US is unlikely to stop giving military aid to Israel − because it benefits from it (theconversation.com)
from jeffw@lemmy.world to world@lemmy.world on 23 Aug 03:10
https://lemmy.world/post/18949597

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MediaBiasFactChecker@lemmy.world on 23 Aug 03:11 next collapse
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TheBigBrother@lemmy.world on 23 Aug 03:23 next collapse

Obviously not, Palestinians need some American freedom…

PugJesus@lemmy.world on 23 Aug 03:47 collapse

Look, I’m not saying an independent Palestine would be perfect…

… but has PALESTINE ever attacked an American ship, unprovoked, killing dozens of servicemen?

Just sayin’, maybe we’re putting our influence behind the less reliable party to have as an ally…

Okigotitnow@lemmy.world on 23 Aug 05:02 collapse

Well that was an incident during war time which happens unfortunately. But Hamas did kidnapped American citizens. Which have not been realsed, well after knowing the fact

Your comment is lacking, just sayin’

PugJesus@lemmy.world on 23 Aug 05:06 collapse

Well that was an incident during war time which happens unfortunately.

Yes, I too repeatedly attack a ship frantically signaling me not to attack, in international waters, flying the flag of a friendly/neutral country, multiple times, from both air and sea, over the course of several hours. It just happens, you know?

But Hamas did kidnapped American citizens.

So? Fuck Hamas. They don’t have to be the postwar Palestinian government. They’re not even the legitimate Palestinian government now.

vga@sopuli.xyz on 23 Aug 06:02 collapse

Fuck Hamas. They don’t have to be the postwar Palestinian government. They’re not even the legitimate Palestinian government now.

I think this was one of the primary goals of the war.

WanderingVentra@lemm.ee on 23 Aug 06:09 next collapse

Not really. The goal of the war is genocide. If anything, they’re making a ton of new Hamas members from all the orphans, widows, and widowers.

vga@sopuli.xyz on 23 Aug 06:11 collapse

This article goes through Israel’s goals and their current status: www.foreignaffairs.com/israel/israel-winning

WanderingVentra@lemm.ee on 23 Aug 06:23 collapse

Wow that is an extremely biased and cope filled article. It completely ignores why Hamas was created and got into power, the conditions that would lead to the creation of a resistance against Israel, Israel’s own public statements on genocide referenced by the ICJ, all of the civilian casualties, their own murders and hostages from before October 7th, their own blocking of aid (they call putting “Palestinians on a diet”), and the fact that they demanded a soldier presence in Gaza in the latest rounds of negotiations basically negating any hope that they’ll do what the author says they should at the end. We don’t have to guess what their goals are, they’ve said it.

vga@sopuli.xyz on 23 Aug 06:29 collapse

I commend you for your speed reading skills.

WanderingVentra@lemm.ee on 23 Aug 14:10 collapse

Lol thanks.

PugJesus@lemmy.world on 23 Aug 06:13 collapse

It’s Israel’s stated goal. But without proffering any alternative, it’s rather flimsy as an excuse. They don’t want the PA - hell, Israel funded Hamas specifically to sideline Fatah and the PA - and they’ve done nothing but enable Hamas’s suppression of alternatives in the Gaza Strip. The goal, quite nakedly, is a land grab, and excuses about Hamas are nothing but smokescreen.

Put it this way - if you want to wipe out a country entirely, recognize one group as the ruling authorities (Hamas), and then demand nothing short of that group’s total and unconditional surrender, with the implication that they’ll all be prosecuted as criminals afterwards.

Regimes, and especially gangster regimes like Hamas, generally do not surrender under such circumstances, so it’s carte blanche to continuously attack the country without having to worry about things like “Their government already surrendered, you bombing these cities is starting to look like mass murder”. You can just say, “No, no, the organization says they’re still fighting, so we’re definitely just cleaning up terrorists here! The onus is on them to give themselves up, not for us to stop bombing! The civilians are dead because of THEM, not us!”

