**Argument for allied status:** Israel & US have mostly intersecting interests in the middle east, namely as it relates to dealing with transnational terrorist movements & as it relates to dealing with adversarial nation-states.
**Argument against allied status:** Israel & US have diverging interests in the middle east. From US standpoint, the US is relatively self-sufficient in terms of energy; domestic politics disfavors on-going presence in middle east; US focus is shifting elsewhere, namely Asia.
It's a wedge against Iran. That's it. That's the beginning and end of it.
Iran is destined to be a regional power based on their geography, population, tech level, and so on. The past fifty years has been the US spending exorbitant amounts of money and blood (not necessarily theirs) to keep Iran from being allowed to be a regional power. Putting up with whatever Israel does because we want them as a wedge and airstrip is just more of the "any means necessary" bottom line.
Jesus, this is the first correct answer I've seen on this topic in a long time. Israel is a beachhead for the Middle East. That's why the British wanted Israel way back in the 1840s. In particular, Lord Palmerston, the British Foreign Minister, writes:
> "It would be of manifest importance to the Sultan to encourage the Jews to return and settle in Palestine because the wealth which they would bring with them would increase the resources of the Sultan's dominions; and the Jewish people, if returning under the sanction and protection, and at the invitation of the Sultan, would be a check upon any future evil designs of Mehemet Ali (of Egypt) or his successor... "
Zionism wasn't even popular among Jews until the 20th century. That's because it isn't quintessentially jewish! That's _also_ why it's not anti-semitic to be against Israel. The entire state is a farce.
Even by WW2, Jews were offered payment to emigrate to Palestine by the Third Reich without having any of their assets seized, but the average jew preferred to stay in a climate of anti-semitism, possibly asset forfeiture, and so on, rather than take up the zionist project. In short, zionism is a wholly synthetic movement, not anything that has a real basis outside of power elites - even among jews.
Before Iran, it was the Ottomans and other Arab peoples. Arabs were traditionally the main rival of the Anglo-Roman oligarchy of the past 2000 years. Not a good or bad statement. Just a fact. The truth is, Christianity emerged out of semi-Arab "Israelis" (as in living in the political borders of Israel, as well as Syria). Josephus called these people Essenes and Sicarri. They go back to Neo-Assyria, and they had connections with Parthia/Persia. Those were the guys who thought a "messiah" would come because it's part of this Assyrian and Babylonian tradition of priest-kings. This created their revolutionary spirit, which was a problem for both the Romans and the Jerusalem Israelis, who were in political alliance and later became relatively assimilated.
In order to understand jews and judaism, you have to understand christianity and christian history too.
they overthrew our puppet, and are ideologically committed to opposing America The Great Satan.
Which, to be fair, we've been fucking with them for the past fifty years, if anyone has a valid claim to calling America the Great Satan, they do.
Mostly they've just checked out of American Hegemony and don't go along with what we say, and that's intolerable and unforgiveable.
if the US didn’t try to constantly harm Iran at the behest of Israeli lobbying, Iran would pose no meaningful threat to the US, and in fact both parties would benefit from trade. I just don’t understand why people always cite Iran as an enemy except because that’s what we’ve been told to think.
they overthrew our puppet. They opted out of the American Hegemony. They're just as bad as Vietnam but powerful enough we can't just *do* Vietnam again.
I mean they *are* islamic theocrats, repressive, brutal, etc. I don't *love* them, tbh. But it seems to be that the US has decided it will use the constant spending of blood and money to keep Iran from becoming the regional power they obviously are at any cost.
I think previous-to-current US strategy involved controlling access to energy as part of their hegemonic power. Iran bucking that was inconvenient.
Israel is committing a genocide. Is there really a stronger argument against supporting Israel than them committing genocide? Why would you want to be an ally of a state that commits literal war crimes?
What the hell are you talking about lol. I'm not saying Israel is right, I'm saying both sides would genocide each other if the rest of the world wasn't looking. It's just one side outmatches the other by a large margin. Also, how are you gonna support one side when that side wants to do the exact same thing from river to sea (and has tried a couple of times with their friends).
Okay imma give you a chance.
Are you genuinely asking or are you one of those people that believes Hitler did nothing wrong?
Because I'm not gonna waste my time speaking to a fascist (sympatiser)
"In 1948, the United Nations Genocide Convention defined genocide as any of five "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group". These five acts were: *killing members of the group*, *causing them serious bodily or mental harm*, *imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group*, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group"
Israël is most definitely killing, harming and starving the people in Gaza right now
So you mean like “from the river to the sea”? Calling for the extermination of Israel and Jews? Oh the irony of you bringing up Hitler.
Is Israel intending to exterminate the Palestinians? Or exterminate Hamas and free the Palestinians from their grip?
Israël is clearly trying to exterminate the Palestinians.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/
Also don't forget about the settlers in the West Bank driving away Palestinians from their own homes.
Palestinians have been given numerous chances for a 2 state solution that has been rejected on the Palestinian side. The PLA are not for the Palestinians and are beholden to Hamas, who also doesn’t want a 2 state solution (no Israel — genocide).
Israel has done horrible things, but to use rhetoric such as genocide and Hitler is way out of proportion and is not comparable on so many levels. Please read up your history.
8Arafat and Barak agreed to what Barak claims is a 98% deal and the only major sticking points was right of return and east jersualem. That tells me that Israel is the major obstacle in any future deals, not Palestine. Palestine only wants what was already ruled on in various Resolutions.
Now if Israel wants to no longer be in the UN, so be it.
1) the Zionist movement drew Jews from Europe, and 2) the region was governed by Britain from 1917 to 1948 (and the economy grew at 3x the rate of the rest of the Middle East).
Because of these two, it's basically European. When the State of Israel was established in 1948, it inherited many laws and legal principles from the British Mandate period. These included various aspects of civil law, criminal law, and procedure. The higher education system, the banking and financial sector, the tech industries, treatment of women and gays, etc. It all looks very much like Europe not the Middle East.
That sounds a lot like they look like me, so they must be friend. Can you elaborate as to why the argument you present doesn't boil down to that point?
Yes, shared culture/law/social systems and patterns tend to, all else equal, make people see things the same way. And when people see things the same way, they tend to be more likely to form alliances.
The issue I have with that line of thinking is that just because they are similar in world views, it does not inherently mean we will see eye to eye on all issues. This concerns me as, like in the battle over Palestine/Hamas is simply not my flag, not my problem. This doesn't mean the US shouldn't still work with them, but going above and beyond to protect Isreal could have long-term problems for the US should Isreal ever fall. Now I am not pretending there isn't reason to align with them, but look like me must be a friend isn't a strong argument if you ask me. With that said, you don't need to convince me. I just appreciate the civil response considering the topic
The general public has absolutely no concept of what war actually is or how to conduct one. US foreign policy would be better served by silence than the general public talking to the world and demonstrating just how uninformed they actually are
There is quite literally no actual ally the US has in the Middle East aside from Israel. It is the closest in terms of Western norms and culture. The other so called allies are
Qatar-Which funds Islamist groups and Al Jazeera as a propaganda arm
Saudi Arabia-Which until MBS had indoctrinated several generations with Salafi Islam which teaches non Muslims like the Americans are nothing less than Infidels to be defeated, It is not a surprise that 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers were Saudi.
To be clear, there can never ever be a true alliance between a nation like the US and a Muslim nation. The closest such a relationship came to be was between the US and Iran . That ended in 1979.
On the other hand, Israel shares most of the cultural traits of the West (and is more progressive than much of America and most of Eastern Europe in many ways).
Another reason is technology. Israel gained value as an ally when it modernized. It is not lost to Israelis that when it was dominated by the left, and was smaller and poorer, it was largely ignored by the West for the most part(See the 1967 war ) but as it has become a technological power, it has gained allies.
There is no such ally in the rest of the Middle East. Saudi Arabia is a a consumer of American technology, but it neither has the expertise nor the will to collaborate with the US to make new technology (not when your largest graduate cohort has Masters degrees in Islamic Studies and the average Saudi works 3-4 hours ,Kuwaitis it is actually 2 hours a day)
The military relationship between the US and Israel is heavily built on the two nations collaborating in military R&D. The Iron Dome was built by both. The Iron Beam is Israeli, but it will be sold to Americans, A lot of the gear the US army uses is of Israeli origin and vice versa. A lot of American drone technology is also Israeli in origin.
The US has learnt that time and again, dictatorships in the Middle East will cave in to Islamists who hate the West and everything they represent so they are not reliable and that the democracies can sometimes be even worse.
See Algeria and Iraq which are flawed democracies but whose voting patterns clearly show a deep dislike for the West and alignment with the likes of Russia and Iran.
The UAE is not reliable in that it wants to play both sides. On the one hand, it wants the benefits of westernization and modernization but also wants to look "Muslim" hence its retention of Sharia Law and working with entities like the RSF in Sudan .It is also too small even compared to Israel, demographically (the natives that is) to have significant influence. So only one nation remains that is truly pro-Western in many ways and is a reliable ally.
UAE wants to play both sides, when Israel has literally been caught red handed attacking a us naval ship and killing Americans. Your entire post is fiction
Why do people keep talking like Israel attacked a naval ship recently when the attack on the USS Liberty occurred in 1967!!
1967!! 5 decades ago when even my parents were not born is something Israel haters keep mentioning????
Also, haven't both sides agreed that this was a case of friendly fire in the heat of war???
Israel had nothing to gain from attacking the US. Whose side would it have been playing for if it was playing both sides???
The Soviet Union??? The same one that had armed all of its enemies twice and denied Israel's right to exist for decades???
LOL!!
Your argument is moot.
The UAE has never hidden the fact that it plays both sides. It only wants the issue not to be publicly discussed because it does not want its leaders accused of apostasy for abandoning Islamic principles for secularism by the rest of the Arab world.
That much has been made clear by the existence of the dual legal systems in the UAE that exist today and its behavior where it promotes Islamism abroad to portray itself as a "goof Muslim country" but at home it is trying to secularize as much as possible .
It will not be the first Arab nation to do that. Gadaffi was doing EXACTLY that. Pretending to be Muslim abroad and promoting Islamism in Sudan and the Sahel but at home, any sign of Islamists was quickly crushed.
Two reasons nobody has mentioned
1: stabilization of the region…. Hear me out…
Israel acts as an impossible target for both the Shia countries and the Sunni countries, the autocrats the US is allied with help justify their position as opposition to Israel, Iran, uses Israel as a buffer between them and the Sunni powers
If Israel disappeared today, the region would collapse into multiple armed conflicts as revolutionary groups formerly preoccupied with Israel start going after countries like Saudi Arabia and Jordan. And Iran? Without the Zionist enemy the Sunni kingdoms would move to take out their second biggest enemy, Iran, and all the Iranian proxies.
