This alliance seems to be turning about two billion people and dozens of muslim-majority nations against America, driving them towards alliances with countries like China. American taxpayer money is being heavily invested in Israel. We're talking about a staggering $260 billion given to Israel, seemingly without direct benefits to the U.S. Ethically, the U.S. is on shaky ground. By consistently supporting Israel, even in cases involving civilian casualties, the U.S. appears to be undermining international law and the United Nations, often standing alone against global consensus. Looking at the U.S. presidency, it seems like candidates from both major parties have to win the favor of the Israeli lobby to secure their nomination. Take Obama, for example. Despite his apparent disdain for Netanyahu – remember the leaked conversation with Sarkozy where they called Netanyahu a liar? – he still seemed unable to counter the lobby's influence. This focus on Israel is a massive distraction from more pressing issues, like the rise of China.
And let's be clear – Israel's loyalty as a Western ally is questionable. It's kept friendly ties with the Kremlin, hasn't joined in sanctioning Russia, and has turned down requests to send defensive weapons to Ukraine. It seems Israel would not hesitate to shift its allegiance to China if it suited its national interests.
It also doesn't hurt that any aid, is defense spending in the US which is a stimulus for jobs or manufacturing for defense.
Overall it's cheap expenditure for the US.
1. It's a Western-style democracy in an Eastern anti-democratic location.
2. It doesn't hurt that there have been plenty of ethnic Jews in foreign policy positions.
3. The military industrial complex doesn't see costs as costs.
In US politics there are the Jews, the pro-Israel Lobby, and also part of the Evangelical Christian who strongly support Israel for religious reason (while sometime being a bit antisemitic). More generally American people strongly support Israel - even if some are criticizing decision made by Israel. Electorally all that is important.
Election aside, everybody have his own interest, but for many decade Israel had been a solid ally of the USA in the middle East - which is/was a key region. And the coming decades it is hard to see how it can change as both have interest to work with each other
Muslims that are unhappy with the current situation with Israel, were probably not huge fan of the USA and Israel in the first place... This did not prevent leaders of many Muslim countries to work closely with the USA and growingly more with Israel : national interest first. Of course the current event increase the pressure of the street over their leader to not work with Israel on the short term...
If USA were dropping big time a key ally in a key situation for this ally, this would send a very very bad signal to all allies. But we see that Biden is much more critical about Israel than USA used to be. While still being an ally.
If Israel goes against Russia, then Russia will prevent Israel attacks that prevent Irans control of Syria and Lebanon.
life is way more complicated than you presented it
These lobbies then reach out to every lever of power and funds Israel friendly politicians (and even ones who are opposed to what Israel does - to neutralize their opposition - google "AIPAC AOC"). These offers of help (carrots) come with threats to primary the politician (sticks) if that politician goes against AIPAC's policies.
The only difference for Israel vs. other client states like Egypt, Japan, etc is the lack of vote required to keep funding going to Israel.
It is not at all. This funding is only occurring because of AIPAC and similar organizations including Christian groups who want to see the end times happen and supporting Israel is apparently important for that. Israel is not a counter balance to Russia at all. And Israel (specifically Netanyahu and AIPAC) undermined the Iran agreement that was going to see them stop their nuclear program.
They invaded the Suez Canal when Egypt tried to nationalize it. They did it for France and Britain.
During the Cold War, they provided of information to the US govt about Soviet assets. They also tell the US information about other countries from their intelligence.
The fact of the matter is Israel’s neighbors hate Israel so they need to get support from whoever they can, so they try to appease Europe and America. America goes along with it because it works out for us. Israel also also economically and technologically in a better spot than a lot of other Middle Eastern countries which are already semi-hostile to America, so they’re one of the better allies to have in that region.
America doesn’t give a damn about Israel anymore than France. It’s the working relationship that keeps it going — for both parties.
The problem right now is that both Israel and Palestine are both run by extreme right wingers. Extremist right wingers are always trying to start wars.
However, US foreign policy generally prefers having a working relationship than caring if a country is democratic or ticking the “is good” boxes. Most countries in the world make terrible allies. They’re weak, or they’re unstable, or every 30 years, their system of government will have completely changed. Despite the shit Israel does, they are consistent and stable, two traits many countries have not figured out.
Also, "lobbying" is a boogeyman here. Americans support Israel for all sorts of reasons that have nothing to do with lobbying. Israel is a settler society, it's a country of immigrants, much like the US. Israel has a rule of law, it's a democracy, much like the US. Israel has long existed within a sea of hostile Arab nations, none of which are democracies (okay minus Lebanon, kind of) and none which particularly resemble of the US. People are starting to look at the Israelis as bullies today but for most of the 20th century, they were viewed as the underdog. And finally there's a religious element: Americans are fairly Christian and feel a fellowship with Jews and view Israel as a custodian of the Holy Land. As a result of these factors and more, there's a strong affinity between Americans and Israel.
