> If Iran has nukes, then a nuke race will start in the middle East
A fair concern, but it is interesting that although "estimates of Israel's stockpile range between 90 and 400 nuclear warheads" [1], we are not concerned about those warheads as much as we do about the ones Iran might have. Should US bomb Israeli nuclear plants? No. Should they have bombed the Iranian ones? Why?
We didn't want Israel to have nukes either, we tried to stop them and failed. We wouldn't bomb Israel's nukes because they -already- have them, and they have grown in a semi-reliable regional ally since then. We are trying to stop Iran from having them at all to prevent them from being essentially off-limits to retaliation (note Iran is the #1 state sponsor of terrorism / people's fears of supporting Ukraine given Russia keeps threatening nuclear action) and kicking off a regional nuclear arms race.
> it has something to do with Israel being an ally
There are many allies of the US, still they are not exempt from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). I'm not sure if it's a sane strategy to permit a single ally who has never signed the NPT [1] to build nuclear weapons, unlike your many other allies or non-allies:
> The roots of this preferential treatment go back to a secret 1969 understanding between U.S. President Richard Nixon and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. The agreement essentially allowed Israel to keep its nuclear weapons as long as it remained silent about them and avoided nuclear tests. That bargain has held ever since, with successive U.S. administrations turning a blind eye to what would be a clear violation of international norms if committed by any other state.
Causing a power imbalance in the region doesn't seem the right way to keep peace.
"terrorism" is just war fighting that we don't like. Israel is by far the biggest aggressor in the middle east having bombed half a dozen countries in the last year.
> Death to Arabs is an anti-Arab slogan originating in Israel. It is often used during protests and civil disturbances across Israel, the West Bank, and to a lesser extent, the Gaza Strip. Depending on the person's temperament, it may specifically be an expression of anti-Palestinianism or otherwise a broader expression anti-Arab sentiment, which includes non-Palestinian Arabs.
Have you been to Israel? I have cousins there. When I was 14 and visited, my 19 year old cousin told me we need to kill all the Arabs because “if we exile them, they will just come back.” Do you really think (a large segment of) Israelis are less crazy than (a large segment of) Iranians?
No. People are crazy everywhere. That is not the same as the actual leaders of the country. The one that are calling the shots making the same claims for 46 years.
Now, I don't know if you noticed, your cousins while they are not kind to Arabs (which if you had Arab cousins you would have noticed that they are not very kind to Jews), have nothing whatsoever with Iran, no more than they have anything with Napal.
That’s a little simplistic. Iranians feel, somewhat justifiably, that they and the Arab world have been pushed around by the West for over 100 years. The Jihadism we bemoan today didn’t arise in a vacuum - it is at least partially a reaction to Western interference in Middle Eastern affairs (recall how the US deposed a democratically elected Iranian leader). Israel is one such example of this Western interference, and while I obviously have the utmost sympathy for Israelis - having family there - I do think not enough Westerners are willing to see this from the Arab/Iranian PoV. There’s a reason they dislike us, and it’s not just that they’re fanatics. Negotiation would be more fruitful if we didn’t typecast our enemies as unreasoning fundamentalists.
Israel has always threatened its neighbors. Remember, it was born as a group of European Jews that attacked Palestine to conquer their land, with arms provided to them by Europe. It will always exist under a state of war.
We have to let Israel die off and change our alliances. An alliance with Iran would be much more beneficial to America than an alliance with Israel.
A fair concern, but it is interesting that although "estimates of Israel's stockpile range between 90 and 400 nuclear warheads" [1], we are not concerned about those warheads as much as we do about the ones Iran might have. Should US bomb Israeli nuclear plants? No. Should they have bombed the Iranian ones? Why?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Israel