5 ms·

this angle seems really out dated. the us alliance with israel is not about religious reasons. israel is the one democratic state in a region that mostly has o

this angle seems really out dated. the us alliance with israel is not about religious reasons. israel is the one democratic state in a region that mostly has our enemies. israel is a military power. we have strategic interests in maintaining the middle east political bloc imagine if this headline read france instead. we would react similarly

DFHippie 5y ago
> the us alliance with israel is not about religious reasons This is simply not true. The base of the US Republican Party is evangelical Christians. This being so, religious reasons are close to the surface. There are surely other interested parties, but Republicans can't get crosswise with any of their conservative Christian constituencies -- evangelicals, Catholics, and Mormons. These constituencies have particular beliefs about Israel and the End Times. Likud and other right wing allies of the evangelicals certainly knows this and don't particularly care, not themselves caring about Christian End Times. I'm sure the leadership of the Republican Party also doesn't care. But they need their foot soldiers, and these soldiers do care. It is also true that while there are a lot of liberal Jews who criticize Israel, like Noam Chomsky, there is a large block with a lot of sway in Democratic politics that are very leery of criticism of Israel veering into antisemitism.
- Digory 5y ago
  This is terribly jumbled. Yes, if you’re in a non-Islamic religion that reveres the Old Testament, you probably support Israel’s land claims. But Catholics, Mormons, and Evangelicals have wildly different views of the end times, and the “Bring in the Armageddon” crowd in particular is an outlier among evangelicals.
  - freeflight 5y ago
    > the “Bring in the Armageddon” crowd in particular is an outlier among evangelicals. Being an outlier still does not stop them from wielding over-proportional political influence compared to other Christian sub-currents, and particularly other religions. To add data to that degree; In the US such well-organized and rich elite interests are very much the de-facto policy makers [0]. [0] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...
  - DFHippie 5y ago
    Yes, I shouldn't have mentioned Catholics and Mormons. The official bit of dogma the conservative Catholics care about is abortion. I'm not sure what the Mormons care about. But I don't think dogma is more than rationalization for most of these foot soldiers. They have this in common with conservative Muslims, Hindus, Jews, animists, and atheists. They want the people they approve of to dominate people they disapprove of. The rationale comes after and cleans up the mess. They learn about the approved hierarchy of power from their leaders and community. And in the US the word has come down from the elect that Israel, or right wing Israel, is their ally. Millenarian theology is just window dressing. Netanyahu mocks Obama before the US Congress so he's their man. It didn't begin with Netanyahu, but he knew how to ride the wave. This is why the Right in the US could turn on a dime and start loving Putin: he hated the same people they did. Dogma is just window dressing, a pretty screen over an ugly truth.
retrac 5y ago
Speaking of France and geopolitics, it's worth noting you see similar consistent support for Israel from most of the other major NATO powers. And France's position on Israel is not due to conservative evangelical political influence domestically.
freeflight 5y ago
It's not outdated at all, Trump's presidency was a direct throw-back to Dubya times [0] that whole thing with Muslim bans and getting treated like some kind of Messiah by evangelicals [1]. These very same US evangelical currents are also super tight with Israel, because they think Armageddon is gonna happen there and that needs to happen for Christ's return and heaven on earth [2]. These people are a end-world cult, one that has by now had direct influence on at least two US presidents in recent history. One of which they pushed into declaring a literal "crusade" [3] complete with "holy warriors" [4]. In the early 2000s there were a bunch of "scandals" about them infiltrating the US military to further Christianize it [5], even in the 2010s there's been incidents with US government acquired rifle sights featuring secret bibles codes [6]. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/oct/07/iraq.usa https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/oct/07/iraq.usa [1] https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/newscms/2017_28/2070346/170712-trump-praying-twitter-ew-331p.jpg https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/newscms/2017... [2] https://youtu.be/Fo77sTGpngQ https://youtu.be/Fo77sTGpngQ [3] https://www.csmonitor.com/2001/0919/p12s2-woeu.html https://www.csmonitor.com/2001/0919/p12s2-woeu.html [4] http://articles.latimes.com/2003/oct/16/opinion/oe-arkin16 http://articles.latimes.com/2003/oct/16/opinion/oe-arkin16 [5] https://harpers.org/archive/2009/05/jesus-killed-mohammed/ https://harpers.org/archive/2009/05/jesus-killed-mohammed/ [6] https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/us-military-weapons-inscribed-secret-jesus-bible-codes/story?id=9575794 https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/us-military-weapons-inscribed...
napmo 5y ago
The whole point of your comment is wrong. Israel may be considered a democracy, but only for the so-called "chosen people"; This so-called democracy which is based on racial purity and militarism is in fact a form of fascism, and not a democracy in any way. And the main reason for some of the countries in the middle east to become enemies of the US is the blind support of US for the Israel to occupy the land of Palestine and commit war crimes. Occupying other people's land, torturing and killing them, and then claiming to be a democracy is quite laughable claim by Israelis.
- tingletech 5y ago
  right, like was South Africa a democracy during apartheid?
- rudimental 5y ago
  Is America not a democracy because Canadian citizens and Mexican citizens that aren't also American citizens can't vote in elections?
  - runarberg 5y ago
    Arguably, yes. Or at least USA are lacking in universal suffrage while they don’t allow long time residents to vote because they lack citizenship. This is actually a fault in quite a lot of western democracies but USA is actually worse at this the the average democracy. Contrary to most European democracies, foreign citizens are not even allowed to vote in primaries or local elections in the USA. Off course USA has more problems with how they grant voting rights the just the lack of rights to vote for foreigners, this includes prisoners in many states, but also access to voting and voting registration, as well as disproportionate representation from election outcomes which reflects actual ballot counts poorly. All of this adds to make the USA a rather lacking in democracy.
    - rudimental 5y ago
      You bring up some reasonable points. Argue the case. If you just did, it’s not a convincing one. First, note I didn’t say long term residents of America. Just Canadian or Mexican citizens in general (be they long term residents of the US or not). You may say it’s different. Maybe. Then just talk about those that aren’t long term residents. The point here is equally true of citizens of Armenia, Vietnam, anywhere else (and I would say those that reside in America long term, or not) that aren’t US citizens. If they can’t vote in US elections, how can we consider the US a democracy? Is democracy a binary? If so, is America one, or not one? At least is it closer to being one, or not being one? Is democracy a spectrum? If so, where is America on the spectrum? Close to pure perfect democracy, or on the opposite end, close to the complete opposite of that? Or somewhere in the middle? You say its lacking. Where is that on the spectrum? What other countries are near it? These types of discussion often happen around abstract, nebulous concepts like democracy, justice, good. Generally when they aren’t defined well by any participants. If your point is the US could be more of a democracy, maybe. But even more so, it could be much less of one.
Analemma_ 5y ago
> israel is the one democratic state in a region that mostly has our enemies. Wasn’t there another democratic country in the region in the early 50’s? Oh yeah, it was Iran, and then the US took that democratic state and deposed it in a coup. “We have to stand with the only democratic state in the region” loses a lot of rhetorical force when the US topples other democratic states it doesn’t like.
zionic 5y ago
> this angle seems really out dated. the us alliance with israel is not about religious reasons. It absolutely is. Israel, without the protection of the evangelical voting block, is essentially apartheid South Africa.

