What IS Our Relationship with Israel

The American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC) is completing its annual conference, at which a variety of presidential candidates -- the notable exception being Bernie Sanders -- got to speak and address their support for Israel, our chief democratic ally in the Middle East, at least prior to the current administration.

The event gives us an opportunity each year to watch speakers fall all over themselves in an effort to appear the most pro-Israel candidate, trot out their bona fides and go on about Jewish friends they've had in the past, still do, and anything to get applause and adulation.  I get that, I really do.  But boy, is it ever odd to watch.

First, though, it brings up the interesting paradox that Sanders was the one candidate across both parties who did not speak at the conference.  It is a paradox for a few reasons, not the least of which being that Sanders is, in fact, Jewish.  Now, it doesn't follow a priori that his being Jewish means he should necessarily be virulently pro-Israel, but it sure was weird that he didn't hop a plane from speechifying out west at least to make an appearance, given his religion and given the optics with all other candidates speaking.

And also, we observe, given the fact that so little has been made of his actually being Jewish in the first place.  Remember 2008?  Shoot, remember 1960?  I do, and I remember being aware at the time of what a big deal it was that John F. Kennedy was a Roman Catholic and what a handicap it might be for him in states like West Virginia.  I forget why.  Looking back, it's not like he was very Catholic, or else he had a very friendly priest in confessional; he shouldn't have had time actually to be president, what with all the Hail Marys an ordinary person with his casual approach to fidelity would have been given.

In 2008, Barack Obama's race was the whole election.  It was so important that he be acknowledged as being black (though completely white on one side and raised only by white family), that the news media failed to ask critical questions, like why he spent 20 years listening to a racist preacher, started his campaign in the home of a cop-killer and all.  In 2016, though, Sanders's Jewishness means as much to the press (i.e., none at all) as it seems to mean to him.  You know, Joe Lieberman he ain't.

Now, as a Baptist I can assure you that you don't have to be of any specific faith to admire what Israel has become.  Tough, resilient, essentially an island of democracy in a subcontinent of monarchies, religious zealots and countries who regularly teach their young to wish for its destruction, Israel deserves our admiration.  It certainly has mine at this point, and not out of any reflexive assumption that if Obama is against it, I have to be for it.

So what, then, is AIPAC looking for, and what actually should our relationship be?  In the next administration, what would I want to see?

Well, I neither know nor care what AIPAC is looking for; they are a political action committee, not ambassadors of another country.  They collect money and give it out, mostly to Democrats, and apparently the lack of podium-pounding speakers denouncing the Obama administration for turning its back on Israel (save the Republican candidates) suggests that money, not Israel, is what is most important to AIPAC's leaders.

The more important question is that of what our relationship should be.  And I think the USA's defense of Israel should be based more than simply in its status as an ally in the region, more than a nation holding firm against Islamic terrorism.  In fact, it is more than about the fact that it is a democracy among none others in the region -- and certainly more than the existence of some political action committee.

I think the most intriguing aspect of Israel, and the reason we in our nation should be particularly supportive of it, is its internal political reality.  That is, it appears to be a singular nation where the passions of its own people relative to each other and to their own country drive intellectual debate rather than the taking up of arms.

There is plenty of "taking up of arms" when it comes to its national self-defense -- that's one tough country to have survived given the array of crazies out there trying to destroy them.  But their internal conflicts, of which there appear to be many, are addressed differently from any nation I can name, including our own.  There is something about the Israeli national will and ethos that wins my admiration -- quick to argue, quick to defend, rather than self-destructive.

I want the next administration to think of Israel much as we do the UK, or Canada, or Finland (hey, they were the only nation to pay their WWII war debt for decades) -- not just another ally but a country to admire and to learn from its dealing with its own struggles.  Israel is the kind of nation you want as a friend and ally, first because they are admirable, and second because they're the last you want on the other side.  Ask their enemies.

Barack Obama's administration may think little of Israel and its leadership; it's OK -- he'll be gone in a few months and reason can, hopefully, settle back into our foreign relations.  AIPAC will go on doing whatever it does and wasting money on Democrats who never said "boo" about Obama's snubbing.

I'll still be a fan.  Maybe even Bernie Sanders will come around.

Copyright 2016 by Robert Sutton
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