{"id":52326,"date":"2014-02-10T00:57:03","date_gmt":"2014-02-10T08:57:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=52326"},"modified":"2014-02-10T01:08:55","modified_gmt":"2014-02-10T09:08:55","slug":"a-few-thoughts-on-israel-and-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=52326","title":{"rendered":"A Few Thoughts On Israel And America"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I am a naturalized citizen of the United States of America. I love my adopted country. <\/p>\n<p>I believe that the primary purpose of the United States government is to insure the welfare of its citizens and their progeny. Therefore, I see little reason for the United States to expend resources in interventions around the world (particularly not military interventions) because you never know how these can backfire. I think that contrary to current American policy, the Ukraine will be better off if we let Ukrainians work out their own government. I feel the same way about Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Syria, Libya, Saudi Arabia and the like. <\/p>\n<p>I particularly don&#8217;t want the United States to get bogged down in savage backward countries like Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Syria, Libya, Saudi Arabia. I think Africa is by and large a hell hole, and contrary to Jonah Goldberg in 2005, I don&#8217;t want America invading to set things straight. I want no more disasters like Black Hawk Down.<\/p>\n<p>I am a convert to Orthodox Judaism and Israel (the nation and the nation-state) are as important to me as God and Torah.<\/p>\n<p>I often feel a conflict between my love for America and my love for Israel because I want America to ally with Israel, even though that may not be in America&#8217;s strategic interest. I know that Israel, like every sovereign nation, does things in its own interests (such as sell American nuclear secrets stolen by Jonathan Pollard to the Soviet Union to extract Jews).<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t believe America has any important strategic interests in the Middle East beyond a steady flow of oil, and that oil is less important by the day because we are finding so much at home.<\/p>\n<p>I believe that the primary reason America is so closely allied with Israel is that Israel is a charity case dear to most American&#8217;s hearts (Israel was the land where Jesus walked and talked, etc) and that Jews have been superb at marshaling these warm feelings in Israel&#8217;s interests. <\/p>\n<p>The more the United States intervenes in the Middle East, the more difficult it is for America to support Israel. Things get complicated when you&#8217;re trying to tell Iraqis and Iranians and Lebanese and Syrians what to do and these interventions raise the price of America&#8217;s commitments to Israel.  <\/p>\n<p>I believe that Israel is a bastion of Western values in a sea of barbarity, just as South Korea and Taiwan are bastions of western values next door to tyrannies who want to destroy them. I&#8217;m good with the way America has extended itself to protect all three countries, even thought that may not have been in America&#8217;s interests, but I don&#8217;t want America to take on more such charity cases. Rather, I&#8217;d like America to start pulling back. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am a naturalized citizen of the United States of America. I love my adopted country. I believe that the primary purpose of the United States government is to insure the welfare of its citizens and their progeny. Therefore, I &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=52326\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12477,21791,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-america","category-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52326"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52332,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52326\/revisions\/52332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}