The US is supporting Israel through what we can mostly all agree is a genocide of the Gazans. Clearly, Biden isn’t a genocidal maniac, yet he’s all in with unwavering support. Why are we doing this? There has to be a logical reason that isn’t just “we want Israel to kill everyone in Gaza and take their land a la lebensraum.”
We know this is an emotional topic, so please be respectful of each other so that we can have open and clear authentic discussion on the matter.
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This alliance allows the US to maintain a stronger foothold in the Middle East and exert hegemonic power via proxy.
This isn’t the only reason, of course, but it’s part of it.
And the US wants a foothold in the middle east because oil.
Well, that and keeping
the USSRRussia and China outI don’t think the US isn’t interested in the oil opportunities in the Middle East, but I think the US wants a foothold everywhere and anywhere across the globe to maintain its position as a global superpower.
Also oil.
Yes, the US wants that foothold because of oil. It’s not because we wish to become rich off it, it’s because oil is essential to keeping our economy stable. Keeping the region stable, or at least “stable” in America’s best interests, is paramount.
Doesn’t matter what anyone’s opinion on our oil consumption is, even in the face of global warming. At this point in time, we need it.
Without oil our economy plummets and that affects the whole world. And we can’t fix it anytime soon. I’m seeing hope, but it’s painfully slow. FFS, trying to fix this mess bucks the richest interests on the planet. And if we guillotined every one of them, we’d still be in the same place.
I see a lot of talk around here calling talk of the “economy” bullshit, like those numbers only affect the rich, and fuck 'em. Like it or not, we all participate in the economy.
In turn, we’re all hurt if it crashes. And that includes the rest of the world. Anyone here old enough to remember the gas station lines after the Iranian revolution?
And spare me talk of coulda/shoula/woulda. America could have done a dozen things better to avoid all this. We didn’t. And here we are.
Read a lot of answers and yours is succinct.
Israel is the largest American aircraft carrier in the world that cannot be sunk, does not carry even one American soldier, and is located in a critical region for American national security.
~ Alexander Haig
critical region for American national security.
The rest was true but this one is complete BS
+Palestinians are not as white and a religious minority on top of it
That and Israel wouldn’t hesitate a second before switching sides and allying with Russia and/or China.
It also allows Israel and other relugional institutions to influence US politics.
Who is the hegemon, the vassal or the collector?
Biden said it himself back in the day, its a foothold in the Middle East, “if israel did not exist we would need to create an israel” im paraphrasing but the clip is on YouTube
Everyone that understands military doctrine would understand that one of the main purposes of Israel was to act as a staging ground to extend power throughout the middle east. There is also a sizeable voting block of christians that place special emphasis on the formation and continued support of Israel.
This is the only correct answer here. Everything else is just uneducated and emotional ramblings.
Why do we need a foothold there?
There are oceans between us and our enemies.
Let’s just fucking leave and let them come to us
Same reason why Pearl Harbor was a thing. Reaction time, faster reach, strategic location, etc.
Or we can use one of the many many other bases we have around there, like the one in jordan
The US supports plenty of fucked up countries because we gain something from them. In the same way Saudi Arabia supplies us oil, Israel provides an American stronghold in the middle east to operate out of. With the political importance and violent instability of the middle east the US finds Israel a necessity to its ambitions.
Let’s be honest, there’s a shit ton of money involved as well. From campaign donations to the military industrial complex, people are getting paid by Israel and jewish persons. They have a powerful lobby and influential people around the nation.
Oh and Prilosec is made in Israel I believe.
Also worth noting Israel is very advanced with respect to cybersecurity. Considering they provide tools like Pegasus to US intelligence agencies, I’m sure the agencies value this relationship very much.
Domestically within USA there are plentiful of issues. These can be seen as opportunities for collaboration & create solutions.
Honest/ Legit Question; Why not refocus efforts, resources, skills with experience on improving their own country in various ways? There are so much value to be gained, instead of utilizing so much resources in other regions/ countries - that don’t welcome them.
