Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

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Yes, that is what I am saying. Cutting off arms sales to Israel will not prevent a supply blockade of Gaza or a Rafah invasion, both of which are issues that the US has publicly campaigned on --- we don't know what other red lines the US has set up, or how much worse this could yet become. Contrary to popular belief, it's not at all clear that Israel is dependent on the US militarily; we're a small part of their defense budget.

I think domestic politics are certainly a factor, but not a big one in an ICC case, because Americans, to a first approximation, do not give a shit about the ICC; further, we aren't a party to the ICC, so it's not as if the administration is being asked to do something or help adjudicate.

I want to say again that I think this particular case is well-founded. But an ICC warrant against the leader of a non-signatory is fundamentally a political act, and while I don't take issue with the stated intent of that act, I don't get the theory of change behind it.

I put it to you directly: what good comes of this while Netanyahu remains in power?

H.W. Bush brought Israel in line: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/george-hw-bush-israel-palesti...

Reagan did it with a single phone call: https://www.nytimes.com/1982/08/13/world/reagan-demands-end-...

Bush's settlement policies didn't work at all. West Bank settlements drastically increased in the years following that showdown. Can you look at a graph and spot the point where Bush "brought Israel in line"?

(I kind of like Bush 1, at least as a competent operator with some discernible principles, and think Israeli settlement of the West Bank is abhorrent).

> Yes, that is what I am saying. Cutting off arms sales to Israel will not prevent a supply blockade of Gaza or a Rafah invasion

It would if Israel has any sense of self preservation at all. They need the support of the American government more than they need Gazan land.

I think that's unlikely to be true. I think it's a self-serving western myth that Israel, with one of the largest economies and the best trained and resourced military in the region (see the Arab States performance vs. the IRGC in Syria and Yemen for counterexamples) is a US-dependent proxy. The west tried to ice Russia out of supplies for the Ukranian invasion, and that didn't work despite near-unanimity. Israel will just buy bombs from China, which is their next largest trading partner after us. We will lose all influence over Israeli policy, at least until [insert US partisan political argument here].

(I also think it's not at all clear that serious policymakers in Israel "want Gazan land", let alone need it; the messianic nutballs bolstering Netanyahu's coalition are, to put it mildly, not representative of mainstream Israel policy thinking.)

A reminder that we're just talking about this stuff here; this is HN, not the UN Security Council. If we're going to have threads like this here, we're going to have to accept that we're having curious conversations, not high-stakes deliberations. So: I can be wrong about all of this stuff, and I'm glad to hear why. But we're not going to solve Israel/Gaza on a thread.

(You didn't say anything to prompt that disclaimer, it's just a stress reaction from previous threads).

> Israel will just buy bombs from China

Or just make them themselves. That seems fully within their capabilities if push comes to shove. After all, we are talking about bombs not fighter jets.

I think the biggest thing the US is doing for Israel is discouraging regional actors from getting involved. If the US took no position here either way, the conflict would probably turn into a proxy war pretty quickly. Whether you think that's good or not depends on your viewpoint. I personally prefer that the states in the area, even if they don't necessarily directly represent the Palestinians, negotiate the conflict because they have to deal with the fallout on their own borders/politics.

Being able to purchase weapons from the US also gives them significant political latitude internally. When a significant amount of your economy and government spending goes to making weapons, you're going to affect domestic budgets, which will make coalition building much harder especially in a country with as many small parties as Israel. We see this in Russia as well but because Russia is not democratic when it comes to defense allocation, it simply throws its dissidents in jail or encourages them to leave.

> (I also think it's not at all clear that serious policymakers in Israel "want Gazan land", let alone need it; the messianic nutballs bolstering Netanyahu's coalition are, to put it mildly, not representative of mainstream Israel policy thinking.)

And yet are regularly re-elected. And have been for decades.

It is not the case that the ultra-right fringe parties like Jewish Power had governing power for decades. It's a parliamentary system, weirdos get elected to the Knesset, but the governing authorities --- at least prior to Netanyahu, and even during Sharon's time! --- were normies, not neo-Kahanist terrorists. It's easy to find lots and lots of political analysis about why this has happened, much of it having to do with the probability that Netanyahu could wind up imprisoned (for things having nothing to do with Gaza) once he fails to assemble a governing coalition.

See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40421217

This dynamic – a political leader trying to run away from justice – has, historically been a very common way in which states fail; which is why a lot of people who pay close attention to such things are very concerned about the state of US democracy.

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