So, if we don’t support Israel it might endanger the oil supply? I think there’s a flaw in that reasoning somewhere. The last Arab embargo wasn’t imposed because the U.S. was failing to support Israel.
Radioactive oil fields are not easy to work with.
So? I know of only one country in the MENA that almost-certainly has the bomb. Are you saying we should support the Israelis, so they don’t ever use it? Sounds like paying the Danegeld – only worse, because we’re in a situation where we have to pay the Dane not to fight somebody else – and we often have to pay off the somebody-else, too (our annual aid to Egypt is commensurate with that to Israel) – and we still can’t get rid of the Dane.
Don’t let anyone tell you you’re slow.
Where’s the flaw?
Arab-Israeli wars = instability in the ME = problems for the US.
Therefore, it behooves the US to work to prevent future Arab-Israeli wars.
It does this by providing aid to Egypt and to Israel. No future Arab-Israeli war on a grand scale is likely without Egyptian support.
Now, if the US turned isolationist it would probably not be the case that Israel would be defeated - it won all of the previous Arab-Israeli wars, without US support until the end of the '73 conflict, and it is proportionaly stronger now - but it would make such wars more likely: up 'till '73, there had been an average of about one a decade since the founding of the country. None since.
Obviously, the arab oil embargo was not caused by lack of US support for Israel - it was a result of the major defeat of the Arab cause - but in a battle which probably would not have been fought at all if the US was in the position it was in now.
And I know of one country in the MENA, also beginning with “I”, that almost-certainly does not have the bomb – yet.
Military subsidies paid to Israel are not “danegeld”, since the US is not attempting to get them to do something they otherwise would not do. Rather, the US is intent on supporting them to such an extent as to make future agressive warfare against Israel unlikely.
“Danegeld” is paying the strong - the “Danes” - not to attack you, like the Saxons did. This is more as if some continental power - say, Charlemagne - paid a subsidy to the Saxons to build up their military to deter the Danes from attacking, because a stable Saxon England was preferable to a Viking-ridden England which could be a menace.
If you must think of English precedents, why not the “Golden Cavalry of St George” instead?
It does this by providing aid to Egypt and to Israel. No future Arab-Israeli war on a grand scale is likely without Egyptian support.
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See post # 143. Ain’t there a cheaper way?
The world has changed since then. Arab/Muslim anti-Zionism is still here and there and everywhere, but it’s lost some of its fire, and I don’t think the leaders who talk the talk – with the possible exception of Ahmadinejad, and I’m not sure even about him – really want Israel to go, or to face the kind of risks any step in that direction would entail nowadays, active U.S. support present or absent. And Europe, by itself, collectively would not tolerate the destruction of Israel, and, even in its present collective condition, would not have to tolerate it, and everybody knows it, especially in the aftermath of the Libyan Civil War. Furthermore – and I think this is important – anti-Zionism has not been prominent in any of the revolutionary messages or rhetoric of the Arab Spring activists in any country, AFAIK. Not even much in Egypt, the one old regime that could arguably be called “pro-Zionist”. That’s a good sign that it is losing its political salience on the Arab Street.
What, you’re saying that if, at that time, the U.S. had recently fought several expensive and devastating wars in the MENA and still had troops all over the place and a strong naval presence in all the waters, the Arabs would not have dared to embargo us? Another word beginning with “i” comes to mind.
How does an Arab / Israeli war endanger the regular supply of petroleum products, (the US’s ‘Interest’ in the Middle East)? Particularly when major oil-producing states are not involved.
More pointedly, Israel defeated: what effect on price?
The cost-efficiency of the US foreign policy is a rather different issue than “why does the US have this foreign policy”. Maybe there is a cheaper way, who knows?
I say it is to promote stability. You have said, it would appear, that it is because a cabal of evangelist Christians is irrationally drawn to the idea and has captured US foreign policy (though this “explaination” fails to explain why the US also subsidizes Egypt).
Is this the same “Arab spring” in which an enraged mob trashed the Usraeli embassy in Egypt? Or in which Turkey - once an Israeli ally - has gained brownie points with the Arab Street by sabre-rattling at Israel?
What on earth do you expect Europe to do, if there was some major ME conflict?
Eh? Sure, right at this moment, any major arab-Israeli war is unlikely for a lot of reasons - Syria and Egypt are both in disarray and the Americans control Iraq.
But this will not always be true. And it was not true until very recently.
It could well be the case that the US policy has run its course and is no longer needed - but yet again, that is a different issue than why the policy was enacted in the first place.
I guess you don’t know your history too well. Research “Arab Oil Embargo” - a direct result of the '73 War.
An Israeli defeat, in which the Israelis did not use the nuclear weapons they undoubtedly have, and did not attack the oil supply which ultimately funds their enemies, would indeed have no effect on price. Of couse, such an even is vanishingly unlikely.
No, an indirect result. A direct consequence of US military aid to Israel.
The embargo, rather, tells that in the absence of that aid, there’s is likewise no change to the oil supply.
Heh - why in that case did OPEC target nations such as Japan for embargo? Japan did not provide aid to Israel.
Fact is that the Arab nations had already decided on their embargo plans before the war, in which US aid came as a surprise in the middle. It predated the US provision of military aid, which can thus hardly be the cause of it!
