Wait, you think the politics of that region aren’t intrinsically tied to water?
That’s adorable! Have you looked at a hydrological map of Israel and Syria?
That would be remarkable range from Israel.
50% of Israel’s water comes from desalination. Right now Israel has more water than it needs.
May no longer be a factor: recent discoveries of natural gas in the Med have allegedly left Israel with more fuel than they can use. Indeed, Israel plans to become an energy exporter.
Which isn’t to say Israel hasn’t invested heavily in solar - only that the reason is not necessity caused by a lack of alternatives.
Israel was the primary test market for the Better Place battery swap electric car experiment. It remains a good idea, and Tesla showed their own test.
We are the world’s largest net importer of energy, so, no.
The massive investment Israel has made in desalination tech only underscores how important a secure water supply is.
Every desalination plant in Israel was built by a private company and is not subsidized by Israeli taxpayers.
The notion isn’t that “the majority of Republicans” support Israel because of millenialist reasons, it’s that the Republican Party does. Evangelicals are a minority in the party, but since the 70’s they’ve been an increasingly influential and vocal one.
To me, your poll numbers completely bear that out. The Israel/Palestine question is a difficult one so 50/50 support sounds like the normal background. Note that in that same year Democrats were also about 50/50. Pre-9/11 the Republican Party was staunchly and unconditionally pro-Israel even though individual Republicans as a whole weren’t especially.
These days, obviously Israel is a natural ally for our various Middle Eastern adventures, and so support for Israel has become somewhat of a proxy for whether one supports US meddling in the region in general. Hence Republican support going up and Democratic support going down. (Of course that does beg the question of whether we’d be having those adventures in the first place were it not for our earlier enthusiastic support of Israel.)
Maybe some sort of yamaka-and-trade system could be put in place.
That’s what I keep hearing. So, why do the Republicans keep nominating moderate, business wing candidates for President?
If the Religious Right is so powerful, why is the nominee usually someone like Mitt Romney or (coming up) Jeb Bush???
This isn’t what was claimed upthread.
Someone upthread said this:
Also, I’d like to see some form of evidence that the Republican party’s support for Israel is solidly based on millenialism (as opposed to the Democratic party’s support, which presumably is not).
To my mind, this alleged factor is wildly overblown, bears little relationship with reality, and has mostly been asserted for rhetorical purposes.
Yes, some evangelicals support Israel for millenial reasons; OTOH, other evangelicals oppose Israel for whatever reasons (Jimmy Carter is an Evangelical Christian, and hardly an automatic supporter of Israel!).
The two major issues of the times - the 9/11 attack and the invasion of Iraq - had nothing to do with Israel. The main issue right now - the rise of ISIS - has nothing to do with Israel.
Once again, the assertion that everything the US does vis. the middle-east revolves around Israel has little basis in reality and is only asserted for rhetorical purposes.
Because they want to win general elections?
Nobody’s saying the Republican Party is literally run by the religious right, but they’re an important part of the current conservative coalition that is the party.
Cite?
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/03/20/221880/israel-no-longer-worried-about.html
Each of Israel’s plants cost between $300 million and $450 million to build. The plants are privately owned and operated, under a contract with the government, which buys the water from the plants. The budget for water purchases comes from water charges to consumers. The plants are not subsidized.
Here is detailed info for the biggest plant:
After an extensive tender process, WDA chose the Sorek Desalination Company (SDL) for financing, planning, building and operating the desalination plant in Sorek for 25 years.
SDL is a consortium established especially for desalination project and is owned by two companies. IDE Technologies with a 51% share is leading the consortium.
Hutchison Water, a fully-owned subsidiary of Hutchison Whampoa of Hutchison Group, has the remaining 49% stake in the partnership.
…
In May 2011, SDL entered into agreements with the European Investment Bank (EIB), Bank Hapoalim and Bank Leumi to obtain $400m in project financing to help build and operate the plant.
EIB, the European Union’s (EU) financing institution, provided $185m for the design and construction of the plant.
Well, suddenly mass-bombing Europe as per the previous poster’s musings might take care of the repayment schedule.
