FirmWeird
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User ID: 757
FirmWeird
Randomly Generated Reddit Username
1d ago
This is a problem for all countries that aren't China right now - but I think most of those countries will survive.
You're right here, but that's like saying a minor infection isn't worth worrying about while leaving out the context that the sufferer is immunocompromised. If Luxembourg and Monaco lose access to the rare earths market, they're not really going to care - but they don't exist in an incredibly dangerous environment where they are surrounded by hostile powers. If Israel loses their military edge they will be in an extremely bad position, extremely quickly. While they do have nuclear weapons, using them would be suicide - not only do they want to claim the land of the people around them (and irradiated wasteland is worthless territory), using nuclear weapons so close to their own country would cause so much damage to themselves via fallout that it could render the entire country uninhabitable... to say nothing of the political consequences associated with being the first non-USA country to use nuclear weapons offensively.
This isn't really a consideration at play if the US is no longer Israel's patron, is it?
You're actually correct here - the only way I can salvage this argument is to determine exactly how amicable the split is. If the zoomer nazis take power and decide to demand a refund from Israel for all the money that was sent by bribed politicians in the past the economic situation is going to be even worse, but they might be able to do business with China in that case.
You can make of that what you will but "France can't/won't sell people military hardware" doesn't seem correct.
We're talking about a time several years into the future at the very least, and the trendline for French military manufacturing (and a great many other statistics) isn't terribly inspiring. They might make a few deals, but the ability of the French to manufacture materiel is so anemic in comparison to the Iran axis that I don't think it'll make much of a difference.
Russia has relatively good relations with Israel (and notably Israel has declined to assist Ukraine) and a history of cooperating with Israel on military technology.
If Israel did in fact lend assistance to Ukraine that assistance would be returned in triple with assistance to Iran and Hezbollah. That's a matter of self interest... not to mention the fact that NATO resources are being diverted away from Ukraine TO Israel - actually lending that assistance would be a bad joke.
Russia also doesn't have much qualms about selling to both sides of a conflict, I don't think, and have (allegedly) agreed not to sell arms to Iran due to agreements with Israel in the past, so I'm skeptical that the Russian relationship with Iran would actually prevent them from selling arms to Israel.
I can find it plausible that Russia didn't sell arms to Iran in the past, but now?
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-delivers-mig-29-jets-iran-air-force-10479982
Russia and Iran are collaborating in depth and their relationship is significantly stronger now than it was in the past - and China's helping them out too. If Russia did actually go on to assist Israel, they'd be able to decide who wins and who loses by simply turning off one side's equipment remotely... and I don't think they'd support Israel over Iran. Either way, even if Russia does decide to completely ignore their broader goals and arm both sides, Israel merely having the same level of technological sophistication as their far larger and more resource-rich enemies is not a particularly good situation for Israel. Israel currently requires a technical edge over their opponents due to their much smaller size, population and resource base - being put on the same or even lower level than their chief opponents would put them in an extremely dangerous position.
Why? I don't think American Jews are sending support to Israel because the US government suggests it.
No, they're sending support to Israel because the US government allows it - and in the hypothetical future where the US has abandoned Israel, I don't think the government will allow wealthy citizens to simply send all their money to a hostile foreign power.
Why do you think this is necessary
Because the US is doing it right now. If Egypt would do those things without being paid, why are they being paid? I sometimes do extra work for my employer when I get a call after hours, but I'm not going to do shit if they tell me that I'm no longer getting paid.
Why hasn't Iran done this, then? It sounds to me like Iran could have destroyed Israel already without needing to develop nuclear weapons. This would probably have been a better idea than letting Israel bomb them nonstop for days. What's stopping them?
Iran hasn't done this because they can perceive that the situation only gets better for them over time. If they blew up Israel right now the US would attack them, and while they could probably survive a conventional attack it'd cause immense amounts of damage and wipe out the global economy. If they wait, the US will continue to decline in influence and power while their own situation gets better and better. Their military manufacturing is substantially lower cost and more distributed than Israel and the US, and when you include the lead-up time to the west spinning up their manufacturing sectors again they are likely going to maintain that lead for another ten years or so - and ten years of stockpiling arms is going to lead to a very big disparity in forces.
Could Iran destroy Israel today? Probably not, and even if every other nation in the Middle East joined in it would be a pyrrhic victory at best - Israel may get destroyed, but they have publicly stated their intent to just murder everyone around them in nuclear fire on the way out (look up the Samson option if you're unaware of this).
