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US airman dies after setting himself on fire outside Israeli embassy
(www.channelnewsasia.com)
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this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2024
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Can anyone Eli5 us and Israel connection.
I don't know much about politics.
The middle east is an extremely geopolitically important region for the US because of all of the oil it has. The US therefore wants a country that it can use as basically a base of operation and client state in the region. Israel as a european settler colonials state is the client state that America wants because it largely is culturally closer to the US than the surrounding arab states. Consequently, the US defends Israel to the hilt regardless of the constant stream of atrocities that it commits.
Perhaps that was the initial impetus, but it is also 50 years out of date. Now-a-days, Israel is self-propagating even if they had zero strategic value for US interests, they are the number one donator's to many top Republican and Democrat campaign funds. In addition they represent a useful tax-haven for all the "high-tech" industries in the US. They are allow by law to develop for the MIC both hardware and software without being restricted by the usual import/export restrictions for national defense. Israel is considered international so corporations aren't taxed on income from Israel, and Israel will pay large subsidies to American corporations to open offices there. Of course those subsidies are just money the US Government pays to Israel anyway. It's grotesque, and even if Israel weren't an apartheid state, the incestuous relationship the country has built with the US ruling class should give anyone with morals pause.
Both of these takes are extremely cynical, and should be taken with a grain of salt. Israel's actions with Gaza and the extremely right-wing PM in charge should not define Israel as a country and the reasons why the US has them as an ally, just like how Trump does not define the US as a country.
To be clear, I'm not suggesting that they shouldn't be criticized. But, let's criticize the actions, instead of making up reasons that the US is involved with Israel in the first place.
You mean actions like being the number one bipartisan campaign contributors to a large portion of American Leadership? You mean spending more on lobbying then any other industry? You mean Israel isn't a tax shelter for American Firms that are normally restricted to being located on US Soil? What exactly am I "making up" here?
Are these numbers fake?