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That's ridiculously short sighted and bordering on racist. Let's bomb all of Israel's infrastructure, arm various militias in the country and put economic sanc

That's ridiculously short sighted and bordering on racist. Let's bomb all of Israel's infrastructure, arm various militias in the country and put economic sanctions on them for 20 years that limits the country to a grain-for-food programme and you'll quickly see Israel join in as a regional "basketcase."

pasabagi 5y ago
I agree. I just think if I was working for the US state department, and I was sizing up various countries around the middle east to build a partnership with, I would choose Israel every time. The only country that comes close is Turkey, and they have coups every couple of decades. I think the reasons why the ME is so unstable are a bit complex, but it's also not really relevant. If you're interested in a stable regional partner, the reasons why a given country is unstable is not really something you care about.
- stevenjohns 5y ago
  Considering that the only metric for supporting a Middle Eastern group is that they have to be pro-Israel, of course Israel becomes the natural choice. It’s not about stability considering that Israel is a constant powder keg. That in itself is just the catch-22 of US foreign policy in the Middle East. The right decision - if you had the best interests for the US and the region - is to completely withdraw. Any other decision leads to more conflict and hostile and opportunist groups (Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Russia, et al) growing in influence with every passing moment.
  - pasabagi 5y ago
    The basic goal of US foreign policy has been to maintain a network of US allies and partners around the world, who can be relied upon to protect US strategic interests, like access through the strait of Hormuz. Nations like Qatar or SA are fine, but ultimately they are dictatorships that occasionally do stuff like chop up journalists, so you don't invest that much into them. The US had a very close strategic partnership with Iran, which was in this mould, and it didn't turn out very well. Israel, on the other hand, is a western-style settler-colonial state that has never had a coup, has a strong civil society, and frankly could have gone to the USSR at any point in the cold war and they would have been just fine. Obviously, if you don't want the US to be a global hegemon, this policy doesn't make sense. However, the US state department almost always does, so this policy is totally rational from their perspective.
    - DSingularity 5y ago
      Wow! How do you lump in Qatar with Saudi Arabia? Please point us to one time where Qatar did something last heinous as Saudi thugs chopping up a Saudi journalist at the behest of the crown prince.
      - yyyk 5y ago
        >Please point us to one time where Qatar did something last heinous as Saudi Their treatment of "guest workers" (de facto almost slaves) is significantly worse than Saudi killing a single person. Not only due to numbers affected (the Guardian counted 6,500 deaths). It's that, we expect repressive regimes to kill their opponents but when their acts are turned against truly helpless and unrelated people it's even worse. https://www.traffickingmatters.com/the-2022-world-cup-forced-labor-of-migrant-workers/ https://www.traffickingmatters.com/the-2022-world-cup-forced... https://sports.yahoo.com/qatar-world-cup-unpaid-workers-slavery-fifa-amnesty-international-193121993.html https://sports.yahoo.com/qatar-world-cup-unpaid-workers-slav...
        DSingularity 5y ago
        Workers rights is a separate discussion and one in which the entire gulf region is shamefully criminal. I asked about the unparalleled brutality of a Crown Prince ordering the dismemberment of a journalist. Remember, this is a person who we host in the White House to shake hands with a smiling president — it matters that the whole world knows he ordered the killing and that the whole world continues to look the other way. Imagine how he will deal with dissidents for the next decade?
        yyyk 5y ago
