> What you say seems right to me. Just note that when I say that some
> policy has become "impossibly onerous," I mean "as is." To change it,
> you can alter it a little or discard it and replace it altogether.
> That U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, including the support of
> radical Zionism, has become too much to take for most capitalists in
> the U.S. doesn't imply that the solution for them would be "an
> abandonment of Israel."
=======================
I appreciate the distinction. But, concretely, what small steps to "alter
its policy a little" can the US take to to accomodate the Arabs? Measures
which would not be inconsistent with its overriding interest which we
both accept is to ensure that Israel remains the paramount power in the
Middle East? I can only think of two concessions offhand which would satisfy
the Palestinians: (1) that Israel be forced tear down the wall unilaterally
defining the new border and that the main settlement blocs behind the wall
and the Palestinian parts of Jersualem be subject to negotiation, and (2)
That the flow of economic and military aid to Israel be drastically scaled
back. Anything short of this would not significantly alter attitudes on
either side.
That we all think such "minimum" measures are highly unlikely, to say the least, is simple recognition that the US government lacks the political will to force these on the Israelis. But why does it lack the political will? Wouldn't you expect a Republican or Democratic administration to have to move in this direction if this was being demanded of it by its own capitalists who saw such concessions as necessary to the defence of their vital interests? The "relative autonomy" of the Bush administration and its allied oil and Zionist lobbies does not extend that far.
The fact of the matter is the US government's "support for radical Zionism" has not become "too much for most capitalists in the US" to take. I wish it were so. But despite what I am sure are many private misgivings and concerns about the Bush administration's open support for Israel's intransigent belligerence, I suspect the prevailing view is that the Israelis will be able to "lockout" the Palestinians behind the wall until they cry uncle and crawl to the negotiating table, and that in the interim Kadima's policy of unilateral withdrawal will stablize the situation in that part of the region. Along the same lines, there is no evidence that the US and allied bourgeoisie wants to cut the flow of military and economic aid to the Israelis. In fact, as I've previously indicated, quite the contrary: their combined pressure on the Iranians is designed to ensure that Israel retains overwhelming military superiority in the Middle East as a strategic asset against the spread of Islamist nationalism. This doesn't preclude there being serious tactical differences, as there were in relation to Iraq, over whether air strikes and other military operations against the Iranian facilities would serve to accelerate or retard the spread of these anti-Western national movements.
But the point is that there is very little here to suggest that any significant part of the Western bourgeoisie yet sees its interests as threatened enough to force the kind of concessions on the Israelis which would satisfy the demands of the Palestinians. I think it would require an all-out regional war pitting the Iranians and their allies, including in Palestine and Iraq and Lebanon, against the US and Israeli occupation forces as well as a corresponding interruption of the oil supply to force this sense of urgency and these considerations on the US ruling class.