A very interesting shift in our attitude toward Israel and Jews seems to have taken place after WWII. Prior to WWII anti-semitism was extremely common, especially on the Right which is heavily Christian. If you research the longstanding anti-semitism in Europe - we're talking centuries - than you should be able to understand why it was so widespread, and adopted by otherwise rational people.
Henry Ford and Interwar Anti-semitism in the USA
A great way to trace the evolution of anti-semitism in the USA is to look at the Republican Party, starting with Henry Ford during the interwar period. Read his famous book "
The International Jew" and you will see the attitude which was widespread on the Right. (Again: this should not be hard to understand, especially if you research the longstanding conflict between Christians and Jews in Europe).
The postwar shift
After WWII, Israel became an absolutely vital asset to America's burgeoning role as a global superpower. Given its energy resources, the Middle East is indisputably the world's most important region. No other event could sink the global and/or American economy quicker than instability in the Middle East.
So, in many way Israel became a satellite of the U.S. out of necessity. You can see this not only in the tremendous financial and military support, but also in the behavior of the U.S. surrounding any attempt to go back to the pre-67 borders. Indeed, any attempt to create a peaceful end to the conflict has been blocked.
A peaceful resolution to this conflict would reduce the need for US involvement going forward. Therefore, from a geopolitical standpoint, it is not in the interest of the US to allow a peaceful resolution. (This is where Carter and Reagan split. Carter wanted a peaceful resolution followed by the US shedding its Middle East assets and withdrawing from the region - in concert with a "moonshot" around energy independence. Reagan, who had a petroleum forward energy policy, did not want a resolution to the conflict. He wanted the instability as a context for US involvement in the region.
This was also his strategy during the Cold War. The conflict with the Soviets was vital to US intervention in the 3rd world, which was a gold mine of natural resources and cheap labor, both of which are necessary for capital investment. When he started to partner with Gorby to unwind the conflict, the neocons went crazy . . . until they replaced the Cold War with the War on Terrorism as the context for US intervention. The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is fundamental to the War on Terror, and the US can't dismantle it anymore than it could dismantle the Cold War).
As the USA started to heavily influence Israeli politics - and as some prominent American Jews began to enter Defense agencies ("neocons"), there was an attitude-shift in the GOP. Anti-semitism got slowly pushed into the "back rooms". Today we see only a small clusters of Anti-semitism on the Right, like Holocaust Deniers and Neo-Nazi groups. In the front of the house, however, the GOP has a very strict ideology of promoting Israel. You see narratives of good versus evil papering over something very complex and messy. The USA has a very complex history of Anti-semitism. Most people don't realize that Jews were not allowed into many country clubs - and they don't know when this started to change and why. It's almost impossible to respond to this thread without sorting through some history and trying to pinpoint when it became impossible to criticize Israel and why.
I personally side with the Jewish and Palestinian
people over their
leaders. The State of Israel, like Hussein when he was backed by Reagan and initially GHWB, gets away with a lot of terror. This has pushed Palestine to the Right, giving homegrown terror networks like Hamas more power. The result is that the radical parts of both sides are in power, which prolongs the conflict and makes it hard to untangle the mess. Gaza, however, seems pretty clear. The US should allow Israel to go back to the pre-67 borders (but a US leader would have a harder time accomplishing this than Kennedy had ending Vietnam and dismantling the CIA). Anyway, I see the OP's point. It's very hard to defend Israel in this.
The average American voter looks at something like the Iranian Revolution (and Ayatollah Khomeini) with disgust. This disgust is uneducated. The reason Iran moved so radically Right into homegrown terror networks was because the US and Britain replaced the democratically elected and wildly popular Mosaddeq with the brutal Hussein-like Shaw. This was done because Mosaddeq would not "play ball" with western energy needs, preferring instead to control his own resources in the same way an Iowa farmer controls his corn. So, of course, when a superpower tinkers with the destiny of region, there are going to be many unintended consequences.
The US might have been acting with good intentions when it supported regime change in Iran (and a host of other Middle Eastern nations). But "good intentions" and Big Government don't always create the best outcome.
To my friends out there in message board land.
Here is a study from the Right-leaning Cato Institute.
Read me.
Here is a great course by the Teaching Company, also slightly Right-leaning.
Go here.
If you study this stuff, you'll be less inclined to depend on simplistic bumper stickers. You might discover better arguments for the conclusions you've been fed, or you might have to entertain some messy complexities. Either way, it's probably worth getting a little more detail.
