Trump Pressures Obama Over U.N. Resolution on Israeli Settlements

[Benton]

(12-26-2016, 01:03 PM)GMDino Wrote: I've always had a (personal) problem with the situation of us giving them billions of dollars.  I never fully understood our allegiance/obsession with Israel.  They seem like the toady who goes out and picks fights and then has their big brother standing behind them so they can act tough.

Israel is more than capable of defending themselves...but they'd have to easy their tough stance and hard line talk to do so.

All that said I don't think Obama/the US makes this decision if Clinton wins...it would make her relationship with Netanyahu even more difficult.  And I don't say they did it to make Trump's time harder.  I think they did it because it was the right thing but politics made the move easier for them.

It's a mix. Our role at the end of WW II had us taking up for them, but that morphed into them becoming a base of operations in the Middle East. We could work out of Israel and gain information on what the Soviets and their allies in the area were doing. Likewise, we could use Israel against them. It worked in our favor. We pumped money in and we got "free" information... like a life-size MIG to play with. That information  was invaluable through the 50-60s.

But somewhere around the late 70s, the Christian conservative movement started taking some odd turns. I don't know if it was churches manipulating politicians or vice versa, but the belief started gaining momentum that  if Israel fell, it would mean the end of the world. Part of that was some shrewd planning by the Israeli intelligence/government officials. They sunk a hefty bit into their tourism department in the 80s, bringing in evangelicals from all over... especially the U.S. The idea was to get American pastors and spiritual leaders supporting the need for a strong Israel, whether it was because of the supposed role Jews play in the end times, or just because of the desire to protect "Christian" holy sites. It was pretty darn smart. Manipulate practitioners of a religion calling for peace to influence lawmakers into fighting on their behalf.