Why do Americans support Israel?

Matthew Yglesias points to an interesting new series of polls done by Gallup on Israel/Palestine and American attitudes towards Israel and the Palestinian Authority. He names his post, "American Public Prepared to Support Israel in Endless War With Arabs."

When I look at the charts that Yglesias provides for this post, I don't come to the same cynical conclusions he does.

Gallup reports: Support for Israel at 63%, near record high.

In the ongoing Israel-Palestinian conflict, a striking 63% of Americans currently say their sympathies lie more with the Israelis, the highest level in nearly 20 years. Support for the Palestinians, at 15%, is about average for the same period. At the same time, Gallup finds Americans' fundamental views of Israel no more favorable than they have been for the past several years. Israel does continue to enjoy a substantial advantage over the Palestinian Authority in its general image, a fact that clearly colors the ways Americans view the conflict.

Americans are no more optimistic today than they were last year that peace can be reached between Israel and the Palestinians -- and they are, in fact, less optimistic than they were toward the end of the Bush administration. This is largely owing to a drop in optimism among independents.

And here's the charts:





It's clear that Republicans are consistently more favorable toward Israel than Democrats, although in 2001 there wasn't much of a gap between them. Views among Democrats have fluctuated a bit between 2001 and 2010, but with no really big differences. Independents have risen significantly since 2001. Why do these differences exist?



This poll is interesting - during the years of maximum effort by the Clinton administration, the optimism about peace was fairly high, but I can't remember anything in particular happening in 2003 or 2005 that would have led to such optimism. Am I forgetting some significant events? The Iraq War started in 2003 - not something that would have led me to optimism about peace. In the summer of 2005 Israel left Gaza - perhaps that was the factor.



It would be interesting to compare these charts with polls of Israelis and Palestinians taken during the 2000s - would the optimism level chart the same way?

Yglesias' analysis:

Both support for Israel and pessimism about the possibility of peace are correlated with Republican partisan self-identification. To conjecture a bit beyond what the data can strictly tell us, I think it’s plausible to posit that there’s a large Republican-identified Christian Zionist bloc that’s extremely comfortable with the idea of aligning itself with Israel for the purposes of an endless religious war and of course they have their counterparts in the “revisionist” strand of Zionism in Israel and among American Jews. To my way of thinking—and I think that of most Jewish liberals—this is a chilling vision and we choose to believe that the conflict both can and will be resolved at some point. But many Americans have a level of cultural and ideological affiliation with violence and coercive domination that makes it easy for them to identify with this version of future Israeli history.

He's probably right that much of the Republican/Democratic difference here is based on different religious attitudes in the large conservative Christian portion of the Republican support. But why would he think it's for the purpose of "endless religious war"? What evidence is there in these charts? I don't see it. The charts just report on the party differences, they don't tell us the reasons for them. I also think it's deeply cynical to say that the reasons "many Americans" support Israel because of American's "level of cultural and ideological affiliation with violence and coercive domination." This is not an analysis, it's an expression of his ideological beliefs. I'd like to see some survey evidence to back up his claims.

I would like to know why conservative Christians actually support Israel. Not why people like John Hagee support Israel, but the spectrum of conservative evangelicals and Catholics, broken down by type of religious movement (Pentecostal, African-American church, non-Pentecostal evangelicals, etc). Based simply on some meager anecdotal evidence, my experience with conservative Christians is that they support Israel because they view Judaism and the Jewish people as forming the roots of Christianity, and they believe that the covenant between the Jewish people and God has not been abrogated by the rise of Christianity. But again, this is not evidence. If any of my readers have an idea of where to search for this information, I'd be happy to know.

Some links: History, Jacobo Timerman, and Messianic Jews

Defending History by The Plump. A sample:

I am always concerned by historical attempts to make qualitative judgements between unambiguous evils - was Stalin worse than Hitler (thereby implying one was actually better), was Fascism the same as Communism etc. – as they are either a form of sloppy shorthand or an attempt to dissemble. Nor is it enough to quantitatively evaluate regimes by counting the corpses (there are always corpses; many, many corpses).

