# What would happen if the US started withdrawing support from Israel? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 28, 2010, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-if-the-us-started-withdrawing-support-from-israel/534134 "2010-03-28T19:37:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2010, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-if-the-us-started-withdrawing-support-from-israel/534134/81 "2010-03-31T23:17:39Z")
By the way, in case some folks are reading along but haven’t yet clicked on the cite I provided, I’d like to lay out just a tiny few of Carter’s lies that he’s used to prop up his narrative. Readers can, of course, determine for themselves whether or not these are ‘quibbles’ and what they say about Carter’s credibility. They can also probably figure out why someone would suggest a book is a valid cite, and then when it is shown to be (at best) ‘rife with factual errors but they’re all honest mistakes’, handwave away factual criticisms. [ > [@](#): > > Washington Post Op-Ed, Nov. 26, 2000: > > Prime Minister Begin pledged that there would be no establishment of new settlements until after the final peace negotiations were completed. But later, under Likud pressure, he declined to honor this commitment … > > FACT: > Begin promised—and delivered—a three month settlement freeze. At a Sept. 17, 2003 symposium at the Woodrow Wilson Center, Israeli jurist Aharon Barak explained he was in the relevant meeting, had been the only one taking notes, and that his notes showed that Begin had agreed only to a three month freeze. Off camera Carter is heard to state, “I don’t dispute that.” William Quandt then added that while he had not been in the meeting, Cyrus Vance (Jimmy Carter’s Secretary of State) had been, and told him immediately afterwards that Begin agreed to a three month freeze. > […] > CARTER: > > CNBC, The Tim Russert Show, Dec. 2, 2006: > > "[The Road Map peace plan] was immediately adopted in its totality by the Palestinians, who still have no caveats and no objections to the Road Map terms. > > FACT: > > Mahmoud Abbas, at the time the incoming Prime Minister under Yasir Arafat, did indeed verbally express his support for the document. But there is no evidence that the Palestinian Authority cabinet or parliament ever approved the Road Map, as would be required for such an international agreement. Indeed, there’s no evidence it was ever even discussed by these bodies. Therefore it is nonsense to claim that the “Palestinians” or the PA under Fatah rule accepted the Road Map. > > And the PA under Hamas rule has refused to accept previously signed agreements, including the Road Map. > […] > Carter: “… since August of 2004, has not committed a single act of terrorism that cost an Israeli life, not a single one.” > Judy Woodruff: “I think many Americans would be surprised to hear that.” > Carter: “I know. They would be surprised, but it’s an actual fact.” > > FACT: > > On Aug. 31, 2004, Sixteen people were killed and 100 wounded in two nearly simultaneous suicide bombings aboard two city buses in Beer Sheva. Hamas claimed responsibility. > On Sept. 29, 2004, two preschool children were killed by a Qassam rocket fired from Gaza. Hamas claimed responsibility. > On Jan 13, 2005, Palestinians terrorists attacked the Karni crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel, killing 6 civilians. Hamas claimed joint responsibility. > On July 14, 2005, a woman was killed by a Qassam rocket fired from Gaza. Hamas claimed responsibility. > […] > CARTER: > CSPAN2, Book TV, Dec. 3, 2006: > > … And what the Palestinians asked for is, “We’ll swap you this one soldier [Gilad Shalit] if you’ll just release some of the hundred women you’re holding – about a hundred – or some of the little children you’re holding …,” and the Israeli government refused to swap … > > FACT: > > On June 26, 2006, CNN reported: > > ``` > Palestinian militants distributed a statement Monday saying t **hey will provide information about** a kidnapped Israeli soldier if Israel agrees to release all female prisoners and all children under 18 being held in Israeli jails. > > ``` > > According to the Jan. 3, 2007 Jerusalem Post, “A senior Hamas official said Thursday his group was ready **to give Israel a videotape** of the soldier if it agreed to release Palestinian women prisoners and other detainees.” ]([Palestine Peace not Apartheid: A Collection of Jimmy Carter’s Errors | CAMERA](http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=118&x_article=1273)) So Carter lies about treaties, lies about agreements, calls an exchange of prisoners for a video tape a prisoner swap (while scourging Israel for not accepting)… but that’s just all honest peacemaking, right? [ > [@](#): > > CARTER: > Page 148: Maps on this page are labeled: “Palestinian Interpretation of Clinton’s Proposal 2000” and “Israeli Interpretation of Clinton’s Proposal 2000.” > > FACT: > The maps are mislabeled. Dennis Ross, the U.S. peace negotiator who drew up the original version of Carter’s maps, explained: > > ``` > The problem is that the ''Palestinian interpretation'' is actually taken from an Israeli map presented during the Camp David summit meeting in July 2000, while the ''Israeli interpretation'' is an approximation of what President Clinton