Originally Posted by Villages Kahuna

For years Israel has continued to expand into territory that is not theirs with the construction of settlements. The result is continued unrest and little possibility that peace will ever be agreed on in the region. Recently, a top level report was prepared for and by the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff saying that the continued aggressive behavior by Israel was, among other results, encouraging and enabling al Quaeda to recruit both suicide bombers as well as fighters to be trained for the Taliban in Afghansitan. In essence the report said, Israel's actions was aiding and abetting the very enemy that is killing our soldiers every day. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was so disturbed and alarmed by the report that he immediately forwarded it to both the State Department and the White House.

We give Israel about $3 billion each year in foreign aid as well as selling them advanced military equipment. A year or so ago they attempted to obtain tactical nuclear weapons from us, which we refused to sell to them.

Their economy is stronger than ours at the moment. Their fiscal situation is pretty good, their economy is growing at a faster rate than our own, and their unemployment is substantially lower.

Then, of course, there was the incident last week when while Vice President Biden was visiting their Prime Minister to express our continued support for Israel in the peace negotiations, Israel announced the expansion of another settlement of 1,600 homes into Gaza and the West Bank. The result was riots in the streets of Palestine.

Virtually every member of our government openly expressed anger over the outward slap in the face to the U.S. demonstrated by that action and announcement.

Question: How do we send a strong message to Israel? Should we cut off all foreign aid? Should we stop selling them weapons, or at least drag our feet in doing so? What should we demand of them regarding continued expansion into Palestine and what should the threat from us be?