As for letting them bomb them nonstop for days...did they? I was under the impression that Iran actually did manage to strike back, but I have no idea how effective it actually was given the censorship of the damage reports from Israeli media. I've read enough analyses about the situation that I think Iran probably landed a significant blow, on top of severely depleting interceptor stocks - but I don't think this is really worth litigating because the fog of war is still too thick.
I would note that the Houthis are in Yemen. Yemen and Iran are both too far away from the Mediterranean to close shipping lanes there with the ease that they can close shipping lanes through Suez. What mechanism do you propose for shutting down shipping? Missile strikes on port facilities, maybe?
I used the houthis as an example - I think that Iran would be able to find or manufacture a dissident group close enough to be able to harass shipping with drones and missile strikes. Iran would be capable of destroying port facilities with missile strikes, but at that point you're already in all-out war.
How are the neighboring nations going to charge fees on goods imported via the Mediterranean traveling through international waters?
I was referring to hypothetical land routes under the assumption that shipping was ruled out. Having only a single viable means of resupplying or trading with the outside world renders you extremely vulnerable when you're in a dangerous security situation.
It sounds to me in your telling like losing the United States as a patron would be irritating and expensive - does it really follow that Israel will cease to exist as a state?
Absolutely - currently, Israel is already facing steep and significant pressure. One of their major ports has gone bankrupt, they're facing renewed boycott and sanction efforts, major Israeli leaders are wanted for arrest in ways that mean they're unable to travel to large parts of the world and the nation is now broadly hated all over the world (except in India apparently).
If Israel wasn't facing any significant problems, had a healthy and sustainable economy, a strong military with no reliance on foreign or imported technology, access to a wide variety of trade routes and good relations with all of their neighbours, losing the US as patron would indeed just be expensive and annoying as the flow of free cash gets cut off. But none of that is true for Israel, and they don't have a viable replacement for what they'd lose in that situation. Having your crutches taken away from you isn't a problem if you're capable of walking on your own two feet - but it is a big problem if you aren't.
FirmWeird
Randomly Generated Reddit Username
1d ago
Your phrasing is very telling. Whatever I did. Because I really do get the distinct impression that whatever Israel does, people will be condemning it.
Actually, you appear to have misinterpreted me - I said "Whatever I did" because I honestly don't know what actions I would take in that scenario. I already know enough about myself to know that I'd kill my commanding officer or myself if I was asked to administer a genocide/ethnic cleansing, and the difference between me as I am now and the person who would actually carry out those orders is large enough that I have a lot of trouble figuring out how this hypothetical me would actually do it.
And you're technically wrong - there are plenty of things Israel could do that wouldn't be condemned. If they dropped the arms and extended a sincere offer of peace and co-existence, the majority of that condemnation would vanish overnight. But at the same time, given the incentives and attitudes in place in the Israeli government, I don't think they're going to change course in any appreciable way. Of course whatever Israel does will be condemned - the specific acts they're taking to implement their ethnic cleansing plan are immaterial when what is being condemned are the goals they're trying to achieve in the first place.
The gigantic protest movements against the country in question had begun in earnest less than a week after October 7th, well before Israel even had the opportunity to commit any war crimes.
Are you going to sit here and claim that Israel has never committed any war crimes prior to October 7th? I've been a committed antizionist since I had to do a study on the Arab-Israeli conflict for high-school. If you're unaware of Israel's earlier actions, please let me know - we have a lot of material to cover if you really want to understand why all these people have been protesting against Israel!
Call me crazy, but it kind of seems like at least a significant proportion of these protests have nothing to do with how Israel's military conducts itself, and more to do with the fact that Israel exists at all.
I'd rather not call you crazy, but as someone who has been to many of these protests that's really not the case. Many of the protestors point at specific actions and deeds - Hind Rajab being the most prominent for the shocking inhumanity on display. It also isn't necessarily the Israeli military either, because it isn't just the military that's involved in what's happening. There are a fair few people who protest against the fact that Israel exists at all, but those are usually the ultra orthodox jews who believe that the creation of the Israeli state is in violation of the Torah.
FirmWeird
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1d ago
Someone born during the Deir Yassin massacre would be in their late seventies today. You are literally talking about acts committed by people who have since died of old age.
