Soccer Dad

... and israel's unpopularity among some americans

Given Israel's popularity in America, that popularity is not universal. So those who don't share pro-Israel views need an explanation. Walter Russell Mead explains:

While I say nothing because I know nothing about the motives of particular people, it's impossible to understand the popularity of ILS or Israel Lobby Syndrome (the belief that the organized, insistent power of American Jews as deployed through organizations like AIPAC is primarily responsible for American support of the Jewish state) without assigning a role to a lingering whiff of anti-Semitism in the American air.

At a time when most of America's Jewish leadership was strongly anti-Zionist, American gentiles overwhelmingly supported the Zionist cause. And today American gentiles are generally more hawkish on Israel than American Jews who on this issue, like so many others, tend to skew toward the center-left band of the American political spectrum.

Some ILS victims have a 'clever' explanation for this disturbing fact: Jewish media power. The insidious, overwhelming power of those sneaky Jews in the mainstream media feeds a steady stream of pro-Israel propaganda disguised as news to the idiot gentiles out in the boondocks and the dumb hicks and yokels swallow the propaganda hook, line and sinker.

Again, I say nothing about the motives of individuals, but only entrenched, unconscious anti-Semitism could make an opinion this dumb seem so credible to so many otherwise intelligent people.

Let us take, for example, Sarah Palin, who formerly kept an Israeli flag in her office while serving as governor of Alaska. How much influence does the mainstream media have on her thinking about abortion? About global warming? About US relations with Cuba?

The answer, of course, is that whatever the sources of Ms Palin's opinions on a very wide range of subjects, the mainstream media has not played a major role in her intellectual formation. And what is true for her is true for a great many other Americans who disagree with the mainstream media virtually across the board. They are more likely to disagree with the mainstream media than to mindlessly parrot its views -- so why does it seem even remotely credible to assert that Palin and so much of the rest of the country is pro-Israel because of Jewish media power?

Again, a deep and unreasoned belief that powerful Jews control things and that the powerful Jewish media shapes public opinion could lend broad social credibility to ideas with so little support or coherence.

The whole idea of a powerful Israel lobby, then, is a construct designed by people who can't understand why Israel is so popular in America. Mead demonstrates why this is belief is nonsense.

Crossposted on Yourish.