Chapter 1: What are the current global tensions surrounding Israel?
There's a lot going on in the world right now, but if you're on social media, and of course you are, because it's really America's only remaining news source, you know there's only one story going on, and it's Israel. Everyone online is arguing about Israel, and really they fall into one of two camps, generally speaking.
So probably the more aggressive side are the deranged Taliban-level ethno-narcissists who are telling you that any criticism of the secular government of Israel is tantamount to blood libel against the Jewish people! And if you think that maybe it was not a great idea to arm Joseph Stalin, the greatest murderer in history, then you're a Holocaust denier. Shut up.
And then on the other side, a group every bit as obsessed with Jews, the people who hate Jews, who are telling you that anyone who's Jewish is bad by virtue of being Jewish. It's a blood thing. Two things are interesting.
One, there are very few kind of conventional Christian voices saying, wait a second, this is a secular government, another country, and it has probably nothing to do with my religion or anybody's religion. And we should never judge people on the basis of their immutable qualities because guilt...
Chapter 2: How do online discussions reflect divided opinions on Israel?
and virtue are not passed down genetically. But almost no one is saying that. So you really have the ethno-narcissists and the anti-Semites, and they're at war with each other. That's the online picture. What's even more interesting and maybe even more distressing is that in the U.S.
government, the conversation, while much more muted, is a mirror of this in that a lot of the conversation is about Israel. Israel, a tiny country in the Middle East, not critical to our national security, by the way, but the conversation, the bandwidth is consumed by questions of Israel.
So wherever you stand on Israel, whether you're on one of the two sides just described or neither one of them, you know in your gut that this is bad. If a country like ours, supposedly the most powerful in the world, is devoting all of its time internally to conversations about Israel, it's probably not going in a good direction.
There's probably a lot being neglected in favor of this very specific boutique conversation about this tiny little country. It's just not good for anybody, including Israel, by the way. So what's the antidote to this? How do you fix it? Here are four things you can do to make the conversation about Israel and the relationship with Israel a lot healthier than it currently is. Here are the four.
The first is get some global perspective on what we're talking about. The United States is a nation of 350 million people. It has some of the deepest natural resources in the world. That would include energy and water, agricultural products. The United States, however it's managed, is a powerhouse globally and always will be because its strength is inherent. It's a huge, decisive country.
in the scope of world history. The United States makes things happen. Israel is not an insult, merely an observation. By contrast, is a tiny and inherently insignificant country, at least geopolitically, in that it has only 9 million people and no natural resources, no meaningful natural resources. So it is insignificant. It is also physically tiny.
It's about the size of New Jersey famously, but it has a much smaller GDP than New Jersey. It is a much smaller economy than the state of New Jersey. It's an economy about the size of the state of Arizona and almost one half the economy of the state of Massachusetts or Illinois. It just doesn't really matter, actually.
If you're looking at a map and thinking through, you know, where does power politics go? Israel's not even on the list, again. It's tiny. It's got the population of Burundi. It's got a smaller population than Belgium. What is this anyway? And yet, despite its objective insignificance, it is the focus of the conversation, but it's also the focus of the spending.
So right now, as we speak tonight, there are two THAAD missile batteries in Israel. That's one quarter of the world's total supply of THAAD missile batteries.
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Chapter 3: What are the implications of U.S. support for Israel?
The THAAD missile battery is an American-made, very high-tech missile battery that takes incoming missiles out of the sky. And one quarter of the world's entire supply of these is in Israel right now, manned by U.S. troops, by Americans, right? In uniform or not, they are American military personnel and they are manning these batteries to protect Israel.
And that shouldn't surprise you because since October 7th, 2023, which is a little less than two years ago, the United States has spent at minimum $30 billion defending Israel. Huge. And for some perspective, the entire Israeli military budget before October 7th was about $25 billion. So the United States has put at least $30 billion into defending Israel in less than two years.
Over the course of its existence, a little less than 80 years, the United States has put $300 billion, at least, those are just the on-books numbers, into supporting Israel. $300 billion. Israel is by far, no one comes close, the largest recipient of U.S. aid over time. And currently. So anyone who says, oh, it's just a drop in the bucket, it's totally insignificant, no.
is lying or doesn't know the numbers. By the way, number two is Egypt. So why are we spending so much money on Egypt? Well, we're doing it at the request of Israel. So you could probably add that to the tally. It's not an attack. It's merely perspective. We are spending our time, our money, and we're taking enormous risks on behalf of a country that geopolitically is not significant at all.
