Conor here: Bacevich framing it as an Israel-Hamas War obscures the fact it is an Israeli war of ethnic cleansing on Palestinians, and his plea that it should not become America’s war is too late – at least in the eyes of the world majority. He is also far too kind to Israel and the US in general, and his argument is essentially that another war in the Middle East is the wrong war at the wrong time for the US. I’m probably missing some other problems as well. Nonetheless, his larger point is that post-9/11 policies make it even more likely that Washington might start another war or be dragged into one and that alarm bells should be going off. Can’t argue with that.
By Andrew Bacevich, chairman and co-founder of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and author of On Shedding an Obsolete Past: Bidding Farewell to the American Century. Originally published at TomDispatch.
One way of understanding the ongoing bloodbath pitting Israel against Hamas is to see it as just the latest chapter in an existential struggle dating back to the founding of the Jewish state in 1948. While the appalling scope, destructiveness, and duration of the fighting in Gaza may outstrip previous episodes, this latest go-around serves chiefly to reaffirm the remarkable intractability of the underlying Arab-Israeli conflict.
Although the shape of that war has changed over time, certain constants remain. Neither side, for instance, seems capable of achieving its ultimate political goals through violence. And each side adamantly refuses to concede to the core demands of its adversary. In truth, while the actual fighting may ebb and flow, pause and resume, the Holy Land has become the site of what is effectively permanent conflict.
For several decades, the United States sought to keep its distance from that war by casting itself in the role of regional arbiter. While providing Israel with arms and diplomatic cover, successive administrations have simultaneously sought to position the U.S. as an “honest broker,” committed to advancing the larger cause of Middle Eastern peace and stability. Of course, a generous dose of cynicism has always informed this “peace process.”
On that score, however, the present moment has let the cat fully out of the bag. The Biden administration responded to the gruesome terrorist attack on October 7th by unequivocally endorsing and underwriting Israeli efforts to annihilate Hamas, with Gazans thereby subjected to a World War II-style obliteration bombing campaign. Meanwhile, ignoring tepid Biden administration protests, Israeli settlers continue to expel Palestinians from parts of the West Bank where they have lived for generations. If Hamas’s October assault was a tragedy, proponents of a Greater Israel also saw it as a unique opportunity that they’ve seized with alacrity. As for the peace process, already on life support, it now seems altogether defunct. Prospects of reviving it anytime soon appear remote.
More or less offstage, the fighting is having this ancillary effect: as Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) employ U.S.-provided weapons and munitions to turn Gaza into rubble, the “rules-based international order” touted by the Biden administration as the latest organizing principle of American statecraft has forfeited whatever slight credibility it might have possessed. Russia’s assault on Ukraine appears almost measured and humane by comparison.
As if to emphasize Washington’s own limited fealty to that rules-based order, President Biden’s immediate response to the events of October 7th focused on unilateral military action, bolstering U.S. naval and air forces in the Middle East while shoveling even more weapons to Israel. Ostensibly tasked with checking any further spread of violence, American forces in the region have instead been steadily edging toward becoming full-fledged combatants.
In recent weeks, U.S. forces have sustained dozens of casualty-producing attacks, primarily from rockets and armed drones. Attributing those attacks to “Iran-affiliated groups,” the U.S. has responded with air strikes targeting warehouses, training facilities, and command posts in Syria and Iraq.
According to a Pentagon spokesman, the overall purpose of American military action in the region is “to message very strongly to Iran and their affiliated groups to stop.” Thus far, the impact of such messaging has been ambiguous at best. Certainly, U.S. retaliatory efforts haven’t dissuaded Iran from pursuing its proxy war against American military outposts in the region. On the other hand, the scale of those Iran-supported attacks remains modest. Notably, no U.S. troops have been killed — yet.
For the moment at least, that fact may well be the administration’s operative definition of success. As long as no flag-draped coffins show up at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, Joe Biden may find it perfectly tolerable for the U.S.-Iran subset of the Israel-Hamas war to simmer indefinitely on the back burner.
