omw_68
3hr ago
The whole point I am making is that religious Zionist parties (excluding Likud, which has always had a religious Zionist faction which has become more significant over time) went from 9 Knesset seats in 1992 (when the Rabin government that did Oslo was elected) to 19 in 2026 (if you allocate half of B'Yachad's seats to Naftali Bennet), due to a change in Israeli demographics. Religious Zionists would definitely reject the hypothetical deal you discuss, and Netanyahu built his political career based on opposition to the "worse deals in the past" that Israel accepted, so I suspect most Likudniks would as well.
Well can we agree that if Religious Zionists were calling the shots, then at a minimum they would (1) annex all of area C; (2) restore Jewish settlements to Gaza; and (3) open southern Lebanon to settlements?
omw_68
3hr ago
They’re permanent as far as public opinion and culture goes.
I disagree with this as well. Certainly there are some parts of the United States where the public opinion and culture is very much opposed to abortion. Given the strong growth rates of very religious populations, I would expect this opposition to grow.
omw_68
4hr ago
I mean with abortion we have lost on it on most ballot measures. Minus a few states. I think there is some truth to what he is saying.
I'm not sure I understand your point here. I'm simply saying that in 1973, progressives had a huge win on abortion -- abortion was recognized as a right everywhere in the United States. After years of tireless effort and a good deal of luck, that right was recently rolled back, at least to some extent. This seems to go against the idea that the Left's victories are permanent.
But if Israeli demographics mean that the Netanyahu coalition will be in power most of the time going forwards, then Israel is not offering normalcy (reasonably secure property rights, protection from criminal attacks by radical settlers, freedom of movement within sufficiently large contiguous areas to support a viable economy) to the Palestinian population of the West Bank
I disagree with this, but here's a thought experiment: Suppose that (1) the Israelis were offered a deal - total peace but they had to withdraw to the 1948 line and uproot J & S settlers just like they did with settlers in Gaza; and (2) somehow it was a credible offer. Would they take it? Obviously the answer is "yes" given that they accepted much worse deals in the past. So unless you believe that at some point the Israeli mentality fundamentally changed, it seems pretty clear that the saying still holds.
To be sure, there is definitely some element of the Jewish population in Israel which is the mirror image of the Arabs, i.e. they want a greater Israel with no Arabs at all. But it seems pretty clear that this element is not in control.
omw_68
4hr ago
Sorry, I still remember the three months you thought you were winning the Iran war. You spent the whole time trying to convince us that now Turkey is the new great satan and threat to the free world.
Could you link to that post? I think you are confusing me with someone else.
omw_68
5hr ago
I think this is what Dennis Mangan used to call "Despair Porn." Yes, there's a ratcheting problem, but (1) there are other issues in play (differential birth rates; internal conflict; etc.); and (2) history shows that some progressive wins are temporary (e.g. prohibition and abortion)
Argumentatively, it is convenient
Conflict theory, perhaps?
Israel is unfortunately not the only militarist-expansionist country in the world
As a side note, this is about as wrong as wrong can be. But I guess one could say that "argumentatively" it's convenient to label Israel this way? Ditto for the accusation of atrocities?
Seriously, if you object to America's treatment of Israel, or of Israel's conduct, it's best to lay your true objection plainly. Like, if you don't think Israel should be making war in Gaza, please just say so. Implying that Israel is trying to take Gaza as if it's a game of Risk is just silly. Obviously tomorrow morning Bibi could have breakfast in Gaza City; Cairo; Damascus, Anman; or Beirut if he wanted to. Probably within a month Israel could take over each neighboring country if it wanted to.
omw_68
8hr ago
What does "stopping military aid to Israel" actually mean?
I take it to mean that the US would stop with the annual grant of credit to Israel (at the moment $3.8 billion) which Israel uses to purchase American military hardware. When people complain about US foreign aid to Israel, I'm pretty sure that's what they are referring to.
omw_68
8hr ago
I'm not a US citizen (and Germany is not about to follow suit any time soon), but if I were I think I would be about 50% satisfied if this indeed went through (which I highly doubt). The other 50% would be about the US using its political muscle to help Israel against third parties (such as sanctioning ICC judges who prosecute Israeli officials, legally punishing boycott movements, or pressuring other countries against taking actions against it).
And do you similarly object to US support of other countries, e.g. Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, etc.?
but it would demote the salience of their business back to the level of dozens of other far-flung regions stuck in a perpetual cycle of bad people making each other's lives miserable.
As a side note, this is a counterproductive misunderstanding (if you believe in mistake theory). There is a saying that if the Arabs lay down their weapons, there will be peace; if the Israelis lay down their weapons, there will be no more Israel. And in fact, the historical record pretty convincingly shows that this is the case, at least if you are looking at Palestinian Arabs.
omw_68
8hr ago
Your wording ("against Israel existing") suggests that you took "65% are against support for Israel" to mean "65% want Israel to stop existing".
