There are many people on the left that support Israel and there are also conservatives who have opposed Israel. Overall, Jews are on the liberal side, yet Jews overwhelmingly support Israel. Jesse Helms was very strongly opposed to aiding Israel.

Mark said,

“I'll add that there is also a thing about the left - they are always willing to attack the weak rather than confront the strong. Oh, I know - they say they are all about helping the little guy...but history shows that they only pluck up their courage when they are assured that nothing bad will happen to them. The left takes credit for the civil rights movement in the United States, but they only became heavily involved after socially conservative Christian blacks had done most of the heavy lifting - all that actual being set upon by dogs and hit with the fire hoses...not too many rich, white liberals down there back at that time...plenty of them in DC in 1963, however.”

No, white civil rights workers gave their lives to fight segregation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_Civil_Rights_Workers_Murders

How do you know that blacks fighting segregation were socially conservative? I would guess that most of them weren’t. Just because most of them were Christian doesn’t mean they were socially conservative.

Amen brother and well said, from a WASP. My thoughts are the same. Unfortunately, when these chicken__ do win a big election I fear we will be annihilated along with Israel. As in nuked. Pro same sex marriage, pro "choice" and antiwar[self defence]. What a disgusting bunch.

I guess we're supposed to respond to the views of so anonymous someone responding to a paper, the Walt-Mearsheimer thesis, which isn't even cited in the Opinion Journal piece. That strikes me as humorous.

Anyway, for those interested in reading the actual paper before spouting off about it, the Walt-Mearsheimer thesis can be found here.

Ricorun,

Well, if you really want to bring up that bit of anti-Semitic trash, go ahead...generally, I don't link to such garbage...just to quote from paragraph two:

The U.S. national interest should be the primary object of American foreign policy. For the past several decades, however, and especially since the Six Day War in 1967, the centerpiece of U.S. Middle East policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering U.S. support for Israel and the related effort to spread democracy throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardized U.S. security.

It is ecumenically anti-Semitic...it holds that support for Israel is evil, while also slandering the Arabs - who are Semitic people - by saying an attempt to spread democracy among them has "inflamed" them.

What the heck - lets just toss over the longest-running democracy in that part of the world and back a whole bunch of corrupt thugs who will keep those rag-headed barbarians under control...that, Ricorun, is what the authors are saying when you strip it of its intellectual patina.

Brian,

Christians are socially conservative...all that laws of God stuff; not really amenable to moderal liberal ideas of morality.

Mark,

Martin Luther King was known to have had extra-marital affairs. This does not take away from his great accomplishments but someone who was socially conservative would not do such a thing. I consider myself socially liberal but even I consider adultery morally wrong.

Brian, Other than Jesse Helms can you name any other prominent Republicans who are opposed to supporting Israel? Can you name any democrats who CONSISTENTLY support Israel without talking out of both sides of their mouth? No I didn't think so.

"Just because most of them were Christian doesn’t mean they were socially conservative." Brian

Do you even know what socially conservaative means?? Do you have an idea what the stance of the Southern Baptists or the Southern Christian Leadership Council is on homosexuality. No I dodn't think so.

Mark, can you backup your claim that the left (i assume you mean the true left, and not the democrats) is never willing to fight someone that may hurt them?
heres a list of left leaning people who have opposed those much more powerful.
chavez - fights north american rule
french resistance - fought the nazis
einstein - spoke out against nazi rule (yes, he was a socialist)
David Lange - spoke out against french nuclear testing in nz waters
Morales - again opposes north american rule
Richard Stallman - while not too far into the left axis he opposed non free (as in freedom) software, and thus opposed microsoft and others
If you want I'll happily compile a list of many more but i think this gets my point across.

Mark - Could you please explain again how that passage (in your comment above) is anti-semitic. I could see anti-Israeli or anti-Zionist, but anti-semitic? I don't think there's any question that our unconditional support of Israel has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion. Have you listened to any of the statements made by Osama Bin Laden following 9/11? Remember him?

