I hate that the US is "New Israel"

[PotatoBoy]

I'm feeling a bit angry this morning. Why is the US always backing Israel? How about we back...nobody? I'd rather we let the Israelis & Palestinians hash it out themselves (if that's even possible), and meanwhile we can focus on our own national issues (crime, homeless, job market, etc.).

Am I a minority in how I feel about this? I think the US should have absolutely NOTHING to do with Israel.. and yet the two seem so closely tied together. Terrorists probably target the US largely in hopes of hurting attack the US and hope it hurts Israelis too. Oh and then the Palestinians want the US to help too.. I see billboards around Chicago for some Palestinian web site, with a message on it effectively saying "Please help us!" Why the f*** should we??!

It's Bush's fault, isn't it? For always butting into other countries' business and making it our own? Or maybe it's greed over oil. Get rid of Bush. And his entire twisted cabinet of filthy crooks, too. I hope we get a REAL government some day that steps up & says "We are withdrawing all troops from the Middle East...permanently. Good luck, hope you guys either resolve your issues or bomb the hell out of each other till you cease to exist and stop trying to make your problems other people's problems."

Someone please explain this to me. I'm politically ignorant for the most part, so maybe what I'm saying makes absolutely no sense..if so, please educate me. How did the US get caught up in this Middle Eastern mess?

[soothsayer]

1. I like Israel, but I don't like that war criminal Sharon

And I do think Sharon is behind our invasion of Iraq.

[PotatoBoy]

2. I don't dislike Israel...

...but it's annoying that the US is involved in all this Middle Eastern Madness.

[Toronto Ron]

3. Iraq invasion might benefit Israel, but

to say Sharon is behind it is to be blind to the real powers-that-be in this country: the Texas oilmen, obviously.

[sui generis]

4. the problem with Israel

oh boy, this could be an essay. Just like here, where all Americans take the rap for our leaders' bad decisions, Israelis and Palestinians both as a people take the rap for both Sharon's hardline policies and the suicide bombers. Not all Israelis want the aggression that Sharon exhibits to be a future for their children, and very very few Palestinians are suicide bombers or support that kind of violence. We should be helping both Palestinians and Israelis, but we need to do it without taking sides, which we seem quite unable to do. The rest of the Arab world has a classic "underdog" to defend in the Palestinian state, and Israel's policies toward the Palestinians and our support of those policies makes Israel (and America) seem deserving of hatred to many in the Arab world. The answer to your question about how America continues to be as biased as it is is simple: there are Jewish (pro-Israeli, rather than religious) political action groups and there are Palestinian political action groups here in the states. The PACs with the most money, membership, economic and voting power are able to get the most time in front of our policy makers. That will change over time as other middle easterners become more Americanized adn involved in the political process here, and as they become a stronger political and economic force in their own right. A more cynical view is that Israel affords us a strategic foothold / ally in that part of the middle east with access to a fairly well developed military machine and its infrastructure, something that a Palestinian state does not right now. A critical thinker will find himself under assault for criticizing anything to do with pro-Israeli policy as being anti-Semitic, which is really a republican straw man argument, and even humorous since some of us critical thinkers are Jewish by birth and/or practice. Always feel free to criticize bad public policy.

[PotatoBoy]

5. Thanks

Thanks for the response :)