America's Israel Policy is Primarily Dictated by Non-Jews. Therefore ... What?

Periodically, you see people on the internet take great pains to stress that America's Israel policy is primarily dictated by non-Jews -- usually (particularly if we're talking about conservative Israel policy) Evangelical Christians.

When this point is made, as it usually is, by Israel-critical sorts, it is often a means of stressing that opposing these conservative policies is not a case of being anti-Jewish, since it isn't Jews who are driving the policies to begin with.

It is a point often made in ragged fashion, without following through to its logical end-point. For example, people might use it to say "AIPAC drives the agenda in Washington on behalf of Christian donors" rather than "maybe AIPAC doesn't drive the agenda in Washington, it's now largely been surpassed by explicitly Christian 'pro-Israel' organizations whose agenda AIPAC is forced to react to, and our assumption that it's AIPAC that runs the show is a legacy of an antisemitic assumption of Jewish control."

Still, the broad point is correct. American policy towards Israel is mostly a function of what non-Jews want it to be. That doesn't mean that there aren't Jews who, fortuitously, happen to overlap with this or that Israel-policy agenda. But they're fundamentally epiphenomenal.

One might think that the next step in the analysis would be "so let's start asking: what do Jews want us to be thinking about regarding Israel?"

But more often, the next step instead is "so therefore, we don't have to listen to anyone but ourselves on this issue!"

Put differently, these actors might recognize -- correctly -- that American Jewish voices are actually relatively marginal to the state of American discourse about Israel (it's worth noting that Israel itself plays a part in this marginalization). But they don't actually mind that marginalization or seek to rectify it -- if anything, they exploit it so that they can engage in their own discourse about Israel in American without feeling guilty about stepping on the Jews. They're happy to keep on going as they always have, impervious to critical Jewish perspectives (though happily relying on the epiphenomenal Jews who happen to already agree with them).

Recognizing that Jews aren't running the show in Washington (on Israel or anything else) is step one. Step two is empowering Jewish voices -- not to the exclusion of other salient perspectives (most notably, Arab or Palestinian voices), but as part of a larger recalibration of the debate so that those with the most at stake have the most influence.

If you think step two is redundant because we already hear -- overhear, if anything -- Jewish perspectives, then you haven't actually absorbed the lesson of step one. And if you think step two is problematic because you're afraid that elevating actual Jewish perspectives might conflict with your pre-established political agenda, then you just approve of the political marginalization described by step one. Either way, no one should be fooled by the play.