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Without which the entire economy would collapse and they wouldn't be able to afford a single scrap of metal, let alone a bomb or weapon. Plus the international orgs that aid and abet Iranian resupplies. Its not magnitude alone that matters, its percentage. If we left Palestine 100% on a branch, they would have nothing.
Look, if you provide 14 billion in military aid to one side and a few hundreds of millions in civilian aid to the other side (openly talking about how you try to prevent it going to their military wing), you clearly support the former over the latter. This is absolutely basic logic. Every US politician will tell you that they love Israel and hate Hamas.
Who cares if Palestine has nothing? Who cares if the Israelis have to pay for their own bombs? Not my problem!
If you dont care for why the Israelis pay for their own bombs, why do you even care about imposing a solution? I understand not wnating to give military weapons, but the Israelis can likely just succeed without that.
The Arab states dont care enough about Palestine to intervene. They dont cut off trade, they dont oil embargo the West. Why care about what Israel does enough to impose a solution, like by embargoing trade?
The Arabs get angry with us when we provide aid to Israel, just like the Israelis get angry with Iran when Iran aids Hamas/Hezbollah. It makes it much harder to work with Arab governments and it angers Arabs, who can do us harm.
Why did Osama Bin Laden hate the West? In large part he resented that we were helping Israel dominate Palestine.
I have no interest in an Israel-Palestine solution, just like I don't know or care about who should govern South Sudan, Somalia or Myanmar. Let them handle their own affairs. What I want is for the West not to be attached to this dead weight that causes us problems in so many fields. Wouldn't it be great if we enjoyed the support of the Middle Eastern public, or at least got along with them like China does?
The Middle East is run by authoritarian governments. The Middle Eastern public barely matters. The Saudis, with most of the oil, are concerned about the Americans leaving the region because the Americans no longer care to be involved.
The Arab states are no longer hostile to Israel like they used to be. The Abraham Accords broke that assumption, when Arab states normalized with Israel for no gestures towards the Palestinians. They mostly dont care enough about them.
The Palestinians dont get in the way of dealings between the Middle East and America and Europe. Its largely just some past time that has no affect on international relations.
We spent 20 years fighting Islamic terrorism and spent trillions of dollars fighting much of the Middle Eastern public and you think their public opinion doesn't matter?
The Abraham Accords caught... Bahrain and the UAE. This great success was followed up with Sudan, of all countries. Not Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia: any of the relevant powers. UAE is vaguely relevant I suppose.
So that leaves just the UAE. Not a great success.
Did you miss the Yemen/Red Sea war we're now fighting? Iran and the US are fighting a proxy war in Iraq as we speak, shelling eachother.
We spent that because of Western decisions to. Not Israeli or Israeli concerns. Islamism and Islamic terrorism has declined. Isis was its heydey. Secularism is spreading in the Middle East.
First off, it got UAE, Morocco, Bahrain, and Sudan. Two...Egypt has had relations with Israel for over 40 years, ever since Israel gave back the Sinai. Do you even know anything about the Middle East, if you dont know this most basic geopolitical fact? It makes anything you say come into question.
Syria is a failed state that can barely keep itself together. Its not a relevant power. Iraq is a barely holding itself together, let alone relevant. Saudi Arabia and Iran are the only ones you have a point on, and even then not much. Why? Because Saudi Arabia is offering to normalize with Israel for "steps" towards a Palestinian state. Not making one come into fruition. Just recognition that eventually one will be created. Thats very little commitment.
Bahrain still has political relations and recognizes Israel. They still are apart of the Abraham Accords. Still a major success. Still 4 Arab states that normalized with Israel.
The Iranians and US are fighting a proxy war in Iraq because the US wants to contain Iran for its own geopolitical considerations. Its as much as protecting Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, which are US aligned, from Iran. And maintaining US power in the region. Not for Israel.
Flatly wrong. The invasion of Iraq was heavily motivated by Israeli influence. Everything from Israel's false WMD intelligence to the open admissions from people in the know like Philip Zelikow, General Wesley Clark, Ruth Wedgewood, Senator Ernest Hollings and others. And people like Sharon and Netanyahu were publicly doing their usual 'they're going to get WMD's routine', urging war. Notably the Israelis panicked when Iraq let in UN weapons inspectors, switching to a position that the inspectors were going to be deceived and so the war must go on regardless, as it did: Foreign Minister Peres told reporters, "The campaign against Saddam Hussein is a must. Inspections and inspectors are good for decent people, but dishonest people can overcome easily inspections and inspectors."
