Seriously, why is the USA supporting Israel?

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.

phillaholic,

It’s really complicated.

Imagine if after 9/11, Bin Laden and al-Qaeda were held up in New Jersey, and had been launching small attacks to New York for years prior. They are intertwined into New Jersey and don’t operate like a nation state. Now imagine the US is the size of New York, and they are bordered by several other countries that basically want to wipe them off the face of the earth so they fund Al-Qaeda to do their dirty work.

Israel is in an extremely vulnerable position, and there’s no great answer. Remember the conflict in this area is practically older than recorded history. Hamas isn’t going to surrender, and obviously aren’t centralized to be taken out.

War sucks.

SendMePhotos,

That was a very normal sounding response with a wide view while offering little information. I both appreciated and hate it.

How can a body of water stretch so far, yet be so shallow?

phillaholic,

That’s the point. It’s an example of something you could better relate to. If you want more information, you’ve got a lot of history to read up on.

JohnDClay,

They want an ally in the middle east? A bunch of countries in that area don’t like them.

PhlubbaDubba,

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.

NoIWontPickaName,

Hypothetical concessions.

Pray I don’t alter it any farther

PhlubbaDubba,

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

NoIWontPickaName,

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

mods_are_assholes,

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.

ICastFist,
@ICastFist@programming.dev avatar

The U.S. will NEVER give up a military foothold in the middle east.

They will, only once all the oil’s been extracted, which will take some decades yet.

While it’s not a religious conspiracy, there is plenty of religious support from certain christian denominations, on the USA and other countries, because of some weird interpretation of the bible about Israelis getting their “promised land” back.

mods_are_assholes,

It’s not only about oil. I mean sure, some of it is but even without oil they’d want military access simply because of how much a hotspot it is.

I already told you this has nothing to do with religion and the fact you believe this means your sources aren’t trustworthy.

ICastFist,
@ICastFist@programming.dev avatar

Oh, you mean that people who use religion to preach support for isreal aren’t real? The pastors in my country that do that during the cults and on TV must be a figment of my imagination, then!

mods_are_assholes,

And exactly what kind of impact do you think those religious nuts have on our top military brass’s positions?

I find it funny that you moved the goalposts so readily. I don’t have time for intellectually dishonest people.

ICastFist,
@ICastFist@programming.dev avatar

I never implied said religious support happened at or was directed at the top of the hierarchy, political or military. Why you came to that conclusion eludes me. Let me quote myself:

there is plenty of religious support from certain christian denominations, on the USA and other countries, because of some weird interpretation of the bible about Israelis getting their “promised land” back.

My intent was pointing out that this is to generate public support. But I guess I’m the one “moving the goalposts” and being “intellectually dishonest” because I’m not replying to what you thought I was saying implicitly. Next thing you’ll tell me I’m trying to squirrel out of what you’re wrongfully accusing me of.

JIMMERZ,

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.

NoIWontPickaName,

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

mods_are_assholes,

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?

NoIWontPickaName,

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.

mods_are_assholes,

… 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.

NoIWontPickaName,

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

mods_are_assholes,

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.

Dark_Arc,
@Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

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.

Postreader2814,

Israel is an ally in the middle east, the only one who does what the US says whenever they say it.

eestileib,

spits out coffee

Israel does what they want.

Their interests align with ours more often than, say, Syria, but they are not a puppet state. Israel tells US foreign policy to go fuck itself sideways on a regular basis.

Postreader2814, (edited )

We’ve not told them explicitly to stop steam rolling Palestine, we’ve don’t the opposite by emboldening them with a few billion dollars in aid money. If we did and stopped giving them aid, they would stop yesterday. They’re dependent on US aid to keep existing. The second we stop aiding Israel; Jordan, Iran, and Iraq move right on in.

Rongbipper,

Interesting, What are some examples of this?

CerealKiller01,

Because while “what we can mostly all agree” to that, Biden does not think that Israel is engaged in genocide.

Just because a group of people perceive something to be the absolute truth, doesn’t mean everyone interpret reality the same way.

Blackmist,

Because Israel helped the US a ton during the cold war. Mossad are pretty good at what they do, and what they did a lot of was spying on Moscow.

k110111,

Except when it comes to defending their own country from their technologically inferior neighbor.

Linkerbaan,
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

Israel wants to kill everyone in Gaza the Middle East and take their land a la Lebensraum. (They want to take Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt too (and even Turkey))

America wants to control the middle east so they can control the oil.

Our entire modern society revolves around oil.

profdc9,

www.aipac.org is an influential lobbying organization. Your elected leaders listen to influential lobbying organizations.

randon31415,

Money

madcaesar,

We also like to support the only democracy in the middle East. But yeah, mostly money / self interest.

randon31415,

1 trillion dollars and countless American lives to bring democracy to Iraq, and people still trotting out the “Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East” line.

whoisearth,
@whoisearth@lemmy.ca avatar

The simplest and most concise answer.

poprocks,

We don’t, our government it’s

Marin_Rider,

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

https://aussie.zone/pictrs/image/eb3fb590-653b-43dd-b9a0-47734a2a1a89.jpeg

bartolomeo,

Sorry I’m really bad at reading between the lines, what’s the agenda being pushed?

kava,

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.

Linkerbaan,
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

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.

bartolomeo,

Fighting back against Nazis is the only correct response.

Dead_or_Alive,

Because Isreal is a leading military power in the Middle East. They are Western in most of their views and the US can deal with them. You can’t say the same about any of the other Middle Eastern nations.

Israel is coming down hard on Gaza and Hamas to make an example of them. They are going to send that strip back to the Stone Age. This operation is a statement, “this is what happens when you fuck with us. “

No other Middle Eastern powers give a shit about Gaza. They make noises to appease their populations. But no other Nation has offered direct military assistance or action.

In short it would be stupid to drop Israel as an ally over this.

NoIWontPickaName,

God forbid we stop calling someone an ally when they kill 20,000 people in less than 6 months

Jolteon,

Morality doesn’t exist on the scale of nations.

LaLuzDelSol,

Look, I agree that Isreal needs to do more to protect Gazan citizens. And to deal with the present situation you need to ignore about 2000 years of history. With that said, when your neighbor is a terrorist group with the EXPLICIT AIM of eradicating the state of Israel, and they launch indiscriminate terrorist attacks on you, and deliberately hide among civilian populations to maximize casualties, what are your options except a land invasion to remove them from power, even though you know there will be civilian deaths?

NoIWontPickaName,

I mean you could start by not shooting aid trucks, killing people with their hands up and shirts off, not blowing up ambulances on their way to save six year olds.

That’s just me though

TheCoralReefsAreDying69,

War always has civilian deaths. It’s an unfortunate consequence.

This is different. Gaza is being flattened by the indiscriminate bombing. Its ridiculous.

Clarke311,

It’s not ridiculous. It’s the point. Lives are the currency. Hamas has one value Israel has another. The exchange rate is far from even.

weeeeum,

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.

LifeInMultipleChoice,

Oh and Prilosec is made in Israel I believe.

TheCoralReefsAreDying69,

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.

amir_s89,
@amir_s89@lemmy.ml avatar

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…

FenrirIII,
@FenrirIII@lemmy.world avatar

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.

intensely_human,

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.

Madison420,

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.

JoBo,

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.

NoIWontPickaName,

And yet they are writing checks that the US has to cash

Madison420,

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.

JoBo,

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.

Madison420,

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.

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