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.
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.
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.
Yes, that’s what a feedback function does.
Hence the requirement of the power structure to fund the lobbying function to discipline and coordinate the administrators of the Republic.
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.
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