As it happens, he wasn't wrong. Dishonest people can overcome inspections, albeit in a different way than he'd like us to think.
That had nothing to do with the Abraham Accords, it had to do with a river of US aid pouring into Egypt (and some other countries like Jordan) so they'd get along with Israel. You presented the Abraham Accords as this great breakthrough, you said it broke the assumption that Arab states wouldn't have relations with Israel. If the Abraham Accords had gotten Egypt to get along with Israel, then that would've made it a success but it didn't, so it wasn't. My point stands fine, your point that the Abraham Accords were this major breakthrough remains weak.
The Iranians are fighting their proxy wars because they know they're on the chopping block, they saw exactly what happened to Iraq and Trump showed that American promises aren't worth the paper they're written on. They want all pro-US forces as far away from them as possible.
It is hard to keep yourself together when the US is occupying your territory. The problem here is the US stirring up the Middle East, causing chaos, conveniently wrecking anyone that might threaten Israel. It's expensive, it's dangerous, it causes all kinds of long-term problems for the West. It needs to stop.
What kind of bullshit is this? The Egyptians already had made peace with Israel. They mainly made peace in return for the Sinai, not American aid. Thats just a benefit.
Your obfuscating things to match your agenda. The Abraham Accords had no need for Egypt, because Egypt had already made peace. They got four Arab states to go make peace with Israel. Two of them Gulf States.
The Iranians are fighting a proxy war because they want to spread their own brand of political Islamism and revolutionary islamic govt. Pro-US forces are there to stop the spread. This helps maintain stability and aid the Saudis and by extension, other Gulf states like Bahrain, UAE and Oman.
...the US isnt occupying any of Syria. What are you even on about? You mean because the US supports the Syrian Democratic forces with a very minimal amount of troops? The Syrian Democratic Forces are local forces, mainly local Kurds and Arabs, who arent even trying to rebel against Assad anymore. They mostly want autonomy and detente with the Syrian state. The reason US forces were even there was to help the Kurds fight ISiS. It had nothing to do with Israel, and it certainly isnt an American occupation. Most of the forces are Syrian, local Kurds and Arabs who run the show. Saying the US occupies Northeastern Syria is ridiculous.
The fact that you obfuscated with Egypt leaves all of this incredibly suspect. Sharon was neutral on Iraq, and he was the Prime Minister at the time. Do you really expect the israelis to come out in full force opposition to their greatest ally? They would primarily share their thoughts in private. And Sharon was neutral.
Iraq was motivated because George W Bush had an axe to grind. His father didnt take down Saddam, and that fact irked Bush. So Bush, along with Cheney, was happy to finally take Saddam down. The Iraq war was a mistake motivated by personal interests, not any Israeli concerns.
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War? I guess there aren't exactly any fixed and universal criteria to consult, but is it really a war, outright? That seems to me to imply higher stakes. I'm not saying you're wrong, mind you, but I'd expect to have heard more about it if it were more than some foreign-shores-coast-guarding with occasional naval gunfire exercises. In other words: Please inform me.
I don't know how one defines high stakes but its a consequential struggle. European Tesla factories are suspending production due to supply chain problems.
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-berlin-suspend-most-production-two-weeks-over-red-sea-supply-gap-2024-01-11/
There are some dead Navy SEALs, presumably some dead Houthis, the US Navy's control of a global trade chokepoint is being contested. The Israelis claim they shot down a Houthi missile in space, making it the first instance of space warfare. IMO this is qualitatively on another level to Ethiopian pirates.
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I disagree. 14 billion looks like a bigger number because the spending is asymmetric. Iron dome is expensive suicide vests and rockets are cheap. Defense against this kind of aggression is easily 100x more expensive, probably closer to the 10000x multiplier. So its not clear that Israel is coming out ahead.
Israel. If they have nothing, Israel needs nothing. But we give them a lot, and they divert much of it to waging terror campaigns.
My interpretation of this sentence was that Israel needs nothing, but we give them (Israel) a lot and they use much of it to wage terror campaigns. I agree with this but I'm not sure that's what you were actually saying.
No. My statement is Israel needs nothing, but Palestine would be zero without aid. Every dollar provided to Palestine has a significant percentage eventually funneled to terror campaigns against Israel. Without international aid Palestine would cease to exist.
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Who cares?
Probably because the US has a need for Israel in the Middle East as basically the best army in the region. Perhaps not 100% capable of paying for their own bombs but extremely capable at using those bombs to modern military standards.
