Can someone give me the straight talk on why western countries, who usually at least try to look like they have the moral high ground, are falling all over themselves in support of Israel?
What is the non-conspiracy nutter reason why the US feels the need to provide billions of dollars in support to Israel?
Clearly actions on both sides are reprehensible, some more-so than others. There’s no goodies and baddies here. There’s aggressors, innocents, and victims on all sides.
War is about resources. USA and Britain don’t give a shit about giving the land (that they stole from Palestinians) to Jewish people. Israel and Saudi Arabia are their only ways to project power in the region to have leverage against countries with more oil.
There’s the historic precedent that people have already discussed here.
There’s the very effective Israeli lobby, which has integrated itself into many different governments.
There’s the fact that Israel is pro-western, in the Middle East, so they serve Western interests. They can be the foil for Western influence in the Middle East, without directly implicating the West. Need a weapon site bombed in Iran? Israel will do it. This is probably the biggest reason.
The country of Israel has integrated itself into the Western global intelligence Network, especially in terms of special operations, and special intelligence gathering tools, and a weapon supplier for missile defense, drone defense etc. For all intents and purposes their military ally for the west.
The West has a bias against Muslims, and Islam. Not necessarily a deliberate bias, but there is a bias. There is a reluctance for full trust. Israel is a religious country, based on Judaism, which makes them more palatable for Western people to think about.
All that being said, is Western support guaranteed? No. At the international level real politic is extremely fickle, you have to continue to be useful. If another country with better trade-off showed up in the region, it’s very likely they would also receive this Western appreciation.
Hamas are terrorists and Western governments support combatting them. Hamas hides behind civilians who tragically are the victims of the war Hamas started this time
That’s not really an answer though - obviously there’s a question of degree.
If there were 20,000 terrorists with access to advanced weaponry then a few hundred civilian casualties is probably acceptable. If there’s 100 terrorists with access to some home made rockets then a few thousand civilian casualties probably isn’t acceptable.
Is the present campaign against Gaza with the mode of engagement by Israel really the surest path to peace with the least civilian casualties? Hard to believe given that there was a stale mate just a few weeks ago.
Besides which, you can’t kill all the terrorists, that’s not how extremism works.
You said it. Actions of one side are more reprehensible than of the other. In fact, much more reprehensible from what I see.
One side: “We understand you have terrorists, but it’s not our responsibility to help you with it because we value lives of our people. We are going to help you with basic supplies like water, electricity, internet etc., and protect ourselves with the iron dome. It all costs a lot but lives are really what matters.”
Another side: “Our objective will not be completed until your country and citizens stop existing. We were elected having this objective by our people. We will teach our children that this is also their objective. We will build rockets. We will launch them at you even if some of them may not reach your territory. We will launch them from civillian buildings because we know you care about lives of civillians. You will think twice before launching anything back, and when you do, you will be blamed by the world for killing innocents. We will kill as many of your civilians as we can, by our hands. We will brake their limbs and hold them hostages, even if they are the citizens of other countries. And when you retaliate, the world will blame you for what you have done. The world must understand that by killing your people we fight for our future, and give us everything we need. This will be glorious, and you will die, and we will prosper, and the world will forget we are the killers, and remember you as killers. We will throw every resource we have for that to happen, be it the money we got as a humanitarian aid for our citizens or baby dolls that should be indistinguishable from dead children with some mosaic. Oops we forgot the mosaic. You didnt see it. You are the killers.”
Ignoring Jewish settlers in the West Bank, Gaza quite literally being a ghetto full of people forced off their land, the military checkpoints, the complete imbalance of deaths and suffering between the two sides.
As reprehensible as the violence is on both sides, Israel/Palestine is an apartheid state and Palestinians suffer far more than just from the effects of violence.
What exact violence? Israel provides Gaza with stuff they need. Including pipes for the water construction, that instead are used to build rockets.
Palestinians are doing terrorism, whether they understand it or not. Israel reacts to terrorism. Do you not agree that a country should react to acts of terrorism?
Do you not agree that a country should react to acts of terrorism?
You’re implying a false dichotomy, as though in response to a terrorist attack you either lie down and accept further attacks, or grind gaza into the dust.
