comment on Zionism discussion

[Seth Ackerman]

Brad DeLong wrote:

> The principal national security and economic policy interest of the 
> United States in the Middle East is to keep the oil states happy and 
> the oil flowing cheaply. Israel is a substantial hindrance to that 
> interest. American support for Israel has other roots--domestic 
> political roots, guilt-over-not-entering-WWII-earlier roots, and a 
> (miscalculation) that an Isreael confident of American support will 
> be much more willing to deal.
> 
> But to say that Israel is an "outpost" of the American "empire" is 
> totally dorky--reveals a systematic failure to think. Since George C. 
> Marshall was Secretary of State, American diplomats have, way down in 
> their deepest hearts, thought just how much easier the projection of 
> American power and influence into the Middle East would have been if 
> Israel had never been established. Israel is a source of weakness in 
> America's "empire": it is not a functional part of it...
> 
.
This is wrong.

At the time George Marshall was secretary, the U.S. was not an ally of
Israel. The U.S. did not give significant aid to Israel. In fact, George
Marshall  opposed Israel's creation in the first place. Marshall tried to
instruct the U.S. delegate to the UN General Assembly to vote against the
1947 partition plan.

Marshall did not hesitatingly support Israel with a sinking feeling in his
stomach that it would hamper U.S. hegemony over oil. Rather, when he got the
sinking feeling, he decided to wipe out Israel before it even existed yet.
This is how U.S. foreign policy actually operates in the real world. (Funny
that Marshall, a WWII vet, didn't seem to feel particularly guilty about it
either.) 

The question is: Why did Israel eventually *become* a U.S. ally and why did
U.S. *start* to give Israel aid. Those things happened in the 1967-1973
period. And the decisive architect of the pro-Israel policy was Henry
Kissinger, a guy no one has ever associated with Wilsonian liberalism or
humanitarian foreign policy. I would like to hear an explanation of exactly
why the U.S. suddenly discovered its Holocaust guilt a quarter-century after
the war in Europe ended and then had Kissinger of all people reorient its
entire Middle East policy accordingly.

However, there's a big kernel of truth in this argument. Israeli
intransigence (and U.S. support for it) does create unwanted tensions in the
oil countries. But once Israel emerged as the leading military power in the
Middle East in 1967-73, it made increasing sense to woo it and make it a
loyal ally rather than confront it and face the risk that Israel would turn
around and say fuck you to America and maybe link up with some other
imperial power (the Soviet Union? France?) that would be willing to back its
every whim. The fact is that so far, anti-Israel sentiment has not put the
oil sheiks' regimes in any mortal jeopardy and in some sense it's made the
Saudis more dependent on the U.S. for protection.

On thing is certain: Before Israel emerged as the undisputed military
heavyweight in the region, the U.S. had no qualms about crushing Israeli
designs when they got in its way. Just look at the 1956 Sinai war. At the
time, two other imperial powers -- Britain and France -- got it in their
heads that Israel could be a useful tool for them and they orchestrated the
invasion of Egypt -- an adventure as bizarre and crazy as the 1982 campaign.


The U.S. was outraged that its sidekicks would go behind its back and
mercilessly strangled the whole operation. In fact, according to Avi Shlaim,
prez Eisenhower informed the NATO allies that the United States would not
defend them against a Soviet nuclear attack if their Sinai campaign ended up
provoking one!!! (Who knows if Ike was bluffing or not.)

Incidentally, France was *more* pro-Israel than America in the 1940's and
1950's. Then when America established its pro-Israel alliance, France became
more anti-Israel than everyone else (in NATO).

Seth