August 15, 2025 • 37 mins
U.S. military aid to Israel funds the occupation of the West Bank, the destruction of Gaza, and the genocide of the Palestinian people. The American government's unconditional support for Israel chills free speech and represses pro-Palestinian activism, making open criticism of Zionism taboo.
In our very first episode, we explore the power dynamics in the U.S.-Israel relationship and take a hard look at who decides, who benefits, and who pays the price. We examine the influence of the Zionist lobby, the role of evangelical Christian support for Israel, and historical truths of this “special relationship.” Is this a mutual strategic alliance, or a lopsided patron-client arrangement? Who’s really in charge? Is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling the shots in Washington? Or is U.S. foreign policy based on strategic imperialist interests?
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Episode Transcript
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(00:09):
It's time. For you and me to stand up for
ourselves. Welcome to Unwatched and Unruly,
where we scrub the lives out of politics, culture, and history.
Today, we'll be airing history'sdirty laundry on the
relationship between Israel and the US.
Who's the top and who's the bottom?
I'm your host Lola Michaels withhistory buffologist Ezra Saeed.
Hi, Lola. Hi everyone.
(00:31):
And professional brain Fogger Cam cruise hey.
Friends. You can reach us at
unwatchunruly@gmail.com. Do we live in the United States
of Israel? the US rulers provide Israel
with nearly 4 billion and unconditional military aid each
year. Over the last several decades,
that money has funded Israel's military occupation in the West
(00:52):
Bank. Over the last several years,
it's funded the destruction of Gaza and extermination of the
Palestinian people. Uncritical support for Israel
has chilled free speech. It's led to the repression of
pro Palestinian activists, created a climate where any
criticism of Zionism or theocracy is taboo.
It's indefensible. But why does it exist?
(01:13):
Some argue that the US Israel relationship is a strategic
alliance where they need each other equally and some argue
that it's A1 sided patron clientset up.
So who's the horse and who's therider in this relationship?
Who calls the shots? Ezra.
With that question, the US callsthe shots.
You mentioned the US provides Israel with nearly $4 billion of
(01:34):
unconditional military aid. It's actually conditional.
And what I mean by that is it's $3.8 billion a year, and that
money is earmarked that Israel has to spend it on military
equipment, but military equipment bought from only
American companies such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and
others. So what that means is your tax
(01:56):
dollars and my tax dollars are not only financing the state of
Israel, they're also financing private American companies that
produce arms. So what you're saying is that
the public is putting money intothe pockets of these US gun
manufacturers and weapons manufacturers?
Yes, the aid that the US sends, and it's not just to Israel, but
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believe it's the number is 2.1 billion a year to Egypt carries
the same earmark. That money can't just be spent
on anything, nor can it be spenton buying, for example, Chinese
or French or British weaponry. It has to be American weaponry,
and so it becomes a very useful tool by U.S. companies,
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manufacturing companies to make profit.
Having said all that, that's notthe main reason for the alliance
between the United States and Israel.
That is a secondary benefit for American manufacturers out of
that alliance. The main reason for that
alliance is because Israel is a very good and committed servant
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of American interests in the Middle East.
So Israel sometimes described aslike America's unsinkable
aircraft carrier. So is that still a valid
metaphor? I think so.
And I think Joe Biden and 2013, when he was a bit more lucid
than he is today, captured it very succinctly when he said if
Israel didn't exist, we would have to invent it.
(03:20):
If you begin with the assumptionthat the Middle East is an
important part of the world and not only for oil but also
because of its strategic location, you then have to
assume that if you're a powerfulcountry like the United States,
the world's most powerful country, you want to maintain a
foothold there and control what's happening there.
Well, Israel has been enormouslybeneficial to the United States
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in both maintaining that foothold and bringing to heal
virtually every regime in the region that has been hostile to
the United States. Obviously, a couple of
exceptions remain. Really, only one exception
remains today, and it's Iran. Yeah.
And I think you're, I mean, you're making me think a little
bit about the 1980s and then going into obviously much later,
(04:08):
the War on Terror and why Israelbecame a strategic ally.
But we know now that support forIsrael is very bipartisan, But
it wasn't always that way. You had the Democratic Party
being more of a staunch ally of Israel in the past.
And the Republican administrations, like
Eisenhower's, for example, tended to be like more critical
(04:31):
of Israelis actions at the beginning.
But then you have this surge of evangelicals in the 80s, like,
how did this all change? What are we looking at in terms
of like the 60s, seventies, 80s and then going into like the War
on Terror era and then today? In very brief, I would argue
that it has been bipartisan. It simply expresses itself in
different ways with each party. And if you go back to the
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beginning of the fighting of thestate of Israel, the US was
supportive but at a bit of arm'slength from the from from the
Israeli state because it was looking for different ways of
maintaining its control and power in the region, including
through the various Arab regimesthere.
One of the famous examples is with 1956 when Israel, along
with France and Britain invaded Egypt after the Egyptian regime
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Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalize the Suez Canal.
It was the US that stepped in and basically brought all three
to heal. The reason for that was not
because the US cared about Egyptian sovereignty.
The reason for that was really because the US cared about the
idea that France and Britain would operate in the Middle East
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independent of the US. They basically this was that.
Was our way of exerting hegemony.
Yes. Basically this was a way of the
US exerting hegemony over what it saw as two rivals in the
Middle East. In the case of France and
Britain, Israel was seen really as just a camp follower of
those. So at the end of the day, France
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and Britain were told to get outof Egypt, and Israel, which had
conquered the whole of the SinaiPeninsula, was just told to get
out of the Sinai Peninsula and to get out of Gaza.
And they did, because they're not going to go up against the
US What really shifted the situation was the 1967 war.
Now you have to go back in time and think what was happening at
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the time was the Cold War between the United States and
the Soviet Union. That was the overarching
question. The overarching question for the
whole region was, were these various governments and regimes
in the in the Middle East going to ally themselves with the
United States or the Soviet Union?
And if you were the United States, you were looking for a
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powerful, strong ally that couldact in your interests against
pro Soviet governments in the Middle East.
Among those, for example, were not Nasser's government in in
Egypt. In 1967, Israel launched a war.
The background to it is not important for the moment, but
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Israel launched a war against Egypt, against Syria and Jordan,
and in the matter of actually less than six days, it's called
a six day war. But it really took fewer days
than that managed to destroy theentire Egyptian Air Force,
conquer the West Bank and E Jerusalem, conquer the Golan
Heights and conquer Gaza as wellas the Sinai Peninsula and go
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all the way up to the Suez Canal.
And was this war also funded by the US?
Not that much really. And in fact, the US initially
was very unenthusiastic about the war.
The main weaponry that Israel was using at the time was
French. I'm not saying that the US sent
no support to Israel, but it waspretty minimal.
It was after that war, when Israel demonstrated that it is
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indeed a very powerful country, that the US then changed tack
and said that's our ally, that'sthe country that we're going to
basically use to further our interests in the middle.
East. And did they just bypass the
French in terms of support to win favor?
