Reply #22: My Apologies, Sir [View All]

[The Magistrate]

It is far from my intention to confuse you. The answer to your question, as you phrased it above, is that many of the younger rightist reactionaries who today support Israel probably would not do so so strenuously if they were aware of its basically Socialist character. But remember that their support for it is based on other characteristics of that state, and of its situation, that would remain unchanged by that realization. Those who are religiously oriented believe the establishment and maintainance of Israel is a service to the diety, where they do not view it through an End Times prism. Some others are simply attracted to what they perceive as its toughness and ruthlessness in dealing with its enemies. There would remain, too, a basic sense that it constitutes a Western country in conflict with an Eastern people, that would influence many, and also that it is a frontier polity, with a certain overlap with idealized conceptions of the Old West, and these things feed a sense of identity for many in our country.

Among older people, its identity as a staunch opponent of Soviet Communism is well established, and back in Cold War days nobody troubled much over the Socialist elements of European countries, and other countries, that were solidly Western and opposed to the Soviets. The older a person is, the more likely it is that person will be aware of the basically left orientation of Israel, and that was common knowledge at its founding. This did not occur too long after, remember, a time in which it was a very common belief that leftism and Communism were themselves the result of Jewish influence.