11 February 2025

Israel and the United States - No the Tail Does not Wag the Dog

Those Who Argue That Israel Controls American Foreign Policy Are Letting US Imperialism Off the Hook

I understand why, for many people, it seems as if Israel controls US foreign policy. After all Israeli politicians, Netanyahu included, boast of how much power they exert and in all probability they believe it.


I must confess that I was surprised by the video of Lowkey whose title was ‘Donald Trump is a Puppet of Israel’. In the video Lowkey explained which billionaires and Israeli/Zionist individuals and organisations had financed Trump’s successful election campaign.

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The heading on the video from Double Down News was ‘Donald Trump is a Puppet of Israel’. Although Lowkey didn’t actually say these words in the video, I assume that he was nonetheless happy with the title..

It was on this basis that I posted a comment making it clear that this was ‘political idiocy’ and that it was a ‘fucking stupid thing to say’. I went on to say:

Israel is the attack dog of US imperialism. Israel does what the US can only dream of. Why the fuck do you think Biden said that if Israel didn't exist it would have to be invented. Christians evangelists wanted an Israel when Jews didn't. Read up on your fucking history and use your brain

@lowkeyonline

the US controls Israel or rather supports her because an unsinkable aircraft carrier is in its interests - that's why the most rabid anti-Semites love Israel

For this I was duly reprimanded by Asa Winstanley of Electronic Intifada who said there was ‘no need to abuse @Lowkey0nline over a political disagreement. He’s a good man and doesn’t deserve to be sworn at like that.’

I don’t accept I swore at or abused Lowkey but I didn’t pull any punches either. I agree that Lowkey is a good man and an excellent researcher. However it is one thing to do the research and it is an entirely another thing as to what conclusions you draw from that research.

I have no doubt that rich Jewish Zionists like Miriam Adelson funded Trump’s campaign. So did the Hitler saluting neo-Nazi Elon Musk, who is not Jewish.

Elon Musk’s ‘awkward gesture’ according to the Zionist ADL

But it is an entirely different matter to conclude from this that Trump is Israel’s puppet. Or that United States foreign policy is controlled by Israel. Because if Israel, a relatively small state that is entirely dependent on US weapons and finance, does control the US, a much bigger and more powerful state, then the question arises as to how this is possible. A moment’s thought should tell us that this is highly unlikely. Why would the Pentagon, American multi-nationals and billionaire class allow  the Israeli state or indeed any state to control their foreign policy?

Of course there are conspiracy cookies, of whom there are quite a number who, like Glenn Beck, the former Fox News presenter, will come out and say it’s a Jewish conspiracy as predicted in the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. But for more normal and rational people this is an absurd formulation. American Jews are 5 or 6 million. 40% of young Jews believe Israel is an apartheid state and young Jews are in the forefront of the anti-genocide protests.

Of course the Jewish capitalists, who with the exception of George Soros are all Zionists, are pro-Israel.  But is US support for Israel a result of rich Jews conspiring together? That is the only plausible explanation for how Israel ‘controls’ US foreign policy.

Butcher Biden, whilst always telling us of his red lines, funded and equipped Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Without US support Israel would not have been able to destroy Gaza. The question is why the US did this. The answer is not hard to find.

The Middle East is an incredibly important part of the world. It is the gateway to Asia with the Suez Canal and it is a region rich in oil and gas. Both British and US foreign policy is geared to suppressing the Arab populations through compliant comprador regimes. Arab nationalism with its threat to Western control of the oil is a dire threat to the West’s prosperity and Israel has been pivotal in defeating it.

Israel is the United States’s attack dog, used to frighten and police the region. Although the US uses Saudi Arabia in particular to do this in the Gulf,the Saudi regime is not based on popular support and is thus unstable. Israel is a western settler colonial state whose population is every bit as right-wing and racist as its politicians.

But if Israel is the West’s attack dog then it is important that it retains its bite. If you kick your attack dog too often it becomes afraid to do anything. Far better that Israel murders a few hundred thousands in Gaza than that it’s afraid to slaughter Arabs when the US expects it to.

With the settlers of the West Bank now gaining critical mass in Israeli politics we are seeing a shift from the old secular racism of Israel to  Messianic racist politicians who believe they are fulfilling god’s mandate.

Of course the old Israeli Labor Party politicians weren’t really secular. There was no civil marriage in Israel as that would have enabled Arabs, Christians, Muslims and Jews to inter-marry and in a Jewish state based on racial purity that is not kosher. 

Israel prefers to keep its version of the Nazi Nuremberg laws which prevents Jews and Arabs inter-marrying. It was the ILP government which conquered the West Bank because it too signed up to the idea that the biblical territories of Zionist mythology must be conquered.

Noam Chomsky - Why Does the U.S. Support Israel?

As Noam Chomsky explains in the video, Christian Zionism predated Jewish Zionism by hundreds of years. This was the theology of Christian imperialism.  The first imperialist to dream of a Jewish state was Napoleon and he was followed by a variety of British politicians, Lords Palmerston and Shaftesbury in particular.

