Ruling class support for Israel?

Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema crdbronx at erols.com
Sun Apr 7 11:28:48 PDT 2002


This is an excerpt from a piece by Edward Said I found on another list. It seems to suggest that Sharon's onslaught against the Palestinians may now be so great a liability to élite interests that the left may have an opening to influence the course of American policy in a sounder direction. After all, Israel is an almost wholly owned subsidiary of the US. We, the American taxpayers pay for it to do what it does.

"When a renowned and respected retired politician like Zbigniew Brzezinski says explicitly on national television that Israel has been behaving like the white supremacist regime of apartheid South Africa, one can be certain that he is not alone in this view, and that an increasing number of Americans and others are slowly growing not only disenchanted but also disgusted with Israel as a hugely expensive and draining ward of the United States, costing far too much, increasing American isolation, and seriously damaging the country's reputation with its allies and its citizens. The question is what, in this most difficult of moments, can we rationally learn about the present crisis that we need to include in our plans for the future?"

Bogdan's proposals are a good beginning. Think back to when the ruling élites were beginning to realize that the war against the Vietnamese was just too economically and politically expensive, both domestically and internationally, to sustain. That was when the demand for immediate withdrawal became most important for us to put forward. I would suggest that the analog in the current situation is to advance the argument that Zionism and Israel are fundamentally illegitimate, and that the most urgent priority is for the US to join with other countries, as Bogdan proposes, in imposing a reasonable peace.

Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema



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