What drives America’s support for genocide?
The View of the Left
Most, but not all, the left, denies that the Israel Lobby is the most significant factor in the support given to Israel by the USA and its allies. I’ll give three examples. One from Noam Chomsky, one from Britain’s Socialist Workers Party, and one, from someone I like.
Caitlin Johnstone says that “the ‘Israel lobby’ is really the western empire lobby”.
This means that the Lobby transmits imperial interests to Israeli leaders. Moreover, it implies that the money poured by the Lobby into influencing politicians to support Israel unconditionally is an effort to remind them that this is in the interests of the US empire.
The SWP is more aggressive: “It is important to stress the primary role of imperialism in this analysis, which means rejecting explanations that emphasize the supposed power of a “Zionist lobby,” or, worse, a “Jewish lobby.”” – International Socialism 181, page 45.
Given his exceptional grasp of logic, Noam Chomsky is remarkably contradictory on the Israel Lobby. In his 1999 book Fateful Triangle, on page 337, he refers to the normal state of politics in the USA as “complete obedience” to Zionism. But on page 462, he regrets Israel’s “dependence on the US with the concomitant pressure to serve US interests”.
My 2010 critique of Fateful Triangle: https://dissidentvoice.org/2010/09/faithful-circle/. Veteran anti-Zionist campaigner Jeffrey Blankfort called my review ‘required reading.’
By waffling vaguely about oil, domination, and hegemony, leftists give the impression that Israel is a tool of US imperialism. Right-wing politicians claim an attack on Israel is an attack on the USA. Both left and right give the impression that support for Israel is in US interests.
The USA and Israel do have interests in common. When Israel acts in accordance with these common interests, it is impossible to tell if the dog wags the tail, or vice-versa. When their interests differ, Israel goes its own way, and its politicians openly brag of biting the hand which feeds them. No other country can get away with this. There are British troops in Iraq; there are no Israeli ones. There’s no British Lobby. Britain obeys America; Israel doesn’t. With a few minor exceptions, Israel has always been able to defy the USA.
In his 2005 essay, The Palestinians and the Party Line, Michael Neumann argues persuasively that Israel offers the USA nothing, and America would gain more from friendly relations with the other Middle Eastern countries than from bombing them: https://www.counterpunch.org/2005/11/18/the-palestinians-and-the-party-line/.
The USA didn’t suddenly find, on 7 October 2023, that it was in its imperialist interests to exterminate the people of Gaza.
Mearsheimer and Walt’s 2007 book The Israel Lobby asks and answers the right question.
– US presidents mildly criticize Israel
– Israeli politicians express open contempt for the supposedly most powerful man in the world, bragging of how ‘the Jewish Lobby’ (their words) will bring this uppity goy into line
– And so it comes to pass
Is this
1. an elaborate charade to make it look as if the Lobby can determine US policy regarding Israel, in order to cover up for US hegemony, by diverting attention to the Jews, or
2. is the most economical explanation that Jewish power trumps American interests?
In court, a witness who asserts something too strenuously sometimes persuades the jury that he doesn’t really believe it.
“We write to affirm our support for our strategic partnership with Israel… The US has traditionally stood with Israel because it is in our national security interest… Israel is our strongest ally in the Middle East… Israel is also a partner to the US on military and intelligence issues in this critical region. That is why it is our national interest to support Israel…” – Senate resolution, 21 June 2010.
Immediately after 7 October 2023, politicians fell over themselves to declare fealty to Israel. Nikki Haley led the way, by asking Congress to give Israel everything she needs. “An attack on Israel is an attack on America.” Haley is particularly reliable at saying the opposite of the truth: “Israel doesn’t need America. America needs Israel.”
Deviation from submission to the interests of a foreign country is routinely denounced as treason.
Israel is the only country which American politicians openly say should kill children.
Israel Lobby or Jewish Lobby?
Jews tend to have, or believe they have, interests in common, and they are good at defending them. I believe this is an extension of genetic interests, and it should be uncontroversial. A detailed account can be found in another essay I wrote for Dissident Voice, Invention, Imagination, Race, and Nation: https://dissidentvoice.org/2013/10/invention-imagination-race-and-nation/.
The fact that almost all Americans have no ethnic interest in supporting Israel is not an argument that the left can use.
I use the term ‘Israel Lobby’ to cover organizations like AIPAC whose task is to ensure US politicians support Israel. ‘Jewish Lobby’ includes organizations which additionally defend Jewish interests in other areas. For example, the Anti-Defamation League does more than slander critics of Israel. Elon Musk and others have complained that the ADL is ‘far left.’ This is because it exaggerates ‘white supremacy,’ and so on. It’s left-wing when this serves Jewish interests, and right-wing when this serves Jewish interests.
Why don’t Israel’s left-wing critics state the obvious? I can’t be sure, but there is tremendous pressure on all of us not to be ‘antisemitic.’ Fear of this allegation is deep-rooted, perhaps deeper than fear of any other ludicrous allegation of racism.
Thus there is a paradoxical correlation between the woke, antiracist ideas of the left, and the allegations of antisemitism which stream continuously from the right. Both take advantage of our weakness, our fear of being labeled, or even of being, bigoted.
We need to lose that fear, and just seek the truth. More precisely, try to find the most parsimonious description of the data. To claim that US support for Israel is in US interests requires intellectual gymnastics. To say that it is the result of Jewish lobbying requires little more than observing the behavior of Jewish organizations, and the response of the establishment.
How lobbies work is no great mystery. There’s a bug in democracy. Most of America wants cheap steel, but congressmen from steel states insist on adding steel tariffs to unrelated bills, or they won’t vote for them, so the other states give in. The Israel Lobby is a bit more complicated. Representative Ilhan Omar pointed to the simple fact that a significant minority of Jews have a lot of money, and use it to persuade politicians to back Israel. She was forced into a groveling apology, using the woke language of the Democrats, for fear of losing her seat, proving her point. But it’s not just ‘the Benjamins.’ Additional power is given to the Lobby by the craven fear of being accused of ‘antisemitism’ which permeates the American polity.
On 8 May 2024, the Guardian asked if the dog wags the tail, or vice-versa:
One week later, we got the answer:
Jewish power in American politics meant President Biden was powerless to halt arms shipments in order to persuade Netanyahu to halt the invasion of Rafah.
Max Blumenthal, speaking at the University of Massachusetts, explains how Israel acts contrary to US interests, and to the interests of US imperialism:
The most parsimonious, and thus, the most likely, explanation of the subservience of the USA to Israel, is the power of the Israel Lobby. The tail wags the dog.
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