Israel - What does it do for America?

[rwoy]

Every US Presidential candidate kisses Israel's butt.  I know there is a huge Jewish voting block in play, but aside from that what exactly does Israel do for us?  Seriously ... there have been cases (Jonathan Pollard) of Israel even spying on the US so why exactly do we flop over backwards to support them?

[rwoy]

To be fair, my comment about "a huge Jewish voting block" was meant to be sarcastic.

I asked this question because personally I think it is important for us to always be able to review why we do things.  For example, our strategic alliance with Great Britain.  Any time we have engaged in a conflict Great Britain stands shoulder to shoulder with us.  Over the last 50 years they haven't attacked any of our naval vessels and we don't have any British agents serving life sentences for spying on us.

To say that Israel benefits disproportionately from this alliance is, I would say, an understatement.  Now I'm not suggesting that we walk away from this alliance, but I am saying that it should not be ridiculous for us to question our ally on their behavior towards us.