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I think a lot of U.S. politicians and legacy media outlets were genuinely caught off-guard by the backlash. Prior to the Netanyahu era, support for Israel in the U.S. was basically non-controversial. But he fucked that up just like he fucks up everything else.
Netanyahu has been an unmitigated disaster in every conceivable way, for a long time. The Israeli people really need to kick him to the curb.
I mean, at this point he's squandering good will and sympathy generated for Israel after a terrorist group specifically targeted civilians for rape, torture, and murder. It feels like something that should be impossible - I mean, it's not like anyone sane would side with freaking Hamas.
If you're opposed to Hamas, it should be trivially easy to maintain the moral and political high ground over them. Yet he's somehow failing even that.
Cripes, what a clusterfuck.
I keep reposting this one quote: “The bar to clear was on the ground and y’all brought shovels.”
Israel has more influence over American foreign policy than American citizens.
At this point I do believe that US government are owned by Isreal. Influence is an understatement of US response to anything Isreal related.
Trump literally move the US embassy putting US citzen at risk for no valuable reason.
The CIA staged a coup in Iran in 1953 at the behest of Britain/British Petroleum when the newly elected PM decided to nationalize the oil fields. Iran remains Israel's greatest geopolitical foe, because of Israel's ties to the West.
The Suez Canal, an originally French/British colonial venture, which carries an absurd amount of cargo from former British colonies into the Mediterranean, was the cause of the Six Day War; not to mention there's a plan for a new canal through Israel to avoid all the nasty geopolitical issues the Suez Canal raises.
The US has a network of Middle Eastern allies and enemies and meddles in the affairs of every middle eastern nation because they've got all that sweet light crude we love so much.
Do you think, maybe, that the US's (and more broadly the West's) objectives in the region outweigh, possibly, whatever "influence" Israel has over our politics?
Try to run for office without the support of the Israel lobby... there goes your PAC money. Obama ran with Biden as a nod to the Israel lobby because Biden was their darling and Obama was known to attend pro-Palestine conferences.
Because it turns turns billions in public funds into billions in private profits.
The fact that those profits come at the expense of children's lives doesn't worry the oil and gas industries, so why would it worry weapons manufacturers?
They could get the same effect by arming Ukraine without looking like a bunch of assholes
Unfortunately, that's not how greed works. They'll never say "no thanks, we've made enough profit from Ukraine".
Why is the US still sending an endless supply of arms to Israel without conditions?
This is the actual answer.
This lobby group is extremely effective and any legislator that opposes them will see their primary or electoral opponents get millions of dollars in funding.
Don't ask that question, it's anti-Semitic.
A sad and horrifying reality. The biggest success of Zionism is that it has hidden itself behind antisemitism.
The US is an Israeli puppet state.
You can credibldy argue that Israel has an outsized influence of US foreign policy, but to call the US an "Israeli puppet state" is such a hyperbolic exaggeration that it sounds less like a valid criticism and more like the old "Jews control the world" antisemitic hate speech.
The US has far more influence on Israel than vice versa
Its hard to tell sometimes whether somebody is using phrasing like that naively or as a dog whistle (which is why its an effective dog whistle). The reality is Israel plays a critical role in maintaining US empire and public image and Netanyahu is cashing in those in for a racist child-killing spree.
Like someone else said here, it funnels public money into private profits. What I do not get however is this system only furthers inequality which is going to snap the system at some point to the detriment of all, including the billionaires who will increasingly be in a hostile environment. Why shit on your own doorstep when you could make it better for all including yourself and your family. Really foolish thinking but oh well, as really, we seem absolutely committed to this dark path.
These billionaires think they and theirs are above everything. They can kill millions without a real danger to them and theirs. Lack of fear.
short term profits trump long term savings, none of these people can see beyond the end of the quarter
This isn't short term, Eisenhower was warning about the military industrial complex
Obviously the US government is sending an endless supply of arms to Israel without conditions because doing so serves its purposes.
The question that you need to ask is how it serves its purposes - how is it that the US government benefits by enabling Israel's Palestinian genocide.
My theory, also supported by other US government actions in the Middle East (such as the Iraq war) is that the US government's overall goal in the Middle East is destabilization.
And that stands to reason, since the Middle East's wealth administered by stable and progressive governments rather than reactionary autocracies could he a threat to western hegemony.
Or more simply, a Middle East consumed by strife can't be stable, and thus can't invest sufficient time and resources into being a serious player on the world stage, since too much of its time and resources is diverted into dealing with internal strife, or pissed away by the dysfunctional governments that have come to power as a result of of the strife.
And Israel, and specifically the overt violence and oppression and now genocide failing to hide behind a shabby mask of "defense" and "security" in which Israel continues to engage, is key to that strife.
If you look at US foreign policy in the Middle East through that lens - asking yourself, at every turn, how does this accord with the presumption that the broad goal of the US government in the Middle East is destabilization, then a lot of things that don't make sense otherwise suddenly do.
MONEY. This isn't fucking rocket science.
It kinda is, the US IS sending them rockets.
Fuck Israel. I say this as a Jew so color me antisemitic, the US Congress 🖤
Because our government is controlled by the AIPAC lobby.
Money
To fuel the next crisis, obviously.