Why U.S. supports Israel

[Brad DeLong]

>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Heer, Jeet (National Post)" <JHeer at nationalpost.com>
>>3) Among more secular folks, whites tend to support Israel more than
>>non-whites. ..The Palestinians are just
>>another group of natives to be pushed out of the way.
>
>I actually agree with this point, but it points out why another argument used
>by some pro-Palestinians, namely that Arabs can't be anti-semites since they
>are the same race as Jews, doesn't hold up.  Jews in Israel get denounced as
>white colonialists when it serves one rhetorical purpose, then get treated as
>just one more semetic race among many when their unique history wants to be
>denied.
>
>Given the large number of Mizrachi/Sephardic Jews in Israel due to fleeing
>oppression in Arab states following the 1948 war, the "refugee" and "native"
>issue is not as completely one-sided as sometimes pictured.  The Israelis are
>still far on the wrong side of the oppression stick on the Occupied
>Territories, but if the Palestinians deserve their own state instead of being
>absorbed into Jordan (as Sharon would have it), it would seem that the one
>million plus Jews in Israel who had to flee Arab oppression have a similar
>claim.
>
>-- Nathan Newman

Yeah. But if you were a Sephardic Jew living in Israel, would you 
like to move and find yourself...

...living as a despised minority in Cairo governed by Hosni Mubarrak?
...living as a despised minority in Damascus governed by Bashir Assad?
...living as a despised minority in Baghdad governed by Saddam Hussein?

Methinks that the number of people wishing to take advantage of such 
a "right of return" to the old Jewish Quarters of Middle Eastern 
cities would be very small...

Brad DeLong