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A comment on Pentagon raised threat of Israeli spying on U.S. to highest level, sources say. Parent comment

Re:Pentagon raised threat of Israeli spying on U.S. to highe... by jmyeet on Saturday June 06, 2026 @10:55PM (#48431336)
This is a hotly debated topic.

The John Mearsheimer view is that "The Lobby" [1] has effective control over US foreign policy. There's a lot of evidence for this such as AIPAC indirectly unseating anti-Israel candidates. The Thomas Massie primary was the most expensive in history. $35 million. For a primary.

Noam Chomsky on the other hand rejects the notion of "the lobby" [2], instead arguing that Israel is an tool of American imperialism. Then-US Secretary of STate of Alexander Haig is widely believed to have described Israel as an "unsinkable aircraft carrier" [3] in a resource-rich region even though that term originated in the Pacific in WW2. The US has had an interest in disrupting Pan-Arab Nationalism [4], preferring a divided Middle East to guarantee access to oil.

The truth lies somewhere in between. There are clearly material interests and the US could shut down Israel in a day if it so chose. But the US has taken actions that clearly aren't in its national interest and the perfect example is the current Iran war.

Under no circumstances was this ever going to end well. The military knew it. General Caine tried to stop it when Trump didn't heed his warnings [5]. The US intelligence community was against it. also saying Iran wasn't developing a nuclear weapon [6]. Trump instead listened to Miriam Adelson, Benjamin Netanyahu and Mossad, who collectively (allegedly) convinced him it would be a Venezuela-like regime change operation.

This move will (IMHO) go down as the largest strategic blunder in US history and it will reshape geopolitics in the Gulf, Europe and Asia for decades. Even other wars that were lost (eg Vietnam, Korea) didn't have this kind of impact. The US could essentially walk away from those at little cost.

My point is that you can't take the Chomsky view as this being purely materialist. It just doesn't fit the evidence.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Israel_Lobby_and_U.S._Fore...

[2]: https://mondoweiss.net/2011/02/chomsky-materialism-and-the-i...

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsinkable_aircraft_carrier

[4]: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v12...

[5]: https://edition.cnn.com/2026/02/25/politics/caine-iran-hegse...

[6]: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/us-intel-community-agreed-b...

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Re:Pentagon raised threat of Israeli spying on U.S. to highe... by marcosdumay on Saturday June 06, 2026 @11:32PM (#48431513)
Hum... I don't think Chomsky's opinion on the matter has any relevance at all.

He's there right at the Lobby. We have no way at all of knowing he's saying it doesn't matter because he saw it doesn't matter, or because it dictates what he says.

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Re:Pentagon raised threat of Israeli spying on U.S. to highe... by ab5tract on Sunday June 07, 2026 @01:39AM (#48432159)
What? Noam Chomsky has been labeled a self hating anti-Semite by AIPAC. For decades.
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Re:Pentagon raised threat of Israeli spying on U.S. to highe... by lobocinza on Sunday June 07, 2026 @11:07AM (#48435574)
The same Noam Chomsky which was a friend of Epstein which had ties to Israel high schelon.
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Re:Pentagon raised threat of Israeli spying on U.S. to highe... by watwut on Sunday June 07, 2026 @03:23AM (#48432664)
John Mearsheimer fully discredited himself around the start of Ukrainian war.
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Re:Pentagon raised threat of Israeli spying on U.S. to highe... by throwaway27448 on Sunday June 07, 2026 @07:27AM (#48433817)
How do you figure?
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Re:Pentagon raised threat of Israeli spying on U.S. to highe... by hackandthink on Sunday June 07, 2026 @10:31AM (#48435215)
Mearsheimer was right: Putin wrecks Ukraine.

https://www.mearsheimer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Why-t...

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Re:Pentagon raised threat of Israeli spying on U.S. to highe... by sehansen on Friday June 12, 2026 @07:47AM (#48502895)
Why would an article from 2019 be a counterargument to criticisms from 2022? Especially when the first sentence of that article is a prime example of Mearsheimers blind spot: that the Russians aren't actually realists, but instead are a kind of idealist focused on Russias dignity as a (percieved) great power. Almost like virtue ethics as opposed to the consequentionalist ethics of realism.
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Re:Pentagon raised threat of Israeli spying on U.S. to highe... by throwaway27448 on Sunday June 07, 2026 @07:24AM (#48433798)
I agree that Chomsky's assessment hasn't made sense for a while. Maybe it did until, I don't know, the camp david accords, but at some point the Lobby became too integral to even clearly acknowledge. Perhaps Citizens United helped metastasize the problem. It's also simply a dogmatic, cultural reflex at this point: to not support Israel is politically unthinkable on the hill. It was political suicide for so long the older politicians especially are incapable of even milquetoast critique.

It's also worth noting that the public is so aware of AIPAC that it's become a bit of a too-visible stink. More and more pro-israel money is being funneled through other mechanisms: Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI), NORPAC, United Democracy Project (UDP), Pro-Israel America. There are also regional pacs, like To Protect Our Heritage PAC in Illinois, SunPAC in Florida, etc.

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