Seriously, why is the USA supporting Israel?
The US is supporting Israel through what we can mostly all agree is a genocide of the Gazans. Clearly, Biden isn't a genocidal maniac, yet he's all in with unwavering support. Why are we doing this? There has to be a logical reason that isn't just "we want Israel to kill everyone in Gaza and take their land a la lebensraum."
We know this is an emotional topic, so please be respectful of each other so that we can have open and clear authentic discussion on the matter.
This alliance allows the US to maintain a stronger foothold in the Middle East and exert hegemonic power via proxy.
This isn't the only reason, of course, but it's part of it.
Read a lot of answers and yours is succinct.
~ Alexander Haig
The rest was true but this one is complete BS
That and Israel wouldn't hesitate a second before switching sides and allying with Russia and/or China.
It also allows Israel and other relugional institutions to influence US politics.
Who is the hegemon, the vassal or the collector?
Biden said it himself back in the day, its a foothold in the Middle East, "if israel did not exist we would need to create an israel" im paraphrasing but the clip is on YouTube
Everyone that understands military doctrine would understand that one of the main purposes of Israel was to act as a staging ground to extend power throughout the middle east. There is also a sizeable voting block of christians that place special emphasis on the formation and continued support of Israel.
This is the only correct answer here. Everything else is just uneducated and emotional ramblings.
Why do we need a foothold there?
There are oceans between us and our enemies.
Let’s just fucking leave and let them come to us
Same reason why Pearl Harbor was a thing. Reaction time, faster reach, strategic location, etc.
Or we can use one of the many many other bases we have around there, like the one in jordan
The US supports plenty of fucked up countries because we gain something from them. In the same way Saudi Arabia supplies us oil, Israel provides an American stronghold in the middle east to operate out of. With the political importance and violent instability of the middle east the US finds Israel a necessity to its ambitions.
Let's be honest, there's a shit ton of money involved as well. From campaign donations to the military industrial complex, people are getting paid by Israel and jewish persons. They have a powerful lobby and influential people around the nation.
Oh and Prilosec is made in Israel I believe.
Also worth noting Israel is very advanced with respect to cybersecurity. Considering they provide tools like Pegasus to US intelligence agencies, I'm sure the agencies value this relationship very much.
Domestically within USA there are plentiful of issues. These can be seen as opportunities for collaboration & create solutions.
Honest/ Legit Question; Why not refocus efforts, resources, skills with experience on improving their own country in various ways? There are so much value to be gained, instead of utilizing so much resources in other regions/ countries - that don't welcome them.
Why bother being involved in Middle East, when if they actually work/ utilize similar amounts of resources within their borders, the country as a whole could reach results that would envy others. Isn't that what patriotism means? There are plethora of opportunities to be gained! But it's being so neglected.
In transportation, health, education, nature, finances (solving various debts), jobs, scientific explorations, improved overall living, safety, etc....
They have historic ties and Israel is an important strategic ally in the middle east for the US.
Roughly 4 out of 5 companies I've seen that have received investments in my industry in the past 5 years have been Israel R&D startup companies.
Not my wheel house, but if I had to guess, the ruling class in the states has a lot of investments tied up in Israel.
Take with a grain of salt, as this is just an anecdotal observation.
I like how you add error bars to your statement. More people should post like that.
They want an ally in the middle east? A bunch of countries in that area don't like them.
Israel is a military toehold in the region. Israel desperately needs our help, so we help Israel because it allows us to have someone who desperately needs our help in the region.
Without US money there’d be no Iron Dome. There’d be no Israel of any kind. Israel needs the US, and that is why we chose Israel as our local ally.
From Machiavelli’s The Prince:
Considering a selfish, manipulative, ahem Machiavellian worldview, the reason the US supports Israel is because Israel is the local minor power, which can only become the local major power with our help.
With US help, Israel is on top over there. Without it, Israel is a minor power. That is why Israel, specifically, gets our military investments.
Israel does not need our help, they could easily defend themselves against their neighbor and as a nuclear armed country they know the US will jump in to defend them.
A country of less than 9.5 million people cannot afford to fund the occupation and blockade of 5.5 million Palestinians alone, still less make all the weapons required.
And yet they are writing checks that the US has to cash
They don't need to, they just need to verify their Sampson defense and no one would dare attempt an invasion, it's quite literally the only reason their country isn't a smouldering crater.