Why bother being involved in Middle East, when if they actually work/ utilize similar amounts of resources within their borders, the country as a whole could reach results that would envy others. Isn’t that what patriotism means? There are plethora of opportunities to be gained! But it’s being so neglected.
In transportation, health, education, nature, finances (solving various debts), jobs, scientific explorations, improved overall living, safety, etc…
They have historic ties and Israel is an important strategic ally in the middle east for the US.
The answer is simple and almost no one gets it: The U.S. will NEVER give up a military foothold in the middle east. They will ignore every atrocity Israel commits if it means we have a place to sortie from.
That’s it.
It’s not a religious conspiracy, it’s not about back room money deals.
It’s about military power and our ability to strike anywhere in the world with 2 hours notice.
This is the most simple answer and the truth. Not only that, but our hands are generally tied to a fault when it comes to these allies. This is why Biden has had some words to say, but there’s no actual teeth to them. He literally can’t do shit. Any other administration would be the same.
Well, Trump might do something because he’s willing to break any and all precedents … but the something he does would likely be much worse, impulsive, and generally lacking much forethought.
Yeah but that won’t prevent every fuckdamn armchair admiral from weighing in with their wikipedia based knowledge.
The problem is that those trolls are significantly out-shouting the truth.
No he CAN do something, he can say fuck you, and let someone else run while he does the right thing regardless of the cost to his career
It wouldn’t be the cost to his career, it would be the loss of military access to the most volatile place on the planet.
Do you even bother understanding the concepts you comment on?
We have other bases in the Middle East, we don’t need them for a foothold.
We can walk in, whip our dick out and ask who wants to be our new friend and under our protection.
Israel is ignoring us anyway so I see no harm.
Fall in line or fuck around and find out when we allow them to be outlaws and retract our protection.
Sends a message while we are at it.
… there is literally no military strategist in our armed forces that agree with your assessment.
Please don’t mistake your wikipedia education for a nuanced and in-depth understanding.
Because they have no intention of changing anything why would they look for another way?
They all keep getting rich off backroom deals with weapon companies
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Roughly 4 out of 5 companies I’ve seen that have received investments in my industry in the past 5 years have been Israel R&D startup companies.
Not my wheel house, but if I had to guess, the ruling class in the states has a lot of investments tied up in Israel.
Take with a grain of salt, as this is just an anecdotal observation.
I like how you add error bars to your statement. More people should post like that.
They want an ally in the middle east? A bunch of countries in that area don’t like them.
Israel is a military toehold in the region. Israel desperately needs our help, so we help Israel because it allows us to have someone who desperately needs our help in the region.
Without US money there’d be no Iron Dome. There’d be no Israel of any kind. Israel needs the US, and that is why we chose Israel as our local ally.
From Machiavelli’s The Prince:
The Romans, in the countries which they annexed, observed closely these measures; they sent colonies and maintained friendly relations with[2] the minor powers, without increasing their strength; they kept down the greater, and did not allow any strong foreign powers to gain authority
Considering a selfish, manipulative, ahem Machiavellian worldview, the reason the US supports Israel is because Israel is the local minor power, which can only become the local major power with our help.
With US help, Israel is on top over there. Without it, Israel is a minor power. That is why Israel, specifically, gets our military investments.
Israel does not need our help, they could easily defend themselves against their neighbor and as a nuclear armed country they know the US will jump in to defend them.
A country of less than 9.5 million people cannot afford to fund the occupation and blockade of 5.5 million Palestinians alone, still less make all the weapons required.
They don’t need to, they just need to verify their Sampson defense and no one would dare attempt an invasion, it’s quite literally the only reason their country isn’t a smouldering crater.
You’re not wrong about the nukes. You’re wrong about Israel not needing support from the US to continue existing in its current form, which is the point I addressed.
In the early decades, they flirted with the USSR to keep the US onside. The nuclear threat now performs at least some of the same blackmail. But the blackmail is necessary because this is a tiny country keeping millions of people under brutal occupation. It is not physically possible for Israel to have the Occupation without bucketloads of funding from a superpower.