        >Workers rights is a separate discussion in which the entire gulf region is shamefully criminal. It's not. It's a human rights issue, which has led to many deaths. Qatar has a far worse record than the rest of the Gulf. >Remember, this is a person who we host in the White House to shake hands with a smiling president So you don't want to do any diplomacy with unsavory regimes? With this standard, the US couldn't even talk to most of the ME, not to mention Russia and China. The world is unlikely to survive that. >I asked about the unparalleled brutality of a Crown Prince ordering the dismemberment of a journalist. Well, it's a separate issue that almost the entire ME is guilty of. Just look at the case of Zahra Kazemi[0]. And we have diplomacy with those people! Sorry, just used your argument for a sec. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zahra_Kazemi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zahra_Kazemi "was an Iranian-Canadian freelance photographer, who according to the medical examiner was raped, tortured and killed by Iranian officials following her arrest in Iran."
- DSingularity 5y ago
  The ME is unstable by design. Why dance around the subject? The US supports anti-democratic dictatorships in the countries it controls. Guess what comes with unpopular regimes? Perpetual instability due to oppressed populations. In the countries that are not controlled the US supports any group willing to fight the government — sometimes with arms and other times with endless cash to fight the government within the framework of democracy. You think either of those actions support stability?
  - dariusj18 5y ago
    It's ridiculous to think the instability in the middle east is by US design, there are thousands of factions vying for power and the US has to make strategic calls day by day. Had the US made bad decisions, sure, did they know those decisions were bad at the time, probably not. If you have countries where no group (ethnic or political) has a majority, then no ruling government will be "popular".
    - DSingularity 5y ago
      Oh yeah? What is your explanation for Sykes-Picot?
      - selectodude 5y ago
        It had nothing to do with the United States and the geopolical issues it created. In fact, the Americans sent a commission to Syria which deduced that what the French and Brits were doing was very stupid, at which point the Brits and French told the Americans to piss off. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King–Crane_Commission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King–Crane_Commission
      - dariusj18 5y ago
        Perhaps you can first explain why you think that is relevant? AFAIK it was an agreement that the US did not participate in, nor was its intent to destabilize.
DSingularity 5y ago
It’s not “bordering” on racist - it is racist! It is sad to see this dehumanization towards Arabs from this community. Posters like this show that they believe that maintaining and increasing US hegemony at the expense of third world peoples is moral.
- pasabagi 5y ago
  I never said I agreed with US policy. I just think this is the main reason why US policy is how it is. If you don't understand why people do things, you can't convince them to do otherwise.
  - luffapi 5y ago
    So what’s your suggestion for ending US support of Israel? We can start by recognizing that under no context was what has been done by the US and Israel in the Middle East (and beyond) ever acceptable.
- jamra 5y ago
  Israel consists largely of Arabs as well. Half of the Jewish population is Arabic just like me.
joelbluminator 5y ago
Oh yeah Israel's / Jewish people history was super pleasant, no we had a good time with the West for sure.
- pasabagi 5y ago
  This is the other thing: the US backed Israel because Israel was strong; Israel was not strong because the US backed them. At the end of the mandate period, Israel was the only country in the region with a real military, because the UK had just spent the last decade training and arming that military. At the time, the US was virulently antisemitic (see McCarthy era stuff for examples), as was most of europe.
  - joelbluminator 5y ago
    Any sources for that claim? That's a super complicated issue and saying "because Israel strong!" seems a bit simplistic to me.
    - pasabagi 5y ago
