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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   Edited 1yr ago   38204 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 12, 2022

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I don't fully understand the Israel conundrum.

The ideological stake over the issue hasn't been divided merely between the left and right, but within each aisle too. In recent years, it seems as though liberals have fallen out of love with them and many of them believe that (on principle) Israel shouldn't exist. While others believe in the two state solution. The mainstream media has been louder about the IDF's excesses in occupied territories (like this one, a cursory search). Tankies over at GrayZone and related websites are convinced that western mainstream media is still defending Israel. I don't get this position, are they arguing that western media isn't criticising Israel enough or that the media is silent altogether? The right seems to be divided too, many of them enthusiastically support them while others don't like that billions of dollars of taxpayer money is sent to Israel every year and they're convinced that their lobby in the US is most supportive of liberalism and progressivism and the war machine.

My questions are what drove the evolution of these views into what they are, exactly how influential is the Israel lobby in the US, why do tankies believe that Israel doesn't get criticised in the media, are the liberals starting to decouple from Israel, are there any other reasons besides the treatment of Palestinians that the Israel question takes up so much oxygen in the foreign policy room?

Read Mearsheimer's 'The Israel Lobby'.

It's absolutely astonishing how much Israel gets from the US and how much harm it causes the US.

Israel didn't participate in either of the Gulf Wars (in fact they sucked up Patriot missile batteries that could've been used elsewhere due to Iraqi Scud strikes attempting to fracture the US-led Coalition). They provided dubious/faulty intelligence on Iraq's WMDs to encourage the second Gulf War. Their invasion of Lebanon in 1982 led to the foundation of Hezbollah, which then attacked US forces in the area. People like Ramzi Yousef (first WTC bomber) was a single-issue anti-Israeli terrorist. Osama Bin Laden was heavily influenced by US support for Israel (and its treatment of Palestinians) in the development of his views. Iran's nuclear program is a threat to US interests aside from Israel but it was heavily motivated by the Israeli nuclear arsenal. Said arsenal also exposes the lie in the US's non-proliferation efforts and makes it harder for the US to negotiate.

While Israel did help beat up Soviet allies in the Middle East, US unwillingness to sell weapons to Egypt and co pushed them towards the Soviets in the first place. The Cold War is over, so the US could dump Israel like they dumped South Africa.

The US-Israeli alliance angers a lot of Arabs making them uncooperative with the US (even supposedly US-friendly states worry about losing their legitimacy by openly helping the US). When the US provided massive aid to Israel in the 1973 war the Arabs responded with an oil embargo that cost the US hundreds of billions of dollars.

Furthermore, US aid to Israel is unusually generous in scale and type. The US funded billions for the development of indigenous, Israeli-only weapons like the Merkava tank and the (cancelled) Lavi aircraft. The US prepositioned military supplies in Israel (ostensibly for their own use there), which the Israelis then used for their 2006 war in Lebanon. The US provides billions of dollars to Israel's neighbours like Egypt and Jordan to maintain good relations with Israel. The aid Israel gets has very little oversight and it gets sent out at the beginning of the year rather than in monthly or quarterly installments, so they get interest on it.

And then there's all the espionage, selling US technology to the Chinese and the USS Liberty incident.

The US has allies who actually participate in American wars, who provide useful intelligence and bases, who don't cause all kinds of problems for the US. Nobody else gets special treatment like this, a fact that is due to the astonishing power of the Israel lobby. They have tremendous influence. I'll add some excerpts from the book:

Former House Speaker Richard Armey said in September 2002 that "my No. 1 priority in foreign policy is to protect Israel."

Morris Amitay, a former head of AIPAC, once noted, "There are a lot of guys at the working level up here [on Capitol Hill] . . . who happen to be Jewish, who are willing . . . to look at certain issues in terms of their Jewishness . . . These are all guys who are in a position to make the decision in these areas for those senators . . . You can get an awful lot done just at the staff level

Bill Clinton once described AIPAC as "stunningly effective" and "better than anyone else lobbying in this town," while former House Speaker Newt Gingrich called it "the most effective general-interest group . . . across the entire planet."

Harry Lonsdale, the Democratic candidate who ran unsuccessfully against Senator Mark Hatfield (R-OR) in 1990, has described his own visit to AIPAC headquarters during that campaign. "The word that I was pro-Israel got around," he writes. "I found myself invited to AIPAC in Washington, D.C., fairly early in the campaign, for 'discussions.' It was an experience I will never forget. It wasn't enough that I was pro-Israel. I was given a list of vital topics and quizzed (read grilled) for my specific opinion on each. Actually, I was told what my opinion must be, and exactly what words I was to use to express those opinions in public . . . Shortly after that encounter at AIPAC, I was sent a list of American supporters of Israel . . . that I was free to call for campaign contributions. I called; they gave, from Florida to Alaska.

Philip Zelikow, a member of the president's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board ( 2001 - 03 ) , executive director of the 9/11 Commission, and counsellor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ( 2005 - 06 ) , told a University of Virginia audience on September 10, 2002 , that Saddam was not a direct threat to the United States. "The real threat," he argued, is "the threat against Israel." He went on to say, "And this is the threat that dare not speak its name, because the Europeans don't care deeply about that threat . . . And the American government doesn't want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell.

There's an entire chapter devoted to Israel's antipathy for Syria (over the Golan Heights which the Israelis annexed from Syria and the Syrians want back) and attempts to get America to deal with them. Familiar names like John Bolton pop up now and again, it's like seeing the prequel to a TV show. Now that Syria's been engulfed in an extremely bloody civil war, it's easy to see how Israeli influence might have been involved in bringing the US into the conflict. US troops still patrol parts of Eastern Syria to this day.

