Stop Me Before I Vote Again

Levitation not negotiation. HRC for President!

The US has become a client state of Israel.

The Satrap of West Israel kept Naziyahoo von Tel Aviv und Schwarzenrein waiting a whole 8 hours for such bupkis as this? What chutzpah! What defiance! Bibi could have gotten two attack submarines from Germany in less time than it took to get these tchotchkes from Obama. Then he wants Israel should pretend not to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians for 3 months, and sends the shiksa out to demand this? Oy! How can Israel pursue peace if it has no land to pursue peace on? If this had been the Ottoman Empire, they would have his Muslim head.

Then we have so-called "Zionists" expressing their overflowing gratitude for every minor concession Israel manages to so painstakingly finagle out of the "unfriendly to Jerusalem" Merkins:

"President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may be among the last people on Planet Earth to fail to understand that Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas has neither the will nor the interest in signing a peace accord, no matter where Israel’s borders are drawn. Their decision — to hound Netanyahu to renew the freeze for 90 days even after a 10-month freeze was ignored by the Palestinians — is an absurd policy that mires the administration in a dead-end process that can win them no laurels and few thanks from a Muslim world that Obama is still clearly interested in appeasing."

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/tobin/381298

http://wire.antiwar.com/2010/11/15/us-deal-would-allow-israel-some-west-bank-building-3/

"According to the emerging deal, construction would have to halt for 90 days on hundreds of additional homes begun after the first slowdown expired on Sept. 26. But that freeze would not apply to apartments already under construction that were exempted in the first slowdown, the diplomat said.

Officials had earlier given conflicting accounts regarding the fate of those homes."

"Homes." Well, that's ok then. Finish those homes.

Freeze becomes slowdown.

These US people are brutal negotiators.

I was going to say Orwell was lucky he kicked it 2/3 of a century ago, since his stuff would seem utopian compared to such "news."

But then, there's Drunk Pundit, assing this up. Jesus Christ! The left is puny enough. Unless you are trying to hurt it, how do you imagine we can afford such lunatic (and US-excusing) exaggeration? If the US were Israel's client, rather than the reverse, Iran would be flat, black, and glowing by now; Palestine would be gone, even as O-Ts; Lebanon would be the new O-Ts, with U.S. troops as the cops; etc., etc., etc.

Really, how do people who pride themselves on sniffing out rats remain so ignorant of the various strategies available to great power? Have you ever heard of "Twist my rubber arm"?

Fuck!

If the US were Israel's client, rather than the reverse, Iran would be flat, black, and glowing by now; Palestine would be gone, even as O-Ts; Lebanon would be the new O-Ts, with U.S. troops as the cops; etc., etc., etc.

Sure, let's speculate about what ifs: If Israel controlled the US, we'd have a Jewish president, the first man on the moon would have been a Jew and Hatikvah would be the national anthem. Sheesh. I don't think anyone argues that Israel's influence over our government is absolute and they get a blank check for whatever they want, but they do exert an extraordinary amount of power and to deny that power is foolish and dangerous.

It's an awfully peculiar kind of imperial dominance that has every politician in America grovelling to Israel as a precondition of getting elected to national office while Israeli politicians openly express their contempt for America and its leaders without paying with their careers. Hell, they shit all over Biden and he whined about what a good Zionist he is.

Funny how in a survey of the CFR, one of the most pro-Israel organizations in the empire, less than 4 percent of its members regarded Israel as a valuable ally of the the US. In fact, few people outside the US regard Israel as a strategic asset of America, not even the Israelis themselves. I read a survey that showed over 77 percent of Israelis viewed America as an important ally of Israel, but only 17 percent viewed Israel as an important ally of the US.

Most Israelis know full well their country is a liability in every sense to America. It's Americans that haven't gotten that memo yet.

MD sez:

"But then, there's Drunk Pundit, assing this up. Jesus Christ! "

Yeah, it's me assing it up.

"The left is puny enough. Unless you are trying to hurt it"

Yes, it's me... hurting the left. My powers are awesome.

"how do you imagine we can afford such lunatic (and US-excusing) exaggeration?"

You accuse me of exaggeration? Pardon me while I giggle a bit.

And relax a little bit too, you seem somewhat excited by such a small throw away comment of mine that was mostly intended as a joke. But humor often escapes many on the humorless left I've noticed.

This deserves a glance by anyone who thinks the free press is doing a good job reporting facts on the ground:

http://www.medialens.org/alerts/

Maybe one of you NYT subscribers could slip a complaint to the Gray Whore about her silence on this interesting tidbit.

DP, that's a rather weak and obscure joke. Exactly how was it supposed to be humorous? You usggest you were lampooning the left? How? By repeating one of its most boneheaded claims at a moment when no humor about it is logically possible?

Puh-lease.

Meanwhile, if you think this topic is light fare, fine for you.

Michael D,

I am disappointed that you did not respond to Sean's more substantive objections, rather than cherry-picking Drunk Pundit's disproportionately civil but half-hearted reply to your verbal abuse, since I don't think it's obvious to everyone here how the empire is served by the current terms of the US/Israel relationship.

I am curious, what imperial ends are served that can't be served some other way with less of the obvious liabilities? Why AIPAC and its spies if the US has the rubber arm you speak of?

The US has become a client state of Israel.

I think rather that Israel is a distillation of some of the more extreme racist, settler colonial qualities of the United States into a smaller package.

It's where most of the racist right would like to take the United States if they were not impeded by the extremely diverse American population.

Even anti-semites who hate Israel still envy it. Listen to any Neo-Nazi and he'll say something like "why do the Jews want a racially pure state for themselves and a multicultural state for Anglo Saxons."

So it's not surprising that America's imperial infrastructure toadies to it. They're not toadying to a foreign power. They're toadying to their ideal image of themselves.

I think rather that Israel is a distillation of some of the more extreme racist, settler colonial qualities of the United States into a smaller package.

I'm as keen to blame America first as the next guy, but this is really silly. There's no doubt that the racist bent of the United States gives Israel some leverage in its PR campaign against Arabs, but Israel was a racist, colonial project long before we stepped in.

So it's not surprising that America's imperial infrastructure toadies to it. They're not toadying to a foreign power. They're toadying to their ideal image of themselves.

Boy, it's a shame the ties between AIPAC and the 'serious' left are so poor. They could save some money.

here's no doubt that the racist bent of the United States gives Israel some leverage in its PR campaign against Arabs, but Israel was a racist, colonial project long before we stepped in.

You're making the same mistake creationists do when they argue that humans are descended from apes. Humans are not descended from Apes.

Humans AND Apes are descended from a common ancestor.

Israel is not descended from America.

America and Israel are descended from a common ancestor: British Imperialism.

American racism is tempered by it's scale and its diversity. Israel's is not. The American ruling class, therefore, looks to Israel as an ideal of how to manage second class citizens.

American racism is tempered by it's scale and its diversity. Israel's is not. The American ruling class, therefore, looks to Israel as an ideal of how to manage second class citizens.

ToT, your theory does not explain the tremendous amount of effort and cost Israel expends to discipline American public officials and the unseemly groveling they get in return.

