The title says it all. I don’t understand the fierce support for the state. I can understand the practical implications, (oil, military) and that the government there is fairly liberal and democratic for the region, but I don’t see the justification for the state. It seems to me (after cursory research), that it was basically formed without the consent of half the people living there, and we’ve backed them ever since. today, I often hear that questioning the legitimacy of Israel is paramount to being an anti-Semite. Help me out here people, what am I missing?
If you don’t wanna, don’t.
From what I understand there is a huge religious element to it. Apparently the Bible talks about Israel, so most of the religious enthusiasts strongly support its existance on religious grounds.
Also, Islamaphobia would be a good motive too; support of Israel is a socially acceptable way to support ethnically cleansing Muslims from a piece of land
Keeping them under off balance (without Israel the Entire Middle East would be majority Muslim in every country, and some people don’t realise that different countries are different in different ways. Israel is an unfriendly nuclear power within easy striking range of them, so apparently thats meant to keep them in check (I fundamentally disagree with this, as I think it unites them, and fuels extremism - I personally do not believe that 9/11 would have occured without the existance of Israel)
Also, there is the whole Holocaust guilt that meant that until recently most European governments were supportive of Israel.
What you’re missing is that rational and considered discussion of the question is profoundly hostile to Israel itself. Hence the lack of such, particularly in the US media which moderately embargoes stories that do not reflect that national favourably.
I honestly believe that the reason our government supports them so strongly is two-fold. One, we want a friendly player in the region, as the region does have strategic importance. Two, for a large number of Jews, it is a very important place (I’m not arguing against that at all, by the way), and so being seen as Israel-friendly is important for a decent sized voting bloc.
And that is an idiocy that is unfortunately even shared by some on this board, some of whom are perfectly rational posters on every other subject. There are even people here who start insinuating antisemitism for simply criticizing a given behavior undertaken by the Israeli government. Luckily, there are many strong supporters of Israel who know better, and will shoot down such insinuations.
I’m highly critical of many things on the Palestinian side of things.
I’m even more critical of the Israeli side. Not because they deserve more scrutiny, but because they have everything in place to lead that region to a new era. I will say that at this point, I do support a state of Israel, just as I support a Palestinian state.
It’s similar to my criticisms of my own country. I’m far more critical of my own country than some third-world hellhole. Not because it’s my country, but because we actually have the means to be better, and should be held to a higher standard.
Israel is a problematic partner and watching the evolution of a new state unfold is sort of like making sausage. If we had to watch the American colonists and western settlers re-make the US all over again there would be plenty of opportunity for moral outrage and finger pointing. Israel is (IMO) quite poorly behaved when it comes to consideration of the Palestinians as human beings. Beyond the ongoing warfare with the more militant elements of Palestinian nationalists, Israeli treatment of the Palestinians as fellow human beings has often been fairly despicable. The root problem is that you have a nation state founded on a commonality of interests that at their core seek (and virtually must) set Israelis apart from their neighbors on multiple levels.
There is also the often overlooked issue that Israel and it’s people exist educationally, and technologically at a fairly advanced, pretty much western level of social development, and they are surrounded by a population that is much less developed and surprisingly quite illiterate. Religious issues aside that economic and developmental gulf between the two societies creates huge resentments and anger which the Israeli’s have relatively little to address in terms of any real efforts at helping Palestinians advance. Raw cynicism and bad faith are the main dynamics on both sides of the fence at this point, and I don’t see much hope for that changing anytime in the near future. There is a general sense in the west (mainly Europe) that Israeli should behave better despite Palestinian provocation, but this has not gained any real traction with he Israelis as long as the US supports them and they can tell the Europeans and others to take a flying leap.
Having said this Israel exists and must be dealt with as a matter of fact. Discussion about Israel’s “right” to exist are largely pointless at this juncture in history. You don’t have to support them but whether you do or don’t is kind of beside the point unless you are going to work to convince other US policy makers that supporting Israel is a bad bet and I will guarantee you that Israel has a better PR machine than you do.
I think the Israeli government frequently acts counter to US security interests (I think the Israeli government frequently acts counter to its own interests, but that’s its own business). So, I don’t see why we should support Israel.
That said, we support a number of Middle Eastern countries, such as Saudi Arabia, that frequently act counter to US interests. One, of course, can’t expect other countries to always behave in your interests, but between these two, I can’t figure out what gain we’re getting with our Middle Eastern policies.