You're not wrong about the nukes. You're wrong about Israel not needing support from the US to continue existing in its current form, which is the point I addressed.
In the early decades, they flirted with the USSR to keep the US onside. The nuclear threat now performs at least some of the same blackmail. But the blackmail is necessary because this is a tiny country keeping millions of people under brutal occupation. It is not physically possible for Israel to have the Occupation without bucketloads of funding from a superpower.
It's absolutely possible, you seem to ignore the technological and firepower disparity and focusing solely on military size.
Iran is 14th Israel is 17th and that's ignoring a nuclear arsenal.
I think this issue is also more nuanced than you'll see it given credit for in the media.
I think there's some strong "War in Iraq" parallels that can be drawn that might help reflect why the US is reacting the way they are.
To summarize, small group of terrorists commit an attack that is one of the worst in the nations history. This country that was attacked has a much better funded military, and they roll in to exact retribution, notionally under the banner of "stopping the people who did this and not letting it happen again." The war of revenge is hugely detrimental to the civilian population therein, and human rights violations occur.
Most establishment politicians were/are fully on board with the War in Iraq. Why wouldn't they be on board with Israel right now? It's basically the same situation again.
I think that a lot of what you see online forgets that this wasn't some random thing where Israel just decided to commit a genocide out of nowhere. But just like how 9/11 didn't justify the War in Iraq, 10/7 doesn't justify what's happening now. But it's somewhat understandable why it's happening, and why people support it.
I remember right after 9/11, the vast majority of people were on board with sending troops in. The dissenters were super few and far between. This is just that again, but Israel this time.
Iraq didn't have anything to do with 9-11. I think you mean Afghanistan.
Oh how soon we all forget...
You are technically correct. The best kind of correct. :)
I was using "The War in Iraq" as a cover term for the whole ongoing conflict that arose in the aftermath of 9/11.
I think that your point actually furthers my parallel though. As the US was in Afghanistan, the Bush Administration's obsession with Iraq ended up with them pushing questionable Intel that there were Al Queda controlled WMDs in Iraq, and that we had to invade there as well if we really wanted to win the war.
There's a pretty clear parallel between that logic and the "Hamas Tunnels" arguments we're hearing out of Israel at the moment.
One day they will release the full uncut and unedited videos of the tunnels so we can see where they all started, ran, and ended.
Probably any day now with how good the deepfakes are getting
Understand this, all reading this thread, though:
The DarkHexad of human-evil's dimensions, is:
The more abused some population is, the more they become embedded in DarkHexad mind/meaning.
Hamas went nihilist.
They knew that Israel'd commit to genociding all Palestinians, to all the extent they could, and that's why they did the attack.
Israel's now is demonstrating its nihilism/sadism so blatently that their "deterrent" is being permanently corroded-away:
Within a few years, the surrounding Muslim region won't care how much damage/violence Israel does to them while they're annihilating Israel, they'll HAVE TO annihilate Israel, at ANY cost.
Israel's guaranteeing its own within-decade annihilation.
Exactly as Hamas' ( either unconsciously or consciously ) strategy determined.
Israel walked into the trap, they ate the bait.
2 millenia ago, the ONLY Jew in the world that no Zionist would tolerate to have any validity, Yehoshua "Jesus" benJoseph, warned that when the abomination Daniel spoke-of was becoming real, that Israel would be annihilated.
( Matt 24, iirc .. here, I dug it up, just in case anybody wants to read the actual text: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matt+24%3A15-22&version=AMPC )
Perfect & correct warning.
Within 1 decade, Israel's going to be annihilated, exactly as benJoseph warned, and the Zionists, themselves, are the ones enforcing that no alternative-future can happen.
Comical, really: one's-own ideology/prejudice absolutely determining one's fate, in a way that makes one's most-hated-individual proven-right.
"Deterrent" only works when the ones hating your life are hesitating because of their aversion to the harm you can do them.
Israel's not going to have any "deterrent" soon.
And they're too ideology/prejudice rabid to know that simple human-nature meaning.
When, in a decade, perhaps less, Israel's been annihilated, how is the rest of the Middle East, now committed/allied with BRICS, going to tilt the world's geopolitical table?
