> Israel took U.S. money and tech to develop that F-16 level jet (the Lavi),

Its development was started based on prior Israeli Jets so the technology was Israeli. Funding was given to keep an eye on the project and control. Israel had far superior avionics which eventually went into US jets as a result.

> and then covertly sold the design to the Chinese.

It's unclear if it was sold or stolen. Regardless the technology is ancient by today's standards. This was 20 years after the project was disbanded and possibly had reduced classification by then.

> Meanwhile, when the U.S. wanted to send Israeli produced, U.S. owned SPIKE missiles to Ukraine, Israel blocked the transfer.

I agree that's pretty terrible. Israeli governments did a lot of shitty moves like that and still does. But it's not alone in that sense.

First, this is pretty standard stuff when selling weapons. You can't sell them to 3rd parties without permission. This is true for US weapons that are sent to Israel and any country selling weapons.

The main logic behind this is that Israel is concerned about escalating against Russia. There are many Jews in Russia which might be on the receiving end of retaliation and there is deep Russian presence in the middle east (notably Syria). I can understand that concern and we don't know all the facts since a lot of it has to do with information that isn't exposed to the public.

But I'm 100% with you that Israel should have been more helpful to Ukraine. It set up a field hospital and helped later on with some knowledge transfer but not much beyond that. At least not publicly.

Back to the main subject though. Israel is sharing a ton of information with the USA using spy networks. There's a lot of collaboration in preventing nuclear armament in Iran, Syria and Iraq.

Israel did a lot of the dirty work the USA just can't do. After Afghanistan and Iraq it is pretty clear that the USA is losing its deterrence and Israel can do the stuff the USA doesn't want to do officially. It can wag its finger publicly but approve of the result in some of these cases. E.g. the Hezbollah people that Israel killed in Lebanon had US bounties on their heads. Furthermore, the level of destruction is indeed horrible, but it's deterrence. The US can then enjoy both sides: It has the higher moral ground of avoiding the dirty work and chastising Israel. But it still gets the impact of "you mess with the west and we can get you anywhere".

> Yes but the settlement with Egypt where land was returned was 45 years ago. Israel is not the same country it was back then.

The settlement with Jordan was 30 years ago. The Oslo accord with the Palestinians is still in effect today.

Yes, I sadly agree Israel moved to the right. That is exactly what I would like to fix. The problem is that a lot of the well meaning people are doing more damage than good.

You can't stop a war by taking weapons, it will just make the war FAR more violent since you need to make every bomb count. I very much agree there should be pressure on Israel but it needs to be the right nuanced type of pressure.

> > Israel wants a Palestinian state and tries to achieve that.
>
> Based on Israel's actions, and the statements of Netanyahu and a couple of ministers, I don't believe this. I think that they've given up and intend to remove the Palestinians from the occupied territories.

Sadly that might make more sense in the past tense at the moment. Still, despite all the violence and terrible government there are still Israelis who have hope for a two state solution.

This is exactly my point. How do we change things back so Israelis will have hope again in a two state solution?

The first ingredient is time. Right now we've got a war going on. It's terrible for everyone and should end as soon as possible. If Hamas survives this war in any functional way then the Palestinians will be f*ed. It will do this all over again and things will end up worse. It's in its nature.

But if it's a shell of its former self then there is a chance. There's now a border wall which keeps Israel out as much as it keeps Palestinians in. There are offers such as the Saudi deal which can pave a way for a long term deal. Netanyahu is old by now and since he eliminated any competitor on the right, there is no heir apparent.

> the demographics of Israel have changed and continue to change in a direction towards more right-wing nationalism.

Sadly this is very true. Even worse... Due to the success of the Oslo accord young Israelis don't meet Palestinians and vice versa. It creates a detachment between the people and lets both sides develop antagonism.

Unfortunately when speaking to foreigners the opinions are either you're evil or you're 100% right. Both are the wrong answer. E.g. a friend of mine was living in Ashdod which gets lots of Hamas rockets. About a decade ago we had lunch and he was furious. He told me about the panic in his kids eyes, the started bed-wetting from the fear. They lived like that for a decade with no end in sight.

He said something along the lines of "I don't care what they bomb in Gaza, they're coming after my kids". My answer was roughly "you're right, but that would only make a father in Gaza feel the same way". That worked well.

Looking at things like US funding contributing to the war is problematic. Israelis blame the US for this whole mess. It left Gaza because of US pressure. It didn't go back in because of US pressure. Cutting funding or weapons would be the ultimate betrayal and authorization to do "anything". I think it will make everything worse.