When a prominent American political figure speaks boldly about Jewish-zionist power, that is news. So, the recent remarks by South Carolina’s senior Senator that Iraq was invaded to secure Israel and that everybody in Washington knows it, are indeed remarkable. Ernest Fritz Hollings, a Democrat who has represented his state in the US Senate since 1966, is now serving his final term in Washington. That fact may also help explain why he’s now willing to defy the powerful pro-Israel lobby and speak with candidly about its power. It began with an essay about the Iraq war that appeared in the May 6 issue of the daily Post and Courier of Charleston.
(http://hollings.senate.gov/~hollings/opinion/ 2004506A17.html)
“With Iraq no threat, why invade a sovereign country?” he wrote. “The answer: President Bush’s policy to secure Israel. Led by (Paul) Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Charles Krauthammer, for years there had been a domino school of thought that the way to guarantee Israel’s security is to spread democracy in the area”.
Several Jewish organizations as well as some prominent Jewish political figures quickly chastised holing’s, and his remarks were denounced as anti- Semitic. But he didn’t back down. Instead, he rose in the US Senate on May 20 to defend himself. With few exceptions members of Congress uncritically support Israel and its policies due to the pressures that we get politically, he said. (weber@ihr.org ).
