Slashdot Mirror
Israel Says It Will Treat Online Credit Card Theft As It Would Terrorism
In the wake of the online theft of at least 6,000 credit card numbers belonging to Israelis, Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said that "Israel has active capabilities for striking at those who are trying to harm it, and no agency or hacker will be immune from retaliatory action." Also at Reuters, with a few more details about the believed thief, known as OxOmar: "After Israeli media ran what they said were interviews conducted with OxOmar over email, the Haaretz newspaper said a blogger had tracked the hacker down and determined he was a 19-year-old citizen of the United Arab Emirates studying and working in Mexico."
I mean, if suddenly a few of these turkey's start getting the business end of a small caliber pistol to the back of the head it wouldn't be that bad would it?
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
What are they going to do, kill him?
Just call every crime terrorism.
Sad really, as it 'normalizes' the true acts of terrorism. If everything is labeled terrorism, it becomes 'yet another crime' and is ignored.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I guess terrorism is now just one more meaningless buzz word.
I imagine that defining the work "terrorist" as "criminal" helps to get around a lot of that unnecessary red tape of the justice system.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Here is an excerpt from 0xOmar's original post on pastebin:
It's first part of our release, my goal is reacing 1 million non-duplicate people, which is 1/6 of Israel's population.
...
What's fun for us?
- Watching 400,000 people gathered in front of Israeli credit card companies and banks, complaining about cards and that they are stolen
- Watching Israeli banks shredding 400,000 credit cards and re-generate new cards (so costly, huh?)
- Watching people purchasing stuff for theirself using the cards and making Israeli credit cards untrustable in the world, like Nigerian credit cards
- and much more...
The alleged goal is to hurt lots of random people without any personal gain. And what is the goal of terrorism?
In no way am I condoning credit card theft, which is a crime and should be dealt with as such, but the current trend of labelling every crime or infraction as "terrorism" is somewhat disturbing. How long will it be before minor infractions such as speeding or jaywalking become "terrorism"?
And in 3 years from now every western government will treat everything as it would terrorism.
Film at 11.
On second thought, let's not go to Camelot. It is a silly place.
If he's strangled by a hotel maid we'll know what happened.
Not that I'll, you know, shed a tear.
The original owners did not lose their credit card numbers. Therefore it's not theft, it's unauthorised copying! I'm surprised that this is pointed out so many times under articles about file sharing, but not in cases like this.
True terrorism is a criminal act that terrorizes beyond the actual incident. In my opinion, these things should also be added to that list:
High school mobbing.
Tail gating drivers.
The NY Yankees.
Clowns.
Wellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll what ya think people....ONLY A JEW WOULD CONSIDER THEFT OF MONEY TERRORISM.
when you consider they will run over and kill collage age protester with a bulldozer.
...so they'll bomb a whole block of houses where the credit card thief lives with a collateral damage of say 50 civilians?
One more reason to believe Israel's government has absolutely lost its mind. This is what happens when the right-wing loons get control of the government, military, and intelligence agencies.
Who did what now?
...when they are done on a massive scale. But things like murder, theft, destruction of property,... are no acts if terrorism on their own, and to say they are is just ridiculous. Plus as already pointed out, you can't just call everything an act of terrorism just because it happens a lot. This way some lonely thug who steals one or a few credit cards will instantly be labeled a terrorist. The only thing they should do at the maximum is call a specific event an act of terrorism and everyone involved in that event can be labeled as terrorist.
way to not screw around.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
I say by stealing someone's identity you've stolen their life .... so if convicted you should lose yours. Literally.
What do they mean, is mossad going to start conducting credit card fraud themselves in foreign countries?
Rocket Surgeon.
Israel gonna flatten Gaza Strip every time some Isreali gets their credit card swiped?
This is the original article that the linked articles are attempting to paraphrase:
Israel vows to hit back after credit cards hacked
While it doesn't add too much information, it might have slightly better wording.
we still have an effectively broken payment system, and instead of fixing it, they are going after the symptoms...
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
Dead credit card scammers now? I am shocked and appalled.
Har har.
FRA: STFU GTFO
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillehammer_affair
At least by the modern definition they were. They committed sabotage against a private corporation to protest something. These days sabotage (and cyber crime) are generally treated as terrorism. Two reasons:
The wealthy and powerful consider destruction of property to be worse than actual violence against humans.
