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The Special Relationship That Wasn’t

The relationship of the United States and Israel is special, even unique. And it seems not to fit their schema very well – which, in their eyes, can only mean that there is something “off” about the relationship, not about their framework. ~Scott McLemee Via Cliopatria Of course, this is where the original essay, and […]

The relationship of the United States and Israel is special, even unique. And it seems not to fit their schema very well – which, in their eyes, can only mean that there is something “off” about the relationship, not about their framework. ~Scott McLemee

Via Cliopatria

Of course, this is where the original essay, and now the book, really bothered a lot of people–the authors simply rejected the assertions (and assertions are all that they usually are) that Israel is strategically valuable, reliable and that its relationship with America is “special, even unique.”  If you do not accept these very questionable assumptions, U.S. policy towards Israel appears irrational and at odds with the national interest.  To which defenders of that policy say, “You better believe it’s irrational!  It’s based on a special, unique relationship that you don’t understand.  Now stop puncturing our myths.”  

If you do not accept a priori claims about the significance of the current relationship, you might reasonably think that political activists have built up these claims and used political pressure to have them accepted.  That is what political activists do–they work to shape perceptions and tell a story that is most advantageous to their cause.  It is apparently pernicious to point out that this also happens in the setting of Near Eastern policy. 

Now the relationship didn’t used to be so “special,” much less unique.  At the founding of Israel, Secretary Marshall didn’t want to recognise the state but was overruled by Truman, which tells me that the obvious, natural and “special” bonds tying the two countries together were hardly anything of the kind sixty years ago.  At the time of Suez, the relationship wasn’t very good at all.  In 1967 it wasn’t good, either.  The “special, even unique” bond with Israel that is supposed to have these deep roots in our own “secular Zionism” and past rhetoric about being the Chosen People (which, besides being an impious usurpation of a role that orthodox Christians properly attribute to the Church rather than to a nation, is obviously a direct rejection of the Jews’ claim to the same role in the present, since a New Israel displaces the Old) has existed for a little over thirty years.  In its present “unprecedented” form the relationship has existed for all of six years.    

Of course, the South African Nationalists were heir to the Calvinists who believed the Afrikaners to be the New Israel in a new Promised Land.  It was not because of this rhetoric of Christian Zionism, but rather in spite of it, that Israel and SA collaborated on security matters.  Like their distant coreligionists in New England, the Afrikaners thought of themselves as the Chosen People because of their Christianity, which meant for them that the Church took the place of Israel.  This is not normally seen as the basis for strong solidarity with contemporary Jewish people, because it obviously isn’t.  In any other context, no one would propose that talk of New Israel means anything else.  It seems to be a measure of the general ignorance of Christian theological tradition that such a claim could be made in earnest. 

Early modern and modern usage of the New Israel language was frequently used by (at least nominal) Christians engaged in nation-building or nation-expanding efforts; the experience of settling new lands and displacing the indigenous peoples, often by violence, made it natural to draw comparisons with the Old Testament Israelites.  Settlers from Reformed traditions seem to have been more inclined to draw such comparisons because of their more frequent recourse to the Old Testament, which would have made it the most likely source for literary and symbolic references.

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