↪Benkei
It could be that the reason Amnesty and B'tselem refer to it as Apartheid is because the international community took action against Apartheid and that is what they believe is needed now.
Good point; I hadn't thought of that. — Count Timothy von Icarus
One cannot help but wonder what kind of leverage the Israel lobby has for this to be the case. — Tzeentch
Sorry that I've not responded to this earlier, @Benkei, as your argument ought to be discussed here.Why don't you look up the definition of genocide as agreed in the general assembly and get back to me so you can all eat crow?
Oh you know what, I'll save you the trouble:
On 11 December 1946 the General Assembly of the United Nations resolved that genocide was a crime under international law. This was approved and ratified as a Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide on 9 December 1948. The Convention defines genocide as:
‘any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
killing members of the group
causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
I emphasised the part that applies in this situation. So no, it's definitely not an exaggeration. — Benkei
Naturally the term "genocide" is used in excess and is a basic word of propaganda. However, how you fight wars does have differences:If every war with massacres of civilians and attempts to displace populations was a genocide, than virtually every war is a genocide. Maybe they are in a sense, but then the term loses any value in international affairs. — Count Timothy von Icarus
In order to separate the mujahideen from the local populations and eliminate their support, the Soviet army killed and drove off civilians, and used scorched earth tactics to prevent their return. They used booby traps, mines, and chemical substances throughout the country. The Soviet army indiscriminately killed combatants and noncombatants to ensure submission by the local populations. The provinces of Nangarhar, Ghazni, Lagham, Kunar, Zabul, Qandahar, Badakhshan, Lowgar, Paktia and Paktika witnessed extensive depopulation programmes by the Soviet forces.
In 1967 Israel decided to occupy more land because it could. And that's basically where the problems we have now started.They are at fault in that they helped create Hamas and the situation they find themselves in, not because they are using military force to remove a hostile government that carried out an attack against their population. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Starting from the Six Day War.You are right, it is all about election politics, nothing more. Support Israel, and your campaign will never want for lack of funds. It is all part of what has been detrimental to US politics for quite a while now. — Merkwurdichliebe
Also, there are good practical and moral reasons to support the only decent country in that whole area. — RogueAI
So was this Israeli cabinet minister sacked just for what he said or rather for his extremist, Freudian slip – saying the quiet part out loud – nuking Gaza? — 180 Proof
About the rhetoric of Israeli politicians and the question of genocide commented on MSNBC: — ssu
causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part — UN definition
In this, the history of the conflict over Palestine does not seem like a genocide, with the possible exception of both parties' attempts at ethnic cleansing in 1948. This doesn't make their actions any less heinous, but the distinction has to remain meaningful. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Also, there are good practical and moral reasons to support the only decent country in that whole area.
— RogueAI
Can't argue with that, not many terrorist acts being perpetrated by radical Hebrews — Merkwurdichliebe
So let’s condemn the brutality of Hamas and then turn around and do the same things. All perfectly fine, however, because all Palestinian children killed are killed defensively and accidentally— i.e., with good intentions. — Mikie
I don't think that the US has to do anything (and will do anything) about the internal Israeli politics. You see, this goes only one way: Israel influences US politics, not the other way around. If you say it does, please give me a concrete example. — ssu
I don't recall Isreal and Bibi helping the US to defeat ISIS. Actually what I do remember is that islamists fighting Assad's forces who were wounded were helped by Israel: the islamists would simply leave the wounded on the Isreali side of the Golan Heights and Israeli soldiers would pick them up and take them to a hospital. Pretty honourable thing to do... but I'm not sure if they would have done the same for Syrian troops. In all, Israel and Bibi are just interested in themselves. — ssu
Umm... isn't the US and Egypt in good terms too? Wouldn't geopolitically the stability of Egypt be here more important? The Suez canal is in Egypt. Btw, those gas fields that Israel has aren't so important. And as Israeli is a very wealthy country, I guess it does have a lot of internet cables. — ssu
Then give the example when Israel has done anything to help it's ally US. As I have stated, this "special relationship" with Israel started only after the six day war. And it's been quite one sided, especially when there's no threat of Soviet Union: no country in the region is armed by China as the Soviet Union did. There are no Chinese instructors in the Middle East.But you are talking about Netanyahu, I’m talking about Israel. — neomac
The US doesn't have any military bases in Israel. The US has military bases in Turkey, in Kuwait, the Gulf States. It has friendly ties to Egypt and Jordan. What is the geographic position so favorable in tiny Israel? And intelligence sharing. Really, all of these billions of dollarsThe geographic position of Israel is relevant for military and intelligence projection, also against/for possible sabotage operations in a region that is dense of major routes critical to the World economy. That’s all I’m saying. — neomac
in exactly the same way, then it would be fine. — FreeEmotion
