“AmericaIsrael:” On the Boundaries of Political and Religious Dissent

Discussions of the religious and affective elements of U.S. support for Israel often invoke dispensationalist theology, Christian and Jewish Zionisms, and Jewish American support for a Jewish state. All are important. Yet U.S. support for Israel is also more complex and conflicted. This paper takes the U.S. border as a heuristic to explore the boundaries of political and religious dissent involving U.S. support for Israel. I examine the curious affective politics of this support and its implications for the public policing of dissent. To develop this argument, I introduce the construct of “AmericaIsrael, " in which Israel and America act in concert as interwoven expressions of redemption. The border between the two states is both posited and suspended. For many Americans, Israel—both the State of Israel and the idea of U.S. support for Israel—represents a unique capacity for boundless collective self-realization. AmericaIsrael is a central figure in the US spiritual-political imagination.