America and Israel
In this article I will discuss why America is and should continue to be an ally of Israel, including military aid if needed.
Israel is a valuable and developed geographical, economic, political, national, and religious entity.
Islam is a threat to America. Israel counteracts Islam in many strategic ways. It is geographically in the heart of the Middle East. It is staunchly anti-Muslim as a religion and anti-Islamist as a military and political movement.
It's not clear that the presence of Israel has not slowed the growth rate of Islam. Consider <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2011/01/27/the-future-of-the-global-muslim-population/">this source and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_religion#Historical_growth">this other source. The indication is that the growth rate of Muslim population will have fallen from nearly 2% around 1900-1910 to about 1.5% around 2030. Judaism, on the other hand, had a mere growth rate of about .1% around 1900 and a growth rate of .7% around 2000.
Admittedly that is not a rigorous study, but when it is considered that Jews and Muslims are in military conflict with each side inflicting casualties on a regular basis, the partial causality becomes clearer.
Palestinians have tried playing victim cards in a number of ways. In the first place they point to larger death counts. Clearly, the Israelis are much better at killing the Muslims than the other way around. This doesn't make Palestinians the victim for at least a couple reasons. First, the Palestinians are the instigators. If a Palestinian kills an Israeli and the Israelis kill three or four Palestinians in retaliation, it is not clear that this is unjustified. Secondly, Muslims frequently intentionally use suicide tactics, not the least of which is the general strategy of warring against a world-class military using a third world military. Netanyahu has said, and I agree, "If the Arabs lay down their arms there will be no more war, but if Israel lays down its weapons there will be no more Israel."
Israel is not merely a military partner. It is an economic partner and even an odd religious partner. Israel's economy may be small, but on a per capita basis it exports even more than China does to the US:
- Israel population = 7.908 M (2012, World Bank)
- China population = 1.351 B (2012, World Bank)
- Israel net US exports = 7,859.9 M (2012, Census.gov)
- China net US exports = $315,110.6 M (2012, Census.gov)
- Israel NX per capita (2012) = $993.92
- China NX per capita (2012) = $233.24
On to the weird part. The religion part. Israel is loved by Christians for a variety of theological reasons, but it's not because Israelis are religious Jews. One strong reason would be that <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2012:1-7">God promises blessings to those who bless Israel and curses to those who curse Israel. There are other reasons as well. I would note that Israel's allies really are some of the most blessed nations and her enemies are some of the most cursed nations. It seems another instance of God and the Bible being shown true.
Christians, in turn, populate most of the US. Excluding Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses from Pew's calculations of Christians in the US, because I don't think these groups are Christian, about <a href="http://religions.pewforum.org/reports">76% of American adults are Christian. The key here is that the US is supposed to be a constitutional republic and a kind of representative democracy. Our political entity should reflect our individual values. In this way, someone opposed to US aid to Israel must explain why the US should violate the representation of its own people. <a href="http://www.masslive.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/07/americans_support_israel_blame_russia.html">Polls continue to show that Americans support Israel's military defense of itself, and are even willing to step in and aid Israel with a Republican foreign policy strategy if necessary.
Non-Christian Americans are happy to point out that they do not agree with the Christian's support of Israel, but notice how that is not the point I made. I do think America should be a Christian nation, but that is not the point I made. The point I made was that the American public does support Israel, so for the American government to cease support for Israel would be a slap in the face to democracy and republicanism in favor of something more like autocracy.
The last reason we should continue to support Israel is due to the wicked hypocrisy of not supporting Israel while continuing to support other, far less worthy allies. A person should either allow for the US support of Israel, or else claim that the US should aid no one at all. To the credit of many isolationists, many isolationists are willing to accept the whole-sale cessation of aid to all other countries. Unfortunately for them, I don't think this is politically possible in the US right now. Even if it were possible, I worry that abandoning aid to all other countries might turn the world against the US. The US can stand up to any of its enemies right now, but if every country which we cease to aid became an enemy, or even simply most of them, that might be a different story.