It's become a catch-22, and there is no longer any way out....
We are now beholden to the situation forever. And to worsen the dynamic, Israel is an AMAZING producer of tech. And as we all know tech is the lifeblood of the future.
There is no way to extricate ourself from this situation, however that does not invalidate the frustration of it.
We need to recognize that Israel is an actual powerful economy, and we need to find a way to let them stand on their own, and not literally being the big brother ready to punch out any bully at school.
The fundamental fact is that Israel should have never become a nuke power. Ever.
That's the hand that has us by the balls.
>The fundamental fact is that Israel should have never become a nuke power. Ever. That's the hand that has us by the balls.
Israel hasn't even attempted to deploy nukes in 1973 where the situation was almost dire, It's quite unlikely that it will ever use them under any circumstance other than retaliation (and even then it's some what doubtful).
You make it sound like Israel is blackmailing the US it doesn't, the US knows that if it cuts the ties between the defense industries it will have both another competitor (Israeli arm deals have to be approved by the US congress since the Chinese Phalcon incident) and it will push Israel to both China and Russia and the last thing that the US wants is open and unrestricted technology sharing between those countries.
Israel isn't Pakistan it's not an open nuclear state which parades it's nukes and is a bad day away from becoming a nuclear armed Taliban.
While I agree that nukes in the middle east aren't the best idea with recent events vis a vis the Iranian nuclear deal there is no way now for Israel to officially join the NPT and be on a path for disarmament, and as far as nuclear arm races in the ME goes Israel is not now and never has been a factor.
Iraq wanted nukes to nuke Iran, Saudi Arabia now wants nukes to counter Iran, Iran wants nukes to be a regional super power.
I literally do not see a problem with this. How about we take the $3bn for defense and invest in infra, edu or argri-tech instead?
But I have to ask you; everyone defends the status quo wrt paying this money to Israel, give me an alternative as to how to not do this???
The US from time to time allocates additional funds to Israel to fund various R&D programs in most cases they either end up buying into the same equipment and when they aren't they get the technology.
If you take out the military aid to Israel and Egypt the US will still continue to fund research out of pure self interests.
The director of the MDA once called Israel the US's most cost effective and efficient defense contractor he also said:
"The design of Arrow 3 promises to be an extremely capable system, more advanced than what we have ever attempted in the U.S. with our programs"[0]
The development of the Arrow 3 started in June 2009 at a total buy-in cost of about 300M, David's Sling was developed in under 5 years for the cost of 250M $, the costs of the SM-3 program so far are estimated at about 15 bln. $ it's land based version Aegis Ashore has already cost over 2 bln. without being fully operational.
If you look at it from a pure financial POV if you want to actually save money just delegate all of the US R&D at least as far as Missile Defense goes to Israel, they'll deliver on time and on a budget that most US defense contractors would claim is too small to develop a new shoe lace.
Somehow supporting Israel is always critized but a government that's almost indistinguishable from ISIS apart from the fact that they happen to be allied wih the US is apparently fine with most people.
You may want to consider whether it's really the cost you're so worried about.
1. Israel may preemptively strike Iran believing "now or never". Has done so before in many other situations.
2. Israel will increase its growing ties with China and Russia. Hillary Clinton's email dump suggests there is concern about this at State.
3. Israel'a adversaries (eg. Iran, Hezbollah, etc.) will renew and increase attacks. There will be instability and loss of life. 1948, 1973, 1982, etc.
4. Increasing conflict and instability will cause great economic pain globally. We know this because almost every recession since 1948 has been proceeded by conflict in the middle east, most of the time Israel.
Any of these outcomes cost much more than $3b USD, and for the expense US taxpayers get these added benefits:
1. Jobs, jobs, jobs. US defense contractors are one of America's few remaining manufacturing hotspots.
2. Slightly less interest by Saudi Arabia, etc. in pursuing WMD to counter Iran. And under-the-table deals between some Arab states and Israel, which have Israel maintaining a tenuous balance of power in the Middle East, countering Iran.
3. Democracy. You elected your representatives, senators and president. Don't like their position on Israel? Organize, donate and vote. Sitting on HN and complaining unless you're doing the other three things feels good but accomplishes nothing.
4. Peace of mind. Organize, donate, vote and win -- and you can credit yourself among the winners who saved $3b, and plunged an entire region into further chaos, resulting in the deaths of likely millions. Major dark side points for you.
Want $3b back? The government can find $3b with ease and allocate it to the small business administration to create jobs at home. Betcha they won't, because people love to complain about things like foreign aid, but fail to complain about the lack of hard dollars to small businesses, entrepreneurs and small business employees.
EDIT: If you're going to cherry pick individual points to dispute you might point out that you're unable to dispute the general thesis.