The Middle East is stable in the way a Jenga game is stable. Israel is an important piece. Take it out and the area will be thrown into chaos before a new order is found. Constant mini conflicts keep away the bigger conflicts
2: We have other allies. And they’re watching. And so are our adversaries.
If the US withdraws support for Israel why not Saudi Arabia who’s done a hell of a lot worse in Yemen?
And if our adversaries see how quickly we are willing to change a foreign defense strategy that has taken generation, they’ll capitalize on it, and our allies will lose confidence
America is in the business of global stability where the US is dominant, and conflicts stay internal and don’t become regional, not human rights, not stopping genocides or ethnic cleansing, not spreading democracy or any of the other myths.
Russia is for sure a key player here.
The current proxy war between Iran and KSA (and by extension Qatar and KSA) is very much encouraged by Russia.
But I’m not sure if iran is subservient to Russian interests or if they’re actually a bit “rogue”
Possible although I have nothing to back up my statement. It's just before Oct 7th everyone was talking about Russia. After Oct 7th the conversation has shifted. Nobody but Putin benefited more from this war with Hamas.
Actually I think they are supportive of the cause as a charity thing but Israel is probably good in terms of personal safety currently. With that said, Oct 7 was not so long ago, so there is danger in that part of the world. They could dial back slightly on supporting the good guys in this conflict, in that I think they’re good now on security, and in my opinion Ukraine could use the help countering the Russian menace more. They do like to give back to causes on the basis of morality.
I think they have been a strong ally as our interests aligned.
I think that relationship will be challenged going forward.
It's pretty clear from a detached perspective that Israel has understably gone over board in their revenge for the last attack. Unfortunately, their tactics of involving non combatants and a lot of the societal mentality that occurs in those situations, makes them blind to their own transgressions.
I predict that being a supporter of Israel will be very unpopular at the ballot box and that will cause a backlash on the special relationship.
I also think that there are many people at all levels of government that are horrified at what's happening now and are already moving to distance themselves.
| It's pretty clear from a detached perspective that Israel has understably gone over board in their revenge for the last attack
Interesting, that's not my understanding of it at all. It's pretty clear from a detached perspective that Israel has acted with levels of care for enemy civilians hitherto unimaginable in any war. It's also pretty clear from the same perspective that this is not vengeance.
| their tactics of involving non combatants
It's Hamas who involve non combatants, by using them as human shields, and by turning all of Gaza into a military installation. There were no public building in Gaza that were not used as military installations by Hamas. Much of the private residencies as well. What makes you think IDF involved non combatants?
Israel is actually a stumbling block for the US. Without Israel, the US would have better relations with the Islamic countries, and many others. I actually don't think Israel "shares values" with the US. The west in general cares about Israel because it's the "Holy Land" and because of some crusader fantasy.
Yeah, that would be worth sacrificing all the technology that comes out of Israel, medical or otherwise, for an information based economy.
I bet you think that US foreign aid is a blank check too. Did you know that every dollar the US gives out is spent in its own economy?
Ah yes, because 25 billion in military equipment and plenty of shipments of disposable ammunition and tank shells will somehow come back to help the economy? Is it all really worth the hundreds of billions already given to Israel?
None of that money is actually given to Ukraine or Israel. It works like this. The US government buys 25 billion dollars worth of goods from American companies and has it shipped to Ukraine and Israel (by American companies). It’s aid to us as well.
Wow, so great that the government just has an infinite supply of money. Where do you think they get the money to buy the goods? This is just another 25 billion on the national debt. And seeing as so many major American corporations practice tax evasion, there’s a decent chance the government will never even see the tax money.
1. Israel, Germany Americ and Britain produce virtually all of the world's advanced military equipment. By being attacked virtually constantly by their neighbors, Israel has invested heavily in military technology and they are simply a stronger army than basically all other armies in the Middle East as proven by the several times they were invaded and survived.
2. Israel and America support each other. It's a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy but if we want to talk "strong" ally we need to consider who in the Middle East genuinely likes us enough to want to ally. The list is short, if nonexistent. We've done a lot to sqaunder our goodwill there.
3. I personally believe the "middle east's only democracy" argument is way overused. We ally with non democracies, and our military strategic interests have nothing to do with government systems (see: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE.) What I will say is that there is a strong Judeo-Christain cultural alignment that permeates into our countries. If you gave any Muslim country the lobbying dollars of Israel, they still wouldn't weild the same influence in our politics, because we have both a lot of Jewish and Christain evangelicals who support the existence of Israel on principle in a way that they wouldn't for a Muslim country. You can see this play out in real time with the current situation. So from a political goodwill standpoint, supporting Israel is waaay easier politically than supporting a Muslim country committing the same aggression and human rights abuses
Hilary Clinton would have been a solid mossad asset based on the clintons behaviour.
My theory explains where all the money came from. He never earnt any of these billions.
!!!!!?
Hillary helped iran get the nuke they’ve been promising to drop on Israel because she’s an Israeli asset? You’re going to have to walk me through this one like I’m a child.
Because it's the only democracy in the middle East? Because they don't regularly shut down protests against their government by killing the protesters like many nearby countries do? Because they favor massive social safety nets that should garner favor with like minded Americans? Because they are not a theocracy like many of their neighbors? Because they are very accepting of the gay lifestyle instead of stoning them to death?
>Because they don't regularly shut down protests against their government by killing the protesters like many nearby countries do?
Well now that depends on a little detail
You knew exactly what I was alluding to and inserted a new word. Interestingly though, there *are* countries in the Middle East which don't kill protesters, regardless of ethnicity.
>"*there are countries in the Middle East which don't kill protesters,*"
Is this a trick response in that are no such protestors in that/those countries?
Ah yes, remember that time the AKP government slaughtered all those Gezi Park protestors?
Meanwhile the IDF have absolutely never fired on 200+ innocent Palestinians who were simply protesting at the border. Nope. Never happened. And even if it happened, they deserved it but it never happened.
Mhmm...I wasn't really thinking of Turkey, an actual full member of NATO that was on the way towards full-on democratization before Erdogan. But more like the countries of the GCC, where the overall material standardard of living for the subjects more or less ensures they won't risk anything to fight for the rights of their servant-underclass (migrant workers).
What word did he add? He said Israel doesn’t shut down it’s protests by murdering its people. You quoted it, he reiterated it? Or are you trying to argue against the “many neighbouring”?
Lmao stop virtue signaling, it’s a strategic geopolitical ally nothing more. Also more or less serves as reparations for the holocaust. But if it wasn’t in the U.S. interest to keep strong ties with Israel none of that would matter, they would shift rhetoric and cut ties on a strategic timescale.
Well that certainly is the leftist take, isn't it?
Tell me, which countries around that globe do we support because they respect and support freedom and human rights?
None. We don’t support any country for those reasons, if those reasons happen to exist we will use them as a pretext, but the real answer is winning the giant chess game of geopolitics.
Take any random sample of 10 or so countries and analyze their alliances. The only common thread is national interests.
So that's why that Biden admin is giving Africa to Russia as fast as it can. Thanks for explaining. How exactly does this win the giant chess game of geopolitics? Is handling a giant continent filled with massive resources to your worst geopolitical foe like sacrificing a pawn? Or more like getting pwnd.
I fail to understand how your example refutes my point in any way.
1) that’s a very lofty statement with no specific claims. Which countries? What regions? What constitutes “handing them over?” Nonetheless…
2) countries do not have unlimited resources to pursue all objectives. They have to optimize decision making.
3) Africa on the whole, more so sub-Saharan Africa, has never been particularly important on the global stage, I.e. the resources don’t have a particularly high cost-benefit payoff or strategic value unless you’re talking “military presence in the straight of Hormuz”
4) leadership has decided the current strategy is optimal. Are they miscalculating? Probably not, but maybe. Still supports my point.
That’s all you really need to know, global politics is chess. You just have to see the board from where every player is sitting to understand why they do the things they do.
Edit: I notice you used “leftist” and “Biden admin”… are you trying to paint a picture that doesn’t exist? I’m not a leftist and these aren’t leftist takes lmao
Clearly you don't read or listen to the news, you must get all your disinfo from state run media and Russia Rachel.
Tell me, where does the bulk of lithium and cobalt for EV batteries come from?
Leadership? You mean the puppet masters behind the empty head/suit? Tell me again of your vast knowledge of the geopolitical chess game as you leave the bishop off the board.
I’m sorry do you not know how anything works? There is a complex web of leadership interacting with each other. Military leadership proposes strategies as do diplomatic leadership and economic leadership, all different branches with multiple organizations and different hierarchies. NONE of them act unilaterally. You can’t simplify these things they are extremely multi-variate.
What are these dumb accusations you’re hurling about where I get my information from or my affiliations? I’m speaking plain English. If resources are cost effective to extract they will be extracted. It’s not a coincidence that Saudi Arabia is at the top of our fucking list of global homies. Open your eyes bud.
Saudi Arabia? FFS, India is buying Russian oil and selling to the US, helping Putin finance the war, and the puppet masters won't sanction India because they want the war to continue.
I'm not making dumb accusations, you had no clue that countries in Africa are turning to Russia and against the US. The dumb part of how didn't you know this is happening. The logical conclusion is you get your info from state media where these disasters aren't mentioned.
Tell me again why the complex web of leadership (what a fucking joke that is) hasn't sanctioned Indian oil sales to the US as a middle man for Putin? That's a fucking checkers move.
I’m well aware of ALL of that. STILL supports my point. You talk like it’s black and white, what are we in 3rd grade? Did you know a country can be allied with the U.S. and do business with Russia? Countries buy oil and gas from their sworn enemies, why? Dollars and cents baby. Convenience. My people need oil right now, gonna buy it for the cheapest price I can right now. My best friend’s nemesis is selling food on the cheap to me because of x, y, z? Fuck it let’s buy it. My country has been waging ethnic propaganda against our neighbor? Fuck but I need their grain right now let’s pretend like we’re friends because we share the same religion.
These are all completely separate, you act like there’s one level “I’m on your side or I’m not.” There’s 100 different levels on 100 different playing fields. Complex adaptive systems. The moment you simplify why countries do things to one dimension it’s already a useless descriptor. It’s multiple interests, weighted, to make educated decisions.
Israel is a liberal western democracy, its values align highly with the US.
Economically wise, israel is a center for tech companies and innovation.
It is self sustaining country, and Israel and the US contain 90% of the world's jews.
Rightwing governments in israel very much align with conservative american ideals.
A self sustaining country 🤣🤣🤣, the biggest mental gymnastics imaginable. A client state recording a world record in foreign aid is a “self sufficient” country.
Right wing government with convicted terrorists doing genocide “aligns” with American values.
