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I guess those of us who will never sign up to medium.com will never know.

nerdponx 5y ago
Relevant sections: > [The reason] is Congress. In 1997, Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act, one section of which is titled, “Prohibition on collection and release of detailed satellite imagery relating to Israel.” The amendment, known as the Kyl-Bingaman Amendment, calls for a federal agency, the NOAA’s Commercial Remote Sensing Regulatory Affairs, to regulate the dissemination of zoomed-in images of Israel. > The amendment prohibits US satellite imagery companies from selling pictures that are “more detailed or precise than satellite imagery of Israel that is available from commercial sources.” > In practice, “commercial sources” has been interpreted to mean companies outside of the US that up until recently were not major players in the multi-billion dollar space industry.
- colordrops 5y ago
  Why does Israel get this special treatment and not others?
  - gruez 5y ago
    evangelical christians think that jews occupying israel is a prerequisite for the rapture, so they want to defend israel to ensure that happens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Zionism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Zionism
    - dimitrios1 5y ago
      Hi, the 1980s called and wants its political hot takes back. Israel is a key ally in a very strategic location in the middle east and crucial to US foreign policy is the real answer.
      - baybal2 5y ago
        Israel is by no means a US partner, but the biggest headache
        dimitrios1 5y ago
        I am just not sure what reality you live in where you can say this. But surely you don't live in the US, I hope.
      - darksaints 5y ago
        Your hot take is even older. That might have been true in the 50's, but now we have seven strategically placed non-NATO allies in the middle east. We no longer have an exclusive strategic alliance with Israel. Now that we have better relations with multiple middle eastern countries, what explains the special deference that the US gives to Israel? Why is Israel still our largest foreign aid recipient? Why do we still protect them at all costs, even while they perpetually antagonize their neighbors? The only other country that we regularly look the other way for is easy to explain: Saudi Arabia has the largest oil reserves in the world. What do we get from Israel that would explain our willingness to ignore the shit that Israel pulls? The 1980's hot take that you lambast is still relevant. If it weren't for the support of Evangelicals that see it as some sort of prophecy, combined with a general hatred of everything muslim, the US would have no appetite for their shenanigans and would have dropped them like we dropped Syria and Turkey.
    - spankyspangler 5y ago
      It's bizarre that people make up this kind of hateful delusional convoluted conspiracy theory that allow the to hate "the all powerful white supremacist rednecks", rather than open their eyes to the obvious reality that it is a matter of special interests, political lobbying/corruption and strategic interests, just like everything else. I guess it's evidence of the wildly successful divide and conquer campaign that has been inflicted upon people. I can assure you the people receiving wealth and power to make the decisions that lead to this kind of policy, nor the people paying them care in the slightest about "the rapture" or what your imagined church going enemies in "bumfuck nowhere" care about.
      - gruez 5y ago
        What evidence do you have to support your claim? The public opinion section of the linked article seems to suggest that among evangelical christians it's an important issue. >A 2017 LifeWay poll conducted in United States found that 80% of evangelical Christians believed that the creation of Israel in 1948 was a fulfillment of biblical prophecy that would bring about Christ's return and more than 50% of Evangelical Christians believed that they support Israel because it is important for fulfilling the prophecy.[100] >According to the Pew Research survey in 2003, more than 60% of the Evangelical Christians and about 50% of Blacks agreed that the existence of Israel fulfilled biblical prophecy. About 55% of poll respondents said that the Bible was the biggest influence for supporting Israel which is 11 times the people who said church was the biggest influence.[100]
        spankyspangler 5y ago
        A laughable question from someone peddling baseless conspiracy theories. Common sense and simple observation of the world around me. Those polls (we seem to be straying dangerously close to "the blacks and the jews" level of hateful conspiracy theory, by the way) are not evidence for the cause of the creation of this legislation, nor even attempt any semblance of cause and effect. It might also help you get some perspective to keep in mind that those in actual positions of power (that's not Bob the unemployed coal miner from West Virginia who didn't finish highschool and goes to church once a week), spend considerable resources curating and influencing public opinion to their end. Consider, for example how many people were deluded into believing the baseless conspiracy theory that there existed ample evidence which proved Trump colluded with Putin to hack the election.
    - ceres 5y ago
