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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31225 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 9, 2023

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His stated stance is basically that Finland should refrain from condemning Israeli settlement policies in West Bank and should keep buying/selling weapons from/to Israel because that's the pragmatic thing to do, and this sort of a "moderately pro-Israel" stance is also common in the Finnish right simply because pro-Palestinianism is associated with the left.

Huh? Really?! Does this stance count as moderately pro-Israel "just" in Finnish right-wing circles, or also in Finland as a whole? Because if it does, I find it even more difficult to take any of this posturing seriously.

I mean, it seems pretty moderate of a stance- ignore the human rights violations so we can engage in trade(I’m assuming that, unlike in America, selling weapons to Israel means Israel will pay for them).

It's pretty moderate if that moderation is selective. After all, I'm sure he'd never argue that buying natural gas, oil, raw materials etc. from Russia is the pragmatic thing to do.

Finland used to buy those until 2022, even though Russia had already invaded Ukraine (ie. Crimea) and at the very least stoked the separatist conflict. Not to mention the other projects like Nord Stream, Rosatom constructing Finnish nuclear plants etc.

For Finland it isn't; because within living memory they had the Russia boot on their neck.

I'm not sure what you mean. I mainly used the word "moderately" since there's no fervent, explicit support for Israel as some sort of a special country that I'd associate with more committed pro-Israelis. If Israel, for instance, placed itself firmly in the Russian camp in the Israel/Palestine conflict, I don't think Halla-aho would have any major troubles in condemning Israel; a Christian Zionist who seriously believes that it's their God-given duty to defend Israel from anti-Zionists might face a dilemma.

I mean that this stance, objectively speaking, goes beyond "moderate" support, when looking at international relations as a whole. As far as I can tell, only the US provides support to Israel that is even less moderate than this.

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