Maybe things really are just as they seem: Big Lobby, Big Power.

Israel represents the interests of the US. Israel is not the tail that wags the American dog.

If the garrison state every actually got to the point where it could begin to whisper to itself that it might have a hint of a chance to tell the imperial state what to do and get away with it, the imperial state would just have to publicly admit that it helped the garrison state get nukes, and offer the case to the UNSC.

ToT, your theory does not explain the tremendous amount of effort and cost Israel expends to discipline American public officials and the unseemly groveling they get in return.

Is that a feature or a bug?

Israel's lobby helps "discipline" would be critics of American imperialism from both the right and the left.

The consensus in the American ruling class is pro-military, pro-imperialism. Why would they object when a well-financed lobby helps keep libertarian isolationism and leftist pacifism confined to the occasional oddball like Dennis Kucinich or Ron Paul.

Look at William Fulbright. He successfully challenged the imperialist war in Vietnam. But the Israel lobby brought him down.

And America became radically pro-Zionist at EXACTLY the moment it lost in Vietnam.

I'd guess that the Israelis have become a bit unhinged lately because of two things:

1.) Direct American involvement in the Middle East
2.) American failure in Iraq

I think it makes the Israelis schizo. If America's little imperial adventure in Iraq had succeeded, America would have been in a better position to discipline its little mini me.

But since it failed in Iraq, American imperialism in the Middle East is in a transition phase And the Israelis feel it. On one hand, they're afraid America's going to abandon them (thus they're crazy idea that Obama is anti-Israel). But on the other hand, they feel more necessary than ever.

Supporting Israel is not in the interest of America. It's just a healthy career move for any US politician or anyone else in the public eye who wants to keep his job and get ahead. Those who don't play often pay. The Zionist lobby has also invested an enormous amount in propaganda over the years convincing Americans that Israel's interests and America's are one. Obviously, they've been quite successful.

The very existence of such a powerful lobby speaks of its necessity. Somoza did not need a lobby. Neither did Suharto or Pinochet. It was in the empire's interest to support these guys and no special convincing was needed. That is clearly not the case with Israel.

Israel is a massive political, economic and military liability for the US. Politically, the US has alienated the entire Muslim world and much of the rest of the planet through its uncritical support of Israel and vetoes at the UN. The US has lost all credibility with its proxies particularly in the Mideast where they must be wondering when their turn to get Saddamized is going to come up. Economically, support for Israel has closed entire markets to American goods and companies, which defeats the very purpose of the "empire" which is to open markets for exploitation on terms favorable to America's capitalists. The Arab oil embargo alone cost the US economy over $2 trillion. Ask Coca Cola if Israel is worth pissing off 1.5 billion Muslims.

Militarily, Israel has never intervened in any US war, nor has a single American plane, soldier or tank ever been stationed there except for Patriot batteries set up to defend Israel. During the Gulf War, we had to pay Israel not to get involved and all attacks were launched from Muslim countries, not Israel. By contrast, America has bases in multiple Arab countries and Central Asia, many paid for by the host countries. Israel is a competitor to the US in the armaments industry and it is hardly in that industry's interest to have them stealing our technology and selling it to the empire's enemies, as they are wont to do. While the US military is tied down taking out Israel's enemy in Iraq, large parts of Latin America have quietly slipped from the US grip. We have alienated Turkey, a NATO ally, which is now seeking an accord with Iran. Where is the evidence that Israel is worth any of this?

Hatred of America has in some ways become a greater ideological force uniting the people of the Muslim world than Islam is. The modus operandi of empires is divide and rule, not piss people off for no real gain to the point they unite against you.

Miguel, are you aware of the unswerving history of the United States in the Middle East? I presume you are not. Otherwise, you would not be asking the question you ask and lending aid and comfort to those who would have you believe that Israel has any influence of this empire that this empire does not desire.

It's quite depressing to watch all this, in fact.

Allow me to merely refer you to this, as starters:

http://www.deathbycar.info/2010/11/real-eisenhower/

Call us back when you've digested the facts referenced there...

P.S. to the prolix, deluded Sean, who says this:

"While the US military is tied down taking out Israel's enemy in Iraq, large parts of Latin America have quietly slipped from the US grip."

Sean, buddy: F-U-C-K Y-O-U! -- times the million or so people you just flushed down the toilet in your utterly invidious distinction. Think and learn before you run your yapper, dickhead.

P.S. Good luck at your Young Dems Training Camp! You're obviously halfway through the conversion process. You half-know why you don't like the status quo, and now you're making statements that are classic Dimbo shibboleths. "Slipped from our grip."

Luckily, Zero's on the job, protecting the Honduran oligarchy from Israel's insidious influence!

The very existence of such a powerful lobby speaks of its necessity. Somoza did not need a lobby. Neither did Suharto or Pinochet. It was in the empire's interest to support these guys and no special convincing was needed. That is clearly not the case with Israel

Interesting point.

The most similar case I can think of is the old China Lobby.

At the same time, however, Chile was a long established country. The conquest of that part of South America by whites was finished in the early 1800s.

Israel is a relatively new incursion of Europe into the Middle East.

You could say something like "the US bases in Germany need less to defend them than the US bases in Iraq."

But I'm not sure what the goal of your argument is.

Are you trying to say that it would be better to oppose Israel from the standpoint of American nationalism than from anti-imperialism?

Does that mean you support American support for repressive regimes when it is in "our" interest?

Then again, for an "anti-imperialist" Israel would actually be a good thing, since it weakens American power in the Middle East.

I personally think you're being a bit too simplistic. American imperialism wants to keep the Middle East divided and weak. It doesn't necessarily want to make friends. Israel is a wedge into the heart of the Arab world that keeps it permanently in turmoil, and, thus, in America's interest to support.

Why does the GovUSA never get pissed off by the apparent humiliations to which its chief functionaries are frequently subjected by Israel. Not because Israel is an uncontrollable pit bull. No. no. Israel always gets prior approval when it makes Biden look like a shit-eating fool. Biden is a masochist and enjoys his embarrassment.

Israel got prior approval when it tried to sink USS Liberty and kill its entire crew. That event was much superior to the US command simply recalling Liberty from the eastern Med.

The apparent strength of AIPAC and the impunity of AIPAC/Israeli espionage agents at work against the USA is a mirage. As are the scalps of many several former Congress persons who spoke up against AIPAC influence.

Then... Why is Pollard in prison? Again Pollard is in prison because the empire must pretend to object to its puppet's spying. Or had to back in Pollard's active days. Now the US judges rule the evidence out of order and send the spies back to their jobs.

36 Reps refused to denounce the Goldstone report, because the Gaza assault was in the interest of the USA.

Conclusion: the last word on the relationship has yet to be written. The Chomsky take is not the only viable take.

"Drunk Pundit's disproportionately civil but half-hearted reply to your verbal abuse"

That's me... disproportiontely civil. Nothing else works so why not try it?

As to MD's verbal abuse... he ain't got shit. It's amusing to me. He works with the tools available to him. I don't blame him.