      This is one of the explanations about USA involvement with Israel that is so bizarre to be believable but keeps getting repeated over and over on the Internet. Sure, there are a lot of evangelical Christians in America but they are not that stupid and naive? Plus aligning the world's most powerful country's foreign policy with superstitions like the rapture is so ridiculous that it would not be plausible even as a plotline of a novel.
      - gruez 5y ago
        >Sure, there are a lot of evangelical Christians in America but they are not that stupid and naive? Are you european by any chance? US christians are much less secular than european christians. Also, opinion polling data (in the linked article) supports the claim.
      - true_religion 5y ago
        I think it keeps getting repeated because it is more palatable than saying the cause is a combination of 1. Latent racism. Having minority groups set up a homeland and encouraging all of them to move there is a core tenant of some racist groups. 2. Natural support by US Jews, and the many many people who know them and believe having Israel be a country is good for the safety of the ethnic group. 3. Israel is a natural ally of the US, and cannot become a local leader no matter how much support is given to it. This makes for a fairly stable partnership. US gets to aid a power hostile to its enemies like Iran, etc. while making a pretense to neutrality since it’s not directly acting. 4. Progressive social groups like Israel. It’s the most westernized style nation in the Middle East, but it retains enough cultural heritage to be palatable to conservatives too. 5. The more mundane biblical stuff. Even lip service only Christians have heard of Jerusalem and Bethlehem, etc. being a part of Israel in historical times. Thus there is a tendency to support Israeli control of the area since from the US point of view, which never takes into account fine ethic differences, Jews are Jews thus even European Jews have a historic right to the land. 6. Supporting Israel, a country hated by the oil powers of the Middle East, makes US nationalists happy since it acts as proof that oil-powers do not hold America’s leash. There isn’t really any one singular reason for support to Israel. It’s more of a perfect storm making it easy for activists of any stripe to thumbs up supporting Israel as a budget item. Remember support for Israel is a feel good measure. American lives aren’t at risk. However, people would rather claim someone strongly supports Israel, even if he reasoning is irrational, than say many millions vaguely support Israel so long as it is limited to “safe” things like money, political speech and weapons sales.
    - boomboomsubban 5y ago
      And they can't risk high quality satellite photos of the rapture happening? The entire Christian Zionism idea seems like a public support justification for imperialism to me, but it really doesn't explain this law at all.
    - skinkestek 5y ago
      Also, more importantly: same reasons as why Pakistan and India was split. Arabs were moved out from what is now (and much earlier) Israel. Jews were moved out from neighboring Arab countries. Also, maybe even more importantly: Much of the world felt guilty after what happened to the Jews during the Nazi regime.
    - tablespoon 5y ago
      >> Why does Israel get this special treatment and not others? > evangelical christians think that jews occupying israel is a prerequisite for the rapture, so they want to defend israel to ensure that happens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Zionism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Zionism Such a categorical statement doesn't seem to pass the smell test, since a quick google found this survey which seems to show that a large fraction of American Evangelical leaders likely don't believe in the rapture at all (I say likely, because it doesn't give that number explicitly, but it seems safe to say it's more than a third). https://www.pewforum.org/2011/06/22/global-survey-beliefs/ https://www.pewforum.org/2011/06/22/global-survey-beliefs/: > Among leaders from the Global South, 73% say they believe in the Rapture, compared with 44% of Global North leaders. But majorities of those surveyed from all regions except Europe believe in the rapture of the Church; evangelical leaders from sub-Saharan Africa are especially likely to believe in the Rapture (82%). I think the real reason for Israel's special treatment is Cold War and post-Cold War politics. much of Israel's population had ties to Europe, many of its neighbors were Soviet allies, and similar Islamic militant groups have caused headaches to both countries.
  - k4l3 5y ago
    Maybe I'm being willfully naive, but isn't the violence of today the reason why? You don't want to give extremists ready access to more detailed targeting information than they already have. Having never aimed a rocket before I don't know how it works, but I'd imagine it would be helpful to have detailed satellite maps showing possible weak spots in infrastructure and strategic locations.
    - chamanbuga 5y ago
      Satellite imagery is not available, yet HD photos are available in Street View? Doesn't make sense too much.
      - Wolfenstein98k 5y ago
        You tend not to launch rockets from a few metres away from the front door of your target. It tends to be from kilometres away, and you tend to target from above. More "satellite view" than "street view".
    - schoen 5y ago
