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I think you might be focusing a little too much on those on the Motte?
My experience is that there are three to five groups of people who are loudly anti-Israel in Western countries.
The right-wing anti-semites. This is the most popular group on the Motte, and you describe them pretty accurately. There are plenty of people who hate Jews for reasons that are more-or-less in the ballpark of far-right or neo-Nazi ideas; usually this comes with a racialist theory where Jews are a uniquely malevolent or parasitic group never acting in good faith, who exert disproportionate influence over Western countries. Often this group has a kind of private admiration for Israel, in that the state of Israel behaves towards Jews the way that they would like their country (or countries) to behave towards whites. Outside places like the Motte, and to an extent even here, this group likes to disguise or misrepresent its motives, usually because they realise that their whole platform is very unpopular in the West. Suddenly discovering empathy for poor Palestinians despite otherwise being heedless of Arab lives is an easy tell.
The left-wing anti-semites. I think you combine these with their right-wing counterparts, but I find it taxonomically useful to distinguish them. These are the ones who go all-in on the idea that Israel isn't really a country and settler-colonial states are inherently illegitimate and chant "from the river to the sea" on campuses. Whether the motive here is technically anti-semitism is debatable, particularly because there is a small but real number of Jews in this group, which the rest like to hold up as symbols, even as they go around loudly demanding that institutions divest themselves from all Jewish groups, or from anything related to Israel, or even just harass ordinary Jews who have failed to clearly denounce Israel. I called these group 'anti-semites' because I think they do associate all Jews (who have not clearly disaffiliated themselves from Israel) with Israel and will attack people just for being publicly Jewish; and because as far as can reasonably be discerned their actual position is that Israel should be destroyed.
(2a?) Left-wing bleeding hearts who haven't updated their beliefs for decades. I run into a lot of these in real life. It's probably fair to view them as the moderate wing of the anti-Israel left, or perhaps the anti-semites as the extremist wing of the anti-Israel left. But basically take the group I described in 2 but dial it down to people who really care about Palestinian lives, support a two-state solution, would be mortified at any implication that they're hostile to Jews, and generally ignore the existence of their more extreme counterparts.
The nationalists. This group largely codes right at the moment, but in the past has been more diverse and I think has room for some leftists in it. It's the one that says basically, "Why are we supporting this small, violent country? What's in it for us?" Unlike the first two, I don't think this one is particularly anti-semitic. Undoubtedly it's true that near-unconditional support for Israel has been a pillar of American foreign policy for decades, and it's understandable for parts of the American electorate to ask why, particularly as Israel seems to, whether intentionally or not, keep dragging America into conflicts that it does not seem in America's interests to fight. They stand out among the other groups for being relatively amoral - they do not care who's in the right, they do not care about Palestinian lives or welfare, and they will not litigate the last eighty years of Israel-Palestine conflict with you. They do not care. They will just ask - why are we involved in this mess?
Migrants. This group is fairly obvious. Some are Palestinians themselves, many are Muslims, many are from countries like Syria, Lebanon, or Egypt, and therefore have very explicable reasons for hating Israel. There's a very common belief in the Islamic world that Palestine is a 'nation of martyrs', and though this sometimes annoys other Muslims who feel that their persecution is downplayed or ignored (Kashmiri, Chechens, Rohingya, Uighurs, etc.), but nonetheless it is pretty universally accepted. I posted about one of these in Australia last year. This group is often significant among their own communities but are trapped in those bubbles and often ignored in the wider discourse, though sometimes one makes it into politics and becomes more widely known.
I'm very much a member of group 4, and have stated my views in this regard multiple times here. If Israel decided to turn Gaza into a parking lot tomorrow, my feelings on the matter wiuld be something to the effect of "It's too bad they couldn't work it out peacefully. Oh well, not my problem." I'm even fine with selling Israel the weapons to do the parking lot making with, I'm just tired of them getting them for free with my tax money.
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It's "anti-successful population," of which anti-semitism is a named subcategory.