It’s absolutely possible, you seem to ignore the technological and firepower disparity and focusing solely on military size.
Iran is 14th Israel is 17th and that’s ignoring a nuclear arsenal.
And yet they are writing checks that the US has to cash
I think this issue is also more nuanced than you’ll see it given credit for in the media.
I think there’s some strong “War in Iraq” parallels that can be drawn that might help reflect why the US is reacting the way they are.
To summarize, small group of terrorists commit an attack that is one of the worst in the nations history. This country that was attacked has a much better funded military, and they roll in to exact retribution, notionally under the banner of “stopping the people who did this and not letting it happen again.” The war of revenge is hugely detrimental to the civilian population therein, and human rights violations occur.
Most establishment politicians were/are fully on board with the War in Iraq. Why wouldn’t they be on board with Israel right now? It’s basically the same situation again.
I think that a lot of what you see online forgets that this wasn’t some random thing where Israel just decided to commit a genocide out of nowhere. But just like how 9/11 didn’t justify the War in Iraq, 10/7 doesn’t justify what’s happening now. But it’s somewhat understandable why it’s happening, and why people support it.
I remember right after 9/11, the vast majority of people were on board with sending troops in. The dissenters were super few and far between. This is just that again, but Israel this time.
Iraq didn’t have anything to do with 9-11. I think you mean Afghanistan.
You are technically correct. The best kind of correct. :)
I was using “The War in Iraq” as a cover term for the whole ongoing conflict that arose in the aftermath of 9/11.
I think that your point actually furthers my parallel though. As the US was in Afghanistan, the Bush Administration’s obsession with Iraq ended up with them pushing questionable Intel that there were Al Queda controlled WMDs in Iraq, and that we had to invade there as well if we really wanted to win the war.
There’s a pretty clear parallel between that logic and the “Hamas Tunnels” arguments we’re hearing out of Israel at the moment.
One day they will release the full uncut and unedited videos of the tunnels so we can see where they all started, ran, and ended.
Probably any day now with how good the deepfakes are getting
Understand this, all reading this thread, though:
The DarkHexad of human-evil’s dimensions, is:
- Narcissism
- Machiavellianism
- Sociopathy ( mentally/experientially induced ) / Psychopathy ( intrinsic defective mirror-neurons function, NO empathy, NO other is “human” )
- Nihilism
- Sadism
- SystemicDishonesty
The more abused some population is, the more they become embedded in DarkHexad mind/meaning.
Hamas went nihilist.
They knew that Israel’d commit to genociding all Palestinians, to all the extent they could, and that’s why they did the attack.
Israel’s now is demonstrating its nihilism/sadism so blatently that their “deterrent” is being permanently corroded-away:
Within a few years, the surrounding Muslim region won’t care how much damage/violence Israel does to them while they’re annihilating Israel, they’ll HAVE TO annihilate Israel, at ANY cost.
Israel’s guaranteeing its own within-decade annihilation.
Exactly as Hamas’ ( either unconsciously or consciously ) strategy determined.
Israel walked into the trap, they ate the bait.
2 millenia ago, the ONLY Jew in the world that no Zionist would tolerate to have any validity, Yehoshua “Jesus” benJoseph, warned that when the abomination Daniel spoke-of was becoming real, that Israel would be annihilated.
( Matt 24, iirc … here, I dug it up, just in case anybody wants to read the actual text: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matt+24%3A15-22&version=AMPC )
Perfect & correct warning.
Within 1 decade, Israel’s going to be annihilated, exactly as benJoseph warned, and the Zionists, themselves, are the ones enforcing that no alternative-future can happen.
Comical, really: one’s-own ideology/prejudice absolutely determining one’s fate, in a way that makes one’s most-hated-individual proven-right.
“Deterrent” only works when the ones hating your life are hesitating because of their aversion to the harm you can do them.
Israel’s not going to have any “deterrent” soon.