Jacobo Timerman smeared, at Z-Blog.  A sample:

Many readers will be familiar with the name of the Argentine journalist and publisher Jacobo Timerman. Kidnapped and tortured by agents of the 1976-1983 dictatorship, he was eventually allowed to leave for Israel where he wrote a book, Prisoner Without A Name, Cell Without A Number that was to become a classic account of the horrors of military rule in Argentina.

I remember reading Timerman's book when it was first published - it was profoundly disturbing, a witness to the hellish tortures and murders committed by the Argentinean dictatorship.

Messianic Jewish Musings, by Derek Leman. Before the whole kerfuffle with Seismic Shock (Joseph Weissman) and the Reverend Sizer, I hadn't been very aware of Messianic Jewish groups (Jews who now believe that Jesus is the Messiah yet also hold onto their Jewish identity in various ways). Through my reading about his case, I came across this blog by the leader of a Messianic group in Roswell, Georgia. The blog tackles some weighty theological issues, such as supercessionism in Christianity, which Lerman (and Weissman) are particularly offended by, since it negates the value of any continued connection to Judaism on the part of Messianic Jews. (I personally object to Christian supercessionism, since it negates the continuing value of Judaism after the advent of Jesus as the Messiah).

Calvin L. Smith has also written in an interesting way about Stephen Sizer and Seismic Shock at his blog. He teaches at King's Evangelical Divinity School in England.

Reverend Stephen Sizer, Anti-Zionism, and Free Speech

Happily, in the United States, we have the First Amendment to prevent the police from showing up on the doorsteps of bloggers and telling us to take down our blogs on a dubious charge of harassment.

Unfortunately, this is not true in Britain, where the blogger Seismic Shock has been visited by the police on the complaint of a Reverend Stephen Sizer, a campaigner for the Palestinians and against Christian Zionism, who seems to be of the opinion that criticizing other people's actions and opinions on one's blog is a "campaign of harassement and intimidation."

Seismic reports on his visit from the police at Harry's Place. Go to his blog for further updates.

I've tried to read Sizer's blog and his other online writings, but since everything he pens is smothered in a thick flannel of ostentatious piety, it's rather hard to get through.

In this posting on Harry's Place, Seismic discusses Sizer's 2007 visit to Iran:

In October 2007, Stephen Sizer was invited to Iran by Zahra Mostafavi and Jawad Sharbaf of the Iranian institute NEDA, notorious for its links with Holocaust deniers. Not one to insult his hosts, Sizer’s main concern in Iran was to preach about the evils of Christian Zionism.

Faydra L. Shapiro of Wilfred Laurier University in Canada has written a slashing review of his latest book, Zion's Christian Soldiers. It appeared in the Review of Biblical Literature in November 2009 (published by the Society of Biblical Literature). I reprint it here for those interested in a scholarly approach to Sizer's anti-Zionist and anti-Judaic theology. I have emphasized the points I think most important.

In 2004 Stephen Sizer wrote Christian Zionism: Roadmap to Armageddon. Zion’s Christian Soldiers is Sizer’s attempt to reach a wider audience, by simplifying and shortening his previous work, taking out much of the detailed historical and political material to be found there. Zion’s Christian Soldiers is left with some scarce resources to make its point and is primarily a politically motivated theological critique of Christian Zionism.

