What does the U.S. get out of its alliance with Israel?

Great Debates
201

Are you denying that the Arab-Israeli conflict isn’t rooted in a bit of anti-Semitism? At least there’s some validity to that claim. Look at Palestinian (or any Arab) official history books. At least Israel has a lively and debating field of academia.

No doubt Israel’s foreign policies can/do inflate such angers, but I’m constantly taken aback by the Arab world’s rejection of any compromise. Unless Israel does everything the Arab League wants it to (and then some), it’s the bully/aggressor/colonizer/in the wrong/etc.

The corruption of Arab governments (Palestinians included) would be with or without Israel. The point has been made many times here that if the Arab world were that concerned about Palestinians, they’d treat them better.

Finally, the conflict between Israel and the PA is part of a greater conflict with the Muslim Arab world. Israel won back territory in '67 from Jordan. Not “Palestine”. The idea that Israel must compensate Palestinians by ceding half its capital and allowing millions to ‘return’ (including those with citizenship in other countries that were born elsewhere- all the way to my best mate here in Denver) because it won a war in a fight against other sovereign nations and settled with those nations sounds a little off.

That was not a defense of the story (that comes from a questionable and lopsided source) that was posted.

I was pointing out that Big Government is as Israeli as falafel and hummus. Getting married, getting a driver’s license, getting a visa, buying a house, registering your kid for kindergarten…mountains of paperwork and headaches.

I was rejecting the claim that Israel has created this big bureaucracy of rules and paperwork specifically to hurt its non-Jewish citizens. It exists everywhere in Israeli life. The PA has its own bureaucratic issues as well.

Your comment about a PA license plate made me laugh. Last I checked, I couldn’t get a California license plate if I wasn’t a resident of the state.

I also can’t visit certain areas of the Jerusalem because I’m Jewish. This idea that Israel’s obsession with ethnicity and religion is limited only to Israeli Jews is 100 per cent wrong. It’s part of the greater regional culture/s. I do know, however, that Israel is very pluralistic. There are people from every political walk of life that represent Israelis in the Knesset (including conservative and leftist Arabs).

I’m trying to think of a left-wing Palestinian political leader and I’m drawing a blank.

Widely considered a defeat by whom? Certainly they lost the PR war, but a huge reason why Israel pulled out is because of anger over the deaths of Lebanese citizens. Not because they were getting hammered. The war also created such a mess that Hizbollah has been relatively quiet on the front for the last five years.

Egypt also claims it won the last round with Israel. Must be a contagious feeling.

202

Yet again, readers must wonder about the overall quality of your argument if it is incapable of even the most basic factual accuracy, and uses distortion and misrepresentation as its coin in trade.
Let’s review, your original fiction was that the articles “primarily show Israel’s opinion that the IHH is a terrorist organization.”

-The first cite does not state that, at all, but states that he US government has determined that the UoG is a terrorist organization. Your description of it is, likewise, distortion. Naturally, as is the pattern of your argument, you somehow neglected to mention that while mentioning and not endorsing the think tank’s findings, they also discuss how “It cited a French intelligence report claim that IHH President Bulent Yildirim had recruited Muslims for jihad in Bosnia, Chechnya, and Afghanistan in the 1990s”. (before you begin handwaving, he’s still in an IHH leadership position. I know, I know “but what terrorism have you done for me lately???” you will respond) But I guess that’s a bit like how supporting terrorism in France is merely running passports and such. Your further handwaving is, likewise, distortion. Quite opposed to being “a necessary step in aiding Gaza” the UoG was founded by Hamas in order to support the second Intifada.

It also illustrates that your argument is structured to work backwards from a conclusion while trying to find facts to support it. It’s not even worth it to point out that your argument is actually reduced to claiming that a terrorist financing network is the same as “guilt by association”.

-The second cite does not state that, at all, but states that Israel has banned the IHH due to is connections with its parent group the UoG, a terrorist financing organization as certified by the US government.

