My centrist views on Israel are shifting, and AIPAC is to blame.
I was always of the opinion that the state of Israel was a necessary presence in the Middle East, kind of a counterweight to theocracies like Iran. It was never rooted in any weird Christian prophetic belief or anything like that, so evangelical injunctions to “support Israel” for religious reasons were lost on me. Nevertheless I look at past Israeli leaders like Yitzhak Rabin as good examples of Israel providing a moderate, respectable, evenhanded influence in the region, exhibiting as they did the gifts of compromise and working together.
Yet I look and see what’s essentially a foreign agent (AIPAC) spending untold heaps of money to sway/influence US elections. Massie lost his primary tonight. I agreed with the man on very, very little, but he still stood as a needed example of a conservative American politician who actually had balls and didn’t just rubber-stamp everything Trump says or does, like the rest of his cadre of gutless yes-men and yes-women and drooling army of MAGA sycophants.
Basically, it appears to me that Israel couldn’t care less that America is falling apart, and visibly declining, as long as they can continue to ride the gravy train and eat our money.
I wish I could say Israel’s atrocities in Gaza were the turning point for me, but like most Americans, I was able to detach myself from any emotional investment in those horrific developments and simply look at a geopolitical “bigger picture.” My ability to do that is coming to an end.