As an American myself, I’ve asked several people this question. No one seems to know why either. Is it strategic position in the world? I don’t think they have anything the US can exploit besides that really. Am I missing something? Political arguing aside what exactly is the motivation? Thanks for any explanations.
AIPAC political donations to lawmakers and politicians. They’re the second largest lobby contributor and influence politicians for Israel.
They’re responsible for promoting the idea behind the Evangelical salvation end days propaganda that induces people to think a war in Israel will bring on apocalypse and rapture.
Evangelicals look forward to the rapture. I’ve been to a lot of Evangelical churches, and, without exception, they want it to come.
Do you mean the rapture of -99, 2001, 2002, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011(sure this time), 2013 (I mean 13, right?!!), 2014, …
Well yeah, if that comes then they’re proven right and they get to go to heaven while all the “bad” people stay here.
That’s my point.
You communicated that part badly, your comment looks like you are saying it’s false and the only reason people believe Evangelicals want that is because of AIPAC.
You read that point badly and assumed that what I was saying that the reason Evangelicals want this is because of AIPAC.
See how that works?
Who funds AIPAC is probably a better question.
We do. The US government gives billions of dollars to Israel, who in turn launders that back into AIPAC and into our politicians pockets. Sure, there are other donors like Miriam Adelson, but she can’t fund the entire government (even though it takes as little as $10,000 to get a politician to change their vote.)
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The US government has legalized bribery in the form of Political Action Committees, aka “PACs”. Each PAC is a special interest group that contributes to a politician in order to help get them elected. The PAC then expects an ROI - return on investment - for the money they contributed to the campaign. The ROI usually comes in the form of shilling for said special interest.
To add fuel to the fire, when Citizens United was overturned in 2010, it allowed dark money to be invested into campaigns. This shit was so significant, that I can actually remember where I was when I heard about it and can still feel the echos of dread. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/citizens-united-explained
This country is fucked. No politician will ever vote to repeal that. Why would they? The amount of money they receive from it would make Scrooge McDuck blush.
jeees you love a religious conspiracy fantasy eh
the jews needed a place to go and palestine had loads of land for sale
the rest is history
WTAF is wrong with you?
If Jewish people have a “Right to exist,” do Palestinians? If not, then where should they go?
People have a right to exist, but states do not. States change. Does Ukraine have a right to exist? They used to be a part of the USSR and were solidly inside those boundaries. Is Russia’s incursion into their sovereign territory lawful?
Where do you draw the line? Who gets to exist and who gets to die? What about the children who were born there? Do you just say, “woops, you suck because I hate your parents. die, babies.”
The future is not history and you are a Zionist prick.
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Man! That’s a can of worms!
Entire books have been written on the subject.
The U.S.and Israel have a tangled history going back most of a century at this point.
The short answer is that there are enough historical, religious, and cultural ties for the two countries to be allies long term. Since the us, and by extension NATO, needed a place of projected power in the region, and there was an opportunity to make that happen, Israel happened.
And, being real, Israel has mostly been a reliable ally since its creation as a country. It’s hard to point to a time when Israel didn’t fulfill its expected role in the relationship.
As such, it’s really no surprise that when both countries have leadership that are absolute fascist pricks, that the governments would go whole hog in supporting each other.
Again, that’s the disgustingly short, over simplified version. I don’t have enough interest to turn it into an essay, nor even a discussion, just wanted to drop my take on the matter in a simple way since I didn’t see anything in other comments to just upvote and support with a subsidiary comment as being super close to the way I would say it.
Israel is a neocolony that serves a vital strategic interest. The entire empire is held up by oil. Israel gives them say into how oil production is managed in the region. So many middle east countries feel inclined to play ball with the US because Israel exists. Anyone who sees the problem with this arrangement is strongly encouraged ($$$) to play ball also.
I think it is the religious end of things; by that the Americans can tell themselves they are protecting god’s chosen people. So in a way they are doing god’s will.
Also money talks and the isreali lobby has lots of it.
As someone who grew up religious, this is it. The people primarily voting maga into power are christians and they fervently believe Israel is right because they are god’s chosen. Religion has absolutely no place in politics or we end up in situations like this.
ding ding ding, this is my exact thought, and I remember my ultra religious dad glazing israel while reading me the bible as a kid.
No thanks.
i think religion does play a huge part of this.
as well as all of its variants – the og books of the bible are centuries old and prone to a lot of interpretations.
apart from that, i believe it is the special interests, the money and their invitations of “pilgrimage” to israel.
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USA has a large population of Jews. Not all are zionists, in fact there have been many anti-zionist Jews protesting against Israel’s genocide of Palestinians. However, some are zionists. Some Jews see Israel as a backup plan - if shit goes south in the USA they can always flee there.