-The third cite does not state that, at all, but states the results of an investigation headed by the EU’s top investigator into international terrorist financing, a man with roughly two decades of experience in anti-terrorism and the current French representative for the EU TFTP Project. You called him “out of the loop” by the way. The results of the investigation are, of course, that the IHH is a terrorist organization with global reach and that there has been no evidence presented since those findings to gainsay them or show that they have changed. Your response to that, predictably, was to try to handwave it away and claim that supporting terrorist attacks in France and international terrorism was essentially merely participating in various ‘wars’ in places we didn’t really care about and simply running forged passports. Glaringly obviously, you are actually trying to claim that a French magistrate’s professional findings about terrorism are “Israel’s opinion”… because he spoke in Israel , or “aided Israeli claims” or, well, whatever the handwaving is supposed to be. The sophistry is palpable.

-The fifth is not about “Israel’s opinion that the IHH is a terrorist organization.” but about the fact that since the IHH was being supported by Hezbollah, and sailing from an enemy nation largely controlled by Hezbollah, and intending to run a blockade, Israel was adding it to the terror watch list.

As usual, readers must wonder at the source of your many errors of context, fact, and omission. Likewise, they can figure out for themselves whether or not there is a point behind exposing arguments such as yours to disinfecting sunlight.

203

Last things first: You post such pretty things I sometimes think I am posting just to see how you weave rainbows into flower showers.

You write so pretty I just can’t take it sometimes!

Here is the French official, in his own words, saying he is out of the loop:

This reflects the quality of interpretation in most of your links. Please stop this inane attempt to cast the IHH as a terrorist organization. They certainly were engaging in terrorist activities in the 90’s. Yildirim is no sweet innocent, but those 90s activities were all prosecuted. So what have they done lately other than watch 9 of their unarmed members killed by IDF and cause Israel to re-evaluate their punitive blockade? Is it the terrorist feeding and sheltering of people in disaster areas throughout the planet?

204

Israel is a rather strange country. It doesn’t seem to produce anything of value for sale. There don’t seem to be any mineral or strategic resources there. Tourism looks to be one of the biggest industries there. It’s widely believed that they are big in the banking industry, and you could guess that they’re sharp investors. They also are very good at diamond-cutting. I would think it would be hard to support the military and security forces with income from those sources. So we must be paying for it!?

They’re also not a Christian nation, even though Jesus was born there. So, then, who in America is pressing for the billions in support we give them? Just curious.

I like the comment about Israel being the US’ largest aircraft carrier! Good one…

205

Uh, medicine? Food? Software?

The SodaStream?

206

Go figure.

Yet again, those reading along should take note of the distortion. Here, Inbred is using “in his own words” to mean “something that he neither said nor implied.” Inbred is pretending that since Jean-Louis Bruguière hasn’t conducted a new investigation, that he’s out of the loop. Readers are, as usual, free to determine whether or not the current French representative for the EU TFTP Project is, in fact, “out of the loop”, let alone that he claimed that he is out of the loop, when it comes to the business of the TFTP.

Readers should take note of Inbred’s other curious errors, like claiming that Bruguière’s professional verdict about terrorism is, in fact, Israel’s opinion.
They might, perhaps, also wonder why all of those errors drift in one direction.

207

Someone just sent this to me. PA official: IDF protects settlers who attack Palestinians. More Palestinian propaganda designed to make Israel look bad again.

Of course now when an Israeli says that terrorists are being funded by the PA or that the PA supports terrorism or whatever, they’re just an Islamo-phobic right-wing Zionist asshole. And no one is ever allowed to accuse an Arab country of orchestrating violence against Israel in hopes it retaliates heavily (even when they actually do).

But accuse Israel of IDF-sponsored crime and state terrorism? Perfectly reasonable! :rolleyes:

This sort of thing just makes the PA look more dishonest.

208

LOL.

US aid to Israel: <$3B/year.
Israel’s GDP: ~210B
Israel’s Government Budget: ~69B

Do the math.

