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Any other small country? You rarely read about Finland spying on other nations, or trying to influence their politics. There is the AIPAC, I challenge you to
by Gud 4mo ago
Any other small country?
You rarely read about Finland spying on other nations, or trying to influence their politics.
There is the AIPAC, I challenge you to find anything similar from any other country.
- trimethylpurine 4mo ago[flagged]
- Gud 4mo agoNone of those groups funnel millions of dollars into American congress men and congress women’s pockets. You are being disingenuous.
- trimethylpurine 4mo agoNearly half a billion dollars in annual lobbying is attributable to oil money. It's okay for OPEC's foreign interests in your book, but you're focused on the tiny impact that Israel has. Saudi money good, Israeli money bad? What's up with that?
- Lucasoato 4mo agoI don’t know man, never heard about Finnish people decimating a population, starving kids, subverting countries, toppling governments... I’ve been in Finland last year and they’re so nice.
- trimethylpurine 4mo ago[flagged]
- aaomidi 4mo agoIsrael is committing a genocide. This is undisputed at good point. The way I’m reading your comment is justifying that the genocide is necessary for Israel’s survival. If that is where the pendulum is today, there’s no discussion to be had.
- mhb 4mo ago[flagged]
- aaomidi 4mo agoI’m not going to argue with you. I’m going to leave a comment for others to inform themselves that you’re wrong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_genocide
- mhb 4mo ago[flagged]
- trimethylpurine 4mo ago[flagged]
- Matl 4mo ago> Must be nice to live in a country where your neighbors don't blame you for killing Jesus and want to exterminate you. Says a country that's been credibly accused of trying to exterminate its neighbors you mean? The absolute lack of self-reflection that is on display here is something else.
- trimethylpurine 4mo agoLack of self reflection? I'm American. I'm in my living room judging a nation that kidnapped Jewish kids. I don't need to reflect on anything. I didn't do that, and I'm fully justified in telling you that it's wrong to do that. I didn't fire rockets from schools to hide behind children. That's reserved for Hamas, and Iran. I don't see Israel doing that. Someone definitely needs to self reflect. It's those people. It's not Israelis. Children are sacred. Life is sacred. IRGC apparently doesn't see it that way. Hamas apparently doesn't. And you apparently don't either. That's on you. You don't have a leg to stand on where it comes to morality. That's obvious to everyone in America, just to be clear. You think the left supports Gaza? The moment they see that Hamas is using children as rocket shields they won't. That's all temporary. It's incompatible with American society. It will never work for you. You only have some support right now because you've managed to hide that fact. But we both know you're okay with it. It's for the cause, in your mind. Tell me I'm wrong. Go ahead.
- ImPostingOnHN 4mo agoHonestly, I agree with the previous comment on your need for self-reflection. Everything you're accusing Palestinians of doing, israel has done: Hides behind civilians? Check; Discounts the sanctity of children's lives? Check; Kidnapped kids? Check; Kills them, too. Don't kill civilians. Don't kill children. Especially if they're being used as human shields. It really is that easy. Whatever desires israel may have (exterminating Palestinians, taking their land, a feeling of absolute security) are secondary to that (as in, less important), and can be addressed when their child killing and civilian killing stops.
- trimethylpurine 4mo ago
- asibahi 4mo agoNot to get into an argument, but most of the population in the Middle East are Muslim who don't give two shits who killed Jesus because they don't believe he was killed to begin with.
- MSFT_Edging 4mo agoYou can point to the recent invasion of Lebanon and the image of an IDF soldier taking a sledge hammer to a statue of Jesus. Those might be the upset neighbors. Rightfully so as they were told to evacuate their homes so the homes could be leveled for a "buffer zone". If Israel wants to be taken seriously as a nation of "normal people", they need to do something about the extreme nationalism and hate in their ranks, and the racket of protecting settlers who attack Palestinians in their homes.
- hirvi74 4mo agoMaybe not to that level, but the Sámi people have faced their share of hardships.
- yurish 4mo agoYou mean in recent history? Because Finns were nazi allies during WWII and participated in Siege of Leningrad starving hundreds of thousands to death. They also organized network of concentration camps during the war.
- ImPostingOnHN 4mo agoYikes, it's a bad look for israel to be doing the same thing again now, after everything the world has been through.
- myth_drannon 4mo agoFrom https://www.opensecrets.org/ https://www.opensecrets.org/ Totals since 2016 Country Total Spending China $562,676,323 Japan $504,111,211 Liberia $432,968,270 Saudi Arabia $421,890,448 Marshall Islands $382,012,024 South Korea $363,237,700 Bahamas $293,205,139 United Arab Emirates $269,529,107 Qatar $269,260,794 Israel $215,168,616 So for small countries UAE and Qatar(no surprise here, they just gifted 1 billion airplane to Trump)
- Matl 4mo agoThis excludes US based groups lobbying for Israeli interests, which does not count under official spending by Israel, so it is not an accurate representation of the lobbying effort in the interests of Israel.
- woodruffw 4mo agoThat seems like the categorically correct thing to do, for the same reason that (for example) a domestic Korean-American nonprofit that lobbies for Korean interests doesn’t get counted as foreign money or influence. (Perhaps it should be! But it should be consistent, whatever it is.)
- Matl 4mo ago> Perhaps it should be! But it should be consistent, whatever it is. Agreed. Any lobbying that centers on the interests of a foreign country should IMO count as foreign lobbying, I have no problem in including Korean-Americans, Kenyan-Americans etc. in that too.
- woodruffw 4mo agoWell, so here's the question: what counts as the interests of a foreign country? AIPAC's entire lobbying stance is that its positions are mutually beneficial to both the US and Israel, and this is the stance that every other national/ethnic affinity group in the US uses as well. Put another way: it seems very risky to allow the federal government to determine the propriety of political speech just because it happens to concern two (or more countries) at once.
- RobotToaster 4mo agoIf the I in AIPAC stood for Italian they would call it a Mafia organisation.
- trimethylpurine 4mo agoThey'd be better off. No one would demand that everyone in Italy be handed over for execution.