Unknown Speaker 0:00

Hello everybody. Welcome Welcome everyone. So nice to see you all. I'm Todd Waxman I'm the was Lyndon Arthur Gilbert foundation Chair of Israel studies at UCLA and the director of the UCLA unison's, Hawaiian is area and center for Israel studies. And it's my great pleasure to introduce this event. The Nazarian centers third how you see Sigmund distinguished lecturer in Israel studies. This lecture series was established through a bequest by the late Harry Sigmund, who was a generous supporter of Israel studies at UCLA. Born in France to parents who had fled Hitler's Europe in the 1930s. Harry Sigmund was a graduate of UCLA, and Harvard Law School, who went on to forge a prominent career in commercial law. He worked as a consultant to governments and NGOs all over the world and taught at universities in the United States, Europe and Israel. I'm sure how he would be happy to know that his gift has enabled us to host our distinguished speaker this evening. Before I introduce him, I just like to thank the co sponsors of this event, the UCLA Political Science Department, the UCLA history department, the UCLA, l&d levy Center for Jewish Studies, the UCLA Center for the Study of Religion, and Hillel at UCLA. I'd also like to thank the Nazarian center staff for all their hard work on this event and all of our public events more Resnick, Jane Metro Scott Scott, and gage Greenspan, thank you for your hard work.

Unknown Speaker 1:38

Yesterday, Israeli President Isaac Hertzog met President Joe Biden in the Oval Office, the two leaders emphasize the strength and closeness of the US Israel relationship with President Hertzog declaring, quote, our friendship and strong bond transcends all political differences and opinions and parties and President Biden saying I've said this 5000 times in my career, the ironclad commitment the United States has to Israel is based on our principles, our ideas, and our values. Such statements extolling the unbreakable bond between the United States and Israel are common whenever Israeli and American leaders get together. And they're not just empty rhetoric. They express the shared conviction that the relationship between the United States and Israel is a truly special relationship, not merely an alliance of cognitive convenience, but a deep and enduring friendship. How did this friendship or even love affair come into being? How has it developed and grown over time? And what is it based upon? Why has the United States supported Israel so staunchly and for so long? Scholars have given many answers to these questions, and have long debated the reasons why the United States supports Israel. You might think, therefore, that there's no need for another book on this much discussed topic. But you'd be wrong. Our speaker this evening has written a book about the history of the US Israel relationship, that a review in the New York Times aptly described as, quote, less the history of US Israel policy than a sweeping and masterfully told history of US foreign policy in general, as seen through the lens of the US Israel relationship. Another way to put it in the Atlantic quote, part original scholarship part counterintuitive history, part meditation on American identity, part debunking of anti Jewish conspiracies, there is nothing quite like it. If I could force people to read one book about America and Israel, it would be this one. The book is titled, The Ark of the Covenant the United States, Israel in the fate of the Jewish people, which is also the title of this evening's talk, sign copies of the book will be available to purchase after this lecture. Now, let me tell you a bit about its author and our speaker tonight. Walter Russell Mead is the James Clark Chase, Professor of foreign affairs and humanities at Bard College in New York, the Distinguished Fellow in strategy and statesmanship at the Hudson Institute, and the global view columnist at the Wall Street Journal. He was previously the Henry A Kissinger, senior fellow for US foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. Professor Mead has authored numerous books, including The widely praised special Providence, American foreign policy, and how it changed the world and many others and I'm delighted that he can be with us here in person this evening. So please join me in welcoming Professor Mead onto the stage.