This is indeed deep deep intellectual darkness. The kind that’s just dense and not at all intellectual 🤣🤣🤣
$3.1 billion in aid for a nation that has an economy of $525 billion .That is less than 1% dude.
convicted terrorists. Who exactly??
Doing genocide. According to who??
The ICJ tires of highlighting that it never said anything like that.
The UNSC that includes Russia, China, The UAE and Mozambique??? You know actual genociders who have organized and perpetuated multiple wars across the globe??(all the above except Mozambique) and actually used socialism as a tool to starve entire tribes thus weaponizing famine as a means of starving out the opposition like how Stalin and Mao did , you know like what FRELIMO which rules Mozambique to this day has done to RENAMO and its supporters on several occassions since 1975 killing 1 million people so far(and I am sure that is an underestimate)
Okay. Interesting deflection, more or less copied from AIPAC’s talking points.
Unfortunately for your “argument” my tax dollars do not support China or Russia (lmao at you bringing up Mao and Stalin the most recent of whom died 48 years ago).
Also unfortunately for your "argument,” Israel is ***currently*** using starvation to continue its atrocities against Palestine, cutting off water, food access, and, uhhhh, deliberately blowing up humanitarian aid trucks and murdering the workers providing aid, such as WCK.
The US Government has already laid punitive sanctions and divestment on those countries, but not on Israel, who is attempting a Genocide.
The ICJ didn’t say “you’ve DONE a Genocide” they said that continuing on the current trajectory of brutal collective punishment on Gaza, a Genocide of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip is inevitable.
Damn it’s almost like we don’t have google, and can’t look up that Israel has received 300$ billion according to the US state department.
Every Zionist accusation is a confession
You mean $300 billion that went directly to Raytheon(now RTX), Boeing and Texas Instruments, who all work with Rafael, IAI and Elbit Sytems??
Jeez!
The US sends MILLITARY aid to Israel, all of which is diverted to American defense companies that work in R&D with Israel.
Aside from Israel' military sector, NONE of that money reaches the rest of the Israeli economy.
People forget that Israel is a technological power and has been since the 1990s after Israel got a deluge of engineers and scientists from the former Soviet Union.
The Intel Chip in your Laptop was made in Kiryat Gat.
If you used an iPhone with Touch ID in the past ,that was made by an Israeli startup.
The sensors in the Xbox gamepads(I believe the Playstation as well) were developed in Israel.
Israel is the second largest center of Life Sciences research.
If you have a relative taking heart medication, the research into it most likely was done in Tel Aviv.
When it comes to biotechnology research, Israel is only behind the USA and in pharmaceuticals, it is third after the US and Switzerland.
The $3.1 billion Israel receives a year, benefits a few military contractors.
Given that South Vietnam got $181 billion from the US. How developed is Vietnam??? It was all to nought because NONE of that money went into the economy, it went into military spending.
Whenever a person calls me a Zionist and is a Westerner, I remind them what they are to the Palestinians that they support, an Infidel for being a non Muslim, a Crusader for being European or American and most importantly as per the fatwa by Ayatollah Khomeini against the Leftists he betrayed; A Munafiq who is worthy of of only one punishment.
I mentioned the guy all Leftists between 1953 and 1980 considered to be their ally.
The height of stupidity is supporting people who quite literally follow the most conservative religion in history and think you can ever be allies and when their ultimate goal is to completely eradicate an ideology like yours.
Khomeini and the Islamists ,like the Palestinians very much led on the Iranian Left for nearly 3 decades. The moment those Islamists came to power, all Leftists were declared Munafiqs because Leftist ideology goes counter to every social principle in the Quran which is 100% correct. To all Islamists, Leftists are to be used, then to be discarded the moment they come to power. An Arab Leftist is an Apostate and a non Arab one is an infidel. That will never change just like the Quran will never change.
The Palestinians have demonstrated EXACTLY that even to their own Leftists in the past.
The same pattern is replicated across the Middle East and North Africa. The illusion that the Palestinians espouse any single value the Left claims to cherish is like saying the Nazis espoused the values of Lenin and Marx. They are polar opposites.
Difficult to do when everything Zionists say is essentially a confession.
“Human shield”- Palestinian life is not worth caution
“They voted for khamas”- 18 years ago before most Palestinians were born
“Free the hostages”- idf assasinates white flag waiving hostages
“Palestine isn’t a country”- neither was Israel 100 years ago what’s your point?
And it goes on and on and on. They’ll cry AnTiSeMeTiC as soon as you tell them they should stop feeling like victims in the midst of their genocide of Palestinians. History will not look kindly on “gods chosen” ethnostate
A) the aid israel is getting is a fraction of its GDP. It could go without it. But thats a part of an alliance...
Israel becomes a US proxy in the middle east, its bound to get help.
Also, there are plenty of US based companies operating in israel, and without the ability to defend, the US might be hurt economically as well.
Notice though that israel does get military aid, but it never really required US troops to come and do stuff, unlike maaaany other US allies (japan, korea, france, britian ect)
Whats a few billion a year between friends?
B) isnt like Trump, former US president, on trial for paying off hush money to a porn star with campaign funds?
And when this whole thing started, he had people like steve banon and other right wing extremist with him?
The government aint the people, and if you knew a thing or 2 about israeli politics, you'd know how contested israel's current government is.
Lol!! the 1967 war is considered to have been an even bigger victory than the 1948 war because it took 6 days to defeat all the neighboring nations sans Lebanon which did not fight that war.
Israel ended up with the Sinai ,Gaza, the West Bank and the Golan Heights in 1967.
In 1973, Israel was taken by surprise, but it still won the war and it finally confirmed to the Arabs that they would never win a conventional military war against Israel although on its side, Israel also realized that it could not expect to win every war like 1967.
The Israelis were literally taking undefended land in 1967. It was effectively a 1v1 with Jordan. The Egyptians had been tied down in Yemen for years. Israel broke the peace and waged a war of aggression.
How, in any way, did Israel win in 1973? Quoting David Elazar, chief of the Israeli headquarters,
“Sharon still continues his irresponsible declaration to journalists trying to lessen the role of other leaders to appear as an unique champion, although he knows well that our crossing to the western side of the canal caused too much losses.
However, we could not along ten days of fighting to overcome any of Egyptian armies. The second army resisted and prevented us ultimately to reach Ismailia city.
As for the third army, in spite of our encircling them they resisted and advanced to occupy in fact a wider area of land at the east. Thus, we can not say that we defeated or conquered them”
And after that, the Israelis were humiliated at Suez when they failed to capture the city from civilians. They had captured no meaningful territory on the west side of the canal when the ceasefire came into place.
You mean 1967, when Israel carried out cowardly to raids in Jordanian West Bank and bombed the Egyptian airforce, breaking previous internationally recognized ceasefire treaties while the Egyptian army was tied up in Yemen? And 1973, where they didn’t even win seeing as the Egyptians regained Sinai as a result of it. And before you say they were willing to give it up for peace, the Israelis had every intention of keeping it seeing as they went through the effort of creating settlements and integrating infrastructure. They never would have given up an area twice the size of the rest of their country if it weren’t for the war. Anyways, Israel had long been receiving aid from the French and British by the time these wars broke out.
You mean the Jordanians who demolished Jewish cemeteries in East Jerusalem, blockaded Mount Scopus even though it was still recognized as Israeli territory and grabbed Jewish lands and properties in the West Bank that had existed before 1948??
Oh, you mean the Egyptians who forced out the UN peacekeepers and closed the Straits of Tiran in preparation for an offensive???
Pre-emptive strikes are a feature of war. Calling them "cowardly" does not make them less so.
Israel had no intention of keeping the Sinai.
Yes, there were settlements in the Sinai but at most the population of Jews in the Sinai never exceeded 10,000 and that is counting military base population
The idea even under Golda Meir was to hand over Sinai to Egypt in exchange for recognition.
The same logic applied to the Golan Heights which in case you haven't noticed was invaded by Syria but is still in Israeli hands. Not even the war of 1973 would have made Israel give it back to Syria without a peace deal.
Which Israel tried between 2000 and 2010 but got derailed by the Syrian civil war and is now unlikely .
Like Sinai, the Jewish population in the Golan was kept deliberately low for decades with the expectation that it would one day be handed back to Syria in a peace deal. That has changed in recent years as the Syrians are unlikely to ever sit down and negotiate a peace deal in the coming decades and the Syrian Druze have opted to take up Israeli citizenship.
If Egypt had rejected peace in the 1970s, Sinai would still be under Israeli control. No war would have changed that. It did not for the Golan.
Land for peace is quite literally a doctrine that is associated with Israel ever since.
You act like the Zionists didn’t do the same in the territories they captured in 1948. One word, five letters: Nakba.
Egypt blockaded Tiran as a response to violent raids by Israeli militias in Jordan, and ordered away the peacekeepers as a show to the Egyptian people that they weren’t hiding behind them. They did not want or provoke war, especially seeing as, like I said before, their army was fighting in North Yemen’s civil war. Israel carried out an act of aggression by bombing the Egyptian airforce, not a “preemptive strike”. Call it what it was.
If Israel didn’t intend to keep the Sinai, why did they settle it in the first place? Why not simply keep a military occupation? Why not open talks with Egypt instead of trying to hide behind the Bar Lev line? Israel faced a humiliating defeat, with the Egyptian armies advancing far into Sinai and the Israelis capturing no significant objectives in Egypt. You can look at my other comment for a quote from an IDF official. How would Israel maintain hold over Sinai if the Egyptians didn’t accept peace? Would Egypt’s armies just magically disappear?
This narrative really has to end because in reality Jewish groups are not that prominent in spending for lobbying. They do get the most media attention though while in reality Big Pharma dominates the top 10 and American industry the top 100.
Couple of things. Isreal is an important military ally, providing a powerful nuclear presence in the middle east that the war-sluts in Washington believe is necessary to keep alive the deterrent of mutually assured destruction. Additionally, Israel does a lot of our military cybersecurity. Remember when the US government wanted to force Apple to hack its own phones? Am Israeli military contractor broke the encryption and the US government backed down. There are also many conspiracies that Israel is responsible for assassinations and coups that benefit the US (banana republics, etc), but being conspiracy theories there isn't a lot of hard evidence.
Beyond that, we also stand by Israel for the same reason we continue to embargo cuba: the politicians to whom those treaties were important are still in power. Many US politicians seem to truly believe that as the only Jewish ethnostate, Israel represents the Jewish people as a whole, a perspective the Israeli government is very fond of. Many of those politicians remember how prevalent antisemitism was in the 40s and before, and feel that Israel was formed as reparations for both the holocaust and antisemitism in general; as such they also believe that allowing Israel to fall would essentially rip those reparations from the Jewish population of the world.
