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"Israel cannot allow the Hezbollah terror organization to continue attacking its territory and citizens, and soon we will make the necessary decisions. The free world must unconditionally stand with Israel in its war against the axis of evil led by Iran and extremist Islam. Our war is also your war, and Nasrallah's threat to Cyprus is just the beginning. Evil must be defeated, as history has proven in the past."

- Foreign Minister
 
berbatrick said:


"Israel cannot allow the Hezbollah terror organization to continue attacking its territory and citizens, and soon we will make the necessary decisions. The free world must unconditionally stand with Israel in its war against the axis of evil led by Iran and extremist Islam. Our war is also your war, and Nasrallah's threat to Cyprus is just the beginning. Evil must be defeated, as history has proven in the past."

- Foreign Minister
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The fecking nerve.
 


This is also true in chess, where, as an added irony, some of the Russians have changed federation to Israel after 2022.
 
https://www.newsweek.com/top-state-department-official-quits-bidens-administration-1915948

A top U.S. State Department official who served as the deputy assistant secretary for Israeli-Palestinian Affairs resigned from President Joe Biden's administration this week.The Washington Post noted that Andrew Miller was a "skeptic" of Biden's support for Israel and favored "a sharper break" with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the war in Gaza.
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9 months of being "at the table" and no results.
 
2cents said:
I’m not really opposed to this at this stage, with certain caveats of course.* The sooner the Palestinians and the “international community” abandon the delusion that Oslo remains a relevant framework through which to pursue “peace”, the sooner the Palestinians will have a real chance at shaking off their corrupt and authoritarian representatives and perhaps begin to conceptualize their struggle in terms other than a narrow ethnic nationalism. In other words, and in very simple terms, opt for an approach more akin to the South Africa model rather than the Algeria model. That is, assuming they survive and emerge from this war still comprising a coherent national community within all Israeli-controlled territories.

*(the major one being the assumption that, whatever Smotrich’s hopes for somehow engineering the ‘transfer’ of the West Bank Palestinians - most likely by provoking a full-scale intifada - international pressure will ensure the the continued existence of the Palestinian West Bank).
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Do you really think permanent dominion is impossible? Incrementally making life more and more miserable, reducing the size and connectivity of the bantustans? Smotrich believes what he's doing is legally stealthy enough, and of course the US government, Dem or GOP, will accept that. And they're the only one that matter.




I genuinely believe that Palestine's fate is in the hands of Hezbollah and the potential Iranian nuke. Unless they get a very bloody nose now, they will never look at alternatives to permanent expansion.
 




There was a poll around April showing that a substantial number, maybe a plurality, of Americans think an equal number of Palestinians and Israelis have been killed in this conflict. The media is an integral part of the mechanism that keeps Israel gleaming in the US through a combination of ignorance and willful misrepresentation. In this case, for a reporter at the Forward, who would be deeply aware of the Israeli PM's politics, it's almost certainly a lie.
 
berbatrick said:
Do you really think permanent dominion is impossible? Incrementally making life more and more miserable, reducing the size and connectivity of the bantustans? Smotrich believes what he's doing is legally stealthy enough, and of course the US government, Dem or GOP, will accept that. And they're the only one that matter.
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“Dominion” in one form or another has been the reality since 1967, but I’d hesitate to label any potential arrangement in the West Bank and/or Gaza as “permanent”, there is too much that can shift and change over time, including the American position. And there’s an argument to be made that handing over policy in the West Bank to extremists and idiots like Smotrich carries more potential for awakening certain forces to the reality of dominion and unsettling the “status quo” mindset than another thirty years of Oslo prevarication. Assuming, like I said, the “international community” doesn't actually acquiesce in the expulsion of the West Bank Palestinians.

berbatrick said:
I genuinely believe that Palestine's fate is in the hands of Hezbollah and the potential Iranian nuke. Unless they get a very bloody nose now, they will never look at alternatives to permanent expansion.
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You may be right, but I think the Palestinians still have a card left to play, namely the pluralistic, civil rights based approach. They may not be able to bring themselves to even try it, for totally understandable reasons that are more valid since October than ever before. But it still offers a potential path to some form of co-existence in the long-term rather than the more apocalyptic scenarios that I’d associate in my mind with a regional war.
 
