I agree. They use Israel as a way of distracting the population from their own failures. It's classic cheap politics. It also focuses the violent radicals onto Israel instead of on their own governments.

>I have a theory.
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>Years ago, I had the (mis)fortune of spending some time in Cuba. I noticed that every economic and financial woe was presented as the fault of the US embargo of the island - which, by the way, is a joke. You can by American goods there cheaper than you can here. They get it all from elsewhere.
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>The parallel is that the entire Middle East seems to be focused on the "evil" of Israel. Everything, somehow, is the fault of Israel and Zionism.
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>Millions, possibly billions, of dollars flow freely into the coffers of Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the like to combat Israel.
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>My theory is that Israel actually works as a steam valve for Arabic countries to refocus the jihadists away from their governments; in fact, I bet it would be the Saudi's and Jordanians worst nightmare if Israel actually went down.
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>If that happened, the nutcases would then target regional secular governments.
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>Make sense?