No, I’m not. Grinding Giza to the dust is not what’s being done. Hamas contribute more by firing uncontrollable missiles that also tend to fall in Gaza.
But you are implying a reality where every single sane person should ignore the existence and terrorism of hamas and Palestinians. Probably.
Grinding Giza to the dust is not what’s being done.
Hyperbole on my part, but not excessive given the post we’re discussing this under.
Hamas contribute more by firing uncontrollable missiles that also tend to fall in Gaza.
Patently false. I’ll refer you again to the pictures in this article.
But you are implying a reality where every single sane person should ignore the existence and terrorism of hamas and Palestinians.
This is the false dichotomy I referred to in my last comment. Perhaps you should look it up. We can acknowledge the existence of terrorism and respond appropriately without causing a humanitarian crisis.
This is classic American “fucked around and found out” diplomacy. Like a child with a hammer.
They absolutely should respond to acts of violent terrorism, and I didn’t suggest they don’t. However it’s far from one sided.
The Gaza strip is an open air prison for over 2 million people, who can’t even access, or travel for proper healthcare, where food and water are insecure or poorly available. Where you can’t leave by either land or sea. Where even if you were one of the >1 million young people living there who managed to leave you’d be poor and uneducated.
But maybe you’re not in Gaza. Maybe you’re one of the Palestinians who live in the west bank can can barely travel without huge impediments, or may see your house demolished to make way for Israeli settlers, in what amounts to an apartheid system, widely condemned internationally by human rights organisations.
Hamas are absolutely disgusting, and the terrorist attack on Israel should be rightly condemned. But if you think Israel are the good guys here, and this is a black and white, good and evil situation you’re not paying attention.
So they are responding, there is no problem with that.
Though I find it amusing that so much effort goes into outlining the hurdles of Palestinians only.
If you want to promote better lives for Palestinians, then maybe you should’ve started with themselves, to let them know they shouldn’t have elected terrorists their leaders. Maybe Palestinians would understand that doing terrorism will not give them any good future?
No. I didn’t say nor imply that I could. I’m not saying they’re both as bad as each other. I’m saying that a humanitarian crisis is unfolding, and western nations are standing in support.
Support of what? Palestinians will get humanitarian aid either way. Problem is that they (well, hamas) will try to use it to build more rockets, not to improve their lives.
Ok mate. Believe it or not, I’m not looking for an argument about who is most awful between Palestinians and Israelis.
My question is, why the world feels the need to take sides in this conflict rather than simply condemning the violence perpetrated by both sides.
The hatred violence, and wrongdoing does not need to be equal between all combatants in order for the hatred, violence, and wrongdoing to be condemned.
My question is, why the world feels the need to take sides in this conflict rather than simply condemning the violence perpetrated by both sides.
Well imagine that the native Australian population, the Aboriginals decoded they wanted their land back and started murdering all the white folk and they killed the equivalent of about 5,000 people (adjusted for Australia’s population); mostly eldely and children. They restarted started a bombing campaign that threatened every inch of Australia. And they did this after ~60 years of similar actions on a smaller scale.
Would you and your countrymen submit to genocide for peace? Or would you fight back?
For you and I (USA), nations built on European Colonialism; it should be clear why that Colonialism was wrong but why it can’t be undone. Trying to correct past atrocities with a modern genocide isn’t acceptable and the last 20 years of Hamas’s rule in Gaza has shown that Genocide is all it will accept.
Well, since Hamas doesn’t represent all of Palestine, it doesn’t make sense to decimate the whole of Palestine. Sure, send in special forces that track down Hamas and kill them. But don’t carpet bomb civilian areas in the hopes you get the right people.
Also, you’re saying Israel has been doing this on a smaller scale. I don’t think that’s entirely accurate. Yes, many years “just” a few hundred Palestinians were killed by Israel. But a few times Israel already committed atrocities much worse than what Hamas did on October 7th. And that’s ignoring that Palestine already has half the population of Israel. And also ignoring all the other ways Israel has been oppressing them, like heavily regulating and limiting trade with other nations or preventing Palestine from having an army
Are you seriously trying to argue that Israel doing this to Palestine for the past half century should be ignored? Just because maybe the majority of years it was less deaths? Do you seriously not understand why Palestinians are fighting back? Or do you seriously believe that Palestinians are the aggressors here?
