There’s a debate that goes like: America supports the Zionist cause because of strategic interest in the middle east, to test weaponry, to park aircraft, etc. The other side says America supports Zionism because of powerful lobbying from organizations like AIPAC and the ADL. Then I guess there’s a third explanation involving American evangelicals and their religious doctrines, along with their own lobbying and campaigning.
For me personally it seems like it’s all of those things at the same time, with perhaps strategic interest being the most pressing. I say that because of the multiple instances of the CIA discovering things like Israeli spying equipment in Washington DC, and yet nothing is done. There are literal Israeli intelligence assets working as aides to senators and nothing is done. I only ever see feds do that when they’ve been instructed something is off-limits.
I also know this wasn’t always the case, because people like Johnathan Pollard got thrown in jail. And I know the Bush Sr admin was less amicable. So what’s yall’s stance here
It’s the first one. America took up the Zionist entity as a vassal and forward operating base for its own strategic interests.
The ADL and AIPAC are a feedback mechanism from that forward operating base - that is to say, if it were just a military base staffed with soldiers in a linear command structure it wouldn’t need the lobbyists. But because it’s a state with settlers it is critical that coordinating information flows back from the entity into the leadership of the US in order for the system to function effectively. Otherwise Israel would have a citizens’ revolt and domestic political pressure to break with the US.
The evangelical thing is just a domestic influence vector, nothing more. The support for Israel is expressed and propagated via the evangelical channel, not the other way around. The evangelical channel is not directing the government to support Israel.
i think you’re letting a lot of people off a few hooks there. Evangelical true believers are in high positions and those guys would maintain support for israel even if geopolitics changed, and they don’t need threats from aipac etc or to be disciplined like jamal bowman was.
further i think the lobbying pushes reps who wouldn’t care otherwise and don’t really understand the geopolitics angle to support israel and to be even less responsive to voters as public support has deteriorated. there’s hundreds of people in congress, they’re not all true believers.
far and away the main thing is the first one but there are factions and competing interests at play here and those are stressors on the situation.
Evangelical true believers are in high positions
This is a misunderstanding. The existing American power system used Evangelicalism as part of its program and part of that program is recruitment. Evangelicalism is not steering the power structure, the power structure is super charging evangelicalism.
those guys would maintain support for israel even if geopolitics changed
A) What geopolitical change are you imagining where the US empire doesn’t need a base in West Asia?
B) your supposition and my supposition are not contradictory. Yes. The power structure energized evangelicalism and yes that process is capable of escaping containment under a crisis. We are not yet at such a crisis for that to occur. Evangelicalism is still integrated with the power system that energized it.
further i think the lobbying pushes reps who wouldn’t care otherwise
Yes, that’s what a feedback function does.
there’s hundreds of people in congress, they’re not all true believers.
Hence the requirement of the power structure to fund the lobbying function to discipline and coordinate the administrators of the Republic.
there are factions and competing interests at play here and those are stressors on the situation.
Of course there are factions. But they are all factions of the power structure. They are not external to the power structure, they compose the power structure. The stressors are not coming from the factions, the stressors are coming from the geopolitical ecosystem that the power structure is operating in. The fissures between factions are showing because the structure is under pressure from outside.
those guys would maintain support for israel even if geopolitics changed
A) What geopolitical change are you imagining where the US empire doesn’t need a base in West Asia?
i’m not, i was highlighting that some support is independent of the imperial interest.
and apparently i think the christian dominionists and eschatologists are more independent than you do. that’s not something we’re going to settle in a random forum discussion.
I mean it could be. We were founded by people who thought that God gave them the right to rape, murder, enslave, and torture the people of this land if they didn’t immediately convert to Christianity and follow the orders of Christian men. That was literally who Europe flooded this land with. What independence would a state power structure have from those sorts of people when they were literally here from the beginning organizing literally everything they put their hands on in accordance with their will. Sure, it is a faction, but it was always a faction, and the shifting identities and boundaries and alliances and narratives are all part and parcel of collaboratively maintaining the power structure with all the other factions that were part of the power structure.
The illusion is that the US is somehow separate from the process that created the dominionists and therefore the dominionists are working to “take over”, just like the illusion that Israel is separate from the process that created it and somehow it’s operating to control the US. The Israelis are Europeans, just like the Americans are. They are all maintaining the same empire together, in collaboration, and they all have their roles to play, and they always have.
they’re not so harmonious amongst themselves. less of what i think “take over” implies, and more a fight for primacy. israel and its agents pull shit that is not in the interest of the larger empire and is actively harmful to the maintenance of global hegemony in favor of their “greater israel” manifest destiny.
the dog isn’t walking the man, but it can jerk the leash and make him take a step.