Mark's veneer of reason is stripped to show his bigotry and hatred:

"rag headed barbarians"...."corrupt thugs"

Interestingly enough, the quote above that precipitated this rant had absolutely no anti-Semitic references whatsoever. It simply pointed out what everyone in the world knows and acknowledges, which is that U.S. foreign policy is tilted decidedly toward Israel.

Only a pathetic sick fool would characterize those comments as "anti-Semitic" while at the same time characterizing Palestians of all stripes (Christians, Muslims, etc.) as "rag headed barbarians".

You are a disgrace.

Israel is unique because they do have an ancestral tie and claim to the land from Biblical times..BUT modern Israel is an artificial designation roughly related to the previous nation.It must exist in some form, but I don't think only the US and Israel should decide. Modern Israel is the product of tremendous intellectual drive (Ben Gurion etc...), US guilt for lack of and/or late intervention in the Holocaust(not bombing railroads etc...),America's traditional Anti-semitism(refugees had to go somewhere...BUT NOT ALL HERE!, and (often not mentioned) a brutal terrorist campaign against the British Police AND the Palestinian population. Jewish terrorist blew up the King David Hotel killing civilians, murdered British police, hung them and land-mined the site, read about Irgun and the Stern Gang before you allow certain people to claim some high moral ground for the current state of Israel. I study the Torah and strive to be moral and I personally love Jewish moral teachings but I love America too and I can still understand that this country tolerated buying and selling my ancestors(I'm Sudanic/African/American). Search for the TRUTH!!!

The W & M piece has nothing to do with anti-Semitism or even anti-Zionism or anti-Israelism.

The piece points out that American foreign policy has been skewed towards Israel and that that isn't always in the US's best interest. That's plain for all to see, who needs the W & M piece for that?

The piece does in my opinion over-emphasise the power of the lobby, that's a valid point of criticism.

The allegations of anti-Semitism are nothing but scare tactics: read Dershowitz' rebuttal; it starts right from the off (from the title) comparing the piece with known anti-Semitic texts. But D. is a coward: he fall one nanometre short of actually calling W & M anti-Semites. Not surprisingly, this blog doesn't have such reserve...

It might be worth noting that both Walt and Mearsheimer are Jewish.

Mark: "Well, if you really want to bring up that bit of anti-Semitic trash, go ahead...generally, I don't link to such garbage..."

Well it seemed to me that in order to intelligently (or at least knowledgeably) critique a critique of an article, it might help to read the article first. Wouldn't that be the first order of business for anyone who wants to claim they're fact-based?

Having said that, there is a lot in that article to take exception to. I think one of the more ludicrous comments is this (speaking on the topic of Jewish influence as a motivator for the Iraq war): "a compilation of nationwide opinion polls by the Pew Research Center shows that [American] Jews are less supportive of the Iraq war than the population at large, 52% to 62%.”. Thus, it would be wrong to blame the war in Iraq on “Jewish influence.” Rather, the war was due in large part to the Lobby’s influence, especially the neoconservatives within it."

The Iraq war was due to the Jewish Lobby? Oh, give me a break.

Nonetheless, the main contention of the article -- that the Jewish Lobby has an inordinate power to influence debate in the US -- is hard to dispute. And I'm not sure that's a good thing. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's not.

The authors also argue, at least at times (e.g., in the quote above), that the Lobby is not representative of American Jews as a group. Since both Walt and Mearsheimer are Jewish, maybe they know what they're talking about. I'm not inclined to take their word for it, though. If nothing else, I am quite sure that there is a broad spectrum of opinion within the Jewish American community, as there is in Israel itself.

