The ruling class, being devoted imperialists, believes that Israel provides a geographic, social, and moral basis to project power in the Middle East. The reasoning tends to be self-justifying, it can be access to Oil or “humanitarian intervention, but at its heart it boils down to the simple maxim: we do it because we can.

Among the American public, support is almost entirely identitarian–it is the only explanation for the Manichean perception that they have of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They perceive Israel as a liberal Western democracy centered on a Jewish identity, and Palestine as a tribal, autocracy centered on a Muslim identity.

The elites exploit this gross reductivism to generate the necessary political support for their imperialist aspirations. How else can one explain the charges of anti-Semitism that are flippantly thrown around without any concrete basis in fact?

More generally, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict reflects the failure of our mass democracy to remember the past. Israel’s creation was imperialist in nature, centered on the US’ and USSR’ conflicting imperialist interests. I find it fascinating, for example, that at the time of Israel’s creation the US opposed acknowledging Israel’s statehood out of a fear that the nation would turn to Communism.

In any case, as long as we fail to address the grievances of people victimized by imperialism (we could for example leave them alone, yes I know that’s radical), the US will constantly generate anger, hatred, and violence. This is true with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in particular, and terrorism directed towards the US in general.

But I am highly doubtful that will happen, so when the next terrorist attack occurs the American public and our elites will rail against those “evil” terrorists that attacked for who we are, while conveniently short circuiting any debate about the possibility that they attacked us for things we have done.