Yes, and frankly, the Israelis were more than happy to drop the
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French Zionism from its origin, and I mean from its origin as a
movement, once it goes beyond the initial founders, which were
really Christian Zionists when you talk about the theater
rehearsals and so on, understoodthat for this movement to
survive and exist, it needed to have imperialist patrons.
And initially that imperialist patron was Britain, which was at
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the time, in the early 20th century, the most powerful
country in the world. The early Zionist movement, for
example, had its biggest activity in Britain, where it
had the least support among the Anglo Jewish population.
They had very little support there.
So you wonder, well, why would you have such heavy activity in
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a country where you have very little support among the Jewish
population? Well, it was because it wasn't
really aimed at the Jewish population.
It was aimed at the British ruling class.
And the way it was aimed at the British ruling class is we can
serve your interests in the Middle East.
What you have to remember with the 1917 Balfour Declaration, in
which Britain publicly committeditself to Palestine being a
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homeland for the Jews, is that one, that author Balfour was a
notorious anti Semite, despised Jews, was actually the author of
an early 1900s law in Britain toexclude specifically Jewish
immigration. But two, what it was really
about was an anticipation in themidst of the First World War
that the Ottoman Empire was going to collapse and all this
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land in the Middle East that included Palestine, but also
Syria and Jordan. What's now Jordan and Syria and
Iraq and elsewhere needed to be divided up between the powerful
states of Europe, namely in thiscase France and Britain.
Britain worked on really 3 fronts. 1 was working out a
relationship with France as to who gets what. 2 was working out
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a relationship with various powerful Arab luminaries as to
who would be their men in a postwar Middle East.
The Hashemite family was originally from the Arabian
Peninsula. For an example of that to this
day they ruled Jordan and for a long time they ruled Iraq.
And a third one were the Zionists.
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And what the Zionists could offer that no one else could
offer is not only will we serve your interests in the Middle
East like the Hashemites would, but we are culturally European.
We are one of you. We will bring European
civilization into the vast sea of dark barbarism that is the
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Middle East, and so we can be a permanent foothold for you in
the region, because we are one of you.
Yeah, so they offer the more palatable choice.
Yeah, and again, and it's not like it was 1 to the exclusion
of the other. The British worked on both
fronts. The reason it was very important
for the British is not oil. At that point, oil hadn't been
discovered yet. The reason it was important for
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the British is because the real crown and the jewel for the
British was India. Yeah, and this is at the time
where they're transporting a lotback and forth by sea.
It's sea and land, and so Palestine was right, the
crossroads between India in the east and Britain in the West and
the Suez Canal in Egypt, and that's where you get the sea
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trade. So beyond the imperialist
interest, like when we're looking at the kind of shift
right now or where we're really seeing, you mentioned Christian
Zionist, and there's a whole history of that going way back.
But right now we see this very intense evangelical movement, of
course, that's very pro Zionist,pro Israel and seeing this kind
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of biblical prophecy fulfilled or you know, what kind of role
Israel would play in like the second coming, right?
So what, how do you situate beyond the kind of imperialist
interest, this kind of religiousinterest in Israel, Like the the
cynicism that we see among Republican politicians, for
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example, in terms of their evangelical base, they obviously
don't love Israel because they love Jewish people or anything
like that. It's clearly something else is
going on. Well.
I would say in 1967, the basis was by both Republicans and
Democrats was was overwhelminglysecular.
It was not really driven by Christian theology.
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Remember, the Republican partieschanged over the decades.
The first time you really get that coming into the equation is
actually under the Democrats with Jimmy Carter, who sort of
brought Christian fundamentalisminto the mainstream of American
politics and then picked up and taken to the NTH degree by the
Reagan administration. Because it worked, it worked
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winning votes, it worked for mobilizing people or the silent
majority, all that stuff. And in Christian theology or
specifically evangelical Protestant theology, is this
idea that the second coming of the Christ is going to happen
once certain events happen in the world.
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And one of these events supposedly is the in gathering
of the Jews into their supposed homeland.
Their supposed homeland is Palestine, the land of Israel,
Dia, whatever you want to call it.
So what you want to do is, if you adhere to this theology, is
to do everything you can to get Jews to move out of wherever
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they are into this piece of land.
And once they move into this piece of land, something is
supposed to happen that is then supposed to result in the second
coming day of Judgement Armageddon.
The end result is some will convert to Christianity, some of
these Jews who were moved there and will therefore be saved.
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The majority will not, and will in fact burn for all eternity in
hell. That's pretty insensitive of
these Christians. Yeah.
And that is really the theology.So when you hear these Christian
fundamentalists talk about the reason they support Israel is
because they pick a line from the Hebrew Bible that says I
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will bless those who bless Israel and curse those who curse
Israel. You can argue about the context
of the line and what it really means and all that, but that's
not really the real reason. Because Christian Zionism, like
I said, predates Jewish Zionism by a long period actually.
And it certainly predates the existence of the state of
Israel. And it had nothing to do with
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blessing Israel or cursing Israel.
It had to do with get them over there.
So we can get these end times going exactly.
So we can get those end times. Going Yeah, we all know how
horny Christians are for the endtimes.
Especially those evangelical Protestants.
I remember seeing this come playout a little bit in that recent
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debate that we looked at with Tucker Carlson and Ted Cruz,
where there was reference to theBible and blessing Israel, blah,
blah, blah. And then you start to see kind
of a not necessarily fissures, but nuance in terms of support
for Israel and what it means financially and so on.
Yeah. I mean, it was it was a
discussion that went viral and for good reason.
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I mean, I thought Tucker Carlson, right wing commentator
that he is, made a bit of a foolof Ted Cruz, which is really not
that hard to do Ted Cruz is not the sharpest tool in the shed,
but he made a fool of him specifically really around Iran
especially where Ted Cruz didn'tknow the most basic things about
a country he wants to destroy. But what was very interesting to
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me is when we got to why the US should support Israel in his own
not very bright way. Ted Cruz was, I thought, making
the correct argument. And that argument was Israel
serves America's interests. And I think he's right.
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If you're an American imperialist ruler, Israel serves
your interests. And in his own way, Ted Cruz was
conveying the same thing that Joe Biden was conveying those 12
years ago. What they both had in common was
this country is vital for American interests.
So let's let's actually look at it in some specifics, OK?
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Because of Israeli strength, a country like Egypt has been
brought to heel and is now underthe orbit of American influence
and imperialism in the region. Because of Israeli strength,
Jordan has been brought to heel and is now under the influence
of American power in the region.Because of Israeli strength, the
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alliance between the Gulf Statesand the United States has become
ever stronger, as indicated by these Abrahamic Accords.
Under Israeli strength, just in the last year, Hezbollah was
destroyed, and the US didn't have to fight Hezbollah.
Israel did it for it. If you're the United States and
you want to go to war with Iran and you want to test out how
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strong Iran really is, well, theUS didn't directly really go to
war with Iran. Israel did.
Well, I I think that's somethingI wanted to mention too, because
we're talking about who's in control here.
