I think this is underestimating the costs to Israel of being more and more obviously an aggressor willing to use terrorist means (such as the pager boobytraps). Biden is too old and set in outdated views to do anything, but he'll be gone one way or another in 2025. At that point, the case for cutting Israel loose and leaving the region to sort its own problems out (or fail to do so) will start to make itself felt.
1) it's absurd to call the pager attacks terrorism--they are targeted and meet all rationally-interpreted requirements of warfare
2) Israel is failing to capitalize on an opportunity to consolidate an anti-Hezbollah coalition in Leban9n.ir's cynical embrace of the Islamo-fascist Azeris alienates many potential Lebanese allies
I’m not going to take sides between one set of murderous ethno-nationalists and another. Decades of experience has shown that intervention by outsiders, particularly the US, achieves nothing except complicity in murder. Send humanitarian aid where possible and otherwise let the people in the region sort it out well or badly as the case may be.
What? The US is building the weapons, supplying the weapons, supplying the funding, and has blessed Israel’s entire mission. You may not take a side, but the US government already has. “Let the people in the region sort it out” would be great, hypothetically, but the US would never allow that. This is our mess even more than it’s Israel’s.
There is no “Israel/Palestine conflict” without US funding. There is no genocide of the Palestinian people without the US’s blessing.
I agree with your general sentiment, but if the US were to truly “leave” the Middle East, that would entail removing all of our influence from the region—it would mean taking the nation of Israel along with us.
Definition of terrorism: "the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians." (Oxford)
The UN has deemed this action unlawful, and many civilians were killed and maimed. The accusation of terrorism is not "absurd". It is a textbook example of the word.
Nope. Intentional killing of civilians, yes. Regrettably by-product of legitimate targets, no. Bombing hospitals ok if they're being used as military bases. The crime is using them as such, not bombing them.
You think the Israeli government “regrets” murdering civilians in Lebanon or Palestine? GTFOH. They don’t take any precautions to prevent them, and in fact, these murders are absolutely intentional; they are part of the strategy. You would think if there was any regret, that they’d take more care not to murder civilians. And yet, they keep doing it. That’s because they know people like you are out there to carry their water no matter how low they go.
From a practical point of view, why would the Israeli government give the US government advance notice of something like the bombing that took out Nasrallah? For one thing, we leak like a sieve. In addition, from the leaked US comments that now follow virtually any Israeli action of note, it's clear that our main concern is to make clear we have no responsibility. We clearly want deniability, so why give us advance notice of things?
Why would Israel give any notice to the US about such an important operation as killing Nasrallah? The Biden Administration has plenty of progressives kooks in foreign policy and national security advisor positions, remnants of Obama's failed JCPOA crew, obsequious appeasers like Philip Gordon. Israel cannot trust these people not to leak the details of an attack, with the hope of denying an Israeli military success. The Biden administration proudly announced that it does not share information about Hezbollah with Israel, so this administration complaining about Israel keeping a tight lid on such an important operation isn't surprising at all.
We've already seen how the US is incapable of doing anything offensive against Iran - it simply goes against the DNA of Democratic administrations. While it's helpful that CENTCOM organized a makeshift alliance to shoot down some of Iran's incoming ballistic missiles and drones, president Biden is scared of doing anything beyond swatting at drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. He knows 100% that the zero GDP, illiterate basket case Houthi-controlled Yemen cannot manufacture its own drone and missiles, and yet the US navy was never allowed to sink Iranian ships delivering resupplies to the Houthis. The US navy was prevented from striking at Iranian spy ship in the Red Sea directing Houthi attacks. The defense-only approach has clearly done zero to deter the Islamic Republic of Iran from attacking US allies - it launched an even bigger attack than their April one, back when Biden insisted that not responding is "the win". And here we are again with president Biden insisting that nobody should attack Iran's nuclear weapons program. Talk about signaling weakness to an adversary, though if progressives have their way we'll all "take the win" by redefining Iran as a normal trading partner and Israel as the enemy.
