I have often wondered why anyone who supports Israel is automatically thought by many to do so for exclusively religious (Biblical) reasons. My own primary reasons for supporting Israel rest on a reading of ordinary history and a sense of justice more than any religious or prophetic considerations. I note that Hugh Hewitt offers a similar approach. Here he offers his reasons for supporting Israel:
Yesterday I got an angry call from Phoenix demanding to know why I supported Israel. There are five reasons:
1. It is a fully-functioning democracy with a representative government and a nearly 60 year unbroken commitment to free and fair elections. When such states come under attack anywhere in the world, the US should support them.
2. Along with Great Britain and Australia, Israel is the most dependable ally the United States has in the world on a host of issues, but most especially the global war on terror. We need always to vigorously defend our allies and supply aid and arms as needed.
3. Since its origins in the Balfour Declaration and then the League of Nations, followed of course by its establishment via the United Nations, Israel represents the best promise of success for the structure of international laws and institutions that help keep the world civilized. Supporters of the UN must realize that if Israel is not defended, the UN cannot be defended. Defenders of the importance of international law and custom must grasp the same point.
4. Israel does deserve the long memory of the world since the world turned its back on the Jews during the early years of the Holocaust. The Jewish people of Europe are not the only people to have suffered genocide, but they are the only people to have suffered genocide in the heart of western civilization.
5. Anti-Semitism is an old and virulent disease. It is long associated with the worst impulses of civilized society. The forces that nurture and feed off of hatred of Jews and their state are never defeated, only contained. Their anti-semitic fevers are also always accompanied by other hatreds. Keeping Israel strong is a sort of booster shot to the world's immunization system.
My caller from Phoenix no doubt expected me to play the "God's chosen people" chords. A lot of Israel's enemies in the US tell themselves that all center-right support for Israel is a product of Biblical literacy combined with geopolitical illiteracy. It is easier to win arguments with yourself when you dismiss the positions of the other side via such straw men.
Some Americans do choose to support Israel for faith-based reasons, but not me. Neither the Harvard faculty, nor Richard Nixon --for whom I worked as an editorial assistant during the writing of his book The Real War-- nor the Reagan Adminsitration in which I spent years anchored their support for Israel in religious doctrine.
Pro-Israel beliefs have many origins, all of them legitimate in a free society. The most powerful ones when it comes to securing support from Congress are those above.
The hatred against Israel is beyond any rational explanation. This is not to say that Israel is always right. But the current contest with Hezbollah (and Hamas) should leave no one in doubt which side to support.
Victor Davis Hanson, with whom readers of my blog are already acquainted, posted an article today that pulls no punches and gets it exactly right. He says,
Our present generation too is on the brink of moral insanity. That has never been more evident than in the last three weeks, as the West has proven utterly unable to distinguish between an attacked democracy that seeks to strike back at terrorist combatants, and terrorist aggressors who seek to kill civilians. . . .
Hanson's article moves in several directions and I consider it must reading. He concludes:
These past few days the inability of millions of Westerners, both here and in Europe, to condemn fascist terrorists who start wars, spread racial hatred, and despise Western democracies is the real story, not the “quarter-ton” Israeli bombs that inadvertently hit civilians in Lebanon who live among rocket launchers that send missiles into Israeli cities and suburbs.
Yes, perhaps Israel should have hit more quickly, harder, and on the ground; yes, it has run an inept public relations campaign; yes, to these criticisms and more. But what is lost sight of is the central moral issue of our times: a humane democracy mired in an asymmetrical war is trying to protect itself against terrorists from the 7th century, while under the scrutiny of a corrupt world that needs oil, is largely anti-Semitic and deathly afraid of Islamic terrorists, and finds psychic enjoyment in seeing successful Western societies under duress.
In short, if we wish to learn what was going on in Europe in 1938, just look around.
Clifford D. May's analysis is well worth reading too. He credits Hezbollah, Syria, Iran, and other Islamist fascists due credit for well understanding the psychology of the west and how to manipulate it to their advantage. An excellent article.