bucy wrote:
] ] Israel has asked the United States for $9 billion in loan
] ] guarantees aimed at jumpstarting its economy which has
] ] been damaged by nearly three years of violence.
] ]
] ] The United States had threatened to reduce the package by
] ] the amount Israel spends on a security barrier cutting
] ] through the West Bank. Israel and the United States
] ] disagree over the course of the barrier, with Washington
] ] trying to minimize the amount of West Bank land included
] ] on the ``Israeli'' side.
]
] Finally, the US is starting to take a harder line against
] Israel. I think its fair to say that a lot of our troubles
] with the Islamic world are directly attributable to our
] (totally bogus) policy towards Israel.

Yeah, it's a nice gesture, but I don't have any hope of the threat being acted upon. This same threat came up a few weeks ago when they started building the wall east of Jerusalem but it was quickly retracted. Israel receives roughly 25% of the US foreign aid budget as it is. They are even allowed to subsidize their domestic arms industry with US funds. No other nation gets to do that, they have to buy US equipment. (Nice racket, eh?)

Israel has become a middle east proxy state for US global hegemony. As long as they are serving to protect US interests, a blind eye will be turned to the occupation of Palestinian territory. The blowback for these policies will not be pretty.