Why do the countries with the means to compel a change in Israel’s course — a course Western leaders routinely describe as counter-productive to peace and even contrary to Israel’s long-term interest — limit their role to hand-wringing? Is their helplessness feigned or real?
There are four elements that maintain the status quo, variously playing off another: (i) US politics; (ii) European guilt; (iii) the imbalance of power between the parties to the conflict; and (iv) a cowed Infotainment Complex that serves up, almost exclusively, the Israeli narrative.
US Politics
It’s not news that US domestic politics — using the combustible energy of diaspora groups (e.g., Cubans, the Irish, Poles) — drives the country’s foreign policy on certain issues. Seekers of political power must be mindful of that energy lest their aspirations crash and burn. We know you can’t win Florida without the exile Cubans’ blessing.
US Jews have long been vocal in their carte blanche support for Israel. Whatever Israel did, criticism of Israel is reflexively made synonymous with antisemitism, the apex of objectionable views in a civilized society, even if a younger generation of American Jews has come to question the legitimacy of the Israeli occupation.
A new ingredient to this mix is the Evangelicals vote, a solid core of Republican support since Reagan. Regardless what happens in next year’s GOP primaries (support for Trump remains strong), it’s safe to say that Evangelicals will not vote for Biden in the general election.
Theology drives Evangelicals’ unstinting support for Israel. With their Biblical literalism, they see the achievement of a Greater Israel (i.e., acquisition, by whatever means, of all the land, including the Occupied Territories and Gaza) as fulfillment of the prophecy, the Second Coming. God chose the Jews for that purpose.
Given the South as the center point of Evangelicals in the US, Democratic politicians are forced to tone down to insignificance whatever criticism of Israel they might have if they are to stand chance in an election. A couple of insignificant exceptions aside, Democrats in and out of office have adhered to this principle for decades.
These domestic political considerations require American politicians to ignore Israel’s recurring violations of its legal obligations to the Palestinians under its dominion. Add the Washington foreign policy establishment’s never-ending obsession with Iran and it’s clear that nothing will change. The Palestinian’s fate is sealed.
And while some in the US do speak up on behalf of Palestinians by highlighting the racism of Israeli policies, they’re a tiny minority. The rest — Democrats and Republicans alike, on a vote count of 412-9 — will bellow a hymn of denial. Inconvenient facts, however open and obvious, are declared away: “Israel is not a racist state.”
All to say that there is a consensus, however objectionable, among the American public. That consensus demands that the US interfere neither with Israel’s abominable occupation nor with its long-term objective of expropriating (stealing) all the land and, at some point, forcibly expelling Palestinians from the Occupied Territories and Gaza.
In light of that consensus, why does Washington, regardless who is in power, keep up the fiction about a two-state solution and the need for negotiations? It can’t be to avoid offending Arab states, all of whom have reconciled themselves to Israel. None have an interest in the fate of 6 million Palestinians slowly choked out of existence by it.
It’s easy to think that chasing the Evangelical vote (and its corollary, not alienating the American Jewish one) explains this. But there must be something more. Because it’s not only the policies, but the obsequiousness of US political leaders, especially Tony Blinken, who can’t seem to praise Netanyahu and his government enough.
Is it Stockholm syndrome? Traditional American provincialism? Certainly, Washington and Jerusalem share animosity to Iran, one out of a grudge, the other out of geopolitical delusion. But it appears that Israeli technocrats, soldiers, and politicians really have captured the very minds of their American counterparts.
Especially strange, then, is why Washington continues with the fiction that a two-state solution is in the cards. With domestic political alignments being what they are, and with no other country pushing for an end to the Israeli obligation, wouldn’t decency alone call for an admission of the obvious by the US?
