[cletus]

Israel is a somewhat controversial example in economic terms. Some like to point to it and say "look what they made from nothing" but Israel has, over the years, been the beneficiary of significant economic (and military) aid from primarily the United States.

But more importantly (IMHO), Israel was the beneficiary of the largesse and support of a people decimated by the horrors of WW2.

It's fair to say that the US probably had a large cultural impact on the development of Israel, both for direct economic reasons but also that the US has a large Jewish population.

The lesson I personally take from the success of Israel is how important it is for a country to be bound together by a common set of ideals and purpose. Not that I'm arguing for any kind of cultural homogeny but if people in one country become sufficiently different it tends to drive that country apart. I think you see that in the US today as the red and blue state divide.

[alexqgb]

I think the point is that lots of countries have received aid from other much richer countries. But only Israel has viewed this cash as national seed capital. Instead of any number of other possibilities, they directed a lot of it - along with their legislative priorities - in a direction that allows its citizens to respond the same way with their own lives, ambitions, and resources.

[jerf]

It is true they haven't really started from nothing. But there's been lots of other groups of people who have tried to do this sort of thing with a lot of resources of their own and failed miserably, and even the US success wasn't really something created by government. It's still worth studying how they may have actually created this success... though I daresay the lessons are lessons that most modern government simply do not want to hear, and are almost incapable of conceptualizing... which also goes a long ways towards explaining why they haven't been successful.

[bignoggins]

Jews only make up 2% of the population in the United States. I would argue that US policy toward Israel is motivated more by Christian end-times theology of the religious right than by the Jews themselves.

[beagle3]

The right context is the cold war. For a long time, Israel was the ONLY dependably-US friendly country in the middle east. Almost all the others (Egypt, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Libya, ...) were, in the context of the cold war, soviet outposts. Their army was trained by the soviet union, all their arms supplied by soviet union, and high ranking soviets were roaming all around. The other US-friendly middle east countries like Saudi Arabia did not have a meaningful army or fighting ability, and were unable to make any difference if the cold war ever heated in the middle east (which was not improbable).

In that context, US support for Israel was a cheap hedge against soviet domination of middle east - everything else is secondary. Furthermore, that support came (and still does) with strings attached - almost all of it must be spent in the US (and I am sure some of it is/was specifically earmarked, even if it isn't official). So you also get to divert money to your military-industrial pals, get a bunch of right wing and jewish americans feeling good -- and get some investment in an anti-soviet force. Isn't that a good deal?

Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with what the US is doing in Iraq, both wars were much helped by Israel's experience fighting the soviet war doctrine (which is what iraqi defense/offense was based on; Israel had experience with it fighting Syria and at an earlier stage, Egypt).

[jbooth]

Overstating it a bit WRT Egypt, Iraq, Iran. They played both sides to get the best deal they could, sometimes that was the soviets, sometimes that was us, but notably there was no period where all 3 were sponsored by the soviets at the same time, and more notably they weren't reliable proxies for either side - always kept their own interests first. Egypt even managed to split the US from Britain during the Suez Canal war.

Egypt - entirely US armed after 78

Iran - entirely US/British armed prior to 79

Iraq - a mix but very US-supported post-79 and a pariah to all post-91 (with a few covert non-soviet Russian arms).

Syria - Pragmatist dictator who never happened to line up with us.

Libya - The only case here where the leader actually had an ideological disposition towards the soviets (but only a little)

I agree with your take on the motivations for US aid at that time, though.

One other caveat, Israel did help train US forces but it was their experiences in Lebanon and Palestine that helped, not those with Syria and Egypt. Syria and Egypt had/have iraq-like armies of medium-quality gear and poor quality conscripts, that's conventional warfare. It was the nonconventional stuff that they helped train US troops for on the way to Iraq.

[beagle3]

I shouldn't have lumped Iran with the rest of them, you are right about that -- it is a completely different story. I stand corrected.

But I don't think I was overstating when I claimed

> Israel was the ONLY dependably-US friendly country in the middle east

Look at your own dates: that's 30 years (1948 till 1978) in which Israel was almost the only middle eastern country WITHOUT soviet influence -- and one that's strategically positioned near the Suez canal.

We are not in disagreement about the reasons, only about the magnitude.

Re: training experience - I've heard differently from people who were involved. "Conventional war" is still not a standard thing, and knowledge of your enemies' doctrine is golden. From what I heard, the whole Iraqi doctrine in '91 (where you put your defense tanks, how you back out when outnumbered, how you plan your battlefield supply chain, how you plan ambushes, etc) was almost exactly the same as Syria's '67, and getting all that info from the Israeli army made life much easier for the US Army.

(For all I know, this was self-glorification and/or disinformation from the Israeli side, but it was supported by supposedly knowledgeable US people I inquired with)

[cletus]

I'm not sure I agree with that reasoning, not directly anyway. The timing is certainly right but there are two major problems with that theory:

1. The Soviet Union from WW2 to the fall in 1990 never had diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia. The Saudis were allied with the US certainly in the 1980s (possibly earlier?) and supported the resistance of Soviet occupation of Afghanistan; and

2. The cooling of relations between the US and the Arab world did have--and still has--a lot to do with the US support of totalitarian regimes, including the Saudis. The US enjoyed strong relations with the Shah of Iran and then with Saddam Hussein in a proxy war with the USSR.

