I don't think I've ever seen in all of my wide understanding of history, such a tiny state successfully make an empire its vassal. Truly an astounding feat. It would be highly entertaining if it didn't bode poorly for humanity.
Not to mention, it often comes down to primary voters, to say nothing of Hollywood/media blacklists
> the Democrats are necessarily adversarial, but they clearly aren't as agreeable as a whole).
Democrats only changed recently. For some decades before that, the Israel lobby had significant sway over them (including allowing dems to publicly admit certain things).
The hubris to think a group of people could precipitate the rapture is just awe inspiring and the hubris to reduce someone's relationship with the creator to some Wikipedia excerpts is a bit less awe inspiring.
All so you get an accelerated chance to ride with Zombie Jesus on a cloud to heaven while the rest of us experience supernatural calamity, and most illuminating is the fact that the Jews don’t. get. to. come.
Its all so contrived and opportunistic
Instead of stating that, Israel is masqueraded as our democratic partner in the Middle East where we can store bases as if we don’t have bases in every surrounding country there.
It’s just your sect perpetuating this nonsense. We built this nation devoid of a divine monarchies, the only freaking one with the opportunity and resources for it to matter at the time, and now have to deal with you guys and your anti-intellectual doomsday cult.
The US has no reason to be involved at all. But even beyond that, look at what the US did to Ethiopia and Eritrea under the mere allegation of famine inducing actions:
EO 14046 just a couple years ago put the entire ruling party on the OFAC economic sanctions list, and the military and businesses formed by personnel in either and by their spouses. You know that would be essentially every person in Israel if we held them to the same standard? Should be fine, only antisemitic people believe there’s a disproportionately large consolidation of economic interests amirite, FAFO but just the find out stage
Takes only the stroke of a pen, Congress not needing to be involved at all, and can even apply to our dual allegiance citizens in the US
Anyone can call themselves a Christian. In fact, the bible repeatedly warns about this, and instructs us to test everything. It says one can only discern a true follower of Jesus by their fruits and the company they keep.
Actually, when you talk to a lot of "Christians", you'll find that most don't know the bible, and many worship something else that they picked up from tv, usually Judaism (i.e. do they mention the 10 commandments?).
Evangelicalism is an accelerationist sect to get your savior to come back and bring the most devout to heaven at the expense of everyone else, before allowing the world to get destroyed
These are inseparable concepts. You may have simply began identifying as Evangelic just by birth or proximity or to grift your way into a relationship, but again, you are in a death cult that is trying to use Jewish people as pawns ever since their Zionism ideology coincidentally matched your prophecy. And then they are condemned to burn with the rest of us in a supernatural nightmare as our world gets destroyed by your creator’s more powerful creations while you are insulated if you did everything right. That’s what the rapture is.
Your choice and practice of peace and love has nothing to do with Evangelicalism as a distinct Christian sect. Anyone can read inspirational and feel good messages from the book of Psalms from any variant of the text. You don’t even need that Abrahamic religion for that, you dont even need religion for that.
I’m not even writing this for you, you’re cooked and gain more benefits socially and mentally from rationalizing this, I’m writing this for passerby’s, people already noticing cracks in the belief system they associate with.
People that can help get our country out of involvement in this while you guys pretend there is a persecution complex around holidays. Everyone just wants to ignore you.
I do wonder how long this can continue. American people should have the final say on which relationships are beneficial to them not special interest groups. The fatigue is very real and palpable and its growing to be an ugly force that is also being exploited by extremists.
This trend change in how American youth view Israel is also a big reason why so many social media platforms are exchanging hands, ex. TikTok by blaming some other scary foe like Russia or China. These are mere attempts to buy time at the inevitable in that America is going their own way and it will be ultimately the American people that will decide.
Look at what's happening in South Korea right now. Election fraud has triggered both the left and the right. The usual opportunists and politicians tried to exploit the situation and they were rejected. The fatigue from the people and the current arrangement is turning into visible anger in countries which face serious structural problems due to the huge wealth gap parity and falling birth rates.
One need not look far at places like Quebec or Paris or Belgium to see exactly where this is headed for people who have nothing to do with Israel but are associated by guilt.
The risks they are taking are stunning, and the payoffs highly questionable. I don't think this can be said to be in their own interests. Nuclear deterrents go a long way, but at some point they're not enough to defend a group as crazy as the Israeli government if they keep stirring up trouble.
