(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - We have conducted an interview with the editor of Culture Wars Magazine Dr. E. Michael Jones to shed some light on the matter.
The video also offers the opinions of two other guests: West Coast Coordinator of A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, Richard Becker, and the associate director of Middle East Studies Program in the University of Wisconsin, Jennifer Loewenstein.
What follows is a rough transcription of the interview.
Q: Nearly a billion dollars towards expanding Israel’s missile systems for the coming year Dr. Jones, according to the US congressman Steve Rothman and I am quoting him, This funding level is the highest ever appropriated in a single year, and this shows how vitally important these systems are, he says, for our nation's national security. What is your response to that?
Jones: Well, I think that the Iranian people should be happy about this expenditure because what you see here is the Obama administration’s desire to buy off Benjamin Netanyahu, so to keep him and the United States from attacking Iran.
I think this is the deal which they made and so it is a lot of money but it is a lot cheaper than an attack on Iran would have been.
The Obama administration has decided that it can not have a war with Iran in the months leading up to the election because that would destroy the economy and the Obama administration is running on a recovering economy.
So it's bad news for the American people but I think it is good news for the Iranian people because this means that there is not going to be an attack against Iran.
Q: Well, what you say is one point, but the point that I want you to raise here is, what the congressman means when he says that this military aid or funding to Israel is working for our nation’s national security. How is the national security of the Americans involved here?
Jones: It is not involved here. What we are all talking about is the security for Israel but the congressmen in America have to pretend that the United States’ security interests are bound up with Israel’s security interests when in fact the exact opposite is the case.
So it is preposterous to say this is in our interest. It is only in Israel’s interest but Israel controls the congress.
The congressman can't say that so he has to say that it's in our interest instead.
Q: Dr. Jones, when we are speaking about the Israeli case, what happens in the US congress basically is always a consensus or a near consensus. What has put the Israeli case outside of common partisan debates in the US congress?
Jones: The fact that they control the media, the fact that they control the political structure. I still say, I have said it before, but I still say the high-water mark of this was in 2011 when Benjamin Netanyahu came in and got 29 standing ovations from the United States’ congress.
This shows the total control of the congress at this point, but I think what we are seeing now is that Netanyahu’s power and the Likud power [The major center-right political party of the Israeli entity] I think is ebbing.
You are seeing voices arise in Israel, former Mossad people saying that Iran is not the threat that yet Netanyahu is saying that it is.
I think that this Iron Dome is a sign that Netanyahu’s power is on the wane, it's going down because what Netanyahu wanted was an attack on Iran and that is not going to happen now. Iron dome is a sign that Likud, I think, is on the way out and another power is going to take its place in Israel.
The other example would be the United States’ releasing that intelligence data about the Israeli base in Azerbaijan that was to thwart the attack on Iran. I think that is a sign that things are changing.
Q: How much is this about the Middle East region as a whole specially when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian issue.
How is this going to affect the Israeli-Palestinian case when we are speaking for instance about the situation in Gaza, the policies that these rather regimes in Israel are following when it comes to the peace process and basically when it comes to the relations between Washington and Tel Aviv, who is calling the shots here? Is it Tel Aviv pressuring Washington or the other way round?
Jones: It's Tel Aviv pressuring Washington, but Washington has stood up to Tel Aviv here. The military establishment is dead set against an attack on Iran. That's what they told Obama. Obama is only following orders from the Pentagon in this regard.
Now in terms of why is Israel against Iran? Israel is against Iran because Iran is supporting Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and Israel got nowhere against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon in 2006.
And I think this is the lesson that the United States’ military has learnt. The Iranians landed a drone; this is not a good sign for an attack.
I think that their cooler heads are starting to prevail and they are starting to see that the neoconservative take over of American foreign policy that led to the war in Iraq was a disaster for America and so therefore they're backing away and they're putting a leash on Benjamin Netanyahu.
Q: Mr. Jones, your response to that and basically when we do see the US’ support for policies that Israel is pursuing including its nuclear arsenal, the fact that it is considered a nuclear threat in the Middle East, how is this affecting the public opinion and is it going to isolate the US and Israel in the minds of the world public opinion?
Jones: Yes, I think it is, I think that the situation is that the United States is a puppet of Israel. Now that was more the case under George W. Bush and it is changing now, but that is the fundamental fact and that is what Obama is standing up to and trying to change with Iron Dome as opposed to attacking Iran.
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