This is my latest column for the Jewish Chronicle
Perceptions of Israel’s supporters are often negative. We are thought to hold tremulous politicians in a vice-like grip, to be brainlessly unquestioning in our support of any Israeli policy, and to be guilty of other horrors, including Islamophobia.
In my opinion it is some of my fellow gentile supporters of Israel that have earned us these bad names. Throughout history, the flow of recriminatory traffic has generally seen gentiles unfairly blaming Jews for various ills. In this case, Jews could justifiably blame the goyim for tainting the name of a fine cause.
Take America, where a “Jewish lobby” is said to “run foreign policy” – an accusation that has been aired afresh in the wake of Obama’s friendly Aipac conference speech. The perception of this imperious “lobby” dominating election years provokes resentment across the world.
Unfortunately, there is no such lobby: Jewish people constitute just 2.1 per cent of the American population and research shows Israel is seldom a key factor in their voting habits. The American Jewish Committee found that just three percent of respondents in a major survey named Israel as the most important factor in deciding how they vote.
Research conducted by a range of organisations keeps delivering approximately the same results. A 2010 survey that found that just seven percent of America’s Jews listed Israel as one of the top two factors deciding their vote for congress. So much for the “Jewish lobby”.
However, there is no question that Israel is considered an important issue by many American politicians. Why so? Because of a genuinely powerful electoral force – America’s 70 million-odd Christian Zionists. It is they who wield noteworthy influence in key states, and they who mobilise mass fury at any politician or broadcaster who fails to live-up to their crazy, entirely self-centred wishes on the disputed territories.
So it is not that a Jewish lobby has a grip on congress – it’s more that a Christian lobby has a grip on America’s Israel movement. A state of affairs in which Jewish people are taking the rap for something that gentiles are guilty of – where have we heard that before? No, where have we not heard that before?
Here in Europe a vocal minority of non-Jewish Israel “supporters” give the Zionist movement a bad name, from the thugs of the English Defence League who wave the Israeli flag purely to infuriate Muslims, to the hideous Geert Wilders, who so inaccurately but successfully co-brands Israel advocacy with Islamophobia. In England we have our own Wilders equivalents among the commentariat who muddy our name by linking their obsessive hate-mongering against Muslims with support for Israel.
The issue becomes clearer than ever on the Iranian nuclear question. Almost all the Jewish people I know, believe, as I do, that Israel has not just a right but a duty to do what she must to defend herself against the threat of nuclear aggression from the hideous Iranian regime. But, a few robotic activists aside, they are mindful of the sensitive complexities of the issue.
Quite a contrast to the many Western gentiles who are noisily chomping at the bit for Israel to unleash the dogs of war, safe in the knowledge that no relative of theirs would be in the crossfire of any immediate Iranian or Iranian-proxy response.
I suppose it’s easy to cry for a war to be launched by a country that in truth you consider not a friend but the enemy of your enemy. Indeed, some of these folk slam Israel’s enemies in one breath only to then damn Israel for not being hardline enough to satisfy their safely-distant bloodlust.
Well, they might just have to continue their armchair damnations a bit longer, as a recent poll showed that Israeli public opinion is more nuanced than theirs. The poll showed that 19 per cent of Israelis support an attack on Iran without American backing, 42 per cent endorse an attack only with American support, while 32 per cent oppose an attack under any circumstances. Not what some Western armchair generals wanted to hear.
Of course, many non-Jewish supporters of Israel are sincere. I suppose we just need to keep reminding ourselves that, as Israel and the Jewish people do not lack for tireless enemies, those of us who support from outside the community must be extra vigilant not to damage the name of this beautiful cause.
Follow me on Twitter
“…their crazy, entirely self-centred wishes on the disputed territories.”
That’s hardhitting but fair comment, Chas. Very thought-provoking post as usual.
Ok this is a really good column. Nice to see something original and fresh.
What are the crazy, entirely self-centred wishes of the 70 million-odd Christian Zionists regarding the disputed territories? And how uniformly held are those wishes across that group?
You can blame the gentiles, that is fine, but you blame the wrong ones. You blame the Christian-Zionists. The ones to blame are the anti-Israel gentiles who are ready to vilify and employ anti-Semitic motifs to anyone that is int he least bit sympathetic to Israel.While it is not the Jewish People’s fault there is anti-semitism, its also not the Christian-Zionists fault either.
Are you familiar at all with what is in the so-called sacred rabbinical texts..the Mishnah, the Talmud, the Shulchan Aruch? Are you familiar with what rabbis through the last 2000 years have taught? Akiva, Yohai,Rashi, Maimonides, Kook,Zalman, Schneerson, Yousef…to name a few……all racists, haters of gentiles and Christians.
A thought provoking article. However, I will make one point. You describe Geert Wilders as ‘hideous’ (questionable, but anyway) and accuse him of co-branding ‘Israel advocacy’ with ‘Islamophobia’. You then talk of Wilders equivalents in England who are guilty of ‘obsessive hate-mongering against Muslims’.
I think the conflation of these terms is a serious intellectual error. Hatemongering against the majority of decent minded Muslims is naturally to be deplored and that is why there is legal recourse for the victims of such bigotry. Groups like the EDL do indeed exploit the Zionist cause for their own malevolent purposes, waving flags to antagonise their enemies.
However, the term Islamophobia has been used most frequently to condemn anyone who seriously criticises the Islamic faith, never mind Islamism or political Islam. It is seen by much of the commentariat as a crime equivalent to anti semitism. For some, it is worse.
Yet there are many perfectly respectable reasons for people to strongly dislike Islam – as a faith it is inimical to the idea of participatory democracy, it is light years away from enlightened and progressive attitudes towards women’s rights and gay equality, and its record in treating minorities is colonialist and frequently appalling.
Are these thoughts racist or irrational? If they are not, then those at the forefront of the Islamophobia movement are simply stifling a much needed debate for their own sinister ends.
Let’s defend people in a court of law and let’s defend ideas in the court of public opinion.
Great column, tight writing!
I could not agree more. Well said and well written Mr NB!
Chas, I think you’re treading on dangerous ground in this article. The Jewish people (always remember, 0.2% of the world’s population)are beset by enemies and have precious few friends – yourself among them. In such a situation we have to be grateful for strategic allies, in the same way Churchill (a visceral anti-Bolshevik) allied himself with Stalin in WWII. Yes, the Religious Right in the USA can be pretty unpleasant – anti-gay, anti-feminist – and yes, their ultimate scenario is the conversion of all mankind to Christianity after the apocalypse. But progressive liberal Gentile Zionists are mighty thin on the ground. Israel needs the USA to survive. And if that means holding our nose and clasping the Christian Zionists to our bosom, then so be it.
I believe what you’re seeing, in America anyway, is the virulent Fox News message that the Main Stream Media (MSM) is controlled by Jews. Along with the propaganda that the banks are controlled by Jews, and that the Government is in thrall to the Jewish AIPAC. Once they successfully get people debating along these lines, it then seems like Jewish control of banks, media, and Government can justify any amount of anti-Semitic argument and action.
That this point of view is entirely false, as you point out, doesn’t matter much to Fox News and their devoted viewers. Shoot, half of them are still convinced Obama is a Kenyan Socialist unfit to lead. But it does make a lot of noise. And when the MSM replies to the Fox News propaganda, it can seem like everyone is talking about it.
But that doesn’t make it a real issue. Now, American Protestants have divided loyalties on this issue. On the one hand, in their insane Biblical vision they want Armageddon to occur to have God clean away all the corruption they see in this world — and that requires that the Jews rebuild the Temple on the Temple Mount. On the other hand, they certainly don’t support the Jews in any other way.
But that could explain both the anti-semitism and rabid Republican support for Israel — when they’re not suggesting that the Palestinians are victims of Israeli genocide.
You’re mistaken if you really think that the Christian right “doesn’t support the Jews in any other way” or believe in a Jewish-controlled media. In fact even if they did believe in a Jewish-controlled media,they’d see it as just another sign that God has blessed the Jews and given them top positions in every area of life(you’re aware of the prosperity gospel, right?). Yes, they might think that Jews should convert to Christianity but they think that about everyone. I’ve read a number of books by evangelical Christian Zionist conservatives, heard lots of sermons by them, spent years living with them, and every time Jews or Israel are mentioned, it’s with nothing but respect and admiration. If they’re guilty of anything it’s of caricaturing Jews as wealthy and intelligent(which they see as a sign of blessedness) and ignoring the vast spectrum of views held by Jews on the subject of Israel.
It seems to be that the problem lies with the so-called “Ultra-rich”, the 1% that controls money, policies etc. As far as FOX news and other media are concerned it really is a joke how much is censored. I look at some of the things on the internet about 911 now and I wonder why I didn’t see that back in 2001. There seem to be a lot of intelligent people questioning what really happened. I’d surely like to know. Too bad we will never know what really happened.
We do know what happened: Al Qaida-supported terrorists hijacked four planes and deliberately flew three of them, passengers and all, into buildings. the fourth lot tried the same thing and were prevented fron completing their mission by the heroic actions of the passengers of United 91. What part of this do you question?
First of all, the way Building 7 came down in a controlled demolition manner. For the matter, so did both towers. Experts also claim that a 757 did not do the damage to the pentagon.
There is a lot of information out there. You need to do some research and not rely on what the television media tells you to believe.
Hi Deb, United Flt #93 (not 91) I worked at SFO, some of my regular weekly(commuter)customers on it…flight really hit us hard….not making it back home.
FOX News may be simplistic and right-leaning – not unlike a TV version of ‘The Sun’ newspaper in the UK – but it certainly does not propagate the delusion that the US mainstream media is controlled by Jews. To claim that 9/11 was caused by anything other than Al-Qaeda hijacked planes crashing into the World Trade Center is equally delusional.
Some Christian Zionists damage the cause of Israel by tying it to their armageddon fantasies. But some damage the cause of Israel by simply refusing to argue Israel’s case on any other terms than these:
1) The Jews are the Chosen People and God gave them Israel, so Israel is theirs because God Says So, and
2) Islam is the antichrist so must be resisted.
I used to attend a church where these two arguments were the only ones I was ever presented with as reasons for supporting Israel. The people who attended the church had other reasons for supporting Israel, but these were the two that were given to me to convince me(somebody once employed a third – “I don’t know much about the whole Israel-Palestine thing but I do know that when Jews went to the Holy Land, God made the barren desert fertile again”). It was deeply unsatisfying and since I didn’t really know where I could find a solid argument for Israel, I formed a very negative view of the country and its supporters. After leaving that church I felt I had breathing space to think critically about things (I no longer had to believe anything/support any conservative Christian causes just because ‘God says so’, and nobody was frowning on me for questioning things and being ‘too liberal’ anymore). That was when I discovered through reading and educating myself a bit that there was a strong case for Israel. Ironically, it was getting away from Christian Zionists for a bit that made me a, um, Christian Zionist.