I think this--from Judt's piece--needs a closer look: Official Soviet-bloc communism was anti-Zionist of course, but for just that reason Israel was rather well regarded by everyone else, including the non-communist left. When Zionism emerged in the 1890's, it offered itself as an alternative to Socialism, which in one form or another had the allegiance of most Jewish workers -- and most Jews then, in Europe and the US, were workers. This was at a time when official Socialism took a very hostile attitude toward nationalisms of all kinds -- it was Lenin, somewhat later, who drew a distinction between "nationalism of oppressed peoples" and "nationalism of oppressor nations," and proposed that revolutionary Socialists should support the former while pointing out that only a proletarian state would offer them self-determination, i.e. the choice to establish sovereign states or not. (The characteristic model was minority nationalities inside a multinational empire like Russia, Austria, etc., not colonized peoples in what we now call the Third World -- though Lenin was perfectly willing to extend the argument to include them.) Rosa Luxemburg, from the Left, opposed this view as a concession to retrograde ideology and a strategy that would subordinate newly sovereign peoples (as a Pole, she had Poland in mind) to "their own" capitalist classes; Connolly made the same case for Ireland, though he eventually allied himself with the Fenians. Socialism was so solidly entrenched among Jewish workers, meanwhile, that many Zionists tried (whether from conviction or not) to find a way to combine the two programs... whence Labor Zionism and its alliance, in the US, with Social-Democratic union leaderships in overwhelmingly Jewish sections of the working class, i.e. the garment workers. In short I think there's an arguable case that the US-Israel bond is a Cold War survival at several levels: not only the heavy arming of Israel as a reliable gendarme in the region, but also the murky soup of ex-Trotskyists, ex-Shachtmanites, ex-Social Democrats, and "Labor Zionists" (like the late Albert Shanker of the NYC Teachers) in and out of outfits like the AFL-CIO's old international committee (headed up for years by ex-Communist Jay Lovestone) and the Scoop Jackson hawkish wing of the Democratic Party which always operated in cozy company with AFL-CIO leadership. These forces, were united in their opposition to Communism beyond any differences on other question; they were, in fact, the "non-communist left" Judt refers to. And indeed they did function as the Left in US politics: generally pro-civil rights, pro-union, pro-social welfare etc.-- policies they also viewed through the prism of anti-Communism, as ways to outflank revolutionary agitation and contain unrest, while also maintaining support for the warfare state that kept everybody working and the treasury well-supplied with funds. (There's an aphorism sloshing around here somewhere, something about "You combine Theodor Herzl, V.I. Lenin and J. M. Keynes, and whaddaya get? Boeing Aircraft!" Needs work...) Another point I think needs closer examination is Finkelstein's claim that Israel isn't a liability to US "national" interests, since -- he argues -- these coincide on major points, even if they occasionally differ in emphasis. I'm inclined to agree with him (always keeping in mind that "US national interests" != the actual interests of most people living in the US.)
When Zionism emerged in the 1890's, it offered itself as an alternative to Socialism, which in one form or another had the allegiance of most Jewish workers -- and most Jews then, in Europe and the US, were workers.
This was at a time when official Socialism took a very hostile attitude toward nationalisms of all kinds -- it was Lenin, somewhat later, who drew a distinction between "nationalism of oppressed peoples" and "nationalism of oppressor nations," and proposed that revolutionary Socialists should support the former while pointing out that only a proletarian state would offer them self-determination, i.e. the choice to establish sovereign states or not. (The characteristic model was minority nationalities inside a multinational empire like Russia, Austria, etc., not colonized peoples in what we now call the Third World -- though Lenin was perfectly willing to extend the argument to include them.)
Rosa Luxemburg, from the Left, opposed this view as a concession to retrograde ideology and a strategy that would subordinate newly sovereign peoples (as a Pole, she had Poland in mind) to "their own" capitalist classes; Connolly made the same case for Ireland, though he eventually allied himself with the Fenians.
Socialism was so solidly entrenched among Jewish workers, meanwhile, that many Zionists tried (whether from conviction or not) to find a way to combine the two programs... whence Labor Zionism and its alliance, in the US, with Social-Democratic union leaderships in overwhelmingly Jewish sections of the working class, i.e. the garment workers.
In short I think there's an arguable case that the US-Israel bond is a Cold War survival at several levels: not only the heavy arming of Israel as a reliable gendarme in the region, but also the murky soup of ex-Trotskyists, ex-Shachtmanites, ex-Social Democrats, and "Labor Zionists" (like the late Albert Shanker of the NYC Teachers) in and out of outfits like the AFL-CIO's old international committee (headed up for years by ex-Communist Jay Lovestone) and the Scoop Jackson hawkish wing of the Democratic Party which always operated in cozy company with AFL-CIO leadership. These forces, were united in their opposition to Communism beyond any differences on other question; they were, in fact, the "non-communist left" Judt refers to. And indeed they did function as the Left in US politics: generally pro-civil rights, pro-union, pro-social welfare etc.-- policies they also viewed through the prism of anti-Communism, as ways to outflank revolutionary agitation and contain unrest, while also maintaining support for the warfare state that kept everybody working and the treasury well-supplied with funds. (There's an aphorism sloshing around here somewhere, something about "You combine Theodor Herzl, V.I. Lenin and J. M. Keynes, and whaddaya get? Boeing Aircraft!" Needs work...)
Another point I think needs closer examination is Finkelstein's claim that Israel isn't a liability to US "national" interests, since -- he argues -- these coincide on major points, even if they occasionally differ in emphasis. I'm inclined to agree with him (always keeping in mind that "US national interests" != the actual interests of most people living in the US.)
I think I tend to agree with the Cold War survival theory. The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
The largest Jewish community at that time was in the former lands of the Polish-Lithuanian Community - i.e. Galicia (part of Austria-Hungary) and the Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire. If you define 'worker' as someone working in a mid to large factory - i.e. classic proletariat, then yes, most Jewish workers were socialists, but most Jews were not workers under that definition. If you define worker as poor, manual labourer or bottom rung tradesman - peddlers etc. - then most Jews were indeed workers, but only a minority were socialists.
This was at a time when official Socialism took a very hostile attitude toward nationalisms of all kinds
Very misleading because the most popular variant of socialism among poor Jews in the ex Polish-Lithuanian lands at the turn of the century was Bundism, a rather peculiar form of socialist Jewish nationalism. After that you had strong allegiances both to the more or less anti-nationalist Russian SD's as well as Roza Luksemburg and Feliks Dzierzynski's strongly anti-nationalist SDKPiL, and the nationally oriented PPS and its Galician equivalent.
