Israel depends for its existence entirely on continuous military, industrial, political, diplomatic, and economic support from the USA on a huge scale. If and when that support is withdrawn, as it surely will be sooner or later, Israel will become unsustainable and will disappear. There are many examples throughout history of clients states dependent on overseas support, and their stories only end one way.
do they still depend on the states so much? or is it a more symbiotic relationship? in that they now generate their own wealth (albeit with huge contributions from the Jewish community in the usa) and are necessary to america to maintain an influence in the region. they must be of value or America would have severed ties with them along time ago
One video I would enjoy watching is Jihad John and his knife go up against one of these with there knife instead of the usual arms tied behind back stuff,see how he gets on then.Its may look flash as its just a demo but in real unarmed combat they would fucking nail you.
I'm watching that. Very interesting. Particularly instructive when it comes to detailing just how wedded to oil our economies are. I have a good friend who works in oil exploration (£600 a day: nice work if you can get it but he's often in godforsaken hellholes for his six-week stints) and the good news is, however, that it's not going to run out any time soon. It will just get more expensive to extract until the shale revolution gathers critical mass.
No American politician could countenance severing the country's ties with Israel without losing the huge Jewish vote and that's one of the reasons they don't. Then, of course, there the moral dimension, which centres on the fact that Israel is a democratic bulwark against the fascism of Muslim states on the region, though I believe many politicians in the US were initially opposed to the creation of Israel.
Interesting that the Jewish family of Jihadi John victim Steven Sotloff, members of which are Holocaust survivors, are not calling for the terrorist to be killed. They just want him locked up for life. Very civilised.
I'm glad ST's lauding of Israel's sham democracy has finally revealed him as a hasbara inspired pro-Israeli zionist - at least that's how it appears to me! Protagonists of Israeli democracy often bleat on about how its the shining beacon of light in the dark and backward middle east, but Israel is an 'ethnocracy' - where Palestinian children are tried in military courts for throwing stones and sentenced for months and years in jail, where a third of the population of 'Israel' cannot vote, where there is no separation between religion and state and non-Jews are discriminated against in most areas, a country which has interrogation laws allowing torture, where non-Jewish citizen are forbidden from buying state owned land, where the state routinely dispossesses Palestinians of their lands, a country which is constitutionally racist. If that's your idea of democracy, you can keep it! Open your eyes people!
After the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, the British assumed control of Palestine. In November 1917, the British government issued the Balfour Declaration, announcing its intention to facilitate the "establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." In 1922, the League of Nations granted Britain a mandate over Palestine which included, among other things, provisions calling for the establishment of a Jewish homeland, facilitating Jewish immigration and encouraging Jewish settlement on the land. The Arabs were opposed to Jewish immigration to Palestine and stepped up their attacks against the Jews. Following an increase in Arab attacks, the British appointed a royal commission in 1936 to investigate the Palestine situation. The Peel Commission recommended the partition of the country between Arabs and Jews. The problems arose because while the Jews accepted the principle of partition, the Arabs rejected it. Next .....
Moreover, as tensions grew between Muhammad and the Jewish tribes of Medina and while the Arab tribes were gradually being drawn to Islam, the Jews, already having a monotheistic faith and feeling no need for another prophet, held out. This weakened the ties between the Jews and those Arab tribes with which they were allied. Also, as we have seen, Muhammad began to threaten the Jews once they failed to show enthusiasm for Islam. Because of these developments the Jews felt isolated and endangered, and their sympathies naturally began to incline towards Muhammad's Mecca enemies. Muhammad's harsh treatment of the Bani Qaynuqa must have alarmed the other Jewish tribes. Ka'b ibn al-Ashraf, a leader and poet of the Bani Nadir, composed verses lamenting the Meccan defeat at Badr and satirising Muhammad. This enraged Muhammad, so he had Ka'b assassinated, telling the killers it would be OK to lie in order to gain the confidence of their victim. (The story is recounted in Ibn Ishaq 550-51 and also in the Hadith, Sahih Bukhari, 5:59:369.)
"Democratic bulwark"? You've got to be kidding. A large proportion of the population of Israel-controlled territories do not get to vote. Many rights including the right to vote are permitted or restricted on a purely racial basis, and Israel is thus an explicitly racist state. It is about as democratic as South Africa was under apartheid. In the USA you are right about the Jewish vote although there are a lot of Americans of Arab descent too, whose votes are somehow disregarded. The right-wing Christian lobby in USA also strongly supports Israel - this is rather a bizarre U-turn, since a few decades ago they discriminated strongly against (sic) Jewish people for racist reasons.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. This isn't rocket science, folks. Well, it is in Israel but that's beside the point.
All accepted and wrong but the Muslim states, with their feudal, theocracies and multiple human rights abuses - 1,000 lashes if you disagree with them - hardly cover themselves with glory either. Who are the more enlightened people and which is the more enlightened faith Pete? Simple question. Answer it please. No political double speak needed.