And they’re too ideology/prejudice rabid to know that simple human-nature meaning.
When, in a decade, perhaps less, Israel’s been annihilated, how is the rest of the Middle East, now committed/allied with BRICS, going to tilt the world’s geopolitical table?
No matter: Trump’s already said he’ll “delete” the constitution, leave NATO, back Russia, create crime in Washington DC, be dictator, & “MAGA”, right?
That is going to happen, unfortunately, and the incompetence of the Biden-institution is playing directly into handing the entire US into Trump-cult’s hands.
The economic rug-pull that they’re delaying can’t be held-back forever, either.
Backlash-vote always torpedoes the incumbents, in that situation.
It doesn’t even matter if legalism “prohibits” Trump becoming GEOTUS, now: legalists ignore all the letter-of-the-law that contradicts their intention, …
… and that is sooo traditional for legalists that benJoseph railed against their doing that 2 millenia ago.
Something like “you who hold the letter-of-the-law rules, who ignore even 1 part, are guilty of ALL”, iirc.
That is exactly the nature of the legalism of nowadays.
The real game going-on is that human-unconscious-ignorance is trying to enforce a simplistic “mythic” “importance” through global tantrum/pogrom.
And arguing with humanity’s unconscious-toddler … requires a bit of rather-brutal experience-induced-understanding enforcement, and that isn’t going to happen until “armageddon” has beaten that understanding into our unconscious.
The Great Filter.
Won’t-grow-up is the most-fundamental religion, in our unconscious.
_ /\ _
Nobody else has pointed out that theres roughly as many Jewish people in the US as in Israel. Which in the run-up to an election is not a voting base you would want to upset.
Jews are not a uniform voting bloc, divided on many issues, Israel being one of them.
In the 1980s through the aughts, it was a lot easier to turn a blind eye to the inhumane treatment of Palestinians because media agencies controlled the narrative. Once the internet allowed for unvetted video to leak the pubic have a better grasp on what is actually going on.
In other controversies, the ubiquity if phone cameras plays a significant part, but I don’t know how many phone cameras are in Palestine.
I think it is this, how the internet affects narratives of violence against oppressed peoples, that drives the save the kids from the internet policies like KOSA and SESTA/FOSTA. The US federal government doesn’t really care about children, but it does care about leaks that embarrass the administration or the state.
I think this is a good observation, though I’m not exactly sure how it applies to my comment, unless you’re trying to imply that people as a whole, Jews included, are more divided on Israel today than in the 80’s because they have better access to information from more varied perspectives.
I’d say that sounds true.
Never said that they were, but I imagine theres a notable percentage who would be very single issue on the subject.
And do Israeli people actually approve of this genocide?
Several things to consider.
Much of the information the Israels get is controlled. Many probably aren’t aware how bad the genocide is (and the it is genocide).
Most Israels have been subject to ongoing missile attacks and bombings their whole lives. Everyone there knows someone hurt or killed in an attack. They just want it to stop.
I don’t say this to in any way condone the genocide. I’m fully against the genocide. But, this is a complex issue with a lot of factors on both sides that can drive normally reasonable people to do bad things.
Well if they want it to stop they sure have a funny way of showing it, what with all the new fighters they just made.
You can’t even really blame the ones that just signed up, if someone did to me what Israel did to them, I would have a rifle in my hands too
After 40+ years of missiles, it’s fair to say, the other options weren’t working either. The Israel extremists currently in charge, are trying to make it impossible for the few Palestines left to attack them. If you look at what they’re doing to Gaza, it is total scorched earth. There are no buildings left standing to launch missiles from.
Ultimately, I think your right, it’s just going to perpetuate the cycle.
Personally I don’t think there’s any hope for the area. You have two groups that want to destroy each other on every level. Religion sucks.
Other options being what? Occupation, apartheid, and oppression? That’s the only thing they’ve done. “We’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas!”
ROFL, actually they tried being good neighbors. The other countries tried to wipe them off the planet multiple times.