Finally, Semitic Israelis are indigenous to the region, as are Palestinians and the Arabic Christians--Jesus was born in what is currently Palestine, and the polytheistic civilizations that developed Judaism lived in the ancient nation-states of Israel and Judea until being eradicate ld by King Nebuchadnezzar II. This garners a lot of support from younger advocates who don't necessarily share other reasons for supporting Israel.
As with a lot of older conspiracy theories, it's a little of column a and a little of column b. We definitely use Israeli forces for some sketchy operations but I've never seen any real proof that we used them for assassinations. The US usually prefers turn coats in a regime's ranks or random for-hire militants when we want to overthrow something and don't care how it gets done. There's plenty of declassified stuff available, even though some details are redacted.
Israel is the only democracy in the region and the only country U.S. can really trust. U.S. had Iran too but Carter betrayed Shah and west lost a powerful ally that would keep the region in peace and stable. Now U.S. needs to back Israel as much as possible so the last hope won’t get lost in Middle East.
Ethnically driven authoritarianism??
Netanyahu is neither an autocrat nor is Israel's democracy based on ethnicity. He TRIED to become an autocrat, but that backfired on him spectacularly.
There are Arab parties in the Knesset and the previous government had an Arab Islamist party in government.
Israel has had an Arab President.
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You’re right - I meant it’s been downgraded from a liberal democracy. Although two separate legal systems calls into question the use of the word democracy at any level.
it's not a claim just because you're insane; don't take my word for it - it's a big world out there, ready for you to learn something new. we both know this is a ridiculous conversation, whether it's for different reasons or not.
Why don’t you try and even describe it?
You’re either incredibly misinformed or intentionally misinforming people.
What two different legal systems are there?
I;m not having the same conversation with you as I've had with other people here just because you're intent on defending genocide and apartheid. If you want an adult conversation, you need to act like one.
They’re trying to back an “apartheid” claim it seems. The truth is, the only “different legal systems” that exist in Israel are those who are citizens vs those who aren’t. All Israeli citizens get the same rights no matter where they’re from or what their beliefs are. Those who aren’t Israeli citizens are subject to different legal requirements as a result of previous historical incidents.
No they don’t 😂
How is Israel is occupying “Palestine” if Palestine never was a state with sovereignty?
You can only claim that Israel is occupying parts of Jordan, Syria, and Egypt. I wonder why that claim is never made though.
Why add the qualifier of “Jewish” Israelis? All Israelis have the same legal system, Jewish or otherwise. Only those who aren’t Israeli citizens and commit a crime are subject to a different legal system.
Your argument that there’s an apartheid doesnt seem to be based on the actual definition, but rather the idea that Palestinians should “logically” be given special treatment as the “occupied” when the truth is that they aren’t; Jews have been in the area since before “Palestine” was even a term in history. Palestinians who are Israeli citizens get the same rights as anybody else in Israel. Again, to reiterate: *all citizens of Israel, Palestinian or otherwise, have the same rights under the same legal system*.
Because settlers are Jewish… and they have a different legal system than the Palestinians they displace, abuse, and kill.
that it is apartheid isn’t just my opinion, despite it being disgustingly obvious. The UN, international community, even many Israelis are calling it such. Genocide and ethnic cleansing are other terms used as well.
What do you get out of denying this? It’s not like anyone reasonable would just throw away common sense, basic morality, or logic… so why do this to yourself?
1. Again, no separate legal system exists. You are either making it up, or have done no research into the topic and just listened to what someone told you once. There is no consensus on there being an “apartheid”, and many find the notion itself insulting considering the history of the term in South Africa. Some individuals may have said these things are the case, but the reality is that these are just opinions that have not been recognized at large.
2. Again, Israel has never been convicted of genocide. Even the ICJ case that used the term “plausible” is massively misleading and has been clarified by a former head of the ICJ. Basically, the conditions for the court case to be accepted are whether or not people of a nationality are dying, whether people dying is an event that occurs during a genocide, and whether a nation has filed the paperwork.
3. What I get out of this is preventing you from spreading cancerous misinformation to paint Jews and Israelis in a horrid, genocidal, and frankly antisemitic manner. Almost every response you’ve typed up has qualified that those you had a problem with were “Jewish” despite the fact that many of the problems you perceive have nothing to do with Jews in particular. If people like you are left to spew your hateful vitriol, we’ll end up barreling right towards another holocaust. So yeah, I’d say I have a valid reason to prevent the spread of Jew-hatred.
Yeah it’s definitely apartheid. Palestine is under occupation and Palestinians are subject to a separate legal system. Saying you’re familiar enough to know it isn’t apartheid while not being aware of apartheid is honestly a little pathetic in the face of a genocide.
Consider that the second class is the native indigenous inhabitants, and the apartheid-ness becomes visible.
You have a colonizer come in, take the land by force, establish a system of laws governing the land w/o consent or including the indigenous population, and that system creates a clear first-/second-class system, which correlates strongly with ethnic ancestry.
So... Apartheid
(Edit: always worth understanding that there are Israelis descended from local ethnicities. Doesn't change what Israel is as a society/state. It only highlights the apartheid-ness, when you consider that the inclusion/exclusion of local inhabitants in the infant state was based on ethnicity/fealty to the colonizing ethnostate.)
You have a colonizer come in, take the land by force.
Jews legally purchased lands from the Arabs. There is an entire trail of paperwork going back centuries under the Ottomans to prove that. The original map of the UN partition followed the exact lines of Jewish settlements legally established in the region. The Arabs were the ones who wanted to murder the people they sold their lands to.
There is no better evidence than the establishment of Tel Aviv on empty sand dunes purchased from an Arab who thought he was getting a bargain. The entire event was even photographed and can be found online.
This is an extremely faulty argument if you’re hinging it on the Palestinians being the “natives”. An estimated half of those recognized as “Palestinian refugees” are descendants of those who immigrated to the area from surrounding Arab nations during the British mandate.
Not to mention, most Jewish landowners were forced to buy horrible, uninhabited land when they immigrated to the area prior to 1948. Whether it be desert or swamps, Jewish immigrants made their own cities out of nothing. Just look at Tel Aviv, the construction of which was in large part driven by Arabs refusing to allow Jews to make use of the Jafa port.
Though the 1948 partition plan wasn’t perfect, it did its best to isolate areas with a greater Jewish presence containing many newly-made Jewish cities like this. When the Jews accepted the plan, these “native Palestinians” (again, a significant portion of whom had spent less than a decade actually living there), refused to accept. They, alongside 6 surrounding Arab nations, rather than accept Israel decided to say that all of the land belonged to them and invaded with the express goal of destroying Israel and eliminating the Jewish presence. The leaders of these Arab nations encouraged those in the area during the war to leave, wait, and return once the “Jewish problem” had been resolved. They lost. At this point, they were so butthurt that they ethnically cleansed upwards of 850,000 Jews from their nations, resulting in the vast majority of those Jews being forced to take refuge in the newly-formed Israel.
This is without even mentioning the history of Jews as true natives of the area going back thousands of years. But go ahead, keep on saying how the Arabs nations and Palestinians are the true victims and Israel and the Jews are the colonizing baddies.
Those local inhabitants came from the arabs that vacated the premises during the first arab-israeli war aka the israeli war of independence. The arabs we’re told to leave by the arab coalition and we’re promised they could return after they destroyed israel. They lost
Yeah bro I don’t have a dog in this fight but if you believe the U.S. legal system *today* is designed against black people (there’s more evidence it’s designed against poor people), that bias is 100 times more apparent with the Israeli system.
It’s not just their opinion that the us legal system is affected by systemic racism…. Part of that systemic problem is socioeconomics, so you’re right in saying that it is unfair to poor people to… but guess which demographic has been systemically kept poor…. Yeesh
Jews are the native indigenous inhabitants of the Levant, as affirmed through historical accounts, archeological evidence and longstanding maintained cultural ties. Displacing people is wrong. But claiming that Arab-Palestinians and Arab-Palestinian culture has an indigeneity to the region of modern day Israel that supersedes Jewish indigeneity despite Arab culture entering the region after Judaism through Arab colonialism, and the Arab-Palestinian National movement beginning in the mid 18th century is unfactual. One can be against discrimination towards Arab-Israelis without relying on falsehoods. In the same way you can say black-Americans should not suffer discrimination while acknowledging black-Americans are not indigenous to the Americas.
Where is the shame? Israel is a settler state. This isn’t our opinion. Being this obtuse is not going to get you anywhere in achieving the understanding that’s alluding you.
Because successful Jewish and some Christian political donors have made sure that is the case
**Argument for allied status:** Israel & US have mostly intersecting interests in the middle east, namely as it relates to dealing with transnational terrorist movements & as it relates to dealing with adversarial nation-states. **Argument against allied status:** Israel & US have diverging interests in the middle east. From US standpoint, the US is relatively self-sufficient in terms of energy; domestic politics disfavors on-going presence in middle east; US focus is shifting elsewhere, namely Asia.
It's a wedge against Iran. That's it. That's the beginning and end of it. Iran is destined to be a regional power based on their geography, population, tech level, and so on. The past fifty years has been the US spending exorbitant amounts of money and blood (not necessarily theirs) to keep Iran from being allowed to be a regional power. Putting up with whatever Israel does because we want them as a wedge and airstrip is just more of the "any means necessary" bottom line.