In the introduction to Zion’s Christian Soldiers, the author sets out the basic terminology for his later discussion, most importantly contrasting covenantalism and dispensationalism. Sizer also takes the time to debunk what he refers to as the “three red herrings”: that dispensationalism is the only biblical literalism; the assertion that anti-Zionism is anti- Semitism; and the “straw man” of supersessionism. Sizer is careful in chapter 1 to emphasize that in his eyes the issue is not solely political; rather, “It is not an understatement to say that what is at stake is our understanding of the gospel, the centrality of the cross, the role of the church and the nature of our missionary mandate, not least, to the beloved Jewish people.” (19) In chapter 2 the author takes pains to distinguish what he deems a kind of acceptable biblical literalism from that of what he calls the “ultra-literalists.” The section on “five common mistakes made by ultraliteralists” is a brief but trenchant look at some of the creative reading techniques used to interpret biblical prophecies in light of current events.

Chapter 3 engages Sizer’s central question of the identity of God’s chosen people. For Sizer, the answer is unambiguously that believers of all nations are the real children of God and that it is thus “inappropriate to … claim the Jewish people have a separate relationship with God based on their ancestry or Mosaic Law” (71). Chapter 4 takes up the issue of “the Promised Land.” It is here that Sizer paints a utopic picture of the nature of the state following the return from exile in Babylonia, asserting that “The Promised Land under the old covenant was to be shared and inclusive. This is a biblical model many Christian Palestinians, who favor a one-state solution, long to see accepted within the modern State of Israel” (89)

Chapter 5 challenges Christian Zionist support for Jerusalem as the eternal and undivided capital of Israel, arguing that Christians ought not to focus on an exclusivist, physical city of Jerusalem; rather, their vision should be trained on the inclusive and eternal heavenly Jerusalem of Revelation. From here Sizer moves smoothly into a chapter sharply criticizing Christian Zionists who support rebuilding the temple. Chapter 8 examines the doctrine of the “rapture” and premillenialism generally as creating a “destructive culture of pessimism and fatalism in Western Christianity” (150). The book ends with a chapter of conclusion, followed by a reprint of a sermon by John Stott (Rector Emeritus of All Souls Church, London) entitled “The Place of Israel.”

Zion’s Christian Soldiers suffers from some significant weaknesses. Sizer not only overestimates the influence of Christian Zionism among American evangelicals and significantly overrates the importance of dispensationalism to their Zionism, but he utterly exaggerates the role of Christian Zionism in the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict and global politics more generally. Sizer’s suggestion in the introduction that Christian Zionism explains everything from the West’s concern about Iran’s development of nuclear capability to Arab terrorism in Britain and America (“despite our commitment to the rule of international law, democracy and human rights” [10]) is simply hyberbolic. On page 19 Sizer likewise asserts that “the movement [Christian Zionism] as a whole is nevertheless leading the West, and the church with it, into a confrontation with Islam,” as if were it not for evangelical support for Israel, the West and Islam would have nothing to disagree about. Statements like these reduce the author’s credibility to such a degree that any valuable parts to his argument are lost along the way.

Sizer clearly does not quite “get” Judaism as an entity that is neither “religion” nor “race.” This is clearly illustrated in his assertion that “The myth of racial purity is nothing new, nor is the desire to limit or exclude those deemed inferior. This is particularly so today when defining Israel, since national identity tends to be restricted to those who are Jewish by race” (46). Beyond the simplistic understandings of religion, ethnicity, and nationalism here, Sizer’s echo of Nazi terminology here is a cheap shot and utterly irresponsible. To paraphrase, Sizer is trying to argue here that, unlike contemporary Israel/Zionism, Israel of the Old Testament was not based in “racial exclusivity.” Yet such allegations of a program of “racial purity” in contemporary Israel are difficult to reconcile with the fact of a state with non-Jewish Arabs comprising some 20 percent of its population, together with the racially heterogeneous mix of Jews in Israel that includes Yemenite Jews, Russian Jews, Indian Jews, Ethiopian Jews, and Chinese Jews.

