I mean, when prices spike, considering that food prices are already high because of the Russo-Ukrainian War, plenty of people in the third world are going to suffer from malnutrition. Same with meds and equipment, same with businesses failing and unemployment rising. People like to act like money is an abstract that only matters to the greedy, but things are much more direct than that.
If the motivation was to prevent malnutrition and third-world unemployment, there are much more direct ways that take fewer warships. Also:
“European consumers will feel the pain … It will hit developed economies more than it will hit developing economies,” the Dubai-based logistics company’s finance chief added.
Not that I’m saying there’s anything wrong with protecting your and your allies’ economic interests. That’s completely fine, it’s the responsible thing for a government to do, and I’m not saying it’s not. It does impact people all over the world, as you point out, and the folks on those boats are civilians, too. I’m just saying that at a certain point of first-world not-literally-starving comfort it starts to become selfish to become so protective of it, while pointedly not doing anything as-yet-effective about an unfolding horror of humanity just a little ways down the exact same waterway.
Surely that seems like a reasonable thing to say? Maybe not. (And just to be clear I’m not talking about bombing the IDF or anything remotely like that. I have no idea what the actual solution is or would look like. Just struck by the contrast; that’s all.)
(Edit: I think I’m gonna stop responding now unless there’s something really new; I feel like I’m repeating myself and genuinely don’t want to try to hijack this story to start talking about Gaza.)
If the motivation was to prevent malnutrition and third-world unemployment, there are much more direct ways that take fewer warships.
I mean, the point isn’t that it’s their motivation. The point is that that’s the effect. I’m pretty sure the motivation of the Houthis in this is to raise their reputation, not save Palestinian children.
Surely that seems like a reasonable thing to say? Maybe not. (And just to be clear I’m not talking about bombing the IDF. I have no idea what the actual solution is or would look like. Just struck by the contrast; that’s all.)
I guess that’s where the difference between our positions comes in. For me, there’s a solid solution to stopping the Houthis with minimal costs, while the number of practical solutions to stop the ongoing Israeli genocide is… smaller, and all of the options have much higher costs - not simply monetary, but diplomatic and in human life - and require much wider consensus to implement in terms of getting the government to act. “The Commander-in-Chief is the Commander-in-Chief - we are authorized to retaliate to defend our civilian ships and ourselves” is much easier than “The Congress which can’t even pass a budget at the moment needs to strip Israel, a long-term ‘ally’ which has bribed 2/3s of our government, of all assistance until they stop their genocide against people we have no authority over or especial legal responsibility to protect”
(Edit: I think I’m gonna stop responding now unless there’s something really new; I feel like I’m repeating myself and genuinely don’t want to try to hijack this story to start talking about Gaza.)
While fair, it is connected to Gaza insofar as it’s the Houthis’ claimed reason for their terrorism.
smaller, and all of the options have much higher costs - not simply monetary, but diplomatic and in human life
I think the reality is that we like having Israel as an ally in the region, because it helps us get done stuff we want to get done, and helps destabilize the region preventing a single unified anti-US coalition from arising, and so we like it, and that’s that. And dead or starving children are not a factor.
I think that’s pretty fucked up, is the whole root of why I’m saying this. It’s one thing to neglect some situation of injustice or misery somewhere in the world; it’s a whole new type of thing if we’re actively helping create it with our military aid. Although I’m not an expert on any of this by any means, I think laying down some rules for Israel if they want to continue to rely on that support would be a realistic thing for us to do. I don’t really buy that today politicians in the US would pay too heavy a price for not supporting Israel (in the past, I think yes), or that we would pay any real diplomatic price with other countries. I think it would actually help us a lot, lot more than it would hurt if this kind of thing stopped happening.
I think the reality is that we like having Israel as an ally in the region, because it helps us get done stuff we want to get done, and helps destabilize the region preventing a single unified anti-US coalition from arising, and so we like it, and that’s that. And dead or starving children are not a factor.
