The United States should NOT decrease foreign aid to Israel.

I am going to open my argument with rebuttals and then move on to a few comments of my own. 1. I do not understand my opponent's comment, "As a mediator between the violent extremist groups and the various terrorist organizations that now control many governments in the Middle East, it is absolutely vital that the United States maintain a firm and healthy relationship with Israel." What is the mediator being referred to here? Israel does not act as a mediator between extremist groups and terrorist organizations, they do not even recognize its existence. The United States does not act as a mediator either since these organizations are obviously hostile to it. If anything, Israel creates a polarization in the Middle East between the diametric views of radical Islam and Zionists, driving each side to ever more radical positions. 2. The United States does not rely on Israel to maintain diplomatic channels in the Middle East. It has many allies, including Egypt and Turkey. In any case, Israel depends on the United States far more than the United States depends on Israel. In the United Nations, the US frequently supports Israel against overwhelming global opposition. Without the United States as an ally, Israel would face enormous global backlash. 3. I doubt that there is much confusion as to whether the US supports Middle Eastern terrorist organizations. This is no a question of whether the US is loyal to Israel, this is a question of what the US is willing to let Israel get away with. As I will elaborate on later, I think the US has allowed Israel to repeatedly overstep it's bounds and has used its influence to cover for Israeli crimes. If the US truly wishes to support justice and democracy than it will have to send a message to Israel that it will not stand for the violence that it is perpetuating. 4. The US has absolutely no history of supporting nations on the basis that they are democratic. There are no shortage of examples in Chile, Nicaragua, Indonesia, Iraq (formerly), Turkey, and as my opponent mentioned Egypt in which the US supports authoritarian governments simply out of political opportunism. The point my opponent has made about Egypt seems to hurt, rather than help, his case. The US obviously does not care about what nations it's supporting as long as it is politically opportune. In the Middle East during the Cold War, the US had no qualms with supporting the destruction of a popular revolution in Iran and allowing the government to fall to Muslim extremists. There is no risk of "making it seem like the US does not support Democracy", the US very clearly does not support democracy already. If the US stopped supporting Israel, it would send a message that the US will use it's influence to force positive behavior rather than turning a blind eye to crimes that it could easily prevent. Now on to my own comments: 1. Israel uses its extremely powerful military against the Middle East, especially the people of Palestine, in ways that are unnecessarily aggressive and brutal and unnecessary for self defense. Examples of this go on and on, but to name a few: The use of white phosphorous, a terrible chemical weapon, against Palestinians in Gaza. The killings of Palestinian civilians in Operation Cast Lead. The killing of Gaza civilians by drone-launched precision missiles. The demolition of the homes of people in Bedouin villages. Numerous incidents of violence and attack against Palestinian women and girls by Israeli troops. Indiscriminate attacks against civilians in Lebanon. The US obviously cannot support any of these actions, yet it continues to give Israel foreign aid. This aid is used to build the military forces which carry out these crimes. In any case, Israel's military is already powerful enough to deal with any Middle Eastern threat. Israel is a nuclear state with it's own classes of attack helicopters and battle tanks, luxuries that aren't afforded even to many First World European countries. The US should not support Israel's already powerful military, which is used to carry out these crimes. 2. Cutting foreign aid and support will force Israel to seek a peaceful settlement with Palestine. The Israel-Palestine conflict has been consistently a one-way affair in which Israel is gaining more and more ground. The continued abuses by Israeli and inequity of negotiations only make it easier for terrorist cells to recruit more members as the outrage in Palestine and the rest of the Middle East builds. The US needs to put its foot down and force Israel to use its considerable power to find a peaceful solution, not a solution in which Israel gets everything and Palestine gets nothing. That solution will be far from peaceful. 3. The US's image in the Middle East would be increased greatly if it ceased unilaterally supporting Israel without concern for the interests of Arab people. Unfortunately, people in the Middle East tend to view the US as an enemy of democracy that has more concern for its economic interests in the Middle East than the well being of the indigenous people. This point of view no doubt dates back to the actions of the US in Iran and Iraq prior to the 1990's. If the US showed that it was willing to be fair to the people of the Middle East by putting Israel and Palestine on more equal diplomatic footing, this would greatly increase it's image. By improving it's public image in the Middle East, the US would hurt terrorist groups that rely on intense hatred and disillusionment to recruit volunteers. If the US wants to people of the Middle East to believe that it is willing to work in their interests, it's about time it started working in their interests. That's not to say the US should support Palestine, which has committed no shortage of crimes as well, but it should but the too groups on equal footing. The US needs to start using its resources to improve social and political problems in the Middle East instead of exploiting it for political and economic gain. By taking this course of action, it can strip terrorists of what few rational arguments the have and give the common man of the Middle East a reason to support the US. George Bush frequently claimed that the motivations of terrorists was a hatred of democracy, freedom, and peace. For some of the most diabolical leaders of these organizations, this may be true. But few humans truly hate democracy, freedom, and peace. It is the fact that the US tends to ignore these things when making its foreign policy decisions that makes it so easy for terrorists to recruit. The people of Palestine are being deprived of democracy, freedom, and peace, and that is what leads to terrorism. People the world over love freedom, democracy, and peace, but when these things are taken away some will turn to all sorts of evil in retaliation. I think that will be all for now. Sources: Hegemony or Survival, by Noam Chomsky Propaganda and the Public Mind, by Noam Chomsky http://www.hrw.org... http://www.Chomsky.info... http://en.wikipedia.org...