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JEFFREY BLANKFORT TO DEBATE STEPHEN ZUNES ON KPFA -- TODAY, WED! -- 7:00PM (Pacific Time) -- JUNE 1st & JUNE 8th

If you heard -- or missed -- part one (archived, see URL link below), you've got to hear part 2!!


Anti-Zionist Jewish-American veteran photo-journalist, radio journalist, political essayist, and anti-war and human rights activist, Jeffrey Blankfort will debate University of San Francisco (USF) Prof. Stephen Zunes TONIGHT, Wed, on KPFA (94.1fm), regarding the role of the pro-Israel lobby in U.S. politics and related issues.

On two successive Wednesday evenings, JUNE 1, and TODAY, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 8, Voices of the Middle East on KPFA in Berkeley will air -- in two half-hour segments -- a debate recorded last week that Jeffrey Blankfort had with Prof. Stephen Zunes.


It will be broadcast at 7:00 PM Pacific Time and can be heard on-line, audio streamed, at

http://www.kpfa.org

or directly (on RealPlayer or Winamp) at

Listen Online



If you miss it today, it will then soon be archived at

http://www.kpfa.org/archives/archives.php?id=25

(Winamp media player works best for KPFA archived programs and, of course, will also work for live audio streaming.)


It will also then soon be uploaded, together with the first part, to

http://www.radio4all.net


Get your recorders ready: this will be a keeper!!


Also see Blankfort's new article in Left Curve political journal ( at http://leftcurve.org , issues # 29, 28, & 27): especially,

"Damage Control: Noam Chomsky & the Israel-Palestine Conflict"

http://leftcurve.org/LC29WebPages/Chomsky.html

or at

http://dissidentvoice.org/May05/Blankfort0525.htm

where you can directly email the article to a friend.



(Posted by JA)
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Steve Zunes easily won in form, content and diction. Jeff's speech is as cloudy as is his politics, and the delivery on the part of Jeff was a total mishmash.

Steve Zunes had clarity in form, content and diction. Focusing on the content: It is simply anti-Semitism to refer to a Jewish lobby. The Christian lobby in support of the US military base known as Israel is just as vociferous and extremely wealthy. As Zunes pointed out, Bush I & Nixon were big supporters of Israel but had almost no support from the official religious Jewish community, which is the Zionist community (atheists of Jewish descent like this writer are not counted as Jewish in the official census, which would be all right except for the fact that we experience the same anti-Semitism that the superstitious Jewish community experiences, but that is another article). Bush II who is also a big supporter of Israel received only 30% of the Jewish vote, the usual percentage that Republican candidates for president receive. Consider the Zionist community is overwhelmingly upper middle class, which class usually votes Republican, this is extraordinary.

What Zunes did not add, because he is not a socialist, is:
The US president is always the chairperson of the Board of Big Business, that is the capitalist class. The US capitalist class has created a death trap for Jews with its creation of a religious Jewish state of Israel, as a front for its US military base, Israel, to protect US oil profits. This is about as anti-Semitic as one can be. Bush I & II and Nixon were and are notorious anti-Semites. Bush II's grandfather was a Nazi collaborator.

Zunes does understand that the president speaks for the "elites" and that large corporations, such as Lockheed Martin, Halliburton and the like, all of which constitute the war lobby, are far bigger contributors to both the Democrats & Republicans than the Zionists.

Blankfort acknowledged reality when Zunes pointed out that it is not the mythical Jewish lobby that is the problem; is the refusal of those who say they are for peace to make the Palestinian issue as important as it once made the issue of apartheid in South Africa.

They both pointed out that voting for Democrats or Republicans is to vote for the murder of the Palestinians and the theft of Palestinian land, perpetrated by the US military base called Israel.

By the way, so-called "Socialist's" typing, formatting and composition was in very poor form. In fact, he has little clarity of form and his logic & argument (a course he should take) is all muddled. He also engages in the same kind of illogical demagoguery that Zunes engaged in. In fact, the only way that Zunes can try to make an argument is by engaging in demagoguery, hyperbole, misdirection, false conflation (like "Socialist" equating "the war lobby" with the pro-Israel lobby) falsifying others words, or strawman arguments.

