# What's American interest in alliance with Israel? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 17, 2012, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-american-interest-in-alliance-with-israel/638038 "2012-10-17T18:09:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2012, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-american-interest-in-alliance-with-israel/638038/121 "2012-10-23T03:55:36Z")
> [@Qwertol](#): > > Situation of Israel in Middle East is saying it lightly pretty problematic… Why USA is giving all that military support to Israel? What is it getting in return? Well, there is very effective lobbying for starters. Have you read Stephen Walt & Mearsheimer’s work on the Israel Lobby? [http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/category/one\_time\_tags/obama\_and\_the\_israel\_lobby](http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/category/one_time_tags/obama_and_the_israel_lobby) > [@](#): > > The obvious danger in this conspiracy of silence is that it prevents the foreign policy community from having an honest discussion about the whole Middle East situation, including the “special relationship.” Although public discourse on this topic is more open and wide-ranging than it used to be, mostly because some journalists and academics are freer to write honestly about this topic, it is still nearly impossible for politicians or ambitious policy wonks to say what they really think. If you want to get elected, or if you want to work on a campaign and maybe serve in the U.S. government, you have to either 1) be fully committed to the “special relationship,” 2) pretend to be committed by mouthing all the usual platitudes or 3) remain studiously silent about the whole subject. And I can’t think of any other diplomatic relationship that is such a minefield. [http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/07/30/this\_year\_in\_jerusalem](http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/07/30/this_year_in_jerusalem) ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2012, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-american-interest-in-alliance-with-israel/638038/122 "2012-10-23T13:58:33Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Had I said something like that to him you’d have a point, but I didn’t so you don’t. > > Newcomer rather foolishly claimed Israel had “a fascist government”, I asked him if he knew what the term meant and to explain why Israel was “fascist.” > > He huffed and puffed and promptly dodged the question. > > In short, I didn’t accuse him of not knowing anything about the Middle East or the Israeli conflict, but not knowing what “fascist” referred to. > > I’d have done the same for anyone who accused Barack Obama of being a “socialist” or a “communist” and calling the Israeli government “fascist” is as dumb as calling Obama a “socialist”. If thats the case, then my mistake. ---
**Author:** ![newcomer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e5b9ba/32.png) [@newcomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/newcomer)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2012, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-american-interest-in-alliance-with-israel/638038/123 "2012-10-23T14:05:14Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > So it’s Israel’s fault that functional democracies are scarce in the middle east? It’s all part of their master plan? > > Interesting POV. In order to destabilize and delegitimize PLO which had no religious foundation but rather national and socialist/leftist ones, Israel has worked very hard for a very long time to create, develop and encourage Hamas and thus directly has meddled and interfered in political process of another nation with a net result of subverting a democracy. Yes, that is a master plan just like the one Serbs had which goes like this – delegitimize the people and you will delegitimize their aspirations. And, BTW, keep a strong and pumped up army just in case. The ultimate debasement of it all is that Israel is now using its own creation of its own meddling as an ultimate cause of Palestinian plight. I mean, that is one amazing feat – it would be like raping a virgin and then telling her you wont marry her because she’s no longer a virgin. Damn! You know, for a self-professed member of “know-it-all-(and-more)” SMDB Brigade you seem to dish “knowledge” only to support your opinion. In fact, one of the most common paradigms revolving about “super-complex problem of ME” is that you and people like you confuse facts and opinion and more likely than not are offering opinion as a fact and attack facts as opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2012, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-american-interest-in-alliance-with-israel/638038/124 "2012-10-23T14:35:29Z")
> [@newcomer](#): > > In order to destabilize and delegitimize PLO which had no religious foundation but rather