And I think a lot of people see Israel as pulling the US into
war with Iran for their own interests.
So what is your opinion on that?I believe Israel wanted to go to
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war with Iran. Don't get me wrong, this wasn't
something the US forced Israel to do.
This is something Israel wanted to do.
But Israel doesn't get to do very much that it wants to do
unless the US wants it to do it.If you recall, when the war
began, the US came out with a statement that the US had
nothing to do with it and knew nothing about it, and this was
just between Israel and Iran. Within a day or two, it became
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patently obvious that this was utter bullshit, that everything
was worked out with the US in advance, that every detail was
worked out the US in advance. That this was basically the US
and Israel working together to attack Iran.
And. And if there was any doubt about
that, the coda of the war was the US directly bombing Iran
itself. Yeah.
So the idea that Israel somehow was dragging the US unwillingly
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into a war with Iran is ludicrous.
What I can believe is that Israel thought the war would be
easier, that Israel thought Iran's response would be more
muted, or that Iran would have less capability than it actually
did and therefore was begging for an American entry more
quickly. Or or maybe they thought
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initially that they could handleit, that American support, but
the idea that this is just an Israeli operation, the US had
nothing to do, then suddenly theUS finds itself being dragged
into it. I think it's ridiculous.
It's just a misconception, huh? Yes.
And, and I think here's the biggest thing of all this.
If your assumption is the real force in charge is Israel and
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not the United States, what you're effectively doing is
letting the United States off the hook for everything that's
happened in the Middle East. Let's look for an example at the
ongoing genocide in Gaza. Israel would not be able to get
away with doing what it's doing if not for the unadulterated
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American support that they're getting.
I think that was really clear even from the very, very
beginning when with Biden's unconditional support, that
there were a lot of folks who were seeing what was happening
and what this was going to turn into.
And that this was going to be the end game for the
Palestinians in Gaza living in this concentration camp who've
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been completely controlled and repressed, all these refugees,
Palestinian refugees. But people were still like
believing this narrative that. You know, the US behind the
scenes was somehow working hard to try to mitigate Israel's
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aggression, whereas I felt like all it takes is a freaking phone
call. Yes, and it has in the past
taken just a freaking phone call.
So are those who are the people who are critical of Israel,
rightly so, but they see the problem is Netanyahu is the
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puppet master. Are they just mistaken or are
they trying to convince themselves of something by
having that framework? Like by believing that, you
know, the problem is that Netanyahu is the devil and that
he's manipulating the US and that Israel's really could be.
Because there's a lot that goes into that in terms of people
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nervous about, oh, Congress has this loyalty to a foreign power.
And that's what, you know, the US population should be most
concerned about, that, you know,politicians are more loyal to a
foreign entity than they are to America First or whatever.
And that doesn't really work forme as a criticism of Israel or
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doesn't feel accurate. Different people come from
different perspectives on this question.
Some are just honestly mistaken.And it and it's, I think it's
easy to be honestly mistaken about this because every day of
our lives for the last two years, we just, we just see the
most grotesque sociopathic barbarism in Gaza being
celebrated. And with the Israeli military
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and its soldiers acting like just unstoppable ghouls.
How could you not think this government was evil?
And it is. And that's not at all what I'm
challenged. It is evil.
Or or or they see it being celebrated, or they don't see it
because it's being suppressed inthe mainstream media.
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It is being suppressed in the mainstream media, but for a lot
of young people and a lot of people in general, certainly.
They're seeing it live streamed.They're seeing it live streamed
and basically if you're outside the US, you're seeing it
everywhere. Billions of are seeing these
images on a daily basis. There's multiple levels of
problems with this view. First of all, Netanyahu is
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merely an expression. This is not Netanyahu's war,
this is Israel. Netanyahu is merely an
expression of Israel. There's nothing peculiar about
him other than the fact that he somehow has an amazing ability
to maintain power in the state of Israel.
But that's peculiar to him and the power structure of Israel.
But in terms of relations to Palestinians, he is
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fundamentally no different than any other Zionist leader.
Labor, Kood, A Mapai, her roots,whatever they were called,
they're all the same because thewhole basis of the state of
Israel is we want the land and we don't want the people.
And the land is, by the way, river to the sea.
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So Netanyahu just happens to express that.
But look at look at every opposition politician in Israel.
They're fundamentally no different than Netanyahu.
The second thing is, is it is designed to let the Americans
off the hook. This is America's genocide as
much as it's Israel's genocide. This is not simply Netanyahu's
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genocide. This is not simply Israel's
genocide. That blood is on the hands of
the American ruling class, the American politicians, the
American government, Democrats, Republicans from the top down,
and has been apologized for by the American media, whether they
represent the Democratic side ofthe establishment or the
Republican side of the establishment.
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This is America's genocide. The bombs are all American, the
money is all American. This would not happen without
the green light from America andthere is actually a logic for it
to happen. The third thing is it is useful
for anti Jewish bigots and it feeds into, by the way, the
second point that, you know, letting the US off the hook that
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somehow some mythical Jewish cabal controls America.
No, America has a ruling class. It's overwhelmingly white
Anglo-Saxon Protestant. It has interests in the Middle
East and it uses Israel for its interests.
I think then you're touching on a very specific question that's
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going to come up with our audience, which is about the
Zionist lobby. Yeah.
I think that we have to talk about APAC.
And like my questions are is howdid APAC become so powerful?
Where does the money come from that funds APAC?
How did APAC become so influential in our government?
And can you be a politician and not get money from APAC today?
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And if you do get money from APAC, how much does that
influence your policy, your public face, and your your
policy loyalty? The best way I can answer that
question or those questions is to go back to 2006, to go back
to a paper that was issued by John Merchheimer.
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He is a professor or was at the time a professor at the
University of Chicago's Department of Political Science.
And Stephen Walt, who was part of, at the time, again part of
Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.
And they both wrote a paper thatlater became the basis of a book
published a year later on the Israel lobby and US foreign
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policy. That was the title of the paper
and the title of the book where they argued that basically the
Israel lobby or the Zionist lobby has inordinate control of
American foreign policy, especially as it pertains to the
Middle East. In response to this and to the
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question of the power of the Zionist lobby, Joseph Mossad, a
professor at Columbia University, who himself was a
victim of the Zionist lobby who wanted him to lose his job at
Club University, wrote a response titled Blaming the
Lobby where he argued that. Well, one of the points he
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argued was a similar point to the one I made, which is this is
just letting the US off the hook.
And basically I would say the bottom line of his argument was
this. The Israel lobby is powerful.
You would be a fool to question,of course it's powerful.
AIPAC is powerful and it's not just AIPAC.
J Street is is the liberal version of that is powerful.
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These are all very powerful lobbies, but they are powerful
because the US ruling class wants them to be powerful.
It needs them. They are powerful because it's
in the interests of the US ruling class for them to be
powerful. So I will just quote a little
quote from the article by JosephMossad where he writes the
arguments put forth by these studies.