The John Mearsheimer view is that "The Lobby" [1] has effective control over US foreign policy. There's a lot of evidence for this such as AIPAC indirectly unseating anti-Israel candidates. The Thomas Massie primary was the most expensive in history. $35 million. For a primary.
Noam Chomsky on the other hand rejects the notion of "the lobby" [2], instead arguing that Israel is an tool of American imperialism. Then-US Secretary of STate of Alexander Haig is widely believed to have described Israel as an "unsinkable aircraft carrier" [3] in a resource-rich region even though that term originated in the Pacific in WW2. The US has had an interest in disrupting Pan-Arab Nationalism [4], preferring a divided Middle East to guarantee access to oil.
The truth lies somewhere in between. There are clearly material interests and the US could shut down Israel in a day if it so chose. But the US has taken actions that clearly aren't in its national interest and the perfect example is the current Iran war.
Under no circumstances was this ever going to end well. The military knew it. General Caine tried to stop it when Trump didn't heed his warnings [5]. The US intelligence community was against it. also saying Iran wasn't developing a nuclear weapon [6]. Trump instead listened to Miriam Adelson, Benjamin Netanyahu and Mossad, who collectively (allegedly) convinced him it would be a Venezuela-like regime change operation.
This move will (IMHO) go down as the largest strategic blunder in US history and it will reshape geopolitics in the Gulf, Europe and Asia for decades. Even other wars that were lost (eg Vietnam, Korea) didn't have this kind of impact. The US could essentially walk away from those at little cost.
My point is that you can't take the Chomsky view as this being purely materialist. It just doesn't fit the evidence.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Israel_Lobby_and_U.S._Fore...
[2]: https://mondoweiss.net/2011/02/chomsky-materialism-and-the-i...
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsinkable_aircraft_carrier
[4]: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v12...
[5]: https://edition.cnn.com/2026/02/25/politics/caine-iran-hegse...
[6]: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/us-intel-community-agreed-b...
He's there right at the Lobby. We have no way at all of knowing he's saying it doesn't matter because he saw it doesn't matter, or because it dictates what he says.
https://www.mearsheimer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Why-t...
It's also worth noting that the public is so aware of AIPAC that it's become a bit of a too-visible stink. More and more pro-israel money is being funneled through other mechanisms: Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI), NORPAC, United Democracy Project (UDP), Pro-Israel America. There are also regional pacs, like To Protect Our Heritage PAC in Illinois, SunPAC in Florida, etc.
I have friends from all walks of life, and trust me when I tell you, the GOP isn't all in on Israel. Which is weirder to me, because I'll hear about how antisemitic the right is, and then in the same breath hear people blame them for Israel's support? When you factor in that roughly half of evangelicals (which can be Democrats too mind you) support Israel, I guess that kind of pans out with why you hear both angles? It's just bizarre to me either way.
I know we benefit militarily from Israel when you factor in all the technology we've designed for them, that we can use for ourselves (Iron dome comes to mind), there's also special ops we otherwise might have never heard of like Stuxnet, which is the coolest thing I ever heard about (I mean really, it was impressive). I'm never blindly a supporter of any nation, because all nations can mess up, but I don't like blindly hating people or nations either. Not everyone is so black and white as everyone seems to believe nowadays, often it feels like the truth is somewhere in between.
I'm not sure where you're getting the info on evangelicals but from what I can find, support is closer to 82% [1]. Zionism in the US isn't actually a Jewish issue. It's a Christian issue. For every Jewish Zionist there are ~30 Christian Zionists. Why? It's theological. I'm referring to dispensational premillenialism [2]. To summarize, in this theology Israel is the key to bringing on the End Times and the return of Jesus Christ.
> I've never even heard of any of my local reps mentioning Israel when running
So this is intentional. Israel realizes how unpopular Israel is or just that people don't care so there extensive spending is hidden behind PACs that none of the messaging is ever about Israel. $35 million was spent to oust Thomas Massie in his recent primary. How much of it was about Israel? None. You only find out after the election who AIPAC funded when the intermediary PACs have to reveal their financing.
> have friends from all walks of life, and trust me when I tell you, the GOP isn't all in on Israel.
It's pretty close [3][4]. More importantly, anti-Israel Republican politicians are few and far between. It just isn't a popular stance to take in Republican primaries.
[1]: https://globalaffairs.org/commentary/blogs/american-evangeli...
[2]: https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/dispe...
[3]: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/04/07/negative-...
