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At 6/12/09 08:42 PM, adrshepard wrote: So the Muslims believe that they are incapable of prospering through their own merits? That Father America has an obligation to help them?

Alright, by that same logic, why isn't Israel capable of prospering on its own merits? Israel has been around for sixty years now, which is plenty long enough to have made significant connections with countries other than the United States. Yet, a great majority of Israeli trade by country is with the United States. According to this document outlining Israeli trade with foreign nations, the United States composes a full 31% of Israeli exports, and a 13% of imports. This means that in exportation from Israel, the US has roughly the same amount of activity as the ENTIRE EUROPEAN UNION, including all twenty-seven member states, and MORE export activity than the whole of Asia, including all 51 countries therein (besides Israel itself)!

Without such a trading partner as the US, the Israeli economy would be crippled, instantaneously reduced in size by as much as one-third. I don't really understand what reason the US could have, besides cultural favoritism, to choose to trade more with a country that has fewer valuable resources than its surrounding nations (oil).

There's no other explanation for what you're saying since the US doesn't impede economic development in the Middle East as a rule. If anything, our involvement has encouraged it, even in cases where you would morally disapprove.

I don't know if I would say US involvement in the middle east has been a stimulus to development. As soon as the US became involved in the Iraqi conflict in 2003, the unemployment rate for the whole country soared up to 50-60% by the best estimates, for a sustained period. Currently, unemployment in Iraq is still between 23-38%, which although better than the rate in 2003, is still what would be considered abysmal and catastrophic in America -- higher than rates experienced during the great depression, our worst economic catastrophe.

Airbases. Without Israel our capability in the region would be almost entirely dependent on Arabic nations. We'd only have carriers in the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean, and even then we'd have to get permission to use countries' airspace.

The point must be raised, though, that the necessity for airbases in that region would be astronomically lower if the US had not bent over backwards to make sure that Israel was capable of winning wars against its neighbors. Had the US remained neutral, Osama bin Laden would have had no impetus to lash out against the US through acts of terrorism which, by his own admission, were perpetrated because he believed the west gives favorable treatment to Israelis, whilst sneering down at the Arabic and Persian Islamic populations of the surrounding region.

His point is reinforced by the aforementioned economic favoritism.

Alliances are ours to make as we please. To say that nations can only make alliances for certain purposes is simply ignorant.

Alliances are made to protect nations, are they not? Can we really say that having supported Israel through every obstacle that has faced it over the last 60 years has had any positive benefit in terms of protections for the United States? I have nothing against Israel, but I cannot understand why we continue to favor it over its more-resource-rich neighbors, who are willing to kill themselves in order to harm Americans for precisely the illogical cultural favoritism mentioned. Why not just remain neutral and avoid the ire of either nation? Seems like letting them sort out their own problems is the solution that's going to get the fewest Americans sent home in flag-draped caskets.

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At 6/15/09 03:00 PM, Bolo wrote: Alright, by that same logic, why isn't Israel capable of prospering on its own merits? Israel has been around for sixty years now, which is plenty long enough to have made significant connections with countries other than the United States...This means that in exportation from Israel, the US has roughly the same amount of activity as the ENTIRE EUROPEAN UNION, including all twenty-seven member states, and MORE export activity than the whole of Asia, including all 51 countries therein (besides Israel itself)!

Err, so what? In terms of economic size, the EU is only slightly larger than the US. The percentages seem more or less equivalent.

Without such a trading partner as the US, the Israeli economy would be crippled, instantaneously reduced in size by as much as one-third. I don't really understand what reason the US could have, besides cultural favoritism, to choose to trade more with a country that has fewer valuable resources than its surrounding nations (oil).

Investigate what type of goods the US imports from Israel compared to other Middle Eastern nations and you'll see the reason.

I don't know if I would say US involvement in the middle east has been a stimulus to development.

http://fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL32260.p df
Pages CRS-4 onward are significant. They show Israel isn't the only country getting economic aid.

Airbases. Without Israel our capability in the region would be almost entirely dependent on Arabic nations. We'd only have carriers in the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean, and even then we'd have to get permission to use countries' airspace.

The point must be raised, though, that the necessity for airbases in that region would be astronomically lower if the US had not bent over backwards to make sure that Israel was capable of winning wars against its neighbors. Had the US remained neutral, Osama bin Laden would have had no impetus to lash out against the US through acts of terrorism...

