Israel is an important proxy for that region. We need them for this, besides the cultural / religious background.
It depends on how America is defined. If it's the common people, workers, taxpayers avg folks then my vote is NO If it's the Military industrial complex, oil companies, war industry then my vote is YES. taxpayers pay for it, (in $$$ and blood) Lest not forget, the business of America is Business. War is excellent business.. Where else you'd charge 1500$ for bulletproofed and have the taxpayer payfor it. While the same exact vest can be had on the streets of Baghdad for $90? OR Halliburton charging 2.69/gallon gasoline to US army there, while purchasing the gas from Kuwait for as low as 15 cents a gallon???but I digress.. Few FACTOIDS for consideration: Israel gets one sixth of the total US foreign aid package. A Conservative Total for U.S. Aid to Israel: $91 Billionâand Counting The common figure given for U.S. aid to Israel is $3 billion per yearâ$1.2 billion in economic aid and $1.8 billion in military aid. As impressive as this figure is, however, since it represents about one-sixth of total U.S. foreign aid, the true figure is even more remarkable. It is difficult, however, to..... http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/010201/0101015.html Has anyone here cared to look into the 87billion "Iraq war" additional request that GW asked and got? Check out how much of that went to Israel...do your own search I've made a number of posts about Israel. As Aphie and others mentioned above, and as I also many times stated (see Nitro's thread) Israel is just a surrogate state of ours to control the affairs of middle, Their location is critical as a proximity to the vast oil reserves down there. Plus it keeps the war machine active to boot. They are just pawns for the most part and serve their purpose both sides down there. As i said before I have mixed feeling about our "friendship" with Israel. """""""""Israel being there? I got mixed fillings about it on it's location settlements, border disputes, UN resolution violations etc.... long list. If we "like" Israelis so much, settle them here in Lower Manhattan Or better yet somewhere in our vacant expanses within the states. The can work here and contribute to our society instead of my tax dollars going to support them down there. But I digress""""""" http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showt...84263&highlight=Israel+AND+society#post384263 Copernicus, good thread.
Settling the Israelis in lower Manhattan? You mean let them settle in the "Holy Land," a.k.a. Wall street? Would we then call it the "Wailing Wall Street" zone? Oy Veh!
israel is a democracy, but in this case because they are located in that hot spot and hated throughout that world, they are of no use. The truth is that the US started backing strongly Israel after the Russians went into Eqypt. We couldnt allow communism to spread over there so we rushed with help to israel. Now because of all these tensions there and israeli - arab situation, its hard to pullback the support because it could be seen as giving in to terrorist demands. bottom line is that the USA doesnt' benefit in anyway from its support of Israel. Period
Sure we do - we get the privilege of pissing away billions of taxpayer dollars every year that goes in large part to artificially boosting Israel's economy and industrial complex. The problem with politicians (many of whom receive huge contributions from jewish lobbies in the US) is that they think (or have been told to think) that not backing everything Israel does is "pulling support". The US would have a better chance of at least looking like a reputable player in the hot zone if we maintained a consistent and balanced position of trying to insure what's best for all concerned - not just whatever Israel wants to do. Hard to make the argument to arab factions that we're trying to help work for peace in the region when we exclusively support Israel on every issue, no matter how unreasonable. It's definitely appropriate to help insure Israel's security, but anyone arguing that everything Israel does is justified or right is simply out of their mind. It's definitely a tough nut - but it's also hard to just accept that every Israeli action is justified when they've maintained military lockdown (and introduced and expanded settlements) for over 40 years on territory and inhabitants that isn't within their official borders. As a start, when appropriate, the US should join with others in the UN to call Israel to the mat when they step out of line - instead of letting them always hide behind our veto.