Perspectives

By Aaron David Miller 

Aaron David Miller, who served at the State Department as an adviser to six secretaries of state, is a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and author of the recently published “The Much Too Promised Land: America’s Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace” (Bantam).

Thu. May 08, 2008

MILLER: ‘American Jews shouldn’t kid themselves or willfully mask their own influence.’ 

Domestic politics, as Bill Clinton’s national security advisor, Anthony Lake, told me when I interviewed him for my book, is like sex to the Victorians: It’s on everybody’s mind, but nobody wants to talk about it. It’s about time that we start talking about it, particularly when it involves Israel, the pro-Israeli community in America and Arab-Israeli diplomacy. Furthering American national interests in the Middle East depends on it. But this conversation must be honest and clear.

Sadly, that’s not happening. Too many defenders of Israel pretend that Jewish political power has little to do with official American support for Israel (even while many know it does), and too many of Israel’s detractors believe that support for Israel in the United States results almost entirely from political lobbying. The fact is that America’s support for Israel mixes almost seamlessly, driven by shared values and the well-organized efforts of 5.3 million American Jews (and millions of their fellow non-Jewish citizens, particularly evangelical Christians) to create a strong and sustainable American-Israeli bond. After watching and participating in Middle East policy for almost 30 years, I suspect that value affinity — the critical importance of supporting likeminded nations abroad (which is in the broadest conception of America’s national interest) — is the core foundation on which that relationship rests or why it survives over time.

But American Jews shouldn’t kid themselves or willfully mask their own influence. Jews have a powerful voice in shaping America’s Middle East policy. They’re also not alone in making the case for Israel. Today, five advocates push for a close American-Israeli bond: first, a well organized and affluent Jewish community for which Israel has become a survival issue; second, an effective Congressional lobby (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) that skillfully guards and sustains a pro-Israeli tilt among a sizable number of passionately pro-Israeli legislators and a majority for whom Israeli issues are not a priority but who don’t need the headache of swimming upstream against a well-organized lobby; third, millions of evangelical Christians who support Israel not just for theological reasons but because of, particularly in the wake of September 11, shared values; fourth, the Arabs themselves (Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah and even non-Arab Iran) whose extremism just makes Israel look better and more sympathetic, and fifth, a Jewish lobby of one — the personal impact that Israeli prime ministers can have on American presidents. 

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