site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 2025

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

5
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

GDP is a number that correlates pretty directly with the ability of the state to purchase goods and services, such as military equipment

Someone should remind the North Koreans their 'GDP' is small, so they can't provide more shells to Russia than Europe (huge GDP!)

In any case, I'm not sure this is any more evidence of Israel controlling the US government than Ukraine does

Israel gets the most advanced US weapons to fight a few Arabs, while Ukraine gets second-rate equipment, F-16s rather than F-35s, in a war with Russia.

it’s no different to what the US would do if missiles were fired towards Saudi Arabia, the UAE, or any of their other middle eastern allies

The distinction is that all other US allies bring something to the table. Saudi Arabia brings oil and money. Turkey controls a key strait and sends troops to help the US occasionally, though they're not a great ally. Britain, Australia, Canada will send troops to help America too.

Israel only takes. They create enemies for America, they harm collaboration with the Islamic world, they sell military technology to China and frustrate US diplomatic efforts to pull out of the Middle East and focus on Asia. They never send troops to help America, they send shoddy intelligence and suck up aid like a leech. They even got the US to pay off their neighbours too, Egypt and to a lesser extent Jordan get billions in aid for being nice to Israel, the aid started as soon as they signed a peace treaty with Israel.

given how unlikely the claim that the US went into Iraq primarily for Israel’s sake, just a bailey and a slightly less rickety bailey

Go tell that to the neocons, generals, and officials who were there when decisions were made and describe their reasoning perfectly clearly. Did the US go into Iraq to seize the oil, which ended up mostly in the hands of Chinese companies? Or did they go in to fight the Islamist terrorists, mostly of Saudi background and who Saddam was suppressing anyway? Clearly not, instead there's silly discourse about aluminium tubes and other shoddy intelligence, much of which came from Mossad or was used to justify a pre-determined decision. If it weren't for Israeli influence, the war wouldn't have happened.

hasn’t deployed ground troops to take out any the modern threats facing Israel in Yemen, Lebanon, Gaza or Iran

The US has bombed Yemen and Iran, given Israel munitions to bomb Gaza and Lebanon. US troops were infamously on the ground in Lebanon before getting blown up and departing. Just because the Israel lobby doesn't get everything they want all of the time, it doesn't mean their influence isn't excessive.

Someone should remind the North Koreans their 'GDP' is small, so they can't provide more shells to Russia than Europe (huge GDP!)

If someone told the North Koreans that having a higher GDP meant you could buy more foreign weapons, I'm sure they'd agree. In any case, I don't know how this supports your original claim that "merely shutting off aid would be catastrophic".

Israel gets the most advanced US weapons to fight a few Arabs, while Ukraine gets second-rate equipment, F-16s rather than F-35s, in a war with Russia.

Plenty of other countries also get F35s, like Belgium, who don't even have Arabs to fight.

The distinction is that all other US allies bring something to the table.

Israel brings plenty to the table, although I suspect you're too emotionally invested in a certain point of view to ever accept any evidence of this.

Britain, Australia, Canada will send troops to help America too.

Because they have mutual defence treaties. Such an agreement between the US and Israel would be drastically more in Israel's favour than America's, given how much more often Israel is attacked. Frankly if you want a single piece of evidence that America foreign policy isn't beholden to Israeli interests, this would probably be it.

They create enemies for America, they harm collaboration with the Islamic world,

Every vaguely functional Islamic country is already onside with the US (Turkey, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Jordan, etc). Iran's hate for the US goes far beyond Israel. The original reason the US chose to ally with with Israel during the Cold War is because it wasn't one of the Arab states aligned with the USSR.

they sell military technology to China

This is the only legitimate criticism of Israel I've seen you make so far.

Suck up aid like a leech.

I'd advise you to look at those aid numbers again. They're small when it comes to how wealthy Israel is, and insignificant to the US. And I'm not sure why you'd consider Israel a leech and not Ukraine when Ukraine has been getting much larger amounts of aid over the past few years.

They even got the US to pay off their neighbours too, Egypt and to a lesser extent Jordan get billions in aid for being nice to Israel, the aid started as soon as they signed a peace treaty with Israel.

Egypt and Jordan get money to keep their governments from falling apart. Neither poses anything close to a threat to Israel. The peace treaty between Egypt and Israel was signed six years after the Yom Kippur war ended with Israel advancing on Cairo, because relations and with and recognition from the largest Arab state were worth way more to Israel than continuing to humiliate Egypt further.

If it weren't for Israeli influence, the war wouldn't have happened.

I doubt it, but it doesn't matter, because the claim that Israel caused the war isn't sufficient for your argument that the US almost always prioritises Israeli foreign policy over its own.

The US has bombed Yemen and Iran, given Israel munitions to bomb Gaza and Lebanon. US troops were infamously on the ground in Lebanon before getting blown up and departing.

On a scale from complete non-intervention to ground invasions in all the countries mentioned (which is probably what most Israelis would like to happen if they could choose), the US' historical actions in the ME are overwhelmingly closer to the isolationist side of that spectrum.

Just because the Israel lobby doesn't get everything they want all of the time

Didn't you start by saying something very close to this? The particular quote being:

Occasionally the US tries to do something that actually prioritizes American interests over Israel's, the Israel lobby usually nixes this in the end

In any case:

It doesn't mean their influence isn't excessive.

Is much more reasonable than the original position you staked out.