In Foreign Affairs, Walter Russell Mead extends his critique of Walt and Mearsheimer by arguing that love of Israel is American as apple pie.
When presidents overrule their expert advisers
and take a pro-Israel position, observers attribute the move to the
"Israel lobby" and credit (or blame) it for swaying the chief
executive. But there is another factor to consider. As the Truman
biographer David McCullough has written, Truman's support for the
Jewish state was "wildly popular" throughout the United States.
A
Gallup poll in June 1948 showed that almost three times as many
Americans “sympathized with the Jews” as “sympathized with the Arabs.”
That support was no flash in the pan. Widespread gentile support for
Israel is one of the most potent political forces in U.S. foreign
policy, and in the last 60 years, there has never been a Gallup poll
showing more Americans sympathizing with the Arabs or the Palestinians
than with the Israelis.Over time, moreover, the pro-Israel sentiment in the United States has increased, especially among non-Jews.
In the United States, a pro-Israel foreign policy does not represent
the triumph of a small lobby over the public will. It represents the
power of public opinion to shape foreign policy in the face of concerns
by foreign policy professionals. Like the war on drugs and the fence
along the Mexican border, support for Israel is a U.S. foreign policy
that makes some experts and specialists uneasy but commands broad
public support…
The piece quickly goes to the religious/philosophical. Sort of like Michael Oren, but loftier:
Besides a direct divine promise, two other important justifications
that the Americans brought forward in their contests with the Native
Americans were the concept that they were expanding into “empty lands”
and John Locke’s related “fair use” doctrine, which argued that unused
property is a waste and an offense against nature.
More highmindedness. Mead sees the ordinary Americans who love Israel as “Jacksonian.”
[F]or Jacksonians, Israel, despite all its
power and all its victories, remains an endangered David surrounded by
enemies. The fact that the Arabs and the larger community of one
billion Muslims support, at least verbally, the Palestinian cause
deepens the belief among many Jacksonians that Israel is a small and
vulnerable country that deserves help.
The conclusion has the guts to mention Jewish money:
In the future, as in the past, U.S. policy toward the Middle East will,
for better or worse, continue to be shaped primarily by the will of the
American majority, not the machinations of any minority, however
wealthy or engaged in the political process some of its members may be.
I have a few reactions. Walter Russell Mead supported the Iraq war. Some of those war supporters, rather than robing themselves in sackcloth, have decided to just get on the bus and see where it goes. Mead is happily on the bus. It’s headed way right, toward elaborate theories of religious militance in the American heartland. I bet that Mead’s elite cohort (Protestant; his father’s a priest) is very much in my camp on this question; it’s the old abolitionist coalition. So Mead needs to displace his pro-Israel ideas on to common people who he probably doesn’t know, and calls them Jacksonian. Jackson Democrats supported slavery too.
If Israel is so beloved by Americans–and as I often say here, maybe they really do love Israel; look, I live in elitist New York–then about 7000 Jews I saw at AIPAC 2 weeks back are wasting their money. And as a cheapo of the first water, I think Jews are pretty smart about money. They spend that money because it’s money well-spent. And I can tell you, those people simply do not trust Americans to love Israel, and I think they’re right. Book after book I read speaks of all the pressure and influence that Truman was under when he signed off on Israel. The latest is Irreconcilable Differences? a wonderful work of sociology by Steven T. Rosenthal. The words pressure and influence are his. “The importance of American Jewish influence in bringing about this decision can hardly be overemphasized.” Abba Eban also spoke of “pressure” and “influence,” and spoke of all the money Truman got. All I argue for in this blog is to get rid of the pressure tactics.
Mead is right about the polling. But I say this is a reflection of media distortion. Let’s let all those Jacksonian divine Americans see what is going on in the Occupied Territories, which Mead of course elides here, before they sign off. As it is, the media give us a distorted view of the place and the politics. Show the water those Palestinian kids are drinking. Show the religious crazies on the ridgelines of Judea and Samaria. I think support would evaporate.
Adam Horowitz, of AFSC, sent me this piece. And he has a more generous response to it, and adduces some actual observations to support Mead.
“I understood his argument as saying that politics are something fluid
and actually uses Carter’s own journey [from pro-Israel to critical] to illustrate this. I also think
that AIPAC is effective is advocating for specific policies, but this
article helps show the reservoir of ideals and values that grants them
acceptance or at least discourages deep interrogation.
“Last November i was in Palestine leading a delegation and we were
meeting with Ghassan Andoni at Bir Zeit. One delegate asked him why he
thinks the US supports Israel so much (clearly expecting an answer
along the lines of “the Israel Lobby” or “the media”) and Ghassan
answered our shared settler ideology and experience leads to a natural
affinity – each countries success affirms the other. This sorta blew my
mind, but I’ve thought a lot about it since and think its a very
compelling idea. The sad truth is that AIPAC (and the broader lobby)
isn’t totally pulling the wool over our eyes, but using a confluence of
influences and affinities to push through their specific vision and
tapping into what is understood as “common sense” in much of the US.”I’m more cynical. I’d note that Mead cites Stalin as influencing the American left in its support Israel, back when Israel was a leftwing cause. “At Yalta, Joseph Stalin told Franklin Roosevelt that he, too, was a
Zionist, and in May of 1947, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko
announced before the United Nations that the Soviet Union supported the
creation of a Jewish state.” Well here is Peter Voskamp of the Block Island Times, telling me about his recent interview with Nikita Khrushchev’s son:
“I interviewed Sergei Khrushchev (Nikita’s son) on Friday on a variety of subjects. What an interesting guy. I asked him about the Suez and his father’s reaction, and about Israel in general. During this segment of the discussion a sly smile appeared on Sergei’s face and he said, ‘you know, Stalin was actually the first world leader to come out in support of the establishment of Israel–before the British and before the U.S. Of course, he did it for cynical reasons. He guessed that Israel would remain a source of irritation/difficulty for the West for years to come.'”
Never a good idea to invoke Stalin uncynically. Supporting the Iraq War has led a lot of intellectuals to funny places.
