OUTSOURCING FOREIGN POLICY TO ISRAEL,
BY SAM SMITH, Progressive Review, APRIL 2004
"GEORGE BUSH, with the concurrence of his purported opponent, John Kerry, has effectively outsourced his major foreign policy to Israel, thereby creating a substantially increased risk of further attacks on the U.S. mainland. Both men, however, appear motivated primarily by domestic political considerations rather than the safety of their country. It has been clear for a long time that the single most effective thing America could do to improve both its relationships and its security in Middle Eastern affairs would be to end its coddling of the right wing Israeli government, pressuring it instead to come to a reasonable accommodation with Palestine. While much of American 'even handedness' in the Middle East over the years has been a charade, the latest move clearly ends even the illusion of fairness. As the AP reported, "A senior Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Sharon thought that no American president had ever made concessions so important to Israel as Bush did on Wednesday." Pollster John Zogby told Dana Milbank and Mike Allen of the Washington Post, "This is pretty much the final nail in the coffin of the peace process as far as Arabs are concerned." ... Republican officials in Washington said that while they are confident Bush made his decision for sincere policy reasons, they believe the potential impact on the politics of 2004 could be substantial. "This will make it that much harder for John Kerry to win Florida," said a Republican aide on Capitol Hill who refused to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue. Associates said Bush's strategists believe that even small inroads into the Jewish vote could mean the difference between winning and losing Florida, and several Republicans believe the announcement could further inhibit Kerry's fundraising in the Jewish community. David Winston, a pollster who advises GOP lawmakers, said that the policy change "is clearly going to generate some favorable reaction from people who have not been traditional Republican voters." "This expands the opportunity for the Republican Party," Winston said. There is a big price to be paid for viewing "the special relationship" as a political asset. Mark Mawozer, writing in the Financial Times, notes that: The tidal wave of anti-American feeling has eroded its position as an honest broker over Palestine, while lavish aid has given it scant leverage over Israeli policy. Other administrations, if not this one, have also resented the extent of the Israeli lobby's power over Congress and White House alike. John Foster Dulles, the late US secretary of state, had underlined the dangers of a situation in which "much of the world - and the Israeli government - believed Israel could in crucial moments control US policy". President Bill Clinton was not pleased when Benjamin Netanyahu, then Israeli prime minister, once referred - with unnecessary candor - to the US as Israel's strategic asset. Here surely is the partnership's paradox: despite enjoying a global supremacy unprecedented in history, the US finds itself reacting to events, not shaping them. Where the Middle East is concerned, the power of initiative lies not in Washington but in Jerusalem. Can any great power acquiesce indefinitely to such a self-limiting posture? President George Washington had warned Americans in his Farewell Address that "a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils". He was referring to their fondness for the French. One wonders if the current US attachment to Israel will ever go the same way. The Jewish electorate in America has changed dramatically in the past decades. For much of the 20th century, Jewish activism, along with mid-western populism, were major sources of the country's progressive ideas. But with the rise of Israel as an symbol and the upward mobility of succeeding generations, the Jewish electorate became increasingly conservative, much of it now a part of a SUV liberal right that is no longer much interested in populist politics. While Muslims are an increasingly important voting bloc, they are poorer, less well organized, and less concentrated than the Jewish vote and thus less appealing to politicians. What is amazing about all this is that under discussion is a policy that could easily lead to another disaster of the scale of 9/11. It is hard to find a parallel for such a negligently reckless foreign policy in recent American history. While politicians have repeatedly catered to ethnic groups with a foreign agenda, it is unusual for such behavior to cost so much in money, goodwill, and national security ... Today, but without a healthy left, Jewish-American politics presents some of the same dangers that Italian-American politics did in the 1920s and 30s: a misbegotten conversion of love of one's roots into loyalty to a government that is a betrayal of much of what those roots are meant to mean. And, as a result, all Americans, regardless of their roots, are placed in danger." |
