Useful Idiots
Tony Judt's recent multipage rant in the LRB takes apart what passes for the "left" here for its ... well, for its everything, especially its blindess on Isreal.But the "Israel thing" here isn't really about Israel (or even Left-Right politics), it's about America, and America's self-image, and America's rooting for a country (Israel) that reminds a lot of Americans of what they tend to think America used to be, a David against Goliath, a chosen land, a self-reliant, self-made people on the frontier. Never mind that in this case (as in the US, come to think of it) the frontier's been carved out of someone else's land with huge subsidies (like, oh, say, California), and that David has an indulgent, heavily-armed much-bigger-than-Goliath big brother standing just behind him, threatening to smite anyone who gets out of line….
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