      Well, the CIA released a report that said very clearly Israel would win the 6 day war[1] without any real trouble, and this is largely considered the point at which the US started backing Israel seriously. Obviously, it's very complicated, but I think the basic picture of the middle east at the time is a bunch of states that were dysfunctional by design, with borders drawn up by powers like the UK who had the colonial modus operandi of creating states that were fraught with ethnic and sectarian tension, so these states would rely upon them for support. When the mandatory period ended, the Israelis had two massive advantages: they had a classic, european style 'nation', not some post-colonial territory that had literally never worked as a nation ever; and they had an army that had been fighting a civil war against the palestinians for its whole existence, with british support and training. So it's not really surprising they win the first Arab-Israeli war. Then after that, they basically can build on this to secure more support and more weapons, and build stronger military institutions, etc. [1]: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/markaz/2017/05/30/the-cias-overlooked-intelligence-victory-in-the-1967-war/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/markaz/2017/05/30/the-cias-ov...
myth_drannon 5y ago
Actually that's what was done to Israel since its inception. Steel forged in fire.
yyyk 5y ago
> That's ridiculously short sighted and bordering on racist. Now, here's a true, actual, case of using accusations of racism to avoid criticism. The post you responded to said nothing about guilt. You could (absurdly) blame the West entirely for the region's state - but most ME countries are still basketcases regardless of who's fault it is (and plenty of it obviously goes to the locals, e.g. Lebanon being a great example of a country mostly ruined by local and regional actors).
- stevenjohns 5y ago
  Lebanon is quite possibly the worst example you could give, not only due to Israel playing a key role in the country's instability[0] but also to the fact that the areas that were shielded by Israel and the West were immediately experienced economic and political stability[1]. Israel in and of itself is a "basketcase" country that continues to operate the world's largest open-air prison, flaunting every international directive with complete disregard for the UN and operates an apartheid-like system that sees it constantly at war with almost every other nation in the Middle East. It has been entrenched in civil war since its inception but somehow that's not enough to be considered a "basketcase" -- apparently. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_occupation_of_Southern_Lebanon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_occupation_of_Southern... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Fence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Fence
  - yyyk 5y ago
    1. Israel is a regional actor. 2. Besides geography, some of us also know history and chronology. We recall the start of Lebanese Civil War preceded the Israeli invasion by almost five years. Lebanon collapsed long before Israel even thought about it. In fact one of the main causes for the civil war - and the cause of the Israeli invasion - was that the PLO was able to run a state within a state and attack Israel while being based in Lebanon. This phenomena - a third party militia embroiling the 'host' nation in its own wars, is exactly one of the outcomes of a failed state (ergo, a basketcase). For better or worse, Israel is a state. Lebanon isn't really a state, it's a collection of tribes with no local central management. 3. That said, I was thinking more of the recent collapse though. Nothing forced the Lebanese politicians to loot the state besides themselves, especially the wars 30 and 40 years ago. It's entirely locally made collapse. The dumb algorithm you applied - find action of West/Israel years ago, ignore everything that preceded, succeeded it or caused it and ignore the responsibility of the locals (or Russia or anyone else), is one of the main causes of collapse. Its proponents ignore the welfare of the people they supposedly speak for in order to score an illusionary point against their political enemies. Another outcome: surprisingly Israel has no reason to work overmuch to counter the insane campaign against it and the campaign's absurd claims. The campaign mainly serves its interests.