Stellar and predictable response there, Dawson. Get back to me when you and the rest of the "real" left have pulled your heads out of Chomsky's ass long enough to distinguish night from day. In the meantime perhaps Mr Chomsky can convince you to join me at that Young Dems rally. We are the lesser evil after all.

"DP, that's a rather weak and obscure joke. Exactly how was it supposed to be humorous? You usggest you were lampooning the left? How? By repeating one of its most boneheaded claims at a moment when no humor about it is logically possible?

Puh-lease.

Meanwhile, if you think this topic is light fare, fine for you."

MD... in all honesty and as one human to another, when no humor is logically possible that is exactly the moment it is demanded.

And I didn't suggest I was lampooning the left so far as I recall. I recall making a throw away and to me (although obviously not to you) comment to lampoon the agreement of arms sales to Israel. Can I not lampoon arms sales? Seriously? Puh-lease back at ya.

Now you seem really upset about all this. I don't blame you. I regularly get upset about all sorts of shit myself. And if it helps you out to consider me the source of the problem then go for it. I'm "assing it up". Sure... I've done worse.

MD sez:

DP, that's a rather weak and obscure joke. Exactly how was it supposed to be humorous? You usggest you were lampooning the left? How? By repeating one of its most boneheaded claims at a moment when no humor about it is logically possible?

Puh-lease.

Meanwhile, if you think this topic is light fare, fine for you.

----------

MD... in all honesty and as one human to another, when no humor is logically possible that is exactly the moment it is demanded.

And weak and obscure jokes are my specialty. Be warned.

Also I didn't suggest I was lampooning the left so far as I recall. I recall making a throw away and to me (although obviously not to you) comment to lampoon the agreement of arms sales to Israel. Can I not lampoon arms sales? Seriously? Puh-lease back at ya.

Now you seem really upset about all this. I don't blame you. I regularly get upset about all sorts of shit myself. And if it helps you out to consider me the source of the problem then go for it. I'm "assing it up". Sure... I've done worse. Far worse.

LOL.. see, here's something I've done far worse. I've double posted at SMBIVA. I'm so ashamed.

The later edition is the preferred one.

Tears, the goal of my argument is to demonstrate that Israel serves no useful purpose for the US. It's support derives entirely from the strength of its lobby.

I don't see the empire's interest as "my" interest or "our" interest, but I am a citizen of that empire and not entirely exempt from its crimes. Israel can be opposed from a nationalist or an anti-imperialist position, or a humanist position, or whatever you like. But let's be honest about Zionist power and stop playing this game of absolving Israel of its crimes and protecting the Zionist lobby by blaming America for everything. America is guilty of supporting Israel no matter how you look at the relationship, but if you want to end that relationship, you need to be real about it.

Much of the so-called "left" is like those Zen monks in Japan who talked of "the sword that kills." It is not the Japanese soldier that does the killing, but the sword he carries that uses him as an instrument to perform its execution. They want us to believe that America is the sword that kills, and the Israeli soldier wielding the American sword is only an instrument of the sword's will. This is bullshit.

And America became radically pro-Zionist at EXACTLY the moment it lost in Vietnam.

America and Israel are descended from a common ancestor: British Imperialism.

Very few know that British inspired Jewish nationalism predates the American variety, which was not fomented by HM Government either, for obvious reasons. As late as 1937, Brits had hoped to create a "loyal Jewish Ulster in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism" near the Suez Canal. Sir Winston Churchill defended the Zionist project in Parliament that same year in no uncertain terms:

I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.

Tears, the goal of my argument is to demonstrate that Israel serves no useful purpose for the US. It's support derives entirely from the strength of its lobby.

Do you think a better way to phrase it might be that "Israel NO LONGER serves a useful purpose for the US?"

It certainly did before the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was the instrument that American imperialists used to break up Nasser's Pan Arab nationalism. And it was a wedge into the possibly pro-Soviet Arab world.

Since the fall of the Berlin wall, its purpose is much less obvious. That's probably why The Lobby has grown so much stronger since the 1990s. And that's why The Lobby's racism has grown so much more strident.

But here's what I see as the problem. After the USA took out Saddam, Iran became the dominant power in the regime. Israel now has a new purpose, America's counterweight against Iran.

But I don't think the United States is going to bomb Iran until its good and ready, however badly the Israelis want them to.

"Israel serves no useful purpose for the US. It's support derives entirely from the strength of its lobby"
that thesis i suggest to u all is false and badly if not dangerously so

however its worthy of careful consideration ...no ??

md
we are among a very small circle
of friends of the opprsessed here
and
the table stakes are exceedingly low

lets accept the common ground among us
is paramount
we are all anti imperialists
and that makes us
each others allies
why not handle
divergent views on uncle's mini me
with some genteel flexibility

------------------------

"Is that a feature or a bug? "

exactly
the history of "powerful "
foreign lobby ops suggests
a contradiction of sorts
exists within the corporate establishment
from time to time
that needs decisive
often fairly nasty action to resolve
there btw have benn tests of strength where the aipac lost
one thinks of reagan vs begin over saudi jets

the support for "empire" is an emergent result
the cases of individual corporate motives
within corporate collective outcomes
has this secondary
contradictory sometimes thorny quality

---- read tommy schelling
one gets a keen sense of emergence
and its a nice contemporary
of kissingers
and a nice antedote to thinking too much
in terms of top down quasi unitary
co ordinated hierarchy within elite circles--

a contradiction if not
principly within the narrower corporate class
at least within
the broader corporate class/ merit class
american "liberal" globally hegemonic "alliance for progress "

-----------------------

"support for Israel has closed entire markets to American goods and companies"

really ?? which ones
somalia ???

run the list past me
i need enlighenment

i hadn't noticed
nor have the MNCs

the odd company ?
why not ..now and again
good for their competitors

---------------------

"American imperialism wants to keep the Middle East divided ... "
exactly

and as a side benefit
even as the zionist enterprise
creates a basis for a false
---real interests
of the Arab street traducing---
co optive arab unity
behind its comprador regimes
it also intensifies a false
global "jewish stake"
in the success and strength
of our progressive american empire

-----

sk...nice bardic rendering

ps
any time one can pinch winstons rudy cheeks
take it

Tof T
i agree with the basics of your 8:02 comment

Treading carefully in to these mined waters:

Is there a chance that the vicious racist expansionist regimes of ME and MINI-ME are a single entity and that the various distinctions and blame apportioning that inflame the commenters here and everywhere are only the effects of a kind of political theater.

I am reminded of the response that I once got in a discussion of the USA election cycle. I had asserted that the USA simply could not be a democracy (on various pieces of evidence, among them the force feeding called NAFTA). Then there was the response "Why do the parties go to the truly enormous expense of running the R vs D charade every two years, etc., if the place is just a oligarchic/plutocratic pulsed dictatorship?"

My answer was the unimpressive, "it works better this way, keeps us confused, hopeful, generates debate (about nothing essential), blah, blah, blah." In a word: theater and theater criticism.

The USA and Israel have both done plenty to be despised for. "Cast Lead" was resupplied from US depots in Italy or Greece, to mention a recent example. Nevertheless it is very difficult to figure out how that atrocity advanced any broader US goals. The game remains quite deep IMO. Especially so if we insist that one of the other is the "true" culprit in each new cage rattling instance.

