Posted on 12/25/2001 4:08:58 PM PST by CrossCheck
Wrong, Britian in the Falklands war. To name one case off the top of my head.
How much $$$ do we give these countries each year?
If it was in the national interest to accumulate Islamic good will, at least we learned that you can not accumulate Islamic good will.
And did Britain come whining to Congress, insisting that we pay for their war? While -- at the same time -- Britain eavesdropped on our elected officials, stole military and technological secrets and then sold them to the the USSR and China?
If Americans perceive that US policy vis a vis Israel/Palestinians (whatever - whatever the heck that situation is over there, which means absolutely nothing to me personally either way as far as I can figure out) is endangering their lives a la 9/11, there will be demands on the pols to change that policy. Once they see it like that, they are not going to put up with getting blown up over a land dispute half way around the world when we have millions of empty acres in the US.
You are probably overlooking the fact that the majority of Israeli Jews are from the Arab world, many of them refugees. Bagels, lox, Saul bellow, and Streimels are all "Ashkenazic" or European Jewish. The "Sephardic" or Oriental Jews do not know this stuff at all. That doesn't make them less Jewish.
As to "pork butchers" outnumbering "kosher butchers," having visited my Sephardic relatives in Tel Aviv a fair bit, I think that's, well, baloney.
You asked why you should care about Israel, and I told you. You know, WWI started with the assasination of some guy no one ever heard of by an anarchist somewhere in the Balkans. Before you knew it, millions were dead in Europe. World War is a funny thing-- once it gets going, it's hard to figure how it will play out. Israel has the potential to be that kind of spark to a long smoldering fire.
1. "There is a huge gap between us (Jews) and our enemies not just in ability but in morality, culture, sanctity of life, and conscience. They are our neighbors here, but it seems as if at a distance of a few hundred meters away, there are people who do not belong to our continent, to our world, but actually belong to a different galaxy." Israeli president Moshe Katsav. The Jerusalem Post, May 10, 2001
2. "The Palestinians are like crocodiles, the more you give them meat, they want more".... Ehud Barak, Prime Minister of Israel at the time - August 28, 2000. Reported in the Jerusalem Post August 30, 2000
3. " [The Palestinians are] beasts walking on two legs." Menahim Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, "Begin and the Beasts". New Statesman, 25 June 1982.
4. "The Palestinians" would be crushed like grasshoppers ... heads smashed against the boulders and walls." " Isreali Prime Minister (at the time) in a speech to Jewish settlers New York Times April 1, 1988
5. "When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle." Raphael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Forces, New York Times, 14 April 1983.
6. "The thesis that the danger of genocide was hanging over us in June 1967 and that Israel was fighting for its physical existence is only bluff, which was born and developed after the war." Israeli General Matityahu Peled, Ha'aretz, 19 March 1972.
7. David Ben Gurion (the first Israeli Prime Minister): "If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti - Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault ? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?" Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), p. 121.
8. "We have to kill all the Palestinians unless they are resigned to live here as slaves." Chairman Heilbrun of the Committee for the Re-election of General Shlomo Lahat, the mayor of Tel Aviv, October 1983.
_____________
But don't take my work for it....check it out! Read everything you can get your hands on, go there, live there. Really check it out.
You might want to find out about what is going on over there and what it means to this country. The safety of individual citizens is NOT the #1 priority of your government.
Look, you have no desire to die for Israel and if you came right up to it, you wouldn't want to die for Israel and you're an Israel supporter. Why in God's name have you no humility about other Americans who don't care one way or the other about Israel getting killed for Israel? And for what? Some egomania?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.