This pattern of tit-for-tat violence has received, at best, sporadic public attention. Where (if anywhere) it will lead remains uncertain. Even so, the U.S. is at risk of effectively opening up a new front in what used to be called the Global War on Terror. That war is now nearly dormant, or at least hidden from public view. The very real possibility of either side misinterpreting or willfully ignoring the other’s “messaging” could reignite it, with an expanded war that directly pits the U.S. against Iran making the Israel-Gaza war look like a petty squabble.
Then there are the potential domestic implications. No doubt President Biden’s political advisers are alive to the possibility of a major war affecting the outcome of the 2024 elections (and not necessarily to the incumbent’s benefit either). One can easily imagine Donald Trump seizing on even a handful of U.S. military fatalities in Middle East skirmishing as definitive proof of presidential ineptitude, akin to the bungled withdrawal from Kabul, Afghanistan, during Biden’s first year in office.
Two Wars Converge
Understanding the larger implications of these developments requires putting them in a broader context. In Gaza in the last two months, two protracted meta-conflicts that had unfolded on parallel tracks for decades have finally converged. That is likely to have profound implications for basic U.S. national security policy, even if few in Washington appear aware of the potential implications.
On the one track, dating from 1948 (although its preliminaries occurred decades earlier) is the Arab-Israeli conflict. Enshrined among Israelis as the War for Independence, for Arabs the events of 1948 are seen as the Nakba, or “Catastrophe.” Subsequent eruptions of violence have ensued from time to time, as Arab nations vented their anger at the Jewish state and Israel pursued opportunities to create a strategically more coherent and more economically viable, not to mention biblically endorsed, “Greater Israel.”
Initially intent on steering clear of the Arab-Israeli conflict — occasionally even denouncing Israeli misbehavior — American officials allowed themselves over time to be incrementally drawn into becoming Israel’s closest ally. Yet under the terms of the relationship as it evolved, the Israeli leaders insisted on retaining a large measure of strategic autonomy. Over Washington’s vociferous objections, for example, it acquired a robust nuclear arsenal. To guarantee their security, Israelis placed paramount emphasis on their own military capabilities, not those of the United States.
Meanwhile, on the other track, dating from the promulgation of President Jimmy Carter’s Carter Doctrine in 1980, U.S. forces have had their hands full in the region. With Israel exacerbating or fending off threats to its own security, successive American administrations undertook a series of new military commitments, interventions, and occupations across the Greater Middle East that had little or nothing to do with protecting Israel.
In the Persian Gulf, the Levant, the Horn of Africa, the Balkans, and Central Asia, the Pentagon dealt with problems of its own as those regions became venues for hosting American forces engaged in operations intended to protect, punish, or even “liberate.” Such military exertions and the presence of U.S. forces became commonplace throughout the Middle East — except in Israel. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Washington’s military actions reached their apotheosis when President George W. Bush embarked on a global campaign with the aim of eliminating evil.
Meanwhile, the various engagements undertaken by Israeli forces from the 1950s into the present century achieved mixed results. On the one hand, the Jewish state persists and has even expanded — a minimalist definition of “success.” On the other hand, recent events affirm that threats to Israel’s existence also persist.
In comparison, the U.S.-led Global War on Terror proved an outright failure, even if strikingly few ordinary Americans (and even fewer members of the political establishment) appear willing to acknowledge that fact.
Once the U.S.-supported regime in Kabul collapsed in 2021, it appeared American military misadventures in the Greater Middle East might be petering out. The humiliating result of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan in the wake of the disappointing outcome of Operation Iraqi Freedom had seemingly exhausted Washington’s appetite for remaking the region. Besides, there was Russia to tend to — and China. Strategic priorities seemed to be shifting.