Are you suggesting that US has to support Israel’s extreme and illegal occupation of Palestine because they might blow oil reserves with nuclear weapons?
In other words, US immoral stand for Israel is because Israel is effectively choke holding US with their ability to shut down oil supply?
No. Though it is amusing to see how far from the point your analysis of what I’m " suggesting" strays.
What I’m “suggesting” is that, in answer to the question “why does the US subsidize Israel”, the cold-blooded realpolitic answer is that the US provides subsidies to Israel and other ME countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia in the hope (so far successful) of preventing the sort of conflict leading to instability that has, in the past, proven so disasterous to the world economy.
I’m further “suggesting” that if such conflct took place in the future, it would be even more disasterous than in the past, because Israel is armed with nukes, and if it was losing it would probably use them.
Feel free to salt the above with scattered references to how extreme, illegal and immoral Israel is, at your leasure. 
No, I think it is the Evangelical Christian pro-Israel lobby, plus the Jewish-American pro-Israel lobby, plus the whole of neocon thinktankery and all its little wizards grassroots and astroturf, plus general inertia and a preference for the devils and dilemmas we know to the risks of any serious change in the status quo (what your argument above amounts to), all working together to keep what amounts to a Cold War policy in place. Subsidizing Egypt is, of course, a bribe to keep Egypt sweet with the U.S. and, therefore, Israel.
Wow, that’s one mighty conspiracy you have going … and amazingly, it appears to have captured both political parties over decades!
I guess the notion that the US may actually have a sensible reason for its policy isn’t nearly as compelling or convincing. Gotta be those Fundies, Jews and Neocons. And wizards, can’t forget the wizards.
I also reiterate my comment which you seem to have overlooked from my previous post:
If the argument is “this policy isn’t needed any more”, well, that is certainly arguable. I thought the argument was ‘the US got nothing out of this policy’, which is a different question altogether, and is simply answered - the US d, it could be argued, successfully broke the cycle of major Arab-Israeli wars that had produced a major war every decade since the founding of the state; and peace was, to the US, worth it since the cost of instability was so high. So the US, through its policy, of which one aspect was providing military subsidies to Israel, produced close to 40 years without a major arab-israeli war.
But if you wish, go on believing in conspiracies. You can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into.
The Oslo Accords were signed in '93 and kicked into effect between 94-96. So giving me a side-by side of post-Apartheid South Africa and early Palestinian economy isn’t very helpful, especially when you put forth the argument that Israel controls the PA’s economy or makes it subservient to Israel.
But you also seem to think that economics is removed from quality of life, or that quality of life and economics aren’t related. That’s not true. Economics is also about your purchasing power (either in cash or access) and standard of living and your ability to obtain resources - and you aren’t considering that. In a post-modern world, a place with a 90+ per cent literacy rate has a better shot at obtaining and growing resources than a nation with a lower one. Hell, dare I say that a people who have access to flush toilets have it better than those who don’t. In the SA thread a few months back, I pointed out that it’s still an issue for you.
And you throw in GDP - well, any new democracy or new economy is going to have jumps in GDP the first years as there’s an influx of aid and new infrastructure. You can’t just use GDP and say “such and such have it better economically”. You’re also comparing two different types of economies.
Apparently you think that Palestinians don’t have it better than South African blacks. Last I checked, WB Palestinians had food, health care, and (MOST OF THE TIME) secure housing. Gaza may be a different story since '09, but I’d rather be a poor fool with an elected government in Gaza than many parts of South Africa. Hell, there are parts of the WB that are 10x safer than the neighborhood that I teach in.
What I do know is that the PA is faring much better under Fayyad and with the UN and Arab League, no one over there is starving.
The original argument was that Palestinians had it ‘worse’ than blacks under Apartheid (baloney) and morphed into present-tense. Still, even if half of Palestinians under the PA aren’t employed, they still have food and they are still getting educations. They have flush toilets, electricity, and aren’t in the middle of an AIDS crisis. Compare the worst part of SA to the worst part of the WB and I’d pick the latter any day.
A couple years ago, everyone was crying that Gazeans lived on $2 a day. But they’re also taken care of. The UN, EU, Hamas & Arab League make sure of this. Israel gives aid as well. AND Hamas and Israel are in an on and off again war. But who are the blacks in South Africa fighting against? Don’t many live on about the same ‘income’ (without the aid)?
So you think that people from all walks of life, politics, religion and culture have banded together in some kind of not-so-secret plot to keep Israel at the top of the Middle Eastern food chain?
Did it ever occur to you that maybe some of us arrived at the same conclusion for reasons other than insanity, cruelty, racism, or otherwise illogical behavior?
Aid to Egypt: It subsidizes Egyptian business, military and the very top, but it just isn’t in Egypt’s interest to be an enemy of Israel. Or our enemy. Without us, Egypt’s military would rather deficient. But we also help fund Egypt’s force not because of Israel, but because we don’t want them to look elsewhere. The Egypt-Israeli relationship is a stabilizing factor in the region.
Remember - Egypt didn’t want Gaza, even when the Gazeans were begging them to take it. Their official dislike of Israel has little to do with the Palestinian cause and everything to do with anti-Semitism and pride. And in the wake of the ‘Arab Spring’ - election season.
Your Wiki cite: