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What the "Jewish Lobby" Knows about Animus for Israel

(Wall Street Journal) Ruth R. Wisse - Opposition to Israel camouflages a much more virulent hostility to America. The cause of the long-running Arab war against the Jewish homeland is not Israel, it is Arab leaders' need for war against a "foreign intruder." Opposition to Israel is the only glue of pan-Arabism and the strongest common bond of otherwise warring Muslim constituencies. Anti-Zionism is less about the Jews than about the larger aims of those aggressing against the Jews. Israel represents religious pluralism, individual rights and freedoms, liberal democracy, and Western ideas of progress. Jews and Israel are merely a convenient face or emblem for the huger bastions of those same ideals. Israel, the "little Satan," is a handier target than the "big Satan." The alignment between Israel and America is dictated by those who burn the flags of both countries on the same pyre. By contrast, those who lobby for Israel's protection axiomatically have America's back. The writer is a professor of Yiddish and comparative literature at Harvard.
2013-01-17 00:00:00
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