On Mon, 8 Apr 2002, Doug Henwood wrote:
> Since most American conservatives are rabidly pro-Israel, I'm concluding
> that they think that Israeli policy serves U.S. power interests.
Maybe that's true for policy makers, but I think you give pundits and followers way too much credit. Most don't spend their time reading lots of history and military theory and budgeting and toting up the costs. They have an orthodoxy and they stick to it. On the conservative side, its basic tenets are:
1) Any marxist revolutionary group -- especially one that has "liberation organization" or "popular front" in its title -- is always the devil and should be crushed;
2) Any terrorist group -- and the unquestionably spectacular terrorism of the 70s still counts for these people (see last rule) -- is similarly the devil;
3) Islamic revolutionaries ditto.
The last rule is: evil people, like communists, never, ever change their spots. So if they were ever marxists, or terrorists, they still are and can never be trusted. To think otherwise is the Sign of the Dupe.
Hence the PLO is for them the triply damned devil. For them it's as obvious as their name. And the Palestinians as a people get subsumed by their representatives.
Michael