As a ultimate ruse, I guess when so-called "Socialist" feels he has no other recourse, he resorts to *LYING* about what Blankfort actually said! (This was when "Socialist" flat out said that, "Blankfort acknowledged reality when...", "Socialist" 'carefully' omitted Blankfort's qualifier when Blankfort said that was an *additional* factor. Damn closet 5-th column Zionists ("Socialist") -- or dupes of them! Also, I say '5th column Zionists', because people like Chomsky -- for their acritical, clapping 'seals', adoring throngs -- not only *falsify* the historical analysis of Israel, but CHOMSKY ACTUALLY *OPPOSES* ANY U.S./INT'L SANCTIONS ON ISRAEL to at least bring its behavior into check!!! Chomsky didn't oppose int'l sanctions -- or the divestment movement or the cultural and economic boycotts -- against the white *Christian goyim* of apartheid South Africa.

"Socialist" is also probably one of those narrow-minded highly sectarian ideologues that can only think in strictly black or white polarities: one or the other, but not both-and -- that it's either *ALL* one thing or *ALL* the other thing, and that it can never be BOTH, or even DIALECTICAL. That's why I don't hang out with those highly sectarian ideologues (prominent in the Bay Area) -- neither on the right (naturally) *OR* the left!: they're too simpleminded for me. They're also, ironically, very naive -- or just plain stupid -- about how politics works -- another reason to stay away from highly sectarian leftists (and their highly abstract theories) -- as with "Socialist" ticking off anti-Semitic politicians.

Case in point: Zunes says that criticizing the pro-Israel lobby is the same -- in *Zunes* mind -- as claiming that an organized Jewish lobby "is all powerful" or is the equivalent of "blaming an entire ethncity". Tell me that that isn't an anti-Semitic notion in itself(!) -- the idea that one can't criticize a particular lobby without "blaming an entire ethnicity" or without claiming that that ethnicity is "all powerful". Furthermore, Zunes seems to say (here and in previous radio appearances) that what's going on in *ISRAEL* no one's fault who is *Jewish* -- not in the pro-Israel lobby and not even in Israel itself!: it's *ALL* the **MANIPULATION** of the Jews by the evile *GOYIM*!!!

Furthermore, "Socialist" seems to think that "THE JEWS" are all *SIMPLEMINDED DUPES* of "the imperialist capitalists" Goyim death trap!! Tell me that those aren't RACIST concepts too! You're right about that, "Socialist" (and quoting from you): "This is about as [casually] anti-Semitic as one can be."

Blankfort caught Zunes flat-footed wrong on several facts -- especially about the issue of the diamond imports/industry (which Zunes finally had to concede). In addition, what logical [non sequitur] point was Zunes trying to make by saying that the U.S. has spent more on the war in Iraq than on Israel!?

Many of Zunes' arguments could have been compellingly rebutted, but time goes fast in a radio/tv studio. I know that Blankfort could have added several other rebuttals, but one has to pick and chose given limited time. In fact, the problem with simpleminded people like Zunes (or "Socialist") is that their points are *so* simpleminded -- but unfortunately often specious too -- that one needs 3 to 5 sentences to rebut just *1* of their stupid sentences. Or, sometimes one just doesn't know where to start the rebuttal in such a time-contrained environment: there can be so many holes to plug in the rhetorical bucket and places to begin.

In fact, I have an article that has been pending for quite some time that I have to finish up. I deal with Zunes' most glaring illogical point that certain politicians come from such safe districts that they "can be easily re-elected" or that they "don't need a *dime* from the pro-Israel lobby". I *know* that Blankfort can rebut that.

But, when even *I* bring up certain politicians, like the pro-Israel lobby depose Earl Hilliard, supposedly an African American congressman from a "safe" district, Zunes says that "I can't explain that". Well, why not? Because it doesn't fit his argument -- and it glaringly shows where it fails. *YOU* ask Zunes about Hilliard.

But, to try to say that this highly organized, politically powerful, multi-multi-million-dollar lobby exists for no reason at all, is like saying that the gun lobby, or the insurance lobby, or any other similar size lobby exists for no reason at all. As the interviewer says, it goes against *everything* Zunes, Chomsky, Bennis (and "Deep Throat") say about "follow the money". During the South African apartheid era, would any of those people have said, "Oh, you can just *IGNORE* the politically and financially powerful pro-South African apartheid lobby", had one existed in this country? Of course not!!

Finally, as for bad form, note where so-called "Socialist" forms a paragraph with *one* sentence! Don't you know that you don't form a paragraph with just *one* sentence, "Socialist"? It's *very* bad form.