I don't think you have to make it that complicated. Biden and the US supports Israel because Israel is the US's strongest, and most culturally alike, ally in the middle east, which is pretty rare....
I don't think you have to make it that complicated. Biden and the US supports Israel because Israel is the US's strongest, and most culturally alike, ally in the middle east, which is pretty rare. Although oil no longer is as important to the US, since the US is now the world's largest oil producer (a big change from the 80s and 90s when almost 60% of US oil was imported), it's still relevant to the world economy in general. Additionally, the US has been at odds with Islamist militant groups for decades now. Israel has been at the forefront of military technology development, in both traditional arms (like the iron dome, which the US has bought a few of) and cyber warfare, and is a strategic ally from that perspective. Israel keeps US enemies like Iran in check.
This doesn't really explain the difference between Biden and Obama though. I'm no Middle East expert, but I like Obama's more skeptical approach better. The US would have more leverage if Israel...
This doesn't really explain the difference between Biden and Obama though.
I'm no Middle East expert, but I like Obama's more skeptical approach better. The US would have more leverage if Israel worried more about losing US support.
Biden comes from an older, more pro Israel wing of the party. His views weren't out of step with the Democratic party when he was a senator. They're only beginning to be out of step now, because...
Biden comes from an older, more pro Israel wing of the party. His views weren't out of step with the Democratic party when he was a senator. They're only beginning to be out of step now, because the party has changed.
It seems to assume, ridiculously, that well funded nations with surveillance networks can’t be caught off guard with terrorist attacks. They have forgotten about 9/11.
It seems to assume, ridiculously, that well funded nations with surveillance networks can’t be caught off guard with terrorist attacks. They have forgotten about 9/11.
I mean, to be fair, the US had a heck of a lot of warning about 9/11. Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld chose not to ignore and/or disbelieve the evidence despite many warnings...
I mean, to be fair, the US had a heck of a lot of warning about 9/11. Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld chose not to ignore and/or disbelieve the evidence despite many warnings with specific information (who was planning the attack, the nature of the attack, identities of pilots who would be involved in the attack, etc.) — coming not only from the CIA, but also from intelligence in Britain, Algeria, Israel, Afghanistan, Italy, and Egypt.
9/11 was not an intelligence failure; it was a leadership failure. If the Bush administration were caught off guard, it's only because they were ludicrously incompetent and had absolutely no business running a country.
Wow this author is so biased against Israel, I can't even find a place to start to point out her blatant bias and racist rhetoric. This honestly reads like a hit piece, trying to shift the...
Wow this author is so biased against Israel, I can't even find a place to start to point out her blatant bias and racist rhetoric.
This honestly reads like a hit piece, trying to shift the narrative from "Israel is a victim of a terrible terrorist attack" (true) to "Israel let Hamas massacre it's own citizens with the USA support". What a bonkers argument.
Instead of taking this terrible article apart, as many people have already done in the comments, I'm going to look at the website itself and show you why it's a shitty anti-israel publication, intentionally masquerading as a legitimate news company.
Their staff - all of them are Muslim, looking through their personal accounts, most are of Palestinian decent. Nothing wrong with that as is, but again it just strengthens the narrative.
All of their advasiors and staff are in Palestine. No one to look at the other side. No one to try to see anything else about the nerrative or challenge the blatant false information coming from Hamas and the PA.
Their owners/directors - since it's a private company the aite doesn't state who the owners are, but it seems like that for a relatively small company the owners would also be directors. Anyway, one of the directors is "Daud Al-Jamal ABDULLAH" who was the director of another company by the name of "An Noor trust". This companys goal is, by their admission "Our central ethos at the Noor Trust is to serve the community and to promote the beautiful and peaceful teachings of Islam" meaning they are masquerading as a charity organization to preach Islam to vulnerable people.
Tldr, this website is nothing but a Palestinian mouth piece and any and all of it's article should be treated as propoganda with zero credibility.
While I completely agree with you, I would like to - gently - push back against any narrative that being anti-Israel is defacto racism. Anti-Israeli/Zionist politics ≠ Antisemitism Edit: Typo
While I completely agree with you, I would like to - gently - push back against any narrative that being anti-Israel is defacto racism. Anti-Israeli/Zionist politics ≠ Antisemitism
So, I am not necessarily convinced that this is a good publication, but I also think your criticism of it is pretty flawed. To say that the Palestinian cause is "usually to kill/expel all the Jews...