TheFonz@lemmy.world on 23 Aug 11:38 collapse

Pug,

I respect you and I agree with your take.

I just wanted to add some context though. Hamas enjoys wide support among Palestinians and Hamas’s explicit objective, as outlined in its charter, is the eradication of the state of Israel. If the Palestinian people won’t accept that the Israeli state is here to stay then the differences are to remain irreconcilable. 10 million jews aren’t going to pack up and leave. The 68 borders aren’t happening either, no matter what kind of wishful thinking we employ. This is unfortunate, but it’s the reality we have to contend with sadly.

Don’t get me wrong though: this is no justification to use the security threat as casus belli in the way IDF is conducting this war. Plenty of reprehensible actions coming from the Israeli military. There is absolutely no way forward until the current political regime in Israel is replaced with better leadership.

PugJesus@lemmy.world on 23 Aug 14:23 collapse

Hamas enjoys wide support amongst Palestinians because Israel has continuously humiliated the PA by turning every good-faith attempt to interact with Israel into demonstrations of fealty.

Palestinians, by and large, see armed resistance as the path forward - and they may not be wrong. Hamas, however, is the only major player of note embracing armed resistance against the Israeli state, which means their shithead justifications get broader traction than they otherwise would. When Fatah accepted the existence of the state of Israel, Israel immediately started funding Islamist groups to undermine Fatah.

Hamas are shitheads. But the Palestinian support of Hamas is largely because of Israel’s behavior, not because Palestinians (and, I must note in agreement with you here, are hardly free of prejudices themselves) are inherently thirsting for the ethnic cleansing of Israel. They’re the only serious game in town since Israel stopped engaging in the two-state solution in good faith. Israel must change before Hamas can be meaningfully destroyed.

TheFonz@lemmy.world on 23 Aug 15:21 collapse

You’re not wrong but you’re also painting with a broad brush, which I understand-- a lot is happening here and very quickly. I always debate if it’s worth getting in the weeds in these types of discussions. For instance: Not Israel, but Netanyahu was responsible for the scheming and funding operations. It gets messy fast.

Edit: I love that I’m getting down voted not only for agreeing, but providing nuance and additional detail. As if my comments are exonorating the actions of IDF. Stay classy I guess.

wurzelgummidge@lemmy.world on 23 Aug 03:50 next collapse

American taxpayer dollars get recycled into the pockets of the military industrial complex and it’s investors. Death and destruction are America’s primary exports

ravhall@discuss.online on 23 Aug 04:05 next collapse

Tale as old as time

Frog@lemmy.ca on 23 Aug 07:12 collapse

Completely right.

When the U.S. gives military aid to Israel, the Israeli government is not putting that money in its pocket. The vast majority of the money that the U.S. allocates to Israel each year must be spent on American weapons.

The logic of this only works when companies that produce these weapons pockets the money and gives some it back to bribe politicians for deals like this and to cut their taxes.

They are taking billions of our tax money and giving it to companies in a loophole so the process isn’t directly stealing from us.

Sauerkraut@discuss.tchncs.de on 25 Aug 03:03 collapse

Israel is also bribing our politicians. Our two-party political system is so corrupt it makes me sick to my stomach even thinking about it.

mathemachristian@lemm.ee on 23 Aug 04:23 next collapse

Well Harris’ campaign promise is that Americas going to have the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world.

So, yeah the genocide will continue.

TheFonz@lemmy.world on 23 Aug 11:40 collapse

Why are you leaving out the rest of the paragraph from that speech? She spent more time talking about the needs of Palestinians and working on an immediate ceasefire.

Diva@lemmy.ml on 23 Aug 11:49 next collapse

When she says “ceasefire” she’s talking about finding ways to make docile liberals okay with dragging this whole genocide out longer. Harris could stop it in a concrete way by halting all the bomb and missile shipments until they run out of ammo and have to come beg for more again. That then gives you leverage to say “stop indescriminantly murdering civilians, r*ping prisoners, and assassinating the person you’re supposed to be negotiating with”

TheFonz@lemmy.world on 23 Aug 13:57 collapse
  • So we don’t want a ceasefire? WHAT?

