Springtime for Hitler

'Sharon was a terrific prime minister. First of all as a human being. He's a sweetheart. I would phone him and he would get back to me in five minutes."
This is a quote from Haim Saban the namesake of the Saban Centre of Middle Eastern Studies at the very well respected Brookings Institute.

Saban is a major part of America's "pro-Israel" lobby. Characteristic of those in his line of work Mr. Saban has is at best semi-literate in politics and struggles throughout his interview to prove that he has anything other than a reflexively anti-Arab position on the conflict. For example at this point he traces his alliance with the part of the Israeli government that wants to forcibly send Adrieh and her family on air conditioned buses to Gaza with his deep understanding of political Islam:

"When there is a terrorist attack, I am [Yisrael Beiteinu party chair Avigdor] Lieberman. Sometimes to the right of Lieberman. For two days I really love Lieberman. But afterward I come back to reality. Look, I don't see a solution today. People are saying hudna [truce]. I don't know what kind of hudna. Or tahadiya [cease-fire], shmahadiya. A cease-fire within a tahadiya within a hudna. Leave it, it's all stuff and nonsense. And the facts on the ground are the facts on the ground. When your enemy believes in a faith that is rooted in religion, it runs very deep. In this situation I don't know how to mediate between one nation and the other."

Saban's real expertise is exploiting the fears of American Jews that there is another holocaust somewhere in the future. This fear is probably the greatest source of Jewish identity in America, more salient than Israel or religion, and of course a great mobilizer. It's hard to find the words that can express disdain for people that turn memory of a horror such as the holocaust into a phantasmagoria in order permit Israel's service to imperialism and crimes against humanity

"The Iranians are serious. They mean business. Ahmadinejad is not a madman. And every Jew who feels himself to be a Jew lives under the shadow of the Holocaust. That is something that does not leave us. The Holocaust never leaves us. So we are treating Ahmadinejad's declarations like those of Hitler in the 1930s."

You too?

"Yes, of course. When I see Ahmadinejad, I see Hitler. They speak the same language. His motivation is also clear: the return of the Mahdi is a supreme goal. And for a religious person of deep self-persuasion, that supreme goal is worth the liquidation of five and a half million Jews. We cannot allow ourselves that. Nuclear weapons in the hands of a religious leadership that is convinced that the annihilation of Israel will bring about the emergence of a new Muslim caliphate? Israel cannot allow that. This is no game. It's truly an existential danger."



Of course Saban has not been marginalized or discredited for such idiocy. The article explains that he was very close to the Clinton administration. Nor has Middle Eastern studies at Brookings been discredited for taking the money and name of someone whose agenda is not much more than murderous racism and blind deference to the most chauvinistic elements of a foreign state. The main export of which is not AIM and computer technology, but murderous racism and apologetics for murderous racism. There is at least some a priori evidence that Saban's money has corrupted Brookings and I'm sure there is more beneath the surface. Walt & Mearshimer wrote in their LRB 'lobby' essay

Take the Brookings Institution. For many years, its senior expert on the Middle East was William Quandt, a former NSC official with a well-deserved reputation for even-handedness. Today, Brookings’s coverage is conducted through the Saban Center for Middle East Studies, which is financed by Haim Saban, an Israeli-American businessman and ardent Zionist. The centre’s director is the ubiquitous Martin Indyk. What was once a non-partisan policy institute is now part of the pro-Israel chorus.

Indyk is an a sort of Eichamann character who is as unthinking as he is boring and evil. He probably deserves his own post. At the LRB hosted debate on the 'lobby' thesis he audaciously explained his own career as refutation of W&M's work. It is difficult for Indyk not to even claim that he is part of the lobby. W&M again,

During the Clinton administration, Middle Eastern policy was largely shaped by officials with close ties to Israel or to prominent pro-Israel organisations; among them, Martin Indyk, the former deputy director of research at AIPAC and co-founder of the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP); Dennis Ross, who joined WINEP after leaving government in 2001; and Aaron Miller, who has lived in Israel and often visits the country. These men were among Clinton’s closest advisers at the Camp David summit in July 2000. Although all three supported the Oslo peace process and favoured the creation of a Palestinian state, they did so only within the limits of what would be acceptable to Israel. The American delegation took its cues from Ehud Barak, co-ordinated its negotiating positions with Israel in advance, and did not offer independent proposals. Not surprisingly, Palestinian negotiators complained that they were ‘negotiating with two Israeli teams – one displaying an Israeli flag, and one an American flag’.