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These studies, being by Mersheimer and Walt, would have
been more convincing if the Israel lobby was forcing the
United States government to pursue policies in the Middle
East that are inconsistent with its global policies elsewhere.
This, however, is far from what happens.
While US policies in the Middle East may often be an exaggerated
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form of its repressive and anti democratic policies elsewhere in
the world, they are not inconsistent with them.
So it's really a symbiotic relationship.
Yes, it's a symbiotic relationship.
And his point is the driving force here is not Israel, it is
the US. Now again, I want to emphasize
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the Zionist lobby is powerful and Israel wants to do what it's
doing. It's not that Israel is being
forced into it, but it but the force in charge of what's
happening is the US. This is why I also think that
any attempt to put pressure on the US rulers to cut their
(28:27):
funding or their ties with Israel on a moral or ethical
basis is never going to work. Honestly, I'm very cynical about
that. I mean, what would it actually
take for the US to seriously consider, like reconsider its
military and diplomatic support to Israel?
Like, is there actually a red line or is it just because it
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that would only happen if the USstops, if Israel stops serving
its interests? I don't think there's a red line
that I could think of. I mean, we are literally
watching a genocide unfold before our eyes.
What? What other red line can there
be? The only way I can envision
American support shifting vis a vis Israel is if Israel no
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longer serves American interests.
Right. For one reason or another, it
could be that Israel becomes tooweak to serve the US interests,
or it could be the decline of American power.
An American empire reaches such a point that they can no longer
sustain that level of support. For Israel and any and any
attempt by the US, like any showby the US government or it's
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very loyal media mouthpieces, tosay that Israel is doing too
much with this Holocaust currently that is waging would
be an attempt to like cover its own ass basically.
Oh, of course. I mean, we've we've all been
watching it for two years or what?
They just notice it now. Yeah.
I mean, it could also have other, other purposes such as
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they prefer someone else besidesNetanyahu.
And this is a way of pushing someone else, obviously, that
the Trump administration doesn't.
Trump administration clearly likes Netanyahu.
The Trump administration is not the whole of the American ruling
class. And this is something that cuts
very deep the the the support for Israel, whether it's
expressed through more liberal ways such as Israel shares our
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values, Israel is a democratic country, Israel is a secular
country, Israel has LGBTQ plus rights, etcetera, etcetera.
Whatever the bullshit nature of all these claims are, claims
that are often expressed by Democrats more, or whether it's
expressed out of religious reasons like those who bless
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Israel, be blessed, or, you know, whatever other Christian
Zionist mythology you can come up with is bipartisan.
You simply choose how you want to express it.
And Israeli hasbara or Israeli propaganda, yeah, is very good
at knowing who it's appealing to.
So when it's talking to the democratic side of the American
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establishment, it will emphasizethe supposed liberal values of
Israel and democratic values of Israel and all that.
And when it's talking to the Christian Zionist, it will talk
about how you should come and walk the same streets that Jesus
walked. Yeah, I think the main, the main
pitch that's just consistent across every supporter of Israel
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is just to say that they are thevictim.
And that if you have any criticism of the Zionist regime
or of the Zionist establishment or how the country of Israel was
founded on the dispossession anddisplacement and repression of
the Palestinian people, then you're anti Jewish.
Yeah. That's a very convenient way to
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shut down any criticism of the state of Israel.
You just say anyone who criticizes Israel's an anti
Semite and. Not much makes me hopeful in
terms of this situation today, except for the fact that you're
seeing a younger generation of people where Israel's being
exposed like it hasn't been before.
In my time as a pro Palestinian activist in college, I've never
(32:09):
seen this level of exposure. And particularly among Jewish
activists, I think everyone who is supports Palestinian self
determination feels like they'reliving in a simulation in terms
of what they're seeing and the the the messaging that they're
they're getting right? Like it feels like a completely
(32:31):
different world of just pure sadism that so will this ever
have an effect on recalibrating the relationship?
American foreign policy is not determined by popular will.
And so even if most Americans are vehemently against what
(32:53):
Israel's doing, that's not what determines what American foreign
policy is. What determines what American
foreign policy is, is what the American ruling class perceives
to be in the best interest of its class rule and American
periods. And sometimes they can convince
the population of that, and sometimes they can't.
(33:13):
And the best thing they can do is to sort of distract the
population on the anti-Semitism.You have a state that's carrying
out a genocide in the name not of Israeli Jews but of all Jews
in the world. You have American and let's not
forget the European governments all saying yes, carried out in
(33:38):
the name of all Jews in the world and saying that any
criticism of Israel is an attackon Jews.
How is that not going to make anti-Semitism more acute?
That's my that's my point so that if you you, if you are
somebody who doesn't know the history and doesn't understand
doesn't understand the history of anti Jewish bigotry and
(34:00):
violence in in western society and doesn't understand the
history of the oppression of Palestinians.
It's very easy to fall into the trap of the Jews run America.
It's very easy to fall into the trap of that Jews are killing
Palestinians. One of the top drivers of
(34:21):
anti-Semitism in the world is the state of Israel, and I would
contend it's not by accident. Zionism feeds off anti-Semitism.
It needs it. It demands it.
Fear is kind of essential to theneed for Israel.
Yes, Zionism as an ideology relies on anti Jewish bigotry to
(34:44):
exist and prosper. So to sum up Ezra, who's the
daddy the. United States, there's no
question about this. There's no, there's no nuance on
this question. I will say again, Israel's very
powerful regional power. Israel has plenty of muscle to
flex. The Zionist lobby is very
powerful. Even if you're a politician who
does not get APEC money, you will still do the bidding of the
(35:07):
Zionists. Oh, snap.
And. I'll give you as an example
Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. As far as I know, she doesn't
get a penny from AIPAC. Now, she may get it from other,
more liberal dinosaurs, but she doesn't get a penny from AIPAC.
But she votes for Iron Dome, andshe votes for all those because
it's fundamentally not about howmuch money you get from AIPAC.
(35:28):
Of course it helps to get more money because it helps to cement
your support for Israel. If you want to pursue American
interests in the Middle East, a fairly volatile region, you need
an ally that is staunch and powerful.
Don't forget we haven't touched on this.
That Israel also has nukes, is the only power in the Middle
(35:49):
East with nukes. And contrary to what a lot of
people think, those nukes were not given to Israel by the US.
They were given to Israel first and foremost by France, as well
as by Norway. And if there's anything I would
argue that people should walk away with this from more than
anything else, is that as you watch this genocide unfold, the
(36:11):
blood is on the hands of the Americans as much as the
Israelis. The blood is on the hands of
American politicians and American rulers as much as the
Israelis. Not any less.
But. We don't love.
Anybody who doesn't? Love us.
(36:33):
Thanks for listening to our first episode of Unwashed and
Unruly where we move left of theleft and go off the rails.
Keep listening and join us for our next episode.
For questions, pitches and complaints, reach us at
unwashedunruly@gmail.com. Thanks for listening.
It's time. For you and me to stand up for
ourselves. Welcome to Unwatched and Unruly,
where we scrub the lives out of politics, culture, and history.