This is a farcically shortsighted take. How do you think the children of those victims feel? The children of the survivors who had their homes taken? Do you think that the passage of time just turns this real violence into meaningless "symbolic" violence when the impacts are still tangible and visible? Do you think that this massacre had no impact on history, that it had no long-lasting effects? I struggle to believe that you would apply this standard to any other conflict.
I actually don't think it's reasonable to retaliate against an entire ethnic group for acts committed multiple generations ago. For instance, I wouldn't consider it justified for England to invade France to take revenge for 1066. At some point you have to let history go.
I agree - luckily, "Israeli" isn't actually an ethnic group so that doesn't matter here. Even if it did, that conflict was actually settled and closed, so there's no need for continuing hostilities.
I see that we are again entering a disagreement about what it means to 'attack' someone. You seem to take a symbolic view. When you say the Israelis attacked the Palestinians, you mean some Israelis attacked some Palestinians roughly eighty years ago.
Under this standard, are you aware that the holocaust is further in the past than the Deir Yassin massacre? The passage of time has meant that the holocaust is just "symbolic" violence so you can't even really say that the Nazis did anything bad to the jews! On that note, given that the primary justification for the creation of Israel was the holocaust, we may as well shut the entire enterprise down. At some point you have to let history go, after all.
I take a more practical view. When I say the Palestinians attacked the Israelis, I mean the current regime in Gaza attacked Israel last year. They are still alive, and they are still in power.
No, you just decide to arbitrarily pick the starting point of the conflict, so you can point to a reprisal and claim that it is an offensive strike. You are choosing an approach that allows you to just arbitrarily decide who is responsible for starting a conflict by deciding that anything before a certain date doesn't count. I have trouble believing that this is your actual position, given both how transparently weak that argument is and that if you accept it you also remove the justification for the entire state of Israel to exist.
FirmWeird
Randomly Generated Reddit Username
1d ago
You're not beating the logs-in-eyes allegations. None of anything you said would reflect on how Arabs would treat Jews in a hypothetical one-state solution.
I actually did in fact mention this exact point already earlier in the thread. It's why I usually bring up that any plausible single state solution would have to involve thorough denazification efforts - and I believe that actually putting the members of the IDF who killed civilians through real, serious trials are the best way to handle it. Most defenders of Israel assure me that the IDF is the most moral army in the world and doesn't target civilians, so I'm sure there wouldn't be any objections to real and serious war crime investigations to pick up the few bad apples who believe things like "There are no innocent civilians in Gaza" or who did things like shoot children or rape prisoners.
The evidence we do have is from the expulsion of Mizrahim from all Arab countries to Israel - a pogrom you blame on Zionism.
If I was a member of a dispossessed tribe with no homeland and a new country showed up in our traditional homeland and announced it was a country for our tribe I would likely volunteer to leave even if my home country wasn't particularly nasty. But for all the claims of a pogrom, I'm not aware of any serious sources that refer to this moment in time as a genocide or pogrom. It took place over a long time, in multiple waves and with multiple motivations from multiple places. Were some of those places expelling the jews for the actions of their co-religionists? Sure, they probably were. Were a majority of them, enough that you could characterise this as a genocide? I don't think the evidence supports that claim, and if you want to make that case I'd be interested in reading it.
That was, undeniably, ethnic cleansing at the least.
If you think that meets the bar then what Israel is doing in Gaza clears it easily. If you're willing to accept that compromise I have no problems agreeing with you.
Why should I trust you accusing Israel of genocide when you downplay the Arab one?
You shouldn't! You shouldn't trust anyone when it comes to accusations like that, and instead do your own research. I don't trust any of your claims without actually looking up the facts behind them, and I think discussions work better when both people do that.
FirmWeird
Randomly Generated Reddit Username
1d ago
When I use the word 'attacked,' I do not refer to the crime of existing while being Jewish. I use the word 'attacked' to refer to that thing where you use guns and bombs to kill people.
Do you know what Irgun and Lehi actually did? I'm incredibly surprised that you would describe the actions of those groups as "the crime of existing while being Jewish" - I don't think many antisemites would be willing to go that far. For context, are you familiar with the Deir Yassin massacre? What you're describing as "the crime of being Jewish" was actually a paramilitary organisation going door to door in a Palestinian village and murdering everyone they found there, women and children included.
By logical extension, the Israelis are not 'attacking' the Palestinians by existing in their vicinity.
