‘What is the spirit of liberty, then? I cannot define it,’ Justice Learned Hand confessed to a million and a half people, gathered in Central Park at the onset of summer some eighty years ago, ‘But I can tell you my own faith.’
Hand spoke of a spirit which was not too sure that it was right; which sought to understand the minds of other men and women, which weighed their interests alongside its own without bias; which remembered that not even a sparrow fell to earth unheeded. That spirit has been abandoned by its birthplace, replaced with blind obeisance to the Zionist cause. The spirit of liberty now hides in the crevices of bombed Palestinian homes, in refugee camps swarming with the weak and the forgotten, and in the hearts of children who are too young to understand the horrors they’ve witnessed but are too old to remain in ignorance of their misery.
That Israel has gone too far, a simple assertion, has not been countered with mere deflection or reluctance to condemn, but with a violent, vicious denial of reality. Amid attempts to distinguish between ‘legally killing children’ and ‘murdering’ them and the regurgitation of IDF talking points near-verbatim, American media has not only been horrifically appalling in its dehumanization of the Palestinian people, but has been actively complicit in enabling Netanyahu’s genocidal actions.
Whereas discourse on the issue has historically explained American support for Israel through the lens of geopolitics, that may not be as true today as it once was.
Christian Zionists, particularly within the Evangelical community, see the existence of the state of Israel as the fulfilment of a biblical prophecy that promises the lands comprising Israel and Palestine to the Jewish people.
Israel now enjoys unprecedented security through peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, normalized relations with countries like Bahrain and the UAE, and informal ties with Saudi Arabia. Even Lebanon has established a maritime border with Israel, enabling joint exploitation of natural gas reserves. Meanwhile, Syria is devastated by civil war, and Iraq remains unstable, at best an Iranian satellite, at worst a country struggling to keep itself from coming apart at the seams. Israel's military has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to strike Iranian targets as desired. Even in the absence of unfiltered American assistance offered to Israel in the context of Palestine, any significant hostility on part of the Iranians would be swiftly countered.
So then, American support cannot be attributed to strategic interests alone. Three other things factor into the equation: Christian Zionism, particularly its Evangelical strain, effective narrative-building, painting Israel as a beleaguered democracy faced with existential threats, and the institutionalization of Zionist interests in American academic and policy discourse.
Christian Zionists, particularly within the Evangelical community, see the existence of the state of Israel as the fulfilment of a biblical prophecy that promises the lands comprising Israel and Palestine to the Jewish people. For America’s domestic politics, Christian Evangelicals are uniquely important – they vote, they donate, they mobilise, and they do so monolithically. Jerry Falwell, a leading Evangelical in the 80’s and 90’s, once said, “To stand against Israel is to stand against God. We believe that history and scripture prove that God deals with nations in relation to how they deal with Israel.” More recently, John Hagee, founder of the millions-strong ‘Christians United for Israel’, told former-President Trump that “the moment that he really began to bless Israel, God would bless him in a very, very special way.”
Zionist ideologues haven’t stopped there. Over decades, they’ve carefully constructed a political narrative portraying Israel as a mirror of American values, norms, and the very way of life. This narrative posits Israel as a democratic, liberal nation in a hostile, authoritarian region, barely clinging to existence. The American cultural id all but demands supporting the underdog.
Prestigious universities host think tanks and research centres funded by pro-Israel donors, subtly steering scholarly thought towards favourable interpretations of Israeli policies. This academic bias filters into the education of future policymakers, embedding a pro-Israel stance in the very foundation of American foreign policy.
By glossing over the asymmetry of the Israeli war on Palestine, Israel’s expansionist and authoritarian policies, its brutality and cruelty towards Palestinians, the Zionist narrative has metamorphosed from supporting Israel’s survival to supporting Israel’s aggression. It now exerts not only downward pressure on lawmakers in the form of AIPAC/UDP, but also upward pressure in the form of pro-Israel voters.
This dynamic extends far beyond the confines of politics, seeping into academia, foreign policy discourse, and mainstream media. Zionism has been institutionalized, subtly and overtly, in these domains. Prestigious universities host think tanks and research centres funded by pro-Israel donors, subtly steering scholarly thought towards favourable interpretations of Israeli policies. This academic bias filters into the education of future policymakers, embedding a pro-Israel stance in the very foundation of American foreign policy.
These narratives, religious, political, and academic, shape the American collective consciousness, painting Israel as inherently righteous and its adversaries as inherently malevolent. Acts that would otherwise be condemned, such as the bombing of civilian areas and the blockade of essential supplies, are justified as necessary measures for Israel’s survival. Even the cold-blooded murder of children, the very definition of innocence, is brushed aside as a necessary cost by Israel’s supporters.
With the US showing no signs of halting its support for Israel, despite the thirty-six thousand Palestinians killed and another hundred thousand missing, injured, or detained, I am reminded of Eichmann in Jerusalem. Upon seeing Eichmann’s blindness to the evil he’s propagated, Arendt questions if it is “the case of the eternally unrepentant criminal, of the wrongdoer who cannot afford to face reality because his crime has become part and parcel of it”, or if it was simply “bad faith combined with outrageous stupidity.”
Whatever the case, it will be the Palestinian people – men, women, children, and the elderly – who will continue to pay the price.