Yes, absolutely, but that’s the cost of building an empire. The factions in the empire are essentially required for its maintenance while simultaneously being a threat to its maintenance. That’s not unique the Israel faction or the dominionist faction. It’s true of all the key factions of the power structure. And all those factions are mostly aware the other factions exist and that they all play vital roles in the maintenance of empire. And when the pressure against the empire starts to break it down, each faction fights for their own survival and independently decides which other factions need to be disciplined and on which timelines.
That’s why I don’t think it’s worth asking if Israel is in charge or conspiring or leading or whatever. It’s clear that it’s not the dominant faction, it’s clear that it is a mission critical faction to the empire, it’s clear that most of the other factions have agreed that the Israeli faction is critical to their collective survival, and together they all make the choices that maintain Israel.
did that support exist before suez crisis? same with “judeo-christian values”. it’s remarkable how that all started gaining ground in 60-70s, not you know, 50s.
pretty sure the 60’s and 70’s were also when the propaganda movement to make evangelicals rabidly anti abortion really started taking hold
yeah Phyllis Schlafly was the real driver behind that. she also spawned conservapedia
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The Zionist entity is a forward operating base right in the middle of WANA and it is only supported insofar as it advances Western imperialist interests. When it no longer advances Western imperialist interests, it will be unceremoniously thrown under the bus like all vassals.
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There are enough true believer Zionists embedded within the Western imperialist machinery whose entire job is to fudge the numbers and rig the scale so that the imperialist calculus is still in favor of imperialist support even if the optimal realpolitiks move is to sever ties.
The key difference is that no other vassal has a governing ideology that is also adopted with various degrees of sincerity by imperialists to the point where the Zionist entity doesn’t even look like a vassal. There’s no such thing as Panamaism or South Koreanism or Taiwanism or Kenyaism, certainly not an ideology that is sincerely believed by imperialist themselves. But there is Zionism and while you start out with entirely cynical Zionists, you’ll inevitably get true believers.
Joe Biden is a true believer. When that ghoulish Zionist proudly proclaimed that the US would have to invent an Israel, that isn’t his sincere belief. “The US would have to invent an Israel” is him, a true believer Zionist, selling the idea of Israel to non-true believers who just view the Zionist entity in strict ROI terms like all other vassals. True believers like Biden are everywhere, which is how they have a distorting effect on Western imperialism.
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The Marxist analysis here is that the Israeli settler project is highly aligned with America. The big benefit in terms of logistics is Israeli workers are paid comparatively much less for work in military r&d. Due to their geopolitical alignment, it’s safe for us to offshore military production in some part to Israel which allows the MIC to send more profits to shareholders. This is something we obviously can’t do with China. These shareholders are largely finance capital adjacent, and the current paradigm in capitalism is to bolster profits to financial capitalists because they are more likely to reinvest their funds (not necessarily in America) to bolster capitalism and imperialism abroad rather than squirrel it all away. In this way, these large financial firms are the mouth and hands of international capital as a class.
Israel has many geopolitical benefits, you can bomb competing economies in order to gain a competitive advantage in production of profitable materials. It’s central location in the Old World is useful for pivoting supplylines around. There is also the legal aspect, Israeli spies are not subject to American rules and can spy and offer Intel on unruly Americans that local law enforcement may not be capable of doing.
It’s also very profitable to keep various conflicts going in the world for the MIC, the base throughput of arms production is important for them to maintain and they can only maintain it via demand. Peace is the most painful thing for financial capital, and Israel want ms to keep expanding. As a side note, they really want Ukraine to be Israel 2.0 but on a grander scale.
The original purpose was to prevent the formation of an Arab Soviet Union (the infamous “mosaic of squabbling principalities” line from a 50s state department memorandum), while also undercutting rivial imperial European energy independence and prevent the actual Soviet Union from benefiting from the energy reserves of their southern neighbors
Of course all of that has long since become defunct and now it’s coasting along on institutional inertia and racial/religious fanaticism, also there’s definitely something to the blackmail angle by Israeli intelligence, who are dimly aware that their concrete usefulness is largely spent
It’s about time we stop those of us who support, as most of us do, Israel in this body, for apologizing for our support for Israel. There’s no apology to be made. None. It is the best $3 billion investment we make. Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interest in the region.
- Joe Biden, US Senator in 1986
If anyone discounts zionisst influence in the media and in politics they are not acting in good faith, IMO.
The media deliberated for MONTHS on whether “israel” bombed Al-Shifa hospital. Even when it was a known fact, they still provided lies and covered for the entity.
Why is it that when the Minab school was bombed, the same media conglomerates who covered for “israel” blamed the US almost immediately?
Why does the BBC have an “israeli” handler that confirms or rejects every headline regarding the zionist entity? Why do zionists have their fingers all over hollywood, mainstream news, and in politics?
