Wednesday
Nov092011
That "unbreakable bond with Israel"
Issandr El Amrani
Barack and Bibi, at one the usual ritual humiliation meetings
… that America — against all common sense, national interest, and morality — is stuck with:
The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, described the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, as a "liar" in a private exchange with Barack Obama at last week's G20 summit in Cannes that was inadvertently broadcast to journalists.
"I cannot stand him. He's a liar," Sarkozy told Obama. The US president responded by saying: "You're fed up with him? I have to deal with him every day."
Reader Comments (5)
As an American, I don't understand it. Most Americans don't care about Israel, with it being down low on a list of priorities that usually is topped by "economy/jobs". Yet Congress seems to be almost diehard pro-Israel, to the point where Obama really can't do anything in terms of reward/punishment (Baker's withholding of money back in the 1st Bush Administration was about as far as he can go, if that). Is it all lobbying?
As long as campaigning is only made possible with the backing of big capital, American democracy will continue to be a fraud and issues like Israeli security will be Congress's priority despite the american people's indifference to it.
The reason is that minorities that care a lot about an issue and who vote based on that issue will, when nobody else cares all that much about the same issue, get their way. Israel is one example in the US. Another is Cuba. We've been maintaining the Cuban embargo for decades because a diehard group of Cuban exiles in Florida want us to.
This will change if and when there develops a sizable group of Muslim voters in the US who offset the Jewish vote.
(Note: none of the above should be read as a description of my own views on Israel. Personally, I think the entire Israel-Palestinian situation is a vast mess. I have no idea what a reasonable solution would be, and even less idea of how to implement it.)
The true Israel lobby in America is the diehard Evangelicals. Most American Jews vote Democrat and most American Jews are far more open about Israel than the hard-core rightwing (much like most Israelis themselves, who I find to be much less "pro-Israel" than many Americans are). Bush tried to turn the Jewish vote by being more pro-Israel than anyone ever and it failed miserably. As long as an American president and Congress promises to ensure Israel's security and survival - NOT support everything Israel's right-wing desires and damn the consequences - the Jewish population will be happy. If you ran a poll about Palestinian nationhood, and divided the results by ethnicity/religion, Jews would probably be among the most supportive. So spare me borderline anti-Semitic comments (I have not seen any here yet, but I don't doubt they'll come) that Jews want to drive out/kill all the Palestinians.
And Dr Dzoe, you might be right about the Cuban population, but the Jewish population, while generally united in how it votes, is far from single-issue.
When someone again and again emphasises how unbreakable a bond is you must ask yourself, why those it need so much emphasising if it's that strong?