Now i'm definitely cheering for Rulestein
Now i'm definitely cheering for Rulestein
alt text: A "xit" from user @ChrpngBrd in which he responds to another "xit" from @BlueBoxDave that says "If Israel falls then America falls. It's that simple." @ChrpngBrd's response is a thumbs up emoji, and two stills from The Simpsons S02E19 "Lisa's Substitute." In which, the first image is Martin Prince putting up a poster saying "A vote for Bart is a vote for Anarchy!" and the second image is Bart Simpson putting up a poster that says "A vote for Bart is a vote for Anarchy!"
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How in the hell does anyone think that America's safety is dependent on Israel?
It's called propaganda.
The US doesn't support Israel for our safety. We do because historically being anti-Israel alienated the following groups.
- Evangelical votes in the US
- Jewish voters in the US
- A strong Pro-Israel lobby, who would give a LOT of money, and therefore a lot of votes, to opponents of an anti-Israel candidate.
The historical context is changing rapidly, though.
These days, Jewish voters are more likely to support safety for Palestinians than the ongoing genocide. By polls, they don't like Netanyahu and, while most think US support of Israel is "about right", more US Jews would prefer decreasing US involvement than increasing it, so the pendulum is swinging away. So, even among Jews, it's not clear that the US should be involved.
And AIPAC is just one among many lobbies. If you ask a random Republican what we should do with Israel, "nuke it to glass" is likely to be the answer, so they can only really influence Democrats and they still have to promise more money than the opposition lobbies do.
I don't think most Republicans want to nuke Israel to glass these days. Of course, that's more because they need it for their batshit end-times prophecies than any sort of humanitarian or rational reason.
Evangelicals only really started voting in the 80s. Their support of Israel is only significant recently.
There was a cold war argument that the US needed Israel and the Saudis to counteract the more Russia-aligned Egypt and Iran. We have guns here because they have guns over there.
Now its mostly because oil, which will be important for a lot of products for a long time to come, but not for the one thing that drives American policy in the region: the price at the gas pump.
Oh, and then there's the Christian Zionists who want to kick off the Rapture. That group is vestigial, diseased, and needs to be cut right out.
Maybe it was more of a threat than a statement about dependency.