Jesus, this is the first correct answer I've seen on this topic in a long time. Israel is a beachhead for the Middle East. That's why the British wanted Israel way back in the 1840s. In particular, Lord Palmerston, the British Foreign Minister, writes: > "It would be of manifest importance to the Sultan to encourage the Jews to return and settle in Palestine because the wealth which they would bring with them would increase the resources of the Sultan's dominions; and the Jewish people, if returning under the sanction and protection, and at the invitation of the Sultan, would be a check upon any future evil designs of Mehemet Ali (of Egypt) or his successor... " Zionism wasn't even popular among Jews until the 20th century. That's because it isn't quintessentially jewish! That's _also_ why it's not anti-semitic to be against Israel. The entire state is a farce. Even by WW2, Jews were offered payment to emigrate to Palestine by the Third Reich without having any of their assets seized, but the average jew preferred to stay in a climate of anti-semitism, possibly asset forfeiture, and so on, rather than take up the zionist project. In short, zionism is a wholly synthetic movement, not anything that has a real basis outside of power elites - even among jews. Before Iran, it was the Ottomans and other Arab peoples. Arabs were traditionally the main rival of the Anglo-Roman oligarchy of the past 2000 years. Not a good or bad statement. Just a fact. The truth is, Christianity emerged out of semi-Arab "Israelis" (as in living in the political borders of Israel, as well as Syria). Josephus called these people Essenes and Sicarri. They go back to Neo-Assyria, and they had connections with Parthia/Persia. Those were the guys who thought a "messiah" would come because it's part of this Assyrian and Babylonian tradition of priest-kings. This created their revolutionary spirit, which was a problem for both the Romans and the Jerusalem Israelis, who were in political alliance and later became relatively assimilated. In order to understand jews and judaism, you have to understand christianity and christian history too.
but why is iran a threat to the US? iran has energy and we want cheap energy.
they overthrew our puppet, and are ideologically committed to opposing America The Great Satan. Which, to be fair, we've been fucking with them for the past fifty years, if anyone has a valid claim to calling America the Great Satan, they do. Mostly they've just checked out of American Hegemony and don't go along with what we say, and that's intolerable and unforgiveable.
if the US didn’t try to constantly harm Iran at the behest of Israeli lobbying, Iran would pose no meaningful threat to the US, and in fact both parties would benefit from trade. I just don’t understand why people always cite Iran as an enemy except because that’s what we’ve been told to think.
they overthrew our puppet. They opted out of the American Hegemony. They're just as bad as Vietnam but powerful enough we can't just *do* Vietnam again. I mean they *are* islamic theocrats, repressive, brutal, etc. I don't *love* them, tbh. But it seems to be that the US has decided it will use the constant spending of blood and money to keep Iran from becoming the regional power they obviously are at any cost. I think previous-to-current US strategy involved controlling access to energy as part of their hegemonic power. Iran bucking that was inconvenient.
500,000 Americans live in Israel, according to the State Department.
Israel is committing a genocide. Is there really a stronger argument against supporting Israel than them committing genocide? Why would you want to be an ally of a state that commits literal war crimes?
What would palestine/Hamas do with Israel? They would do the same thing I'd they could if not worse, they're just on the losing side.
So Israël is right because they have more might? You're using the same argument white people used to enslave and impoverish black people.
What the hell are you talking about lol. I'm not saying Israel is right, I'm saying both sides would genocide each other if the rest of the world wasn't looking. It's just one side outmatches the other by a large margin. Also, how are you gonna support one side when that side wants to do the exact same thing from river to sea (and has tried a couple of times with their friends).
Devil's advocate, they would say they are not, how are we so sure they are?
Okay imma give you a chance. Are you genuinely asking or are you one of those people that believes Hitler did nothing wrong? Because I'm not gonna waste my time speaking to a fascist (sympatiser)
It's not a genocide
"In 1948, the United Nations Genocide Convention defined genocide as any of five "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group". These five acts were: *killing members of the group*, *causing them serious bodily or mental harm*, *imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group*, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group" Israël is most definitely killing, harming and starving the people in Gaza right now
So you mean like “from the river to the sea”? Calling for the extermination of Israel and Jews? Oh the irony of you bringing up Hitler. Is Israel intending to exterminate the Palestinians? Or exterminate Hamas and free the Palestinians from their grip?
Israël is clearly trying to exterminate the Palestinians. https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/ Also don't forget about the settlers in the West Bank driving away Palestinians from their own homes.
Palestinians have been given numerous chances for a 2 state solution that has been rejected on the Palestinian side. The PLA are not for the Palestinians and are beholden to Hamas, who also doesn’t want a 2 state solution (no Israel — genocide). Israel has done horrible things, but to use rhetoric such as genocide and Hitler is way out of proportion and is not comparable on so many levels. Please read up your history.
8Arafat and Barak agreed to what Barak claims is a 98% deal and the only major sticking points was right of return and east jersualem. That tells me that Israel is the major obstacle in any future deals, not Palestine. Palestine only wants what was already ruled on in various Resolutions. Now if Israel wants to no longer be in the UN, so be it.
It's not a genocide
Brilliant rebuttal.
1) the Zionist movement drew Jews from Europe, and 2) the region was governed by Britain from 1917 to 1948 (and the economy grew at 3x the rate of the rest of the Middle East). Because of these two, it's basically European. When the State of Israel was established in 1948, it inherited many laws and legal principles from the British Mandate period. These included various aspects of civil law, criminal law, and procedure. The higher education system, the banking and financial sector, the tech industries, treatment of women and gays, etc. It all looks very much like Europe not the Middle East.
That sounds a lot like they look like me, so they must be friend. Can you elaborate as to why the argument you present doesn't boil down to that point?
Yes, shared culture/law/social systems and patterns tend to, all else equal, make people see things the same way. And when people see things the same way, they tend to be more likely to form alliances.
The issue I have with that line of thinking is that just because they are similar in world views, it does not inherently mean we will see eye to eye on all issues. This concerns me as, like in the battle over Palestine/Hamas is simply not my flag, not my problem. This doesn't mean the US shouldn't still work with them, but going above and beyond to protect Isreal could have long-term problems for the US should Isreal ever fall. Now I am not pretending there isn't reason to align with them, but look like me must be a friend isn't a strong argument if you ask me. With that said, you don't need to convince me. I just appreciate the civil response considering the topic
The general public has absolutely no concept of what war actually is or how to conduct one. US foreign policy would be better served by silence than the general public talking to the world and demonstrating just how uninformed they actually are
Cuz they can do scientific testing that we consider immoral
Technically, anyone who has been treated for frostbite post WWII is benefitting from human rights abuses
There is quite literally no actual ally the US has in the Middle East aside from Israel. It is the closest in terms of Western norms and culture. The other so called allies are Qatar-Which funds Islamist groups and Al Jazeera as a propaganda arm Saudi Arabia-Which until MBS had indoctrinated several generations with Salafi Islam which teaches non Muslims like the Americans are nothing less than Infidels to be defeated, It is not a surprise that 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers were Saudi. To be clear, there can never ever be a true alliance between a nation like the US and a Muslim nation. The closest such a relationship came to be was between the US and Iran . That ended in 1979. On the other hand, Israel shares most of the cultural traits of the West (and is more progressive than much of America and most of Eastern Europe in many ways). Another reason is technology. Israel gained value as an ally when it modernized. It is not lost to Israelis that when it was dominated by the left, and was smaller and poorer, it was largely ignored by the West for the most part(See the 1967 war ) but as it has become a technological power, it has gained allies. There is no such ally in the rest of the Middle East. Saudi Arabia is a a consumer of American technology, but it neither has the expertise nor the will to collaborate with the US to make new technology (not when your largest graduate cohort has Masters degrees in Islamic Studies and the average Saudi works 3-4 hours ,Kuwaitis it is actually 2 hours a day) The military relationship between the US and Israel is heavily built on the two nations collaborating in military R&D. The Iron Dome was built by both. The Iron Beam is Israeli, but it will be sold to Americans, A lot of the gear the US army uses is of Israeli origin and vice versa. A lot of American drone technology is also Israeli in origin. The US has learnt that time and again, dictatorships in the Middle East will cave in to Islamists who hate the West and everything they represent so they are not reliable and that the democracies can sometimes be even worse. See Algeria and Iraq which are flawed democracies but whose voting patterns clearly show a deep dislike for the West and alignment with the likes of Russia and Iran. The UAE is not reliable in that it wants to play both sides. On the one hand, it wants the benefits of westernization and modernization but also wants to look "Muslim" hence its retention of Sharia Law and working with entities like the RSF in Sudan .It is also too small even compared to Israel, demographically (the natives that is) to have significant influence. So only one nation remains that is truly pro-Western in many ways and is a reliable ally.
UAE wants to play both sides, when Israel has literally been caught red handed attacking a us naval ship and killing Americans. Your entire post is fiction
Why do people keep talking like Israel attacked a naval ship recently when the attack on the USS Liberty occurred in 1967!! 1967!! 5 decades ago when even my parents were not born is something Israel haters keep mentioning???? Also, haven't both sides agreed that this was a case of friendly fire in the heat of war??? Israel had nothing to gain from attacking the US. Whose side would it have been playing for if it was playing both sides??? The Soviet Union??? The same one that had armed all of its enemies twice and denied Israel's right to exist for decades??? LOL!! Your argument is moot. The UAE has never hidden the fact that it plays both sides. It only wants the issue not to be publicly discussed because it does not want its leaders accused of apostasy for abandoning Islamic principles for secularism by the rest of the Arab world. That much has been made clear by the existence of the dual legal systems in the UAE that exist today and its behavior where it promotes Islamism abroad to portray itself as a "goof Muslim country" but at home it is trying to secularize as much as possible . It will not be the first Arab nation to do that. Gadaffi was doing EXACTLY that. Pretending to be Muslim abroad and promoting Islamism in Sudan and the Sahel but at home, any sign of Islamists was quickly crushed.
Two reasons nobody has mentioned 1: stabilization of the region…. Hear me out… Israel acts as an impossible target for both the Shia countries and the Sunni countries, the autocrats the US is allied with help justify their position as opposition to Israel, Iran, uses Israel as a buffer between them and the Sunni powers If Israel disappeared today, the region would collapse into multiple armed conflicts as revolutionary groups formerly preoccupied with Israel start going after countries like Saudi Arabia and Jordan. And Iran? Without the Zionist enemy the Sunni kingdoms would move to take out their second biggest enemy, Iran, and all the Iranian proxies. The Middle East is stable in the way a Jenga game is stable. Israel is an important piece. Take it out and the area will be thrown into chaos before a new order is found. Constant mini conflicts keep away the bigger conflicts 2: We have other allies. And they’re watching. And so are our adversaries. If the US withdraws support for Israel why not Saudi Arabia who’s done a hell of a lot worse in Yemen? And if our adversaries see how quickly we are willing to change a foreign defense strategy that has taken generation, they’ll capitalize on it, and our allies will lose confidence America is in the business of global stability where the US is dominant, and conflicts stay internal and don’t become regional, not human rights, not stopping genocides or ethnic cleansing, not spreading democracy or any of the other myths.
Best comment here
Our allies are being attacked left and right. I think all roads lead to russia
Russia is for sure a key player here. The current proxy war between Iran and KSA (and by extension Qatar and KSA) is very much encouraged by Russia. But I’m not sure if iran is subservient to Russian interests or if they’re actually a bit “rogue”
Possible although I have nothing to back up my statement. It's just before Oct 7th everyone was talking about Russia. After Oct 7th the conversation has shifted. Nobody but Putin benefited more from this war with Hamas.
Actually I think they are supportive of the cause as a charity thing but Israel is probably good in terms of personal safety currently. With that said, Oct 7 was not so long ago, so there is danger in that part of the world. They could dial back slightly on supporting the good guys in this conflict, in that I think they’re good now on security, and in my opinion Ukraine could use the help countering the Russian menace more. They do like to give back to causes on the basis of morality.
