However, Israel is not the USA's most important ally.

The US is not really an ally of Israel at all. The NATO countries are. Japan and South Korea are. They have US troops and bases. The US does not send troops to fight in Israel's wars. The US just sends money.

That's what Ukraine is begging for.

The US is really in a bad position now.

But of course this is politically impossible for the US. Near half of the US population would throw an absolute fit.

But a large chunk of the population is already throwing a fit, and given the spread in views among different age groups, that's a growing chunk of the population.

I think the best way to sum up public opinion from what we know given polling and on-the-ground numbers is that Americans just don't much care about this. We care. But as is so often the case, caring about this issue makes us the weird ones.

I don't know if it'll actually happen, but this is probably the most likely path towards it, if there is one.

I suspect you don't know what Zionism is, because otherwise your message makes no sense.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_ethnostate#New_Zealand

And I'm not picking on them - tons of countries are like that, and that's fine as long as they ensure equality of all citizens, which Ireland, New Zealand, and Israel have all done.

I assume you chose the word “citizen” carefully, so let’s just imagine that in a hypothetical Palestinian state — whether alongside or unified with Israel — Palestinians would enjoy the same rights as Israelis, unlike today.

Anyway, obviously you aren’t picking on them for any of that, and I’m not super interested in debating it. I’m just answering your question about what “opposition to Zionism” means.

If/when there is a Palestinian state, there is no basis to assume that they would enjoy the same rights as Israelis. It would be their own state, and their rights are determined by them. For example, Syrians do not have the same rights of Israelis, and Israelis do not have the same rights as Syrians.

Currently, Israeli Palestinians (Israeli Arabs) have the same rights of Israeli Jews.Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza do not have those same rights.

Regardless, you have correctly identified one of the core things that anti-Zionism opposes: in Israeli occupied territory, there is currently de jure discrimination against an indigenous ethnic minority population.

I also do not understand what this has to do with anti-Zionism in that Zionism is the notion that the Jews have a right to a homeland, and not be relegated as a people to the hims of others. Yes, there is an occupation of West Bank/Gaza, however, I would not deny the right of the Persians to have an Iran, even though I am very much against their current government, and they have taken over control and created misery in other countries (Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, and are attempting to do so in Iraq and Syria).

You can be against the current government of Israel, you can be against occupation (as many people, including Israeli's are), but to be against the existence of a Jewish state (anti-Zionism) without being against an Egyptian state, a Persian state, a Jordanian state, etc is singling out the Jews, and needs to be called what it is.

"predicated on the dispossession of and discrimination against an indigenous population"

I am unaware of anything like this in Israel's laws. I assume what you mean by this is the Nakba, which happened after Israel's creation, and as a result of a war declared by the Arabs with the stated intent on destroying the new nation. About 650k-700k Arabs fled/forced/chosen to move out due to that war. Those who stayed ended up with lives comparable to that of their fellow Jewish citizens, I do not see much in the way of discrimination for those who stayed.

Also, as a result of that war, 850k-900k Jews fled/forced/chosen to move out of the surrounding nations. These people were forced out of their homes and their lands simply because they were Jews.

Many, many indigenous people were dispossessed during those times, no nation in that area has clean hands. If you want to single out Israel, that is your right and prerogative, but if you want to be fair (which you do not have to be) you should do some research and understand that many middle eastern countries have dispossessed and discriminated against their indigenous populations. Some did it because they were attacked, some did it just "because"

Historically this region suffered from settler colonialism where Britain encourage Protestants to move into the area. If you wanted to make a comparison to anti-Zionism, then the Nationalist‘s fight for civil rights and political representation is much more apt, then Protestant hardliners wanting to keep the demographics in their favor in order for continue suppress the rights of Norther Irish Catholics.

Ironically, the IRA were not afraid to use terrorism to further the nationalistic cause (similar to a certain Palestinian resistance movement), and when the British tried to defeat them militarily (including via occupation) it only made matter worse. What did work however was stopping these policies which stripped Catholics from their civil rights, and granting them a political avenue for their prospects. Turns out that if you have political means for your goals, you are less likely to use terrorism.

Those who actively claim they are opposed to Israel because it is an ethnostate but are not also actively calling for these other states to be dismantled need to explain why that is not anti-semetic.

There is also the related question on those opposed to Israel because it is a "European settler/colonial" state. A significant majority (66%) of Israel consists of brown people. 25% of Israel is not Jewish, and of the rest (the Jewish population), at least half of those are indigenous to that area, and are, from a racial perspective, just as "non-white" as anyone else from that area.

I don’t know why you think the current demographics of Israel preclude it from being a settler/colonial state. There is a formal effort to attract Jewish settlers. Just a few months ago, there was literally an event in my hometown advertising property in the West Bank to Jewish prospective residents.

