What Freedom of Speech? Part V

The historical record strongly suggests that neither Jewish neo-conservatives in particular nor mainstream Jewish intellectuals generally have a primary allegiance to Israel ­ in fact, any allegiance to Israel. Mainstream Jewish intellectuals became “pro”-Israel after the June 1967 war when Israel became the U.S.A.’ s strategic asset in the Middle East, i.e., when it was safe and reaped benefits. To credit them with ideological conviction is, in my opinion, very naive.

They’re no more committed to Zionism than the neo-conservatives among them were once committed to Trotskyism; their only ism is opportunism.

As psychological types, these newly minted Lovers of Zion most resemble the Jewish police in the Warsaw ghetto. “Each day, to save his own skin, every Jewish policeman brought seven sacrificial lives to the extermination altar,” a leader of the Resistance ruefully recalled. “There were policemen who offered their own aged parents, with the excuse that they would die soon anyhow.” Jewish neo-conservatives watch over the U.S. “national” interest, which is the source of their power and privilege, and in the Middle East it happens that this “national” interest largely coincides with Israel’s “national” interest. If ever these interests clashed, who can doubt that, to save their own skins, they’ll do exactly what they’re ordered to do, with gusto?

Unlike elsewhere in the Middle East, U.S. elite policy in the Israel-Palestine conflict would almost certainly not be the same without the Lobby. What does the U.S.A. gain from the Israeli settlements and occupation? In terms of alienating the Arab world, it’s had something to lose. The Lobby probably can’t muster sufficient power to jeopardize a fundamental American interest, but it can significantly raise the threshold before U.S. elites are prepared to act ­ i.e., order Israel out of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, as the U.S. finally pressured the Indonesians out of Occupied East Timor.

Whereas Israel doesn’t have many options if the U.S. does finally give the order to pack up, the U.S. won’t do so until and unless the Israeli occupation becomes a major liability for it: on account of the Lobby the point at which “until and unless” is reached significantly differs. Without the Lobby and in the face of widespread Arab resentment, the U.S. would perhaps have ordered Israel to end the occupation by now, sparing Palestinians much suffering;

In the current “either-or” debate on whether the Lobby affects U.S. Middle East policy at the elite level, it’s been lost on many of the interlocutors that a crucial dimension of this debate should be the extent to which the Lobby stifles free and open public discussion on the subject. For in terms of trying to broaden public discussion here on the Israel-Palestine conflict the Lobby makes a huge and baneful difference. Especially since U.S. elites have no entrenched interest in the Israeli occupation, the mobilization of public opinion can have a real impact on policy-making ­ which is why the Lobby invests so much energy in suppressing discussion.