AMERICAN COGNITIVE DISSONANCE.
In 1937, then Australian UAP Attorney-General, Bob Menzies, signed a contract to supply 300,000 tons of scrap pig iron to Japan, which saw the Waterside Workers’ Federation refuse to load the ships docked at Port Kembla bound for Japan. It was part of the policy of appeasement. In 1952, Bob Menzies, then back for his second go as Prime Minister (he was elected PM by the UAP after the death of Joseph Lyons, in April 1939 and resigned in August 1941, having faced the electorate the year before and was returned with a Hung Parliament. The UAP broke up in 1944 and Bob Menzies formed the Liberal Party of which he was leader until January 1966) said, “Keep them down.” And in 1957, after Britain was no longer interested in trading with Australia, following the Suez Crisis, he decided to look towards Japan as a market for Australian goods.
Fast-forward to now, and we see that 38% of Americans approve of Biden’s handling of the Gaza Conflict and 57% approving of trump! Never mind the fact that trump is not a savoury character and he attempted to overthrow a democratic election result, this was the stupid bastard who made the provocative move to say that the US Embassy in Israel would be relocating to Jerusalem! Trump is hardly an internationalist; he is a right-wing authoritarian populist. And his actions were not carefully considered, rather they were clearly partisan in the Middle East!
Public opinion is turning against Israel, that much is true, not just in the USA but in Australia, too, and yes, I agree that that must NOT cause anti-Semitism to rise. It is the Israeli Government and the Israeli Defence Forces that are conducting the horrendous retribution against Palestinian civilians, not the Israeli people, and people whose only connection to Israel may be tenuous on account of their religion should NOT bear the brunt of public sentiment. But the US needs to start taking the right side of history.
The problem with the US is that many people cannot see that fascism does not have to replicate exactly what occurred in Nazi Germany before it becomes fascist. Trump’s stance on immigration from Muslim countries and his more recent statement that was on par with Hitler’s statements should send shivers down the spines of all Americans, including Jewish ones!
I remember an American telling me that as an outsider, I learnt more about America than they do at school. That is a great tragedy and demonstrates how those who fail to learn from history, and not just a sanitised version of it, are doomed to repeat it.