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I’ve been surprised how brazen it’s been. For a little while almost every Twitter login I’d see a promoted tweet from the official Israel account making some st
by afavour 2y ago
I’ve been surprised how brazen it’s been. For a little while almost every Twitter login I’d see a promoted tweet from the official Israel account making some statement or other about the war.
That I can tolerate but I found the same account promoting outrage about US campus protests to be distasteful. That’s a domestic US issue and trying to influence it from the outside feels inappropriate, not to mention leans into a bunch of antisemitic tropes!
- szundi 2y agoAll US domestic political issues are international concerns too - they are the omnipotent superpower
- afavour 2y agoConcerns, sure. But Israel is a staunch US ally, trying to directly influence what US citizens think about domestic events feels like a brazen thing for an ally to do.
- wyldberry 2y agoAlly doesn't mean you stop your intelligence services against them. It simply means there are things you agree about, currently, and agree to do. Everyone is always jockeying for power. No one stops trying to influence their allies.
- afavour 2y agoYeah, I'm aware. I didn't say I'm surprised Israel is trying to influence US public opinion, I said I'm surprised how brazen they are being about it. Using your intelligence services behind the scenes is very different to paying to publicly promote tweets from your official national account.
- NomDePlum 2y agoThat being the case then why are the objections raised when other countries do similar? Iran, Russia, or China, for instance.
- golergka 2y ago[flagged]
- afavour 2y ago[flagged]
- golergka 2y ago[flagged]
- cheeseomlit 2y agoBecause they're supposed to be our allies and respect our institutions? No reasonable person in the US is comfortable with foreign governments meddling in our politics in any way, just because some of our adversaries have gotten away with it is not some tacit endorsement of it. If Israel is going to behave like an adversary then why should we maintain the pretense of being allies at all? Clearly they just see us as a blunt instrument to beat their regional rivals with and nothing more.
- afavour 2y ago> And US clearly doesn't see it as a hostile action I doubt that. I think they do see it as a hostile action but one they can do little about (or at least isn't worth doing anything about). But again, they're an adversary. Adversarial behavior is to be expected. > So, if Israel's enemies are doing this and US doesn't see it as something bad, is there a single reason why Israel shouldn't do it as well? Because Israel is an ally? I feel like I'm being pretty clear about that point. Israel has an absolute ton of channels of communication available to the US government that adversaries do not. An ally ignoring those channels and instead appealing to the US population directly strikes me as quite brazen.
- mardifoufs 2y agoExcept that we have had clear proof for one, and just hand wavy "they are doing it too!! The Iranians or the qataris or whatever!!" for the other. We also know that Israel has army units dedicated to this. Like, it's well documented even from Israeli sources So yes, it's whatboutism but even worse, it's putting those two on the same level when they absolutely are not. What's the Iranian or Qatari equivalent of AIPAC?
- sequoia 2y ago[flagged]
- afavour 2y agoAll I'm doing here is recounting my personal experience. > When the USA is debating policy towards a smaller country, any country in this position does everything they can to sway opinion in their favour. Perhaps, but I can think of no other time when I've logged onto social media to see a promoted post by the official account of a US ally aiming to influence my opinion of a US domestic issue. Maybe my memory is faulty and there are many other examples. If so I'd be more than happy to be corrected, I'm genuinely curious.
- Melchizedek 2y agoIf the tropes are true they’re not really antisemitic, are they?