Tom the Exterminator on the Middle East

Seth Ackerman sia at nyc.rr.com
Sun Apr 7 15:29:38 PDT 2002


Doug Henwood wrote:


> Ok, but why? It's one of the major sites for American conservatism to
> "think" out loud. It's morally conservative, but not Xian fundie. The
> corporate culture of Dow Jones was basically midwestern isolationist
> for decades. So why is it so hardline?


>From a paper I'm presenting this month at the UN's conference on the
Palestine question in Cyprus:

"Like Colombia and the Shah's Iran, Israel has since 1967 been regarded by the policymaking classes in the United States as an important strategic ally in its region. This was not always the case. During the 1956 Suez crisis, President Eisenhower ordered Israel and its European allies to reverse their attack on Egypt. At that time, Israel was seen differently - as a potentially disruptive and troublesome element in the Middle East. But after 1967, Israel's image in American eyes underwent a profound shift - not only in narrow strategic terms, but in the broader American political imagination.

In he post-war era, the United States increasingly found itself confronting radical Third World nationalist movements. For a United States then flailing in its battle against Vietnamese nationalists in Southeast Asia, Israel's resounding 1967 victory over Nasser's Egypt, the center of radical Arab nationalism, resonated deeply. Thereafter, American media intellectuals - who tend to share the interests, goals and worldviews of U.S. policymakers - have come to see Israel as not only a source of strategic strength, but as a kindred spirit standing with the United States."



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