  • And you think Israel is only buying weapons from the US…?

Diva@lemmy.ml on 23 Aug 14:54 collapse
  • So we don’t want a ceasefire? WHAT?
    

weasel politicians have discovered that you don’t need to do anything, you simply need to say you’re doing something, and change the meaning of the word. ‘ceasefire’ as the democrats now speak about it, is too little, too late. Especially considering they have been the administration bypassing congress to send weapons to the ongoing massacre.

  • And you think Israel is only buying weapons from the US…?

If it was viable for the settler entity to support itself, why are the Democrats so quick to send them bombs to murder civilians with? Cut them off.

TheFonz@lemmy.world on 23 Aug 18:25 collapse

politicians say stuff and lie

That’s not an argument. There is nothing for me to engage with.

I think you’re right and you shouldn’t bother to vote. What’s the point?

Diva@lemmy.ml on 23 Aug 18:45 collapse

I am right and I still vote, but this is not a democracy, that’s mostly my issue. If Democrats are not going to meaningfully distinguish themselves from Republicans when it comes to how they treat people who look like me, why should I treat them with any less scorn?

TheFonz@lemmy.world on 23 Aug 19:24 collapse

Are any Republicans calling for a ceasefire? You can’t in one breath admonish them for misleading you then in the other call for them to set policy.

I understand the frustration. I really do.

Whether justly or not, Israel is a long time ally in a region that is very unstable (I’m talking beyond Palestine/Israel).

I don’t know what the right answer is. But between one side that wants to turn Palestine to glass and the other that wants to work towards a ceasefire, I’ll go with the latter. I’d love it if the US froze all weapons sales too.

Diva@lemmy.ml on 23 Aug 19:38 collapse

I can express my total disgust with the people representing me, while still not wanting worse to happen.

The issue is that our military support of our colonies is emeshed with our political system to the point where de-escalation is impossible. This is not something which has been arrived at democratically and I don’t have much confidence it can be solved in the existing “democratic” process.

TheFonz@lemmy.world on 23 Aug 20:27 collapse

I might be optimistic, but I think it’s partly a generational issue and understanding of geopolitics. We need young new people to run for office now more than ever. I’ve been around forever (I’m 38) and I can see the old guard readying to step down. Kamala could be that bridge.

Diva@lemmy.ml on 23 Aug 20:41 collapse

Part of the problem is running for office takes money, resources, etc. Young people are still more broke than ever and so it’s left to the same shrinking minority of people who are able to meaningfully engage with getting elected as in the previous generation. I want to be hopeful, but if the ‘new guard’ has all the same material interests as the old guard, I don’t think there’s going to be a meaningful change left to their own devices.

mathemachristian@lemm.ee on 23 Aug 12:03 collapse

President Biden and Vice President Harris believe a strong, secure, and democratic Israel is vital to the interests of the United States. Their commitment to Israel’s security, its qualitative military edge, its right to defend itself, and the 2016 Memorandum of Understanding is ironclad.

democrats.org/…/FINAL-MASTER-PLATFORM.pdf

BallsandBayonets@lemmings.world on 23 Aug 04:24 next collapse

The US doesn’t benefit, but a few privately owned corporations and a handful of already way too wealthy monsters benefit.

But since they own the US government, it doesn’t really matter if the other 99.998% of people in the US, plus 100% of Palestinians suffer.

SulaymanF@lemmy.world on 23 Aug 06:45 next collapse

Calling Israel a democracy is stupid when it has Jim Crow style laws at best and apartheid at worst. They don’t let most Palestinians vote and keep them on bantustans.

foolio949@pawb.social on 23 Aug 07:38 next collapse

Why would Israel let people from another county vote in their elections?

