Both seem misleading at best. What's the US's argument from self-interest for tolerating this kind of thing?
This would happen whether or not these companies had any personal or ideological connection to Israel, but these relationships would tend to grow over time (between contractors and the Israeli government.)
edit: The US as a whole gets nothing but hassle and cognitive dissonance out of the relationship, but just like any war racket, people producing the material for that war get wealthy enough to get their politicians elected and perpetuate the process.
I do not think that this is true at all. A lot of interests converge in the US relationship with the Israeli state, but Judaism as a religion isn't the dominant partner. The US is full of antisemites, and the refusal of the US to take in refugees as WWII was brewing contributed to the intensity of the Holocaust, and the increase in Jewish support for the Zionist project.
You can easily become a pro-Israel politician if you are an antisemite who is taking money from a contractor (who is also antisemitic) who sells arms to Israel, and you're representing a state filled with evangelicals who believe that Israel will cause the second coming of Jesus Christ, who will either convert or condemn all of the Jews to eternal suffering.
Israel doesn't control anything, and the US doesn't intrinsically care about Israel (which is why it's constantly insecure in the relationship.) Wealthy people in the US use Israel for their own purposes, and Israel (largely Likudnik Israel) spends lots of time and effort to remain valuable to those people.
I think that a few old, terrible Jewish billionaires who think that their rabid support of Israel (through donating to US right-wingers) will get them into heaven despite their terrible personal and business ethics get an inordinate amount of attention, and end up characterizing all of Israeli lobbying for a lot of people.
These kinds of relationships require a fair bit of quid pro quo, and of course for a country like Israel whose very national security depends upon a cozy relationship with America, it's perfectly understandable that they'd be spying on American influencers wherever and whenever possible. In fact, it's unofficially tolerated in the intelligence service as a cost of doing business. Same goes for the foibles of the crown prince in Saudi Arabia (which have by now been conveniently forgotten by the press and everyone else).
Once you've made friends who are useful to your grander plans, it's best to ignore the annoying things they do.
Israel appears to be democratic but discriminates heavily and are also driven to a great extent by extremist hardliners and outright corruption (ie Netanyahu's numbers are down, so he wants to annex more of the West Bank). Also, you’re not supposed to criticize anything they do out of fear of being labeled an anti Semite.
The "anti semite" fears are an American thing; outside of America, nobody cares. And that's to be expected... Israel gets no help from anyone else, so why should she care what they think? America, however, is a mind to be guarded, to ensure that her protection remains in the future. And this is a perfectly reasonable tactical stance to take for someone in Israel's precarious position.
Obviously it's not so simple as this in reality. You have idealists and zealots and hardliners all jockeying for control within any given government. But the primary driving force is that of state security.
The relationship between Israel and its Arab minority is much more nuanced than you think. I’d call it passive aggressive, going both ways.
Why should that be considered?
Because it’s been historically progressive in its relationship towards minorities.
Because it’s not like it’s persecuting a tiny group of the population for sport, it’s that there’s a lot of tugging between a minority and majority which are much further apart in culture, religion and traditions than the whites and blacks in America.
Because it’s reasonable to expect that issues appearing in the American societal fabric such as discrimination would show just as much in Israel with its huge proportional minority share.
It’s not that Israel is racist as much as it is that there are discrimination issues in societies everywhere and this is just another instance.
Does that include the Palestinians, do the Israeli government counts them as people?
The 20% I referred to are Israeli-Arabs.
The US spends billions on Israel itself, gives them more access then any other nation, they spend billions on paying of Egypt, the US lends international support on EVERY LEVEL, Israel was one of the primary drivers that got US into Iraq and tried their best (and they still are) to do the same with Iran. The relationship with Israel is one of the prime tools of propaganda for every single terrorist group in the Middle East. Israel is a rough stat that illegally acquired nuclear weapons and the list goes on and on.
9/11 was a direct caused by US the relationship with these nations. One of the main bombers prime motivation was revenge because of what Israel did in Lebanon, OBL own motivation was that US troupes should not be on Saudi soil (and that got him banned from Saudi Arabia). Because of the Saudi alliance Obama placated them by allowing a genocidal war in Yemen and people actually thought that is a reasonable thing to do. And I could go on about many more bad effects of this relationship.
Now I'm not saying these nations are uniquely evil and I'm not even saying the US should be allied with them in some way, but these relationships have grown far beyond what makes sense from the perspective of US population but not if you are in the political class.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000UZQIF6/
“They describe the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the United States provides to Israel and argues that this support cannot be fully explained on either strategic or moral grounds. This exceptional relationship is due largely to the political influence of a loose coalition of individuals and organizations that actively work to shape U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction. Mearsheimer and Walt provocatively contend that the lobby has a far-reaching impact on America's posture throughout the Middle East—in Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, and toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—and the policies it has encouraged are in neither America's national interest nor Israel's long-term interest. The lobby's influence also affects America's relationship with important allies and increases dangers that all states face from global jihadist terror.”
