Why Does the Left Hate Israel?
January 22nd, 2004
The American Thinker
For decades, most American Jews have believed there were far greater threats from the fringe right than the fringe left in this country. While this view may have been reasonable in the past, it is certainly not so today. The fringe right still exists- the neo-Nazis in Northwest Idaho, Matthew Hale, and David Duke, and the remnants of the KKK. But the views of the fringe right have been marginalized by their repudiation by virtually all mainstream elements on the political right.
The fringe left, on the other hand, has evolved into a broader left, and become more mainstream. The political perspective of this new left is vehemently anti-Israel, and the power and reach of this movement represent a real threat to Israel, and by extension to Jews who support Israel.
WHAT IS THE LEFT?
The left does not mean the Democratic Party in Congress. When pro-Israel resolutions come before the Congress, due in part to the extraordinary efforts of AIPAC [America Israel Public Affairs Committee], a very high percentage of both Democrats and Republicans vote a solidly pro-Israel agenda. There are some small differences between the parties, however, especially in the House. In particular, the support for Israel among African American Congressmen, all Democrats, has dropped in recent years. However, the defeat in the 2002 cycle of Cynthia McKinney, and Earl Hilliard, two members who were hostile to Israel, and the election to their seats of Denise Majettte and Arthur Davis, has put two highly visible, very pro-Israel African Americans into the Congress.
In the Senate, you have a different situation. Senators run statewide - which tends to move them towards the center in competitive states. Add to this the fact that many Senators have national political ambitions, and almost all Senators wind up having mainstream views on the Middle East. The mainstream view in Congress is to be a supporter of Israel. This is due in part, as I said already, to effective lobbying, but also to the widely held view that Israel is an embattled democracy, living in a neighborhood full of authoritarian, thuggish anti-American regimes, that Israel shares the western values this country holds dear, and is engaged in the same fight against Islamic terrorists as this country.
These views are also mainstream for most Americans, which is why support for Israel routinely runs three to five times the support level for the Palestinians in every public opinion survey that is taken. In the House, the tendency to use the redistricting process after every census for incumbent protection, has led to the creation of a very large number of safe seats, and very few competitive ones (perhaps 10-15% of the total). This has given incumbents the ability to be less mainstream in their views on this issue and others. The growth in the Arab and Muslim population in America, and the creation of more districts with high percentages of African American voters, are both elements that could create more House members sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, since both African Americans, as a group, and Arabs and Muslims, to a much larger extent, are less sympathetic to Israel than the general population. In any case, it would be hard to point to any individual member of Congress today and say that he or she hates Israel.
The left in this country includes large numbers of academics, journalists, human rights activists, environmental and animal rights activists, entertainers, and some church groups, women’s groups, racial advocacy groups and unions. There are also liberals who are members of these same groups. I distinguish between leftists and liberals by one key test: how they feel about the country in which they live. If you tend to regard America as a primarily flawed, evil, unjust, racist country (or at least when Republicans are running it), and most importantly, believe that the US is the primary threat to world peace internationally, then you are a leftist, and not a liberal. Of course, many leftists are perfectly happy to be living here, amidst all their complaints about the country, and regrettably all too few Hollywood artists carried through with their threat to leave the country after the 2000 election.
This does not mean, however, that many liberals, while generally pro-Israel, have been on the right side of many foreign policy debates. From the cold war to both of the Iraq wars, many, though certainly not all liberals, have been on the anti-war side of the foreign policy debate. But liberals, as distinguished from leftists, do not think America is a bad country. Most liberals think America is an improvable country, if only we made the tax system more progressive, spent more money on social services, and worked more through multilateral organizations abroad. Liberals tend to support overseas military missions when our effort supports a human rights concern, and much less so if the military engagement is claimed to be in support of a strategic objective. Liberals, by and large, supported American military involvement in the wars in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Haiti, and now Liberia, while opposing the two wars with Iraq.
One can not generalize about all liberal political leaders, however. Scoop Jackson, President Harry Truman, President Lyndon Johnson, and President John F. Kennedy were all liberals, and so today is Dick Gephardt, and to some extent Joe Lieberman. All of these men, however, supported assertive foreign policies, not much different from today’s neo-conservatives. So, among liberals, and certainly within the Democratic Party, there is debate and there are differing views on foreign policy. Among leftists, however, there is a lockstep view of America’s role in the world. You can not be a “card carrying” leftist today, and find any reason to support American military efforts abroad, whether it be to save Kosovo from the Serbs, or to liberate Iraq, or destroy the Taliban in Afghanistan. Certainly, some leftists defend American involvement in World War II, since we were fighting right wing fascists. But even here, many on the left argue that most of the heavy lifting in this war was performed by the Soviet Union, our communist allies.
DOES THE LEFT HATE ISRAEL?
Opposition to the recent American invasion of Iraq is not a defining characteristic of a leftist. You could be opposed to the war, without being a leftist. However, some, perhaps many, of those who opposed the war are leftists, by the definition I provided above. While I was a supporter of the war effort, there were legitimate reasons to be opposed to going to war, that do not in any way raise a question of someone’s patriotism.