If I break into your home and lock you in the basement, occasionally throwing a grenade down there or going in and killing some children, would you consider yourself attacked? After all, I'm just existing in your vicinity and not directly hitting you, so if you tried to fight back against this state of affairs it would actually be YOU who is the violent one.
That argument wouldn't convince me, and if it would convince you then please let me know where you live and whether or not you have a basement.
On the other hand, last year the Palestinians launched a literal attack on Israel. Lots of people died. It started a war. Ring any bells?
Started a war? STARTED a war? It was the most successful attack by the Palestinians in some time, but it was in no way the start of the conflict.
Then why are you so concerned that the Palestinians will be 'wiped out'?
I mean, basic human decency and empathy for one. But more specifically, it is because I have read numerous statements by high-ranking Israeli officials and politicians regarding their plans for the Palestinians.
Since you've just explained why it can't possibly happen regardless of what the Palestinians do,
No? I didn't explain why it can't possibly happen, but why I believe that actually going through with it will be a terrible, suicidal decision that permanently stains the Jewish people and renders Israel non-viable. Hell, I think they have already gone far enough that Israel will face far more significant future challenges than another October 7. Saying that a decision would be suicidal doesn't mean that somebody else might make that choice anyway.
I see. When you say 'wiped out' you don't actually mean anyone will be killed.
Israel has already racked up a very high bodycount. I'm honestly not sure how you came to the conclusion that that was what I meant by wiped out - I legitimately cannot follow your logic.
FirmWeird
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2d ago
What, specifically, can they not make?
Anything with significant quantities of rare earths - which describes a lot of modern military technology. Israel has plenty of deposits, but they don't have the infrastructure required to refine and process them into usable material. To the best of my knowledge Israel doesn't actually have any mines at all (plenty of quarries, but good luck turning stone into hypersonic missiles or drones), which will make resupplying the metal used for modern military technologies a bit difficult.
And if they can't make something, why couldn't they source it from a non-patron power?
Who?
China's not going to help - China wants to make sure the Israeli security situation is as miserable as possible, because that means US resources and attention will be diverted there and away from Taiwan. Additionally, the comments made by Chinese officials regarding the current conflict are very much not indicative of future support for Israel - they have explicitly supported the right of Palestine to full statehood and development. France? I wouldn't pin my hopes on France coming to the rescue given their own large internal problems. They can't even supply the Ukrainians with enough materiel to fight off Russia. As for Russia itself? Russia supplies the air-defence systems used by Iran and has been accepting a lot of help from them with regards to drone technology and drone warfare. Russia is the largest military partner of Israel's biggest regional threat - I don't think they're going to be much help.
Who's left? What other nation can both supply advanced modern military materiel, has plenty of said materiel to spare and the capacity to open a secure land route to get that technology to Israel? Without the US guaranteeing global shipping and commercial trade, or paying Egypt to stay friendly to Israel, how exactly does this mysterious nation even get their technology to Israel? Furthermore, how's Israel going to pay for it? Right now they've duped the Americans into paying them to receive free weapons, but that isn't going to work on China. In the same future where the US has abandoned them, there's no doubt going to be a cessation of remittances and other support from American jews to Israel - so the budget is going to be taking a significant hit already.
Presumably the answer to these questions is "the same way all other nations do."
Historically, the way all other nations solved the problem of having an unsustainably large population, 95% reduction in available energy and an economy unable to support their military is by collapsing or experiencing massive famines and starvation.
Who, specifically, is going to cut off their imports? And how?
The nations surrounding them, and by simply closing their borders to land/air traffic. Iran is more than capable of shutting down their shipping infrastructure, even if they have to send the weaponry to the Houthis to do it.
Perhaps you tacitly assume that all surrounding countries will attempt to attack Israel again as soon as the US withdraws its security umbrella?
I assume that when the US stops paying them to be nice to Israel, they will stop being nice to Israel. I don't think they'll necessarily attack them, but charging obscene fees to render those imports uneconomical when they don't just sabotage or block them is well within the bounds of what they could do.
FirmWeird
Randomly Generated Reddit Username
2d ago
Having weak and marginal Jews in your community that paid the dhimmi tax and that you could coerce the beautiful daughters into Islam is nothing like brotherhood,
How much do you know about Jewish life in Palestine or the muslim world prior to Israel? Who was in charge of the government during the Jewish Golden Age?
