While Zionism may not have been 'popular' among American Jews, Israel was widely viewed as a necessary reaction to 1930-1950.
I think Finkelstein is onto something in the sense that enthusiasm for Israel takes big leaps with the military conflicts between Israel and Arab countries. I also agree that the Holocaust has been exploited for invidious political purposes, all with some connivance by U.S. capital. At the same time, U.S. zionist organizations get larger and meaner, with respect to Jews who weren't going with the program.
The christian-fundamentalist idealization of Israeli jews is much later, post-1985 I would say.
But the Holocaust and associated events, including the situation of Jews in what became the Warsaw Pact countries, was without doubt the key to Jewish support for Israel. The mental framework for support of Israel, flawed though it may be, is not support for imperialism, but support of a homeland.
It's still off to call zionism a dominant ideology. If it was truly so, there would be no jews left in the U.S. The dominant ideology among Jews is Judaism, in its 157 varieties.
mbs
At 01:20 PM 07/14/2001 -0400, Yoshie wrote:
>Back when the Rosenbergs were being persecuted & then executed,
>Zionism was -- despite rampant anti-Semitism -- not popular among the
>American Jews, much less equated with the litmus test of the Jewish
>identity. Nor was there any support for Zionism among fundamentalist
>Christians, I believe. It may help us to remember that the
>widespread popularity of Zionism & its equation with Jewishness are
>of a very recent vintage. It is not the Holocaust that made Zionism
>the dominant ideology in the USA; it is American imperialism that did
>the work, and it did *not* do so *until the late 1960s*.
Yes, absolutely!. For a fascinating and incredibly well-written account of this, see "Dangerous Liasons" (USA/Israel/CIA) by Leslie and Andrew Cockburn. And, please guys, though it may be the case that these folks are related to Alexander... Just never mind. It's still a great book.
Joanna