So, I am not necessarily convinced that this is a good publication, but I also think your criticism of it is pretty flawed.
To say that the Palestinian cause is "usually to kill/expel all the Jews in Israel" is a tremendous oversimplification. Hamas wants to destroy Israel, no argument on that one from me. But Palestine is not Hamas any more than I'm the Senate. The Palestinians I know are primarily for the cause of trying to prevent their friends and family from getting exploded or shot. Please don't dehumanize them or lump them in with literal terrorists?
I also don't see the relevance of the maybe-director having once worked for a religious charity. A charity being religious doesnt automatically make it a sinister masquerade?? Like, I don't love the Salvation Army but I also don't assume that if someone used to work there then they are a secret evangelical trying to Christ-ify the nation. Is there any concrete evidence at all to suggest this organization is taking advantage of the vulnerable?
I would be very curious to know if you hold Israeli publications to a similar level of scrutiny. I would imagine that points 2 and 3 could be applied in many cases, only reversed. Personally I am not keen to trust any single news source these days. No one perspective can capture the whole truth
Having a strong and singular point of view is not an invalidating circumstance without more. I’m a huge fan if Democracy Now, which has a singular point of view (right there in the name) and all...
Having a strong and singular point of view is not an invalidating circumstance without more.
I’m a huge fan if Democracy Now, which has a singular point of view (right there in the name) and all the staff share that same mission.
I think this article is an unfounded conspiracy theory, but all of your points are basically "they're Muslim". A charity organization can't be both a legitimate charity and promote the teachings...
I think this article is an unfounded conspiracy theory, but all of your points are basically "they're Muslim". A charity organization can't be both a legitimate charity and promote the teachings of Islam? There are tons of charities that are openly Christian -- what's the difference there? Also of course they're in Palestine. That's where the "action" is.
I am not defending this as a good news source by any means, but this list of reasons why it's a shitty publication seem entirely religiously and racially motivated. There's plenty of ways to criticize the publication (again, I think this article is straight-up a conspiracy theory) without resorting to that.
Article discusses the Ben Gurion canal, which would competenwith the Suez and whose easist path is through Gaza. Does have a bit of a slant. The idea seems plausible to me, and while it doesn’t...
Article discusses the Ben Gurion canal, which would competenwith the Suez and whose easist path is through Gaza. Does have a bit of a slant.
The idea seems plausible to me, and while it doesn’t make Biden’s support of Israel any better, at least it makes it explicable.
The thing about conspiracy theories is that they generally sound plausible on the surface. That's how they get people, after all. It's important to look at the details though. On the face of it,...
Exemplary
The idea seems plausible to me,
The thing about conspiracy theories is that they generally sound plausible on the surface. That's how they get people, after all. It's important to look at the details though.
On the face of it, the concept that war is sometimes driven by economic agendas is reasonable - which I assume is what you're thinking when you say that the idea is plausible.
But think about the details and I hope it becomes clear that this is a conspiracy theory. In no particular order:
the Suez already exists. Does it seem reasonable that Israel would be secretly fighting a war with the intent to kill all Palestinians so that they could build a canal... right next to one that already exists?
even if the suez didn't exist, it makes no sense to expend many billions on a war so that you can save a few billions on canal construction.
the canal project is, as the author notes, a defunct idea from decades ago. (The author's assertion is that Israel secretly still wants to do it.) There is no evidence whatsoever that Israel is actually interested in digging this thing. You can turn up all kinds of crazy plans in the archives of any country - that doesn't mean they're secretly planning to do whatever. There have been no diplomatic overtures about "hey what if you guys moved a little bit so we could dig this canal", no discussion in Israel's parliament, nothing.
as another commenter pointed out, the author's references to the 7 October attacks would seem to imply that Israel somehow precipitated Hamas to attack so that they would have a justification to invade. This is similar to claiming that George Bush planned the 9/11 attacks in the US.
the actual geography of Israel has a lot more to do with the canal's route than the presence of Gaza does. The idea that they could dig in a nice straight line if only those pesky Palestinians weren't there is a misconception by the author.
