There Were A Handful Of Times When External Powers Tried To Steer America, But There Is No Comparing The Decades-Long Grip Of The Likud Party On Washington.

In his farewell address to the nation, George Washington included a special pleading:

“Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government.”

It is said that Israel’s influence over American military and foreign affairs is unique — that no small state in modern times has exerted such control over the affairs of a great power. This is a troubling claim. But is it true?

For sure, foreign powers historically have attempted to influence American politics, to steer, or even control our actions in the world. But their interventions never came close to matching Israel’s sustained sway over Washington’s power centers. This intricate grip has now lasted generations and has prevented the American regime, time and again, from acting in its own security interests in domestic as well as foreign affairs.

A comparative analysis would be useful in order to fully grasp the gravity of the situation. Let’s look at four instances in which foreign powers tried to intervene in American politics. How aggressive were they? How much did they threaten American security? Was American sovereignty ultimately damaged?

Only then can we fully take the measure of Israeli influence operations today.

FRANCE TRIES TO MANIPULATE ITS WEAKER CLIENT

Bourbon France was a decisive factor in securing American independence in 1783. Ten years later, France was torn by revolution and invaded by European great power monarchies. In desperation, France tried to suborn its former client, the United States. “Citizen” Edmond-Charles Genêt was sent to petition President Washington for help; instead, he lured Americans into a privateer scheme to raid British and Spanish shipping.

Washington had just declared neutrality in France’s European war. This was a naked bid to drag America into war. Washington quickly quashed Genet; yet the new United States continued to benefit from its fraternal relationship with France. There was the Louisiana Purchase, and then, in 1812, Madison took the American regime to war with Britain in the belief that Napoleon was about to defeat America’s old nemesis. Hence, American strategy remained under the long, yet mutually beneficial, shadow of its old French patron — and then, after just a generation or so, it was gone.

BRITAIN, FRANCE USE CONFEDERATE STATES FOR THEIR OWN ENDS

In the American Civil War, Britain made war on America through its proxy Alt-America, the Confederate States of America. The million rifles it delivered to the Confederates kept the Rebel cause going. Plus, Royal Navy ironclads — massed for several years in Bermuda — deeply degraded the Union blockade. Britain’s strategic goal was a bit like American aims against Russia in the Ukrainian war: to cut off at the knees a threatening great power competitor. This was a double manipulation: arming the South, while also forcing the North to accept their proxy subversion — given that armed resistance would push the federal state into a world war with Britain and France. France tagged along only as Britain’s sidekick, taking advantage of the Civil War to invade Mexico. Yet in the event, England’s opportunity evaporated quickly: By 1864, a losing Southern cause forced Britain and France to “cut bait.”

A DESPERATE BRITAIN MANIPULATES THE NEW WORLD POWER

After the outbreak of world war in 1914, the Allies found themselves totally dependent on America’s production of war materials. Their war effort depended on the multiple millions of American-made artillery shells, rifles, and explosives that issued forth from the might of American industry.

Britain’s ruling class desperately sought to bring America directly into the war. To that end, they brought to bear every dark art in His Majesty’s Grey Zone arsenal: over-the-top propaganda, sensational intel leaks, and, just possibly, a very grim false flag operation. A triumphant British intel op — the Zimmerman Telegram — helped tip the scales. The American regime was led by the hand, and not so gently, into World War I.

Britain’s — and Winston Churchill’s — efforts to corral America into a second world war were even more strenuously devious than those before 1917. Yet, with the full and enthusiastic support of FDR, they can hardly be called manipulation.

A BELEAGUERED USSR MANIPULATES THE WORLD POWER

Stalin’s Soviet Union — industrially backward and internationally isolated — found a sympathetic helpmate in the “progressive” Roosevelt administration after 1933. However, when Soviet archives were briefly cracked open after 1991 we could see how deeply the American government was interpenetrated by hundreds of Red-American agents at that time, many at the highest levels of influence and counsel. Moreover, the American regime gave away the store: 1) It basically forgave the entire Russian war debt (accrued during WWI), which was 150% of American GDP (subsident as it was in the midst of Depression); 2) it gave the USSR access to American aviation technology, the world’s best; and; 3) it encouraged America’s preeminent corporations to create and run a new world of Soviet manufacturing, making Stalin’s dreams of world-class industrialization come true. Not to mention that the Soviets also managed to steal both the A-Bomb and its delivery system, the B-29. Overall, a masterclass in strategic manipulation!

