http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/995122.html
Last update - 15:34 23/06/2008
Why do non-Jewish Americans sup****t Israel?
By Shmuel Rosner, Haaretz Correspondent
Tags: Israel, U.S.
Walter Russell Mead explains
why it's not The Israel Lobby,
but the American people,
who sup****t Israel.
Walter Russell Mead is one of the
most revered American foreign policy
scholars in the U.S.
He has authored some great books
(chief among them, Special Providence),
as well as many great articles.
Last year he wrote the most powerful
argument against Walt and Mearsheimer's
The Israel Lobby.
Now Mead has a new article in Foreign Affairs,
entitled "Why Gentile Americans Back the Jewish State".
Although I usually refrain from just quoting
articles without adding my own take,
I think this time I'll do just that.
Most people do not read such long articles,
and are not Foreign Affairs subscribers,
so I'm posting this as an appetizer
which will hopefully lure people to the full article.
Revelation, Religion, ideals
Here are a couple of paragraphs
from Walter Russell Mead's The
New Israel and the Old:
"Widespread gentile sup****t for
Israel is one of the most potent
political forces in U.S. foreign policy,
and in the last 60 years,
there has never been a Gallup
poll showing more Americans
sympathizing with the Arabs
or the Palestinians than with
the Israelis?
many of those who tell pollsters
that the United States' policies
are fair to both sides actually
favor policies that most non-U.S.
observers would consider strongly
and even irresponsibly pro-Israel.
The American public has few foreign
policy preferences that are this marked,
this deep, this enduring --
and this much at odds with
public opinion in other countries.
In the United States,
a pro-Israel foreign policy does
not represent the triumph of a small
lobby over the public will.
It represents the power of public
opinion to shape foreign policy
in the face of concerns by foreign
policy professionals."
"mythic understanding of the United States'
nature and destiny is one of the most powerful
and enduring elements in American culture and
thought.
As the ancient Hebrews did,
many Americans today believe
that they bear a revelation
that is ultimately not just
for them but also for the
whole world;
they have often considered
themselves God's new Israel.
One of the many consequences of
this presumed kin****p is that
many Americans think it is both
right and proper for one chosen
people to sup****t another.
They are not disturbed when the
United States' sup****t of Israel,
a people and a state often isolated
and ostracized,
makes the United States unpopular
or creates other problems.
The United States' adoption of the
role of protector of Israel and
friend of the Jews is a way of
legitimizing its own status as
a country called to a unique
destiny by God."
"The Prophet Isaiah had described
the future return of the Jews to
their homeland as God's grace
bringing water to a desert land.
And Americans watched the returning
fertility of the land under the
cultivation of early Zionist
settlers with the astonished
sense that biblical prophecy
was being fulfilled before their eyes.
"The springs of Jewish colonizing vigor,
amply fed by the money of world Jewry,
flowed on to the desert,"
wrote Time magazine in 1946,
echoing the language of Isaiah.
Two years later,
following the Jewish victory in the 1948 war,
it described the Arabs in terms that induce
flinching today but represented common
American perceptions at the time:
"The Western world tends to think
of the Arab as a falcon-eyed warrior
on a white horse.
That Arab is still around,
but he is far less numerous
than the disease-ridden wretches
who lie in the hot streets, too weak,
sick and purposeless to roll over
into the shade."
Americans saw a contest between
a backward and incapable people
and a people able to settle the
wilderness and make it bloom,
miraculously fulfilling ancient
prophecies of a Jewish state."
"Since the 1967 war, however,
the basis of Israel's sup****t
in the United States has ****fted:
backing for Israel has tended
to weaken on the left and grow
on the right. On the left,
a widespread dislike of Israel's
policies in the occupied territories
and a diminished concern for its
security in the wake of its
triumph in the war led many
African Americans,
mainline Protestants,
and liberal intellectuals,
once among Israel's staunchest
U.S. allies,
toward growing sympathy
with Palestinian views?.
On the right, the most striking
change since 1967 has been the
dramatic intensification of
supp****t for Israel among
evangelical Christians and,
more generally,
among what I have called
"Jacksonian" voters in the
U.S. heartland.
Jacksonians are populist-nationalist
voters who favor a strong U.S. military
and are generally skeptical of
international organizations and
global humanitarian aid?
Many Jacksonians formed negative
views of the Arabs during the Cold War.
The Palestinians and the Arab states,
they noted, tended to side with the
Soviet Union and the Nonaligned
Movement against the United States?
After the Cold War,
the Jacksonians found that
the United States' opponents
in the region, such as Iraq
and Iran,
were the most vociferous enemies of Israel as well."
"A Palestinian and Arab leader****p
more sensitive to the values and
political priorities of the American
political culture could develop new
and more effective tactics designed
to weaken, rather than strengthen,
American sup****t for the Jewish state.
An end to terrorist attacks,
for example, coupled with
well-organized and disciplined
nonviolent civil resistance,
might alter Jacksonian perceptions
of the Palestinian struggle.
It is entirely possible that over time,
evangelical and fundamentalist Americans
will retrace Jimmy Carter's steps from
a youthful Zionism to what he would
call a more balanced position now.
But if Israel should face any serious crisis,
it seems more likely that opinion will swing
the other way.
Many of the Americans who today
call for a more evenhanded policy
toward the Palestinians do so
because they believe that Israel
is fundamentally secure.
Should that *****sment change,
public opinion polls might well
show even higher levels of U.S.
sup****t for Israel."
Last word:
I wrote about American public
sup****t for Israel a couple
of times.
Here are links to some of the articles:
Gazans don't deserve to
get water from Israel,
or do they?
Americans have a favorable
view of Israel, especially Republicans
Americans just loooove Israel
Poll shows American women
less sup****tive than men of Israel
|
