Heard on the Hill

[vierundzwanzig]

Congress approves $2.64 billion in military, economic aid to Israel. The Senate recently approved a $2.64 billion in overall assistance to the Jewish state. The aid package includes $2.16 billion in military assistance and an additional $480 million in financial aid. The financial aid to Israel was included as part of an omnibus bill that combined seven of the 13 appropriations bills that Congress had not already approved for the 2004 fiscal year, which began Oct 1. The legislation will fund all foreign aid and most domestic programs through the end of September. The House passed the spending package shortly before adjourning late last year by a vote of 242 to 176. The bill now goes to the President, who is expected to sign the bill into law.

http://www.aipac.org/Heard%20on%20the%20Hill012604.htm

[lcordero]

1. I guess that we Americans are 2nd class citizens in our own

country:mad:

[vierundzwanzig]

2. Oh no

that would be racist to say.

[lcordero]

3. how do you figure it is racist?

[vierundzwanzig]

4. 2nd class citizens

sounds so much like ZOG (a right-wing term for Zionist Occupied Government or somesuch thing).

Do you really think there are foreign people in this country that are treated better based on their ethnicity? Of course that would make you a racist.

[lcordero]

5. ZOG or no ZOG

Citizens vote in officials so that the needs of citizens can be better and more efficiently taken care of. Needs like education and healthcare.

I do not vote in officials so that they may shit on me.

I am do not care if the entire Middle East backs out of the ABM and proliferates since it is in their best interest to defend themselves.

Do you really think there are foreign people in this country that are treated better based on their ethnicity? Of course that would make you a racist.

acknowledging racism and being against racism isn't racist.

[Fight_n_back]

6. Unfortunately for you number crunchers

Aid to the PA is very hard to trace. Saudi Arabia and Libya give aid on an Adhoc basis. The only aid thats easy to trace to the PA is the EU and US aid which is about half of that given to Israel.

considering that Sadu Arabia and Libya give virtually nothing back to their own people it is not hard to conclude that they could swamp what the US gives to Israel.

Since you guys are so interesting you should study the history of US aid to Israel. It may give you some perspective on what you are so opinionated about.

Start with who Truman supported during the war of independance and then try to hold onto your belief that the US has always backed Israel.

Also try to remember which countries in the Middle East that the US is willing to die in order to defend and which countries are edited out of reports on the sponsers of terror.

Are there foreign nationals who get treated better than US citizens? You mean like the only people allowed to fly out of the country in the week following 9/11?

Oh well. Old habits die hard I guess.

[Resistance]

7. The US made a general turn in favor of Israel

after Israel's impressive blitzkrieg against the Egyptian Armed Forces in June 1967. The U.S. appreciates that kind of no-nonsense fuck-diplomacy military rampage, and Israel pretty much proved to the world those six days that it was entirely capable of living up to those high standards of ruthless aggression. So the U.S. said "we got a winner" and the support for Israel shot up.

What was it that was said during the U.S. aggression in Vietnam - that they should get the Israelis in there to show 'em how it's supposed to be done. Yeah, that's about right, eh?

[Fight_n_back]

9. Slightly incorrect

big aid did not happen until Nixon when Israel nearly lost the 1973 Yom Kippur war. Nixon felt that losing Israel would be bad for the Cold War plus it fit in with his triangulation foreign policy. It was just a coupple of years later that he turned US aid to Israel into a massive arms sale to Saudi Arabia. Saying Nixon was at the mercy of Jews (who he hated) would be stretching the point even for people at DU.

[tinnypriv]

12. Sorry to let the facts intrude

But US aid to Israel 1971-1972 alone was roughly equivalent to the previous 13 years combined.

The reason for this was a combination of factors, the most important of which being the "Nixon doctrine", and Kissingers rejection of the Sadat peace proposal in 1971.

Neither of which had anything to do with the Yom Kippur war.

[tinnypriv]

8. "Half that given to Israel"

Most amusing thing I've read all day.

[Fight_n_back]

10. You are certainly

welcome to prove your point.

If you can be bothered.

[tinnypriv]

13. I'm afraid not

I'm sure you're devastated.

[Darranar]

11. What about Truman's swift recognition of Israel in 1948?

[Fight_n_back]

14. What about it?

nt

[Darranar]

15. I may be misreading you...

but I think I disagree with your assessment of American foreign policy in the Middle East in the years immediately prior to World War II.

We agree that the US was not particularly pro-Israel (in the form of actual actions) until the Arab military powers aligned with the Soviets. I think, however, that it wasn't particularly pro-Arab either. One example was the US's quick recognition of Israel, which certainly was not conforming to the Arab states' interests.

[Fight_n_back]

16. Well then you can't consider the US

Pro Israel now since the US gave arms and aid to the Arab side in the war of Independence while making it illegal to help Israel. Im not sure I follow your logic either way though.

Perhaps the US has a complicated policy toward the region that is not so easy to pigeon hole. Perhaps it has also changed with each administration, but that would dash the whole "US foreign policy controlled by Israel" thing.

The best thing about the hysterical overanalysis of Israel is that, quite by accident, people also occasionally pay attention to the plight of people who live in oppressive monarchies and dictatorships that export terrorism.

If not for Israel no one wuold end up giving a shit about people in Yemmen, Jordan, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Iran, et al. It would be like Africa. Just a place on a map where women get acid thrown in their face.

[Darranar]

17. I'm not sure I follow your logic, either...

First of all, I don't think at all that US foreign policy is controlled by Israel; I have never stated any such thing.

American foreign policy in the Middle East is indeed a complex thing, both now and then, and though I'd consider the US pro-Israel in regard to the Israel/Palestine conflict, it is hardly so in regard to relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

The Middle East is and was an important region, and it would be with or without Israel. At the moment, Africa is far less so.