What Israel is currently doing is horrible. But don’t act like they are some master evil here. There have been many times over the last 40-50 years where Israel has been open to peace and the current terrorist group (or neighboring country) at that time destroyed it. I mean Hamas’s FIRST article of their charter was the destruction of Israel.
BOTH SIDES, are evil here.
Yes, they were pretty good neighbors in the beginning, up until they started trying to take everyone’s land and set up a state in the middle of another state, or what should have been another state if Britain had kept their promise instead of fucking things up like Europe always does. That would start a war anywhere. Imagine if China carved out the Midwest of the US for the Uyghurs as a way to get rid of them with the excuse that they needed to be protected. It would be fine if a bunch moved there and bought houses, like normal refugees, but it’s a problem when the rest of the world decides Ohio is there’s now, especially when they defend it with right-wing paramilitaries as part of an active settler colonial project. And also especially when it caused the displacement of tens of thousands of people to Canada. Of course the US and Canada would retaliate, especially if they were never consulted on this “deal” in the first place. It wouldn’t matter if the UN said it was legal and all above board because a paper said so. People would be rightfully pissed off. Not because they were Islamaphobic but because their land was being taken, and not for anything they did, but because people in other parts of the world did genocide, now you and your grandparents lose their house.
Hamas was blowback from this process, as much as slave raids on innocent white households, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, violent resistance by the ANC in South Africa, or Native American raids. They didn’t even appear until 1987, decades after nearly hundreds of thousands had already died or been displaced. No wonder they have something against Israel. Terrorists aren’t great people, news flash, but Israel’s actions cause terrorists. And they prefer that. It gives them carte blanche to keep Palestinians divided and keep taking territory. It’s already been revealed that was Netanyahu’s strategy when they gave suitcases of cash to Hamas through Qatar. And they strategically take territory to prevent a contiguous state. Hamas isn’t great but they are a consequence of Israel’s action. They have all the power here. Look at the graphs of deaths between the two sides.
Israel has never been open to peace. They always kind of make it look like it, but the deals they set always show otherwise. Go by actions, not words. They never acknowledge things like right to return for Palestinians, or they require their military to stay in the area, or they want mineral or oil rights, or air space control, or they don’t acknowledge and deal with the settlements in the West Bank, or something else is in the deal that makes it impossible to take by the Palestinians. Basically they always make sure it’s a deal that Palestine can’t take without pissing off their whole populace. Even allied negotiators have admitted they wouldn’t take the deals Israel has offered before. When Palestinians are at a new point of debasement and desperation, and ready for the old deal, Israel always moves the goalposts again. These “negotiations” offer the opportunity for international legitimacy and cover, but that’s about it. They’ll do things like be negotiating with the PLO and then stop because Hamas randomly did an attack. It’s ridiculous.
Israel doesn’t even like their horrible, one-sided deals, as revealed by Rabin’s assassination for even trying. Bibi’s recent comments about a no two solution is just telling the truth after years of gaslighting the world. The mask is off because they’re doing a genocide so there’s no real reason to hide it anymore. But, as emotional as I sound, I am open to changing my mind, so let me know when there’s been a legitimate peace attempt by Israel and I’ll at least acknowledge that much.
A sizable portion does. And the whole political system is built such that the extremists get a disproportionate say in policy.
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Strategic military foothold in the Middle East.
Israel’s an ally and America doesn’t exactly have the moral high ground to stand on cutting off israel for terror bombing civlians in the middle east.
More practically, Biden seems to think he can negotiate more from israel by playing at being on their side in this conflict than by joining the international condemnation against them, and to his credit he has achieved concessions from israel in the hypothetical post war, and managed hostage swaps between israel and hamas.
Lastly there’s the old saying about never letting a good crisis go to waste, the houthis have gone and made absolute asses of themselves with their red sea blockade over this war, and the US and KSA MICs are both explosively orgasmic at the campaign against them going from being labelled a humanitarian disaster to suddenly being a borderline service to the international community.
