There are many parallels between Israel and the US at this time.  Both countries have a national/cultural mythos cementing a "White" national identity in contradistinction to a "dark, inferior indigenous" population whose land has been occupied -- a "cowboy legend".  The Palestinians are being confined to reservations now;  for Native Americans this struggle was waged and lost a century ago and more.  (And yet both countries also claim a religious identity which is inclusive;  Christianity is according to its lights small-c catholic, and Judaism accepts converts;  in fact Israeli wingnuts have gone so far as to convert mestizo peasants from S America and then award them "right of return" land in the OT;  both countries' national myths uneasily ride two divergent rails of inclusivism/cosmopolitanism and nativism/racism).

Both Israel and the US were in fairly large part colonised by outcasts, people fleeing danger and persecution in other places, and hence their citizens can easily and with some reason see themselves as champions of freedom, poor people who made good via hard work, perpetual innocent victims seeking refuge from an Evil Other (the Israelis with more recent and vivid reasons).  Both countries are paid up true-believers in Modernity and Industrialism, staking their whole economies on cheap fossil fuel, patting themselves on the back for growing crops in deserts artificially irrigated with repositioned water at great energy expense, etc.  (and both are ironically situated in areas not rich in fossil fuel)...  

Many Israelis aspire to a US suburban type of lifestyle;  one [Jewish, I hasten to add] friend of mine compared Israelis to Boers, complete with the affluent suburban White S African swimming-pool-freeway-and-air-conditioner lifeway that Americans also practise in the desert areas they wrested from more adaptive and sustainable indigenes.  Much of the OT is carburb.  In both cultures peasant farming and sustainable practise is being (has been) swept aside in favour of corporate factory ag, resulting in ever greater food and water precarity.

In both countries a radical rightist/fundie religious bloc dances a dangerous mambo of tail and dog with rightwing and militarist politicos.  Both countries have turned aside from a more leftist/pacifist period (many of the Kibbutzinm did genuinely try to come to terms with Arab neighbours) and into a hardening rightist/patriarchal/capitalist/authoritarian period.  Both countries are heavily enmeshed in the international weapons trade and have large nuke arsenals, yet cannot provide real security for their own populations.  Both rightwing elites rely on "with us or against us" millennial rehetoric and threatmongering to ensure compliance of the electorate with territorial/resource grabbing ventures.  

Both enjoyed at one time a much higher and more idealistic reputation on the world stage and are now falling into relative disrepute, and upset about this loss of reputation.  Both are (officially or by majority mood) in denial about the shadier aspects of their own national foundation, and tend to take refuge from that realpolitik in emotional patriotism, flag waving, and religion.  And both are powered by strong narratives of Exceptionalism which they both draw from the same Old Testament sources.  It's worth noting (again) that a large bloc of the Likudnik lobby in the US is rightwing Christians with millennial belief systems, who regard the return of world Jewry to a refounded Nation of Israel as a precondition for End Times prophecy.

Israel and the US could learn a lot from one another.  But whether their policies are actually good for Americans or good for Jews -- and specifically whether AIPAC represents anything recognisable as "Jewish" welfare or interest -- is a whole 'nother matter.  RQbbi Warshal of Florida writes:

I agree with Walt and Mearsheimer that AIPAC controls our American government policy toward Israel. But in their paper the two political scientists point out that, "In its basic operations, the Israel Lobby is no different from the farm lobby, steel or textile workers' unions, or other ethnic lobbies. There is nothing improper about American Jews and their Christian allies attempting to sway US policy; the Lobby's activities are not a conspiracy of the sort depicted in tracts like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion."

Coming from South Florida, I am acutely aware that our government policy toward Cuba is dictated by the Cuban Lobby. Why else would we have such an absurd opposition to Castro? If we can make peace with Red China and the "evil empire" of the Soviet Union, why do we continue an embargo against an obscure Communist island, if it were not for domestic political pressure? So it is with the Jewish domestic lobby. My complaint is that the self-appointed Jewish leaders who control AIPAC and other positions of power within the Jewish community do not represent the best interests of Jews, Israel or the United States in the long run.

Let's zero in on AIPAC. It is controlled by right-wing, rich Jewish neo-conservatives. As one manifestation of the truth of this assertion one merely has to look at its annual meeting this past month. At a time when Vice President Cheney's popularity has dropped below 20 percent, the 4,500 delegates to the AIPAC convention gave him a standing ovation for almost a minute before he even opened his mouth and then proceeded to give him 48 rounds of applause in a 35-minute speech. (As my colleague Leonard Fein pointed out, that's once every 43.7 seconds). Considering that 75 percent of American Jews voted for Kerry, it is obvious that these people are out of the mainstream of Jewish thought.
t the same conference, preceding the recent Israeli elections, these delegates were addressed by Ehud Olmert (Kadima), Amir Peretz (Labor) and Benjamin Netanyahu (Likud) by video link from Israel. Olmert and Peretz received polite applause. The AIPAC delegates cheered enthusiastically for Netanyahu, especially when he presented his hard line that was overwhelmingly rejected by the Israeli electorate. Once a great organization, today AIPAC does not even represent the feelings of the average Israeli, let alone the average American Jew.

[...]

 Beware that you are reading treasonable material. If you "out" the Israeli lobby and you are Gentile, you're branded an anti-Semite; if you are Jewish, you're obviously a self-hating Jew. The Jewish establishment abides no criticism of Israel. You don't agree with me? Take this example: Last month a pro-Palestinian play entitled My Name is Rachel Corrie was to open at the New York Theatre Workshop, a "progressive" company on East Fourth Street. The play is based on the writings of a young British girl who was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer when she was protesting the demolition of Palestinian homes in Gaza two years ago. Although the play was widely praised in London last year, it never opened in New York. The theater producers spoke to the ADL and other Jewish leaders, including big-money Jews on its board, and that was the end of that. But, of course, we don't "censor" discussion concerning Israel. We just politely give our opinions and the voice of the other side disappears.

Another example: 400 rabbis, including myself, signed a letter sponsored by Brit Tzedek v'Shalom that appeared in the Forward this past month. It was a mildly liberal statement that proclaimed that "we are deeply troubled by the recent victory of Hamas," but went on to urge "indirect assistance to the Palestinian people via NGO's, with the appropriate conditions to ensure that it does not reach the hands of terrorists." Pretty mild stuff. Yet pulpit rabbis across this country who signed the letter have reported a concerted effort to silence them. The letter has been branded a "piece of back-stabbing abandonment of the Jews of Israel." Synagogue boards have been pressured to silence their rabbis by that loose coalition called the "Israel Lobby."

Just another example of the Jewish establishment stifling any discussion of Israel that does not conform to the neo-conservative tenets of AIPAC and its cohorts. Beware of these self-appointed guardians of Israel and Jewish values. In the end they will destroy everything that makes Judaism a compassionate religion, and if in their zeal they do not destroy Israel, they certainly will not make it more secure.

also worth a think, Marc Ellis on 'Constantinian Judaism' or the peril of religion hijacked into the service of (ethnic) nationalism.

my $0.02 as of today:  I think we have to understand AIPAC and the rest of the Israel Lobby as an integrated part of a rightwing, fundamentalist, and tribalist backlash worldwide.  Like the rest of the rightwing spin machine one of their primary tactics is to silence any opposition.  This omerta has been broken by Walt and Mearsheimer, who may well pay heavily for it professionally and in broken friendships and damaged collegial relationships.  But simply by opening up that locked box I think they have done everyone -- including Israelis -- a favour.

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...