They can call the "aid" pier whatever they like. Everyone knows what it's really there for.

Like the time the German aid tanks were rushing all that urgent aid into Poland.
 
Sly said:
It has been normalized for a while now. We are at a point where there are massacres in almost daily basis, indiscriminate shootings of innocent people, we have irrefutable evidence of famine (I've seen multiple pictures of children that either remind me of Jewish children in concentration camps or vulnerable children in certain parts of Africa), real videos of beheaded children and nothing is done. The dehumanization is in full effect. Some massacres aren't even reported anymore.
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It's institutional racism in all its glory.

I maintain that muslims in general and Palestinians in particular are in a very similar situation Jews were for centuries. Their lives just don't matter.
 
Is anyone on this thread still defending Israel? I know some were a few months ago, where are they?
 


The third stage of the genocide is no different from the previous two in the way it's conducted. However, It's 100 times worse for Palestinians going through it after surviving the first two stages.
 
2cents said:
there is too much that can shift and change over time, including the American position.
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I just cannot see how that is possible. Just a brief look at the array of forces on both sides in the US.

On one side you have a section of young activists and about a fifth or sixth of the Democrat base that dislikes Israel and is willing prioritise that dislike. There is also a growing anti-Israel Nazi movement on the fringes of the GOP (Nick Fuentes, Candace Owens) which has some grassroots support.

On the other side, you have: a supermajority of both parties at both the national and state level, the permanent bureaucracy, intelligence agencies, and military ("deep state"), the most influential Silicon Valley companies, including liberal-coded Google and conservative-coded Palintir, that have deep Israel collaborations including with the IDF, politically active donors, the entirety of the mainstream media, the vast majority of arts funders and universities donors, mainstream Jewish groups, and the organised evangelical movement.

It's as close to a hegemony as possible, and has been for many decades. Yes, sure, some of these can change. If I had to guess, parts of the deep state could switch in exasperation if Israel continues like this. But that still leaves total political, corporate, religious, "high society", and a lot of grassroots support. And the current establishment is future-proofing Israel - I posted yesterday about how Pennsylvania is outlawing BDS and so making protest repression compulsory for colleges. Anti-BDS state-level laws are generally quite common. And with the IHRA definition adopted, it is likely that teaching and talking about this conflict in university courses - which is where those young activists are being produced - will be censored.
I really don't see how you can square what happened at Columbia with any future reduction in support by the US. Every single vector of power was speaking in one voice - police and university, Democrat and Republican, mayor and president, donors and media.

If everything goes right, and it's miniscule chances, in 10 years there could be president AOC with both chambers of Congress under Dems, and a disillusioned CIA/Pentagon top brass, unable to deal with an even more crazed Israeli PM and public, cutting off funding and diplomatic support. But I think there will always be more than enough AIPAC Democrats to sabotage any moves she might make, and AOC herself is much more careful and careerist than she appears.

Maybe it's because I was born in the 90s and only have followed this since the mid or late-00s, but I've never understood the optimism of the Palestinians, or the non-Palestinian peace process people, or now the western one-staters. They all have a belief that this nuclear-armed state is going to collapse or yield...maybe it's religion, or maybe one had to live through the fall of the USSR to believe in that?
 
berbatrick said:
I just cannot see how that is possible. Just a brief look at the array of forces on both sides in the US.

On one side you have a section of young activists and about a fifth or sixth of the Democrat base that dislikes Israel and is willing prioritise that dislike. There is also a growing anti-Israel Nazi movement on the fringes of the GOP (Nick Fuentes, Candace Owens) which has some grassroots support.

On the other side, you have: a supermajority of both parties at both the national and state level, the permanent bureaucracy, intelligence agencies, and military ("deep state"), the most influential Silicon Valley companies, including liberal-coded Google and conservative-coded Palintir, that have deep Israel collaborations including with the IDF, politically active donors, the entirety of the mainstream media, the vast majority of arts funders and universities donors, mainstream Jewish groups, and the organised evangelical movement.

