What do you think the US's policy towards Israel should be?

[WolfBear]

Well?

@History Learner I know that you're a severe critic of Israel due to your own Paleoconservative views. Am I right? So, cut off all US aid to Israel? Anything else? Place US sanctions on Israel? What else?

 

[Chiron]

Well?

@History Learner I know that you're a severe critic of Israel due to your own Paleoconservative views. Am I right? So, cut off all US aid to Israel? Anything else? Place US sanctions on Israel? What else?

Stop all aide, withdraw our missions in Israel, and don't answer their calls. Not our concern or problem.

 

[WolfBear]

Stop all aide, withdraw our missions in Israel, and don't answer their calls. Not our concern or problem.

Should we offer our services as a mediator in any future peace talks?

 

[Chiron]

Should we offer our services as a mediator in any future peace talks?

No, not our concern or problem. They can count themselves lucky we don't punish them for selling our military secrets to China or attacking USS Liberty, or for election interference.

 

[WolfBear]

No, not our concern or problem. They can count themselves lucky we don't punish them for selling our military secrets to China or attacking USS Liberty, or for election interference.

You mean similar to this for election interference? :

 

[Chiron]

You mean similar to this for election interference? :

More along the lines of buying influence and shit like Epstein's political bribery. We as a nation can't tolerate that shit as it drags us into other shit that is not our concern or problem. It is unacceptable to send one dollar to a foreign nation when many US Cities don't have safe drinking water.

 

[Abhorsen]

Personally, they are a useful ally. Somebody has to be top dog in the world. I'd rather it be us than China or Russia. One of the ways we stay top dog is by having actually decent allies that share most of our values. As the only non-dictatorship, non-dumpster fire in the middle east, yeah, I want them on our side. And given the positive history of US-Israeli relations, it's actually a strong relationship that's worth keeping.

Netanyahu did damage that relationship by favoring Republicans, which is a huge problem, so I'm glad he's out and hopefully we can go back to normal.

 

[WolfBear]

Personally, they are a useful ally. Somebody has to be top dog in the world. I'd rather it be us than China or Russia. One of the ways we stay top dog is by having actually decent allies that share most of our values. As the only non-dictatorship, non-dumpster fire in the middle east, yeah, I want them on our side.

Even if they could be spying on us, like they previously did with Jonathan Pollard?

 

[Battlegrinder]

Well?

@History Learner I know that you're a severe critic of Israel due to your own Paleoconservative views. Am I right? So, cut off all US aid to Israel? Anything else? Place US sanctions on Israel? What else?

They've been a more or less trustworthy ally and consistently play ball with us, and are arguably the only state in the middle east that's a trustworthy ally on their own merits (as opposed to someone like the Saudis, who are only barely on our side and we still have to bribe them). If we're going to have an ongoing interest in the region, which we are, we need some friends in the area and we don't really have that many good options.

No, not our concern or problem. They can count themselves lucky we don't punish them for selling our military secrets to China or attacking USS Liberty, or for election interference.

If we cut ties with every nation that ever spied on us or accidentally fired on our forces half a century ago (and despite decades of conspiracy theorists saying otherwise, there's never been a credible case made to suggest the liberty incident was anything else) we'd have no allies anywhere.

Even if they could be spying on us, like they previously did with Jonathan Pollard?

We have less than zero standing to take offense on that score, we spy on every, including people we'd already agreed to not spy on, and then use them spying on our citizens to circumvent our own laws about domestic surveillance while they do the same.

There are no countries that can complain about being victimized by foreign surveillance and do with a clean conscience, but the US stands alone in how massive hypocritical such comments are.

 

[Abhorsen]

Even if they could be spying on us, like they previously did with Jonathan Pollard?

Spying is expected, even between allies. As @Battlegrinder says, we have no leg to stand on.

It was also something they regretted and apologized for. Time does heal wounds.

 

[The Whispering Monk]

It is unacceptable to send one dollar to a foreign nation when many US Cities don't have safe drinking water.

This is simplistic, and not a federal issue. This is a local and state problem. Look to the leadership in those areas and you'll probably find someone embezzling money that should be going to infrastructure.

Even if they could be spying on us, like they previously did with Jonathan Pollard?

Please, we spy on everybody, they spy on us. It's how the game is played, and it's also one way to alert allies to hinkiness within their own country they might not know about.

 

[The Whispering Monk]

Stop all aide, withdraw our missions in Israel, and don't answer their calls. Not our concern or problem.

Why?

Specifically, why aren't the goings-ons of other countries of a concern to us?

Shouldn't we be interested in building, if not alliances, then partnerships that address specific areas of interest to the US?

 

[Marduk]

Netanyahu did damage that relationship by favoring Republicans, which is a huge problem, so I'm glad he's out and hopefully we can go back to normal.

Israel didn't really have choice in the matter considering how DNC changed since the Cold War.
Back then, just like with GOP, ME was strategic great power game business first.
GOP is still willing to offer them that deal and even more, rightfully or not.
Israel could agree with this strategic business, so the alliance worked and can still work on that shared ground, which any alliance needs.
Meanwhile, for DNC the ME matters, including Israel's internal security matters regarding Palestine, are mostly something to use to cater to own far left wing and international media/political creatures.
For obvious reasons, Israel has different priorities in those matters. If anything, with how the situation developed over the last decades in that, Israel grew more jaded and Palestinians radicalized, getting more aggressive in the "peace process", so if anything, trying to play along with democrats on that got only more costly for Israel - in both political and military terms.
Not to mention Obama's royal screwup with the Iran deal, and there you have the relationship fallout between Israel and DNC. Funny enough, Biden admin is trying to rectify the now obvious screwup, with a new deal that puts more limits on Iran's shenanigans, but Iran is insistent that they keep their old, incredibly exploitable deal conditions that can be lawyered as protecting Iran from US sanctions against *anything* Iran does short of nuclear program - the problem being that Iran has quite an imagination to go with the term *anything*.

