Mitt Romney will visit Israel as part of an overseas tour to boost his international pedigree[/caption]Mitt Romney’s parachute drop into Israel this week is proof, as if it was needed, that America’s Middle East policy is in fact domestic policy masquerading as statecraft.
True, Romney’s pandering to Zionist voters back home, which includes Christian fundamentalists as well as Jews, is an established rite of passage for presidential contenders. Barack Obama made the same pilgrimage as did George W. Bush and Bill Clinton before him. Their messages of unconditional support for the Jewish state are distinguishable only when it comes to its illegal occupation of Palestinian land. While Democratic candidates express rote appeals for land swaps for peace, their Republican counterparts stress Israel’s need for “strategic depth” – a dog-whistle endorsement for settlement in perpetuity.
On the surface at least, the US-Israeli axis is an odd pairing. Though Washington is not treaty-bound to defend Israel in the way it is committed to defend its NATO allies, it has on occasion and at great expense gone to war for Israel’s sake. While America is a constitutional republic that guarantees freedom of worship and precludes the creation of a state religion, Israel’s very identity is informed by a single faith. It has no constitution because of pressure imposed by powerful religious elites who insist on the Torah as the basis for Israeli law.
Though Israel is a rich country with a thriving economy, a heavily indebted Washington annually transfers billions of dollars to Israeli accounts, an annuity that over the years has far exceeded its commitments as laid out in the 1979 Camp David Accords. For this, the United States has earned itself the enmity of the Muslim world and beyond. Why, I am so often asked, would a country expose itself in such a way with so little to show for it?
The answer is simpler and more sinister in its way than the most extravagant of conspiracy theories. Having lived and reported in both the US and Israel, I am often struck at the similarities between the countries two folk narratives. Both nations perceive themselves as ordained by God – Israel by Holy Scripture, America by the conceit of its founders – and both were settled by the ethnic cleansing of indigenous peoples. The counterpoint to Israeli-American exceptionalism, which Romney will no doubt celebrate early and often during his visit, is a victim complex that denies the factors behind the animus engendered against both countries – namely, America’s militarized empire and Israel’s militant claim on the West Bank.
While the US is constitutionally non-sectarian, a powerful minority of its electorate is agitating for an intolerant and bigoted state-imposed Christianity. It complements the most expansionist elements of Israeli society and it serves as the backbone of Romney’s support.
It is fair then, to suggest that the US-Israeli relationship rests on a bedrock of shared values, however onerous its strategic costs to American interests abroad. The fact that those values are darkly fanatical says as much about the two partners as it does about the partnership itself.
