Should the country of Israel make the Middle East important to Americans?

Answer 1

Answer 1

Considering that Israel is the only country in the region with the kind of representative government, gender equality, vibrant high-tech industry, market economy, higher education, judicial system, and religious equality and freedom that the US has spent literally trillions of dollars trying to build in other places, it would be truly irrational to turn around and behave as if it were NOT important.

Answer 2

Israel is one of several reasons that the Middle East should be important to the United States. The initial reason that the Middle East was important to Western interests in general is that it was the largest source of petroleum other than the Russian Empire/Soviet Union. Considering the amount of petroleum in the Middle East, having stability there is critical in order to facilitate peaceful petroleum exports. Israel is currently a much more stable country than any of its neighbors. Additionally, the Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency has close relations with the CIA allowing Israel to provide the USA with real-time intelligence concerning the the stability of other nations in the region and terrorist threats. Finally, many of the key technological advances in recent times (including a number of developments that led to the creation of cell-phones) came from Israel.

The United States has a much more long-term military presence, for example, in East Asia than in the Middle East (since World War II as opposed to since 9/11), specifically because the US does not have to expend resources to provide stability in large swathes of the Middle East, which include Israel.