I would submit that the Jewishness of the Rothschilds is essentially unimportant, a red herring to keep everyone off the trail

I will have to disagree with you here. I believe the Rothschilds used their Jewishness and their connections with other Jews to control and influence the governments all over Europe. Let me give you an example: The purchase of Suez Canal shares by the British Government, this happened around 1875. The Suez Canal Company (Compagnie Universelle du Canal Maritime de Suez) came into being on 15 December 1858, a French project, and over the next 11 years the canal was built. Officially it opened in 1869 and by 1875 the Egyptian government was in severe financial difficulty, and sold all its shares of the canal company to Britain. Well, the Jews in Britain. The London banking house of N M Rothschild & Sons advanced the Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, acting for the British Government, the vast sum of £4million (several billions in today's money) to purchase the Suez Canal shares. Disraeli was a close personal friend of Lionel de Rothschild, and this was transacted on a gentleman’s agreement, with no documentation, a technically unsecured loan for a sum of several £billion today.

Imagine that, a non-Jew trying to negotiate an unsecured loan for a sum of several £billion. Anyway, the funds were repaid within five months, despite Disraeli being accused of undermining Britain's constitutional system, due to his lack of reference or consent from the British Parliament when purchasing the shares with funding from the Rothschilds. So, you can see multi-billion unsecured loans between Jewish friends were common then, as they are common today.