Today, we'll be airing history'sdirty laundry on the
relationship between Israel and the US.
Who's the top and who's the bottom?
I'm your host Lola Michaels withhistory buffologist Ezra Saeed.
Hi, Lola. Hi everyone.
(00:31):
And professional brain Fogger Cam cruise hey.
Friends. You can reach us at
unwatchunruly@gmail.com. Do we live in the United States
of Israel? the US rulers provide Israel
with nearly 4 billion and unconditional military aid each
year. Over the last several decades,
that money has funded Israel's military occupation in the West
(00:52):
Bank. Over the last several years,
it's funded the destruction of Gaza and extermination of the
Palestinian people. Uncritical support for Israel
has chilled free speech. It's led to the repression of
pro Palestinian activists, created a climate where any
criticism of Zionism or theocracy is taboo.
It's indefensible. But why does it exist?
(01:13):
Some argue that the US Israel relationship is a strategic
alliance where they need each other equally and some argue
that it's A1 sided patron clientset up.
So who's the horse and who's therider in this relationship?
Who calls the shots? Ezra.
With that question, the US callsthe shots.
You mentioned the US provides Israel with nearly $4 billion of
(01:34):
unconditional military aid. It's actually conditional.
And what I mean by that is it's $3.8 billion a year, and that
money is earmarked that Israel has to spend it on military
equipment, but military equipment bought from only
American companies such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and
others. So what that means is your tax
(01:56):
dollars and my tax dollars are not only financing the state of
Israel, they're also financing private American companies that
produce arms. So what you're saying is that
the public is putting money intothe pockets of these US gun
manufacturers and weapons manufacturers?
Yes, the aid that the US sends, and it's not just to Israel, but
(02:17):
believe it's the number is 2.1 billion a year to Egypt carries
the same earmark. That money can't just be spent
on anything, nor can it be spenton buying, for example, Chinese
or French or British weaponry. It has to be American weaponry,
and so it becomes a very useful tool by U.S. companies,
(02:37):
manufacturing companies to make profit.
Having said all that, that's notthe main reason for the alliance
between the United States and Israel.
That is a secondary benefit for American manufacturers out of
that alliance. The main reason for that
alliance is because Israel is a very good and committed servant
(02:58):
of American interests in the Middle East.
So Israel sometimes described aslike America's unsinkable
aircraft carrier. So is that still a valid
metaphor? I think so.
And I think Joe Biden and 2013, when he was a bit more lucid
than he is today, captured it very succinctly when he said if
Israel didn't exist, we would have to invent it.
(03:20):
If you begin with the assumptionthat the Middle East is an
important part of the world and not only for oil but also
because of its strategic location, you then have to
assume that if you're a powerfulcountry like the United States,
the world's most powerful country, you want to maintain a
foothold there and control what's happening there.
Well, Israel has been enormouslybeneficial to the United States
(03:45):
in both maintaining that foothold and bringing to heal
virtually every regime in the region that has been hostile to
the United States. Obviously, a couple of
exceptions remain. Really, only one exception
remains today, and it's Iran. Yeah.
And I think you're, I mean, you're making me think a little
bit about the 1980s and then going into obviously much later,
(04:08):
the War on Terror and why Israelbecame a strategic ally.
But we know now that support forIsrael is very bipartisan, But
it wasn't always that way. You had the Democratic Party
being more of a staunch ally of Israel in the past.
And the Republican administrations, like
Eisenhower's, for example, tended to be like more critical
(04:31):
of Israelis actions at the beginning.
But then you have this surge of evangelicals in the 80s, like,
how did this all change? What are we looking at in terms
of like the 60s, seventies, 80s and then going into like the War
on Terror era and then today? In very brief, I would argue
that it has been bipartisan. It simply expresses itself in
different ways with each party. And if you go back to the
(04:54):
beginning of the fighting of thestate of Israel, the US was
supportive but at a bit of arm'slength from the from from the
Israeli state because it was looking for different ways of
maintaining its control and power in the region, including
through the various Arab regimesthere.
One of the famous examples is with 1956 when Israel, along
with France and Britain invaded Egypt after the Egyptian regime
(05:17):
Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalize the Suez Canal.
It was the US that stepped in and basically brought all three
to heal. The reason for that was not
because the US cared about Egyptian sovereignty.
The reason for that was really because the US cared about the
idea that France and Britain would operate in the Middle East
(05:40):
independent of the US. They basically this was that.
Was our way of exerting hegemony.
Yes. Basically this was a way of the
US exerting hegemony over what it saw as two rivals in the
Middle East. In the case of France and
Britain, Israel was seen really as just a camp follower of
those. So at the end of the day, France
(06:03):
and Britain were told to get outof Egypt, and Israel, which had
conquered the whole of the SinaiPeninsula, was just told to get
out of the Sinai Peninsula and to get out of Gaza.
And they did, because they're not going to go up against the
US What really shifted the situation was the 1967 war.
Now you have to go back in time and think what was happening at
(06:25):
the time was the Cold War between the United States and
the Soviet Union. That was the overarching
question. The overarching question for the
whole region was, were these various governments and regimes
in the in the Middle East going to ally themselves with the
United States or the Soviet Union?
And if you were the United States, you were looking for a
(06:48):
powerful, strong ally that couldact in your interests against
pro Soviet governments in the Middle East.
Among those, for example, were not Nasser's government in in
Egypt. In 1967, Israel launched a war.
The background to it is not important for the moment, but
(07:09):
Israel launched a war against Egypt, against Syria and Jordan,
and in the matter of actually less than six days, it's called
a six day war. But it really took fewer days
than that managed to destroy theentire Egyptian Air Force,
conquer the West Bank and E Jerusalem, conquer the Golan
Heights and conquer Gaza as wellas the Sinai Peninsula and go
(07:32):
all the way up to the Suez Canal.
And was this war also funded by the US?
Not that much really. And in fact, the US initially
was very unenthusiastic about the war.
The main weaponry that Israel was using at the time was
French. I'm not saying that the US sent
no support to Israel, but it waspretty minimal.
It was after that war, when Israel demonstrated that it is
(07:53):
indeed a very powerful country, that the US then changed tack
and said that's our ally, that'sthe country that we're going to
basically use to further our interests in the middle.
East. And did they just bypass the
French in terms of support to win favor?
Yes, and frankly, the Israelis were more than happy to drop the
(08:16):
French Zionism from its origin, and I mean from its origin as a
movement, once it goes beyond the initial founders, which were
really Christian Zionists when you talk about the theater
rehearsals and so on, understoodthat for this movement to
survive and exist, it needed to have imperialist patrons.
And initially that imperialist patron was Britain, which was at
(08:41):
the time, in the early 20th century, the most powerful
country in the world. The early Zionist movement, for
example, had its biggest activity in Britain, where it
had the least support among the Anglo Jewish population.
They had very little support there.
So you wonder, well, why would you have such heavy activity in
(09:01):
a country where you have very little support among the Jewish
population? Well, it was because it wasn't
really aimed at the Jewish population.
