Israel-Palestine

HTG said:
Do they really get nothing in return? Geopolitics aside, I think you have to look at this from the perspective of an American evangelical. They do support Israel for religious motives. And while that is obviously absurd to people capable of reason, from their POV, they do get something in return. Which is the fulfilment of some prophecy, basically.
And as ridiculous as that is, they are happy to support this shit, as long as the „right“ people live in the holy land.
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That's not the reason, as you yourself note, that US regimes have supported Israeli regimes for so long. That interview problematizes even the idea of Evangelical return, too. However long that takes to hit, I know not.
 
Adisa said:
for nothing and I repeat nothing in return.
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America has reaped huge strategic benefits from its support of Israel. Most importantly, the massive increase in support for Israel in the aftermath of the 6-day war was the crucial factor in persuading Egypt to flip from the Soviet camp under Sadat, essentially winning the Cold War in the Levant for America without requiring any American troops on the ground.

Israel is the means by which America continues to dominate the Levant and the Suez Canal. Regional states populated by peoples who are naturally antagonistic to Israel understand that if they cannot defeat Israel militarily (which America ensures), they must go on hand and knees to Washington to get any concessions, providing Washington with major strategic leverage - see Sadat’s Egypt, or today al-Sharaa’s Syria.

There has also been a significant partnership in the pursuit of so-called “counter-terrorism” operations/intelligence sharing, etc. that is, or was, highly valued among influential sections of Beltway policy-making circles.
 
neverdie said:
That's not the reason, as you yourself note, that US regimes have supported Israeli regimes for so long. That interview problematizes even the idea of Evangelical return, too. However long that takes to hit, I know not.
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Of course. But I meant from a population pov. Many Americans are in it because of religious reasons. Which makes it easy for politicians to chase their goals.
 


Israeli Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir personally handing out demolition and eviction orders to Palestinians."I don't care. Jews are above the law. You have 2 hours to leave."

Yet the US and EU supports this.
 
2cents said:
America has reaped huge strategic benefits from its support of Israel. Most importantly, the massive increase in support for Israel in the aftermath of the 6-day war was the crucial factor in persuading Egypt to flip from the Soviet camp under Sadat, essentially winning the Cold War in the Levant for America without requiring any American troops on the ground.

Israel is the means by which America continues to dominate the Levant and the Suez Canal. Regional states populated by peoples who are naturally antagonistic to Israel understand that if they cannot defeat Israel militarily (which America ensures), they must go on hand and knees to Washington to get any concessions, providing Washington with major strategic leverage - see Sadat’s Egypt, or today al-Sharaa’s Syria.

There has also been a significant partnership in the pursuit of so-called “counter-terrorism” operations/intelligence sharing, etc. that is, or was, highly valued among influential sections of Beltway policy-making circles.
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I think your third point is the meaty one. It is still a lot of money and more importantly destroyed goodwill for intel and collaboration on weapon systems.

Doesn't Egypt control the Suez Canal?
 
Tallis said:
It is still a lot of money and more importantly destroyed goodwill for intel and collaboration on weapon systems.
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The “goodwill” or “blowback” argument is one made by many, not just in the anti-imperialist leftist camp, but also among the realist and isolationist schools of thought. It’s certainly a legitimate critique worth further consideration and discussion, and becomes more influential the less apparent the supposed strategic “benefits” of the relationship appear to the American public. My opinion is that we are currently in a moment where that tension is more pronounced than at any point since the 1950s or perhaps since the establishment of Israel.

Tallis said:
Doesn't Egypt control the Suez Canal?
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Yes Egypt controls the Suez Canal today. However Israel controlled the east bank of the Canal for around six months late 1956/early 1957, and then again for around six and a half years from the 6-day war until the aftermath of the Yom Kippur/October War. During these periods the canal was largely closed to international shipping. In both cases the subsequent Israeli withdrawal came about largely as a result of American diplomatic pressure, though in quite different circumstances.

Israeli forces even seized much of the canal’s West Bank and adjacent territory (leaving them within a short march of Cairo) during the Yom Kippur/October war. They only began a gradual withdrawal east from the canal in the context of the opening of the American-led diplomatic efforts which ultimately led to Camp David, the return of the entire Sinai Peninsula, and Egypt’s full incorporation into the Western camp in the Middle Eastern Cold War sphere. Whereas pre-1973 Cairo was fully in the Soviet orbit.
 
2cents said:
The “goodwill” or “blowback” argument is one made by many, not just in the anti-imperialist leftist camp, but also among the realist and isolationist schools of thought. It’s certainly a legitimate critique worth further consideration and discussion, and becomes more influential the less apparent the supposed strategic “benefits” of the relationship appear to the American public. My opinion is that we are currently in a moment where that tension is more pronounced than at any point since the 1950s or perhaps since the establishment of Israel.


Yes Egypt controls the Suez Canal today. However Israel controlled the east bank of the Canal for around six months late 1956/early 1957, and then again for around six and a half years from the 6-day war until the aftermath of the Yom Kippur/October War. During these periods the canal was largely closed to international shipping. In both cases the subsequent Israeli withdrawal came about largely as a result of American diplomatic pressure, though in quite different circumstances.