Unknown Speaker 4:38

All right, can everybody hear me? Okay, good. That is actually a stupid question. Of course, because people who can't hear you won't know that you've asked it but as as both a scholar and an a professor, I kind of specialize in stupid questions, asking stupid and obvious questions because some Sometimes the answers are unexpectedly revealing. I'd like to thank UCLA and then as Aryan senator for inviting me here for Doug for doing all the hard work that made it possible. It's a real pleasure to be out in Los Angeles, some of you may be old enough to remember that in the 1980s and 90s, I used to do a lot of writing for the Los Angeles Times, and I used to get out here much more frequently, then, that was a great experience. For me, it was kind of formative in my life as a journalist, so I'm glad to be returning to my roots. Israel, I say in this book, occupies a speck on the map of the world, but fills a continent in the American mind. And exploring that continent is what I set out to do in this book, not mentioned that very recently, the President of Israel was meeting with President Biden in the Oval Office. Now, when you think about that, that's actually quite unusual, although none of us were surprised to hear about it. Because Israel is a very small country with 10 million inhabitants. And the President of Israel is not a political figure is not a decision maker. Is a ceremonial post, really a symbolic post. So, you know, think of other countries that have 10 million people in them do their do their ceremonial leaders get one on one meetings with the Oval Office, followed by joint statements and press conferences? No, they do not. I was in Indonesia, recently, a country of almost 300 million people and a key country. In terms of American policy in the Indo Pacific, you might say, the biggest swing state between America and China, in the Indo Pacific. And what I heard from Indonesian officials up and down was, we can hardly get into see anybody in Washington, we can hardly get him to pick up the phone. But Israel gets this high profile attention all the time. And you can bet that Joe Biden, two weeks before a very difficult midterm election was quite happy to have this camera opportunity with with the President of Israel. When I lived in New York years ago, people used to talk about the three eyes of New York politics, Ireland, Italy, and Israel. And that every May every mayoral candidate had to meet be sure they checked the boxes for the three eyes every time they ran. Okay, so what goes on? What gives? Why is this small country, such a big thing in the American mind? As I tried to figure this out, the mystery kept getting deeper. And I saw I found that that the country, we in America, both pro Israel and anti Israel, people, ended up mythologizing this relationship and all kinds of ways that that the historical record of what happened almost inevitably gets distorted in the public mind, you know, to take to take an example that I think is, should be familiar to many of you. There's the story of, you know, 1948. This, you know, is Israel is struggling to become independent. And Harry Truman is sitting in the White House and he doesn't know what is he going to what is America's policy toward Israel going to be? And he's refusing to see any Jewish leaders. He's just sick and tired of all the Jewish lobbying, and came Weitzman, the great Israeli leader is in New York and wants to see Truman but he said no. And so what happens little Eddie Jacobson, small businessman from Missouri and old childhood friend comes in to see Truman and like Queen Esther in the Bible, he goes to the moody Gentile ruler persuades him to see I invite Summon, Truman says okay, you bald headed son of a bitch. I'll see him that's historical that quote.

Unknown Speaker 9:36

And then and lo and behold, Israel is saved and the moral for many American Jews and pro Israel writers is the littlest Jew from the littlest town can save Israel, we're connected. This becomes almost a totemic story of Jewish identity and Jewish activism. And of course on the other aside, this is taken as the key moment when Okay, George Marshall George Kennan, all the wise people in the State Department are telling Truman Don't be an idiot. American national interest says don't get messed up with this Israel thing. And so here's the Jewish Lobby in all of its power, and it might, and its cleverness, it comes in and makes Truman do the wrong thing. And now America recognizes Israel. And we have a long, you know, the next 50 years are filled with trouble with the Arab world because of a stupid decision. All right. So you have in a sense, both the pro Israel folks and the anti Israel folks united in a mythic view of the events of the spring of 1948. And why do I say it's mythic? Well, the main reason is because actually, neither Eddie Jacobson's visit nor clean vitamins meeting with Truman resulted in any change at all in American policy. Truman had announced the State Department announced a couple of days before that the US policy was no longer to try to implement the 1947 partition resolution. All right, but because of the war that was breaking out, and all the chaos and Britain's refusal to help implement the 47 resolution, the United States would now call for a deferral of the end of the UN mandate over Palestine. And it wanted the US wanted the government of the emerging Israeli state called the show at the time of the the organization of the Palestinian Jews to delay independence. Alright, that was Truman's position before Eddie Jacobson and came, Weissman went into the White House. It was Truman's position after they left. It was Truman's position on the day, the Israelis declared independence, Truman was desperate enough to try to get a delay that he offered his personal plane for the use of anybody who would be willing to try to do last minute shuttle diplomacy to prevent the emergence of the Jewish state. Okay. And the last thing the Israeli cabinet did before it voted for independence was it voted to reject the American request to delay independence? So in in a sense, Israel started as it intended to go on ignoring American advice that it didn't like.

Unknown Speaker 12:52

All right, so we have as you can see this, these events in the minds of people have one meaning or really two meanings, the Pro and anti Israel meaning, but the historical record is quite different. Well, I find that interesting. Okay. I think why? Part of it really, frankly, is just American egotism. Alice Longworth, Teddy Roosevelt's daughter once said of her father, that he wanted to be the child at every christening the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral. And that's the way a lot of Americans like to think of America's role in the world. You know, we are weird, we are the deciders. It's all about us. If we get it right, everything will be fabulous. And if we get and all the trouble in the world is largely due to when we get it wrong. And we beat ourselves, we vont ourselves, we beat ourselves up over this. But there is this idea I once heard from an aide to then Governor Mario Cuomo, that when he visited what was then Leningrad and saw the Leningrad Memorial, he asked to an aid and on the side, who commanded the American forces here. Of course, there were no American forces at the Battle of Leningrad. But that's in that sense, Mario Cuomo was one with the American people. And so there is this there is this sense that America should be the deciding factor? It is particularly strong when it comes to the question of Israel, part of the magic, the talismanic quality that Israel has in the American mind, is it makes us want to invent connections, even when they're not there. So, in fact, by the way, if you go and you look at the history, you'll find that Stalin had more to do with Israel's independence than Truman did.