* Improvements to US military technology (Israel tweaks stuff and then we use their tweaks)
* Anti-terrorism training and expertise (we started caring a lot more in 2001; they've been dealing with it longer than that)
* A liberal democracy in a part of the world without any others (whether or not you value this is up to you, but many Americans do)
* Intelligence
* A lot of American tech companies have offices in Israel, which means we have an interest in its stability and prosperity
Pretty sure the leaders of Israel have made it illegal, and the grounds for exclusion from the Knesset, to disagree with that statement.
But it's not accepted to point out that Israel is a distinctly illiberal state by it's overt, foundational policy.
Israel's neighbors were the ones who encouraged Palestinian leaders to reject both citizenship and two-state solutions across multiple deal opportunities and instead opt for waging an endless violent rebellion. And when the coordinated wars were lost and the time came for offering aid, resources, and immigration opportunities - neighboring countries offered the Palestinians very little compared to the opportunities that Israel offers. They did not step up.
“A candidates' list shall not participate in elections to the Knesset, and a person shall not be a candidate for election to the Knesset, if the objects or actions of the list or the actions of the person, expressly or by implication, include one of the following:
“1. negation of the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state;
“2. incitement to racism;
“3. support of armed struggle, by a hostile state or a terrorist organization, against the State of Israel.”
Putting aside the nuances of "Jewish state" and what that does or doesn't mean, if you go to Israel you will find a culture and a people far closer to American values than anywhere else in the region.
Perhaps true, but these days Lebanon is up in the running. They do have a weird approach to "power sharing" in government, but it's not like Israel is free from its own sort of weirdness, as you've mentioned.
>The attack "couldn't be anything else but deliberate," the NSA's director, Lt. Gen. Marshall Carter, later told Congress.
>"I don't think you'll find many people at NSA who believe it was accidental," Benson Buffham, a former deputy NSA director, said in an interview.
>"I just always assumed that the Israeli pilots knew what they were doing," said Harold Saunders, then a member of the National Security Council staff and later assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs.
>"So for me, the question really is who issued the order to do that and why? That's the really interesting thing."
>The answer, if there is one, will probably never be known. Gen. Moshe Dayan, then the country's minister of defense; Levi Eshkol, the Israeli prime minister; and Golda Meir, his successor, are all dead.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/chi-liberty_tuesoct02-story.h...
In the cases of both Israeli lobby influence and Saudi royal's influence, the answer is money and power. Our members of congress are very easily influenced by "donations", and those two groups happen to be particularly wealthy.
On the flip side, the Mossad and many other intelligence groups are particularly good at getting blackmail material on politicians. If you don't play ball and you get in their way, they have the ability to ruin your career as well.
In my opinion, I would say the turning point where the US started to prioritize Israel as an ally was after the Suez Crisis. "In October 1965 Eisenhower told Jewish fundraiser and Republican party supporter Max M. Fisher that he greatly regretted forcing Israel to withdraw from the Sinai peninsula; Vice-President Nixon recalled that Eisenhower expressed the same view to him on several occasions." [Alteras, Isaac (1993). Eisenhower and Israel: U.S.-Israeli Relations, 1953-1960].
After Eisenhower's presidency, JFK further strengthened this alliance:
"As president, Kennedy initiated the creation of security ties with Israel, and he is credited as the founder of the US-Israeli military alliance, which would be continued under subsequent presidents. Kennedy ended the arms embargo that the Eisenhower and Truman administrations had enforced on Israel. Describing the protection of Israel as a moral and national commitment, he was the first to introduce the concept of a "special relationship" (as he described it to Golda Meir) between the US and Israel.[207]"
One exception was when JFK resisted Israel's efforts to develop nuclear weapons, which they felt was crucial in their survival as a country. "In a May 1963 letter to Ben-Gurion, Kennedy wrote that he was skeptical and stated that American support to Israel could be in jeopardy if reliable information on the Israeli nuclear program was not forthcoming, Ben-Gurion repeated previous reassurances that Dimona was being developed for peaceful purposes." You'll note that he was assassinated only months later. Not to get all conspiracy theory, but I've always felt the timing was a bit suspect.
Long story short, the US as a nation may not get much benefit from the relationship, but the individual politicians do. Until we get rid of the concept of lobbies, PACs, and require all campaigns to be tax-funded, politicians will continue to serve the countries and groups that pay them, not the American populace.
It's tolerated because US engages in similar behavior against it's allies. Officially the perpetrator denies allegations, and unofficially they pay some undisclosed penance.
The only real thing of note was the lack of official rebuke from the Trump Administration.