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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 19, 2022

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America is supporting Egypt to support Israel!

Even if that were true (which I don't really know to be true or false), that would still prove the very point @Amadan was making. Because if we were supporting Egypt to support Israel, then we aren't doing it to support Islam, much like Amadan said.

Well no the US isn't supporting Islam. But he was saying it's 'not supporting the establishment of religion' generally. I'm saying US support for Israel is motivated by the Israel lobby in the US, who is primarily motivated by religious feeling.

That isn't how I understood it. He was using the support of Egypt to establish a point: that support for a country is not because one supports its religion. Nothing to do with establishment of religion more generally, simply saying that if you support a country it can be for reasons other than because you support its religion. And in that light, even support for Egypt in order to support Israel would prove his point. Which having proven that point, goes to show that US support for Israel is not necessarily due to support for Judaism, but could be for other reasons as well.

First of all, support for Israel is certainly a topic of foreign policy worthy of discussion and debate, but it is not de facto "establishment of religion." Israel and Judaism may be closely coupled, but the U.S. has vested interests in Israel that go far beyond an affection for Jews. We aren't supporting Israel to support Judaism, any more than we are supporting Egypt to support Islam.

We aren't supporting Israel to support Judaism

He was arguing, in contrast to OP, that US support for Israel was for broader strategic reasons, not religious reasons.

I'm saying that US support for Egypt is to support Israel, which is motivated by religion. Thus US support for Egypt is due to religion, albeit not Egypt's religion.

The strategic reasons to support Israel don't merit the enormous amount of leeway and aid it recieves, compared to the amount of harm the alliance causes the US, as I said above.