This started as a response to someone in their comment section, but started to run long, so I thought I would set it up here for the general comity to consider.
I generally support Israel and Zionism; probably more than most of my liberal friends. I do believe in a nearly absolute right of self defense for Israel. However, that does not translate into unqualified and unquestioning ratification of everything Israel does, *particularly* with this current Likud-lead coalition government. Their rightwing allies in government are seriously batshit crazy... They could give the Tea Party lessons.
And, frankly, I am not crazy about the fact this is largely being done on the American taxpayers' dime; so the American right can frakin' spare me the "we don't support Israel," nonsense... That's $120 billion since 1949 (unadjusted) and $20 billion just since 2008; the *vast* majority in military aid.
That said, Israel often finds itself in no-win situations.
They have tried negotiation, reparations, repatriation, land-for-peace. These efforts are almost universally met by more violence from either Palestinian extremists with only the most tenuous connection to any cognizable authority or foreign agents acting as proxies for other regional states with their own agendas.
The history and issues involved here are *hideously* complicated - from the early 20th Century homesteading movement, to the Balfour Declaration, post world war(s) European meddling, to the use of the region as proxies in the Cold War, petrochemical politics, etc...
Combine that with the fact that the conflict has become *so* iconoclastic as to verge on pathological, it makes genuine work on solutions for peace all but impossible. Nevertheless, I do support Israel and Zionism. I just think that their current government is taking actions that in the long run serve neither the best interests of Israel *nor* Zionism... Or the United States for all of that.
mojo sends
