Israel’s war on Gaza is inseparably connected to maintaining US dominance in the Middle East. The pro-Israeli lobby does not define the US’s strategic interest in the Middle East but can energize and at times inflect it through mobilizing domestic political pressure. In the US’s “iron clad” support for Israel there ultimately lies the calculation that the Middle East is a vital region for the Western dominated global order both as an important trade route and as a source for oil supplies. From the Shah’s overthrow, in 1979, to the West’s disastrous interventions in Iraq and Libya, Israel’s importance as the local agent of US power in the region has been enhanced. Israel’s initial role for the US empire had been to help undermine Arab nationalist movements that threatened to break from the imperial grip. When Arab resistance to Western economic and military power switched to expressing itself mainly through Islamic movements, Israel recast itself as the champion of “Western civilization” against the “Islamic threat.”
