Biden’s Loyalty to Israel Rooted in Cold War & Laced with AIPAC Money – Adolph Reed pt 2/2

Paul Jay

Hi, I’m Paul Jay. Welcome back to theAnalysis.news. This is part two of my conversation with Adolph Reed, an academic, an author, an activist, and an organizer. As I said in part one, he’s been critiquing the Democratic Party and, of course, the capitalist system and trying to offer solutions for decades. It is probably better to watch part one and then pick up with us at part two. Thanks for joining again, Adolph.

Adolph Reed

Always happy to do it, Paul. I love our conversations.

Paul Jay

Adolph Reed is an activist, an organizer, an academic, and an author. Thanks for joining us, Adolph.

Adolph Reed

Hi, Paul. Thanks for having me, man. It’s always great to talk.

Paul Jay

Let’s talk about this moment. A lot of this moment is the politics around the genocide in Gaza. The role of the Biden administration has been quite profound in how it’s affected campus politics, at the very least. There’s an actual student movement again. I don’t think we’ve seen one like this, I guess, since Occupy or maybe the Iraq War, but this has a real movement to it. Much of the campus movement and the broader sections of society are not just about Gaza. It is going further and looking at some of the systemic issues. It is coming at a time with these critical elections coming.

I think one of the things that’s missing in the critique or understanding of why the Biden administration is so loyal to the Israeli state and, only recently, trying to distance itself a little bit from what’s going on in Gaza. The images on television, and even the American media are showing more of this than one might have thought. You can see, even among some of the mainstream journalists, they’re completely taken aback by the scale of the devastation in Gaza.

Just for the sake of it, let me say for people who might not have heard me on this point: I do think what Hamas did on October 7 was a terrorist attack. That part of the attack that was against civilians, at any rate, part of it was against the military, which was not a terrorist attack. But the part that was against civilians was a terrorist attack. It seems some of it was pretty atrocious. I think some of the reports have likely been exaggerated. There are reports in the Israeli press that some of what happened on October 7 was exaggerated. I am no fan of Hamas. I have no problem critiquing Hamas at this moment. Some people on the left don’t want to say anything against Hamas, but Hamas is the creation of the Israeli apartheid state. It wouldn’t have existed without it. That’s another conversation.

I think the thing that’s missing from understanding why the Biden administration has taken, up until very recently, such a strong stand in support of a government that hates them; Netanyahu is far closer to the Republicans than the Democrats, but continuing to ship all these weapons and so on, is the extent to which Israel is baked into the Cold War psychology of the American elites and political elites.

Let’s not forget that 1948, when Israel was founded, was one of the most critical years in the construction of the Cold War narrative, that there’s an existential threat. The U.S. has to defend freedom and democracy. Not in the beginning, but it wasn’t long before Israel became part of that core argument that these are the things that defend Western democracy, and Israel is the thing that defends it in the Middle East. It’s all hypocrisy, but it’s very baked in. I think we shouldn’t underestimate how much people like Biden actually believe this.

Adolph Reed

Yeah, I think that’s right about Biden. He’s called himself a Zionist proudly.

Paul Jay

Yeah, and may well be a Christian Zionist.

Adolph Reed

Yeah, he could be. I’m trying to think of what inroads that’s made into Catholicism. I don’t think a lot.

Paul Jay

Oh, no, it has. Steve Bannon and that whole crowd are all connected to Opus Dei, and they’re all into Christian Zionism now; that’s the far-right section. J.D. Vance is a very interesting phenomenon. J.D. Vance is this rising maniac on the right. He converted to Catholicism just a few years ago.

Adolph Reed

Oh, did he?

Paul Jay

Yes. There are several others in this far-right camp that have moved from various other Christian denominations.

Adolph Reed

Yeah, that’s interesting.

Paul Jay

Yeah, there’s something going on in this far Catholic right.

