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Comment by rf15 | Hacker News Reader

It is incredibly interesting how the US (and Germany) have put so much into Israel and associated groups they really don't want it to fail (despite the Israeli gov doing their damnest to facilitate just that). In my understanding Israel, in the eyes of the US, is a convenient "wedge" in the Arab space that allows for easier power projection in the area, plus they have a healthy amount of zionists close to money and power at home. I imagine the political calculus of if and how to support it is ridiculously difficult.

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It is incredibly interesting, your have US Congressman coming into the US Congress, in an IDF Uniform.

And then there’s genocide. Framing support for Israel as purely geopolitical misses what’s going on.

If you really believe that this report indicates that there is a genocide against the people of Gaza, I highly suggest reading this:

https://freebeacon.com/israel/the-u-n-genocide-report-agains...

People whose goal is to understand the situation will read it. People whose goal is to slander the Jews, will ignore it.

1) Israel serves as a lightning rod. Much of the Islamist violence is directed at them rather than at the rest of the world.

2) Israel is a nuclear power. You think they'll let themselves be exterminated (and that's what their opponents want) without using their bombs?

There is a lot to unpack in this.

Your #1 is encoding an unexamined assumption that there is a fixed or at least somewhat inflexible amount of violence to be directed anywhere. It also ignores the lightning generation engine, so to speak, that is the settler colonialism causing unrest across the region.

On #2 - Rational people see that they are willing to do everything short of nuclear war when they feel like their century of history is being re-evaluated, and are worried about that (appropriately so). Also, it is an error to assert that nations can be exterminated. That is something evil that happens to people. As organizations of people, institutions and states can fail or be dissolved, but do not disappear permanently so long as people remain to re-form them. I think rational people can argue that the things that are being done in Palestine are unconscionable and that a state that is built to systematically support those acts needs to renew its principles and recommit itself to the idea of "never again".

The lightning generation engine is the Islamist money for terror.

And you are not addressing point #2 at all. I pointed out that the Jews know that to stay if Israel collapses is to die. You are asking them to die and you are asking that they not use their second strike capability when that happens.

When Nazi Germany was occupying the rest of Europe, it also labelled any inside movement of resistance as Terrorism. International law recognizes both occupation and colonization as crimes. Labeling and merging the Palestinians into a single entity called "the terrorists" is a lazy attempt to deny the legitimate claim for freedom and self-determination of an indigenous populations.

"Never again" - Was that ever an idea that Israel committed to? I thought this is only something that Germany and potentially other countries committed to, and Israel saw itself as the victim since forever, so they have no reason to commit to anything, but the victim card, which allowed them to have their own country in the first place.

Note though, that Germany's commitment to "never again" got somehow repurposed in exactly letting the thing happen again. Be it because politicians here are not actually educated enough to recognize the thing they should prevent, want to close their eyes to the fact that the once-victim now perpetrator, did it and they did nothing to stop it, they just don't care, the weapon exports are just too good of a business, or whatever. Germany has utterly failed to prevent the thing from happening ever again, and Israel has proven our collective "blind spot". The one entity, that no German politician is allowed to criticize. And still the political climate is such that, most likely, if you criticize Israel in any way, your political career is over and you get branded as an anti-Semite. Oh the irony of it.

While it should actually be a huge headline in every newspaper, that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians and is still committing it as we sit here, the newspapers are awfully quiet. It seems like it is not even worth a headline. Man, the truth hurts. Sucks when your reporting has been so biased all along. Hard to make a 165 degree turn now, I guess (I give them 15 degree, for the occasional reporting on the matter at all.).

> which allowed them to have their own country

That's a weird thing to say, I thought it was because they set up governance amid a collapsed empire and defended themselves in a war

There's a belief in the western left that Israel was set up by Western countries as colonialism. That way they can more easily call for the dissolving of the illegitimate country for a 1 state solution. If you acknowledge that the Jews were elbowing their way into the area of their own desire for a state, against the wishes of the Ottomans and then British, it makes it more difficult to paint them as evil invaders.