SulaymanF@lemmy.world on 23 Aug 07:42 next collapse

You mean like how South Africa pretended black people weren’t citizens and instead citizens of Bantustans that they conveniently set up? Yeah that’s how Israel does it in their apartheid too.

Squizzy@lemmy.world on 23 Aug 09:27 next collapse

Because it isn’t a country by their own logic and also Palestinians dont just live in Palestine and furthermore why would Israel do any of what they do to a peoplr from another country, like arm guard their neighbourhoods, lock them in, lock them out, rape and murder them?

Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world on 24 Aug 13:52 collapse

It’s neat under what circumstances Palestine is conveniently a country.

SailorMoss@sh.itjust.works on 23 Aug 19:22 collapse

it has Jim Crow style laws at best and apartheid at worst.

But you repeat yourself.

nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 23 Aug 10:10 next collapse

Oh well if we’re benefiting from the genocide then alright. /s

kamenoko@sh.itjust.works on 23 Aug 10:29 next collapse

Palestinians have been offered a state countless times. The Arab and Iranian Muslims that fund Hamas’ terrorism won’t be happy until everyone is dead or a Muslim.

It’s 2024 why are we supporting religious terrorists?

Keeponstalin@lemmy.world on 23 Aug 13:52 next collapse

Israel is the one that was founded on ethnic cleansing, used the peace process to expand it’s settlements, and is currently engaged in genocide. Both Hamas and Fatah have agreed to a Two-State solution based on the 1967 borders for decades. Oslo and Camp David were used by Israel to continue settlements in the West Bank and maintain an Apartheid, while preventing any actual Two-State solution

Oslo Accord Sources: MEE, NYT, Haaretz, AJ

The settlements represent land-grabbing, and land-grabbing and peace-making don’t go together, it is one or the other. By its actions, if not always in its rhetoric, Israel has opted for land-grabbing and as we speak Israel is expanding settlements. So, Israel has been systematically destroying the basis for a viable Palestinian state and this is the declared objective of the Likud and Netanyahu who used to pretend to accept a two-state solution. In the lead up to the last election, he said there will be no Palestinian state on his watch. The expansion of settlements and the wall mean that there cannot be a viable Palestinian state with territorial contiguity. The most that the Palestinians can hope for is Bantustans, a series of enclaves surrounded by Israeli settlements and Israeli military bases.

  • Avi Shlaim

How Avi Shlaim moved from two-state solution to one-state solution

‘One state is a game changer’: A conversation with Ilan Pappe

One State Solution, Foreign Affairs

kamenoko@sh.itjust.works on 24 Aug 22:25 collapse

Look at the borders of Israel in the 60s and today, and perhaps ask Jordan and Egypt why they can’t give land to Palestinians?

Keeponstalin@lemmy.world on 24 Aug 22:55 collapse

How does that make more sense to you than Equal rights for all and Right of Return for all Refugees? Do you just straight up support an Apartheid ethnostate?

Palestinians deserve to live in historic Palestine with equal rights, like how Palestine has been for millennia before Zionist Settler Colonialism turned it into an Ethnostate by ethnically cleaning the native population and continue to do so to this day

kamenoko@sh.itjust.works on 24 Aug 23:36 collapse

When has there ever been a Palestinian state and why do you live under the impression only Jews and Palestinians live in Israel?

Keeponstalin@lemmy.world on 25 Aug 01:21 collapse

Funny how you ignore the question

What do your questions have to do with anything? People existed in places before Nationalism became a thing. Palestinians are the native people of historic Palestine and Israelis are the colonizers. This has to do with Zionism, not Jewish people

Siegfried@lemmy.world on 23 Aug 14:43 next collapse

Its 2024, why are we supporting ethnic cleansing?

kamenoko@sh.itjust.works on 23 Aug 15:22 collapse

Why do Christians and Muslims want to wipe all the Jews from the earth?

