[LCM Articles] Fwd: An article for you from Michel Rbeiz.

Tue Aug 8 16:11:41 EDT 2006

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: autoreply at economist.com <autoreply at economist.com>
Date: Aug 8, 2006 12:53 PM
Subject: An article for you from Michel Rbeiz.
To: mrbeiz at alum.mit.edu

- AN ARTICLE FOR YOU, FROM ECONOMIST.COM -

Dear Michel Rbeiz,

Michel Rbeiz (mrbeiz at alum.mit.edu) wants you to see this article on
Economist.com.

(Note: the sender's e-mail address above has not been verified.)

Subscribe to The Economist print edition, get great savings and FREE full
access to Economist.com.  Click here to subscribe:
http://www.economist.com/subscriptions/email.cfm

Alternatively subscribe to online only version by clicking on the link below
and save 25%:

http://www.economist.com/subscriptions/offer.cfm?campaign=168-XLMT

TO ISRAEL WITH LOVE
Aug 3rd 2006

Why America gives Israel its unconditional support

ANYBODY who doubts the size of the transatlantic divide over Israel
should try discussing the Middle East conflagration in Britain and then
doing the same in America. Everybody watches much the same grisly
footage. But, by and large, people draw very different conclusions. The
emphasis in Britain is overwhelmingly on the disproportionate scale of
the response. Americans are much more inclined to give Israel the
benefit of the doubt--and to blame Hizbullah. Some Jewish organisations
are so confident of support for Israel that they even take out slots
during news programmes, pleading for donations.

Opinion polls confirm that Americans are solidly on Israel's side. A
USA TODAY/Gallup poll conducted on July 28th-30th showed that eight in
ten Americans believed that Israel's action was justified--though a
majority were worried about the scale of the action. A plurality (44%)
thought that America was doing "about the right amount" to deal with
the conflict. An earlier USA TODAY poll found that 53% put "a great
deal" of the blame for the current crisis on Hizbullah, 39% put the
blame on Iran and only 15% blamed Israel.

Similarly, Americans are far more likely than Europeans to side with
Israel in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A Pew Global Attitudes
survey taken between March and May found that 48% of Americans said
that their sympathies lay with the Israelis; only 13% were sympathetic
towards the Palestinians. By contrast, in Spain for example, 9%
sympathised with the Israelis and 32% with the Palestinians.

The political establishment is even more firmly behind Israel than the
public is. Support for Israel stretches from San Francisco liberals
like Nancy Pelosi to southern-fried conservatives like Bill Frist. The
House and Senate have both passed bipartisan resolutions condemning
Hizbullah and affirming Congress's support for Israel. The House
version passed by 410 to 8 (of which three were from districts in
Michigan with concentrations of Arab-Americans). The Senate resolution,
sponsored by 62 senators--including the leaders of both parties--passed
unopposed.

Indeed, the parties are engaged in a competition to see who can be the
most pro-Israeli. Twenty or so Democrats, including Ms Pelosi, the
House leader, and Harry Reid, the Senate leader, demanded that Iraq's
prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, retract his criticisms of Israel or
have his invitation to address Congress cancelled. (Mr Maliki, strongly
backed by the administration, was eventually allowed to go ahead.)
Several leading Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, have addressed
pro-Israeli rallies. The contrast with the simmering rage within the
Labour Party over Tony Blair's support for George Bush could hardly be
more marked.

Pro-Israeli forces command the intellectual high ground as well as the
corridors of power. Commentators such as Charles Krauthammer issue
column after column ridiculing the notion of proportionality and
stressing Hizbullah's responsibility for civilian casualties. Most
middle-of-the-road commentators question the effectiveness, rather than
the morality, of Israel's actions. Out-and-out critics of Israel are
relegated to the sidelines.

Why is America so much more pro-Israeli than Europe? The most obvious
answer lies in the power of two very visible political forces: the
Israeli lobby (AIPAC) and the religious right. AIPAC, which has an
annual budget of almost $50m, a staff of 200, 100,000 grassroots
members and a decades-long history of wielding influence, is arguably
the most powerful lobby in Washington, mightier even than the National
Rifle Association.

"Thank God we have AIPAC, the greatest supporter and friend we have in
the whole world," says Ehud Olmert, Israel's prime minister. The lobby,
which is the centrepiece of a co-ordinated body that includes pressure
groups, think-tanks and fund-raising operations, produces voting
statistics on congressmen that are carefully scrutinised by political
donors. It also organises regular trips to Israel for congressmen and
their staffs. (The WASHINGTON POST reports that Roy Blunt, the House
majority whip, has been on four.)

