It is important, therefore, to understand what role Israel plays for the West, particularly for the US. Recall that Zionism itself was born in the West, and the founder of political Zionism, Theodore Herzl, was openly on the side of the European imperialists against the ‘backward’ non-European peoples. Here are his words from his 1896 treatise on The Jewish State:

“There [in Palestine] we shall be a sector of the wall of Europe against Asia, we shall serve as the outpost of civilization against barbarism.”