I saw an article about them attacking Lebanon now. So, where will it stop? Have the Israeli government ever spoken about this?

  • @[email protected]
    7•5 months ago

    The U.S. has long needed a bully in the area to prevent the Middle East from being too unified, so the west can get relatively inexpensive access to its oil.

    Is there any evidence to directly prove this claim? This sounds like a made up justification to validate your own opinions. The Middle East isn’t divided by the US, it’s divided by its own history of imperialism, colonization, oppression and violence based on religious and ethnic lines accross the centuries. There’s really no incentive for the US keep the Middle East divided, not to mention that oil producing countries are already united through OPEC.

    Besides, why would the US need a bully when it’s directly allied with Gulf states? Not only that but those states are also allied with Israel. Who exactly is bullying who? The only agreed upon bully in the region is Iran, it’s actually the uniting factor between the Gulf states and the Israelis. Not to mention that the US doesn’t need a bully because it’s more than capable of doing what it wants.

    The state of play right now is that the U.S. actually produces enough petroleum for its own needs, but our western allies do not, and supplying them with enough oil will raise the cost to an unacceptable level/a level where they’ll have to channel money to the Middle East (which hates the U.S. for its meddling, or to Russia, which also hates the U.S.)

    You understand that it’s not only American allies that rely on Middle Eastern oil, right? China, India, Southeast Asia, and so on all rely on Middle Eastern oil and they all have a vested interest in keeping it flowing. If anything, the US is incentivized to sell its own oil since it’s a net exporter.

    In about 10-15 years, technology and renewables will advance to a point where oil demand is going to have decreased to the point where the U.S. can supply all of its needs and those of its western allies without jacking the price up.

    Again, is there any source that backs up this prediction?

    But it will mean that the U.S. will cut funding to Israel, and more or less stop coming to their defense.

    This idea that Israel only exists due to US funding is a myth. Israel won all its major wars by itself and it has one of the world’s largest and most resilient economies. US aid, which is almost entirely in the form of loans or weapons contracts, account for less than 1% of Israel’s GDP.

    Israel’s plan is to push out every non-Jew, using Zionism as an excuse for awful statecraft, and they’re going to push their borders to easily defensible geographic areas.

    20% of Israel’s citizens aren’t Jewish. Also do you even know what Zionism is?

    Because if they don’t, everyone they’ve been bullying for the past hundred years (yes, this started before the declaration of statehood), is going to wipe them from the map - potentially leading to them launching the nukes they keep pretending they don’t have, so they don’t have to undergo international monitoring.

    This is historically illiterate point of view. First of all, Israel isn’t the bully in this conflict, especially before statehood. If you look at the actual history, you’ll how muslims in the region collaborated with the Nazis to help eradicate the Jews during WWII or how the Arab world rejected the 1947 UN peace plan and invaded Israel with the intention to destroy it or again in 1967 during the six day war or again in 1973 Yom Kippur war or the 1920 Nebi Musa riots against Jews in Jerusalem or the 1921 Jaffa riots or the Jaffa deportations by the Ottomans in 1917 or the 1929 riots and massacres (including the Hebron Massacre which destroyed the ancient community there) or the insane number of Palestinian terrorist groups and their attacks on civilians. The number is comically large that there are entire databases dedicated just recording all of them:

    https://www.johnstonsarchive.net/terrorism/terrisraelsum.html

    https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/comprehensive-listing-of-terrorism-victims-in-israel

    Hell, even Wikipedia can’t fit all of them in a single article:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Terrorist_incidents_in_Israel_by_year

    Ffs, the Palestinian leadership at the time, which is arguably the foundation of the modern Palestinian national identity, literally cooperated with the Nazis to a comical degree. The leader at the time, Amin al-Husseini, and his administration literally flew out to Germany and personally met with Hitler. There they both expressed praise and support for each other, and declared desire for cooperation to reach their mutual goals of defeating the British and genociding the Jews. Amin al-Husseini directly told Hitler that Jews shouldn’t get a national home, that they were natural allies in their fight against the Jews, and that Fascism is a righteous ideology. Hitler was so impressed that he called him the most important leader in the Middle East and an Aryan because he was white, blone, and had blue eyes. The thing is that muslims at home celebrated the new ties with the axis powers and cooperation between went through the roof. The Palestinian identity was quite literally founded on antisemitism.

