The price of our country's alliance with Israel is a forbidden topic in our media. The figure of 3 billion a year is sometimes given, although that amount is always exceeded by armament shipments and other giveaways.
Money given to Israel is only a small part of the price we pay as US citizens. The Israeli lobby has turned our electoral process into a sham, and our elected representatives into sycophants to Israel's rightwing leadership. Congress pays much more attention to currying favor with Israeli war hawks than trying to keep young Americans out of another Middle Eastern conflict. And there is nothing our elected leaders won't do to please their foreign masters. The spectacle of our representatives pledging allegiance to Israel at meetings of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee is enough to turn one's stomach.
Our government's one sided relationship with Israel has also eaten away at our rights as citizens for a fair trial. Take the case of Ghassan Elashi, sentenced to 65 years for founding a Palestinian charity, the Holy Land Foundation. His trial had a special witness, a nameless Israeli secret service agent whose qualifications and testimony couldn't be cross examined. Among the agent's inflammatory statements was the declaration that, "there was a smell of Hamas" about the Palestinian charity group. Dr. Elashi's rights for due process as an American citizen were destroyed by our court's "special relationship" with Israel.
And then there is slaughter in Gaza. America's support for Israel is a national disgrace.
Fred Nagel