[lbo-talk] Gaza and anti Semitism

[Matthias Wasser]

I'm not sure if a state-level analysis is the best way to go, here.
Suppose the jokes were formalized and Israel actually were the 51st
state. What would change? A lot would change, obviously, but I'm not
sure any of the important things would. We (and Europe) have a lot of
economic, cultural, and genealogical links to Israel. If California
were an independent republic under seige by indigenous terrorist
groups, is there any doubt that the Western 47 would support them?
Israelis live and look like us and Palestinians don't.

It may very well be that most policy analysts are smart enough to
recognize that the mere presence of "bearded, bomb-wielding fanatics
who scream anti-American slogans" doesn't equate to American
interests, but I don't think either that most policy analysts are
die-hard realists! They have moral commitments beyond the strength of
the state they got born into. And so it the West, or industrial
capitalism, or the white race, but for most Americans there's a We
that's under attack that transcends state borders, which is why
pro-Israeli commentators use the language of civilization and
barbarism by default. It's totally irrelevant to national interest
that Hamas subscribes to a misogynistic ideology, but it seems to be
pertinent to what Americans care about, or it wouldn't be mentioned so
often. IIRC, other than Arabs, the only US demographic that claims to
sympathize more with the Palestinians than Israelis are Blacks (and
they're a pretty evangelical lot!)