Israel: America’s Frankenstein monster

[bemildred]

With Israeli tanks rolling into the Gaza Strip and Hamas fighters firing dozens of rockets into Israel every day, the two sides in the endless Middle East standoff appear to be replaying scenes from a recurring nightmare, with real-world tragic effects. I don’t mean to suggest that the conflict is in any sense symmetrical. As we have already seen, the worst price for this latest round of violence will be paid by the civilian population of Gaza, almost 2 million people fenced into a slice of arid seacoast with roughly the same land area as the city of Detroit. But for those of us in the West, and especially in the United States, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict plays out in public discourse, over and over again, as a drama of rhetoric and propaganda, accusation and counter-accusation.

Both in the real conflict on the ground and the ideological conflict for hearts and minds, both sides feel misunderstood and unfairly stigmatized – and if you’re willing or able to take the long view, they both have a point. Along with every other American journalist, I received emails this week from Arab-American groups complaining about the pro-Israeli bias of the mainstream media, and from Jewish activists eager to elucidate President Obama’s “pro-Muslim agenda” and his long-term campaign to undermine Israel. Within the American left, which for generations has been closely allied with the Jewish intellectual tradition, this ideological combat can often be intensely personal and painful. I’ve managed to stay out of the angry debates between friends and acquaintances in my Facebook feed – about whether Rachel Maddow is an Israeli shill, or whether American progressives are hypocrites for weeping over Gaza but ignoring the death toll in Iraq, Syria and Egypt – and I don’t even want to know what kinds of insults people are hurling at each other on Twitter.

http://www.salon.com/2014/07/19/israel_americas_frankenstein_monster/

[ann---]

1. It will end up

consuming America. It has no conscience.

[shira]

2. It's arguments like these that make me want Israel to reject American aid altogether

Last edited Sat Jul 19, 2014, 02:32 PM - Edit history (2)

The economy in Israel is thriving, and that doesn't include natural resources (gas,oil) that will provide additional revenue projected to create a surplus. A nation with a surplus doesn't require foreign aid.

[shira]

5. Doesn't matter to Israel haters...

Israel is saving the US $billions of dollars in troops and armaments that are not required in that region so long as Israel exists. I still think Israel should respectfully decline this "aid", however.

[geek tragedy]

7. We agree. Israel should stop taking aid, and also stop taking what it perceives

as instructions from Washington.

We are two sovereign states, not family members.

[shira]

8. (7/18) Some of Israel’s Top Defenders Say It’s Time to End U.S. Aid

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/18/some-of-israel-s-top-defenders-say-it-s-time-to-end-u-s-aid.html

Israel’s economy is booming. So why is the United States still giving it $3.1 billion a year? That’s the question on the minds of some of Israel’s biggest supporters in Washington.

U.S. taxpayers have provided the Israeli military that invaded Gaza on Thursday night with more than $121 billion since the state’s founding, subsidizing about 25 percent of the tiny country’s annual DEFENSE budget in recent years.

That subsidy has increased even as Israel’s economy has experienced a growth spurt and the country has discovered stores of natural gas. INDEED, President Obama last year pledged to begin early negotiations to extend the annual military subsidy to Israel for another decade and has sold Israel powerful bunker buster bombs and helped finance the Iron Dome missile DEFENSE system that has protected Israelis from Hamas rockets and missiles in the current war.

One would think with that kind of record, pro-Israel conservatives would find a rare bit of common ground with a president they have criticized for being hostile to the Jewish state. But at least for some, the military aid is part of the problem.

“The experience of the Obama years has sharpened the perception among pro-Israel Americans that aid can cut against Israel by giving presidents with bad ideas more leverage than they would otherwise have,” said Noah Pollak, the executive director of the Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI). Pollak’s group has been one of Obama’s toughest critics, running television advertisements in 2012 that blamed Obama for dithering as Iran continued to enrich uranium.

[bemildred]

10. It is always a pleasure when we can agree on something. nt

[2naSalit]

3. They seriously need

to be cut off from the US funding teat ASAP. The no longer need our help and they are antagonist predators at this point in time. They should receive no help from anyone any longer given their brazen rejection of reasonableness.

And I say that as progeny of concentration camp survivors.