I know this doesn't really help.

flak
i think there are good and deep reasons why
we have two corporate cored parties
and as to israel's degree of independence
from its present imperial sponsor

well
operating without an overt imperial sponsor
leaves operating with covert or implicit imperial sponsor
ala south africa for many years ...
fairly bloody years

but israel becoming out right on its own
seems unlikely
a fate similar to that of its neighbor
----another imperial fabrication----
lebanon or
that Arabian penisula imperial artefact kuwait
i just done see that happening
any uncle move
that puts them back in play
for sponsors will quickly produce
official ones i suspect
unlike the boer republic
or even taiwan
suitors will gather
an embarrassment of suitors
including perhaps even a russian
and or chinese option

playing great power protector to
mighty mite israel
with her unique international "following"
could be a plum indeed
for rising challengers to uncle
in that light alone
uncle might decide to keep
at least one paw in the game

btw i submit full unitary us sponsorship
only emerged after 67
one has only to notice the suez crisis of 56 to see an israel playing am egregiously bold and transgressive game
with her then also sponsors
the french and the brits
and decidely without uncle

to tie in the otherwise completely non analogous two party game here

the dembots were always the party of zionics
until reagan
since then iyts been a bi partisan effort by both cores

a history of us arab relations would explain that change
in the event i suspect israeli actions
have zero to do with it
despite becoming extra naughty now and again these past 30 years
the israeli internal dynamic is very predictable
and as useless since egypts turn west
post 73 and of course
the regional configuration
post carter era

the final laps of the kold war were fought with israel on the side lines
of that purely razzle dazzle fracus
and a real penetration of the iran break for freedom
suggests israel was and is of
no particular geo political signifigance
on that front either
compared to say the Saudi regime

nope i see israel as a spoiled brat kept on uncles payroll to keep her off any one elses
since maybe 1975

"Israel serves no useful purpose for the US. It's support derives entirely from the strength of its lobby"

that thesis i suggest to u all is false and badly if not dangerously so

Fair enough. With all respect, please explain to me why that's the case, and give evidence for your view. While you're at it, I think it would be helpful to actually define what you, or anyone else who supports the opposing view, actually thinks US interests are, what Israeli interests are, and why the two are one.

there btw have benn tests of strength where the aipac lost
one thinks of reagan vs begin over saudi jets

To be honest, I don't understand this line of reasoning. Unless the Israeli lobby has absolute power over the US it has no power? Or little power? That doesn't logically follow. No lobby or segment of the elite gets its way 100 percent of the time, but I would think you would measure the strength of the lobby by its victories, and not its (rare) defeats.

"support for Israel has closed entire markets to American goods and companies"

really ?? which ones
somalia ???

run the list past me
i need enlighenment

Off hand we have had at various times Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Sudan fully or completely closed to US companies by the US government acting on Israel's behalf. If the goal is to "get the oil" where is the logic of voluntarily barring US companies from the oil and allowing international competitors to take their place? How does this suit US interests?

Then we have the Arab Oil Embargo and the Arab Boycott closing off American companies to Arab markets, and the more informal boycott movements where people in the Muslim world of their own initiative boycott US goods. Again, how does this benefit the interests of the empire?

i hadn't noticed
nor have the MNCs

You hadn't noticed that China gets to develop Iran's oil but the US doesn't?

It certainly did before the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was the instrument that American imperialists used to break up Nasser's Pan Arab nationalism. And it was a wedge into the possibly pro-Soviet Arab world.

I would argue Israel was a bigger liability during the Cold War than it is today. Pan-Arabism was a nice theory, but in practice it never amounted to much. It collapsed of its own weight, largely due to its main proponent being more concerned with Egypt's national interest than that of the Arabs. Israel had nothing to do with it. Pan-Arabism was always the lesser of two evils for the US, with the real fear being Arab communism or the alignment of Arab regimes with the Soviet Union. US support for Israel left many Arab regimes with little choice but to turn to the Soviet Union.

Eisenhower was the last US president to assert US interests in any meaningful way against those of Israel. Eisenhower had little problem intervening to protect Nasser against Israel, Britain and France during the Suez crisis. But he still had to manoeuvre around Israel in later years to try and keep Nasser in the Western camp.

Israel now has a new purpose, America's counterweight against Iran.

Given Israel's performance against Hezbollah, I would say Iran is more of a counterweight to Israel than the other way around, which is why Israel wants them taken out.

The Iranians for their part have been pretty clear they are willing to do business with the US. The only thing keeping that from happening is Israel.

sean
having been thru a few of these with u i'll keep it short

its false for reasons presented

dangerously so
because it suggests us imperial intetests
aren't "behind " the decisive persistent
actions of the US state

------------------
the lobby embodies the designs of israel's zionics
but those designs in large measure remain compatible with US corporate interests
if they didn't

israel would get the boer republic treatment

to make your point
the lobby would need to consistently thwart the implementation of well accepted
US corporate interests
obviously it hasn't and won't

only if the lobby took policy in a direction that damages corporate long run interets
would one have a case to bring before
the imperial court
have you such a case ??
and if you have was this hi jacking allowed to persist
if not we're back where we started with a lacuna off day odd moment weird coincidence wabble proviso
Clio thrives on these
thees wobbles allow darkness to prevail
in this instance thru the cries of
" see see look at that "
a wonderful way to insure folly can persist

---
the reagan test case :

the lobby wanted to deny the saudi's some jets
corporate america thru the reagan regime
said nope not this time boys

-------------

the 70's anti zionic boycott was a shame symbolic in the extreme
purely for arab street theatre

the jack up of oil prices in the late 70's
like the jack down in the mid 80's
was a largely cartel hegemon
affair
ie saudi lobby aka the energy corporations
and not opposed by corporate america

the 73 hike however presents an interesting
temporary (73-79) cleavage within corporate america
one that prolly goosed up pro zionic elements corporate influence ...temporarily
but the cleavage was swiftly enough
closed primarily by the mediation
of our hefty financial sector

recall the vast changes that occured during that interval
the hi fi recycling system
the trade deficits accomodated by
the bust out from gold
are two and there's of course
much much else
that cumulated in hike II
which was widely welcomed by corporate gurus
now able to see the shape of things to come
---the 70's were a time my time really
i know it like a a gal might know
a pimple on prom nite ---
exceedingly complex currents
and counter currents
i haven't remotely done this justice
in my hours of study
but in the end i'll stick by this thesis:

israel and uncle's israel policy
during that period 73-80
were not the cause of anything signifigantly
negative for corporate america

along came the iranian revolution to upset the apple cart
but that's another story again not remotely israel induced

-------------
lost market list :

"Lebanon," ??????
only while lebanon
was a vassal of "Syria "

"Syria , Iraq, Iran, Libya "

you kid me ...right ??

these are national markets under states
that were
under major all court press
us imperial containment
for resistence to the empires writ

"Sudan " even if it fit and it doesn't
it's trivial like somalia

what about its oil ??

i note our corporations
for decades have used intermediaries
to threaten a spin off of the oil rich south

you seem to think the US
has to buy oil everywhere
to pay the market price

not so of course

come on sean

if you just want to win something here

i'll take a dive on a point.... lets see

ya your right

china gets to help pump iranian oil and uncle's corporations don't

sean

you really got a bone for israel/zionics

why waste such energy on such small potatos

its almost as if you find them
as creating more evil globe wide
then american MNCs

if you see israel as a force that uncle might bite off
to what end
to strengthen the sway of uncle's own purposes
give a for instance

I would argue Israel was a bigger liability during the Cold War than it is today. Pan-Arabism was a nice theory, but in practice it never amounted to much. It collapsed of its own weight, largely due to its main proponent being more concerned with Egypt's national interest than that of the Arabs. Israel had nothing to do with it. Pan-Arabism was always the lesser of two evils for the US, with the real fear being Arab communism or the alignment of Arab regimes with the Soviet Union. US support for Israel left many Arab regimes with little choice but to turn to the Soviet Union.