Jewish zionists in the west are treated as the upper caste of society. Norm Finklestein says it himself in this video about the privileges that (mainly) white jewish people have in the west.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
At the moment, I would say the second force dominates, both the lobby and the US’ own brands of Zionism. US support of Israel was so stable and aligned with its interests over decades that it became unquestionable. But no materialist can look at US foreign policy regarding Israel at the moment and say “this is all in the empire’s best interests”. Both political parties are just now starting to come to terms with that while Israel is clearly exploiting the moment while they can.
The current situation is anomalous. In general, the material logic is the primary one. It will re-assert itself shortly. There will be a correction. The democrats already got burned by their Israeli policy and even the most conservative dems are adjusting their position to reassert some authority over Israel. The GOP and the entire military for that matter is currently getting burned even worse but we might have to wait until 2028 to see them adjust.
I assume its because they’re the same thing. Same ideals, wants, needs, everything. Zionists got their playbook from Nazis who got it from the US which all of this bullshit ideology is built on top.
Yeah but when did that happen? Israel wasn’t particularly backed by western powers until maybe 1956, and that seemed more like an alliance of convenience because Egypt had just nationalized the Suez canal and the west wanted to invade and take it back. Israel and the UK fought a hot war in the late 40s and I don’t think they were on great terms.
Then after the six-day war in 1967 it seems like the west was split. America was begging Israel to stop fighting, France became outright hostile and ceased arms shipments, and the UK fence-sat and declared neutrality. When did it become this unconditional support for Zionism in spite of any other concerns?
I think it goes back to Cold War politics. The Middle East was adjusting to decolonization in the post war era, which meant there was opportunity for both the West and the Soviets to form alliances and expand influence there. So Israel making appeals to Western powers, the US specifically, made them a central pillar and base for combating Soviet influence in the region. And don’t forget, the Soviets were supplying the Arab side of the Arab-Israeli war of 1973, which just solidified the idea in the West that supporting Israel actively undermined the USSR.
US support for Israel in the 50s was just the British Empire handing over the reigns of imperialism.
Both are definitely true, but I’d add another reason - that Israeli genocide is a keystone of US MIC funding. The US has given about $300bn of military aid to Israel over time. Compare to the US’ current annual military budget of ~$900 billion.
The US loves embezzling money to the military industrial complex for a whole other set of well-known reasons. Israel is a very good excuse to consistently fund the companies relevant to ongoing-war manufacturing consumable materiel like bombs. In between the US’ own military escapades of course.
Stop funding Israel, and you stop funding the weapons industry, and then weapons industry lobbyists scowl at you. Once you begin a vicious Government-Private dependent consumption relationship in capitalism, it’s often very damaging to stop.
Any post like this should have two things: first a reminder to think in classes instead of nation states (which are always split between several class interests) and second a short primer about historical materialism and how material conditions are primary, but lead to supporting ideology, which feeds back into conditions in a dialectical way.
If we really want to understand the details of how the material interests of capital in relation to “Israel” are enforced within the messy system of US capital, then we need to start not with an analysis of international relations, but with an analysis of different factions of capital and what they need to materially reproduce the conditions for their existence. International finance capital vs national industry vs military industrial complex. Accumulation through dispossession (stealing resources, extracting rents from state funding) vs exploitation (production) vs super exploitation (opening markets abroad) etc. Common class interests of capital and it’s very strong class solidarity vs more and more competition over falling profits. The need to discipline labor at home vs the impulse to bribe the labor aristocracy with super profits.
How do these contradictions play out within the opaque institutions of the undemocratic permanent state of military and intelligence institutions, think tanks and billionaire-politician networks? It’s an important question, but it’s messy, difficult and intransparent. At least, like a sponge soaking in water, you don’t need to know all the individual channels to know, that all of it will get wet eventually. The material needs will always filter through and effect the whole system, that’s why we start with them.
(Also, as an aside, it would be a very US centric view to question the relation between the US empire at large and the US empires settler project. This discourse is itself part of the propaganda. Most affected people know who’s killing them. US capital bears 100% responsibility for the genocide.)
The second exists cause of the first.
I think it’s a circular thing, where the US has a strategic interest in the middle east, some countries got rich off this, and, in interest of not getting Saddam’d, those countries started to pay for lobbyists and buy politicians so they can’t become the new enemy of the week. Israel’s lobbying takes the form of zionist and evangelical organizations, but aside from having specific ideologies attached, I don’t think it’s that different from when Saudi Arabia does it.
west imperialism like resource. middle east (SWANA) have many resource which is good. after war they see opportunity to create state that constantly destabilize SWANA so they can take the oil which is great.
I think it’s both, US military uses it for strategic interests and AIPAC/ADL has gotten into the political side. It’s a mutually beneficial situation as long as things stay as they are so the US govt overlooks the Israeli spy equipment and things of that nature for now.
per dialectics the answer is both and neither
