9 ms·

I don't think I've ever seen in all of my wide understanding of history, such a tiny state successfully make an empire its vassal. Truly an astounding feat. It

I don't think I've ever seen in all of my wide understanding of history, such a tiny state successfully make an empire its vassal. Truly an astounding feat. It would be highly entertaining if it didn't bode poorly for humanity.

ruggeri 5mo ago
I don’t agree with the assessment, but in terms of a great power being very interested in the interests of a small country, consider Serbia and Russia before WWI.
- throwaway27448 5mo ago
  I agree vassal is the wrong term... but we are currently committing global economic suicide on behalf of Israel's interests. I'm not sure what word is appropriate. Perhaps we need a new one. I'll look at Serbia, thank you.
  - fintechjock 5mo ago
    [flagged]
  - thin_carapace 5mo ago
    suzerain
  - bruce511 5mo ago
    While too big a subject to cover well here, the Serbia / Russia thing is different to US / Israel. Primarily a Russia friendly Serbia was important for Russian trade routes (Black Sea to Mediterranean via the Dardanelles.) In other words geography made Serbia important. In a twist on that theme, the strait of Hormuz is important to, well everyone, and we now see how geography can magnify a countries strategic value. There were other factors which came into play with Russia. Ethnically Serbia was aligned with Russia - similar to the US / Israel relationship today. It also didn't hurt that Russia at the time was experiencing internal discontent and this was a convenient way to thin the population, and get rid of malcontents. (Ironically would end up having the opposite effect of organizing, arming and training an army that ultimately would be instrumental in the revolution. ) The history leading up to ww1 is fascinating- so many players, all with really "big picture" goals, mostly with weak leadership.. Ultimately conflict was inevitable- if it hadn't been the arch-duke it would have been something else.
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
solenoid0937 5mo ago
In part it's because they have the best intelligence apparatus in the world. I'm very impressed at how far above their weight they're punching.
- s5300 5mo ago
  [dead]
- Chu4eeno 5mo ago
  If you can see enough of what an intelligence apparatus is doing to be impressed I'd say they're not doing a very good job. What they seem to be most unique in is the impunity of their operations, like when they assassinated a completely innocent guy in Norway, of all places: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillehammer_affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillehammer_affair
  - ALLTaken 5mo ago
    wow, that's shocking to read. Didn't hear about this in any European news.
    - throwaway27448 5mo ago
      Assassination is sort of the mossad's thing. I highly recommend the book "Rise and Kill First" (by an Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman) who describes this approach to international relations as something approaching an addiction. He alleges they've assassinated more people than any country on earth since their founding in 1948 and lays out a very convincing picture (to the extent he can—there are moments when you can tell he would like to state things more baldly).
- m-ee 5mo ago
  The best intelligence apparatus in the world missed the Oct 7 planning which Egyptian intelligence noticed, told the Israelis about directly, and still went ignored?
  - 5mo ago
WarmWash 5mo ago
Really it comes down to religion, and Israel being the bastion of anti-islam in the Middle East. Doesn't hurt that they are also liberal democracy and have advanced economy as well.
- Terr_ 5mo ago
  > liberal democracy With a big honking caveat-asterisk that it only applies if you're on the right side of the apartheid.
  - jfengel 5mo ago
    Well, on the right side of the border. Everybody within the actual borders can vote, regardless of race, religion, etc. In a lot of ways it's a more democratic system than the US has, with multiple functioning parties. The "apartheid" part is the people in the West Bank and Gaza, who are not Israeli but also not their own country.
    - throw310822 5mo ago
      > Everybody within the actual borders can vote Unless you're a Palestinian in illegally annexed Jerusalem... Then you don't have citizenship and have to keep proving that you live and work in Jerusalem to avoid losing the residency rights.
      - SilverElfin 5mo ago
        [flagged]
        Terr_ 5mo ago
        > lived in that region first The whole premise/approach of "here first" is deeply flawed, and I think this blackly humorous cartoon [0] is a relevant critique of it. Tying things back to earlier discussion, here's the thing: One can either say a place is a "liberal democracy" or it can disenfranchise people due to events thousands of years ago, but you cannot do both. Democratically speaking, people whose lives are principally controlled by a government today deserve (for their hardship) a say in its operation today. What happened even a single generation ago is irrelevant to that relationship of duty and obligation. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-evIyrrjTTY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-evIyrrjTTY
slg 5mo ago
I don't like how Americans dismiss their own agency in this all. This is not being forced on us by Israel. A huge and underdiscussed reason why the US and Israel have the relationship they do is because of the roughly 100m American Evangelicals that want it that way. That's also why the GOP is seen as the party more favorable to Israel (not that the Democrats are necessarily adversarial, but they clearly aren't as agreeable as a whole).
- vmchale 5mo ago