      The Guardian had a quote in 2007 saying that the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades was then using Google Earth to target rocket attacks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel#Tactics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_... (Of course, that's one now 14-year-old assertion from one militant group among several, so that doesn't really show whether this is more or less prevalent over time -- and the U.S. legislation on satellite imagery discussed in the newer article is from 1997, so it wasn't responding to this specific practice.)
    - bsanr2 5y ago
      Generally, armed groups with serious missile capabilities are able to source their own intelligence for strikes. The fact that we've ascertained, somehow, that Hamas et al. use Google Maps to inform their targeting calls into serious question claims against the assymetry of capability on which the legitimacy of tit-for-tat missile/air strikes rely.
  - vxNsr 5y ago
    No other ally has enemies on the border who think it’s appropriate to launch hundreds of rockets indiscriminately into civilian centers as a form of protest. ETA: I’m not sure how this is controversial, over 700 rockets have been launched without any specific target in mind aside from “Israel” in the last day. Random ppl have been killed including an Israeli Arab family. What was Israel’s response? A bunch of targeted strikes that took out Hamas leadership and no one else and a few knock&demolish missions (basically if the IDF thinks a building is being used as a hamas HQ but it’s full of civilians they drop a blank on it to warn everyone to get out usually they also drop leaflets saying get out now then a few minutes later they drop the real bomb. So basically there’s enough time for everyone to get out and away but not really enough time for the hamas operatives to save anything. Also it sends a very clear message: don’t harbor terrorists in your midst as you might end up losing your office or home.)
    - sofixa 5y ago
      > What was Israel’s response? > A bunch of targeted strikes that took out Hamas leadership and no one else https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/gaza-israel-bombing-air-strikes/2021/05/11/ce0b3a58-b258-11eb-bc96-fdf55de43bef_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/gaza-israel... That's why what you're saying is controversial, it's factually incorrect. Israeli airstrikes this week have resulted in the death of at least 10 children. And considering all the recent violence started with Israeli actions ( expulsion and illegal resettlement, restrictions on religious gatherings around probably the holiest of Muslim religious times, and very violent responses by police when there were protests against those things), it's hard to accept your one-sided argument. Hamas should stop indiscriminately targeting Israeli civilians, but it's not like they have much choice - what else could they possibly do? Nothing? Obviously that's not in their interests, and diplomacy has gotten them nowhere. Israel should stop illegally occupying and settling Palestinian land, and they easily could do. The whole situation is fucked and there's no solution in sight, the situation and leaders have to drastically change for there to be a chance of a peach long term solution.
      - vxNsr 5y ago
        > Obviously that's not in their interests, and diplomacy has gotten them nowhere. At no point has Hamas tried diplomacy. But you’ve just shown your true colors you’re ok with Hamas indiscriminately firing on civilians bec “what else can they do” but when Israel performs targeted strikes against Hamas, and Hamas intentionally puts children in harms way it’s somehow Israel’s fault. There was nothing illegal about the resettlement, if you don’t have legal permission to live somewhere you’re gonna get evicted eventually. How is it illegal to restrict gatherings? We’ve been doing that for the last year plus! For the last three months I’ve seen daily reports of violent and sometimes deadly attacks against Jews just for walking around. It’s not like one dude punching another in the back of the head (like what’s happening in NY) it’s groups of Arabs seeking out a lone Jew and then attacking him/her. This has been happening multiple times a day for the last 3 months... you’re pretty screwed up if you think that’s ok and shouldn’t warrant a response. If Hamas wants to fight with honor, nothing is stopping them. They instead choose the cowardly route, hiding behind their wives, elderly, and children. You also need to ask yourself, what is Hamas’s goal here: their charter very clearly spells it out: “total destruction of Israel.” Considering the way they treated Fatah when Hamas won the election I don’t think it’s too far to say that if Hamas somehow was given power over any part of Israel there would immediately be a small scale genocide. Additionally, that article is incredibly biased, acting as if the people in Gaza have no agency, this is a dangerous and false assumption, if they don’t want Hamas using their homes as military bases they can stop them, or better yet foment an insurrection and place in power people who want peace. But of course most in Gaza don’t want peace they like trying to kill Jews for sport and are entirely fine paying with their lives when it comes to it bec they believe in the cause. The article also entirely ignores the larger context around what’s happening and strongly implies that Israel started this and is acting unfairly, when as we’ve seen in all the other recent conflicts in other parts of the world, couldn’t be further from the truth. No other military spends as much time worrying about civilian casualties as the IDF, no one else bends over backwards to warn non-combatants of impending danger, so much so that they often end up warning the terrorists as well, your hatred for Jews is showing loud and clear here and you might want to consider the double standard you hold Jews to before you reply. Hamas doesn’t have the technological and military prowess of China that makes it nearly impossible to overthrow them, in any given month there are as many as 10 different terrorist “gangs” operating in the region. It’s entirely plausible to suggest that if people really were dissatisfied with Hamas they could fairly easily get a change of leadership.
