The Unlikeliest of Allies [CBD]

Israel and Saudi Arabia are cooperating

That Israel and Saudi Arabia are now united in seeking to derail Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran is not a secret. But for the director general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry to share a stage at a Council on Foreign Relations event in Washington with a former top advisor to the government of Saudi Arabia confirms this amazing turnabout. [...] Dore Gold, a key advisor to Prime Minister Netanyahu and retired Saudi general Anwar Majed Eshki both largely agreed with each other on Iran. Both see Tehran as bent on achieving hegemony in the Middle East and must be stopped.

The House of Saud is by no means a friend of the West, but it sees a powerful Iran as a much more dangerous opponent than a strong Israel. And Israel is not embracing Sunni fundamentalism, but rather using KSA as a back door to cooperate with the enemies of its most significant enemy.

Maybe American Jews can embrace Israel's staunchest American allies

According to a recent Pew poll, 69 percent of Evangelicals view American Jews positively, while 64 percent of American Jews view Evangelicals with skepticism or even negativity. In fact, Jewish Americans trail only atheists in their coolness toward Evangelicals.

Of course that makes the dangerous assumption that American Jews are actually animated by their connection to Israel. Some are -- the "Modern Orthodox" -- and luckily they are the fastest growing segment of the American Jewish community. But many, if not most, aren't, and see evangelists as the enemy. My bet is that the vast majority of American Jews have never even met an evangelical Christian, and know of them only through the scrupulously evenhanded reporting of the fourth estate, otherwise known as Godless heathens. They simply don't know what the hell they are talking about.

I'll take the support of America's evangelicals any day over the transient and self-serving support of the American left, whose support of Israel has been conspicuously absent for many years. And if that support is based on the expectation of a strong Israel speeding the second coming? So what? Most American Jews are not religious, so that motive should have no bearing on anything. What really irks them is that evangelicals tend to be more conservative than the typical American, and conservatism is just icky!

posted by Open Blogger at 08:30 AM

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