The Jews don't want to be dhimmi. No one wants to be a non-Muslim subject in a Islamic country if they can help it.
Do you think the Palestinians want to be non-Jewish subjects in a Jewish country? Hell, I wouldn't want to be a non-Jewish subject in a Jewish country.
Even the most tolerant Palestinian wants the Jews to live in a box outside of the holy places and be milked for taxes by the bridge troll.
I think the last century of events has contributed rather heavily to negative attitudes towards jews amongst the Palestinians.
I'm sorry, but your historical read is just wrong. The leftist perspective is simply delusional: too focused, as it were, in the splinters in others eyes to mind the logs in theirs. Your romanticization of Muslim tolerance is historical revisionism at best.
You might want to check up on your history before you make accusations like that - there were multiple times in history when the Jews fled to Muslim countries because Christian lands persecuted them too heavily. The great antipathy between the Islamic world and the Jews in the modern world is in large part due to the establishment of the state of Israel, and there's a wide variety of historical Jewish sources talking about how Muslim rule was preferrable to Christian rule. While you're right that Muslim tolerance was a far cry from the multicultural societies of the modern west, by the standards of those historical periods that tolerance was actually real - the Christians were treating them far worse at the time, and even some of the earliest Islamic documents (see the constitution of Medina) mention this shared connection with the Jews.
FirmWeird
Randomly Generated Reddit Username
2d ago
The Jews of Nazi Germany didn't attack the Germans. That's literally an antisemetic conspiracy theory invented by the Nazis to demonize the Jews, and I wasn't aware that anyone believed it except a few diehard neo-Nazis. Conventional history tells us that it was actually the Nazis who attacked the Jews.
That is in fact the point of my argument. The Palestinians were there before Israel was, and we can even directly identify many of the violent terror groups that helped establish Israel like Irgun and Lehi. The Palestinians didn't start this fight any more than the Jews of Nazi Germany started the holocaust.
If they believe that then they're simply wrong.
Incorrect. Multiple high-ranking people in Israel and Israeli think-tanks have made it clear that they view the entirety of the region as being given to them by god, and that it should be an exclusively jewish homeland. The Palestinians aren't so stupid as to think nothing bad would happen to them when their homes become the exclusive homeland of another people!
If the Israelis wanted to wipe out the Palestinians they could have done it at any time.
Mass extermination of unwanted brown people to give your society a bit more lebensraum is the kind of gross crime against humanity that gets your nation completely ostracised from the rest of the world. Not only that, the actual human infrastructure of the state would likely have trouble - look at growing number of IDF suicides and imagine how much worse it would be if they were explicitly committing another holocaust without any figleaves. Just nuking them would engender such a hostile reaction from the rest of the world that Israel would simply cease to be a viable state.
If it isn't on the table then the pointless wars are just that - a meaningless outpouring of useless hatred that accomplishes nothing and causes only misery.
In the absence of violent resistance Israel would simply do to Gaza what they are doing with the west bank and take over the land piecemeal. As I've said, they believe that a lack of resistance means they will simply be wiped out and dispossessed - and I think they're right to believe that. I do agree that this conflict is a meaningless source of misery and the world would be a better place if it didn't happen at all, but sadly I'm not in charge of the region.
FirmWeird
Randomly Generated Reddit Username
2d ago
And Israeli leadership does not coordinate direct attacks on civilians.
For a given value of leadership, sure. But Israeli leadership is such a vague term I don't think this is really worth litigating. SOMEONE gave the order to deploy those bombs shaped like toys in Lebanon, but whether they qualified as "Israeli Leadership" is a mystery to me.
There was enough direct evidence to tie this particular fellow to 5 deaths directly.
In a courtcase that outside observers said was clearly biased. I don't think Trump is guilty of raping Jean Carrol even though a heavily politicised courtroom implied the opposite, and I apply a similar level of scrutiny here.
If you are me, you think he is a terrorist because he and his minions are consistently too cowardly to wear uniforms.
I'm sure the people who shot up Hind Rajab's car were wearing a uniform, but that doesn't really make my sympathise with them at all.
If you think international law is a fiction, then he's just a loser who lost.
Are you aware of the context that this discussion is taking place in? Do you think that calling Marwhan a loser who lost is in any way a convincing refutation of the point being made? Yes, the person that wants peaceful co-existence rather than armed struggle is rotting in an Israeli prison in order to make sure there's no peaceful resolution. How is that in any way worth mocking? Was Gandhi a loser who lost when he was arrested for advocating peaceful resistance to the British?
