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U.S. won’t withhold aid to Israel, walking back threat over conditions in Gaza
(www.washingtonpost.com)
this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2024
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At this point I believe the US simply can't withhold support from Israel for some reason.
And they also can't publically disclose why that is.
But the consequences of withholding aid must be worse (at least for those in government positions) than a Trump dictatorship.
Isn’t it obvious? Israel is the only stable government in the region and provides the U.S. with valuable aid and resources in return. I’m not condoning the genocide. The hope was the alliance would outlive the Netanyahu government that is taking this action. Unfortunately, Trump winning means America lost its bargaining chip for ending the war peacefully.
I know it's hard for some people to believe but USA is a racist, genocidal empire run by the extremely privileged indoctrinated with planet-destroying capitalist ideology.
True, but Israel isn't profitable. If it was a US citizen they'd let it die homeless on the street with no healthcare or food.
Empire isn't profitable to the workers. What's good for the genersl population is not what's good for the beneficiaries of empire. Ask Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Haliburton and ExxonMobil if they'd rather Israel not exist.
I mean, in theory you could overpay Raytheon execs to provide free school lunches or something. Using weapons of mass destruction as your specific grift to funnel money to the overlords is a choice.
This is a misunderstanding of the economic imperatives of imperialism. The US and its billionaire class can only achieve their lavish way of life by way of robbing the entirety of the global south, where most raw resources and manufactured goods come from, via capital extraction.
They force foreign governments to deregulate their economies and open up trade with the US, which means the US getting cheap goods with inflated dollars it can issue at will and poor countries getting dollars it can either reinvest in treasury bonds or redeem at extortionate rates. More often, it's getting cheap labor to produce goods it will sell in the US at ridiculous margins to the American public. The vehicle for this deregulation is often the IMF imposing those rules to get loans to repay debts (often owed as reparations for declaring independence or irresponsibly issued loans at adjustable rates) but it is understood that the alternative is getting a barrage from one of the 900+ military bases the US has scattered around the world or a visit from the CIA.
After WW2, when the US emerged mostly unscathed with a huge industrial base and nuclear weapons to boot, the American public got a slice of the profit off the US making the dollar the reserve currency of the world, but that wasn't enough for corporate America. As the world slowly recovered and the rate of profit diminished there's been scheme after scheme to rob the rest of the world via the petrodollar, or ever more frequent military intervention, because the dollar can't be allowed to fall.
To cut a long story short, the American public has been paying for every loss of the MIC and the bourgeoisie at large, while financing all of their operations with their dollar and, most importantly, their labor. As long as the US tries to be the hegemon, somebody has to provide them with research, weapons, and boots to put on the ground. That industry must be handsomely rewarded, because it's the militant arm of the ruling class. Israel is merely a vessel to project military power and funnel federal money to arms dealers. The empire feeds off the republic.
Several theories:
Epstein was mossad. There are a lot of tapes with a lot of people.
Lots of Zionist billionaires: America is a plutocracy that acts on their behalf
Some sort of "great game" calculus of keeping a client state for regional instability (Biden apparently believes this based on old speeches)
Biden in particular has a melted brain. Many people have pointed out that Reagan was tougher on Israel than Biden has been. Reagan would set red lines and then say "you will comply."
I'm convinced the answer is "Israel absolutely has nukes and will use them if we stop providing them conventional arms"
But the real answer is probably as mundane as "They are the core of US power projection and intelligence gathering in the middle east, and we really don't want to lose that level of influence in the region".
This is what Biden and probably other Washington ghouls think but if Israel is "projecting" American power then to what end? Meaning, what US interests are served? Cheaper oil? That's our relationship with SA which is potentially hurt by Israel's behavior (Israel, importantly, has no oil, we'd be better off normalizing with Iran). US bases? We don't have any bases in Israel, that would be Turkey, Bahrain, etc. Do you think Israel ever considers US interests before acting? If they did historically they definitely do not under Netanyahu.
With regards to intelligence, I am sure that when intelligence is shared it's done so to craft a narrative that Tel Aviv wants Washington to believe. Also mossad is the most pervasive, aggressive, and successful spy agency in Washington. The flow of information is heavily one-sided.
Biden, like many others in both the Democratic and Republican Party, are Christian Zionists. It's ideological above all else for them. But I bet the money doesn't hurt
I mean, it's a highly visible strategic military position. I'm sure that American can technically give it up, but it's a huge cost.
US is global military hegemon, no matter how many civ games might make one think they have a cultural victory.
A huge cost for whom?
The US is when you've dominated the map militarily, neuter the other civs instead of sacking them, and then spend the rest of the game uncontested getting the cultural victory for the lulz.