It's as close to a hegemony as possible, and has been for many decades. Yes, sure, some of these can change. If I had to guess, parts of the deep state could switch in exasperation if Israel continues like this. But that still leaves total political, corporate, religious, "high society", and a lot of grassroots support. And the current establishment is future-proofing Israel - I posted yesterday about how Pennsylvania is outlawing BDS and so making protest repression compulsory for colleges. Anti-BDS state-level laws are generally quite common. And with the IHRA definition adopted, it is likely that teaching and talking about this conflict in university courses - which is where those young activists are being produced - will be censored.
I really don't see how you can square what happened at Columbia with any future reduction in support by the US. Every single vector of power was speaking in one voice - police and university, Democrat and Republican, mayor and president, donors and media.

If everything goes right, and it's miniscule chances, in 10 years there could be president AOC with both chambers of Congress under Dems, and a disillusioned CIA/Pentagon top brass, unable to deal with an even more crazed Israeli PM and public, cutting off funding and diplomatic support. But I think there will always be more than enough AIPAC Democrats to sabotage any moves she might make, and AOC herself is much more careful and careerist than she appears.
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I get the feeling that you may be consuming so much of this “Israel and the culture wars” stuff online that it seems all-encompassing and defining. Even with that, however, rather than the absolute and permanent consolidation of “Zionist hegemony” or however you want to term it, one might instead see current moves to clamp down on anti-Israel dissent as the panicked product of a very real sense that the wheels are beginning to come off, or at least loosen, in American support for Israel.

Personally I tend to view it primarily as an intra-American affair, and I don’t really take seriously the idea that events in Columbia or American universities more widely are going to have a significant impact on the ebb and flow of history in Israel/Palestine. Although of course that may be due in part to the fact that I don’t live over there as you do, and the time I spent living in Israel in the past convinced me that Israelis themselves don’t worry all too much over it, beyond sincere (though often misguided IMO) concerns with antisemitism and the condition of American Jews.

Moving away from the culture wars, you yourself have posted examples of past times when Reagan and Carter felt comfortable taking a relatively hard line against Begin’s excesses. Going further back, from 1949-1967 the State Department was not exactly a bastion of Zionist sympathizers, the Arabists were a major element whose loss of influence was a result of the overwhelming Israeli victory in the 6-Day War. After which mass American support for Israel really commenced, consolidated by the 1973 war. So history has shown that events and shifts of power in the region can play a role in defining the nature of the American commitment to Israel.

Which brings me to Chomsky’s (and others’) argument that ultimately, American support for Israel is dependent on Israel’s strategic value:

"the evolution of America’s relationship to Israel 'has been determined primarily by the changing role that Israel occupied in the context of America’s changing conceptions of its political-strategic interests in the Middle East'...it would be an error to assume that Israel represents the major U.S. interest in the Middle East. Rather, the major interest lies in the energy reserves of the region, primarily in the Arabian peninsula...​
​
...Had it not been for Israel’s perceived geopolitical role—primarily in the Middle East, but elsewhere as well—it is doubtful that the various pro-Israeli lobbies in the U.S. would have had much influence in policy formation, or that the climate of opinion deplored by Peled and other Israeli doves could have been constructed and maintained. Correspondingly, it will very likely erode if Israel comes to be seen as a threat rather than a support to the primary U.S. interest in the Middle East region, which is to maintain control over its energy reserves and the flow of petrodollars." (from Fateful Triangle)​

It’s quite easy to understand American support in the context of the Cold War, and the resurgence in that support in the context of the War on Terror. Going forward, however, it’s much harder to foresee how Israel will continue to be perceived as such a valuable regional client, even if boring status quo “centrists” in the mold of Gantz or Lapid were to recapture Israeli politics. As it is, a full-blown Kahanist Israel will likely prove an absolute nightmare for broader American policy in the Middle East, not to mention self-destructive as pretty much all analogous ideologically-driven states tend to be.

berbatrick said:
Maybe it's because I was born in the 90s and only have followed this since the mid or late-00s, but I've never understood the optimism of the Palestinians, or the non-Palestinian peace process people, or now the western one-staters. They all have a belief that this nuclear-armed state is going to collapse or yield...maybe it's religion, or maybe one had to live through the fall of the USSR to believe in that?
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It’s certainly bizarre to have seen Western leftists fantasizing about an Algerian “solution” in Palestine (witnessed this on my campus) while the IDF are laying waste to Gaza. But I think I understand where the optimism comes from in the Palestinian case, even if I don’t share it. More broadly speaking, as a historian I tend to assume that change - grounded in theory but ultimately always the product of a multitude of mostly unforeseen contingencies - is inevitable, one way or another.
 
