On Sun, 2 Mar 2003, Doug Henwood wrote:
> I wasn't claiming that their analysis was correct, or even in their best
> interests. I was just saying that there's been little obvious dissent
> among the U.S. policy elite about support of Israel. It's almost
> universal.
That's absolutely true. Of course, if their analysis is wrong, that only deepens the plot. Especially because it's more than universal. It's treated as the dividing line between serious thinkers and quacks.
To explain that, I think, you have to go on beyond the nature of policy formation and into the historical formation of American national identity.
Although almost nobody knows it, America has a unique relation to the Jews that is relatively recent (like about three decades old). And that's that we're the only nation on earth that regards the Jews as part of Us -- as much as part of us as the Irish. Many other countries treat treat Jews perfectly wonderfully. But even when they don't mean any harm, they think of them as Them. And the Jews in their societies feel like eternal outsiders. In America, Jews are confused because they don't. They think they ought to.
It's not just a mental state. If you go anywhere in Europe, there are armed guards in front of every major synagogue. And no one can imagine things being different. They are honestly suprised to hear that in America there aren't any guards in front of synagogues, not even in the sparsely populated plains. Are the guards there because European Jews are in such constant danger? No. It's rather because when there is an incident, it causes such resonance off the underlying faultlines -- the same reason why in New York we now have guards checking bags when we go into every public place. When a synagogue gets bombed in France, every Jew in the country feels personally threatened and many seriously consider emigrating. Whereas when a synagogue gets vandalized in America, it's local news. People get outraged, but Jews feel, and are, part of the outraged majority. They don't feel like outsiders, like muslims in America feel today. They don't see it as the possible beginning of a great tsunami.
The process by which this happened is complex and interesting and worth telling someday. 35 years ago there used still used to be quotas, obvious and open. And one of the side effects of this process of change was that anti-semitism not only became the sign of evil (like racism), but more significantly -- because more pervasively and more minutely policed -- it became the sign of being a stupid rube. That's also unique to America. Especially on the right. Support for Israel has become a shibboleth that gets you taken seriously as a mainstream thinker. It defines the mainstream by erasing all tiny questionable signs in one big clear affirmation.
In the geostrategic community this goes double. Not only is there the specific history, loyalties, interests, connections and world view of that community to contend with. There is also the way in which it has always had its cultlike side. Geostrategians are bred to believe 5 impossible things before breakfast. Compared to what they used to believe about nuclear weapons this is really mild. And the more impossible the belief, the more intensively they are forced to believe it. They are very much like a small religious sect that way. For them, believing that a strong Israel is always unquestionably in the interests of America is like a sectarian believing that the world might really end next year, and that might be a good thing. Some days it may be hard to believe, but it's a defining article of faith. It's perfectly clear that to discard it is to leave the group and become an outcast.
I once thought seriously of writing about book about the historical genesis of this strategic postulate; and the historical genesis of America's identification with the Jews; and the historical genesis of American Jews' weird relation to Israel; and how they all come together and reinforce each other. And how this explains why America's view of Israel is different from, and opposed to, that of every other country in the world. And different from its view of almost every other country. I think this is what would be needed to finally and satisfyingly explain how the US could be so steadfast in a policy that is against its interests without being the dupes of an international conspiracy. And to sufficiently clear the ground so that the argument that it was against our interests could finally be heard.
I even had the perfect co-author lined up, whose main qualifications are that he thrives on hot polemical infighting, especially with American Jews, and is absolutely bulletproof against charges of anti-semitism. Which we would be machinegunned with, since the whole purpose of such a book would be to explain why giving lots of money to Israel is not in the US's interest, or even Israel's. And why it should be cut off, and replaced with pledged monies for supporting a two state solution, should Israel, now under the financial (and even more, symbolical) pressure that in a just world would flow naturally from its policies, decide that such a course was the better part of valor. I even daydreamed about combining such a book with a website and door to door campaign to try and change people's minds.
But lately I'm so depressed about Israel's future I don't see the point. These days I think Israel has less chance of achieving a real two-state solution than America does of getting single payer health care. And as much chance of achieving a just one-state solution as we have of getting socialism.
Michael