I think you can make a strong argument, which yours is, but still be wrong.

Let's go back to Latin America, more specifically Cuba. Castro originally wanted an alliance with the United States. But, even with Israel playing no part, the USA still drove him into the arms of the Soviet Union.

I think what the United States wanted in the Middle East was to establish dominance. That's why Eisenhower was willing to smack down the Israelis, British and French during the Suez Crisis. It wasn't support for Nasser. It was a way of saying "there's a new sherif in town."

I DO think The Lobby plays an exaggerated role in American foreign policy in exactly the Olympia Snowe and Ben Nelson played an exaggerated role in the health care debate.

The system is set up to empower small, well-organized, well-financed lobbying groups. Since Americans don't particularly like Arabs anyway, that leaves the Israel Lobby with even more leverage.

Combine an apathetic or downright Islamophobic American public with a highly driven Israel Lobby and it's unlikely any politician will stand up to the Israelis.

If you can't generate a coherently powerful movement in the United States for Single Payer Healthcare, how do you accomplish a powerful movement in favor of the Palestinians?

If the goal is to "get the oil" where is the logic of voluntarily barring US companies from the oil and allowing international competitors to take their place? How does this suit US interests?

It's to CONTROL the oil.

There's been no significant attempt, as far as I know, to ramp up oil production in Iraq to its full capacity.

The Iranians and the Venezuelans have taken their oil outside of US control.

They're still willing to sell oil to the United States (in Chavez's case, even give it away) but they also want to devote some of the oil revenue to populist economic programs.

Here's an interesting thought experiment.

If a market fundamentalist dictator a la Pinochet took over in Iran, would the Israel Lobby be able to push the USA into more hostility with the Iranians.

I honestly don't know the answer.

this experiment already happened
the shah
if no " market fundamentalist "
was still a pure comprador dictator
a la Pinochet
if another such
"took over in Iran'
we'd have a re run
the shah was a great covert
"friend of israel "
as a fellow yankee client

the nationalization of the "rent " from
domestic oil production is an objective of many "anti " yankee government

this is un related to world market price

that is a price that channels between
too high too long
ie likely to bring on substitutions

and too low too long
to safely maintain the cartels production discipline

the case of iraq production is very interesting
in the short run taking that potential output off line
alows higher prices for crude

btw we often fail to notice the effect of high world prices on local us production
we are still a huge crude producer
the 00's price spike under the energy prez
certainly benefited one big GOP donor base

the Dems ???
they aren't so much trying to get some of that juice
just hold down the energy guys
material motivation to fund the GOP

http://www.counterpunch.org/amiri11192010.html

If Israel aide is moved from the State Dept budget to the Def Dept budget will it be more sacrosanct than it is today? Will it get its own budget line like aircraft maintenance? Will it explode with cost overruns? Uncontrolled gold plating? $800 toilet seats. $300 hammers?

Will "Cast Lead" become "Cast Titanium"? Joint operating bases in the West Bank? etc. etc.

I pointed folks to DDE's worry about domino effects because worrying about domino effects has always been at the heart of imperialist management. It has always been at the heart of the USA's turn at the helm. That turn remains alive, if just barely so in economic terms.

Decent resolution of the Palestine affair is a direct and grave threat to imperial power, as it strongly suggests that decency and international law are not complete fictions.

Decent resolution of the Palestine affair is a also a grave indirect threat to imperial power, in multiple directions. It would tend to defuse the religio-cultural nature of ME conflict, suggesting the rise of other concerns to the agenda-top. It would deprive Israel of many of the ideological "security" claims that it relies upon to sustain its rogue behavior. Israel's rogue behavior are 100 percent in line with what the USA would do itself, if it could get away with it domestically.

None of this is complex or even controversial. Yet it evades folks like sean.

And another p.s. to sean: Residents of empires are generally responsible for the empires' actions, regardless of the quality of power and society within empires? That's an argument for collective guilt, and a justification for collective punishment. Really?

Anon 11:51 has a major point. Combining the possible complete transfer of Israel money deals to the War Dept with the unspeakable f35s-for-a-gesture deal, it looks like old Zerobama may be preparing the ground for a new and deeper phase of ME war, with Israel as the Trojan Horse. Iran war at last, perhaps after the next econo-crater opens?

None of this is complex or even controversial. Yet it evades folks like sean

Oh for chrissake Dawson, give it a rest. If it were so uncontroversial, sean wouldn't have so much company and you wouldn't retreat so readily into argument-free froth.

By the way, you may think you're channeling Chomsky, but even he doesn't believe the ruling class has any particular interest in the oppression of the Palestinians. He simply says that they don't lose anything by it either.

For those who are interested in what Chomsky has actually said, the article linked below and at sig provides a nice summary.

Sample quote:

"if the issue is not of much importance to US power concentrations, the lobby is influential. For example, the US has no particular interest in Israel’s making life completely impossible for Palestinians, so the lobby helps to influence US support for Israeli violence, terror, and gross violations of international law."

Chattin' with Chomsky"

In my opinion, the idea that Israel is some poor little kapo being pressed into service by the mean old US is the last bastion of pro-Israel apologetics. When it is no longer possible to deny what Israel is, you can still blame America for making it that way, even though ethnic cleansing and military expansionism were on the Zionist agenda long before Israel came into being, let alone when the US entered the game. This message is very reassuring to Israelis and American Jews, as it absolves Israel and the major Jewish organizations that advance its agenda in the US from any moral responsibility for Israel's conduct. Chomsky has even gone so far at to say that “it is improper — particularly in the United States — to condemn Israeli atrocities.” The "sword that kills," indeed.

The empire's traditional agenda and Israel's are largely mutually exclusive. Failure to recognize this fact and the implications of America pursuing Israel's agenda in the Mideast rather than its own is very dangerous and wilffully ignorant of observed reality.