  It's not American evangelicals. It's been a long campaign and the evangelicals are still being targeted by Israel because no one else is left, but there aren't enough American evangelicals to swing things. Not to mention, it often comes down to primary voters, to say nothing of Hollywood/media blacklists > the Democrats are necessarily adversarial, but they clearly aren't as agreeable as a whole). Democrats only changed recently. For some decades before that, the Israel lobby had significant sway over them (including allowing dems to publicly admit certain things).
  - dopesoap 5mo ago
    [dead]
- afpx 5mo ago
  That's really interesting. I am an Evangelical, and no one that I know supports Israel. Could it be something else?
  - jmatthews 5mo ago
    It's always weird hearing yourself described and recognizing approximately nothing, right? The hubris to think a group of people could precipitate the rapture is just awe inspiring and the hubris to reduce someone's relationship with the creator to some Wikipedia excerpts is a bit less awe inspiring.
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
CMay 5mo ago
The US is neither a vassal of Israel nor simply doing its bidding. That is poor propaganda. If you operate with a lens that forces you to ask "how is this Israel's fault?" without ever asking any other question, you're going to end up mostly with answers that are only for entertainment value the same way you would if you asked any LLM a leading question that already assumed a desired answer.
- whyage 5mo ago
  > The US is neither a vassal of Israel nor simply doing its bidding. This is propaganda as well, only more agreeable to you.
  - CMay 5mo ago
    What questions did you ask to arrive at that conclusion?
- Georgelemental 5mo ago
  It's not Israel's "fault" that American leaders are slavishly loyal to them. Israel is just putting their country first, as is their duty. It's 100% on American politicians for failing in their duty to put America first
  - CMay 5mo ago
    We are putting America first. Usually when we get involved in anything, it's a result of many reasons intersecting. We tend to wait until enough reasons pile up that acting is worth it. If the only reason you can think of is Israel, who trained your brain to default to that? Who does it benefit for them to be invested in making you think that way? You are bombarded with so many things that tell you everything is bad and going wrong in the world, it's easy to get pulled into the gravity of it without ever asking what is going right? So much so, people deny anything is going right, emotionally. There is a large gap between what the general populace understands about the world and how it works, versus the actual logic that causes the world events. When the gap is large like that it takes more effort to understand and so fewer people in the world will. The harder it is to understand, the easier it is for people to spread lies about. Does consensus alone make something true? No.
SilverElfin 5mo ago
[flagged]
- StanislavPetrov 5mo ago
  >But let’s not be under any illusion as to what the Iran regime was and still is - an authoritarian theocracy that backs numerous proxy terrorist groups across Asia. And let’s not be under any illusion as to what the Isaeli regime was and still is - an authoritarian theocracy that has slaughtered more women and children in the last year than all of the terrorist groups in the world combined.
  - SilverElfin 5mo ago
    [flagged]
    - deleted 5mo ago
      [deleted]
    - pillefitz 5mo ago
      You are a disgrace calling this genocide "self-defense". Seriously. Denying civilians access to fresh water, ambushing ambulances and now blaming the victims? This is utterly disgusting.
    - mahkeiro 5mo ago
      Just watching how emergency workers in Lebanon get double tapped (among hundreds of hundreds of other awful things), how Hospital are getting bombed killing doctors and medical personnel to Red Cross and WHO total indignation is enough to tell you that Israel is a war crime machine.
      - zthrowaway 5mo ago
        Also realize that a lot of these people that are being slaughtered are Christians.
  - 5mo ago
IAmGraydon 5mo ago
Can you list the measures by which you believe that Israel has made the US its vassal?
- solarhoma 5mo ago
  American companies must sign a document signifying they will not boycott Israel if the company wants to get government contracts, it was illegal to burn the Israeli flag in the US before it was illegal to burn the US flag, 99% of congress votes in favor of Israel (as evidenced by Thomas Massie’s recent primary Israel will spend $$$ to buy a US politicians seat if they do not support Israel).
  - jraby3 5mo ago
    Massie going against Trump is why he lost. Plenty of republican politicians are against Israel.
    - solarhoma 5mo ago
      The money to oust Massie came almost exclusively from pro-Israel groups. Who then celebrated their ability to control US elections.
  - giardini 5mo ago
    solarhoma sez "it was illegal to burn the Israeli flag in the US before it was illegal to burn the US flag," It is legal to burn the USA flag in the USA.
    - solarhoma 5mo ago
      Ok. Then my point stands even more firmly that you are able to burn the flag of the country you reside in yet cannot burn the flag of a foreign nation.
      - giardini 5mo ago
        Nope. For the most part in the USA you can burn any flag provided you aren't violating some property law or safety statute by doing so.
bsaul 5mo ago
if this was the case, there would be no state sponsoring palestinian terrorism for a long time. Look at what happened after 9/11, it's pretty clear there's a wide difference between how US consider its own security matter vs israel's one.
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]

ruggeri 5mo ago

I don’t agree with the assessment, but in terms of a great power being very interested in the interests of a small country, consider Serbia and Russia before WWI.