Right, I said “a lot of Republicans” specifically because it’s not something all Republicans believe. Maybe I should have said “a small but influential number of Republicans believe…”
Here’s a poll that has some relevant data: Many Americans Uneasy with Mix of Religion and Politics | Pew Research Center
35% of Americans say that Israel is part of the fulfillment of biblical prophecy about the second coming of Jesus. 60% of evangelicals. It’s not a universal belief, but neither is it only held by some small lunatic fringe. For further evidence you can very easily find quotes from Fallwell, Robertson, and all the other hugely influential evangelists explicitly saying evangelicals and conservative politicians should support Israel because of biblical prophesy.
As for whether that is indeed what was behind the pre-9/11 Republican support of Israel, I don’t know what you’d accept as “evidence.” Simply the coincident timing of the rise of the Moral Majority within the party and its adoption of very pro-Israel policies is pretty strong circumstantial evidence at least.
Much of the US’s policies in the middle-east aren’t directly related to Israel, but the US support of Israel was a major factor (if not the factor) in the US being the enemy of choice of the various radical groups pre-9/11. Without it, 9/11 probably wouldn’t have happened which means most of the US’s entanglements in the region this century also wouldn’t have happened.
I’m no “rightie.” Not by a long shot. But frankly, given the kinds of things certain groups are doing “in the name of Allah” these days, wouldn’t MOST “Merkans” with a conscience side with the same group of people?
One of my wife’s sisters married a Jewish guy (Me? I couldn’t care less. My interactions with people aren’t based on what religion they say they follow or what “race” they claim to be. Just sayin’.). My wife’s family grew up in North Dakota/Minnesota which, if I’m not mistaken, is Lutheran territory. But according to my wife her sister’s taken the whole Jewish community thing and bought it hook, line, and sinker (Sometimes my wife refers to her sister as “Super Jew” even though she only MARRIED into being one). He’s rich. THEY’RE rich (How rich? To be able to do things - as my wife once described to me - such as state, out of the blue, that they plan on attending Wimbledon and then go do it, on short notice). And, yes - they support Israel and, as far as I know, Republican politicians.
No-one doubts that some Evangelicals belive in millenialist notions concerning Israel. What I doubt, is the emphasis put on this.
As your own survey reports, this is a belief confined mostly to Evangelicals, who are not a majority of the population:
The notion that a view held by a “majority” of Evangelicals explains the widespread (and bi-partisan) support of Israel in America simply lacks reality. In fact, both parties support Israel (despite the recient and very personal fracas between Obama and Bibi) and for the same reason - support for Israel is strong in the American public generally.
It’s a rhetorical tactic: ‘people support Israel because they are crazy fundies’, rather than ‘a certain percentage of crazy fundies support Israel’.
It is no doubt comforting to think of one’s opponents as, basically, motivated by nutso motives, but it is a bad and self-defeating idea to distory reality in this manner.
Easily disproved nonsense. Bin Laden was quite explicit in what he viewed as America’s worst “offence” - and it was its alleged “occupation” of … Saudi Arabia!
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/military-july-dec96-fatwa_1996/
In his “Letter to America”, support for Israel was just one of the many “offences” Bin Laden felt that America was guilty of. Support for existing Arab nations, whose continued existance prevents the establishment of Sharia-law states, is of equal (if not more) importance:
In short, for America to have avoided his wrath, it would have to stop supporting Arab nations (as well as Israel) - and the worst ‘offence’ clearly was supporting Saudi Arabia (where, as you may recall, Bin Laden is from, as well as most of the 9/11 hijackers - so it only makes sense that he feels most sorely about that).
Al of this is well known and uncontroversial. The notion that the US troubles with the region all stem from Israel is an absurdity not supported by facts - once again, it is a self-serving distortion, based on a kernel only of truth (Bin Laden, like most Islamicists, indeed hates Israel).
Hilarious! But it’s pretty impossible to rebuild the Temple on Temple Mount, no? Why not Mt Shiloh? Or someplace right outside the City?