Re: Edward Said - American Zionism (3) (fwd)

On Sat, 11 Nov 2000 wwagar@binghamton.edu wrote:

> > The conflict in the Middle East does not exist in a vacuum.  Israel exists
> > not only because the victors of WWII refused to except refugee Jewish
> > populations, but because one of these victors, namely the US, has opted to
> > establish and maintain Israel as its strategic outpost in the Middle East
> > region.  
> 
>       I agree, but it is not apparent to me that it is in the national
> interest of the United States to make Israel into a "strategic outpost."
> It does so for reasons of sentiment and healthy respect for the domestic
> Jewish vote.  On the contrary, both before and after the Cold War, it has
> always been in the national interest of the United States to cultivate
> moderate and collaborationist elements in the Islamic Middle East, as, for
> example, the Shah's Iran or Saudi Arabia.  We have tried to follow such
> policies, but our unqualified endorsement of Israel has constantly
> militated against their success and instead made us numberless enemies in
> an area where we might otherwise have found many happy Quislings eager to
> be Coca-Colonized.  Even Saddam Hussein was at least a quasi-Quisling
> during the 1980s!

I can think of many ways in which the support of Israel serves US
strategic interests. First of all, the collaborationist regimes have,
in comparison to Israel, proven to be unstable (generally not because of
US support of Israel) and thus unreliable allies.  Secondly, it's not
entirely clear to me that regional stability in the Mideast as a whole is
in the geostrategic interests of the US, and especially since 1989, when
a major reorientation of US foreign policy began to take place.  It's hard
to picture the Gulf War being fought in order to support "misguided" US
policy on Israel.  Instability in the Mideast keeps US forces in the Gulf,
keeps non-US multinationals from competing fairly for contracts in that
region (notwithstanding globalization rhetoric) and keeps the Europeans
and East Asians subsidizing our relatively cheap gas prices.  This
scenario sound more likely than one that has both major parties, the
foreign policy establishment and the media held captive and supporting
a self-destructive foreign policy for over 50 years by a group which
constitutes 1/60th of the US population.  A somewhat comprable case - that
of the Irish community's support of independence in Northern Ireland -
seems to illustrates that regional factors outweigh the domestic pressure
of an ethnic group.  

> > As has been pointed out on numerous occasions, the occupation of
> > Palestinian lands could not continue without continued US military and
> > diplomatic support.  Knowledge of that unwavering support is responsible
> > for the intransigent attitudes of Israelis who refused to deal squarely
> > with the Palestinians.  Israel, in the final analysis, is not a colony of
> > Worldwide Jewry, but just as much a Crusader state of the West.
>  
>       It is both a colony and a Crusader state.

So we agree on this.

[snip]

>       Pro-Israeli sentiment is hardly the sole foundation of U.S.
> foreign policy and I never suggested that it was.

In the original Said article posted here, he claimed that confronting
Zionism is the last unthinkable act in American political discourse, and
you responded in support of this claim, attributing it to the Jewish
betryal of their spiritual heritage.  I submit that the claim made by Said
is patently false, and I cited other instances of monolithic consensus on
foreign policy issues where the power of the Israeli lobby is clearly not
a factor in order to demonstrate that such monolithic consensus is not an
anomaly in American political discourse, and that factors other than
Jewish connivance are decisive in maintaining this monolithic consensus.
Said's claim seems to me little different from claims by people on the
right that reverse racism has made it impossible to in any way attack
black of Hispanic political figures.  

[snip]

> But one cannot excuse
> Jews from sharing the blame for the consequences of international Zionism.

Again, true, but one must not identify the embrace of Zionism by American
political discourse (which is what we've been talking about) with the
Jewish embrace of Zionism.  


-- 
Boris Stremlin
bc70219@binghamton.edu