No matter: Trump's already said he'll "delete" the constitution, leave NATO, back Russia, create crime in Washington DC, be dictator, & "MAGA", right?
That is going to happen, unfortunately, and the incompetence of the Biden-institution is playing directly into handing the entire US into Trump-cult's hands.
The economic rug-pull that they're delaying can't be held-back forever, either.
Backlash-vote always torpedoes the incumbents, in that situation.
It doesn't even matter if legalism "prohibits" Trump becoming GEOTUS, now: legalists ignore all the letter-of-the-law that contradicts their intention, ..
.. and that is sooo traditional for legalists that benJoseph railed against their doing that 2 millenia ago.
Something like "you who hold the letter-of-the-law rules, who ignore even 1 part, are guilty of ALL", iirc.
That is exactly the nature of the legalism of nowadays.
The real game going-on is that human-unconscious-ignorance is trying to enforce a simplistic "mythic" "importance" through global tantrum/pogrom.
And arguing with humanity's unconscious-toddler .. requires a bit of rather-brutal experience-induced-understanding enforcement, and that isn't going to happen until "armageddon" has beaten that understanding into our unconscious.
The Great Filter.
Won't-grow-up is the most-fundamental religion, in our unconscious.
_ /\ _
Nobody else has pointed out that theres roughly as many Jewish people in the US as in Israel. Which in the run-up to an election is not a voting base you would want to upset.
Jews are not a uniform voting bloc, divided on many issues, Israel being one of them.
In the 1980s through the aughts, it was a lot easier to turn a blind eye to the inhumane treatment of Palestinians because media agencies controlled the narrative. Once the internet allowed for unvetted video to leak the pubic have a better grasp on what is actually going on.
In other controversies, the ubiquity if phone cameras plays a significant part, but I don't know how many phone cameras are in Palestine.
I think it is this, how the internet affects narratives of violence against oppressed peoples, that drives the save the kids from the internet policies like KOSA and SESTA/FOSTA. The US federal government doesn't really care about children, but it does care about leaks that embarrass the administration or the state.
I think this is a good observation, though I'm not exactly sure how it applies to my comment, unless you're trying to imply that people as a whole, Jews included, are more divided on Israel today than in the 80's because they have better access to information from more varied perspectives.
I'd say that sounds true.
Never said that they were, but I imagine theres a notable percentage who would be very single issue on the subject.
And do Israeli people actually approve of this genocide?
Several things to consider.
Much of the information the Israels get is controlled. Many probably aren't aware how bad the genocide is (and the it is genocide).
Most Israels have been subject to ongoing missile attacks and bombings their whole lives. Everyone there knows someone hurt or killed in an attack. They just want it to stop.
I don't say this to in any way condone the genocide. I'm fully against the genocide. But, this is a complex issue with a lot of factors on both sides that can drive normally reasonable people to do bad things.
Well if they want it to stop they sure have a funny way of showing it, what with all the new fighters they just made.
You can’t even really blame the ones that just signed up, if someone did to me what Israel did to them, I would have a rifle in my hands too
After 40+ years of missiles, it's fair to say, the other options weren't working either. The Israel extremists currently in charge, are trying to make it impossible for the few Palestines left to attack them. If you look at what they're doing to Gaza, it is total scorched earth. There are no buildings left standing to launch missiles from.
Ultimately, I think your right, it's just going to perpetuate the cycle.
Personally I don't think there's any hope for the area. You have two groups that want to destroy each other on every level. Religion sucks.
Other options being what? Occupation, apartheid, and oppression? That's the only thing they've done. "We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas!"
ROFL, actually they tried being good neighbors. The other countries tried to wipe them off the planet multiple times.
What Israel is currently doing is horrible. But don't act like they are some master evil here. There have been many times over the last 40-50 years where Israel has been open to peace and the current terrorist group (or neighboring country) at that time destroyed it. I mean Hamas's FIRST article of their charter was the destruction of Israel.
BOTH SIDES, are evil here.
