Does America hurt Israel?

By Bernie Quigley

For The Hill on 5/16/11

A young German acquaintance – a waiter – says without malicious intent that all the troubles in the world today are because of the union between Israel and America. It is the European waiters consensus, he says. Not a new story. When West Virginia’s Robert C. Byrd, who singlehandedly spoke against the invasion of Iraq in the Senate, traveled overseas in 1955 as a young member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, he said that while visiting Arab camps of refugees in Jerico, he “heard voices of deep animosity toward the United States, and the refugees voiced a fierce determination to return to Palestine.”

Does American might put to the defend of Israel help? Or does is simply make Israel the convenient scapegoat for America’s many sins?

The Western world – upon all its beauty and advantages – will always act as a “static anvil for the murderous hammer descending upon the Jews from above – be it the Nazi hammer, the Arab hammer or any other murderous, anti Jewish hammer,” writes Moshe Feiglin, political leader of Israel’s Jewish Leadership Movement, which calls for authentic Jewish leadership in Israel.

The time when Israel will have to decide if we are willing to entrust our fate to the very same West that will always be happy to be rid of the "Israel Problem" is rapidly approaching, he writes. Israelis see themselves as an inseparable part of the Western world. It is difficult for them “to accept that the West, our cultural patron, will simply close its eyes with relief when six million Jews in Israel will once again be facing wholesale slaughter.”

“What invasion am I talking about? If we were not living in denial, the media would be abuzz about Samantha Power, head of the National Security Council, who advocates taking the funds that the US now invests in the IDF and investing them instead in the 'Palestinian' army. In no uncertain terms, she discusses a possible US invasion of Israel – to keep the peace, of course. When that goal is accomplished, Power advocates leaving us here to enjoy the loving kindness of the righteous souls in Ramallah.”

Feiglin has been called a Tea Party type in Israel by the New York Times and his commentary does suggest that of libertarian Ron Paul, who shows no sympathy for American military support of Israel: There is life after America, says Feiglin. Israelis do not need American aid. All they need is to return to their tried and true Jewish identity.

“It is urgent to cut the psychological ropes binding us to the West,” he writes. “We are not Americans. We are Israelis and we have an independent and strong faith and culture from which we draw our own existential legitimacy – not from the West.”