We have made a very convenient category of crime called "terrorism" which exempts us from needing to engage in due process and allows us to slide into Stanford Prison Experiment/Lord of the Flies behavior. Hand and hand with that, we are allowed to dehumanize terrorists. So it is very convenient for us to use this category on anyone, when we want to stop thinking and start smacking down.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
Another (possibly real) treat from Pasetbin.com
http://pastebin.com/13nJQQ9p
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Well this is the end game for "cyber war" eventually if you piss of some actor enough they wont just hack back they will go "kinetic" to use the modern term :-)
Its going to suck if your an Arab studying in Mexico at the moment as it has been known for retaliation to get the wrong guy (as was the case in lillehammer)
And given the provenance of the stuxnet hackers rating him out as a spy for the government to the Zetas or los Templarios might be a nastier way of getting him.
The average Israeli gets more USA federal tax dollars spent on them than the average USA citizen.
Can you support this? I went looking, and it seems that Israel receives about $3,000,000,000 in aid. With a population of about 7.8 million people, this works out to less than $400/person.
This page, the 2011 federal budget was about $3.5E12. If you focus on the social programs, retirement benefits and highway spending, then these account for about 68% of the federal budget. Dividing this total by a population of about 310 million people, I arrive at a total spending figure of about $7,700 per US citizen.
I've double-checked everything and can't see where I've made a mistake, other than in the arbitrary decision to exclude all defense, research and interest payments.
This will nicely erode the too heavily charged term 'terrorism'.
bjd
Move along, nothing to see here.
Even so, those $7700 come from US tax payers. So really (and at the same time not really) they are getting them back.
Meanwhile, here in the U.S., the government is treating Credit Card theft the same as they would an overdue library book, while treating downloading a song or two as equivalent to blowing up the towers.
Credit card theft? Meh.
I can think of far more terrifying things.
Have gnu, will travel.
Targeted killings in foreign countries (innocents are collateral damage) - unless the thief is a Jew, then he gets a slap on the wrist.
Fandroids hate facts.
I was there when she was awarded her posthumous degree. I'll never forget and I'll never forgive the Israeli government for failing to bring her murderer to justice. Really shows the sorts of inhuman monsters that run the Israeli government.
I'm pretty sure we can expect to see something similar in the US before long.
Anyone who hacks into an account, or uses the Internet for crime (such as filesharing) or disrupts corporate activity by protesting in a park, is going to be treated as a terrorist and considered an enemy combatant. After all, when you threaten profits, you threaten everything we hold sacred. Let's just see what happens to the Occupy people who dare protest at the GOP Convention outside of the specified "Free Speech Zone" later this year.
As we know, last week a bill became law that allows for "terrorists" to be held indefinitely without being charged. There already is a legal doctrine allowing assassination of citizens for being "terrorists".
The message is clear: You. Better. Behave.
You are welcome on my lawn.
they will just kill someone innocent like that palestinian in norway who was murdered by israeli agents
How would we react to this news if it said they would treat trrorism as if it were credit card fraud?
Despite his title, Danny Ayalon is not speaking for the government. He is a right-wing politician who's just happy for the opportunity to warmonger. The mentioned credit-card story was overblown by the hyper-hysteric news media on a slow news day.
In other news, a massive credit card scam was just discovered where money has been stolen from the accounts of millions of customers. The criminal gang operating the scam uses the moniker 'Visa'.
It has also been recently discovered that there are many other outfits operating similar scams, and there are rumours that all operate as a subsection to some sort of shadowy super-syndicate of crime known only as 'the financial system'.
-Anon
The oft neglected fact is that US aid to Israel must be spent on US products and services. That money usually ends in the hands of military equipment manufacturers which employ US citizens who pressure their congressmen to continue to give that aid which is basically a subsidy for US factories of a very certain kind and location. Politics as usual.
Erratum:
Never mind a few million people of other nationalities[...]
