The costs of beng Israel's biggest (almost only) supporter are being felt everyday.
It has made us hated throuthout the Middle East. Far more so than any other American action (at least until Iraq). The thousands that died on 9/11 were part of the cost we have been paying for this lopsided coddling of Israel. The victims of the Seattle Jewish center shooting were part of that cost (yes, that was a politicaly motivated terrorist attack). The hundreds of Marines lost in the Beruit bombing were part of the cost. And that is just to mention a few.
The growing regional conflict in the Middle East threatens to erupt into a massive conflagration set to kill people by the hundreds of thousands. Also part of the cost.
As Israel has become more militant and beligerent, we have sold them every weapon they needed to kill Arabs. The Arabs in question are well aware of who is supplying the weapons that are killing them. And guess what, they want to kill us right back, even when it is our proxy doing the killing.
I firmly believe that Israel does not deserve the kind of support we give them. They do not deserve some special status above all other nations we deal with. The costs are too great and the benefits virtually non-existant. We gain nothing but hate for our totally uneven support of Israel.
We should cut all funding to this state NOW. They have forfeited any support that they may have deserved by embracing collective punishment of the Lebonese people, a war crime under the Geneva Conventions.
I for one will be mighty fucking pissed off if I or anyone I care about ever get killed because of our support of Israel. They do not deserve the supoport, nor should Americans be paying the price of that support. It should stop immediately.
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http://www.londonreviewofbooks.com/v28/n06/mear01_.htmlSince the October War in 1973, Washington has provided Israel with a level of support dwarfing that given to any other state. It has been the largest annual recipient of direct economic and military assistance since 1976, and is the largest recipient in total since World War Two, to the tune of well over $140 billion (in 2004 dollars). Israel receives about $3 billion in direct assistance each year, roughly one-fifth of the foreign aid budget, and worth about $500 a year for every Israeli. This largesse is especially striking since Israel is now a wealthy industrial state with a per capita income roughly equal to that of South Korea or Spain.
Other recipients get their money in quarterly installments, but Israel receives its entire appropriation at the beginning of each fiscal year and can thus earn interest on it. Most recipients of aid given for military purposes are required to spend all of it in the US, but Israel is allowed to use roughly 25 per cent of its allocation to subsidise its own defence industry. It is the only recipient that does not have to account for how the aid is spent, which makes it virtually impossible to prevent the money from being used for purposes the US opposes, such as building settlements on the West Bank. Moreover, the US has provided Israel with nearly $3 billion to develop weapons systems, and given it access to such top-drawer weaponry as Blackhawk helicopters and F-16 jets. Finally, the US gives Israel access to intelligence it denies to its Nato allies and has turned a blind eye to Israel’s acquisition of nuclear weapons.
Washington also provides Israel with consistent diplomatic support. Since 1982, the US has vetoed 32 Security Council resolutions critical of Israel, more than the total number of vetoes cast by all the other Security Council members. It blocks the efforts of Arab states to put Israel’s nuclear arsenal on the IAEA’s agenda. The US comes to the rescue in wartime and takes Israel’s side when negotiating peace. The Nixon administration protected it from the threat of Soviet intervention and resupplied it during the October War. Washington was deeply involved in the negotiations that ended that war, as well as in the lengthy ‘step-by-step’ process that followed, just as it played a key role in the negotiations that preceded and followed the 1993 Oslo Accords. In each case there was occasional friction between US and Israeli officials, but the US consistently supported the Israeli position. One American participant at Camp David in 2000 later said: ‘Far too often, we functioned . . . as Israel’s lawyer.’ Finally, the Bush administration’s ambition to transform the Middle East is at least partly aimed at improving Israel’s strategic situation.
This extraordinary generosity might be understandable if Israel were a vital strategic asset or if there were a compelling moral case for US backing. But neither explanation is convincing. One might argue that Israel was an asset during the Cold War. By serving as America’s proxy after 1967, it helped contain Soviet expansion in the region and inflicted humiliating defeats on Soviet clients like Egypt and Syria. It occasionally helped protect other US allies (like King Hussein of Jordan) and its military prowess forced Moscow to spend more on backing its own client states. It also provided useful intelligence about Soviet capabilities.
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