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WHY DO ALL U.S. POLITICIANS SUPPORT ISRAEL?
by John Spritzler
December 29, 2006
[newdemocracyworld.org]
Does it Matter Why Our Politicians Support Israel?
While the Somerville Divestment Project’s success in persuading 45% of
the voters in Representative District 27 to vote Yes for the
Palestinians’ right of return (Question 5), and 31% to vote Yes for
divestment from Israel (Question 6), was a huge defeat for the Zionists, we
need to aim for persuading the great majority of Americans that it is wrong
to support Israel.
Perhaps the main obstacle to our winning the vote on 5 and 6 with a solid
majority was the fact that all of the politicians and newspapers told
people to vote No. They all said it was anti-Jewish and wrong to vote Yes.
That’s a powerful argument against us. If all the politicians and media,
from right to left, say we’re wrong, and that we have ulterior
anti-Semitic reasons for being against Israel, then it makes it seem like
they must be right. Why else would they all agree on that even though they
disagree on all the other right versus left, liberal versus conservative
issues?
Many people probably thought our pamphlets were reasonable and persuasive,
but voted against us anyway because they were persuaded by the unanimity of
the politicians and media.
If we want to win, we need to tell people the true reason why all the
politicians and media support Israel.
Two Explanations
There are two quite different and plausible answers to this key question,
which are often referred to as “dog wags tail” and “tail wags dog”
respectively. “Dog wags tail” says that there is a corporate and
government elite in America, including both Gentiles and Jews, who use
Israel to achieve their own imperial goals. “Tail wags dog” says that a
powerful Jewish Lobby uses the United States to serve Israeli interests.
Both theories seem to account for the virtually unanimous support of our
politicians for Israel. “Dog wags tail” says that politicians are
pro-Israel because they know that the plutocracy (Gentiles as well as Jews)
with real power is pro-Israel. “Tail wags dog” says that politicians
are pro-Israel because they know that if they don’t toe the line then the
Israel lobby and the Jewish-owned media will label them anti-Semitic and
will bankroll other politicians to run against them in the next election.
If We Use the Wrong Explanation It Will Undermine Our Organizing
Which of these arguments we use has very real consequences.
If we use the “tail wags dog” explanation
If we say to the public, “The reason all the politicians and newspapers
support Israel is because the Israel Lobby makes them do it” how will
they respond? It would be perfectly reasonable for those who have read our
literature about Israel and Palestine to say, or at least think:
“It seems like you guys have a thing about Jews. There must be something
wrong about your anti-Israel position that you’re not being open about.
You sound anti-Jewish, like the politicians say.”
People, to their credit, don’t want to get involved with any group they
think has a prejudice against a religious or racial group. The “tail wags
dog” theory is not an anti-Jewish theory. But if we make the Israel Lobby
our explanation for everything, lots of people will feel like we’re an
anti-Jewish group and decide to keep their distance from us even if they
agree that Israel does bad things. Sure, we could explain that we are not
against all Jews, just the Zionist ones; but we would be forever on the
defensive, always having to explain why we don’t mean what people think
we mean, and what the politicians say we mean.
In addition, presenting the issues in terms of “tail wags dog” wrenches
the issue of Palestine out of its real-world context and makes it seem
disconnected from the daily concerns and values of ordinary people.
If we use the “dog wags tail” explanation
The opposite approach places the struggle in Palestine in the context of
the class attack that working people in Somerville and Palestine and around
the world are under. We could tell the public that the reason all the
politicians and newspapers support Israel is because Israel’s ethnic
cleansing is a key divide and rule strategy that upper classes in the
Middle East and the United States use to control their own populations and
attack efforts to make things more equal and democratic. We could show,
using lots of examples close to home—examples that people would already
be very familiar with and very concerned about— that all the politicians
from left to right serve the American upper class (Gentiles as well as
Jews) in a host of different ways, of which their pro-Israel position is
just one example. If we did this, we would be on the offensive. Nobody
would view us as “anti-Jewish.” The politicians would be on the
defensive.
Furthermore, all of the experience and insights that Americans have about
life in a very unequal and undemocratic class society ruled by a corporate
elite would be leveraged in our support and against the politicians and
newspapers that oppose us. Most people, whether they agree with us about
Israel or not, already know very well that an upper class elite runs things
in this country and that this is the source of many of our problems. It is
that very insight that makes it easy for people to understand that upper
class power is also the source of the biggest problem in another part of
the world—perpetual race/ethnic conflict. That is the insight that
enables people to understand that the pro-Israel Big Lie strengthens the
American plutocracy’s control over Americans, by making Arabs look like
fanatical Jew-hating terrorists who will one day kill us if we don’t line
up behind our American corporate leaders in the “war on terror.” We
would only undermine our efforts if we failed to unite with Americans on
the basis of their most powerful insight about the world.
