Israel wants YOU (America) to be her Father.
By Shmuel Lerman
(For the official version, see the article at en.mhar.co.il)
The relationship between Israel and the United States provides the best gateway to understanding the state of Israeli consciousness this past generation. In order to understand this, it is important to analyze the moral foundation on which the United States was established. At the same time, we need to assess the present situation in America vis a vis Israel in both the public and political echelons.
The result of such an assessment will reveal an anomalous situation in which Israel has within her possession all the right conditions with which to conduct her relationship with the world’s only superpower on the basis of mutual respect and cooperation, though in reality we receive a different picture entirely: The United States incessantly pleading Israel not to build in Jewish neighborhoods in its own capital; the United States holding an Israeli spy for a quarter century; the U.S. President putting his feet on the desk as he talks with the Israeli Prime Minister and ensuring that the image is publicized.
How did we get to this point?
America: “The State of Jewish Values”
The foundational Protestant values of faith in God and the Bible, and the unwavering pursuit of freedom and the willingness to fight for it, created for the American forefathers’ a special closeness to the Jewish heritage. This can be seen in several examples: The Exodus from Egypt was a source of inspiration for their struggle for freedom, and later for the Civil War to emancipate the slaves; the Founding Fathers almost decided to adopt Hebrew as the language of the United States; countless American towns bear Biblical names like Bethlehem and Hebron. These are the values which soon became the basis of the United States of America, the strongest and richest nation in the world.
Yoram Ettinger
Yoram Ettinger who served as an envoy at the Israeli Embassy in Washington and is considered an expert in US-Israel relations, also holds that American ethics have a deep connection to authentic Israelite culture.
“The alliance between the U.S. and Israel is deeper than strategic considerations concerning shared threats, shared interests, or the chemistry between leaders. This alliance rests on a foundation of values that is unmatched in the world. This foundation began its development in the seventeenth century, among the first settlers in the New World. The Founding Fathers saw themselves as the creators of a modern federation – the root of the word “federal”- between God and Man, all this by the influence of Jewish history, and Biblical history in particular.
“The statue of Moses stands in the center of the Chamber of the House of Representatives in Washington, and also stands in the U.S. Supreme Court . The official symbol of Yale University is the Hebrew Oracle, the Urim and Tumim worn by the High Priest. This is in fact an alliance between the world’s only Jewish state and the world’s only Judeo-Christian state, or ‘state of Jewish values’ – as they call themselves. “
This institution of values in American culture is not disconnected from what is happening in American public life today. There is a solid majority in support of Israel in both the House and Senate. Tens of millions of evangelical Christians support Israel and see its establishment as fulfilling the vision of the prophets. All the presidents in the last generation declared U.S. commitment to the existence and prosperity of Israel. Even when there were crises between the countries, it was always possible to mend the rift.
With this background, the question arises as to why Israel has not made use of these elements in order to foster a relationship of mutual respect and true partnership with the United States?
The explanation of Israel’s policy makers is that the need for financial aid and support in the international political arena ties our hands and doesn’t allow us to conduct our own independent policy with the United States. However, an analysis of these reasons will show a completely different picture, and will thus point to a fundamental failure.
American Aid
The average Israeli citizen views the United States as the pillar that keeps Israel alive today. Despite Israel’s economic boom, its development of advanced weaponry, and its apparent transition to energy independence, the public impression is that Israel lives off American generosity.
One major issue that fixes this impression in the public is the financial aid given to Israel. However, the dry data are in complete contradiction to the popular belief on the Israeli street. U.S. aid stands at 1.4% of the Israel’s GDP. This is a very small percentage of the national annual income, and Israel can and must give it up. The political, military, and economic price tag that comes with this American “aid” is extremely high.
Researcher Ronnie Brett examined the issue of U.S. aid to Israel (see box) when he was a research staff member at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University. Brett thinks that we must give up the aid, noting that one reason aid dependence is needed is political: “Israel sees aid as a powerful public symbol of U.S. support and stable bilateral relations.”
From this statement we can see that the reason for the aid stems from somewhere much more deep and hidden: the desire to be supported. If we don’t receive aid, we wouldn’t have a “Father” who leads us, and we really have no other father.
The Political Arena
Professor Ezra Zohar, author of “Israel – A Mistress in the Middle East,” thinks that Israel his given the United States more than the United States has given Israel. He mentions the delivery of a MiG-21 jet that saved the U.S. billions of dollars, as well as other intelligence issues. In his opinion, financial aid is not necessary today, and the important aid is that received in international arena. So, why doesn’t Israel its foreign policy independent of the United States?
“Because for two thousand years has taught us not to act independently. It’s a kind of exile. By the way, some of our leaders did not get their schooling in the country, and these are values that they brought with them from exile. Aside from this, there is a deep cultural dependence on Western culture that has taken control of Israeli society. No doubt that this has an impact on the actions of our government. “
The result is that when the Senate finally decided to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the Israeli government opposed it. Here, too, the failure is significant: The America of Biblical values seeks to conduct itself with Israel as an equal, but Israel prefers to flee her identity and be run as a protectorate while the American powers-that-be push in the opposite direction.
It’s not simple being a simple Jew…
It’s not the money, it’s the feeling of being protected
rm relations with the leader of the free world are obviously a clear Israeli interest, but instead of putting them on an equal platform as nations generally do, we prefer to see the U.S. as a nation spreading its protective shield over us.
Why?
The answer can be sought in the convoluted Israeli ethos which is now undergoing an identity crisis. Zionism’s stated goal was to establish a normal nation – that is, to return to Zion, and to leave the curse of exile associated with exilic Jewish culture. One can certainly understand and sympathize with the thought processes that led to this, but the result is that Israel has given up the moral basis which justifies her very existence while she seeks alternatives in America’s image and the culture it represents.
From here we have transformed the American-Israeli relationship into a kind of protectorate. The American umbrella, more than being a political and security umbrella, is a cultural and ethical one. Standing up to the Americans pulls the only basis on which Israel wants to be built – Western civilization, of which America is the most salient representative – right out from under our feet.
The New Relationship
What is needed is a return to ourselves, to our original culture, and reach a new Israeli state of mind: an independent nation with an original and unique cultural ethos, who knows her destination. With this in hand we can also go out to the countries of the world in general, and to the U.S. in particular.
This move is necessary because there is also a different America, an America that threatens the values of freedom and Biblical faith, an America that adapts inverted values. Inside America, there is an increasingly loud call for internal disintegration from fundamental values of family, productivity and national pride. This is what led the Americans to choose their president who is a man from an unclear family background and who is “solving” the economic crisis by printing more money and who Americans themselves can’t even tell you what his religion is. This loss of values is what led to the severe social and economic crisis, of which we are witnessing only the beginning.
The challenge before us in establishing a healthy and stable relationship with the United States, is to return to ourselves and to connect to those same healthy foundations which still characterize the majority among the American public. The future of our relations with America depends on our ability to strengthen the alliance between the Jewish state and the “State of Jewish values.”
