this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2024
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As human rights groups continue to call out war crimes committed by the Israeli military, we speak to the only U.S. diplomat to publicly resign from the Biden administration over its policy on Israel.

We first spoke to Hala Rharrit when she resigned from the State Department in April, citing the illegal and deceptive nature of U.S. policy in the Middle East. “We continue to willfully violate laws so that we surge U.S. military assistance to Israel,” she says after more than a year of Israel’s war on Gaza.

Rharrit says she found the Biden administration unmovable in its “counterproductive policy,” which she believes has gravely harmed U.S. interests in the Middle East. “We are going to feel the repercussions of that for years, decades, generations.”

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[–] [email protected] 72 points 6 months ago (15 children)

I really want to know what the actual reason is that we're so boneheaded, so obstinate, so relentless in our "support" for Isreal no matter how fucking crazy they get...

Is it really just more money for defense contractors? It's it really fear of AIPAC? Is it even more fucking absurd and we have actual Christian dominionists trying to bring Armageddon whether it's the Democrats or Republicans?

I just don't understand it...

[–] [email protected] 31 points 6 months ago (5 children)

tldr: the US is still supporting Israel is because Israel has historically been extremely beneficial to US interests.

full:

The reason is that Israel has been a steadfast ally in advancing and defending us interests for half a century, and there is no one else in the Middle East who could play that role half as effectively or reliably.

there was zero chance of the US immediately cutting off aid after 50 years of aid, especially while dozens of other countries have also been providing aid and are still providing aid to Israel.

that was never an option and should not have been an expectation from the public, who only has that expectation because most people have only recently learned about the Palestinian invasion by Israel that's been happening for over half a century.

One year is not much time internationally or diplomatically. it's not much time for intelligence agencies to determine what is happening, especially in the fog of war, and it isn't much time for effects of actions to be seen, no matter what actions are taken.

in israel, The US has an attack dog to deal with US enemies in the Middle East, and now the attack dog has broken its leash and isn't responding to commands. Netanyahu is aging, centralized power, and is acting literally insane.

while I have been loyal, this completely separate nation has saliently chosen to have been loyal, although they were and are under no obligation to be loyal to the demands of the United States, as is now being seen.

it's only been one year, and regardless of what you hear, diplomatically the US is continually trying different tactics to stem the violent efforts of a nation with plenty of resources that has no obligation to listen to the US other than continued financial support, that it has plenty of already and has many other sources of aid.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 6 months ago (1 children)

So to counter basically your whole point: You know how Reagan stopped the Israeli bombing of Beirut in 20 minutes with a phone call in 1982? That's how someone who actually wants Israel to stop does it. Biden isn't stopping them because he doesn't want to, not because his administration is "diplomatically the US is continually trying different tactics to stem the violent efforts of a nation...".

Don't defend genocide support, it's not a good look.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago

a steadfast ally in advacing and defending us interests

How? At least militarily they've only ever been a liability.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

The reason is that Israel has been a steadfast ally in advancing and defending us interests for half a century

Tell that to the crew of the USS Liberty.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

there was zero chance of the US immediately cutting off aid after 50 years of aid, especially while dozens of other countries have also been providing aid and are still providing aid to Israel.

Those other dozen countries are only doing because they follow the USs lead. And maybe Germany being hysterical about it instead of learning from its past, that never again must mean never again for everyone..

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

The reason is that Israel has been a steadfast ally in advancing and defending us interests for half a century

what a load of crap. Israel almost always has right wing leadership and those leaders run far more billboards celebrating their relationship with Putin that with the US. We have no operational bases there. They havent participated in any of our military conflicts. They are not an extension of US power. If they were, we have operations happening out of there.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago

The worst stuff in the world always comes down to money, power, and bigotry.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Pretty sure OP is asking why the US gov relentlessly supports the genocide, not maga morons.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

I'd guess a sizeable bipartisan coalition within the military industrial complex sees it exactly the same way.

They did address that point.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (9 children)

That's not a point of view singular to the military. It's a pretty stock conservative take.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago (1 children)

To add on to what others have already said, Israel also supplies the US with a lot of advanced technology and biotechnology. All the cellbrite scanners used to hack into phones come from them, medical equipment like sleep study equipment, drugs, and other things.

