Below please find a brief exchange between myself and my friend C.A. in response to the current bombardment of Gaza. It was inspired by an Andrew Sullivan post showing Democrats are less likely to support Israel than Republicans are.
CA: You know, Amyzex, I was thinking about your recent post on trends in U.S. public sympathies with Israel by party. . .I do not want to offend my Jewish friends, who are apt to get the wrong idea, but I think that Israel is kind of an abomination. Not for existing, which they may have every right to (though perhaps not on other people's land), but in their treatment of Palestinians, who perhaps are no angels, from day one. And the US media is unabashedly skewed in favor of Israel in its depictions, but if you listen closely, for all the missiles supposedly launched by Palestine, have you ever heard of an Israeli ever dying (all are intercepted by US provided missile defense systems), while every time Israel strikes, tens if not hundreds die. What is this sick, "special" relationship the US, and particularly the Republicans, have with Israel?
Amyzex: A few thoughts in response:
1. To the people who were displaced by the new settlers, every country is an abomination. The United States is an abomination to Native Americans and to a lesser extent black people, since it is based on white supremacy. Don't be surprised if asking a reservation Native what you could do to improve conditions on the rez leads to the answer, "Go back to Europe." But it's possible that our very history as enthusiastic exterminators of the natives is the reason we love Israel so much, even more than the "mother country" of England. The Israelis are copying us, which we see as a form of flattery. You could on the other hand argue that the development of the nation state is a step forward in that it ensures most migration will be peaceful, in that nations can defend themselves from marauding bands of barbarians but will to a greater or lesser extent welcome immigrants promising to fit themselves into the existing society. But it's not so simple as saying only Israel is an abomination. What Israel is most of all is an argument that Jewishness is a nationality more than a religion, which hinders the development of Judaism and discourages potential converts. That's why some ultra-Orthodox Jews are anti-Zionists.
2. Iron Dome still intercepts less than 30% of the rockets fired by the Palestinians. Comprehensive missile defense remains a forlorn hope and will be until we develop weapons that are designed to shoot down alien spacecraft moving at a significant percentage of the speed of light. The reason so few Israelis have died is that the rockets being fired by the Palestinians are completely unguided and mostly land far from people.
3. Technically Israel is not a military base of the US. In fact, it is one of the few countries in the region with no US military presence. The more capable an allied military is, the less need there is for a US presence. But Israel is certainly helpful to US operations in the Middle East in that it ties down a certain percentage of Arab military resources (at least for those countries still at war with Israel), just as the Soviets tied down most German military resources in World War II without becoming a US base.
I basically agree with everything else you said.
I don't know if you've seen it, but years ago on the Web there was a great site making fun of Zionism called "Pictland" in which the Pictish information officer argued that there were no Scottish people, or that they were all terrorists. The manifesto stated that some Scots could stay after the establishment of Pictland, but only if they were willing to "dwell and toil and moil in our land." It seems to have been taken down in response to Zionist pressure. I couldn't find it through a Google search. The manifesto conceded that there was some thought that "a land without a people should be found for the people without a land. Verily, though, Antarctica is only for total nutters. . ."