Israeli forces even seized much of the canal’s West Bank and adjacent territory (leaving them within a short march of Cairo) during the Yom Kippur/October war. They only began a gradual withdrawal east from the canal in the context of the opening of the American-led diplomatic efforts which ultimately led to Camp David, the return of the entire Sinai Peninsula, and Egypt’s full incorporation into the Western camp in the Middle Eastern Cold War sphere. Whereas pre-1973 Cairo was fully in the Soviet orbit.
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Nice historical overview. Cheers.

Would just say "blowback" -- this will be in geopol papers and history ones, too, I suppose, but the US could reap those rewards if it engaged the Arab Bloc (the Arab League) as an actual entity (this is its own problem and you'll know more about how and why than anyone else here). That is, they could have what they have now without the glaring problem of having the reputational damage qua supporting this incarnation of Israel which every Arab (most anyway) despises.

I mean, which is worth more to you and in this era they are, however well it is all pivoted, and you mention bits of it, mutually exclusive (at least in terms of reputational reward for the US in the region re hearts and minds) -- the Arab Block as some coherent entity which is Western-Facing, generally, anyway, and if you put it into economic terms, in the two decades to come, (taking Turkey to be "part of this" -- you know what I mean, I think... regional more than ethnic here), then you have a few potential trillion dollar economies (Turkey, Egypt... then lesser in terms of population and diversity but still big enough re Saudi and so on and on). And into Africa, northern, too, where room is there for development in a multipolar world where development terms can be had from more than one source...



I suppose it's this: the US can attain control of the Suez, in the de facto sense, with Egypt itself. It doesn't really need Israel for that. Indeed, Israel, as it exists now, seems to me to be one of the obvious areas where the US bleeds reputational damage across the entire planet. It has, the US, proxy-Arab states which would, imo, be that, in some form, trade/tradition/position, geo-pol, without Israel.

I know what I've written there is better written by many in all manner of opinion pieces, historical commentaries, and geo-pol articles -- but that's where I'd be looking if I were the one to make that US decision. I'd give Israel a serious wake up call and say "get your shit together -- one state, two, or three -- or you're on your own... btw, we have a load of client Arab states whose economies, some of them, are way more valuable than yours, and infinitely so, basically into the future".

But as it stands the US identifies Israel as its proxy (as the US through Israel within the region). Until that changes, and it should, this is me even putting away my whatever-side cap, and just being logical, then the US will lose the PR war not merely because it has funded and armed a genocide, and done the bidding, so it would seem, of the Israelis in the region, but also because that's just the last 12 months or so. It's been going on for decades.
 
thisisnottaken1 said:
thundercnut of the highest order.
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It's terrifying that these people have about 100 nukes. I think it's debatable whether they're the most radicalised of all nuclear weapon holders.

No nation with leaders who actually believe they're not only ethnically supreme but also gods chosen people should have nukes. It's old testament as government policy.
 
Anyone see the BAFTAs? The BBC bleeped someone saying "free Palestine" but left in the N word being shouted out.

The broadcast was on a 2 hour delay.
 
The country is gone. This is a country where genocide is polling over 70% favourability. I’m not sure there’s a way back.
 
Adisa said:
The country is gone. This is a country where genocide is polling over 70% favourability. I’m not sure there’s a way back.
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In any sane world, the "West" would pull out from Israel entirely. In the world we have, a bunch of clowns, ideologues, and worse want to help Israel destroy not only itself, inside-out, but also the rest of those nations/ethnic groups around it.

US hegemony is dead (whether one wants to announce that it died a year ago or merely wait for the next decade or so until it's not even a thing to be commented upon). Way I see it, in what they consider a vastly changing world, they are all going for land-grabs. The US genuinely does want Greenland, etc. It likely will not get it. Russia wants that corridor to Crimea (already has it). Israel wants the entire region it can hold (or thinks it can hold) and also to destabilize the likes of Iran, Lebanon, and Syria -- all the more to continue its expansionist, settler colonial, virus.

It's not just Israel doing it, the expansionist stuff, but it is the most egregious example re double standards and morality. Now they cannot even maintain the false premise of humanism, so they don't bother largely. They just hope to get whatever they can take and that enough people will not care enough about it or even support it. Grim.

But I sense a generational shift in the years to come which will condemn this shit far more harshly than it has been so far.
 
neverdie said:
Nice historical overview. Cheers.

Would just say "blowback" -- this will be in geopol papers and history ones, too, I suppose, but the US could reap those rewards if it engaged the Arab Bloc (the Arab League) as an actual entity (this is its own problem and you'll know more about how and why than anyone else here). That is, they could have what they have now without the glaring problem of having the reputational damage qua supporting this incarnation of Israel which every Arab (most anyway) despises.

I mean, which is worth more to you and in this era they are, however well it is all pivoted, and you mention bits of it, mutually exclusive (at least in terms of reputational reward for the US in the region re hearts and minds) -- the Arab Block as some coherent entity which is Western-Facing, generally, anyway, and if you put it into economic terms, in the two decades to come, (taking Turkey to be "part of this" -- you know what I mean, I think... regional more than ethnic here), then you have a few potential trillion dollar economies (Turkey, Egypt... then lesser in terms of population and diversity but still big enough re Saudi and so on and on). And into Africa, northern, too, where room is there for development in a multipolar world where development terms can be had from more than one source...