Alarm Bells, American-Style
Now, however, in the wake of the atrocities committed on October 7th and Washington’s tacit acquiescence in Israel’s maximalist war aims, the dubious notion that vital American interests are still at stake in the Greater Middle East has taken on new life. Dating from the 1980s, Washington had cycled through a variety of arguments for why that part of the world was worthy of spending American blood and treasure: the threat of Soviet aggression, U.S. reliance on foreign oil, radical Arab dictators, Islamic jihadism, weapons of mass destruction falling into hostile hands, potential ethnic cleansing and genocide. All of those were pressed into service at one time or another to justify continuing to treat the Middle East as a strategic U.S. priority.
In truth, though, none of them has stood the test of time. Each has proven to be fallacious. Indeed, efforts to cure the sources of dysfunction afflicting the region proved to be a fool’s errand that has cost the United States dearly in money and lives while yielding little of value.
For that reason, allowing Israel’s conflict with Hamas to draw the United States into a new Middle Eastern crusade would be the height of folly. In fact, however, with little public attention and even less congressional oversight, that is precisely what may be happening. The Global War on Terror seems on the verge of absorbing the Gaza War into its current configuration.
In recent years, a shift in Pentagon priorities to the Indo-Pacific and to a future face-off with China has left only about 2,500 U.S. troops in Iraq and 900 more in Syria. The nominal mission of such modestly sized garrisons is to carry on the fight against the remnants of ISIS.
White House officials have, however, never gone out of their way to explain what those troops are really doing there. In practice, they have effectively become inviting stationary targets. As a consequence and not for the first time, “protecting the troops” has emerged as a convenient pretext for mounting a broader punitive response.
With Congress accepting claims that the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) enacted in response to 9/11 suffices to cover whatever U.S. forces in the region may be up to 22 years later, the Biden administration functionally has a free hand to act as it wishes. The course it has chosen is to use Israel’s war in Gaza as a rationale for reversing course in the Middle East and once again making violence and threats of violence the basis of U.S. policy there. On that score, the fact that some American forces are now covertly operating in Israel itself should set off alarm bells.
The Gaza War will change Israel in ways that may be difficult to foresee. The failure of its vaunted military and intelligence establishments to anticipate and thwart the worst terrorist attack in that country’s history leaves Jewish Israelis with a sense of unprecedented vulnerability. It will hardly be surprising if they look to Washington for protection, in which case Israel’s survival could become an American responsibility.
The invitation is one that the United States would do well to refuse. Accepting it will confront Americans with challenges they are ill-equipped to meet and with obligations they can ill afford. Deepening the Pentagon’s involvement in the Greater Middle East will only compound the failures to which the Carter Doctrine has already subjected this nation, while scrambling U.S. strategic priorities in ways sure to prove counterproductive.
In 1796, George Washington warned his countrymen of the dangers of allowing a “passionate attachment” to another nation to affect policy. That warning remains relevant today. The Gaza War is not and should not become America’s war.
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Going back to the late 1970s, when Africa was ending white colonial rule and white mercinaries were sent to hold the groud, there was a lot of talk about a major war starting in Africa in the media but from the military that I spoke to, they alwasy said it would be the Middle East, the US and Euorpean need for a foothold in Palestine would never end peacefully.
Palestine has always been an ignored problem because it is never the ‘right time’ to talk about western Judasim and the eviction of Jews from Europe.
I even heard a commentator talk about ‘the Palestinian problem’. No this is not a Jewish or Palestinian problem, it remains a European white American problem and the continued failure of a branch of Judaism to assimilate into the general population
Could have stopped right there.
We’ve shown the world who we really are, so hardly anyone believes what we purport to be.
“We’ve shown the world who we really are, so hardly anyone believes what we purport to be”
A quote to remember
Corruption is the system.
The unipolar moment evidently ate America’s strategic and diplomatic brains.