In sum, these all share broad characteristics:

Earlier campaigns were substantively non-ideological, “realist” and opportunistic in nature. Genet covered his schemes in a sheen of revolutionary fraternité, just as Stalin pushed democratic brotherhood in the fight against fascism. Yet dreams of eventual world revolution still had American aid as their single-minded goal. The French Republic, Soviet Union, and British Empire (after 1914) desperately needed the American regime on their side for resources and money. In sharp contrast, Britain and France in the Civil War were simply flint-eyed opportunists. To bring America to its knees, in the steely slang of great power politics, was in Britain’s strategic interest.

These earlier influence operations were focused on the immediate situation. Leverage over American politics was not meant to be permanent. Rather, political influence was designed to achieve short-term relief in the midst of crisis: For a beleaguered French republic, and even more so for an isolated, bankrupt, and industrially backward Soviet Union. Getting the American regime in the war (after 1914) was Britain’s existential requirement.

In these cases, moreover, all influence was temporary. In fact, after 1865, 1918, and 1945, aggressive attempts to leverage America led to political backlash and blowback; i.e., the Alabama Claims, the renunciation of the League of Nations, and both the Red Scare and Cold War.

Were they cunning, manipulative, damaging on a number of levels? Yes. Yet all these cases of aggressive foreign influence pale in comparison to Israel’s strategic control operations over the last 80 years.

The Israeli operation is driven by ideology, and shares nothing with the boilerplate mantras of Genet or Stalin. The Israeli “operation” in Gaza is infused with messianic goals and objectives that span decades. Moreover, its softest targets in American politics (Evangelical conservatives) are themselves defined by messianic goals and an apocalyptic vision. The prize is Greater Israel, and nothing less can be accepted. It is what drives the most zealous among the Israeli right — and the Likud as a whole — and which has come as well to animate its Republican supporters, some of the most powerful people in Washington today, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, Ambassador Mike Huckabee, even Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.

HOW DID WE GET TO THIS PLACE?

Three powerful messianic American constituencies have taken the place of the old Washington realpolitik era, which ended in the first Bush administration. First, there was the rise of messianic (secular) neoconservatism, represented by the likes of Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz. They saw Israel as a powerful American interest in the larger fulfillment of America’s world mission. Then there was the emergence of a “Christian Zionist” bloc, which occupies a place of central salience in the Trump administration. Finally, the highly organized and well-funded Israel lobby has never had a more dominant hold on the executive and legislative branches of the United States government.

Together, they have become the mighty engine driving support for the “Greater Israel” vision and Israel’s government, which has been dominated by the right-wing Likud Party for nearly 50 years.

Thus, unlike earlier foreign influence operations in the American experience, there is no short-term situation. Israel is committed to its long march, and grimly determined to pull America along with it. Its forever war with Islam and what it calls “terrorism” point to a protracted, neo-Punic struggle. Indeed, Israel is steeled for centuries of war. This contains within itself far-reaching and dangerous implications.

Yet all foreign influence operations — highlighted by historical cases — are ultimately dependent on the submissive good will of those “under the influence.” Americans had real sympathy for revolutionary France. Confederate leaders truly believed that the British ruling class, or at least King Cotton, was their friend. Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt were rooting for the Allies, not the Central Powers. FDR’s regime was full of “fellow travellers” eager to make common cause with Reds against Fascists.

In contrast, Israel’s obliteration of Gaza — a war of “conquest, expulsion, and settlement” — is increasingly decried by Americans, including a majority of American Jews. Yet the response of Israeli and American “Greater Israel” boosters is to create legal avenues to suppress constitutionally protected speech, particularly criticism of the Israeli government, as antisemitic. Such a strategy now demands law enforcement oversight of American freedoms: in other words, the subjugation of American identity itself.

Hence, this influence campaign by a foreign power is unprecedented in its scope and success, and threatens the very sovereignty of the nation more than at any time in America’s history.