The geography of the entire plan is modestly insane if you ask me. The proposed route takes it to elevations of 400-500 meters. So either you stack enough locks to take the ships that high (and...
the actual geography of Israel has a lot more to do with the canal's route than the presence of Gaza does. The idea that they could dig in a nice straight line if only those pesky Palestinians weren't there is a misconception by the author.
The geography of the entire plan is modestly insane if you ask me. The proposed route takes it to elevations of 400-500 meters. So either you stack enough locks to take the ships that high (and the 24m elevation of the panama canal mean that the panama canal lock size is a de-facto standard for ship construction. Bigger ships exist, but many are built to max out the panama canal specifically) or you dig a canal 400 meters deep through a few kilometers of mountain range, then 100-200 meters deep through dozens of kilometers of highland. The added cost of having to cut around the Gaza strip is miniscule.
And all this is supposed to compete with a nearby shorter canal in flatter geography? It can maybe compete with the trip around africa...
It seems about as plausible as digging from Eilat to the dead sea and from Haifa to the Jordan, and just flooding the dead sea basin. Which is to say it isn't happening.
I t was a mistake for me to suggest it was “the” cause. But not, I think, “a” cause. I didn’t see where tfa suggests the idea is defunct. Old, and moving slowly, but not defunct. Here is an...
I t was a mistake for me to suggest it was “the” cause. But not, I think, “a” cause.
I don't think you have to make it that complicated. Biden and the US supports Israel because Israel is the US's strongest, and most culturally alike, ally in the middle east, which is pretty rare. Although oil no longer is as important to the US, since the US is now the world's largest oil producer (a big change from the 80s and 90s when almost 60% of US oil was imported), it's still relevant to the world economy in general. Additionally, the US has been at odds with Islamist militant groups for decades now. Israel has been at the forefront of military technology development, in both traditional arms (like the iron dome, which the US has bought a few of) and cyber warfare, and is a strategic ally from that perspective. Israel keeps US enemies like Iran in check.
This doesn't really explain the difference between Biden and Obama though.
I'm no Middle East expert, but I like Obama's more skeptical approach better. The US would have more leverage if Israel worried more about losing US support.
Biden comes from an older, more pro Israel wing of the party. His views weren't out of step with the Democratic party when he was a senator. They're only beginning to be out of step now, because the party has changed.
Off topic but Raistlin Majere, right? As in, brother of Caramon?
It seems to assume, ridiculously, that well funded nations with surveillance networks can’t be caught off guard with terrorist attacks. They have forgotten about 9/11.
I mean, to be fair, the US had a heck of a lot of warning about 9/11. Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld chose not to ignore and/or disbelieve the evidence despite many warnings with specific information (who was planning the attack, the nature of the attack, identities of pilots who would be involved in the attack, etc.) — coming not only from the CIA, but also from intelligence in Britain, Algeria, Israel, Afghanistan, Italy, and Egypt.
9/11 was not an intelligence failure; it was a leadership failure. If the Bush administration were caught off guard, it's only because they were ludicrously incompetent and had absolutely no business running a country.
How long after 9/11 did we know anything about the US’s forewarning?
Or they’re the type to use the same bs logic to prove it was an inside job.
These things are always dumb
Wow this author is so biased against Israel, I can't even find a place to start to point out her blatant bias and racist rhetoric.
This honestly reads like a hit piece, trying to shift the narrative from "Israel is a victim of a terrible terrorist attack" (true) to "Israel let Hamas massacre it's own citizens with the USA support". What a bonkers argument.
Instead of taking this terrible article apart, as many people have already done in the comments, I'm going to look at the website itself and show you why it's a shitty anti-israel publication, intentionally masquerading as a legitimate news company.
Their mission statement - "There has been a growing need for supporters of, in particular, the Palestinian cause" they straight up declare they are trying to support the Palestinian cause, whatever that means (usually trying to kill/kick out all the Jewish people in Israel)
Their staff - all of them are Muslim, looking through their personal accounts, most are of Palestinian decent. Nothing wrong with that as is, but again it just strengthens the narrative.
All of their advasiors and staff are in Palestine. No one to look at the other side. No one to try to see anything else about the nerrative or challenge the blatant false information coming from Hamas and the PA.