I suppose it's this: the US can attain control of the Suez, in the de facto sense, with Egypt itself. It doesn't really need Israel for that. Indeed, Israel, as it exists now, seems to me to be one of the obvious areas where the US bleeds reputational damage across the entire planet. It has, the US, proxy-Arab states which would, imo, be that, in some form, trade/tradition/position, geo-pol, without Israel.

I know what I've written there is better written by many in all manner of opinion pieces, historical commentaries, and geo-pol articles -- but that's where I'd be looking if I were the one to make that US decision. I'd give Israel a serious wake up call and say "get your shit together -- one state, two, or three -- or you're on your own... btw, we have a load of client Arab states whose economies, some of them, are way more valuable than yours, and infinitely so, basically into the future".

But as it stands the US identifies Israel as its proxy (as the US through Israel within the region). Until that changes, and it should, this is me even putting away my whatever-side cap, and just being logical, then the US will lose the PR war not merely because it has funded and armed a genocide, and done the bidding, so it would seem, of the Israelis in the region, but also because that's just the last 12 months or so. It's been going on for decades.
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I think first we need to define what exactly America’s core material interests in the region are. I mentioned the Suez Canal in the specific context of the Israel-Egypt-America triangle. But America has other, greater regional interests, and I think you’ll agree with me that the stable and steady supply of oil from the Persian Gulf to the world’s markets trumps all else. “Counter-terrorism” is another core interest, though subject to strange machinations in certain contexts.

Anyway, with that noted, I’ll take a stab at a some of the assumptions that seem to underlie your post, primarily with the historical, not contemporary, context in mind.

The idea that America could handily maintain control over a diverse collection of regional client-states without the immediate, looming existence and threat of American-backed Israeli military power seems to me to ignore the specific Cold War context and oil politics that produced a division of the region into Western and Soviet-aligned camps. The postwar American alliance with the most reactionary yet richly endowed regional state in Saudi Arabia was always going to push revolutionary nationalist forces emerging from Western-shaped colonial regimes into the Soviet Camp, whatever the nature of the American relationship with Israel. During the 50s and 60s - before the intense consolidation of the American-Israel relationship after 1973 - revolutionary nationalist forces overthrew Western-backed monarchies in Egypt and Iraq, and another medieval monarchy in North Yemen; seized power from French and British-shaped regimes Syria and South Yemen respectively; and sporadically threatened the Western-aligned regimes in Lebanon (requiring American boots on the ground in 1958), Jordan (requiring British troops in 1958), Oman (via the Marxist-Leninist Dhofar insurgents), and Kuwait (Iraq in 1961). This Arab Cold War produced a variety of conflicts, some of which involved Israel very much, some of them very little or not at all. In any case, throughout most of the period Washington tried to remain open to the two emerging camps, with not much success.

The reason the so-called “radical camp” (as opposed to the “moderates”, or in Arab nationalist parlance, “reactionaries”) leaned towards Moscow was because they believed that the Soviets might be able to help provide them with what Washington couldn’t in that historical moment - namely the rapid military, economic, and social development (prioritized in order) they needed to consolidate control over their respective states, encourage national cohesion, and confront Israel and the reactionary regimes. The most important of these states, Egypt, flipped after deciding that only Washington, not Moscow, could help secure a new and more immediate interest - the return of the Sinai and peace with Israel. And this was in part the product of the ramping up of American support for Israel after 1967 and especially after 1973, which convinced Sadat that Egypt could no longer afford to be a “confrontation state”, even with full Soviet backing. Some of the other increasingly authoritarian and dysfunctional radical/revolutionary regimes held on to the end of the Cold War and beyond, even until late 2024 in the case of Syria.

Which brings me to the idea that there is a potentially cohesive, functional expression of Arab or regional politics that Washington could deal with were it not for the alliance with Israel. Due to the historical process described above, no coherent “Arab bloc” ever emerged with which the Americans could deal with to a degree that suited the pursuit of their regional interests more than the continued alliance with Israel.

In terms of the core interests I’ve outlined above, the main historical episode in favor of your line of thought would be the oil crisis that followed the 1973 war. I think it’s true to say that this is the only episode where America’s alliance with Israel has explicitly threatened the stable export of Gulf oil to the world. However, the American response is quite telling. Rather than conceding to Arab demands in that moment, this was the moment when Washington ramped up its aid for Israel to the levels we have become familiar with since and which are increasingly the target of Israel-sceptics across the political spectrum in America. The result has been that no regional coalition of oil-producing states has since bothered to even threaten another general boycott on behalf of the confrontation with Israel. And indeed, 1973 was the last time any Arab state went to war with Israel (in the conventional sense).