Or "anti-Western," for a somewhat broad category of West that might include Korea and Japan. "Anti-civilization" would be more accurate but almost none of them actually conceive of themselves that way.
Likewise, self-hating Jew is a common enough subcategory of oikophobia that it has its own wiki page.
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Yeah, that's most of the ones I onow: "I heard on the news/social media that Israel just killed a kid! Why can't they just stop killing Palestinians and get along?"
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Well, I think that it's anti-Semitism in the same way that white college professors who are anti-white are racist. I think that the basic playbook for Leftist types is to aggrandize themselves by claiming moral superiority over others. Ok, suppose some tribe in some African sh*thole is massacring another tribe. If Leftists make a fuss about it, the message is "we're morally superior to some barbaric tribe in Africa." Which, at some level, they know isn't saying much. It's much more impressive to say "We're morally superior to the Jews!!"
Generally speaking, I agree, although I think a lot of anti-Semites hide in this group. One thing that gives the game away is they are outraged about US military aid to Israel but don't seem to mind that the US spends a lot of resources (both money and personnel) in South Korea, Germany, Bahrain, etc. They are outraged about dual US/Israel citizens but don't really care about dual US/UK citizens. This selectivity suggests that something besides isolationism is motivating their isolationism.
I find this pretty rational geopolitically.
South Korea: US forces are there because it's the only way to give SK credible confidence that the USA will protect them with their nuclear umbrella. SK is one of the few nuclear-latent states that could spin (hah) up a bomb pretty fast. Fun fact, Samsung is one of the few private companies in the world that could probably do it on its own.
This will be a recurring theme, but the USA has (correctly) determined that a world with less nuclear proliferation is very good for the USA. So, it puts troops in SK so they don't make their own bomb to hedge against NK/China.
Germany: similar story. Latent nuclear state who was facing an existential military threat up until the ~1980s. USA likes being one of the only big dogs with big bombs. So you put troops in Europe to keep the hoes from being scared.
Also, the USA very much likes the EU in the cuck chair. It's much easier to keep them there when you can go "no no babe, you don't need MLRS launchers and fighter jets, why don't you pay the pensioners more money and drink some soup? Daddy's got this."
Bahrain: having bases in the gulf is SO useful given that its a geopolitical flash point and choke point. this is pure upside for the USA.
Israel: unsinkable aircraft carrier near Suez, great! Constantly drags USA into conflicts with basically 0 upside for the USA that require the expenditure of massive amounts of exquisite weapons which are expensive and built in tiny qualities. What is the upside here again?
"Live weapons test zone" is probably considered more of an upside by American MIC types than you would think. In particular systems like Arrow and David's Sling (which are both co-developed by major American arms manufacturers) are helpful to the US as they increase our technology and (at least secondhand) experience with ballistic missile interception, which is very important to maintaining the relevancy of the US military pretty much everywhere, as ballistic missiles are now a pretty widespread technology.
The US buying Iron Dome (which is now also being co-produced by American contractors) to fulfill their point-defense needs is an example of that dynamic running full circle.
Ukraine was already providing that?
The USA is literally redeploying missile defense systems from Asia (remember when we were pivoting over there?).
The USA is depleting it's interceptor stocks at phenomenal rates, and while it is gently increasing production, it's nowhere near enough to replenish them quickly, especially given we'll need quite literally an order of magnitude more to 1v1 China, which is a credible threat that again, we were supposed to be pivoting to!
In my opinion, Trump's potentially crowning accomplishment was almost single handedly moving the Overton window to "fuck China" and made it basically a bi-partisan issue. When before the neoliberal ghouls were more than happy to mortgage our industrial base (and thus our civilization) to the Chinese in their relentless pursuit of "line go up". And now he's throwing that away... Why again?
Yes, it is, but when the Arrow missile program was launched in the 1980s that was not really anticipated.
We also haven't been able to test Standards in Ukraine, and we have in Israel.
