America and the repercussions of "unconditional support"

A host of pro-Israel lobby groups and political action committees, including right-wing fundamentalists, neoconservative hawks, and soft-core liberals, have not only enabled Israel’s campaign against the Palestinians, but have done more than that. They have silenced congressional debate about decades of illegal Israeli policies toward the Palestinians.

Pro-Israel groups and political action committees protest loudly whenever their role is pointed out. But the tens of millions they have spent punishing critics and creating a climate of fear—along with their boasts about their successes—are well documented and cannot be ignored. As a result, many members of Congress have been silenced or pushed to pass overly bizarre legislation that gives Israel special treatment in budgetary matters or to obtain political benefits.

The same coalition of groups on both the right and left of American politics has pressured successive American administrations not only to turn a blind eye to Israeli actions that violate American laws, but also to take a hostile stance toward other countries that criticize Israel. These actions have helped dismantle the architecture of international diplomacy, laws, and conventions that emerged in the wake of the two world wars, and have done serious damage to the United States’ standing in the international community.

US presidents from Ford to Obama have been pressured by congressional letters from pro-Israel groups calling on them to reverse their positions critical of Israeli policies. Successive administrations have been forced to remain silent in the face of Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied territories and other documented Israeli violations of international law and human rights. This pressure has led to US condemnations of UN reports on Israeli violations, US withdrawal of funds from various UN agencies over actions that have criticized Israel’s behavior, and repeated US vetoes of Security Council resolutions—even when those resolutions merely affirmed stated US policies.

More recently, this practice has been seen in the imposition of sanctions by Congress and the administration on the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, as well as on individuals and countries that have participated in resolutions critical of Israel. These actions have contributed to the dismantling of the checks and balances designed to promote world peace, enforce international law, and protect vulnerable groups from abuse, further isolating the United States. The same set of groups and the pressures they create to distort U.S. policies have also done incalculable harm to Palestinians, Israelis, and prospects for peace in the Middle East. The U.S. State Department annually reports on the performance of human rights policies in other countries. Congressional legislation would examine these reports so that U.S. assistance is not given to countries that violate human rights.

Yet the State Department’s human rights report on Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories is ignored, even when it is accurate. As a result, tens of thousands of Palestinians have been tortured or detained for long periods without charge, and violations of international laws prohibiting the confiscation of Palestinian land, evictions from homes, and the mass transfer of Israelis to settlements on confiscated Palestinian land have continued unabated. With no restrictions on their actions, the Israeli military and civilian settlers operate with a sense of impunity.

While Gaza was destroyed in a 16-month war of annihilation, the West Bank and East Jerusalem were subjected to mass demolitions of Palestinian neighborhoods and the terrorizing of Palestinian villages and farmland. The number of Israelis living on Palestinian land has more than quadrupled in this century, and settlements, Israeli-protected “state land,” “military zones,” and protected settlement infrastructure are now fragmenting the Palestinian territory into smaller and smaller areas, making it difficult to discuss a two-state solution. The United States has enabled all of this by doing nothing to stop it. Another byproduct of this American capitulation to Israeli behavior has been the decline of the Israeli peace movement. Once a vibrant movement, it was able to demonstrate that settlement expansion or rights abuses would damage Israel’s relationship with the United States. After decades of evidence that such consequences would not damage those relations, the movement has faded into irrelevance. In its absence, the hard-right has become the dominant force in Israel, leaving the only serious divisions in Israeli politics over whether the next coalition government will be formed with or without the ultra-Orthodox or Netanyahu at the helm. The Palestinians or issues of peace and justice are off the agenda. Since October 7, pro-Israel forces, led by right-wing ideologues and pro-Israel groups in the United States, have intensified their efforts on the domestic front, using congressional pressure and presidential executive orders to dismantle free speech and academic freedom on college campuses.

An expanded definition of anti-Semitism is now being imposed to include legitimate criticism of Israel, threatening to cut federal funding to universities that do not punish students and faculty for what are now considered anti-Semitic activities. The Justice Department has launched a task force to identify groups and individuals who have engaged in anti-Israel activities. Right-wing groups have vowed to identify international students and faculty who have participated in pro-Palestinian protests or against whom Jewish students have filed complaints for anti-Israel statements. They are reporting them to authorities for deportation, in accordance with another executive order by President Trump. What is deeply troubling within the United States is that the equating of “anti-Israel” and “pro-Palestinian” with “anti-Semitism” has created a climate of fear on American campuses, stifling free speech, academic freedom, and public discourse. As Palestinians pay with their lives for this pressure to silence criticism of Israeli policies, the damage caused by this pressure is only getting worse. It has discredited the structures of the international system, embarrassed and isolated the United States in the eyes of the world, and is now eating away at a great deal of our cherished freedoms.