Wow, this S.1881 bill seems to be completely ridiculous. It pretty much just forces the US to fight and pay for whatever war Netanyahu, Lieberman & Co. want to start, and for whatever reason they might have. From the US point of view, It would be completely stupid to actually pass such a blank check bill.

I wonder if the main motive behind that bill are US bunker busters? I've read countless articles pointing out that Israel cannot fight Iran's nuclear program without US help, for Israel simply doesn't have the military equipment. The iranian nuclear facilities are deep underground, US bunker buster bombs are said to be the only weapon capable of destroying them. But Israel neither has these bunker buster bombs, nor planes capable of carrying them. So they are unevitably dependant on US support for seriously attacking Iran.

woah, for a second I thought spurge actually wrote a very intellectual post. 

I really hope there isn't a war with Iran. I respect Iran, and I like that they are brave enough to stand up to America.

I find this controversial. Why would Americans evoke the End of Days if they believe so.

As far as I know, the muslim world does believe that the End of Days would start when Arabs regain their power and peace.

Because the end of days entails the second coming of Jesus.

I'm 100% sure groups focusing on zionist interests have more political clout and money to lobby their will through the political channels - more than evangelical christians, at least, who aren't going to have enough political clout to elect another president until Eric Kaufmann's predictions come true. That being said, I admit it involves a bit of  belief to accept the top dogs among Washington lobbists are super shady people who more often than not aren't going to show up on political action comitee lists.

Eh, Even the majority of pro-israel groups believe in a two-state solution.  Including the relgious doomsday ones.   Outside which.  The Doomsday groups don't vote democrat anyway.  So that puts  a mile wide hole in your theory.

In addition to the fact that over 50% of Democrats support Israel.  Pretty much everbody in the US does.  Not just a couple religious crackpots.

That's also a WHOLE lop of generalizing when there are a ton of rational and practical reasons to support Israel.

I think a more reasonable explination is simply that Americans are more accepting of self defense arguements.  All the rocket attacks more or less play right into Israel's hands.  Since they're always just "retailaiting" from a recent one.  And there will always be a recent one.

Heck, unlike the rest of the world... support for Israel is actually way up from 2005.  If I had to guess, it'd probably be because of Sharon's unilateral dissengagement that was met with the election of Hamas and a huge increase in rocket attacks.  The gazans really fucked up.

Israel can be a little jumpy and skittish with foreign policy sure... which may look weird from the US.   Less weird from a country who  is surrounded by people who deny it's right to exist, and opon whom, citizens legitamitly don't know if rockets will be fired into their lands on any given day.

US polticians support Israel because

A) They like having a steadfast ally that basically will play instigator when it can't.

B) There is literally zero reason to support the Palestinians, the US could put all the pressure on Palestine in the world, and a peace deal would still be 100% impossible, for a couple big reasons.

1) Neither a majority of the Israeli or Palestinian people would accept a split or international Jersualem.

2)   A Venn Diagram of what the Palestinian and Israel people would accept when it comes to borders looks vaguley something liket his.

As shown by the fact that the Palestinian Papers had to be denied by the Palestinian goverment, because the mere fact that what they offered was a resignable offense.

Palestinians have just been pumped up too much to swallow the very bitter pill of a losing deal they'd have to accept for their country to exist, even if the US were to pressure Israel.

I mean hell, if the US did switch sides... what are the chances Israel agrees to terms Palestine would accept?   Israel is far too important economically to boycott like Iran, or some other country,

and lets be real grim and honest here.  If feeling the pressure, and that the status quo can't stay the same... what are the chances that instead of a deal they just agressivly ethnic cleanse/force palestinians out of Israel/Palestine all together into the neighboring countries?

I think it's adequtly been shown that nobody is really willing to intervene in the case of humanity even when it's a nuetral sitution.

Let alone helping to power a government where one of the two poltiical parties is a muslim terrorist group.  Are any EU nations or Russia (Checynians and all) really going to step in at this point?

At the moment, Russian support for Palestine is just an extra chip for the Russians to play.  Which pretty much has been the plight of the Palestinians in general.

I think the problem with this is that a higher percentage of Christians support Israel then Jews in the US.

USA Jews are actually a lot different ideologically then jews elsewhere in the world because they basically avoided the horrors WW2.

There are reasons to support Israel beyond armageddon, I certainly should have clarified, just that i feel that a lot of the kneejerk pro-Israeli reactions you get in the American media comes from the religious Right. On the left, it is because American Jews (almost uniquely outside of the US and Israel itself) tend to veer Left, but are still on Israel's side of things. However, i feel that our tendency to side with Israel to the point of irrationality (like this) is due entirely to vote pandering, which in lart part has to do with the fundies.

One important point that you made is that a lot of "support" for Palestine comes from political expediency rather than genuine concern for the Palestinians, however i disagree with your assessment that the global community would simply stand aside and let Israel ethnically cleanse the whole thing. At varying points since the disaster in Rwanda, *someone* in the international community has always stepped up to prevent mass murder or mass expulsion to some extent (weakest being in Darfur, but even there, the African Union put folks on the ground).

Hell, Jordan would intervene if Israel started pushing all the West Bank people out simply because Jordan's electoral system is almost overwhelmed with Palestinian expats already, and Jordan wouldn't want more of them in country (not that Jordan could do anything against Israel, but it would mean that one of Israel's neighbors would be quite invested in the idea that Israel not simply annex the whole thing and push all the Palestinians out).

Both sides, in the end, will have to stomach a lot of what they don't like, but they'll have to stomach it or continue the current situation, which is untenable. I mean, that's the nature of compromise: find the one solution that everyone hates equally

Sure the situation is untenable... for the Palestinians.

I'm not sure what makes it untenable for the Israeli's though.

They are more or less free to have private illegal settlers build up the lands they want... until they have everything they want.  

Once built up enough nobody will ask these population centers to be moved.  

Then they can just go with another unilateral disengagement, taking all the land they want and a unified Jersualem.

Then they get everything the want, and essentiallly leave Palestine with the scraps and simply say "you can form a country there if you want."

Which really is the problem with "Finding a deal everyone hates equally".  The Palestinians expectations are built on the belief that they are two equal negotiators when in reality, the power gulf between them is wide... and if anything, only grows over time.  Palestine has gotten some nice symbolic victories but not any that have led to any real world gains.

A deal today would be worse then a deal under the Bush peace process, which was worse then the Deal under Clinton one.

Abbas position right now publically is to claim they will make no concessions... in doing so, i believe all he is doing is causing future concessions to be needed.

All things are doing is leading to Israel making it's own borders.

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/01/settlements-map-two-state-netanyahu-israel-palestine.html#

Attacking Iran would be the biggest mistake since going to Iraq and Afghanistan. In other words another day in the military-industrial complex. At least Iran is a legitimate country and not some colonial era recklessness which Israel came out of.

Israel is potentially very dangerous and it's time the west stayed out of it.