Their owners/directors - since it's a private company the aite doesn't state who the owners are, but it seems like that for a relatively small company the owners would also be directors. Anyway, one of the directors is "Daud Al-Jamal ABDULLAH" who was the director of another company by the name of "An Noor trust". This companys goal is, by their admission "Our central ethos at the Noor Trust is to serve the community and to promote the beautiful and peaceful teachings of Islam" meaning they are masquerading as a charity organization to preach Islam to vulnerable people.
Tldr, this website is nothing but a Palestinian mouth piece and any and all of it's article should be treated as propoganda with zero credibility.
While I completely agree with you, I would like to - gently - push back against any narrative that being anti-Israel is defacto racism. Anti-Israeli/Zionist politics ≠ Antisemitism
Edit: Typo
So, I am not necessarily convinced that this is a good publication, but I also think your criticism of it is pretty flawed.
To say that the Palestinian cause is "usually to kill/expel all the Jews in Israel" is a tremendous oversimplification. Hamas wants to destroy Israel, no argument on that one from me. But Palestine is not Hamas any more than I'm the Senate. The Palestinians I know are primarily for the cause of trying to prevent their friends and family from getting exploded or shot. Please don't dehumanize them or lump them in with literal terrorists?
I also don't see the relevance of the maybe-director having once worked for a religious charity. A charity being religious doesnt automatically make it a sinister masquerade?? Like, I don't love the Salvation Army but I also don't assume that if someone used to work there then they are a secret evangelical trying to Christ-ify the nation. Is there any concrete evidence at all to suggest this organization is taking advantage of the vulnerable?
I would be very curious to know if you hold Israeli publications to a similar level of scrutiny. I would imagine that points 2 and 3 could be applied in many cases, only reversed. Personally I am not keen to trust any single news source these days. No one perspective can capture the whole truth
Having a strong and singular point of view is not an invalidating circumstance without more.
I’m a huge fan if Democracy Now, which has a singular point of view (right there in the name) and all the staff share that same mission.
I think this article is an unfounded conspiracy theory, but all of your points are basically "they're Muslim". A charity organization can't be both a legitimate charity and promote the teachings of Islam? There are tons of charities that are openly Christian -- what's the difference there? Also of course they're in Palestine. That's where the "action" is.
I am not defending this as a good news source by any means, but this list of reasons why it's a shitty publication seem entirely religiously and racially motivated. There's plenty of ways to criticize the publication (again, I think this article is straight-up a conspiracy theory) without resorting to that.
Article discusses the Ben Gurion canal, which would competenwith the Suez and whose easist path is through Gaza. Does have a bit of a slant.
The idea seems plausible to me, and while it doesn’t make Biden’s support of Israel any better, at least it makes it explicable.
The thing about conspiracy theories is that they generally sound plausible on the surface. That's how they get people, after all. It's important to look at the details though.
On the face of it, the concept that war is sometimes driven by economic agendas is reasonable - which I assume is what you're thinking when you say that the idea is plausible.
But think about the details and I hope it becomes clear that this is a conspiracy theory. In no particular order:
And so on.
The geography of the entire plan is modestly insane if you ask me. The proposed route takes it to elevations of 400-500 meters. So either you stack enough locks to take the ships that high (and the 24m elevation of the panama canal mean that the panama canal lock size is a de-facto standard for ship construction. Bigger ships exist, but many are built to max out the panama canal specifically) or you dig a canal 400 meters deep through a few kilometers of mountain range, then 100-200 meters deep through dozens of kilometers of highland. The added cost of having to cut around the Gaza strip is miniscule.
And all this is supposed to compete with a nearby shorter canal in flatter geography? It can maybe compete with the trip around africa...
It seems about as plausible as digging from Eilat to the dead sea and from Haifa to the Jordan, and just flooding the dead sea basin. Which is to say it isn't happening.
Exactly - you put it better than I did. Thank you.
I t was a mistake for me to suggest it was “the” cause. But not, I think, “a” cause.
I didn’t see where tfa suggests the idea is defunct. Old, and moving slowly, but not defunct. Here is an article from a couple years ago claiming that Israel was making plans to start the project:https://frontierindia.com/all-you-should-know-about-the-israeli-ben-gurion-canal-project/?amp=1
With the Ever Given debacle, but also from the perpective of market champions (which I am not), it makes sense to me to have an alternate route.