Including approximately two million German civilians of all ages and gender killed after the war during the ethnic cleansing of Eastern and Central European lands, where Germans had been living for many centuries. To be sure, Churchill and Roosevelt regretted this unpleasantness—but they wanted to keep Stalin happy, and Stalin wanted to hang on to that chunk of Poland that Hitler had given him. So the Poles got a chunk of Germany to "compensate" them, and, in turn, they expropriated and drove out the previous German tenants. In ex-Czechoslovakia, things went just as badly for the Sudeten Germans who lived there. To quote Eduard Bene upon his return in the wake of Allied troops: "Woe, woe woe, thrice woe to the Germans, we will liquidate you!". [After the Reich, Giles Macdonogh, 2007, Basic Books, New York, N.Y.]
Yes, I know; of course they deserved it.
I don't understand you "erratum" comment, by the way: do you truly think only Jews suffered persecution during the Second World War? Here's a quote from a pretty reliable source:
3. How many non-Jewish civilians were murdered during World War II? Answer: While it is impossible to ascertain the exact number, the recognized figure is approximately 5,000,000. Among the groups which the Nazis and their collaborators murdered and persecuted were: Gypsies, Serbs, Polish intelligentsia, resistance fighters from all the nations, German opponents of Nazism, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, habitual criminals, and the "anti-social," e.g. beggars, vagrants, and hawkers.
Great men are almost always bad men--Lord Acton's Corollary
No. They will soon flatten Gaza for the increasingly long-range rockets being fired every day from there. This probably doesn't make your news (probably only celebrity weddings and divorces, lol. If you check Israeli news from time to time (I check Ha'arertz to see the Israeli perspective) you will see that rockets or explosive planting attempts happen *every* day. This is why a smackdown will come.
US FMF grants to Israel in 2011, divided by the population of Israel in 2011, ends up as $384 per capita. The 2011 US budget, divided by the population of the US in 2011, ends up as $11,897 per capita. That's ignoring the fact that Israel has to spend the FMF money in the USA, in effect subsidising the American military-industrial complex.
Protip: Don't post bullshit pseudo-statistics to Slashdot - we guys love our calculators.
Israel's aid is military only, and is actually funding 100% American arms production, so these $3Bn are actually funding lots of American workers.
Moreover, This has the effect of hurting the local Israeli manufacturers, as the IDF would prefer buying USA equipment even if local equipment would cost less, because the military aid is "free".
They've gone past being a liability. Now they're just an embarrassment. Let's cut them loose and treat them the same as we did the other state that practiced apartheid--South Africa. That means we drop all aid, divest all business with them, and reduce diplomatic contact to a minimum. If they want to be idiots, fine, go be idiots. But America shouldn't be party to their lunacy any more.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Yeah, remind us again how much the average Israeli pays in U.S.Federal Taxes? Last time I checked I payed far more in Federal Taxes than I get back.
They will use attack helicopters to kill a bunch of innocent people meanwhile the criminal escapes with minor injuries?
As much as I have a problem with the way the Israelis oppress the Palestinians and deny them fundamental human rights....
They're not wrong to call crackers who steal people's financial data terrorists.
The people whose credit is being damaged and whose money is stolen are NOT the ones who make decisions for the Israeli government. Nor were the people who had their info stolen by Anonymous in North America or Europe.
When you victimize the people at random, you are committing a terrorist act. You are punishing the innocent for the decisions and actions of the guilty who are not harmed in the LEAST when you victimize the people. Terrorism does NOT have to include death and murder.
True, there is usually less inflammatory legislation in place that can be used to prosecute crackers, but it's also largely ineffective, because it's classed as a "white collar" crime. "White Collar" is a smokescreen for "business crime" laws, with watered down penalties to avoid "hurting" the unethical business people who get caught in fraud, extortion, money laundering, ponzi schemes, and other scams. It downplays the number of people who are hurt by their actions. Financial crimes which hurt hundreds, thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of people should have much harsher punishments and jail time than they do.
Fines do not stop a business, nor do they punish the executives who made the illegal decisions. They're treated as a cost of doing business, and the company pays the tab because the executives are protected from financial damages by the very structure of a legal corporation. JAIL TIME FOR EXECUTIVES, not fines for companies! Their role as officers of the company does NOT protect them from personal prosecution for illegal management of a company. There is absolutely NOTHING in Canadian or US corporate law that says otherwise. It's just not done very often, because these buggers have DEEP pockets for lawyers to fight the charges tooth and nail.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Terrorists are not in it for money or financial gain, these scum are. Applying the wrong counter-strategy is just plain dumb. Not that I am surprises Israeli politicians are as dumb as the rest of them.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
They're going to build a big wall around the neighbourhoods where the thieves probably live and drop some bombs on them now and again?
