ROFLMAO..... I think this article will once and for all prove that we, the Israelis have come of age.

mr plocker. as we have no friends other than america in this world. the american threat was even more bizzare than your laughter. since they too have no other friends.

America, if we wanted to could bring Israel's nuclear program into negotiations with Iran! WE could also just end Israel nuclear "ambiguity" and force Israel's hand to address the NPT. We could stop blocking U.N. resolutions. WE are the MAIN reason the Goldstone report didn't go to the U.N. security council. How about your qualitative military advantage? We could supply other countries in the region with better technology. Don't make me Laugh! Who the hell does Israel think they are?

Israel is one of the countries financing your debt mate :)

james, So you don't think the Chinese or Russians don't want access to Israeli high tech? Or they won't want access to Israeli military technology? Or they won't want access to the huge Natural Gas and Oil supplies discovered in green line Israel and off shore Haifa? Unfortunately for us Americans either Russia or China would do so at the drop of a hat. They, too, have really bad relations with Muslims. And without Israel the US would be almost entirely friendless. Do you really think the Arabs would immediately love the USA? No, they would moan about all the years the USA supported Israel. The last laugh will be held by the G*dly, not the seculars.

George Gilder in his recently published "The Israel Test" points out that the US didn't give those guarantees for free. What Treasury Secretary Snow expected were reforms: (p. 170) ""Israel would have to give up its nationalized banks and industries, its socialized insurance and pension systems, its sclerotic double and triple taxes on foreign investment, its ban on hedge funds, its sweetheart Histadrut labor bonds, and its handout "woe-is-me" culture. Fortunately, these were compatible with the kind of reforms Finance Minister Netanyahu wanted anyway. They went through, and Israel's economy emerged stronger for it. Ironically, since then Israel has become even friendlier toward investment and entrepreneurs, while the US is currently moving in the opposite direction.

could do evil to us.

we are one of the few countries that is financing your deficit so please put a cork in it.

"Who the hell does Israel think they are," we are a country on very solid financial footing. Like China, which has so much of its cash reseves in U.S. funds, we are placing ourselves at risk by carrying so many American dollars. What might be the wiser thing to do is to follow China's lead and start replacing dollars with gold. Unfortunately, and I say this as man born and brought up in the USA, the future does not belong to America. A wastrel financial system, lack of actual productivity in the U.S., and too many foreign wars have depleted American energy. I say this with regret but the analysis is accurate, I fear.

7 millions Israeli consumer? I dont think China not Russia would dare make that very bad choice!!! Beside both of them have a substantial Islamic minorities they won't risk to upset. So think again and revise your copy

How would you force Israel to join the NPT? Who cares about UN resolutions? Who cares about the Goldstone report - note the US didn't do anything, it didn't get the votes. Supply Syria? Iran? Hizbollah? Al-Qaeda? Who would fly or man those weapons?

There are no friends or foes. There are always interests and interests will always govern politics. Perhaps cutting the loan guarantees might not do Israel a great harm, but imagine the psychological impact on the Israeli stock market, foreign investments ... etc.

Always somewhat bemused by spiteful laughter from folk sheltering behind walls & sandbags, and trying to dodge mortars & rockets. Fantasize about the Chinese & Russians as you will, the rest of the world will not touch you with a 10ft. pole. Keep grumbling, but be grateful for your one friend amid a multitude of blood-enemies.

Israel is not financing our debt mate!! How much can a country of 7 million finance mate! China and Japan are financing our debt mate. And if we weren't bogged down in Israel's neighborhood benefiting them in Iraq mate, our debt wouldn't be so high mate!!

We could push the NPT on Israel. It would be their choice to face possible sanctions and more pariah status, or we could tie Iran with Israel on the nuclear issue. And the U.S. blocked Goldstone from the Security Council. You Israeli's don't get info evidently or just don't like to face the dim political situation Israel is in. If we didn't block it from Security Council, Israel leaders could be directed to international trials on war crimes! U.S. support for Israel has become so common Israel has become spoiled, and are losing their strategic value to the U.S. while become a pariah in the world. Frankly, Israel has been a liability since the fall of the Soviet Union. All for some right wing settlers! It is in America's strategic interest to force both side towards peace to push out Iranian influence, reinforce U.S. influence, and frankly calm down the area so oil prices remain steady!

Isn't it about time Israel pitched in after living off the American taxpayers' hard-earned money for soooooo long?!

