Comment by lovich | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lovich | Hacker News Reader

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> At any point in the last more than a year of his term, Biden could've ended that conflict with a phone call. He did not because, again, he is an avowed Zionist.

No he could not have. Israel has been a contentious ally for the US, especially while a Democrat has been POTUS because they are actually independently capable of supporting themselves and have their own internal economy and military industrial complex.

The relationship between the United States and Israel started with us(The United States) peeling them off of USSR support in the late 60s[1], and if we abandon them they will either go it on their own or find another ally who has interests in the region due to oil still being important.

Biden as a representative of the United States had leverage over Israel, but not such complete control that he could just call Netanyahu and demand and end the war and have that be done with.

And that's not even getting into whatever the fuck you mean by " ... he is an avowed Zionist" [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union_and_the_Arab%E2%8...

Israel isn't independently capable of doing anything. When Israel was created it was a poor backwater. France and the USSR were early allies. I mean Israel deliberately attacked the USS Liberty and killed ~34 American servicemen in the 1960s. It's widely suspected that Israeli spies or sympathizers stole weapons grade uranium from the US (ie the NUMEC Affair). But this all changed after the Six Day War in 1967 and Israel became an American imperial project to destabilize an oil-rich region, to stop Pan-Arabn Nationalism.

But the history has always been that the US could order Israel to do whatever it wanted from Eistenhower telling Israel to get the hell out of Sinai to Biden telling Israel to knockj it off in Gaza in 2021 [1] and plenty in between (eg US involvement in the Yom Kippur War in 1973 led to Moshe Dayan telling Golda Meir they had to stop because the Americans said so, basically).

The parallel for this is apartheid South Africa. That regime collapsed when it became clear that domestic political pressure was forcing the US to withdraw support. The exact same thing would happen in Israel. Israel gets billions in direct aid and, more importantly, the military is completely dependent on US arms shipments and weapon systems.

If Biden had told Bibi "we're going to stop arms shipments if you don't stop this" it would've ended immediately.

[1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/19/biden-tells-israels-netanyah...

You can argue all day long, but at the end of the day, the US has immense ability to exert pressure on Israel, starting with withholding UNSC vetoes.

The Biden admin pulled no levers whatsoever. On the contrary, it went to great lengths to cover for a genocide that it was aware of. This admin will be part of the history books, but not in a good light :)

> ... US has immense ability to exert pressure on Israel, starting with withholding UNSC vetoes.

You are 100% correct on this. That does not however mean they have the ability to end a war in one phone call

> The Biden admin pulled no levers whatsoever.

This is incorrect. Biden tried to constrain Netanyahu and did shit like making the pier to deliver aid to the Palestinians. Netanyahu responded by snubbing Biden and giving a speech to the Senate instead.

I am generally anti Israel as the nation because I believe they have been a shit tier ally who feels free to fuck around in our elections with no remorse, but acting like we had the ability to force them into actions they didn't want, without using military force, is fucking ridiculous.

Again, I think they are a piss poor ally, largely because they will not work with us, and that is largely because they have the ability to operate independently and utilize that ability constantly. If we got rid of any dependence on oil I would say fuck the whole region because every state there is in a competition over who can be the biggest assholes to us, with the possible slight exception of Jordan, and I cage that claim because I only know a decade or two of their history in relations with us and honestly mostly because one of their kings wanted to be in star trek so bad he got a spot as an extra, which implies some level of agreeing with our values.

Thank you for your comments. In short, it's complicated. The other piece which you didn't mention that other people bring up is cutting off the 4B-8B in military aid to Israel. In the past that might have given the US more leverage, but Israel has a 700B GDP economy now - they don't need that aid to buy weapons. The aid the US sends just ends up back in the US economy, and keeps Israel from buying arms from China.

> In short, it's complicated.

No, it is not. The US has the power to sanction entire states & cut them out from the global banking system overnight. Look at what Cuba has suffered for daring to oppose the US.

> but Israel has a 700B GDP economy now

That would mean shit if the country is sanctioned and its leaders declared persona non grata. South Africa was similarly quite powerful, but when you’re reliant on Western backing and integration, existing as a pariah state is not a sustainable position to be in.

Yea, but that’s not a single phone call from the president. I know we’re getting closer and closer to an Imperial Executive every year but we definitely weren’t there under Biden.

Let’s just agree to disagree, although we will never know for sure given that Biden is a self-avowed Zionist who chose the path of unconditional support.

I will not agree to disagree.

If you believe that " ... Biden could've ended that conflict with a phone call ... " as the original poster I replied to said, then please explain to me the mechanics of who exactly he would call, and how that phone call would end this conflict.

I am asking that because I am appalled at how often people discussing this conflict act like fucking wars between different organizations can just be solved with a snap of someone's fingers.

If you cannot engage with the complexities of reality, then you shouldn't be surprised that problems aren't solved as quickly, easily, and simply as you feel they should be.

This is a region that has been in constant warfare for longer than the US has existed as a nation between people where(and I hate to use this term because its normally a whataboutism) both sides have refused peace and appear ready to fight until their opponents or themselves are eradicated. No fucking third party putting sanctions on one group or the other is going to cause their fighting to end or we would have already seen the end of the Ukrainian/Russian war.

As an addendum to the above, when you say "agree to disagree" but then add your opinion at the end with

> ... although we will never know for sure given that Biden is a self-avowed Zionist who chose the path of unconditional support.

You are commenting in bad faith.

I engage in online discussions for one of two reasons:

1. To present a viewpoint to readers through debating with one or more people. Crucially, in this scenario, I am not interested in winning over my interlocutor(s).

2. To convince someone I personally know and/or who is clearly amenable to changing their viewpoint on the topic.

(1) doesn’t apply here because we are deep into a reply chain that virtually no one else is reading.

(2) doesn’t apply because I do not know you. I also have a very strong position on the topic of Palestine and am not interested in engaging one on one with someone who is far off from my position.

That is why I decided to pull out of the discussion. Have a good one.

I do the same, but I’m not going to agree with you. Fine if the conversation stops here because you’re pulling out, but I was not willing to concede.

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