However, when a demonstrator carries a sign in an anti-war rally saying Stop AmeriKKKan Imperialism, or America and Israel are the Real Axis of Evil, that I think is different, and reflects not a reasoned consideration of the Iraq question, but a worldview that is anti-American, hence leftist, and guarantees opposition to the war effort. Only one other country other than the US was ever named in a sign carried by a demonstrator at the marches or rallies I saw, and that of course was Israel and always negatively.
I happened to witness several anti-war demonstrations. There were always many printed signs attacking Israel, signs in other words produced by groups that participated in anti-war demonstrations, and thought it was entirely consistent to be both against the war with Iraq and anti-Israel. Think about this issue this way: was there a single pro-war rally in the country in which there was an anti-Israel sign? I don’t remember seeing one or hearing about one. During the period leading up to the war and in the months since, has there been any supporter of the war on any talk show or newscast, or in any op-ed, gratuitously attacking Israel?
What is it about Israel that brings forth this ill will from the left? Why this exceptionalism about Israel? Alan Dershowitz once wrote an article describing a visitor from another galaxy who comes to earth, and spends several weeks visiting major American colleges and universities. At the end of his tour, the visitor would learn that of all the nations of the world other than the one he was visiting, only one is subject to a divestment effort for a university’s endowment, only one is viciously described in literature regularly distributed to students on campus, and in essays and editorials in college papers and magazines, and only one is discussed in classes across the humanities curriculum with relentless rebuke and scorn. And this country is not, say Sudan or Nigeria, where millions have died in vicious civil wars perpetrated for the most part by Muslims against Christians, or other countries in Africa that still practice slavery, or Saudi Arabia, where women have no rights, and those who try to practice a religion other than Islam are arrested or expelled, or the Palestinian territories, in which homosexuals or those suspected of being homosexual, are tortured or mutilated in the same way as captured Israelis. It is not in fact, any of the dozens of other unsavory places on the planet that provide little or no freedom for their citizens and ruthlessly exploit their country’s workers and resources for the benefit of the ruling few. This much maligned country of course is Israel.
The treatment of America itself on the college campus is pretty bad. When a Columbia University professor calls for a million Mogadishus (in other words, the death of many millions of Americans), that is beyond even what we normally get from the academic left - rationalizing and explaining the root causes of the 9/11 attacks (American policies of course), or defending suicide bombings in Israel as acts of resistance and national liberation.
But there are differences between the anger towards Israel and that directed against America. The level of anger directed against America seems to depend to some extent, among some critics at least, on the party controlling the White House and Congress. Leftists hated America less when Clinton was president than they do now. Some leftists seem so agitated by President Bush, they have become unhinged from any ability to see the world except in conspiratorial, and apocalyptic terms. With Israel, the party in power makes little difference in terms of the attitudes towards it in academia, or for others on the left. A left of center Israeli government may make Israel easier to defend for some Jews, but does not change the nature of the historical crime that was committed in establishing the Zionist state for most leftists.
WHY DOES THE LEFT HATE ISRAEL?
I believe there are several reasons:
1. It is an easy way to express one’s hatred for America.
2. Israel is viewed as an outpost of colonialism , and an active practitioner of it.
3. Israel is a western nation, and hence can be judged by the left. Israel is not protected by cultural relativism, as the Arabs are.
4. Leftist Christian churches can escape any lingering guilt about the Holocaust, by turning Israel into a villain. Some leftist churches hate Israel because they think this will help protect their members in the holy land- in other words they feel threatened.
5. Ferocious Muslim hatred of Israel and the Jews reinforces the natural cowardice of many on the left who go along with the Muslims to stay out of their line of fire.
6. Jewish leftists are prominent in the anti-Israel movement. This opens the floodgates for everybody else.
7. Israel is attacked because the secular left is appalled by the influence of religious settlers and their biblical connections to the land of Israel, and by the support for Israel by evangelical Christians, and Christian Zionists.
1. Hatred of America
The most basic reason as suggested already is that those who hate America, also hate those whom America supports, of which Israel is exhibit A. For Al Qaeda, there is the great Satan, America, and the little Satan, Israel. Since 9/11, Al Qaeda has made the focus of its hatred for the great Satan, the great Satan’s support for the little Satan. In Europe there are a much larger number of hardcore leftists than we have in the United States. Score one for America, I think. Two percent of the population vote for the Green Party here, 10% or more do so in European countries. While many think the Greens are primarily an environmental movement, the party platform in every country in which they are a factor, including the US, is replete with harsh attacks on Israel. In many European countries, the Greens are part of a left of center governing coalition, which helps explain why there is so little sympathy for Israel in Europe.
Why do the Greens hate Israel? The Greens hate the western consumer society in which they live, they hate corporations and capitalism, and they hate globalization. America is the great Satan for the Greens - the killer of Kyoto, the maker of genetically modified foods, the exporter of McDonald’s, Disney, Hollywood trash and Starbucks. So the Greens are leftist by definition. And economic leftists have an anti-American world view which tends to make them reflexively pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel. This hatred of America, which spills over into anti-Israel venom, is, as mentioned earlier, also quite common on the college campuses in America.
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