The interesting thing is, Most Americans have no idea that this is true. They don't know how disproportionate our attention to Israel and our spending on Israel is relative to the rest of the world. And if you want some sense of how disproportionate, India and China combined, neither of which is a strong ally at the moment, combined represent more than a third of the entire world's population.
Both are rivals economically, both are rivals militarily, at least potentially. And our relationship with them has gotten worse or at the very least languished because of our relationship with Israel, because of the bandwidth consumed by tending to it, and also because of some of the inevitable conflicts that
that have arisen because of our support for Israel, which is engaged in an extremely controversial, which is to say, hated war in Gaza, which is not even really a war. It's a massive displacement of people and killing on a grand scale of unarmed people, of unarmed combatants, of civilians, of women and children. And the world sees this and the world rejects it and the world hates it.
And so Israel's really last remaining ally of size other than the UK is the United States. And so there's a huge cost to this. But again, most Americans have no perspective on just how disproportionate our commitment is. Because they marinate in lies about this relationship, mostly from our political class, also from the media.
But really, if you were to lay the blame on one group in the United States, it's our elected leaders who continuously lie to us about the nature of this relationship, its significance. And they do it generationally. They've been doing it for many decades. Here, and this is just one example, but the most fun to watch.
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Chapter 4: Why is the U.S. government’s focus on Israel concerning?
This is Nikki Haley at the Republican presidential primary debate, 2023, describing the United States' relationship with the state of Israel. Watch. The last thing we need to do is to tell Israel what to do. The only thing we should be doing is supporting them and eliminating Hamas. It is not that Israel needs America. America needs Israel. It is not that Israel needs the United States.
The United States needs Israel. How could that possibly be true? It is in no sense true. In fact, it's one of those lies that's not three degrees off the truth. It is a complete inversion of the truth. And the truth, which is obvious to anyone who looks at the numbers or is paying any attention at all, is that Israel could not survive without the United States.
That's not an argument for pulling all aid to Israel. It's just an acknowledgement of the physical reality. Israel fights its wars with American backing, with the guarantee, the implied defense guarantee that we have provided for so many years, since at least 1973, 50 years. And its social services are made possible, which are quite generous, made possible by American subsidies.
In other words, every dollar that goes to the Israeli military from the United States is a dollar that the nation of Israel can spend on its own people. And so there is no world in which America needs Israel more than Israel needs the United States. And of course, Nikki Haley was never asked to explain how exactly that could be true. What are you talking about, Governor Haley?
Not one person asked her that question. And no one asked her that question because anyone in whose mind that question appeared would have paused for fear of being attacked as an anti-Semite for asking a question about geopolitics. That has been the state of play in the United States for my entire life, over 50 years. Politicians make nonsensical statements.
Nobody wants to even ask a follow-up question for fear of being attacked. It is a state of perpetual intimidation. Everybody's afraid of Israel. Afraid of the topic, afraid, in some cases, of the state itself. We have not had an honest conversation about this, ever. Certainly not in my lifetime. And that suits the Israelis just fine.
And if you're wondering why there's an awful lot of lunatic anti-Semitic comment about Israel online, you have to wonder how much of that is organic. Some of it, of course, they're always haters. But how much of it is not organic at all? How much of that, the lunatic, all Jews are evil thing,
How much of that is being ginned up on purpose to make legitimate questions about the US government's relationship with the government of Israel seem like crackpot stuff, like hate, like David Duke level lunacy? Probably some, because it serves their interests.
Now, that is a criticism of the state of Israel and its incredibly sophisticated propaganda campaign, which, again, the rest of us have been marinating in for a long time. But the true villain here, I would argue, is not the state of Israel, the Jews. It's the United States. It's our leaders who are putting up with this.
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Chapter 5: What are the four recommendations to improve U.S.-Israel relations?
It's truly hurting the Trump administration. The second thing we can do after getting global perspective on what we're actually talking about here, a tiny country that is in the deepest sense, insignificant to the United States, the second thing we can do is get some freaking self-respect and stop being ordered around by a client state. That's not good for us. It's not good for them.
It's not good for anybody. It's like being screamed at by your children. No normal parent would allow that. Because it's totally destructive. It's not good for you, and it's not good for the child. And that is exactly the relationship that we have with the state of Israel. In fact, not in theory, in fact, it is a huge country and a tiny country. The huge country supports the tiny country.
And that's a pretty nice thing to do. And whether it's wise or not is a whole separate conversation. But if you're going to have that relationship apparent to a child, you cannot be yelled at, humiliated, spied upon, bossed around by the child, by the person in the inherently subordinate position. You can't do that.
