Helen Thomas passes.

[regexcellent]

The Arabs would hate us just as much with or without support for Israel. Anyway, most of the Arab countries (at least the ones run by relatively intelligent people, like Saudi Arabia or Egypt under Mubarak) use Israel as a boogeyman and nothing more, under the tacit understanding with Israel that neither will be shooting at each other and with a fair amount of under the table cooperation.

Iran (not an Arab country), under the Shah, was an Israeli ally. Israel even built the Tehran airport.

Also, sorry Elok, Israel doesn't commit war crimes, they get accused of it a lot, but they do their best considering the various war crimes their enemies commit constantly. The thing about war crimes is that they're gentlemen's agreements; if one side doesn't follow them, the other side is at a serious disadvantage if it does and really no longer has any reason to. The fact that Israel doesn't just napalm the whole goddamn Gaza Strip is showing an amazing amount of restraint.

[-Jrabbit]

Yes, but the Israel thing does kind of institutionalize it.

[Ben Kenobi]

In short, we get basically nothing out of the relationship, except for hatred from Arabs and Muslims

I really don't think that hatred is going to go away if you stop being bff with Israel.

[Elok]

Oh, and our attachment to Israel is most certainly excessive. Consider Britain: they've been our allies for ages, since long before Israel even existed. We trade with them, work closely with them, they even send their young men off to die on our stupid wars. If we want to criticize them or even make fun of them, we're allowed. Happens all the time, and nobody takes it personally.

Israel, on the other hand: well, AFAICT our relationship mostly consists of our giving them money and taking their side on disputes. Every once in a while we offer them more money if they'll stop committing war crimes for six months or so, to which their response is usually "hmmm...nah." In short, we get basically nothing out of the relationship, except for hatred from Arabs and Muslims, which we're pretty well stocked up on ATM. And yet, our politicians can't speak a word against them. Criticism of that state is essentially taboo. The closest we can come to it is to act vaguely sympathetic towards the Palestinians. That's messed up.

[dannubis]

So Kuci Jr is now trying to be the new Mobius ?

Quickly Elok, make a new thread !

[Elok]

I don't think there's anything excessive about it, but regardless, we can at least agree there's not vast Jewish conspiracy going on, something Helen Thomas would have disputed.

Oh, there's a lot of vast Jewish conspiracies in this country, but they all involve getting really, really ****ty movies made. Depressing, but not a threat to national security or anything like that.

[regexcellent]

Someone fantasizes about shooting Mexicans.

[SlowwHand]

Someone got up in a cranky mood.

[regexcellent]

Yes, we should. I'm running low on silhouette targets.

Since I get my silhouette targets for like, a quarter each, and that's when I'm not buying in bulk, that must be at or around the upper bound for your value on human life.

Fuck off.

Israeli isn't even part of NATO but we put their interests ahead of our actual NATO allies, such as Turkey, and you don't call that 'excessive'?

Turkey is more reliably pro-Iranian than pro-American now, so screw them.

[Hauldren Collider]

Yes, we should. I'm running low on silhouette targets.

Holy fucking shit, this post is disturbing.

[SlowwHand]

It most certainly does. Those republicans can go **** themselves, we should just let all the mexicans in.

Yes, we should. I'm running low on silhouette targets.

[Hauldren Collider]

No, **** Turkey. The Turks hate us. Turkey denies the Armenian Genocide. Turkey being in NATO is a relic of us putting ICBMs there during the Cold War. We have no reason to favor Turkey over Israel.

[Al B. Sure!]

Israeli isn't even part of NATO but we put their interests ahead of our actual NATO allies, such as Turkey, and you don't call that 'excessive'?

[Hauldren Collider]

Compromise: the pro-Israel lobby has an outsize influence in America because America is excessively pro-Israel. They have our leaders by the balls because, for some reason, scads of us have conflated our country's interests with those of a small, not-terribly-important state thousands of miles away.

(I don't know enough about Helen Thomas to say whether she was anti-semitic or not; RIP, either way)

I don't think there's anything excessive about it, but regardless, we can at least agree there's not vast Jewish conspiracy going on, something Helen Thomas would have disputed.

[notyoueither]

Did you just equate voicing any critisism of Israel with banning Christmas? What the **** is that even supposed to mean?

"We are owned by the propagandists against the Arabs. There's no question about that. Congress, the White House and Hollywood, Wall Street, are owned by the Zionists" is not a criticism of Israel