Yes, they were pretty good neighbors in the beginning, up until they started trying to take everyone's land and set up a state in the middle of another state, or what should have been another state if Britain had kept their promise instead of fucking things up like Europe always does. That would start a war anywhere. Imagine if China carved out the Midwest of the US for the Uyghurs as a way to get rid of them with the excuse that they needed to be protected. It would be fine if a bunch moved there and bought houses, like normal refugees, but it's a problem when the rest of the world decides Ohio is there's now, especially when they defend it with right-wing paramilitaries as part of an active settler colonial project. And also especially when it caused the displacement of tens of thousands of people to Canada. Of course the US and Canada would retaliate, especially if they were never consulted on this "deal" in the first place. It wouldn't matter if the UN said it was legal and all above board because a paper said so. People would be rightfully pissed off. Not because they were Islamaphobic but because their land was being taken, and not for anything they did, but because people in other parts of the world did genocide, now you and your grandparents lose their house.
Hamas was blowback from this process, as much as slave raids on innocent white households, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, violent resistance by the ANC in South Africa, or Native American raids. They didn't even appear until 1987, decades after nearly hundreds of thousands had already died or been displaced. No wonder they have something against Israel. Terrorists aren't great people, news flash, but Israel's actions cause terrorists. And they prefer that. It gives them carte blanche to keep Palestinians divided and keep taking territory. It's already been revealed that was Netanyahu's strategy when they gave suitcases of cash to Hamas through Qatar. And they strategically take territory to prevent a contiguous state. Hamas isn't great but they are a consequence of Israel's action. They have all the power here. Look at the graphs of deaths between the two sides.
Israel has never been open to peace. They always kind of make it look like it, but the deals they set always show otherwise. Go by actions, not words. They never acknowledge things like right to return for Palestinians, or they require their military to stay in the area, or they want mineral or oil rights, or air space control, or they don't acknowledge and deal with the settlements in the West Bank, or something else is in the deal that makes it impossible to take by the Palestinians. Basically they always make sure it's a deal that Palestine can't take without pissing off their whole populace. Even allied negotiators have admitted they wouldn't take the deals Israel has offered before. When Palestinians are at a new point of debasement and desperation, and ready for the old deal, Israel always moves the goalposts again. These "negotiations" offer the opportunity for international legitimacy and cover, but that's about it. They'll do things like be negotiating with the PLO and then stop because Hamas randomly did an attack. It's ridiculous.
Israel doesn't even like their horrible, one-sided deals, as revealed by Rabin's assassination for even trying. Bibi's recent comments about a no two solution is just telling the truth after years of gaslighting the world. The mask is off because they're doing a genocide so there's no real reason to hide it anymore. But, as emotional as I sound, I am open to changing my mind, so let me know when there's been a legitimate peace attempt by Israel and I'll at least acknowledge that much.
A sizable portion does. And the whole political system is built such that the extremists get a disproportionate say in policy.
Strategic military foothold in the Middle East.
Israel's an ally and America doesn't exactly have the moral high ground to stand on cutting off israel for terror bombing civlians in the middle east.
More practically, Biden seems to think he can negotiate more from israel by playing at being on their side in this conflict than by joining the international condemnation against them, and to his credit he has achieved concessions from israel in the hypothetical post war, and managed hostage swaps between israel and hamas.
Lastly there's the old saying about never letting a good crisis go to waste, the houthis have gone and made absolute asses of themselves with their red sea blockade over this war, and the US and KSA MICs are both explosively orgasmic at the campaign against them going from being labelled a humanitarian disaster to suddenly being a borderline service to the international community.
The longer Israel keeps it up, the longer the Houthis keep making everyone hate them, the longer MBS has to wipe what he sees as one of his biggest security threats off the map without catching flak from most of the international community. You could almost argue that Israel and KSA are passing the "everyone hates us!" ball back and forth to cover for each other's designs on complete subjugation of their immediate neighbors.
Hypothetical concessions.
Pray I don’t alter it any farther
The reason I say hypothetical is because they're conditioned on Fatah taking over
So basically Israel agreed to it under the pretense that they'd still get to wipe out Hamas
And my point was that they will do it either way regardless of what they say now.
That is what I meant by hypothetical, that they are lying
Western powers support Israel because the Middle East is a strategically important region and Western powers have exactly one reliable partner there. I mean, look at what the House of Saud can get away with just for being a semi-reliable partner.
How exactly is Israel reliable when they do whatever they want regardless of western powers?