Why were the British so keen on Zionism that they agreed to sponsor the Zionist project via the Balfour Declaration? The answer is simple. They saw a British run client settler state as being in their interests although things did not turn out as they expected because after 1945 the British and the Zionist militias fought a war against each other. But at no stage did the British arm the Arabs. This was a repeat of the American War of Independence. Even though the British were losing to the American colonists, they never entertained the idea of arming the Black slaves.

When Israel defeated the combined Arab armies in 1967 they also defeated the Arab nationalism of Gamal Abdel-Nasser. Arab nationalism died with Nasser.

US President Joe Biden: “If there were not an Israel, we’d have to invent one.”

Alexander Haig was right when he described Israel as an unsinkable aircraft carrier.  Biden was right when he said that if Israel didn’t exist it would have to be invented. A ready made friendly settler state in the region that supported and was dependent on the US fitted in with imperialism’s plans.

The Conversation gets it about right when it describes how:

Regardless of which political party or coalition is in power in Israel, and regardless of where public opinion in the U.S. is moving, the U.S. government’s “commitment to Israel’s security is ironclad,” as Vice-President Kamala Harris put it.

The U.S. sees Israel as a critical “strategic ally” in the Middle East….

Why would the U.S. need to invent an Israel? Biden has always seen Israel as an investment which produces the best returns for U.S. interests.

In 1986, when he was a member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, he opposed the sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia because they were not able to become “agents of .U.S interests in the Persian Gulf region.”

He stressed that his opposition to the weapons sale was not about whether the Saudis were good guys or bad guys, but about the ability of the Saudis to help advance and secure U.S. interests.

He emphasized that the “naked self-interest of the U.S.” should always guide their Middle East policy, and that his support for Israel is situated within that self-interest. As he bluntly explained: “Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interest in the region.”

Biden’s frank comments make clear that the U.S.-Israel “bond” is not about defending democracy. Rather, it has always been, and still is, about American imperial interests in the region.

That is why although the US has cajoled and tried to persuade Israel to come to some form of two-state bantust-type settlement with Israel, they never contemplated forcing Israel to disgorge its territory.

That is why, although Israel is the most powerful actor in the region, American and British politicians have always gone along with the fiction of Israel’s ‘right to defend itself’ which really means Israel’s right to attack whoever it wants.

Of course in the United States there is a competition as to who can give Israel the most support, because it is taken for granted that Israel is an adjunct to American power in the region. It may indeed seem at times as if Israel controls the United States but all I can say to those who believe this is that appearances can often be deceptive.

It pays US politicians to pretend that Israel has them by the throat but when on occasion there really is a clash of interests then it is always the United States that wins. When Reagan wanted to sell AWACS surveillance aircraft to Saudi Arabia, Israel objected.

Reagan bluntly declared that ‘It is not the business of other nations to make American foreign policy.’ he won the battle. Similarly when Bush demanded that $10 billion loan guarantees not be used to fund settlements on the West Bank and Prime Minister Shamir objected,

Bush stood his ground, insisting on delaying the entire loan guarantee for 120 days. ….

Shamir thought that with the help of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, he could force Bush’s hand by mobilizing Congress to approve the aid immediately in defiance of the president.

Unmoved, Bush vowed to veto legislation that authorized the aid before the 120-day delay had expired. He took his case to the media, speaking at length about his stance in a press conference on Sept. 12, 1991. He famously portrayed himself as an underdog against the might of AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups, which had recently organized a massive lobbying day on Capitol Hill.

“I heard today there was something like 1,000 lobbyists on the Hill working on the other side of the question. We’ve got one lonely little guy down here doing it,” he said, eliciting laughs from the White House press corps.

Shortly thereafter, Bush prevailed in his game of chicken with Shamir and AIPAC.

Congress backed down. And when the U.S. finally guaranteed the loans in the spring of 1992, it did so using a new formula designed to offset Israel’s spending on settlements. It guaranteed $200 million less for each billion Israel asked for to account for Israel’s projected settlement spending.

Historically the Republican Party has not depended on Jewish or Zionist financial support. That has always been in the Democrat’s pocket although today it is different. But regardless of who supported which party there was never any doubt that when it came to Israel there was total bipartisanship.

In short it is not Israeli control of US foreign policy that is the problem. It is US imperialism and its Israeli watchdog that are our real enemies.

Not only do those who attribute US support for Israel to the Zionist lobbies not understand where power lies but they let US imperialism off the hook. If only the lobby wasn’t so powerful these people claim then US imperialism would be more benign.

Or you do like David Miller seems to be doing and that is chasing individual Zionists in positions of power on the basis that once they are removed from office then Britain will adopt a pro-Palestinian foreign policy.

Such a strategy is a recipe for derailing the Palestine solidarity movement by failing to see where power really lies.

Tony Greenstein

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