America has always sought to monopolize and exploit markets by supporting stable client regimes that are loyal to America, willing to do business on America's terms, and which have the military capability to protect US interests. Israel's agenda on the other hand is to become the dominant military power in the Mideast by destabilizing and destroying rival Arab regimes. Basically, they want to turn the Mideast into Somalia, at which point no Arab regime will pose a threat to their expansionist agenda. This strategy is outlined in Oded Yinon's paper: "A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties." Israel has followed this plan by arming and financing secessionist or ethnic movements in Sudan, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran. It got the US to invade Iraq and foment a brutal sectarian civil war when all other attempts at destabilizing Iraq failed.

http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/articles/article0005345.html

"The dissolution of Syria and Iraq into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon is Israel's primary target on the Eastern front. Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel's targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger than Syria. In the short run, it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel."

There's also a good analysis of that paper here:

http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=13737

Creating a desert and calling it peace is at odds with the empire's goal of creating and exploiting markets. The empire pursuing its own traditional agenda of subjugation, however barbaric, would by far be the lesser evil than the empire pursuing Israel's monstrous agenda of mass destruction of the Arab world. We didn't open Iraq up to our markets. We destroyed it.

Just curious Dawson, did you miss the part where the evil Arabs want to "push the Jews into the sea," or where Ahmadinejad wants to "wipe Israel off the map?" The Zionists have never been at a loss for inventing imaginary threats to Israel's existence. Nobody buys that rock-throwing Palestinian kids are a threat to Israel's existence but hardcore Zionuts.

It is in both Israel and America's interest that the Palestinian problem goes away. Israel wants their land, and the US doesn't need the hostility from the Arabs.

Chasing after strawmen is a waste of time so I usually don't bother, but no, I don't believe in collective responsibility or collective punishment. People are responsible for their own actions, not those of others. I may feel a sense or personal moral responsibility for the crimes of my country, but no particular need to punish myself or anyone else but the folks at the top of the food chain.

Sean,

Would you not agree that the United States wishes to control access to Middle East oil? If so, how do you feel the United States would go about establishing that dominance, unhindered by Israel's influence?

And how do you answer Chomsky's question to folks like you that, if the Lobby is so much at odds with Empire, Intel, Lockheed, Buffet etc don't do anything about it?

Sean. After doing some reading on the Lavon Affair, I'll have to concede your point on the United States and Nasser.

Apparently, at least in the early 1950s, the United States was too pro-Nasser from the Israelis so they attempted to orchestrate a false flag operation that targeted American and British installations in Egypt.

But I'd still criticize you from having a somewhat static idea of the Lobby's origins. You seem to believe that somewhere in the 1940s and 1950s, The Lobby was born, like Athena from the head of Zeus, full grown.

That would make sense if the USA or the British Empire set Israel up as a client but it makes no sense if Israel is fundamentally hostile to both superpowers.

At some point in the 1960s, isn't it possible that the United States turned against Nasser and towards Israel for what it perceived to be its own interests?

Nobody buys that rock-throwing Palestinian kids are a threat to Israel's existence but hardcore Zionuts

Were not the rock throwing kids and the First Intafada more of a threat to the prevailing order in the Middle East (including BOTH Israel and the surrounding authoritarian Arab states) than the more deadly Second Intafada?

Isn't that why Clinton and Rabin brought Arafat back to Palestine? To have him serve as their kapo?

Toft
ithink in general terms you have the gist of suez era in your sights

one needs of course to draw in the soviets here as well as the brits and french

baby israel from say 47 to 67
had a nice game of one of agin another going
didn't always win of course
as nassar didn't always win either
the two emerging states however played round robin with the four availible great states
hgreat and not so great that is ...

as you throw in more players
lebanon and jordan syria and
kuwait and iraq the saudis etc
the game board gets more complex still

now iran libya algeria turkey...
circles without the circles emerge
in fact
multiple circles within circles emerge too
each radiating mutual influence reaction
confrontation alliance
intervention subversion

now as sean suggests fragment these countries and this area
along ethnic/religious/community lines
add refugeees ..
nice eh ?
a super densely planted self planting
thicket like grove
of action and incident

go cherry pick patterns one and all
ala sean

but grasping the main dynamic suggests
uncle rising zig zag style maybe
and israel morphing
and both always destiny's children

the lebanon beirut fiasco
and the first intafada
coincide more or less
with the assimilation
of the russian refugee flood no ??

the reblossoming of the settler movement comes in here too

again events crowd in on events
the GOP becomes a friend of zion
if not deeply and dumbly
under its sway
ala the dembotic mold
however its carter and clinton that helped little me
not the reagan bush bagel finnagle

I think Sean is right about one thing. The United States often appears to act against its interests in the Middle East in order to support Israel.

Why not transfer your friendship to the Arabs the way Nixon transferred the USA's friendship to mainland China away from Taiwan?

But, as a thought experiment, doesn't the American ruling class also appear to act against its interests in other ways?

Why impeach an effective right wing manager of the empire like Bill Clinton and then go out of your way to install an ineffectual boob like George Bush?

Why stir up a racist "Tea Party" movement to kill a health care plan that gives money to the insurance companies?

It strikes me that there are two things going on here.

One faction of the American ruling class would prefer a stable order in the Middle East. That means strong arming the Israelis into a two state solution. I'd guess the CIA, the military, and a lot of the more traditional Republicans fall into this group.

Another faction would like to keep the Middle East as unstable as possible in order to insure that Israel eventually emerges as a kind of regional hegemon.

Because of the way the American political process empowers well-financed lobbies, the second group tends to have a lot of power over elected officials.

But the first group has a lot of influence.

Another thought experiment: What if, for example, David Petreus or another general became the military dictator of the United States for say 10 years?

Would the United States turn away from Israel?

Trail of Tears:

American racism is tempered by it's scale and its diversity. Israel's is not. The American ruling class, therefore, looks to Israel as an ideal of how to manage second class citizens.

vs

miguel:

ToT, your theory does not explain the tremendous amount of effort and cost Israel expends to discipline American public officials and the unseemly groveling they get in return.

Maybe things really are just as they seem: Big Lobby, Big Power.

Advantage, Trail of Tears.

Israel's behavior is part of the package Trail of Tears described, miguel. Israel doesn't put pressure on the USA, not if the USA all along planned to do what was "pressured" into doing.

It's not that tough to figure out, really. You just need to have no preferences on who's the bad actor, and then examine the situation as it plays out.

How did Israel get created? And in 60 years it has turned the tables, so that it gets to call shots?

Afraid I've yet to see any evidence to suggest the USA gets strong-armed by Israel. I'll look at whatever you can offer though. Just don't be pissed if I disagree on what the evidence suggests.

Part II:

The idea that Jewish Nationalism/Zionism predates the formation of Israel in the 1940s doesn't change the point that the biggest global political and fiscal support for Israel's creation came from the USA and Great Britain.

Jewish Nationalism explains the theocratic and highly tribalist nature of Israel's outlook toward its neighbors.

It doesn't explain that the USA never rebukes Israel in meaningful ways, ways other than mild verbal chiding, which often takes the form of silent assent rather than actual spoken criticism. In some folks' eyes I guess the silence speaks great volumes about how extensively Israel controls the USA, but I just don't see how that view, that causal linkage, is supported by anything other than conjecture.