Why “Dog Wags Tail” is True, and “Tail Wags Dog” is False
The reason American rulers support Israel is, in a nutshell, to divide and
control working class people, in the Middle East and in the United States
too.
Let’s start with the United States.
The Pro-Israel Big Lie is About Controlling Americans
We know that the War on Terror is used by our rulers to control the
American people by making them so fearful of Arab terrorists that they will
allow their sons and daughters to fight and die in wars that only serve our
upper class. The War on Terror enables our rulers to get away with
repressive measures, like the Patriot Act and bugged telephones, which
Americans would not otherwise tolerate. Moreover, the War on Terror has
provided the Big Lie that has enabled our rulers to steal from the American
public an amount that Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz
estimates to be between $1 and $2 trillion—the cost of the war in Iraq.
Our rulers could not get away with this if it were not for Israel. The
“Arab terrorist” theme would be a much less potent propaganda ploy
without Israel. By persuading Americans that Israel represents all that is
good and innocent, and that the only reason Arabs fight Israel is fanatical
anti-Jewish hate, America’s rulers have been able to create the
persuasive image of the dangerous “Arab terrorist” on which the War on
Terror rests. But if Israel were all of a sudden replaced with a democratic
state of Palestine where everybody was equal and free to live anywhere,
then the War on Terror would fall flat. The American public would start to
focus on the inequalities in our own society without the distraction of
waging a foreign war and “supporting our troops.” People would pick up
where the pre-9/11 anti-capitalist movement left off, with its huge
international marches against the WTO and capitalism itself, in city after
city. America’s Gentile rulers understand how valuable Israel is to them.
The U.S. Pro-Israel Foreign Policy is About Controlling the Middle East
There is a long history of class conflict in the Middle East, between
ordinary people against colonial rulers or their puppet governments, and
against home-grown upper class rulers as well. The Saudi royals rely on
immigrant labor and use national/ethnic divisions to control the working
class, resulting in extreme poverty for much of the Saudi as well as
immigrant working class.
Huge strikes in Israel are frequent, like the general strike in 1997 that
shut the country down for seven days, and another nationwide strike in
November of 2003. Israel has the second greatest economic inequality of any
“Western” nation. The strikes are over issues like the government
cutting back on pensions. Workers in Egypt confront the very same kinds of
attacks from the Egyptian elite, which is why workers in Cairo and
Alexandria staged over ten strikes in the single month of April 1999, and
four sit-down strikes and nine hunger strikes by government workers between
June and December of 1999. (I obtained these examples years ago, I am sure
more recent ones could be found today.)
In Iran, 2005, Tehran Public Transit workers fought a battle in the streets
against the Islamic authorities. The Campaign in Defense of Bus Company
Workers described the conflict this way:
May 13, 2005
Workers of Tehran Public Transit rallied in front of their Union office to
support their Union.
Workers and drivers of Tehran Public Transit demonstrated in front of their
newly organized Union today to support their Union and the leaders and
organizers of the Union who were attacked and beaten by Hezbollah and
Islamic Labour Councils’ thugs last week. They demanded organizing of
their general assembly to condemn the Hezbollah’s attacks on their
representatives. They also demanded permanent establishment of their Union
which has been joined by 4000 transit workers so far, in spite of
intimidations and restrictions imposed by the Islamic Authorities.
One of the Public Transit Union’s leaders recited article 87 of the
International Labour Organization’s Convention (ILO) in which all signing
countries, including Iran, recognized labours’ organizations; then, he on
behalf of the Union complained and condemned the recent events in which the
leaders and organizers were beaten and their Union was attacked and
sabotaged by Hezbollah from the Islamic Labour Councils and the Labour
House (official state organizations to control the labours’ movement).
What the “Tail Wags Dog” Pundits Fail to See
One of the most prominent advocates of the “tail wags dog” theory is
James Petras, author of The Power of Israel in the United States. Petras
makes classic “tail wags dog” arguments that fail to take into account
that American rulers, especially those focused on the big picture who shape
U.S. foreign policy, as opposed to managers of particular corporations, are
primarily concerned with ensuring that the upper classes of the world not
lose the class war anywhere. Petras makes a big deal about how American Big
Oil has a harder time doing business in the Middle East because the U.S.
government’s pro-Israel policy angers Muslims.
