Fend for yourselves: The winning argument of Israel's opponents in America
Most US citizens do not hate or love Israel, they are simply indifferent to it. But they do care about their own lives. Their hard lives, not yours. They struggle to cope with the unbearable cost of living, are horrified by the soaring health insurance rates and the cuts in social services.
One of the unfortunate and unnecessary phenomena of contemporary discourse culture is the insistence on deviating from reasoned and balanced discussion toward the psychoanalysis of the speakers. It happens to all of us on the street and on Facebook, and especially in political arguments. Logical exchanges pale in comparison to what we believe the opponent in front of us 'really' thinks. Thus, rational dialectics has become a form of amateur profiling that leads nowhere on a personal level, and on a national level as well. It happens to me all the time, with friends or strangers, who devote themselves to decoding my personality composition instead of addressing the arguments and detailed explanations I present to them. And so it is expected to happen to me this time as well, as a resident of the United States trying to present to you the prevailing perception regarding economic and military aid to Israel. A perception that is so logical from the perspective of the public in New York, Wisconsin, and California, and would probably have been accepted by most readers of this column, had its consequences not been an infringement on the privileges that the State of Israel has enjoyed over the years. You might see them as taken for granted, and justified. Americans, less so.
Take, for example, the Democratic Party's candidate for the Senate from Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed. After his victory in the primaries, the doctor, son of immigrants from Egypt, was asked about his position regarding the cessation of military aid to Israel. 'I oppose any unconditional military support to any country. Israel, yes, and also Egypt, from which my family emigrated, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and it is not because I am focused on what is happening somewhere in the world, other than my focus on what is happening here. There are communities in my country where the median income is 14 thousand dollars per year and I believe they have a prior right to their tax money,' said the progressive candidate in an interview with CNN. He did not deny his opposition to Israel's policy, which prompted the Jewish lobby AIPAC to pour large funds into supporting his rival Haley Stevens, to no avail, but declared: 'I believe in equality and the right to self-determination for Jewish-Israelis and Palestinians.'
Even if you doubt the purity of the candidate's intentions because he is a leftist, whose name is Abdul (or his full name Abdul-Rahman, as the Republicans began to call him to mock his origin), one must still deal with his winning message, which is aimed not at you in the Middle East, but at the residents of the Midwest. In America. 'I believe that our primary responsibility is to use our tax money here in Michigan to fund healthcare, schools, and roads instead of sending them to a foreign government that might use them for the benefit of bombs and tanks to destroy infrastructure, schools, and hospitals there,' he stated and concluded, 'My commitment is to the children in Michigan and not to foreign governments.'
It is possible to understand why the aforementioned argument resonates well against the backdrop of the decisions of politicians in Washington, who since October 7 have approved the allocation of more than 20 billion dollars for military aid to Israel. El-Sayed sees the Israeli government as an apartheid regime and accuses it of genocide, like many good, bad, and evil people in America. He is the latest representative in the winning team of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. He and his friends echo a sentiment hostile toward Israel that is common in American public opinion today, but they place at the center an argument that concerns everyone, including ideological rivals on the right, and as if taken from the libertarian exercise book of Republican Senator Rand Paul. Not because of the scales of justice, or the poisonous cat's paw of Benjamin Netanyahu, but because of the weight of fruits and vegetables in the supermarket and the gas pumps. The connection between Israel and its wars with the struggle against the cost of living is the most successful analogy. And it is very logical.
The truth is that most US citizens do not hate or love Israel, they are simply indifferent to it. But they do care about their own lives. Their hard lives, not yours. They struggle to cope with the unbearable cost of living, are horrified by the soaring health insurance rates and the cuts in social services. Add to this the anger over the rise in gas prices due to the war in Iran, which is perceived as an initiative of Netanyahu, and you will understand why the American public — from Israel-haters on the left, to neo-Nazis on the right, and the silent and indifferent majority between them — is united in opposition to the flow of billions of their tax money to the other side of the world. Far across the sea.
El-Sayed and Zohran Mamdani (Muslims) and Brad Lander (Jewish-Zionist) on the left, like Tucker Carlson, former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (the Tali Gottlieb of the Republicans) and even Vice President J.D. Vance want to shed the Israeli burden. Each has their own ideological motives, but what unites them all is the state's duty to take care first and foremost of its citizens. In the current situation, ordinary voters are focused on themselves, and are looking for representatives who will serve them against stakeholders and moneyed interests and politicians supported by them, such as the Jewish lobby AIPAC (which poured millions into the fight against El-Sayed) which has meanwhile become the most radioactive factor in local politics. The USA is an isolationist nation by nature, and the flow of money outward is against its nature. Donald Trump echoed the slogan 'America First' and since his return to the White House has canceled budgets for humanitarian organizations around the world, and even reduced allocations to NATO. Somehow, military support for Israel has remained intact with the backing of members of Congress, senators, and lobbyists from the right and left, contrary to public opinion.
If we are honest with ourselves, we Israelis share the approach of 'charity begins at home.' After all, it is unthinkable that your tax money would be funneled to this or that government in Africa, Asia, or on Mars for its wars — just or otherwise. Even the burden of financing Hamas fell on the Qatari sheikhs and was not taken from your pocket. Regardless of one ideological position or another, you too can understand the American public, which has antisemites, and also plenty of pro-Palestinians, but for the most part acts out of selfish motives of personal well-being, nationalism, and also from feelings of disgust toward the status quo. The popular opposition against the establishment in Washington is gaining momentum, and as part of it, a re-examination of the long-standing alliance with Israel is also required. Politicians aside, there is a broad public consensus that the USA cannot continue to be the babysitter for the 78-year-old Israel and finance its adventures on the other side of the world — not from the altruistic consideration of 'not in our name,' but the egoistic one of 'not at our expense.'