Unknown Speaker 14:58

That is in 1947 in November 1947, the UN passes a resolution calling for the two states solution, a Jewish state and a Palestinian state. And this is what is supposed to happen. Fighting begins almost immediately. Five days later, the US State Department imposes an arms embargo on the whole region. All right. And as the Zionists are pointing out at the time, this totally favors the Arabs over the Israelis, because the Arabs are being supplied with arms by Britain. And no one is supplying the Jews of Palestine with weapons. And the Jews do an inventory of their weapons. They found they had something like 10,000 machine guns, they had rounds of ammunition, you know, no tanks, no planes, no boats, very little heavy artillery, it was very tough. And, and as they're sitting around, trying to figure out what are we going to do? What are we going to do they have an arms mission that is in Paris, this guy knocks on the door, he says, are you worried about weapons, weapons aren't a problem. And he shows him these catalogs with all of these weapons, flies in them to Czechoslovakia. And it turns out that the Skoda arms works, which, you know, Hitler took over, when when he took over Czechoslovakia had made all of these weapons for the Nazi Wehrmacht. But obviously, the Fairmont were stopped taking deliveries in May of 1945, I don't know some, some paperwork problem or something, I guess. And so they were sitting with all of these arms. And Stalin gave permission to the communist Czech government to sell these arms to the Israelis for hard currency, which helped to finance the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia, and was totally countered to US policy. In fact, you know, the US had tried to get, you know, had offered entry into the Marshall Plan for the satellite countries. And the checks were actually interested because they were really desperate for money. And Stalin said to them, that is your Marshall Plan, these weapons. So the Israelis started getting the the weapons in the spring of 48. And the weapons actually allowed the Israelis to open the offensive to relieve Jerusalem. Whereas those of you who know the history of that war of independence, the largest Jewish community in then Palestine was in Jerusalem, and was being besieged by Arab forces, there were fears that it would have to surrender, that it was being starved out, would have been a couple of 100,000 people out of the population, a total disaster. But in fact, they were able to open an offensive using the Soviet arms, and relieved Jerusalem were able to establish at least an intermittent supply line, so critical. But then by by June, by May of 1948, Ben Gurion knew that there were a lot more weapons in the pipeline, and they ended up getting planes and all kinds of stuff, the checks train fighters to join the the Israeli army, etc. So, Stalin actually it was because of those guarantees from Stalin, that the Israelis knew they had a military chance. But during that spring, the Americans all thought the Jews were going to lose the war. George Marshall was convinced because they didn't know about the arms sales. They wouldn't have been happy if they had but George Marshall didn't know about that. Montgomery feel Marshall Montgomery in Britain said the Arabs will knock the Jews for six, which is a cricket metaphor for basically knock it out of the park. Am I correct of that's just checking. Okay, with an expert, regional expert, you got to do that. So the story is very different from the myth. America was not the main player in this story. And the American Jewish community had much less impact on Truman's thinking than the legend would have us belief. So that's, you know, and now is the point I just made a pro Israel point, an anti Israel point. It's not really either, right? It but it does suggest that both pro Israel and anti Israel people come at this issue sometimes, you know, on a on a basis that really doesn't tap measure with the facts. So that's it. That's a fairly good illustration of what I'm trying to do with a lot of the book. Anyway.

Unknown Speaker 19:59

Okay, so Fine, there's this tendency to mythologize the relationship. And that's not by the way, the only case. You talked to anybody, almost anybody in America. And what they'll tell you is America and Israel have always been allies. Right. And it's not true. They'll also tell you it's always been bipartisan today, a lot of Democrats would disagree with that, although I think most would still agree. But in the 1950s, Israeli the Republicans were generally much less pro Israel than the Democrats. And Israel used to be a left wing issue in the United States, not something that was popular on the right. I'll get to that in a little bit. But the history, there are myths at every level of this history. So why, why do Americans feel the need to clump up a story, a big story about our relationship? And I think they're, they're kind of three, three drivers that I found. You know, I would say a fourth is just anything that involves the Jews, the Jews tends to attract a certain amount of, you know, mythmaking. And you know, it's just just the fact that people have, I would say, children money, sex power, and Jews are five subjects that human beings often have a hard time being rational about. Why I'm not entirely sure, but there it is. Okay, so part of the reason of this mystic appeal, interest in Israel in America is religious. There's a deep American religious tradition of believing that at the climax of history, and I'm not talking about like, you know, just sort of this contemporary, like end of the world Armageddon stuff. But as history approaches a climax, the Jews would return to the lands of the Bible. You find Increase Mather in Boston, one of the famous Puritan preachers, wrote wrote about this in a book published in the 17th century, Jonathan Edwards, the most famous American intellectual before Benjamin Franklin wrote about this in the 18th century, it's, it's been a current that has never gone away, not just among sort of fundamentalist and very conservative Christians. But across the board, the Mormon faith, from its absolute beginning, has seen a connection between the return of in as early as 1840, the Mormons were talking about a connection between the rise of the Mormon church in the United States and the return of the Jews to the lands of the Bible. So there was this intuition that this would and should happen among religious people. So there's that is kind of one background. But there was also, you know, a more secular liberal idea.