The longer Israel keeps it up, the longer the Houthis keep making everyone hate them, the longer MBS has to wipe what he sees as one of his biggest security threats off the map without catching flak from most of the international community. You could almost argue that Israel and KSA are passing the “everyone hates us!” ball back and forth to cover for each other’s designs on complete subjugation of their immediate neighbors.
Hypothetical concessions.
Pray I don’t alter it any farther
The reason I say hypothetical is because they’re conditioned on Fatah taking over
So basically Israel agreed to it under the pretense that they’d still get to wipe out Hamas
And my point was that they will do it either way regardless of what they say now.
That is what I meant by hypothetical, that they are lying
I am more curious as to why these completely legal (non rule breaking or trolling comments) are being deleted by lemmy moderation. My app shows removed comments.
If you think you are seeing what people really think of the conflict on this site, you are not. Agendas are being pushed
We need more transparency and community engagement. I think instead of someone being banned or their comment being removed, it should go up for a vote between a random selection of users.
Sort of like the criminal justice system. Be judged by a jury of your peers. Not just some arbitrary official who decides your fate and you have zero recourse.
Sorry I’m really bad at reading between the lines, what’s the agenda being pushed?
It was getting a bit too based. People are stating to realize that there is very little difference between israel and the Nazi’s expanding their Lebensraum.
After that, you ask the question if fighting back against Nazi’s is justified, but answering that is not allowed yet.
Fighting back against Nazis is the only correct response.
Western powers support Israel because the Middle East is a strategically important region and Western powers have exactly one reliable partner there. I mean, look at what the House of Saud can get away with just for being a semi-reliable partner.
How exactly is Israel reliable when they do whatever they want regardless of western powers?
As reliable as Trump?
6 day war proved that Israel is not only an ideal staging ground but can basically just go out and kick the entire neighborhood’s ass all on their own, so having them on side for an actual throwdown in the region is seen as incredibly valuable for NATO war gamers considering hypothetical wars with Iran or even Russia if they decide to step too far over their side of the caucuses.
So long as they control their turf absolutely, and will attack whatever they’re pointed at, not attacking what they aren’t is seen as less of a problem
kick the entire neighborhood’s ass all on their own
people actually believe this shit. 🤦♂️
israel has always, since its inception has been propped up by western powers. Just because you don’t see them hoisting up a different flag than their own, doesn’t mean they are fighting anyone alone.
This is like US boasting they alone kicked the british out without any assistance.
Sending them weapons isn’t propping them up quite the same way the US got the assist from France Spain and the Netherlands, n’or were the arab states the same kind of comparative force that the brits were to the colonists, also Israel was initially a Soviet ally before the suez crisis.
Also, saying it doesn’t count because Israel bought an overwhelming kit advantage is like saying Cannae didn’t count because Hannibal “cheated” by facing off with the Romans so they’d be facing into a dust storm.
And let’s not forget ol Saddam in the 80s
Don’t discount the fact that Israel supported us in every way when 9/11 happened. I firmly believe every favor is being called in at this point.
Yeah, supported the US by knowing about the attacks and celebrating with photos on Sept 10th and having Bush and Ashcroft fly the mossad agents back to Israel.
Israel is no friend. The last time a US naval ship was attacked and destroyed was USS Liberty
So did China and Russia
Christofascists and Zionists are pretty good friends, and as they are at the head of both countries it’s pretty reasonable for them to support eachother country.
Christofascists and Zionists are pretty good friends
It’s the same picture. Evangelical Christians are Zionists, because the Jews returning to the Holy Land is a precondition for the Rapture.
(They don’t actually give a flying fuck about the Jewish people themselves, to be clear. They just wanna get Raptured.)
You’re underestimating the impact of their hatred of Muslims. They looooove this. Two kinds of infidel killing each other? The kind they admit needs to exist killing the kind they don’t?
They’re all hard as rocks.
This. They believe Jews belong in Israel which will bring the 2nd coming of Jesus and the rapture.
It’s called Christian dominionism.