On what happens in Israel, all Israeli citizens have equal rights. All countries have rules on who can become citizens. Yes, Israel is unique (I think) in the reasons for citizenship. Israel is also unique in its needs for survival. I am not sure if there are other differences, there could very well be.

On the settler/colonial issue: What I find most interesting about this is how vehement many people are in my country (US) on Israel being a settler/colonial state, when, almost without exceptions, they are the ones living on Native land, using Native resources, and participate in a conspiracy to eradicate Native culture (this is anyone in the US who is not a Native American), and are therefor themselves settler/colonists, while it is the Jews who are native to the middle east, whether the 50% who are Mizrahi or the other 50% who are returning to the land their ancestors were kicked out of.

And the Palestinians are also native to that area. The fundamental issue is: Can there be a compromise where each of these peoples get a land of their own, or is the idea of a Jewish state anywhere is what at some point of time was Dar A-Islam unacceptable.

The US is undeniably a settler culture. I am outraged at the actions of my ancestors [1] who played a part in that culture. Just because I'm descended from reprehensible people doesn't mean I'm precluded from complaining about reprehensible people today.

> and participate in a conspiracy to eradicate Native culture (this is anyone in the US who is not a Native American), and are therefor themselves settler/colonists

Not saying that the US in the past hasn't been genocidal, but many of the people complaining about Israeli settler culture today are also broadly supportive of current Native American rights issues, which is the opposite of participating in a conspiracy to eradicate their culture.

> while it is the Jews who are native to the middle east, whether the 50% who are Mizrahi or the other 50% who are returning to the land their ancestors were kicked out of.

And here comes the special pleading. What Israel is doing in the West Bank is seizing land from extant landowners, transferring it to a favored landowners, and turning the former landowners into second-class citizens. This is exactly the kind of policy that people complain about in settler colonies. Claims of it's-our-ancestors'-land-from-centuries-ago don't fly in international law (see also Russia's diplomatic failure to assert this vis-a-vis its invasion of Ukraine), and it certainly doesn't justify forcible expropriation of land from current landowners.

[1] Indeed, my great-x-I-don't-remember-how-many grandfather participated in the Cherokee Strip land rush, so this is literally personal ancestry in play here, rather than vague reference to historical US ancestry.

The subtext here (clear from the invocation of the Mizrahim) is existential arguments against the the state of Israel as construed in its conventionally recognized borders. In that sense, the "settler colonial" notion is complicated and unavailing.

But you and the preceding commenter would seem to agree with the common argument that settlements in the West Bank are a direct, probative, and actionable instance of unjust settler colonialism.

this is a practical matter - both Palestinians and the Jews have claims going back a long way to all that land (rivertosea), but (during the Palestinian Mandate) they just kept massacring each other, so the governing power gave up and there was a roughly even split of the land (1/2 of the 30% left after 70% went to Jordan), and that just needs to be good enough for either side, even if neither are satisfied

Wars have consequences. 13 centuries of Islamic rule came to an end in 1917, and the Ottoman Empire lost and was dismantled. Land was given back roughly along the lines of past histories, not perfectly, but nothing is.

right of return ? well, at least as many Mizrahi Jews in Israel and other countries could claim that from the nearby countries, but that is about as likely and practical to happen as reversing the Nakba. Wars have consequences.

Why stop at reversing 1948 ? Why not just go back another 30 years and reassemble the Ottoman Empire ? I am sure that would make everyone happy.

I don’t see how this is more fundamentally complicated than other settler-colonial enterprises. The inclusion of the Mizrahim is no different from e.g. when the British did settler colonialism in Northern Ireland (then Ulster) by granting very favorable land deals and work to Scots. No doubt many (if not most) of the Scots were of Gaelic ancestry. That fact doesn’t change the dynamic at all. The Ulster Plantation is a schoolbook settler colonial project, which was wrong and evil in every way possible. What mattered is that the English demanded a certain culture would come up on top, that the Scottish immigrants were not Catholic, spoke English (not Scottish Gaelic; and certainly not Irish), and that they behaved like the English when after they settled stolen land.

Who is the guarantor that this new Israel will not simply turn into another Lebanon/Syria/etc where the minority (Jews) are oppressed ?

Regarding the right of return for the Jewish people displaced from the countries surrounding Israel, sure, I’m in favor. As far as I know, the discriminatory laws which pushed a lot of the exodus have long since been repealed and families who fled to Israel don’t face nearly the same level of discrimination as Palestinians wanting to return to their homeland. (Reparations still need to be payed and Iraq could probably step up their game and re-issue citizenships to their emigrants).

