Israel lobby controls US politics: Mark Dankof
Sun Oct 13, 2013
Interview with Mark Dankof
I would argue very effectively that when you look at the whole issue of Israel’s disproportionate influence through their lobby in the policies of the United States, that if you look at what the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs puts out on this every year, you can effectively argue that the Israeli lobby is the most powerful financial and political interest in this whole country, in who runs and who gets elected.”
The following is an approximate transcript of the interview.
Press TV: What do you think this government shutdown is really all about?
Dankof: I think it’s a lot of theater, actually. I think there will be a last-minute deal between the two sides.
The fact of the matter is in terms of the real issues that confront this country, the Republican and Democratic Parties are full partners together in destroying the American republic, whether it’s continuing the Federal Reserve board and its policy of quantitative easing, or it’s the draconian domestic police state that has developed in the United States since 9/11, or it’s its endless cycle of war and debt that only serves the bankers and multi-national oil consortiums in Israel.
The fact of the matter is that when you start talking about those issues, the Republican and Democratic Parties are both bought and paid for and this is why you’re seeing all this talk about a third party.
Press TV: Mark, are you saying that the Republicans and Democrats are basically the same, and do you believe that it’s the American people who are the real target of all of this?
Dankof: Yeah, I think the Republican and Democratic Parties are largely the same, is as the late George Wallace, the [former] Governor of Alabama, once said there isn’t a dimes bit of difference between the Republican and Democratic Parties in the larger sense of the word.
Whether you’re talking about a 17-trillion-dollar national debt and counting, or you’re talking about these endless military fishing expeditions in the Middle East at the behest of Benjamin Netanyahu and the bankers and the oil consortiums, or you’re talking about the exportation of the manufacturing sector of the American economy abroad, or you’re talking about the decaying infrastructure of the United States here at home and a declining culture, both of the major parties are fully to blame at this.
When you look at Barack Obama, I find it noteworthy that even the Washington Post notes how much he’s starting to look like George Bush and Richard Nixon.
Press TV: What about that, Mark? [Other guest speaker Brent Budowsky] says it has nothing to do with Israel, and that is actually turning the discussion into something extremely shallow.
Dankof: Let’s take a look at this whole issue of funding on this point. He does have some good things to say. When you’re looking at the funding of the American presidential and congressional elections, the fact of the matter is that when you’re looking at the Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission decision that was reached by the Supreme Court a few years ago, it granted corporations constitutional rights - constitutional rights allegedly to put as much money into the process as possible through these super-PACs.
The fact of the matter is that when you look at who is financing these elections, when you look at who’s profiting, we would be less than honest if we didn’t say that the Israeli lobby controls both of the major political parties in the United States, that the international bankers, the insurance conglomerates and the multi-national corporations generally are the ones bankrolling these elections. From there, we get into the whole question of who it is that controls corporate media in the United States.
The fact of the matter is that the Israeli lobby is very much one of the two or three major players in this entire process and that whether you’re looking at what we’re presently doing in the Middle East or whether you’re looking at the ongoing control of the debate in the American Congress over what our foreign policy is supposed to be in the Middle East, or you’re talking about the continued stranglehold that moneyed interests, many of which are Jewish in the United States - disproportionally Jewish - have to play in how elections are financed and who is running, and who gets the corporate media coverage. I would say that the Israeli lobby is most demonstrably a player in this entire process. The rest of the world has this figured out.
When I was running in the US Senate race in Delaware in 2000 against Tom Carper and Bill Roth, I found it extremely interesting to go into the Federal Election Commission records to see who was financing the two major party candidates in that US Senate race. The fact of the matter is it was most revealing to find out how many of the same people were bankrolling both of these candidates, and what particular sectors of the American economy these two candidates were representing.
I would argue very effectively that when you look at the whole issue of Israel’s disproportionate influence through their lobby in the policies of the United States, that if you look at what the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs puts out on this every year, you can effectively argue that the Israeli lobby is the most powerful financial and political interest in this whole country, in who runs and who gets elected.
Press TV: What about that, Mark Dankof - our viewers are saying, basically, definitely an independent party... but how likely is that to happen in the United States anytime soon and what do you see are the main obstacles from stopping it from happening?
Dankof: Well, I’ve seen this up close and Brent does say some things that I do agree with; one, I think there needs to be a left-right coalition in this country, if there is a third party.
It seems to me that there are people on the responsible paleo-conservative and libertarian right in the United States who are saying many of the same things as their counterpart in the left in regard to the dangers of who it is that’s guiding our foreign policy, the disproportionate role of banks and multi-national consortiums that are running the process.
The obstacles are this, one, corporate media. Corporate media is only going to cover candidates that are going to do what the corporations in the Israeli lobbies and the banks want them to do. So, that’s the first problem, is corporate media coverage.
The lack of corporate money behind independent candidates is going to be obstacle number two.
And third and perhaps most daunting of all are the draconian ballot access laws in the United States in the 50 states, written by Republican and Democratic Party state legislatures that effectively make it virtually impossible for a third party to get on the ballot in enough states. Or if it does, it’ll run out of money by the time the general election campaign comes along.
Press TV: Mark, Brent has said before that you live in a democratic country, not a banana republic. Is the United States a democracy, in your perspective?
Dankof: Not really. I don’t see how anyone can look at these elections and who’s controlling the process and truly believe that we are a one-person-one-vote democracy in the classic sense of the word.
I like to say something else as well that bears mentioning, and that is the fact that the United States is on the edge of a precipice in terms of an absolute “de-clenching” in its fortunes abroad and potentially a serious fragmentation and breakup at home.
I go back to the book that the late Andrei Amalrik wrote entitled “Will the Soviet Union survive until 1984?” He was dismissed as a crackpot at that time only to discover that five or six years later, the Soviet Union as we had known it was breaking up.
Pat Buchannan had an article this week talking about very, very serious movements in specific counties and specific states to even talk about seceding from the union. As crazy as that seems now in terms of possibility, I don’t think it will take much more frustration on the part of the American public with these endless foreign wars and with the power of these bankers and with the destruction of the economic fortunes of Americans at home to see a complete fragmentation of our political situation in a frightening way that it could even lead to violence and it could even lead to anarchy in some situations in specific locales.
This is a far more serious situation that perhaps has been recognized up until this point, and the United States may be in its final days in terms of the power that it has perceived as being right after the Second World War.
GMA/HJL
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