I am loathe to defend hamas, but the UN stats just don’t portray them as the aggressors.
If Australian aboriginals started terrorising the rest of us, of course we would use reasonable force to bring that to a stop. We would also be negotiating, and compromising. If we decided that peaceful solutions had been exhausted, I can assure you other countries wouldn’t be sending us billions of dollars worth of hardware with which to exterminate them.
The West knows they messed up with the actual historical countries of the area. Too many milenia of trying to take over and cause havoc (like in 63 BC when the Romans left a few hundred people alive of the natives like the Samaritans, the Crusades, etc.). They saw what the Germans did to European Jews and saw an opportunity: “If we can’t make friends in the traditional sense, we’ll create one.”
They shipped Jews from all over the world to Palestine. As their citizens of these Western countries are either Christian or come from Christian families, all this Israel nonsense sounds vaguely correct. These countries acted like dogs. It got to the point where France even pretended to allies to Arabic countries, only to reveal it was a lie/trap.
Then the media comes in and sneakily replaces Palestinians with Hamas when it benefits Israel’s cause even though Hamas hasn’t went through elections in nearly two decades and the average age of someone from Gaza is somewhere between 14 and 18.
Israel is just a western invention to give the West an ally in the region and it worked because it all sounds vaguely biblical correct to a world where Christianity just means “I hate gays and abortions and we don’t actually need to act like Jesus who was kind of Jewish anyways.”
Can someone give me the straight talk on why western countries, who usually at least try to look like they have the moral high ground, are falling all over themselves in support of Israel?
What is the non-conspiracy nutter reason why the US feels the need to provide billions of dollars in support to Israel?
Clearly actions on both sides are reprehensible, some more-so than others. There’s no goodies and baddies here. There’s aggressors, innocents, and victims on all sides.
Removed by mod
I’ve done some reading and listening since I asked this question and I think that this is the correct answer.
They’re the only non-muslim country in the middle-east, and therefore our closest ideological partner, and therefore our best strategic partner.
War is about resources. USA and Britain don’t give a shit about giving the land (that they stole from Palestinians) to Jewish people. Israel and Saudi Arabia are their only ways to project power in the region to have leverage against countries with more oil.
There’s the historic precedent that people have already discussed here.
There’s the very effective Israeli lobby, which has integrated itself into many different governments.
There’s the fact that Israel is pro-western, in the Middle East, so they serve Western interests. They can be the foil for Western influence in the Middle East, without directly implicating the West. Need a weapon site bombed in Iran? Israel will do it. This is probably the biggest reason.
The country of Israel has integrated itself into the Western global intelligence Network, especially in terms of special operations, and special intelligence gathering tools, and a weapon supplier for missile defense, drone defense etc. For all intents and purposes their military ally for the west.
The West has a bias against Muslims, and Islam. Not necessarily a deliberate bias, but there is a bias. There is a reluctance for full trust. Israel is a religious country, based on Judaism, which makes them more palatable for Western people to think about.
All that being said, is Western support guaranteed? No. At the international level real politic is extremely fickle, you have to continue to be useful. If another country with better trade-off showed up in the region, it’s very likely they would also receive this Western appreciation.
Hamas are terrorists and Western governments support combatting them. Hamas hides behind civilians who tragically are the victims of the war Hamas started this time
That’s not really an answer though - obviously there’s a question of degree.
If there were 20,000 terrorists with access to advanced weaponry then a few hundred civilian casualties is probably acceptable. If there’s 100 terrorists with access to some home made rockets then a few thousand civilian casualties probably isn’t acceptable.
Is the present campaign against Gaza with the mode of engagement by Israel really the surest path to peace with the least civilian casualties? Hard to believe given that there was a stale mate just a few weeks ago.
Besides which, you can’t kill all the terrorists, that’s not how extremism works.
Of course it’s an answer.
Ok, well it doesn’t address the question, at all.
Of course it does. Fighting terrorism gives the perception of moral high ground
Israel is creating a humanitarian crisis. If you’re getting the perception of moral high ground I don’t really know what to say to you.
