Well, just because we were really stupid doesn’t mean it’s fine and dandy when someone else is really stupid. 
You think we give Israel aid just to be nice? Does your hobo beggar give the US a military and geopolitical advantage in the Middle East? Otherwise your analogy doesn’t make much sense.
Ok, then I’ll keep quiet about the Native Americans and Manifest Destiny.
Since you were questioning the analogy, I’m not sure if you really intended this point, but what military and geopolitical advantages does Israel provide the U.S. due to the U.S.'s aid package? If anything, being a strategic ally with Israel is a geopolitical disadvantage to the U.S. since there isn’t exactly a lot of love lost between Israel and any of its muslim neighbors and a lot of distrust towards the U.S. in the Middle East is due to its close support of Israel, right or wrong (along with the U.S.'s role in clandestinely supporting key dictators and overthrowing other governments in the past).
The U.S. has never fought side-by-side with the IDF in any conflict and does not have any bases on Israeli soil, so I’m not sure what military advantage the U.S. directly gains in its strategic alliance with Israel. The U.S. sells weapons to Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar, as well as Israel. And the U.S. has bases in Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar, and a lightly armed base on the Sinai in Egypt as part of the Multi-National Force and Observers (not to mention access to an airbase in Turkey). Alliances with all of these countries, besides Israel, provides the U.S. with a military advantage or at least a military benefit.
Israel is one of the few democracies in the Middle East and there are certainly shared values, but this alone doesn’t really provide a geopolitical or military advantage to the U.S.
Question from an ignorant American.
Is Israel running out of space to build in uncontested areas? I ask because I keep reading periodically about housing shortages and rising costs of living in Israel, so have they literally used all the land that is not contested they can use? Or is this more of a case of Israel saying eff it to a two state solution ever being feasible and going manifest destiny in a long term play to fill out all the conquered territory?
Firstly, what does “run out of space” mean? I live in a city that’s more than two orders of magnitude more densely populated than Israel. You just build houses closer together, or build high rises.
Secondly of course this wouldn’t justify annexing territory anyway.
Finally your second guess is correct 
Netanyahu is effectively declaring the end of the two-state idea and making it clear that there is going to be one state and one state only: Israel. This is hardly surprising.
I don’t criticize the US abandoning its being a lapdog and finally taking a stronger stance on Israeli aggression – it’s overdue. But Obama had 8 years to do this and never did, so to think that he’s some sort of real crusader on Israel is good for laughs. Frankly, it just makes him look like a pussy, as does his actions in ‘punishing’ Russia. Again, he had a lot of time to push back at Putin and did nothing besides talk. Or he could have exercised better diplomacy, but he failed at that too. I basically have a positive view of Obama overall but he won’t be regarded as an especially effective American foreign policy president.
Well he focused on this conflict first but then the Arab Spring happened which is a pretty hefty distraction. Otherwise he’s had some FP successes, such as Iran and Cuba.
I agree that foreign policy is his weak suit. But in fairness whatever he did a majority of people would disapprove as public opinion is spread all over the map.
Neither does it give the USA any political advantages in the region. It is 100 per cent a handicap. The only way to understand the US engagement is to understand it via the domestic USA politics from the domestic interest parties.
So you’re really clinging to the argument that because people were murderously retarded, other people deserve the right the be murderously retarded ?
It’s almost a weird fetish.
The Jewish-American lobby is so strong it’s able to bend the USA political class at will.
Jewish Americans have incredibly diverse opinions on this issue (and many other issues). Perhaps you mean the “Isreali lobby” or the “Likud lobby”? Or do you lean towards the ‘Jews everywhere work together to control world events’ hypothesis?
A columnist yesterday described Israel as, literally, America’s closest ally in the entire world.
That strikes me as being about as factually accurate as saying “The Earth revolves around Jupiter.” If you asked 100 honest, intelligent and reasonably balanced observers who America’s absolute closest ally was, I am guessing every single one of them would say either the United Kingdom or Canada. No other answer even makes sense and could only be explained by a personal affiliation or a political agenda. Israel obviously is not, and is of very limited practical usefulness to the USA.
I can believe AMERICA is Israel’s most important ally, but that’s not always a two way street.
This is not to say I don’t support Israel, because I do. Israel’s actions around settlements are not wise (though much more politically complex than people realize) but the country is admirably restrained given what it’s up against, and the plight of the Palestinian people is more the fault of Israel’s neighbors than it is Israel. The manner in which the Israelis have built a modern, successful, functioning, democratic nation out of next to nothing is inspiring. Still, Israel doesn’t give a shit about the USA. They are primarily concerned with their own self-preservation, which, again, is a highly understandable concern.