It was aimed at the British ruling class.
And the way it was aimed at the British ruling class is we can
serve your interests in the Middle East.
What you have to remember with the 1917 Balfour Declaration, in
which Britain publicly committeditself to Palestine being a
(09:27):
homeland for the Jews, is that one, that author Balfour was a
notorious anti Semite, despised Jews, was actually the author of
an early 1900s law in Britain toexclude specifically Jewish
immigration. But two, what it was really
about was an anticipation in themidst of the First World War
that the Ottoman Empire was going to collapse and all this
(09:51):
land in the Middle East that included Palestine, but also
Syria and Jordan. What's now Jordan and Syria and
Iraq and elsewhere needed to be divided up between the powerful
states of Europe, namely in thiscase France and Britain.
Britain worked on really 3 fronts. 1 was working out a
relationship with France as to who gets what. 2 was working out
(10:14):
a relationship with various powerful Arab luminaries as to
who would be their men in a postwar Middle East.
The Hashemite family was originally from the Arabian
Peninsula. For an example of that to this
day they ruled Jordan and for a long time they ruled Iraq.
And a third one were the Zionists.
(10:36):
And what the Zionists could offer that no one else could
offer is not only will we serve your interests in the Middle
East like the Hashemites would, but we are culturally European.
We are one of you. We will bring European
civilization into the vast sea of dark barbarism that is the
(10:58):
Middle East, and so we can be a permanent foothold for you in
the region, because we are one of you.
Yeah, so they offer the more palatable choice.
Yeah, and again, and it's not like it was 1 to the exclusion
of the other. The British worked on both
fronts. The reason it was very important
for the British is not oil. At that point, oil hadn't been
discovered yet. The reason it was important for
(11:19):
the British is because the real crown and the jewel for the
British was India. Yeah, and this is at the time
where they're transporting a lotback and forth by sea.
It's sea and land, and so Palestine was right, the
crossroads between India in the east and Britain in the West and
the Suez Canal in Egypt, and that's where you get the sea
(11:40):
trade. So beyond the imperialist
interest, like when we're looking at the kind of shift
right now or where we're really seeing, you mentioned Christian
Zionist, and there's a whole history of that going way back.
But right now we see this very intense evangelical movement, of
course, that's very pro Zionist,pro Israel and seeing this kind
(12:03):
of biblical prophecy fulfilled or you know, what kind of role
Israel would play in like the second coming, right?
So what, how do you situate beyond the kind of imperialist
interest, this kind of religiousinterest in Israel, Like the the
cynicism that we see among Republican politicians, for
(12:24):
example, in terms of their evangelical base, they obviously
don't love Israel because they love Jewish people or anything
like that. It's clearly something else is
going on. Well.
I would say in 1967, the basis was by both Republicans and
Democrats was was overwhelminglysecular.
It was not really driven by Christian theology.
(12:44):
Remember, the Republican partieschanged over the decades.
The first time you really get that coming into the equation is
actually under the Democrats with Jimmy Carter, who sort of
brought Christian fundamentalisminto the mainstream of American
politics and then picked up and taken to the NTH degree by the
Reagan administration. Because it worked, it worked
(13:07):
winning votes, it worked for mobilizing people or the silent
majority, all that stuff. And in Christian theology or
specifically evangelical Protestant theology, is this
idea that the second coming of the Christ is going to happen
once certain events happen in the world.
(13:29):
And one of these events supposedly is the in gathering
of the Jews into their supposed homeland.
Their supposed homeland is Palestine, the land of Israel,
Dia, whatever you want to call it.
So what you want to do is, if you adhere to this theology, is
to do everything you can to get Jews to move out of wherever
(13:52):
they are into this piece of land.
And once they move into this piece of land, something is
supposed to happen that is then supposed to result in the second
coming day of Judgement Armageddon.
The end result is some will convert to Christianity, some of
these Jews who were moved there and will therefore be saved.
(14:17):
The majority will not, and will in fact burn for all eternity in
hell. That's pretty insensitive of
these Christians. Yeah.
And that is really the theology.So when you hear these Christian
fundamentalists talk about the reason they support Israel is
because they pick a line from the Hebrew Bible that says I
(14:39):
will bless those who bless Israel and curse those who curse
Israel. You can argue about the context
of the line and what it really means and all that, but that's
not really the real reason. Because Christian Zionism, like
I said, predates Jewish Zionism by a long period actually.
And it certainly predates the existence of the state of
Israel. And it had nothing to do with
(15:00):
blessing Israel or cursing Israel.
It had to do with get them over there.
So we can get these end times going exactly.
So we can get those end times. Going Yeah, we all know how
horny Christians are for the endtimes.
Especially those evangelical Protestants.
I remember seeing this come playout a little bit in that recent
(15:21):
debate that we looked at with Tucker Carlson and Ted Cruz,
where there was reference to theBible and blessing Israel, blah,
blah, blah. And then you start to see kind
of a not necessarily fissures, but nuance in terms of support
for Israel and what it means financially and so on.
Yeah. I mean, it was it was a
discussion that went viral and for good reason.
(15:41):
I mean, I thought Tucker Carlson, right wing commentator
that he is, made a bit of a foolof Ted Cruz, which is really not
that hard to do Ted Cruz is not the sharpest tool in the shed,
but he made a fool of him specifically really around Iran
especially where Ted Cruz didn'tknow the most basic things about
a country he wants to destroy. But what was very interesting to
(16:04):
me is when we got to why the US should support Israel in his own
not very bright way. Ted Cruz was, I thought, making
the correct argument. And that argument was Israel
serves America's interests. And I think he's right.
(16:24):
If you're an American imperialist ruler, Israel serves
your interests. And in his own way, Ted Cruz was
conveying the same thing that Joe Biden was conveying those 12
years ago. What they both had in common was
this country is vital for American interests.
So let's let's actually look at it in some specifics, OK?
(16:45):
Because of Israeli strength, a country like Egypt has been
brought to heel and is now underthe orbit of American influence
and imperialism in the region. Because of Israeli strength,
Jordan has been brought to heel and is now under the influence
of American power in the region.Because of Israeli strength, the
(17:06):
alliance between the Gulf Statesand the United States has become
ever stronger, as indicated by these Abrahamic Accords.
Under Israeli strength, just in the last year, Hezbollah was
destroyed, and the US didn't have to fight Hezbollah.
Israel did it for it. If you're the United States and
you want to go to war with Iran and you want to test out how
(17:28):
strong Iran really is, well, theUS didn't directly really go to
war with Iran. Israel did.
Well, I I think that's somethingI wanted to mention too, because
we're talking about who's in control here.
And I think a lot of people see Israel as pulling the US into
war with Iran for their own interests.
So what is your opinion on that?I believe Israel wanted to go to
(17:49):
war with Iran. Don't get me wrong, this wasn't
something the US forced Israel to do.
This is something Israel wanted to do.
