Article on Dual Loyalty of DOD's Jews

Until I read this article, it had not occurred to me that Steve Bryen was Jewish. But it figures. He was one of Richard Perle's hangers-on at the Pentagon.

I guess there is a large group of people, President Bush included, who believe that Israel's and America's interests are identical. I don't think this is necessarily the case; we may have some interests in common, but there are issues where our interests diverge. The best example is the US descent into some kind of hell in Iraq as a result of following policies espoused by Israel. It's odd that American politicians seem happy to send Christian soldiers to die for Israeli interests in Iraq, and even odder that the Christian soldiers seem happy to die for Israel. Interestingly there are very few black or Hispanic soldiers, nor are there many from middle and upper class families. They mostly come from lower class, white backgrounds, probably from evangelical Christian backgrounds who believe Armageddon is coming in Israel.

I have been distressed that the PBS Newshour, which I usually think tries to be unbiased by having participants from different sides of an issue, has had almost (?) exclusively Jews to talk about the current Israeli war in Lebanon. First, they had Robert Malley and Amb. Martin Indyk, more recently they have had Aaron Miller and Michael Ruben. Aaron Miller was part of Dennis Ross' Middle East negotiating team formed by Secretary of State Jim Baker. I didn't know and didn't care until after I left State that they were all Jewish. Similarly, Richard Haass, the new head of the Council on Foreign Relations, who served at State, is Jewish. These people cannot be unbiased when the issue is Israel, because Israel is a Jewish state.

Will Israel Take Bush Down the Tubes?

Maybe joining itself at the hip with Israel will finally begin to work against the Bush administration. This article in the WP indicates it may, as does this article from the Christian Science Monitor. An article in yesterday's NYT, however, indicated that the confrontation may have some downsides for Iran, which would be a plus for Bush. In general, though, it looks like Iran is winning the battle for hearts and minds around the world. Bush is responsible for this, mainly by having poked his finger in everybody's eye around the world for the last five or six years, then by invading Iraq on false pretenses, and now by supporting Israel no matter what atrocities Israel commits.

It's true that Hezbollah is worse than Israel in terms of how it is fighting the war, but Israel is supposed to be a civilized country like the US, while Hezbollah gets a pass because it's a known terrorist group; so, everybody expects it to act like a terrorist group. People do not, and should not, expect the US and Israel to act like terrorists, although they have done so in Iraq and Lebanon. The US needs to return to its former law abiding self, and begin to treat Israel as it treats other countries.

Of course, the US position in support of Israel points out the fact that the administration has sold itself to big Jewish contributors, to AIPAC, and to evangelicals looking for the Rapture, who are poorer but vote in larger numbers for Republicans than rich Jews.

Would the Mid-East Be Different Without Israel?

Israel seems to be the focus of unrest in the Mid-East, as the Jewish state in midst of a sea of Arab and Muslim states. If it weren't there would the Middle East be calmer? Of course, we don't know, but probably not. Zionist Jews were fighting for the creation of the state of Israel for decades before it was created by the UN after World War II. Jews introduced terrorist tactics into the Middle East with the Stern Gang and other Jewish terrorist organizations. Their terrorism was mainly directed at Britain as the colonial power ruling the Palestine mandate. But Jewish terrorists were also responsible for killing the first UN envoy after the creation of the UN and Israel, because they so violently opposed his mission of looking into the possibility of a right of return for Arabs evicted from Israel.

If Israel had not been created, Jews would still be fighting in Palestine for the creation of a Jewish homeland. However, they would probably be the aggressors attacking Arab states instead of the current situation where Arabs attack the Jewish state created from formerly Arab land. But the fight long predated the creation of Israel and would no doubt be going on now because both groups want the same piece of land.

However, the Jews in the Middle East would probably not have nuclear weapons, F-16s with laser guided missiles, and other US supplied weapons if Israel did not exist.

Who Are We Supporting in Israel?

Why is the US more supportive of Israel than any other nation in the world? I feel like I am going to be called anti-Semitic for my concerns about Jewish influence on American foreign policy, but it is a problem. The article by Mearsheimer and Walt shows that my concerns are not unique.

There are at least three main kinds of Jews with differing views on Israel and American foreign policy. First there are the religious Jews, most of whom are also ethnic or racial Jews. Of course, they fall into different categories, too, from orthodox to reform. The closer they are to Orthodox, probably the more strongly Jews support Israel. Then there are secular Jews, Jews by race or ethnicity who are not religious. I understand that many of the Jews in Israel are secular Jews, although many others, particularly in the occupied territories are very religious. Finally there are the Zionists, Jews of all backgrounds who strongly support Israel.

Israel confuses the whole Jewish issue and the anti-Semitism argument. If you don't like Israel, many Jews take that as meaning that you don't like Jews, when that is not the case. When we lived in Poland, I thought Poland did a good job in discriminating between the Nazis and the Germans. They may not have been totally successful, but they tried to direct their dislike at the Nazis, rather than at all Germans. It should be possible to dislike or disapprove of a state, in particular because of its government and rulers, without disliking or disapproving of all the people who live there.

So, Jews who take disapproval of Israel as disapproval of all Jews take that weight on themselves. If that were true, it would mean that all Jews are loyal to Israel first, and then to whatever country they happen to live in, e.g., the U.S. I don't believe that all Jews are disloyal Americans, but rabid Zionists would have us believe that they are.