And you can't be shamed into ignoring things that are quite clearly not the behavior of a subordinate ally. to a big brother ally. For example, spying on the country that makes your economy and your defense possible, which the Israelis have been doing for generations. That's a fact.
One of them very famously was caught, Jonathan Pollard, who's an American citizen, taking real secrets, like actual military secrets, and sending them to Israel, which promptly sent a bunch of them to the Soviet Union, which was our arch rival, our foe at the time.
And that happened and he went to prison and then somebody got out of prison and went to Israel where he continues to denounce the United States. And anyone who says anything about it is attacked. Oh, you're an anti-Semite. It's nothing to do with anti-Semitism. That's insulting. Why would we ever put up with that?
Why would we put up with the attack on the USS Liberty that everyone's so afraid to talk about? Clearly targeted on purpose by a country we're supporting, Israel. And it's somehow shameful to say that. Why? Why is it shameful to say that? Who knows why it's shameful to say that, but it shouldn't be. And until we have some self-respect, not anger or hate, but just dignity, it will continue.
In June, for example, during the 12-day war, such as it was with Iran, the U.S. and Israel versus Iran, bombing on all sides, during that short conflict, IDF officers in the Pentagon, foreign military officers in the Pentagon. By the way, they're not the only foreign military officers in the Pentagon, to be clear. There are NATO officers. They're from other countries, British.
But there are a bunch of Israeli Defense Force officers in the Pentagon that week. And during that week, ask anyone who works at the Pentagon, They enraged American Pentagon staff by just barging into meetings, giving orders, making demands. And nobody did anything about it.
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Chapter 6: How does the U.S. military aid to Israel compare to other countries?
Anyone who opposes me in the United States, who opposes more aid to Israel or opposes getting sucked into war with Iran, which does not serve American interests, that person is not simply mistaken or wrong. I'm not going to bother to explain why that person is wrong. That person is a Nazi, part of the woke Reich, a Nazi.
And the only way to fix it is by preventing Americans in the last country on earth with guaranteed freedom of speech from prevent Americans from hearing the other side. And so we push Congress to force a TikTok sale, which is true, by the way.
And when that happened, and various members of Congress were like, no, really, it's about China, there were people online who said, no, I think it's really about Israel. You kind of wish it was about China. Here he is just admitting, no, no, no, we pushed the US Congress to censor in the United States, to commit censorship in the United States because we think it's bad for us.
And we need to talk to Elon. The only reason we have free speech in the United States right now is because of Elon Musk. By the way, a naturalized American, a foreigner who looked at the United States and said, what's great about that country? People can say what they believe because they're not slaves. They're not subjects of the state. They're citizens of a nation that they own.
Free speech is central. to the entire idea of America. In fact, it's really the only thing that sets us apart from any other country on earth. It's not our market economy, it's freedom of speech.
And here's this guy, a foreign head of state who, let me restate, is totally dependent on our tax dollars to exist, is saying Americans don't have that right and he's gonna do some kind of secret pressure campaign on Elon Musk to censor X because it bothers Israel. You know, that's the point at which you just say no, absolutely not. That is not allowed.
But since no one has said that, it is continued. And that's why when you go on social media, you see person after person taking that guy's line, that guy's line, repeating foreign government talking points on social media as Americans saying, Oh, you can't say that. It's true. It's 100% true. And it's also totally counterproductive, by the way. This is not a sophisticated...
propaganda campaign this is a brutal and brutish propaganda campaign where anyone who disagrees with anything is immediately slandered and smeared megan kelly who's got to be the single most moderate person on the question of israel who said a hundred times and means it by the way i like israel i'm not against israel you know but maybe it's not a great idea to get sucked into one of their wars we've done that let's not do it again nazi
Immediately called her an anti-Semite and won't stop. Meanwhile, the actual anti-Semites, and there certainly are some online, never get criticized by Bibi or anyone else in his orbit. That's kind of interesting, isn't it? I wonder why that is. When you have actual anti-Semites doing videos making fun of Auschwitz, but they get a pass? Hmm. Maybe things are not quite as they seem.
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Chapter 7: What is the historical context of the U.S.-Israel relationship?
It's a foreign lobby that's acting on behalf of a foreign government and its interests. Again, it's one of many, but it's the only one that doesn't have to register. And of course, it should register immediately. You should know who... is giving money to your politicians. You should know who is influencing them.