But does it, though? Like, speaking purely from an amoral, realpolitik perspective, Israel is actually… really unhelpful to US interests. For most Arab states, the point that sticks in the craw of aligning with the USA (which they generally do reluctantly anyway) is the continued support of Israel. Israel sells our military secrets, leeches off our money, damages our international reputation, and isn’t even in a particularly useful position for our international political goals, unlike Egypt, Turkiye, and Iraq.
I agree dead and starving children aren’t a factor. But my point is that our continued support of Israel isn’t related to the benefit they give to the US itself - this is the Iron Law of Institutions in action. Our continued support of Israel is related to the benefit they give to US decisionmakers. And that is, namely, the utilization of unlimited dark money and a massive and successful popular propaganda arm amongst voters.
I think that’s pretty fucked up, is the whole root of why I’m saying this. It’s one thing to neglect some situation of injustice or misery somewhere in the world; it’s a whole new type of thing if we’re actively helping create it with our military aid. Although I’m not an expert on any of this by any means, I think laying down some rules for Israel if they want to continue to rely on that support would be a realistic thing for us to do. I don’t really buy that today politicians in the US would pay too heavy a price for not supporting Israel (in the past, I think yes), or that we would pay any real diplomatic price with other countries. I think it would actually help us a lot, lot more than it would hurt if this kind of thing stopped happening.
I mean, honestly, my position is that all aid for Israel should be revoked. But my point is that I also understand why it’s not done; even if one wishes to at the moment, it would be a strategic disaster that would crater whichever party tried it and encourage further bootlicking support of Israel.
If we want to change this state of affairs, we have to start with public opinion - and only then can we meaningfully change policy.
Disclaimer: I have no idea. All of this is just based on my own capacity for bullshitting my way through the topic. That being said, here’s what I think:
But does it, though? Like, speaking purely from an amoral, realpolitik perspective, Israel is actually… really unhelpful to US interests. For most Arab states, the point that sticks in the craw of aligning with the USA (which they generally do reluctantly anyway) is the continued support of Israel
Yeah but they keep things unstable. Think of, like, if a bunch of aliens came to the US and took over Kansas, and they arbitrarily enslaved everyone in Missouri, and every so often there was a war, and we just couldn’t get rid of them. Would it make us more effective, or less effective, on the world stage? I mean even if we knew that the Russians were allied with the aliens, or something, we’d hate the Russians for it, but the bottom line is we’d be significantly distracted with them to the detriment of our ability to organize and get shit done. The Russians would benefit a lot even if it made us hate them.
It is not a perfect analogy by any means. But you get what I’m saying hopefully. I think it keeps things chaotic and fractured, more so than if Israel didn’t exist or just kept to itself. I think whatever we do, the Arab world is unlikely to start cooperating with us fully, especially since “cooperating with us” in our eyes is usually pretty exploitative. The US government isn’t really bothered by positive or negative feedback from the rest of the world.
And that is, namely, the utilization of unlimited dark money and a massive and successful popular propaganda arm amongst voters.
I think that used to be true. Around the 1980s when a lot of our Israel policy crystallized into its modern form, there were still a lot of literal holocaust survivors running around, people in general in the US were a lot more tribal in their mentality and politics, and so even a whiff of not supporting Israel was a death sentence domestically. I feel like what you’re talking about is a huge part of how our Israel policy got to be the way it is, but I feel like it’s just not that way anymore. I feel like people’s mentality and the blocs that do or don’t support things are just radically differently structured now. Again I base this on nothing but my own bullshit, so you’re free to disagree with me.
If we want to change this state of affairs, we have to start with public opinion - and only then can we meaningfully change policy.
I think that’s happening. Israel has done plenty of real fucked up things from time to time for decades now and it feels like the backlash now is a lot more loud and sustained than it was. Maybe it’ll produce some results in how the US government deals with them; I hope so.
Disclaimer: I have no idea. All of this is just based on my own capacity for bullshitting my way through the topic. That being said, here’s what I think:
If you think you’re bullshitting, your bullshit is better informed than most people’s sincere attempts to understand.