[4]: https://news.gallup.com/poll/702440/israelis-no-longer-ahead...
The proto-typical versions of this are (1) supersessionism in more traditional Christian thought, and (2) more modern "dual-covenant" thought. The latter is not always explicitly antisemitic, but can be implicitly so if it sees Jews as primarily fulfilling a Christian eschatological purpose (undergoing mass conversion as part of the rapture).
If you pry and ask the right questions, they'll admit that they don't want this to happen, because they really want all those Jews and nonbelievers to convert and be saved. This is also antisemitism, but it's wrapped up in a millenia-old death cult.
Dispensationalism isn’t a “millennia old”; its a 19th Century doctrine. (Younger than the United States, older than Christian Fundamentalism.)
Despite the Right trying to redefine antisemitism in terms of opposition to the State of Israel, anti-semitism and anti-Zionism are somewhwere between uncorrelated and anti-correlated. Certainly, dispensationalist, eschatologically-motivated Christian Zionism (the main reason for the tie between evangelicalism and support for Israel) is not at all associated with pro-Judaism.
> When you factor in that roughly half of evangelicals (which can be Democrats too mind you)
Evangelicals “can be” Democrats, but again the Israel-Evangelicalism tie is mainly specifically through dispensationalism, which is almost exclusive to White evangelicalism, and White evangelicals split about 85/15 Republican (or Republican-leaning independent) vs Democrat (+Dem leaners).
> I know we benefit militarily from Israel when you factor in all the technology we've designed for them, that we can use for ourselves (Iron dome comes to mind)
Funny that would be the example that comes to mind, because Iron Dome was developed by Israel (by Israeli state-owned defense firms), not by the US for Israel.
You may be confusing it with the similarly named American (proposed) “Golden Dome” system, whose name Iron Dome inspired, but we didn't develop.that for Israel either (in fact, it hasn’t actually been developed), the only connection to Israel is the inspiration for the name.
I don't think it splits along traditional right/left lines. The ADL is not typically considered right-wing, and they're what everyone cites to conflate the two concepts. Furthermore you're seeing this adopted at the university level to effects chilling to campus free speech in ways I've never seen before—again, not typically a right wing bastion. Then you have right-wing figures like Candice Owens, Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly who have all spoken out against Israel. Now those may be fringe figures but they're on the right fringe. It seems like it's the center, the broad center, that is scared to rock the boat.
Because the interests of Jews and Christians do not and never will align. Already there are reports of orthodox Jews harassing Christians...
As I said, things are changing, but it's still largely verboten to speak baldly against Israel as a democrat. In the senate, there are people who oppose arms sales to Israel, largely because of the Leahy law prohibiting arms sales to countries who commit war crimes, but few speak strongly against the clear slaughter (let alone describe it as a genocide as the rest of the world seems comfortable doing), or ascribe it solely to Netanyahu. This, when democratic voters mostly do not have a favorable view of Israel, seems to be a fundamental failure of representation.
On the republican side, Massie and previously MTG were opposed. Only about 43% of republican voters strongly support Israel. I don't believe any senator opposes arms sales to Israel. Again, this seems like a failure of representation.
To characterize this as a symptom of evangelicalism is historically understandable, but young evangelicals do not follow this trend, and even historically it's only a small part of the story.
But, americans rarely vote based on foreign policy (something like 3-5% of americans depending on the election). That we well and truly are culpable for.
somehow the narrative has been able to conflate Israel with jews. so the first person who says something about halting aid to Israel or stopping the genocide is called "anti semite". The fear from this alone is enough to keep almost everyone quiet, especially journalists. It's a perfect byproduct of cancel culture.
You shouldn't dismiss Israel power in cultural warfare, financial and political ties. Epstein was probably the tip of the iceberg.
And that can be recognized without diminishing the intrinsic dignity of every human being that live in Israel and outside of it independently of race, nationality, religion, etc.
But accepting that number, 6% x 340 million people = 20.4 million evangelicals.
I'll look at Serbia, thank you.
Primarily a Russia friendly Serbia was important for Russian trade routes (Black Sea to Mediterranean via the Dardanelles.) In other words geography made Serbia important.
In a twist on that theme, the strait of Hormuz is important to, well everyone, and we now see how geography can magnify a countries strategic value.
There were other factors which came into play with Russia. Ethnically Serbia was aligned with Russia - similar to the US / Israel relationship today.
