Sherm Adelson, the billionaire casino mogul has reportedly given $10 million to the super-PAC Restore Our Future, which is supporting Mitt Romney.
Adelson was previously one of Newt Gingrich's major backers.
The link between the two? Support for our ally Israel, a cause dear to Mr. Adelson's heart.
He comes from an older generation that was closer to the Holocaust and understands how important a strong and secure Israel is to Jews worldwide, as well as what an asset it is for America.
Mitt Romney understands what an asset Israel is to America as well.
Adelson also obviously sees that Barack Obama is the most anti-Israel president in our history, and unlike some of the usual suspects, realizes how important it is that he be defeated, not just for Israel, not even just for America, but for the west in general.
That realization appears to be slowly growing with America's Jews.
Adelson,who's worth an estimated $20 billion is also apparently planning tocontriblute heavily to getting a conservative congress elected, so it's all good.
While it is true that Israel has been an asset to America, I do not think the reverse is true. Essentailly America has been and continues to be a net liability to Israel. Unless America changes its course, it makes no sense for Isarel to continue the so called "special relationship" with America.
ReplyDeleteI've lost count of the ways America has harmed Israel. For starters, 1.)pressuring Israel to bring Yessar Arafat and his people from exile, pressuring Israel at the end of the Gulf War to negotiate with implacable enemies in order to get "loan guarantees" or whatever, 3.)acting to restrain Israel from dealing with implacable enemies in the wars against Hezbollah and Hamas, 4.)acting to restrainin Israel during the 1956 war, and 5.)the Camp David accords or whatever they were whereby Israel gave the Sinai to Egypt. This barely scratches the surface but I think the point is clear.
Now why does Israel continue this relationship? Not being an Israeli I'm unable to say for certain. In America, decisions are often made based upon the needs and desires of special interests groups who lobby Congress and other government officials for a specific policy. The desires of the special interests groups often supercede the best interests of the nation as a whole.
Sometiems their desires mesh nicely with the national interest. Sometimes they don't. When they don't. When they don't we often end up with policies that make no sense and even undermine America's interest, as a whole. Peerhaps a similar thing is at work in Israel. Maybe special interests in Israel benefit from the so called "speical relationship". Thus the policy is continued even though its harming Israeli interests as a whole.
Given the fact that these anti-Israel policies are so entrenched in the American government, it seems unlikely that a mere change in who lives in the White House will make that much difference. As such, to borrow an expression you used on another thread to describe one who does not serve a nation's interest, Israel would be best served to tell America to "get bent" and BE GONE!! Basiclly stop meddling in things you don't understand nor have any hope of understanding.
I've asked this before but don't recall a response. Just who is the "West?" Generally when we refer to the West, we mean the nations of Western Europe, the United States, and Canada. Often times Australia gets included as do Japan, South Korea, and Israel even though these nations are not geographically in the "west" at all.
If this is so and even if we limit the "West" to strictly Western Europe, the US, and Canada, these nations have wildly diverse needs and interests. As such, it is an error to try and link these nations in some sort of monolithic entity such as the "west."
Furthermore even if the term "the west" is further restricted to include on the English speaking peoples of the US, UK, Australia, and Canada this would still be a BIG mistake. Each of the above nations have widely divergent needs and interests. As such, if policy makers think and act as though these nations can be or even should be unified in some sort of monolithic entity called the "west" or whatever they wish to call it their policy perscriptions are going to meet with devestating, catastrophic, and spectacular failure. It'd be funny to see, if only real Americans and the citizens of those countries would not reap the devestating results of such misguided thinking on the part of policy makers.
So again, I ask, just who is the "West?"