Comment by kyboren | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kyboren | Hacker News Reader

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> They want to take the land and if means killing anyone in it so be it

They've had the capability for decades. So why hasn't it happened? You say, "that's not an argument," but I think it is. If we accept your claims, then it follows that Israel has had the means, motive, and opportunity to kill everyone in Gaza for years (at least).

The fact that they still haven't done that suggests that your claims are false.

> Ben Gvir is on record as saying that it has to be such that the diplomatic consequences don't affect them.

Ah, so it's just international pressure holding them back. Right.

I don't buy it. Israel has hardly shown itself to be susceptible to international pressure on existential questions. And at the end of the day, they are a nuclear power and functionally immune to military threats from rational actors. If the IDF started the genocide tomorrow ain't nobody gonna do shit about it.

Sure there might be sanctions, etc. but there will always be someone willing to work with them. And their foreign military sales make sanctions not exactly straightforward for e.g. Germany.

> Do you really think about these responses when you asked or do you just make knee-jerk questions of the lowest caliber?

The questions needed to be asked at all because it was your comment that was of the lowest caliber. All smoke and no fire.

> They've had the capability for decades. So why hasn't it happened?

The same can be said for any conflict in which one side has overwhelming capacity and does not choose to engage on it for various reasons. But yes, diplomacy and public pressure actually matter a lot, as evidenced by the fact that Israel spends billions of dollars in state propaganda and funding political campaigns in the West to continue to receive military aid and avoiding sanctions.

You are saying that Israel has shown itself to not be susceptible to international pressure on existential questions yet it engaged for decades in political and diplomatic action to be where it is today; it was not looked at that favorably by Western powers even a few decades backs. And it understands that apartheid South Africa was not on anyone's radar for decades until it was. AIPAC and other lobbying agencies fund hundreds of political campaigns in the US in order for this to happen.

So yeah, if in five years' time the Democratic Socialists end up overtaking establishment DNC Zionists and get their share of power such that they allow BDS to work and stop military aid then Israel is going to have a much more difficult time, as evidenced by their desire to have the US engage Iran without them participating directly because they are not actually as powerful militarily as they project themselves to be.

> Sure there might be sanctions, etc. but there will always be someone willing to work with them. And their foreign military sales make sanctions not exactly straightforward for e.g. Germany.

That works until it doesn't, much like how China did not dominate on renewable energies until it did, or how proprietary Unix dominated the server market until Linux appeared. It takes remarkably little time to turn a country into a pariah state. For the past two decades Germany theorized that economic connections to Russia would prevent them from doing anything stupid regarding Ukraine.

And Israel does not just have to care about external issues. Economic sanctions hit economies hard, and even a recession is enough to turn the tables against candidates during election years, so given that certain political parties are the ones who hold the cards at any time, they are not keen to lose elections.

Also Israel depends very much on its network of high-tech companies, companies that are extremely sensitive to any sort of sanctions regime or any loss of trust such that no amount of lobby money suffices to get profitable military or high-tech contracts.

And once Israel is politically and militarily isolated it becomes a much easier target against rivals in the Middle East, so being politically associated with the West is very much a matter of survival. In this sense they have all the time in the world to perform their campaign of ethnic cleansing to restore Eretz Israel.

None of what I'm saying is speculation, this is very much what political analysts in Israel say and have been saying for decades. The only difference is that now that liberal Zionism is dead and has been dead since the death of Itzak Rabin and the demographic explosion of the settler movement there's really no one to stop them from proceeding with these plans.

> The only difference is that now that liberal Zionism is dead and has been dead since the death of Itzak Rabin and the demographic explosion of the settler movement there's really no one to stop them from proceeding with these plans.

Also it's a self-reinforcing cycle. The far right keeps testing what they can get away with, becoming increasingly emboldened. The leftists are packing up. Those in the middle see global backlash grow and realize there's no going back to pre-2023 world, so they might as well go all-in with the right. Israel is like a heroin addict using the very thing that's destroying them, in order to cope with the damage it already caused. Without intervention it generally doesn't end well.

> You are saying that Israel has shown itself to not be susceptible to international pressure on existential questions yet it engaged for decades in political and diplomatic action to be where it is today; it was not looked at that favorably by Western powers even a few decades backs.

My impression is the Western powers--Kissinger in particular--didn't really give a shit about Israel. Then Egypt and Syria attacked Israel, starting the Yom Kippur War, and the USSR promised to back them up. Golda Meir threatened to go nuclear and Nixon launched Operation Nickel Grass in order to give her a more palatable alternative.

Israel hasn't necessarily been looked upon more favorably since then, but they've continued to receive strategic support from the US in order to persuade them they don't need to open that Pandora's Box.

> allow BDS to work and stop military aid then Israel is going to have a much more difficult time

Perhaps, but for the aforementioned reason that's not necessarily a good thing. An Israel without Uncle Sam backing them up telling them, "nah bro, chill, we got this" is going to be an Israel more likely to do exactly the things you don't want them to do.

If they feel their existence is truly threatened, they will go all the way. But in the mean time, while under the US's security umbrella, it's true: They're better off not doing things that might get them cut off. Threatening to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel is not only totally impractical but actually increases the risk of the genocide you lefties keep bleating about, because it would make the Gaza/Lebanon security crisis existential.

> Also Israel depends very much on its network of high-tech companies, companies that are extremely sensitive to any sort of sanctions regime

It would be a truly huge disruption, but they have those high-tech companies because they have the talent. If they get sanctioned up the wazoo, I'm sure China would be happy to pivot in to become Israel's patron, at least economically.

> And once Israel is politically and militarily isolated it becomes a much easier target against rivals in the Middle East

Israel's only real rival in the Middle East is Iran, and as you may have noticed, they have disengaged from direct combat.

Israel made it rain oil in Tehran. Iran made it rain ballistic missiles in Israel. Neither can afford total warfare with the other; they're too close together.

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