[lbo-talk] The Banality of anti-Israel Lobby Doctrine

[David Green]

That still doesn't answer the *historical* question - why did it turn 
out that a contingent of policy planners emotionally tied to Israel have 
an important role in US policymaking? Such a contingent doesn't exist 
in, say, Russia or Lebanon. Again, that's a historical question and 
absolutely cannot be answered by referring to events in 2010 or 2001 or 
1991. Any answer you arrive at from that angle won't be worth much. You 
have to actually do a historical analysis that goes back to the 
beginnings of the Israel issue in US foreign relations and politics. If 
your answer doesn't start at least as far back as 1948, it will be 
meaningless.
 
There are a lot of interesting questions about how the pro-Israel view came to 
dominate over the "Arabist" view, which wished to soften conflict with Nasser in 
the 1950s and 60s. Jewish attachment to Israel aside, it could have turned out 
differently. Israel, during the 1960s, made sure it didn't. The Lobby took its 
strength from Israel's facts on the ground after 1967, not vice versa. 
Nevertheless, the U.S. had a habit of provoking confrontation with non-aligned 
leaders during the Cold War, and Nasser presumed to be one. State Department 
Arabists couldn't do much about that. Chas Freeman represents that historical 
tendency (see William Eveland Crane's Ropes of Sand), but that horse has been 
out of the barn for a long time, and Egypt is now pacified, thanks to Israel. I 
will stand by my view that Satloff sees the strategic value of Israel clearly 
(in spite of his attachments to Israel), and that Freeman's whining about $3 
billion (3/4 of which comes back to the U.S. for weapons purchases) has 
literally no bearing on strategic interests as they are seen by planners.