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Comment by L_Rahman | Hacker News Reader

They're both prominent US allies; they're states with some religious identity fundamental to their existence; they're integrated into American civic society - Saudi money in the US economy, academic partnerships between US and Israeli universities; they disenfranchise their own citizens to varying degrees; they buy American weapons and count on American military support to maintain geopolitical relations.

Oh, and they both use the strength of their relationship with the US to make certain parts of the world unlivable for people they don't like.

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False equivalency.

Israel is pretty much the only Democratic, liberal country in the middle East, with Western level women's rights/empowerment, LGBTQ protections, legal protection for minorites, etc. And a land of massive innovation. US universities aren't partnering with Israel because it's politically convenient, but because Israeli universities breed world leading research in many areas. Which is why most high tech companies have an Israeli division, and which is also why Israel has one of the world's highest per capita entrepreneurship, patents and peer reviewed scientific publications.

Contrast that to Autocratic Saudi Arabia where women weren't allowed to drive, or move about in public without approved male company until a year or two, where the LGBTQ are punished by death, where every non Muslim is systemically discriminated with a religions tax [1], where critical Tweets about the establishment routinely land people in jail, where the actual law of the land [2] is a throwback to the middle ages, with almost no scientific or cultural output of significance!

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jizya

[2]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_system_of_Saudi_Arabia...

You sure rushed it with minority rights.

It's like Apartheid era South Africa arguments again. A shining beacon of civilization among the barbarians, yada yada.

yes, that behavior is expected of a shit-tier country like saudi arabia. Is that how Israel wants to be regarded?

first-world countries should be held to higher standards of jurisprudence (among all things) than rando third-world nations. if you can't deliver justice, then really are you first-world at all?

do you really think Israel delivers appropriate due process to its occupied territories? Let alone actual representation?

iirc Israel just rolled over and occupied Jerusalem within the last couple years. The US rubber-stamped it, not sure that changes anything.

I think we all agree with you here. But none of it contradicts what the parent said

I think you're the one doing the false equivalency.

I'm not defending Saudi Arabia, which is indeed as backward as it gets, but in the case of Israel, if you want to talk about discrimination and human rights abuse, you cannot ignore (like you did) the way the indigenous population is treated, in what is effectively an apartheid state.

The real equivalency is that Saudi Arabia, Israel, the US, Russia, China, and - increasingly - the UK and other satellite states are now essentially extreme nationalist regimes with a far-right political slant and a fondness for various forms of violence.

The differences are more about superficial local colour than political dynamics, which are becoming depressingly consistent across the board.

It's becoming less and less surprising that there are high-level links between all of them which converge through the use of social media and other tools of influence.

Claiming Israel has a far right political stance is disingenuous. In terms of what? Geopolitical strategy? Economically they're definitely not on the right by any US standards.

He wrote "extreme nationalist regimes". I really hope that the Palestinian minority, which isn't really small and keeps growing, gets a say in Israeli politics after all these years of being totally sidelined by the majority. I don't see any other path to peace in that region.

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