> All in all, in my view, it was politically "irrational" for the U.S.G. to
> oppose the ANC for as long as it did. But these kind of
[snip]
> Again what we are talking about when we argue over the pro-Israel lobby and
> its effect on the U.S. is the nature of U.S. imperial goals.
You are giving the elites too much credit.
Completely absent from recent reporting on "the Israel Lobby" that I have read is any discussion of the impact of a near 2,000 year dead Nazarene, or, how that might make Americans exceptionally receptive to "Holy Land" boosters.
When I crossed the Sheikh Hussein bridge from Jordan into Israel in 2004 the signs in Customs proclaiming "Holy Land 2000" were in English.
The only Israeli I met who completely avoided any religious explanation for the situation was a 10 year old boy who, when asked about occupied territories said, "We took it." Most of the people were Kibbutzim and Archaeologists.
Much the same kind of thing applied in South Africa. During the Reagan administration, the fortunes of racists appeared to be boosted. Even after the defeat at Cuito Canavale in Angola, Sud Afrika represented a non-rational elite hope of the continuation of race-based systems.
The elites are, almost as often as the rest of us, set in their ways and superstituous. This, of course, changes over time as the tollroads to elitism change.