From Dallas to Gaza-- JFK's Assassination and U.S.-Israeli History

[W. Niederhut]

      James DiEugenio's recent Substack essay about Gaza and JFK has inspired me to study the history of U.S. relations with Israel during the past 60 years.

       Last night, I discovered this interesting essay, From Dallas to Gaza, at a website called LA Progressive.  The author, Rick Sterling, is a Canadian American from Berkeley, California.   Probably no accident that a Canadian has a more accurate perspective on U.S. history than most Americans.

       Rather than focusing on JFK's relationship with Nasser, Sterling's essay focuses more on JFK's relationship with David Ben Gurion and right wing Zionists in Israel and the U.S.   It also discusses RFK's efforts as Attorney General to accurately register Israeli lobbyists in the U.S. as agents of a foreign government.

       Sterling also describes the disagreements that many liberal Jewish intellectuals in the U.S.-- including Albert Einstein-- had with militant, right wing Zionists in the JFK era, a subject that Robert Burrows has mentioned in our discussion on the Gaza and JFK thread.

       Needless to say, the U.S. military industrial complex and the right wing Israeli military complex (and Israeli lobby in the U.S.) have emerged victorious following the assassinations of JFK and RFK.

       This article is worth reading.

From Dallas to Gaza: How JFK’s Assassination Was Good for Zionist Israel

Kennedy wanted to steer the Jewish Zionists away from the racist, militaristic and ultra-nationalistic impulses which have led to where we are today.

https://www.laprogressive.com/the-middle-east/from-dallas-to-gaza

December 15, 2023

 

 

 

[Paul Brancato]

And then there is the lone response after the article by someone refuting much of what Sterling wrote regarding both the 1967 war and the mass expulsion of Arabs. 

[Robert Burrows]

On 12/31/2023 at 8:59 AM, W. Niederhut said:

 

       

 

 

Deleted

Edited January 3 by Robert Burrows

[W. Niederhut]

3 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

And then there is the lone response after the article by someone refuting much of what Sterling wrote regarding both the 1967 war and the mass expulsion of Arabs. 

Yes, Paul, I read that lone straw man propaganda response, which had very little to do with the substance of Sterling's article about JFK's disagreements with Ben Gurion and the militant right wing Zionists in Palestine.

It reminded me of Michael Griffith's standard, misleading straw man arguments in our debates on this forum.

The technique is, "Hey, look at this straw man over here!  If the author didn't describe this little straw man quite correctly, all of his work must be inaccurate," etc.

[Paul Brancato]

52 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:

Yes, Paul, I read that lone straw man propaganda response, which had very little to do with the substance of Sterling's article about JFK's disagreements with Ben Gurion and the militant right wing Zionists in Palestine.

It reminded me of Michael Griffith's standard, misleading straw man arguments in our debates on this forum.

The technique is, "Hey, look at this straw man over here!  If the author didn't describe this little straw man quite correctly, all of his work must be inaccurate," etc.

True, but one has to acknowledge that Arab hatred of Jews is also a problem. 

[James DiEugenio]

Ric misses my point, although its a good article that started at Mintpress.

In all probability  there would have been no 1967 war if Kennedy had lived.

And all you have to do is look at Nasser's reaction when Kennedy died.

Secondly, Nasser had broken relations with USA at this time because LBJ had lost Kennedy's balance in the area.. This is well defined by both Rakove and Muehlenbeck.

[W. Niederhut]

16 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said:

True, but one has to acknowledge that Arab hatred of Jews is also a problem. 

Agreed.  It's similar to the way the indigenous Native Americans here in Colorado-- mostly Arapahoe, Cheyenne, and Kiowa-- felt about white European settlers moving in and seizing their land in the 1860s.

And, IMO, what Netanyahu is doing to women and children in Gaza right now is similar to what Chivington did at the Sand Creek Massacre during the Colorado Indian War-- on a much bigger scale.

[Robert Burrows]

On 12/31/2023 at 3:37 PM, Paul Brancato said:

 

Deleted

Edited January 3 by Robert Burrows

[W. Niederhut]

        The Sterling article (above) is probably the most informative thing I've ever read on the subject of JFK's perspective on Israel and the indigenous Palestinians-- which was based on JFK's direct observations of Palestine in 1939.

Kennedy supported Palestinian Rights

A third difference is regarding Palestinian rights. Although he was only 44 when he became president, Kennedy had more international experience than most US presidents. In 1939 he spent two weeks in Palestine. In a lengthy letter to his father, he described the situation and difficulties. He wrote, “The sympathy of the people on the spot seems to be with the Arabs. This is not only because the Jews have had, at least some of their leaders, an unfortunately arrogant, uncompromising attitude, but they feel that after all, the country has been Arabic for the last few hundred years …. Palestine was hardly Britain’s to give away.”

Kennedy remarks how the Jewish residents are divided between “strongly Orthodox Jewish group, unwilling to make any compromise” and a “liberal Jewish element composed of the younger group who fear these reactionaries”.

