Noam Chomsky : Why America Holds Israel as a Sacred Cow?

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11 Nov 2023, 6:52 am

So Chomsky is saying that...

the US's huge and unwavering support of Israel is because... in the '67 war Israel broke the back of "Secular Arab Nationalism". Making it easier for the US to "run the middle east".

That plus the fact that Israel and the US share intelligence.

Does that ring true, or not?

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11 Nov 2023, 7:56 am

naturalplastic wrote:

No it doesn’t. Chomsky’s argument just begs several questions.

Where is the empirical evidence that meddling in the Middle East and undermining Arab nationalism has benefited America any more than simply having friendly relations with Arab countries the whole time would have done?

For years after World War 2, America actually supported Arab Nationalism as a bulwark against communism. So why should that have changed in 1967? And in the 40s and 50s, while America was supporting Arab Nationalism, why didn’t powers like the Soviet Union or China take the opportunity to display unwavering support for Israel if that is such a sure-fire way of “controlling” the Middle East?

When America invaded Iraq in 2003, Israel provided virtually no support at all, which goes to show that (at least at that time) the US didn’t even need Israel’s help to overthrow Arab governments.

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11 Nov 2023, 9:48 am

MushroomPrincess wrote:

Mona Pereth wrote:

ToughDiamond wrote:

^
I've noticed this apparent contradiction before, the US right-wing support for Israel as a state with a sense of moral panic about Jews taking over the US itself.

This is actually not a contradiction. It seems to me that many American religious right wingers want Jews to live in Israel but NOT here in the U.S.A. (After all, Israel and the U.S.A. are indeed geographically distinct places, despite the belief of many American Christian nationalists that the U.S.A. is a similarly divinely "chosen" country.)

Many of these folks also believe that Jews will convert to Christianity en masse after the Rapture....

EDIT: It seems to me that most Christian religious right wing "sympathy for Israel" is based NOT on sympathy for the Israeli people as fellow human beings, but rather on a belief that Christians are commanded by God to "bless Israel." I think a lot of Christian religious right wingers put Jews on a pedestal as "God's chosen people," seeing Jews as almost superhuman -- and as being capable of almost-superhuman evil (hence the conspiracy theories) as well as almost-superhuman good.

Pretty much this ^^

Evangelical Christians' "support" for Israel is completely cynical and actually, ironically, comes from a place of deeply-rooted antisemitism.

I'm relieved that I put that word "apparent" before "contradiction." It only looks like a contradiction superficially, as in "do they love the Jews or hate them?" Answer: absence makes the heart grow fonder.

I agree that many evangelical Christians are cynically motivated, but I suspect some of them sincerely believe their doctrines to be correct. I'd be surprised if they were all atheists in Christian clothing.

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16 Nov 2023, 7:06 am

Then why Biden blindly supports Israel too? His video doesn’t explain the Democrat support for Israel as well.

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16 Nov 2023, 10:02 am

The_Face_of_Boo wrote:

Then why Biden blindly supports Israel too? His video doesn’t explain the Democrat support for Israel as well.

The video talks about conservatives in particular (that stuff about religion and Christ returning to the Holy land), and THEN talks about the US govt. in general -left right and center(that stuff about secular Arab despots vs theocratic despots, and sharing military tech and intel with Israel). The later would cover Biden and old school Democrats...if it really explained it.

Last edited by naturalplastic on 16 Nov 2023, 2:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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16 Nov 2023, 10:30 am

I haven't watched the video, but it is obvious why the U.S holds Israel as a "sacred cow".

The location of Israel is a geo-strategic foothold in the Middle East and provides the United States with an ally in an area that otherwise does not have many countries who are sympathetic in any way to the U.S.

Israel is given military aid by the United States to alter the existing balance of power in the Middle East towards western interests.

Some world war two leaders such as Winston Churchill were self proclaimed Zionists, and there are plenty of western politicians who are Zionists and who are pro Israel.

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16 Nov 2023, 1:57 pm

Yup. Starmer (Labour man in word but not so much in deed) in the UK is coming under fire from the socialists in his party who don't like his refusal to call for a ceasefire. Siding with Israel seems to be a right-wing thing. I think the ultimate reason is cold-hearted and strategic, protecting Western interests and all, so maybe real socialists just aren't cold and calculated enough to think about that?