>against the wishes of the Ottomans and then the British

Who has convincingly argued that it was against the wishes of the British? It was the British government's stated objectives.[0][1]

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration

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

Jerusalem had been majority Jewish for decades before the Balfour declaration.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Jerus...

more or less every territory belonged to another tribe in the past. Should descendants of Prussia be allowed to take over Poland and Germany today?

That's a great point. Should anyone be allowed to take over Israel today?

No. But does Palestine still exist or is it Israel? Is Syria Israel? Lebanon? Jordan? Egypt?

The word Palestine is a geographical term. The only political entity to include the name Palestine was Mandatory Palestine. And that entity no longer exists.

Your claim has nothing to do with the sentence I quoted or my response to it.

I was refuting the notion that British desires had little to do with the fact the Jews eventually created their own state. British presence or no British presence, Jerusalem was already Jewish decades before the fall of the Ottomans.

You're insisting on responding to some phantom comment no one made in order make it seem other people's opinion is not supported by overwhelming facts.

>I was refuting the notion that British desires had little to do with the fact the Jews eventually created their own state.

No one said this. What was claimed was that Jews were elbowing into the area against the wishes of the British without any references. I asked for evidence that it was against the wishes of the British because it was news to me and presented references pointing to the contrary. Neither you or the commenter have presented any evidence yet that it was "against the wishes of the British".

I will quote you again:

>I was refuting the notion that British desires had little to do with the fact the Jews eventually created their own state.

How would you wish me to read this sentence? So you are refuting the notion that British desires had little to do with the fact the Jews eventually created their own state, so by refuting it you're saying that the British had a lot to do with the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine?

  > How would you wish me to read this sentence?

I think that Gboard sometimes adds or changes words. Or I just messed up. That should have read:

I was refuting the notion that British desires had to do with the fact the Jews eventually created their own state.

Rephrased: The Jews were intent on creating a state, whether the British supported the notion or not.

In any case, in 1923 the British split Mandatory Palestine into two entities. Everything east of the Jordan river they gave to the Hashemite kingdom, who they helped the house of Saud overthrow after the al-Hashimi family ruled Mecca for ten centuries. The areas west of the Jordan river, 1/3 the original size of the territory, retained the name Palestine in English. The Jews were also calling the area Palestine, but the Arabs rejected the name as being the name of foreign invaders. Which makes sense, the root of the word Palestine literally means "invader" in Semitic languages. וכן, אני מדבר עברית.‫ وانا بحكي عربي كمان.‫

  > I asked for evidence that it was against the wishes of the British because it was news to me and presented references pointing to the contrary.

After the Arab uprising of 1936, the British outlawed Jewish immigration to the holy land.

The Ottomans, needing tax money after losing a war to Prussia, began encouraging immigration to the holy land for all religions. In 1856 they passed a law that anyone who comes to work the untilled land, owns it. They happily accepted what they saw as the Jews returning home, as the area was very sparsely populated (but not empty as some Jews say (and yes, I'm Jewish)). The waves of Arab immigration began after the turn off the century, mostly from Egypt and the Damascus area.

The idea is, that without the victim role of the Jews in the 2.WW, they would never have had the international support, that they enjoyed for decades. They would never have had the "social credits" among nations, that they had. Countries like Germany, supposedly would have opened their mouth much sooner and sanctioned Israel, if it were not for our perpetrator role in 2.WW. The idea was, that finally the Jews have a safe haven, and that that needs to be protected.

Israel has been playing that victim card for decades. It allowed them to get where they are. Now that card is crumbling, as they did the unthinkable. I hope that one day our German politicians will also realize this. It is becoming quite ridiculous, how Germany behaves in foreign policy in that regard, and many people here are ashamed of their own country and government. This is stuff that makes people vote for extremists, which I can tell you, we have no additional need for right now. To me it is unthinkable to ever elect the ruling parties again, due to how shitty they handled everything. Well, already wouldn't vote for them anyway, because of all the corruption in their ranks.