That said, the tit-for-tat mentality is not helpful here. Yes, the Jewish emigrants (particularly from Iraq) deserve reparations for passed wrongs, but whether they get that or not should not affect whether Palestinians are granted their basic right of return, and the dismantling of all Israels’ ethnocratic policies.

Is Israel an ethnostate (or an ethno-religious state, if that's your jam)? It rhymes with one, for sure. But if that's the case, so is Japan. I have never once seen a protest in North America against Japanese ethnocentrism. At least I understand why Israel is structured this way (it was founded within 1-2 Kendrick Lamar album release dates of the liberation of the concentration camps).

There's some innuendo in your post --- "what does that say about you" --- are you prepared to field the same kind of innuendo directed back at you? Because Israelis and Jewish supporters of Israel in the west notice and point out that Israel is held to a different standard.

A reasonable answer to that is that Israel has spent 20 years working to prevent a 2-state solution, and effectively occupying Gaza while slowly colonizing the West Bank. That's fair! But criticism of Israel's modern day activities have a tendency --- as they did here --- to bleed into critiques of the premise of Israel itself.

The demographic policies of Israel are way worse than any other democracy, which is why people criticize Israel harder, and why anti-Zionism is a global political movement. People protested Apartheid South Africa for the same reasons, and is the reason why anti-Apartheid became a global political movement.

Understanding why Israel maintains their ethnocratic policies is no justification for it. I’m sure you can also understand why F.D. Roosevelt ethnically cleansed the West Coast of Japanese Americans during World War 2. But that was still a human rights disaster. Thankfully, that policy was reversed and the victims were given the right of return. Palestinians were not so lucky. Anti-Zionists like my self want Palestinians to get that minimum level of justice. If there was still a Japanese exclusion zone on the West Coast, I would for sure be protesting that.

There is a Palestinian American living in my community, she would like to at least visit the birthplace of her grandparents. But she cannot, Israel’s ethnocratic policies won’t let her. If Israelis are uncomfortable living in a place which gives her racial group equal rights, then I’m just gonna say it, they are racists, and they should not be given an ethnostate to keep their comforts.

There's nothing practical to be said about this stuff. Everybody in the world is racist. It is a strength of the west, and of the US in particular, that we pay so much attention to it. There's no "should" about Israel, only "is". Israel is a nuclear-armed state with a thriving, self-sustaining economy and one of the world's better regarded militaries. If you want to call it an ethnostate, that's fine (I will then call Japan an ethnostate as well). I don't like ethnostates either. But it is what it is: the history and purpose to which Israel --- which, unlike Japan, at least nominally proscribes racism! --- is designed is profound. It's not going anywhere.

I'm fond of pointing out that you'd have a stronger argument that Texas be returned to the Coahuiltecans. Texan settlers hadn't just survived the Holocaust. There was no large scale exchange of populations, with Tamaulipecan tribes somehow finding reservoirs of Germans and Czechs to expel from Nuevo Leon. But, again: nobody is protesting this.

I would say my position is this: to litigate the existence of Israel itself is to surrender any hope, at least rhetorically, of self-determination for Palestinians on any Palestinian land.

That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that the minimal requirements of Anti-Zionists is that the Palestinians which were displaced in the Nakba be granted the right of return. I personally don’t care if there are two states, one called Israel and the other Palestine. But for the state which ends up being called Israel should grant those it displaced the right of return. Texas does not exclude Coahuiltecans from visiting Texas. Texas does not control its demographics with racialized exclusions (I know some Texas politicians would like that, but they are not allowed; and if they were allowed, there would be riots).

I know Japan has a lot of problems with racism. Japan also has a history of being settler colonialist. They’ve even committed a couple of genocides in the past. What sets Israel apart though is they continue and maintain their policies of racialized demography. Japan used to do that (particularly in Korea, but also in Ryukyu), but they don’t any more. Today Japan recognizes the Ainu as a distinct indigenous minority group. They recognize the Ryukyu people as a subgroup (though honestly they need to recognize them as a minority group). They don’t exclude the Ainu nor the Ryukyu from any parts of Japan. They don’t have a policy prevents them from gaining political influence. etc. Stating that Japan has ethnocratic policies similar to those of Israel is lying at best.

For Israel to exist as an independent democratic country besides Palestine in a two state world which meets the minimal requirements of anti-Zionism, they need to relinquish these ethnocratic policies. A good start would be to sign and ratify the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (like Japan has). They don’t have to grant citizenship to every Palestinians, but they must at the very least allow free travel between the two states, and they must allow those which were displaced in the Nakba to have the option of dual citizenship. Recognizing that Israel did settler colonialism and apologize for it would be appreciated as well (Japan has yet to do that).

