Peter Beinart—who has, I think, atoned sufficiently for his time enabling and supporting the bigotries, prejudices, and ignorances of Marty Peretz and his Old New Republic—gets, I think, this one substantially wrong.
There are many Americans who feel a deep cultural and religious and political affinity with Israel. Israel is, after all, a fellow near-democracy, in some sense one of the foundations of North Atlantic civilization, and the image of Israel has always been an explicit model for America since the first days of Puritan settlement.
Conservative white Christians, however, support and seek a different Israel—a Likud-AIPAC Israel. They want an expansionist Israel for theological reasons: Israel's expansion—and the subsequent destruction by Gog and Magog of all who do not convert to Christianity—is a step on the road to the Second Coming of Jesus. Thus they seek not a secure, democratic, and peaceful Israel but rather a state with a firebase on every West Bank hilltop ruling from the Mediterranean Sea to the River Jordan—or perhaps Euphrates.
Plus there are the bribes: I am told that Likud Prime Minister Menachem Begin gave Jerry Falwell a Lear Jet:
Peter Beinart: The Sick Double Standard In The Ilhan Omar Controversy: "Omar’s tweet was inaccurate. Yes, of course, AIPAC’s influence rests partly on the money its members donate to politicians. But it also rests on a deep cultural and religious affinity for Israel among conservative white Christians, who see the Jewish state as an outpost of pro-American, “Judeo-Christian” values in a region they consider hostile to their country and faith...
#noted