subsequently proposed in December of that year. Without knowing this, the reader is left to conclude that the Clinton proposals must have been so ambiguous and unfair that Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, was justified in rejecting them. But that is simply untrue. (New York Times, Jan. 9, 2007) > > ``` > > Rick Richman gives further details about how the maps are mislabeled, and explains that “the point [Carter] was trying to make with the borrowed and altered maps is central to his entire book.” > […] > CNN, The Situation Room, Nov. 28, 2006 > You could check with all the records. Barak never did accept [the Clinton parameters]. > > FACT: > According to Clinton’s parameters, “a small Israeli presence” under the authority of an international force could remain in “fixed locations” in the Jordan Valley, but it would withdraw after a maximum of 36 months. Israel would withdraw from “between 94 and 96 percent of West Bank territory” and there would be a land swap of 1 to 3 percent. Barak’s response was clear—he accepted the parameters. (Dennis Ross, The Missing Peace) > […] > CARTER: > Page 130: … when I visited Damascus in 1990, President Assad informed me that he was willing to negotiate with Israel on the status of the Golan Heights. His proposal was that both sides withdraw from the international border … [and] Syria might move its troops farther from the border because of the terrain. > > FACT: > Former executive director of the Carter Center Kenneth Stein, who was at the meeting, explained that his own notes of the Damascus meeting show that Assad, in response to a question from Carter, replied that Syria could not accept a demilitarized Golan without “sacrificing our sovereignty.” Stein also disputed Carter’s statement in the book that Assad expressed willingness to move Syria’s troops farther from the border than Israel should be required to do. (Los Angeles Times, Jan. 17, 2006) > […] > CARTER: > Page 121: Each Israeli settler uses five times as much water as a Palestinian neighbor, who must pay four times as much per gallon. > > FACT: > According to Sharif Elmusa, who was a water negotiator for the Palestinian side in talks with Israel, Palestinians in the West Bank pay approximately $1 per CM for domestic water, “virtually identical with the price in Israel …” (Elmusa, Water Conflict, 144) > Similarly, with regard to agricultural water, Elmusa writes: " … in absolute terms, the price of irrigation water in Israel, the West Bank, and Jordan converged, and water prices could not have affected competitiveness in any significant way." (Elmusa, 173) > […] > CARTER: > Page 197: Confessions extracted through torture are admissible in Israeli courts. > > FACT: > Under Israeli criminal procedures when a person claims that his confession was extracted via torture, a “trial-within-a-trial” is immediately held (in Hebrew mishpat zuta) in which the prosecution must prove that torture or other illegitimate means were not used. If the prosecution is unable to disprove claims of torture the confession is thrown out. In addition, if it appears that other illegal means short of torture were used, the confession can be admitted, but only if the court finds that the interrogation did not prejudice the defendant’s free will. (See for example, The Right to a Fair Trial, D. Weissbrodt and R. Wolfrum, eds., Springer, 1997.) > […] > CARTER: > NPR, Fresh Air, Nov. 26, 2006: > So far neither Olmert nor his predecessor Sharon has been willing to negotiate at all with the Palestinians even though their choice and the choice of the United States, that is Mahmoud Abbas, was the prime minister under of Arafat and later elected to be president. … > > Even when he was ordained as the one to represent the Palestinians, still not a single day of negotiations has been committed by Israel or the United States. > > FACT: > News reports prove Carter wrong. For example, the New York Times’ Steven Erlanger wrote on Feb. 9, 2005: > > ``` > Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, and Ariel Sharon, prime minister of Israel, held summit talks at this Egyptian resort on Tuesday -- the highest-level meeting between the sides in four years -- and declared a truce in hostilities. > > ``` ]([Palestine Peace not Apartheid: A Collection of Jimmy Carter’s Errors | CAMERA](http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=118&x_article=1273)) Well, darn, Carter’s own staff have caught him lying several times and pointed it out. How can that be? He helps build house! And, hrm… Carter’s doing the same thing again. Lying to pretend that Israel is simply choosing to avoid or even willfully obstructing peace (if not encouraging the torture of prisoners)… I’m sure there’s a good reason for it. Surely this fits into “peacemaking” somehow. And doesn’t show that Carter is bigoted against Israel and uses fiction to support his narrative and ignores facts when they contradict. Surely not. He’s a peacemaker! I trust Spoke will explain. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2010, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-if-the-us-started-withdrawing-support-from-israel/534134/82 "2010-03-31T23:26:39Z")