Unknown Speaker 23:08

In the 19th century, a lot of Americans looked around the world. And the education in those days was much more, you know, classical and literary than ours is today. And any educated person would have been very familiar with the three great peoples of antiquity. That is the Hebrews, the Greeks, and the Italians, the Romans. And you read the ancient literature that each of these people's produced, you know, you read Greek literature, the Greeks are brave, they are heroic, you got, hey, you got Alexander the Great, and Greece is this beautiful, wealthy country. Alright, and you read Roman literature, and it's the same thing, the Roman Empire, you read Horace, oh my gosh, those gardens are just so beautiful. Italy is just so lush and rich. And of course, you read about Canaan, the land of milk and honey, and the heroic Hebrews and their victories, Joshua David, I mean, it's kind of amazing, Gideon. All right. But then you looked at all of these three peoples in the 19th century, and you looked at these countries and you saw something different. The Greeks are like being oppressed by the Turks, Greece, the goats have eaten all the foliage and the hillsides are eroded and it's poor and they're they're uneducated barbarous, dirty, disease ridden, as you know, to the to the eye of the visiting American. And in the same way Rome is a disaster is being ruled by the Pope's and if I can say so without any offense to any Catholic friends here, the church's greatest skill has never been the civil administration of government. And PayPal, Italy was not an example of enlightened, creative or even particularly honest rule. So you know, and various Austrian despots and horrible kings a human rights disaster, and poor malarial and, you know, City's not as big as they'd been in the time of the ancient Roman Empire, et cetera. And of course, they would look at Palestine, Mark Twain said, the it's the only thing he's ever seen. That's as bad as Arizona. And, you know, and again, the Jewish people persecuted around the world universally held in contempt, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Alright, so the three great peoples of antiquity all fallen on sad times. This is not just a religious idea. It's a secular liberal idea. Because the idea was that if these people could renew, you know, could get back to the real virtues like Americans farm and have democracy, instead of living under tyranny and living in miserable dirty cities. All right, they would become great, they would achieve their ancient greatness. And then everybody would see, wow, they follow the American way. And they prosper. America is right, that this, the recovery of their ancient greatness by these peoples would be part of the process by which America was going to enlighten the world and bring in what we might today call The End of History. Right. And that was, that's back in the 19th century. So Americans actually went and fought in the Greek War of Independence. Julia Ward, Howe wrote The Battle Hymn of the Republic, her future husband, got decorated as a war hero in the Greek War of Independence. And a lot of Americans went over there and volunteered the wars of Italian unification electrified America. And when the people of Rome rose up against the PayPal rule in 1848, Americans followed every twist and turn when the Republic collapsed. And PayPal troops were coming back, we actually sent the US Navy to receive their political refugees who would supported the Republic. So this, you know, and Americans actually went to Israel now Israel in the 19th century, to try to persuade the Jews to start farming so that they, you know, if you go to Jerusalem, now, you can go visit the American colony hotel. And this hotel was actually originally established by these Americans who had come literally to persuade the Jews of Jerusalem to go out and farm, they did not have a lot of success. It's kind of like, I don't want to farm it's hot. I want to study Torah, you know, inside I mean, they really did not have a lot of success. But it's an amazing thing to try. And so this sense of, of the, the return of the Jews and the establishment of a democratic Jewish Commonwealth in the lands of the Bible was a sign of progress, and a sign that America was right is widespread in American society in the 19th century, in 1891. Before Hetzel writes their union staat President Benjamin Harrison is peacefully sitting in the Oval Office, when his secretary of state comes in with a petition asking him to use his influence to get the Europeans to get the assault and to establish a Jewish home and Palestine. Alright, and who this petition is signed by John D. Rockefeller, J. P. Morgan, Cyrus McCormick, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the American political and literary establishment was Zionist before Aircel wrote, dear Uden snot. Okay, and so when you start seeing a Zionist movement among the Jews for a lot of non Jewish Americans, it's not good lord. Now the GA the Jews gonna make us do now ran nag, nag nag. You know, Joe stave, oh, no, it's like, Oh, finally they figured it out. All right, light has gone.

