This article breeds ahistorical inaccuracies faster than rabbits:
1. "American businesses....the bond between us": So Nvidia bought out Israeli entrepreneur Eyal Waldman's Mellanox for $6.9bn to cement a bond or to make money? Nvidia's shareholders sure hope it was the latter. Same for Intel, Apple, Microsoft, Crowdstrike.....well, the list is endless: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_multinational_companies_with_research_and_development_centres_in_Israel
2. "over the last 4 decades, America has been in obvious decline": So signs of decline would include:
1. The Berlin wall's fall, Nov 1989
2. USSR dissolution, December 8, 1991.
3. First Gulf War, 1991.
4. US intervention in Bosnia and Dayton Accords that ended 3 years of Serbia's genocidal ethnic cleansing and European impotence (see Gorazde, Srebrenica and Dutch peacekeepers), 1995.
5. Clinton's 8 years of peace and prosperity, with the biggest bubble in world history since Tulips.
"failed wars": Other superpowers failed at war multiple times:
Rome: vs Arminius in Germany, vs the Picts (now Scots), vs the Parthians. All at the supposed zenith of Roman power.
Britain: vs America in 1775-83, vs the Afghans in the Great Game, vs the Sudanese in 1883, the Boer War.
"population drop": The US has a growing population due to immigration. The only two western nations with population growth: the US and Israel. And counting counties is ridiculous rotten borough demographics since most are rural and declining due to population concentration in cities.
"Swiss...l think it does": He's never been to Switzerland, but doesn't hesitate to spout evidence-free nonsense. I've been there literally 100+ times since I lived next door in Italy from 1989-2005, skied there several times a year and speak Italian, French and German. I have a Swiss ski buddy who did his reserve service. I can assure you that the correlation between Swiss neutrality and compulsory army service is a very simple number: zero.
"Would Israel be a country without American support": Mandatory governor Britain dumped the Palestine problem into the UN's lap, which came up with the November 1947 Partition Plan. The US was only one of 33 states to vote yes. Israel came into existence with zero US aid, except for Meyer Lansky running guns to Palestine from Czechoslovakia with the Soviets turning a blind eye. So, at its founding Israel had more Soviet than American aid.
Since Israel is by far the strongest military in the Middle East, the idea that it depends on anyone else for survival is asinine.
"Israel a wonderful subsidy for the price of oil":
https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/crude-oil
WTI Oil price/barrel on Oct 6: $81.97. Today's close: $73.25.
The US is the world's largest oil producer and the commodity's swing producer, along with the Saudis. Goodbye Russia as far as that goes.
It's in US geopolitical interests to outsource squashing theocratic Islamist idiocy to Israel, just as it's in Iran's interest to outsource its battles to proxies. Israel is what a still stateless people, the Kurds, aspire to become.
This is basic geopolitics 101, apparently beyond the grasp of this writer. The correlation between the US-Israel alliance and oil is a very simple number: zero.
Here's what is an absolute non-starter, as written by Prof Eyal Winter, Lancaster Univ:
"For a new hostage release deal, Hamas demands that the IDF fully withdraw from Gaza. Almost every Israeli believes, and for good reason, that if the IDF leaves Gaza while Hamas remains in charge, every Israeli, and perhaps every Jew, becomes a potential hostage. The incentives for Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthi, Iran and ISIS to kidnap Israelis/Jews either in Israel or abroad will be unbounded. We will have to constantly watch our backs, hide our identities while abroad, and build our children's schools inside military compounds. In fact, we may have to return to the life we experienced in Europe during the 30s and 40s. Additionally, we haven't even mentioned the prospect of Hamas reorganizing after the IDF leaves Gaza and orchestrating a second massacre, as they promised their people they would do. This is not an option Israel can agree to. Such a deal would mean saving the lives of a few while destroying the lives of many.
"do for it's people": another writer with an apostrophe problem. I guess retired prof is an oxymoron.