USA has a lot of evangelical Christians. Somehow (it’s not in the Bible) they have convinced themselves that a Jewish return to the Holy Land is necessary before the end of the world happens. Which they want to happen, because they believe they are the good guys and will go to heaven.
USA has a lot of racists. They see Israel as an ethnostate, they like that and support it. Their hatred of brown people is stronger than their hatred of Jews so they are happy to see Israel oppress Palestinians.
USA also has anti-semites who are glad to see a place exist where Jews “should” go to. And they are ecstatic that Israel’s genocide of Palestinians is igniting a new wave of anti-semitism.
Many Americans also see Israel as the only democracy in the middle east. It isn’t a democracy, of course, since it has de facto control over Palestine and therefore a huge population is disenfranchised. But wait - rights only for a certain group of people, oppression for the rest - that’s like America when it was “great” (ie pre-Civil Rights era) and they want America “great again”.
It presents a friendlier, strategic area to conduct attacks in the middle east for oil for the past century almost. As well as majority of them are white. In addition Israel lobbies the fuck out of our country to be friendly to them and their genocide.
The US is a global arms manufacturer with a democracy attached, if there wasn’t an Israel to prop up the US would find something similar and arm it to the hilt.
The
USMilitary Industrial Complex gets to remind everyone why it’s a superpower, it gets to make and sell it’s weapons, survialiance tech, etc, it keeps it’s opponents weak and desperate but armed such that there is always fear to keep selling the forever war (both to the US, but also ton Israelis (and to a lesser extent to Jewish people living elsewhere)), by political maneuvering it gets to police feespeach.liberals/conservatives get to feel like they are not racist because they support a minority led country, who many don’t consider white in that context.
If it wasn’t Israel it could be a different proxy state in the middle East or maybe Africa/Asia.
IMO it has very little to do with Jewishness and a lot more to do with geopolitics, yes they use the Holocaust for propoganda 🤢, but they don’t give a fuck about Holocaust survivors. Also and this is small compared to committing genocide, but they’ve redefined the Holocaust to exclude all of the non-jewish victims which were historically included as recently as a decade ago in common usage of the term (e.g what I learnt in school, what was on Wikipedia, etc)
with a “democracy” attached
Israel has its own military industrial complex. It’s an even bigger portion of their economy. They’re a very high tech nation. ICQ, the predecessor of AOL Instant Messenger, was invented in/by Israelis.
Without the US pumping all our tax dollars into it they wouldn’t have the money for universal healthcare, free college and unlimited war and genocide
Are you sure about that?
Looks like the US gives Israel about $3B per year.
https://usafacts.org/articles/how-much-military-aid-does-the-us-give-to-israel/
Versus Israel’s GDP of about $700B
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Israel
I think the main form of aid is the access to US weapons and technology and that’s largely about subsidizing the US defense industry. I think I read somewhere that US aid to Israel is literally sometimes in the form of vouchers/coupons they have to spend on weapons/defense tech.
That’s not to say we shouldn’t cut off that aid when it’s used to commit atrocities. Just saying get the facts straight.
We’ve given them over 30billion in cash and military equipment since January 1st. Trump literally bypassed congress to gift them a new fleet of fighter jets. We shouldn’t be paying them jack shit because they obviously are doing better according than us to you
True, I don’t like the term globalist as it’s too often abused, but the fuckers profiting from these arms companies can live anywhere and don’t give fuck about either country beyod their ability to capture the governments and sell them weapons & tech.
There are stronger bonds between arms manufacturers regardless of nationality than those arms manufacturers and the people of the country the company is “based in”.
The politicians are into it for the campaign donations.
The average citizen supports it because they generally still have a post-WWII mindset and are resistant to criticisms of Israel and conflate anti-Israeli sentiment with antisemitism which Israel encourages.
It’s a friendly nation in an area where those are scarce, so being able to base military operations out of there is seen as a key strategic asset.
Not defending, just explaining.
Yeah cause Saudi, qatar and UAE aren’t bending over backwards to lick the US dick …
Historically, the relationship between the US and Israel is far closer than others in the region. Everyone else are much more like fair weather friends. Intelligence between the two is highly integrated to a degree unseen outside of the closest US allies.
That’s a great point, Israel does seem like a bit of a financial burden these days though …
Any country can be friendly. If they have an advantage to be your friend. Iran can be friendly to the usa and europe if they stop sanctionning them and stop supporting israel the only settler colonial power in the middle east
That’s what I think too, but that’s not the prevailing feeling of those in charge.