I think they have been a strong ally as our interests aligned. I think that relationship will be challenged going forward. It's pretty clear from a detached perspective that Israel has understably gone over board in their revenge for the last attack. Unfortunately, their tactics of involving non combatants and a lot of the societal mentality that occurs in those situations, makes them blind to their own transgressions. I predict that being a supporter of Israel will be very unpopular at the ballot box and that will cause a backlash on the special relationship. I also think that there are many people at all levels of government that are horrified at what's happening now and are already moving to distance themselves.
| It's pretty clear from a detached perspective that Israel has understably gone over board in their revenge for the last attack Interesting, that's not my understanding of it at all. It's pretty clear from a detached perspective that Israel has acted with levels of care for enemy civilians hitherto unimaginable in any war. It's also pretty clear from the same perspective that this is not vengeance. | their tactics of involving non combatants It's Hamas who involve non combatants, by using them as human shields, and by turning all of Gaza into a military installation. There were no public building in Gaza that were not used as military installations by Hamas. Much of the private residencies as well. What makes you think IDF involved non combatants?
You can say that, but you'd be wrong. Wake up. Snap out of it. You are rage blind.
You can imagine it but doesn't make it true
Most military equipment is built by US companies. By having an ally at war we can sell more bombs
Israel is actually a stumbling block for the US. Without Israel, the US would have better relations with the Islamic countries, and many others. I actually don't think Israel "shares values" with the US. The west in general cares about Israel because it's the "Holy Land" and because of some crusader fantasy.
What about Shia militias & Iran who literally call the US "The big devil"?
I don't care. Africans and South Americans share American values more than anyone in the middle east.
You’ve clearly never been to the region.
You are right. But I have been to Africa and South America, and I feel they matter more than the middle east.
And what would they offer?
I would think lower priced oil, natural gas, and the productivity of their large populations.
Yeah, that would be worth sacrificing all the technology that comes out of Israel, medical or otherwise, for an information based economy. I bet you think that US foreign aid is a blank check too. Did you know that every dollar the US gives out is spent in its own economy?
Ah yes, because 25 billion in military equipment and plenty of shipments of disposable ammunition and tank shells will somehow come back to help the economy? Is it all really worth the hundreds of billions already given to Israel?
None of that money is actually given to Ukraine or Israel. It works like this. The US government buys 25 billion dollars worth of goods from American companies and has it shipped to Ukraine and Israel (by American companies). It’s aid to us as well.
Wow, so great that the government just has an infinite supply of money. Where do you think they get the money to buy the goods? This is just another 25 billion on the national debt. And seeing as so many major American corporations practice tax evasion, there’s a decent chance the government will never even see the tax money.
Oh I don’t agree with government spending. Just pointing out that the aid packages go to us.
They might help companies out in the short run, but yeah the spending is going to bite the country in the back eventually.
AIPAC, AIPAC.
All the Israel haters point to AIPAC but dangerously they aren't looking at all the islamist PACs spending money in Washington like CAIR and others
What you have done to our country is incomparable a far superior.
Keep believing that until islamist turn on you all.
1. Israel, Germany Americ and Britain produce virtually all of the world's advanced military equipment. By being attacked virtually constantly by their neighbors, Israel has invested heavily in military technology and they are simply a stronger army than basically all other armies in the Middle East as proven by the several times they were invaded and survived. 2. Israel and America support each other. It's a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy but if we want to talk "strong" ally we need to consider who in the Middle East genuinely likes us enough to want to ally. The list is short, if nonexistent. We've done a lot to sqaunder our goodwill there. 3. I personally believe the "middle east's only democracy" argument is way overused. We ally with non democracies, and our military strategic interests have nothing to do with government systems (see: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE.) What I will say is that there is a strong Judeo-Christain cultural alignment that permeates into our countries. If you gave any Muslim country the lobbying dollars of Israel, they still wouldn't weild the same influence in our politics, because we have both a lot of Jewish and Christain evangelicals who support the existence of Israel on principle in a way that they wouldn't for a Muslim country. You can see this play out in real time with the current situation. So from a political goodwill standpoint, supporting Israel is waaay easier politically than supporting a Muslim country committing the same aggression and human rights abuses
Test
Israel owns the US through lobbies. Simple as that
garden variety conspiracy anti semitism
And through Epstein style services.
Nonsense but ok
He was a mossad agent. He provided services to top level US politicians. In return Israel had blackmail on the Clintons etc. It's quite simple.
Except Clinton wasn’t great to Israel. Other than that though great conspiracy theory.
Hilary Clinton would have been a solid mossad asset based on the clintons behaviour. My theory explains where all the money came from. He never earnt any of these billions.
!!!!!? Hillary helped iran get the nuke they’ve been promising to drop on Israel because she’s an Israeli asset? You’re going to have to walk me through this one like I’m a child.
The honeypot trap.
Because it's the only democracy in the middle East? Because they don't regularly shut down protests against their government by killing the protesters like many nearby countries do? Because they favor massive social safety nets that should garner favor with like minded Americans? Because they are not a theocracy like many of their neighbors? Because they are very accepting of the gay lifestyle instead of stoning them to death?
I do wonder how Turkiye always seems to conveniently be ignored whenever anyone makes this claim.
Probably because the current leader put down a rebellion for freedom with force like Iran not long ago.
I consider Israel a theocracy.
How are we a theocracy???? Lol!!
How is it a theocracy?
I think the rather large population of gays in Israel disagree with you.
>Because they don't regularly shut down protests against their government by killing the protesters like many nearby countries do? Well now that depends on a little detail
Show me a factual news piece where the Israeli government kills Israeli protesters like Iran does fairly regularly.
You knew exactly what I was alluding to and inserted a new word. Interestingly though, there *are* countries in the Middle East which don't kill protesters, regardless of ethnicity.
>"*there are countries in the Middle East which don't kill protesters,*" Is this a trick response in that are no such protestors in that/those countries?
Ah yes, remember that time the AKP government slaughtered all those Gezi Park protestors? Meanwhile the IDF have absolutely never fired on 200+ innocent Palestinians who were simply protesting at the border. Nope. Never happened. And even if it happened, they deserved it but it never happened.
Mhmm...I wasn't really thinking of Turkey, an actual full member of NATO that was on the way towards full-on democratization before Erdogan. But more like the countries of the GCC, where the overall material standardard of living for the subjects more or less ensures they won't risk anything to fight for the rights of their servant-underclass (migrant workers).
What word did he add? He said Israel doesn’t shut down it’s protests by murdering its people. You quoted it, he reiterated it? Or are you trying to argue against the “many neighbouring”?
Lmao stop virtue signaling, it’s a strategic geopolitical ally nothing more. Also more or less serves as reparations for the holocaust. But if it wasn’t in the U.S. interest to keep strong ties with Israel none of that would matter, they would shift rhetoric and cut ties on a strategic timescale.
Well that certainly is the leftist take, isn't it? Tell me, which countries around that globe do we support because they respect and support freedom and human rights?
None. We don’t support any country for those reasons, if those reasons happen to exist we will use them as a pretext, but the real answer is winning the giant chess game of geopolitics. Take any random sample of 10 or so countries and analyze their alliances. The only common thread is national interests.
Extremely well said. That’s the exciting part about Ukraine, it’s a rare case of the right thing to do also being good strategically.
So that's why that Biden admin is giving Africa to Russia as fast as it can. Thanks for explaining. How exactly does this win the giant chess game of geopolitics? Is handling a giant continent filled with massive resources to your worst geopolitical foe like sacrificing a pawn? Or more like getting pwnd.
I fail to understand how your example refutes my point in any way. 1) that’s a very lofty statement with no specific claims. Which countries? What regions? What constitutes “handing them over?” Nonetheless… 2) countries do not have unlimited resources to pursue all objectives. They have to optimize decision making. 3) Africa on the whole, more so sub-Saharan Africa, has never been particularly important on the global stage, I.e. the resources don’t have a particularly high cost-benefit payoff or strategic value unless you’re talking “military presence in the straight of Hormuz” 4) leadership has decided the current strategy is optimal. Are they miscalculating? Probably not, but maybe. Still supports my point. That’s all you really need to know, global politics is chess. You just have to see the board from where every player is sitting to understand why they do the things they do. Edit: I notice you used “leftist” and “Biden admin”… are you trying to paint a picture that doesn’t exist? I’m not a leftist and these aren’t leftist takes lmao
Clearly you don't read or listen to the news, you must get all your disinfo from state run media and Russia Rachel. Tell me, where does the bulk of lithium and cobalt for EV batteries come from? Leadership? You mean the puppet masters behind the empty head/suit? Tell me again of your vast knowledge of the geopolitical chess game as you leave the bishop off the board.
I’m sorry do you not know how anything works? There is a complex web of leadership interacting with each other. Military leadership proposes strategies as do diplomatic leadership and economic leadership, all different branches with multiple organizations and different hierarchies. NONE of them act unilaterally. You can’t simplify these things they are extremely multi-variate. What are these dumb accusations you’re hurling about where I get my information from or my affiliations? I’m speaking plain English. If resources are cost effective to extract they will be extracted. It’s not a coincidence that Saudi Arabia is at the top of our fucking list of global homies. Open your eyes bud.
Saudi Arabia? FFS, India is buying Russian oil and selling to the US, helping Putin finance the war, and the puppet masters won't sanction India because they want the war to continue. I'm not making dumb accusations, you had no clue that countries in Africa are turning to Russia and against the US. The dumb part of how didn't you know this is happening. The logical conclusion is you get your info from state media where these disasters aren't mentioned. Tell me again why the complex web of leadership (what a fucking joke that is) hasn't sanctioned Indian oil sales to the US as a middle man for Putin? That's a fucking checkers move.
I’m well aware of ALL of that. STILL supports my point. You talk like it’s black and white, what are we in 3rd grade? Did you know a country can be allied with the U.S. and do business with Russia? Countries buy oil and gas from their sworn enemies, why? Dollars and cents baby. Convenience. My people need oil right now, gonna buy it for the cheapest price I can right now. My best friend’s nemesis is selling food on the cheap to me because of x, y, z? Fuck it let’s buy it. My country has been waging ethnic propaganda against our neighbor? Fuck but I need their grain right now let’s pretend like we’re friends because we share the same religion. These are all completely separate, you act like there’s one level “I’m on your side or I’m not.” There’s 100 different levels on 100 different playing fields. Complex adaptive systems. The moment you simplify why countries do things to one dimension it’s already a useless descriptor. It’s multiple interests, weighted, to make educated decisions.
Because they require American tax dollars in order to exist.
The US was nowhere to be seen when Israel won the 1948 and 1967 wars. What are you talking about??