FirmWeird
Randomly Generated Reddit Username
2d ago
If you don't want your hospitals and civilian infrastructure blown up, don't use them as weapons caches in flagrant violation of the Geneva convention. I really don't see what's so complicated about this.
They didn't. Israel lied and just blew them all up anyway - I haven't seen any confirmation that these hospitals were actually terror bases. Rather, I've seen evidence that the fancy visuals they used to tell people those hospitals were terror bases were largely manufactured out of videogame assets https://www.972mag.com/israeli-army-3d-propaganda-animations/
When did I say that?
My apologies! My posts have been so popular and generated so many replies I didn't realise you weren't actually the person I was replying to.
How do you think Israel ought to have prosecuted a war against a combatant like Hamas? What would you have done differently?
Well, first of all, I simply wouldn't institute apartheid - I'd give the Palestinians equal rights and full franchise, giving them an actual path to peaceful and shared co-existence, giving them a stake in a shared society that could lead to mutual success. But assuming that's out of the question because my government coalition is full of bloodthirsty ethnonationalists and if I resign I'll just get killed... I'd either flee the country or kill myself rather than take part.
But if I had to prosecute it... I would implement incredibly rigorous conduct rules and make sure that the IDF became the most ethical and well-behaved army in the world. I'd make sure that there's zero opportunity for hostile propaganda, fill the waves with stories about our brave soldiers helping rescue people from dangerous conditions and improving their lives. Be as brutal as you want with the people actually taking up arms, deploy drones to the tunnels etc... but guerilla forces can only operate with the help and assistance of the people around them. Public perception and reputation is incredibly important to Israel and I don't think the country is sustainable without support from the west - so I'd make sure that whatever I did, there wouldn't be gigantic protest movements against my country all over the world.
FirmWeird
Randomly Generated Reddit Username
2d ago
Yes but if the boot were on the other foot
Historically, when the boot was on the other foot, the Palestinians regarded the Palestinian jews as their brothers and lived together for centuries. It was the zionist immigration project which caused hostilities to erupt.
That said, I don't really disagree with you. When you look at the Palestinians and what they've suffered at the hands of Israel, I find it highly likely that they'd take revenge when they were given power - which is one of the reasons why I think that Israel should have actually tried to live and coexist peacefully with their neighbors.
without doing too much damage to civilian populations.
I've seen far too many confessions of deliberate targeting of children, as well as really nasty salami-slicing of exactly who counts as a civilian. I don't believe this is what Israel was doing, and neither do the Israelis if you read hebrew media sources rather than english ones.
FirmWeird
Randomly Generated Reddit Username
2d ago
Why does Israel need an imperial patron?
Because Israel's geography and productive economy aren't able to sustain their population and current level of social complexity. Their incredibly challenging security environment necessitates immense military investment, and their internal politics require them to support and feed a growing population of useless eaters who just study the torah all day (the orthodox, who do not contribute to the economy in any real way and are exempt from military service). Their military additionally requires a vast array of inputs which they are unable to source domestically, and if their current imperial patron left they would be unable to maintain the military edge their security environment requires.
In the past Israel got along okay without the US (buying military hardware from, notably, France).
Do you mean when their imperial patron was the UK?
It looks like they are a net food importer but are energy independent. As others have pointed out, they have a growing population and an advanced military.
A growing population isn't a good thing when you are already importing food - but it becomes ruinous when you have an extremely dangerous security environment which would add significant difficulty and expense to those food imports. Currently, the US is spending a lot of money to make sure the Middle East is survivable for Israel and they can continue to import food, and Israel just isn't capable of stepping up to the plate by themselves to ensure that food security.
But energy independent? LOL
Israel currently produces 5% of their oil consumption domestically, with approximately 220 thousand barrels imported each day. Petroleum is currently irreplaceable as an energy source - there is no alternative with equivalent energy density or existing infrastructure investments that can take its place (i.e. even if they discovered a perfect new energy source which they had in abundance, it would take a long time and huge investment to set up the infrastructure required to distribute and use it). Oil is used in farming, transportation and of course in the military - so if those imports were halted due to a conflict, the food situation would very rapidly become extremely dire and the military would be hamstrung by lack of access to the fuel which powers all of their tanks etc.
