> Brad DeLong wrote
>
> You forgot (4) the legacy of the Nazi war against the Jews...
>
> I would put (3) differently: it's both the resonance between the U.S.
> and Israel as the products of settler migration, and the lack of
> resonance between the U.S. and the Palestinian population in terms of
> their welcome to immigrating Jews. Think of it: People fleeing cruel,
> oppressive, anti-Semitic Europe--the Dreyfus Affair, Kishinev, et
> cetera--come to America, where they are welcomed and become an
> important part of the task of civilization. Others fleeing cruel,
> oppressive, anti-Semitic Europe come to Palestine, where they are
> scorned, attacked, told that they will be pushed into the sea--and
> then for good measure all the other Arab countries decide to expel
> their Jewish populations as well.
>
> Brad,
>
> I agree that the Nazi legacy (and perhaps guilt over not doing enough)
> informs the way many in the U.S view the Middle East. But I'm not sure
> that you're comparison of the U.S. with Palestinians is fair. Were the
> Jews welcolmed with open arms to the U.S.? Yes, at the turn of the century
> there was a great deal of philo-semiticism in North America and in general
> the polygot culture of the US (and Canada) has been the best home the
> Jewish diaspora ever had. BUT, lest we forget, in the crucial decades of
> the 1920 to the 1960s, immigration to the U.S. was severly restricted, at
> the behest of nativists and anti-Semites. (Also in Canada: asked how many
> Jewish immigants Canada should accept, the head of Canadian immigration in
> the 1930s said that "none is too many.") The fact is, if the US and other
> Western democracies had the same immigration policies in the 1930s that
> they had say in 1910, most of the Jews in Europe would have been save and
> Israel would never have been established. So the contrast between the
> welcoming arms of the U.S. and the scorn of the Arabs doesn't necessarily
> hold water. Jeet
>