The U.S. and Israel: There is a mystery to the strength of the bond between Israel and the United States. One felt it this past month, when U.S. President George W. Bush ordered Israel to quit its invasion of the West Bank.

Israel calmly defied all his demands, and the U.S. just backed off, while constantly reaffirming its bias for Israel. Recently, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon stated he would abandon none of the settlements, a move the U.S. says is central to a solution. Again, no reaction. This is abnormally indulgent behaviour for a superpower toward a financially dependent ally.

I call it a mystery because I find most explanations unconvincing — for example, that Israel is a fellow democracy. There are many tyrannies the U.S. has supported, and democracies, such as Chile in 1973, which it has overthrown. Nor do I think the power of the Jewish vote or lobby in the U.S. explains this fully. George Bush was elected despite the Jewish vote in Florida and elsewhere.

Nor the value the U.S. places on Israel (along with Turkey) as its stand-in cop in the Mideast. Stand-ins are still expected to be obedient. Iraq was a U.S. ally in the region, especially in its war with Iran, but when it got out of line and invaded Kuwait for its own reasons, the U.S. reacted furiously. Israel is a kind of rogue client that gets away with it.

So what’s the reason? I dislike broad cultural theses such as “the clash of civilizations.” They seem undergraduate. But there seems to be a deep identification Americans feel with Israel, from the President on down, built on the American sense of exceptionalism: that the U.S. is unique, and uniquely moral, in the history of the world, and lives by no one’s standards except its own.

This may resonate with Judaism’s notion of a chosen people with a promised land, called to be “a light unto the nations” — a phrase from the same bible that has been an ideological center-piece in both countries. Maybe when George Bush feels tugged in different directions over Mideast policy, it’s this sense of identification that tilts the balance.

Anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism: There have been attempts to relate and equate these. Marcus Gee wrote in The Globe and Mail that they are “blood brothers.” Rex Murphy said they share parts of the same “landscape.” I find the idea bizarre. I’m not even sure there is such a thing as anti-Americanism, in the clear, definable way that anti-Semitism exists.

A lot of criticism of the U.S. is based on specific elements in its foreign policy; Americans are not targeted for being Americans. Even the World Trade Center was attacked as a symbol of that power, killing people indiscriminately, including Muslims and non-Americans. As for attacks on U.S. materialism or consumerism, the most energetic come from the U.S. itself. Many “anti-American” rioters wear baseball caps and National Basketball Association (NBA) t-shirts; they love American music. You don’t find contradictions like that among anti-Semites.

Anti-Semitism has a complex, well-studied history; its causes still evoke research and debate. There are institutes and conferences that deal with it. I doubt you could create a reading list on anti-Americanism. It’s a phrase. Anti-Semitism is a scourge.

Anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel: There’s little one can say to those who claim all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic. But most people of good will, including staunch supporters of Israel, agree it’s possible to criticize Israel without being anti-Semitic.

So why is there often unease and reluctance to speak out? I’d say it’s because Israel is usually being criticized for its treatment of Palestinians: for depriving them of land and possessions, or human rights; ruling them through force, systematically humiliating them and exiling them from their land with no right of return.

In other words, Israel is criticized for doing to Palestinians something similar to what anti-Semites have done to Jews. Saying this can feel like chutzpah. When, by contrast, the apartheid regime of South Africa was criticized, critics felt no sense that Afrikaners had been severely abused themselves. Still, there’s nothing that says a people that has suffered cannot go on to be abusive. Human beings have a documented ability to do to others what was done to them. It happens in families and among nations.

I’m not prejudging the charges, I’m just insisting there is every reason to raise and discuss them (and it’s firmly in the Jewish tradition).

So, when Israel’s embassy objects to CBC airing a BBC documentary on Ariel Sharon’s role in the massacre of Palestinian refugees in Beirut in 1982, as it did this week; and when the Jewish film festival cancels the same film, as it did last week; or when Jewish funeral director Michael Benjamin (to whom I owe a debt for his help and friendship when my parents died) drops his ads in the The Toronto Star, because of “a neutral editorial policy letting each side express itself,” I have to object in turn.

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Rick Salutin

Rick Salutin is a Canadian novelist, playwright and critic. He is a strong advocate of left wing causes and writes a regular column in the Toronto Star.