What a load of BS

This is a common framing by neo-liberal / centrist folks: That the US/West is intelligently and methodologically utilizing Israel for some tactical geopolitical advantage / force projection. It may have played out that way in the past... but at this point Israel is lobbying the US gov't heavily and has bought out most politicians via AIPAC. The myth of Israel being a "bastion" between the west and terrorist Arabs is pretty much a veneer... they are themselves responsible for generating much this terrorism. They bombed the shit out of Lebanon and who would've thunk it Hezbollah popped up.

  > They bombed the shit out of Lebanon and who would've thunk it Hezbollah popped up.

You state that as if you are unaware of the cross border attacks originating in Lebanon. How about "Armed groups in Lebanon bomb the shit out of Israeli citizens, and who would've thunk it the Israeli armed forces struck back".

Having watched Israel deal with their neighbors since the 80s, I am generally inclined to give the benefit of doubt to Israel.

However over the last 5 years my attitude has changed. Israel and the Palestinians (focus esp on Palestinian kids) are two screwed over peoples screwing themselves over from a place of stubbornness, reprisal.

Who's right depends on how far you wanna go back in tit for tat, which is rhetorically arbitrary.

The US stance should be:

- Israel will recognize Palestine as a state and Israel stay the hell out their business. Israel will remove their camps from palestine.

- Palestine gets the control they want/need and with it commeasurate accountability.

Therefore,

- US support is withdrawn until two state done

Palestine needs to:

- provide governance for their citizens without playing footsies with terrorists. It's time for them to put up or shut up.

From a US standpoint and as a US citizen I'm pissed at the idiocy we've done to the middle east. I'm also sick and tired of having entanglements from Israel or oil. We've got to get our act together and focus.

I happen to agree with every single word you said. I will emphasize, however, there are two horrible complications. They are pretty much the root of all the problems you see today.

First, borders. Israel's internationally recognized borders encompass all the West Bank and Gaza - the areas of Mandatory Palestine. Gaza and the West Bank were occupied by Egypt and Jordan militarily, but the current borders between those two territories and 1948 Israel are only ceasefire lines, not borders. Despite 19 years of there being no Jews in either territory after being ethnically cleaned by the occupying forces, both territories have literal millennia of history of Jews living in there. And Jews live there today. The Jewish state unilaterally uprooted all Jews living in the Gaza strip in 2005, which is widely regarded as a social mistake and a security mistake, and there is very little chance that this will be done again in the West Bank.

Secondly, education. The people of Gaza and the West Bank were prevented from establishing functions of state by UNRWA. In the West bank, the PA currently rules and does a decent job of providing state services - far below the standards anyone would actually want to live in, but able to be rehabilitated. In Gaza however, Hamas has been providing state services in parallel with UNRWA. However, UNRWA was largely responsible for children's education in both areas. UNRWA's curriculum teaches that Jews are to be genocided from the holy land, and that the entire areas of Mandatory Palestine are to be part of the Palestinian state. They teach that dying to kill Jews is the highest honor that one could achieve in Palestinian society. Many Westerners, and of course Israelis, have a hard time imagining a peaceful Palestinian state established when these are the values of the population. Remember, no matter what the final borders will be, they will be long and hard to defend, and we are wary of a hostile population amassed on those borders.

> In my understanding Israel, in the eyes of the US, is a convenient "wedge" in the Arab space that allows for easier power projection in the area

This doesn't get talked about enough but yes, this was Kissinger's geopolitical view of the near and middle east which we still largely operate on today. The goal being to use the oppressed state of Palestine as a way to separate America's greatest threat (an ascent multi-national Ba'athist movement) from the rest of the middle east by creating a situation that is impossible for the Ba'athists to ignore.