I think this is underestimating the costs to Israel of being more and more obviously an aggressor willing to use terrorist means (such as the pager boobytraps). Biden is too old and set in outdated views to do anything, but he'll be gone one way or another in 2025. At that point, the case for cutting Israel loose and leaving the region to sort its own problems out (or fail to do so) will start to make itself felt.
https://nationalinterest.org/commentary/the-falsity-us-interests-the-mideast-7595
1) it's absurd to call the pager attacks terrorism--they are targeted and meet all rationally-interpreted requirements of warfare
2) Israel is failing to capitalize on an opportunity to consolidate an anti-Hezbollah coalition in Leban9n.ir's cynical embrace of the Islamo-fascist Azeris alienates many potential Lebanese allies
I’m not going to take sides between one set of murderous ethno-nationalists and another. Decades of experience has shown that intervention by outsiders, particularly the US, achieves nothing except complicity in murder. Send humanitarian aid where possible and otherwise let the people in the region sort it out well or badly as the case may be.
What? The US is building the weapons, supplying the weapons, supplying the funding, and has blessed Israel’s entire mission. You may not take a side, but the US government already has. “Let the people in the region sort it out” would be great, hypothetically, but the US would never allow that. This is our mess even more than it’s Israel’s.
As you can see from the link I posted, I've long advocated that the US has no place in the Middle East and should leave
There is no “Israel/Palestine conflict” without US funding. There is no genocide of the Palestinian people without the US’s blessing.
I agree with your general sentiment, but if the US were to truly “leave” the Middle East, that would entail removing all of our influence from the region—it would mean taking the nation of Israel along with us.
Definition of terrorism: "the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians." (Oxford)
The UN has deemed this action unlawful, and many civilians were killed and maimed. The accusation of terrorism is not "absurd". It is a textbook example of the word.
Oh, my--the UN?
Commence pearl-clutching . . .
What means of attack on Hezbollah do you deem legal?
It is against all international law to kill civilians, period.
Nope. Intentional killing of civilians, yes. Regrettably by-product of legitimate targets, no. Bombing hospitals ok if they're being used as military bases. The crime is using them as such, not bombing them.
You think the Israeli government “regrets” murdering civilians in Lebanon or Palestine? GTFOH. They don’t take any precautions to prevent them, and in fact, these murders are absolutely intentional; they are part of the strategy. You would think if there was any regret, that they’d take more care not to murder civilians. And yet, they keep doing it. That’s because they know people like you are out there to carry their water no matter how low they go.
You are wrong. International law and modern norms of conduct forbids the killing civilians for any reason.
Israel even without US support would be perfectly fine taking on Iran and proxies these days. Get with the times.
But I agree that the US shouldn't be involved in the ME anyway.
From a practical point of view, why would the Israeli government give the US government advance notice of something like the bombing that took out Nasrallah? For one thing, we leak like a sieve. In addition, from the leaked US comments that now follow virtually any Israeli action of note, it's clear that our main concern is to make clear we have no responsibility. We clearly want deniability, so why give us advance notice of things?
Why would Israel give any notice to the US about such an important operation as killing Nasrallah? The Biden Administration has plenty of progressives kooks in foreign policy and national security advisor positions, remnants of Obama's failed JCPOA crew, obsequious appeasers like Philip Gordon. Israel cannot trust these people not to leak the details of an attack, with the hope of denying an Israeli military success. The Biden administration proudly announced that it does not share information about Hezbollah with Israel, so this administration complaining about Israel keeping a tight lid on such an important operation isn't surprising at all.
We've already seen how the US is incapable of doing anything offensive against Iran - it simply goes against the DNA of Democratic administrations. While it's helpful that CENTCOM organized a makeshift alliance to shoot down some of Iran's incoming ballistic missiles and drones, president Biden is scared of doing anything beyond swatting at drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. He knows 100% that the zero GDP, illiterate basket case Houthi-controlled Yemen cannot manufacture its own drone and missiles, and yet the US navy was never allowed to sink Iranian ships delivering resupplies to the Houthis. The US navy was prevented from striking at Iranian spy ship in the Red Sea directing Houthi attacks. The defense-only approach has clearly done zero to deter the Islamic Republic of Iran from attacking US allies - it launched an even bigger attack than their April one, back when Biden insisted that not responding is "the win". And here we are again with president Biden insisting that nobody should attack Iran's nuclear weapons program. Talk about signaling weakness to an adversary, though if progressives have their way we'll all "take the win" by redefining Iran as a normal trading partner and Israel as the enemy.
https://claireberlinski.substack.com/p/why-cant-us-learn-from-experience
last paragraph, shoud be PM Netanyahu?
Yes, it should. F**k. Fixing.