Andrew Bacevich should get out into the real world more often. There are too many holes in what he says. As an example-
‘For several decades, the United States sought to keep its distance from that war by casting itself in the role of regional arbiter. While providing Israel with arms and diplomatic cover, successive administrations have simultaneously sought to position the U.S. as an “honest broker,” committed to advancing the larger cause of Middle Eastern peace and stability.’
Yeah, nah. The US has done no such thing at all. The US has been the enabler of pushing Palestinians into a patchwork of lands while they let funds from the US flow to Israel to build new settlements in these seized lands. And you have no idea how many times I have read of an US official or a head negotiator going to mediate between the Israelis and Palestinians and it turns out by coincidence that they are Jewish. SecState Blinken is just the latest example of this. It would be like asking your mother-in-law to sort a dispute that you have with your wife.
As for where he says ‘Enshrined among Israelis as the War for Independence, for Arabs the events of 1948 are seen as the Nakba, or “Catastrophe.”’ how about we hear from some Israeli vets talk about those times. Like when a coupla of their guys had flamethrowers and were chasing after civilians to set them ablaze. And note how these old vets are laughing about all these crimes that they committed-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWka3LDmsIk (8:19 mins) – NSFW
And when he talks about Washington’s vociferous objections about Israel getting nukes, didn’t they get those materials from the US on the sly? Because of America’s actions, they are no longer wanted by any country in this region. Bacevich mentions the 2,500 U.S. troops in Iraq and 900 more in Syria but forgets to mention that the Iraq parliament voted for the US troops to leave – but the US refused. And that those troops are not in Syria to hunt ISIS but to steal Syria’s oil and grain and that their presence is illegal there as well. All this is why when US officials go to this region lately they are ignored or humiliated or left to spin their wheels. The only thing that Washington knows how to do in this region is to set countries on fire and most of the countries there have had enough.
The French helped the Israelis to build Dimona but some necessary bomb components were smuggled from a reprocessing plant in Pennsylvania. Apparently H’wood producer Arnon Milchan has admitted to doing this so it’s not a big secret.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnon_Milchan
And JFK was in fact opposed to their getting the bomb and some in the CT crowd even suggest the Mossad may have had something to do with what happened to him (or maybe it was the CIA or the Mafia or the Cubans or one lone nut).
Back in the early years Israel also got their Mirage fighters from France which undoubtedly felt guilt over the way the Vichy regime helped the Nazis to conduct the Holocaust.
I believe it was Nixon/Kissinger who firmly established the now long standing US support for Israel using the Cold War as the excuse even though Nixon was no friend to Jews in general (or hippies). LBJ was also part of this.
Just to add producer Milchan makes an appearance in Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America where he is the chauffeur of the car in which De Niro assaults Elizabeth McGovern. He’s still an active Hollywood producer.
Other no doubt irrelevant takeaway : there’s no way that then child actor Jennifer Connolly could grow up to be Elizabeth McGovern. But the film has great Morricone music.
CIA, Mossad, Mafia, same shit different labels…
“I believe it was Nixon/Kissinger who firmly established the now long standing US support for Israel”
Nixon was removed by Zionist manufactured scandal. Ford administration which replaced him was the first neoconservative Zionist administration. First Zionist democrat was LBJ, who became president after Zionists killed JFK.
Nixon was a capable foreign policy strategist. The Cold War was not an “excuse” to support Israel but, at the time, it made good sense.
The Soviet Union had a strong presence in the ME, especially in Egypt and Syria. Egypt was the largest and most influential Arab country. The Soviets provided military and economic assistance to both countries and Nixon did not want the Russians to expand their influence.
Nixon/Kissinger support for Israel was used to demonstrate to all the countries in the region that working with the US would provide greater prosperity and security than relying on the SU; and it worked.
When Sadat came to power in Egypt in 1970 he shifted away from the Soviets, worked with the US, and eventually made peace with Israel.
Thanks Rev. “Kick their ass and take their gas”. Apparently plenty of gas in Gaza too, don’tcha know. Same as it ever was. Sheesh.