A non-viable path forward is demand the repatriation of millions of non-Jewish people to right one half of a wrong (not that it would matter if you could somehow right the other half) done in the 1940s and 1950s. Israel will not allow it to happen. No imaginable Israeli leadership of any ideology or party would allow it. Israel's allies won't allow it to happen, but that doesn't matter.

The Arab world was (is, really) in the verge of normalizing relations with Israel, premised on the viable solution I outlined above. It is not in fact a requirement of the Arab world that Israel accept a Palestinian/Arab majority in its 1967 borders.

What's frustrating about this is not the concern that Palestinians might somehow succeed in the non-viable cause (I don't like ethnostates either?) but rather a certainty that it can't happen, any more than Mexicans will gain as-of-right dual citizenship and free travel into their original Texan lands, and the knowledge that the pursuit of that doomed cause comes at the cost of generations of Palestinian lives deprived of self-determination on any terms because western philosophizers oppose what they see as half-measures.

If they would have the foresight to include guaranteed civil rights for Arabs living in Israel and a Political avenue for the unification of Palestine which could be executed in a couple of generations, perhaps the worst of the mistakes of the Anglo-Irish treaty could be averted.

What made the Anglo-Irish treaty so disastrous for Northern Ireland were in fact racialized policies and discriminatory practices which denied civil rights and political representation for one group so that the other group could exert their dominance. If a two state solution repeats that, all I can say, is “I told you so”.

> The Arab world was (is, really) in the verge of normalizing relations with Israel, premised on the viable solution I outlined above.

The political class in most of the Arab world is not Anti-Zionist.

I understand and can take seriously a narrower "anti-Zionist" definition that pushes back on "Greater Israel" ideology that impedes Palestinian self-determination.

But what we're talking about here is basically: "I reject the premise of the state of Israel". To which, and I mean this respectfully, the only reasonable response I can see is "it's good to want things, I guess".

(It's fine if we just intractably disagree; it would be weird if any two people here never did.)

The goal here is social justice for Palestinians, as of now, they don’t have civil rights, political recognition, nor any non-violent avenues of resistance. So I get your sense that, yes, these are urgent issues which needs addressed. But the anti-Zionist will not stop until full justice is achieved. Maybe you are looking at an anti-racist while slavery is still a thing, or a land-back activist during the trial of tears. Perhaps you are a reformist being presented with a radical (i.e. looking at the root of the issue) solution.

For me the root of the issue is the settler colonial prospect of Israel, while Israel wants to maintain any ethnocratic policies (i.e. zionism) it will have to come at the cost of civil rights for Palestinians. My solution is to not grant Israel the right of ethnocratic policies.

I think the only thing I'd put on the table here past just recognizing that we're working from incompatible premises (at least, when we get past a Palestinian state and self-determination, and probably Netanyahu in a prison cell somewhere) is to try to stay cognizant of whether the standards you're setting for Israel are the same as those of other countries or other people or other ethnicities or whatever. because there's a whole grim history of people pretty much everywhere in the world singling Jewish people out as moral "others". But if you're being consistent about stuff, I don't have much to push back on.

If I had to guess, I suspect they might mean "opposition to Zionist control of American foreign policy" rather than "opposition to Zionism".

It absolutely does not - and it is not anti-Israel sentiment to say so; it's just geopolitics. For the the US, Israel is optional.

Meanwhile if Israel ever decides to pretend it doesn't need the US -- well, you know what would happen.

That's not really true. The reason are complicated and involve the cold war. I touched on some of the highlights here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40425327

> well, you know what would happen.

Nothing would happen. Israel has defended itself from multiple wars without US help, if anything Israel's enemies are weaker than they were in the past.

Weirdly enough it's actually Israel's enemies that benefit from the US - without the US Israel would just do what it needed to to stay safe, and never mind if the other country is hurt. Israel would not care, because their own security comes first.

With the US Israel is like "fine, we'll do the bare minimum".

This is also why all those people who what the US to stop helping Israel are so incredibly foolish. If Israel felt less secure they would fight with even greater ferocity. If you want Israel to stand down make them feel very very secure.

This obviously wrong, and on multiple levels.

First, there's $330b of financial support since 1946. Access to advanced weapon systems since 1962. Crucial intelligence + diplomatic support in all the big wars (56/67/73); crucial munitions support, and an offer to send a large numbers of ground troops in 73. Solid and almost unquestioning diplomatic support (or acquiescence) of essentially every action Israel has taken since 67 (no matter how provocative or ultimately detrimental to its own interests), backed by the assurance of automatic UNSC veto of course.

In the current operation, you've got 2 carriers parked offshore along with other assets in the region; special access to fuel depots and arms caches (that even Ukraine doesn't get); technical support from U.S. companies like Google, etc.

The idea that Israel fights its wars "without US help" just ludicrous.

