A week ago, Gen David Petraeus referred to “a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel” that fuels anti-American sentiment across the Middle East.
He knows — as does anyone else who is even marginally aware of the issues — that this is not simply a matter of perception.
The United States does not merely exhibit favoritism towards Israel. Its political leaders express a level of loyalty towards the Jewish state that should be regarded as unseemly by any patriotic American.
Last week, right on the heels of receiving what was widely regarded as a monumental insult, Joe Biden said: “Throughout my career, Israel has not only remained close to my heart but it has been the center of my work as a United States Senator and now as Vice President of the United States.”
On Friday, Hillary Clinton spoke of US relations with Israel as “deep and broad, strong and enduring,” and today at the AIPAC conference in Washington said that America’s future is “bound up with the future of Israel.”
This is the status quo that should be changed but shows every sign of being thoroughly sustainable. It is one in which American politicians shamelessly pander to Israel’s wealthy supporters and cast aside any semblance of dignity in their efforts to display their unfailing devotion to the Jewish state.
The obsequious nature of these flourishes of unvarnished affection is further reinforced by the fact that neither on a political level nor a popular level are such feelings reciprocated from the other side.
As Chris McGreal wrote yesterday:
In a country permeated by fear and insecurity, Israelis define the rest of the world not by loyalties but by varying degrees of distrust. You can hear it among residents of Jewish settlements deep in the occupied territories and in the cafes of liberal Tel Aviv: angst over the perception of a new wave of antisemitism gripping Europe, the incomprehension over foreign condemnation of Israel’s crimes in Gaza, the common agreement that the United Nations is a conspiracy against the Jewish state.
In all of this, the US emerges as the least distrusted country by far… . Israelis recognise that they have long counted on Washington to pay a good chunk of their military budget and provide diplomatic cover for the illegalities of occupation.
Israel depends on defense and political aid from Washington and Washington dances to the tune of the Israel lobby.
Those who now hold on to the notion that this administration is intent on shifting the political dynamic simply because it proclaims that the Israeli-Palestinian status quo is unsustainable are paying attention to the wrong status quo.
Well-said! Unsustainable AND dangerous.
By the way, “it’s” is the contraction for “it is” while “its” is the possessive pronoun for “it”, so “It’s political leaders…” should be written “Its political leaders…”.
I cannot share Mr. McGreal’s calm rhetoric, nor can I tolerate Hillary’s opportunistic, Cheshire Cat meow at AIPAC. For I know that the Israeli Right has enough rich Jews loyal to it in America whose “mensch-hood” it can tickle to get them to run multi-million $$$ campaigns on how much US “needs” Israel. Wash DC is full of “PR consultants who know only how to knot a tie and wax jubilant about a PR client, so Israel can hire armies in return for designating as “mensch” some rich old fart who made their every penny at expense to pride selling wholesale. But that’s no typical Jew. Jews are the many whose intellect took priority over money, whose sense of social justice put them on the protest line instead of on the Internet line “with Chuck,” the broker. There is hateful envy of Jewish intellect in a dying geriatric class of Jewish knew-no-joy, no class, no education struggling merchants and now you can see it in the battle over whether high class education or Zionist schmaltz will rule PBS.
Israel knows well all this and works a wedge between Jewish Americans, demanding they show loyalty to the supposed “homeland” of Holocaust victims in order the assuage the guilt of the WWII American Jews who chose silence instead of protesting the shameful American refusal of refuge to escapees from Hitler. It is ironic that those who bartered with Hitler, admiring him then, and openly mimicking now his racist lebensraum through extermination of Palestinians, are playing AIPAC like a TRAINED MONKEY with hasbara lies. LIKUDNIKS KNOW WELL THAT THE POLITICAL STRUCTURE OF AMERICA– everything for sale– MAKES IT IMPOSSIBLE FOR ISRAEL TO BE PUNISHED FOR ENDAGERING AMERICAN SECURITY. Israel also knows that it is not ANTI-ZIONISM that will rise up as backlash to Israel’s impertinent betrayal of America, biting the hand that feeds it; rather it will be ANTI-SEMITISM, putting the all-American Jews in peril in greater numbers than those living in Israel. But in their psychotic cynicism, Likuniks feel no qualms, feel no duty toward American Jews; no more than they felt toward European Jews while making deals with Hitler. As far as they’re concerned American anti-Semitism is just fine, for those who deem Israel a nice place to visit but not to live can only redeem themselves in Likudnik eyes by stampeding to Israel in panic with all their wealth to become “New Jews” of the Zionazi regime.
So Mr. Woodward, the issue is not Zionazis getting away with manipulating America but their willingness to risk an anti-Semitic American Krystalnacht backlash at risk to millions of patriotic American Jews. From their sick perspective, Israel came into existence ONLY because of the Holocaust and another might well put it in control of the Middle East. None of us can be so immoral as to let our Jewish American who played so critical a role in our lives (who does not remember having an inspiring Jewish teacher?) be victimized by the Zionazis’ cynical stoking the fires of American rage in reaction to their manipulations since 9/11 to now? WE, seen as “dumb goyim” by the eyes of the Zionazis must stand up to them even though our fellow American Jews are paralyzed by fear, affection and guilt. We must tell Obama that either he stand up as “honest broker” or get the hell out of the Middle East and accept oil going at $50000 a gulp.