Israel, Who's Yer Daddy?

Once America's crackpot far right switched from its traditional anti-Semitism to a bizarre and convoluted pretext to supporting the End Times by supporting aggressive Zionism, there ceased to be any viable critique of any kind in America of whatever the Israeli agenda might be. The few times Democrats questioned Israel in any kind of serious way-- take African-American congressmembers Earl Hilliard (D-AL) and Cynthia McKinney (D-GA)-- AIPAC wasted no time or effort in ending their careers. Message received.

Plenty of American Jews, however, have a more nuanced-- even ambivalent-- feeling about Israel. As hundreds of Palestinian children have been blown to bits in Gaza, that ambivalence has played out in the American media. It's a very touchy topic and many American Jews do all they can to prevent being drawn into a conversation about it. I don't mean teabaggers or Zionists; I mean people who think and not just react. Last month Fred Reed tried explaining what's actually going on in Israel/Palestine.

Recall our discussion last week about the Buy Bull nuts who rant and rave about a primitive Bronze Age God ordering the Israelites to exterminate the Canaanites (the Palestinians) and the cut off the Philistines' dicks (Gazans). They claim he promised them all the land "from the desert in the south to the Lebanon Mountains in the north; from the great Euphrates River in the east, through the Hittite country, to the Mediterranean Sea in the west." Roughly, that would be not just the present Israel and Palestine, but also Jordan and most of Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. And there's been a lot of water under the bridge since their Bronze Age god supposedly commanded the Jews to destroy with the sword every living thing in it-- men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys."

Reed: "In what amounts to Greater Israel, the Jews came to have custody in Israel proper of about 1.7 million Moslems, in Gaza of over a million and a half who hate Israel and, in the West Bank, pushing toward three million more, who hate Israel. Why Israel wants additional Moslems isn’t clear-- I don’t want any at all, as they seem to be nothing but trouble-- but it does seem to be collecting them." Which means, of course, that Israel can never be a democracy, unless they're an exterminator first and then a democracy, which is advocated by more than a few right-wing politicians. And not just no political rights for Muslims either.

The Moslems cannot be allowed much commercial success, since it would translate into political power. And intermarriage must be prevented at all costs, since Jews, of whom there are not many to begin with, could be bred out of existence. Is this not Alabama in 1900?

So what can Israel do with its internal Moslems? Logically it can (a) shoot them all, which even Netanyahu probably wouldn’t do, or (b) exist forever with a huge and perhaps growing number of hate-filled subjects, or (c) push them across the borders at bayonet-point. Is there another choice?

Since the Moslems both internal and external hate the Jews, Israel must constantly fight them off, often militarily. Just now it is invading Gaza again, which has been firing rockets into Israel. The Moslems are always doing something, such as blowing up buses full of Israelis, so Israel is always bombing Gaza, invading Gaza, killing Turks, bombing Lebanon,  invading it, bombing Iraq, killing Iranian scientists, and so on. There is the usual political posturing and kindergarten yelling about you started it, no, you started it, but underlying the noise is that the two sides bitterly hate each other.

If there is any reason to believe that it will ever stop, I am unaware of it. Does anyone seriously foresee a multi-culti, Koom Bah Yah amity, with turbans and yarmulkes back-yard barbecuing together and swapping dirty stories? Anybody who thinks this possible must be smoking Drano. The two flavors of Moslem are murdering each other in droves, and they have the same faith. They’re going to learn to love Jews?

Any day now.

…Israel depends utterly on America for its survival. Yes, it is an advanced, highly educated, commercially astute nation, and if it lived in peace would be a small roaring success.  But it doesn’t live in peace. And it is too small to buy or build the forces it needs to repel its neighbors and keep its supply lines open. It cannot field a large army other than briefly because it just doesn’t have the population. A garrison state, it very much needs US support.

Said support is not just military and economic. If votes in the UN are an indication, Israel is detested by most of the planet, which would endeavor to do all manner of anti-Israeli things if the US didn’t veto all of them. Israel has a PR problem. In Gaza we see the now-common spectacle of a national military fighting a non-state enemy of barely armed militants. The result is dead children, recorded on cell-phone cameras. Image-wise, not good.

In America politics regarding Israel are often bitter and even more confusing. For example, I know feminists hostile to Israel, which doesn’t mistreat women at all, yet well disposed to Moslems, for whom mere misogyny would be a great step upward. Many Jews of my acquaintance are ambivalent or confused, wanting Israel to survive yet loathing its government.

How firm is American support for Israel? Very-- for now, anyway. This is due in part to the immensely powerful Israel lobby in Washington, in part to a certain lack of enthusiasm for Moslems after 9/11, and in part to the lack of strong anti-Jewish sentiment in America. The United States isn’t Poland. In fact there is a lot of pro-Jewish feeling, seldom mentioned because it doesn’t fit the journalistic template of the eternally endangered Jew on the raw edge of extermination, sieg heil.  Of course, pro-Jewish and pro-Israel are different categories.

If there is ever a threat to American support, it will be not from anti-Semitism but from indifference. There is a potential softness in the support. When Netanyahu gets 29 (was it?) standing ovations in Congress (which he did) it is not because all Congressmen are wildly enthusiastic about Israel.  God himself would not receive such unanimous enthusiasm. Electoral politics screens out principle, and politicians will vote for whatever they think in their interest. If congressmen spoke honestly (yes, I know) I think you would find a small neo-Nazi group virulently against Israel, a substantial Christian group strongly for-- and a majority who just wanted the question to go away.

There are powerful forces-- Big Oil, companies that want to do business in Iran-- that would happily abandon a small, petro-dry nation with no resources. Thus the crucial importance of the lobby.

All in all, it seems to me that Israel has gotten itself into a horrible situation, hated within, hated without, and hanging by a lobby. What can the Israelis do? Emigrate to New York? Undertake an absolutely horrific ethnic cleansing? Exercise the Antarctica Option? Spend all eternity ducking rockets and bombing neighbors? Live as herdsmen of unwanted Moslems that they have to avoid assimilating?

I don’t see a happy ending. Or any ending.