Just on the Navy front, on some quick Googling, the reports are that we're looking to increase production of the SM-6 and SM-3 to a combined total of 600/year. At 100 SM-3s annually, that would allow us to replace our stockpile of around 400 in just four years. At 500 SM-6s annually, that would allow us to replace our stockpiles of 1500 in three years.
As I pointed out in my other post to you, we're increasing Patriot production to 2,000 year, which is pretty eye-watering as far as interceptors go.
Yes, one of the first things I said about this war was that that was a likely fail state.
Well, I am kicking around some theories, but I'm saving them for a top-level post I will never write at this rate.
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This is a great justification for attacking a country which (1) has leadership which regularly leads chants of "Death to America;" and (2) maintains uranium enrichment facilities in deep underground bunkers. Agreed? (I am aware that for a lot of people, it's hard to agree with this since damage to Iran is a win for Israel, but still, come on.)
So I can understand what you mean by "constantly" and "drags" can you please name the three most recent conflicts into which you believe Israel has dragged the United States?
Yes*
*The load bearing assumption is you can actually finish the job and permanently prevent this.
*Also that other latent nuclear countries don't see this and decide they need nukes asap to prevent this from happening to them.
*Also, there's a very credible argument that Iran was actually quite happy playing the game of "ooooh just you wait were totally gonna make a nuke any second now, ooooh baby it's coming" while never actually doing it. Iran could get 80% of the benefit of nukes (so they thought) for 20% of the cost by always being close but never quite getting there. Or at least that was the most rational move for them, although they're religious fanatics so hard to be 100% certain.
shit the bed so hard on security you get Oct 7th'd, resulting in the USA spending large amounts of money and things that go boom to keep you from getting MRBM'd
decide to 12 day war Iran last year, USA gets involved to sucker punch Iran with a (really cool) stealth bomber strike during negotiations. But this was worth it because we destroyed their nuclear program!...
deicide, again, to blow shit up in Iran, sucking in the USA even harder this time, resulting in the current quagmire.
Either that or set the program back significantly.
Or they might see what Iran is going through and decide to avoid the headache.
Given Iran's incessant attacks on Israel through proxies; it's threat to wipe Israel off the map; it's chanting of "death to Israel" and "death to America"'; etc., it's reasonable to think it's pretty likely that Iran is attempting to develop nuclear weapons and would be pretty likely to use them against Israel given the opportunity.
That being said, anything is possible. Possibly the orbits of the planets are not actually ellipses but instead circular with lots and lots of epicycles. But if one of these isolationists consistently cares only about the US connection to Israel, well, there's a reasonable conclusion to be drawn.
This is a good example of what I mean. The US spends a large amount of money and things on various other countries' defense. And yet for some reason, (some of) these isolationists only object when it's Israel.
It was reported in the news that part of the reason the US got involved was lobbying by Saudi leadership. If this turns out to be true (and it seems very likely to be true) I wonder how these isolationists will react.
I can't tell if you're obliquity refering to me as an "isolationist" and then also, amusingly, doing the same thing anti-Semites do where they don't say "it's the Jews" they just do things like (((this))) but instead you're implying I'm an anti-semite.
As an aside, there's a joke here calling someone an (((isolationist))) but I can't quite figure it out.
Anyway. If you want to call me an anti-semite you should, and then we can argue about that :)
I genuinely hope that they do. Especially now that they've showed Iran the "ooooh I'll build one any day now" isn't an option for them.
My priors are that they won't do a good job at this. Given in June 2024 we did this already and claimed massive victory over their nuclear program and that was a lie.
It's true. We will find out over the next 20 year which way this goes.
I think we will have to fundamentally agree to disagree here. I have an incredibly hard time believing that after expending such a ridiculous amount of blood and treasure to get nukes, they'd immediately turn around and attempt to land one on Tel-Aviv in exchange for having the Persian homeland turned into an irradiated wasteland. Further, I have hard time believing the 100s of humans required to execute a nuclear launch would all be fine with their moms/dad's/wives/kids/cousins/friends all getting glassed to MAYBE nuke Israel.