Yeah but they keep things unstable. Think of, like, if a bunch of aliens came to the US and took over Kansas, and they arbitrarily enslaved everyone in Missouri, and every so often there was a war, and we just couldn’t get rid of them. Would it make us more effective, or less effective, on the world stage? I mean even if we knew that the Russians were allied with the aliens, or something, we’d hate the Russians for it, but the bottom line is we’d be significantly distracted with them to the detriment of our ability to organize and get shit done. The Russians would benefit a lot even if it made us hate them.
It is not a perfect analogy by any means. But you get what I’m saying hopefully. I think it keeps things chaotic and fractured, more so than if Israel didn’t exist or just kept to itself. I think whatever we do, the Arab world is unlikely to start cooperating with us fully, especially since “cooperating with us” in our eyes is usually pretty exploitative. The US government isn’t really bothered by positive or negative feedback from the rest of the world.
I get what you’re saying, but I also think it’s not true. The idea that the US wants other countries weak and divided is only true in the case of countries that are outright hostile to us. The US post-Cold War hegemony profits from peace and stability. I mean, fuck’s sake, we put considerable effort and resources into economic cooperation with Russia, our old nemesis, before they started grabbing too much of their neighbors’ lands. The US wants a weak and divided, say, Iran, but not a weak and divided Egypt, or a weak and divided Iraq. It wants a cooperative Egypt or Iraq.
Contrary to popular belief, the US is heavily dependent on reputation. We don’t have the power of the Warsaw Pact, saying “Follow us or else”. We have to actually convince, or bribe, our allies. And the latter is expensive, so the former is preferred.
I think that used to be true. Around the 1980s when a lot of our Israel policy crystallized into its modern form, there were still a lot of literal holocaust survivors running around, people in general in the US were a lot more tribal in their mentality and politics, and so even a whiff of not supporting Israel was a death sentence domestically. I feel like what you’re talking about is a huge part of how our Israel policy got to be the way it is, but I feel like it’s just not that way anymore. I feel like people’s mentality and the blocs that do or don’t support things are just radically differently structured now. Again I base this on nothing but my own bullshit, so you’re free to disagree with me.
I definitely do disagree. In the 80s, our pro-Israel policy was still nascent, and opposition to Israel wasn’t yet a death sentence on either side of the aisle.
I think that’s happening. Israel has done plenty of real fucked up things from time to time for decades now and it feels like the backlash now is a lot more loud and sustained than it was. Maybe it’ll produce some results in how the US government deals with them; I hope so.
I think it will in the long term, but I also think that people hoping for a sudden turnaround in public opinion are wishing on a star. It’s taken several months of this just for a significant minority of Democrats to turn against further support to Israel.
If you think you’re bullshitting, your bullshit is better informed than most people’s sincere attempts to understand.
😃
I get what you’re saying, but I also think it’s not true. The idea that the US wants other countries weak and divided is only true in the case of countries that are outright hostile to us.
I feel like that is the Arab world, though. I actually agree with everything you’re saying here and after, but I feel like the unifying principle, if the Arab world were to quiet down and unite, would be a lot more Iran and a lot less Egypt.
I definitely do disagree. In the 80s, our pro-Israel policy was still nascent, and opposition to Israel wasn’t yet a death sentence on either side of the aisle.
See this is where I say I don’t actually know what I’m talking about. I just tried to remedy that by skimming a fair bit of the Wikipedia articles about Israel / US relations and the AIPAC. So it actually talks about exactly what I was saying – the success AIPAC had in the early 1980s in eviscerating politicians who threatened Israel’s interests, contrasted with the modern day where it publicly clashed with Ilhan Omar but couldn’t even get a “we symbolically condemn anti-Semitism” bill to pass un-watered-down.
And yet, in terms of US-Israel relations, the only thing that really strikes me is how unchanging the dynamic is as decades pass by. Basically, we provide them with an unceasing flow of weapons and money and periodically tell them “Hey! Don’t do that” like a distracted parent.
I think it will in the long term, but I also think that people hoping for a sudden turnaround in public opinion are wishing on a star. It’s taken several months of this just for a significant minority of Democrats to turn against further support to Israel.