Additionally, the authors argue that the Lobby essentially functions as a mouthpiece for the hard-liner faction in the Israeli government. Again, I'm not so sure. Maybe they're right. I don't know. But if it's true, and considering the Lobby's influence on US policies, I don't think that's a good thing either. As is true with respect to any other country on the planet, Israel's interests should not come before our own. It is that kind of topsy-turvy relationship, I believe, is what the authors meant when they said "unwavering U.S. support for Israel". Support Israel, yes. But not when such support runs contrary to our own national interests.

Mark, it seems to me that you are conflating the whole issue of support for Israel into an all or nothing dichotomy: either we do Israel's bidding with unquestioned acquiescence or we "throw them under the bus". That's a false dichotomy.

Phnxbmed,

In general, most congressmen of both parties support Israel. I’m pretty sure that for most bills that come before Congress that are related to Israel, usually 90-95% of Congress vote in favor of Israel. Senator Lieberman is on of the strongest supporters of Israel in Congress from either party. I don’t know of many prominent Republicans or Democrats that are opposed to supporting Israel. I don’t follow the issue to closely. I do recall that when Jim Baker was Secretary of State, he called Israeli settlements, “obstacles to peace”.

Just because someone is member of a certain Christian denomination doesn’t means they agree 100 percent with that denomination’s positions. Jesse Jackson is a Southern Baptist and I’m pretty sure Bill Clinton is. Do you consider them to be socially conservative?

cookie,

You really should read what I write with more care...

Ricorun,

Plenty of self-hating Jews out there.

Aside from that:

It isn't a false dichotomy when we say it is "support Israel, or you are tossing it under the bus". Israel is a democracy - and thus in any conflict with a non-democratic enemy, it must count on 100% support from all other democratic nations. This is the prime lesson learned from pre-WWII events in Europe - to try and appease a dictator by throwing over part of the free world only invites further attack. Free people must stand together or they will fall separately.

Up until we mid-wifed democracy in Iraq, the entire Arab/Moslem world of the middle east was non-democratic - strictly speaking, there really couldn't even be negotiations for a genuine peace treaty because the Arab/Moslem governments concerned have not ascertained the will of their people via elections...maybe they want war with Israel, maybe they want peace...but there's no way to know, and thus any peace treaty signed is only pro-tempore until either some other dictator take charge and makes his own decision, or a democracy is instituted which will also make its own decision.

Up until this past election among the Palestinians, there was no genuine Palestinian goverment for Israel to treat with (Arafat's election was bogus from start to finish); now there is - with the problem that the government is made up of people who have sworn to destroy Israel...this makes negotiations very difficult, but not impossible...if Hamas signs a treaty, then we know - as far as practical in human affairs - that it is the expressed will of the Palestinian people, and thus likely to endure. In a conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, we must take into consideration the arguments of the Palestinian government - as a democratically elected government, they are legitimate and thus have the perfect right to present the views of the Palestinian people ... on the other hand, if Israel were to come into conflict with Syria, for whatever reason, then we'd have to back Israel as that is backing democracy against tyranny...even if Israel where to start the war, they would still - in my view - have a full claim on us for support, because we simply cannot allow a democracy to fall to tryanny.

Our national interests exactly coincide with Israel's whenver Israel comes into conflict with a tyrannical regime - that is just the way it is, even if Israel does at times do outrageous things.

Finally, there is no way for us to know if our support for Israel has a plus or minus affect on Arab/Moslem opinion - until the recent elections in Iraq, the desires of the Arab/Moslem people were entirely unknown as there was no free press to air the views, and no elections to confirm which views were predominant. For all you and I know, 90% of the Arab world doesn't give a hoot what Israel does...until there are elections, we can't know...except in Iraq, where the issue of Israel - as far as I can see - wasn't even discussed during the Iraqi elections...and that is a strong indicator of how much the "Arab street" cares about Israel...

Ricorun-

You make some excellent points in your post.

Brian-

You are right on the money!

Mark-

I re-read your posts. What exactly did I miss? Is that another Mark Noonan who made those comments?