Conversely, the inherent dysfunction of inter-Arab politics helped produce two subsequent episodes which threatened to upend the status quo in the Persian Gulf altogether - those are Soviet-aligned Iraq’s invasion of Iran in 1980, and especially Iraq’s annexation of Kuwait a decade later. The former episode featured American military support for a traditionally Soviet-aligned state, while the latter episode ultimately heralded the arrival of American boots on the ground in the Arabian peninsula, the number one complaint made by Usama bin Laden in his famous fatwa directing the targeting of Americans. Interestingly, support for Israel is third down the list, which does provide some fuel for the “blowback” argument, although that must be offset by the acknowledgment that “terrorism” targeting American interests in the broader Middle East/South-West Asia region has a huge variety of sources, and that Israel has been acknowledged to have provided valuable intelligence and other forms of support for American-led efforts to counter such activities.

So on the Levant side of the region, the massive increase in American support for Israel during the oil crisis helped secure an end to the use of oil politics to threaten Western interests, and an end to conventional inter-state wars there. While in the Gulf arena, dysfunctional inter-Arab politics had the effect of drawing Washington ever-increasingly into an arena lacking a state with Israel’s capacity to impose some sort of Western-friendly order. If you were trying to persuade Washington policy-makers of the benefits of dropping Israel in favor of some kind of Arab or regional coalition, an AIPAC representative might counter that what Washington actually needs is another Israel in the Gulf.

In any case, such a coalition doesn’t exist in any meaningful sense even today. Inter-Arab and regional politics remain dysfunctional and often violent. The economies of formerly major regional players like Egypt, Syria and Iraq are in extremely poor condition, with Egypt struggling to feed its massive population without American aid and the latter two, along with Yemen (the poorest of them all), still struggling to recover from the post-9/11 conflicts. The Gulf states produce oil, gas, and little else, and remain largely dependent on American military support to counter the ideologically-driven movements that would like to see the regional status quo there challenged in some way. Lebanon and Jordan are barely worth consideration in these terms. In my opinion Turkey stands as the only regional state with the potential capacity to provide leadership and ideological coherence to such a hypothetical coalition - but it’s not clear to me why this coalition would favor Western interests even were America to abandon the relationship with Israel. And in any case, there are good reasons to question if Turkey can overcome its own political, economic, and demographic problems to assume such a role.

So to summarize - it’s not clear to me that, historically-speaking, the reputational/PR damage America has suffered due to the alliance with Israel has seriously threatened America’s core interests in the Middle East; rather the alliance seems to me to have helped the pursuit of those interests. On the other hand, a potential American pivot to some kind of stable, pro-Western regional coalition was not historically possible, and doesn’t seem feasible today.

Now I’ll end by introducing a major caveat which I think you will find agreeable - all of the above is written in the context of an American understanding that Israel’s leadership, though as hard-edged as they come, are ultimately people you can deal with (as long as you’re not Palestinian). That was the case with, for example, Begin, Rabin, and even Sharon. The trajectory Israeli politics and society has been on since the early 00s, and particularly over the last decade (and turbocharged since October 2023) will increasingly throw that understanding in doubt going forward. Netanyahu is widely despised behind closed doors, and the vague aura of pragmatism and caution he previously retained was a product of his pre-2023 reputation, before it became more generally understood that he is something of a captive to his own legal problems and to those on his right. But there may be worse to follow him. Israel was in the past the means by which Washington helped secure so-called “stability” in the Levant. However a full-blown Kahanist-led Israel will likely prove a nightmare for an America still interested in exercising some form of leadership in the pursuit of that “stability”. I suppose the final consideration here is if any future administration in Washington will care enough or have the capacity to do anything about it.
 
2cents said:
I think first we need to define what exactly America’s core material interests in the region are. I mentioned the Suez Canal in the specific context of the Israel-Egypt-America triangle. But America has other, greater regional interests, and I think you’ll agree with me that the stable and steady supply of oil from the Persian Gulf to the world’s markets trumps all else. “Counter-terrorism” is another core interest, though subject to strange machinations in certain contexts.

Anyway, with that noted, I’ll take a stab at a some of the assumptions that seem to underlie your post, primarily with the historical, not contemporary, context in mind.

The idea that America could handily maintain control over a diverse collection of regional client-states without the immediate, looming existence and threat of American-backed Israeli military power seems to me to ignore the specific Cold War context and oil politics that produced a division of the region into Western and Soviet-aligned camps. The postwar American alliance with the most reactionary yet richly endowed regional state in Saudi Arabia was always going to push revolutionary nationalist forces emerging from Western-shaped colonial regimes into the Soviet Camp, whatever the nature of the American relationship with Israel. During the 50s and 60s - before the intense consolidation of the American-Israel relationship after 1973 - revolutionary nationalist forces overthrew Western-backed monarchies in Egypt and Iraq, and another medieval monarchy in North Yemen; seized power from French and British-shaped regimes Syria and South Yemen respectively; and sporadically threatened the Western-aligned regimes in Lebanon (requiring American boots on the ground in 1958), Jordan (requiring British troops in 1958), Oman (via the Marxist-Leninist Dhofar insurgents), and Kuwait (Iraq in 1961). This Arab Cold War produced a variety of conflicts, some of which involved Israel very much, some of them very little or not at all. In any case, throughout most of the period Washington tried to remain open to the two emerging camps, with not much success.

