Explanations for the United States’ bloody-minded support of Israel’s wars in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Iran tend to fall into three categories.

There are geopolitical explanations: Israel is a bulwark against America’s foes; economic explanations: US public wealth is recycled through aid to Israel back into the coffers of American arms manufacturers and politicians; and conspiratorial explanations: Israel uses kompromat to hold its putative allies hostage.

What unifies these views is that they all place responsibility on elites, whether they are in America or abroad. For all their strengths, they overlook the more straightforward possibility that there might be something homegrown about American Zionism.