Unknown Speaker 29:21

And so they saw this as the Jews getting with the American program. And of course in the 20th century, as they farm the land, and as the land becomes green, and as the Jews go from being persecuted, weak, and all of these things to being the strong, proud, heroic people, all these Americans are going Yes, see? All right. That and that sense that there is some kind of a I don't know if the appropriate word karmic link between Israel and the United States has deep roots Among the non Jewish population of the United States, including non Christian, it's not just a religious thing. All right, well, then the final I think the sort of thing that really seals the deal in terms of making Israel giving Israel a unique place in the American mind is, let's just think about those years in the 1940s. When the Jewish state is coming into being, I think 1944, Soviet troops start to liberate Eastern Poland. And as they do that, they're liberating the extermination camps. And until then, you know, the Holocaust was not unknown before then there had been reports. But now instead of sort of, you know, these, you know, reports, some people believe them, some people don't. Now you're getting newsreel footage, and pictures of the walking skeletons, I don't need to go into the details. We all know what I'm talking about. But these unforgettable images and stories become seared into the public mind. And we sometimes talk about how this then created sympathy for the plight of the Jews. And it certainly did. But that's not the only thing it does. What it does is it says, you know, what, this hope that the enlightenment that science and technology and human reason would cure the moral viciousness in the human soul is false. Because this is happening in Germany, the capital of philosophy, the country where education was farthest advanced, where science had reached its heights. And so in the most glorious country of the Enlightenment, you're seeing crimes that would have made a caveman ashamed. There is no moral progress. The human race is what we've always been. And the struggle between good and evil is as uncertain and as consequential now as ever, and that was a huge blow. Because the belief, you know, and we still see the belief that somehow, well, humanity used to be bad, but now we are enlightened and modern. And we've left all that bad stuff behind, you know, but every now and then a Putin comes along and reminds us that it's not so simple. Well, this was a blow. And then the next year, what happens 1945, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this species that has no moral strength, whatever that is capable of the most horrible atrocities, and most irrational killings, now has the power to end human life. And I would argue, by the way, that all everything from 1945 until today, is kind of shaped by those huge facts looming in the backs of people's minds, you don't always think about it, you know, in the front, but in the back, there's the knowledge, humanity remains utterly flawed, and humanity has the power to destroy itself. Those of us old enough to remember the Cold War can think of the Cuban Missile Crisis. And other times when this became very, very real, younger people got a taste of that this spring as Putin begins to finger the nuclear card in his in his hand.

Unknown Speaker 33:34

So then 1948, Israel emerges. Alright. And for Americans, this is seen as a kind of a proof that the God of history, the God of Abraham, is still there, still shaping history. Okay, humanity cannot save ourselves. But God is there. Israel is the proof. And this again, this is not just fundamentalist Christians who say, Aha, the literal truth, blah, blah, blah. It's also even liberal Christians who you know, listen to all the higher criticism. There was not one prophet Isaiah, there were five different six different who knows how many Isaias and so the prophecies are written at different times, blah, blah, blah. Okay, well, that may be true, but none of the prophecies was written after 1948. Right. And so it means whatever your view of how the Bible was written or put together, the truths that it tell live in the headlines that we're reading today. And so the idea of the emergence of Israel as a deeply reassuring message, that in the most terrifying era of human history, there was grounds for for hope, that message went out. And I think in many ways, it continues today to shape not merely the attitudes of religious people toward Israel, but as kind of a cultural sign of hope. Not for everybody, and not in the same ways. But if you want to understand the evolution of American opinion about Israel, I think this is one of the things that you have to keep in mind. All right. By the way, my father was an Episcopal minister. And when he heard that, I would have a career that involves a lot of public speaking, he gave me a very important tip. And he said, you know, no matter how great your talk is, and how compelling it is, you will see a point in your talk where your audience is beginning to drift away a little bit. This was before cell phones, so he wasn't talking about people checking their email. But he says, you know, you'll just kind of see a lack of focus, some of them close their eyes sit back in their seats. And I said, Yeah, Dad, you know, that's, that's right. What should I do when that happens? He says, Oh, that simple. I said, Really? What do I do? He says, He said, Well, he said, just start using words like finally. And in conclusion, they will just brighten right up. So finally. So let me just, you know, go on, just a little bit more about the history being more complicated the history of this relationship being more complicated than we think. And also a bit about what is the strategic relationship? What what do we have common interests with Israel? And and if so, what are they? The political story is really complicated. Probably the most important thing the United States ever did to promote the existence of the State of Israel, was the ban on European immigration in 1923, in 1924, which cut Jewish immigration to the United States by about by over 90%. And cut European immigration generally about as much before that time, of the 2 million plus Jews who left the Russian Empire, over 90% of them came to the United States, only a hand relative handful went to Israel. And the, you know, if the US during the 1920s, and 30s, had remained open to mass Jewish immigration, we would have had a lot there would have been fewer, many fewer Jews killed in the Holocaust. And there would have been probably no state of Israel because the number of sort of conviction Zionists willing to go there when there were other places to go, was just too small to get a population large enough to be self sustaining. So that that should tell you just how complex this relationship really is. But oddly, you never hear about how the Israel lobby stopped Jewish immigration to the United States. Israel was a left wing issue for the first 25 years of its existence in American politics.