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profit, corruption, and the genuine belief that they need to protect Israel in order to go to heaven.
these are the same people that believe god has already determined exactly how they die so they can do anything - if they didn’t die, it was god’s plan.
they also believe god meant for the existence of poor people. blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth (while the rich and famous go to heaven)
they also believe god meant for the existence of poor people. blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth (while the rich and famous go to heaven)
Which is extra funny when you remember that Jesus explicitly stated that rich people don’t get into heaven.
what the bible actually says the rich can get:
Israel is an unsinkable aircraft carrier in the Middle East. The Middle East is full of oil and independent countries that the US would rather control as puppets.
Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Iran, Palestine, Lebanon - every country that doesn’t bend the knee gets bombed. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Turkey, Israel - those countries that do bend the knee get limitless military support, regardless of how oppressive they are.
The US is intent in conquering the entire Middle East by force. Israel is not unique, it’s just the most firmly controlled US proxy.
Yep and if Israel ceased to exist, the US would create one for this reason. Need some attack dog in the region to get the other Arab nations to do as they’re told.
The region is still very important from a geopolitical standpoint. As last months oil prices have shown.
Israel don’t have (m)any friends in the region. They are a reasonably stable democracy. This makes them a dependable ally. What would happen if there was a revolution in Saudi Arabia for example? Probably something similar to Iran 1979.
So having Israel as an ally is a huge multiplier in power projection in the region.
Why do you need to project power when it’s so expensive? It’s sort of what superpowers do. Meddle in the affairs of smaller countries to further their own goals. If not the US then Russia or China.
Religion
- There is one specific spot, Temple Mount/Dome of the Rock/Mount Moriah, that is the holiest (to Jews, Muslims and Christians) place on Earth. I can’t summarize everything, go read about it, its really interesting even if you’re not religious. Once you learn about it, you’ll be “holy shit, this will never get resolved”.
Geo-strategy
- Yes. It is right in the middle of two continents, Europe and Africa, and could be considered the gateway into Asia (from the West). After WWI, the Germans were defeated but so was the Ottoman Empire. The British filled that hole but after they got kicked around in WWII, their empire crumbled too. The Brits left Palestine and turned to the United Nations to leave some sort of “Western” influence in the area. United Nations made the 1947 partition map that created Israel and here we are (after a bunch of violence since then)
There are obviously a lot of reasons - one I haven’t seen mentioned here yet is that they’re our only real ally in the region and the best spies in the world; a combination that makes them incredibly attractive as “strategic partners” if the goal is to influence politics in a region you have very little other indirect methods of manipulating.
They’ve worked damned hard to make sure they’re in that position, too. Being invaluable to maintaining US influence in the middle east is the reason the US backs them militarily, and without that backing they’d get absolutely flattened by their neighbors. Thus the toxic symbiotic relationship you see today, with massive campaign contributions and influence operations from both sides designed to ensure they don’t ever lose that mutual support.
This is the answer as i understand it.
They’re a strategic partner.
US police departments also have a history of training with the IDF and the US is learning surveillance and profiling strategies from them too.
https://www.amnestyusa.org/blog/with-whom-are-many-u-s-police-departments-training-with-a-chronic-human-rights-violator-israel/ https://www.congress.gov/117/meeting/house/115009/documents/HHRG-117-JU00-20220719-SD003.pdf https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/6/12/how-the-us-and-israel-exchange-tactics-in-violence-and-control
the best spies in the world
that we know of, which really should be disqualifying
My dad is in his 80’s and has been an atheist and hardcore liberal democrat for most of his life. The only political subject we’ve ever seriously butted heads on is Israel.
The last time we argued about it, his position was basically that, as a state, it had the right to defend itself from all the “hostile” countries around it. According to him, it even has the right to expand outward to protect itself by creating buffer zones. If Palestinians didn’t want their innocent children bombed to bits, all they needed to do was renounce Hezbollah and/or leave the area entirely.
I was pretty dumbfounded hearing him say this. He’s an avid reader and total history nerd, so to hear him hand-waving genocide was pretty shocking to me. I think it comes from growing up a boomer and a lifetime of deep-seated indoctrination that painted post-WW2 Jews as forever the good guy victims who are just struggling to recover from the atrocities of the past. A mindset that people born in the 70s, 80s, (and so on) just can’t relate to.
I know that doesn’t exactly answer your question, but I wrote this out as much for me as for you. I love my dad and he’s an extremely good person, so it’s pretty shocking for me to have this huge wedge issue between us. If he could learn to separate Jewish people from the state of Israel, he might understand, but frankly, at his age, I doubt he’ll ever come around.
I think it is as simple as it is far enough away that many “normal” people didn’t want to look into the details of it and the news wouldn’t cover the bad shit israel would do. I remember being content with that same narrative and sentiment your dad had, and I think it was just because I was focused on other things.
