Israeli and Zionist influence in the USA is a purposeful choice of the American government. It allows the American government to circumvent many domestic and international laws by allowing Israeli firms to do the spying and dirty work for them. Israel is essentially a rogue state that is entirely controlled by the American intelligence apparatus (and therefore, American capital). This has created a feedback loop of constantly reinforcing settler colonialism and American economic extraction of the Middle East. If America withdrew support to Israel, this feedback loop would cease and Israel would be greatly diminished or completely collapse.

Saying Israel controls America is simply wrong, stop saying this. I will remove your post. ✌️

edit: altered title for clarification and to avoid nonsensical semantic arguments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] woodenghost@hexbear.net 6 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Yes, I think we need to make an important distinction here. The word "control" is used for two valid, but distinct things: Sometimes it's used to argue about moral responsibility. Sometimes it's about strategy in our struggle. Like if one side "controls" the other, are there nodes of control that can be exposed and targeted politically? I think in both cases, the word "control" simplifies the complex relationship, so I won't use it any more in this. But luckily it's not needed to answer either question.

About moral responsibility, I think it's really important to recognize, that powerful people in the US (politicians, generals, billionaires, etc.) are equally responsible for the genocide, just like the ones in Israel. Both can be morally responsible at the same time. The same goes for state institutions. Morally, the ones in the US do have the freedom to withdraw support and that would stop the genocide. It's not important for moral consideration, that they won't do that for material reasons. To face this moral truth is important for our propaganda and also a question of respect and solidarity for Palestinians.

The other question is about our strategy. Here, a materialist perspective is needed. From inside the imperial core, pushing for BDS is the obvious strategy, which targets Israel directly. But because of the "tangled web of connections", which you mentioned, there are also important sides of struggle in the US. And many center around trying to sever at least some of those connections: the ones between universities in the US and Israel for example. US firms with close ties to Israel are another. There are others and these sides of struggle can be understood as an extensions of BDS.

Politically targeting legislature, think tanks, members of congress with ties to Israel is another logical strategy. It's best to concentrate on few targets instead of spreading our efforts out. Like snipping one strang of a complicated knot at a time instead of trying to rip it all apart at once.

This strategy does not mean, that we believe a complete severance of the connections between the US and Israel is possible. It is not. Even, if Israel was magically destroyed tomorrow, the US would invent a new one. But similar to a labor struggle in which a single strike can't abolish capitalism, anti-imperialist actions can still gain wins, even if the whole of imperialism isn't abolished yet.