Without the US empire giving money to all the other nations in the region to pacify them, supplying Israel with interceptor missiles/other materiel and engaging in various trade arrangements with oil suppliers, how does Israel maintain their energy security? How do they maintain their food security, given that modern farming practices also rely heavily on petroleum for energy and fertiliser? How exactly do they make up for that 95% reduction in available energy when the imports get cut off due to war? How much of their military supply chain is entirely domestic?
These are the questions which convinced me that Israel would not be able to survive without an imperial patron, and I haven't seen any convincing arguments otherwise.
FirmWeird
Randomly Generated Reddit Username
2d ago
I don't think that metaphor really applies. The last time I read about Jewish life in Islam-controlled nations it was about the Golden Age of the Jews, which took place in Islamic Spain (the abuse actually happened afterwards when the Catholics came and massacred them). I'm sure it wasn't all peachy all the time, but it can't have been that bad when they consider a portion of the time spent under Islamic rule a golden age.
FirmWeird
Randomly Generated Reddit Username
2d ago
"Proactively provide evidence in proportion to how partisan and inflammatory your claim might be."
I've actually already posted and discussed this particular story on the motte with multiple people - my apologies for assuming that this was just commonly accepted knowledge.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/21/middleeast/gaza-war-israeli-soldiers-ptsd-suicide-intl
making it abundantly clear that the primary function of all this explosive ordnance was not the taking of human life for its own sake, but the destruction of Hamas's tunnel network.
Actually it doesn't make that clear at all - and if that's the case, then the IDF was actually just extremely incompetent, given that the tunnels are still there and they're making noises about how important it is that they be let in to clear out the tunnels. They've blown up the civilian infrastructure and all the hospitals, and there are more amputee children in Gaza than anywhere else in the world. If that was the goal then the IDF is incredibly incompetent - but they've demonstrated enough competence elsewhere that I just can't accept the claim that this was to destroy the tunnels.
I'm baffled as to how you expect me to be horrified by this metric.
Horrified? I'm not expecting that at all. You claimed that Israel was being restrained and fighting with one arm behind their back. But when I look at what's left of Gaza now the idea that this is Israel being restrained just makes me believe that they need to be stopped or denazified before they get the chance to do this to anyone else.
FirmWeird
Randomly Generated Reddit Username
2d ago
Having better weapons makes you the bad guy?
No, that's not the point being made.
Winning is evil? When they get attacked, the Israelis should chivalrously lower their military power to be equal to their opponents? It strikes as sour grapes; 'They're only winning because they have more weapons!' See: don't pick fights you can't win.
Would you apply this argument to the jews of Nazi germany? Was it their fault for attacking the big meanie and then having a sook and cry about how badly it went for them? Why did they pick a fight they couldn't win?
I don't think that argument would convince you to support the nazis, and it isn't going to convince me to support the Israelis.
Every time someone says that the Israelis have killed more Palestinians than vice-versa or set off more bombs or whatever, my only thought it that they clearly haven't done enough because the Palestinians haven't stopped fighting yet!
If the Palestinians stop fighting they believe they will be wiped out, which is supported by a vast number of statements from members of the Israeli government. What alternative are you leaving besides a final solution?
You can hardly ask the Israelis to stop fighting and wait for the Palestinians to catch up in the kill count.
My position, which I have stated on here, remains that there should be a single state solution which includes the Israelis and Palestinians both.
FirmWeird
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2d ago
If the prosecutions go ahead and it is determined that the entire thing has been a misinformation campaign or other convincing evidence arises that it was all fake I'll absolutely drop it. But I've seen the videos and comments posted by IDF soldiers, and I've actually read some translated Israeli media - it'll take a vast amount of convincing evidence to make me change my mind, but if you've got it then please lay it on the table. I'd honestly love to be proven wrong and learn that the Hind Rajab and Mohamaed Bhar stories were just a bad dream, or that all those translated comments by Smotrich and Ben Gvir were lies - but I really don't think you actually have the evidence required.
FirmWeird
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2d ago
Within the next two generations israel needs to either resolve the problem fully, somehow, or find a new partner or they lose.
This isn't the first time I've had this discussion on here, but I think you're not just right, you're understating the problem they face. Who is going to be the next imperial patron for Israel? They can't exist without one without a severe reduction in social complexity, and I don't see Russia (currently engaging in deep military co-operation with their greatest adversary) stepping up to the plate. China has absolutely no need to sponsor Israel and they're not going to be vulnerable to the same strategies that worked on America and the broader west. Who's left? India?
