The death of United States Senator Lindsay Graham has elicited a flurry of tributes from Israelis and right-wing Jews in the US.
In so many tributes, the same words kept coming up. Patriot. Hawkish. Friend of Israel.
For many Jews, Graham’s passing evokes the well-known verse in Sefer Sh’mot.
“And a new king arose over Egypt, one who did not know Yosef [and his contributions to the country].” (Sh’mot 1:8)
The massive changes taking place in US politics, in both major parties, is sure to seriously challenge the sense of belonging felt by American Jews. A wave that was kept at bay by an old guard, which consisted of people like Graham and Mitch McConnell (but also Chuck Schumer and even former President Joe Biden).
The next generation of US politicians appear far less receptive to the notion of deep-rooted shared values or to the material benefits that aid to Israel brings to the US economy.
A new era is quickly dawning.
The Talmud (Sota 11a) presents us with a disagreement between Rav and Shmuel as to whether the Pharaoh that “did not know Yosef” was in fact a new Pharaoh or actually the same Pharaoh as before but with different policies. Perhaps the monarch saw the relationship with the Hebrews as no longer serving his interests.
The rapid decline of the American Jewish experience might be humbly suggesting another interpretation, one showcased in a dangerous paradigm tacitly accepted within the Graham’s eulogies.
Perhaps, like the Hebrews of Egypt, the myth of a “good period” is fictitious. Perhaps the Torah is prophetically deriding the behavior of today’s Diaspora Jews mourning a period that wasn’t real. The turning point was simply the removal of a mask.
The American experience that’s currently being mourned by Jews, and the so-called US-Israel relationship that appears to be over, were only possible to begin with at the expense of our authentic identity.
That political framework was the only one possible after millennia of persecution and the retrofitting of Jewish identity to conform to what’s valued by the civilization that uprooted us from our land to begin with. That Western civilization’s hawkish and imperialist right flank would be where Jews would find our comfort is purely the result of a fundamental identity crisis.
True American patriots, like the Egyptian Pharaohs and the Roman Caesars of the past, cannot be “pro-Israel” unless Israel is subjected, defanged, and fundamentally assimilated into a tool of their interests.
In the imperial core, it’s been the false experience of acceptance as we are (although we’ve forgotten who we are), that has put Jews at risk of greater cultural annihilation.
The conflation by right-wing Jews of our own values with those of the Republican party, or the Torah way of life with the American faithful’s, has prevented us from breaking free from our psychological oppression.
It’s placed us in a position of vulnerability in which we seek to epitomize and embody the very mechanisms and institutions that younger Americans no longer favor.
This is a textbook case of epistemic capture, the psychological phenomenon where a displaced or subverted group suffers a collective hijacking of its internal compass, slowly learning to define its own success, security, and survival according to the conceptual tools, language, and institutional frameworks of its oppressor.
Indeed, when it comes to the US-Israel relationship, there was never a special bond or a deep values-based friendship. There was only a small but scrappy Jewish powerhouse exploited by the United States.
Since Israel returned to the cradle of Jewish civilization in 1967, US policy has been clear and consistent – subdue and control the State of Israel. Limit its ability to act independently and force it to relinquish that territory won in that war. This is the policy that passes for “pro-Israel” in American politics.
The deal was that Israel would be safe but dependent, and march to the tune of US interests in West Asia. Israel had to not be Israel in order to maintain the dreamy alliance currently slipping away.
Lindsay Graham, like every US politician, couldn’t be a genuine supporter of Israel but only a supporter of Israel’s place in the global architecture of US hegemony. Despite what might have been the best of intentions, he supported an exploitative alliance that pursued Washington’s interests at the expense of our own.
Lindsay Graham’s passing is a watershed moment that will inevitably hasten what we already see happening – the rise of a new Pharaoh. There’s no point in bemoaning the old regime. We’re better off defining our national interests, embracing the new reality, and using it to advance Israel forward.