If you focus on the social programs, retirement benefits and highway spending, then these account for about 68% of the federal budget.
And of course you need to take into account that this stuff is paid for by American tax payers. With that we arrive at -$3,900 per US citizen every year due to the debt the federal government has been taken on over the last 4 years. Wouldn't shaving off $400 from that number be really nice as a start?
Hereis both support and dissent for Slasho81's position on where US aid to Israel goes. After looking at the link, and searching a bit more, I'd like to point out that Isreael's military imports far exceed the USA's .foreign aid to Israel. I don't necessarily support foreign aid to Israel, but I would like the facts of the support to be clear.
If you think that's tough wait to see what they do to people downloading illegal copies of their Eurovision song contest entry.
You're forgetting that I was responding to a particular fact. As I suggested in another response, I don't support aid to Israel or any other nation. Where assertions are made, they ought to be supported by numbers. Dutchwizzman made an assertion that isn't supported by the apparent facts.
As my participation in Slashdot discussions increases, my opinion of contributions by ACs goes steadily down. Did you give any thought to your response?
There are plenty of comments on this thread parroting iranian/hamas/progressive talking points
Therefore, any Israeli visiting this may fairly judge it for what it is. Anti-Semitic, racist vomit.
To paraphrase, if the views don't represent those of Christian Fundamentalism or Jewish extremists, then they must be anti-Semitic. Yeah, I've heard it all before. Even the CBC is said to be anti-Semetic by the Right Wing in Canada because some times they show what it's like in the Occupied Territories. Yes the CBC also has news about Palestinian terrorists, but those things generally get ignored by the Conservatives (when talking about "antisemitism" in the media) because it doesn't suit their extremist Right Wing agenda.
And as has been stated, the aid must be spent on American goods or weapons, so its not like we just give them that much money, we might give them a plane or a missile that costs a -ton-, and then they use it to support our goals in the region. In effect it is paying for someone else to fight for us, to our mutual advantage.
It's sad that a girl got killed, but it's also disgusting how her death has been shamelessly exploited by Israel-haters.
funding 100% American arms production
That's not quite true. Some of those funds go into research indiginous to Israel. As this article makes oblique mention of, Israel does its own research and modifies the weapons that it recieves. Some of these improvements may make their way into arms wielded by the USA.
I want to stress that I don't support military or other financial support of any nation. I just want these facts to be straight.
I like your response better than mine above.
Protip: Don't post bullshit pseudo-statistics to Slashdot - we guys love our calculators.
I keep a calculator right next to my laptop. I'll leave you to guess which I use more often. :-)
Those fabulous steps to Draconian governance from Western-style democracies are:
1. Establish a basis for circumventing human rights (eg "terrorism" or "piracy" or "national security", etc.);
2. Imbue state systems with financial gain from said basis (eg prison industrial complex, military industrial complex, etc.);
3. Have said systems lobby for increased funding and authority, encroaching on traditional authorities (eg policing, prosecutors, media, voting systems, etc);
4. Expand the application of the basis for circumventing human rights to other areas (eg immigration, child pornography, copyright violations, any other interests with lobbyists);
5. Enact laws that undermine the financing of political dissension, and undermine systems that may allow any discourse critical of the established government;
6. Engage in mass human rights violations, ghettoization, prison labour; State ignores human rights, imprisons or executes dissenters and acts with impunity and disregard for reason;
7. The state becomes a vehicle for despots supported by demagoguery. Non tenet anguillam, per caudam qui tenet illam.
Well, I know this is a retorical question. But, no sane person would compare credit card theft with terrorism. What will they go to do? Bomb your home? Sned the Mossad after you to kill you? I hope not. It would be out of perspective.
Given that Israel also funds their own military research, your point has its own multple. Double? Triple? Who knows? I suggested above that there is a return, but that return is difficult to quantify. While I don't support foreign aid, do you have some support that aid to Israel gives a return?
