Two points:
1. The jewish lobby by itself would not have gotten the US into Iraq. Karl Rove's desire to paint Bush as a War President, various corporations desire for profits, armchair stratagists desire to prove their manhood by embarking on war (since they missed the one in Vietnam), the neo wilsonian myth that America has a destiny to bring democracy to the benighted all played their part. However, without the Likudnik wing in the pentagon and in the right wing think tanks, this unnecessary and disasterous war would have been much more unlikely. So I suggest we view the role of the Jewish lobby in causing the Iraq war as "necessary but not sufficient".
2. Anti-semitism has a long history. Who would have predicted 100 years ago that Germany, a center of Jewish culture and life would try to exterminate such a vital part of its people? Today, Jews play a huge role in American life, in many ways not dissimilar to the role they played in Germany before World War I. The fear that it could happen again, that it could happen here, although unlikely, is understadable.
However, it is precisely the sense amongst non Jewish Americans that Jews have a greater loyalty to Israel than to the United States that is most likely to spark a rise in antisemitism here. Not discussing the subject will not make it go away. What is needed is for more Jews to recognize that their interests as Americans and as Jews do not coincide with those of the settlers.
Two points:
1. The jewish lobby by itself would not have gotten the US into Iraq. Karl Rove's desire to paint Bush as a War President, various corporations desire for profits, armchair stratagists desire to prove their manhood by embarking on war (since they missed the one in Vietnam), the neo wilsonian myth that America has a destiny to bring democracy to the benighted all played their part. However, without the Likudnik wing in the pentagon and in the right wing think tanks, this unnecessary and disasterous war would have been much more unlikely. So I suggest we view the role of the Jewish lobby in causing the Iraq war as "necessary but not sufficient".
2. Anti-semitism has a long history. Who would have predicted 100 years ago that Germany, a center of Jewish culture and life would try to exterminate such a vital part of its people? Today, Jews play a huge role in American life, in many ways not dissimilar to the role they played in Germany before World War I. The fear that it could happen again, that it could happen here, although unlikely, is understadable.
However, it is precisely the sense amongst non Jewish Americans that Jews have a greater loyalty to Israel than to the United States that is most likely to spark a rise in antisemitism here. Not discussing the subject will not make it go away. What is needed is for more Jews to recognize that their interests as Americans and as Jews do not coincide with those of the settlers.