I disagree, but in any event that's not what I meant so it's a moot issue.
Yet again my question:
What questions would you ask in a poll to determine if there was genuine, widespread, and long-lasting anti Israel sentiment in the United States to the same extent that there is genuine, widespread, and long-lasting sentiment in the United States against transing of children?
omw_68
21hr ago
So apparently after 40-some odd years, US military aid to Israel is ending. (Or at least Trump announced he is ending it. Arguably it's a decision for Congress)
In any event, this is interesting to me for a couple of reasons. First, even though I am generally pro-Israel I am against US military aid to Israel. With its advanced economy, Israel doesn't really need it, it gives ammunition to various people who like to claim that (AIPAC; the Jewish Lobby; da Jooz; etc.) control everything, and it allows the US to exercise a lot of control over Israeli military spending and sales.
Unfortunately, I am not optimistic that those who harp on the issue of this military aid will dial down their complaints about Israel. It seems to me that the military aid is more of an excuse to attack Israel as opposed to the actual objection.
I would analogize these criticisms to Trump's famous they/them attack ad. Spin doctors may have claimed that the ad was really about budgetary priorities, but it was pretty obvious that in reality, Trump was capitalizing on widespread American opposition to gender ideology.
So I guess my question is this: Among people who complain a lot about US military aid to Israel (and in fact there have been complaints here just in the last week or so), and assuming that the aid is stopped, to what extent will this satisfy them?
omw_68
1d ago
I'm not sure the $3.8 B figure captures everything, but yeah it's probably minor in the grand scheme of things I'll give you that.
Ok, so if someone focuses on either one (transing of children or Israel), it's reasonable to think that their main objection is something other than budgetary considerations.
omw_68
2d ago
You are the one who called the parent poster's comparison "misleading", after he posted a video that drew conclusions about support for El Sayed based on polling for "reduce or eliminate military aid to Israel" and "favorability of AIPAC", and suggested that the more appropriate criterion (to determine who would be willing to vote for him) is "categorically against Israel existing".
I'm not sure I understand you here, but as best I can tell, the claim being made, in essence, was that Israel is wildly unpopular among Americans, about at the level of transing children, among other things:
Support for Israel among normies is around 65-35 at this point, on the level of "trans the kids"
In your view, have I understood the claim correctly? And if you agree that I have understood the claim correctly, would you agree with me that it is a misleading interpretation of poll results?
And again my question:
What questions would you ask in a poll to determine if there was genuine, widespread, and long-lasting anti Israel sentiment in the United States to the same extent that there is genuine, widespread, and long-lasting sentiment in the United States against transing of children?
As I understood you, you were trying to argue that (1) stopping Israel from existing is on the other hand not a popular position and (2) this implies a majority will not vote for him.
No, I was not arguing that. My position is simply that interpreting certain poll results to conclude that Israel is as unpopular as transing of children and such is misleading. I have no idea whether this particular candidate's position on Israel will help him or hurt him in terms of his chances of getting elected. I think that was reasonably clear from my post, but to the extent it was not, I apologize for not having been clearer.
omw_68
2d ago
I mean, is he campaigning on "Israel should not exist"?
There was essentially no campaigning at all. Kamala Harris chose other issues to use against Trump.
You can play the game where you replace the outgroup's policy position with what you think they actually believe/what you think will be an inevitable consequence if they get their way/what you think gets listeners to take the threat of it as seriously as you do, but then the correct comparison is not to the mere motte of the reference position ("transing children under any circumstances") but the result of playing exactly the same game with it.
I'm not sure I understand your point here. What questions would you ask in a poll to determine if there was genuine, widespread, and long-lasting anti Israel sentiment in the United States to the same extent that there is genuine, widespread, and long-lasting sentiment in the United States against transing of children?
Here's a excerpt from a post from a couple weeks back here:
Coincidentally, the latest Pew Polls show Favorable/Unfavorable for Israel (the state) at 37% favorable and 60% unfavorable. Slightly higher for "the Israeli people" and much lower for "the Israeli Government." So Israel is slightly less popular than "transing kids."
I don't know if this is true, and if it is, I don't know the exact questions that were asked. But it seems to me that if it's true, it's almost certainly not an apples-to-apples comparison.
So, how do you figure the number of Americans who are categorically against Israel existing compares to the number of Americans who are categorically against trans children existing (in the classic culture-warry "denying our right to exist" sense)?
Sorry, I don't understand what you mean by "against trans children existing." Does it mean that no child would be allowed to get sex change surgery/sex-change hormones etc?
omw_68
2d ago
Sure, let's have US cut Israeli military aid to 0 and have Israel give the US a few hundred hectares of Israeli land, plus qualified immunity for its soldiers raping Israeli girls when out on the town. You'll champion this with your fellow countrymen, right?
