Interesting and provocative take on the history of America's support for the State of Israel, and the role of American Jews and Christians in that history.
This, I think, is the heart of the matter: American Jews didn’t drag reluctant American gentiles into the Middle East; it’s much more accurate to say that American gentiles pushed reluctant American Jews into the Zionist movement. If American Jews had the power to shape American policy towards the Jews through the twentieth century, most likely there would be no state of Israel today. This is an inconvenient truth. Zionist myths about the Jewish past and gentile myths about American innocence are both challenged by this history.
He asks for feedback and help in the comments - I think he's got an interesting narrative here, but he's certainly using a pretty broad brush. This is the kind of blog post that needs a book to back it up - which WRM working on...
Thanks for posting this Lewy. It's a fascinating article but I think he misses some things. On the one hand he states that missionaries and the WASP establishment were anti-Zionist, and yet he states that the American public at that time (late 19th to mid 20th century) were pro-Zionist without bringing any evidence or explanation. I'm not saying it's not true, just that it's a rather contradictory stance to take.
ReplyDeleteAlso, he pins the "blame" as it were for the establishment of Israel on America, saying that if American immigration policy had been more liberal, more Jews would have been able to escape to America and would have had no need to run to Israel. But in truth, the Jews had been returning to then-Palestine since the early to mid 1880s, at a time when America's immigration policy was much more liberal and hundreds of thousands if not millions of Jews immigrated. If the blame can be pinned anywhere, it should be stuck on Tzarist Russia and the Kossacks. WW1 and WWII just exacerbated the problem and made the need for a Jewish homeland all the more urgent.
What's with the comments? I can't post. It has rejected my comment twice.
ReplyDeleteOh, there it is. So here is part 2 of my first comment. (It was originally rejected completely so I thought it might be too long.)
ReplyDelete------------------
Mead also makes no mention of Oriental (Sephardic) Jews of Middle Eastern origin, who had no interest in escaping Arab pogroms by fleeing to America which was totally alien to them. Those Jews - almost a million of them - fled to Israel too.
The first commenter on Mead's site also points out a very interesting point - American support for the modern State of Israel really only began post 1967,which is also not addressed in the article.
annie, what did blogger do when it rejected your comment? I've had a few "eaten" as well; it seems pretty random... I always compose my longer comments in a separate editor.
ReplyDelete(Note to self - if I get to do a complete comments plugin - implement auto-save comment drafts, the way Google Docs and Gmail work...)
I agree, Mead makes some pretty sweeping claims - you should post some comments on his site.
As for pre-1967 support for Israel, one might start with Mark Twain, and his evolving views on Jews - I found this article pretty interesting.
Hi Lewy, the blogger report I got was something like "Your comment has been rejected". Short and sweet, no apology, no explanation. :-)
ReplyDeleteLuckily my comment itself still remained in the box, so I copied it first to Notepad, then posted it in 2 segments.
I thought about commenting on Mead's site but I saw that some other people had raised the same points, besides my comment about Sephardi Jews. And to be honest, that wasn't the point of his article since he was concentrating on American attitudes to Zionism.
That's a great article about Mark Twain too. I've read up a bit about him over the years, but this is an excellent overview. Thanks again Lewy :-).
ReplyDeleteVery interesting read, lewy.
ReplyDeleteMead's article is a work-in-progress. He brings up some interesting points, but he would gain a bit more historical perspective by reading annie's comments. Excellents posts, annie. I'm so glad you're here!
The Mark Twain article was outstanding. I'd like to read more of his writings on this subject.
The catfight between Norwegian Shooter and RKV (the comments section of the Mead link) is worthy of an eye-roll. Good grief. Shut up already.
ReplyDeleteimg:"http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt358/redhawkclan/shutup.jpg"
Yes, interesting article.
ReplyDeleteannie says:
Also, he pins the "blame" as it were for the establishment of Israel on America, saying that if American immigration policy had been more liberal, more Jews would have been able to escape to America and would have had no need to run to Israel. But in truth, the Jews had been returning to then-Palestine since the early to mid 1880s, at a time when America's immigration policy was much more liberal and hundreds of thousands if not millions of Jews immigrated. If the blame can be pinned anywhere, it should be stuck on Tzarist Russia and the Kossacks. WW1 and WWII just exacerbated the problem and made the need for a Jewish homeland all the more urgent.
Very good point, he could use your feedback, annie.
Also, on a side note, I lol'ed at "Michel Aflaq".