Well sure, if we didn't support Israel, then logically there wouldn't be any hostility towards us for that reason. Given Israel's size, I find it hard to believe that it could have persisted as long as it has without the military and economy the US has helped it acquire. But that's another argument.
Secondly, we had an interest in the Middle East long before bin Laden ever was an issue for us, which should tell you that there's more to our involvement than counter-terrorism.

Alliances are made to protect nations, are they not? Can we really say that having supported Israel through every obstacle that has faced it over the last 60 years has had any positive benefit in terms of protections for the United States?

Alliances are made for any number of reasons. Whenever there are mutual interests or chances for international cooperation, there can be alliances.

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At 6/15/09 06:27 PM, adrshepard wrote: Err, so what? In terms of economic size, the EU is only slightly larger than the US. The percentages seem more or less equivalent.

The EU has over 500 million people, which is 200 million more than the US. It has less area than the US, of course, but its member countries generate 30% of the gross world product, whereas the US alone generates 24%. The EU, however, does not trade with Israel as a single unilateral body. Its 27 constituent countries trade with Israel individually, meaning that of the approximately 35% of trade with Israel that the EU constitutes, each member nation contributes approximately 1.3%, clearly dwarfed by the the US's individual contribution of an average 22% of all imports and exports. You'll notice that all of the other nations that have trade relations with Israel are grouped with other countries in the aforementioned document, whereas the US is an individual nation. If one was to divide the other conglomerations into individual countries, the US would dwarf every single other nation by a wide margin.

Investigate what type of goods the US imports from Israel compared to other Middle Eastern nations and you'll see the reason.

The United States of America consumes almost 40% of Israel's total export shipments, far more than second-place Belgium at 6.5% and third-place Hong Kong at 5.9%.

According to this article, the top export from Israel is gemstones, which are both limited in quantity and a nonrenewable natural resource. However, this is the only item on the list of the top ten exports to the US that could not be manufactured in the US -- the rest of that particular list consists completely of electronics equipment, which the US is more than capable of manufacturing on its own soil, or getting much more cheaply from the far east.

http://fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL32260.p df
Pages CRS-4 onward are significant. They show Israel isn't the only country getting economic aid.

By that document's own admission:

"U.S. aid policy has gradually evolved from a focus on preventing Soviet influence from gaining a foothold in the region and from maintaining a neutral stance in the Arab-Israeli conflict, to strengthening Israel's military"

And throughout the document, the frequent tables bore this idea out, showing that US assistance to Israel in terms of Economic and Military funding dwarfed the other countries of the middle east. Attached to the bottom of this post is a screenshot of one of these tables, an example of one of the stark contrasts; Israel is a country of 7,184,000 people, and it received $78.9 billion in aid between 1971 and 2001. The largest Muslim country of the Middle East, Egypt, which came in second on that aid list, is a nation of 81,713,000 people -- that's 11.4 times the population of Israel. Yet, Egypt received only $52.7 billion in aid over the same period, a veritable pittance for a much larger population compared to Israel's .

Well sure, if we didn't support Israel, then logically there wouldn't be any hostility towards us for that reason. Given Israel's size, I find it hard to believe that it could have persisted as long as it has without the military and economy the US has helped it acquire. But that's another argument. Secondly, we had an interest in the Middle East long before bin Laden ever was an issue for us, which should tell you that there's more to our involvement than counter-terrorism.

I have no doubt that Israel itself would have had a much more difficult time existing had the US not lent it unconditional support for so many years. Yet, clearly, they have enough industrial capacity to exist without the US's assistance now, considering they export electronics and even military equipment en masse to the US. It was a questionable proposition in the first place to support a nation carved from the land of other nations, and ultimately, it has probably caused Jewish people more suffering than peace, as they had desired when they founded the nation in 1948.

Our interest in the Middle East, realistically, is mostly based on our own enormous appetite for fossil fuels, which can only be quenched by the massive oil fields under the deserts sands. Proximity to oil has historically been equivalent to power itself. Were there no oil in the middle east, I find it hard to believe that the US would be as adamant as it is about protecting Israel as a window to the Muslim countries that surround it. Bin Laden definitely brought the Middle East to the forefront, but

Alliances are made for any number of reasons. Whenever there are mutual interests or chances for international cooperation, there can be alliances.