national and socialist/leftist ones, Israel has worked very hard for a very long time to create, develop and encourage Hamas and thus directly has meddled and interfered in political process of another nation with a net result of subverting a democracy. Yes, that is a master plan just like the one Serbs had which goes like this – delegitimize the people and you will delegitimize their aspirations. And, BTW, keep a strong and pumped up army just in case. Last I checked, the notion that the PLO was a “democracy” is kind of dubious. In fact, in Gaza, last time there was a general election, six years ago, election, the people there voted … for Hamas. Yesterday, in town council elections, Fatah did not perform very well: > **[Unofficial results: Abbas fails to win strong endorsement from Palestinian...](https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/article/unofficial-results-abbas-fails-to-win-strong-endorsement-from-palestinian-voters/)** > > Palestinian election officials said Sunday that voters choosing new local councils in the West Bank rebuffed candidates from President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement in five of the 11 main towns, an apparent blow to the Palestinian leader. > [@](#): > > The ultimate debasement of it all is that Israel is now using its own creation of its own meddling as an ultimate cause of Palestinian plight. > > I mean, that is one amazing feat – it would be like raping a virgin and then telling her you wont marry her because she’s no longer a virgin. > > Damn! Sorry, but this is conspiracy theory nonsense. What you are overlooking is that the Israelis are not gifted with foresight. The notion that the Israelis welcome Hamas today because it causes Palestinians grief is absurd - Hamas, you will recall, is the organization busy firing missiles from time to time into Israel. It is true that the Israelis turned a blind eye towards Hamas when it first developed - in part because Israeli authorities failed to take them seriously and considered them little more than an Islamic charity, and in part because they welcomed signs of division within the Palsetinian ranks. > **[History of Hamas | Early Islamic activism in Gaza](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Hamas#Early_Islamic_activism_in_Gaza)** > > With its takeover of Gaza after the 1967 war with Egypt, Israel tolerated and at times encouraged Islamic activists and groups as a counterweight to the secular nationalists of the PLO and its dominant faction, Fatah. Israel hunted down secular Palestine Liberation Organization factions, but dropped the previous Egyptian rulers' harsh restrictions against Islamic activists. > Among the activists benefited was Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza, who had also formed the Is... However, as they developed in power and violence, the Israelis soon changed their minds about them, and today they are deadliest of enemies. [http://online.wsj.com/article/NA\_WSJ\_PUB:SB123275572295011847.html](http://online.wsj.com/article/NA_WSJ_PUB:SB123275572295011847.html) This is hardly something new in history - the US has been stung, repeatedly, by turning a blind eye towards, or supporting, local resistance groups, only to have those groups turn violently against them. Perhaps the most obvious example of this is Afganistan, where the US was happy to help out Islamic restance against the Soviets, only to end up fighting them themselves. The notion that this was deliberate Israeli policy, rather that a stupid Israeli error, makes about as much sense as believing that the US supported Islamic fighters in Afganistan because the US _wanted_ 9/11 and a reason to later invade Afganistan - i.e., none at all. It is a characteristic of conspiracy thinking to assume the villians are blessed with supernatural foresight and that their stupidest moves secretly conceal great cunning. > [@](#): > > You know, for a self-professed member of “know-it-all-(and-more)” SMDB Brigade you seem to dish “knowledge” only to support your opinion. In fact, one of the most common paradigms revolving about “super-complex problem of ME” is that you and people like you confuse facts and opinion and more likely than not are offering opinion as a fact and attack facts as opinion. Fine. Point out, specifically, which “facts” I am using that are not “facts” but “opinions”, and we can debate that. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2012, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-american-interest-in-alliance-with-israel/638038/125 "2012-10-23T16:27:58Z")
> [@XT](#): > > I was in Turkey in the early 90’s. I can imagine that Bush has had that effect on a LOT of countries. It’s not Bush that’s the problem. It’s REPUBLICANS. Many of the foreign policy advisors that made Bush so “brilliant” in the Mideast will be advising a Romney administration. This is NOT a nitpick. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2012, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-american-interest-in-alliance-with-israel/638038/126 "2012-10-23T17:29:34Z")
