Damn...I wasn't expecting that. That is a dumb question. Do you ride the short bus too?

Actually, I think our alliance with Israel has more to do with Christian beliefs than anything. Even with all of the seperation in church and state bullshit, America is still deeply rooted in religion (Christianity), just look at your money. That is what I believe initially brought about the diplomatic ties with Isreal (God's chosen people) and we've been allies ever since.

One thing America is good at is standing by it's allies even if they won't do the same for us.

That's my opinion on the whole deal anyways.

Interesting question - it's not stupid if you learn something...  Even tho most of what you probably get here is opinion!

My take on the situation is that we are backing Israel as "the sole bastion of Democracy in the Middle East."  That's the political reason.

Militarily, Israel has been a testbed for our hardware for the last forty years or so.  How much current hardware do we sell (or give!) to Israel each year?  How much of it gets used?

Morally, it is probably because Judiaism and Christianity are so similar (on the surface - there are subtle differences) that we fell we MUST back up our "brothers in God."

At least, that's my take.  Then again, it was common for me to get "F's" on questions taht ask my opinion...

FFZ

Nonsense, [b]DoubleFeed[/b], the only truly dumb questions are the ones that remain unasked, and, therefore, unanswered.

A great deal of US and the World's support for a Jewish homeland was the result of the fact that the European Jews were almost wiped out in the Holocaust.  I'm certain the newsreels in 1945-46-47 were constantly showing the unearthed horrors of the death camps, the GIs were returning home with their stories of the liberation of the camps, and the Nuremburg trials were being covered by the media.

On June 6, 1946, President Truman urged the British government to relieve the suffering of the Jews confined to displaced persons camps in Europe by immediately accepting 100,000 Jewish immigrants. Britain's Foreign Minister, Ernest Bevin, replied sarcastically that the United States wanted displaced Jews to immigrate to Palestine simply 'because they did not want too many of them in New York.'

Nevertheless, it was a time when the entire world, or at least the non-Arabic part of it, decided that something must be done for the survivors. It was determined that a partition of Palestine was in the best interests of both Jews and Arabs.

In 1942, there were approximately 500,000 Jews and an equal number of Arabs in 'Palestine.'

After WWII, the survivors of the death camps made their way to Palestine, illegally, since the British refused to permit them entry.

Between August 1945 and the establishment of the State of Israel in May 1948, 65 'illegal' immigrant ships, carrying 69,878 people, arrived from European shores. In August 1946, however, the British began to intern those they caught in camps in Cyprus.

By 1947, Jewish holdings in Palestine amounted to about 463,000 acres. Approximately 45,000 of these acres were acquired from the Mandatory Government; 30,000 were bought from various churches and 387,500 were purchased from Arabs. Analyses of land purchases from 1880 to 1948 show that 73 percent of Jewish plots were purchased from large landowners, not poor [i][b]fellahin[/b][/i].

Those who sold land included the mayors of Gaza, Jerusalem and Jaffa. Even Transjordan's King Abdullah leased land to the Jews.

In his memoirs, that same King Abdullah wrote:



Well, however the Jews obtained land, it was not by force of arms, but by purchasing land at first, and then by partition by the UN later.

Although President Truman had given the US blessing to the creation of the State of Israel, the United States was more pro-Arab than it was pro-Israeli during this period.

It did nothing to assist the Israelis in their War of 1948.

President Eisenhower took the side of Egypt in the Suez War of 1956 and demanded that Britain, France and Israel give back the Suez Canal to Egypt, and that portion of the Sinai captured by Israel.

Only after the 1967 Six Day War did Israel and the United States become close allies, and that was due to the simple reason that Israel needed assistance in fending off its Arab foes, and the US needed a strategic ally in this part of the world to offset the growing Soviet influence in the Arab world.

Eric The(Historical)Hun[>]:)]

Post from doublefeed -

Hmmm, I'm not quite sure, this is your thread after all.

If the issue is why should the US be concerned about the ongoing clashes between Israel and the Palestinians, the first thing that comes to mind is that such current violence is not very conducive to US strategy in keeping the Arab world behind its War on Terrorism.

Then there's the issue that such violence is very destabilizing to an area of the world where (1) we have strong ties, (2) we get 60% of our oil.

Need any more issues?