pasabagi 5y ago

I agree. I just think if I was working for the US state department, and I was sizing up various countries around the middle east to build a partnership with, I would choose Israel every time. The only country that comes close is Turkey, and they have coups every couple of decades. I think the reasons why the ME is so unstable are a bit complex, but it's also not really relevant. If you're interested in a stable regional partner, the reasons why a given country is unstable is not really something you care about.

stevenjohns 5y ago
Considering that the only metric for supporting a Middle Eastern group is that they have to be pro-Israel, of course Israel becomes the natural choice. It’s not about stability considering that Israel is a constant powder keg. That in itself is just the catch-22 of US foreign policy in the Middle East. The right decision - if you had the best interests for the US and the region - is to completely withdraw. Any other decision leads to more conflict and hostile and opportunist groups (Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Russia, et al) growing in influence with every passing moment.
- pasabagi 5y ago
  The basic goal of US foreign policy has been to maintain a network of US allies and partners around the world, who can be relied upon to protect US strategic interests, like access through the strait of Hormuz. Nations like Qatar or SA are fine, but ultimately they are dictatorships that occasionally do stuff like chop up journalists, so you don't invest that much into them. The US had a very close strategic partnership with Iran, which was in this mould, and it didn't turn out very well. Israel, on the other hand, is a western-style settler-colonial state that has never had a coup, has a strong civil society, and frankly could have gone to the USSR at any point in the cold war and they would have been just fine. Obviously, if you don't want the US to be a global hegemon, this policy doesn't make sense. However, the US state department almost always does, so this policy is totally rational from their perspective.
  - DSingularity 5y ago
    Wow! How do you lump in Qatar with Saudi Arabia? Please point us to one time where Qatar did something last heinous as Saudi thugs chopping up a Saudi journalist at the behest of the crown prince.
    - yyyk 5y ago
      >Please point us to one time where Qatar did something last heinous as Saudi Their treatment of "guest workers" (de facto almost slaves) is significantly worse than Saudi killing a single person. Not only due to numbers affected (the Guardian counted 6,500 deaths). It's that, we expect repressive regimes to kill their opponents but when their acts are turned against truly helpless and unrelated people it's even worse. https://www.traffickingmatters.com/the-2022-world-cup-forced-labor-of-migrant-workers/ https://www.traffickingmatters.com/the-2022-world-cup-forced... https://sports.yahoo.com/qatar-world-cup-unpaid-workers-slavery-fifa-amnesty-international-193121993.html https://sports.yahoo.com/qatar-world-cup-unpaid-workers-slav...
      - DSingularity 5y ago
        Workers rights is a separate discussion and one in which the entire gulf region is shamefully criminal. I asked about the unparalleled brutality of a Crown Prince ordering the dismemberment of a journalist. Remember, this is a person who we host in the White House to shake hands with a smiling president — it matters that the whole world knows he ordered the killing and that the whole world continues to look the other way. Imagine how he will deal with dissidents for the next decade?
        yyyk 5y ago
        >Workers rights is a separate discussion in which the entire gulf region is shamefully criminal. It's not. It's a human rights issue, which has led to many deaths. Qatar has a far worse record than the rest of the Gulf. >Remember, this is a person who we host in the White House to shake hands with a smiling president So you don't want to do any diplomacy with unsavory regimes? With this standard, the US couldn't even talk to most of the ME, not to mention Russia and China. The world is unlikely to survive that. >I asked about the unparalleled brutality of a Crown Prince ordering the dismemberment of a journalist. Well, it's a separate issue that almost the entire ME is guilty of. Just look at the case of Zahra Kazemi[0]. And we have diplomacy with those people! Sorry, just used your argument for a sec. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zahra_Kazemi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zahra_Kazemi "was an Iranian-Canadian freelance photographer, who according to the medical examiner was raped, tortured and killed by Iranian officials following her arrest in Iran."
DSingularity 5y ago
The ME is unstable by design. Why dance around the subject? The US supports anti-democratic dictatorships in the countries it controls. Guess what comes with unpopular regimes? Perpetual instability due to oppressed populations. In the countries that are not controlled the US supports any group willing to fight the government — sometimes with arms and other times with endless cash to fight the government within the framework of democracy. You think either of those actions support stability?
- dariusj18 5y ago
  It's ridiculous to think the instability in the middle east is by US design, there are thousands of factions vying for power and the US has to make strategic calls day by day. Had the US made bad decisions, sure, did they know those decisions were bad at the time, probably not. If you have countries where no group (ethnic or political) has a majority, then no ruling government will be "popular".
  - DSingularity 5y ago
    Oh yeah? What is your explanation for Sykes-Picot?
    - selectodude 5y ago
      It had nothing to do with the United States and the geopolical issues it created. In fact, the Americans sent a commission to Syria which deduced that what the French and Brits were doing was very stupid, at which point the Brits and French told the Americans to piss off. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King–Crane_Commission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King–Crane_Commission
    - dariusj18 5y ago
      Perhaps you can first explain why you think that is relevant? AFAIK it was an agreement that the US did not participate in, nor was its intent to destabilize.

DSingularity 5y ago

It’s not “bordering” on racist - it is racist! It is sad to see this dehumanization towards Arabs from this community. Posters like this show that they believe that maintaining and increasing US hegemony at the expense of third world peoples is moral.

pasabagi 5y ago
I never said I agreed with US policy. I just think this is the main reason why US policy is how it is. If you don't understand why people do things, you can't convince them to do otherwise.
- luffapi 5y ago
  So what’s your suggestion for ending US support of Israel? We can start by recognizing that under no context was what has been done by the US and Israel in the Middle East (and beyond) ever acceptable.
jamra 5y ago
Israel consists largely of Arabs as well. Half of the Jewish population is Arabic just like me.