        Another important aspect of the Sterling article (above) is the discussion of JFK and RFK's policy toward Israeli lobbyists in the U.S. 

        Has anyone ever posted any material here on the JFKA forum about JFK and RFK's efforts to properly register Israeli lobbyists in the U.S. as agents of a foreign government?  I was unfamiliar with that history.

        And, as we know, the Israeli lobby, in the decades following the assassinations of JFK and RFK, has become a driving force in U.S. foreign policy.

        By 2000, Ariel Sharon correctly stated that, "Israel controls America, and the Americans know it."  That control is largely exerted by AIPAC.

        We have all witnessed this phenomenon most profoundly during the post-9/11 Bush/Cheney/Neocon "War on Terror" -- and in 2023, with Congress, Biden and Blinken's multi-billion dollar support for Netanyahu's ethnic cleansing of Gaza.  It's the diametric opposite of what the U.S. and NATO did in the case of the Belgrade government's war against the KLA in Kosovo.  At the time, the U.S. and NATO bombed Serbia severely to prevent the "ethnic cleansing" of Kosovar Albanians by the Milosevic regime.

         Does anyone think that JFK would have vetoed UN cease-fire resolutions for Gaza, or by-passed Congress to ship emergency military supplies to Israel for the bombing of residential communities in Gaza?

        The truth is that the U.S. Congress and White House in the 21st century have functioned, essentially as Likud Party puppets, as Ariel Sharon said.

        They have completely abandoned JFK's balanced approach to mediating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

        

Edited January 1 by W. Niederhut

[Sandy Larsen]

2 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

... Biden and Blinken's multi-billion dollar support for Netanyahu's ethnic cleansing of Gaza

 

There is no such thing as "Biden and Blinken's multi-billion dollar support for Netanyahu's ethnic cleansing of Gaza." That is something that exists only in your mind.

What there really is is Biden and Blinken's multi-billion dollar support for Netanyahu's war against Hamas. If you study the documents regarding those ammunition sales, you will see that they are earmarked for that purpose. Not for ethnic cleansing. Not for genocide.

Furthermore, according to the State Department:

We continue to be clear with the government of Israel that they must comply with [international humanitarian law] and must take every feasible step to avoid harm to civilians.

(Source)

Please discontinue posting false anti-Biden propaganda.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

Any opinions on what JFK would have done after the 10/7 Hamas attack on Israel?

 

[James DiEugenio]

 

SL: Any opinions on what JFK would have done after the 10/7 Hamas attack on Israel?

Sandy:

Let me repeat, in all probability there would have been no 1967 war if JFK had lived. 

From Robert Rakove's Kennedy, Johnson and the Nonaligned World: "As the embassy counselor, Donald Bergus, reported, a thousand Egyptians came to the American Embassy to write messages of condolences.  Many were prominent citizens, including Prime Minister Ali Sabri and and influential member of the Presidency Council named Anwar Sadat.  Others though, were ordinary citizens.  Bergus observed, "The expressions on their faces left no doubt concerning the genuineness of their sorrow."  Mourners remarked that "Kennedy was the first president who really understood the Afro-Asian world." ...An editorial in the daily Al-Ahram stated that Kennedy had transformed the Unites States from the "repugnant rich brother" to the "cherished rich brother of the human family."

Rakove goes on to describe on the next page, how within a year, this had changed: now angry mobs assaulted US owned libraries in Egypt. 

He later goes on to describe how Johnson, unlike Kennedy, relied on coercion in the Third World..  He explains what he means by this: "he was reluctant to aid or otherwise abet states that refused to side with the United States. Johnson's own utterances reveal a general exasperation with the proclamations and demands of nonaligned states, an attitude shared by much of the American public....He had comparatively little patience for states that refused to choose sides or...accepted US aid while continuing to criticize or oppose his policies. He held, at heart, a more traditional view of the Cold War, as a struggle in which states ultimately should choose sides....Thus, with Johnson's ascendance, the departure that Kennedy initiated came to its end--not immediately but inexorably."

What Rakove is talking about in one aspect is the battle over foreign aid.  Which LBJ used as described above, if you criticized the USA it was much harder to get it or as much as JFK gave you. Therefore, as he describes later in the book, Nasser turned to the USSR.  It was this policy that Kennedy was against--driving Nonaligned leaders into the arms of Moscow. (p. 245). In fact Sadat, Nasser's deputy, said that under Johnson American policy toward Egypt was worse that during the Dulles era. In complementary style, Nasser made a speech on Mayday saying that America, in light of Indochina, was the leading counterrevolutionary state in the world.

But it was not just that, it was the fact that LBJ had clearly titled toward not just Israel but, of all places, Saudi Arabia, backers of the Muslim Brotherhood. (p. 246)

BTW, this is just a few pages from a rich book.  IMO, its the best there is on the topic.

