Q&A Friday #46: How Are We Assisting Israel In This Fight?

by John Hawkins | August 4, 2006 11:39 am

Questions: “To what degree are we assisting Israel, covertly or otherwise?” — mojoe

“Syria is about to launch an attack on Israel. Any thoughts on Israel’s 2006 War for Freedom?” — JMHoffer

Answer: My guess is that the only thing we’re doing to aid them in the actual fighting is shipping them laser guided bombs[1] that they’ve already paid for.

But really, that’s all the help they really need. They’re certain to have better intelligence in Lebanon than we do and they’re already systematically demolishing every Hezbollah owned target of value in the whole country.

That being said, we’re running interference for them at the UN Security Council, pushing our mutual goals in this conflict with the “international community,” and I’m sure we’re also regularly talking to the Israelis about what’s going on behind the scenes.

As far as Syria goes, they’re no match for Israel. If Syria declared war on Israel today, within a couple of weeks there would probably be Israeli tanks driving through buildings in Damascus. So, you can expect them to keep aiding Hezbollah, but it seems highly unlikely that they’d want to bring Israel down on their heads, especially since George Bush is making it clear that he’s not going to hold them back this time.

Update #1: From the comments section:

“I would imagine were kickin them a few bucks a year in foriegn aid, and supplying them with about every piece of equipment the IDF uses. Fighting against the global jihad is something ya gotta do all year around.”

We regularly give them aid and we gave them about 2.6 billion last year[2], which they then immediately turned around and spent on weapons from American companies. It’s a nice arrangement.

Update #2: Apparently, we may be doing a little more[3]:

“A report by columnist Sidney Blumenthal in Salon claims that Israel is receiving intelligence from the US’s National Security Agency. Blumenthal claims to be in touch with “a national security official with direct knowledge of the operation” to supply Israel with signals intelligence from American assets to help it monitor armament transfers from Syria and Iran to Hezbollah. He states that President Bush has approved the intelligence sharing. [….]”

On the one hand, if this is true, I’m glad that the Bush Administration has been doing this. On the other hand, you have a former senior advisor to Bill Clinton giving out classified info that may help Iran and Syria get more supplies to Hezbollah.

The person who gave Blumenthal that info? He should spend the rest of his life smashing big rocks into smaller rocks in a Federal Penitentiary. And Blumenthal? Well, if you want people who believe in helping terrorists to murder Jews in the White House, put a Democrat in office. If that happens in 2008, you’ll have people like Sidney Blumenthal — heck, maybe even Sidney Blumenthal himself — helping to shape our foreign policy and helping to decide how national security issues are handled. Would you trust a guy like Sidney Blumenthal to do that? Well, apparently Bill Clinton did.