Israel serves many purposes. The most obvious is a cultural salve following the Holocaust. The less obvious ones surround the choice of location for Israel (all that oil!), and the manner in which it was created (land stolen from Palestinians). World War 2 had just shown the planet's leading financial powers (USA and Great Britain) how heavily we depend on oil. That point wasn't lost on the way to deciding what to put in the middle of Palestine, and how to put it there.

Anyone who thinks Israel's vector-based status is too indirect and therefore unlikely to be real --those who think the Tail of Israel wags the Dog of America-- should spend some time examining how the Leisure Class enjoy playing elaborate games of human behavioral chess with those whom they control through economic (business/investment) and political (through the foregoing economic) power-wielding. An easy tour of the subject can be found in Robert Greene's The 48 Laws of Power. I suggest reading that book before saying something is too elaborate.

@Miguel.

I think the US would like to control Mideast oil. Why not? Does it have to exert control in this day and age to get a good deal from the locals on the oil or to penetrate their markets? Probably not. China goes in and does business with whoever happens to be running a country at whatever terms they can get without the pathological need to replace the local elite with their own people. Seems to work for them. American companies are forced into involuntary exile by pro-Israel sanctions. At this point I think the lobby is too powerful for the US to pursue a purely market imperialist agenda in the Mideast if the lobby isn't on board with that agenda.

To answer Chomsky's question, when you have the most powerful political lobby in the country, and you dominate the media, dominate finance, and dominate campaign finance, you get what you want. Add an American public thoroughly brainwashed into seeing Israel as America's BFF and Muslims as the greatest threat America has ever faced, with 20 percent or better believing the Jews need to return to the Holy Land before Jesus will agree to another world tour, and you have a formidable amount of support for Israel in the political class as well as at the grassroots. I'm not saying every Jew is a Zionist. Far from it. But Zionism as an ideology is well-represented among the Jewish elite who in turn are well-represented in the American elite, with dominance of the media by Zionists being the most critical factor as the media largely determines who gets elected to national office in this country. Powerful as other lobbies may be, they need to match their agenda to the Israel lobby's if they want to trump that kind of power or at least, find a niche where they don't conflict with it.

@ToT

I don't think the lobby just sprang out of nowhere in 1940. Organized Jewish interests were able to convince the British to agree to the Balfour plan on the basis that they had enough influence in America to bring the US into the war. Whether that power was real or imagined and whether it had anything to do with America's entry into WWI I don't know, but that was the basis for Britain agreeing to it. As Britain was losing the war at this point it was definitely in their interest to clutch at whatever straw they had.

When Truman supported the creation of Israel, it was largely for his own selfish end of winning the election. At that point, the Zionist leadership was ideologically in the Soviet camp, and it was Stalin who pressured the Czechs into violating the US-imposed arms embargo and supplying the Zionists with WWII surplus German weapons. It's difficult to see what supporting a Soviet satellite in the Muslim Holy Land to the extreme anger of the Arabs was going to do for American interests. Truman figured he would need 500,000 troops to defend Israel.

As for rock-throwing kids, they were more a problem for the Arabs then they were for Israel. The Israeli crackdown enraged the populace of the Arab world and undermined America's Arab proxies. Again, not a situation that was useful to American interests. Arafat's purpose was to sell the bogus peace process and the equally bogus two-state solution.

A lot of the political process in the US is just kabuki to maintain the firction of a left-right dichotomy in our government. Want to sell liberals on a bullshit, corporate-manufactured health reform plan? Put a Black president behind the plan and get a bunch of "racist" Tea Partiers to attack him: instant mass liberal approval.

But there's no kabuki when it comes to Israel, except for the ritual, pro forma denunciation of the settlements every American president is expected to perform, together with the inevitable ritual slap-down from the Israeli PM. Anything more than that and the lobby really brings the hammer down, as they did with Bush I. It is obscene the degree of obsequious obeisance Congress and the president display towards Israel. I would not be surprised if Israel orders its stooges in Congress to occasionally vote against its interests, lest they give away the game with a record of 100 percent acquiescence.

Uncle has lots of client states. But Israel is clearly sui generis. It doesn't act much like Guatemala, or Saudi Arabia for that matter. Why?

I don't think the lobby just sprang out of nowhere in 1940. Organized Jewish interests were able to convince the British to agree to the Balfour plan on the basis that they had enough influence in America to bring the US into the war. Whether that power was real or imagined and whether it had anything to do with America's entry into WWI I don't know, but that was the basis for Britain agreeing to it

This seems wildly overstated to me.

First of all, the most powerful section of the American Jewish community in 1940 wasn't necessarily Zionist. Secondly, the entire Jewish community, Zionist or otherwise, was never able to get Roosevelt to increase Jewish entry visas for the United States, ever after Kristalnact. It simply wasn't very powerful in 1940.

As far as the Balfour Declaration goes, wasn't that about putting a client state next to the Suez Canal?

When Truman supported the creation of Israel, it was largely for his own selfish end of winning the election.

This seems more on target. In a very close election (like that of 1948), small, well-organized lobbies can have an exaggerated effect. Witness the Blue Dogs during the healthcare debate.

The Israeli crackdown enraged the populace of the Arab world and undermined America's Arab proxies. Again, not a situation that was useful to American interests. Arafat's purpose was to sell the bogus peace process and the equally bogus two-state solution.

Agreed. Clinton pushed the two state solution in order to shut down the first Intafada. After 9/11, when the United States became more directly involved in the Middle East with a military occupation of Iraq, the two state solution faded in importance. It's also become increasingly clear that the authoritarian Arab states are capable of clamping down on any anger in the "Arab Street" over Gaza.

Put a Black president behind the plan and get a bunch of "racist" Tea Partiers to attack him: instant mass liberal approval.

Doesn't the fall of the Soviet Union have quite a bit to do with this?

Eisenhower and Kennedy moved to break down Jim Crow at least partly because it was hurting the US in the struggle with the Russians to control Africa.

Now the American ruling class seems to have resigned itself to the fact that people in the rest of the world are going to laugh at American culture.

But I'm still not quite sure the entire ruling class has given up on the idea of "soft power" as represented by the hip Bill Clinton or the first black president.

Maybe it's just a sign of American decline.

The idea that Jewish Nationalism/Zionism predates the formation of Israel in the 1940s doesn't change the point that the biggest global political and fiscal support for Israel's creation came from the USA and Great Britain.

My point was that Christian Zionism preceded Jewish Zionism—even if the former was motivated almost entirely by inter-Imperial realpolitik. Britain and France had been goading European Jews to reclaim their "patrimony" for centuries before Theodor Herzl decided to take up the rhetorical offer in the 1890s:

Among those who advocated or prophesied the recovery of the land of Israel by the Jews were Milton, Locke, Newton, Priestley, Fichte, Browning, as well as the better known case of George Eliot. Among politicians could be numbered Shaftesbury, Palmerston, Milner, Lloyd George. In the Enlightenment tradition, there was Napoleon's call to the Jews to reconquer their patrimony, during the Syrian campaign of 1799...Among political and bureaucratic elites, Christian Zionism was often quite compatible with anti-Semitism, since it projected departure of local Jews to the Holy Land.