The -Rev Kev 7:54
Israel managed to buy 20 tons of heavy water from Norway 1959-60, even though Norwegian officials knew that Israel wanted it, not for civilian peaceful use, but to make atom bombs. There were close personal contacts at that time between leading labour unionists/ politicians in the two countries. The US material was cheaper, but came with more stringent demands for US control. So Israel worked their way around rules and demands to obtain Norwegian heavy water at double price. Top secret in Norway for almost 50 years.
One other thing the article misses –
“The failure of its vaunted military and intelligence establishments to anticipate and thwart the worst terrorist attack in that country’s history leaves Jewish Israelis with a sense of unprecedented vulnerability.”
According to the not particularly reliable NYT last week, Israel was aware of the attack planning a year in advance – https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-attack-intelligence.html
The article states the Israel knew of Hamas plans, but didn’t do anything because they didn’t think Hamas was able to carry them out. I believe the NYT is trying to cover for the Israeli government here. The Israeli government, which is currently led by a group of religious right wing fanatics, likely allowed the attacks to take place to justify the ethnic cleansing they’ve wanted to accomplish for decades.
Did the Likudnik government and IDF choose to “look the other way” when it appeared that the coming attack would — or (horrors) could — be directed at a bunch of Old School, secular, arab-friendly, HaAvoda/Labour-voting kibbutzim ?
Was it a “bonus” thrown to Likud’s draft-dodging, woman-hating, ultra-orthodox Haredi allies that the Hamas-targeted kibbutzim were lightly defended by many female IDF units and that the Super Nova trance rave was full of scantily-clad and drugged-out secular Jews?
Reading Max Blumenthal’s 12/6 Grayzone exposé of the Haredi ZAKA lies makes me wonder whether the Hamas attack was allowed to unfold against “expendables” in order to be used as a justification for Bibi’s One-State Final Solution. The indiscriminate firing on Israeli victims by their purported “rescuers” suggests to me that the blood of every woman and man murdered or kidnapped on October 7 covers the Nut-‘n-Yahoo clique from head to toe. Who’s the antisemite now?
Wowsers!
The first worst terrorist attack began in April 1948 when occupation forces swept Palestine off the map. The occupation actions in Gaza today are vying to outdo that.
“The worst terrorist attack began in April 1948 when occupation forces swept Palestine off the map.”
Thank you for that clarification, Alice X.
Could we agree on a ‘general rule?’ Behind every report or mention of a ‘terrorist attack,’ there is a background story of another provocation or massacre or humiliation (or multiples thereof,) perpetrated by the side being currently attacked. ‘Terrorists’ aren’t born, they are created.
“Terrorist” is a trigger word. Whenever I encounter it, my assumption is that the purpose of the writer is to create a state of emotional disgust in my mind.
I guess I can understand the actions and mindset of the Jewish settlers flocking into Palestine during and at the end of WW 2. PTSD-afflicted, shell-shocked, a bit crazed from losing family, being ejected from homes and communities, and from having lived with the reality of a massive and efficient State apparatus that was dedicated to eliminating you and all like you, one survival mode is to stop at nothing to create a safe space in which to flourish. So, ‘never again’ becomes your driving force.
The Problem: The British ruling class, having had such great luck in the past with sending off and clearing out their troublesome population (the peasant Irish and Scots, petty thieves, murderers, the poor), as well as the penurious second (and third and fourth) sons of landowners, saw no reason why they could not do the same with Jews, who had been routinely scoured from European countries for centuries. A humane ‘final solution.’ Get ‘em their own land! Except they underestimated the compliance (and immune systems) of current occupants and ‘owners’ of Palestinian lands. They were not about to go gently. Or obligingly die off from some ‘European’ disease. Distributing small pox blankets went out with the widespread acceptance of vaccines.