    Do I need to keep going? I hope not. Keep in mind, this is all history. You can look all of this up yourself to verify.

    we may see a full scale war against Israel before their aims are achieved.

    We have already seen this play out at least three times. All of these wars were coalition wars provoked by the muslim Arabs seeking the full destruction of Israel, and every time Israel won.

    That’s my take on it, anyway. They won’t stop because they don’t think they can stop, due to how horrible they’ve been.

    What a bad take. The reason they’re still fighting is because they’re still being attacked.

    • @[email protected]English
      10•5 months ago

      Oooh. I attracted a 1-day old account that conveniently doesn’t know about U.S. statecraft toward the Middle East for the last 70 years, doesn’t know about the long history of arms transfers to Israel, doesn’t know about the Balfour Declaration, the Jewish terrorism against Britain and Palestine until Britain left the area, or the genocides that happened as soon as Britain stopped offering protection to the Palestinians. You conveniently seem to fail to understand geopolitics in any meaningful contexts.
      And then you “Source?” my (very well informed) opinions.

      lol. No. Don’t waste my time.

      • @[email protected]
        3•5 months ago

        Lol imagine feeling so attacked by someone calling out and criticizing your blatantly made up and ignorant claims that you actually resort to a toddler level insult where you call me stupid, call yourself “well informed” (lmao), and then put yourself on the back for it as if you actually did anything more than clown yourself. I was right on the money, you don’t actually have any idea what you’re talking about. You just regurgitate the propaganda you consume on echo chambers like Lemmy, and then make up stuff to fill the gaps. But I agree, I won’t waste your time because that would mean I would be wasting my time on somebody who doesn’t actually bring anything of value. Now scurry back to your echo chamber before the big scary knowledge comes and destroys your ignorant worldviews. Shoo, go on then

        • @[email protected]English
          3•5 months ago

          Support your claims.

          Edit: With like, actual sources.

          And I didn’t call you stupid. I insinuated that your motives were suspect and that you are dishonest. But I am beginning to think you lack the ability to actually make supportable claims or debate people - which would probably mean … eh. *shrug*

          • @[email protected]
            3•5 months ago

            8 hour old account with 42 comments…

            I really hope it’s a hasbara account working hard and not someone with such an unbelievable capacity for missing the point.

    • @[email protected]
      6•5 months ago

      The Middle East isn’t divided by the US, it’s divided by its own history of imperialism, colonization, oppression and violence based on religious and ethnic lines accross the centuries. There’s really no incentive for the US keep the Middle East divided, not to mention that oil producing countries are already united through OPEC.

      Ahh yes. The Middle Easts own history. Clearly has nothing to do with French, British or US being the colonizing entities… And after all why would the US be interested in dividing a region that is connecting 3 continents and has the mos accessible of the main strategic ressources of the past two centuries.

      And of course all the plans of the US that specifically talked about destroying nations like Iraq and Syria and the invasion of Iraq to do exactly that… All coincidences! Who would be so mean to assume this to be part of larger strategies?

      • @[email protected]
        2•5 months ago

        This is such a brainless and oversimplified ideological point of view. If you actually bothered to look into the region, you would clearly see that there’s a lot more going on. For example:

        1. The Ottoman Empire genocided the Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians and a bunch of other minorities leaving them all to resent the Turks… especially since Turkey still officially denies that any of them even happened
        2. Turkey actively oppresses and squashes any attempt for Kurds to maintain their identity, let alone gain independence which leads them to hate the Turks. Just FYI, the Kurdish language, clothing, and culture was banned in Turkey until the 1980s.
        3. Turkey illegally occupies half of Cyprus under the pretext of “protecting the Turkish minorities”, and both Greece and Cyprus hate them for it because they’ve broken their treaties and are illegally occupying half of the country
        4. Syrians hate Turkey too because it invaded the north and still occupies parts of it
        5. The Turks hate Arabs and vice versa because Arabs view the Turks as colonizers turned heathens since they’re now secular and allow a bunch of things not allowed in islam, and the Turks view the Arabs as backwards religious fundamentalists who leech of them since there are millions Arab of refugees in Turkey
        6. Kuwait hates Iraq because it invaded in the 90s
        7. Iran and Iraq don’t like each other because of the Iran-Iraq war in the 80s
        8. The Iraqi Kurds hate the Arabs because Saddam Hussein genocided them
        9. The Sunni and Shia in Iraq hate each other because they’re different sects of the same religion, and oh they fought wars over it too
        10. Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon DESPISE Iran because it actively funds and arms terrorist militias that constantly terrorize them, steal their wealth, and keep their countries into unstable failed states
        11. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries hate Iran because they’re Shia and because they keep threatening their oil exports in the
        12. Saudi Arabia hates the Shia in Yemen (the Houthis)
        13. The Yemeni people hate Saudi Arabia because of the war they led against them
        14. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE, and Bahrain all severed ties with Qatar in 2017 because it funds terrorist groups inside their borders and because it uses Al Jazeera to pump out propaganda against them. In the case of Saudi Arabia, the mutual hatred got so bad that the royal family actually proposed digging a moat around Qatar to turn it into an island
        15. All of the islamic countries in the Middle East hate Israel because it’s Jewish
        16. Egypt and Turkey don’t like each other because Turkey is trying to claim the EEZ of the eastern Mediterranean, some of which is Egypt’s
        17. Armenia and Azerbaijan hate each other because Azerbaijan denies the Armenian genocide, because on is Christian and the other is muslim, and because of a territorial dispute created by Stalin that they’ve been fighting over for the past 30 years.
        18. Georgia hates Armenia, despite both of them being Christian nations, because they supported Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008
        19. Kuwait hates Palestine because they supported Saddam Hussein’s invasion in the 90s, which led Kuwait to expel all 350,000 Palestinians from its territory
        20. Jordan hates Palestine because they tried to overthrow the government when they took them in as refugees. This series of events was so bad it became known as black September
        21. Syria doesn’t like Palestine because they tried to overthrow the government during the Syrian civil war
        22. Egypt doesn’t like Palestine because they used the Sinai to commit terrorist attacks and they tried to overthrow the government. It got so bad that they joined Israel in their blockade against Gaza
        23. Saudi Arabia and the UAE also don’t like Palestine because despite all the numerous military, economic, and political aid… their efforts blew up in their faces. The UAE ended up recognizing Israel and Saudi Arabia released a 3 part documentary featuring one of their top diplomats that went through the history of Saudi Arabia’s support for Palestine and how the Palestinian leaders were liers, cheaters, and backstabbers
        24. Georgia doesn’t like Turkey because of its Ottoman past
        25. All the caucuses countries hate Russia because of their genocides and imperialism
        26. Syria hates Israel because they occupy Golan Heights
        27. Lebanon hates Israel because they invaded to stomp out Hezbollah
        28. Israel doesn’t like any of it’s neighbors because they’re Arabs and they all supported Palestine
        29. Israel also doesn’t like Lebanon specifically because of Hezbollah
        30. Iran and Israel hate each other because of religious fundamentalism
        31. Iranian people, especially the minorities, HATE their government because it’s theocratic and their government hates them back because the people are secular
        32. Israel doesn’t like Jordan, Syria, Egypt, or Lebanon because they invaded it before
        33. Christians hate muslims because they’ve been persecuting them
        34. Kurds in Syria don’t like the Arabs because they also tried to suppress them
        35. Turkey and Israel have a love hate relationship based on Netanyahu’s and Erdogan’s mood swings.

        The list goes on and on. No matter how recent or how far back you go, this region has ALWAYS been unstable, violent, and tyrannical. This because it’s in the crossroads of 3 continents like you said, but also because of geography and culture that reinforces the same cycles. Western powers did play a role, but trying to blame all the division, violence, and hatred in that region on the West is just ignorant.

        • @[email protected]
          3•5 months ago

          1…

          And Israel and the EU help Azerbaijan to continue ethnic cleansing of Armenians, in particular Israel by sending drones in exchange for Azerbaijani oil

          2…

          The Kurdish identity was deliberately squashed by the Western imperialists France and UK when they drew the borders after the fall of the Ottoman empire

          3…

          Turkey went into Cyprus when a western aided fascist Greek military junta government tried to take over Cyprus and make it part of Greece with ethnic cleansing against the Turks in Cyprus. Calling it an illegal occupation is again a western imperialist narrative ignoring the complicity in attempted ethnic cleansing or worse genocide by the Greek fascist military junta government of the time. In fact Turkey stepping in was pivotal to the fascist military junta falling apart and Greece returning to Democracy.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_invasion_of_Cyprus

          So already in your first three points you are showing either a lack of understanding, or deliberately downplaying the effects of western imperialist rule and its continuation into today. Armenians are allies of Palestine as they understand that they are victim of the same forces. In particular the Israel-Azerbaijan axis shows that it is not about religion, but about classic imperialist motives of ressources, power and money.