I don’t know what Carter has to do with the price of tea in China, myself. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2010, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-if-the-us-started-withdrawing-support-from-israel/534134/83 "2010-03-31T23:32:25Z")
Agreed. I’d like to have the whole tangent moved to a new thread if Spoke would like to defend his thesis that Carter is an honest broker of peace. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2010, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-if-the-us-started-withdrawing-support-from-israel/534134/84 "2010-03-31T23:42:30Z")
**TWEEEET!** The issue of motivation regarding former President Carter is not pertinent to this thread. Pointing out ways in which his statements are accurate or inaccurate may be pertinent to one point or another, but getting carried away with a discussion of his motivation is pointless unless one has access to his personal notes or the recollections of his close friends and family. Just let that drop. \*\* [/Moderating]\*\* ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2010, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-if-the-us-started-withdrawing-support-from-israel/534134/85 "2010-03-31T23:50:03Z")
Roger dodger. Just for clarification, as _Peace not Apartheid_ was listed earlier as a valid source book for the debate, but I have provided cites showing it has numerous, ‘easily verifiable factual errors that should have been caught with the barest amount of knowledge or research on Carter’s part’, is a discussion of PnA’s usefullness as a source within or outside of bounds? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2010, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-if-the-us-started-withdrawing-support-from-israel/534134/86 "2010-03-31T23:53:45Z")
No… That’s fine. Squabbling over whether Carter is right, misguided, or mendacious has rather less value. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-if-the-us-started-withdrawing-support-from-israel/534134/87 "2010-04-01T00:03:16Z")
Fair enough. “Carter: threat or menace?” has been tabled. “_Peace not Apartheid_: useless as a non-fiction work,” still in play. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-if-the-us-started-withdrawing-support-from-israel/534134/88 "2010-04-01T13:45:19Z")
> [@Dick\_Dastardly](#): > > So you’re using some pro-Israel site to critique the Guardian? How about the unambiguous facts in the little bit I quoted? Are they made up? Your pro-Israel site doesn’t question a single fact in the Guardian article, it just tries to smear the guy who wrote it and some of the people quoted in the story. Get back to me if there’s anything factual in that article that yyou can question. > > Then how about the article in the Israeli newspaper I quoted? Is that Israeli newspaper anti-Israel too? How about the Israeli human rights group quoted in the Guardian? Anti-Israel? What about Desmond Tutu? An antisemite? How about the Israeli defense minister I quoted? Is he anti-Israeli too? To my mind, the issue is not whether someone using such terminology is “anti-Israeli” or not, but rather whether that person is using a highly charged, emotive term to score political points. To use an analogy, a person who did not like President Obama’s health-care proposals may say something like “Obama is intent on making the US Communist”. The reason: universal health-care is a somewhat socialist measure, and increasing socialism is edging closer to Communism. A person doing that is clearly stretching their point 'till it snaps, using loaded words in a more or less deliberately mendacious manner, but that doesn’t mean they _hate America_. They may consider themselves American patriots; what they hate is the policies they disagree with (and possibly the persons enacting those policies). This is exactly the sort of thing you see with the bandying about of the term “apartheid”. Those who use it may well not “hate Jews” or even for that matter “hate Israel”: some do it who _are_ Israeli Jews, and presumably do not hate themselves. That does not change the fact that the term is often used mendaciously; in the case of Israel, this is generally true. Just as one just knows that anyone using the term “Communist” to describe Obama or his policies is generally intent on scoring partisan points rather than making a serious argument worthy of debate … ---
**Author:** ![Honesty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f04885/32.png) [@Honesty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Honesty)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-if-the-us-started-withdrawing-support-from-israel/534134/89 "2010-04-01T16:02:17Z")
> [@](#): > > “If this bloc of millions of Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state.” Why can’t Israel just absorb the Palestinians into one State? ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-if-the-us-started-withdrawing-support-from-israel/534134/90 "2010-04-01T16:07:07Z")
> [@Honesty](#): > > Why can’t Israel just absorb the Palestinians into one State? Because then Israel will not be a Jewish state, abrogating their major mission, which is to provide a country of their own where things like the Shoah will never happen again. The Palestinians, _in toto_, outnumber the Jewish Israelis by quite a bit. ---
