what is israels biggest asset? iol? natural gas? US? or what?

Answer 1

I would have to say the massive amounts of known and unknown financial assistance that Israel receives from the U.S. Each year billions of dollars are funded into the country in the form of loans, grants, and research funding. I personally believe that this is to assist the US in having a stable base of operations in the middle east, because Isreal now owes their existence to the US. (Through the ability to create their massive airforce and technologically advanced army) If you look at Israel's neighbouring Arab countries, their armies are pitiful in comparison, both in size and technology. This is why Israel has won the last 3 wars that it has engaged in with its neighbours, and in such short amounts of time as well. I took a course on economics of global interdependence a while ago and it was very interesting to see the role that ownership of water takes in the Middle East. You can examine all of the wars that Israel has engaged in since becoming a country, and everyone of them has either a blatantly obvious motive associated with water, and others that are not so obvious. For instance, the most recent war that occured, the Israeli army stopped fighting only after they had taken control of all land up to one of the largest rivers in the region. They now have access to this water. Several other 'territories' that they have taken from their neighbours in the various wars all contain either large rivers or massive water basins. Things that are very rare in the dry Middle East. Even back check over the land they have given back to their neighbours, none of those contained any significant sources of water, whereas the territories they claimed belonged to them now do contain such sources. This is a very interesting topic and I encourage you to look into it.

Answer 2

The AIPAC and other various political action committees.
The US is easily the largest resource from which the Israelis draw resources. Without the US funding nearly every facet of Israeli society, it's likely that Israel would have long ago been forced to the peace table and be about as influential towards US politics as Tunisia or Cyprus.

As a US citizen it simply amazes me why we constantly cow to every Israeli whim when it should be the other way around.

Personally, I find that US politicians are expected to comply with every request from the rather overpowerful Israeli interests - lest they be branded anti-semetic, to be profoundly counter to the interests of the US in the long term.

It is specifically counter to the the founding princples set down by the Founders. Washington himself warned the US from "any entangling alliances", the US-Israeli alliance is certainly that.

I think moreover, that were Israel in the position of having to "live within it's means" as a state, it could not support such a large or well equiped military and thus would be more willing and able to be reasonable in the treatment of the states surrounding it.

In a way the US has enabled the Israeli hard-liners to be hard-liners in ways which are far from practical. This ultimately does not work in the long term interests of Israel from the perspective that the hard-liners will eventually piss off the "enemies" of Israel far more than they would have otherwise been able to do. Which will bring an inevitable response and does not serve the interests of either alliance partner.

This may seem fine, but it's a ticking clock as any number of a host of virtual certainties such as,
- The US gets nuked on account of our alliance
- Have an economic downturn
- The day the first fusion reactor goes online
- The Middle East runs out of oil

Well, then Israel will either need a new "BFF" or the hard-liners will find themselves in the distinctly unconfortable position of having antagonized people who either were to begin with or who were antagonized into being truly anti-semetic.

Answer 3

My answer is its Human Capital. israel does not have many resources, no oil, not even trees. The farming it does have is for strategic reasons in case the rest of the world isolates them... Which is what every country should have. But the fact that its population is highly educated, most citizens are middle-class, results in entrepreneurship and technological advancement. The largest companies based there are Pharmaceutical (Teva), Tech, and military defense. However, some of the biggest employers are not based there, but have huge operations like Intel and Microsoft. The aid that the U.S. gives comes right back to U.S. companies, or is distributed via the welfare system to Palestinians living in Israel. Israel gets U.S. aid and then turns around and buys weapons/planes/infrastructure from U.S. companies. The aid pales in comparison to the Israel GDP. Also, if Israel's military wasn't strong and well-funded, the U.S. would probably spend 10 times as much just to have a large base there for geographical strategic reasons--- just like our base in Hawaii.. The U.S. actually saves money by giving aid...