Unanimous Consent By Glenn Greenwald

[leftchick]

http://www.amconmag.com/article/2009/jan/26/00014/



January 26, 2009 Issue
Copyright © 2009 The American Conservative


When Israel acts, Congress applauds. No debate required.

By Glenn Greenwald


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Given that we hear endlessly from our political establishment that the first obligation of our leaders is to keep us safe—that’s the justification for everything from torture to presidential lawbreaking—what legitimate rationale is there for the U.S. Congress to act in unison to redirect worldwide anger against Israel toward American citizens? How are U.S. interests advanced by insinuating ourselves into such an entrenched conflict? Answers to those questions from supporters of the resolution were never required because those questions were never asked. As dubious a proposition as it is, the notion that American interests are inherently advanced by lending unquestioning support to Israel is one of the country’s most hardened and unexamined premises.

What makes this accord among America’s political class more notable still is how disconnected it is from American public opinion. Last July, a poll from the University of Maryland’s Program on International Policy Attitudes found that 71 percent of Americans want the U.S. government not to take sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Similarly, a Rasmussen study in early January—the first to survey American public opinion specifically regarding the Israeli attack on Gaza—found that Americans generally were “closely divided over whether the Jewish state should be taking military action against militants in the Gaza Strip” (41 to 44 percent, with 15 percent undecided), but Democratic voters overwhelmingly opposed the Israeli offensive—by a 24-point margin (31 to 55 percent). Yet those significant divisions were nowhere to be found in the actions of their ostensible representatives.

It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to find in American political life any other issue of this consequence, complexity, and controversy that generates such absolute agreement within our political class. Even in the intense climate that prevailed in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, when most of America’s elite institutions notoriously marched lockstep behind President Bush, there was substantial minority dissent. As pliant as the Democratic Party and the Congress were, there were still 22 senators and 133 House members—more than half of the Democratic caucus—willing to vote against the American invasion of Iraq.

There are few matters more important to America’s future than the extent to which we continue to involve ourselves in endless Middle East wars. Our immersion in these conflicts profoundly affects every aspect of our country’s welfare—military, diplomatic, economic, and civil. Yet there is an almost perfect inverse relationship between the significance of these policy questions and the extent to which they are debated by our political leaders.