The Zionist Organization of America wasted no time, hobnobbing with notorious racists, also known for their anti-Jewish agendas. ZOA’s annual gala on November 20 hosted none other than Steve Bannon, a leader in the so-called alt-right, otherwise known as white supremacy in the United States.

Under his leadership, Breitbart, seen as a major platform for the alt-right, fuelled anti-Semitism (needless to say, racisms of all shades) argued Alex Amend and Jonathan Morgan in AlterNet.

Watching top Israeli officials and leaders of the Jewish community in the US hosting – ever so enthusiastically – Bannon at ZOA’s annual gala appeared perplexing to some. Others casually explained it as the nature of politics, as Israel needs its US alliance even if it meant accommodating anti-Semites.

But it is hardly that simple.

Bannon’s ties with Zionists go back well before the rather surprising Trump election victory. In fact, Israel has never had a problem with true anti-Semites. Instead, it merely rebranded any criticism of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land as anti-Semitism.

By conflating the term, the Zionists managed to largely silence all debate on Israel in the US, and despite stubborn attempts to break Israel’s stronghold on Zionist control over the Palestine and Middle East narrative in US media, government and society as a whole, Israel continues to maintain the upper hand, as it has for decades.

Speaking in the White House’s East Room on February 15, in a joint press conference with President Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cordially thanked Trump for his hospitality, then uttered these words: “Israel has no better ally than the United States. And I want to assure you, the United States has no better ally than Israel.”

But it was only half true. The US has indeed been a stalwart supporter of Israel, offering it over $3.1bn in financial assistance each year for the last a few decades, an amount that dramatically increased under President Barack Obama to $3.8 bn. In addition to hundreds of millions more in all kinds of financial, military assistance and “loans” that went mostly unaccounted for.

However, Netanyahu lied. His country has not been an equally strong ally to the US; in fact, Israel has been a liability. Let alone the various serious episodes of Israeli spying on Washington and bartering US secrets and technologies with Russia and China, Israel has been the cause of instability in the Middle East region.

– Read article in full at Al Jazeera: The uneven alliance: How America became pro-Israel.