**Author:** ![barbitu8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@barbitu8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barbitu8)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-if-the-us-started-withdrawing-support-from-israel/534134/91 "2010-04-01T18:50:53Z")
I want to add that the Palestinians will never accept a Jewish state. This is the crux of the matter. As I stated before, the PLO Charter and the Khartoum Convention still call for driving the Jews to the Sea. The PLO amended the charter for world consumption, but the charter among the Palestinians till call for the destruction of Israel, as confirmed by the Khartoum Convention . I don’t think I need be criticized for using a pro-Israel journal to contradict the Guardian, which is an anti-Israel Journa. Fight fire with fire. ---
**Author:** ![barbitu8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@barbitu8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barbitu8)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-if-the-us-started-withdrawing-support-from-israel/534134/92 "2010-04-01T18:54:40Z")
The Israeli Human Rights Group: [Author of report against Israel supported Munich massacre - @MidEastTruth](http://www.mideasttruth.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9314) > **[Who's demonizing who? - By Ben-Dror Yemini - @MidEastTruth](https://www.mideasttruth.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9582&sid=6953d03bbd54b6614d3da09196f86737)** > > Spreading the truth about the Middle East, The Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the international terror network. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-if-the-us-started-withdrawing-support-from-israel/534134/93 "2010-04-01T18:59:20Z")
> [@barbitu8](#): > > I want to add that the Palestinians will never accept a Jewish state. Then how about a democratic state? And will Israel ever accept a Palestinian state? That’s at the crux, too. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-if-the-us-started-withdrawing-support-from-israel/534134/94 "2010-04-01T19:03:10Z")
> [@Honesty](#): > > Why can’t Israel just absorb the Palestinians into one State? Sort of like asking why all of those world wars in Europe happened. Why can’t France, Germany and Poland all just be one state? The answer appears to be that, for historic reasons, the “peoples” of these nations considered themselves of different nationalities, and ones that did not always get along; and in the ME, there is a rather serious ethnic conflict between those of Jewish descent and those of Arabic descent. Perhaps at some point in the future, the states of the ME will form a “united states of the ME”, and such ethnic hatreds will be forgotten - as Europe appears to be on the road towards (at least in baby steps) with the EU. But until that happy day, it would be rather disasterous to have a country in which a former majority is confronted with a new majority whose population _intensely dislikes_ the former majority. Particularly where the recent experience of the Jews as an athnic group in the ME and Europe as a ‘hated minority’ has been so unhappy. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-if-the-us-started-withdrawing-support-from-israel/534134/95 "2010-04-01T19:04:15Z")
:smack: There’s no contradiction between having a democratic state (as Israel does) and having a the Law of Return which means that Israel will remain a Jewish state. And not only ‘would’ Israel accept a Palestinian state, they _did_. Arafat refused and started a war instead. And while the PNA was violating its obligations to suppress and not encourage violence, treaties based on the PNA doing that could not continue. Then Hamas took power and declared all treaties null and void and stated they would never accept Israel’s right to exist. These are all basic facts that are easily verifiable. Oh, and: > [@barbitu8](#): > > The PLO amended the charter for world consumption, but the charter among the Palestinians till call for the destruction of Israel, as confirmed by the Khartoum Convention . Point of fact: no, they did not. They never changed it at all, they voted on a resolution to discuss changing it at some point in the future. It remains intact as it was originally written. ---
**Author:** ![barbitu8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@barbitu8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barbitu8)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-if-the-us-started-withdrawing-support-from-israel/534134/96 "2010-04-01T19:05:27Z")
> **[Barak: make peace with Palestinians or face apartheid](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/feb/03/barak-apartheid-palestine-peace)** > > Unprecedented statement by Israel's defence minister that peace talks only way to protect state's democratic process [http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Peace+Process/Guide+to+the+Peace+Process/The+Khartoum+Resolutions.htm](http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Peace+Process/Guide+to+the+Peace+Process/The+Khartoum+Resolutions.htm) [http://www.netaxs.com/~iris/plochart.htm](http://www.netaxs.com/~iris/plochart.htm) ---
