will take place regardless of any deal with Hamas.  

Faced with this strategy of annihilation it seems incomprehensible that the U.S. government would continue to supply arms and funding to the Israeli government.   

US government ‘bought and paid for’ by Israel

The reason it does so, according to many critics which include retired U.S. Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor, is that it is “bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.”

Macgregor is not the only one to argue that Netanyahu’s political survival is staked on escalation. Whilst Macgregor warns this could lead to a war between the U.S. and Russia, one Jewish scholar notes that the strategy of escalation also includes the export of the Israel model to the rest of the world. 

Jewish Antony Loewenstein’s report on “How Israel exported its occupation to the world” documents a strategy which may see waves of terrorism provoked by a renewed campaign of slaughter in Gaza. 

The tactic of using the antisemitic smear is also well established. According to Shulamit Aloni, the charge of antisemitism “is a trick. We always use it.” 

Is it antisemitic to point out that Israel armed Britain’s enemy at the height of the Falklands War, as was revealed in 2016, or that it routinely supplies weapons to repressive regimes worldwide? The term is applied to smear any criticism of the extremist Zionist policies of the present Israeli regime. 

According to one of the most observant Orthodox Jewish organisations, anti-Zionism is not anti-semitism. It says instead that Zionism is not Judaism at all. 

‘Christian’ Zionism

Many Orthodox Jews disagree with Zionism, thinking it a secular attempt to usurp God’s role in the redemption of the Jewish people. The estimated 30 million Christian Zionists in the U.S. are the largest supporters of Zionism. Some, such as the Wilks brothers, whose backing secured the fame and fortune of Ben Shapiro and his Daily Wire, believe in a strange syncretism of Christianity and Judaism which denies the divinity of Christ. 

As Rabbi Jay Michaelson said of them in 2016: “These are Jesus people for Judaism, creating a new hybrid religion in front of our eyes. And their politics are indeed extreme.” 

The Wilks brothers backed Ted Cruz for president, “giving over 31 million dollars to his campaign.” Their “church,” the Assembly of Yahweh, does not observe Christmas but does observe the Jewish Sukkot, for example. Michaelson continued, noting the success of this “postmodern hybridization,” which actually belongs to neither of the two religions it claims to blend. 

It is a movement more focused on political power than on the truth of either religion, he suggests. 

“Judaizing Christians are interested in a symbolic, fictive Judaism that has little to do with actual Jews. Sure, they, like past generations of Christian Zionists, may find willing partners in rabbis like Shlomo Riskin and Israeli governments like the present one.” 

Michaelson’s conclusion is one which seems prescient today. 

“But when myth and reality collide, myth wins — whether that’s the myth of Greater Israel, the myth of the End Times, or the myth of Jesus’s free-market politics. And those of us living in the real world often pay the price.” 

Shaping American politics 

The Wilks’ brothers “creepy… highly goyish, hardcore conservative evangelical” movement has been extremely influential in shaping American “rightwing” politics for a decade, as this report from American Prospect in 2014 shows, with tens of millions of dollars used to shape domestic U.S. law and policy.

One of the brothers, Farris Wilks, “gave $4.7m to help launch the Daily Wire and remains an owner of the media company,” as The Guardian reported in September 2023. The report says the Wilks brothers have also backed “rightwing” pundit Dennis Prager, donating 8 million dollars to PragerU. 

Dennis Prager has undermined the teachings of Christ and said that masturbating to child pornography was not evil, saying that “you didn’t do evil if you thought evil.” As was pointed out here, this directly contradicts Christ in the Gospel of Saint Matthew, 

It was the Daily Wire’s Andrew Klavan who designated the term “Christ is King” as antisemitic. 

As Catholic Family News reported on March 26:

Following this, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) spearheaded a campaign against Owens, bringing to the forefront the debate of whether the phrase ‘Christ is King’ and Owens’ use of it is antisemitic. 

CFN asked:

If the Daily Wire has come to the point of expelling its members and condemning as antisemitic the usage of the term ‘Christ is King,’ we must ask: Where, then, is the Daily Wire going?

As these well-funded and widely influential organizations show, the enormous cultural and political influence of the Zionist lobby is not confined to the “Large Epstein Island” of Washington D.C., as Macgregor styled the U.S. government. 

“All of them, with very few exceptions,” said MacGregor, are “bought men.” 

Escalating crisis 

The domestic crisis in the United States mirrors the escalating danger in the Middle East. Drawing the lines which connect the two reveal a disturbing picture. The influence of the Zionist lobby has distorted the truth in service of a donor class which dominates U.S. media and politics alike.  

This influence is clearly visible when matching widespread criticism in the Israeli media of the “official” version of events of October 7 with the U.S. media’s reflex labelling of any such questions as pro-Hamas propaganda. 

Max Blumenthal’s own report cites numerous Israeli sources.

I was careful to cite almost no sources outside Israel in my own report on the events of October 7. 

READ: Uncovering the truth behind Israel’s justification for its war in Gaza

This well-funded and powerful campaign to win the hearts and minds of the American people, along with those in the wider West, is undertaken in service of the systematic destruction of human life in Gaza. It has been ongoing for decades, and has left politics and the media captive to a lobby more powerful than the president, whoever he may be at the time. 

To Catholics, life has an essential value given by God. It is their duty to defend the sanctity of life wherever it is threatened. It is neither antisemitic nor pro-terrorist to do so. This is not a question of hatred, nor a culture war issue which divides us along party or political lines. 

It is a question of who will speak for life against an industry of death. 

Help Christians who escaped Gaza: LifeFunder