  - andyxor 5y ago
    it's the only democratic country in the Middle East and strategic partner of the US
    - colordrops 5y ago
      Lebanon is a democracy. Israel is perhaps the least democratic considering they enact apartheid.
      - vxNsr 5y ago
        Lebanon is not a free democracy and I’m not sure what that has to do with this discussion anyway
        colordrops 5y ago
        There is a raft of talking points used to explain why Israel are right to behave so poorly. Many, if not most of these talking points are specious. A common one is that Israel is the only democracy in the middle east, which is absolutely not true. What does "Lebanon is not a free democracy" even mean? You can say the same about Israel. They have many laws and restrictions that are based around religion, and religious groups are very powerful. They enact apartheid, which is about as opposite of democracy as possible. Even if Lebanon has a troubled democracy, it's definitely better than what is happening in Israel. This trope needs to be retired.
        vxNsr 5y ago
        Every claim you’ve made here is false and again has nothing to do with the subject at hand.
        colordrops 5y ago
        Typical response to this topic: just claim it's false and don't provide any argument or data as to why. Lebanon is a democracy: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Lebanon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Lebanon Israel is a theocratic apartheid state: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/israel-adopts-divisive-law-declares-only-jews-have-right-self-n892636 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/israel-adopts-divisive-la... https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/isra...
  - boomboomsubban 5y ago
    With this particular law, I agree with another poster that it's likely to hide the Israeli nuclear program. As to why we tolerate Israel having nukes while nearby nations face repercussions for even mentioning nukes, they are largely a US puppet state.
    - sam_lowry_ 5y ago
      Or the other way around. US is the puppet state of Israel ;-/
      - boomboomsubban 5y ago
        No, that's ridiculous. The US is unquestionably the dominant global power currently.
- joezydeco 5y ago
  Article is old, 2019. Kyl/Bingman is already being loosened up: https://spacenews.com/u-s-government-to-allow-sale-of-high-resolution-commercial-satellite-images-of-israel/ https://spacenews.com/u-s-government-to-allow-sale-of-high-r... SpaceX also got in a little bit of trouble when they launched the Tesla Roadster with Starman aboard. The unlicensed live camera above a certain altitude was a no-no.
cma 5y ago
Meat of it is: > “Turns out, it is Congress. In 1997, Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act, one section of which is titled, “Prohibition on collection and release of detailed satellite imagery relating to Israel.” They don't go into rationale as to why, but my guess would maybe be nuclear weapons deniability? Even if other countries have higher res imagery and it becomes common knowledge, we can officially deny it to ourselves and keep demanding others join the non-proliferation treaty in order to build nuclear power plants, etc. If we had commercial services showing video of nuclear weapons manufacturing transport etc. they could be used in congressional hearings, if it is illegal maybe that is less likely. However if there were a law requiring low resolution imagery of Iraq I could see someone could make the opposite argument: it was done so we can hallucinate in aluminum tubes that could surely only be for centrifuges, blurry yellow shipments of imagined urania, etc. "Israel is widely believed to possess weapons of mass destruction, and to be one of four nuclear-armed countries not recognized as a Nuclear Weapons State by the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and_weapons_of_mass_des...
- kirykl 5y ago
  That quote from Wikipedia has no source defending the widely believed claim
  - gruez 5y ago
    A few paragraphs down >It is believed that Israel had possessed an operational nuclear weapons capability by 1967, with the mass production of nuclear warheads occurring immediately after the Six-Day War.[2] Experts estimated the stockpile of Israeli nuclear weapons range from 60 to as many as 400.[3][4][5][6]
    - kirykl 5y ago
      Click thru all those numbers to find nothing
      - 5y ago
Elidrake24 5y ago
Huh? Just read through it without issue, not even an ad telling me to sign up.
- cmeacham98 5y ago
  Medium will inconsistently throw out authwalls, seems to roughly align with when you read a bunch of posts in a short timeline.
ur-whale 5y ago
https://archive.is/LyzT5 https://archive.is/LyzT5
sumedh 5y ago
or you could just sign up with throwaway email?
wayneftw 5y ago
Open the link in an incognito window. Now you have infinite reads.

