[lbo-talk] Blaming the lobby

Marvin Gandall marvgandall at videotron.ca
Mon Mar 27 05:41:24 PST 2006


Julio Huato wrote:


> Massad's critique of M&W's paper misses the main points: that the
> policies the U.S. follows in the Middle East, whether or not
> determined by the influence of the Israel lobby, *contradict* the
> interest of the U.S. capitalists taken as a whole, that the cost of
> this influence has mounted and become impossibly onerous. These
> propositions have merit.
>
> Carrol, in apparent agreement with Massad, seems to assume that the
> goals of Zionism and those of U.S. capitalists are in basic harmony.
> I doubt that. (Please note: I do not imply that the conflict between
> Zionism and U.S. capitalism approaches the level of a class
> antagonism. It's an intra-class affair, but largely consequential
> when the class struggle is dormant.)
>
[...] ================================================== This isn't a new discussion, of course. There has always been debate about how much support Israel should receive in its long-standing conflict with the Palestinians and the neighbouring Arab states, not least within the leading capitalist institutions charged with making this determination - the US State Department and the British Foreign Office and their diplomatic counterparts and intelligence agencies in the other NATO countries. All of these institutions have had their "Arabist" wings fearful that uncritical and unbalanced Western support of Israel presents an everpresent threat to the critical Middle East oil supply and provokes antagonism towards the West throughout the rest of the developing world. But the pro-Zionist view, which sees Israel as a strategic bulkwark ensuring stability and the continued flow of Western oil has been the dominant one since the state was created, even when the US has had to rein it in, as in the 1956 invasion of Suez. Massad and the radical left share a similar view of Israel's crucial role as a regional policeman, though of course from an opposition standpoint.

There is a simple explanation why the pro-Zionists in Western governments have been dominant which goes well beyond the sinister influence of the Israel lobby. Israel has performed its role very well. This became very apparent after the Six Days War in 1967 when the Israelis effectively destroyed the pan-Arab nationalist movement led by Nasser which had represented a growing threat to Western hegemony in the region for more than a decade. The 1973 Yom Kippur War and the rise of Palestinian nationalism wasn't sufficient to really disturb that confidence, especially since they resulted in a "peace process" which finally promised to bring legitimacy to Israel, an end to the conflict, regional stability, and the further development of Western capitalism and bourgeois democracy in the Middle East.

But that confidence has been badly shaken since the revival of the anti-Western nationalist movement under Islamist leadership in Iran, Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, and elsewhere in the region - in fact, throughout the Muslim world, including in immigrant communities in the West. The reckless invasion of Iraq, which has inadvertently strengthened rather than weakened Islamist nationalism, has generated widespread alarm that the relationship of forces in the region is changing to the detriment of the West, and that Israel has become a liabilty which will no longer be able to contain its spread of radical nationalism, especially if it loses its nuclear monopoly. This has strengthened the "Arabist" tendency, especially in Europe, which has a large Muslim population and where there is no equivalent powerful Zionist lobby of Jews AND Christians as is the US, and Mearsheimer and Walt may be a harbinger that this trend is developing within the US foreign policy and security establishment as well.

But I don't think the relationship has reached the stage where it has become "impossibly onerous" and portends an abandonment of Israel on grounds that its interests are contradictory to those of Western capitalism. Israel's interests have never been perceived that way, in Europe as well as in the US, and the overriding consensus continues to be that Israel - reflecting the culture, politics, and economic system of the West - must continue to remain the strongest power in the region and a prop to weak conservative Arab governments. Especially in the US, where there is very broad and strong support for Israel and the Zionist lobby across the political spectrum from the conservative right to the liberal left, there doesn't appear to be any evidence of a weakening of this historic relationship.

Such disagreements as appear from time to time turn on whether and to what degree Israel's local ambitions have to be curbed in order to come to an accomodation with rising nationalist forces which are destabilizing in the region. This was was the case in 1956, when the current positions of the US and Europe were reversed in relation to the secular nationalism then sweeping the region, and it is again the case today in relation to Islamist nationalism. The new Israeli policy of unilateral disengagement under a new party (Kadima) and the marginalization of the older and hitherto dominant Greater Israel party (the Likud)as well as the latter's neoconservative supporters in the US can be seen in this context, notwithstanding that the Israelis also have their own domestic demographic, security, and economic reasons for changing course.

In short, the differences are tactical rather than fundamental in nature, and unfold within the framework of complementary rather than contradictory interests. The existence of a vocal and influential Zionist lobby has sometimes created the impression that it is an Isreali and American Jewish tail wagging the US dog, which has the effect, among other things, of implictly absolving US and Western imperialism of their ultimate responsibility for Israeli policy in the region, and I think Massad and others are right to point this out. But Meirsheimer and Walt have also made a positive contribution in further exposing and criticizing the policies of the Israel lobby from their own perspective in arguing for a reorientation of US policy towards Israel, and we shouldn't, as Julio notes, lose sight of this fact as well.



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