I support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, but I don’t see it having any real impact on US-Israeli relations. Passing laws which boycott companies doing business with Israel is an important short-term objective, but history shows that these measures are of little consequence. American firms have routinely subverted trade sanctions from the days of trading with Nazi Germany to the 60s and 70s with South Africa; Iran-Contra in the 80s, up to the present day.

Principles are not the issue here. It’s purely politics. Hillary Clinton is against BDS because she claims sanctions are a bad idea, yet she is in favor of sanctions against North Carolina, Iran, and Syria…

The shameful history of US corporations cooperation with the South African apartheid regime is instructive: In the early 1980s, Congressman Ron Dellums (CA) sponsored a modest Anti-Apartheid bill. The bill went before the Senate, where – surprise, surprise! – Republicans filibustered it for months. When the Act was finally passed, President Reagan vetoed it. He called the bill “economic warfare.”

Congress actually over-rode his veto, but the Reagan administration never officially enforced the act. “Punitive sanctions are not the best course of action,” The President said at the time. Concurrently, Reagan lobbied for and eventually won the right to penalize Qaddafi’s Libya with serious economic sanctions.

It was announced this week that the United States and Israel have reached agreement on a new military aid package totaling at least $38 billion. The deal represents the largest single pledge of U.S. military assistance ever made to any country, and it includes major concessions granted to despotic Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.

Besides Israel, the US taxpayer funds the military establishment of several countries. Most of them are totally corrupt. Pakistan received approximately $18 Billion in military aid in between 2002-2010. Pakistan is not really even a US ally. But then again, neither is Israel.

In 2013 alone Afghanistan received $4.5 billion in aid. Egypt receives about $1.5b annually; Jordan gets about $1.2b.

The top three recipients of US military aid are Israel, Egypt and Colombia. The latter nation doesn’t receive a lot of press in this country but they currently allow us to use several military bases there. Obama recommissioned the 4th Fleet, whose primary responsibility is now to safely transport illegal drugs from South America and the Caribbean to the USA.

American military aid accounts for roughly 2% of the Lebanese economy, and we’ve been literally showering the vile nation of Saudi Arabia with billions in high tech weaponry even as they commit genocide against the people of Yemen.

The President of the United States has been reduced to the role of international arms dealer. On his recent historic trip to Viet Nam Obama sealed a $5 billion sale to our former sworn enemy. Everywhere he goes, instead of pledges of peace, cooperation or diplomacy – he sells more weapons.

I mean, it’s a dangerous world, right?

And don’t forget all those former-Soviet NATO countries surrounding our current sworn enemy, Russia. Or all the terrorists/counter terrorists/freedom fighters/militias we support covertly and overtly.

I wonder what would happen if the US stopped giving military aid to all those countries?

Peace might break out.