Oh how we laughed, just as long as it isn't us they're killing.
... they'll beat them until they admit their crimes?
The of neglected fact is that they spend the money on the arms makers who spend most in Israel, and most lobbying US Congressmen and Senators on Israels behalf. The US could spend the money directly on its own arms and get 100% of it without the political corruption/interference effect from Israel.
And to grandparents comment, the US Federal Budget is paid by Americans to Americans.
The $400 a person a year is paid by Americans to Israelis, not by Israelis to Israelis. It is free money.
The two things are not comparable.
If Israel paid for it's own weapons it would have far fewer wars because it would have a negative impact on their economy. Instead of killing as the first resort, diplomacy would be far cheaper.
If on the other hand they are paid to wage war, that is the best way to ensure the money keep flowing: wage a war.
Not only that, you must realize that Israel does a wonderfull QA for the American military industry, if Israel was a contractor for this purpose it would have got a lot more money.
We are talking about Israel. For them, maybe killing one's money is tantamount to terrorism ala killing a Christian's child. We don't all think a like you know....
So what do we call this government now that uses Australian Passports I might remind everyone not credit cards to arrange killings, who are the terrorists now...
http://www.theage.com.au/national/israel-responsible-for-faking-passports-20100524-w59w.html
Shut the fuck up, racist.
I'm fed up of being called racist because I'm critical of some country's policies. If you hadn't noticed, Syria is taking a bit more a bashing in the news than Isreal recently, and when I or other people comment upon that they get called anti-muslim.
I know you are spouting pro-Semitic, racist vomit, because you're not addressing any of the issues, you're just name calling, and dropping people into your well defined categories.
What the fuck is this obsessive need to redefine words? Too much of this stupid thread is filled with "no no that's not terrism, this is." Did someone ask for opinions on definitions of terrorism? No.
So STFU y'all. Arguing over meanings of words. pfft.
Secondly, last I recall, citizens in other countries don't fear being blown up, shot, kidnapped, and tortured by Israelis
tell that to the bahraini who was murdered in a bahrain hotel room by 5 mossad agents. who didnt even need to avert hotel security cameras - probably to 'make an example' - and used 5 stolen passwords of real european citizens to effect the murder. it was even on cnn, and talked for days. and yet, you dont know even this, and say that 'citizens in other countries dont fear being blown up'............. wow. stupid. utterly stupid.
you dont know this, and yet you are uttering blanket statements like the above. so basically, you dont know jack shit, and yet you have composed a long tirade about things you dont know ? from the liberty sinking to the samson option, the list of things you do NOT know is SO large that it would take a half a day to compose an article to educate yourself with references and links. i will refrain.
so, next time, shut up. as an alternative, you can educate yourself. then you would be respectable and noteworthy.
Read radical news here
israel can just stop fucking murdering foreign nationals in hotels in foreign countries, under the eyes of security cameras.
what am i talking about ? if you dont know what that was, just shut up, and educate yourself before talking politics.
Read radical news here
I guess they intend to raze Nigeria to the ground, then.
The Zetas submarine fleet and CnC nets probably outnumber and outrank Israel's, and their (the Zs) "sugar daddy" is not one to be readily ignored.
What happens if a US foreign murderition order whacks an Izzy national, or binational? What will the heirarchic equivalence look like ?
Time for everyone (countries, etc.) to set up "hit" burocracies? Regional Organizations? Regional Unions?
Everyone become a bully? Hm. That system flubs itself op. Like really quickly. Blind and Toothless.
"something with which I do not agree" != troll
"something I do not believe that I said to piss you off" == troll
Guess what? I believe the nation of Israel was created specifically to make sure the middle east never found peace. Has it accomplished any other goal?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Today a nuclear device was detonated in Abuja Nigeria. The source of the detonation is unknown and nobody is claiming responsibility, but sources say that ground zero appears to have been an internet cafe.
Um... actually, charges can be reversed (I have done so once before). Plus, most/all credit cards have a limit (about $1000 or so in our case). Even more so, most credit cards are not full credit cards. Unless you specifically request it, you are blocked from international credit charges (ie. you cannot use it on ebay). You will receive a phone call when you approach this limit and are offered to resolve the situation using loans and/or splitting the bill across two or more months. Furthermore, banks call you almost weekly to offer loans. Debt being take seriously? Yes, sure... they want you to be in debt!