209

From here:

That only covers physical imports, and not Israeli companies who manufacture abroad (like SanDisk, the flash drive company) or software: Israel is a software powerhouse, with much of the code used in the computer you’re looking at right now written in Israel. In addition, lots of foreign companies have development centers in Israel; for instance, a friend of mine leads a medical imaging software development team for Phillips - his facility designs all of their CAT scans and MRIs..

210

I think the US-Israel alliance would be more beneficial for both sides if they criticized each other more often. Seriously.

Certainly the US->Israel treatment, the feeling often seems to be that the US must support everything that the Israeli government does, because they are our ally. Alliances shouldn’t work like that.

There have been a number of reports that say the US has frozen aid to Palestine because of the statehood bid. I’m not sure what to make of it, because other reports say the decision goes back further, and was not related.
Certainly if it was done as a bargaining tool or to punish Palestine then congress should be absolutely ashamed.
Regardless of what you think the motivations for the bid are, it just doesn’t warrant this. A request for a vote on whether the UN should consider a place a state is not an act of aggression.

Similarly america should speak out more often and more clearly about settlement-building.

211

What if Syria devolves into civil war and chaos? Is it conceivable that Israel might have to provide relief to Syria, especially if the Assad regime goes down in a bloody civil war?
Of course, muslim countries usually reject asistance from Israel-bt maybe now?

212

To add something specific to the other general responses:

Teva Pharmaceuticals, the world’s largest manufacturer of generic drugs, is based in Israel.

213

I believe the original question was “What does the U.S. get out of its alliance with Israel?”

Looks like “arguments” is the answer :wink:

214

The right of return is more an individual than an international issue. People have been deprived of property for essentially fleeing a war zone.

215

I don’t think any side (or any part of any side) in a civil war in Syria could accept Israeli aid without weakening its position is said civil war.

A new government, assuming its stable might or might not be more cooperative with Israel.

By the way, is it conceivable that Israel would return the Golan heights to Syria if the latter had a more cooperative regime? Or would this be an absolute no-no in Israel?

216

clairobscur:

I suppose with proper peace guarantees (an internationally monitored DMZ, perhaps?) they could consider giving them (in part or in full) back. But the Heights are very strategically handy in a war, and absent absolute confidence that they will never be at war on the Syrian front again, I don’t see it happening.

217

Israel is the only liberal Western style democracy in the area.

Also Jews/Israelis haven’t launched terrorist attacks against civilians in Western democracies.

Bit of a no brainer really.

218

Lebanon and Turkey are both democracies as is Iraq, though I’m not a fan of Lebanon’s confessional system, but I’d certainly say that Lebanon and Turkey treat their ethnic and religious minorities better than Israel does.

Beyond that, Jews have certainly committed acts of “terrorism” in western countries, though not to the extent that Palestinian “terrorist” groups have. The JDL being the most prominent such example who were involved in a number of bombings and other “terrorist” activity in the US, such as the killing of Alex Odeh, one of the leaders of the Arab Anti-discrimination Committee.

Beyond that two of Israel’s Prime Ministers, Begin and Shamir, were leaders of “terrorist” organizations and a third, Netanyahu is the son of a member of a Jewish terrorist group.

219

Yeah? Russia invented a lot of shit too, so?

I remember a while back when Turket threatened to escort some aid ships to Gaza and if israel had fired on the Turkish ship, we would have had a treaty obligation to go to war with israel. It was surreal but Israel was being a prick.

Yeah, its more like how we treated blacks in Jim Crow South. maybe not even that bad but its still fucked up.

Yeah? How does Lebanon treat their Jews?

If not for Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, no reasonable person would question why we support Israel. If supporting South Korea made North Korea hate us (even to the point of sending suicide bombers to the US), noone would question why we are friends with South Korea. But if South Korea occupied North Korea and treated North Koreans the way Israelis treat Palestinians and our support for South Korea resulted in North Korean terrorists blowing up our buildings and inflaming the entire East Asian region with anti-American sentiment, I think some people would wonder why we are friends with these South Korean assholes regardless of how many cherry tomatoes they had.

220

The right of zombie return is inviolate.