joelbluminator 5y ago

Oh yeah Israel's / Jewish people history was super pleasant, no we had a good time with the West for sure.

pasabagi 5y ago
This is the other thing: the US backed Israel because Israel was strong; Israel was not strong because the US backed them. At the end of the mandate period, Israel was the only country in the region with a real military, because the UK had just spent the last decade training and arming that military. At the time, the US was virulently antisemitic (see McCarthy era stuff for examples), as was most of europe.
- joelbluminator 5y ago
  Any sources for that claim? That's a super complicated issue and saying "because Israel strong!" seems a bit simplistic to me.
  - pasabagi 5y ago
    Well, the CIA released a report that said very clearly Israel would win the 6 day war[1] without any real trouble, and this is largely considered the point at which the US started backing Israel seriously. Obviously, it's very complicated, but I think the basic picture of the middle east at the time is a bunch of states that were dysfunctional by design, with borders drawn up by powers like the UK who had the colonial modus operandi of creating states that were fraught with ethnic and sectarian tension, so these states would rely upon them for support. When the mandatory period ended, the Israelis had two massive advantages: they had a classic, european style 'nation', not some post-colonial territory that had literally never worked as a nation ever; and they had an army that had been fighting a civil war against the palestinians for its whole existence, with british support and training. So it's not really surprising they win the first Arab-Israeli war. Then after that, they basically can build on this to secure more support and more weapons, and build stronger military institutions, etc. [1]: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/markaz/2017/05/30/the-cias-overlooked-intelligence-victory-in-the-1967-war/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/markaz/2017/05/30/the-cias-ov...

myth_drannon 5y ago

Actually that's what was done to Israel since its inception. Steel forged in fire.

yyyk 5y ago

> That's ridiculously short sighted and bordering on racist. Now, here's a true, actual, case of using accusations of racism to avoid criticism. The post you responded to said nothing about guilt. You could (absurdly) blame the West entirely for the region's state - but most ME countries are still basketcases regardless of who's fault it is (and plenty of it obviously goes to the locals, e.g. Lebanon being a great example of a country mostly ruined by local and regional actors).

stevenjohns 5y ago
Lebanon is quite possibly the worst example you could give, not only due to Israel playing a key role in the country's instability[0] but also to the fact that the areas that were shielded by Israel and the West were immediately experienced economic and political stability[1]. Israel in and of itself is a "basketcase" country that continues to operate the world's largest open-air prison, flaunting every international directive with complete disregard for the UN and operates an apartheid-like system that sees it constantly at war with almost every other nation in the Middle East. It has been entrenched in civil war since its inception but somehow that's not enough to be considered a "basketcase" -- apparently. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_occupation_of_Southern_Lebanon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_occupation_of_Southern... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Fence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Fence
- yyyk 5y ago
  1. Israel is a regional actor. 2. Besides geography, some of us also know history and chronology. We recall the start of Lebanese Civil War preceded the Israeli invasion by almost five years. Lebanon collapsed long before Israel even thought about it. In fact one of the main causes for the civil war - and the cause of the Israeli invasion - was that the PLO was able to run a state within a state and attack Israel while being based in Lebanon. This phenomena - a third party militia embroiling the 'host' nation in its own wars, is exactly one of the outcomes of a failed state (ergo, a basketcase). For better or worse, Israel is a state. Lebanon isn't really a state, it's a collection of tribes with no local central management. 3. That said, I was thinking more of the recent collapse though. Nothing forced the Lebanese politicians to loot the state besides themselves, especially the wars 30 and 40 years ago. It's entirely locally made collapse. The dumb algorithm you applied - find action of West/Israel years ago, ignore everything that preceded, succeeded it or caused it and ignore the responsibility of the locals (or Russia or anyone else), is one of the main causes of collapse. Its proponents ignore the welfare of the people they supposedly speak for in order to score an illusionary point against their political enemies. Another outcome: surprisingly Israel has no reason to work overmuch to counter the insane campaign against it and the campaign's absurd claims. The campaign mainly serves its interests.