I also think Iran getting a nuke is step 1 of a very long chain even if we assume the entire Iranian military complex's only burning desire is getting nuked in exchange for hurting Israel once. Iran having a handful of nuclear devices means they can make scary noises, but they have to deliver them. And so far all I've seen is Iranian missiles get shot down 100 different ways. And Iran is so compromised by Mossad if they were launching a nuke, they know Israel would know very quickly, and they only get 1 shot. So they need, basically at minimum, hundreds of hardened launch sites, significantly more sophisticated re-entry vehicles, and probably MIRVs. All of which are significantly further down the tech tree than "basic nuclear device".
Yes, and much like Trump used to, I think that it's too much. I remember at one point Trump was making noises about nuclear disarmament.
“You could destroy the world 50 times over, 100 times over. And here we are building new nuclear weapons, and they’re building nuclear weapons.”
He continued, “We’re all spending a lot of money that we could be spending on other things that are actually, hopefully, much more productive.”
One of the greatest things he's ever said. I doubt he remembers saying it, but he's right.
Then fuck Saudi Arabia as well. Fight Iran yourself if you want to. Don't drag us into it.
I am a single issue geopolitical thinker. China. China China China. Every single thing we do I look at through the lens of "how does this help our rapidly deteriorating relative strength in the Pacific?"
And right now the answer is "it's massively detrimental because we're using up interceptors, airframes, money, and energy that all will be needed to counter a rapidly powering up China"
I don't have strong feelings towards Israel in a vacuum. I don't have a problem with Jews (if all cultures valued education as much as Jews do, the human race would be WAY better off).
I do have strong feelings of America weakening itself for a country that won't help versus China, for a conflict that will literally never end.
I'm not sure I understand your point. Can you show me where I referred to you as an isolationist?
Well here are a couple hypothetical scenarios for you.
You are the Prime Minister of Israel and a nuclear bomb explodes in Ariel. You are 80% sure it was the Iranians behind it. Would you turn the Persian homeland into an irradiated wasteland?
You are the Prime Minister of Israel and a nuclear bomb explodes in Arial. You are 100% sure it was Iran, but Iran is claiming that the attack was made by a rogue commander. Would you turn the Persian homeland into an irradiated wasteland?
Ok fine, but we are talking about isolationists. If someone makes the isolationist argument against expenditures to support Israel in a selective way, it's telling.
Fine, but I'm pretty confident that a lot of these supposed isolationist types would react in muted terms to such a revelation.
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Once upon a time, yes. Not anymore. Alas.
:(
Your green party might be the stupidest of all the western political parties that call themselves that, and the Canadian one is left by a woman who thinks wifi causes cancer.
Isn't Elizabeth May out?
She had to come back because her replacement turned out to be too insane even in terms of internal cohesion, nevermind electability.
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The U.S. Green Party would like a word- it swings back and forth between generic retard left and nutty woo woo granola conspiracy theorists.
The British one seems pretty batshit, what with being somehow both fanatically culturally-progressive and also Islamist.
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While they did manage to doom Germany to economic and demographic destruction in the near-future, I don't think it's fair to blame the party. They just carried out the will of millions of voters. And did so very well. So well in fact that they got what they wanted without even being part of the government at the time!
Blame the Germans. They ruined Germany.
Words cannot describe how much the median western voter pisses me off
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Maybe all these solar panels can be converted into a giant Archimedes' Mirror?
If they're CSP rather than photovoltaic, well, they're already halfway there.
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But when was the last time the UK dragged the US into a war? If the Israelis are causing problems and the British aren't, it makes sense to only be outraged at one of them.
If 25 years ago there were dual US/UK citizens who had the ears of Parliament and the Prime Minister and were advocating for the UK to send troops into Afghanistan and Iraq, I would not begrudge other UK citizens for being suspicious of them and thinking that their arguments are not based on what's good for the UK.