And, so we have ended up with a terrorized people, moving in and terrorizing the local population, who develop their own terrorists to defend themselves. In a never-ending cycle. Which now threatens to spread into a larger regional conflagration, involving States who have replaced small pox blankets with nuclear weapons. Happy Holidays, everyone!
“And, so we have ended up with a terrorized people, moving in and terrorizing the local population . . .”
The moving-in and terrorizing the locals began long before the end of WWII.It’s important to understand that Zionism was *always* a settler-colonialist movement and that ethnic cleansing (“transfer”) of the hapless indigenous population was always a considered and deliberate project.
The relevant literature is voluminous. For a really excellent and readable overview, I think Rashid Khalidi’s “The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine” is a great place to start.
Thank you for the book recommendation, Uncle Doug. We will add that to Aurelien’s list: David Frum’s “A Peace to End All Peace,” (a really really really long read :-)), and James Barr, “A Line in the Sand.”
I find it fascinating how in all of the columns, podcasts and news reports one sees about this conflict the only people willing to discuss the applicable law are a very few military and former CIA guys on YouTube.
There is never any mention that Israel is an occupying power, that the occupied territories extend well beyond the borders of Gaza and the West Bank, that the Palestinians have every right to set up an armed resistance to their occupiers and that Hamas never left the occupied territories in its’ incursions. Even wrt their attacks on the Kibbutzim, those are essentially militarized out posts and their targeting was well within the laws of war. What they have done is all perfectly legal under international law and is routinely misrepresented in the MSM. Even Palestinian advocates fail to mention that, as in a debate between Batya Ungar-Sargon and Omar Badda on Greenwald’s System Update yesterday.
There is never any mention of how Israel killed its’ own people under an actual policy designed to prevent hostage transfers or how they are now covering up the evidence of their own crimes.
Even with this clamp down on these very relevant facts, it is good to see pushback by demonstrators across the world; a million people in London yesterday I hear. Hopefully this won’t last too much longer, but when history is written the US and its’ media apparat is not going to come off well.
The only person to come out of this well is George Orwell.
Elon should develop fart sequestration devices, both collection and storage. With our can-do ethic we could rule the energy market in short order. We’d put OPEC out of business. And as an added benefit we could end genocide.
The Quincy Stink Tank, offers nothing….Ignore it….stick to the real world..watch AlJazeera…
Only about 25% of Israelis are of European extraction. The majority are Mizrahi or Arab Jews driven in the past from Iraq, Iran, Saudi, the Gulf States and the remains of the Ottoman Empire. Some say the Arab Jews are the most radical at this time. And complicating that the Muslim minority in Israel seems to agree with the current attack on Gaza and Hamas as well. Of course the surveys have flaws. I suppose we will see the Palestinians coming to Germany since it looks like the Arab countries that can afford them like Saudi Arabia do not want them.
Simple numbers will decide this. There are some 15 million Jews in the world. Up against 456 million Arabs, (not all of whom are Muslim.) Do the math.
“Muslim minority in Israel seems to agree with the current attack on Gaza”
link?
This wiki piece would seem to be in conflict with your demographic assertion. It puts the numbers of those descended from Europe and those descended from Africa and Asia as roughly equal: Israeli Jews
No mention of the activities against the UK army drying WW2.
Actions by the Haganar, Eurgan and the Stern gang.
No mention of the murder of injured British Troops in a field hospital, or the attack on the UK general staff in the King David Hotel.
…or the attack on US Navy ship Liberty.
Lots of dead American sailors, and then crickets…
Bacevich doesn’t seem to understand that the US has already lost the Global South. It’s credibility has already been declining, but with this new conflict, it’s heading towards rock bottom. This has been going on for decades.
The damage that he feared has already been done. Everyone around the world knows that the US is funding Israel and supplying it with weapons to carry out this genocide.
At this point, it’s all damage control and trying to close the barn door after the horse has bolted. The rest of the world is fully aware of what has happened and the historical context.
