Why does Israel need US military aid anyway?

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Ok, so I don't want to go into this whole debate about whether or not a person should be "pro-israel" but either way, why would Israel need military aid from the US?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I heard that Israel is the 4th most powerful military in the world. And who are they squaring off against? Rocket launching palestinians where the rockets have no accuracy. And even with the Iranian threat, if a war starts, the worst case senario would be Israel wiping out all of Iran while perhaps half of Israel might be gone.

Israel has used only a fraction of its miltary might throughout the decades. I find it a waste of US taxpayer money. Again, even if the US finds a way to justify support for this "cause", Israel doesn't need military aid. It will do fine on its own.

The USA is concerned because Iran is getting political and popular support in the Middle East and it sits on a huge oil supply.The west has been pissed off at Iran for kicking out BP and controlling its own oil and the US would like (that is, BP would like) to grab that oil back. So it is manufacturing a great deal of nonsense about Iran's potential for developing atomic bombs which might threaten Israel so that Israel can respond preemptively with US support to attack Iran. It's the oil, again, but there's all sorts of BS about antisemitism and terrorism and women's rights to camouflage that. It's the oil.

I think claiming that US assistance to Israel is only about oil is oversimplifying the issue a bit. Aside from Israel being the closest thing to a democracy in the region, there is a large and influential population of Jewish Americans that help insure that flow of weapons and training who care nothing about oil. Even mobster Meyer Lansky funneled money and arms to Israel in the early days of it's existence, and he was far from alone among Jewish citizens of the US.

Yeah! We now know that Afghanistan has previous minerals!! Oil and gold!! (and lithium!!)

They say charity begins at home.

America is bankrupt at every level. Federal, state, counties and cities. Millions of Americans are losing their homes and their jobs. The government just voted to end unemployment benefits to millions of Americans.

Yet they are giving billions of dollars to Israel, maintaining two foreign wars and interfering with half the countries in the world.
They still have occupation troops in Germany and Japan and Korea, while American schools are closing and teachers are being laid off by the tens of thousands.

There are 50,000 troops to protect the border between North and South Korea but NO troops protecting America's border with Mexico.

Words fail me.

The current Israeli government persecuting its Arab citizens and threatening to exile all of them and the vile punishment of the Gaza citizens and murder of the people bringing aid to them in international waters does not indicate anything democratic about the country who chooses to use force instead of negotiation. Perhaps Meyer Lansky is the proper symbol for the country.

Maybe I'm being overly optimistic in expecting consistency at this point, but WTF does any of that have to do with whether or not US aid to Israel is solely about oil?

Source, please. Haifa is 33% Arab and nobody I know who has gone there has complained about Arabs being persecuted. I do know about the destruction of illegal Palestinian houses in East Jerusalem and police brutality in Ajami, however.

Also, on topic: Saudi Arabia spends nearly 3 times more money on its military (and 9.6% of its GDP) than Israel. Saudi Arabia and Syria have been in a de jure state of war with Israel since 1948 with merely an armistice in place. Heck, Saudi Arabia spends $1 billion more on its military every year than India, which has 40 times the population of that country!

1) Because it can't hurt to be on the side of the kid with the biggest toys, even (or perhaps especially) if he is a bit of a bully.

2) Because you might get to play with those toys, or access his multi-billion dollar satellite net, or ask for intel from his posh robot planes.

3) Because when the neighbours come over to smack you about because you have the temerity to not be Muslim in a mostly Muslim neighbourhood, you can ring up your big bully mate and ask for help, and the neighbours might even not come over any more because of him.

You were the one so enthusiastic about Israeli "democracy". I didn't bring it up.

Some documentation at:

http://www.antiwar.com/ips/biedermann.p ... cleid=2093

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/1 ... 57207.html

http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/israel2/

http://electronicintifada.net/bytopic/258.shtml

There's loads more.

Aid to Israel has a two fold effect:

1. It gives us an area in the middle east where we could deploy weapons and troops (for example during Gulf War I Patriot Missile Batteries were deployed in Israel). Israel is the closest thing to a reliable ally we have in the Middle East. More reliable than Pakistan.

2. It is a hidden subsidy to defense corporations. The government of Israel spends most of the money we give them on weapons systems made in America.

ruveyn

I hadn't heard of a mass of US troops based in Israel at any point in recent history and the gigantic Pentagon budget certainly is not particularly enlarged by the few billions donated to Israel.

I'm not even going to bother with those links, I'm not arguing about the legitimacy of Israel as a state or how they conduct their internal business, all I'm asking is what does any of that have to do with your conjecture that US aid is completely bases on oil?

Because oil is the only reason for the monstrously expensive fiasco of Iraq and Afghanistan. You're pretty naive if you think that the US is whacking people wholesale in the area for any other reason. Iran is a definite threat to the control of a pipeline running through Afghanistan from the source of oil in Asia. And the west is very bitter for Iran kicking out BP from controlling the massive amounts of oil in Iran. Read the history at http://www.democracynow.org/2010/5/6/hi ... es_role_in
about the CIA overthrow of the elected Iran Government to get the Shah in and set up BP. That's the real issue and the crap about Iran having a couple of atomic bombs to threaten Israel which has over 200 is total BS. There are already indications that Israel is setting up its military to attack Iran and if you think that's not about oil you're really out of it.

We don't have troops in Israel. It is a good place to deploy some of our weapons and a place to put observers. The Israeli army and air force is very capable and they do not need out people there to bleed. They do the bleeding for themselves.

ruveyn

The US wants to leave Iraq soon, so its defentiely not about the oil.