Jewish-Americans and divided loyalties

Legend has it that when George W. Bush asked his father what a neocon was, the elder Bush answered "One word: Israel." Many Americans now believe the same. A "neocon," in the gestalt of our political culture, is "a conservative Jewish writer or politician whose main goal is to use U.S. military power to protect Israel." Looking at the actions of Joe Lieberman or the writings of Charles Krauthammer and Bill Kristol, it's hard to conclude that Israel is not #1 on the agenda for a number of Jewish conservatives.

Joe Klein has had enough:

The fact that a great many Jewish neoconservatives--people like Joe Lieberman and the crowd over at Commentary--plumped for this war, and now for an even more foolish assault on Iran, raised the question of divided loyalties: using U.S. military power, U.S. lives and money, to make the world safe for Israel.

Naturally, this produced the usual denunciations (and two fiery responses from Klein). Problem is, Klein is absolutely right. There are a number of conservative Jewish leaders and writers for whom protecting Israel is U.S. Mission #1. Most of those people have strongly supported eternal war in Iraq, torture of terror suspects, and a whole lot of absolutely awful things, presumably because they think if the U.S. does these things Israel will be safer.

Now I have no problem with "divided loyalties" in general - many ethnic groups lobby for the U.S. to support their ancestral lands (to be honest, I'd plump for support for Japan!). And Israel is a democracy, and deserves to exist and be safe from the brutal destruction that countries like Syria and Iran would most certainly like to visit upon it.

But there's a big difference between having your loyalties be divided and having your primary loyalty lie with a foreign nation. Jewish Americans are Americans first and foremost, and shouldn't forget it. And to support things like torture, suspension of constitutional rights, and unprovoked imperialistic aggression is fundamentally un-American. It disgusts me to think that Joe Lieberman would happily wreck his own country's institutions just to try to help a foreign country, just because that country contains a lot of people who share his religion. And it especially disgusts me because that religion happens to be my own.

To say this is not anti-semitic. Yes, it may fuel the fires of America's last few anti-semites, who still think of Jews as some monolithic ethnic bloc. Which of course, is silly; the simple fact is, most Jewish Americans despise torture and the Iraq war. And from what I can tell, the vast majority have slight sympathy for Israel, but place America firmly at the top of their pantheon of loyalties. Lieberman, Krauthammer, Kristol, and that gang are a vocal but tiny minority among Jewish leaders and intellectuals.

And as for those who think pro-Israel Jews pushed us into the Iraq war, even Klein agrees that's hogwash. The Iraq war was fundamentally about oil, U.S. power projection in the Gulf, and Republican electoral politics. Loudmouthed pro-Israel writers like Krauthammer and Kristol simply provided Bush a handy pile of pro-war verbiage, just like Lieberman gives Bush a fig leaf of bipartisan support. Jewish neocons were stooges in the Iraq story, not puppet-masters.

But regardless, the "war for Israel" idea not-so-secretly nursed by Jewish conservatives must die. If Israel gets attacked by Iran or Syria, of course we'll defend it - just like we'd defend the UK or Japan. But to torture people, imprison them without trial, invade their countries without provocation, etc., is a violation of the most basic principles of your homeland. That homeland, of course, being the United States.