Only 2% of the US population might be Jewish but Jewish political support is significant for a number of reasons:

1. It affects what are now key swing states, most notably Florida;

2. The general political activism and even affluence of that population segment; and

3. The cause of Israel aligns with that of religious (Christian) conservatives, largely because of the Holy Land.

Bear in mind that the dynamic has changed. Modern US administrations virtually can't criticize Israel. Compare this to Eisenhower telling Israel to get out of Sinai.

Attributing this to the Cold War, instability of regimes in the Middle East and Soviet tendencies (IMHO) varies from disingenuous to factually inaccurate.

[SwellJoe]

I'm pretty sure that's looking through a modern lens at a much older situation. The religious right were not in power (or even really existent as a political force) through the entire history of Israel, and yet, Israel has always had US support.

I'll buy that the religious right consider Israel a useful political tool, and that it fits the worldview of the people the religious right are trying to herd (I'm pretty confident most of the people calling the shots in the religious right are not particularly religious; it's just useful to them). But, I can't buy a Tea Party conspiracy that goes back 60+ years.

[tokenadult]

Israel has always had US support.

No. The comment above that the Cold War set the context for United States friendship with Israel has it right. When the Arab countries weren't as strongly aligned with the Soviet Union, United States policy didn't tilt nearly as much as it later did toward Israel. The 1956 Suez crisis is an instructive example.

http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/projects/suez/suez.ht...

The United States urged Britain, France, and Israel to withdraw from their military intervention in Egypt to ensure international control of the Suez canal. In that era, the United States was nearer to a middle position regarding Arab-Israeli conflict than several of the European powers.

The Six-Day War (which I remember from childhood) was probably the high water mark of United States support for Israel, as it appeared that a badly outnumbered, and uniquely democratic, Israel was able to overcome surrounding hostile countries through valor and strategic brilliance. Since the 1980s, the United States relationship with Israel has had bipartisan support at the federal government level, but I think the American Baby Boom's visceral identification with Israel as a fellow democratic country has diminished considerably since then. The aftermath of the Arab Spring may be an increased balance in United States attitudes toward Israel and the Arab states.

[SwellJoe]

I was making no argument about why the US has historically supported Israel, to a lesser or greater degree, as you note.

I was merely pointing out that saying that the religious right are the cause of US support of Israel is obviously wrong. Your assertions about when US/Israel relations were at their peak are in agreement with my statements, since the religious right has only become a political force at the national level in the last 20 years or so, and your water mark events preceded that rise to power.

I was just pointing out the obvious wrongness of the comment above mine, not making any sort of political argument about US/Israel relations.

[Hawramani]

There is a book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (by two political scientists), that argues the Jewish/Israeli lobby is one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful, in the US.

From Amazon: "Mearsheimer and Walt, political scientists at the University of Chicago and Harvard, respectively, survey a wide coalition of pro-Israel groups and individuals, including American Jewish organizations and political donors, Christian fundamentalists, neo-con officials in the executive branch, media pundits who smear critics of Israel as anti-Semites and the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, which they characterize as having an almost unchallenged hold on Congress. This lobby, they contend, has pressured the U.S. government into Middle East policies that are strategically and morally unjustifiable: lavish financial subsidies for Israel despite its occupation of Palestinian territories; needless American confrontations with Israel's foes Syria and Iran; uncritical support of Israel's 2006 bombing of Lebanon, which violated the laws of war; and the Iraq war, which almost certainly would not have occurred had [the Israel lobby] been absent. The authors disavow conspiracy mongering, noting that the lobby's activities constitute legitimate, if misguided, interest-group politics, as American as apple pie. Considering the authors' academic credentials and the careful reasoning and meticulous documentation with which they support their claims, the book is bound to rekindle the controversy."

[ars]

And why is it so "powerful"? Is it perhaps because lots of people think that Israel is right?

Being morally correct and helping people is a very strong American ideal - even when it's to the detriment of the country. And supporting Israel fits right in, even when it causes America trouble.

[jbooth]

I'd say if you think a country is "right", you're getting it wrong. This is not an endorsement of "jews control the world" conspiracy theories.

[Hawramani]

It seems because of the fact that American Jews are much better organized, and better focused on their interests, than any other group. They're probably the most politically active group in the US.

I don't see anything wrong with the Jewish people looking out for their interests, but as a scientifically-minded person I'm more interested in objective analyses of the situation (as in the mentioned book) than vague anecdotes like 'lots of people think that Israel is right'.

If American Jews are an order of magnitude more politically active than other groups, we shouldn't be ashamed to admit it. It's an interesting sociological phenomenon that needs to be studied.

[ars]

It would have to be quite a few orders of magnitude, considering that Jews make up less than 2% of the US population.

It's not as hard as you think to get support for Israel. It doesn't require a lot of lobbying when the people being lobbied already agree with your position.

The objective analysis of the situation is that support for Israel is the right thing to do morally. It's not always great for short term American interests, but long term its value is unquestioned.

Obviously it would be a lot easier to submit to Arab demands, but even though letting someone bully you can remove the short term pain, long term it's not a good idea.

[krmmalik]

I'm afraid i'm not familiar enough with the politics and dynamics of the situation to be able to comment, but i hear what you are saying.

Like you, i think its more important to focus on being bound by a common set of ideals and purpose.