Meanwhile, in return -- Israel just doesn't provide all that much. The U.S. supports Israel mostly for ideological regions (such as the kindling that it provides to the apocalyptic fantasies of the Christian Right) and to please other domestic political constituencies; and yes, out of a legitimate sense of moral responsibility since the Holocaust -- but not because it really needs Israel to be around (in the sense that it needs the UK, Germany, Japan, etc). It objectively needs countries like Sweden and Turkey more than it needs Israel.

Completely cut off from U.S. aid -- it would survive of course, but under significantly diminished circumstances. In particular it would have to give up the Greater Israel project -- which it of course needs to do anyway, but it would have to do so much sooner, and in an abrupt, violatile way leaving it in a much less secure position than it would like to find itself shunted into.

If you want Israel to stand down make them feel very very secure.

This is of course the mantra we've hearing since 67. And which brought us to the place we're in now.

Even in the (ill-conceived and disastrous) Iraq and Afghanistan wars other ME nations produced a lot more help than Israel did.

More complex answers involve having an allied county in an area with a lot of Russian influence.

The history is long and complex, but keep in mind Israel ran all by itself for decades, and defended itself in multiple wars, without any US help. It was when Russia started helping Egypt that the US recruited Israel. It was not the other way around.

For a while when Russia seemed powerless people started questioning the relationship, but after Ukraine it was re-energized.

Other answers are cultural: Israel is very similar to the US and Europe, same equal rights for citzens, same democracy, same culture of freedom. And the US is allied with all countries that are similar to it.

What concrete, specific advantages from having an allied country in a distant region?

“Controls American foreign policy” is hyperbolic; I don’t think support for Israel would just collapse if those orgs vanished. But come on, comparing Zionism to “motherhood” and “apple pie” is disingenuous.

[1] https://theintercept.com/2024/05/16/aipac-jamaal-bowman-atta...

Huh, I see strong and increasingly growing public opposition to Israeli influence on American politics.

The gist of the idea is that zionism is a "dead" ideology already, since it has reached its goal of creating a state. The remaining question about it is whether Israel should adhere to post-zionism or to neo-zionism.

Most people in the west opposing the current situation would probably fall in the post-zionist category if they were told about the concept.

I.. think I disagree. In a sense, Trump technically laid a foundation for that with a rather clever MAGA phrase. Regardless of what you think about him, his policy or his stance on anything, he showed that there are phrases could be utilized to tap into that section with little effort and are not as easily dismissed.

Now.. those could be attacked as overly nationalistic, but that is a separate discussion.

<< No lasting and significant opposition to Zionism will ever take root.

I think I agree despite (n)'ever' being a really long time. A year is eternity in politics and this year is already pretty crazy. I honestly can't say it is impossible.

He doesn't have to do diplomacy with them. He could call their bluff. He could unilaterally start delivering food and dare anyone to stop him. If Israel starts killing "3-5x as many civilians" he could declare war on Israel.

All of these are things he could do. Won't. But could.

My point is that the US could "assent to the validity of the ICC charges". The "fantasy" is several unlikely escalations away after that, and even that scenario is something that the US could deal with.

So ruling out that they go against the ICC because they have to, we can conclude that they go against the ICC because they want to.

Something like half the world's population doesn't acknowledge the ICC. And the ICC hasn't covered itself in glory over the last 20 years --- the Darfur fiasco being the most obvious example.

All this just brings me back to: the ICC charges are a political act (fair enough! politics matter!) and should be evaluated on their political effectiveness. The predictable result of the charges: the leader of the only political party in the US that even ostensibly cares about Palestine disavowed the charges. How'd that help?

Um. What?

Biden's team vetoed UN calls for a ceasefire three times.

Biden's team has delivered how many billions of dollars of weapons in the last 8 months?

Biden's team has consistently and repeatedly lied in front of the whole world, saying that they see "no evidence" of genocide. This, during the most documented mass murder in all history. This, despite clear and unequivocal genocidal statements from Israeli leadership, media, and populace.

How many people have resigned from his team now, saying they can't have this much Palestinian blood on their hands any more? To claim that Biden has prevented deaths in the last 8 months is breathtaking. At every juncture he and the team he still has have been complicit.

I think domestic politics are certainly a factor, but not a big one in an ICC case, because Americans, to a first approximation, do not give a shit about the ICC; further, we aren't a party to the ICC, so it's not as if the administration is being asked to do something or help adjudicate.

I want to say again that I think this particular case is well-founded. But an ICC warrant against the leader of a non-signatory is fundamentally a political act, and while I don't take issue with the stated intent of that act, I don't get the theory of change behind it.

I put it to you directly: what good comes of this while Netanyahu remains in power?