The problem with this line of reasoning is that it fails to take into
account the reality of class conflict. Working class people don’t like to
be ruled by wealthy and privileged elites. They don’t like it when elites
make society more unequal and undemocratic. This is why strikes and other
forms of resistance break out all the time. For every large and visible act
of collective resistance there are countless everyday acts towards the same
end. If left to themselves, working class people would grow stronger and
more unified everyday to the point where general strikes and revolutions
break out. Elites who hold the real power in society know this, especially
the individuals they entrust to control the government and military forces
that preserve elite power and privilege. They know how important it is to
wage the class war aggressively and pro-actively by keeping ordinary people
pitted against each other (using atrocities committed in the name of one
race or ethnic group against the other when necessary.) If ruling elites
simply engaged in routine business operations, focused only on maximizing
profits, they would risk losing the very basis of their wealth and
privilege—control over the working class.
Given the reality of class war, it not hard to see why Big Oil and all the
other Gentile rulers of the United States support America’s pro-Israel
foreign policy. It is a strategy of social control of the Middle East
population. The Zionist project of a Jewish state, right smack dab in the
middle of mostly Muslim Palestine, based on outright flagrant ethnic
cleansing, is perfect from the point of view of keeping the Middle East
population in a perpetual state of racial/ethnic warfare. Israeli ethnic
cleansing pits Jews against Muslims and Christians throughout the Middle
East. Similarly, the U.S. invasion of Iraq weakened the Iraqi working class
by fomenting sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shiites. British
imperialists used divide and rule the same way. They were not a tail being
wagged by a dog, and neither is the American corporate and government
elite.
Sure, strategic wars of social control play havoc with day to day business
concerns. Sure, managers responsible for a particular corporation may get
annoyed when the strategic war-making of the government gets in the way of
some business deal. Petras points to these facts as evidence that Big Oil
is harmed by the U.S. pro-Israel policy. But the pro-Israel policy of the
American government serves the fundamental class interests of the American
upper class, including Big Oil.
Petras says the war in Iraq hurts Big Oil and other American Gentile
corporate elites, and only helps Israel. This is not true.
First, the war has been a boon for the American military industrial
complex, from Halliburton to Raytheon. Unlike any other industry, military
“defense” funnels money directly from the over-taxed pockets of
ordinary Americans into corporate government-guaranteed profits, without
ever producing anything of real value for consumers. It’s a huge scam by
the haves against the have-nots. But it requires a state of war to get the
public to tolerate it.
Second, contrary to the claim that Big Oil suffers from America’s
warmongering, they are doing very well indeed. USA TODAY, October 27, 2005
reported:
“While drivers have been painfully paying up at the pump, oil companies
have been racking up eye-popping profits.
“Thursday, ExxonMobil (XOM) became the most stark example yet of how much
big oil companies benefited from the huge run-up in oil prices during the
third quarter even as two major hurricanes ripped through the industry's
Gulf Coast infrastructure. Exxon reported:
“• Net income up 75% to $9.92 billion. That is the most a U.S. company
has earned from operations in a three-month period and greater than the
annual gross domestic product of entire nations including Cameroon and
Zimbabwe.
“• Revenue up 32% to $100.7 billion. That is greater than the annual
GDP of all but just 38 of the world's economies.
“Exxon illustrates the energy's sector's tremendous profit amid
record-high energy prices. The industry is on pace to earn $96 billion this
year — more than what the USA's industrial and telecom companies will
earn, combined, says Standard & Poor's based on members of the S&P 500
index.”
[http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/earnings/2005-10-27-xom_x.htm]
It is not even true that Muslim rulers in the Middle East, who win domestic
legitimacy with their anti-Israel rhetoric, really object to America’s
pro-Israel foreign policy.
There is a famous labor cartoon about how different things are above and
beneath the surface, a cartoon that resonates with the many workers who
have ever been sold out by their union. In the cartoon the manager of a
corporation and the president of a big union are sitting opposite each
other at a table. Above the table, for public view, we see the two men’s
left hands raised high, each holding a dagger aimed at the other; beneath
the table, unseen by the public, the two men’s right hands are clasped in
a hand-shake.
Muslim rulers of oil rich nations may act like they oppose the U.S.
pro-Israel foreign policy, but that doesn’t mean they really do. Middle
East Muslim rulers who rule over dramatically unequal societies benefit
greatly from the existence of Israel. Israel, with its ethnic cleansing,
polarizes the Middle East along religious lines, which makes it very easy
for anti-democratic rulers to deflect class-based anger at themselves
towards Israel. A militarily strong Israel gives the anti-democratic rulers
in the region the perfect excuse for diverting their country’s wealth
into a large military—a military that may never fight Israel but which
can be used to suppress the domestic working class. In fact, the stronger
Israel is militarily, the more convincing it is to their own people when
anti-democratic Muslim rulers in the Middle East limit their anti-Israel
actions to rhetoric with the excuse that it would be madness to actually
launch an offensive military attack on Israel.
