US aid

I have to admit I've never wanted to look too closely at Mid-East polotics, but in the light of recent events I've been making a concerted effort to realy site down and figure some of this stuff out. What is the nature of the various conflicts, and how is the US involved in them?

This morning I came across this line:

Israel is one of the largest customers for US armaments.

It [Israel] also receives several billion dollars a year in direct and indirect aid from Washington.

That isn't taken out of context and those two sentences actually followed one another. here. A few days ago I found an article regarding us "rushing" the next shipment of precision bombs to Israel.

Now, two points, firstly, as I mentioned I'm an amateur at this, it seems to me that a lot of people want this bombing to stop. Kofi Annan has called for an immediate ceasefire. Experts worldwide generally accept that this tactic can't possibly stop Hezbollah and will most likely strengthen grassroots support for them.

Also seems to me that you need to have the precision bombs in order to be dropping them. So, why are we giving arms to anyone in the Middle East - especially the ones who are bombing the hell out of another country? How can this possibly lead to the bombing ending sooner.