Palestine doesn’t have an army, they’re not allowed to.
You said it. Actions of one side are more reprehensible than of the other. In fact, much more reprehensible from what I see.
One side: “We understand you have terrorists, but it’s not our responsibility to help you with it because we value lives of our people. We are going to help you with basic supplies like water, electricity, internet etc., and protect ourselves with the iron dome. It all costs a lot but lives are really what matters.”
Another side: “Our objective will not be completed until your country and citizens stop existing. We were elected having this objective by our people. We will teach our children that this is also their objective. We will build rockets. We will launch them at you even if some of them may not reach your territory. We will launch them from civillian buildings because we know you care about lives of civillians. You will think twice before launching anything back, and when you do, you will be blamed by the world for killing innocents. We will kill as many of your civilians as we can, by our hands. We will brake their limbs and hold them hostages, even if they are the citizens of other countries. And when you retaliate, the world will blame you for what you have done. The world must understand that by killing your people we fight for our future, and give us everything we need. This will be glorious, and you will die, and we will prosper, and the world will forget we are the killers, and remember you as killers. We will throw every resource we have for that to happen, be it the money we got as a humanitarian aid for our citizens or
baby dolls that should be indistinguishable from dead children with some mosaic. Oops we forgot the mosaic.You didnt see it. You are the killers.”Ignoring Jewish settlers in the West Bank, Gaza quite literally being a ghetto full of people forced off their land, the military checkpoints, the complete imbalance of deaths and suffering between the two sides.
As reprehensible as the violence is on both sides, Israel/Palestine is an apartheid state and Palestinians suffer far more than just from the effects of violence.
What exact violence? Israel provides Gaza with stuff they need. Including pipes for the water construction, that instead are used to build rockets.
Palestinians are doing terrorism, whether they understand it or not. Israel reacts to terrorism. Do you not agree that a country should react to acts of terrorism?
You’re implying a false dichotomy, as though in response to a terrorist attack you either lie down and accept further attacks, or grind gaza into the dust.
No, I’m not. Grinding Giza to the dust is not what’s being done. Hamas contribute more by firing uncontrollable missiles that also tend to fall in Gaza.
But you are implying a reality where every single sane person should ignore the existence and terrorism of hamas and Palestinians. Probably.
Hyperbole on my part, but not excessive given the post we’re discussing this under.
Patently false. I’ll refer you again to the pictures in this article.
This is the false dichotomy I referred to in my last comment. Perhaps you should look it up. We can acknowledge the existence of terrorism and respond appropriately without causing a humanitarian crisis.
This is classic American “fucked around and found out” diplomacy. Like a child with a hammer.
Yeah kindly explain how exactly maybe?
If hamas wouldn’t use Palestinians as a shield there would be no crisis.
They absolutely should respond to acts of violent terrorism, and I didn’t suggest they don’t. However it’s far from one sided.
The Gaza strip is an open air prison for over 2 million people, who can’t even access, or travel for proper healthcare, where food and water are insecure or poorly available. Where you can’t leave by either land or sea. Where even if you were one of the >1 million young people living there who managed to leave you’d be poor and uneducated.
But maybe you’re not in Gaza. Maybe you’re one of the Palestinians who live in the west bank can can barely travel without huge impediments, or may see your house demolished to make way for Israeli settlers, in what amounts to an apartheid system, widely condemned internationally by human rights organisations.
Hamas are absolutely disgusting, and the terrorist attack on Israel should be rightly condemned. But if you think Israel are the good guys here, and this is a black and white, good and evil situation you’re not paying attention.
So they are responding, there is no problem with that.
Though I find it amusing that so much effort goes into outlining the hurdles of Palestinians only.
If you want to promote better lives for Palestinians, then maybe you should’ve started with themselves, to let them know they shouldn’t have elected terrorists their leaders. Maybe Palestinians would understand that doing terrorism will not give them any good future?
Hmm… it seems like the disparity of “badness” you describe would’ve been true a few months ago, but no longer is?
Most of what you’ve said about Palestinians also describes israel now? Seems that way anyway.
If we were looking for the path to peace with the least casualties, this doesn’t seem like it.
Can you give any example of concrete case where Israel did anything comparable to what hamas did at October 7th?
