End the Exceptionalism: Will the United States Ever Sanction Israel?
End the Exceptionalism: Will the United States Ever Sanction Israel?
If Washington insists on being the arbiter of sanctions and using them as a foreign policy weapon, then Israel should no longer be shielded from them.
No because the US evangelical right is an apocalypse cult which believes that Israel completely destroying Palestine is a necessary condition for their desired apocalypse.
Not just that, AIPAC is one of the largest lobby groups in the US and they hold a disproportional amount of sway when it comes to steering government policy.
Trying to change this would require a complete overhaul over the way the US government currently functions, and there are too many entrenched individuals who would be willing to kill you in order to prevent that.
"Will the United States ever sanction the 51st state?"
lol
It goes beyond that.
With Saudi Arabia leaning increasingly towards BRICS and being more erratic in its support of the West, Israel is the last firm diplomatic beacon and region of influence the US has in the Middle East.
It also just so happens to be an apartheid state.
Even if public opinion sharply turned on Israel (it won't), the US would still hold firm in supporting it. Not because it's obligated to Israel or even because of sunk-cost fallacy. But because it would remove any chance of the US playing a part in regional hegemony.
It goes beyond even that!
I call it the 51st state because Israel's entire founding ideology is the same as the rest of the US - it's a white supremacist settler colony founded on ethnic cleansing of native populations, expropriation of lands from natives, and ethno-nationalism. It's part of the same ideological project and has all the same politics and all the same internal contradictions. American public opinion won't ever turn on Israel because they are American.
51st State? You mean Puerto Rico? Or DC?
Those aren't states for exactly the same reasons.
I think we know that they won't. The U.S. has never universally applied it's ire based on bad behaviour alone, I don't see why they'd start now.
Will the United States Ever Sanction Israel?
No
Can the US Sanction Israel? A non zero amount of military technology and intelligence flows back to the US from Israel. So from a practical point of view could the US afford it? I think there's a reason Israel is getting the GOP to fight the BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanction) movement. They know if BDS is successful then there's less downside to sanctioning them.
Oh yeah, you should check out the BDS movement.