[deleted] on 23 Aug 19:51 next collapse
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roboto@feddit.org on 25 Aug 12:59 collapse

You hasbara trolls are so sad. Keep trying, the world has woken up, free Palestine and fuck the genocidal settler colonial apartheid entity.

kamenoko@sh.itjust.works on 25 Aug 14:31 collapse

Of all the genocides being committed across the world today most are being committed by Muslims in Africa and Southeast Asia. They only have one tiny bit of the Middle East and that’ll take care of most of the ethnic diversity left in the region.

Why do you all love the infitada so much?

roboto@feddit.org on 25 Aug 16:05 collapse

Yeah the Gazans really had it coming!

prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 23 Aug 16:15 collapse

“Offered a state”

Yeah sure thing dude. As long as they don’t control their border with Egypt, right?

FlyingSquid@lemmy.world on 23 Aug 11:01 next collapse

U.S. Politicians, especially on the right, will always support Israel because, even if they don’t realize it, there’s bigotry involved. Israel is the one country in the Middle East that’s “like us” and not run by those scary swarthy Muslims. They don’t love that it’s run by Jews, but Jews are closer in their mind to “normal” than Muslims. Muslims, especially after 9/11, are no longer trustworthy to American politicians. It doesn’t matter that 99.999% of them have no interest in attacking the U.S., they’re all the enemy. And Israel, to them, is the lone light in fighting that enemy.

It’s some sick shit that even plenty of them would realize was sick if they took two seconds to think about it. Which they don’t.

Diva@lemmy.ml on 23 Aug 11:44 next collapse

Americans have to tell themselves that america and it’s proxies “the good ones” because any sober assessment would shatter their world view and require them to stop doing all the evil shit that they do.

It’s why those pathetic cowards leaving the DNC had to cover their ears rather than hear the names of their victims.

FatCrab@lemmy.one on 23 Aug 12:46 collapse

They’ll support Israel because the way we do it is another of the many infinite money hacks our MIC has created and entrenched deep into our politics. I really dislike this American trend to racialize the conflict. In virtually every way, Palestinians and Israelis, and Jews in general for that matter, are pretty indistinguishable but for small differences in otherwise very similar ethnic and religious cultures. Jewish culture, even across the diaspora, has been pretty clearly a Levantine originating one forever (not to mention the far deeper similarities between Judaism as a religion and Islam than between either and Christianity).

FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 23 Aug 13:03 next collapse

You could give the aid to ukraine and benefit the MIC just the same

can@sh.itjust.works on 23 Aug 13:20 next collapse

US is evil, yes, we’ve known

Edit: USA government, to be clear, not the citizens broadly

TokenBoomer@lemmy.world on 25 Aug 02:37 collapse

<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/d0938499-4b72-4dc4-a600-8e35caee1ddf.gif">

Siegfried@lemmy.world on 23 Aug 14:41 next collapse

Which are the benfits? Please as a non American western i fail to understand how “having an ally” in the area (as israel is the only viable option) benefits américa in anyway

Evotech@lemmy.world on 23 Aug 16:05 next collapse

Ever heard of oil

Daxtron2@startrek.website on 23 Aug 19:07 next collapse

Military bases

jpreston2005@lemmy.world on 24 Aug 01:53 next collapse

When the U.S. gives military aid to Israel, the Israeli government is not putting that money in its pocket. The vast majority of the money that the U.S. allocates to Israel each year must be spent on American weapons. That is true, in general, for American military aid to other countries, such as Ukraine.

Those American weapons that Israel purchases are produced in factories across the U.S. So, many American lawmakers have an interest in sustaining that aid because that money ends up flowing into their own states and providing local jobs.

They use taxpayer money to give business to the defense contractors that they’ve invested in. It’s a kickback, to themselves.

rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works on 24 Aug 22:20 collapse

It’s laid out in the article under the heading “How does U.S. aid to Israel serve America’s national interests?”

febra@lemmy.world on 24 Aug 05:39 collapse

Gotta supply the settler colony with weapons for its ethnic cleansing campaign