Eric The(IGotAFewMore)Hun[>]:)]

DoubleFeed

This issue has been debated on this site extensively the last few weeks.  You will hear several different viewpoints.  Let me give you mho.

If Israel were to fall tomorrow it would not hurt the US one bit.  In fact it would relive a lot of tension between us and the Arab world.  It would also save us a lot of money.  The only people that would be concerned would be the Jews living in America and a handful of Christians that belive in some sort of biblical connections with Israel (you will find a couple of them posting on this site).

We support Israel for a couple of reasons.  First, and minor, is that most Westerners feel guilty about the way the Jews were treated during WWII.

The second, and most important, is the influence that Jews have in America to support Israel.  We all know that Jews have a lot of influence in the media, finance community, business and government. No political leader would dare to go up against the Israel lobby in the US.  Let me give you an example.  Bush was leading in polls in Florida until Gore announced his running mate.  Overnight the polls changed in direct proportion to the percentage of Jews living in South Florida.  They wanted their boy in office, not because of his domestic political views, but because he was a champion of Israel.

There is no reason that the government should be allowed to take my hard earned money and give it to the riches country in that part of the world.  As long as we send support and money to Israel they will have no incentive to accommodate the just demands of the Arabs they are enslaving and killing in the name of security.

Israel is no friend of the US.  They would (and have) sell us out in a New York minute if it suited them.  Some people on this site are in naive denial but they sunk the Liberty because it suited them (the evidence is overwhelming).  They insisted on payment for intelligence on how they shot down Soviet made aircraft in the 70s.  They give us nothing and take much.

I have nothing against Jews.  I just don't think we should be supporting a country that is an obnoxious entity as Israel.  I feel sorry for the way Jews were treated in WWII.  I can understand why they wanted to leave Europe in 1947.  The only problem is they are employing their own Nazi type tactics on the poor Arabs who did nothing to deserve being put into concentration camps.

Lord, [b]Flash66[/b], I don't think that Osama Bin Laden could have said it better![:D]

But let's see, the 'renewed' Intifadah has been going on since Sept. 2000. In that period of time there have been approximately 1,100 Palestinians killed.

So what are those 'Nazi' like tactics that have resulted in so [u]few[/u] deaths?

Eric The(Truthful)Hun[>]:)]

God, not this again. I leave for a little while and when I get back, the same old stuff all over again.

Okay, now I'm gonna go start a "what's the best handgun?" thread. [:D]

Post from DoubleFeed -

I doubt that we will ever see the end of this conflict. With every suicide bombing, with every Israeli retaliatory strike, the people's hearts are hardened even more.

There have been remarkable periods of peace and tranquility before, so they may come again, but they will end just as before.

As I've said before, I wish for the status quo, less any more suicide bombings.

Eric The(Peaceful)Hun[>]:)]

Why are we involved in the Israeli/Palestinian thing? Because our nation could be hurt by instability in the middle east.  

Why are we on Israels side, and not the Palestinians? Mostly historical.  We were involved in the founding of the nation and have always been sypathic to it.  Also, the Israelis have never murdered olympic athletes, as Yassir did. They have never harbored or trained terrorists who attacked the USA, either.  

Hun

Your reference to OBL was uncalled for.  I don't think he attacked the US because we support Israel.  He is using it as an excuse.

Let me use a farfetched example.

Mexicans decide to take over the Southwest because it is their ancestral homeland.  The liberals in the US are in power and choose not to resist because we have economically repressed the poor people of Mexico for many years.  They deserve to regain their homeland.

The Americans in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas etc are put into resettlement camps.  They are treated as 2nd class citizens by  their new masters.  The Mexicans keep expanding their territory for security reasons.

The US citizens try to fight back but are overwhelmed by the Mexicans.  The Mexicans are strongly supported by all Spanish speaking countries.

After all else fails the US citizens resort to all out warfare, including attacking the civilian intruders.  The military is too hard to fight but they know if they can extract a heavy price from the intruders then maybe they will give up.

A few of the patriots (mostly brave Texans) strap bombs to themselves and blow up the intruders.  The sacrifice is great but in the end the intruders are driven away and the US is whole again.

Sound familiar?  Who is morally right?  The brave Texans fighting to regain their homeland or the intruders?

*hijacks the thread and*



Well, it doesn't really matter, as long as one realizes that the 9mm Para caliber is waaayyyy superior, compared with the .45ACP

[pyro]