Adisa said:
Is anyone on this thread still defending Israel? I know some were a few months ago, where are they?
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The demented Israel supporters have largely been removed, the more reasonable Israeli members understandably come and go and seem to mostly express disapproval of Israel's actions. And the US state department propogandists mostly ignore the thread or pop in evertime a new pier is built or when they can spuriously tie Russia and China to some blame.
 
feck I just saw the video of a guy being strapped to what looked like an MRAP and driven away.

that’s a literal banned torture technique, there in plain sight for the world to see. Makes you wonder what they’re doing behind closed doors
 
AfonsoAlves said:
feck I just saw the video of a guy being strapped to what looked like an MRAP and driven away.

that’s a literal banned torture technique, there in plain sight for the world to see. Makes you wonder what they’re doing behind closed doors
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I saw it too. The level of brazenness is astonishing.
 
AfonsoAlves said:
feck I just saw the video of a guy being strapped to what looked like an MRAP and driven away.

that’s a literal banned torture technique, there in plain sight for the world to see. Makes you wonder what they’re doing behind closed doors
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I try avoid following the crimes being committed as it depresses me so much. I saw this on the BBC site and it turned my stomach. So much utter cruelty is so inhuman. There will be a generation of Palestinians that will be damaged for life and seeking revenge. Lose lose sadly.
 
AfonsoAlves said:
Makes you wonder what they’re doing behind closed doors
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There have been recent reports of what they have been doing with prisoners, torture is normalised and allowed for the occupation.
 
AfonsoAlves said:
feck I just saw the video of a guy being strapped to what looked like an MRAP and driven away.

that’s a literal banned torture technique, there in plain sight for the world to see. Makes you wonder what they’re doing behind closed doors
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It's not their first time, they have done it plenty. But not caught on camera before, thankfully now cameras is in everybody's mobile. Not that they care anyways.




Those who think the IDF are the "most moral army in the world" are either victims of successful propaganda or pure hatred towards the Palestinians.
 
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Who would not resist this? the subjugation and humiliation of the Palestinians in the west bank under the brutal occupation?
 
You know when 100 Palestinian dies in the last 24 hours that Israel succeeded in normalising the genocide in Gaza. People barley mention them, they are just a number. They played the long game and they knew eventually it will be normal, specially if they have their Western allies on their sides. Sad times for humanity.

I do not want to hear one human rights lecture from a western government in the future specifically the countries that helped Israel with their slaughter.
 
Giggsyking said:
You know when 100 Palestinian dies in the last 24 hours that Israel succeeded in normalising the genocide in Gaza. People barley mention them, they are just a number. They played the long game and they knew eventually it will be normal, specially if they have their Western allies on their sides. Sad times for humanity.

I do not want to hear one human rights lecture from a western government in the future specifically the countries that helped Israel with their slaughter.
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And it seems that we had been stuck to the 30k since christmas. I dont see it mentioned anywherewith th new numbers (almost 40k without counting the disappeared). Only if you check specifically in a 24 hours frame in google and the outlets that shows are 90% arab newspapers. Some of them i never heard bc im not familiar with arab outlets (might be very well known). CNN is the first of the western news and doesnt even mention the total on the headlines
 
2cents said:
Moving away from the culture wars, you yourself have posted examples of past times when Reagan and Carter felt comfortable taking a relatively hard line against Begin’s excesses. Going further back, from 1949-1967 the State Department was not exactly a bastion of Zionist sympathizers, the Arabists were a major element whose loss of influence was a result of the overwhelming Israeli victory in the 6-Day War. After which mass American support for Israel really commenced, consolidated by the 1973 war. So history has shown that events and shifts of power in the region can play a role in defining the nature of the American commitment to Israel.