throwaway27448 5mo ago
I agree vassal is the wrong term... but we are currently committing global economic suicide on behalf of Israel's interests. I'm not sure what word is appropriate. Perhaps we need a new one. I'll look at Serbia, thank you.
- fintechjock 5mo ago
  [flagged]
- thin_carapace 5mo ago
  suzerain
- bruce511 5mo ago
  While too big a subject to cover well here, the Serbia / Russia thing is different to US / Israel. Primarily a Russia friendly Serbia was important for Russian trade routes (Black Sea to Mediterranean via the Dardanelles.) In other words geography made Serbia important. In a twist on that theme, the strait of Hormuz is important to, well everyone, and we now see how geography can magnify a countries strategic value. There were other factors which came into play with Russia. Ethnically Serbia was aligned with Russia - similar to the US / Israel relationship today. It also didn't hurt that Russia at the time was experiencing internal discontent and this was a convenient way to thin the population, and get rid of malcontents. (Ironically would end up having the opposite effect of organizing, arming and training an army that ultimately would be instrumental in the revolution. ) The history leading up to ww1 is fascinating- so many players, all with really "big picture" goals, mostly with weak leadership.. Ultimately conflict was inevitable- if it hadn't been the arch-duke it would have been something else.
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]

solenoid0937 5mo ago

In part it's because they have the best intelligence apparatus in the world. I'm very impressed at how far above their weight they're punching.

s5300 5mo ago
[dead]
Chu4eeno 5mo ago
If you can see enough of what an intelligence apparatus is doing to be impressed I'd say they're not doing a very good job. What they seem to be most unique in is the impunity of their operations, like when they assassinated a completely innocent guy in Norway, of all places: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillehammer_affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillehammer_affair
- ALLTaken 5mo ago
  wow, that's shocking to read. Didn't hear about this in any European news.
  - throwaway27448 5mo ago
    Assassination is sort of the mossad's thing. I highly recommend the book "Rise and Kill First" (by an Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman) who describes this approach to international relations as something approaching an addiction. He alleges they've assassinated more people than any country on earth since their founding in 1948 and lays out a very convincing picture (to the extent he can—there are moments when you can tell he would like to state things more baldly).
m-ee 5mo ago
The best intelligence apparatus in the world missed the Oct 7 planning which Egyptian intelligence noticed, told the Israelis about directly, and still went ignored?
- 5mo ago

WarmWash 5mo ago

Really it comes down to religion, and Israel being the bastion of anti-islam in the Middle East. Doesn't hurt that they are also liberal democracy and have advanced economy as well.

Terr_ 5mo ago
> liberal democracy With a big honking caveat-asterisk that it only applies if you're on the right side of the apartheid.
- jfengel 5mo ago
  Well, on the right side of the border. Everybody within the actual borders can vote, regardless of race, religion, etc. In a lot of ways it's a more democratic system than the US has, with multiple functioning parties. The "apartheid" part is the people in the West Bank and Gaza, who are not Israeli but also not their own country.
  - throw310822 5mo ago
    > Everybody within the actual borders can vote Unless you're a Palestinian in illegally annexed Jerusalem... Then you don't have citizenship and have to keep proving that you live and work in Jerusalem to avoid losing the residency rights.
    - SilverElfin 5mo ago
      [flagged]
      - Terr_ 5mo ago
        > lived in that region first The whole premise/approach of "here first" is deeply flawed, and I think this blackly humorous cartoon [0] is a relevant critique of it. Tying things back to earlier discussion, here's the thing: One can either say a place is a "liberal democracy" or it can disenfranchise people due to events thousands of years ago, but you cannot do both. Democratically speaking, people whose lives are principally controlled by a government today deserve (for their hardship) a say in its operation today. What happened even a single generation ago is irrelevant to that relationship of duty and obligation. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-evIyrrjTTY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-evIyrrjTTY

slg 5mo ago

I don't like how Americans dismiss their own agency in this all. This is not being forced on us by Israel. A huge and underdiscussed reason why the US and Israel have the relationship they do is because of the roughly 100m American Evangelicals that want it that way. That's also why the GOP is seen as the party more favorable to Israel (not that the Democrats are necessarily adversarial, but they clearly aren't as agreeable as a whole).

