The differences between aid to Israel and aid to Ukraine

Why American politicians give Israel anything it wants while turning their backs on more important issue s like ending illegal immigration, the migrant crisis or stalling support for Ukraine.

Free/Middle East/Wed Feb. 7, 2024

With all things being equal, Republicans and Democrats will come together to give the State of Israel almost all that it wants in funding and military support far easier than they will come together on providing a similar package for Ukraine.

Is that because Ukraine isn't worth saving? Or because Israel is in greater military jeopardy than Ukraine?

The reason for this is politics. Israel's government and allies understand how to manipulate American politics. Pro-Israel activists are embedded in the process more deeply than pro-Arab groups. The pro-Israel activists have a network that has grown in strength since before the State of Israel was officially founded in 1948.

As a consequences, many questions like these don't need to be answered at all. Does Israel need the money? No. Does Israel need the weapons? No. Is Israel in jeopardy of being destroyed? No, except only in the propaganda it spins dominantly in the mainstream American news media.

Ukraine, however, is in a different situation. Does Ukraine need money? Yes. Does Ukraine need the weapons? Yes. Is Ukraine in jeopardy of being destroyed? Absolutely, yes.

So why the focus on Israel and the contentious debate on Ukraine? It comes down purely to politics. Israel has a powerful lobby that has great influence over American politics. Ukraine does not. But the threats to Ukraine and America are far greater than the exaggerated threats to Israel.

As a consequence, Israel gets whatever it wants and in a non-partisan manner. The overwhelming majority of Senators and Congress members always vote in favor of support for Israel. In part, Israel's Political Action Committees (PACs) are unchallenged when it comes to funneling millions in funds into the campaigns of elected officials. Not just in the Senate or the Congress, but in gubernatorial contests, and state legislative contests. In fact, Israel's lobby doesn't take anything for granted and they even direct funding to the campaigns of municipal leaders wherever they perceive a movement is rising to questions Israel's actions.

Israel also has done a better job than any other foreign government in ingratiating itself and influencing the mainstream American news media. Israel is a Jewish State and the news media has many more Jewish Americans than other activist movements that identify with foreign government interests. Not all, of course, but many.

And the pro-Israel propaganda has so manipulated the understanding of the mainstream public that it also enjoys support from many journalists who are not Jewish.

This isn't about "control." It is about influence. Israel and its activists do a better job of influencing American politics, the mainstream news media and the public at large better than any other group that has foreign interest agendas.

So, when Israel needs money, Congress, the Senate and the White House react with haste, rarely with any delay or even public discussion, and write the check, from taxpayer funds.

The U.S. Government gave Israel $14.3 billion immediately after the Hamas terrorism of Oct. 7, 2023. And now, they are moving fast to give Israel another $17.5 billion.

Although the Hamas terrorist attack was horrendous and inhumane, it did not pose a consequential threat to Israel's existence.

Although the PR spin says otherwise, Israel has been battling successfully against granting Arab and Palestinian rights for more than 70 years, in a large part because it refuses to recognize Palestinian human rights, civil rights inside Israel and land rights in Israel and in the occupied territories.

Why does Israel need that money?

No one is going to fire you if you support Ukraine or even Russia in the war Russia began when it invaded Ukraine in February 2022

The three major factors that make supporting Israel easy for elected officials and harder to support Ukraine comes down to: Israel's longstanding involvement in American politics and its PAC influence on elections; Israel's far more effective propaganda, public relations and involvement in the mainstream American news media; and, the total political dysfunction of the Arab American and pro-Israel community.

Arabs have never wanted their children to become journalists. They came from societies where independent journalism results in jail and death and free speech doesn't exist as extensively as it exists in the West.

In the Arab and Islamic World, you can be killed for expressing views unpopular to governments or militant groups. In the United States and the West, you won't be physically killed but your life and career can and will be destroyed for expressing views critical of Israel.

If you criticize Israel to effectively, you will be politically crucified, demonized and your integrity will be demonized. You might even lose your job as university president, as a hospital nurse, as a lawyer, as a sports reporter, and even as a barista at a coffee shop.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/oct/10/philadelphia-sports-reporter-loses-job-pro-palestinian-comments

https://www.tpr.org/economy-and-labor/2024-01-26/san-antonio-starbucks-unions-declare-support-for-palestinians-after-coworker-firing

Arabs in America are up against a brick wall of experienced pro-Israel activists and a system engrained in pro-Israel exaggerations and lies.

Americans can't get the facts on the Israel-Palestine conflict. For example, while it is true Hamas engaged in a horrific violent attack on Israeli civilian and military targets on Oct. 7, 2023, the attack didn't come in a vacuum.

Israel has been engaged in a violence of attrition against Palestinians who are both Israeli citizens and who live under Israel's brutal military occupation in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

In 2022, Israel killed more than 4000 Palestinian civilians. In the first six months of 2023, before the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, Israel killed 230 Palestinian civilians. Several Americans were killed by Israel. And yet no one seemed to care.

There is a double standard of concern, a dual loyalty to politics, and a hypocrisy in which justice is denied for one side and imposed only for the other, based purely on politics not facts or on evidence.

It's amazing how it is accepted without question that Americans can serve in Israel's military in any capacity and not serve in the American military at all. Dual nationals who serve in foreign militaries but not in the American military in any other situation are considered unpatriotic, except for in Israel.

As Israel's military savagely brutalizes the Palestinians in Gaza with American taxpayer funding and military arms, the Russians are on the verge of destroying Ukraine.

Which battle in the most important to Democracy and American interests? Israel's rightwing political agenda which discriminates against Muslims AND Christiaan Arabs like myself and my family? Or, Ukraine, which if defeated and occupied by Russia will be only another step in Vladimir Putin's continued drive to restore the old Communist Soviet Union.

America faces a far greater threat from a revived Soviet Union than Israel faces from even the most brutal Islamic or Palestinian extremists.

This isn't about hating on Israel. This is about making strategic and smart decisions to protect America to defend ourselves from the real threats, not the ones ballooned up by exaggerated propaganda spin.

I am proud to have served in the U.S. Military during the Vietnam War and I am even prouder that my father and Uncle served in the U.S. Military (5th Army and U.S. Navy) during World War II to defeat the Nazis, defeat fascism and to bring an end to evil Nazi practices and to end the Holocaust, one of the world's greatest acts of inhumanity.