And the book goes on further! There's the Lebanon chapter, where the Israelis killed 1100 Lebanese civilians after Hezbollah killed a handful of their soldiers. They were partially using nominally US-owned weapons as part of their war effort, of course. The calumnies and skullduggery just goes on and on...

I have great sympathy for the tankies on the matter of Israel and media bias.

Just to provide another perspective, I just recently read this book by Stephen Gowans - an actual tankie - and I thought it provided a reasonable argument for seeing the relationship the other way around, ie. it is really US that is at top of this relationship and Israel its accomplice.

Basically, the argument is that it's not necessary to argue that US relationship to Israel is governed by factors beyond direct US interests. In Gowans' telling, what is important is America's grand strategic vision for Middle East, which revolves around keeping Middle East divided in small states that cannot unite under the aegis of socialist Arab nationalism or another vision, ie. Islam. The biggest danger from American perspective would be an united socialist Arab nation which could nationalize oil production and stop easy Western access relatively inexpensive and guaranteed supply of Middle Eastern oil, not mainly because US needs it, as such, but because it concurrently works as a control factor that keeps Europe on US leash.

For this purpose, America supports whatever forces that can effectively stand against Arab socialism and anti-American Islamism (Iran included), whether that means Gulf monarchs, suitably non-anti-American Islamists, ethnic minorities, secular pro-American dictators - or Israel, a settler-colonialist nation created and fostered through Western influence. Israel is just one part of a general puzzle, albeit a very important one, due to its strategic location and the fact that is interests and Western interests meet quite well.

Thus, it's not necessary to explain the invasion of Iraq with Israeli influence - it's sufficient that Saddam at least came from an Arab-nationalist background and ran a highly nationalized economy (which was swiftly privatized after Iraq invasion). It's not necessary to explain the destabilization of Syria with Israeli influence - it's sufficient that Assad is an Arab nationalist, and even a successful overthrow of his regime is not necessary, destabilization is enough to achieve goals. It's not necessary to explain Nasser's pro-Soviet orientation with Israel - US would have eventually opposed him anyway, as he was an Arab nationalist. The same goes for Gaddafi etc.

I'm not saying that I'm fully buying this thesis, but it's an interesting counterweight.

The biggest danger from American perspective would be an united socialist Arab nation which could nationalize oil production and stop easy Western access relatively inexpensive and guaranteed supply of Middle Eastern oil, not mainly because US needs it, as such, but because it concurrently works as a control factor that keeps Europe on US leash.

I have never quite understood this argument. All of those countries need to sell oil in order to finance various state projects (including the all-important state project of ensuring that spoils go to the people whose support the leader needs to stay in power). So, the idea that in any realistic scenario the West will be unable to buy oil doesn't make much sense.

So, the idea that in any realistic scenario the West will be unable to buy oil doesn't make much sense.

At least, if you have not read about or lived through the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo, or the 1979 oil crisis. Things can in fact get worse in a way that is bad for the people making them worse too.

I did, in fact, live through both of those incidents. But the latter was the result of a drop in production as a result of conflict; it was not an embargo. As for the former, it was short-lived, and that is the point: It is unsustainable for those states to employ an embargo for very long. Note, also, that the US is not reliant on imported oil anymore, unlike in 1973; moreover the vast majority of current imports come from non-OPEC countries, esp Canada.

As for the former, it was short-lived, and that is the point: It is unsustainable for those states to employ an embargo for very long.

It is unsustainable as those states are currently constructed. Which is kind of the point.

But the latter was the result of a drop in production as a result of conflict; it was not an embargo.

And a united socialist Arab nation could certainly result in a drop in production. It might not be true that socialism can cause sand shortages in the Sahara, but it can certainly cause oil shortages in countries with plentiful oil.

We can see from Russia's actions, right now, that ability to offer access to oil (and gas) to other countries offers a country a lot of potential power to affect things, should it so choose, for whatever reason. The argument is not related to a simplistic "America overthrows countries to get their oil" model, it's related to the idea that America fears that oil-producing countries might use their production ability as a leverage and wishes to have enough influence to perhaps utilize that leverage itself.

simplistic "America overthrows countries to get their oil" model

That model is nowhere implied in Gdanning's reply. He argues the leverage is not that big, as any "crude democracies" have to share their oil rents to keep elites and populace sate, which sets a limit to their oil output game. Same holds for Russia: they are still reaping surpluses, even with exports to Europe shut, and hugely discounted sales to China, but I am not sure it would last for long.

The argument you outlined looks plausible to me, but all narratives about need for preventive action are also weapons by themselves.

It doesn't seem to have helped Russia this time though, even heavily dependent countries like Germany and the baltics haven't taken a soft stance. It works for minor transgressions and concessions, until it doesn't. Then the consumer finds other sources and your own economy is in shambles. It's the "King Cotton" myth.

It's still a major deal in Europe, and is predicted to cause considerable troubles, both regarding the economy and the angry populace. All things told European countries would likely vastly prefer a scenario where Russia has a government that doesn't do things like this to one that does.

It's a double-edged sword. Sure, there will be damage in europe, but the russian economy is also screwed. Using your market power like this is not some "I win" button, it's brinkmanship, you can squeeze some advantage in the beginning, but if you keep pushing, the two cars collide, and not only is your leverage gone, now you also have a serious problem.

Sure, there will be damage in europe, but the russian economy is also screwed.

But that's not what we were sold. It was "something something, the GDP of Italy, two weeks to flatten the Russian economy". The entire affair is a massive blow to credibility of people who measure economic influence by GDP.

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