          • @[email protected]
            1•5 months ago

            And Israel and the EU help Azerbaijan to continue ethnic cleansing of Armenians, in particular Israel by sending drones in exchange for Azerbaijani oil

            This is blatantly false. France and Greece, for example, explicitly supported Armenia and the rest of the EU and NATO was largely neutral except for Turkey because they were dealing with Covid lockdowns.

            The Kurdish identity was deliberately squashed by the Western imperialists France and UK when they drew the borders after the fall of the Ottoman empire

            This is true but the squashing of the Kurds didn’t start with the West nor did end there, they merely continued something that already existed. The Ottoman Empire and the Arab empires before it were all explicitly suppressed the Kurds.

            Turkey went into Cyprus when a western aided fascist Greek military junta government tried to take over Cyprus and make it part of Greece with ethnic cleansing against the Turks in Cyprus. Calling it an illegal occupation is again a western imperialist narrative ignoring the complicity in attempted ethnic cleansing or worse genocide by the Greek fascist military junta government of the time. In fact Turkey stepping in was pivotal to the fascist military junta falling apart and Greece returning to Democracy.

            Such embarrassing ignorance. This is from the very wiki article that you linked:

            In 1983 the Turkish Cypriot assembly declared independence of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Immediately upon this declaration Britain convened a meeting of the United Nations Security Council to condemn the declaration as “legally invalid”. United Nations Security Council Resolution 541 (1983) considered the “attempt to create the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is invalid, and will contribute to a worsening of the situation in Cyprus”. It went on to state that it “considers the declaration referred to above as legally invalid and calls for its withdrawal”.

            The international community condemns Turkey’s illegal occupation of Cyprus. There is a reason why no country on earth except for the occupier, Turkey, recognizes this fake puppet state as a country. Even Turkey’s other puppet, Azerbaijan, which is the most loyal of Turkey’s allies doesn’t recognize it.

            Not only is the international community unanimously against Turkey, but they also violated the Treaty of Guaranteed of 1960. This was a joint agreement between Turkey, Cyprus, Greece, and the UK regarding the protection and territorial integrity of Cyprus. Turkey was one four principal signatories and one of the three supposed protectorates of Cyprus, and they only signed the treaty a few years before their occupation.

            This is taken directly from the Treaty of Guarantee of 1960:

            **Article II. **

            Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom, taking note of the undertakings of the Republic of Cyprus set out in Article I of the present Treaty, recognise and guarantee the independence, territorial integrity and security of the Republic of Cyprus, and also the state of affairs established by the Basic Articles of its Constitution. Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom likewise undertake to prohibit, so far as con cerns them, any activity aimed at promoting, directly or indirectly, either union of Cyprus with any other State or partition of the Island. Article IV. In the event of a breach of the provisions of the present Treaty, Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom undertake to consult together with respect to the representations or measures necessary to ensure observance of those provisions.

            In so far as common or concerted action may not prove possible, each of the three guaranteeing Powers reserves the right to take action with the sole aim of • re-establishing the state of affairs created by the present Treaty.

            You can read the full treaty right here: https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/CY GR TR_600816_Treaty of Guarantee.pdf

            As you can see Turkey is in clear violation of this treaty. It is refusing to cooperate with the other protectorates of this treaty and it is directly violating Cyprus’ sovereignty and territorial integrity.

            But actually gets even worse because the Turkish speaking Cypriots want to reunite with their Greek neighbors and unify the island, and there are have been ongoing demonstrations by the native people there for DECADES against Turkish occupation:

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Turkish_Cypriot_protests (50,000 to 80,000 people turned out, that’s about 1/3 of the 170,000 native Turkish speaking Cypriots) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/09/rising-anger-with-turkey-drives-calls-for-reunification-in-crisis-hit-northern-cyprus https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/15/erdogan-met-by-protests-from-turkish-cypriots-during-visit-northern-cyprus https://cyprus-mail.com/2024/04/26/hundreds-of-turkish-cypriots-protest-against-govt/ https://apnews.com/article/europe-middle-east-government-and-politics-united-nations-suburbs-235658ac64b564902747dc2225933899 https://apnews.com/ea58f13ac33a49479048df04357d78c7/Turkish-Cypriots-protest-Turkey’s-‘unwanted’-meddling

