Study: U.S. Mideast policy motivated by pro-Israel lobby

Extraordinary. Simply extraordinary.

At last someone has had the balls to comment on the huge elephant sitting in the middle of the lounge.

Ha'aretz newspaper in Israel reports that, The U.S. Middle East policy is not in America's national interest and is motivated primarily by the country's pro-Israel lobby, according to a study published yesterday by researchers from Harvard University and the University of Chicago.

Now the fact that Perle and others actually wrote advice notes for the incoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stating, amongst other things, that it was vital to Israeli interests that Saddam Hussein be removed from office was one of the great unmentionables before the Iraq war. To have pointed this out would have previously opened one up to the baseless charge of anti-Semitism.

It's nice to see Ha'aretz reporting this fairly, rather than making sweeping charges against Harvard and the University of Chicago. They go on to discuss AIPAC's influence stating, "No lobby has managed to divert U.S. foreign policy as far from what the American national interest would otherwise suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that U.S. and Israeli interests are essentially identical," write the authors of the study.

The study also documents accusations that American supporters of Israel pushed the United States into war with Iraq. It lists senior Bush administration officials who supported the war and are also known to support Israel, such as Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith and David Wurmser. The authors say the influence of the pro-Israel lobby is a source of serious concern and write that it has even caused damage to Israel by preventing it from reaching a compromise with its neighbors.

If this much welcomed spirit of honesty is extended across the political spectrum we might soon be allowed to acknowledge the fact that Bush is actually a rather dim little man, and we can all stop pretending that "there are different kinds of intelligence". There aren't. There's one and we measure that by a person's IQ and Bush has the same IQ as a well trained cockateil.

Oh, and while revelling in this honesty fest, can we stop pretending he's "a Texan" and see him as the spoilt little Ivy Leaguer with a silver spoon up his ass that he is?

You can read the Ha'aretz article here.