It's primarily a subsidy for American weapons manufacturers (from whom the Israelis have to make purchases), mixed with a hefty R&D budget for new military technology like Iron Dome.
All observation of U.S.-Israel relations since 1967 indicate that it's driven by a very strong ideological (and perceived electoral) component. In fact it's hard to think of a single case of a ("friendly") country for which the degree of U.S. support is less ideological.
Pork barreling plays a role for sure as well, but it's definitely second fiddle.
While that at a glance looks likr a thorough source, you might want to mention that most of that aid was a result of the after math of the 1973 war, which led to a stabilization of the Suez region militarily, friendly relations between Egypt (which also got annual aid from the deal) and U.S., the Camp David Accords, and an enduring peace that's nearing half a century between Egypt and Israel.
Should they have negotiated with the Palestinian Authority, which only partially controls the West Bank, or with Hamas, which took control of Gaza and proceeded to murder leaders from other Palestinian political parties? It is kind of hard to know who the "official" representatives of the Palestinian people actually are due to the failure to establish a functional Palestinian state or government.
I wish the recent history of Palestine were different too, but it seems unkind to use language that implicitly blames Palestinians as a people--or the factions that now hold power--for these issues. Literally any people on Earth would probably have a similar history, and be in a similar (or worse) place with respect to government, if they faced similar pressures for such an extended period of time.
How did I blame the Palestinian people? The fact is that they do not have a functioning government, and the government they have is not in a position to negotiate on their behalf when it comes to Gaza. The faction that controls Gaza is not even recognized as legitimate by the PA (which is supposed to represent the Palestinian people).
You appear, and i could of course be mistaken, to be blaming the palestinian people for "the failure to establish a functional Palestinian state or government". As if it the fault of a population that's mostly under 30 years old that they haven't been able to establish a government under the existing conditions. I'm not sure anyone else could.
That was a statement of fact, I was not blaming anyone in particular. As I have said elsewhere, if anyone is to blame it would be Hamas, whose political campaign in 2006 was based on delegitimizing the peace process and two-state solution and which pressed a war with Fatah that greatly weakened the PA. It is not as if the Palestinians were told to build a functioning state on their own; they receive a lot of help from other countries, including from Israel itself (e.g. joint police operations, joint security patrols, etc. -- all of which are confidence-building and institution-building measures).
> the failure to establish a functional Palestinian state or government.
Wonder whose fault you think it is that the Palestinians who currently live under what HRW and several Israeli human rights organizations consider apartheid, don't have a state.
I think it is the fault of Hamas, which derailed the peace process 15 years ago after running a political campaign that delegitimized the peace process itself (they claimed that it was actually terrorism, not diplomacy and negotiated deals, that had caused the Israelis to withdraw from Gaza). As I said, their first move after taking control of Gaza was to murder political opponents. They fought a civil war against Fatah that almost caused a total collapse of the PA, and ever since the PA has been barely functional.
Sure, because life on Gaza strip on 2006 was all moonlight and roses. Hell even going back 30 years ago you wouldn't find much difference [0]. I wonder what political force or nation could be benefiting from this constant chaos.
Is that supposed to be some kind of excuse for derailing the peace process? Are you actually denying that progress toward a two-state solution happened between the Oslo Accords in 1993 and Hamas taking power in 2006?
Like it or not the government of Israel and the PLO made a good-faith effort to establish a legitimate Palestinian state. It is not an easy task, the solution is not simple and there are a lot of legitimate grievances on both sides that need to be sorted out. Unfortunately groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and various other terrorist organizations have derailed that process. There is no cabal hiding in the background and pulling the strings to sow chaos in Palestinian society (do people really need to be told that wild conspiracy theories are nonsense?).
The median age in palestine is (was, 2014) 18 years old. Compare to 30 in israel or 40 in france.
Like it or not the vast majority of palestinians alive today had nothing to do with what hamas did 15 years ago. They were mostly children or not even born yet.