The reason the so-called “radical camp” (as opposed to the “moderates”, or in Arab nationalist parlance, “reactionaries”) leaned towards Moscow was because they believed that the Soviets might be able to help provide them with what Washington couldn’t in that historical moment - namely the rapid military, economic, and social development (prioritized in order) they needed to consolidate control over their respective states, encourage national cohesion, and confront Israel and the reactionary regimes. The most important of these states, Egypt, flipped after deciding that only Washington, not Moscow, could help secure a new and more immediate interest - the return of the Sinai and peace with Israel. And this was in part the product of the ramping up of American support for Israel after 1967 and especially after 1973, which convinced Sadat that Egypt could no longer afford to be a “confrontation state”, even with full Soviet backing. Some of the other increasingly authoritarian and dysfunctional radical/revolutionary regimes held on to the end of the Cold War and beyond, even until late 2024 in the case of Syria.

Which brings me to the idea that there is a potentially cohesive, functional expression of Arab or regional politics that Washington could deal with were it not for the alliance with Israel. Due to the historical process described above, no coherent “Arab bloc” ever emerged with which the Americans could deal with to a degree that suited the pursuit of their regional interests more than the continued alliance with Israel.

In terms of the core interests I’ve outlined above, the main historical episode in favor of your line of thought would be the oil crisis that followed the 1973 war. I think it’s true to say that this is the only episode where America’s alliance with Israel has explicitly threatened the stable export of Gulf oil to the world. However, the American response is quite telling. Rather than conceding to Arab demands in that moment, this was the moment when Washington ramped up its aid for Israel to the levels we have become familiar with since and which are increasingly the target of Israel-sceptics across the political spectrum in America. The result has been that no regional coalition of oil-producing states has since bothered to even threaten another general boycott on behalf of the confrontation with Israel. And indeed, 1973 was the last time any Arab state went to war with Israel (in the conventional sense).

Conversely, the inherent dysfunction of inter-Arab politics helped produce two subsequent episodes which threatened to upend the status quo in the Persian Gulf altogether - those are Soviet-aligned Iraq’s invasion of Iran in 1980, and especially Iraq’s annexation of Kuwait a decade later. The former episode featured American military support for a traditionally Soviet-aligned state, while the latter episode ultimately heralded the arrival of American boots on the ground in the Arabian peninsula, the number one complaint made by Usama bin Laden in his famous fatwa directing the targeting of Americans. Interestingly, support for Israel is third down the list, which does provide some fuel for the “blowback” argument, although that must be offset by the acknowledgment that “terrorism” targeting American interests in the broader Middle East/South-West Asia region has a huge variety of sources, and that Israel has been acknowledged to have provided valuable intelligence and other forms of support for American-led efforts to counter such activities.

So on the Levant side of the region, the massive increase in American support for Israel during the oil crisis helped secure an end to the use of oil politics to threaten Western interests, and an end to conventional inter-state wars there. While in the Gulf arena, dysfunctional inter-Arab politics had the effect of drawing Washington ever-increasingly into an arena lacking a state with Israel’s capacity to impose some sort of Western-friendly order. If you were trying to persuade Washington policy-makers of the benefits of dropping Israel in favor of some kind of Arab or regional coalition, an AIPAC representative might counter that what Washington actually needs is another Israel in the Gulf.

In any case, such a coalition doesn’t exist in any meaningful sense even today. Inter-Arab and regional politics remain dysfunctional and often violent. The economies of formerly major regional players like Egypt, Syria and Iraq are in extremely poor condition, with Egypt struggling to feed its massive population without American aid and the latter two, along with Yemen (the poorest of them all), still struggling to recover from the post-9/11 conflicts. The Gulf states produce oil, gas, and little else, and remain largely dependent on American military support to counter the ideologically-driven movements that would like to see the regional status quo there challenged in some way. Lebanon and Jordan are barely worth consideration in these terms. In my opinion Turkey stands as the only regional state with the potential capacity to provide leadership and ideological coherence to such a hypothetical coalition - but it’s not clear to me why this coalition would favor Western interests even were America to abandon the relationship with Israel. And in any case, there are good reasons to question if Turkey can overcome its own political, economic, and demographic problems to assume such a role.

So to summarize - it’s not clear to me that, historically-speaking, the reputational/PR damage America has suffered due to the alliance with Israel has seriously threatened America’s core interests in the Middle East; rather the alliance seems to me to have helped the pursuit of those interests. On the other hand, a potential American pivot to some kind of stable, pro-Western regional coalition was not historically possible, and doesn’t seem feasible today.