Relevant sections: > [The reason] is Congress. In 1997, Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act, one section of which is titled, “Prohibition on collection and release of detailed satellite imagery relating to Israel.” The amendment, known as the Kyl-Bingaman Amendment, calls for a federal agency, the NOAA’s Commercial Remote Sensing Regulatory Affairs, to regulate the dissemination of zoomed-in images of Israel. > The amendment prohibits US satellite imagery companies from selling pictures that are “more detailed or precise than satellite imagery of Israel that is available from commercial sources.” > In practice, “commercial sources” has been interpreted to mean companies outside of the US that up until recently were not major players in the multi-billion dollar space industry.

colordrops 5y ago
Why does Israel get this special treatment and not others?
- gruez 5y ago
  evangelical christians think that jews occupying israel is a prerequisite for the rapture, so they want to defend israel to ensure that happens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Zionism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Zionism
  - dimitrios1 5y ago
    Hi, the 1980s called and wants its political hot takes back. Israel is a key ally in a very strategic location in the middle east and crucial to US foreign policy is the real answer.
    - baybal2 5y ago
      Israel is by no means a US partner, but the biggest headache
      - dimitrios1 5y ago
        I am just not sure what reality you live in where you can say this. But surely you don't live in the US, I hope.
    - darksaints 5y ago
      Your hot take is even older. That might have been true in the 50's, but now we have seven strategically placed non-NATO allies in the middle east. We no longer have an exclusive strategic alliance with Israel. Now that we have better relations with multiple middle eastern countries, what explains the special deference that the US gives to Israel? Why is Israel still our largest foreign aid recipient? Why do we still protect them at all costs, even while they perpetually antagonize their neighbors? The only other country that we regularly look the other way for is easy to explain: Saudi Arabia has the largest oil reserves in the world. What do we get from Israel that would explain our willingness to ignore the shit that Israel pulls? The 1980's hot take that you lambast is still relevant. If it weren't for the support of Evangelicals that see it as some sort of prophecy, combined with a general hatred of everything muslim, the US would have no appetite for their shenanigans and would have dropped them like we dropped Syria and Turkey.
  - spankyspangler 5y ago
    It's bizarre that people make up this kind of hateful delusional convoluted conspiracy theory that allow the to hate "the all powerful white supremacist rednecks", rather than open their eyes to the obvious reality that it is a matter of special interests, political lobbying/corruption and strategic interests, just like everything else. I guess it's evidence of the wildly successful divide and conquer campaign that has been inflicted upon people. I can assure you the people receiving wealth and power to make the decisions that lead to this kind of policy, nor the people paying them care in the slightest about "the rapture" or what your imagined church going enemies in "bumfuck nowhere" care about.
    - gruez 5y ago
      What evidence do you have to support your claim? The public opinion section of the linked article seems to suggest that among evangelical christians it's an important issue. >A 2017 LifeWay poll conducted in United States found that 80% of evangelical Christians believed that the creation of Israel in 1948 was a fulfillment of biblical prophecy that would bring about Christ's return and more than 50% of Evangelical Christians believed that they support Israel because it is important for fulfilling the prophecy.[100] >According to the Pew Research survey in 2003, more than 60% of the Evangelical Christians and about 50% of Blacks agreed that the existence of Israel fulfilled biblical prophecy. About 55% of poll respondents said that the Bible was the biggest influence for supporting Israel which is 11 times the people who said church was the biggest influence.[100]
      - spankyspangler 5y ago
        A laughable question from someone peddling baseless conspiracy theories. Common sense and simple observation of the world around me. Those polls (we seem to be straying dangerously close to "the blacks and the jews" level of hateful conspiracy theory, by the way) are not evidence for the cause of the creation of this legislation, nor even attempt any semblance of cause and effect. It might also help you get some perspective to keep in mind that those in actual positions of power (that's not Bob the unemployed coal miner from West Virginia who didn't finish highschool and goes to church once a week), spend considerable resources curating and influencing public opinion to their end. Consider, for example how many people were deluded into believing the baseless conspiracy theory that there existed ample evidence which proved Trump colluded with Putin to hack the election.
  - ceres 5y ago
    This is one of the explanations about USA involvement with Israel that is so bizarre to be believable but keeps getting repeated over and over on the Internet. Sure, there are a lot of evangelical Christians in America but they are not that stupid and naive? Plus aligning the world's most powerful country's foreign policy with superstitions like the rapture is so ridiculous that it would not be plausible even as a plotline of a novel.
    - gruez 5y ago
      >Sure, there are a lot of evangelical Christians in America but they are not that stupid and naive? Are you european by any chance? US christians are much less secular than european christians. Also, opinion polling data (in the linked article) supports the claim.
    - true_religion 5y ago