It would if Israel has any sense of self preservation at all. They need the support of the American government more than they need Gazan land.

(I also think it's not at all clear that serious policymakers in Israel "want Gazan land", let alone need it; the messianic nutballs bolstering Netanyahu's coalition are, to put it mildly, not representative of mainstream Israel policy thinking.)

A reminder that we're just talking about this stuff here; this is HN, not the UN Security Council. If we're going to have threads like this here, we're going to have to accept that we're having curious conversations, not high-stakes deliberations. So: I can be wrong about all of this stuff, and I'm glad to hear why. But we're not going to solve Israel/Gaza on a thread.

(You didn't say anything to prompt that disclaimer, it's just a stress reaction from previous threads).

Being able to purchase weapons from the US also gives them significant political latitude internally. When a significant amount of your economy and government spending goes to making weapons, you're going to affect domestic budgets, which will make coalition building much harder especially in a country with as many small parties as Israel. We see this in Russia as well but because Russia is not democratic when it comes to defense allocation, it simply throws its dissidents in jail or encourages them to leave.

Or just make them themselves. That seems fully within their capabilities if push comes to shove. After all, we are talking about bombs not fighter jets.

And yet are regularly re-elected. And have been for decades.

See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40421217

Reagan did it with a single phone call: https://www.nytimes.com/1982/08/13/world/reagan-demands-end-...

(I kind of like Bush 1, at least as a competent operator with some discernible principles, and think Israeli settlement of the West Bank is abhorrent).

Which of the facts I stated do you disagree with? I'm sure I can find you a source for any of them.

Biden, in _theory_, could say to Israel that "continued arms supplies are contingent on surrendering Netanyahu and Gallant to The Hague immediately", but a) it's not at all clear that that would work, b) in the near term it probably causes Israel to make the situation on the ground in Gaza even worse, and c) it would come with serious domestic political repercussions in an election year.

I hate all of that too, and it doesn't speak well of us as a society or species, but what _should_ happen and what _would_ happen are two very different things.

Tptacek is demonstrating this well by editing the part of the comment I quoted, then acting confused. However, I don't subscribe to the idea that facts are not material to discussions involving claims of fact.

The claim Biden is preventing deaths in Gaza while sending the bombs that are killing them and vetoing ceasefire resolutions left right and center, even against the will of his own voters, would require stronger evidence than has been provided.

Also, international law, including the Genocide Convention, is binding on all signatory states. 'Realpolitik' is not a defense for complicity in genocide.

However, let's look at your abc points, ignoring international law for the moment:

a) it's not at all clear that that would work

We've skipped past the issue, which is that we shouldn't be sending arms at all at this point. We also have other leverage which hasn't been used yet - sanctions, trade restrictions, etc.

b) in the near term it probably causes Israel to make the situation on the ground in Gaza even worse

This has merit - Israel did threaten to use more unguided bombs if the arms flow stopped. Too bad Biden's people vetoed the UN ceasefire resolutions three times, against the will of basically the entire planet. What about the realpolitik of that loss in our global standing?

c) it would come with serious domestic political repercussions in an election year.

Believe it or not, and despite tptacek's claims above that most people don't care, polls in fact show that significantly more registered Democrats disapprove of Biden's handling of the situation in Gaza (sending arms) than approve, and that this is affecting their vote [0].

> "This issue is a stone-cold loser for Biden," said Douglas Schoen, a pollster and strategist who reviewed the Reuters/Ipsos poll results. "He's losing votes from the left, right and center."

0 - https://www.reuters.com/world/us/democratic-divide-gaza-war-...

Bigger picture - this disagreement seems fundamentally rooted in conflicting political philosophies, as alluded to above. More facts are not going to change that.

An example... "'Realpolitik' is not a defense complicity in genocide." Says who? I mean I agree with you on the face of things, but who gets to decide what genocide means? And what does it mean for international law to be "binding on all signatory states"? Some view overconfidence in this notion as Wilson's great and lasting mistake.

Unfortunately, there is no compiler that can adjudicate these types of questions for us.

0 - https://www.natesilver.net/p/your-friends-are-not-a-represen...

Maybe your court of carrier strike group says the ICC judges are committing war crimes, issues a warrant for their arrest, the SEAL team executes the warrant against the fugitives from justice, and tries, convicts and executes them.

If you still think realpolitik isn't a defense, look at a practitioner of it like Kissinger, ask yourself why Pinochet, et al, were tried, but say Kissinger was not for Operation Condor.

Outside of a courtroom, and ignoring all international law and externalities, sure. Within the Hague, or the parts of the world where international justice is respected, not so much.

> the court of the carrier strike group is superior to the court of the ICC.