Agreed. Change takes time and the people in Washington are usually the last to fall in line with the change.
I mean, when prices spike, considering that food prices are already high because of the Russo-Ukrainian War, plenty of people in the third world are going to suffer from malnutrition. Same with meds and equipment, same with businesses failing and unemployment rising. People like to act like money is an abstract that only matters to the greedy, but things are much more direct than that.
If the motivation was to prevent malnutrition and third-world unemployment, there are much more direct ways that take fewer warships. Also:
Not that I’m saying there’s anything wrong with protecting your and your allies’ economic interests. That’s completely fine, it’s the responsible thing for a government to do, and I’m not saying it’s not. It does impact people all over the world, as you point out, and the folks on those boats are civilians, too. I’m just saying that at a certain point of first-world not-literally-starving comfort it starts to become selfish to become so protective of it, while pointedly not doing anything as-yet-effective about an unfolding horror of humanity just a little ways down the exact same waterway.
Surely that seems like a reasonable thing to say? Maybe not. (And just to be clear I’m not talking about bombing the IDF or anything remotely like that. I have no idea what the actual solution is or would look like. Just struck by the contrast; that’s all.)
(Edit: I think I’m gonna stop responding now unless there’s something really new; I feel like I’m repeating myself and genuinely don’t want to try to hijack this story to start talking about Gaza.)
I mean, the point isn’t that it’s their motivation. The point is that that’s the effect. I’m pretty sure the motivation of the Houthis in this is to raise their reputation, not save Palestinian children.
I guess that’s where the difference between our positions comes in. For me, there’s a solid solution to stopping the Houthis with minimal costs, while the number of practical solutions to stop the ongoing Israeli genocide is… smaller, and all of the options have much higher costs - not simply monetary, but diplomatic and in human life - and require much wider consensus to implement in terms of getting the government to act. “The Commander-in-Chief is the Commander-in-Chief - we are authorized to retaliate to defend our civilian ships and ourselves” is much easier than “The Congress which can’t even pass a budget at the moment needs to strip Israel, a long-term ‘ally’ which has bribed 2/3s of our government, of all assistance until they stop their genocide against people we have no authority over or especial legal responsibility to protect”
While fair, it is connected to Gaza insofar as it’s the Houthis’ claimed reason for their terrorism.
I think the reality is that we like having Israel as an ally in the region, because it helps us get done stuff we want to get done, and helps destabilize the region preventing a single unified anti-US coalition from arising, and so we like it, and that’s that. And dead or starving children are not a factor.
I think that’s pretty fucked up, is the whole root of why I’m saying this. It’s one thing to neglect some situation of injustice or misery somewhere in the world; it’s a whole new type of thing if we’re actively helping create it with our military aid. Although I’m not an expert on any of this by any means, I think laying down some rules for Israel if they want to continue to rely on that support would be a realistic thing for us to do. I don’t really buy that today politicians in the US would pay too heavy a price for not supporting Israel (in the past, I think yes), or that we would pay any real diplomatic price with other countries. I think it would actually help us a lot, lot more than it would hurt if this kind of thing stopped happening.
But does it, though? Like, speaking purely from an amoral, realpolitik perspective, Israel is actually… really unhelpful to US interests. For most Arab states, the point that sticks in the craw of aligning with the USA (which they generally do reluctantly anyway) is the continued support of Israel. Israel sells our military secrets, leeches off our money, damages our international reputation, and isn’t even in a particularly useful position for our international political goals, unlike Egypt, Turkiye, and Iraq.
I agree dead and starving children aren’t a factor. But my point is that our continued support of Israel isn’t related to the benefit they give to the US itself - this is the Iron Law of Institutions in action. Our continued support of Israel is related to the benefit they give to US decisionmakers. And that is, namely, the utilization of unlimited dark money and a massive and successful popular propaganda arm amongst voters.
I mean, honestly, my position is that all aid for Israel should be revoked. But my point is that I also understand why it’s not done; even if one wishes to at the moment, it would be a strategic disaster that would crater whichever party tried it and encourage further bootlicking support of Israel.
