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US Expected to Withdraw from UN Human Rights Council

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42 pointspetethomas31 comments

I don't understand United State's extreme support for Israel. No one ever explains it. You just get either accused of antisemitim or that it's because of AIPAC money. But there has to be more to it than that, there is strong bipartisan support for Israel. Why is it so much in our interest? I'd love to get the real realpolitk explanation.

The best guess I've heard is that it's actually a kind of understanding among the USA, Israel, and the other Western countries. Basically, America goes to bat and looks stupid, and everyone else can cater to the Arab countries in the UN without actually damaging Israel all that much, which actually has quite good relations with many WEOG/EU/Anglo countries despite the Foreign Ministry's usual rhetoric.

Only democracy in the middle east? Shared values? Ties of kinship? We like underdogs?

Who else are you going to support in the middle east? Iran? Turkey? Syria?

Palestine would be a state a long time ago if they didn't have such criminal leadership.

Underdogs with nuclear weapons?

Surrounded by enemies on all sides. And have been for the last century.

Yes, underdogs.

The very first day of the state of Israel, May 14th 1948, Israel was invaded[0] by six Arab nations (Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Syria.) Plus, volunteer units from Sudan, the Muslim Brotherhood, Pakistan, and the Holy War Army.

It's remarkable that the nascent state of Israel survived.

And again in 1967[1], Israel was attacked by 13 nations. Despite being outnumbered 264k to 547k, they not only won but gained territory, including Jerusalem, Sinai, and the Golan Heights.

And again in 1973, Israel was invaded by several nations[2], outnumbered by over 3 to 1 in total troop deployment.

This combined with the fact that Israel is the world's only Jewish state, founded by people who survived the Holocaust or had witnessed it first-hand, founding the state of Israel just 3 years after the end of World War II. It's remarkable for a people who make up a tiny portion of the world's population. It's remarkable that Jews exist today. It's remarkable that Israel exists today.

So yes, underdogs indeed.

[0}: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Arab%E2%80%93Israeli_War

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-Day_War

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yom_Kippur_War

> Underdogs with nuclear weapons?

For most of their existence their much larger Arab neighbors (who had the backing of a superpower) had the explicit and oft-stated goal of destroying Israel. Those weren't idle threats: several wars were fought under that banner, one of which was almost successful.

While they currently have a somewhat more secure position, due to peace treaties. They remain unpopular, and a governmental change or revolution could easily put them under intense threat again.

Supporters of Israel, principally Israeli Americans and Evangelists, are extremely well organised. They donate. They go to meetings. They call their Congresspersons. And when they vote, they treat this as a single issue.

More broadly, Israel is an advanced democracy and technological jewel with which we have a close economic, military and political alliance. You stick with your friends through the bad times.

Some friends, other friends like Canada can apparently be beat up no problem.

Yeah, until the very moment Canada elects a right-populist/neo-fascist government. We all know what Trump and his administration are up to.

You stick with your friends through the bad times.

You mean like Canada and the EU?

1) American Jews are very powerful

2) Islam and Americhristianity are perennial enemies so Judaism is the enemy of Our enemy

3) Israelis in particular have kinship with American aggressive bluster and belief in self-determination against adversity

>I don't understand United State's extreme support for Israel. No one ever explains it.

Why shouldn't the US support Israel?

(Edit: No one ever explains it. They just downvote the question.)

Devil's advocate here:

They believe the Palistinians are mistreated by Isreal. The USA has a (selective) history of not supporting oppressive regimes and there seems to be some hypocrisy here.

That said, no one in that conflict is on the side of the angels. The Palestinians bomb a pizzaria, so the Israeli army cracks down with mass arrests and shootings at the border. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I could think of a few.

* Jews are a historically hated group, so maybe there's a swing back the other direction

* There is a connection between Judaism and Christianity (they basically share the old testament), and so I could see large amounts of religious support. Of course you also have antisemitic religious, so there's that

* We are allied with them, and they are in the middle east, is it possible that is also a strategical reason

I'm sure there's more, but also consider that support is not exactly universal among Americans:

> As of July 2006, a poll claimed that 44% of Americans thought that the "United States supports Israel about the right amount", 11% thought "too little", and 38% thought "too much" [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93United_States_r...