Now I’ll end by introducing a major caveat which I think you will find agreeable - all of the above is written in the context of an American understanding that Israel’s leadership, though as hard-edged as they come, are ultimately people you can deal with (as long as you’re not Palestinian). That was the case with, for example, Begin, Rabin, and even Sharon. The trajectory Israeli politics and society has been on since the early 00s, and particularly over the last decade (and turbocharged since October 2023) will increasingly throw that understanding in doubt going forward. Netanyahu is widely despised behind closed doors, and the vague aura of pragmatism and caution he previously retained was a product of his pre-2023 reputation, before it became more generally understood that he is something of a captive to his own legal problems and to those on his right. But there may be worse to follow him. Israel was in the past the means by which Washington helped secure so-called “stability” in the Levant. However a full-blown Kahanist-led Israel will likely prove a nightmare for an America still interested in exercising some form of leadership in the pursuit of that “stability”. I suppose the final consideration here is if any future administration in Washington will care enough or have the capacity to do anything about it.
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Yeah, I don't do praise often, but your posts are sometimes brilliant. Parsed it, but I'll read it thoroughly tomorrow. Excellent stuff.
 
2cents said:
I think first we need to define what exactly America’s core material interests in the region are. I mentioned the Suez Canal in the specific context of the Israel-Egypt-America triangle. But America has other, greater regional interests, and I think you’ll agree with me that the stable and steady supply of oil from the Persian Gulf to the world’s markets trumps all else. “Counter-terrorism” is another core interest, though subject to strange machinations in certain contexts.

Anyway, with that noted, I’ll take a stab at a some of the assumptions that seem to underlie your post, primarily with the historical, not contemporary, context in mind.

The idea that America could handily maintain control over a diverse collection of regional client-states without the immediate, looming existence and threat of American-backed Israeli military power seems to me to ignore the specific Cold War context and oil politics that produced a division of the region into Western and Soviet-aligned camps. The postwar American alliance with the most reactionary yet richly endowed regional state in Saudi Arabia was always going to push revolutionary nationalist forces emerging from Western-shaped colonial regimes into the Soviet Camp, whatever the nature of the American relationship with Israel. During the 50s and 60s - before the intense consolidation of the American-Israel relationship after 1973 - revolutionary nationalist forces overthrew Western-backed monarchies in Egypt and Iraq, and another medieval monarchy in North Yemen; seized power from French and British-shaped regimes Syria and South Yemen respectively; and sporadically threatened the Western-aligned regimes in Lebanon (requiring American boots on the ground in 1958), Jordan (requiring British troops in 1958), Oman (via the Marxist-Leninist Dhofar insurgents), and Kuwait (Iraq in 1961). This Arab Cold War produced a variety of conflicts, some of which involved Israel very much, some of them very little or not at all. In any case, throughout most of the period Washington tried to remain open to the two emerging camps, with not much success.

The reason the so-called “radical camp” (as opposed to the “moderates”, or in Arab nationalist parlance, “reactionaries”) leaned towards Moscow was because they believed that the Soviets might be able to help provide them with what Washington couldn’t in that historical moment - namely the rapid military, economic, and social development (prioritized in order) they needed to consolidate control over their respective states, encourage national cohesion, and confront Israel and the reactionary regimes. The most important of these states, Egypt, flipped after deciding that only Washington, not Moscow, could help secure a new and more immediate interest - the return of the Sinai and peace with Israel. And this was in part the product of the ramping up of American support for Israel after 1967 and especially after 1973, which convinced Sadat that Egypt could no longer afford to be a “confrontation state”, even with full Soviet backing. Some of the other increasingly authoritarian and dysfunctional radical/revolutionary regimes held on to the end of the Cold War and beyond, even until late 2024 in the case of Syria.

Which brings me to the idea that there is a potentially cohesive, functional expression of Arab or regional politics that Washington could deal with were it not for the alliance with Israel. Due to the historical process described above, no coherent “Arab bloc” ever emerged with which the Americans could deal with to a degree that suited the pursuit of their regional interests more than the continued alliance with Israel.

In terms of the core interests I’ve outlined above, the main historical episode in favor of your line of thought would be the oil crisis that followed the 1973 war. I think it’s true to say that this is the only episode where America’s alliance with Israel has explicitly threatened the stable export of Gulf oil to the world. However, the American response is quite telling. Rather than conceding to Arab demands in that moment, this was the moment when Washington ramped up its aid for Israel to the levels we have become familiar with since and which are increasingly the target of Israel-sceptics across the political spectrum in America. The result has been that no regional coalition of oil-producing states has since bothered to even threaten another general boycott on behalf of the confrontation with Israel. And indeed, 1973 was the last time any Arab state went to war with Israel (in the conventional sense).

Conversely, the inherent dysfunction of inter-Arab politics helped produce two subsequent episodes which threatened to upend the status quo in the Persian Gulf altogether - those are Soviet-aligned Iraq’s invasion of Iran in 1980, and especially Iraq’s annexation of Kuwait a decade later. The former episode featured American military support for a traditionally Soviet-aligned state, while the latter episode ultimately heralded the arrival of American boots on the ground in the Arabian peninsula, the number one complaint made by Usama bin Laden in his famous fatwa directing the targeting of Americans. Interestingly, support for Israel is third down the list, which does provide some fuel for the “blowback” argument, although that must be offset by the acknowledgment that “terrorism” targeting American interests in the broader Middle East/South-West Asia region has a huge variety of sources, and that Israel has been acknowledged to have provided valuable intelligence and other forms of support for American-led efforts to counter such activities.