The condemnation due to Israel is rather due to their broader historical role in creating the situation, not simply that there has been an attempt to destroy Hamas at all. They are at fault in that they helped create Hamas and the situation they find themselves in, not because they are using military force to remove a hostile government that carried out an attack against their population. — Count Timothy von Icarus
But you are talking about Netanyahu, I’m talking about Israel. — neomac
Then give the example when Israel has done anything to help it's ally US. As I have stated, this "special relationship" with Israel started only after the six day war. And it's been quite one sided, especially when there's no threat of Soviet Union: no country in the region is armed by China as the Soviet Union did. There are no Chinese instructors in the Middle East. — ssu
The geographic position of Israel is relevant for military and intelligence projection, also against/for possible sabotage operations in a region that is dense of major routes critical to the World economy. That’s all I’m saying. — neomac
The US doesn't have any military bases in Israel. The US has military bases in Turkey, in Kuwait, the Gulf States. It has friendly ties to Egypt and Jordan. What is the geographic position so favorable in tiny Israel? And intelligence sharing. Really, all of these billions of dollars — ssu
Basically the alliance with Israel serve one purpose: domestic politics in the US. Both political parties uphold the staunch special relationship at any cost to win elections, to woo especially the Evangelists for whom Israel is a biblical entity to be supported. Even the large Jewish population of the US (7,6 million) understands that Israel is a normal country and can be critical of politics in Israel, but not the whacky Evangelists who wait for the rupture and the second coming of the Christ. The Holy Land getting attacked rhymes well with that. After all, to the Evangelicals, the Jewish Israelites are Gods people too. Hence the support of Israel has nothing to do with security policy or global realpolitik. And Netanyahu knows this. — ssu
Basically here's the dire extrapolation of the catastrohy of the US foreing policy in the Middle East. It has gone all through the decades worse and worse falling to another lower level.
The 1950's was the height of US influence: The Middle East had a treaty alliance like NATO in the case of CENTO with Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Turkey aligned in the organization. Then Iraq had a revolution.
Next phase was worse, but still good: This was the "Twin Pillars" policy were Saudi-Arabia and Imperial Iran were the backbone of the US alliance in the Middle East. And then came the Iranian revolution where the most important, most armed ally in the region suddenly changed to be an enemy, a rogue state from the US.
Perhaps last the swansong of the US happened when the utterly reckless dictator of Iraq attacked it's former war financier Kuwait. The Bush the older could create a truly impressive alliance of not only all of the Western allies of UK, France etc and all of the Gulf States, but Morocco, Pakistan, Egypt even Assad's Syria sending a tank division. With approval from the Soviet Union, this was the pinnacle of US diplomacy and power. Luckily Bush took the advice of the Saudis and didn't invade Iraq. Yet the episode it went into the head of a tiny cabal called the neoconservatives.
Next phase was worse: Now the time of "Dual Containment", containing both Iraq and Iran (both former allies, do take note of that!), might sound as the lowest, but it got worse, far worse. After 9/11 for totally invented reason (a nuclear program that didn't exist anymore) the neocons had their war in Iraq and the US attacked and occupied an Arab country, even if just having attacked and occupied another country (Afghanistan).
Next phase was worse: The US stayed in Iraq with a small force, which now could be attacked by Iran and Iranian proxies and the relationship with the Iraqi government, the one originally installed by the US, is bad. The as Syria fell into civil war, you have US troops there alongside Russian troops, who have their own agenda.
If you simply extrapolate from the above the future is bleak for the US. It will continue standing with it's special-relationship Israel and simply alienate it's former allies. So when will Egypt become a rogue state? Or if the Saudi kingdom falls? In the end likely Israel will be the last place where the US can be.
Then surely Israel will have strategic importance. — ssu
And Israel's gas fields are a very late comer here. Besides, the US lost interest in the oil once it had it's fracking & shale oil revolution.Oil has always been the big game in that region. Take down the Ottomans and install various oil kingdoms. That didn’t quite work. Luckily for Britain and France they had the US take the reins in foreign policy after WW2, thus allowing the messy military aftermath to them. Europes last hurrah in the region was the 1956 Suez War. — schopenhauer1
I think I already mentioned that it was the US that deployed it's own forces to protect Israel. Not the other way around.If the question is about “ Israel has done ANYTHING to help it's ally US”, I gave you the examples:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_rocket_attacks_on_Israel — neomac
HAH HAH!!!
But that's my whole point. This "solid" relationship happened only after 1967 and yes, there's bipartisan support. As I stated, the whole reason is that the US is the staunch ally of Israel is because both parties want to get votes and win elections. That's it. For the US it's a domestic issue. That's the key to this "strategic alliance". And that's why Biden or anybody cannot push Netanyahu around. Heck, he'll just voice his concerns to the both parties and it's hell for the US president.I would claim instead that the American support for Israel is solid, longstanding and bipartisan so that’s for me enough — neomac
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