Which brings me to Chomsky’s (and others’) argument that ultimately, American support for Israel is dependent on Israel’s strategic value:

"the evolution of America’s relationship to Israel 'has been determined primarily by the changing role that Israel occupied in the context of America’s changing conceptions of its political-strategic interests in the Middle East'...it would be an error to assume that Israel represents the major U.S. interest in the Middle East. Rather, the major interest lies in the energy reserves of the region, primarily in the Arabian peninsula...​
​
...Had it not been for Israel’s perceived geopolitical role—primarily in the Middle East, but elsewhere as well—it is doubtful that the various pro-Israeli lobbies in the U.S. would have had much influence in policy formation, or that the climate of opinion deplored by Peled and other Israeli doves could have been constructed and maintained. Correspondingly, it will very likely erode if Israel comes to be seen as a threat rather than a support to the primary U.S. interest in the Middle East region, which is to maintain control over its energy reserves and the flow of petrodollars." (from Fateful Triangle)​

It’s quite easy to understand American support in the context of the Cold War, and the resurgence in that support in the context of the War on Terror. Going forward, however, it’s much harder to foresee how Israel will continue to be perceived as such a valuable regional client, even if boring status quo “centrists” in the mold of Gantz or Lapid were to recapture Israeli politics. As it is, a full-blown Kahanist Israel will likely prove an absolute nightmare for broader American policy in the Middle East, not to mention self-destructive as pretty much all analogous ideologically-driven states tend to be.
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I guess what I didn't state outright, but was assuming, was that the change has to be political. The agencies and Pentagon may get sick of Israel quicker, but the decision is in the president's hands. And the lobby's moves - I agree there is some element of panic to them - nonetheless buy them a lot of extra time. The compulsory trip all but 3 people in Congress have have made to Israel right after getting elected, plus the money, plus the serious media, and everything else I mentioned - I think these bonds are deeper and more personal for US politicians than, say, US-Egypt. AIPAC spending more money on a single primary, than both UK parties will spend on the entire election, to defeat one vulnerable Congressman, shows there is no political future in staking out an anti-Israel position. On the bottom-up side, censoring universities will reduce public pressure on politicians too.

Basically, I agree there are long-term trends that would rationally allow the US to dump them, but that AIPAC and the current US establishment are building in buffers that will last many decades.

Your point about Carter and Reagan (and also HW, who publicly called AIPAC a threat to national security) is interesting - I never thought of it as showing the process is reversible, but I guess it does. And the difference could be partly down to Oslo, happening soon after HW was voted out (Clinton in the campaign said HW's fight against the lobby "eroded the taboo against anti-Semitism"). Again, I could barely read words when Oslo happened, so for me, every piece of news on this has been with Oslo as the (unstated) background.
 
berbatrick said:
I think these bonds are deeper and more personal for US politicians than, say, US-Egypt.
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This is certainly true. I should state that I don’t fully accept Chomsky’s argument laid out above - I don’t see the cultural attachment of America to Israel quickly withering in significance in the event of a strategic fall-out between the two countries. Take two regional allies with arguably more raw strategic value to the US - Turkey and Saudi Arabia. The alliance with the US shields them from much scrutiny they might otherwise receive. And they have their own lobbies, and think tanks which they fund, to be wielded in certain contexts where their policies raise eyebrows in Washington. But while they could each spend a gazillion dollars a year flying US politicians to their cities (the Saudis already do), their cultural, historical, and emotional appeal is limited and simply does not resonate for most Americans at this moment - America just doesn’t care all that much about them.

The Palestinians obviously face an even greater challenge due to their perceived association with Islamist “terror” and other radical politics to go on top of their basic Arab/Muslim identity, always subject to orientalist dehumanization. Which is partly why I believe a shift in their approach to a civil rights movement rather than a national liberation movement may be worth pursuing - a simple message of “equality for all” I suspect has the potential to resonate with Americans far more than the prospect of adding yet another Arab/Muslim state to the map of the region. But like I said, I understand why they haven’t taken up this approach as of yet, and seem unlikely to do so going forward.

berbatrick said:
many decades.
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Just to add, we may be thinking in terms of different timeframes. I certainly had “decades” in mind rather than “a decade” when I wrote that post.
 
I long for the day Israel is seen as a pariah state. And they deserve nothing less.
 
berbatrick said:
Maybe it's because I was born in the 90s and only have followed this since the mid or late-00s, but I've never understood the optimism of the Palestinians, or the non-Palestinian peace process people, or now the western one-staters. They all have a belief that this nuclear-armed state is going to collapse or yield...maybe it's religion, or maybe one had to live through the fall of the USSR to believe in that?
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You might find this interesting.
The Collapse of Zionism by Ilan Pappé
 
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