No. I didn’t say nor imply that I could. I’m not saying they’re both as bad as each other. I’m saying that a humanitarian crisis is unfolding, and western nations are standing in support.
Support of what? Palestinians will get humanitarian aid either way. Problem is that they (well, hamas) will try to use it to build more rockets, not to improve their lives.
In support of Israel while they cause a humanitarian crisis.
And what exactly Palestinians have caused by slaughtering hundreds of civillians on October 7th? Nothing? They are innocent and should be left alone?
It’s like you’re intentionally ignoring what I’m saying. Of course they’re not innocent. Yes they should be held accountable.
If you think killing 5,000 civilians is an appropriate response then I don’t know what to say to you.
The
.deis showing.I’m from Australia.
Then you should be practical enough to realize that almost none of what was said about Palestinians in that statement describes Israel now.
Ok mate. Believe it or not, I’m not looking for an argument about who is most awful between Palestinians and Israelis.
My question is, why the world feels the need to take sides in this conflict rather than simply condemning the violence perpetrated by both sides.
The hatred violence, and wrongdoing does not need to be equal between all combatants in order for the hatred, violence, and wrongdoing to be condemned.
Well imagine that the native Australian population, the Aboriginals decoded they wanted their land back and started murdering all the white folk and they killed the equivalent of about 5,000 people (adjusted for Australia’s population); mostly eldely and children. They restarted started a bombing campaign that threatened every inch of Australia. And they did this after ~60 years of similar actions on a smaller scale.
Would you and your countrymen submit to genocide for peace? Or would you fight back?
For you and I (USA), nations built on European Colonialism; it should be clear why that Colonialism was wrong but why it can’t be undone. Trying to correct past atrocities with a modern genocide isn’t acceptable and the last 20 years of Hamas’s rule in Gaza has shown that Genocide is all it will accept.
Well, since Hamas doesn’t represent all of Palestine, it doesn’t make sense to decimate the whole of Palestine. Sure, send in special forces that track down Hamas and kill them. But don’t carpet bomb civilian areas in the hopes you get the right people.
Also, you’re saying Israel has been doing this on a smaller scale. I don’t think that’s entirely accurate. Yes, many years “just” a few hundred Palestinians were killed by Israel. But a few times Israel already committed atrocities much worse than what Hamas did on October 7th. And that’s ignoring that Palestine already has half the population of Israel. And also ignoring all the other ways Israel has been oppressing them, like heavily regulating and limiting trade with other nations or preventing Palestine from having an army
Are you seriously trying to argue that Israel doing this to Palestine for the past half century should be ignored? Just because maybe the majority of years it was less deaths? Do you seriously not understand why Palestinians are fighting back? Or do you seriously believe that Palestinians are the aggressors here?
That’s just not analogous though.
I am loathe to defend hamas, but the UN stats just don’t portray them as the aggressors.
If Australian aboriginals started terrorising the rest of us, of course we would use reasonable force to bring that to a stop. We would also be negotiating, and compromising. If we decided that peaceful solutions had been exhausted, I can assure you other countries wouldn’t be sending us billions of dollars worth of hardware with which to exterminate them.
The West knows they messed up with the actual historical countries of the area. Too many milenia of trying to take over and cause havoc (like in 63 BC when the Romans left a few hundred people alive of the natives like the Samaritans, the Crusades, etc.). They saw what the Germans did to European Jews and saw an opportunity: “If we can’t make friends in the traditional sense, we’ll create one.”
They shipped Jews from all over the world to Palestine. As their citizens of these Western countries are either Christian or come from Christian families, all this Israel nonsense sounds vaguely correct. These countries acted like dogs. It got to the point where France even pretended to allies to Arabic countries, only to reveal it was a lie/trap.
Then the media comes in and sneakily replaces Palestinians with Hamas when it benefits Israel’s cause even though Hamas hasn’t went through elections in nearly two decades and the average age of someone from Gaza is somewhere between 14 and 18.
Israel is just a western invention to give the West an ally in the region and it worked because it all sounds vaguely biblical correct to a world where Christianity just means “I hate gays and abortions and we don’t actually need to act like Jesus who was kind of Jewish anyways.”