America, Israel: Was Washington snookered?

W. Scott Thompson, Gianyar, Bali

Indonesians, instinctively friendly to America, often ask how we could understand the world so differently on so central an issue as...the Middle East and, more particularly, Israel. But it is a question the whole world asks. In the history of politics there has never been so strange and self-destructive a partnership: One which has done more to diminish American prestige than any factor in all our history, and one which threatens, ironically, to cause the destruction of Israel as we now know it. I must elaborate both issues carefully.

First of all, the partnership. Polls show that, though Israel has lost some standing it still commands solid support in the American electorate: This at a time when European polls show huge majorities favoring Palestine, even public celebrations when Hamas blows up Israeli buses. Anti-Semitism hasn't been higher anywhere since Hitler's Third Reich, and Ariel Sharon can justly claim much of the credit. But the American loss is everywhere -- never have we enjoyed more power but lost more prestige.

In fact Israel sold America a bill of goods; we were snookered, they were nakal (naughty) even worse, jahat (evil). On the marrow of Sept. 11 Israel proclaimed that now we could understand their suffering from terrorism. That is the central fallacy. They were a major cause of our suffering.

For terrorism against America, more than any other single factor, is caused by the sense of deprivation in Palestine and on behalf of Palestine. A Frenchman with an American PhD emailed me that day with his question of how many more American "suicides" there would be for Israel -- before we woke up.

Alone among world commentators, Mahathir Mohammed in lecture after lecture has noted this analytical relationship. Had he clothed his argument in more of the conventional euphemisms, perhaps more would have listened. But it is bracing to have a spade called a spade. It is simply not permitted to call attention to the fact of record of Jewish financial influence and ownership of major media in the U.S. -- or, far more importantly, American political circles.

For example, it would simply not be permitted in the New York Times or Washington Post to allude to the foremost holder of Middle East weapons of mass destruction (WMD): Apparently, it turns out, not Iraq -- though surely there were other decent reasons for going after Saddam. Yet it is a fact that Israel has about 200 nuclear weapons and many other classes of WMD -- mostly with the connivance of Washington. If WMD were the problem, apparently we went after the wrong country.

Israel is now the international pariah. My Americana Jewish friends once so rightly proud of relating to a true outpost of democracy now must relate to the successor of apartheid South Africa and East Germany in building a wall and suppressing minorities. Israel is the only country left in the world that legally enshrines suppression of an ethnic group by another.

Now, perceptive and friendly commentators are observing, privately and increasingly publicly, that Israel cannot survive the decade, on demographic grounds alone. If every Israeli politician wishes to expose himself to criminal tribunals at The Hague, then Israel can go on occupying and grabbing more lands they have no right to.

And it can continue to threaten to kill the elected leader of Palestine. But the legal environment is closing in on Israel -- right now at the International Court of Justice, for example. Were Washington to turn the tap -- even slightly -- on weapons supply, Israel would instantly have to stop its occupation of Palestine and attempts to kill its leaders.

You simply can't understand Israel's control of American Middle East policy unless you look at the body language between Sharon and Bush. The president, desperate to prove his worth to his father, like any son, has sought to outdo him and win where his father lost. "Arik" showed him the way. Allied with the "moral majority" and its fixation on the Israel of Biblical texts, Bush the younger found someone who could allow him both to differentiate himself from -- and stand up to -- his father, whose views of the Israelis as president was ever so much less generous. In fact, almost diametrically opposed.

Finally, we must ask why every government in the world doesn't stand up for its views in America? Ask any high official -- in Thailand, which seeks a free trade agreement with Washington; ask Turkey, which depends on American support to gain admission to the EU; ask Japan, which depends on American military support for the entirety of its security.

They all detest American policy in the Middle East, but every one needs something from America that in its singularity is more important than policy on a general international issue -- even the most galling one.

So leaders come to Washington -- Tony Blair is the prime example -- hoping to use their influence to bring progress toward a true road map in the Middle East. But the Israel lobby will be there first. Or Ariel Sharon, than whom no one has ever more visited the White House in one term, will show up, to embrace the American president.

And thus have we sold out the Palestinians against the most central of our own interests: To end the festering sores in the Middle East that led to 9/11 and that will lead to more attacks, until the underlying causes are addressed.

But the argument simply doesn't play in America. A powerful White House official told me, prior to his elevation, that "we (Jewish Americans) have step by step upped our influence in every state. We now have the lieutenant governorships, the state controllers. Now we are everywhere. It has been a quiet and successful move. So we can prevent any diminution of Israel's influence in Washington."

America is like the president of the company or the NGO or principal of the school. Everybody gets a raise or a rating from it, and no body is willing to stand up and say that the policy is certainly destroying Israel -- and is vastly diminishing American prestige everywhere. Everybody knows it's true -- but some have an interest in continuing the farce, even despite the obvious damage it's doing. My guess is that those readers who didn't know the meaning of "snookered" have by now figured it out. God save us from ourselves.

Dr. W. Scott Thompson, D. Phil. is Adjunct Professor of International Politics, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Medford, MA.