DFHippie 5y ago

> the us alliance with israel is not about religious reasons This is simply not true. The base of the US Republican Party is evangelical Christians. This being so, religious reasons are close to the surface. There are surely other interested parties, but Republicans can't get crosswise with any of their conservative Christian constituencies -- evangelicals, Catholics, and Mormons. These constituencies have particular beliefs about Israel and the End Times. Likud and other right wing allies of the evangelicals certainly knows this and don't particularly care, not themselves caring about Christian End Times. I'm sure the leadership of the Republican Party also doesn't care. But they need their foot soldiers, and these soldiers do care. It is also true that while there are a lot of liberal Jews who criticize Israel, like Noam Chomsky, there is a large block with a lot of sway in Democratic politics that are very leery of criticism of Israel veering into antisemitism.

Digory 5y ago
This is terribly jumbled. Yes, if you’re in a non-Islamic religion that reveres the Old Testament, you probably support Israel’s land claims. But Catholics, Mormons, and Evangelicals have wildly different views of the end times, and the “Bring in the Armageddon” crowd in particular is an outlier among evangelicals.
- freeflight 5y ago
  > the “Bring in the Armageddon” crowd in particular is an outlier among evangelicals. Being an outlier still does not stop them from wielding over-proportional political influence compared to other Christian sub-currents, and particularly other religions. To add data to that degree; In the US such well-organized and rich elite interests are very much the de-facto policy makers [0]. [0] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...
- DFHippie 5y ago
  Yes, I shouldn't have mentioned Catholics and Mormons. The official bit of dogma the conservative Catholics care about is abortion. I'm not sure what the Mormons care about. But I don't think dogma is more than rationalization for most of these foot soldiers. They have this in common with conservative Muslims, Hindus, Jews, animists, and atheists. They want the people they approve of to dominate people they disapprove of. The rationale comes after and cleans up the mess. They learn about the approved hierarchy of power from their leaders and community. And in the US the word has come down from the elect that Israel, or right wing Israel, is their ally. Millenarian theology is just window dressing. Netanyahu mocks Obama before the US Congress so he's their man. It didn't begin with Netanyahu, but he knew how to ride the wave. This is why the Right in the US could turn on a dime and start loving Putin: he hated the same people they did. Dogma is just window dressing, a pretty screen over an ugly truth.

