The Israel Lobby Finds Cyprus

The Israel lobby's opportunism.

For decades the Israel lobby was unabashed in its opposition to the recognition of an Armenian genocide. It has been a cruel historical irony. Jewish Americans, victims of their own genocide, were suppressing knowledge and recognition of another genocide against the Armenian people. And all for political gain.

The Israel lobby's opportunism.

Turkey was a strategic ally of Israel and the Turks did not want their history to include any references to a genocide and Turks also (with some justification) disputed the Armenian narrative, and so the Turkish government would always call on the Israel lobby to do its bidding and block any Congressional resolution on the genocide. This was seen as the Israel lobby on behalf of Israel thanking Turkey for being an ally of the Jewish state.

But things have changes as of late. Turkey is no longer an ally, but one of Israel's strongest critics. Nay it is Israel's strongest critics and relations have greatly soured, especially after an Israeli murder of nine Turkish civilian activists on a flotilla headed toward Gaza.

So the Israel lobby is no longer so enamored with Turkey and many members of the lobby are making it clear that the next time a Armenian genocide resolution comes to the floor of the House they will not work, or at least not sincerely, toward blocking.

And the Israel lobby has not opportunistically found a new cause to champion. It serves no strategic benefit for Israel, but is a petty effort to send a message to Turkey: Play nice or we'll cause difficulties for you.

By extension, the lobby did not like Greece, Greek Cyprus, or anything the Greeks liked. The organizations loved sending delegations to Turkey, encouraging Jewish tourism there, and celebrated Turkey as utterly free of anti-semitism. (The Greeks were dismissed as incorrigibly left-wing).

No more. Ever since the Turks opposed the Gaza invasion and blockade, the lobby has been furious at Turks for their temerity. Its prime minister even publicly admonished Shimon Peres about Gaza in Davos. And then there was the flotilla incident (about which Turkey has infinitely more reason to be angry about than Israel), Within the period of a few months, Israel and its lobby turned on Turkey with a vengeance. Even the 1915 genocide that previously wasn't a genocide became one overnight.

Now Turkey is the country the lobby loves to hate. Assuming that the best way to stick it to Turkey is to suck up to Greece, that it what AIPAC, AJC, and ADL are doing. In lockstep. These guys remind me of American communists back in the 1930's, with their sheer dexterity at shifting policies in about an hour! How silly can you get?

Jonathan Broder writes all about it in Congressional Quarterly (I don't have the link because I can't afford a subscription) but here is a small excerpt. It is about the new lobby position on Cyprus, a subject about which it previously showed no interest. But the new anti-Turkish position applies across the board. (The American Jewish Committee should be calling for renaming Istanbul any day now. Why not Constantinople?).

Here's Broder.

Pro-Israel powerhouses such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee, all of which had advocated effectively for Turkey before relations between Jerusalem and Ankara began to fray, were among the organizations that joined forces with several Greek-American groups to lobby for passage of the Cyprus resolution. Bilirakis said Jewish lawmakers and members of the pro-Greece caucus teamed up to get the resolution passed.

"Greece determined that closer relations with Israel could diminish the strength of the Turkish-American lobby," said Ekavi Athanassopoulou,a political scientist at the University of Athens.

And the word is getting down to the community too. "The Greek Islands are prettier than the Turkish islands. And Greece is Israel's friend."

For the record, I am opposed to the Turkish occupation of northern Cyprus which mimics in many senses Israeli occupation of Palestine: settlements, pushing off natives,ect...

But the Israel lobby is shooting itself in the foot. Turkey is a 70million people nation with the second largest military in NATO and the fastest growing economy in Europe, which is expected - according to Goldman Sachs - to be the third largest economy in Europe by 2050.

Turkey does not need Israel, but Israel will grow only more isolated and de-legitimized if its loses entirely its relations with Turkey. Sucking up to Greece is no panacea. First, Greece is also opportunistic. It will seek to get what it wants by sucking up to Israel, but ultimately it will abandon Israel when it no longer needs it to do its bidding. Greece is a pull-peddler and not a long-term ally worthy of confidence. And even in the short-term Greece is nothing. Greece has no diplomatic weight and the nation was recently the image of international humiliation as it needed hundreds of billions in bailouts to be brought back from the brink of collapse and anarchy. Greece cannot help itself, it had to beg for a bailout from the Germans, let alone do anything for Israel.

The Israel lobby knows this, but the point is not helping Israel but irritating Turkey. This is short-sighted. It will only deepen the gulf between Turkey and Israel and make repaired relations even harder to come by.

And a more alienate Israel does the Jewish state no good.