The Forward brings to us one of the most unintentionally funny articles of the week exploring how the Israel lobby is trying to get the Arab democratic revolutions to work for Israel, rather than against it. Jennifer Lazlo-Mizrahi, one of Israel’s premier enablers in the nation’s capital, as usual espouses some wonderfully outrageous views:
“We need to look at the opportunity and the promise,” said Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, founder and president of The Israel Project, which has been among the very few groups to engage in outreach to the Arab world. “We need to ask how can we make it good for the Jews.”
In the meantime, pro-Israel activists are getting used to a new language when communicating with the Arab world. It includes stressing the financial benefits of peace and the shared value of freedom. At the same time, it ignores the ongoing conflict with the Palestinians. Israel, in this new public diplomacy reality, is no longer referred to as the “only democracy” in the Middle East, but rather as the “most stable democracy” in the region, pro-Israel activists said.
You should never underestimate the Lobby’s tendency toward irrelevance when it comes to having anything real or probitive to say on any issue concerning Israel. And they haven’t disappointed here either. When facing the most momentous development in world history since 1989, all Mizrahi can ask is whether it’s good for the Jews.
And isn’t the new slogan “most stable autocracy” er, democracy in the Middle East a howler? I am glad though they’re finally giving up the “only democracy” slogan since it’s been a lie since Turkey and Lebanon elected democratic governments. Do you think if The Israel Project is finally giving up this hoary old piece of hasbara that commenters here will too?
One should ask though what a “stable” democracy means when said democracy presides over 40+ years of illegal Occupation of the lands of another people and refuses to compromise with this people in order to allow each to live in peace with the other. Is this what stable democracies do?
UPDATE/CORRECTION: Laszlo Mizrahi apparently discovered another website which republished this post and she published the following comment there. I’m sorry to find that she’s deeply hurt by the mean, mean things I said about her and TIP above. This grieves my heart so. I really, definitely plan on begging her forgiveness sometime very soon.
Here’s her comment:
Your work is so careless that you can’t even seem to spell my name correctly or figure out who I am married to (hint — NOT an Israel OR a diplomat). Time and again you belittle our peace work. Mean, mean, stuff — that is devoid of facts. Well, feel free to poke at us again and again. It will not sway us from working day and night for peace and a better future for BOTH sides! Don’t believe me? Go to theisraelproject.org/peace.
And btw — when was the last time YOU were in Ramallah or any other part of the West Bank? I go and I care.
Let’s correct a misimpression first. I spelled her name correctly in the above post, but the blogger who republished it introduced the error in spelling her name. Not my fault.
I did write in an earlier version of this post that Laszlo Mizrahi is married to Israel’s deputy chief of mission in the Washington DC embassy. Actually, Laura Kam, TIP’s “senior advisor for European Affairs” is married to Jeremy Issacharoff, the paid-hasbarist–er, diplomat in question.
I would really, really like to know the last time Laszlo Mizrahi was in Ramallah and I’d really, really, really like to know when she plans to get to Gaza. That should be quite a event. They’ll roll out the red carpet for her I’m sure. And since she’s SO dedicated to peace “for BOTH sides!” I’m sure she plans on visiting soon.
As for me, I don’t have big, fat moneybags bankrolling my propaganda efforts as she does, so it’s a bit hard for me to get out and about and halfway around the world. But I’ll make her a deal, if she springs for it I’ll arrange a wonderful visit to Gaza where we can both go and study peace efforts and a “better future for BOTH sides!” I’ll even throw in a visit to Bilin for a Friday demonstration for good measure!
As to “Is it good for the Jews”, I reject that entirely. If, as I suspect, there are, among the big-money fellows on Wall Street — you know, the fellows who brought on the recent banking collapse — some Jews, then I say that nothing that is “good” for them is also “good” for me.
Is anything good for all Americans? Things that are good for the at-large criminals may not be good for the rich (or for the poor). Things that are good for BIG OIL and BIG COAL may not be good for likely-sufferers from global warming (that is, the children of just about all of us). Things that are good for BIG PHARMA may not be good for folks on Medicare. And so on.
Are the electoral politics carried on by large corporations in the USA (thank you, Supreme Court!) at shareholder and perhaps also at taxpayer expense “good” for every one of those shareholders? Even for most of them? Doubt it.
Interests differ, and nothing is good for everybody in a sufficiently large class. Therefore, let me point that up by reforming the “Is it good for the Jews” question: “Are the policies of the USA good for Americans?” and “Are the policies of Israel good for Israelis?”