Israel and U.S. have no friends? The U.S. is a superpower. International relations are based on strategic interest. If the U.S. dumped Israel, we would just have better relations with Arab states. Israel's strategic value is no were close to the support it receives from the U.S. They have no oil, we help finance their weapons industry, and supply them with our technology. And the Israeli Arab conflict is a tremendous liability to American strategic interest. If things continue, maybe not today, or maybe not ten years, but i guarantee you American policy towards Israel WILL change without peace between Israel and the Palestinians most importantly. And Israel Syria, and Israel Lebanon as well!

see this . It makes me sick to read their uneducated trash!

nonsense that the hostile posters hope for. NPT, Boycott ...Fortunately,your wicked dreams would never come true I feel sure

The U.S. senate and public are going to back a foreign country over the interest of the U.S.? If any major American official cared to go to the public and show how strategic peace in the Middle East is to America, hell even to Israel, the cash cow of AIPAC wouldn't matter. The simple fact is the U.S. people don't pay that much attention. And support in the U.S. for Israel is based on a hardcore of Christian Zionist, with right wing Zionist Jews. America cares for Israel as a democratic state, but anybody could explain how settlements, and occupation are destabilizing the Middle East and are strategically hurting the U.S. It is just the heat from a vocal few. But of the over 300 million, if American strategic interest are explained policy can change!

American dependence on Israel? Absolutely non. We are sick of your intransigence, acting like you can stick it to us, when you take advantage with not even a thank you with not just loan guarantees, over 154 billion dollars in FREE aid since 1948, every U.N. resolution blocked, a financed weapons industry from the U.S. and cover for your nuclear program that makes it difficult to stop others developing nuclear weapons. Why don't you try selling some more tech we give you to China? Even George Bush got fed up with that. Israel is becoming a pariah state, and nobody wants the baggage that comes with Israel. And by God America sure has taken heat from around the world for it. And gotten absolutely nothing!!

The drone strikes he authorised have a far far higher civilian to target death toll... which is the REAL reason neither him, nor Russia nor China nor the UK want to set a precedent.

James, you are a great example of an armchair general. Don't drop the remote when you reach for another beer, huh? If Israel is such a "liability" as you claim, then why does Uncle Sam consider Israel to be an important economic and military strategic partner? Or are you still sitting your comfy southern armchair, waving a Rebel flag and damning all them Yankees? You're a standard nut who wants cheap oil and don't care how many foreigners die so you can drive your golfcart. Sorry, bub. The south lost, and there are more competent people in Washington making the decisions, not you. Best thing for you would be oil at $250/barrel. That would wean you off of foreign oil and help America remain independent. Right now, you're suckers for Arab and other foreign oil, and all you can do is think that Israel has no strategic value. Sure, let's dock the 6th fleet in Gaza City for resupply instead of Haifa. Wow are you a bonehead.

Extreme Leftists like Ploztker make no sense. Israel does not need US loan guarantees and does not need US defense sales, but that does not mean that Israel should mock American troubles. The Americans are good people and friends of Israel For now, Americans are ruled by Obama, student of Reverend Wright who hates Israel, who bows to his Saudi master and wants America to be an Islamic country. In 2012, America's next president will work for America and will reject Obama's anti-Israel stance.

I don't believe the author was mocking America's financial woes. He was just happily noting the emptiness behind the threat recently made by a White House envoy trying to force a small, generally beleaguered country to surrender territory that its people fought and died to defend, and waited 2,000 years and endured multiple genocides to recapture-- proudly noting (though perhaps with a degree of excessive optimism) that that it is not quite as weak at the moment as its would-be bullies assumed. Incidentally, I must say that I'm both amazed and saddened by the almost unanimous pigheadedness of the comments with "United States" written in the "country" field. What exactly do you people expect-- that if ordered, Israel should simply surrender? Is that the definition of "ally" in your dictionary-- a country that promptly waves the white flag if asked? Incidentally, as far as I'm concerned, the people who attacked New York City and Washington DC on the 11th of September, 2001, and their allies and sympathizers throughout the Mideast, are quite simply the enemies of all that is right and just. America should fight them in the name of justice-- not simply in the name of strength or self-interest-- and not doubt the justice of the fight, or cede the question of "morality" to those who fail to understand it. And as far as I'm concerned, those of you who talk about buying the favors of the death-worshipers and ascendant regional belligerents fundamentally fail to grasp this simple truth-- the justice of your country's and my country's cause. Pity you, whoever you are-- left or right, Obama adorers or Ron Paul adherents, urban sophisticates or rural simple-folk, Brzezinski followers or Buchanan admirers, dittoheads or empty-heads or what have you. You fail to understand the simple falsity of your enemies' grievances.

My God, the amount of Israeli shrieking & howling lately reminds me of a dog that just had his tail stepped on. Yes, we have been very good friends to Israel over the years, and we have served eachother's ends well, and in the future, we will continue to do so. Progressive Obama will simply have to be endured for the next several years until we can finally send him on his way. No, you're not being tossed to the wolves, and he will pass. So calm down, keep things in perspective, and quit squalling like a bunch of spoiled kids. Enough!