As far as i can tell you are advocating to punish the residents of pallestine because some time ago, when most of the current residents were either children or unborn, someone else did a bad thing.
How am I saying anything of the sort? Regardless of when the people were born, it is a fact that they do not have a functioning government. It is a fact that Hamas derailed the effort to establish that government, and that Hamas has repeatedly interfered with those efforts over the past 15 years and continues to do so now. I am not "advocating" anything, I am simply stating the reality of the Palestinian situation today and why they are in that situation.
You seem to think Hamas is some long-past group. Hamas controls Gaza today; they are the ones launching rockets at Israel right now. Hamas remains the most significant obstacle to peace between Israelis and Palestinians right now. As the rulers of Gaza, Hamas has been a brutally repressive regime, roughly on the level of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Hamas deliberately spreads their military assets across densely populated civilian areas in order to maximize civilian casualties during war. The Hamas charter says that the role of women in society is to produce more men. They have cracked down on hip-hop, baggy pants, hair salons, and even indigenous Palestinian folk tales.
I personally think the Palestinians deserve better than Hamas. Why do you keep dismissing the overwhelmingly negative impact this group has had on the Palestinian people? Why do you keep looking for a way to deny the role Hamas has played and continues to play in preventing the formation of an effective civil government and a functioning Palestinian state?
I think Hamas is a horrible organization. But if we could eliminate the entirety of the hamas leadership today, in a single moment, another similar organization would spring up because israel is creating the conditions that encourage such an organization to exist.
Israel holds all the cards here, not the palestinians. Not hamas. Israel is the party that must step up and provide a real solution. Israel's solution over the past decade has been to contain the palestinians, lock their borders, and knock over their buildings whenever they get too uppity. This policy will never result in a reduction of terrorists. It will never result in removing the conditions that allow hamas to exist.
Imagine if you are a 20 year old gazan (older than the average gazan) and all you know, your entire life, is israeli control of the strip. The death tolls aren't high enough that everyone has a dead family member, but i wouldn't be surprised if everyone knows someone the IDF killed. This is how america created terrorists in the middle east. This is how Israel is creating terrorists in their own backyard. Foreign politicians enforcing their will, through force, upon a people that don't want it.
Hamas isn't long past, the fact is Hamas is not particularly important. Hamas is a symptom, not the problem. If Israel had the will to fix their structural problems, Hamas would have no reason to exist.
Hamas is throwing unguided missles randomly and Israel is hitting them back by leveling buildings. Hamas is no more than a small child throwing a tantrum with no possibility to actually cause a change. All they can do is scream louder and hope someone else will do something. Again, Hamas is not the problem, they are a symptom of Israel's policy regarding palestinians.
Where are you getting this from? A 20 year old Gazan would be old enough to remember the day Israel withdrew from Gaza, both its military presence and settlers. A 20 year old Gazan would also remember that that shortly thereafter, when Palestinian businessmen were talking about converting former settlements into resorts and all the money they would make from tourism, Hamas took over. A 20 year old Gazan would remember life before the blockade.
Take a minute to think about that. Israel left Gaza completely, and then Hamas took over. Are you saying that turning over Gaza to Palestinians is the sort of restrictive measure that gives rise to terrorist groups?
You are absolutely wrong about Israel holding all the cards. The blockade of Gaza is a joint effort between Israel and Egypt. The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank refuses to pay for electricity in Gaza. Hamas has diverted aid shipments to its own military infrastructure, preventing Gazans from repairing their buildings, and Hamas has previously insisted that shipments of fuel enter through the border crossing with Egypt because they do not want to accept any help from "Zionists." So how does Israel hold "all the cards?" In reality the cards are held by Israel, Egypt, the PA, and Hamas itself.
Meanwhile, over in the West Bank, Palestinians have plenty of legitimate complaints yet the PA manages to engage in joint security, law enforcement, and economic efforts with Israel. Sure, things could be better for the Palestinians in the West Bank, but that is exactly the goal of the peace process and all those joint efforts.