> [@newcomer](#): > > In order to destabilize and delegitimize PLO which had no religious foundation but rather national and socialist/leftist ones,. Ok, first of all, I assume you mean to be referring not to the PLO, which is an umbrella organization containing many different groups, which at this point is largely ceremonial, but to Fatah, which runs the PA and has been the dominant force within the PLO for the past several decades, long, long before Hamas came along. Now, I’ll certainly agree that classifying Hamas as an “Islamist” organization makes little sense(though it’s also about as “socialist” as Saddam’s Iraq or Assad’s Syria), but classifying it as having “no religious foundation” collapses upon the slightest inspection. Yes, I know those are the talking points that many apologists, such as Edward Said, like to put out but such claims don’t survive the slightest scratching below the surface. Fatah has always draped itself in imagery and symbolism that is strikingly Islamic since it was founded in the late 1950s, decades prior to the rise of radical Islam. Yasser Arafat, the founder of Fatah, chose as his nom de guerre “Abu Ammar”(the father of Ammar) which is an allusion to Ammar Ibn Yasser(Ammar the son of Yasser) one of Muhammad’s earliest companions and most revered Mujahids(soldiers of God). He also specifically called his organization “Fatah” because Fatah is technical term meaning conquest for Islam gained during Jihad. You can also see the religious foundation and influence in the deliberate naming of the three brigades of the Palestine Liberation Army, formed by Fatah. Those brigades were Qadisiyya, Hattin, and Ayn Jalut. Those were all battles won by Muslim armies. Now, as Bernard Lewis notes, > [@](#): > > To name military units after victorious battles is by no means unusual. What is remarkable here is that all three battle were won in Holy Wars for Islam against non-Muslims-Qadisiyy against the Zoroastrian Persians, Hattin against the Crusaders, and Ayn Jalut against the Mongols. **In the second and third of these, the victorious armies were not even Arab; but they were Muslim, and that is obviously what counts**. Moreover, all military communiques from Fatah open with the Islamic invocation “In the name of God the all-merciful, the beneficent”. Finally, one will notice that even though historically around 10% of all Palestinians are Christians, to the best of my knowledge, Fatah in well over 50 years has never had any prominent Christian members, in stark contrast to other guerilla groups, most notably the Marxist PFLP(Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine). > [@](#): > > Israel has worked very hard for a very long time to create, develop and encourage Hamas and thus directly has meddled and interfered in political process of another nation with a net result of subverting a democracy. This of course is a best an extreme exaggeration. Several decades ago, long before the creation of the PA, Israel, for a very brief time not “for a very long time” gave some support(though it’s not even clear they gave any financial support) to a group which evolved into Hamas. And yes, they did so because at that point Fatah and the PFLP were busy blowing up buses, shooting up schoolchildren and engaging in other activities labeled “terrorism” and they thought that radical Islamists might be able to steal some of their thunder and that they wouldn’t be prone to the kind of extreme violence that other Palestinian guerilla groups were engaging in. However, saying that Israel “created” Hamas is simply bullshit. With the rise of radical Islam and the collapse of Arab nationalism an organization like Hamas was inevitable. ---
**Author:** ![newcomer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e5b9ba/32.png) [@newcomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/newcomer)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2012, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-american-interest-in-alliance-with-israel/638038/127 "2012-10-25T14:19:59Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Yes, I know those are the talking points that many apologists, such as Edward Said, like to put out but such claims don’t survive the slightest scratching below the surface. I know Mr. Said is dead but there is no time in this or any other Universe to allow you to get to his level. It’s one thing to challenge Mr. Said’s claim but to refer to effort required as “_the slightest scratching below the surface_” begs the following couple of lines from a poet who knew how to express himself better than I will ever do: > [@](#): > > They say that hens do cackle loudest when > There’s nothing vital in the eggs they’ve laid; Look it up. Great poem. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-american-interest-in-alliance-with-israel/638038.md?page=6)