It also didn't hurt that Russia at the time was experiencing internal discontent and this was a convenient way to thin the population, and get rid of malcontents. (Ironically would end up having the opposite effect of organizing, arming and training an army that ultimately would be instrumental in the revolution. )
The history leading up to ww1 is fascinating- so many players, all with really "big picture" goals, mostly with weak leadership.. Ultimately conflict was inevitable- if it hadn't been the arch-duke it would have been something else.
What they seem to be most unique in is the impunity of their operations, like when they assassinated a completely innocent guy in Norway, of all places: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillehammer_affair
Anyone who's been to and seen the Gaza border knows how impossible it is to cross - unless of course there was some inside permittance.
People who've been to that border in normal times know how fiercely that border is protected.
Hamas are crazy fundamentalists that Iran is using along with Hezbollah to perpetrate attacks against Israel. Just what Netanyahu needs to start another war.
They're normal people—dentists, engineers, bakers, whatever—born into an environment with no sovereignty and the constant threat of death or worse. That's enough to put a gun in anyone's hand. We must stop with this wholly inaccurate and shallow characterization. They are not Boko Haram or ISIS or Al-Qaeda. In fact, they worked with the IDF when ISIS was messing with them about 8 years ago. Are they predominantly muslim? Yes. But their struggle is for sovereignty, not fanatic fundamentalism.
> they are just a terrorist organization and recently designated as such in most of the civilized world
I would not call the west "civilized". We're just rich. We call a lot of people terrorists and overlook our own terrorism, like basically everything the CIA & the IDF & the mossad do. convenient eh?
PLEASE read anything but western news, I'm begging you. You don't realize how insane you sound to most of the civilized world.
There wasn't any chance of Hamas being overthrown by the Palestinians either. With clandestine support from both Israel and Qatar, Hamas ensured that they were the only ones with guns on the Strip.
Yahya Sinwar was captured and imprisoned in a Mossad cell for years. Even if he weren't an active Israeli puppet, Mossad would've easily known the ways they could manipulate him into a specific action, and egged him to carry that out. It's already been established that the Hamas leadership in Qatar were in the dark with respect to the October 7 attacks when they first happened too. I don't condone Hamas either, but it's also very likely Israel is heavily complicit.
Let's compare facts: There's only 10M people there. I think PR skews reality massively
Population metrics deskew this distorted reality: France has 69M, China has 1.4B, Russia 143, Germany 83M people. Mathematically and from a technological sophistication standpoint, these governments must have higher advancements and frequency of successful Intel vs Israel. Mathematical probability speaks against Israel.
>Any man who must say, 'I am the king,' is no true king
Look at what happened after 9/11, it's pretty clear there's a wide difference between how US consider its own security matter vs israel's one.
It is legal to burn the USA flag in the USA.
With a big honking caveat-asterisk that it only applies if you're on the right side of the apartheid.
The "apartheid" part is the people in the West Bank and Gaza, who are not Israeli but also not their own country.
Unless you're a Palestinian in illegally annexed Jerusalem... Then you don't have citizenship and have to keep proving that you live and work in Jerusalem to avoid losing the residency rights.
Which border? The Israelis don't recognize a border, which is why they have illegally annexed the Golan Heights in Syria, are currently attempting to colonize Southern Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza.
Plus, you need only to look at marriage & inheritance laws and access to citizenship to see that the state is dedicated to jewish people—arguably, a jewish supremacist state with a non-jewish underclass.
If you operate with a lens that forces you to ask "how is this Israel's fault?" without ever asking any other question, you're going to end up mostly with answers that are only for entertainment value the same way you would if you asked any LLM a leading question that already assumed a desired answer.
This is propaganda as well, only more agreeable to you.
You are bombarded with so many things that tell you everything is bad and going wrong in the world, it's easy to get pulled into the gravity of it without ever asking what is going right? So much so, people deny anything is going right, emotionally.
There is a large gap between what the general populace understands about the world and how it works, versus the actual logic that causes the world events. When the gap is large like that it takes more effort to understand and so fewer people in the world will. The harder it is to understand, the easier it is for people to spread lies about. Does consensus alone make something true? No.
Is walking down the street, slugging everyone that gets in your way, "putting yourself first?" Is moving your fence into your neighbor's lawn and then pulling a gun on them when they come to talk about it "putting yourself first?"
At some point Israel needs to reckon with the fact that its behavior is beyond selfish, it's suicidal.