This is the John Fuegelsang Podcast.

You know, it's easy to forget that it's been only a couple of weeks since Donald Trump told a conservative Jewish group that

Evangelical Christians are loyal to Israel and the Jews, but he accused American Jews of insufficient support of the Jewish state.

He said, rather abruptly to the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas,

that the evangelicals are really on our side, but US Jews better get their act together and appreciate

what he's done before it's too late drawing on the infamous dual loyalty anti-Semitic

canard I mean the historic importance of Israel in American politics has always been astonishing by any

calculation whether that's you know measured through the foreign aid we send over the military support

the attention paid to their political discourse and debate, or the vetoes America

has given in the UN.

Our next guest has said America's generosity to Israel is literally unparalleled, not only US history but in the history of any nation

and there have been many books written about Israel but our next guest has written the first

and only one that focuses on the debate Israel has inspired within the United States.

Eric Alterman is a cuney distinguished professor of English and journalism.

He was the liberal media columnist for the nation for 25 years now writes for the

American prospect he's the author of 12 books and has been a columnist for the

guardian and Rolling Stone you may have also read him in the New Yorker and the

Atlantic he is a former senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, winner of the George

Orwell Prize, and his new book, We Are Not One. A History of America's Fight over Israel traces the debate in the

U.S. about the fate of Israel itself, particularly

following the Six Day War in 1967. It covers how support for Israel

became the primary component of some American Jews' collective identity,

...