Also, America is a Democracy and I would like to remind you American Jews pay a hugely disproportionate amount of US taxes and are almost certainly net payers to the US treasury far above whatever aid we give to Israel.
This seems like a bit of circular reasoning. The US support Israel because it has the best army in the region. Why does US need to support Israel? Because the Arabs (generally) hate the US and the US need geopolitical support in the region. Why do the Arabs hate the US? Because the US supports Israel.
Additionally, the US actually gets very little from Israel. Israel fragrantly acts against US interests and ignores US calls all the time. Even the most milquetoast request from the US to Israel to maybe tone it down just a bit is just blatantly ignored. Israel demands the US intervene on its behalf all the time but rarely reciprocates. Prior to post-WW2, the Americans were actually seen very favorably by the Arabs.
The Arabs hate the US because the slogan "they hate our freedom", while laughed at by a lot of the left, is pretty much true. The Arabs don't like to have multi-ethnic, religiously tolerant states where the inhabitants get the freedoms that the West approves of. Even freedom of the press and separation of church and state would be alien to Arab countries, never mind something like gay rights.
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Israel ashkenazi Jew had an average IQ of 115. That’s why we need them. They have better soldiers. Not circular at all.
Whose desires are Israel violating? I’m not asking them to tone it down.
The charges he’s making are too vague to be interpretable (as currently stated), but you’re also not giving a substantive answer. What’s are the concrete benefits we derive from their clientage that justifies the consumption of money and influence on their behalf? I don’t have any relevant background and don’t actually have an opinion on whether they’re worthwhile clients. If there are solid realpolitik reasons to support them, I’d respect that more than the moral arguments.
The Saudis now view them as extremely important strategic partners in a post oil world. Their tech expertise seems to be important to a lot of our Arab allies who are now significantly thinking about what comes after oil.
They’ve always provided an ability to do some dirty work for us.
They have nukes. And it’s fairly clear they have a doctrine of just nuking everyone if their existence is questioned
Science. Jews 35-40% of Nobel prizes atleast to me just means their lives matter more to civilization. They are a people who push humanity forward.
Thank you for 1-2, those are the sorts of reasons I’d be looking for. 3 seems like a reason for us to neuter them, dominate them, or nuke them ourselves before they can do it. As for 4, if they were somehow driven out of Israel, most of them would probably come here. Unless someone simultaneously nukes Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Jerusalem, we should have plenty of time to evacuate the more useful Ashkenazim during any semi-realistic genocide scenario (obviously if it somehow came to that, I’d support evacuating all of them on moral rather than practical grounds).
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Israel may have the best army in the region - they're also enemies with the rest of the region and are so politically toxic they can't fight with any US force without causing more problems than they solve. That's why the US and Israel have never fought on the same side in a war, they're the worst ally anyone could have. All liability, no benefit.
The cost of US support for Israel is absolutely staggering. The Arab Oil Embargo in 1973 did immense harm to the US and world economy, a decade of high oil prices. Anti-Western terrorism - the first WTC bombing was solely motivated by anti-Israel sentiment. Osama Bin Laden was also heavily motivated by frustration regarding Palestinians. The Iraq half of the War on Terror was primarily about Israel, there are plenty of revealing quotes from generals and senators admitting that Iraq posed no threat to America (as a glance at a map would show) but that it might threaten Israel. Israel naturally sent some fake intel about Iraqi WMDs as well, so the US would deal with their rival.
And then there's the billions spent every year on direct military aid. American Jews would need to pay a hell of a lot of taxes to pay for all of this, if we take that tax-influence model. And it doesn't hold - whites are even bigger net taxpayers than Jews, yet this didn't stop US sanctions on apartheid South Africa. They didn't even recognize Rhodesia.
There are flagrant lies here. Israel has plenty of allies in the region including the Saudis who are also a huge U.S. ally.
Dude, Israel and Saudi Arabia don't even have normalized diplomatic relations. They're not allies. The Saudi public hates Israel.
Public polling is awful and highly dependent on how you asks a question.
Their leadership has created a desire for ties.
You easily find polling with complete different results
https://m.jpost.com/middle-east/article-760558
Come on. A minority of Saudis might have wanted business relations with Israel (which is a completely different thing to a political/military alliance) but even that's gone out the window now.
You are the man of one poll.
Dated but most Saudis want peace https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/middle-east/1602764897-poll-79-of-saudis-see-pathway-to-peace-with-israel
And it’s still the official policy.
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