Adolph Reed

Yeah, well, it’s pretty dangerous. I know that. There was a similar movement among the right in the early 20th century, which is interesting, but maybe a little more in Europe or in England than in the U.S. Of course, Biden, being Biden, probably imbibed his Zionism. His Zionism is laced with that AIPAC money. That’s the other factor here.

Paul Jay

Their ideology is always linked to money.

Adolph Reed

No, totally. The centrist Democrats’ connection to that strain of neo-conservative foreign policy that they’ve been connected to for a long time sets them up to see what Ruy Mauro Marini describes in the late ’60s as a sub-imperialist role that Israel plays in the Middle East. By the way, the Israelis, the Zionists, and the aggressive tendencies within Zionism played on that. Going back to the ’20s, they played on selling themselves to the Brits and then to the U.S. as European, fundamentally, and guardians of Western civilization in that part of the world.

Paul Jay

I may be wrong about this because I didn’t follow it that closely, but I see Israel was in the European music song competition.

Adolph Reed

Oh, wow, really?

Paul Jay

What the hell? What’s Israel doing there?

Adolph Reed

Yeah, well, I guess for the same reason that Gabe Pressman used to give a daily report from Tel Aviv every day in the summer. I don’t know. To me, it’s been interesting watching how the right and the ultra-right across the board have glommed onto the support of Israel as a basis for jacking up the higher-ed sector of trustees at places like Penn, Harvard, and elsewhere. Ultimately, the game was never really just about the defense of Israel. It’s also about visions that they have for what the university ought to be like.

This is happening around some other issues, too. It’s a vehicle for going after public libraries, going after K through 12 education, going after DEI [Diversity, equity, and inclusion work], denouncing “woke” on this, that, and the other, and expanding the idea of what counts as terrorism. It’s useful in domestic politics.

In the same way we were talking before episode one about how Cold War anti-communism was more useful for pursuing agendas in domestic politics than it was international politics. It’s also interesting to watch those elements of the right take what seemed to be pages from the Identitarian left’s playbook, to turn them back against us, too.

Beyond that, I forget where you are on the war in Ukraine. I’ve been opposed to it from the very beginning. Just as far back as 2014, how you could see it in any other way, especially if you go back to the ’90s. There’s no justification for expanding NATO eastward except militarily. If that’s the case, then that risks nuclear war. That’s where the greatest risk now in the world is, followed by the Middle East.

I read someplace not that long ago about how the Biden administration had backchannel talks going with Iran to work out a satisfactory response from the Iranians to the Israelis having attacked the Iranian embassy in Syria. Then, they were having backchannel discussions with the Israelis to try to keep their response to the Iranians’ response damped down as much as possible. In both cases, it’s easy to see this getting out of hand. 

Paul Jay

Well, just quickly on Ukraine, this is a fight over spheres of influence.

Adolph Reed

Now, that’s right.

Paul Jay

I think the primary mission of NATO has always been to defend the American sphere of influence in Europe. There was never a threat of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe. I would have said prior to the invasion of Ukraine, there was no real threat of that either, but I was wrong because clearly, there was and is.

Adolph Reed

Well, yeah, Biden almost made him do it.

Paul Jay

I don’t think the Russians invaded because of NATO expansion. As much as I’m against–

Adolph Reed

Oh, really?

Paul Jay

I’m against NATO, period. I would like to see no NATO. I think this is Russians fighting for their sphere of influence in Ukraine, like Ukraine and the Western sphere of influence, and that is not a justification for war. What we need now, obviously, is a ceasefire, a resolution, and Ukrainian workers and Russian workers should stop killing each other. I don’t think Ukrainian workers should be dying so that the Ukrainian oligarchy can regain some territory. What I’m about to say is probably not possible. What I would love to see is all these armed Ukrainians tell the Russians, “Get the hell out,” but come to some accommodation and then turn your guns on the Ukrainian oligarchy to get rid of them, and then hold proper referendums and find out what the people want.

Adolph Reed

Yeah, that makes sense to me.