But Israel doesn't get to do very much that it wants to do
unless the US wants it to do it.If you recall, when the war
began, the US came out with a statement that the US had
nothing to do with it and knew nothing about it, and this was
just between Israel and Iran. Within a day or two, it became
(18:11):
patently obvious that this was utter bullshit, that everything
was worked out with the US in advance, that every detail was
worked out the US in advance. That this was basically the US
and Israel working together to attack Iran.
And. And if there was any doubt about
that, the coda of the war was the US directly bombing Iran
itself. Yeah.
So the idea that Israel somehow was dragging the US unwillingly
(18:35):
into a war with Iran is ludicrous.
What I can believe is that Israel thought the war would be
easier, that Israel thought Iran's response would be more
muted, or that Iran would have less capability than it actually
did and therefore was begging for an American entry more
quickly. Or or maybe they thought
(18:57):
initially that they could handleit, that American support, but
the idea that this is just an Israeli operation, the US had
nothing to do, then suddenly theUS finds itself being dragged
into it. I think it's ridiculous.
It's just a misconception, huh? Yes.
And, and I think here's the biggest thing of all this.
If your assumption is the real force in charge is Israel and
(19:18):
not the United States, what you're effectively doing is
letting the United States off the hook for everything that's
happened in the Middle East. Let's look for an example at the
ongoing genocide in Gaza. Israel would not be able to get
away with doing what it's doing if not for the unadulterated
(19:39):
American support that they're getting.
I think that was really clear even from the very, very
beginning when with Biden's unconditional support, that
there were a lot of folks who were seeing what was happening
and what this was going to turn into.
And that this was going to be the end game for the
Palestinians in Gaza living in this concentration camp who've
(20:00):
been completely controlled and repressed, all these refugees,
Palestinian refugees. But people were still like
believing this narrative that. You know, the US behind the
scenes was somehow working hard to try to mitigate Israel's
(20:20):
aggression, whereas I felt like all it takes is a freaking phone
call. Yes, and it has in the past
taken just a freaking phone call.
So are those who are the people who are critical of Israel,
rightly so, but they see the problem is Netanyahu is the
(20:41):
puppet master. Are they just mistaken or are
they trying to convince themselves of something by
having that framework? Like by believing that, you
know, the problem is that Netanyahu is the devil and that
he's manipulating the US and that Israel's really could be.
Because there's a lot that goes into that in terms of people
(21:03):
nervous about, oh, Congress has this loyalty to a foreign power.
And that's what, you know, the US population should be most
concerned about, that, you know,politicians are more loyal to a
foreign entity than they are to America First or whatever.
And that doesn't really work forme as a criticism of Israel or
(21:25):
doesn't feel accurate. Different people come from
different perspectives on this question.
Some are just honestly mistaken.And it and it's, I think it's
easy to be honestly mistaken about this because every day of
our lives for the last two years, we just, we just see the
most grotesque sociopathic barbarism in Gaza being
celebrated. And with the Israeli military
(21:47):
and its soldiers acting like just unstoppable ghouls.
How could you not think this government was evil?
And it is. And that's not at all what I'm
challenged. It is evil.
Or or or they see it being celebrated, or they don't see it
because it's being suppressed inthe mainstream media.
(22:08):
It is being suppressed in the mainstream media, but for a lot
of young people and a lot of people in general, certainly.
They're seeing it live streamed.They're seeing it live streamed
and basically if you're outside the US, you're seeing it
everywhere. Billions of are seeing these
images on a daily basis. There's multiple levels of
problems with this view. First of all, Netanyahu is
(22:29):
merely an expression. This is not Netanyahu's war,
this is Israel. Netanyahu is merely an
expression of Israel. There's nothing peculiar about
him other than the fact that he somehow has an amazing ability
to maintain power in the state of Israel.
But that's peculiar to him and the power structure of Israel.
But in terms of relations to Palestinians, he is
(22:51):
fundamentally no different than any other Zionist leader.
Labor, Kood, A Mapai, her roots,whatever they were called,
they're all the same because thewhole basis of the state of
Israel is we want the land and we don't want the people.
And the land is, by the way, river to the sea.
(23:11):
So Netanyahu just happens to express that.
But look at look at every opposition politician in Israel.
They're fundamentally no different than Netanyahu.
The second thing is, is it is designed to let the Americans
off the hook. This is America's genocide as
much as it's Israel's genocide. This is not simply Netanyahu's
(23:34):
genocide. This is not simply Israel's
genocide. That blood is on the hands of
the American ruling class, the American politicians, the
American government, Democrats, Republicans from the top down,
and has been apologized for by the American media, whether they
represent the Democratic side ofthe establishment or the
Republican side of the establishment.
(23:56):
This is America's genocide. The bombs are all American, the
money is all American. This would not happen without
the green light from America andthere is actually a logic for it
to happen. The third thing is it is useful
for anti Jewish bigots and it feeds into, by the way, the
second point that, you know, letting the US off the hook that
(24:16):
somehow some mythical Jewish cabal controls America.
No, America has a ruling class. It's overwhelmingly white
Anglo-Saxon Protestant. It has interests in the Middle
East and it uses Israel for its interests.
I think then you're touching on a very specific question that's
(24:37):
going to come up with our audience, which is about the
Zionist lobby. Yeah.
I think that we have to talk about APAC.
And like my questions are is howdid APAC become so powerful?
Where does the money come from that funds APAC?
How did APAC become so influential in our government?
And can you be a politician and not get money from APAC today?
(25:04):
And if you do get money from APAC, how much does that
influence your policy, your public face, and your your
policy loyalty? The best way I can answer that
question or those questions is to go back to 2006, to go back
to a paper that was issued by John Merchheimer.
(25:26):
He is a professor or was at the time a professor at the
University of Chicago's Department of Political Science.
And Stephen Walt, who was part of, at the time, again part of
Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.
And they both wrote a paper thatlater became the basis of a book
published a year later on the Israel lobby and US foreign
(25:48):
policy. That was the title of the paper
and the title of the book where they argued that basically the
Israel lobby or the Zionist lobby has inordinate control of
American foreign policy, especially as it pertains to the
Middle East. In response to this and to the
(26:12):
question of the power of the Zionist lobby, Joseph Mossad, a
professor at Columbia University, who himself was a
victim of the Zionist lobby who wanted him to lose his job at
Club University, wrote a response titled Blaming the
Lobby where he argued that. Well, one of the points he
(26:36):
argued was a similar point to the one I made, which is this is
just letting the US off the hook.
And basically I would say the bottom line of his argument was
this. The Israel lobby is powerful.
You would be a fool to question,of course it's powerful.
AIPAC is powerful and it's not just AIPAC.
J Street is is the liberal version of that is powerful.
(26:57):
These are all very powerful lobbies, but they are powerful
because the US ruling class wants them to be powerful.
It needs them. They are powerful because it's
in the interests of the US ruling class for them to be
powerful. So I will just quote a little
quote from the article by JosephMossad where he writes the
arguments put forth by these studies.