Unknown Speaker 38:32

And that's something that almost certainly no young person knows. And many of us older folks who should know better have forgotten. But when I was a kid, it was the Democrats. It was adeleye. Stevenson, who attacked the Eisenhower administration for siding with the oil companies in the military dictators of the Arab world, against the democratic people of Israel, for the Democratic socialists of America, who today would certainly not be counted among the friends of Israel. All right, Israel was the poster child for socialism in the 1950s, Israel whose economic policies were well to the left of any of the European social democracies, Israel was touted over and over again, as proof that socialism works. Proof that a socialist country can be a democracy, proof that a socialist country doesn't fall to communism, and can defend itself. It was the poster child. All right. And partly for that reason, the the right was kind of like a little cool on Israel. In fact, in 1948, the Southern Baptist Convention refused to send a telegram of congratulations to Harry Truman after he recognized the existence of Israel. So it was it was a much more a left wing issue. Why I while there was a long history of kind of friendliness towards the Jews relatively on the left, because in European history, the the church and the aristocracy and the autocratic rulers tended to be very anti semitic, and wanting to sort of have these organically run Christian societies, and the Jews were a problem. And this, you know, the fascists and the Nazis take it to the next level. But again, they're trying to create these these ethno states. The Jews don't fit the Jews are a problem. And the left sees the Jews as allies against these other these right wing forces, people like Franco Mussolini, obviously, as well as Hitler. And after World War to the left wants to wants to say to the right, generally, look, you're all Nazis and anti Semites. We're the ones who really understand and look where you're like anti semitism leads to Auschwitz and so on. You know, the right is the party of anti semitism. The left is the party of human liberation. And Israel, establishing a very socialist and secular country was the light hallmark of this. Now, obviously, that fades. Another another element was that to be for Israel in those days was to be for the UN, you know, the UN,

Unknown Speaker 41:36

when we have to put ourselves back into the mindset of the of the 1940s, to terrible world wars, each worse than the first, capping a century, of escalating national genocidal warfare across Europe. Obviously, World War Three, as they said, World War Three will be fought with atom bombs, and World War four with sticks was the way people describe where history was headed. The only way to stop that was an international organization. And that international organization was going to have to be able to solve exactly these ethnic disputes that had caused so many wars. And you know what, nobody would get all that they wanted in these ethnic disputes, everybody would have to make sacrifices. But if we were ever going to have world peace, the UN had to step in, and declare what the boundaries would be what the solutions would be. And then we all had to accept it. So when the Jews accept the partition resolution of November 47, and the Arabs rejected on the grounds, basically, that the British Mandate was illegitimate and colonial as in fact, that was, and in a sense, the League of Nations didn't have the right to give Palestine to, to Britain, which it didn't. So I mean, there was justice in the Arab cause as well. But this is not the way the sort of UN fans saw it. Nothing is perfect, we have to start somewhere there has to be peace at some time. And if we go on with these quarrels, we're going into the next war. So to be for the Jews was to be for a world of peace and international law and agreements. Ironically, obviously, the UN view has changed over time. So the left moves away from Israel, the right moves toward Israel. But during all of this, it's important to note and I want to just quickly touch base on this. The attitude of the American Jewish community toward Israel has always been complicated. Very few American Jews are Zionist in the sense that hartsel was a Zionist, Herod still believed that if the Jews of Europe, trust in liberalism, they're all going to die. That was literally his message to European Jews. You know, if you trust to international law, human rights, and all of these nice things, they're very nice. They're very pretty, but they will not be able to save you when the enemy comes knocking at the door, and he's coming. Alright. It is fair to say that Israel is a country of Jews for whom hairstyle turned out to be basically right. And America is a country of Jews, for whom Hershel kind of turned out to be wrong, at least so far, where in America, dedication to the principles of liberal society has actually enabled the American Jewish population to flourish as really few Jewish populations in history have ever been able to do it. And despite some of the anti semitism that we see no real sign of this ending. So American Jews and Israeli Jews have a very have very different approach for American Jews. support for Israel has often been in terms of well creating a safe space for the Jews who are not in America and can't come to America. So, you know, refugees Zionism, one could say are safe haven Zionism, but not necessarily a sense that a Jewish state is necessary for me as a Jew to either live as a Jew or even simply live at all. The connection goes deeper. But the American Jewish relationship to Israel is complicated. In the 19th century, the New York Times was owned by a Christian family, and it was pro Zionist, early in the 20th century, was bought by a Jewish family and turned anti Zionist. And that is that is not an untypical thing. A very large newspaper advertisement was taken out to protest the Balfour Declaration. This was organized by Henry Morgenthau, the most prominent American Jew of his day, Wilson's ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, it was signed by 200 of the leading American Jews from all walks of life against the Balfour Declaration.

Unknown Speaker 46:24

So the fact that we see American Jewish attitudes today divided over questions of Israel policy, and what should the US do and what design is Amin should not surprise us historically, that is the pattern. And historically, you know, what we see now where most of the were the strongest support from Israel, Israel, by and large comes from non Jews are the strongest political support. This is typical of the American experience with Israel, not untypical. Anyway, those are some thoughts. I'll be happy to take questions and comments. I think I've gone on already too long. But I hope it wasn't too boring. Thank you very much.