I'm not sure what you mean by "fellow countrymen" here. But to answer your question (1) I am against US military aid to Israel; and (2) I am against there being a US military base in Israel.
That being said, I would absolutely support switching from the current system to a military base if it would mean that anti-Israel types in the US would stop with their whining. Which they won't, because the problem for them is not that Israel gets US military aid; the problem for them is that Israel exists at all.
omw_68
2d ago
you can't cut money for my pet cause until you've proven to my satisfaction that you care about saving money more than you care about hurting my cause
To be clear, I'm against US military aid to Israel so I wouldn't call it a "pet cause"
So I would put it slightly differently:
You can't cut money for a particular cause, and honestly claim it's for budgetary reasons, when the circumstances indicate that your motivations are otherwise.
omw_68
2d ago
Except here the sums are colossal as opposed to the amounts going to trans your kids.
At a guess, how many federal programs spend amounts which are "colossal" in comparison to the "colossal" $3.8 billion given to Israel? Given that the annual federal budget is $7.4 trillion -- 2000 times that amount -- I'm going to go out on a limb and guess it's a pretty large number. Agreed?
omw_68
2d ago
Are you suggesting that removing Israel from the Middle East would suffice to bring peace to the region, and that the various governments and power groups in the area would not engage in armed struggle with each other?
I am pretty sure that a big part of the reason there is so much anti-Israel (and anti-Jewish) sentiment in the reason is that there are a lot of Arab groups which absolutely hate each other and the anti-Israel stuff is a way of trying to achieve some degree of unity.
omw_68
3d ago
"suspect your motivations"
This is how you ended up with woke mindreading and prior to that, runaway prog accusations of "dog-whistling"
I'm not sure what you mean by "woke mindreading," but in any event, when someone proposes a change to public policy, it's entirely reasonable (in my opinion) to consider the motivations behind the proposal. And if it seems that the proposal is not being made in good faith, to take that into account in deciding whether to support or oppose that proposal.
Do you disagree?
omw_68
3d ago
Of course it was an attack on her support of gender ideology. Her views were insane and should be criticized. And she lost in part for having insane views.
Of course I agree with this 100%. My only point is that there were one or more Republican partisans who (presumably for strategic partisan reasons) went on the news and implied that the ad was really about budgetary priorities. Similar to the way in which one or more posters here are apparently trying to imply that the campaign ad here is really about budgetary priorities and isn't just "hating on Israel" as you put it.
omw_68
3d ago
Why do supporters of this [] nation always engage in petty whataboutism instead of saying "Well, I'd rather we end all foreign aid but we can start with Israel"?
I think the answer is that these efforts are motivated primarily by Jew-hatred rather than the desire to save money.
In any event, one can flip the question around: If you just want to save money, and you aren't motivated by Jew-hatred, why not demonstrate your good faith by campaigning to end US spending on a few other things? I mean, certainly people have good reason to suspect your motivations.
omw_68
3d ago
Based on the official government numbers at ForeignAssistance.gov, about half (more under Trump I, less under Biden) of the total US aid spend (excluding extraordinary support to Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion) was either aid to Israel or aid to Egypt and Jordan which is basically Danegeld paid on behalf of Israel. I don't know how this changes as a result of Trump's cuts to USAID, but I suspect the proportion is even higher now.
Except wartime Ukraine, Israel is by far the largest single recipient of US aid, despite its small population and first-world standard of living.
So "stop funding Israel" and "end foreign aid" are kind of the same cause, just spun to appeal to different audiences.
Well here's a thought experiment:
Suppose that the US stopped military funding to Israel but instead put a military presence there as there is with South Korea; Bahrain; Germany; Saudi Arabia; the UK; and so on. Would people who object to US spending on Israel withdraw their objections? I strongly doubt it, which suggests "The US spends a large percentage of military aid on Israel" isn't the real objection.
omw_68
3d ago
So it isn’t actually an argument about austerity or even foreign aide—it’s just hating on Israel. That is, it’s an isolated demand for rigor.
Yeah, when Trump made his ad attacking Kamala Harris for supporting government funded sex-change operations, no reasonable person tried to claim that it was mainly about budgeting and economic issues. It was obviously an attack on her support for gender ideology.
I realize that partisan hacks on the Republican side of things argued that the ad was really about "priorities," but come on.
omw_68
3d ago
If the Palestinians were wiped out the Israelis would instantly be in a conflict with their next weakest neighbor (currently Syria)
I don't know if it would be Syria, but you can bet that if the Palestinian Arabs disappeared, the anti-Israel types would find some group to use to go after Israel. Because clearly anti-Israel types don't care in the slightest about Palestinian Arabs themselves.
That's quite a gotcha you found. But to the extent you have (1) invented a group; (2) attributed a position to that group; and (3) claimed a "gotcha" against me for (allegedly) contradicting that group's position, it kinda shows that I'm not actually a part of that group.
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