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I was getting a bit excited about Vivek but then he started slobbering Israel's dick and talking about how we have to be tough on China for some reason (Why, so they stop sending us cheap shit? Or for some kind of ethical reasons that he did not bother to mention?) and I lost all interest in this debate because he was the only one even remotely interesting.
He did proffer some extremely-subversive-by-republican-standards ideas that aid to Israel should be mildly reduced, that the US shouldn't provide billions of dollars to a rich country, that the US should pursue its own national interests: https://www.jpost.com/american-politics/article-755250
I expect the powers that be frightened the hell out of him for that one, compelled him to change course. In terms of sycophancy to Israel, he's nowhere near the heavyweights like 'Grand Marshal of the Salute to Israel' Trump and 'we're gonna go after anti-semitic countries' DeSantis.
I was always under the impression that the aid to Israel was mostly about them not shutting down the Suez again.
Pretty sure it's Egypt that makes that decision not Israel. Aside from the occasional boat oopsie.
Egypt is also the second largest recipient of military aid, and they're much larger a nation than their adversary in Israel.
Aid to Egypt increased enormously after they signed a peace treaty with Israel, as a sweetener. Likewise with Jordan IIRC. Keeping Suez open certainly had something to do with it, yet the primary factor in US ME policy seems to be whatever is most advantageous for Israel. If US just wanted to be friends with Arabs, secure Suez and secure oil, they wouldn't support Israel at all.
What would it take to convince you otherwise?
Obviously if we hung Israel out to dry on anything important. But since that seems pretty unlikely, is there any way you might be convinced that Israel really is the most practical ally in the region?
They’re relatively westernized. They aren’t Islamic fundamentalists, which has made Americans nervous since at least the Iranian Revolution. (Though we put up with the Saudis, so it can’t be too much of a dealbreaker…) Most importantly, they owe their security to us in a way that none of the other ME states can match.
I also wouldn’t underestimate the wedge that is Palestine, at least on the left. While my understanding is that the neoliberal, pro-Israel wing still dominates foreign policy, there’s at least some tension going on. If there’s a point where we really break with Israel, that’ll probably be it.
Practical ally? In strategic terms, there are two groups.
The Arabs/Islamic world, with population about 600 million in MENA alone. They have a lot of oil. They have a lot of useful bases. They have Suez. They have the power to create all kinds of problems for the US, by allying with US enemies like the Soviet Union, Russia and China.
Israel, population 10 million. No oil. Barely any useful bases, at least compared to the rest of MENA. They're better at fighting and high technology, yet the only people they fight are the Arabs (and usually do so with US equipment). They're hated by about a third of the world, see pic related (https://mapsontheweb.zoom-maps.com/post/693544044241076224/most-disliked-country-in-each-nation-2022).
Why on earth would any sane, unbiased strategic thinker choose to ally with Israel over the Arabs? The US wouldn't have any enemies in the Arab world if it weren't for Israel, that's by far the biggest problem with US-MENA relations.
Israel is the absolute worst ally the US could possibly have. And the alliance is the most one-sided alliance you could possibly imagine. On no occasion has Israel actually contributed troops to a US war. They soak up huge amounts of resources (consider the economic impacts of the Arab Oil Embargo caused by Arab hatred of the US-Israeli alliance), incite enormous amounts of anti-US sentiment, get free US equipment, billions of dollars in aid. They sell loads of US technology to China, they lure the US into stupid wars like Iraq with false intelligence and their political influence.
Israel is the only country in the region that is even remotely sharing western values. Especially if you view politics as a fight between worldviews, you're essentially asking "why aren't we fucking over our own team to instead make deals with enemies that hate us, our views, and only work with us because they can't beat us?" You can certainly view everything in more narrow teams, but most people nowadays think in very large, globe spanning teams, and Israel is then part of "our" team already, whether we support them or not. It might still end up not worth it, but it's not as easy as you make it out to be. Especially assuming they need our help to not get swallowed by the arabs you may think about it in terms of the following thought experiment to understand the people who favor the alliance with Israel:
Imagine a much less centralized US that is more like a european union of states and that Mexico moved in a very different direction in terms of religion and values (say that they still follow some kind of central american religion, maybe not outright human sacrifices but incompatible with modern values to the same degree that conservative arabic Islam is), and is still hostile about the annexed territories and, in particular, about New Mexico. They are willing to work with the greater US in a limited capacity, but there's frequent costly border skirmishes and threats of war. New Mexico itself has a significant minority of mexican-identifying people that want to become independent/join Mexico, and the state in general is somewhat irrelevant and can't protect itself. You're in a far northern state and there is no chance whatsoever that you're at a direct threat from Mexico, and the US as a whole is clearly superior to Mexico in terms of military. Somebody comes along and asks you why the hell are you allying New Mexico when you can just abandon them and ally with Mexico instead? It's just a much better ally in any category you can imagine!
Also, you're argument pretty closely applies to Ukraine, as well.
I'm sure you'll find some ways how this example is different from the Israeli example, but this is - I think - quite close to how supporters of Israel view the situation.
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