Christian Zionism, American Exceptionalism, and the Protestant Roots of U.S. Middle East Policy

In his speech to the Knesset in January, Vice-President Mike Pence declared that, “in the story of the Jews,” Americans have “always seen the story of America.” This observation, says Samuel Goldman, is hardly a new one, and indeed is necessary to understanding U.S.-Israel relations. Taking Pence’s comments one step further, Gershon Greenberg explains that the idea of America as the Promised Land can be traced all the way back to Christopher Columbus, and American history cannot be understood without reference to the land of Israel as portrayed in the Hebrew Bible. Looking at more recent history, Michael Doran explains how certain strands of American Protestant thought shaped the U.S.-Israel alliance, and how opposing strands informed, and continue to inform, this alliance’s discontents. The three explore these ideas further in an in-depth discussion. (Video, 72 minutes.)

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More about: American exceptionalism, American Religion, Christian Zionism, History & Ideas, Mike Pence, US-Israel relations

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

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More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF