About those saying Israel is the one pushing America to war against Iran, ADL chief says “It’s Not Just David Duke Anymore”
Gen. Clark’s Controversy
Presidential contender’s comments about Israel lobby lead to fears that ‘conspiracy theories’ are going mainstream.
Here is an excerpt from an article on January 12, 2007 from the largest Jewish publication in America, The Jewish Week. It concerns Gen. Wesley Clark’s comments about Jewish money pushing the politicians into a war against Iran, a war that would be catastrophically damaging to the true interests of America. Once again, it shows how Dr. David Duke has been in the lead on this critical issue facing America
…On Tuesday Clark, responding to an angry call from Anti-Defamation League Director Abraham Foxman, issued a statement expressing his opposition to “conspiracy theories” about the war in Iraq.
Still, the controversy was already providing fresh ammunition for Jewish Republicans —and worrying Jewish leaders who fear that the war in Iraq and the confrontation with Iran are resulting in the spread of conspiracy theories about Jewish influence beyond a radical fringe.
In her online column last week, blogger Arianna Huffington reported on an encounter with Clark at a brunch preceding the swearing in of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) as House speaker.
Clark, she reported, was “really angry” about a column suggesting that former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was “leading the charge” in lobbying for U.S. air strikes against Iran in 2007.
Clark, who advocates negotiations with Iran, expressed concern about what he believes is an administration plan to take military action against that country’s nuclear facilities.
When asked how he knew the administration was planning an attack, he said this: “You just have to read what’s in the Israeli press. The Jewish community is divided but there is so much pressure being channeled from the New York money people to the office seekers.”
That set off alarms in Jewish groups across the country.
Foxman, after a conversation with Clark this week, said the retired general “didn’t deny that he said it, but said it wasn’t what he meant.”
The ADL leader told Clark that he had “bought into conspiratorial bigotry” that increasingly sees Israel, Jews and American Jewish organizations as the driving force behind U.S. involvement in Iraq and Iran.
Foxman said Clark’s comments are particularly worrisome because of the context, coming in the wake of charges by former President Jimmy Carter that Jewish groups are stifling debate over U.S. Mideast policy and a book by former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who accused Israel of pushing for war with Iran.
And they come as the critique of the pro-Israel lobby by two respected foreign policy scholars, who claim that the lobby pressed for war with Iraq, gains traction in academic circles.
“While we know [Clark] is a good friend of Israel and is not an anti-Semite, he still engaged in inappropriate language by talking about how Israel and Jewish money will move this country to war on Iran,” Foxman said. “At a time when Jews are being accused of bringing about the war in Iraq, that’s very disturbing. We know this is not the real Clark — but he said it. We’re worried because these ideas seem to be moving into the mainstream. It’s not just David Duke anymore…”
Also there is this quote from Har’ retz Newspaper in Israel:
Zev Chafets, my last week’s dialog partner, wrote about Clark for the L.A. Times that his words represent “a variation on the increasingly brazen charge that disloyal neocon Jews tricked the U.S. into Iraq on orders from Jerusalem – a theory propounded not only by Arab propagandists and academic Zionist-lobby-spotters such as professor Stephen Walt of Harvard, professor John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and David Duke of the Ukrainian Interregional Academy of Personnel Management, but by many “progressive” Democrats and Buchananite Republicans.”