Unknown Speaker 47:10

You know, I think you've conveyed very, very powerfully, both the forces and factors that have forged this special relationship and this attitude toward Israel that is so unique in the United States. I mean, it's a it's a wonderful history, and may perhaps this is unfair, but I want to now turn to the future. And I want to ask you, you've talked about how the Israel was once a kind of left wing cause, and it's become a right wing cause it was once widely popular. Do you do you think the the factors that you've identified the embedded in in terms of Protestant theology in terms of American identity? Are those forces still at work? Or are they diminishing? Do we see both as the United States changes, as the as the population changes as American culture changes? Are we to think that those forces that propelled this very special relationship will?

Unknown Speaker 48:24

Good question. And, you know, I'm basically a devotee of the philosophy of Yogi Berra, that great American sage. And he used to say that prediction is always dangerous, and especially when it involves the future. So I'll be cautious. When we think about American religious life, one of the things that we often don't see is that actually, American religious life is not some sort of steady state thing or thing that moves in only one direction. American religious history is a history of, of, of waves, almost like tides that come in and out. In fact, the time the 1950s and 60s were the time when the percentage of Americans who went to church was higher than ever before in our history. Okay, so what we're moving back to now is something a bit more normal in terms of American history. Lincoln was not a member of a church when he was elected president. So this idea that somehow Americans in the past were all devoutly religious. And now as we become modern, we're losing our faith is not right. And because American religion is very is not institutionalized in the way that say the Catholic Church is institutionalized. In a lot of countries, American Protestantism tends to be much more susceptible to sort Have parents get converted, but then their kids grow up in the church and have a completely different family life and experience. And they often rebel. And then however, their kids often rebel against the unstructured, pneus, lack of clear values. So I would say, when we think of American religious experience, it's more useful to think about these waves. Do I think some kind of American revival may be building out there? I kind of do. I think the more you hear people or not, I mean, there are people who say, Yay, religion is dying, and I'm so happy and I love it. But you find a lot more people seem a bit of drift. And the social and family breakdown that we're seeing, for a lot of people is a big problem and a problem they need a way to solve. I think we may see some new, you know, a Billy Graham types emerging and a new era of American religion. But again, I defer to Yogi Berra on this, in terms of how all of this might or might not affect sentiment on Israel, let's do remember that about 16% of the American population are white evangelicalism. And less than 2% are Jews. So those two groups who are often I think, somewhat inaccurately seen as the sources of support for Israel in America. That's, that's like 18%. But polls consistently show 50% or more of Americans having favorable views of Israel. Right. So, so those two groups account for maybe a third of the support of Israel. And we should not get you know, we should not get too bent out of shape, about what's happening. I should also say, in light of what I said earlier about American mythologizing our own importance. If the United States were to disappear today, you know, just go under the water. Israel would not only survive, it would remain a great Middle Eastern power. Israel survived when Israel was poor and weak and surrounded by strong hostile enemies, and had a pretty coldly hostile Eisenhower administration. Israel survived and thrived. Right? Today, because of its technological capacities, its military, its intelligence capabilities, and many other things. Its general high level of science. If the United States were to say we don't want an Israeli ally anymore, China, Russia, India, there would be a lot of people actually UAE would be knocking at the door to be Israel's ally. So this idea that you know, that some people have have, okay, get a few more American colleges to pass BDS resolutions, and a couple of American Protestant denominations to take an anti Israel stand and add the Alliance's weakening, and Israel will be helpless. I think that's just an illusion. I don't actually think that bears on Israel's survival.

Unknown Speaker 53:26

So I want to ask you, you talked about the way that Israel went from being a kind of left wing cause to a cause that people on the left protest, typically, and you've you've talked about the influence of the evangelical Christians and more broadly about Protestant theology? How do you explain this in totality of Israel in the contemporary conservative movement, I'm talking secular, the secular American, right, the way in which went from being, you know, this left wing cause that we're not really to now the most central in the kind of imagination of the American conservative.