            What does Turkey do in response to this very clear opposition from the native Turkish speaking Cypriots who want them to leave, respect the treaties they’ve signed, and want to unite with the rest of the island? That’s right Turkey sends in over 100,000 non native Turkish residents to occupy the island: https://assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/XRef/X2H-Xref-ViewHTML.asp?FileID=10153&lang=EN#:~:text=According to reliable estimates%2C their,way from those in Cyprus. http://www.mfa.gov.cy/mfa/Embassies/Embassy_Vienna/vienna.nsf/page74_en/page74_en?OpenDocument

            Which by the way is a clear violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention’s Article 49 which includes:

            Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.

            https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.33_GC-IV-EN.pdf

            Calling Turkey’s illegal occupation of Northern Cyprus anything but that shows that you’re either a historically ignorant, a bootlicker, or an authoritarian extremist like a Marxist or Fascist. Though in your case, it’s probably all 3.

            So already in your first three points you are showing either a lack of understanding, or deliberately downplaying the effects of western imperialist rule and its continuation into today.

            I wonder how it feels to be confidentially incorrect. I can’t really tell if this a projection or just a lack of self awareness.

            Armenians are allies of Palestine as they understand that they are victim of the same forces. In particular the Israel-Azerbaijan axis shows that it is not about religion, but about classic imperialist motives of ressources, power and money.

            Actually this isn’t true. Israel and Armenia are pretty neutral towards each other. Armenia was the only country in West Asia, other than Israel, to not recognize Palestine as a country. Actually they only did so yesterday, and everybody sees this as a tit for tat for Israel signing that arms contract with Azerbaijan back in 2012 where they gave them drones and other military equipment (which the Azeri dictator Aliyev used against them in 2020) over the next few years in exchange for their oil (which makes up 40-60% of their oil imports) and having Azerbaijan and Turkey remain allies against Iran… but despite this there’s calls in Israel to recognize the Armenian genocide and talks in Armenia to buy Israeli weapons: https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-armenia-mulls-procuring-iai-missiles-report-1001482068 https://www.thejc.com/lets-talk/why-israel-must-now-recognise-the-armenian-genocide-jvxgn8k7

            Armenia used to be a strong Russian ally in hopes of having Russia protect it from Azerbaijan, and it’s big ally Turkey, a NATO member. However, when Azerbaijan attacked and Armenia invoked it’s defense clause, Russia refused to help. Not only that but it’s puppet Belarus, publicly came out in support Azerbaijan. Because of this Armenia has publicly announced it’s intent to withdraw from the CSTO and draw closer to the West, especially after France, Greece, and even the US (remember that Nancy Pelosi trip?) all showed support to Armenia over Azerbaijan. Which leaves Armenia in a very weird and complicated geopolitical situation. Trying to oversimplify their geopolitical situation is just stupid.

            • Rimu
              1•5 months ago

              I’ve been reading your posts. You make excellent points very often, clearly drawing from a deep knowledge of the region.

              However continually calling people names and insulting their intelligence will tend to stop them from really hearing your message and just inflame the situation. You could just not type that stuff and then everything else you type would have more impact. It’d be a pity to waste all that effort.

              • @[email protected]
                2•5 months ago

                I sometimes get frustrated with the people I argue with and these stuff slip out. However, what you’re saying is a true and your criticism is valid. I’ll definitely keep this in mind. I appreciate your comment.

                • RimuEnglish
                  2•5 months ago

                  Yes your frustration is totally understandable. It is a very heated topic and a lot of bad faith arguments are thrown around.

                  Sometimes I remind myself not to hope that the person I’m replying to will understand my reply or acknowledge that I’m right - instead I post my reply for the lurkers to read, who are far more numerous. The lurker has not publicly said anything so their ego is not fixed on defending their position and they are more likely to receive what I contribute with an open mind.

                  With this wider context, the goal changes. When the target audience shifts to the readers then there is no longer a need to continue a long back and forth discussion (the person replying to me will never change their mind anyway!) once I have made my point clearly. It’s ok if the other person has the last word if by having it they discredit themselves by demonstrating a closed mind - the lurkers will see it.

                  I hope this helps.