Although it seems an area that would be good to just bring in house for national defense in the event a partner nation goes rogue.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago (1 children)

We should never have given any of that responsibility to a non NATO country in the first place. We've been tied to this country by lobbyists.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

Yeah, it always seemed like a lazy republicapitalist move. Why ever sell out so much security to a vague third party. They have smart people, mad respect to their engineers. No question. But national security being sold to a third party seems like nation-state safety 101.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

It's a sense of guilt about the Holocaust and a complete failure to realize that nations are as individuals. A victim can become a victimizer; an abused can become an abuser.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (5 children)

Geopolitics, i was curious so I looked it up. Seems like Israel is one of the only friendly countries in the middle east, which gives us access to oil in the region.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 months ago
  1. Israel does not give us access to 'oil'.

  2. The number of unfriendly countries in MENA is much smaller than the number of friendly countries. The Saudis, repulsively, are our close allies. Turkiye is literally part of NATO. Egypt has been with the US for the past 40 years. Jordan is one of our closest allies in the region. Iran and Syria are our only real enemies in the region.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I used to think that too, but the geopolitical reason was always "stability." We've gone and spread our access to oil well enough that no one source should hinder our ability to get what we need.

I think their geopolitical reasons are just lies at this point.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago (5 children)

Also, I'm pretty sure Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan, and Egypt have all pretty much done everything the US wanted them to for years now

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

Look at a map of US bases in the region. None of them are in Israel. It is not a strategic country.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

It's not about oil, it's the use of their military bases for staging and transit.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

We have something like 15 bases in MENA. There's absolutely no reason to transit through Israel and we do not do so. DOHA, Kuwait is the largest transit point for the US Military as a whole. Bahrain has the largest naval base and Saudi Arabia has the largest air force base.

Israel has an outpost that's not used logistically at all, and could easily be put in Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, or Iraq. All allies, and some of them with actual US military bases.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

Israel is also the reason Israel is one of the only friendly countries in the Middle East

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Quite easy really:

In the past they were a strategic counter against the islamic regimes aligned with the USSR & Today they are a strategic counter against Iran

Allowing Iran to destroy Israel and having them expand their influence in the region is considered worse

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

A little of everything, I think. Plus I don't think Biden has the mental capacity to competently evaluate what's going on. The man is positively geriatric, and he's no Jimmy Carter. But he's useful, in the same way that Dianne Feinstein's staff kept her as a puppet right up until her death. Frankly, it's elder abuse.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I wouldn't put this 100% on Biden though, even in the interview they state that Kamala is 100% on board with the same plan. There is something about the so-called American interest that demands we continue.

I'd put my money on money as that's pretty much always the reason and the military industrial complex always gets what it wants. There's never been an administration that saw a war it didn't like until it goes far enough to risk the party's reelection prospects. They're being blind to the importance of this one this time.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

War is the easiest way to facilitate the transfer of public funds into private hands.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

The self-proclaimed anti-racists were never against racism, they just had different lists of ubermenschen and untermenschen that the traditional racists.

If one is running around with the idea that people's worth is defined by their ethnicity and that one can presume they're oppressors or oppressed based on that alone they're still a racist and still operating on the same fundamental prejudices about the worth of people as the Nazis.

Because of how the Zionists in Israel worked so much and so successfully to entrenched the idea that Israel represents all Jews, an ethnic group which the new-age-racists collectively deemed "victims" and "good people" (remember, the racism is classifying people on their race, not being positive or negative in your classification: after all, the Nazis too deemed all Arians as better than the rest) what the Israeli Genocide did was put in focus the racism of the Racists passing themselves as anti-Racists when those who they believe represent one of the "good races" started openly doing the very same kind of ultra violent racism as the Nazis.

People who genuinely were against racism reviewed this stance whilst those who still operate on the same racist principles as the Nazis - that people's worth is defined by their ethnicity - came up with all sorts of excuses in defense of "the good race", very much like Nazi supporters defended the Arian race because it was a white race like theirs.

Basically Liberals made it plain as day they're just another kind of Fascist who support all other kinds of Fascism unless they themselves are its target.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Just like somebody giving weapons and ammo to the Ku Klux Klan whilst they're actively using them to kill afro-americans is a fucking extreme racist KKK supporter, so is anybody giving weapons and ammo to a white ethno-Fascist state actively genociding people of another ethnicity because of their ethnicity is a fucking extreme racist ethno-Fascist (the same variant of Fascism as Nazism) supporter.

Unless you're a fucking racist yourself who judges actions differently depending on the ethnicity of the victims or the perpetrators, those two are equivalent.

So any self-proclaimed anti-Racist liberal supporting Israel with actual weapons and ammo is not only by their own actions the worst, most raciste violent and genocidal kind of Fascist there is - one similar to Nazism, no less - they're also a massive hypocrite.

So yeah, based on the leaders they vote for Americans are by association the modern Nazi supporters.

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