I've always it thought was the mad-dog principle. We have this mad dog more or less on the leash and we can't restrain him very well, he will go and eat the neighbor's pets and bite the children, but if we let go he'll tear you to pieces.
[WS:] I think it is far more rational and cost/benefit based than the above stipulates. Not all costs and benefits were created equal. Domestic costs weigh more heavily than foreign ones. Pro-Zionist agenda carries much heavier international cost than domestic one, but it is the domestic cost that counts the most. Embracing policies that can be domestically seen as anti-Semitics amounts to a political suicide in the US. In itself, it is a good thing, but given internal contradictions of the Empire - it translates into a paradoxical situation of rational means leading to mad outcomes. It leaves us the hope that the Empire will eventually do the US in, but that is another topic.
Besides, Israel has been a proven Western ally at least since the Suez Crisis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Crisis, whereas the Arab countries (except perhaps Saudi Arabia) have been switching side depending on the political winds - so it makes more sense for the Empire to stick with the former.
> Yoshie wrote:
>
> "objectively, it is not Zionism that moves the
> US-led
> multinational empire but the empire that makes use
> of
> Zionism -- just as it exploits any other kind of
> identity politics, whether it is based on race,
> gender, sexuality, ethnicity,occupation, or whatever
> -- and will discard it if it ceases to be useful to
> it."
>
[WS:] Exactly. You are right on the money here. The current brouhaha about
Dalai Lama
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7046445.stm is another case in point
- the fascist imperial leader (and star-eyed liberals) shedding crocodile
tears over a charming feudal theocrat to score a point with China.
Judging from Levi Eshkol's government attitudes before the Six Day War http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-Day_War I'm a reasonably sure that if for some strange reason the Empire jettisoned its support for Israel, the Israeli-Palestinian (and Arab in general) peace accord would be signed on the next day. The Six Day Way, which set the stage for the current situation, was instigated by the Empire, without that instigation Israel would probably have sued for peace.
However, that does not logically lead to embracing petty dictators in countries like China or Iran. They are like bacteria enzymes eating away the shit that clogs sewer lines, useful but still low life.
Wojtek