So on the Levant side of the region, the massive increase in American support for Israel during the oil crisis helped secure an end to the use of oil politics to threaten Western interests, and an end to conventional inter-state wars there. While in the Gulf arena, dysfunctional inter-Arab politics had the effect of drawing Washington ever-increasingly into an arena lacking a state with Israel’s capacity to impose some sort of Western-friendly order. If you were trying to persuade Washington policy-makers of the benefits of dropping Israel in favor of some kind of Arab or regional coalition, an AIPAC representative might counter that what Washington actually needs is another Israel in the Gulf.

In any case, such a coalition doesn’t exist in any meaningful sense even today. Inter-Arab and regional politics remain dysfunctional and often violent. The economies of formerly major regional players like Egypt, Syria and Iraq are in extremely poor condition, with Egypt struggling to feed its massive population without American aid and the latter two, along with Yemen (the poorest of them all), still struggling to recover from the post-9/11 conflicts. The Gulf states produce oil, gas, and little else, and remain largely dependent on American military support to counter the ideologically-driven movements that would like to see the regional status quo there challenged in some way. Lebanon and Jordan are barely worth consideration in these terms. In my opinion Turkey stands as the only regional state with the potential capacity to provide leadership and ideological coherence to such a hypothetical coalition - but it’s not clear to me why this coalition would favor Western interests even were America to abandon the relationship with Israel. And in any case, there are good reasons to question if Turkey can overcome its own political, economic, and demographic problems to assume such a role.

So to summarize - it’s not clear to me that, historically-speaking, the reputational/PR damage America has suffered due to the alliance with Israel has seriously threatened America’s core interests in the Middle East; rather the alliance seems to me to have helped the pursuit of those interests. On the other hand, a potential American pivot to some kind of stable, pro-Western regional coalition was not historically possible, and doesn’t seem feasible today.

Now I’ll end by introducing a major caveat which I think you will find agreeable - all of the above is written in the context of an American understanding that Israel’s leadership, though as hard-edged as they come, are ultimately people you can deal with (as long as you’re not Palestinian). That was the case with, for example, Begin, Rabin, and even Sharon. The trajectory Israeli politics and society has been on since the early 00s, and particularly over the last decade (and turbocharged since October 2023) will increasingly throw that understanding in doubt going forward. Netanyahu is widely despised behind closed doors, and the vague aura of pragmatism and caution he previously retained was a product of his pre-2023 reputation, before it became more generally understood that he is something of a captive to his own legal problems and to those on his right. But there may be worse to follow him. Israel was in the past the means by which Washington helped secure so-called “stability” in the Levant. However a full-blown Kahanist-led Israel will likely prove a nightmare for an America still interested in exercising some form of leadership in the pursuit of that “stability”. I suppose the final consideration here is if any future administration in Washington will care enough or have the capacity to do anything about it.
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Yeah gone through it in depth. Top post.

On the end paragraph, not dismissing all that went before it, at all, I think you're right -- I suppose the last few lines, re "a full-blown Kahanist-led Israel...." with which the US might not be able to "get on" is what I'm looking at (in terms of near-future). Just seems to be the way that it's going.
 

Israel named top killer of journalists worldwide for third straight year​

The Israeli military was directly responsible for two-thirds of the 129 journalists and media workers killed across the world in 2025, marking the highest annual toll in over three decades, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) announced on 25 February.
CPJ said this was the second consecutive record year for press fatalities, driven “primarily due to the actions of one government,” and argued that Israel’s “continued and unprecedented targeting of journalists and media workers” has helped push killings to an all-time high.
The report said at least 104 of the 129 journalists killed in 2025 died in war zones, adding that “the majority were Palestinians killed by Israel.”
Of the 86 journalists and media workers killed by Israeli fire that year, more than 60 percent were Palestinians reporting from Gaza, “where human rights groups and U.N. experts agree a genocide is taking place.”
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https://thecradle.co/articles/israe...journalists-worldwide-for-third-straight-year

Consider the likes of Sudan and Russia-Ukraine. Journalists, the world over, are in and around (if not directly in) those other two conflicts whereas Israel has prevented world journalists from being in Gaza. Makes it even more remarkable given the frequency/volume of journalists there in the first place.
 
https://news.gallup.com/poll/702440/israelis-no-longer-ahead-americans-middle-east-sympathies.aspx

Here's the full findings. I was reading it earlier and it's quite interesting when you start comparing the age and voting affiliations. The graphs are interactive so I can't post them but they're worth a look.

I'm curious how those surveyed interpreted this question:

Favorable Views of Israel and the Palestinian Territories​

Next, I’d like your overall opinion of some foreign countries. What is your overall opinion of [country]? Is it very favorable, mostly favorable, mostly unfavorable or very unfavorable?

Palestinian Territories - Israel
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The favourability of Israel has dropped somewhat but there hasn't been an inverse uptick for "the Palestinian Territories". Were they thinking about Hamas governance, the settlements, the miles of rubble in Gaza. Any which way it's tough to see how anyone could have a favourable view of any Palestinian territories right now. Seems a weird one.
 
dumbo said:
https://news.gallup.com/poll/702440/israelis-no-longer-ahead-americans-middle-east-sympathies.aspx

Here's the full findings. I was reading it earlier and it's quite interesting when you start comparing the age and voting affiliations. The graphs are interactive so I can't post them but they're worth a look.