6 day war proved that Israel is not only an ideal staging ground but can basically just go out and kick the entire neighborhood's ass all on their own, so having them on side for an actual throwdown in the region is seen as incredibly valuable for NATO war gamers considering hypothetical wars with Iran or even Russia if they decide to step too far over their side of the caucuses.
So long as they control their turf absolutely, and will attack whatever they're pointed at, not attacking what they aren't is seen as less of a problem
people actually believe this shit. 🤦♂️
israel has always, since its inception has been propped up by western powers. Just because you don't see them hoisting up a different flag than their own, doesn't mean they are fighting anyone alone.
This is like US boasting they alone kicked the british out without any assistance.
Sending them weapons isn't propping them up quite the same way the US got the assist from France Spain and the Netherlands, n'or were the arab states the same kind of comparative force that the brits were to the colonists, also Israel was initially a Soviet ally before the suez crisis.
Also, saying it doesn't count because Israel bought an overwhelming kit advantage is like saying Cannae didn't count because Hannibal "cheated" by facing off with the Romans so they'd be facing into a dust storm.
As reliable as Trump?
And let's not forget ol Saddam in the 80s
Don't discount the fact that Israel supported us in every way when 9/11 happened. I firmly believe every favor is being called in at this point.
Yeah, supported the US by knowing about the attacks and celebrating with photos on Sept 10th and having Bush and Ashcroft fly the mossad agents back to Israel.
https://www.mintpressnews.com/newly-released-fbi-docs-shed-light-on-apparent-mossad-foreknowledge-of-9-11-attacks/258581/
Israel is no friend. The last time a US naval ship was attacked and destroyed was USS Liberty
So did China and Russia
I am more curious as to why these completely legal (non rule breaking or trolling comments) are being deleted by lemmy moderation. My app shows removed comments.
If you think you are seeing what people really think of the conflict on this site, you are not. Agendas are being pushed
We need more transparency and community engagement. I think instead of someone being banned or their comment being removed, it should go up for a vote between a random selection of users.
Sort of like the criminal justice system. Be judged by a jury of your peers. Not just some arbitrary official who decides your fate and you have zero recourse.
It was getting a bit too based. People are stating to realize that there is very little difference between israel and the Nazi's expanding their Lebensraum.
After that, you ask the question if fighting back against Nazi's is justified, but answering that is not allowed yet.
Christofascists and Zionists are pretty good friends, and as they are at the head of both countries it's pretty reasonable for them to support eachother country.
It's the same picture. Evangelical Christians are Zionists, because the Jews returning to the Holy Land is a precondition for the Rapture.
(They don't actually give a flying fuck about the Jewish people themselves, to be clear. They just wanna get Raptured.)
You're underestimating the impact of their hatred of Muslims. They looooove this. Two kinds of infidel killing each other? The kind they admit needs to exist killing the kind they don't?
They're all hard as rocks.
This. They believe Jews belong in Israel which will bring the 2nd coming of Jesus and the rapture.
It's called Christian dominionism.
Money.
The US had no essential friends in the Middle East. So the UK made one for them.
That's not super true. We've been friends with various Middle Eastern countries over the decades, including Iran (especially during the reign of the Shah), Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan. We've worked with all of them.
That's the friend circle your mom tells you not to hang out with
You are no longer friends with Iran.
Saudi Arabia is probably the only one who you guys are still kinda friends with, but I think even they are starting to get tired of you.
You invaded Afghanistan. They now have a government that despises you.
Same with Iraq.
Pakistan is also friends with China, nay, especially with China.
https://www.aipac.org/ is an influential lobbying organization. Your elected leaders listen to influential lobbying organizations.
As a US citizen, I really wish we wouldn't. I know a lot of us are against it too.
Thank god you're are in inconsequential but very vocal minority.
I really don't think we are a minority.
Money
The simplest and most concise answer.
We also like to support the only democracy in the middle East. But yeah, mostly money / self interest.
1 trillion dollars and countless American lives to bring democracy to Iraq, and people still trotting out the "Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East" line.
About 30% of it is the end of the world cult that believes that for Jesus to come back to take them Israel must exist.
The rest is just the usual reasons they love bombing the middle east.
Where is that in the Bible anyway?
Is it revelations or one of the old prophecies?
The military industrial complex needed some new juice after the US left Afghanistan. Those businesses can't scale back and the defense budget can't be reduced, no, never.