      I think it keeps getting repeated because it is more palatable than saying the cause is a combination of 1. Latent racism. Having minority groups set up a homeland and encouraging all of them to move there is a core tenant of some racist groups. 2. Natural support by US Jews, and the many many people who know them and believe having Israel be a country is good for the safety of the ethnic group. 3. Israel is a natural ally of the US, and cannot become a local leader no matter how much support is given to it. This makes for a fairly stable partnership. US gets to aid a power hostile to its enemies like Iran, etc. while making a pretense to neutrality since it’s not directly acting. 4. Progressive social groups like Israel. It’s the most westernized style nation in the Middle East, but it retains enough cultural heritage to be palatable to conservatives too. 5. The more mundane biblical stuff. Even lip service only Christians have heard of Jerusalem and Bethlehem, etc. being a part of Israel in historical times. Thus there is a tendency to support Israeli control of the area since from the US point of view, which never takes into account fine ethic differences, Jews are Jews thus even European Jews have a historic right to the land. 6. Supporting Israel, a country hated by the oil powers of the Middle East, makes US nationalists happy since it acts as proof that oil-powers do not hold America’s leash. There isn’t really any one singular reason for support to Israel. It’s more of a perfect storm making it easy for activists of any stripe to thumbs up supporting Israel as a budget item. Remember support for Israel is a feel good measure. American lives aren’t at risk. However, people would rather claim someone strongly supports Israel, even if he reasoning is irrational, than say many millions vaguely support Israel so long as it is limited to “safe” things like money, political speech and weapons sales.
  - boomboomsubban 5y ago
    And they can't risk high quality satellite photos of the rapture happening? The entire Christian Zionism idea seems like a public support justification for imperialism to me, but it really doesn't explain this law at all.
  - skinkestek 5y ago
    Also, more importantly: same reasons as why Pakistan and India was split. Arabs were moved out from what is now (and much earlier) Israel. Jews were moved out from neighboring Arab countries. Also, maybe even more importantly: Much of the world felt guilty after what happened to the Jews during the Nazi regime.
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    >> Why does Israel get this special treatment and not others? > evangelical christians think that jews occupying israel is a prerequisite for the rapture, so they want to defend israel to ensure that happens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Zionism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Zionism Such a categorical statement doesn't seem to pass the smell test, since a quick google found this survey which seems to show that a large fraction of American Evangelical leaders likely don't believe in the rapture at all (I say likely, because it doesn't give that number explicitly, but it seems safe to say it's more than a third). https://www.pewforum.org/2011/06/22/global-survey-beliefs/ https://www.pewforum.org/2011/06/22/global-survey-beliefs/: > Among leaders from the Global South, 73% say they believe in the Rapture, compared with 44% of Global North leaders. But majorities of those surveyed from all regions except Europe believe in the rapture of the Church; evangelical leaders from sub-Saharan Africa are especially likely to believe in the Rapture (82%). I think the real reason for Israel's special treatment is Cold War and post-Cold War politics. much of Israel's population had ties to Europe, many of its neighbors were Soviet allies, and similar Islamic militant groups have caused headaches to both countries.
- k4l3 5y ago
  Maybe I'm being willfully naive, but isn't the violence of today the reason why? You don't want to give extremists ready access to more detailed targeting information than they already have. Having never aimed a rocket before I don't know how it works, but I'd imagine it would be helpful to have detailed satellite maps showing possible weak spots in infrastructure and strategic locations.
  - chamanbuga 5y ago
    Satellite imagery is not available, yet HD photos are available in Street View? Doesn't make sense too much.
    - Wolfenstein98k 5y ago
      You tend not to launch rockets from a few metres away from the front door of your target. It tends to be from kilometres away, and you tend to target from above. More "satellite view" than "street view".
  - schoen 5y ago
    The Guardian had a quote in 2007 saying that the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades was then using Google Earth to target rocket attacks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel#Tactics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_... (Of course, that's one now 14-year-old assertion from one militant group among several, so that doesn't really show whether this is more or less prevalent over time -- and the U.S. legislation on satellite imagery discussed in the newer article is from 1997, so it wasn't responding to this specific practice.)
  - bsanr2 5y ago
    Generally, armed groups with serious missile capabilities are able to source their own intelligence for strikes. The fact that we've ascertained, somehow, that Hamas et al. use Google Maps to inform their targeting calls into serious question claims against the assymetry of capability on which the legitimacy of tit-for-tat missile/air strikes rely.
- vxNsr 5y ago
  No other ally has enemies on the border who think it’s appropriate to launch hundreds of rockets indiscriminately into civilian centers as a form of protest. ETA: I’m not sure how this is controversial, over 700 rockets have been launched without any specific target in mind aside from “Israel” in the last day. Random ppl have been killed including an Israeli Arab family. What was Israel’s response? A bunch of targeted strikes that took out Hamas leadership and no one else and a few knock&demolish missions (basically if the IDF thinks a building is being used as a hamas HQ but it’s full of civilians they drop a blank on it to warn everyone to get out usually they also drop leaflets saying get out now then a few minutes later they drop the real bomb. So basically there’s enough time for everyone to get out and away but not really enough time for the hamas operatives to save anything. Also it sends a very clear message: don’t harbor terrorists in your midst as you might end up losing your office or home.)
  - sofixa 5y ago