Paul Jay

The bottom line is the war has to end. I want to say that Gaza is an example, like in Michigan. I think it’s great people voted uncontested, unconfirmed, or  whatever the term was.

Adolph Reed

Uncommitted.

Paul Jay

Uncommitted.

Adolph Reed

Yeah, I did that here, too. 

Paul Jay

To do that everywhere possible is the right thing to do. I think to put maximum pressure on the Biden administration is the right thing to do. But it’s also, I think, important that you can still, say, vote for the Democrats and viciously critique their policy. It’s not contradictory if you can tell people the whole picture.

I wrote an article last time when it was Trump versus Biden. You know, vote for Biden without illusions.

Adolph Reed

Oh, yeah, that’s right.

Paul Jay

That’s the thing. Don’t repeat any Democratic Party speaking points. It is mostly BS. Two, they don’t convince anybody who isn’t already in that camp.

Adolph Reed

No, I agree. Well, in 2016, I did the same thing for Hillary. In fact, I wrote a column called Vote for the Lying Neoliberal Warmonger: It’s Important. Yeah, I agree. We have to try to cultivate-

Paul Jay

Although I have to say, Hillary was even worse. I don’t even know, worse than Trump. Hillary is so bad on foreign policy.

Adolph Reed

Right. It’s terrible. That was a tough one to me, even more than Biden was, frankly.

Paul Jay

Let me say one thing, just to add one point.

Adolph Reed

Sure.

Paul Jay

People shouldn’t underestimate, even though there may not be drastic differences in foreign policy between a Biden and a Trump. There are some significant ones, but maybe not so drastic, except I think the Trump administration would be even more hawkish and provocative with China. There are some real differences domestically. It shouldn’t be underestimated.

Adolph Reed

No, true. Well, one of the things about this is that the left punditocracy is basically people who imagine, rightly or wrongly, that a Trump administration wouldn’t change their lives all that much. That’s important to keep in mind, too, because it would, or it’s likely to, for most of them. It certainly would for all the rest of us. As far as Gaza is concerned, you mentioned this. The Republicans have said, they tell us every day what they would do, and it’s finish the genocide.

Paul Jay

It’s a nuclear bomb.

Adolph Reed

Oh, yeah. Which probably had [Jared] Kushner freaking out.

Paul Jay

Well, Lindsey Graham actually said that. He said, “We justified using a nuclear bomb in Japan. Why wouldn’t the Israelis be justified in doing what they’re doing, at the very least?”

Adolph Reed

Well, partly because you wouldn’t be able to develop a beachfront property in Gaza if you did that. Look, the world’s such a mess at this point. I’ve been struck by how NATO has swallowed the EU, basically, which is a big victory for the U.S. God knows what’s going to happen in Germany. The AFD is making hay now because [Olaf] Scholz and the government is horrible.

What’s happening in Gaza is almost unspeakably horrible. The fact that we can’t do anything to affect it, or it doesn’t seem like we can do anything to affect it, or at least it doesn’t seem like we can do anything to affect it before the Netanyahu government has succeeded in cleansing both Gaza and the West Bank, which has been the program for a long time. It’s naive to imagine that’s not the case. At this point, I think it’s productive not to say it out loud for fear it might fragment the peace coalition, because what peace coalition is there? There’s no power anyway. It’s a bleak time.

Even that feels like a self-satisfied Weltschmerz from somebody whose everyday position is comparatively safe, at least until the Republicans come in. The signs of breakdown and decay are all around us. It’s like 30 years of Democrats bullshit, 40 years, if not longer, telling us that with respect to domestic politics and public services and public goods, we can do more with less because we’re smarter. This has always been a lie. That’s why we’ve got physical infrastructure that’s rotting all over the country.