Biden may not be a genocidal maniac, but he is a warmonger. I'm hoping his presidency will get people to realize that the Democratic party desires war just as much as Republicans, but that doesn't look like it's happening
Nope they all still want to suck his dick. Biden bro’s and trumpers have a lot more in common than not.
Because Isreal is a leading military power in the Middle East. They are Western in most of their views and the US can deal with them. You can’t say the same about any of the other Middle Eastern nations.
Israel is coming down hard on Gaza and Hamas to make an example of them. They are going to send that strip back to the Stone Age. This operation is a statement, “this is what happens when you fuck with us. “
No other Middle Eastern powers give a shit about Gaza. They make noises to appease their populations. But no other Nation has offered direct military assistance or action.
In short it would be stupid to drop Israel as an ally over this.
God forbid we stop calling someone an ally when they kill 20,000 people in less than 6 months
Look, I agree that Isreal needs to do more to protect Gazan citizens. And to deal with the present situation you need to ignore about 2000 years of history. With that said, when your neighbor is a terrorist group with the EXPLICIT AIM of eradicating the state of Israel, and they launch indiscriminate terrorist attacks on you, and deliberately hide among civilian populations to maximize casualties, what are your options except a land invasion to remove them from power, even though you know there will be civilian deaths?
I mean you could start by not shooting aid trucks, killing people with their hands up and shirts off, not blowing up ambulances on their way to save six year olds.
That’s just me though
War always has civilian deaths. It's an unfortunate consequence.
This is different. Gaza is being flattened by the indiscriminate bombing. Its ridiculous.
It's not ridiculous. It's the point. Lives are the currency. Hamas has one value Israel has another. The exchange rate is far from even.
Morality doesn't exist on the scale of nations.
It'll all make a lot more sense in a few years, when the Lord Jesus Christ descends from the clouds to collect his chosen. Let's just say you'll be pretty glad we killed all those Palestinian kids then. It's pretty basic foreign policy stuff, if you read your Bible.
I'm pretty sure the text says that 144,000 Jews will be saved, which was an absurdly high number at the time and if you told John of Patmos that there are ≈2,400,000 Jews living in the United States alone, he'd bawk and ask "There's HOW MANY Jews WHERE??"
Edit: it's been a while since I've read Revelations, and it's a buck wild fever dream of a text, but I think the 144k are only the batch of people initially saved and the rest face judgement after a 7 eyed and 7 horned ram takes the right of a gold and gem encrusted throne at which seats descendant-from-Heaven Jesus with a flaming sword protruding from his mouth.
Revelations was written by John, his accounts of everything differ from the other big 3 in multiple places, he liked metaphors
Metaphors and healthy doses of mind-shattering hallucinogens.
Your wit was lost on someone, but I give you +1
Once that red heifer is born and sacrificed we're gonna see some serious shit
Because while "what we can mostly all agree" to that, Biden does not think that Israel is engaged in genocide.
Just because a group of people perceive something to be the absolute truth, doesn't mean everyone interpret reality the same way.
One thing I haven't seen mentioned is how the Jewish were treated by all countries in WWII. Going against Israel gives the opposing party ammunition that only works due to most people not understanding the politics at play
Because Israel helped the US a ton during the cold war. Mossad are pretty good at what they do, and what they did a lot of was spying on Moscow.
Except when it comes to defending their own country from their technologically inferior neighbor.
Because history is never the result of good or bad intentions, as much as propaganda would try and convince you otherwise
The same reason Russia and North Korea are supporting Palestine.
If it looks like a genocidal maniac, and it quacks like a genocidal maniac...
HAMAS, Hezbollah, Houthis, Islamic Jihad, Ayatollah Khamenei, Putin, Xi Jingping... anyone? Literally genocidal maniacs with openly hateful plans and views on the world.
To fund the military industrial complex.
Politics baby
It’s really complicated.
Imagine if after 9/11, Bin Laden and al-Qaeda were held up in New Jersey, and had been launching small attacks to New York for years prior. They are intertwined into New Jersey and don’t operate like a nation state. Now imagine the US is the size of New York, and they are bordered by several other countries that basically want to wipe them off the face of the earth so they fund Al-Qaeda to do their dirty work.