(27:18):
These studies, being by Mersheimer and Walt, would have
been more convincing if the Israel lobby was forcing the
United States government to pursue policies in the Middle
East that are inconsistent with its global policies elsewhere.
This, however, is far from what happens.
While US policies in the Middle East may often be an exaggerated
(27:39):
form of its repressive and anti democratic policies elsewhere in
the world, they are not inconsistent with them.
So it's really a symbiotic relationship.
Yes, it's a symbiotic relationship.
And his point is the driving force here is not Israel, it is
the US. Now again, I want to emphasize
(28:02):
the Zionist lobby is powerful and Israel wants to do what it's
doing. It's not that Israel is being
forced into it, but it but the force in charge of what's
happening is the US. This is why I also think that
any attempt to put pressure on the US rulers to cut their
(28:27):
funding or their ties with Israel on a moral or ethical
basis is never going to work. Honestly, I'm very cynical about
that. I mean, what would it actually
take for the US to seriously consider, like reconsider its
military and diplomatic support to Israel?
Like, is there actually a red line or is it just because it
(28:49):
that would only happen if the USstops, if Israel stops serving
its interests? I don't think there's a red line
that I could think of. I mean, we are literally
watching a genocide unfold before our eyes.
What? What other red line can there
be? The only way I can envision
American support shifting vis a vis Israel is if Israel no
(29:09):
longer serves American interests.
Right. For one reason or another, it
could be that Israel becomes tooweak to serve the US interests,
or it could be the decline of American power.
An American empire reaches such a point that they can no longer
sustain that level of support. For Israel and any and any
attempt by the US, like any showby the US government or it's
(29:33):
very loyal media mouthpieces, tosay that Israel is doing too
much with this Holocaust currently that is waging would
be an attempt to like cover its own ass basically.
Oh, of course. I mean, we've we've all been
watching it for two years or what?
They just notice it now. Yeah.
I mean, it could also have other, other purposes such as
(29:55):
they prefer someone else besidesNetanyahu.
And this is a way of pushing someone else, obviously, that
the Trump administration doesn't.
Trump administration clearly likes Netanyahu.
The Trump administration is not the whole of the American ruling
class. And this is something that cuts
very deep the the the support for Israel, whether it's
expressed through more liberal ways such as Israel shares our
(30:18):
values, Israel is a democratic country, Israel is a secular
country, Israel has LGBTQ plus rights, etcetera, etcetera.
Whatever the bullshit nature of all these claims are, claims
that are often expressed by Democrats more, or whether it's
expressed out of religious reasons like those who bless
(30:38):
Israel, be blessed, or, you know, whatever other Christian
Zionist mythology you can come up with is bipartisan.
You simply choose how you want to express it.
And Israeli hasbara or Israeli propaganda, yeah, is very good
at knowing who it's appealing to.
So when it's talking to the democratic side of the American
(31:01):
establishment, it will emphasizethe supposed liberal values of
Israel and democratic values of Israel and all that.
And when it's talking to the Christian Zionist, it will talk
about how you should come and walk the same streets that Jesus
walked. Yeah, I think the main, the main
pitch that's just consistent across every supporter of Israel
(31:25):
is just to say that they are thevictim.
And that if you have any criticism of the Zionist regime
or of the Zionist establishment or how the country of Israel was
founded on the dispossession anddisplacement and repression of
the Palestinian people, then you're anti Jewish.
Yeah. That's a very convenient way to
(31:45):
shut down any criticism of the state of Israel.
You just say anyone who criticizes Israel's an anti
Semite and. Not much makes me hopeful in
terms of this situation today, except for the fact that you're
seeing a younger generation of people where Israel's being
exposed like it hasn't been before.
In my time as a pro Palestinian activist in college, I've never
(32:09):
seen this level of exposure. And particularly among Jewish
activists, I think everyone who is supports Palestinian self
determination feels like they'reliving in a simulation in terms
of what they're seeing and the the the messaging that they're
they're getting right? Like it feels like a completely
(32:31):
different world of just pure sadism that so will this ever
have an effect on recalibrating the relationship?
American foreign policy is not determined by popular will.
And so even if most Americans are vehemently against what
(32:53):
Israel's doing, that's not what determines what American foreign
policy is. What determines what American
foreign policy is, is what the American ruling class perceives
to be in the best interest of its class rule and American
periods. And sometimes they can convince
the population of that, and sometimes they can't.
(33:13):
And the best thing they can do is to sort of distract the
population on the anti-Semitism.You have a state that's carrying
out a genocide in the name not of Israeli Jews but of all Jews
in the world. You have American and let's not
forget the European governments all saying yes, carried out in
(33:38):
the name of all Jews in the world and saying that any
criticism of Israel is an attackon Jews.
How is that not going to make anti-Semitism more acute?
That's my that's my point so that if you you, if you are
somebody who doesn't know the history and doesn't understand
doesn't understand the history of anti Jewish bigotry and
(34:00):
violence in in western society and doesn't understand the
history of the oppression of Palestinians.
It's very easy to fall into the trap of the Jews run America.
It's very easy to fall into the trap of that Jews are killing
Palestinians. One of the top drivers of
(34:21):
anti-Semitism in the world is the state of Israel, and I would
contend it's not by accident. Zionism feeds off anti-Semitism.
It needs it. It demands it.
Fear is kind of essential to theneed for Israel.
Yes, Zionism as an ideology relies on anti Jewish bigotry to
(34:44):
exist and prosper. So to sum up Ezra, who's the
daddy the. United States, there's no
question about this. There's no, there's no nuance on
this question. I will say again, Israel's very
powerful regional power. Israel has plenty of muscle to
flex. The Zionist lobby is very
powerful. Even if you're a politician who
does not get APEC money, you will still do the bidding of the
(35:07):
Zionists. Oh, snap.
And. I'll give you as an example
Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. As far as I know, she doesn't
get a penny from AIPAC. Now, she may get it from other,
more liberal dinosaurs, but she doesn't get a penny from AIPAC.
But she votes for Iron Dome, andshe votes for all those because
it's fundamentally not about howmuch money you get from AIPAC.
(35:28):
Of course it helps to get more money because it helps to cement
your support for Israel. If you want to pursue American
interests in the Middle East, a fairly volatile region, you need
an ally that is staunch and powerful.
Don't forget we haven't touched on this.
That Israel also has nukes, is the only power in the Middle
(35:49):
East with nukes. And contrary to what a lot of
people think, those nukes were not given to Israel by the US.
They were given to Israel first and foremost by France, as well
as by Norway. And if there's anything I would
argue that people should walk away with this from more than
anything else, is that as you watch this genocide unfold, the
(36:11):
blood is on the hands of the Americans as much as the
Israelis. The blood is on the hands of
American politicians and American rulers as much as the
Israelis. Not any less.
But. We don't love.
Anybody who doesn't? Love us.
(36:33):
Thanks for listening to our first episode of Unwashed and
Unruly where we move left of theleft and go off the rails.
Keep listening and join us for our next episode.
For questions, pitches and complaints, reach us at
unwashedunruly@gmail.com. Thanks for listening.
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