It's also about UNHRC's extreme focus on Israel to the detriment of everything else. More than 50% of their decisions are about Israel. The agency is led by countries with worst human right records that get to vote on how "horrible" the situation is in democracies.

https://www.unwatch.org/un-israel-key-statistics/

In addition to the other replies, another reason for the friendship between the US and Israel is that US founders saw the United States as a recasting of ancient Israel. Where Israel escaped Egyptian captivity to form their own unique nation, the peoples in America had left their various captivities (religious, political, economic) to begin a new nation unlike the nations of Europe.

Some examples:

Benjamin Franklin proposed that the scene of the Exodus (Israelites passing through the sea) be made the official insignia of the United States[0].

"Moses standing on the Shore, and extending his Hand over the Sea, thereby causing the same to overwhelm Pharaoh who is sitting in an open Chariot, a Crown on his Head and a Sword in his Hand. Rays from a Pillar of Fire in the Clouds reaching to Moses, to express that he acts by Command of the Deity."

He suggested the national motto be, "Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God."

The Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, preserved to this day, is inscribed with a passage from the Torah, the book of Leviticus[1]:

"Proclaim LIBERTY Throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants Thereof"

[0]: https://www.jpost.com/Christian-News/Today-in-History-Benjam...

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Bell#Inscription

Something not mentioned yet is American Evangelical Christians. They are powerful voting bloc; they also believe that Israel must be in Jewish control for the second coming of Christ, and as a result the politicians they vote for all support Israel more or less unconditionally.

0. https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-10-24/why-american-evangeli...

1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/05/14/h...

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Zionism

Correct, a sizable number of these lunatic US neocons support Israel because they believe that once all the Jews are gathered there, a holy war will begin in which Jews and Muslims will obliterate each other and Jesus will come take all the Christians to heaven. But the ones that aren't totally insane just support Israel because of its geopolitical significance.

Christian fundamentalists are powerful influencers and some of their ideas are found at all levels of US government.

Two articles from different political positions:

https://www.city-journal.org/html/why-don%E2%80%99t-jews-chr...

https://www.vox.com/2017/12/12/16761540/jerusalem-israel-emb...

Because Israel deserves to be supported. They are an open, liberal democracy surrounded by people that hate them and are forced into a very difficult position by their enemies.

The real question is why does the world take such a myopic and shallow view of Israel? Again Israel is forced to do what it must by its enemies. This is a perspective that is ignored by much of the world.

UNHRC happens to be the one entity whose bad reputation is somewhat justified, although I guess the US President just made it his point that talking is always better than not talking?

There are other UN institutions far more useful, and also far more liable to be harmed by a US boycott. UNHCR would be first on that lis. They are currently caring for millions of refugees, helping both them as well as the western countries that would be overrun by asylum-seekers without these efforts. They do so on a shoestring budget (something like $2 per person/day).

So at a high level, what’s the path to recovery for Western liberal democracy?

There seem to be many long-term structural problems that we aren’t really dealing with. Climate change, unfair accumulation of wealth, the change in labour and employment requirements; decaying infrastructure, corruption, increasingly adversarial and fact-free politics, to name a few.

I would like the world to be a better place for everyone. I always thought that a balanced mix of well-regulated markets and targeted state involvement, backed by a transparent and accessible democracy, would be the way to achieve that. But it seems to have faltered, at least in the Anglosphere.

Is it just done for? Does the future look totally different? It seems like such an intractable problem that I have no idea where to start.

What's the connection you see between this article and this question?

Leaving the UNHRC (not to be confused with the UNHCR as someone noted below, they're not a bad choice AFAIK if you are looking for a charitable organizations helping refugees to give to) doesn't seem to be a sign of the decline of western liberal democracy.

The council has issued more condemnations of Israel than it has issued condemnations of every other country in the world combined. Leaving is about rejecting that set of priorities. Not to say that those priorities are wrong, but obviously the US leadership does not agree that Israel should be the subject of so much of the councils time.

Time, the pendulum will eventually swing back.

Isn't the UN HRC run by a prince from Saudi Arabia and a number of other representatives from undemocratic and repressive states?

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