Said on American Zionism

[Brad DeLong]

>  > Yes. But support for Israel doesn't help accomplish
>>  that...
>>
>
>This is one thing I've never been able to figure out
>about U.S. support for Israel: why?  What U.S.
>interest does it serve?  Of course, the conventional
>line is "we have to protect the only democracy in the
>region", which is so much gibberish, but ideas like
>Chomsky's that Israel is the "local cop on the beat"
>to keep the muslims in line, don't really seem to wash
>either. 
>
>>From a pure U.S. imperialist standpoint, the Israeli's
>seem to stir up more trouble than they're worth.  The
>only explanation I can come up with is the power of
>the Zionist lobby - but that makes me sound like a
>neo-nazi fulminating about vast Jewish conspiracies.

Well, it *is* the only democracy in the region, and when you compare 
even a Binyamin Netanyahu to a Hafez Assad there does seem to be a 
very clear difference. More important, however, is that a lot of 
American Jews care enough about Israel to make it them single-issue 
voters, and a lot of non-Jews feel responsible for the failure of the 
U.S. to have prevented the extermination of half the world's Jews 
between 1941 and 1945...

Brad DeLong