America’s oil corporations appreciate that their Middle East business
partners cannot afford to be seen by their own people as being in bed with
pro-Israel corporations. To help their business associates save face, the
oil corporations are only too willing to issue “pro-Arab” statements
and perhaps go on record as opposing aspects of America’s pro-Israel
foreign policy. What the Middle East rulers and Big Oil executives agree on
is that they want anti-democratic, pro-capitalist regimes to rule in the
Middle East, not revolutionary movements based on working class solidarity
that would use the oil wealth for the benefit of ordinary people instead of
the world’s corporate elite. What matters to America’s rulers is not
whether the Muslim masses hate the United States or whether the Muslim
rulers speak against Israel; what matters is keeping those anti-democratic,
pro-capitalist rulers in power, so they will continue to keep the oil
wealth in the hands of the elite club. Let the knives above the table fool
the masses, say the corporate elite, because the handshake beneath the
table is all that really counts.
The handshake takes many different forms. The Ayotollah Khomeini claimed to
be the mortal enemy of the United States and Israel, but under the table he
concluded the secret Iran-Contra arms deal with President Reagan and
Israel. Likewise, Hamas received secret direct and indirect financial aid
from Israel beginning in the late 1970s.
Israel Is Just One of Many Ways Our Rulers Foment Race/Ethnic Wars for
Social Control
The tail-wag-dog’ers would have us believe that America’s pro-Israel
foreign policy is a strange aberration, with a unique explanation (the
Israel Lobby). But our rulers have been fomenting racial or ethnic or
national wars to control people long before they latched onto Zionism for
that end, and in areas of the world where Zionism is not a factor. The
upper class in America used slavery to turn people against each other along
racial lines. Lately they are turning Americans against Muslims. As I show
in my book, The People As Enemy: The Leaders' Hidden Agenda in World War
II, America’s and Germany’s and Japan’s elites fomented a world war
in order to direct their own working class populations away from class
demands that were threatening domestic revolution, towards support for
their rulers in waging a bloody war against foreign people. Likewise, as
V.P. Gagnon, Jr. shows in his The Myth of Ethnic War, the old ruling
Communist Party elites on both sides (daggers above, hand shake below the
table) deliberately fomented an ethnic war between Serbs and Croats in an
effort to preserve their power against democratic movements in the 1990s.
The Zionist crimes in Palestine are horrendous, and U.S. government support
for them is infuriating, but the explanation for these facts does not
require believing that a tail wags a dog.
What the “Dog Wags Tail” View Does NOT Say
Leftists like Noam Chomsky get it wrong with their version of “dog wags
tail.” They say that Israel is America’s “cop on the beat” in the
Middle East. But this view is contradicted by the fact that the U.S. has
not relied on Israeli military forces in its last two major invasions of
Iraq. What Chomsky doesn’t get is that it is Israel’s ethnic cleansing
and the anger it provokes that constitutes Israel’s value to upper
classes.
Neither does the “Dog wags tail” view entail that the reason Israeli
leaders do what they do is because they have been coerced by America’s
rulers. Israeli leaders have their own reasons for doing what they do. But
if Zionism had not been such a perfect tool for fomenting ethnic war in the
Middle East, America’s rulers would never have had any reason for
supporting Zionism and the Zionist leaders would be nobodies today, not
rulers of a country with the 5th strongest military in the world, and
nuclear weapons. As is well documented, Zionist leaders always had the
strategy of appealing to the world’s major imperialist powers (from the
British, to the Russian Czar, and even Hitler) on the basis that Zionism
would help the imperialist rulers strengthen their power, at home and
abroad. It was a powerful argument, because it was true.
Conclusion
We should tell the public that the reason virtually all American
politicians support Israel is because they are beholden to the elite rulers
of the United States who support Israel as a means of controlling us and
controlling the people of the Middle East. We should explain how their
support for Israel is just one of many ways they support America’s elite,
who want an increasingly unequal and undemocratic society where people are
pitted against each other. We should say that our opposition to Israel
stems from our desire to have what most Americans want—a more equal and
democratic world where people help each other. This is a winning strategy,
because it is true, and it will resonate with the American public.
Other articles about Palestine/Israel by John Spritzler
John Spritzler is the author of The People As Enemy: The Leaders' Hidden
Agenda In World War II, and a Research Scientist at the Harvard School of
Public Health.