The Christian right is also solidly behind Israel. White evangelicals
are significantly more pro-Israeli than Americans in general; more than
half of them say they strongly sympathise with Israel. (A third of the
Americans who claim sympathy with Israel say that this stems from their
religious beliefs.) Two in five Americans believe that Israel was given
to the Jewish people by God, and one in three say that the creation of
the state of Israel was a step towards the Second Coming.

Religious-right activists are trying to convert this latent sympathy
into political support. John Hagee, a Texas televangelist who believes
that supporting Israel is a "biblical imperative", recently founded
Christians United for Israel. Last month he brought 3,500 people from
across the country to Washington to cheer Israel's war against
Hizbullah. Mr Hagee's brigades held numerous meetings on Capitol Hill;
both Mr Bush and Mr Olmert sent messages to his rally.

These pressure groups are clearly influential. Evangelical Christians
make up about a quarter of the American electorate and are the bedrock
of Mr Bush's support. Congressmen take on AIPAC at their peril. But
they deal with well-heeled lobbies every day. And the power of the
religious right can hardly explain why Democrats are so keen on Israel.
Two other factors need to be considered: the war on Islamic radicalism,
and deep cultural affinities between America and Israel.

SEEING THEMSELVES IN ISRAEL
Americans instinctively see events in the Middle East through the prism
of September 11th 2001. They look at Hizbullah and Hamas with their
Islamist slogans and masked faces and see the people who attacked
America--and they look at Israeli citizens and see themselves. In
America the "war on terror" is a fact of life, constantly reiterated.
The sense that America is linked with Israel in a war against Islamist
extremism is reinforced by Iranian statements about wiping Israel off
the surface of the earth, and by the political advance of the Islamists
of Hamas in Palestine.

But the biggest reason why Americans are so pro-Israel may be cultural.
Americans see Israel as a plucky democracy in a sea of autocracies--a
democracy that has every right to use force to defend itself.
Europeans, on the other hand, see Israel as a reminder of the atavistic
forces--from nationalism to militarism--that it has spent the post-war
years trying to grow beyond.

Americans are staunch nationalists, much readier to contemplate the use
of force than Europeans. A German Marshall Fund survey in 2005 found
42% of Americans strongly agreeing that "under some conditions, war is
necessary to obtain justice" compared with just 11% of Europeans. A Pew
survey found that the same proportion of Americans and Israelis believe
in the use of pre-emptive force: 66%. Continental European figures were
far lower.

Yet all this unquestioning support does not mean that America will give
Israel absolute CARTE BLANCHE to do whatever it wills. Condoleezza
Rice, the secretary of state, was visibly shaken after the tragedy in
Qana where at least 28 civilians, half of them children, were killed by
Israeli bombs. There are growing worries both about Israel's conduct of
the war and its wider impact on the Middle East. Many of these
anxieties are expressed by the "realist faction". Chuck Hagel, a
Republican maverick, has given warning that America's relationship with
Israel "cannot be at the expense of our Arab and Muslim relationships".
Richard Haass, a State Department official under George Bush senior who
now heads the Council on Foreign Relations, has laughed publicly at the
president's "birth of a new Middle East" optimism about the crisis.
Some of the worries extend to conservatives. Tony Blankley, a former
press secretary for Newt Gingrich and a fire-breathing columnist for
the WASHINGTON TIMES, says that "We ignore world opinion at our peril."

A few cracks are starting to appear. But they are still insignificant
in the mighty edifice of support.

See this article with graphics and related items at
http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7255198

Go to http://www.economist.com for more global news, views and analysis from
the Economist Group.

- ABOUT ECONOMIST.COM -

Economist.com is the online version of The Economist newspaper, an
independent weekly international news and business publication offering
clear reporting, commentary and analysis on world politics, business,
finance, science & technology, culture, society and the arts.
Economist.com also offers exclusive content online, including additional
articles throughout the week in the Global Agenda section.

-       SUBSCRIBE NOW AND SAVE 25% -

Click here:
http://www.economist.com/subscriptions/offer.cfm?campaign=168-XLMT

Subscribe now with 25% off and receive full access to:

* all the articles published in The Economist newspaper
* the online archive - allowing you to search and retrieve over 33,000
articles published in The Economist since 1997
* The World in  - The Economist's outlook on the year
* Business encyclopedia - allows you to find a definition and explanation
for any business term

- ABOUT THIS E-MAIL -

This e-mail was sent to you by the person at the e-mail address listed
above through a link found on Economist.com.  We will not send you any
future messages as a result of your being the recipient of this e-mail.

- COPYRIGHT -

Economist.com privacy policy: http://www.economist.com/about/privacy.cfm

-- 
Michel Rbeiz
============================
Mail: PO Box 723, Allston, MA 02134
Phone: 617.230.8116(c), 617.253.6018(w)
Email: mrbeiz at alum.mit.edu
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/lebanon-articles/attachments/20060808/4afe6f6f/attachment.htm