Israel-Gaza war live: Israel warns it could take Lebanon ‘back to the Stone Age’ as defence minister wraps up Washington trip

Because a death cult runs our political system in the US.

It's rather weird that a Christian cult would spend so much on people who are, according to that cult, pariahs.
I don't think support of Israel is that much connected to Christianity. It's rather that when you have Israel, supporting it is a huge reputational counterweight to any fascist action you take.
- It's 100% wrapped up in Christianity. It's all part of their apocalypse fantasy.
- Pariahs who need to have their own state for armageddon to happen. Remember that these are the same mental giants who invented the prosperity gospel. Not a cult so much as the entirety of southern baptism.
- https://harvest.org/resources/gregs-blog/post/why-christians-should-support-israel/
  Read this absolute steaming pile of pig shit.
  
  Yep, starting with the first paragraph. The author might have skipped his Sunday school or something. In Christianity it's considered that "God's chosen people" has been extended to the whole humanity.
  "I don’t think these people even know what that truly means" - maybe most of them don't, but they are using the designation correctly.
  "Arab citizens of Israel have the same rights as Jewish citizens" - well, the statement is kinda true ; technically false due to Israeli laws being a patchwork of weird shit with some inheritance from the Ottoman millets system, which is the same as apartheid give or take, but that's not why the author is wrong. It's just that most of Arabs living under Israeli military control are not citizens of Israel.
  Why am I even commenting that, there are sometimes outrageous texts with which it's a dubious, but still pleasure to argue with. This one is just some jellybrain's product.
  
  well, the statement is kinda true
  No mate it's totally false:
  https://www.vox.com/world/2018/7/31/17623978/israel-jewish-nation-state-law-bill-explained-apartheid-netanyahu-democracy
  
  OK, it's totally false now, but before that bill it was technically false, but practically usually true. I don't live in Israel and kinda forgot that whole thing due to being more interested in it in the context of Israel arming Azerbaijan.
- when you don't read to the end of the bible so you don't know why the US really wants Israel to exist
  
  I did read it a lot, it's just that Christianity over the pond is weird. Weirder than in China and Japan, I can understand where their traits of it come from, but in USA it's something hard for me to emotionally grasp.
  
  The USA's relationship to Christianity is unique in that the first fuckers to come colonize the place were too strict even for Christianity in 17th century Europe. The Puritans were a blight upon this world and the ramifications are still sending aftershocks to the present day.
  
  I should have added that practical Catholicism in South America doesn't seem to have this kind of weirdness, so indeed it's Puritans or even more generally, the spirit of a closed small sect, where the religion itself is not as important as the sect loyalty and uncritical following. Only it's neither closed nor small.

Israel has a huge intelliegence network that the US help them build by giving them billions of dollars.

The US relations with that area is already really poor. Pulling support of Israel will bring the US back decades of relationship building, billions of dollars invested, and losing the location. The location is important because Israel is in the center, near water, and isn't an island.

Morally, being allies with Israel is not good, logically it makes sense.

Sounds a lot like sunken cost fallacy. We might be better off making other allies.
- The president role is 7 years. Knesset seat is 4 years. Would you give up decades of relationship building for one presidential term?
  Also how often would you switch allies if they commit genocide defined by the Genocide Convention?
  
  Over an active genocide? I would immediately end a friendship with a country and as many times as it takes to not be responsible for enabling a genocide. Allies don’t let allies commit genocide, everyone knows that. Besides it takes more than a president to do a genocide.
  
  How much time needs to pass before a genocide is no longer an "active genocide"?
  
  I knew this would come up, which is why i specified this. Might as well as cut the head off the “every country has committed genocide at some point” argument. Not every country is actively committing genocide, Israel is. America is their chef supplier of power. America is actively Shielding them from the consequences of committing genocide.
  So we should stop backing a country that is actively committing genocide full stop. No money, no weapons, no blocking sanctions, no threatening countries and organizations trying to help the victims. This is the literal bare minimum, as we should be sanctioning them, we should be guaranteeing humanitarian aid to Palestinians.
  When is it not an active genocide? When the genocide stops.
  
  Let's say we stopped being allies with them and stopped funding. So if they stop tomorrow, then the US should have them as allies again?
  
  Possibly, at that point it would be based on trust that the administration would not continue genocide actions. If Israel changed the ruling party and immediately stopped their genocide then that would be the fastest means to return. I have issues with the land grab into Palestine for the same reason i side with Ukraine. But genocide gives me more than just issues.
  
  Okay you have an issue with the land grab so you stop being allies with Israel. They won't stop the genocide. Israel will continue with the weapons they already have. Now they think they absolutely need to take over Palestine because they can't have neighbors that are controlled by Hamas.
  Was that the right choice? Should the US stop the genocide by sending troops and money to government of Palestine? Maybe the money that was intended for Israel?
  
  That sounds like an abusive relationship to me, regarding Israel. But if we could not stop Israel from committing genocide no matter what, then i would have us not enable it. If they have the resources available to commit genocide without our help, then they don’t need our help covering their defense, economy, nor political sway either.
  Would actively sending our money and troops to Palestine to attack Israel be the correct play? It’s not so cut and dry as the Ukraine/ Russia war. But that money could go tword humanitarian efforts in Palestine, i am not so much concerned about the Palestinian government as i am the Palestinian people.
It being that important, surely somebody in the US government and intelligence have thought that they might not be abusing only that importance for funds, but the ties themselves for influence. In the sense of spying at the US, corruption and such.
- They could very well be doing those things. Israel is a technology powerhouse now. Being allies allows more political accountability.

After WW2 everyone felt really bad. And it was a west-leaning country in a region full of oil and big trade routes.

Most of the calculus has slowly changed over the years. The Congressionally-passed treaties all still remain though.

And it was a west-leaning country in a region full of oil and big trade routes.
Other way around - their loyalties weren't firmly lodged with either of the superpowers, so the US in the 70s and 80s put a lot of time and effort into wooing them.
Their loyalties still aren't lodged with anyone, but we keep sucking them off anyway.
- It seems people forgot USS Liberty
- Their loyalties still aren’t lodged with anyone, but we keep sucking them off anyway.
  Well, I shit at Israel every day, but they would be nuts to "lodge their loyalties" when that means loss of such leverage.
  
  Contrary to the delusions of realpolitik types, international relations are a matter of relations, not purely moment-to-moment vulture capitalist behavior. Israel is coasting on internal factors within the US government at present - the lack of actual mutual loyalty means that, should those internal factors (Israeli dark money and the political influence of evangelical millenarians) ever weaken, the institutions of the US will see little reason not to throw Israel to the wolves.
  
  Israeli dark money
  ... is something important enough to kill a 100 JFKs for.
  It's a state sporting F35s and such.
  and the political influence of evangelical millenarians
  Can't speak about them, I don't live in the US and the fact of such a group existing is wild for me.
  
  … is something important enough to kill a 100 JFKs for.
  To the Israelis, maybe. To Americans, Israeli money has become a polarizing issue over the past decade.
  It’s a state sporting F35s and such.
  Man, plenty of US allies are involved in the F-35 program and the US doesn't bend over backwards for them. It's really not that important in the grand scheme of US-Israeli relations.
  
  Those plenty are not so numerous if we consider how many nation-states there are on the globe.

And why do we think they need more weapons to "defend" themselves if they're threatening to obliterate multiple other countries?