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Foreign Aid for Israel

Mickey Massuco

Mickey Massuco

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Hottie Biscotti said:
You help Israel because it's the right thing to do, not to "use leverage" against them. Some things transcend geopolitical chess.
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lol wtf does this even mean? What's the 'right thing' to do? This is what I'm talking about, instead of analyzing the situation and figuring out the facts, we're supposed to blindly do something because it's the right thing to do, according to who, you? Convincing.

Of course you support Israel as a country, but the problem is that people have interesting ways to define that word 'help' where you're not so much helping Israel as you are hurting another group of people.
 
909

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The Real TRTSMer said:
Hottie Biscotti said:
You help Israel because it's the right thing to do, not to "use leverage" against them. Some things transcend geopolitical chess.
Click to expand...

lol wtf does this even mean? What's the 'right thing' to do? This is what I'm talking about, instead of analyzing the situation and figuring out the facts, we're supposed to blindly do something because it's the right thing to do, according to who, you? Convincing.
Click to expand...

We should support countries who make technological advancement a priority, which they have. Of course I'm not saying that's why we do it, but that's why we should do it.
 
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American consumers are doing a great job helping out China. As far as North Korea goes I can't disagree more. Wanting to be technologically advanced and being technologically advanced are two different things, so are trying and doing, etc.

When there are countries in Africa getting absolutely destroyed by AIDS and corruption why continue to give 20% of your foreign aid to an economic and military power that clearly doesn't need it?
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So give the money to governments that don't work and keep the money for themselves? That's really a better option? By the way the US is doing a lot of that too. I'm in favor of doing that in most cases but I don't understand how you reconcile one thing with the other. And what isn't how I'd solely decide to distribute aid, not by any means. But it is a reason to give aid, I never said anything about how much or that our current levels of donation are okay. Very few of our aid donation levels are okay with me. Asking the US to stick their nose in somewhere else it isn't wanted is clearly not the answer to these problems and everyone should know that by now.

Foreign aid doesn't really get you shit anyway, and America is most fucked over by countries like Pakistan who we absolutely have to give money to in order to keep them from starting a nuclear war. But that's neither here nor there. I worry about that one more than anything else and it's so obviously ridiculous and cringe-worthy and completely untenable.

Anyway the real cop-out here is saying something like just do it because it's the right thing to do. Like I agree, what does that even mean? What's right?
 
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dead man said:
In addition to military and policy demands, Israel should be asked to take on more debt. Our country is by far the deepest in debt in the entire world, we are deeper in debt than the entire EU. Israel has approximately %0.6 of the debt we have. Our debt is like 100% of our GDP, there's is less than 50. If they're going to continue to receive billions of dollars from us, they should have to leverage their own finances a little more. They could start by buying up some of our debt maybe.
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Just saw this. Their finances are pretty leveraged as it is. Everyone's are. Israel's public debt is around 77% of their GDP with no natural resources. Any room for Israeli economic growth is solely through the technological sector, which is basically saying they have little room for economic growth at all. Most other sectors, like the military complex in particular, are probably tapped out and there's a lack of demand. Foreign debt is 42% but another thing entirely. Their economy not being remotely as powerful as ours, any more leveraging they could do to help the US out would be small and insignificant. You are talking billions, but the US is needing help with trillions. The actual dollar figure of Israeli debt and how big or small that figure is, is not relevant to this conversation.
 
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You guys are getting mad at me for taking the easy way out while you're all chatting up a book as roundly dismissed as The Israel Lobby? I'll let you beat me up on this, but that book is conspiracy theory shit.
 
The Metal Maniac

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My favorite part of the article is when he claims that the US has already been overthrown in a coup d'etat - sure was nice of George Bush to have a coup, then let someone else be elected. What a swell fellow.

Also, I like the part where Bush is ordering someone destroyed because they "know too much". I sure hope the author of this used a non de plume.
 
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cobainwasmurdered

cobainwasmurdered

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http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/middle-east/israel-accused-of-forcing-birth-control-on-ethiopians

There's been a bunch of stories about this lately. That The ministry deceived the women into getting these long-term birth control shots to keep down the population. So obviously it's stirring up a huge hornets nest. The ministry has urged gynos not to renew prescriptions for the shots in reaction.

A counter-reaction http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/brendanoneill2/100200874/how-true-is-it-that-israel-deceitfully-gave-ethiopian-jews-birth-control-injections/ We're just racist! We didn't force them we just "coaxed" them!

Seems like a total clusterfuck.
 
cobainwasmurdered

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http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42259443

Speaking at the White House, Mr Trump said he had "judged this course of action to be in the best interests of the United States of America, and the pursuit of peace between Israel and the Palestinians".
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As you can imagine the reaction from basically the entire planet except Israel has not been good. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-42250340

Palestinians, Saudia Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, The Arab League, Iran, Jordan, The Pope, The UN Secretary General, France, China, Russia, and the UK are among those who have expressed at least some level of "regret" over it so far. Which probably just made Trump more determined.
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It's probably great news for Netanyahu though who really needs any kind of positive news he can get.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-netanyahu-protests/tens-of-thousands-of-israelis-protest-against-netanyahu-corruption-idUSKBN1DW0Q8

The demonstration was by far the largest of weekly anti-corruption protests sparked by corruption allegations against Netanyahu, who denies any wrongdoing.

The four-term leader is suspected of involvement in two cases. The first involves receiving gifts from wealthy businessmen and the second involves negotiating a deal with a newspaper owner for better coverage in return for curbs on a rival daily.
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cobainwasmurdered

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closest thing we have to an Israel/Palestine thread I think. Shit's boiling over there again. Israeli police have beaten the shit out of hundreds of Muslims who are protesting the attempted eviction of Muslim families in Jerusalem, increasing settlers, etc. Hamas has apparently started firing rockets from Gaza.

Andrew Yang already made sure to send out a tweet stating his unequivocal support for Israel. He knows where those votes are in NYC.
 
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909 said:
American consumers are doing a great job helping out China. As far as North Korea goes I can't disagree more. Wanting to be technologically advanced and being technologically advanced are two different things, so are trying and doing, etc.



So give the money to governments that don't work and keep the money for themselves? That's really a better option? By the way the US is doing a lot of that too. I'm in favor of doing that in most cases but I don't understand how you reconcile one thing with the other. And what isn't how I'd solely decide to distribute aid, not by any means. But it is a reason to give aid, I never said anything about how much or that our current levels of donation are okay. Very few of our aid donation levels are okay with me. Asking the US to stick their nose in somewhere else it isn't wanted is clearly not the answer to these problems and everyone should know that by now.

Foreign aid doesn't really get you shit anyway, and America is most fucked over by countries like Pakistan who we absolutely have to give money to in order to keep them from starting a nuclear war. But that's neither here nor there. I worry about that one more than anything else and it's so obviously ridiculous and cringe-worthy and completely untenable.

Anyway the real cop-out here is saying something like just do it because it's the right thing to do. Like I agree, what does that even mean? What's right?
Click to expand...

It's really funny how much differently I feel now. And I think a lot of people also feel differently now too.
 
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