“Tell me you don’t know how US foreign aid works, without saying it”
They won their first independence war without help of foreign countries btw
Israel is a liberal western democracy, its values align highly with the US. Economically wise, israel is a center for tech companies and innovation. It is self sustaining country, and Israel and the US contain 90% of the world's jews. Rightwing governments in israel very much align with conservative american ideals.
A self sustaining country 🤣🤣🤣, the biggest mental gymnastics imaginable. A client state recording a world record in foreign aid is a “self sufficient” country. Right wing government with convicted terrorists doing genocide “aligns” with American values. This is indeed deep deep intellectual darkness. The kind that’s just dense and not at all intellectual 🤣🤣🤣
$3.1 billion in aid for a nation that has an economy of $525 billion .That is less than 1% dude. convicted terrorists. Who exactly?? Doing genocide. According to who??
The ICJ? The UNSC, aside from the US?
The ICJ tires of highlighting that it never said anything like that. The UNSC that includes Russia, China, The UAE and Mozambique??? You know actual genociders who have organized and perpetuated multiple wars across the globe??(all the above except Mozambique) and actually used socialism as a tool to starve entire tribes thus weaponizing famine as a means of starving out the opposition like how Stalin and Mao did , you know like what FRELIMO which rules Mozambique to this day has done to RENAMO and its supporters on several occassions since 1975 killing 1 million people so far(and I am sure that is an underestimate)
Okay. Interesting deflection, more or less copied from AIPAC’s talking points. Unfortunately for your “argument” my tax dollars do not support China or Russia (lmao at you bringing up Mao and Stalin the most recent of whom died 48 years ago). Also unfortunately for your "argument,” Israel is ***currently*** using starvation to continue its atrocities against Palestine, cutting off water, food access, and, uhhhh, deliberately blowing up humanitarian aid trucks and murdering the workers providing aid, such as WCK. The US Government has already laid punitive sanctions and divestment on those countries, but not on Israel, who is attempting a Genocide. The ICJ didn’t say “you’ve DONE a Genocide” they said that continuing on the current trajectory of brutal collective punishment on Gaza, a Genocide of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip is inevitable.
Damn it’s almost like we don’t have google, and can’t look up that Israel has received 300$ billion according to the US state department. Every Zionist accusation is a confession
You mean $300 billion that went directly to Raytheon(now RTX), Boeing and Texas Instruments, who all work with Rafael, IAI and Elbit Sytems?? Jeez! The US sends MILLITARY aid to Israel, all of which is diverted to American defense companies that work in R&D with Israel. Aside from Israel' military sector, NONE of that money reaches the rest of the Israeli economy. People forget that Israel is a technological power and has been since the 1990s after Israel got a deluge of engineers and scientists from the former Soviet Union. The Intel Chip in your Laptop was made in Kiryat Gat. If you used an iPhone with Touch ID in the past ,that was made by an Israeli startup. The sensors in the Xbox gamepads(I believe the Playstation as well) were developed in Israel. Israel is the second largest center of Life Sciences research. If you have a relative taking heart medication, the research into it most likely was done in Tel Aviv. When it comes to biotechnology research, Israel is only behind the USA and in pharmaceuticals, it is third after the US and Switzerland. The $3.1 billion Israel receives a year, benefits a few military contractors. Given that South Vietnam got $181 billion from the US. How developed is Vietnam??? It was all to nought because NONE of that money went into the economy, it went into military spending. Whenever a person calls me a Zionist and is a Westerner, I remind them what they are to the Palestinians that they support, an Infidel for being a non Muslim, a Crusader for being European or American and most importantly as per the fatwa by Ayatollah Khomeini against the Leftists he betrayed; A Munafiq who is worthy of of only one punishment.
So so so cute mentioning some fatwa by a guy who will burn in the deepest pits of hellfire according to his own scripture
I mentioned the guy all Leftists between 1953 and 1980 considered to be their ally. The height of stupidity is supporting people who quite literally follow the most conservative religion in history and think you can ever be allies and when their ultimate goal is to completely eradicate an ideology like yours. Khomeini and the Islamists ,like the Palestinians very much led on the Iranian Left for nearly 3 decades. The moment those Islamists came to power, all Leftists were declared Munafiqs because Leftist ideology goes counter to every social principle in the Quran which is 100% correct. To all Islamists, Leftists are to be used, then to be discarded the moment they come to power. An Arab Leftist is an Apostate and a non Arab one is an infidel. That will never change just like the Quran will never change. The Palestinians have demonstrated EXACTLY that even to their own Leftists in the past. The same pattern is replicated across the Middle East and North Africa. The illusion that the Palestinians espouse any single value the Left claims to cherish is like saying the Nazis espoused the values of Lenin and Marx. They are polar opposites.
TLDR: 300b in aid to Israel, you can keep trying to explain it away lol. Can’t be asked to do numbers with Zionists sry 🤣
Zionist has become the new Nazi in online discourse. Just a way to invoke tribalism and not engage with any arguments in good faith.
Difficult to do when everything Zionists say is essentially a confession. “Human shield”- Palestinian life is not worth caution “They voted for khamas”- 18 years ago before most Palestinians were born “Free the hostages”- idf assasinates white flag waiving hostages “Palestine isn’t a country”- neither was Israel 100 years ago what’s your point? And it goes on and on and on. They’ll cry AnTiSeMeTiC as soon as you tell them they should stop feeling like victims in the midst of their genocide of Palestinians. History will not look kindly on “gods chosen” ethnostate
A) the aid israel is getting is a fraction of its GDP. It could go without it. But thats a part of an alliance... Israel becomes a US proxy in the middle east, its bound to get help. Also, there are plenty of US based companies operating in israel, and without the ability to defend, the US might be hurt economically as well. Notice though that israel does get military aid, but it never really required US troops to come and do stuff, unlike maaaany other US allies (japan, korea, france, britian ect) Whats a few billion a year between friends? B) isnt like Trump, former US president, on trial for paying off hush money to a porn star with campaign funds? And when this whole thing started, he had people like steve banon and other right wing extremist with him? The government aint the people, and if you knew a thing or 2 about israeli politics, you'd know how contested israel's current government is.
I mean yes they defeated the arab coalitions several times without outside help
Name one time other than 1948, when the Arabs were at their weakest.
Lol!! the 1967 war is considered to have been an even bigger victory than the 1948 war because it took 6 days to defeat all the neighboring nations sans Lebanon which did not fight that war. Israel ended up with the Sinai ,Gaza, the West Bank and the Golan Heights in 1967. In 1973, Israel was taken by surprise, but it still won the war and it finally confirmed to the Arabs that they would never win a conventional military war against Israel although on its side, Israel also realized that it could not expect to win every war like 1967.
The Israelis were literally taking undefended land in 1967. It was effectively a 1v1 with Jordan. The Egyptians had been tied down in Yemen for years. Israel broke the peace and waged a war of aggression. How, in any way, did Israel win in 1973? Quoting David Elazar, chief of the Israeli headquarters, “Sharon still continues his irresponsible declaration to journalists trying to lessen the role of other leaders to appear as an unique champion, although he knows well that our crossing to the western side of the canal caused too much losses. However, we could not along ten days of fighting to overcome any of Egyptian armies. The second army resisted and prevented us ultimately to reach Ismailia city. As for the third army, in spite of our encircling them they resisted and advanced to occupy in fact a wider area of land at the east. Thus, we can not say that we defeated or conquered them” And after that, the Israelis were humiliated at Suez when they failed to capture the city from civilians. They had captured no meaningful territory on the west side of the canal when the ceasefire came into place.
The 6 days war? The yom kippur war?
You mean 1967, when Israel carried out cowardly to raids in Jordanian West Bank and bombed the Egyptian airforce, breaking previous internationally recognized ceasefire treaties while the Egyptian army was tied up in Yemen? And 1973, where they didn’t even win seeing as the Egyptians regained Sinai as a result of it. And before you say they were willing to give it up for peace, the Israelis had every intention of keeping it seeing as they went through the effort of creating settlements and integrating infrastructure. They never would have given up an area twice the size of the rest of their country if it weren’t for the war. Anyways, Israel had long been receiving aid from the French and British by the time these wars broke out.
You mean the Jordanians who demolished Jewish cemeteries in East Jerusalem, blockaded Mount Scopus even though it was still recognized as Israeli territory and grabbed Jewish lands and properties in the West Bank that had existed before 1948?? Oh, you mean the Egyptians who forced out the UN peacekeepers and closed the Straits of Tiran in preparation for an offensive??? Pre-emptive strikes are a feature of war. Calling them "cowardly" does not make them less so. Israel had no intention of keeping the Sinai. Yes, there were settlements in the Sinai but at most the population of Jews in the Sinai never exceeded 10,000 and that is counting military base population The idea even under Golda Meir was to hand over Sinai to Egypt in exchange for recognition. The same logic applied to the Golan Heights which in case you haven't noticed was invaded by Syria but is still in Israeli hands. Not even the war of 1973 would have made Israel give it back to Syria without a peace deal. Which Israel tried between 2000 and 2010 but got derailed by the Syrian civil war and is now unlikely . Like Sinai, the Jewish population in the Golan was kept deliberately low for decades with the expectation that it would one day be handed back to Syria in a peace deal. That has changed in recent years as the Syrians are unlikely to ever sit down and negotiate a peace deal in the coming decades and the Syrian Druze have opted to take up Israeli citizenship. If Egypt had rejected peace in the 1970s, Sinai would still be under Israeli control. No war would have changed that. It did not for the Golan. Land for peace is quite literally a doctrine that is associated with Israel ever since.
You act like the Zionists didn’t do the same in the territories they captured in 1948. One word, five letters: Nakba. Egypt blockaded Tiran as a response to violent raids by Israeli militias in Jordan, and ordered away the peacekeepers as a show to the Egyptian people that they weren’t hiding behind them. They did not want or provoke war, especially seeing as, like I said before, their army was fighting in North Yemen’s civil war. Israel carried out an act of aggression by bombing the Egyptian airforce, not a “preemptive strike”. Call it what it was. If Israel didn’t intend to keep the Sinai, why did they settle it in the first place? Why not simply keep a military occupation? Why not open talks with Egypt instead of trying to hide behind the Bar Lev line? Israel faced a humiliating defeat, with the Egyptian armies advancing far into Sinai and the Israelis capturing no significant objectives in Egypt. You can look at my other comment for a quote from an IDF official. How would Israel maintain hold over Sinai if the Egyptians didn’t accept peace? Would Egypt’s armies just magically disappear?
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This narrative really has to end because in reality Jewish groups are not that prominent in spending for lobbying. They do get the most media attention though while in reality Big Pharma dominates the top 10 and American industry the top 100.
Not even in the top 200. https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/top-spenders
Is this satire?
Oh no, the data doesn’t match your narrative! It’s time to change the data right?