Another consideration is that the Israeli military has performed far worse than many people expected. What that means is the Israelis may not even achieve their military objectives and with far worse military casualties than expected. On the rumor mill, there is talk of the IDF having taken much heavier losses than what the Netanyahu government is willing to publicly reveal, for fear of his own political career. We won’t know what the real numbers are for sure though, especially due to the desire by Israel to keep it secret.
In terms of the end result, it is looking like Israel is going to be a global pariah, especially outside of the Western world. Increasingly, the US is also expected to be isolated as well.
Yes. Jeff Sachs, who has been, as per usual, traveling the world since this episode of the horror show began, says that the US image is, more than ever, well and truly trashed.
Yeah, but who in the US really cares about the country’s image in the world? Most people will say that a lot of people in this world will still want to come to the US because it’s a country of opportunity, and you know what, they’ll be right.
What happens when the U.S. itself becomes a “global pariah.” What does that look like? In the extreme, it’s “U.S. and Israel vs. the World”:
– The EU abandons the U.S. after its “Europe First” far-right regimes get elected and U.S. ceases to be a big importer of EU goods.
– The U.N. dies the same way as the League of Nations.
– It’s every nation for itself due to lack of a rule-based order. China and Russia further expand dominions, often without firing a shot, as new alignments consolidate. The U.S. is too divided politically to deter such developments.
– The American people themselves revert to isolationism and internal repression. The U.S. begins to treat its minorities the way Israel treats Palestinians. U.S. South passes new Jim Crow laws.
– Global boycott and divestment movement against U.S.-Israel apartheid causes the U.S. economy’s decline to accelerate.
– The world’s climate continues to get worse, and U.S. fossil fuel companies are more profitable than ever.
How to get on a different path? Republicans, taking direction from apocalyptic evangelicals will put U.S. support of Israel on steroids if elected in 2024. The only hope for the U.S. and the world, it seems to me, is if Biden drops out and a true “rules based order” candidate runs to replace him.
I don’t under-estimate the political difficulties. The way the U.S. political system works, U.S. Jews themselves will need to be in the vanguard of a new, more enlightened and constructive policy towards Israel (right wing evangelicals are not in the Democratic coalition). I’d like to think this is possible!
I’ve lived in the US and I’ve lived in Iran, and there are few citizens of either country who could point at Israel or the Palestine on a map (more in Iran than the US, I dare say) – yet Israel and the Palestine have allowed themselves to become the combatants in a proxy war between the US and Iran (see the excellent and carefully researched The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy if you don’t believe me).
Why’s that? Oil. Iran has unbelievable amounts of the stuff, and can’t sell it because of the sanctions. That keeps the supply low, keeping the price up and lining the pockets of the oil giants. That in turn fuels the US’s defence industry, which of course needs a good war now and then to clear inventory. (See Carbon Democracy on why that would be.)
The immediate tragedy is the deaths or ruined lives of so many Israelis and Palestinians. The greater tragedy is that, in response, China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and Saudi Arabia – CRINKSA – are rapidly aligning into a bloc, and that bloc vs. the US bloc will take us back to another cold war. Only I fear that it won’t be cold this time around.
It’s misleading to think that either Israel or Palestine is being used as a proxy, not of US and decidedly not Iran. Both US and Iran are sympathetic towards Israel and Palestine, respectively, more for reasons of domestic politics than international strategy. Israel enjoys sympathy from key demographics in US, not just Jews, but also evangelicals. Palestinians enjoy sympathy from Iranians for religious reasons. Strategic interests have been tacked on to the existing emotional ties, IMHO, not the other way around.
The truth is that Israel has hardly ever been a legal “ally” of US: Israel refused the formal “ally” status after the 1973 war because they felt (probably correctly) that being a formal ally would place more constraints on Israel while they could derive all the benefits without the status give US domestic politics. Iran was happy to make deals with Israel during 1980s when it suited them (Iran-Contra was accompanied by even bigger secret arms deal with Israel), etc.