    > What was Israel’s response? > A bunch of targeted strikes that took out Hamas leadership and no one else https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/gaza-israel-bombing-air-strikes/2021/05/11/ce0b3a58-b258-11eb-bc96-fdf55de43bef_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/gaza-israel... That's why what you're saying is controversial, it's factually incorrect. Israeli airstrikes this week have resulted in the death of at least 10 children. And considering all the recent violence started with Israeli actions ( expulsion and illegal resettlement, restrictions on religious gatherings around probably the holiest of Muslim religious times, and very violent responses by police when there were protests against those things), it's hard to accept your one-sided argument. Hamas should stop indiscriminately targeting Israeli civilians, but it's not like they have much choice - what else could they possibly do? Nothing? Obviously that's not in their interests, and diplomacy has gotten them nowhere. Israel should stop illegally occupying and settling Palestinian land, and they easily could do. The whole situation is fucked and there's no solution in sight, the situation and leaders have to drastically change for there to be a chance of a peach long term solution.
    - vxNsr 5y ago
      > Obviously that's not in their interests, and diplomacy has gotten them nowhere. At no point has Hamas tried diplomacy. But you’ve just shown your true colors you’re ok with Hamas indiscriminately firing on civilians bec “what else can they do” but when Israel performs targeted strikes against Hamas, and Hamas intentionally puts children in harms way it’s somehow Israel’s fault. There was nothing illegal about the resettlement, if you don’t have legal permission to live somewhere you’re gonna get evicted eventually. How is it illegal to restrict gatherings? We’ve been doing that for the last year plus! For the last three months I’ve seen daily reports of violent and sometimes deadly attacks against Jews just for walking around. It’s not like one dude punching another in the back of the head (like what’s happening in NY) it’s groups of Arabs seeking out a lone Jew and then attacking him/her. This has been happening multiple times a day for the last 3 months... you’re pretty screwed up if you think that’s ok and shouldn’t warrant a response. If Hamas wants to fight with honor, nothing is stopping them. They instead choose the cowardly route, hiding behind their wives, elderly, and children. You also need to ask yourself, what is Hamas’s goal here: their charter very clearly spells it out: “total destruction of Israel.” Considering the way they treated Fatah when Hamas won the election I don’t think it’s too far to say that if Hamas somehow was given power over any part of Israel there would immediately be a small scale genocide. Additionally, that article is incredibly biased, acting as if the people in Gaza have no agency, this is a dangerous and false assumption, if they don’t want Hamas using their homes as military bases they can stop them, or better yet foment an insurrection and place in power people who want peace. But of course most in Gaza don’t want peace they like trying to kill Jews for sport and are entirely fine paying with their lives when it comes to it bec they believe in the cause. The article also entirely ignores the larger context around what’s happening and strongly implies that Israel started this and is acting unfairly, when as we’ve seen in all the other recent conflicts in other parts of the world, couldn’t be further from the truth. No other military spends as much time worrying about civilian casualties as the IDF, no one else bends over backwards to warn non-combatants of impending danger, so much so that they often end up warning the terrorists as well, your hatred for Jews is showing loud and clear here and you might want to consider the double standard you hold Jews to before you reply. Hamas doesn’t have the technological and military prowess of China that makes it nearly impossible to overthrow them, in any given month there are as many as 10 different terrorist “gangs” operating in the region. It’s entirely plausible to suggest that if people really were dissatisfied with Hamas they could fairly easily get a change of leadership.
- andyxor 5y ago
  it's the only democratic country in the Middle East and strategic partner of the US
  - colordrops 5y ago
    Lebanon is a democracy. Israel is perhaps the least democratic considering they enact apartheid.
    - vxNsr 5y ago
      Lebanon is not a free democracy and I’m not sure what that has to do with this discussion anyway
      - colordrops 5y ago
        There is a raft of talking points used to explain why Israel are right to behave so poorly. Many, if not most of these talking points are specious. A common one is that Israel is the only democracy in the middle east, which is absolutely not true. What does "Lebanon is not a free democracy" even mean? You can say the same about Israel. They have many laws and restrictions that are based around religion, and religious groups are very powerful. They enact apartheid, which is about as opposite of democracy as possible. Even if Lebanon has a troubled democracy, it's definitely better than what is happening in Israel. This trope needs to be retired.
        vxNsr 5y ago
        Every claim you’ve made here is false and again has nothing to do with the subject at hand.
        colordrops 5y ago
        Typical response to this topic: just claim it's false and don't provide any argument or data as to why. Lebanon is a democracy: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Lebanon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Lebanon Israel is a theocratic apartheid state: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/israel-adopts-divisive-law-declares-only-jews-have-right-self-n892636 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/israel-adopts-divisive-la... https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/isra...
- boomboomsubban 5y ago
  With this particular law, I agree with another poster that it's likely to hide the Israeli nuclear program. As to why we tolerate Israel having nukes while nearby nations face repercussions for even mentioning nukes, they are largely a US puppet state.
  - sam_lowry_ 5y ago
    Or the other way around. US is the puppet state of Israel ;-/
    - boomboomsubban 5y ago
      No, that's ridiculous. The US is unquestionably the dominant global power currently.
joezydeco 5y ago
Article is old, 2019. Kyl/Bingman is already being loosened up: https://spacenews.com/u-s-government-to-allow-sale-of-high-resolution-commercial-satellite-images-of-israel/ https://spacenews.com/u-s-government-to-allow-sale-of-high-r... SpaceX also got in a little bit of trouble when they launched the Tesla Roadster with Starman aboard. The unlicensed live camera above a certain altitude was a no-no.