 

 

Edited January 1 by James DiEugenio

[Sandy Larsen]

38 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

SL: Any opinions on what JFK would have done after the 10/7 Hamas attack on Israel?

Sandy:

Let me repeat, in all probability there would have been no 1967 war if JFK had lived.

 

Thanks Jim. But what I wanted to know is if you or anyone else had an opinion on what JFK would do if he were president now. How would he have handled Israel and Netanyahu after the 10/7/23 attack on Israel?

 

[W. Niederhut]

2 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

There is no such thing as "Biden and Blinken's multi-billion dollar support for Netanyahu's ethnic cleansing of Gaza." That is something that exists only in your mind.

What there really is is Biden and Blinken's multi-billion dollar support for Netanyahu's war against Hamas. If you study the documents regarding those ammunition sales, you will see that they are earmarked for that purpose. Not for ethnic cleansing. Not for genocide.

Furthermore, according to the State Department:

We continue to be clear with the government of Israel that they must comply with [international humanitarian law] and must take every feasible step to avoid harm to civilians.

(Source)

Please discontinue posting false anti-Biden propaganda.

 

Sandy,

     C'mon, man.  Conscientious State Department officials have protested against Biden and Blinken's bizarre complicity in Netanyahu's Gaza genocide.

     Are you aware that the Biden administration has unilaterally vetoed otherwise unanimous UN resolutions for humanitarian cease-fires in Gaza?

     That Biden and Blinken just by-passed Congress in order to rush "emergency" military supplies to Netanyahu for his ongoing, indiscriminate bombing of residential neighborhoods in Gaza-- apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, and even refugee camps? *

     That more than 56,000 residential buildings have been bombed in Gaza, along with the massacre of 21,000+ civilians (and 8,000+ children?)

     That the trapped civilians in Gaza are on the brink of starvation?

      These are facts-- not propaganda.

      IMO, there's no way that JFK and RFK would have participated in, or tolerated, these Israeli war crimes.

     Pray tell, what have Biden and Blinken done to prevent the truly shocking "ethnic cleansing" of Gaza during the past several weeks?

     I'm all ears.

*    Once Again, Biden Bypasses Congress to Approve Arms Sale to Israel (commondreams.org)

 

 

 

Edited January 1 by W. Niederhut

[Sandy Larsen]

6 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:

     Are you aware that the Biden administration has unilaterally vetoed otherwise unanimous UN resolutions for humanitarian cease-fires in Gaza?

 

Yes. The Biden Administration apparently felt that a cease fire would allow Hamas to regroup, which would have prolonged the war. And the Administration felt that Israel was capable of reducing civilian casualties while continuing to fight.

Humanitarian corridors can be made without having a cease fire. But nobody is cooperating in order to make that work. Not Biden's fault.

Furthermore, even if the U.S. hadn't vetoed the resolution, and the resolution passed, that would have made no difference. Netanyahu would have continued his offensive regardless.

In the meantime, it appears that only Biden has been able to get Netanyahu to take ANY measures to reduce civilian casualties.

 

6 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:

     Are you aware that Biden and Blinken just by-passed Congress in order to rush "emergency" military supplies to Netanyahu for his ongoing, indiscriminate bombing of residential neighborhoods in Gaza-- apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, and even refugee camps? *

 

That's not true. Again, it is only in your mind.

The purpose of the emergency military supplies is to fight Hamas, not to indiscriminately bomb residential neighborhood in Gaza.

Kindly stop posting your anti-Biden propaganda.

 

6 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:

     Are you aware that more than 56,000 residential buildings have been bombed in Gaza, along with the massacre of 21,000+ civilians (and 8,000+ children?)

 

Yes, and that's a terrible thing.

It is Netanyahu's doing, not Biden's.

 

6 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:

 IMO, there's no way that JFK and RFK would have participated in, or tolerated, these Israeli war crimes.

 

How would JFK and RFK handled the situation? What's your opinion?

 

6 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:

     Pray tell, what have Biden and Blinken done to prevent the truly shocking "ethnic cleansing" of Gaza during the past several weeks?

 

First, Biden embraced Netanyahu and told him he felt his pain, was on his side, and would help him. Publicly he supported Netanyahu.

Privately Biden told Netanyahu that he needed to minimize civilian casualties. There's no way of knowing what exactly he asked Netanyahu to do, but we do know what Netanyahu agreed to. First, the Israelis gave a warning to the Gazans in the north part of the city to get out before bombing started. Then, when the Israelis began bombing buildings, they would first drop pellets that would make a distinctive sound as a warning to evacuate the building.

When the ground offensive started, the Israelis were supposed to do things to minimize civilian casualties.

That said, obviously the Israeli's haven't done a good job of minimizing civilian casualties. But it's not been for lack of Biden's trying.

The blame for this catastrophe lies squarely on the shoulders of the Hamas militants and the Netanyahu government. This is not Biden's doing.