Until your 10 carrier strike group gets fucked up by Yemeni drones, or Iranian swarms. Or no country wants to trade with you any more, because you can't be trusted and their citizens are furious.

Or until China utterly dominates you economically and geopolitically, because they invested in growth instead of carrier groups. Or until you're stretched too thin on too many fronts and no one wants to help any more, or any of the other unintended (possibly world-ending) consequences of our wilful and belligerent disrespect of long established international law.

... But the claim that "Biden actually saved lots of Palestinians from dying" because of the "realpolitik" of the situation is silly. The claim that Kissinger actually saved lives by coordinating assassinations so that South America didn't need to be bombed into submission would be farcical, and so is this.

Realpolitik, in the sense Morgenthau and Kissinger understood it, absolutely takes into account management of public opinion and risks related to violation of international standards. It just does not only take those into account in decisions related to national interests.

> But the claim that "Biden actually saved lots of Palestinians from dying" because of the "realpolitik" of the situation is silly. The claim that Kissinger actually saved lives by coordinating assassinations so that South America didn't need to be bombed into submission would be farcical, and so is this.

This is stated as a fact and dismissed on the basis of a tacit moral argument rather than reasoning. Why would the claim be silly? I see no reason for those statements to be cast aside as un-addressable or 'farcical'.

On the other hand...

> 10 carrier strike group gets fucked up by Yemeni drones, or Iranian swarms

If this were possible Houthi drones would have done it already (against a single carrier).

> because they [China] invested in growth instead of carrier groups

China has been investing heavily in their military for three decades [0]. And we will see about that growth part... it is not looking so rosy for Xi currently.

0 - https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/CHN/chi...

Last time I checked when the US attacked Iran its response was to shoot down its own plane full of its war criminals. I relish the thought of a Yemeni single drone getting through to a CSG, I see a 'proportionate' response.

South America is wonderful, very few communists here, I wonder what happened, when I go to the football stadium I smile, and thank them for their help building the stadiums, truly a stadium of the people they built for us capitalists to watch our football games.

I'm glad that Kissinger found Che who enslaved millions and he was brought to justice in Bolivia.

This is an extremely racist opinion. And I would go so far as call it genocidal speech. This post needs to be removed from HN.

I don't understand the preceding comment well enough to defend it or to see the racism in it; there is context I am probably missing.

In it’s most favorable interpretation is a call to keep Palestinians subjugated and stripped of political and civil rights. This speech has been used to promote a Jewish ethnostate, which is in fact racist, and in the worst cases this speech is used to advocate for the expulsion of Palestinians from their land.

At best this is an advocacy for a racist policy, at worst this is genocidal speech.

> Well, the IDF is executing lots of war criminals, even future ones in Gaza ;)

I can’t take this any other way then the author is stating that killing of innocent civilians in Gaza is justified because otherwise they were destined to become war criminals.

This kind of speech was very common among people justifying police brutality and neighborhood crackdown against black people in the USA. It is extremely racist as it stipulates that Palestinians, by merit of being Palestinians, are inherently bad people and deserve to die.

The real question is if everyone loves the peace loving Gazans so much, why has Egypt built a wall to keep the peaceful refugees out?

Perhaps maybe they don't want the Gazans to start a civil war in their country like in Jordan, Lebanon, etc. Realpolitik.

It was the precious reference (backed by a smiley no less) to how the good the current operation is at killing "future" war criminals -- obviously referring to minors. Who are also just as obviously being collectively subject to air strikes for the crime of being you-know-what.

It was a truly disgusting comment, actually. Unfortunately "frank" and deeply revelatory expressions of this sort are by no means unusual in the sphere of public discourse that supports the current operation in Gaza. From the highest levels down.

Sometimes it sucks when your apartment is in the same town as a ball bearing factory.

The Air Force didn’t give anyone a weeks heads up either, what the IDF is doing is so far from a war crime it’s not even funny.

Juries in and of themselves are realpolitik, it's why most countries don't use them, because they deliver verdicts the legal professions dislike.

"Calls for ceasefire" that didn't include "calls to release the hostages", to say nothing of the fact that Hamas leadership had already been shouting they would "repeat October 7th again and again until the final destruction of Israel" and so on.

He didn't have to say anything about the substance. He could even use them as leverage in negotiations without publicly saying anything about the substance, by conditioning US efforts to get the UNSC to hold them in abeyance (which it explictly can!) conditioned on a cease-fire and concrete steps on aid.

Would it work? Probably not. Would it be better for the US interestd broadly than getting nothing at all while undermining the credibility of an institution that the US, while not a member of, has found practically and diplomatically useful in a number of past cases? Absolutely yes.

> We're not signatories to the ICC to begin with!

