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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   26222 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 22, 2024

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But the Palestinians are far more dependent on US and EU aid than the Israelis are. We are much more funding the terror campaigns against Israel than the military operation in Gaza.

No you're not - Biden sent $14 billion in military aid to Israel for this conflict alone, plus the baseline $3 billion in military aid annually. Palestinians don't get any military aid from the West, only a few hundred million annually in humanitarian aid.

From 2014 to 2020, U.N. agencies spent nearly $4.5 billion in Gaza, including $600 million in 2020 alone.

Since 1994, the United States has provided more than $5.2 billion in aid to Palestinians through USAID.

Over 6 years, the entire UN gave about 1.5 years of annual US military aid. The US sent about 1.7 years of Israeli military aid and tries hard to avoid it going to Palestinian war effort. If anything the aid serves more as a bribe to keep them from electing Hamas, they cut funding when that happened.

I propose complete non-interference, to cut aid to both sides.

Palestinians don't get any military aid from the West, only a few hundred million annually in humanitarian aid.

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.

According to Michael Scheuer, who directed the CIA's intelligence unit on al Qaeda and its founder, the young bin Laden was for the most part gentle and well behaved, but "an exception to Osama's well-mannered, nonconfrontational demeanor was his support for the Palestinians and negative attitude towards the United States and Israel." After September 11, bin Laden's mother told an interviewer that "in his teenage years he was the same nice kid . . . but he was more concerned, sad, and frustrated about the situation in Palestine in particular, and the Arab and Muslim world in general.

Bin Laden also condemned the United States on several occasions prior to September 11 for its support of Israel against the Palestinians and called for jihad against America on this basis. According to Benjamin and Simon, the "most prominent grievance" in bin Laden's 1996 fatwa (titled "Declaration of War Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places") is "bin Laden's hallmark: the 'Zionist-Crusader alliance.'" Bin Laden refers explicitly to Muslim blood being spilled "in Palestine and Iraq" and blames it all on the "American-Israeli conspiracy."

Bin Laden replied, "We declared jihad against the US government, because the US government is unjust, criminal, and tyrannical. It has committed acts that are extremely unjust, hideous, and criminal, whether directly or through its support of the Israeli occupation of the Land of the Prophet's Night Journey [Palestine]. And we believe the US is directly responsible for those who were killed in Palestine, Lebanon, and Iraq."

In the first meeting between Atta, the mission leader, and bin Laden in late 1999, the initial plans called for hitting the U.S. Capitol because it was "the perceived source of U.S. policy in support of Israel.

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?

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 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.

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.

On November 2, 2023, in view of the ongoing Israel–Hamas war, Bahrain said in a statement that the Israeli ambassador left Bahrain, that Bahrain recalled its ambassador to Israel, and suspended all economic relations with Israel, citing a "solid and historical stance that supports the Palestinian cause and the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people."[14][15] The statement was made by Bahrain's parliament and Israel said they had no knowledge of the decision.

So that leaves just the UAE. Not a great success.

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.

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.

Yemen/Red Sea war we're now fighting? Iran and the US are fighting a proxy war in Iraq

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.

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