The only correction I'd make is that Israel isn't particularly important as an end in this strategy, they are just the means to achieve the goal of Palestinian subjugation. There's a reason the US also pours money into Egypt to enforce their border.

It is high time that we accept that the people in power are not sensible. That the world is run by a bunch of apocalyptic death cult, living out evangelical fantasies.

There is no other reasonable explanation. They have nothing to gain anymore.

The current US administration also derives a lot of its support from evangelical Christians, who have a belief that Israel must exist in order for Jesus to return to earth. Which I’m sure he’d be a fan of all the lying and killing that was done to make that happen…

Not all evangelical Christians are like this. There are two main branches: covenantal and dispensational. Dispensational theology is basically the same thing as Christian Zionism, and was invented in the 1800s by John Darby and his followers[1]. Covenantal theology goes way further back and is still popular today. For example Presbyterians are a major covenantal denomination.

[1] https://aish.com/unlikely-zionists-the-fascinating-story-of-...

They leave out the part where their end time scenario says the Jews will ally with the Anti-Christ, will nearly all be killed in a war with Gentile armies, and then the remaining Jews will all convert to Christianity.

I don't think you have to be an evangelical Christian to belief that Israel should exist. I think a lot of people not heavily invested in politics or world affairs simply see Israel as more of a Western country aligned with their values and beliefs and want them to exist.

> Which I’m sure he’d be a fan of all the lying and killing that was done to make that happen…

I'm not sure if Israel ceased to exist there would be less killing and lying. In the first order effect maybe. But if you let a terrorist state control an area, that's obviously not good for global stability. But then again it might be self contained, kind of like a backwards place that exists in its own bubble.

If Israel ceased to exist, Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed Shii will come in and slaughter Sunni Hamas. Iran funds Hamas not out of love for Hamas, but out of spite for the Jewish state.

Why would the terrorists exist to begin with if Israel didn't exist?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihad

same you can ask why Islam conquests would even exist to begin with if everybody was already Muslim. Just that one thing ruins everything eh?

same about Christian crusades etc.

Religions want to expand. Some more than others.

Jesus doesn't need anyone's help or the existence of any country to return to Earth. He does whatever He wants, like it or not.

True.

And these guys sing whatever they want about Him, like it or not:

https://youtu.be/-aPnFTFrg5k

Barclay James Harvest - Hymn.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barclay_James_Harvest

The song was very popular in the peak rock music era, and among the youth.

It probably has more to do with soft power like dirt on policy makers than what the plebs think. What do you think Epstein was paid to do?

Yes, support started for Israel once Epstein got dirt on them. There is no history of support for Israel prior to that. Yours it totally the most likely/rational take.

WTF is going on with this site? You sure have people real comfortable to say this kind of shit here.

"Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert." --Jean-Paul Sartre

Concern that Esptein blackmailed politicians isn’t the same as anti-semitism.

If you claim that America, which has supported Israel forever and long before Epstein, is supporting Israel because 'Epstein' based on conspiracy theories, everything I said and quoted applies to you. OP brought Epstein into it for a reason, not a mistake. You continued referencing Epstein, not a mistake.

But everyone reading this, see how the above post turned the words just slightly from OP they defended and my response, to try and change the discourse/make me defend something different/uncomfortable versus what I originally replied to? Not claiming they did that on purpose, but if they did it would be an example of what Sartre said. Not saying you intentionally misconstrued/misrepresented what I said. Just saying that you happened to do the thing.

Edit: can't post but there is no need to bring Esptein into it at all if it's just about manipulation fears (since the USA has supported Israel long before Epstein). Both of you specifically brought Epstein needlessly into your arguments. I'm done dancing and doing word play like the quote says.

No there was a factual mistake in that person’s comment. That’s not identical with anti-semitism. Someone holding a mistaken view isn’t anti-Semitic simply because anti-Semites hold mistaken views.

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