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Comment by yosefk | Hacker News Reader

...and then Israel can build its own fighter jets? Count us in!

It's not "aid." It's fiscal transfer to vassal states (though 75% of it really goes to US corporations' pockets - aid isn't dollars but vouchers to spend on US products at 4x the market price) within the US empire. Just ask any non-voting subject of the empire.

BTW in numbers it's $4B/year - $3B to US firms, $1B to Israel. Our GDP is about $400B. Would we buy our independence for $1B per year, if the US was selling/if the world worked that way? You bet!

(And don't get me wrong, it might be the best empire to be the vassal of for Israel which is too small to be independent. Just let's call it what it is.)

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I see this argument often and it is pretty ridiculous. Israel is still the beneficiary of billions of dollars worth of US taxpayer dollars every year. We shouldn't be spending that kind of money on your nations security when we have homeless and starving Americans not being taken care of.

Since Israel has to spend the money on US hardware, that money actually goes to maintain Jobs in the US military industry.

Maybe giving away killing machines isn't the best way to stimulate the economy.

> Since Israel has to spend the money on US hardware, that money actually goes to maintain Jobs in the US military industry.

What a shitty cycle.

Yes, a shitty cycle in a shitty world. If not for the threat of China, I don't think the U.S. military industrial complex would have as much merit, but, under that (growing) threat, I think anyone who values freedom, democracy, and progressive ideals should see merit in the U.S. maintaining and growing capability.

To do that, it seems like the defense industry needs "stuff to do". Like a muscle, that sector atrophies if left unused. It's counterintuitive, though -- why spend so much money on a glorified Skunk Works project like the F35? Why double down and start producing hundreds of them despite their issues? Because it generates/maintains experience and lessons and keeps the metabolic pathways that turn material into materiel active. If you skipped the extra steps and had the government just sustain the defense industry on welfare while it does nothing right up until we have a massive conflict, things are going to go much more poorly for you.

> If not for the threat of China...

The military industrial complex will always have a bogeyman ready.

Well, some of them like Hitler and present day CCP are more wrll suited than others.

We can spend that money directly on our military.

There's no need to funnel it through Israel, which gains more of the benefit than we do.

How much of those jobs in the US military industry is going to people who need food, water, and/or shelter?

> Since Israel has to spend the money on US hardware, that money actually goes to maintain Jobs in the US military industry

Israel is also a gem of technological innovation. We probably get the public spending back in NYSE listing fees and trading profits alone.

> US military industry.

What a completely depressing world

It's also the security of the only enclave of gay rights and feminism in one of the most barbarously anti-progressive regions in the world. Whether or not that adds incentive is subjective, but framing it like paying for just "a nation's security" sounds like propping up Luxembourg's independence from France and Germany.

American problems at home are bad though. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_as_bad_as

Israel is not unique in this regard. Lots of US allies live with hostile neighbors and poor human rights records.

Besides, Israel's support for gay rights and feminism is hardly universal. Spend some time in an orthodox neighborhood if you don't believe me.

> Besides, Israel's support for gay rights and feminism is hardly universal. Spend some time in an orthodox neighborhood if you don't believe me.

I think you are kicking in open doors here.

But unlike a few kilometers away it won't get you kicked from a rooftop, it will only get you angry looks.

Very possibly you don't want the US to be an empire and to spend money on the "security" of Israel (eg preventing us from developing fighter jets - for our own security, no doubt) or eg Germany which can't even give asylum to Snowden who broke the news that your intel agencies eavesdrop on their Chancellor's phone. Just don't blame the vassals. Raise this point with the imperial government. You're a voting subject, maybe you can pull it off.

(It could be that for the US taxpayer the empire is a good deal. eg could you print all those dollars and get the entire world to hold them without the empire? You get a nice windfall from this. But again it's between you and your government. Maybe if you called yourself an empire, it would enable more open and productive discussions wrt cost/benefit analysis per vassal state.)

"It's fiscal transfer to vassal states"

So what does Israel do in return?

Provide technology to the US and a testing field for US developments.

The Patriot anti-missile systems were shit before Israeli technology was used to improve them.

It's not like Israel wouldn't have happily sold that tech to the US even if it got zero military aid from them.

Israel is known for selling arms to regimes that abuse human rights. Like Myanmar.

> Israel is known for selling arms to regimes that abuse human rights.

Also, for being such a regime.

This is absurdly selective. Are there any arms manufacturing countries, including the Saints in EU and US who haven’t sold arms to repressive regimes?

You don’t even have to scratch the surface. Is Saudi Arabia a freedom loving democracy?

1. Is this discussion about the Saudi Arabian government or the Israeli government? I also have stuff to say about Saudis too but that's not the topic right now.

2. "Oh but, what about <X>"... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

And by the way I am not anti-semitic, if that is what you were trying to imply with "absurdly selective".

Israel has many high value products to export besides weapons. Israel can enjoy prosperity without having to resort to trading weapons with such regimes.

I don’t think it’s whataboutism if every country in the set does it. It’s just a part of being in the business of war. If you sell arms to resolve geopolitical conflict, you’ve eventually got blood on your hands no matter how much due diligence you do.

Do you think not talking about problems will make the world better?

What do you suggest I do instead?

We should talk about problems when we encounter them. The more specific the better.

Why should Israeli weapon manufacturers be held to higher evaluative standards than others? Whataboutism is useless to answer this question; it is a stick to beat your opponents in order to stop pursuing this line of questioning.

Is it not the point of Israel to be a Jewish state?

Judaism imposes duties on each Jew. Religious duties in the form of commandments.

How about following those commandments? If you say the commandments do not matter then you are saying that as a Jew, Judaism doesn't matter. In that case, you don't need a state don't you?

If you want to be free to practice your religion, do it. But do it properly, not only the parts you like.

Completely true, Rwanda (details suppressed by courts), Bosnian massacre... you name it.

It looks like you've been using HN primarily for political/ideological battle. We ban accounts that do that, regardless of what they're battling for or against, because it's destructive of what HN is supposed to be for.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting in the future, we'd be grateful. That means thoughtful, substantive comments that engage with curiosity rather than enemies.

Edit: it looks like we've had to warn you about this multiple times before. Please fix this.

Agreed, dang. I'll abstain from doing that in the future.

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