Israeli progressives look to Europe for the ideological and financial support they do not get from the United States. Though liberal American Jewish organizations such as the New Israel Fund are making enormous efforts to redress such deficits, despite their numerous philanthropically funded social assistance, worker training and educational programs, the perception is that when it comes to Israel, Europeans have a monopoly on liberalism.
Just look at the coverage accorded to Israel boycott initiatives by British university instructors to understand why. Whereas the United States is identified by the UK press with Christian Zionists who love Israel to theological death, the United Kingdom is conversely identified by many American and Israeli periodicals as the home of a growing anti-Semitic left, eager to punish Israeli educators in order to protest Israel's treatment of the Palestinians.
This is why the increasing intimacy between Israel and the EU over the course of the past several years has been fascinating. Coming to a head with the large-scale deployment of European peacekeeping forces in Lebanon after 2006’s conflict with Hezbollah, the European commitment of troops came at a time that two of the same countries providing forces were withdrawing from Iraq out of disagreement with US policy.
Excerpted from Israel vs Utopia
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