You seem to be confused about cause and effect. The situation in Gaza today is not the reason Hamas took power; Hamas is the reason for the conditions in Gaza. Hamas started a civil war among Palestinians, and as a result the PA refuses to pay the bills for Gaza, leaving them with sporadic and unreliable electricity. Hamas kept smuggling rockets into Gaza, then firing those rockets at Israeli cities, resulting in the Israeli blockade. Hamas kept smuggling rockets into Gaza through Egypt, arming Egyptian rebels, and using Sinai as a staging area to fire rockets at Israel, resulting in Egypt joining the blockade. Hamas spread its military assets across densely populated civilian areas, resulting in far higher civilian casualties and widespread damage to civilian buildings when the IDF responds to the rocket fire. Hamas diverted aid shipments of construction supplies to its tunnel network, preventing Gazans from rebuilding their damaged buildings during the ceasefire. What kind of mental gymnastics do you have to perform to conclude that Hamas is merely a symptom of some other problem?
> Hamas, which took control of Gaza and proceeded to murder leaders from other Palestinian political parties
You appear to be misinformed. Hamas won regular elections (considered such by international observers, who also reported obstructions from Israel). Hamas then kept respecting the ongoing ceasefire with Israel and started softening its stance towards it, offering a permanent ceasefire, while on the other side Israel campaigned to put the Gaza strip under the strictest embargo. On June 8th, two days before the end of the ceasefire, Israel killed an Hamas official in an air strike.
Playing the devil's advocate, if the US is willing to negotiate with both the Taliban and official Afghanistan government directly, why not Hamas and Israel?
(I am not trying to equate these groups; just compare the official vs force relationships)
Because they can't win in Afghanistan and are planning a retreat, whereas gaza is this way due to historical reasons, but mostly because they don't pose a real threat.
> As far as Gaza goes, Hamas rules Gaza but they're not the recognized government.
It's definitely more complicated by that, there is some evidence that people in the Gaza area have definitely supported Hamas, but of course they're rejected by the PNA (which rules over West Bank) and Israel.
The United States helped establish and continues to recognize the Palestinian National Authority, which is the recognized governing body of what ostensibly would become a Palestinian state. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_National_Authority
The U.S. also recognizes passports issued by the PNA, though w/ caveats given the lack of nominal statehood.
The point is that the U.S. is fully capable of having a political relationship with entities it doesn't recognize as a sovereign state.
Take Taiwan as another example. Both the context and details are completely different from that of the PNA, but it nonetheless contradicts your premise in the same manner.
Mandatory Palestine certainly existed. Although you may argue it wasn't a country, because it was under the administration of the British.
The current State of Palestine exists, and is recognized in many forums, although not by all participants; but it doesn't have de facto sovereignty as it's essentially occupied.
... in the US Government's (and some of its allies') perspective (NB: there are definitely some caveats and the most "Israel-only" policy is in the Trump era but in practice this is how it works). Most Arab countries (for some, until recently) have the inverse: they only recognize the Palestinian government and never the Israeli government. Some governments choose a more pragmatic "both Israel and Palestine exists but their land borders are definitely not defined well".
And, I'd argue, it's willing to negotiate in good faith. The PLO, over the decades, has turned down anything that doesn't give it 100% of what it wants (basically, the destruction of Israel).
And the US is emperor of pointing satellites at the Middle East? There aren’t other satellites outside US/Israel jurisdiction that can fill it in? Or they’re not allowed to pass it on?
KBA applies to operators of imaging satellites, Google's suppliers such as Maxar. In practice, it doesn't apply to distributors, only acquirers. (The text of KBA talks about issuing licenses for "dissemination" of satellite images, but you don't need a license to resell satellite images, or buy them then give them away for free like Google does.)
Legally, there is nothing stopping Google from using a non-US imagery supplier to get higher resolution images of Israel into Google Maps.
In practice, they probably don't want to. It is walking into a political minefield, and Google doesn't really gain anything for themselves by walking into that minefield.
