By Mark Weber
For many years Israel has violated well established standards of international law and has defied numerous United Nations resolutions in its occupation of conquered lands, in extra-judicial killings, and in repeated acts of military aggression.
Most of the world regards Israel’s policies, and especially its oppression of Palestinians, as illegal and outrageous. This international consensus is reflected, for example, in numerous UN resolutions condemning Israel, which have been approved with overwhelming majorities. / 1 “The whole world,” said United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan in 2002, “is demanding that Israel withdraw [from occupied Palestinian territories]. I don’t think the whole world ... can be wrong.” / 2
Among the world’s nations, the United States stands out as the most devoted backer of Israel. With very few exceptions, even those American politicians and media figures who might sometimes criticize a particular Israeli policy are, nonetheless, vigorous supporters of Israel – and not just as a country, but as an emphatically Jewish ethnic-religious state. In spite of occasional disputes over specific policies, the US continues, as it has for years, to provide Israel with crucial military, diplomatic and financial backing.
Why is the US such a staunch bastion of support for the Jewish state?
One person who has spoken candidly about this has been Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, who was awarded the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize. Addressing an audience in Boston, he said: “But you know as well as I do that, somehow, the Israeli government is placed on a pedestal [in the US], and to criticize it is to be immediately dubbed anti-Semitic ... People are scared in this country, to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful – very powerful.” / 3
Bishop Tutu spoke the truth. Although Jews make up only two or three percent of the US population, they wield immense power and influence – much more than any other ethnic or religious group.
As Jewish author and political science professor Benjamin Ginsberg has pointed out: / 4
“Since the 1960s, Jews have come to wield considerable influence in American economic, cultural, intellectual and political life. Jews played a central role in American finance during the 1980s, and they were among the chief beneficiaries of that decade’s corporate mergers and reorganizations. Today, though barely two percent of the nation’s population is Jewish, close to half its billionaires are Jews. The chief executive officers of the three major television networks and the four largest film studios are Jews, as are the owners of the nation’s largest newspaper chain and the most influential single newspaper, the New York Times ... The role and influence of Jews in American politics is equally marked ...
“Jews are only three percent of the nation’s population and comprise eleven percent of what this study defines as the nation’s elite. However, Jews constitute more than 25 percent of the elite journalists and publishers, more than 17 percent of the leaders of important voluntary and public interest organizations, and more than 15 percent of the top ranking civil servants.”
Stephen Steinlight, former Director of National Affairs of the American Jewish Committee, similarly notes the “disproportionate political power” of Jews, which is “pound for pound the greatest of any ethnic/cultural group in America.” He goes on to explain that “Jewish economic influence and power are disproportionately concentrated in Hollywood, television, and in the news industry.” / 5
Two well-known Jewish writers, Seymour Lipset and Earl Raab, pointed out in their book, Jews and the New American Scene: / 6
“During the last three decades Jews [in the United States] have made up 50 percent of the top two hundred intellectuals ... 20 percent of professors at the leading universities ... 40 percent of partners in the leading law firms in New York and Washington ... 59 percent of the directors, writers, and producers of the 50 top-grossing motion pictures from 1965 to 1982, and 58 percent of directors, writers, and producers in two or more prime-time television series.”
Vanity Fair magazine in 2007 published a list of what it calls “the world’s most powerful people” – a lineup of the one hundred most influential media bosses, bankers, publishers, image makers, and so forth, who determine how we view ourselves and the world, and who – directly and indirectly – shape our lives and our futures. Jews made up more than half of the powerful men and women on the Vanity Fair list, reported a leading Israeli newspaper, The Jerusalem Post. / 7 Similarly, a listing of America’s wealthiest individuals compiled in 2018 by the business magazine Forbes showed that five of the top ten were Jewish. / 8
The Jewish role in American political life is similarly lopsided. A survey by the Jewish news agency JTA in September 2020 found that “15 of the top 25 biggest political donors this [election] cycle are Jewish or of Jewish origin.” Prominent among these 15 were Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, Michael Bloomberg, George Soros and Tom Steyer. / 9
In recent years the single biggest donors to Republican politicians, by far, have been Sheldon and Mariam Adelson, a vehemently pro-Zionist Jewish billionaire couple. The Adelsons gave more than $100 million to Republican causes and candidates in the 2016 election cycle, and another $123 million in the 2018 election cycle. / 10 In the 2020 election cycle, the gambling casino magnate and his wife gave an estimated $250 million to support Donald Trump and other Republican candidates. / 11
Similarly, Jews were the biggest donors to leading Democratic Party candidates in recent years. Prominent among these donors have been George Soros and . . .
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