retrac 5y ago

Speaking of France and geopolitics, it's worth noting you see similar consistent support for Israel from most of the other major NATO powers. And France's position on Israel is not due to conservative evangelical political influence domestically.

freeflight 5y ago

It's not outdated at all, Trump's presidency was a direct throw-back to Dubya times [0] that whole thing with Muslim bans and getting treated like some kind of Messiah by evangelicals [1]. These very same US evangelical currents are also super tight with Israel, because they think Armageddon is gonna happen there and that needs to happen for Christ's return and heaven on earth [2]. These people are a end-world cult, one that has by now had direct influence on at least two US presidents in recent history. One of which they pushed into declaring a literal "crusade" [3] complete with "holy warriors" [4]. In the early 2000s there were a bunch of "scandals" about them infiltrating the US military to further Christianize it [5], even in the 2010s there's been incidents with US government acquired rifle sights featuring secret bibles codes [6]. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/oct/07/iraq.usa https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/oct/07/iraq.usa [1] https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/newscms/2017_28/2070346/170712-trump-praying-twitter-ew-331p.jpg https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/newscms/2017... [2] https://youtu.be/Fo77sTGpngQ https://youtu.be/Fo77sTGpngQ [3] https://www.csmonitor.com/2001/0919/p12s2-woeu.html https://www.csmonitor.com/2001/0919/p12s2-woeu.html [4] http://articles.latimes.com/2003/oct/16/opinion/oe-arkin16 http://articles.latimes.com/2003/oct/16/opinion/oe-arkin16 [5] https://harpers.org/archive/2009/05/jesus-killed-mohammed/ https://harpers.org/archive/2009/05/jesus-killed-mohammed/ [6] https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/us-military-weapons-inscribed-secret-jesus-bible-codes/story?id=9575794 https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/us-military-weapons-inscribed...

napmo 5y ago

The whole point of your comment is wrong. Israel may be considered a democracy, but only for the so-called "chosen people"; This so-called democracy which is based on racial purity and militarism is in fact a form of fascism, and not a democracy in any way. And the main reason for some of the countries in the middle east to become enemies of the US is the blind support of US for the Israel to occupy the land of Palestine and commit war crimes. Occupying other people's land, torturing and killing them, and then claiming to be a democracy is quite laughable claim by Israelis.

tingletech 5y ago
right, like was South Africa a democracy during apartheid?
rudimental 5y ago
Is America not a democracy because Canadian citizens and Mexican citizens that aren't also American citizens can't vote in elections?
- runarberg 5y ago
  Arguably, yes. Or at least USA are lacking in universal suffrage while they don’t allow long time residents to vote because they lack citizenship. This is actually a fault in quite a lot of western democracies but USA is actually worse at this the the average democracy. Contrary to most European democracies, foreign citizens are not even allowed to vote in primaries or local elections in the USA. Off course USA has more problems with how they grant voting rights the just the lack of rights to vote for foreigners, this includes prisoners in many states, but also access to voting and voting registration, as well as disproportionate representation from election outcomes which reflects actual ballot counts poorly. All of this adds to make the USA a rather lacking in democracy.
  - rudimental 5y ago
    You bring up some reasonable points. Argue the case. If you just did, it’s not a convincing one. First, note I didn’t say long term residents of America. Just Canadian or Mexican citizens in general (be they long term residents of the US or not). You may say it’s different. Maybe. Then just talk about those that aren’t long term residents. The point here is equally true of citizens of Armenia, Vietnam, anywhere else (and I would say those that reside in America long term, or not) that aren’t US citizens. If they can’t vote in US elections, how can we consider the US a democracy? Is democracy a binary? If so, is America one, or not one? At least is it closer to being one, or not being one? Is democracy a spectrum? If so, where is America on the spectrum? Close to pure perfect democracy, or on the opposite end, close to the complete opposite of that? Or somewhere in the middle? You say its lacking. Where is that on the spectrum? What other countries are near it? These types of discussion often happen around abstract, nebulous concepts like democracy, justice, good. Generally when they aren’t defined well by any participants. If your point is the US could be more of a democracy, maybe. But even more so, it could be much less of one.

Analemma_ 5y ago

> israel is the one democratic state in a region that mostly has our enemies. Wasn’t there another democratic country in the region in the early 50’s? Oh yeah, it was Iran, and then the US took that democratic state and deposed it in a coup. “We have to stand with the only democratic state in the region” loses a lot of rhetorical force when the US topples other democratic states it doesn’t like.

zionic 5y ago

> this angle seems really out dated. the us alliance with israel is not about religious reasons. It absolutely is. Israel, without the protection of the evangelical voting block, is essentially apartheid South Africa.