Timothy Smiddy, an economist from Cork who advised the Sinn Féin delegation that negotiated the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921, found himself at the centre of a new chapter in Irish diplomatic history 100 years ago this autumn when he was appointed “Ireland’s envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary” to the United States.
He was the first diplomatic agent appointed by the new Irish Free State and his elevation was a statement about a desire for diplomatic independence and direct access to the upper levels of American government, rather than reliance on the British embassy in Washington.
Despite its status as a dominion of the British Empire, the Irish government succeeded in persuading both the British and American authorities of the merits of the new State having separate representation in the US, meaning Ireland was the first dominion to appoint a diplomatic representative independently of Britain.
Much has been made of the narrative of an independent Irish foreign policy and how this 1924 beginning was built upon to the point that almost a century later, in 2020, The Economist asserted Ireland was a “tiny diplomatic superpower”, noting that for the St Patrick’s Day festivities that year Ireland secured in America “an audience with the president, a breakfast with the vice-president and a lunch with practically every senior member of Congress . . . on a per-head basis, Ireland has a good claim to be the world’s most diplomatically powerful country”.
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Or perhaps not.
Israel, with a population of less than ten million, surely merits that label more, and with devastating consequences. American historian Walter Hixson, a vociferous critic of the US/Israel partnership, points out that the pro Israel lobbyists in the US are “widely viewed as the most powerful diasporic lobby seeking to shape US foreign policy . . . no other country’s partisans in the history of US foreign policy – including the venerable China lobby, Irish Americans, or the influential Miami-based Cuban-Americans – have had a commensurate impact on American diplomacy”.
Israel’s relationship with the US has deep roots. Israeli historian David Tal begins his 2021 book The Making of an Alliance, by citing Abiel Abbot, pastor of the First Church in Haverhill, Massachusetts during a Thanksgiving sermon in 1799: “It has been often remarked that the people of the United States come nearer to a parallel with Ancient Israel than any other national upon the globe. Hence, OUR AMERICAN ISRAEL is a term frequently used; and common consent allows it apt and proper.”
The endurance of such sentiments has been remarkable. What followed the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 in relation to financial and military assistance ensured Israel’s status as the largest cumulative recipient of US aid since the second World War.
It would be ahistorical to suggest that this arrangement has been without tensions. Historians have done much to underline the strains that have impacted the relationship, but what has prevailed above all is the ability to sideline these pressures.
The pattern over the decades has been consistent. Israel might listen to the voicing of some US irritation at the consequences of Israel’s actions. Then Israel would do as it wished.
Isaiah Leo Kenen, who became a pivotal figure in the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), dating from 1959, and drafted statements and speeches on Israel for senior US politicians, titled his memoir Israel’s Defense Line. One of Kenen’s mentors, Louis Lipsky, described the lobbying and its associated propaganda as “the armour Israel cannot get along without”.
The pattern over the decades has been consistent. Israel might listen to the voicing of some US irritation at the consequences of Israel’s actions. Then Israel would do as it wished. Former defence secretary (2006-11) and CIA director (1991-3) Robert Gates recalled that every president he served at some point got “so pissed off at the Israelis that he couldn’t speak”.
But the money kept coming, and it is that which speaks so loudly and which fires so violently, regardless of the civilian toll.
Israel has received over $130 billion from the US since the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.
Earlier this year, the US Congress voted for $14.3 billion in “emergency supplemental security assistance for Israel”. The AIPAC applauded this contribution to the war in Gaza as “the largest US security aid package in Israel’s history,” the same Gaza where, according to Israeli defence minister Avigdor Lieberman in 2018, “There are no innocent people”.
Are there are none in Lebanon either? Is that why children are being slaughtered there too? Murderous Islamic extremism provides no justification for this.
Taoiseach Simon Harris will meet US president Joe Biden in Washington next month to mark the centenary of formal US-Irish diplomatic relations. Much will be made of the sanctity of the US-Irish bond.
But perhaps, instead of the usual juvenile gushing about hitting the jackpot of White House access, Harris could demonstrate that the century-old idea of an independent foreign policy is not entirely bogus by denouncing the continued US financing of Israel’s devastating breaches of international law.