**Author:** ![barbitu8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@barbitu8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barbitu8)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-if-the-us-started-withdrawing-support-from-israel/534134/97 "2010-04-01T21:47:51Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > :smack: > There’s no contradiction between having a democratic state (as Israel does) and having a the Law of Return which means that Israel will remain a Jewish state. > And not only ‘would’ Israel accept a Palestinian state, they _did_. > Arafat refused and started a war instead. And while the PNA was violating its obligations to suppress and not encourage violence, treaties based on the PNA doing that could not continue. Then Hamas took power and declared all treaties null and void and stated they would never accept Israel’s right to exist. > > These are all basic facts that are easily verifiable. > > Oh, and: > Point of fact: no, they did not. They never changed it at all, they voted on a resolution to discuss changing it at some point in the future. It remains intact as it was originally written. The Law of Return is not possible if Israel is to remain a Jewish state. 700,000 Arabs left and that population has multiplie by births, of course. The right of return is out of the question. The Palestinians have had many opportunities to have her own state, beginning with 1948, when instead of accepting her state, she decided to eliminate Israel, and have the entire area for itself, in the land of “Palestine,” which is how their maps denote the entire area. According to one of my cites, Palestine did amend her Charter, but mistranslated a crucial paragraph. The original Charter contained many statements about driving the Israelis to the Sea. The new charter contains only one, but for public consumption it was not translated correctly. ---
**Author:** ![barbitu8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@barbitu8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barbitu8)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-if-the-us-started-withdrawing-support-from-israel/534134/98 "2010-04-01T22:00:40Z")
[http://www.thejewishweek.com/editorial\_opinion/gary\_rosenblatt/why\_obama\_picking\_wrong\_fight](http://www.thejewishweek.com/editorial_opinion/gary_rosenblatt/why_obama_picking_wrong_fight) ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-if-the-us-started-withdrawing-support-from-israel/534134/99 "2010-04-01T22:59:26Z")
> [@barbitu8](#): > > The Law of Return is not possible if Israel is to remain a Jewish state. The Law of Return is what allows Jews from anywhere in the world to immigrate to Israel. You’re confusing it with the Right of Return, which is totally different. ---
**Author:** ![Dick\_Dastardly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c4cdca/32.png) [@Dick\_Dastardly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dick_Dastardly)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2010, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-if-the-us-started-withdrawing-support-from-israel/534134/100 "2010-04-02T00:11:35Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > To my mind, the issue is not whether someone using such terminology is “anti-Israeli” or not, but rather whether that person is using a highly charged, emotive term to score political points. > > To use an analogy, a person who did not like President Obama’s health-care proposals may say something like “Obama is intent on making the US Communist”. The reason: universal health-care is a somewhat socialist measure, and increasing socialism is edging closer to Communism. > > A person doing that is clearly stretching their point 'till it snaps, using loaded words in a more or less deliberately mendacious manner, but that doesn’t mean they _hate America_. They may consider themselves American patriots; what they hate is the policies they disagree with (and possibly the persons enacting those policies). > > This is exactly the sort of thing you see with the bandying about of the term “apartheid”. Those who use it may well not “hate Jews” or even for that matter “hate Israel”: some do it who _are_ Israeli Jews, and presumably do not hate themselves. > > That does not change the fact that the term is often used mendaciously; in the case of Israel, this is generally true. Just as one just knows that anyone using the term “Communist” to describe Obama or his policies is generally intent on scoring partisan points rather than making a serious argument worthy of debate … Obama passing a law that brings private insurance companies closer to the standards of those in other countries and which extends private medical insurance to millions more people isn’t making America more communist. You’ve only got the Death Panels wing of the GOP making a claim like that, because it has no basis in reality. Israel however have a bunch of discriminatory laws and practices that discriminate against one racial group in favor of another that can be reasonably compared with the apartheid system in South Africa. If you’re not going to compare the various discriminatory laws/practices that exist in Israel with South Africa, what other historical/current situation would be a more accurate comparison? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-if-the-us-started-withdrawing-support-from-israel/534134.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-if-the-us-started-withdrawing-support-from-israel/534134.md?page=6)