vmchale 5mo ago
It's not American evangelicals. It's been a long campaign and the evangelicals are still being targeted by Israel because no one else is left, but there aren't enough American evangelicals to swing things. Not to mention, it often comes down to primary voters, to say nothing of Hollywood/media blacklists > the Democrats are necessarily adversarial, but they clearly aren't as agreeable as a whole). Democrats only changed recently. For some decades before that, the Israel lobby had significant sway over them (including allowing dems to publicly admit certain things).
- dopesoap 5mo ago
  [dead]
afpx 5mo ago
That's really interesting. I am an Evangelical, and no one that I know supports Israel. Could it be something else?
- jmatthews 5mo ago
  It's always weird hearing yourself described and recognizing approximately nothing, right? The hubris to think a group of people could precipitate the rapture is just awe inspiring and the hubris to reduce someone's relationship with the creator to some Wikipedia excerpts is a bit less awe inspiring.
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]

CMay 5mo ago

The US is neither a vassal of Israel nor simply doing its bidding. That is poor propaganda. If you operate with a lens that forces you to ask "how is this Israel's fault?" without ever asking any other question, you're going to end up mostly with answers that are only for entertainment value the same way you would if you asked any LLM a leading question that already assumed a desired answer.

whyage 5mo ago
> The US is neither a vassal of Israel nor simply doing its bidding. This is propaganda as well, only more agreeable to you.
- CMay 5mo ago
  What questions did you ask to arrive at that conclusion?
Georgelemental 5mo ago
It's not Israel's "fault" that American leaders are slavishly loyal to them. Israel is just putting their country first, as is their duty. It's 100% on American politicians for failing in their duty to put America first
- CMay 5mo ago
  We are putting America first. Usually when we get involved in anything, it's a result of many reasons intersecting. We tend to wait until enough reasons pile up that acting is worth it. If the only reason you can think of is Israel, who trained your brain to default to that? Who does it benefit for them to be invested in making you think that way? You are bombarded with so many things that tell you everything is bad and going wrong in the world, it's easy to get pulled into the gravity of it without ever asking what is going right? So much so, people deny anything is going right, emotionally. There is a large gap between what the general populace understands about the world and how it works, versus the actual logic that causes the world events. When the gap is large like that it takes more effort to understand and so fewer people in the world will. The harder it is to understand, the easier it is for people to spread lies about. Does consensus alone make something true? No.

SilverElfin 5mo ago

[flagged]

StanislavPetrov 5mo ago
>But let’s not be under any illusion as to what the Iran regime was and still is - an authoritarian theocracy that backs numerous proxy terrorist groups across Asia. And let’s not be under any illusion as to what the Isaeli regime was and still is - an authoritarian theocracy that has slaughtered more women and children in the last year than all of the terrorist groups in the world combined.
- SilverElfin 5mo ago
  [flagged]
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
  - pillefitz 5mo ago
    You are a disgrace calling this genocide "self-defense". Seriously. Denying civilians access to fresh water, ambushing ambulances and now blaming the victims? This is utterly disgusting.
  - mahkeiro 5mo ago
    Just watching how emergency workers in Lebanon get double tapped (among hundreds of hundreds of other awful things), how Hospital are getting bombed killing doctors and medical personnel to Red Cross and WHO total indignation is enough to tell you that Israel is a war crime machine.
    - zthrowaway 5mo ago
      Also realize that a lot of these people that are being slaughtered are Christians.
- 5mo ago

IAmGraydon 5mo ago

Can you list the measures by which you believe that Israel has made the US its vassal?

solarhoma 5mo ago
American companies must sign a document signifying they will not boycott Israel if the company wants to get government contracts, it was illegal to burn the Israeli flag in the US before it was illegal to burn the US flag, 99% of congress votes in favor of Israel (as evidenced by Thomas Massie’s recent primary Israel will spend $$$ to buy a US politicians seat if they do not support Israel).
- jraby3 5mo ago
  Massie going against Trump is why he lost. Plenty of republican politicians are against Israel.
  - solarhoma 5mo ago
    The money to oust Massie came almost exclusively from pro-Israel groups. Who then celebrated their ability to control US elections.
- giardini 5mo ago
  solarhoma sez "it was illegal to burn the Israeli flag in the US before it was illegal to burn the US flag," It is legal to burn the USA flag in the USA.
  - solarhoma 5mo ago
    Ok. Then my point stands even more firmly that you are able to burn the flag of the country you reside in yet cannot burn the flag of a foreign nation.
    - giardini 5mo ago
      Nope. For the most part in the USA you can burn any flag provided you aren't violating some property law or safety statute by doing so.

bsaul 5mo ago

if this was the case, there would be no state sponsoring palestinian terrorism for a long time. Look at what happened after 9/11, it's pretty clear there's a wide difference between how US consider its own security matter vs israel's one.

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]