De-politicizing support for Israel

Although not entirely my own reflections - I thought I would share the following:

On Thursday May 10 Siegal College hosted a series of programs featuring Professor Robert Watson, a scholar of presidential history, director of the American Studies program at Lynn University, political commentator and columnist, and a frequent speaker at adult education venues throughout South Florida.  Watson capped off a full day of adult learning activities with the Siegal-Schneider Memorial  Lecture discussing Harry Truman’s tremendous courage and decisive personal role in the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.  As Watson put it, Truman’s commitment to the Zionist cause was not politically motivated in any way, indeed it almost destroyed his political career, but rather President Truman acted on the basis of his own personal moral compass, ultimately supporting Israeli statehood simply because, “it was the right thing to do.”  During the Question and Answer session at each of his presentations during the day, Watson was frequently asked to assess the current US relationship with Israel and to think about its implications for the future.  Watson was adamant that support for Israel is and should remain strongly bi-partisan, with the Jewish State having been well served by champions in the White House from both parties and different ideological convictions – giving the examples of the liberal Democrat Lyndon Johnson and conservative Republican Ronald Reagan demonstrating strong backing for Israel.  Looking at recent presidents, Watson noted that Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama all score highly on the 10-point matrix he uses to assess presidential support for Israel. 

And while all of the presidents have made some mistakes in their Israel policies, on balance only Jimmy Carter (largely in his post-Presidential period) and George H.W. Bush could be characterized as having been in any way bad for Israel – and even in those two administrations the United States still served as Israel’s primary source of international support.   What Watson fears as being tremendously threatening to Israel are increasing attempts to politicize the notion of support for Israel in partisan fashion, and the rhetoric and rancor of social media and talk radio that seeks to turn support for Israel into a wedge issue, even though it clearly has bi-partisan support as can be seen in congressional voting records.  A United States public that is currently both politically divided in general and economically challenged already weakens our country’s ability to be as strong an ally for Israel as we could be – a situation that would grow much worse should support for Israel somehow truly become a divisive issue.  And even though historically the US supports Israel in bi-partisan fashion, Watson, who is not Jewish, does value the continued vigilance of the American Jewish community and its ability to lobby Washington effectively in order to maintain the close bond between the two countries, regardless of who occupies the White House or the Prime Minister’s office.  

Watson's comments allow for some extrapolation.  This concept of de-politicizing U.S. support for Israel, or at least recognizing the broad bi-partisan support that already exists need not be limited to this specific issue - indeed with respect to most of the issues that populate the political landscape, most are at least conceptually non-partisan.  Certain social issues notwithstanding - the gay marriage/marriage equality issue for example, typically divisions revolve around specific tactics and strategies, and not on the substance of the issues at hand.  In truth history's lesson in this regard is not entirely clear, because as long as the country has maintained a two-party system (which is basically its entire history) the parties have need to demonstrate their disinction from one another, especially during presidential election cycles, by highlighting the differences rather than the similarities.  So as much as one might like to harken back to a blissful era of non-partisanship, one could easily argue that the very notion is a fallacy.  On the other hand, clearly one can identify a difference between the reality of ideological and strategic distinctiveness and the seeming unwillingness of the players to work in tandem to bridge the partisan divide.  Certainly the defeat of Senator Dick Lugar in the recent Republican primary and Senatory Olympia Snowe's decision not to seek re-election suggest that the practical implications of the partisan divide are more divisive than they had once been.   

Examining the very real bi-partisan support of Israel that exists on capitol hill may be instructive in demonstrating how our system attempts to create divisions, even where none really exist.

Planes, Trains, and Herzl’s Dream: Normalization and Travel in Modern Israel

By most measures, travel to and within the state of Israel is a highly civilized affair – modern systems, both integrated and relatively efficient (barring the all-too-frequent labor strikes).  So conventional are these modes, in fact, that the issue might hardly even be worth mentioning.  So user-friendly and seamless for travelers hailing form the industrialized West that one might even dare to call the experience “normal.”  Yet for those with even some minor introduction to Zionist discourse, the word “normal” is loaded and weighty, as indeed one of the great debates surrounding the need for an independent Jewish state was the very desirability of this quest for “normalization.”  Theodore Herzl, the figure most often viewed as the father of modern Zionism and the revered visionary of the modern Jewish state has been both severely criticized and lauded for his notion of creating a Jewish state which would be eminently “normal” – a well-respected outpost of Western Civilization dominated and governed by a people whose status in Christian Europe had been anything but “normal.”

Consider for a moment the specific details of a 21^st century traveler-to-Israel’s experience compared to the reality not so long ago.  Today a jetliner lands at Ben Gurion International Airport and passengers disembark through a jetway into the airport’s modern interior replete with food court and other trappings of a modern consumer economy – an experience hardly worthy of special attention.  When I first flew to Israel nearly 20 years ago – and in fact as recently as only 10 years ago – arriving passengers were forced to disembark by descending a staircase and from there shuttled by bus to the arrival terminal.  So what? Why is the jetway of any import?  A feature of the older modality, the journey down the stairway onto the tarmac, embodied the distinct reality that for many travelers – tourists, immigrants, or those simply coming back from a trip abroad – landing at Ben Gurion Airport was an arrival to the Holy Land and entailed specific emotions and actions, including getting down on one’s knees and literally kissing the very ground (though not the soil) of that Holy Land, often accompanied by tears and prayers.

Today one who arrives at the airport can go directly through the airport terminal and enjoy domestic travel along Israel’s modern railway system.  So committed is this country to this relatively recent addition to the transportation infrastructure that the state is currently constructing a high-speed rail line to connect Jerusalem, the airport, and Tel-Aviv.  (Adjacent to the central bus station in Jerusalem is an enormous hole in the ground, 7-10 stories deep, where the Jerusalem terminus for the high speed line will reside.)  Again this mode of travel is a highly civilized, extremely normal way to travel in a country where automobile travel is emotionally taxing and physically dangerous.

Yet anyone who has travelled the main highway from Tel-Aviv (or the airport) to Jerusalem knows that the specific route that winds through the valleys and up the hills leading to the Holy City has enormous symbolic significance for those connected to the Jewish state – the path is inexorably tied to the creation of modern Israel.  For the fields and forests that abut the main highway are strewn with the (painted and preserved) burnt-out remnants of military and civilian transports that were once bound for but never made it to Jerusalem during the war for Israel’s independence in 1948-49.  So significant are these remains that not only are they painted to present rust and other damage, but they are flood-lit at night, to always play their role as essential monuments to the past and permanent elements of the landscape accompanying travel to and from Jerusalem.  The typical tourist bus travelling these hills includes a tour guide commenting on the miraculous achievement of Jewish Jerusalem’s survival of the 1948 siege and the commuter is reminded daily and nightly of the sacrifices made to ensure the birth of the Jewish state.

Not so for he/she who will take advantage of the bullet train from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem or vice-versa.  The pleasant, quiet, ultra-modern, extremely “normal” journey will allow one to work or sleep uninterrupted, but it will also bypass these monuments to the very unique, not quite normal, Zionist success that is modern Israel.