If we want to change this state of affairs, we have to start with public opinion - and only then can we meaningfully change policy.
Disclaimer: I have no idea. All of this is just based on my own capacity for bullshitting my way through the topic. That being said, here’s what I think:
Yeah but they keep things unstable. Think of, like, if a bunch of aliens came to the US and took over Kansas, and they arbitrarily enslaved everyone in Missouri, and every so often there was a war, and we just couldn’t get rid of them. Would it make us more effective, or less effective, on the world stage? I mean even if we knew that the Russians were allied with the aliens, or something, we’d hate the Russians for it, but the bottom line is we’d be significantly distracted with them to the detriment of our ability to organize and get shit done. The Russians would benefit a lot even if it made us hate them.
It is not a perfect analogy by any means. But you get what I’m saying hopefully. I think it keeps things chaotic and fractured, more so than if Israel didn’t exist or just kept to itself. I think whatever we do, the Arab world is unlikely to start cooperating with us fully, especially since “cooperating with us” in our eyes is usually pretty exploitative. The US government isn’t really bothered by positive or negative feedback from the rest of the world.
I think that used to be true. Around the 1980s when a lot of our Israel policy crystallized into its modern form, there were still a lot of literal holocaust survivors running around, people in general in the US were a lot more tribal in their mentality and politics, and so even a whiff of not supporting Israel was a death sentence domestically. I feel like what you’re talking about is a huge part of how our Israel policy got to be the way it is, but I feel like it’s just not that way anymore. I feel like people’s mentality and the blocs that do or don’t support things are just radically differently structured now. Again I base this on nothing but my own bullshit, so you’re free to disagree with me.
I think that’s happening. Israel has done plenty of real fucked up things from time to time for decades now and it feels like the backlash now is a lot more loud and sustained than it was. Maybe it’ll produce some results in how the US government deals with them; I hope so.
If you think you’re bullshitting, your bullshit is better informed than most people’s sincere attempts to understand.
I get what you’re saying, but I also think it’s not true. The idea that the US wants other countries weak and divided is only true in the case of countries that are outright hostile to us. The US post-Cold War hegemony profits from peace and stability. I mean, fuck’s sake, we put considerable effort and resources into economic cooperation with Russia, our old nemesis, before they started grabbing too much of their neighbors’ lands. The US wants a weak and divided, say, Iran, but not a weak and divided Egypt, or a weak and divided Iraq. It wants a cooperative Egypt or Iraq.
Contrary to popular belief, the US is heavily dependent on reputation. We don’t have the power of the Warsaw Pact, saying “Follow us or else”. We have to actually convince, or bribe, our allies. And the latter is expensive, so the former is preferred.
I definitely do disagree. In the 80s, our pro-Israel policy was still nascent, and opposition to Israel wasn’t yet a death sentence on either side of the aisle.
I think it will in the long term, but I also think that people hoping for a sudden turnaround in public opinion are wishing on a star. It’s taken several months of this just for a significant minority of Democrats to turn against further support to Israel.
😃
I feel like that is the Arab world, though. I actually agree with everything you’re saying here and after, but I feel like the unifying principle, if the Arab world were to quiet down and unite, would be a lot more Iran and a lot less Egypt.
See this is where I say I don’t actually know what I’m talking about. I just tried to remedy that by skimming a fair bit of the Wikipedia articles about Israel / US relations and the AIPAC. So it actually talks about exactly what I was saying – the success AIPAC had in the early 1980s in eviscerating politicians who threatened Israel’s interests, contrasted with the modern day where it publicly clashed with Ilhan Omar but couldn’t even get a “we symbolically condemn anti-Semitism” bill to pass un-watered-down.
And yet, in terms of US-Israel relations, the only thing that really strikes me is how unchanging the dynamic is as decades pass by. Basically, we provide them with an unceasing flow of weapons and money and periodically tell them “Hey! Don’t do that” like a distracted parent.
Agreed. Change takes time and the people in Washington are usually the last to fall in line with the change.