Biden offers to lift sanctions if Iran 'changes course'

for election interference.

Oh please, out of all things to complain about, for USA to complain about that is a bad case of "throwing stones while living in a glass house".
Many countries have much to say about US media, NGOs and politicians interfering in their internal matters, especially when we consider even as much as verbal support interference.

 

[ShieldWife]

Complete neutrality - no aid, no sanctions, no interference. Just as we should treat every other nation in the world.

"Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations-entangling alliances with none."
- George Washington

 

[Cherico]

Our inteligence services suck at the human on the ground stuff and every time we try to change that they cry about their technology and do another line of blow. Most countries in the middle east cant rely on themselves much less be reliable allies. Like it or not we need Israel for their ability to gather intel and actually understand the players on the ground.

That's worth continuing the bribe between them and Egypt to not fight over the suez.

 

[LordsFire]

Well?

@History Learner I know that you're a severe critic of Israel due to your own Paleoconservative views. Am I right? So, cut off all US aid to Israel? Anything else? Place US sanctions on Israel? What else?

HL is far from a Paleoconservative.


As to the topic of the thread, they're our best possible allies from those available in the Middle East. As with anything involving humans, they're not always good allies, but they're a damn sight better than any other options, and as long as they're in place, they're acting in significant part as a meatshield against radical islamists.

 

[ShieldWife]

they're not always good allies, but they're a damn sight better than any other options, and as long as they're in place, they're acting in significant part as a meatshield against radical islamists.

Our alliance with and unconditional support for Israel is one of the major reasons why we’re on such bad terms with so many Islamic nations in the Middle East. It may be more accurate to say that we are their meat shield. It’s better to avoid fights entirely.

 

[Battlegrinder]

Complete neutrality - no aid, no sanctions, no interference. Just as we should treat every other nation in the world.

"Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations-entangling alliances with none."
- George Washington

That was a stance we didn't even stick to then, since our stronger than normal friendship with France was one reasons we could be sure that the British wouldn't decide to renegotiate the Treaty of Paris at gunpoint. It's certainly not one we can stick to now.

Washington lived in a world where the most valuable material around was aluminum, part time state militias with private weapons and the odd cannon were a viable if subpar response to conventional state militaries, terrorism was some insult the French were slinging at each other, and power projection meant "you're talking a big game for someone within cannonball range".

In the world we live in, someone has to secure sea lanes. Someone has to keep an eye on our enemies, peer and otherwise. Someone has to endure that overseas trade for resources that aren't available domestically is possible. Soneone has to actually be there for our friends when they're attacked rather than just going "well, that sucks for you, but we're just like big hippies and can't get involved here".

Who exactly do you think should be doing that? Because someone has to, and the list of nations that can is very short and very much not our freind.

Our alliance with and unconditional support for Israel is one of the major reasons why we’re on such bad terms with so many Islamic nations in the Middle East. It may be more accurate to say that we are their meat shield. It’s better to avoid fights entirely.

Explain how we're thier meat shield, exactly? Even with 9/11, US support of Israel was merely one of the reasons Bin Laden cited, and I don't find it plausible that he would be "well, they support all this other stuff that kills Muslims, they have troops in Saudi Arabia, and so on, but they're not that tight with Israel.....man,, what was I thinking, we gotta call this whole thing off."

And which nations are we in bad tern with again? By my reckoning, of the middle Eastern nations that anyone actually cares about, we're "allies" with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, allies with Turkey and Egypt, and our mutually hostile relationship with Iran is far more complicated than just "The US supports Isreal". We were at least on speaking terms with Syria, but aren't anymore for, again, non Israel related reasons. And we have allies or at least dialogue with most of the minor nations in the region.

 

[VictortheMonarch]

Personally I feel as if they can handle themselves. While we should remain friendly with Israel, they have proved themselves untrustworthy selling new technology to China that was exclusive given only to them. However to completely abandon them would be folly. They and the Kingdom of Jordan are our greatest Daggers in the Middle East, a lively threat to Saudi Arabia and Iran. Perhaps even one to Turkey, if the Turks get uppity.

 

[LordsFire]

Our alliance with and unconditional support for Israel is one of the major reasons why we’re on such bad terms with so many Islamic nations in the Middle East. It may be more accurate to say that we are their meat shield. It’s better to avoid fights entirely.

I'm sorry, but thinking that ending our relationship with Israel because it displeases the Islamic world would be interpreted as anything other than a sigh of weakness and indication of further attack shows that you do not understand the teachings, culture, or mindset of Islam.

If we did that, we would get more islamic terror attacks, not less. If they succeeded in destroying Israel without US support, they'd probably increase ten-fold.

You do not seem to understand that for these people, the world is divided into 'the house of Islam,' where Sharia is enforced, and 'the house of conflict,' which has not yet been forced to submit to Islam. The war will not end until either Islam is destroyed, or all has been forced to submit to it.

And as history shows, the only time this conflict can be put into abeyance, is when Christendom is strong enough that they cannot meaningfully militarily contest it.