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Joe Biden has done more than arm Israel. He’s complicit in Gaza’s devastating famine
(www.independent.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 16 May 2024
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politics
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How would this be a disaster for anyone but Israel? Worst case scenario, it's a disaster for Zionists, the US military industrial complex profitting off them, and whatever portion of Israel's population opposes Israel's apartheid ethno-state, and I've only got sympathy for the last of them. At worst, it's an inconvenience for the US with Iran. Other than that, let Israel get rocked by sanctions and smacked around by their neighbors they've been antagonizing for decades with US support. Let Israelis go be refugees if necessary and there's an actual threat of loss of life. Otherwise, whoop dee doo, cutting off Israel means they get what they're due for. Israel is not some essential nation that the world would fall apart should it cease to exist in its current form.
The US abandoning Israel would throw the whole region into turmoil. Iran and/or it's proxies would become far more hostile and Israel would no longer be willing to even pretend to tolerate a hostile force within its own boarders. Both Gaza and the West Bank are just gone. Israel would start cutting deals with US rivals which would have global implications.
US pulling out of Israel would be the most chaos inducing event in world history.
This is pure hyperbole. The most chaos you could get from this would be from Israel lobbing a nuke before getting taken out, which they already essentially threaten as it stands.
And what US rival is Israel going to find to replace it that has both the desire and means to do so? China and Russia don't stand to benefit from that, even if they wanted to pump billions of dollars into Israel a year. They already have influence in the region with other powers the US is hostile to, like Iran. Israel is increasingly internationally discredited, so it's not as though they're going to get a great diplomatic boost. They already have nuclear weapons of their own and pretty developed intelligence apparatuses. What would be the point of taking on such a massive liability?
And let's not forget that the region is in turmoil to begin with in large part because the US keeps intervening in it, as well as supporting Israel and other shitty governments in the region that are favorable to the US in some way. Israel itself destabilizes the region.
You don't think Russia and China stand to benefit from Israeli knowledge of US arms technology? What about the massive PR win for Russia? They already use an imagined Nazi threat to justify their wars of aggression.
There are three regional powers in the Middle East. The US has Israel and Saudi Arabia, and Russia has Iran. You don't think Russia wants to flip that math? Controlling that much oil would eliminate whatever vulnerability they have to sanctions.
Israel is hardly discredited, whatever the hell that means. Maybe in Internet culture, but not in geopolitics. Russia is doing almost exactly what Israel is on a much broader scale right now. The International community cares about as much about the Palestinians as they do about the Rohingya or the Darfuri, both of which are suffering ongoing genocides that I bet you didn't even know about. The world should care, but it really doesn't.
The problems in the Middle East are about a lot more than US meddling. Much of it goes back to before the US even existed. Not that the US has helped much, but it was the British Empire that setup ridiculous borders that all but guaranteed eternal conflict.
Israel is only a regional power by virtue of the US propping it up, it cannot maintain that status on its own. Why on earth would either Russia or China want to take that on, when they could just do nothing and watch Israeli power plummet.
Israel has no large, international backer that is both willing and able to step up and provide cover for it like the US does, and it lacks the might through its own weight around like Russia or China have long term. Without the constant backing of the US to shield from.the consequences of its actions, Israel would become the pariah state it rightfully should be.
And a lovely bit of whataboutism to round things out from you. Unfortunately for you, my memory is longer than a news cycle, but cute attempt at sounding like you were digging deep there.
Where did you pick that nonsense up? Annual US aid amounts to around 15% of Israel's military budget. That's $3.8b compared to a GDP of $500b. It is a regional power with or without the US. US aid is in exchange for maintaining a major US military base in Israeli territory and access to Israeli intelligence. Israel spends more money on purchasing US weapons than it receives in US aid. US weapons also rely on technology designed and produced in Israel.
Why on earth would Russia or China want to watch Israeli power plummet when they could use it to project power into the Middle East and access it's resources? Why do you think the US is there?
It's not Whataboutism, I was just explaining how foreign policy works. It's clearly a topic of which you know very little. I'm not saying it's OK that Israel commits a genocide because others do it, I'm saying that the international community doesn't react to genocide like you or I do. They will praise, condemn, or ignore it based on their own national interests. That's not how I think it should work, it's how it does work.
This isn't just about Israel's military budget. That helps, sure, but it's pretty crucial that Israel gets shielded from the consequences of its actions by the US constantly. If Israel were to start facing sanctions or have its saber-rattling no longer backed up by the threat of US intervention, be via sanctions or interceding directly, Israel would be a much less imposing power in the region. Military support is not the only measure of US support for Israel.
They could literally do the same thing without a) having to provide Israel ongoing material support and diplomatic cover, b) risk getting dragged into conflicts that don't benefit them by Israel, and c) alienate their existing allies in the region by backing a hostile power.
Israel provided a convenient foothold for the US half a century ago, when the surrounding Arab nations were more hostile to them. The situation has changed remarkably, and Israel is no longer unique in being willing to work with the US. Israel has, in fact, been a liability in making progress with this until relatively recently. But, sure, let's piss off the rest of the region so we can get Waze and some Israeli clementines out of things, seems like a good trade on the balance of it.
You want to claim I know so little about foreign policy, but you quite conveniently omit the many drawbacks to supporting Israel, as well as any of its weaknesses.
Well they do have nukes... So if a bunch of crazy religious folks get backed into a corner conventionally with their neighbors it could end very badly.
That sounds more like a reason that western powers should have already nipped this in the bud long ago, rather than a reason to continue to give them carte blanche to commit war crimes. They already dropped the ball on that front, so realistically, they ought to be coming up with strategies to neutralize Israel, rather than embolden it. Perhaps they could take a page from Israel's book and carry out some strikes preemptively exercising their right to self-defense and dismantle the Israeli military and government.
Israel's unchecked existence is a liability to everyone, but it's not going to get any better by letting them go even longer.