The ultimate interests of Israel and the United States do not, I think, particularly coincide with each other. Israel's interest in its relationship with the rest of the middle east is mainly political and religious, whereas the United States' interest in the region is largely economic, with political as a distant second, and religious being not even a variable in the equation. The two have disparate motives: one to survive, the other to prosper. The relationship is not mutualistic, but rather commensalistic: one organism benefits from the other, but that other is not particularly harmed by it.

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At 6/13/09 04:10 PM, Idiot-Finder wrote: His previous thread's funnier though.

That's quite easy to believe, considering there was no humor to be found in this exaggerated nonsense.

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At 6/16/09 12:28 AM, Bolo wrote: The EU has over 500 million people...If one was to divide the other conglomerations into individual countries, the US would dwarf every single other nation by a wide margin.

If you want to define it like that, then the US dwarfs every other single nation in the size of its economy, especially in per capita income, which tends to affect imports. Why shouldn't it be a large export market for Israeli goods?
I'm curious about your next approach. Will you try more empirical examples (which I doubt will be useful) or a theoretical argument (probably the better choice).

However, this is the only item on the list of the top ten exports to the US that could not be manufactured in the US -- the rest of that particular list consists completely of electronics equipment, which the US is more than capable of manufacturing on its own soil, or getting much more cheaply from the far east.

You're ignoring so many theoretical foundations of trade that it's hard to point to just one that suggests you're wrong. For one thing, even though goods fall under the same category doesn't mean that they are all the same. Some goods are more or less preferable to consumers even though they might technically be the same good. Cars, for instance. Aircraft, too. The more advanced a good (computers vs. rice) the more likely it will be heterogeneous (the proper economics term).
Another is the theory that consumers are profit-maximizing. They will not pay more for an item if they can get an equivalent one for less money. The factors involved can include cultural or political choices (buy American) but quality and price almost always dominate. If it were cheaper to get the Israeli goods from China or produce them domestically, then we should be seeing one of those outcomes. But we aren't, these goods come from Israel. The burden is on you to show that political or cultural considerations are overwhelming cost and quality factors, since that would be an unusual case.

"U.S. aid policy has gradually evolved from a focus on preventing Soviet influence from gaining a foothold in the region and from maintaining a neutral stance in the Arab-Israeli conflict, to strengthening Israel's military"

I'm not denying that. It doesn't detract from the economic aid.

And throughout the document, the frequent tables bore this idea out, showing that US assistance to Israel in terms of Economic and Military funding dwarfed the other countries of the middle east...Yet, Egypt received only $52.7 billion in aid over the same period, a veritable pittance for a much larger population compared to Israel's .

I never said the aid was distributed equally. Yet the Arab nations didn't exactly refuse the money, did they.

I have no doubt that Israel itself would have had a much more difficult time existing had the US not lent it unconditional support for so many years. Yet, clearly, they have enough industrial capacity to exist without the US's assistance now, considering they export electronics and even military equipment en masse to the US.

A reduction in aid would certainly lead the Israelis to reduce their services to us (logistical support, intelligence sharing, weapons development, etc).

It was a questionable proposition in the first place to support a nation carved from the land of other nations, and ultimately, it has probably caused Jewish people more suffering than peace, as they had desired when they founded the nation in 1948.

One could say the same thing about France supporting the US against Britain in the Revolutionary War. Whether or not Israel's creation has caused more suffering for the Jews there than otherwise could be indicated by general Jewish support of the state. I think it goes without saying that they are enormously supportive, as shown by Israelis' nationalism.

Were there no oil in the middle east, I find it hard to believe that the US would be as adamant as it is about protecting Israel as a window to the Muslim countries that surround it.

Quite right. But among the Middle Eastern nations we've courted as partners, Israel certainly has proven to be most useful and reliable.

Alliances are made for any number of reasons. Whenever there are mutual interests or chances for international cooperation, there can be alliances.

The two have disparate motives: one to survive, the other to prosper.

All nations want prosperity, that's why trade exists. And, you'll notice I specifically included "chances for international cooperation" for this point. We pay them with aid and equipment, they give us a "foothold" in the Middle East where we can exert ourselves to ensure a continued oil supply, if necessary.