If we're going to be discussing facts, I think we should be fair to all sides, not just a minority.
The fact of the matter is those people decided to pick up everything and move into a region that already had people living there, and with neighbors that didn't like it then, nor now.
What's that meme where someone is riding a bike and puts a pipe in the spokes just to blame someone else called?
The permanent members of the UN's Security Council do not abide by laws they force other members to abide by. This is because there really are great powers in the world, which, despite being difficult for people in the West to understand, is very obvious in the rest of the world.
I’ll also add that despite only being 2% of US population 4/10 of richest Americans are Jews and they dominate both finance and media, two very influential industries. Their outsized representation/power/influence biases American popular opinion and foreign policy in favor of Israel.
I remember reading a column in an English-language Israeli newspaper (probably Haaretz) – sorry I can't find it now – arguing that US defence funding actually hurt Israel. It isn't that much money in the grand scheme of things (around 0.6% of Israel's GDP) – from a purely financial perspective, Israel could survive fine without it. It comes with all these strings attached, which are basically designed to keep the IDF dependent on the US defense industry, and discourage Israel from developing indigenous replacements for various US military technologies. The greater reliance on US technology, instead of indigenous Israeli replacements, holds back Israel's defense industry, causes Israel to lose out on defense export opportunities (you can't export military technologies you haven't developed), reduces Israel's national sovereignty, and gives the US leverage to use to control the Israeli government (if the US doesn't like some Israeli plan, it will send behind-closed-door threats to delay military supplies that the IDF is dependent upon.) It also sustains a talking point which opponents of Israel can reliably call upon.
The column said that the defenders of this arrangement within the Israeli establishment concede that many of these drawbacks are real, but argue that they are outweighed by the arrangement's biggest benefit – it sends a signal to neighbouring countries that "the US has Israel's back".
> The only difference for Israel vs. other client states like Egypt, Japan, etc is the lack of vote required to keep funding going to Israel.
I think there is another big difference – many Americans (both Jewish and Christian) have an emotional attachment to the US alliance with Israel, which transcends whatever its practical benefits might be; far fewer Americans feel that way about the US alliance with Egypt or Japan.
Jewish immigration to Palestine was not particularly great. Jewish people were not really heavily trying to move to the Middle East where people didn’t like them.
What happened is that Great Britain, following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire and the division of that region between itself and France, decided to make the Israel state, make it official through the League of Nations, and then encourage Jewish people to move there. It was the ultimate solution to the several century old “Jewish Question” that Europeans had. Of course people started moving to a territory controlled and sanctioned by none other but the British Empire.
By sending them to the Middle East, Europe could get rid of the Jews and Britian can get an ally. Win win for Europe. Jews, Palestinians, Arabs and everyone else be damned.
Of course, after hell obviously broke loose, Britain realized that their mandate was not working and they pulled out of a problem that they created.
…And nooowww we’re here.
Historically, Jews faced widespread animosity in Europe. The Roman Empire's destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD is a notable early example. Jews were wrongly blamed for the Black Death, leading to widespread pogroms and massacres. During the Crusades, particularly the capture of Jerusalem, both Jews and Muslims were massacred. In 1492, the Spanish Inquisition resulted in the expulsion of Jews from Spain, which had one of the most significant Jewish communities in Europe. Many of these expelled Jews found refuge in Palestine. The history of Jewish persecution also includes severe instances in Russia and Poland, and the situation in Germany is widely known.
By the 1900s, Jews and Palestinians were coexisting relatively peacefully in the region now known as Israel and the Palestinian territories, even though Jews constituted only about 3% of the population. However, relations began to deteriorate with the onset of mass Jewish migration, which saw the Jewish population in Palestine increase to 30% within a few decades. Tensions escalated dramatically following the British decision to allocate over half of Palestinian land to this minority population.
It is also misleading to suggest that there wasn't a significant effort by Jewish people to relocate to the Middle East. The choice of Palestine was intrinsically linked to Jewish historical, religious, and cultural identity. For the Zionist leadership, any location other than Jerusalem was unacceptable.
In essence, this was a chiefly European problem outsourced to the Middle East.
And there is a significant effort by a lot of people to split California into two or more two states but it’s all talk.
The Jewish relocation happened because of the British Empire.
And what's happening now that I think you might be missing is the complete and total subjugation of the Palestinian people by the Israeli government despite it being universally condemned by 95%+ of the Earth.
There are waivers allowed from the executive branch and I believe Pakistan got one after 9/11 with some antiterrorism benchmarks (conditional aid).
As I understand it the US doesn't acknowledge Israel is nuclear armed and so doesn't give them a waiver congruent with the law.