FirmWeird
Randomly Generated Reddit Username
2d ago
I in no way meant to imply that life as a minority was a land of milk and honey for the jews in the arab world - but when they have spent over a thousand years suffering those abuses and managed to maintain their own cultural and ethnic identity during that time, you're being a bit misleading when you say that those abuses are why there aren't any jews left in the rest of the region.
FirmWeird
Randomly Generated Reddit Username
3d ago
I mean, its an easy heuristic to read Wikipedia and realize that it represents the most far left case that can be plausibly levied under their rules.
No? I am a far leftist and this really isn't the case. Wikipedia is generally pro establishment, and that lines up with the left in some ways and not at all in others.
Even so I was alone during 2nd intifada
My condolences?
terrorist campaign supported by all the relevant Palestinian parties in government, so that necessarily includes him and Arafat.
If you're going to claim that lets you call him a terrorist, you're going to have to admit that the entire Israeli government consists of terrorists as well. If you're willing to make that claim, fair enough, but otherwise it doesn't really mean anything at all - not that "terrorist" is a particularly meaningful political designation these days anyway.
FirmWeird
Randomly Generated Reddit Username
3d ago
subject to the abuses that have led to there being basically no jews anywhere else in the islamic world
I feel like pointing out that the major historical abuse that lead to the jews leaving the arab world was actually the creation of Israel. Even wikipedia makes it clear that there were plenty of jews living in the Arab world up until the creation of Israel, and the descendants of those populations are largely referred to as Mizrahim today. Some of the other "abuses", like the 1950s Baghdad bombings, were almost certainly committed by Israelis in order to encourage Iraqi jews to emigrate to Israel to boot.
FirmWeird
Randomly Generated Reddit Username
3d ago
A brief googling indicates that he is clearly a terrorist
Damn that's funny, I did the same and it told me the exact opposite - a brief google, where you are given a curated selection of results designed to cater to your biases, is less than useless in the modern day when it comes to truth-finding. Why don't you do an actual investigation into the circumstances around his arrest and base your opinion on something substantial? Look, even if you do the research and still think he's a terrorist, discussions on these topics are better when you actually do the research and can make an informed contribution.
FirmWeird
Randomly Generated Reddit Username
3d ago
I think the actual reason was that despite the fact Trump is ostensibly in charge and agitating for war with Venezuela, it is the exact opposite of what his base wants and voted for. "No more pointless foreign wars" was one of Trump's main selling points, so the Nobel going to someone who wants to start another pointless foreign war isn't actually seen as a good thing for Trump by his base, even if it is a "good thing" for the wealthy ghouls who run the MIC and are actually in charge of US policy.
FirmWeird
Randomly Generated Reddit Username
3d ago
Yes, Marwhan Bargouti has been referred to as the Palestinian Mandela for quite some time. The Israelis refuse to release him from prison and repeatedly torture him in order to make sure there's no peaceful resolution to the conflict beyond the extermination of the Palestinians (to the best of my understanding - maybe there's an alternative and more charitable explanation, but if there is I haven't found it).
FirmWeird
Randomly Generated Reddit Username
3d ago
I don't think that the Israel issue is over - even though the focus might change away from Palestine, my money on the next major issue in US politics is the US-Israel relationship. The current arrangement isn't sustainable, and the polling I've seen suggests that a majority of Americans want AIPAC and Israel brought to heel. There's no way this particular milk gets unspilled, and none of the normies who supported Palestine because it was the Current Thing are going to forget what they saw Zionists and those funded by them do. The activists are already hard at work on projects like the Hind Rajab foundation and other efforts to make sure the world does not forget what Israel did. The outsize influence of Israel over western governments is being pulled into the spotlight all over the world, and the consequences of that conflict have in no way finished playing themselves out. Given that Israel is potentially going to be restarting the conflict with Iran and drawing the US in to that fight as well, I don't think this particular issue is going to leave "current thing" status barring some other major event (AGI getting achieved, climate disaster, another pandemic, another war, etc).
I've heard a lot of zionists talk about how the holocaust made it clear that the jews needed their own state to make sure that it never happened again. While I'm sure that the main reason for the creation of Israel is just pure ethnonationalism, that's one of the common reasons people give in defence of it.
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