Honestly, this whole thing is being blown out of proportion and all this theater is just to keep the banks from getting eggs thrown in their faces. In my experience, electronic security is not one of Israel's strong points.
Sincerely,
An Israeli credit card holder.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Giving out money to a random country located in the middle east?
The oft neglected fact is that US aid to Israel must be spent on US products and services.
Correct, but is should be pointed out that this is true of most aid, to any country and from any country.
Whenever you hear that, say, Canada gave $100M in food aid to drought ravaged African country, it usually means that a credit of $100M against surplus Canadian food stuff was issued to that country, so a lot of that aid ends up in the hands of farmers that were having problem selling their produce. A win-win situation if you ask me. This is a fact that the Ron Paul types routinely leave out.
And neither should you. The guy is an asshole without any basic skills in foreign relations.
There will be a nuclear Iran. That is unless US interferes, because there is no way Israel can stop (delay by a couple of years, yes) Iranian nuclear program on it's own. But that would mean dragging US into the conflict which kinda defeats the original purpose of arming them doesn't it?
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
your logic is astoundingly ignorant and blatantly hypocritical.
Your arm chair diplomacy / criticism of Israel is based on iranian/hamas/progressive propaganda. Yet - you somehow insulate yourself from your own countries issues as if your some model of a perfect society.
Clean your own shit up before you start raging on others.
Sorry to disappoint you, but reading Haaretz gives you a palestinian perspective.
If you want an Israeli perspective, try reading Jerusalem Post which is slightly less rabid.
Did anyone tell you that once you're in a hole, best thing to do is stop digging? Why don't you shut the fuck up you racist piece of shit.
Since most "democratic" governments are really corporate states, financial-related theft IS terrorism because it threatens the life blood (money) of that corporate
state. That is, it's theft if someone in the population does the stealing but not if the power elite does the stealing (ie, Wall Street, bankers, etc).
I hope the Mossad does its job in getting the IP addresses of all the haters here. If things go right, there will a trainloads of job openings in SV.
If you hadn't noticed, Syria is taking a bit more a bashing in the news than Isreal recently, and when I or other people comment upon that they get called anti-muslim.
so your picking on Syria a wee bit makes hating on Israel ok. You fucking idiot. You Smauler feed the most vile hate in this world right now. Here is what your comrades said yesterday as a massive Hamas rally:
Protesters also chanted “Death to Israel” and “the army of Mohammed is back,” as Haniyeh reiterated his pledge not “to lay down our arms” or recognize Israel, according to AFP.
Do you know this reference to the army of mohammed? You should learn. Sides are drawn and you either stand with or against. You have chosen to stand with hate, murders and sociopaths. May you rot in hell for your choice.
The calculation is more complicated than that. Israel gets that money for free, whereas the spending in the US is a transfer from US citizens to other US citizens, with some leakage out to foreign bondholders (about 4% of overall spending, roughly $450 per capita).) Also, while the aid to Israel is mostly (not all) spent on US armaments, they often get them at deep discounts, much lower than the US DOD would pay. This is done by writing off nearly new equipment as surplus, as with a substantial fraction of Israel's fighter aircraft.
Your way of doing the calculation is like comparing rearranging the furniture in a house (US domestic spending) with giving away some of that same furniture.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
Israel does NOT have to spend all the money on US military HW....Only 2/3 of the money. Also the US gives far more than just military aid to Israel, including allowing US citizens to deduct donations to Israeli charities on their US taxes!
The great tomb that all Americans should read is "the Israel Lobby". It shows how American democracy truly works.
Israel is being bad again.
Israel is mean.
Cry me a river.
Returns are hard to quantify, but total foreign aid to Isreal is -relatively- small, and it is clear that Israel is delaying a nuclear Iran (read the news today), which would be very costly. Not necessarily that Iran would launch a missile at NY, but that they would/might give a bomb to terrorist groups for them to use.
The thing to also remember is that even if a nuclear or dirty bomb didnt hit the US, it would still cost the US a TON, in direct aid, charity, heightened military, and business losses if it were to hit anywhere in the world.