# What is this U.S. - Israel thing? Why are they so important? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 25, 2019, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-u-s-israel-thing-why-are-they-so-important/831506 "2019-03-25T15:40:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-u-s-israel-thing-why-are-they-so-important/831506/21 "2019-03-25T17:27:06Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > Re. American support of Israel- whom exactly is America supporting? There are around 7 parties in the current governing coalition and 16-17 parties in parliament, and elections are coming right up! Most Americans couldn’t name any Israeli political parties. I don’t think the government / administration has thrown their support behind a particular party either. We generally support Israel and leave to the Israelis to work out who their elected representatives should be. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-u-s-israel-thing-why-are-they-so-important/831506/22 "2019-03-25T17:36:07Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > 193, plus two non-members, the Holy See and Palestine. > > [Member states of the United Nations - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_states_of_the_United_Nations) Again, [definitions](https://www.thoughtco.com/number-of-countries-in-the-world-1433445): > [@](#): > > Territories, Colonies, and Other Non-Nations > Dozens of territories and colonies are sometimes erroneously called countries but don’t count because they’re governed by other countries. Places commonly confused as being countries include Puerto Rico, Bermuda, Greenland, Palestine, and Western Sahara. The components of the United Kingdom (Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England) are not fully independent countries, either, though they do enjoy a degree of autonomy. When dependent territories are included, the United Nations recognizes a total of 241 countries and territories. The OP may have heard a number greater than 200 bandied about. ---
**Author:** ![sbunny8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@sbunny8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sbunny8)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-u-s-israel-thing-why-are-they-so-important/831506/23 "2019-03-25T17:44:17Z")
Speaking as a former Christian, there are millions of people in the US who think of Israel as Jesus’s birthplace and the Jews as Jesus’s ancestors. When I got baptized into the church, they gave me a bible which contained a dozen pages with color photos of, quote, “The Holy Land”. A politician who has an unfavorable attitude toward Israel would make all those Christians feel uncomfortable, as if they were disrespecting Jesus. When I read about the Crusades, it’s not very hard to imagine the propaganda campaign which convinced Europeans to travel all the way to Jerusalem to try to take it back from the Muslims. Fun fact: The Baptist Church has its own version of Boy Scouts, called Royal Ambassadors. One of their “ranks” is called _ **Crusader** _. :-/ ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-u-s-israel-thing-why-are-they-so-important/831506/24 "2019-03-25T17:53:57Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > How many democracies are there in the middle east? It being a democracy is I think secondary to it being an ally. I’m pretty sure even if they were a military dictatorship or a monarchy, America would still be their ally. I mean, Saudi Arabia is America’s ally. > [@sbunny8](#): > > Speaking as a former Christian, there are millions of people in the US who think of Israel as Jesus’s birthplace and the Jews as Jesus’s ancestors. Someone needs to tell those people that many of the Palestinians are Christians. Of course, it is not only Israel who has fucked those people over, not by a long shot. The persecution of Orthodox Christians, whether Palestinians, Assyrians, Coptics, or Maronites, all over the Middle East, has been ongoing for a long time and most of the world does not know or care. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-u-s-israel-thing-why-are-they-so-important/831506/25 "2019-03-25T19:09:56Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Again, what is your evidence that they get ‘a disproportionate amount of attention’ from the US or from our Presidential candidates, which I presume is what you meant since that’s what your thread is about. The US doesn’t give them a disproportionate amount of foreign aide, for instance…IIRC, we give about the same the Egypt and more to other countries. We don’t sell an unusual amount of, say, military equipment to Israel either…mostly because they have their own industrial military complex. [USAID Explorer](https://explorer.usaid.gov/aid-trends.html). The United States has traditionally given military aid to countries like Greece, Turkey, and Egypt because of their strategic importance (basing proximity to the Soviet Union, unfettered access to the Suez Canal, et cetera). The US has no such interests in Israel, and in fact until 2017 did not have any military basing on Israeli soil. It does have a radar base in the Negev Desert near Dimona, which [not all Israelis were very happy about](http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1846749,00.html), and mostly exists to protect Israel. In terms of both per-capita spending and Israel’s strategic value the amount of military aid from the US is grossly disproportionate. Furthermore, military aid to Israel has remained consistently high ever since 1968 while aid to other nations has fluctuated with need or strategic value. The pro-Israel bias in American politics is widely understood but if you need evidence you can look at last congressional session’s [HR 1697 “Israel Anti-Boycott Act”](https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/1697) and [injection of language into the omnibus spending bill to prohibit companies doing business with the government to engage in a boycott of Israel](https://thehill.com/homenews/house/421945-israel-boycott-fight-roils-democrats-in-year-end-spending-debate). For its part, [the pro-Israel lobbying sector is one of the largest bipartisan contributors to Congress](https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/lobbying.php?cycle=2018&ind=Q05) and has [the second highest amount of avowed foreign money](https://www.opensecrets.org/fara), short only of South Korea which has six times the population and has been in a declared war and bitter standoff with North Korea for six and a half decades. There is, of course, Israel’s special place in some of the extralegal geopolitics like its formally unacknowledged but you-know-we-have-it nuclear program, and of course its infamous role in the Iran-Contra scandal of brokering arms sale to post-revolutionary Iran, not to mention its occupation of the Gaza Strip within what the UN has recognized as Palestine territory and the general refusal to recognize Palestine as a state, leaving millions of people as stateless refugees with no formal government or protection. But this isn’t really news to anyone, nor is there a genuine two-sided debate that Israel enjoys outsized influence in American politics regardless of any through-hat talking. The Evangelical obsession with Israel and end-of-times prophesies is something else entirely, although the Israeli lobby certainly uses this bizarre apocalyptic bedtime story to their benefit. The confluence of white nationalists, Evangelicals, and conspiranoists makes a strange stew of wierdly conflicting beliefs and agenda that is nonetheless heartily consumed by people who feverently hope for the world to end in their lifetimes so they can be lifted bodily to Heaven. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-u-s-israel-thing-why-are-they-so-important/831506/26 "2019-03-25T23:21:43Z")
> [@blood63](#): > > It seems to me that to get elected president in the U.S. you need to be a strong supporter of the state of Israel. Are there a lot of Jewish voters in the U.S.? Does it really make that much difference? Jewish voters overwhelmingly vote Democratic/progressive, that hasn’t changed much in recent years and probably won’t in 2020 despite the occasional loud, bigoted nincompoop Democratic politician. Evangelical types play some role in supporting Israel, but there additionally appears to be considerable recognition among non-Jewish, non-religious conservative voters that Israel has values worth supporting (and common enemies worth presenting a united front against). I wanna know what is this U.S.-Iraq thing, since they get quite a bit more foreign aid than Israel (aid to other Middle Eastern nations lalso exceeds that given to Israel). And about them Saudis…:dubious: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-u-s-israel-thing-why-are-they-so-important/831506.md?page=1)