Chuck, Here's Your "U.S. Interest"

The conventional wisdom surrounding the pending Congressional approval of the JCPOA indicates that the chances of its opponents coralling enough votes to veto depends on the efforts of one Sen. Charles Schumer.

Mssr. Schumer has indicated that his response is contingent upon that fact that "I have to do what's right for the United States first of all, and Eretz Yisroel second."

Five years ago, after I had given this administration about as much of the benefit of the doubt one possibly could vis-a-vis assuming it harbored anything but a clearly hostile attitude toward the Zionist project, I wrote the following:

"[T]he US [never mind the UN and the rest of the international community] has sat in its hands more than once while known genocides were in progress, against Jews and others.

"Should the spectre of dual loyalties [be] raised, the counter-spectre of Jew murder should be the response. The US needs to keep its business partners and the Islamist friends it seems to be chasing from engaging in the mass murder they repeatedly threaten to commit. Therefore: it is a distinct US interest to be seen as not willing to tacitly condone a second genocide, or, at the very least, the US should be forced to see that it become one: e.g., in one specific case, the US has to decide between a genocidal nuclear Iran and a possible economic crisis that would result from an Israeli peremptory strike.

"Transcendent blackmail isn’t a good way to make friends; however, the time to assume that the Jewish people haven’t been “de-friended” by this administration may be long past. The question of actual anti-semitism on the part of the President and his advisors—regardless of Jones’ and Gibbs’ behavior--is almost irrelevant: the two Presidents who arguably did the most for Jews and the Jewish state—Truman and Nixon—also arguably harbored the most anti-semitic personal sentiments of any White House occupant while serving in office. However, whether the result of transcendent blackmail or some genuine moral sense they were willing to draw the line at wholesale massacre of Jews. 

"I don’t care if this administration “likes” Israel or the Jews. But it is my right—if not duty—to remind them of the possible moral consequences of their likes/dislikes, and embarrass them into compliance."