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16 Nov 2023, 2:20 pm

ToughDiamond wrote:

perhaps, rather, real socialists are calculating beyond capitalism's decay (more accurately, its desperation). The existence of the US backing Israel is proof enough. Were they really as strong as they present, they wouldn't give a damn about the middle east- at least not as much as they do now.

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16 Nov 2023, 3:58 pm

In this vid he explains the same thing in a way that makes more sense.

https://youtu.be/HpxcUB6qg1A

The US had the three pillars of Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, as the foundation for its domination of the middle east.

We lost Iran in 1979 when the Shah was overthrown.

Chomsky says we only recently had China woo the Saudie away from us. Seems like a bit of an exagerration to say that we 'lost' them to China. But yes...we dont like China muscling in.

My own take: Iran drove the Saudies and the Gulf States even closer to both Israel andto the US, over their own and Israel's common terror of Iran, and the result was the Saudies and the Gulf States forgot Palestine even existed. And thats why HAMAS staged the recent attack...to break up the emerging Arab-Israeli alliance, and to put the Palestinian issue back on the front page.

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16 Nov 2023, 10:50 pm

As I said in one of the other threads, I personally support Israel because I see them as a young and imperfect democracy that's worth saving, and I don't think that's a particularly uncommon view amongst supporters. Sure, you've got the Christian weirdos who think that it relates to the end times in some way, or the politicos working some geopolitical angle, but I don't think it's really that complicated for most normie types who support Israel.

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17 Nov 2023, 7:58 am

Dox47 wrote:

>democracy

lol that's a new low for you

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17 Nov 2023, 10:03 am

The_Face_of_Boo wrote:

Then why Biden blindly supports Israel too? His video doesn’t explain the Democrat support for Israel as well.

Because there isn't a strong pro-Palestinian movement to counterbalance the very strong pro-Israel movement here in the U.S.A.

That may be starting to change, but still has a long way to go.

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17 Nov 2023, 10:28 am

Readydaer wrote:

Dox47 wrote:

>democracy

lol that's a new low for you

The Israeli government is indeed organized as a representative democracy with a parliamentary system -- at least for those people who are allowed to be voting citizens of Israel in the first place, however unfairly exclusionary the latter is.

And, yes, Israel being one of the few "democracies" in the Middle East is indeed a big part of how Israel gets sold to the average "normie" here in the U.S.A., even though that's not the primary motive of Israel's staunchest supporters.

And, yes, the U.S.A. has a long tradition of using "defense of democracy" as a justification for its foreign policy, even though that justification has all too often been hypocritical (e.g. the U.S. government has been known to overthrow democracies in favor of dictatorships when convenient for the U.S.A.'s ruling class).

Last edited by Mona Pereth on 17 Nov 2023, 11:07 am, edited 1 time in total.

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17 Nov 2023, 10:45 am

Mona Pereth wrote:

if you have innocent people who live in your country who have lived there since birth who are not allowed to vote in elections, that is not a democracy. i think that's like saying nazi germany was a democracy [for non-everyone the nazis hated]

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17 Nov 2023, 11:29 am

Readydaer wrote:

ToughDiamond wrote:

I guess it depends on what is meant by a "real socialist." If it means a full-blown Marxists, then sure, Marx said that the revolution will need to be pretty violent. But I've not known many of those. The lefties I've known mostly seem to imagine socialism to be achievable via peaceful democracy. I should probably have clarified that by "real socialists" I meant those in the Labour Party who consider Starmer and Blairism to be way too diluted with Toryism to make any effective difference. One criticism the Right have offered is that socialists vote with their hearts while Tories vote with their heads.

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17 Nov 2023, 11:36 am

Readydaer wrote:

if you have innocent people who live in your country who have lived there since birth who are not allowed to vote in elections, that is not a democracy.

Many democracies through the ages have been marred by limited suffrage. Switzerland has been democratic for over 700 years, but did not give women the right to vote until 1971. Likewise ancient Athens had a democratic form of government, but had even more limited suffrage. Even though the suffrage was limited, these governments were still democratic in form, as distinct from monarchies or dictatorships.

Readydaer wrote:

i think that's like saying nazi germany was a democracy [for non-everyone the nazis hated]

Germany became a dictatorship when Hitler was given dictatorial powers by the Enabling Act.

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