Sir, I agree with you that the USA should sell F-35s to Saudi Arabia, regardless of what Israel advises. It is clear that while the Saudi governmental system, and dominant religion, are different from that of the USA, this same is true of the USA and Israel and Turkey and several other USA allies. The KSA is a hugely important and valuable friend to the USA. We cannot expect all of our friends to accept only the Israeli position on Palestinian rights. The USA should do everything it can to enable the Palestinian people to have self-determination, including supporting friends, such as the KSA, who peacefully and honestly pressure Israel to compromise with the descendants of the people the Israelis have displaced and dispossessed.
Interesting to read your opinion and thank you for taking your time to share it after I tagged you in this thread. I agree with your post.
I was simply interested in hearing what Americans thought about some of the points I raised in this thread.
That tiny population has lots of people involved in R&D for Western companies.
Remember many are ex-Soviet scientists. The US is making sure they are used for our benefit..not Russia's.
If there was some other country nearby designing microchips or contributing to things like vaccines then maybe companies would be flocking there...but until then Israel has the R&D money.
For instance Israel makes the F-35 helmet and is working on a new one.
Elbit America - Zero-G Pilots Helmet - HMDS+ - 6th Generation Fighter Pilots Helmet
How can we pull the plug on Israel and still sell F-35s to Saudi if we can't even get you the helmets?
That little population is pulling a lot of cutting-edge technology magic out of its hat..
No denying that Israel is doing very well in terms of innovation, startups, venture capital, R&D etc.
Anyway countries like KSA are slowly catching up (available scientific data, international rankings, papers published, number of STEM students, global university ranks, money spent on STEM fields, R&D and science as a whole confirms it) let alone the region as a whole.
All this without the support that Israel gets/receives (often for free) from the US/West.
I never wrote that KSA should stop having ties with Israel, that would be unrealistic given the geopolitical realties since 1948, incredibly strong/influential Jewish-American community (despite numbering just 7 million people) and long-term ties as well.
My point was not be taken as a hostage by this relationship and to ignore their pressure if it works against US interests. Or in short just a more balanced approach.
The irony is that it is only the US (due to military, economic and political pressure) that is able to genuinely pressure Israel. The US has the ability to almost force Israel to accept an acceptable (for both parties) 2-state solution that would solve a lot of the past, current and future mess.
Ironically this would also immediately result in Israel being accepted by most (if not all) Arab states and official relations would be established with everything this entails of potential positive outcome.
This way there would be no conflict between US allies in the region either. Meaning that the US could focus on other foreign topics. Be it Russia or China.
So the behavior of Netanyahu and the current Israeli government is contrary to US regional and global interests if you ask me.
To such an extend that most young Americans, for the first time in recorded history (regardless of ethnicity and religion) if we go by all of those published polls, are turning overwhelmingly either anti-Israel or neutral.