We have shut up about, or actively supported, the ICC in many cases, and given the US public nominal goal of a two-state solution demonstrating that international institutions are willing to take on abused on both sides of the conflict without ignoring the legitimate interests or rights of people on either side is something the US ought to be backing rather than burning down.

Certainly it is not my contention that the US is consistent with respect to the ICC.

It's a bad situation. I genuinely think that the administration is playing the best it can with the cards it was dealt. I think we're all clear what the counterfactual other administration would be doing.

Israel has three alternatives:

Option 1: Do a real siege (never tried. Gaza has less malnutrition deaths than Cali according to their own figures, and besides everything would have been over months ago if it did. That's the real weakness with the ICC case).

Option 2: Provide aid yourself (expensive).

Option 3: Let other people do it for you and not pay for it.

Obviously the optimal choice is the last one. The real differences between US and Israel are elsewhere (e.g. delusional postwar planning by both sides).

Everything else is domestic politics, and personal convictions for Biden. But Israel will not continue this war if the USA tells them to stop it. They are far too dependent on USA aid for it.

https://www.nytimes.com/1982/08/13/world/reagan-demands-end-...

Edit: here is the full quote about the events in 1982:

2 P.M. (8 A.M., New York time) -The Israeli Cabinet meets. A message from President Reagan arrives, expressing ''outrage'' and, reportedly threatening to halt the Habib mission. The Cabinet decides to end the raids and order new ones only if they are ''essential.''

4 P.M. (10 A.M., New York time) -President Reagan tries for hour to call Mr. Begin but cannot get through. 4:50 P.M. (10:50 A.M., New York time) - King Fahd of Saudi Arabia calls Mr. Reagan. 5 P.M. (11 A.M., New York time) -A new cease-fire goes into effect in west Beirut. 5:10 P.M. (11:10 A.M., New York time) - Mr. Reagan reaches Mr. Begin for 10-minute telephone call. 5:40 P.M. (11:40 A.M., New York time) - Mr. Begin calls President Reagan to say that a ''complete cease-fire'' had been ordered.

> Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Yuli Edelstein said that when he was on Capitol Hill last week, he told all of his interlocutors that the aid “is extremely urgent.”

> “This is aid for immediate needs, not for something we’ll use in a matter of years,” he emphasized to JI on Thursday.

The clear reality is that Israel, while extremely high tech, just doesn't have anywhere near the necessary production of ammunitions and weapons to act in this war without US aid. Especially if the USA and EU countries were to prohibit weapons shipments entirely (as they clearly should for any country currently engaging in a genocide).

Even the recent successful defense against the Iranian retaliation required direct US and French assistance, it wasn't possible with Israeli forces and equipment alone.

[0] https://jewishinsider.com/2024/02/israel-u-s-military-aid-ga...

None of this is going to happen, because everybody involved is aware that Israel would be sustainable after a realignment away from the west. Everything gets worse for everybody (except China) after that occurs, so it won't be allowed to occur.

(It's further mooted by the fact that opposition to Israel is largely an Internet phenomenon; Israel enjoys broad, bipartisan popular support in the US, Gaza is at the very bottom of polled issues in order of importance to the electorate, and a very significant chunk (possibly more than half) of people rating Gaza as important support Israel.)

Also, you are grossly misrepresenting public opinion in the USA and the EU. In the USA there is a significant and extremely vocal minority, especially among the Democratic party base, that deeply care for the genocide in Gaza. This has been visible in the major student protests, and in the significant protest votes in Democratic primaries (>10% undecided in some states!). And given the extremely tight election, this is very likely to cause issues for Biden. Now, whether reversing support for the genocide would cause larger issues is debatable, but I think unlikely - as most of the avid Israel-can-do-no-wrong supporters are not going to vote against Trump anyway.

In Europe the situation is even more difficult for the pro-genocide camp, as the population, especially in Western Europe, and doubly especially among the significant Arab, Pakistani, Indian, Turkish, and North African immigrants, is much more sensitive to the issue of colonial genocide.

The "10% undecided" thing is a statistical null result, mirroring the last Democratic reelection campaign (Obama's, against Romney), which didn't include any attempted organized effort to lodge protest votes with "undecided" and still ran up those counts.

Polling --- Pew is a good place to start --- shows Israel below every other "major" issue, even among 18-29 year olds --- except (ironically) student debt. The issue gets less important as you go up in age brackets into cohorts that actually turn out and vote.

The groundswell of support for Palestine in America is, I believe, largely an Internet phenomenon. It's easy to forget that we're the weird people who tune in to this stuff. Most people just live their lives, and, for reasons that are straightforward to understand, care a lot more that a 12 pack of Diet Coke got weirdly expensive than about whatever is happening across the world. We have the same problem marshaling support for Ukraine!