Saturday, April 11, 2015

Conservatives for Israel? Really?

In the age of Obozo, the term "the national interest" has been trampled into the ground, principally by Obozo.

At least on the domestic front.

But that term, "the national interest" has far more meaning on the international scene.  And it may well be that "the national interest" is best served with less fervor for Israel.

...Adelson, Paul Singer, and other right-wing, pro-Israel donors, their spending unleashed by the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, have pushed the GOP past the Democrats as recipients of “pro-Israel” PAC money.... If Sheldon Adelson and Paul Singer had tried to purchase the Mideast policy of the Republican Party 20 or 30 years ago, they would have failed, even under the new campaign finance rules....

And then there's Rupert Murdoch's $3 million/year subsidy of Warmonger Billy Kristol:

...Before the Standard, National Review was the most important conservative magazine, pro-Israel but hardly obsessively so, and open to an array of perspectives. James Burnham, the magazine’s principal strategic thinker through the 1970s, was highly skeptical of the Israel-U.S. alliance. But by the 1990s, Burnham was dead and NR had a wealthy competitor, one which could count on a reported $3 million annual subsidy from Murdoch (while Buckley had labored for years to keep NR afloat with four- and five-figure donations). Leading neoconservatives, including editors of the Standard, played the anti-Semite card against key National Review figures: aggressively in the case of Joseph Sobran, with more subtlety in the case of John O’Sullivan and Richard Neuhaus. By the late 1990s, National Review had capitulated...

However:

...there are underlying dynamics in the Middle East which all of Sheldon Adelson’s money cannot overcome. Most important is that Iran has clearly become one of the more stable, modern, and democratic countries in the region. Another is that Israel is becoming a harder sell to Americans. As David Shulman put it in the New York Review of Books, “What really counts is that the Israeli electorate is still dominated by hypernationalist, in some cases protofascist, figures. It is in no way inclined to make peace.” Information flows quite freely in the age of the Internet, and these Mideast realities are slowly seeping into the American consciousness....

In other words, the Propaganda Machine of Netanyahu, Adelson, Singer, Kristol, et.al., is going to be hard-pressed to blot out the realities on the ground.

Even if one is not inclined to believe that 'Iran...[is]..one of the more stable...democratic countries in the region,' it is certainly the case that Israel is very bellicose, indeed.  This will not play well with the American public, which is revolted by the possibility of another US participation in a Mideast war.



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