Here, in Philly, a few years ago, we had a series of water main breaks; it seemed like every three weeks. The local news would treat each one like it was a one-off. Since I retired, I spent a lot of time down in New Orleans. It is the same thing. They have infrastructure that is horrible and rotting. People and elites just think that it’s enough to tell us, “Well, we don’t have the money to do anything about it.”

Well, one of the most telling moments in global politics for me was when the markets locked up, like in the Great Recession, and the ECB, the Fed, and other central bankers decided to bail out the financial sector and not do anything for the rest of us. You remember, there were massive demonstrations, a million or more people on the street in every major capital in Europe. The big demonstrations here had absolutely no effect on anything. In one case after another, the central banker, the prime minister, or the finance minister would make public statements in a very soft, monotone voice and say, “To the hell with you. We’re going to do what we’ve been doing.” That was a telling moment. That just showed the extent to which all of our movements have been hollowed out from underneath. We got to, as you were saying, go back to the door knocking. Door knocking to have political conversations about issues that affect their lives.

Paul Jay

I want to take back something I said, which there may not be that much difference in foreign policy. It may even be on Ukraine; for their own nefarious reasons, a Trump administration might actually push a resolution for Ukraine. I have a feeling that once elected, and not feeling that he would be charged with being weak on Russia, my guess is Biden’s going to push a resolution of Ukraine, if he has a new administration, pretty soon. They can’t sustain.

Adolph Reed

Yeah, I think so, too.

Paul Jay

There’s another big difference where I think it’s better for the world if the Democrats are in power than Trump or the Republicans. Being in the belly of the beast of the U.S. empire, there’s only so much possible. At times of crisis, they have the ability, they being the American elites, just to throw money at people like they did in the pandemic.

Adolph Reed

Oh, yeah. It’s a beautiful example.

Paul Jay

They give people some purchasing power. They did it after 9/11. They did it big time during the pandemic. The organizing has to take place, but to think there’s going to be some massive breakthrough in the short term, nationally, it might be in some states or some cities, and that’s not insignificant.

Adolph Reed

No, no.

Paul Jay

Given this is the empire. The thing is, we need a breakthrough somewhere, and it’s more likely to be in Latin America, maybe in Africa. Which party in power is better in that respect? As far as I can see, the Democrats are a little more benign, a little more restrained when it comes to Latin America, especially. We’re back to getting some left governments elected in certain places. If Trump is elected, they’ll do everything they can to bring [Jair] Bolsonaro back to power in Brazil.

Adolph Reed

Oh, yeah. Plus, they’re in bed with the whole Operation Condor crew.

Paul Jay

You likely could see, whether it’s Bolsonaro or another type of crazy Christian Nationalist, there will be an attempt to bring Christian Nationalists to Latin America.

Adolph Reed

That’s exactly right. I agree with you about that. It’s quite important. The Trump forces are in bed with both the actual and the legatees of Operation Condor from the ’70s and ’80s. They’re in bed with the worst of the right. No, I agree.

Paul Jay

I’d say the other place, which I have hope for that there might be a revolutionary movement at some point, and people won’t expect this one, I suppose, is China.

Adolph Reed

Oh, that’s interesting.

Paul Jay

As long as the West, the U.S., contains all this hawkish bullshit over Taiwan, you’re not going to see that in China because of the nationalists that can get promoted in those circumstances. Of course, that’s exactly what the military-industrial complex wants. The more nationalist China is, the more justification there is for spending money on that.

Adolph Reed

Yes, absolutely. It is a hell of a moment we’re in, man.

Paul Jay

Yeah, a very complex moment. I hope we humans can find a way out of this. All right, thanks very much for joining me.

Adolph Reed

Thanks for having me, brother. Let’s do it again before too long.

Paul Jay

Yeah, for sure. Pretty soon. All right, thank you for joining us on theAnalysis.news. I’m going to start something soon. If you and the audience are interested, we’re getting lots of comments and questions on YouTube and on all the other platforms, and we’ll try to answer some of the questions and comments people are making. Thanks again for joining us on theAnalysis.news.