1917? 1941? Grenada? Arguably some/all of the fallout of the post-WWII drama in the Middle East? The British were involved in putting the Shah in charge in Iran, for example.
ETA: and for your dual-citizens question, Murdoch is a popular target for such conspiracies, owning both US and UK media franchises that were involved in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. There are people that are suspicious of him on both sides of the Atlantic, I suppose.
A lot of leftwingers hate Murdoch as a propaganda tool for the right.
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So, ~100 years ago vs under 30 days ago.
Agreed on the drama tho, the British (and French, to be fair) decided to absolutely shit up the middle east/Africa with their borders during decolonization and we've been paying for it since.
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Devil's advocate: Germany is far less likely to result in US forces/materiel being lost. If you assume the "Israeli aggression causes all Middle-east ills" line of thought, which I do not, you can even squeeze Bahrain into the same category as Germany, and I believe Bahrain also provides the US with an important naval port.
At the moment, I agree. Although (1) I note that you didn't mention South Korea; (2) at times during the Cold War, there was much more serious concern about a Soviet invasion of Berlin; (3) there are very few US troops actually stationed in Israel; and (4) the US has formally committed to defending numerous countries if attacked, and this does not include Israel.
But how important is it if you are an isolationist? It seems to me the isolationist position is "just buy oil from whomever is in control and develop our own resources to the point where we don't need foreign oil any more."
I don't find NK to be a threat to the South or the troops stationed there, personally, so I'd put it in a similar category as Germany. The SK relationship is (at this point in time) pretty directly anti-Chinese.
Again, doesn't really fly with the isolationist viewpoint, but I could imagine them saying something like "yes, we should be withdrawing from these countries as well, but our relationship with Israel is the most pressing in terms of harm/cost to personnel/materiel."
I wouldn't say that, mind you.
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I was originally going to agree with Amadan but then you reminded me these people existed - however in my experience they tend to act like information less wokes who can't discuss the situation at all or provide any solutions, only suggest that Israel is bad and should go away. In this way they carry water for the actual anti-semites.
@ymeskhout drew an evocative comparison:
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I was thinking particularly of a few people I know in church groups - white people in their 60s who will host viewings of movies about Palestinian issues, or have 'Free Palestine' bumper stickers on their cars, or aggressively recommend books about the issue, and generally seem like they have never gotten past the 90s or early 2000s. I see them get fully behind groups like Kairos Palestine, or boosting people like Munther Isaac.
In my experience these are centre-left voters, think of themselves as multicultural and very sympathetic to Jews and Judaism, and view it as a non-sectarian human rights issue.
I think it is correct that they effectively carry water for real anti-semites (Munther Isaac, for instance, I think is noticeably anti-semitic), but they are largely useful idiots, rather than malicious themselves.
Hmmm yes that makes sense.
I do think you have real room to argue that the water carrying becomes something in truth especially once protesting happens, and sometimes voting - if you vote for the jew-killing party then you share some culpability when they do it, and anti-Israel is a large part of the Dems these days regardless of if they want it. It's not an incidental aspect.
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I'd broadly agree with the 1 camp without being anti-Israeli. It's a bit annoying that they've historically been able to conduct themselves in a manner that'd get any equivalent Western nation absolutely pilloried with minimal media/public censure (until they've lost control of the narrative recently) but I believe that in terms of maximizing utilitarian outcomes the world should be more tolerant of actions of that caliber. Plus if in the situation where the Palestinians had a similar level of dominance over the Israelis they'd be acting significantly worse.
I do also feel a certain schadenfraude when it comes to Jewish people who were used to/didn't see the inherent contradiction in the previous social meta of 'Israel is a special case and doesn't get criticized for boundary pushing' and are trying to hammer the anti-semitism meme a bit too hard. Especially when Jewish thinkers/media influence was made to curate an environment where they got given special exemption status instead of a broader laissez faire attitude.
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