From: "wayne mcguire" <wayne.mcguire@channel1.com>
Newsgroups: talk.politics.mideast
Subject: american opinion
Date: 29 Dec 92 00:48:17 EST
Reply-To: "wayne mcguire" <wayne.mcguire@channel1.com>
Distribution: talk
Organization: Channel 1 Communications

To: Harry Mamaysky

|> Who is better in touch with American opinion: those who supported
|> the $10 billion loan guarantee for Israel, or those who opposed
|> it?

|> Who is better in touch with American opinion: those who support
|> Israel's recent deportation of Palestinians, or those who oppose
|> it?

 HM> Who is better in touch with American opinion: those who
 HM> drink Pepsi or those who drink Coke? How is either of these
 HM> questions at all relevant.

Your response wonderfully captures the general bankruptcy of the
official Israeli and Israeli lobby position these days.

The relevance is that emotional supporters of Israel, and of
positions such as the $10 billion loan guarantee and mass
deportations, are sadly out of touch with mainstream American
public opinion. They are not the first people I would ask for an
accurate read on what mainstream American is thinking.

 HM> When was the last time you had the privilege of visiting
 HM> Israel. It is most certainly a democratic Western country.
 HM> It has all the features of democracy that we have in the
 HM> U.S.

Tell that to the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip,
who are gradually being driven off their land by messianic Jewish
settlers on a mission from God and who are denied all fundamental
civic rights. Tell that to Reform, Conservative,
Reconstructionist and secular Jews in Israel proper, who are
obligated to live in a state which increasingly has the trappings
of an Orthodox theocracy.

 HM> Perhaps the fact that it is an all Jewish country bothers
 HM> you?

And of course when you are stuck with positions and policies as
bankrupt and indefensible as the current Israeli government, all
you've got to fall back on are smears like this one.

I'll tell you one thing that really bothers me: the U.S. is
giving foreign aid to Israel at the rate of nearly $1,000 per
Israeli per year, while other nations around the world are in far
greater need of our help. Perhaps you are having trouble dealing
with the reality that Israel has turned into the world's supreme
schnorrer state, and that this fact is a major irritant in
U.S.-Israeli relations.

I wish I had a dollar for every time an emotional supporter of
Israel has called someone an anti-Semite as a substitute for
rational and informed discussion. I'd be a very wealthy person by
now. Why in this newsgroup alone I've seen the charge bandied
about dozens of times in just the last few weeks. Pathetic.

 HM> Perhaps I have not noticed it once again when I talk to my
 HM> American friends, or read my local news paper? I have
 HM> noticed anti-Semitism here and there - much too frequently
 HM> have I noticed it in fact.

Run a quick content analysis on the popular and elite media in
the U.S., and tell me how many enthusiastic endorsements of
Israel you will find from non-Jews. These days, practically none.
You might narrow down your analysis to The New York Times op-ed
page, and see what you come up with. Or the set of all books
published by Western publishers about Israel during the last five
years.

Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir and other Likudniks did an
excellent job of destroying the good will and respect that Israel
enjoyed from the West during the first two or three decades of
its existence. At this point it's going to be very difficult to
recover that good will. The attitudes of many people about what
sort of state Israel is are hardening.

Israeli supporters are truly blind if they don't realize that the
cause of Israel in the West is in significant disrepair, and
declining daily. This won't be the first time that messianism has
seriously clouded the judgement of many Jews and wreaked havoc
with the Jewish community. Zionism may well prove to be yet
another false messianic movement among many in the Jewish
tradition. Anyone who rules out that possibility out of hand as
preposterous should look again with a clear eye.
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Newsgroups: talk.politics.mideast