Bernard Spiegal

Only delusional seers, along with the very foolish, would try to predict, with any degree of certainty, how the bloody saga of the USA/Israel aggression against Iran will ultimately unfold.

What can be said, however, is that it’s as near to certain as one can get that neither the USA, nor Israel, can have imagined in their worst dreams ending up where they both are now. Thus, notwithstanding the deployment of massive USA and Israeli fire power directed at Iran, causing a too often unremarked dreadful civilian toll, it remains undefeated, able still to flex its muscles, and to a significant degree set the terms for future engagement between it and the USA.

The USA, on the other hand, emerges chastened from the joint USA/Israel attack, though this will never be admitted. Nevertheless, a lesson as old as the hills should, may be is, being re-learnt: military capabilities do not reliably translate into political gains.

Israel, the USA’s ‘partner’ in the bloody folly of attacking Iran, is excluded from the now active, though not always smooth running, USA/Iran negotiations to bring the conflict to an end. The joint Iran/USA Memorandum of Understandings (MoU) pointedly side-lines Israel, effectively excluding it from having a voice in its own future.

Israel is angry, it is scared, feels alone and deserted, yet remains vengeful, deluded in its belief that its safety can be secured only by military means. This is the approach that informs its current marauding in Lebanon. A poll, reported in the Times of Israel (June 21^st), asked whether Israel:

should renew major military action against Hezbollah, including strikes in Beirut, even at the risk of a clash with Trump, who has voiced displeasure over the fighting in Lebanon, 48.2% of respondents said it should, compared to 20.9% who disagreed with this option and 30.9% who said they were unsure.

Israel is singularly incapable of learning from experience. When a policy has shown itself not to work – e.g. invading Lebanon – Israel’s response is to repeat its mistake

Israel: nowhere to go

But now Israel has nowhere to go. It placed its bets on America being its pivotal, ever-reliable ally. Yet the future scope and durability of the Israel/USA relationship now look particularly unstable. As touched on above, Israel was not even in the corridors of power, still less the negotiating chamber as the MoU was being formulated and then ratified. Take this, and the unvarnished criticism of Israel by both President Trump and Vice-President J. D. Vance and we may – just ‘may’ – be witnessing the green shoots of a significant distancing of the USA from Israel.  A chink in the Zionist edifice is forming. The following from the Jewish Outsider is worth noting (dated 21 June):

[In] Christian conservative commentator Allie Beth Stuckey’s podcast released on Friday, Vance said that “pro-Israel people in the United States make two critical mistakes. One … is not delineating between America’s interests and Israeli interests, because they’re not always the same.”

“But the second is conflating criticism of a particular government with Jew hatred. Because if everything is Jew hatred, then nothing is Jew hatred,” he continued. “And we have to be very careful not to, you know, in order to serve a certain foreign policy objective, try to criticize somebody as antisemitic when they’re just not.”

Vance’s musing out loud has, from a foreign policy perspective, potentially seismic consequences. It looks as though Vance is working towards delineating a revised political space within which a previously super-glued Israel/USA relationship, transforms into one where the bonds between the two countries are slackened, to Israel’s detriment: a chink in the Zionist edifice.

Vance’s words are potentially – note ‘potentially’ – groundbreaking from another perspective. The quote above is a direct refutation of the architecture and stance of the IHRA definition of antisemitism. That barren, misleading, though immensely consequential document, relies on the false conflation of anti-Zionism, or indeed any Israel-critical utterance, with antisemitism to give it its heft. Vance may have, wittingly or not, provided an at least partial antidote to the virulent IHRA bug eating into the USA, as it does here in the UK.  A chink in the Zionist edifice.

Vance is clearly keen to dismantle previous assumptions about the USA/Israel relationship:

…American leaders have to be very careful that when we pursue something, we’re doing it for America’s best interest and not for any other country’s best interest.”

“People will say that America’s interests are always aligned with Israel’s interests — it’s just not true,” … and obviously the president has been very clear he’s got some disagreements with [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu about how precisely to bring the Iran war to a close.”

…Vance added that the late conservative influencer Charlie Kirk “was very worried about Israeli influence in American politics. He also really disliked antisemitism.”

Here Vance is surely hinting that the American Jewish-Israel lobby has over-reached itself. The as yet unformulated specific charge is that the lobby may have, or actually has, strayed into giving primacy to what benefits Israel, rather than America. If this assessment becomes prevalent, the USA pro-Israel lobby is heading for a decline in influence. (The UK Jewish-Israel lobby may wish to take note.)

There are already signs that the Israel lobby is coming under critical scrutiny. It is single-minded, fanatical, cynical, obscenely rich and therefore well-connected – bankrupt morally, but not in dollars.

A question to AI about pro-Israel influence on the USA evoked this response:

While groups like AIPAC maintain massive political spending, their broader influence is facing a historic decline as American public opinion shifts against Israel. This erosion of unconditional support is forcing the pro-Israel lobby to spend unprecedented sums just to hold the line.

Vance has, probably inadvertently, and in any case without concern, bumped into one of the IHRA’s working examples of what may constitute antisemitism:

Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.

An optimistic assessment of Vance’s words could lead to the conclusion that he is single-handedly cutting the ground from under the IHRA definition and the accompanying examples.  At the same time, he is clearly comfortable questioning the historical basis of the USA-Israel relationship, and finding it wanting. A chink in the Zionist edifice.

Pandora’s box

The USA/Israel assault on Iran has opened a Pandora’s Box of consequences, numerous, diverse and many yet to be manifested. None favour Israel.

Israel is more isolated than ever. It is a nation that simply disgusts people. American Jews, particularly younger generations, look askance at Israel, as do, increasingly, younger UK Jews.

These, and other anti-Zionist tendencies were growing prior to the assault on Iran. But in the light of that aggression, disdain for Israel has grown, expanding and accelerating the ultimate decline of the Zionist project.

Chinks in the edifice are more and more apparent. The task is to deepen and extend those chinks, and bring down the Zionist edifice.