There should be a record of that, as there is with any other nation, any other lobby of a foreign power. And only AIPAC is exempt. What is the effect of that? It makes everyone paranoid. It doesn't make people like Israel more. When a topic cannot be spoken about, and when anyone who raises it is called a Nazi, the woke Reich...
dismissed as a holocaust denier anti-semite or whatever slandered in some way like that it doesn't make the problem go away it festers and people go crazy and get angry and become resentful and all that there's no reason to conduct any business like that in secrecy it doesn't make things better at all it doesn't make the person doing it stronger it makes him weaker actually in the end
And the last thing that I think we need to do to restore balance between the relationship between the United States and Israel and to restore some sanity to the public conversation on this topic is to get our theology right. And this is not a message aimed at Israelis or Jews. This is a message aimed at Christians who are the largest group of Israel supporters in the United States.
And their view of Israel is colored not just by sentimental attachment, which is fine, or trips to Israel, great, no problem, but by a Christian heresy, the oldest of the Christian heresies. which is that God somehow prefers some people based on their DNA. And of course, the whole point of Christianity is that that is no longer true, that there is no chosen people.
The chosen people are people who choose Jesus. That is the Christian message right there. It's not an anti-Semitic message, by the way. It's the Christian message. It's the core Christian message. And yet there are many, many self-described representatives of the Christian faith, the world's largest, who are daily sending a different message.
And we should be very clear, whatever this is, it's not Christianity, it is heresy. And among the many examples we could pick, we're gonna go, because we couldn't control ourselves, with Lindsey Graham, watch. To people in my party, I'm tired of this crap. Israel is our friend. They're the most reliable friend we have in the Mideast. They're a democracy.
surrounded by people who would cut their throats if they could. This is not a hard choice if you're an American. It's not a hard choice if you're a Christian. A word of warning. If America pulls the plug on Israel, God will pull the plug on us. God will kill you if you don't support Bibi Netanyahu. That's what he's saying.
And there are cheers, unfortunately, cheers when he said that God will kill you. He will pull the plug on you like a quadriplegic in intensive care. You're going to flatline unless you support the secular abortion on demand government of Israel. That's the Christian perspective, really, that God loves some people more because of their DNA than That is not the Christian message.
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Chapter 8: What are the potential consequences of continued U.S. support for Israel?
at the UN a lot so I am in the UN Security Council a lot listening or participating in UN sessions and the UN the Israeli politicians come and they yell at the whole rest of the world and they yell at them in the most vulgar stupid puerile and absolutely imbalanced and irrational way. And then the US representative says, yes, yes, we are with Israel.
So if you ask me why this is fundamentally, first, it's disgusting. Second, it is no rational basis, and third, if it is the money, the lobbying, the mass media propaganda, the really strange beliefs of some people, whatever it is,
Even all of that, for my mind, doesn't add up because a president of the United States should be able to figure this out a little bit better, that this is absolutely not in America's interest. And we do not have a military that is to be handed out to another country to do whatever reckless things that country does.
is doing and right now israel is not only doing reckless things it is committing a genocide and that is not my opinion that is the opinion pervasively of both scholars and specialists in this matter, and in Israeli human rights organizations, in countless observers inside Israel and observers all over the world. The U.S. is actually, and I'm sorry to say it, complicit in genocide right now.
Of course. A president should be able to figure this out. And they don't. And so when you ask me this question, I can give you a list of answers, but somehow it doesn't add up for me because this is not so hard to figure out that we are on a terribly wrong track. I agree with you completely.
I've thought about it a lot and you don't have to hate Israel, which I don't, to ask like why the serial humiliation rituals and no one ever says, you know, basta ever. And I do think there's, people perceive a deep threat. Well, I know that that's true. I wonder if the attack on Doha, on Qatar, And in general, the kind of nonstop effort to malign Qatar, Qatar is the most important player in U.S.
politics. It's also deranged. It's all projection. But I wonder if bombing a close U.S. ally, kind of critical U.S. ally in that region, Qatar is a critical U.S. ally, just to be clear. I wonder if that was like too much. I wonder if that was the beginning of the end for Bibi.
I have to say there's been a lot that should have been the beginning of the end going back 30 years, going back to the Iraq War and even before that. Starving a population in Gaza, as Israel is doing right now, should have been enough, even without the bombing of Qatar. Yes, Qatar was an extraordinary event. Israel says, we don't have to obey any laws anywhere. We will go anywhere.
We will murder anyone. It's a murder operation, Mossad especially, but also this was the Israeli military in this case. They And interestingly, what were they trying to do, according to them in Qatar? They were trying to murder the negotiators of Hamas who were considering a ceasefire proposal. Now, I find it pretty strange.
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