As far as the Balfour Declaration goes, wasn't that about putting a client state next to the Suez Canal?

It had far more to do with stasis of the Western Front of 1917 and a loss of nerve on part of Britain's ruling elites:

The facts of the situation are that in the dire straits of the war, the British Government made promises to the Arabs and promises to the Jews which are inconsistent with one another and are incapable of fulfillment.

Yeah, Israel was "created" well before the 1940s, but the Israel we see today, the "nation" that is recognized by the "United Nations," that arose in the 1940s as a response to WW2.

Why was so much force and emphasis put on Israel in the wake of WW2?

What does Israel do for the USA and UK today?

* Espionage technology built off-shore for US and UK entities

* Oppressive government which tortures and murders with gleeful impunity

* Theocracy

The location of Israel amidst oil-holding natinos, along with the above three points, and including the profiteering that is possible (hey Mikey Chertoff, hey na-na-na!), show why Israel exists as a unique client state.

I don't really care about The Christian Zionists. You may as well complain about the Tea Partiers. Hobgoblins, spooks, spectres and phantasms.

...though, if you're being factually comprehensive, the Christian Zionists must be counted among those who support The Mighty Israel.

I just don't find their number plentiful, nor their reasoning powerful.

Yeah, Israel was "created" well before the 1940s, but the Israel we see today, the "nation" that is recognized by the "United Nations," that arose in the 1940s as a response to WW2.

The groundwork for creation of a state of Jews, by Jews, and for Jews—and the rest be damned—was complete before WWII began in 1939 with crushing of the 3 year long Arab Revolt by the British Mandate authorities. It took the usual mixture of torture, collective punishment, shelling, administrative massacres, and leadership roundup that was called "colonial policing". At that time although Jews were being persecuted by the Nazis, what came to be known as the Holocaust was something that was a remote phantasm for most Europeans—hence its terrible numerical toll—as Raul Hilberg and others have pointed out in great detail. In other words, death camps and other facets of Nazi barbarism that loom so large in hindsight were not thought of as concrete dangers, although there existed a subconscious realization that future wars would be more horrendous than anything that had been seen before, just as fiction existed that was based on a single weapon wiping out an entire city long before the atomic bomb was hoisted into a B29. In other words, Israel was ready for "creation" before WWII, and crucially the Holocaust had nothing to do with it's creation, except as retroactive justification. This is a point that bounces off the consciousness of most who have imbibed decades of conventional wisdom, but as Perry Anderson in his fine survey of the conflict wrote:

To this day, it is the mantle of the Judeocide that covers the actions of the Zionist state, in the eyes not only of the Israeli population or Jews of the diaspora, but Western opinion at large. Historically, however, there was little or no connexion between them. By 1947, the fighters of the Haganah and Irgun were well aware of what had happened to the Jews trapped in Nazi Europe. But they would not have acted otherwise even if every compatriot had been saved. Zionist objectives had been laid down well before Hitler came to power, and were not altered by him...The goal of a Jewish national state in the Middle East admitted of no other solution than that which was forcibly realized by the Nakba. After the event, the Judeocide has served as pretext or mitigation, but it had no immediate bearing on the outcome. In Europe and America, it gained external sympathy for the Zionist war of independence, but this was never a decisive factor in its success.

Christian Zionists must be counted among those who support The Mighty Israel...I just don't find their number plentiful, nor their reasoning powerful.

I agree that Israel does not figure in the top 5 issues that are the motivating passions of Christian right wingers, but historically they were important and they did their best to fan the toxic mixture of revanchism and neomedieval fantasizing—comparable to the role of Neoconservatives in more recent times—that later galvanized later Jewish activists like Herzl and others. given the power of the US, even with their reduced interest in the issue, their influence remains substantial.

First of all, the most powerful section of the American Jewish community in 1940 wasn't necessarily Zionist. Secondly, the entire Jewish community, Zionist or otherwise, was never able to get Roosevelt to increase Jewish entry visas for the United States, ever after Kristalnact. It simply wasn't very powerful in 1940.

You might find Lenni Brenner's "Zionism in the Age of the Dictators" an interesting read on this score. Zionists could not get Roosevelt to change the immigration policy because they never really tried, and often actively opposed any plan to free Jews from Europe that didn't involve them being sent to Palestine.

"Could the American Zionist movement have done more to try to obtain refuge for the German Jews? The answer is clearly yes. The immigration laws had been passed in 1921-4, during a wave of xenophobia, and were designed to exclude practically everyone apart from the old settler stock: the British, Irish and Germans. That actually meant a relatively high German quota, but reactionaries in the State Department and the Democratic Party deliberately misinterpreted the regulations to create barriers to Jews fully utilising the allotment. Had any kind of resolute effort been made to mobilise the Jewish masses, and the larger liberal community, there can be no doubt that Roosevelt could not have withstood that pressure. The Jews and the liberals were simply too important in his party to be refused, if they had seriously demanded proper enforcement of the regulations. However, the Zionists never launched a national campaign and only worked on individual injustices; no Zionist organisation ever did more than call for the smallest amendments to the immigration laws. Only the left, notably the Trotskyists and the Stalinists, ever demanded that the gates be thrown wide open to the Jews.

There were several reasons for the American Zionists’ response to the refugee problem. In the early 1920s they had never thought of organising the Jews, together with the other ethnic communities that were discriminated against in the proposed restrictions, for a struggle against the quotas. They knew that as long as America was open to immigrants, the Jews would continue to turn their backs on poverty-stricken Palestine."

http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/mideast/agedict/ch13.htm

Zionists...actively opposed any plan to free Jews from Europe that didn't involve them being sent to Palestine.

One such plan backed by a senior member of FDR's cabinet, Harold Ickes was shot down with the help of Rabbi Stephen Wise who believed that adopting the plan would send "a wrong and hurtful impression ... that Jews are taking over some part of the country for settlement." David Ben-Gurion was more blunt:

I am willing to sacrifice the lives of half the Jewish children of Germany, if that is the price of bringing the other half to Palestine, rather than leaving them all safely in England.

Zionists could not get Roosevelt to change the immigration policy because they never really tried, and often actively opposed any plan to free Jews from Europe that didn't involve them being sent to Palestine.

That's certainly possible, that the Zionists saboutaged the possibility of more Jewish immigration to the USA, which had a large anti-semitic minority that didn't want mroe Jewish immigration anyway.

But what I called "wildly overstated" was the idea that the Jewish community pushed Roosevelt into the war with Germany.

Once again the issue comes down to "how powerful was the Zionist community in the USA when what they favored was what the majority of American gentiles wanted anyway."

sk missing the point entirely:

The groundwork for creation of a state of Jews, by Jews, and for Jews—and the rest be damned—was complete before WWII began in 1939

No, "the groundwork" was done when King David was crowned some 3 thousand years ago.

What a snoozy bore, talking about irrelevant statistics.

Yes, the reality based world-view is not everyone's cup of tea. Some would prefer to stay in a world where a 'heroic forgery' can still be honored.

What, you don't have a "fact"-based reply, but instead some snark? You must be a student of Professor Michael Dawson!