I’m not a top expert on this issue so feel free to correct me if I am wrong, but from my perspective it seems that what our aid to Israel accomplishes is to add about $3 billion to our national debt annually. I really don’t see any benefit. I see “defense of Israel from (nonexistent) WMDs” as part of the justification for the farcical Iraq war, so in fact Israel falls into the “colossal liability” column. In exchange for their leaders insulting my president and the world community by behaving like rude jerks.
And Israel seems squarely on the wrong side of global (or at least Western) political winds these days. Nobody likes interlopers from other countries horning in on one’s territory and changing the culture. You see it in Germany, you see it in France and the UK and all over Europe. It is perhaps the biggest factor in the election of America’s historic first-ever Orange president. So support for Israel’s settlement actions strike me as strangely contradictory at this particular point in history.
When the government turns a blind eye to crimes, they become government policy. True of lynchings in the US, true of settler violence in Israel.
The United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict reported on rioting and violence in the West Bank in the period preceding the Israeli military operations in Gaza. The report said "Little if any action is taken by the Israeli authorities to investigate, prosecute and punish violence against Palestinians, including killings, by settlers and members of the security forces, resulting in a situation of impunity. The Mission concludes that Israel has failed to fulfil its obligations to protect the Palestinians from violence by private individuals under both international human rights law and international humanitarian law.
…
Yesh Din has produced a report, “A Semblance of Law”, which found problems with law enforcement actions against Israelis in the West Bank. According to Yesh Din’s study, which was conducted in 2005, more than 90% of complaints against Israelis were closed without indictments mainly due to perpetrators not being found, 96% of trespassing cases (including sabotage of trees) against Israelis led to no indictment, 100% of vandalism and other property offences against Israelis led to no indictment and 5% of complaints against Israelis were lost and never investigated.
All of this is to say: there’s been wrongdoing on both sides, for a long time. This or that individual instance of wrongdoing can’t be allowed to block peace. The perfect is the enemy of the good.
It’s a starting point. Like I said earlier, after 40 years of waiting for a negotiated settlement, it’s not crazy to consider alternatives. Using the Green Line is one such alternative…and if that’s so egregious, perhaps it’d spur Israel to work on negotiations again.
Sure, that’s fair.
If the SDMB is a reasonable indication, it is hardly the American Jews who are the reason for a certain kind of reactionary policy, I see much more a strange fetishization by a certain type of the American right - among the non Jewish. Perhaps a guilt for a certain past and an over compensation for that…
Grin! I already alluded to the Mexican-American war, one of the greatest land-grabs in history.
Also a reactionary Christian apocalyptic religious worldview that requires an intact Israel with a Jewish temple built on the Mount in order for Armageddon to come. And there are plenty of them that are trying to make that come about. The Israelis are basically nothing but cannon fodder for the purpose of bringing about the second coming of their Savior to those people.
They largely are the reason that I resist Islamophobia as much as I do…there ARE Christians who are as bad as ISIS…they’re just more willing to let someone else do the dying for their religious hysteria.
I don’t buy that the decision to give aid to Israel is influenced solely by Jewish lobbying and money. Jews make up only 2% of US citizens and do not have that much influence.
The US and Israel both share an interest in preventing terrorism. They share counter-terrorism intelligence information, develop counter-terrorism weapons together, and both share a goal of preventing nuclear proliferation in the region. The US doesn’t have any other ally in the region who is heavily invested in all these goals.
Israel is also a stable democratic nation in a region of governments who either support or act as a safe haven for terrorism.
Supporting Israel means supporting the continued existence of a stable democratic nation that is a partner in America’s war on terror.
I was just joking in response to Trinopus. My point was that regardless of the wisdom of these settlements, it’s hypocritical for the US to publicly criticize Israel about them.
The right does have a fetish for Israel that is over the top, but I too am not anywhere NEAR as hostile to Israel as you are, or others on the left.
I think part of this is that even though I consider myself a liberal, and an atheist at that, I break from the far left in one key psychosis.
I don’t grade arabs/muslims on a curve and judge Israelis to some ultra high standard in comparison.
The arab neighbors to Israel are pretty effing awful, the plight of jews and christians and religious minorities is orders of magnitude worse, and much of the land Israel currently occupies was a direct consequence of wars of defense where they won and maintain control. Had the Israelis been more unscrupulous they could have just went full manifest destiny decades ago and cleansed the entire area of arabs and muslims. There was plenty of migration and forced exodus on both sides due to the hostilities, but nowhere near the levels you’d have seen if the arabs were in the position of power. I completely believe the jews would have been slaughtered or hunted to the edge of the abyss, just like every other muslim dominated nation in the region.
I suspect you reject all of this Ramira, you seem to have deep sympathies with the ISlamic world, and are the type that likes to grade on a curve for everyone other than Israel, but I see their neighbors are pretty rotten, even if I ALSO think the Israeli right is increasingly toxic as well.