Ritual Humiliations

It now seems almost an Israeli tradition for Netanyahu to subject visiting US leaders to some sort of ritual humiliation or other. Whether this feeds some constituency of his or just his ego, he seems to have calculated that the American government is too weak to effectively respond.

The Americans who are paying attention, I suppose he imagines, are mostly Jews or Christianist apocalypticists who will follow Israel blindly. No doubt a lot of American Jews dislike seeing the US disrespected, and more are dismayed by the increasingly fanatical settler movement that celebrates Baruch Goldstein and the One Shot, Two Kills snipers as heroes, but they are still going to be safe supporters no matter what. The Christianist millenialists, by contrast, celebrate every outrage, since their dearest hope is for war and Armageddon.

For now the calculation must hold, but for how long, I wonder. What if the Bible Belt Christianists were to revert to a historically more standard anti-semitism? What if Americans get tired of seeing their sons come home in boxes from wars that have more to do with Israel's interests than our own?

Until now, Israel has been lucky in its friend (singular) and luckier still in its enemies. The tactics the Palestinians have chosen could hardly have been more advantageous for Israel if they were plotted by the Mossad. The despicable suicide bombing tactic was always too weak to serious damage the Israeli state but was wonderfully effective in arousing US and world contempt for Palestinians.

For now, the American President has far too full a plate to face down both Israel's American allies and the powerful Israel lobby in his own caucus and staff. If that should change, Israel had better hope that Americans have short memories and are uncommonly forgiving of grudges. Otherwise, it might find that the US is still a great power, and Israel is still a rather small one.