I'm curious how those surveyed interpreted this question:


The favourability of Israel has dropped somewhat but there hasn't been an inverse uptick for "the Palestinian Territories". Were they thinking about Hamas governance, the settlements, the miles of rubble in Gaza. Any which way it's tough to see how anyone could have a favourable view of any Palestinian territories right now. Seems a weird one.
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I have seen some other surveys which show that even among the Republicans the support is now more like 50/50 with older voters favoring Israel and younger ones holding an unfavorable view. I guess how you ask the question makes a meaningful difference.
 


Just a reminder on the absolute depravity of Israel, and Israelis.
 


If I speak I am in big trouble, other than to hope it's a loud and public case that brings plenty of public attention to this person and who they work for.
 
If I recall correctly, the episode when she appeared was last summer and Piers kept interrupting virtually everything she said. Thought it was a bit odd at the time, but her reaction is farcically over the top.
 

A few hours ago (around 5 p.m. local time in Gaza), a woman named Nariman Shalouf was killed by bullets fired from Israeli tanks while inside her tent in the Mawasi area of Khan Younis.She had been preparing a meal for iftar during Ramadan, just half an hour before she was supposed to break her fast.
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Elsewhere Surgeon Victoria Rose was on LBC earlier to explain that despite the ceasefire Israel is still blocking medical supplies and equipment from entering Gaza. She said: "At the Nasser medical complex, 52% of their essential medicines, so thats things like antibiotics & painkillers, are at zero stock".

The ceasefire was designed to stop people talking about the ongoing genocide and it's largely worked.
 
Beachryan said:
I mean, you are all kind of proving the point no? Literally no one has made a comment about it not being a genocide - it is. Not a word was even uttered about the situation other than 'it is complex' - which apparently is too much discussion. Just read the tone of the posts if you disagree.

The comparison to climate change is actually really good. In a thread on climate change, one would not be shouted down, accused of evil or attacked for bringing forth some random, genuine piece of science showing something that is not in the direction of man-made climate change. The fact that man made climate-change is an irrefutable fact does not eliminate other, related climate change related topics and stories from being discussed. So for example, despite the rising sea temperatures (summer time heat in February in the Caribbean) this has been a relatively benign hurricane season. That is an interesting thing that could be discussed, without being labelled a climate denier.

But would anyone bring up the literal tape of Hamas executing fellow Palestinians this week, and ask what is being done to pressure them? What is the part of this peace deal that ensures this isn't the future? Because that happened, and it IS a genocide and it IS an apartheid state. And it should be discussed.
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The thread has become a breeding ground for shock tweets where any point can be made by proxy.

When I scoured the thread some time ago the injection of anti semitic comments and general tone were alarming and this was in full sight of contributing mods to the topic!
 
Ronaldo's Love Child said:
The thread has become a breeding ground for shock tweets where any point can be made by proxy.

When I scoured the thread some time ago the injection of anti semitic comments and general tone were alarming and this was in full sight of contributing mods to the topic!
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Mainly because there's an ongoing genocide
 
Ronaldo's Love Child said:
The thread has become a breeding ground for shock tweets where any point can be made by proxy.

When I scoured the thread some time ago the injection of anti semitic comments and general tone were alarming and this was in full sight of contributing mods to the topic!
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Sorry and I just love when people scout threads for posts from years ago, but how on Earth is that anti semitic?
 
I wasn't referring to your posts and it looks like some of the more dubious posts have become less common in weeks but there have definitely been anti-semitic posts in this thread and no, that isn't defending the Israeli government's actions in Gaza.

Most conflicts are nuanced and this doesn't allow for the discussion of that without a pile on
 
Ronaldo's Love Child said:
Right. So there is some anti semitism on this forum...."mainly because there's an ongoing genocide"?

The genocide is committed by Jews so they're all to blame then eh?
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If you disagree with the characterization of genocide then debate it on the merits without making provocative statements.
 
Ronaldo's Love Child said:
When I scoured the thread some time ago the injection of anti semitic comments and general tone were alarming and this was in full sight of contributing mods to the topic!
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Any examples of such posts which still stand or is it just a vibes thing on your part? I didn't notice it myself and definitely haven't done it.

That post that you quoted was indirectly in communication with my post above (I stand by my post and would say time has proven those statements right). It's just weird to make these claims and do so from six months ago, too.
 
Ronaldo's Love Child said:
The genocide is committed by Jews so they're all to blame then eh?
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No one has done that in this thread as far as I can remember, but you can quote some if you found them and I'm sure the mods will take action.

Generally the people who are against islamophobia are also against anti-semitism, since the logic behind both is the same.
 
I can't be the only one that feels like the phrase anti-Semitism has lost all credibility in the last few years? Seems like Israeli apologists use it as a way of shutting down discussion.

It's their default goto line to try and defend their crimes. It's pathetically transparent as far as I'm concerned.
 
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