Zionism, Militarism and the Decline of US Power

by James Petras

Overview

##Following in the train of two highly successful books addressing the influence of Israel on US Middle East policy and the onerous effects of support for Israeli interests that have resulted, Petras pursues this theme to illustrate how the conjunction of Israeli domestc influence in the US, spurring and combined with US militarism, has now led to a decline in U.S. power around the world. #James Petras is a Bartle Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York. He is the author of 63 books published in 29 languages, and over 560 articles in professional journals, including the American Sociological Review, British Journal of Sociology, Social Research, and Journal of Peasant Studies. He has published over 2000 articles in nonprofessional journals such as the New York Times, the Guardian, the Nation, Christian Science Monitor, Foreign Policy, New Left Review, Partisan Review, TempsModerne, Le Monde Diplomatique, and his commentary is widely carried on the internet.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780932863751
Publisher:	SCB Distributors
Publication date:	07/01/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	311 KB

About the Author

James Petras is a Bartle Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York. He is the author of 63 books published in 29 languages, and over 560 articles in professional journals, such as the American Sociological Review, British Journal of Sociology, and Social Research. He has published over 2000 articles in nonprofessional journals such as the New York Times, Guardian, Nation, Christian Science Monitor, Foreign Policy, New Left Review, Partisan Review, TempsModerne, Le Monde Diplomatique. His commentary is widely carried on the internet, and his views solicited by media.

Read an Excerpt

On Monday, March 26, 2007 in Northern Gaza a river of raw sewage and debris overflowed from a collapsed earth embankment into a refugee camp driving 3,000 Palestinians from their homes. Five residents drowned, 25 were injured and scores of houses were destroyed.

The New York Times, Washington Post and the television media blamed shoddy infrastructure. The Daily Alert (the house organ of the Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations) blamed the Palestinians who they claimed were removing sand to sell to construction contractors thus undermining the earth embankment. The disaster at Umm Naser (the village in question) is emblematic of everything that is wrong with US-Israeli politics in the Middle East. The disaster in this isolated village has its roots first and foremost in Washington where AIPAC and its political allies have successfully secured US backing for Israel's financial and economic boycott of the Palestinian government subsequent to the democratic electoral victory of Hamas. AIPAC's victory in Washington reverberated throughout Europe and beyond - as the European Union also applied sanctions shutting off financing of all new infrastructure projects and the maintenance of existing facilities. At the AIPAC conventions of 2005 through 2007, the leaders of both major American parties, congressional leaders and the White House pledged to re-enforce AIPAC's boycott and sanctions strategy. AIPAC celebrated its victory for Israeli policy and claimed authorship of the legislation. In addition to malnutrition, the policy undermined all public maintenance projects.

Equally central to the disaster, Israel's massive sustained bombing attack on Gaza in the summer of 2006, demolished roads, bridges, sewage treatment facilities, water purification and electrical power plants. Northern Gaza was one of its many targets, putting severe strain on already precarious infrastructure and government budgets - including the maintenance of sewage treatment plants and cesspools.

It is possible that, forced by the AIPAC-induced US-EU boycott and Israeli bombing and blockade, some desperate workers removed some sand around the cesspool-the pretext cited by the Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations (PMAJO) for blaming the Palestinian victims for their own suffering, and exonerating the Israelis, AIPAC and their congressional clients.

Editorial Reviews

"Jim Petras is one of the best informed political scientists of his generation."—Tom Brass, Editor, The Journal of Peasant Studies, Cambridge



"James Petras is #59 in its list of America's 100 most influential liberals (ahead of Noam Chomsky and Stephen Colbert)"—The UK Daily Telegraph

From the Publisher