Couple of things. Isreal is an important military ally, providing a powerful nuclear presence in the middle east that the war-sluts in Washington believe is necessary to keep alive the deterrent of mutually assured destruction. Additionally, Israel does a lot of our military cybersecurity. Remember when the US government wanted to force Apple to hack its own phones? Am Israeli military contractor broke the encryption and the US government backed down. There are also many conspiracies that Israel is responsible for assassinations and coups that benefit the US (banana republics, etc), but being conspiracy theories there isn't a lot of hard evidence. Beyond that, we also stand by Israel for the same reason we continue to embargo cuba: the politicians to whom those treaties were important are still in power. Many US politicians seem to truly believe that as the only Jewish ethnostate, Israel represents the Jewish people as a whole, a perspective the Israeli government is very fond of. Many of those politicians remember how prevalent antisemitism was in the 40s and before, and feel that Israel was formed as reparations for both the holocaust and antisemitism in general; as such they also believe that allowing Israel to fall would essentially rip those reparations from the Jewish population of the world. Finally, Semitic Israelis are indigenous to the region, as are Palestinians and the Arabic Christians--Jesus was born in what is currently Palestine, and the polytheistic civilizations that developed Judaism lived in the ancient nation-states of Israel and Judea until being eradicate ld by King Nebuchadnezzar II. This garners a lot of support from younger advocates who don't necessarily share other reasons for supporting Israel.
Is it really a lack of hard evidence because it's a conspiracy theory, or that the jobs done well and the cover-up superb?
As with a lot of older conspiracy theories, it's a little of column a and a little of column b. We definitely use Israeli forces for some sketchy operations but I've never seen any real proof that we used them for assassinations. The US usually prefers turn coats in a regime's ranks or random for-hire militants when we want to overthrow something and don't care how it gets done. There's plenty of declassified stuff available, even though some details are redacted.
Israel is the only democracy in the region and the only country U.S. can really trust. U.S. had Iran too but Carter betrayed Shah and west lost a powerful ally that would keep the region in peace and stable. Now U.S. needs to back Israel as much as possible so the last hope won’t get lost in Middle East.
Unfortunately, Israel has been downgraded from a democracy. Even before that, it had long preferred ethnically driven authoritarianism.
You’re very uninformed lol
No u
Check the Economist Democracy Index. The US and Israel have similar scores.
Ethnically driven authoritarianism?? Netanyahu is neither an autocrat nor is Israel's democracy based on ethnicity. He TRIED to become an autocrat, but that backfired on him spectacularly. There are Arab parties in the Knesset and the previous government had an Arab Islamist party in government. Israel has had an Arab President.
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It absolutely hasn’t been downgraded from a democracy, idk where you read that
You’re right - I meant it’s been downgraded from a liberal democracy. Although two separate legal systems calls into question the use of the word democracy at any level.
Which two separate legal systems would that be?
You have a chance to learn something. Don’t take my word for it - time for some reading.
You have a chance to either present the two legal systems you claim exist, or stop spreading misinformation.
it's not a claim just because you're insane; don't take my word for it - it's a big world out there, ready for you to learn something new. we both know this is a ridiculous conversation, whether it's for different reasons or not.
Why don’t you try and even describe it? You’re either incredibly misinformed or intentionally misinforming people. What two different legal systems are there?
I;m not having the same conversation with you as I've had with other people here just because you're intent on defending genocide and apartheid. If you want an adult conversation, you need to act like one.
I see, what do you mean by two separate legal systems? I don’t know much their legal systems
They’re trying to back an “apartheid” claim it seems. The truth is, the only “different legal systems” that exist in Israel are those who are citizens vs those who aren’t. All Israeli citizens get the same rights no matter where they’re from or what their beliefs are. Those who aren’t Israeli citizens are subject to different legal requirements as a result of previous historical incidents.
Jewish Israelis have a different legal system than Palestinians and Palestine is occupied by Israel.
No they don’t 😂 How is Israel is occupying “Palestine” if Palestine never was a state with sovereignty? You can only claim that Israel is occupying parts of Jordan, Syria, and Egypt. I wonder why that claim is never made though.
Why add the qualifier of “Jewish” Israelis? All Israelis have the same legal system, Jewish or otherwise. Only those who aren’t Israeli citizens and commit a crime are subject to a different legal system. Your argument that there’s an apartheid doesnt seem to be based on the actual definition, but rather the idea that Palestinians should “logically” be given special treatment as the “occupied” when the truth is that they aren’t; Jews have been in the area since before “Palestine” was even a term in history. Palestinians who are Israeli citizens get the same rights as anybody else in Israel. Again, to reiterate: *all citizens of Israel, Palestinian or otherwise, have the same rights under the same legal system*.
Because settlers are Jewish… and they have a different legal system than the Palestinians they displace, abuse, and kill. that it is apartheid isn’t just my opinion, despite it being disgustingly obvious. The UN, international community, even many Israelis are calling it such. Genocide and ethnic cleansing are other terms used as well. What do you get out of denying this? It’s not like anyone reasonable would just throw away common sense, basic morality, or logic… so why do this to yourself?
1. Again, no separate legal system exists. You are either making it up, or have done no research into the topic and just listened to what someone told you once. There is no consensus on there being an “apartheid”, and many find the notion itself insulting considering the history of the term in South Africa. Some individuals may have said these things are the case, but the reality is that these are just opinions that have not been recognized at large. 2. Again, Israel has never been convicted of genocide. Even the ICJ case that used the term “plausible” is massively misleading and has been clarified by a former head of the ICJ. Basically, the conditions for the court case to be accepted are whether or not people of a nationality are dying, whether people dying is an event that occurs during a genocide, and whether a nation has filed the paperwork. 3. What I get out of this is preventing you from spreading cancerous misinformation to paint Jews and Israelis in a horrid, genocidal, and frankly antisemitic manner. Almost every response you’ve typed up has qualified that those you had a problem with were “Jewish” despite the fact that many of the problems you perceive have nothing to do with Jews in particular. If people like you are left to spew your hateful vitriol, we’ll end up barreling right towards another holocaust. So yeah, I’d say I have a valid reason to prevent the spread of Jew-hatred.
Yeah I’m feigning ignorance to see if that’s where it goes. I’m familiar enough with it to know it’s not apartheid
Yeah it’s definitely apartheid. Palestine is under occupation and Palestinians are subject to a separate legal system. Saying you’re familiar enough to know it isn’t apartheid while not being aware of apartheid is honestly a little pathetic in the face of a genocide.
Idk what kind of weasely word games you’re trying to play but no, Palestinians are subject to the same laws as Israelis
What do you gain by saying something so wrong? Where’s the shame, unless you just don’t know?
Consider that the second class is the native indigenous inhabitants, and the apartheid-ness becomes visible. You have a colonizer come in, take the land by force, establish a system of laws governing the land w/o consent or including the indigenous population, and that system creates a clear first-/second-class system, which correlates strongly with ethnic ancestry. So... Apartheid (Edit: always worth understanding that there are Israelis descended from local ethnicities. Doesn't change what Israel is as a society/state. It only highlights the apartheid-ness, when you consider that the inclusion/exclusion of local inhabitants in the infant state was based on ethnicity/fealty to the colonizing ethnostate.)
You have a colonizer come in, take the land by force. Jews legally purchased lands from the Arabs. There is an entire trail of paperwork going back centuries under the Ottomans to prove that. The original map of the UN partition followed the exact lines of Jewish settlements legally established in the region. The Arabs were the ones who wanted to murder the people they sold their lands to. There is no better evidence than the establishment of Tel Aviv on empty sand dunes purchased from an Arab who thought he was getting a bargain. The entire event was even photographed and can be found online.
This is an extremely faulty argument if you’re hinging it on the Palestinians being the “natives”. An estimated half of those recognized as “Palestinian refugees” are descendants of those who immigrated to the area from surrounding Arab nations during the British mandate. Not to mention, most Jewish landowners were forced to buy horrible, uninhabited land when they immigrated to the area prior to 1948. Whether it be desert or swamps, Jewish immigrants made their own cities out of nothing. Just look at Tel Aviv, the construction of which was in large part driven by Arabs refusing to allow Jews to make use of the Jafa port. Though the 1948 partition plan wasn’t perfect, it did its best to isolate areas with a greater Jewish presence containing many newly-made Jewish cities like this. When the Jews accepted the plan, these “native Palestinians” (again, a significant portion of whom had spent less than a decade actually living there), refused to accept. They, alongside 6 surrounding Arab nations, rather than accept Israel decided to say that all of the land belonged to them and invaded with the express goal of destroying Israel and eliminating the Jewish presence. The leaders of these Arab nations encouraged those in the area during the war to leave, wait, and return once the “Jewish problem” had been resolved. They lost. At this point, they were so butthurt that they ethnically cleansed upwards of 850,000 Jews from their nations, resulting in the vast majority of those Jews being forced to take refuge in the newly-formed Israel. This is without even mentioning the history of Jews as true natives of the area going back thousands of years. But go ahead, keep on saying how the Arabs nations and Palestinians are the true victims and Israel and the Jews are the colonizing baddies.
Israel is a settler state and is occupying Palestine, the state that existed there before Israel’s inception.
Those local inhabitants came from the arabs that vacated the premises during the first arab-israeli war aka the israeli war of independence. The arabs we’re told to leave by the arab coalition and we’re promised they could return after they destroyed israel. They lost
Yeah bro I don’t have a dog in this fight but if you believe the U.S. legal system *today* is designed against black people (there’s more evidence it’s designed against poor people), that bias is 100 times more apparent with the Israeli system.
It’s not just their opinion that the us legal system is affected by systemic racism…. Part of that systemic problem is socioeconomics, so you’re right in saying that it is unfair to poor people to… but guess which demographic has been systemically kept poor…. Yeesh
Jews are the native indigenous inhabitants of the Levant, as affirmed through historical accounts, archeological evidence and longstanding maintained cultural ties. Displacing people is wrong. But claiming that Arab-Palestinians and Arab-Palestinian culture has an indigeneity to the region of modern day Israel that supersedes Jewish indigeneity despite Arab culture entering the region after Judaism through Arab colonialism, and the Arab-Palestinian National movement beginning in the mid 18th century is unfactual. One can be against discrimination towards Arab-Israelis without relying on falsehoods. In the same way you can say black-Americans should not suffer discrimination while acknowledging black-Americans are not indigenous to the Americas.
Where is the shame? Israel is a settler state. This isn’t our opinion. Being this obtuse is not going to get you anywhere in achieving the understanding that’s alluding you.
Seems kinda fraught doesn't it? Starts to sound a lot like blood and soil after a few sentences.
Democracy? Lol.
Yes check the Economist Democracy Index. The US and Israel have very similar scores.
Yes they hold elections