Zion’s Christian Soldiers never pretends to be the work of objective scholarship and should not be thought of as such. The author has a very strong opinion that is anti-Israel and highly critical of Christians (or presumably anyone) who support Zionism. Sizer’s passionate anti-Zionism and anti-Judaism give this work a great deal of energy, yet they harm any scholarly aspirations this book might have. Sizer writes in the preface that the “fear of being labeled an anti-Semite is a powerful disincentive” (8) to challenging Christian support for Israel. Rather than simple anti-Semitism, his work expresses something more complex, deeper, and ultimately more terrifying—a sincere, theological, Christian anti-Judaism. In several instances the reader hardly knows whether to laugh or cry. Bizarre assertions such as “If we have come to know Jesus as our personal Lord and Savior, we will read the Hebrew Scriptures with Christian eyes—the way Jesus and his apostles did” (27) or “The challenge the apostles faced was proclaiming this good news among the very people [Jews?] who had crucified Christ” (110) speak for themselves and make it difficult to take the work seriously as a contribution to scholarship.

Ray Hanania on Israel/Palestine

Ray Hanania on the Mideast Youth website has a very interesting posting on the upcoming demonstration in Washington to commemorate the 40th year of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and to call for an end to the occupation.

This June marks the 40th anniversary of the Six-day war when Israel defeated the combined Arab armies and occupied the West Bank, Arab East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.

To commemorate the event, pro-Palestinian supporters including ultra-leftist Israelis and American Jews have organized a rally in Washington June 10 –11.

But, a war of words has erupted between protest organizers and moderate Israelis and pro-peace American Jews that touches on the heart of how pro-Palestinian groups are helping to undermine rather than help the peace movement.

The protest is organized by two powerful yet loosely structured networks called “the U.S. Campaign to end the Israeli Occupation” and “United for Peace and Justice” who contend the rally should “only” focus on pressuring Congress to stop supporting Israel’s policies.

They do not want to lose the support of the more extremist pro-Palestinian groups who advocate the “One-State solution,” which is the latest in a long line of creative strategies to destroy Israel and undermine peace based on compromise.

Two Israeli and American Jewish leaders who advocate the “Two State solution,” Uri Avnery and Rabbi Michael Lerner, challenged the protest in the May/June issue of Tikkun Magazine (www.tikkun.org). They argue that the failure of protest organizers refusal to denounce the wrongs of both sides and offer a reasoned political settlement only strengthens the extremist Palestinian and Israeli elements who continue to fuel the occupation and the conflict.

Hanania agrees with Avnery and Lerner and argues that:

Avnery and Lerner argue that in order to be effective and achieve its goals, the peace movement must disassociate itself from extremists who use peace demonstrations as a cover for extremist policies like advocating the “One-State Solution.”

There is a sad truth in the pro-Palestinian movement. It is dominated by a small group of fanatics who use intimidation to silence moderate voices. They exploit Palestinian suffering to augment the hate against Israel and Jews, and advocate Holocaust Revisionism and anti-Semitism. They say they support peace but all they do is bash Israel and close their eyes to Palestinian crimes against Israel.

He says:

The correct and principled strategy is to denounce the Occupation and denounce those who reject compromise based on Two-States. They should denounce Hamas and suicide bombings and the use of violence against Israeli civilians just as strongly they denounce the brutality of the Israeli military occupation against Palestinians.

Don’t just denounce the Wall and the expansion of settlements, denounce the refusal of the current Palestinian government to embrace the fundamental principles of the only solution that will result in both sides winning.

They should speak out when Israelis are killed just as strongly as they speak out when Palestinians are killed.

I agree with everything he says, and have the same discomfort with groups like United for Peace and Justice and the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation. I certainly want the occupation to end, but I don't want Israel to end - and Israel is not coterminus with the occupation. It is groups like this that increasingly make me feel like there is no room in the middle, between them and the right-wing elements of the American Jewish community who think that our salvation lies with the Christian Zionists (like Pastor John Hagee who spoke to an enthusiastic crowd at the most recent AIPAC conference in Washington). (For more information on Hagee and his organization, "Christians United for Israel," see Jews on First).