That’s my take on looking at it from the perspective of US security interests, anyway.
Thanks for the responses so far.
I want to make clear, that despite Israel’s rather murky founding, I recognize the fact that it’s been around some 60 odd years or so, and isn’t going anywhere. IMHO the Palestinians need to let it go and deal with what is reasonable.
It seems so far, that other than lingering guilt from the Europeans, and political machinations in the US there isn’t any particular good, ethical reason to support Israel, and perhaps even less than most nations.
It’s kind of stupid to question the legitimacy of Israel, though. They exist, because of partitioning after WWII. Just like a lot of countries. Is there supposed to be some higher power shining down and anointing that countries exist? The Brits broke up the Ottoman empire, said, ‘Okay, we want all the tribes to be busy hating each other’ and put Israel right there.
(Quote made up, but I believe strongly it had no small part in describing British partitioning in the Middle East. This mess is _all their fault. Look at Iraq, and how it should have, at the least, had Kurdistan carved out of it.)
These sort of questions are never going to have meaningful answers because beyond the visceral barabarism of “goodies” and “badies” what exactly does it mean to “support” a side in the conflict?
Israel has done terrible things and feels justified in doing so because terrible things have been done to it the past. It built a wall and increased the hardship of many Palestinians, but that same wall has also been fully sucessful in preventing suicide attacks. Israel is often accused of disproportionate response, but such a term lacks precision: if Hamas fires rockets out of hospitals and those hospitals need to be destroyed to prevent these dangerous attack, what is the proportional response? And we mustn’t forget that Israel is, essentially, a western-liberal democracy in an area that doesn’t contain very many.
Palestinians on the other hand have legitimate grievences: their land was taken inspite of their non-involvement in the arab-Israeli wars, they face deprivation and violence on a daily basis. Yet, they continue to support groups that push violent agendas and antagonise Israel. If the general population ceased to support Hamas, the peace process may actually continue.
It is easy to say we should support Palestine because they seem to be the victims after attacks like these, but one should keep in mind that Palestinian attacks do kill Israelis and the bombings and barricades do seem to stem these.
So what’s the solution? Well if I knew that I’d have my Nobel Peace Prize by now. All i’m saying is that simplifying things down to binary pairs of victim/villain or support/unsupport does nothing. Support both sides as much as possible. Recognise their valid grievences and fears. Help them work towards a solution.
Are you looking to debate whether there are compelling reasons for the nation of Israel to exist, aside from any consideration of its status as a solid ally of the US? I believe the mere fact of its existence today is all the counterargument you need against any argument that there’s no justification for its nationhood. If a society of people want to inhabit that area of the Earth and its neighbors can’t force them to leave or assimilate, then high-minded notions of whether they “deserve” to be there are pretty pointless in my opinion. You might as well argue for the US to be disbanded for all the crap our government subjected the Indians to.
Maybe someone can clear up a point for me that I never understood. After the U.N. partition and Israel’s birth in 1948, what should have been “Palestine” remained part of Jordan until the Six Day War. Yet, as far as I know (and I could very well be wrong), the “Palestinians” never fought Jordan for an independent state. There were armed incursions into Israel, but no one (including the U.N.) pushed Jordan to give up the land.
If the “Palestinians” wanted a state so badly, why didn’t they fight Jordan at the time?
Just like every other country on Earth? What tribe of Native Americans used to live where you’re now living 
If you’d left enough Indians to have a decent tear-up with, and your squabbling was affecting the rest of the world, people would have a right to make that argument.
Have a look at the original partition map. This should answer a lot of questions for you - including your omission of the Gaza strip, and the existence of refugees in the new “Arab state”, including the West Bank, who had fled the areas now deemed Israel.
Am I correct in the impression, from your use of quotes, that you consider that, since a people didn’t request something forty years ago, following a massive status change in terms of the controlling power on the land they were on, de facto, that they’re not able to request it now?
No mention of lobbying?
Israel has one of the most powerful lobbying organizations in Washington, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Politicians who vote against Israel’s interests are punished.
Actually, Palestinians caused a lot of troubles in Jordan, including demanding autonomy, essentially ignoring the authority of Jordan’s government and intending to overthrow it, and generally behaving like the land was theirs. Jordan put an end to this situation with the bloody “Black September” repression.
Upon reflection, this happened after the 1967 war, hence isn’t really relevant since the original post was about the period during which the West Bank was under Jordan’s rule.
Good post. Do you know what prompted this newest round of violence?