cma 5y ago

Meat of it is: > “Turns out, it is Congress. In 1997, Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act, one section of which is titled, “Prohibition on collection and release of detailed satellite imagery relating to Israel.” They don't go into rationale as to why, but my guess would maybe be nuclear weapons deniability? Even if other countries have higher res imagery and it becomes common knowledge, we can officially deny it to ourselves and keep demanding others join the non-proliferation treaty in order to build nuclear power plants, etc. If we had commercial services showing video of nuclear weapons manufacturing transport etc. they could be used in congressional hearings, if it is illegal maybe that is less likely. However if there were a law requiring low resolution imagery of Iraq I could see someone could make the opposite argument: it was done so we can hallucinate in aluminum tubes that could surely only be for centrifuges, blurry yellow shipments of imagined urania, etc. "Israel is widely believed to possess weapons of mass destruction, and to be one of four nuclear-armed countries not recognized as a Nuclear Weapons State by the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and_weapons_of_mass_des...

kirykl 5y ago
That quote from Wikipedia has no source defending the widely believed claim
- gruez 5y ago
  A few paragraphs down >It is believed that Israel had possessed an operational nuclear weapons capability by 1967, with the mass production of nuclear warheads occurring immediately after the Six-Day War.[2] Experts estimated the stockpile of Israeli nuclear weapons range from 60 to as many as 400.[3][4][5][6]
  - kirykl 5y ago
    Click thru all those numbers to find nothing
    - 5y ago

Elidrake24 5y ago

Huh? Just read through it without issue, not even an ad telling me to sign up.

cmeacham98 5y ago
Medium will inconsistently throw out authwalls, seems to roughly align with when you read a bunch of posts in a short timeline.

ur-whale 5y ago

https://archive.is/LyzT5 https://archive.is/LyzT5

sumedh 5y ago

or you could just sign up with throwaway email?

wayneftw 5y ago

Open the link in an incognito window. Now you have infinite reads.