Why does the US back Israel?

By Bachar Bakour

As Israel continues its vicious attack on Gaza, President Joe Biden and his administration are sticking to the same script with Washington, expressing unwavering support for Israel and its “legitimate right to defend itself” against rocket attacks by Hamas. It is widely recognized that the United States (US) maintains a strong alliance with Israel, provides substantial annual financial aid to Israel, consistently opposes United Nations Security Council resolutions critical of Israel, and publicly supports its military actions. And, there is no shred of doubt that the unconditional and unrestrained financial and military U.S backing of the State of Israel has been a significant source of Arab and Muslim resentment over the West in general and the US in particular. Despite the Israeli atrocities and massacres of Palestinians, the US succeeding administrations have always treated the Palestinian cause with disregard and indifference. 

Pat Buchanan wrote in American Conservative Magazine on 13 January, 2003, “Journalists and diplomats alike, returning from the Middle East, attest that our almost blind support of Israel is a major cause of the anti-Americanism that is sweeping the Islamic world.”

Two examples are cited here:

1. The Truman Doctrine of 1947, promised US support for free people who were resisting ‘attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures’. For many immigrants from the Arab world, this promise should have qualified the Palestinians for American support in resisting the foreign Jewish armed terrorist gangs such as the Haganah, Stern, and Irgum, which were trying to displace them. Consequently, on 15 May 1948, when President Truman recognized the State of Israel eleven minutes after Ben Guruion declared its formation, Arab-Americans perceived this recognition to be without regard for the hopes or even the rights of the Arab people. It shattered the image of American political values held not only by Arabs overseas but by the immigrant communities in this country.  Justifying his posture, Truman is reported to have said, “I am sorry, gentlemen, but I have to answer to hundreds of thousands who are anxious for the success of Zionism; I do not have hundreds of thousands of Arabs among my constituents,” as mentioned in the book entitled, “The Muslims of America,” edited by Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad.

2. Further mentioned in the book, under the administration of Jimmy Carter, this double standard became even clearer in the Camp David agreement. This accord, so highly acclaimed in the West, is seen by the Arabs as a wedge to divide the Arab world, isolate Egypt and give Israel a free reign to rearrange the map of the Middle East. Early in his tenure, President Carter in a public statement in Massachusetts, appeared to affirm the right of the Palestinians to self-determination, saying, “There has to be a homeland provided for the Palestinian refugees who have suffered for many, many years.” However, after Camp David, Israel continued to establish Jewish settlement in the West Bank by appropriating Arab land. Carter, under strong pressure from the Israeli lobby and to the intense disappointment of the American Muslim community, acquiesced. 

As far as American Christian right is concerned, this one-sided policy appears unquestionably true. Pat Robertson, the famous fundamentalist said, “There is regard and concern among Christian fundamentalists for the Arabs, but it pales into insignificance compared to our feelings towards Jews.” 

What is the Driving Force?

It is in the first place the ‘Christian Zionism’

Every one should know that mass killing; torture and ill-treatment; arbitrary detention; systematic torture of prisoners; the taking of natural resources; house demolitions and deportations of Palestinians since 1948, have been committed on the basis of theological and historical accounts of the Bible, which are literally interpreted and zealously implemented.

Christian Zionism or Christian right (mostly Protestants) is a religious and political belief system that combines elements of Christianity and support for the State of Israel, primarily based on interpretations of the Bible.

THE POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS OF CHRISTIAN ZIONISM

1. The belief that the Jews are God’s chosen people leads Christian Zionists to seek to bless Israel in every possible way. So, this results in the uncritical endorsement of and justification for Israel’s racist and apartheid policies, in the media, among politicians 
2. As God’s chosen people, the final restoration of the Jews to Israel is, actively encouraged and facilitated through partnerships between Christian organizations and the Jewish agency. 
3. Eretz Israel, or the Promised Land, belongs exclusively to the Jewish people, therefore the land must be annexed and the settlement adopted and strengthened.
4. Jerusalem is regarded as the eternal and exclusive capital of the Jews, and cannot be shared with the Palestinians.  Jerusalem (the city of David) and Mount Zion. In another expression, it is from the sacred texts that refer to Jerusalem, particularly the New Jerusalem on Mount Zion. It is from here that Christ will rule his earthly millennial kingdom.
5. Rebuilding Solomon’s Temple. To achieve this, Al-Aqsa Mosque must be demolished.
6. Since Christian Zionists are convinced that there will be an apocalyptic war between good and evil in the near future, there is no prospect for lasting peace between Jews and Arabs Armageddon (near Haifa). To advocate that Israel compromise with Islam or coexist with Palestinians is to identify with those destined to oppose God and Israel in the imminent battle of Armageddon.      

C.I. Schofield, a conservative Protestant, edited the King James Version of the Bible. He added extensive footnotes which, among other things, emphasized the present and future role of Israel in world history. Grace Halsell writes, “Scofield said that Christ cannot return to earth until certain events occur: The Jews must return to Palestine, gain control of Jerusalem and rebuild a temple, and then we all must engage in the final, great battle called Armageddon. Estimates vary, but most students of Armageddon theology agree that as a result of these relatively recent interpretations of Biblical scripture, 10 to 40 million Americans believe Palestine is God’s chosen land for the Jews.” The Schofield Bible is the most popular reference Bible in the U.S.

Jimmy Carter, criticising the literal interpretation of the sacred text, said, “Strong support for Israel, based on the New Testament prophecy that the reconstruction of the ancient kingdom of David will usher in the ‘end times’ and the Second Coming of Christ, is a completely foolish and erroneous interpretation of the Scriptures.”  Christian Zionism only thrives on a futurist and literal hermeneutic when Old Testament promises made to the ancient Jewish people are transposed on to the contemporary State of Israel. To do so it is necessary to ignore, marginalise or bi-pass the New Testament which reinterprets, annuls and fulfils those promises in and through Jesus Christ and his followers.

According to Norman Finkelstein, a Jewish American Political Scientist, “If I came with a Bible in one hand and a rifle in the other, knocked on your door and said, ‘According to my Bible, my family lived where your home is two thousand years ago,’ would you just pack up your bags and leave?”

Regardless of what the forthcoming days may unveil, Palestinians, landowners, will remain, and Israel, the occupying entity, will fade away. ***

(Dr. Bachar Bakour is an academic in AbdulHamid AbuSulayman Kulliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences.)