Missed the catfight, heh, I guess that's why I don't read comments :-)
ReplyDelete(Only comments here, natch :-)
Oh, and I loved "Blame Canada", lewy. What was that, a stage play?? Can't wait til Fay sees it...
ReplyDeleteLast time I saw a show with "Let's Blame Canada" in it was the Southpark movie.
ReplyDeleteIt's kind of a catchphrase here now. Whenever no one wants to take the blame for something bad, they say "Just blame Canada"
flo, mw, yeah, the "Blame Canada" song was from the South Park movie... I was going to post a link to a YouTube from the movie, but when Google coughed up the Robin Williams link I was like, awesome, I'll go with that...
ReplyDeleteAh, thanks, lewy.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a SP fan, that's why it didn't ring a bell.
I loved it though, I'm crazy about Robin Williams.
I took everyone's advice and published my comments from here (in one single comment) on Mead's blog. Be interesting to see if there's any feedback.
ReplyDeleteOh good annie, I'm glad you did. They some perspective from someone who actually lives in Israel.
ReplyDeleteThey must hold their comments though because I just checked and I don't see yours...yet.
I think I missed a word in that second sentence, "they need" duh.
ReplyDeleteThat's weird Fay. I can see it. Perhaps my computer just kept a cache of my comment or something? (I'm just making up techie lingo here, I have no idea what I'm talking about). :-)
ReplyDeleteHere's the permalink to my comment:
ReplyDeletehttp://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2010/03/10/dont-blame-the-jews/#comment-3258
(can one post proper linky things here? If so, how?)
I'm glad you did too, annie. You would certainly have a more valid perspective.
ReplyDeleteHere's how to hyperlink, Luther passed this tip on to me:
Put your text in
between the whatchemacallits
Thus...
Ta daaaa!!
Well, that didn't work very well. img:"http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/2326/bluesmad.gif"
ReplyDeleteMy tadaa link does go to the article. Great comment, annie, hope he listens to the points you brought up.
I'll email you the linky formula :-)
Trying out florrie's sooper seekrit formula. Hope I don't blow up the blog. Here goes...
ReplyDeletemy comment on Mead's blog
Woo hoo! I did it! Thanks florrie. :-)
ReplyDeleteflorrie,
ReplyDeleteYou need even more super ninja tricks when you're trying to write HTML tutorials in HTML.
When you add "link markup" (the angle-bracket tags), the browser doesn't know you're writing a tutorial, it thinks you want to put a link in!
So, how do you get the tags to appear "as is?", instead of appearing as links? In other words, how do you tell the browser you "don't really mean it"?
Instead of typing <a>, type <a>... the < code is known as an "escape" for the < angle bracket (the lt stands for "less than" - the left pointing angle bracket is also the "less than" symbol.)
So, I think what you wanted to show annie was:
<a href="url goes here">text goes here</a>.
If you want to find out more about what's up with < etc, Google "HTML character entities"... and we don't mean Aridog... 8P
annie, woohoo!!
ReplyDeletelewy, thanks bro! I actually use the &character entities for the tilde, accents, etc etc, but had no idea that's what a person had to use to explain code without coding. Makes sense though, now that I think about it.
ReplyDeleteI have used this entity page for years.
ReplyDelete...Google "HTML character entities"... and we don't mean Aridog... 8P
ReplyDeleteimg:"http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y128/aridog/nananabooboo.gif"
Ari, I just stole your picture above.
ReplyDeleteAnd one day, in the far, far future, I will figure out how to use it, here.
ReplyDeletesigh.
Ari: heh, that didn't take long!
ReplyDeleteDWT/SV: image posting directions here.
Wow, you all are becoming insane sooper koderz! Annie, it's great that you published your comment on Mead's blog.
ReplyDeleteimg:"http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt358/redhawkclan/annierocks.jpg"
Lady Red - if I knew where you made tha hat, I would have one that says 'Just Hiding The Bald'
ReplyDeleteFor DWT:
ReplyDeleteimg:"http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt358/redhawkclan/dog_comb_over.jpg"
Puppy comb-over!
HEY!!! I Do Not Comb Over!!
ReplyDeleteI am inordinately proud of my family traditions.
Except of course the congestive heart failure part, which will have me driving my Mom for a catherization and stent very soon.
Awww, I'm glad she has you to lean on, Dances. Hang in there!
ReplyDeleteAlso, I have to say I'm glad you're posting as DWT. That has always been your main nick and it's the one we love the most :-)
img:"http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y117/floranista/dwtcopy.jpg"
Tee hee, I'm going to have to do a puppy comb-over with Molly, I think her head hair is long enough...
ReplyDelete