Unknown Speaker 54:08

Some of you may know that when Donald Trump was elected president, one of the first things that happened was he installed a portrait of Andrew Jackson in the Oval Office. Now, this was actually not because Donald Trump is a deep student of American history, and a long admirer of Andrew Jackson. I hope I'm not surprising anybody here with this news. By the way, when Ronald Reagan died, Everyone was surprised that he you know, defined among his papers, all of these careful notes of books he'd read and thoughts he'd been having. I don't think we're going to find that in the Trump papers in Mar a Lago. Obviously, you may find some other things. But you know, the thing is that Andrew Jackson stood for a kind of foreign policy. attitude, sort of tough unilateral nationalism. And a lot of Americans feel that way, that we're not going to try to convert the rest of the world to democracy or Christianity or anything else. We're not, you know, if they don't bother us, we won't bother them. But if anybody attacks us, we're going to or our allies, we're going to smack them and smack them hard until they give up completely. And we're going to teach them that you should never attack the United States of America, again, kind of like we did to Germany and Japan, in World War Two. That's the way a lot of Americans think about foreign balls. They look at these people look at Israel, and they see the perfect ally for the United States. When you know, a couple of rockets come over from Gaza. And Israel says like the Air Force, the army, the Marines, the Navy, in, alright, in a lot of the world, people go, Well, you know, the Palestinians shouldn't have sent the rockets over into Gaza. But Israel's response is disproportionate. And so this is as bad as the original attack. Alright, that is not how Jacksonian Americans see it. They certainly know a couple of rockets were coming over the border from Mexico, no one would think what's what's proportionate, and we're gonna go in there, and we're gonna smash it and smash and smash it until they stop. And furthermore, everyone killed in that their blood is on the head of the terrorists, not on the people trying to stop the terrorists. So that a lot of Americans, some of the behavior that Israel gets criticized for around the world, actually wins it friends, not everywhere in America, because a lot of Americans agree with these criticisms. But among a very substantial chunk of Americans, it makes Israel look great. And then compare Israel to some of our other allies. Okay, Israel does not ask the US to send troops, Israel has a very high spends a lot of money on its own defense. So there are a lot of Americans who would say Israel is a much better ally than Germany, you know, because Israel is, is more reliable. And it takes on a bigger share of the burden of defense. So it's, it's difficult for a lot of my friends and colleagues in places like Washington to understand this, this psychology, but you go out there in America, in red America. And this is a very popular way of looking at the world. So Israel makes friends for itself in the United States. And it seemed to be the kind of ally we could use more of.

Unknown Speaker 57:47

So finally, this will be my last question. And then I'm going to invite people from the audience to line up and ask their questions. You in the book, really demolish this theory about the Israel lobby? You know, you refer to them as like Vulcan theory, which you might have to read it to understand why, but really making it clear that this idea, which has been, you know, propagated by some very smart people, scholars, like John Mearsheimer, and Steven won't most famously in their, in their book, The Israel lobbying US foreign policy, this is an idea that, you know, continues to be repeated ad nauseam. Why do you think given how little basis it has? Why do you think, how would you explain the persistence of this myth? The influence of this myth, is it? Is it anti semitism, or is there something else?

Unknown Speaker 58:43

Well, people have pointed out that anti semitism is the mother of all conspiracy theories, you know, that, that it's a mechanism by which you can explain things that otherwise seem incomprehensible. And let's be honest, foreign policy, international relations is incredibly complicated. Most people really want to understand it, because after all, it could cause a nuclear war, or from another point of view, whether or not we'll be able to succeed in fighting climate change has a lot to do with how international politics work. So it matters in your personal life. Right. But very few of us Dean Acheson once said, The average American has about 10 minutes a week to devote to the study of foreign affairs, and I think you might have been overestimating that was that was before the internet. So what you know so you so you look for big theories that can explain it. Marxism was one of these theories. Everybody's got a theory. Now I think anti semitism because it's it's a, it's an erroneous theory about power is particularly damn pitching. Because if you think the Jews control banking, it means you do not understand banking. Right? If you think the Jews control politics, it means you don't understand how American politics work. Alright, but a lot of people do, they sort of see a Jew and they stop asking questions. And a lot of what I'm trying to do in the book is to wake people up. And to say, this answer. I mean, you know, if the Jews ran the world, okay, 1930s Here's Hitler, rising to power. The American Jews can't even get the State Department to like, can't get President Roosevelt to boycott Nazi Germany. You know, we got to send people to the Olympics can't do anything, then World War Two comes. And you know, leading Jews go to the White House and beg them to at least divert a few airplanes to bomb the rail lines leading to Auschwitz. They get nowhere, it doesn't happen. All right. But suddenly, four years later, three years later, Harry Truman is president. And now we're supposed to believe that the all powerful Jewish Israel lobby is forcing Harry Truman to do its evil bidding and, and support Israel. All right. But then wait a minute. Three years later, Eisenhower becomes president. So all those powerful Jews must have died in a play. Alright, nobody ever writes a history of how the Jews took over America. Between the time Roosevelt turned down their pleas to bond the rail lines leading to outfits. And the time when Truman recognizes the State of Israel. I mean, it must have been rather dramatic into take over America in such a short time, and then to lose that power. When Eisenhower takes over. You can't actually reconcile this theory that an all powerful Israel lobby drives American foreign policy with the facts of history. You just can't. And so I try. I try to be nice about it. And I'm, you know, I'm not attributing motives and I'm, you know, it's not up to me, I'm not ruling who's who's an an anti Semite or whatever. But just, you know, I think we should, we should in general, I think we should cancel each other less and refute each other's arguments more. And so but that's what I tried to do with some of these arguments about this weird mysterious lobby that hypnotically controls America's Israel policy.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai