The US, Israel and the Middle East
We received this note from Clarity Press, Inc. and publish it, in order to fulfill the task assumed by islamicworld.it of witnessing facts and opinions on the Islamic world and its frequent fibrillations. The ongoing Gaza crisis between Israel and Palestine raises questions ranging beyond the contingent war issue and its related liability. It rouses reflections on the logical of the world order. Petras offers his own interpretations, focusing attention on the Middle East issues, but also on the nature of power in the American leadership. Islamicworld.it not necessarily intend to grant these interpretations as the sole component of the political analysis, particularly with respect to the Muslim world and its sensitivity in dealing to the outside realities; much less supporting campaigns of allegations, being functional to internal affairs of any country. But, just as surely, it cannot ignore the critical voices surging towards some international political options, always and however unilaterally determined by not all the time clear and explicit interests, aimed at supporting political stances of tiny but powerful States, making a war of aggression its own reason of life. In any case, the contents of this book do not necessarily reflect the cultural approach of this website.
The UK Daily Telegraph listed Jim
Petras as #59 most influential liberal
in the United States, ahead of
Noam Chomsky and Stephen Colbert.
SYNOPSIS
This book provides a unique conception of US empire building, linking overseas expansion with:
1) the growth of a police state and declining living standards;
2) advanced technologically driven global spying on adversaries and allies with declining economic competitiveness and military defeats;
3) large scale, long term commitments of economic and military resources to wars in the Middle East to the detriment of major corporate interests, but for the benefit of a pariah state, Israel; and
4) the power of a foreign state (Israel) over US policy via its domestic pro-Zionist power configuration.
The interplay of these four specific features of US empire building has no past or present precedent among imperial states. Because of Israeli-Zionist influence on US imperial policy, the main targets and objectives of imperial wars are located in the Middle East. The objectives of Israeli and Zionist-influenced US policy in the Middle East is to enhance Israeli regional power and the dispossession of the Palestinian people. The trillion dollar cost of US wars for Israel, however, has alienated the vast majority of US society and driven a wedge between the political elite backing new wars for Israel, and the public prioritizing of domestic economic welfare. This study highlights how the domestic foundations of empire building have deteriorated and forced the imperial presidency to modify its approach, seeking diplomatic negotiations over new military interventions, specifically in the cases of Syria and Iran.
Imperial politics is viewed as a multi-sided power struggle between military and economic elites, Israel and the Zionist power configuration, overseas resistance movements and
nationalist regimes, and the US public. The resolution of this power struggle is more than an academic question; it will determine whether the US will become a full blown police state, ruled by the pawns of a racist-colonial state engaged in endless wars or return to its roots as an independent democratic republic “free of foreign entanglements”.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART 1 OVERVIEW :THE STATE OF THE EMPIRE
1 THE CHANGING CONTOURS OF US IMPERIAL INTERVENTION IN WORLD CONFLICTS
2 THE OBAMA REGIME’S MILITARY METAPHYSICS REJECTS DIPLOMATIC OPPORTUNITIES
3 THE DECLINE OF THE US (AND EVERYONE ELSE…)
PART 2 CYBER-IMPERIALISM
4 THE LOGIC BEHIND MASS SPYING:EMPIRE AND CYBER-IMPERIALISM
5 THE DEEPER MEANING OF MASS SPYING IN AMERICA
PART 3 POLICE STATE: DOMESTIC FOUNDATION OF EMPIRE
6 FABRICATING TERROR CONSPIRACIES IN DEFENSE OF THE POLICE STATE
7 THE RISE OF THE POLICE STATE AND THE ABSENCE OF MASS OPPOSITION
8 PRESIDENTIAL RULE BY DECEPTION :THE MASTER CON-MAN
9 THE TWO FACES OF THE POLICE STATE
PART 4 THE POWER OF ISRAEL IN THE UNITED STATES
10 ISRAEL BUYS THE US CONGRESS
11 OBAMA WITH ISRAEL AND AGAINST THE WORLD
12 FIFTEEN MINUTES AN AMERICAN PRESIDENT
13 ISRAEL’S WILLING EXECUTIONERS: AIPAC INVADES WASHINGTON
14 THE GREAT TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICAN JEWISH CHARITIES
PART 5 IMPERIAL AND ZIONIST WARS AND TERROR IN THE MIDDLE EAST:PALESTINE,
IRAN,SYRIA AND YEMEN
15 ISRAELI TERROR: THE “FINAL SOLUTION “TO THE PALESTINIAN QUESTION
16 OBAMA AT THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY: SACRIFICING PALESTINE FOR CAMPAIGN FUNDS
17 ISRAELI BOMBERS :AL QAEDA’S AIR FORCE
18 THE BLOODY ROAD TO DAMASCUS :THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE’S WAR ON A SOVEREIGN STATE
19 SAUDI ARABIA: A RETROGRADE RENTIER DICTATORSHIP AND GLOBAL TERRORISM
20 IRAN-US INTERIM AGREEMENT
21 THE ASSASSINATION OF ANWAR al AWLAKI BY DECREE
PART 6 CONCLUSION
22 OLIGARCHS, DEMAGOGUES AND “MASS REVOLTS”… AGAINST DEMOCRACY
James Petras
THE POLITICS OF EMPIRE. The US, Israel and the Middle East
2014 / 196 pp. / $18.95
James Petras is a Bartle Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York.
He is the author of 64 books published in 29 languages, and over 560 articles in professional journals, including the American Sociological Review, British Journal of Sociology, Social Research, Journal of Contemporary Asia, 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, Temps Moderne, Le Monde Diplomatique, and his commentary is widely carried on the internet. His publishers have included Random House, John Wiley, Westview, Routledge, Macmillan, Verso, Zed Books and Pluto Books.
Some recent titles include Unmasking Globalization: Imperialism of the Twenty-First Century (2001); co-author The Dynamics of Social Change in Latin America (2000), Unmasking Globalisation (2001), System in Crisis (2003), co-author Social Movements and State Power (2003), Empire With Imperialism (2005, co-author), Multinationals on Trial (2006). His most recent titles, The Power of Israel in the United States and Rulers and Ruled in the United States (Clarity Press, Inc. 2006), have been acquired for Japanese, German, Italian, Indonesian and Arabic editions.
He received his B.A. from Boston University and Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley.