Israel is in an extremely vulnerable position, and there’s no great answer. Remember the conflict in this area is practically older than recorded history. Hamas isn’t going to surrender, and obviously aren’t centralized to be taken out.
War sucks.
That was a very normal sounding response with a wide view while offering little information. I both appreciated and hate it.
How can a body of water stretch so far, yet be so shallow?
That’s the point. It’s an example of something you could better relate to. If you want more information, you’ve got a lot of history to read up on.
Money.
The history of the conflict is pretty complicated. As far as US support goes, the US can utilize Israel and wars as a destabilizing force in middle east which is beneficial to the Military Industrial Complex, and influence in the region with Hard/Soft Power. Reductively, because of Money and Power.
Initially as an anti Soviet position under LBJ
And especially to sell weapons under Reagan
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/16/why-israel-allies-explainer
The US has been supporting the ethnic cleansing of Palestine since the 1967 war and the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, and that position has led to the US supporting the ongoing genocide in Gaza today.
Biden is also a strong Zionist, so... There's that too
you really need to go back and look at the history of post WWII. How that cookie crumbled has set the world stage for where it is today. Israel is part of a long term geopolitical chess game that hasn't fully played out yet.
What’s the endgame?
You know how abused children grow up and often repeat their trauma on children, grandchildren, etc? That's Israel. The never again mental mentality means the state of Israel is literally repeating everything that happened to 1930s and 40s Jews. I'm waiting for IDF to start building large incinerators in northern gaza. And it's not hyperbole or exaggeration. Just look at the slow steady push of Gazans to the south and the destruction and deaths.
for the US to have a vassal state in the middle east.
"It is important that whatever you do succeeds quickly. We would be able to influence the reaction in America if whatever happens happens after we return."
Israel is an ally in the middle east, the only one who does what the US says whenever they say it.
spits out coffee
Israel does what they want.
Their interests align with ours more often than, say, Syria, but they are not a puppet state. Israel tells US foreign policy to go fuck itself sideways on a regular basis.
Interesting, What are some examples of this?
We don't, our government it's
Racism.
You can see that by how American politicians go on and on about Israel being a "Jewish Nation", a characteristic that is wholly unimportant unless ones is a racist.
Since WWII and what was done to millions of Jewish people because of their etnicity (and not only them: there is this "strange" forgetfulness that for example people were also being exterminated for having the Roma etnicity) by the German racists that, even though the racism itself never died, Jews became "one of us" for the racists in many countries with a predominant white majority (in other words, they're considered just another kind of "white").
Israel itself seems to have invested a lot into portraying itself as a "Western Nation" to further entrench and capitalize on that "one of us" perception in Western nations,
Palestinians, on the other hand are seen by the racists as "muslims" and as some call it "brown people", with quite a lot of nasty prejudices associated with both characteristics.
For the racists this is an "people like us" vs "them" fight, hence why even very overt and extreme racist statement of the Israelis like calling Palestinians "human animals" don't shock them (they're pretty much aligned with the racists' prejudices about "muslims" and "non-whites") and hence too the vastly different reaction from how the invasion of Ukraine by Russia was seen, since that one from a racist point of view was "people like us" vs "people like us".
This, by the way, also explains Germany's behaviour on this: the Nazis might have been kicked out of power there but that very "special" way of looking at other human beings as primarily members of an etnicity and "like us" or "not like us" has never left, so Israel gets unwavering support no matter what and that's very overtly stated as because "they're the Jewish Nation" (notice how it's people etnicity that determines if support is given).
What should we do? Hamas kidnapped a bunch of people and is still holding them hostage. Hamas has been launching missiles at civilians for decades now.
Israel is not without guilt, but the everyone else [with any power] is at least as bad.
There are no good answers. All options are bad. The only question is what is the least bad, and that seems to be supporting Israel while putting pressure on them to stop settlements and be careful about non-Hamas civilians. Not a good option, but the is nothing else that is better. (including walking away from the whole region)
Hamas didn't flatten an Israeli city with bombs. They didn't starved population, killed journalists and bombed hospitals.
Israel is on the verge of genocide here. War crimes are obvious.
Even 1000 hostages don't warrant 10000 deaths. And Israel is far, far beyond 10k kills in Gaza now.
What should you do? Maybe start to consider the people in Gaza like human being for a start.
