The July/August issue of Foreign Affairs has an interesting piece on "The Deep Roots of American Zionism," by Walter Russell Mead of the (gasp!) Council on Foreign Relations.
His point is a fairly simple one — and, when you think about it, one that should be obvious: People who talk about some sort of discrete "Israel lobby" pushing the U.S. to favor Israel miss the point that politicians choose this course because the overwhelming majority of U.S. voters — gentile voters — want them to. An excerpt:
… This does not mean that an "Israel lobby" does not exist or does not help shape U.S. policy in the Middle East. Nor does it mean that Americans ought to feel as they do. (It remains my view that everyone, Americans and Israelis included, would benefit if Americans developed a more sympathetic and comprehensive understanding of the wants and needs of the Palestinians.) But it does mean that the ultimate sources of the United States’ Middle East policy lie outside the Beltway and outside the Jewish community. To understand why U.S. policy is pro-Israel rather than neutral or pro-Palestinian, one must study the sources of nonelite, non-Jewish support for the Jewish state.
The premise, which makes perfect sense, is supported with poll data and the like.
But my favorite part was where he got into the history of this attitude in our country, specifically the part where he cites the Albany Presbyterian pastor John McDonald’s 1814 prediction that Americans "would assist the Jews in restoring their ancient state. The pastor cited the 18th chapter of Isaiah, which I have to confess I don’t think I recall having read before. The salient part, verse 7:
At that time gifts will be brought to the LORD Almighty
from a people tall and smooth-skinned,
from a people feared far and wide,
an aggressive nation of strange speech,
whose land is divided by rivers—
the gifts will be brought to Mount Zion, the place of the Name of the LORD Almighty.
Interesting. Not the first thing that would come to mind if you just read it, but if you read it with that interpretation in mind, you have to go, Whoa…
Also interesting is that in the particular translation I’m citing above, the first verse reads:
Woe to the land of whirring wings
along the rivers of Cush…
Other translations clarify that we’re talking insect wings here (as in the insect-infested regions of the Upper Nile), but I like this version. Whirring wings. And I thought Da Vinci was the first guy to think of helicopters. Could the land of whirring wings be the place whence Black Hawks come?
Even farther afield, what do you call somebody who hails from Cush? A cushion? Anyway, it sounds like a place where I might like to work… Get it — "Cush" job?
I’m going to go away now…
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The U.S. and Britain formed Israel after WWII because Truman and Churchill did not want the displaced European Jews flooding NYC and London. It was the biggest land grab of the 20th Century.
The American “Zionists” should move to Israel. The U.S. exclusively should serve Americans and not Israelis. Let the Jews stand on their own or not at all. Israel is the largest welfare state in the world.
I don’t think for one minute that a maority of American voters wants to see us favor Israel; rather I believe it’s an out of sight, out of mind problem and most Americans for whom it isn’t out of sight and mind just happen to be Jewish. As an infidel, I’m unconcerned about offending religious sensibilities, but the bottom line is that the 3 monotheistic religions cannot coexist with each other, just as a free and peaceful society must work to keep religion’s influence at arm’s length.
Israel won’t be out of sight and mind if Obama is elected, because they will be forced to blow up the Iranian nuclear facilities ASAP, knowing that Obama is a supporter of Islamic Jihad.
America’s Crisis from A to Z. AN EXIT STRATEGY : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SENbTh1pm9I
America’s Crisis from A to Z. AN EXIT STRATEGY : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SENbTh1pm9I