Who are you for? Israel? The Palestinians? Doesn't really make much difference, cause you're paying for both sides. The United States government used to subsidize tobacco farmers while spending millions to wage anti-smoking campaigns, but now they've found an even more senseless way of spending your hard earned taxes. The US gives Israel about $3 billion a year, we guess in order to make sure that all the Arab states really hate us. But just to be even handed, the US Congress has also recently agreed to step up aid to the Palestinians. In the latest round, Israel was awarded with an extra $200 million for its role in the recent death and destruction, while the Palestinians received $50 million.

We're not exactly sure why the US has to be involved in the intractable, senseless, and endless violence of the Middle East. Why couldn't we just, y'know, mind our own business, and save our money to educate our children, pay down some credit card debt, or make donations to The Outrage. Every US administration wages a futile campaign to solve problems we don't really understand, as if Jerusalem was the only city on earth where people had issues with their neighbors.

Yes, yes, we know that the money given to the Palestinians is supposed to be used for humanitarian purposes. And we also know that such money often ends up funding violence. Given the billions we pay at the pump to the oil rich states, we're not sure why they couldn't help the Palestinians. As for Israel, tell us again why it serves our geopolitical interest to make sure that Israel survives, and is always the focus of turmoil and anti-Americanism? Hey, if the Israelis need help to finance their religious, statist, militaristic society, we're certainly not going to stop anyone who wants to make a contribution. But why should tax dollars be used?

And please don't tell us this has something to do with "The great fight against terrorism". If the US had taken the sensible policy of letting the religious fanatics in the Middle East fight their own battles, we never would have had September 11.

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