HAMAS continues to strike civilians in Israel every day, Hamas did 7th of October, a terror attack equivalent to 17 whole 9/11s, Hamas still holds hundreds of hostages. Genocide of the Jews is still their main agenda.
How many killed? I'm not defending the hamas BTW. But supporting Israel is exactly like supporting Russia in Ukraine.
How are they in any way the same? Russia attacked Ukraine with no provocation, Hamas committed terrorist atrocities and Israel are responding. Yes, they aren't taking nearly enough care to prevent civilian deaths, but there is some attempt to do so - Hamas deliberately targeted civilians including beheading and oven cooking babies.
This is not the same at all. Also Hamas deliberately base themselves in schools, hospitals and residential buildings using Palestinians as a human shield.
By turning this into a numbers game (as if one human life lost isn't too many) you are defending Hamas.
Oh shit!
Here we go with those 40 decapitated babies again.
Y’know I hear Israelis fill their menorahs with Palestinian infant’s blood on Hanukkah
You don't believe that Hamas killed babies? Or targeted civilians? Or raped women?
I can believe all of that, what I don’t believe is them deliberately decapitating babies or baking them.
It’s really easy to throw extra vicious complaints about someone and then back way off and say “Oh, you don’t believe they were doing these other lesser things either.”
It’s very disingenuous and shows that they don’t actually believe their claims, but that they are trying to conflate the two to confuse people.
That isn’t what you’re doing is it?
I don't think I'm doing that. I do believe the cousins about the babies. Whatever one thinks about Israel and the whole situation there - from full throated supporter right through to anti semitic holocaust denier - I and convinced Hamas are utterly evil and in no way a friend is the Palestinian people. If Israel are committing genocide (and I don't believe they are, though I'd like to see them put much more effort into not hitting civilians) then those poor people are being destroyed by two groups either side of them with no where to go to escape.
I'd defend hamas every day of the weak if it's what it takes to fight fascism and genocide. But I'm not. You are defending fascism and genocide though. Israel killed 10 times more civilians than hamas, and numbers are still counting.
You are the one defending terrorism here. Not me. Get your logic straight.
Oh shit they killed 14000 people on 10/7? I missed that
So give them everything they want, while their government continues to admit they have no intention of listening to the us?
Fuck that, bring all of our ships back and let Israel get what they paid for.
Because they love their colonial overlords, the UK, and the UK gave part of palestina to the jews to create Israel?
Must be something like that, or just plain longing to influence a tiny part of the world that is close to the area that has a tad of oil in the ground.
At this point if anyone is the satellite state between the US and UK it's the UK.
Try one of the largest supplies of Natural Gas in the world
Israel wants to kill everyone in
Gazathe Middle East and take their land a la Lebensraum. (They want to take Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt too (and even Turkey))America wants to control the middle east so they can control the oil.
Our entire modern society revolves around oil.
Gazans themselves seem to agree with the US and Israel in that it's all HAMAS's fault. The 7th of October was 9/11 times 17, hostages are still in captivity, random rocket strikes on Israeli civilians are still continuing and the blind Islamic hatred against the Jews is here to stay. What are you proposing Israel does?
Military Intelligence and small strike teams kill less civilians than bombing schools and hospitals.
The killed 34000 people on 10/7!?!
The media has been hiding this!!!
Israel got attacked by terrorists, Israel is now trying to kill those terrorists.
That's about it, really.
I will say what, said in another comment:
Or do you call it peace when Israel do illegal settlements in the Westbank, prison Palestinians, Apartheid and ridicule Palestinians for no reasons.
In that sense you can say; Israel is a terrorist state in the eyes of the Palestinians.
Stop pretending that it started on 7 oct. It never started at that date. It didn’t even start in 1948 but that’s the moment when Israel stole the majority of the land (the Nakba).
I don't agree with what Hamas did but after being driven out their land, homes, ridiculed, murdered. Apartheid. It is understandable at one point some lose their sanity and will have only hatred in their hearts.
Do realize they lost everything they ever cared for. Land stolen, homes stolen, families and friends murdered.
Sweet summer child.
...and is indiscriminately killing civilians in the process.
The babies are hummus!
The toddlers are hummus!
The trailer full of flour, the girl trapped in the car, the people in the DESIGNATED SAFE ZONES?
All hummus