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
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