Hamas/Israel conflict: news and discussion

[Gramsci]

Apologies for snipping out the rest of your post which I mostly agree with.
Are you convinced that having a powerful Israel complete with Nuclear weapons is not in the long term interests of USA? (You've indicated so quite a few times)
I believe it is factored in to the equation of power balance in the middle east and although very much a rogue state one that helps hold back Iran and keeps at least some remote USA influence in the Region on top of the other bunch of shits in Saudi Arabia that the west deals openly with

I just don't see it. But I don't have a hard line on this either.

Like you said its a behaving like a rogue state. Back in days of British Empire supporting Zionism in end brought the Empire a lot of trouble it could have avoided. The Balfour declaration and it being written into the mandate was a mistake by the Empire.

I was watching one interview ( I cannot remember who it was now) who said its better to see Israel state as a gun for hire. Rather then a tool of USA or the idea during British Empire of a loyal little Ulster in middle east. Israel state goes off and does what it wants whatever its allies think.

Its like this country. What does this country get with its close relationship to Israel? ( The 2030 roadmap etc). On a power politics level leaving out morality nothing I can see.

On the other hand yes I take your point about it being factored in. Previous posts here have covered the (pre Hamas attack) normalisation and rough plans for greater economic cooperation between Israel and US friendly states.

This is still being talked about in think tanks. With Atlantic Council raising issue of Saudia Arabia also making overtures to China and Iran. Not what the US wants. Still reading this and Israel state recent behaviour hasn't made this it easier for US to further foreign policy/ business interests in middle east.

To advance Saudi-Israeli relations, let the private sector lead

With the right policies in place, the US private sector can play a critical role in advancing US-Saudi-Israeli economic relations, creating a reality that will make normalization more achievable in the coming years.

www.atlanticcouncil.org

The United States faces structural and geopolitical barriers to advancing private-sector relations among itself, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. Riyadh’s overtures to China and Iran highlight its hedging strategy against a polarized US political system that has yielded unpredictable economic and foreign policy.

Yes USA has interests in the region. I'm not clear that Israel is helping it under its present government.

Achieving such a deal, whose general parameters have been promoted and developed under the Joe Biden administration, would accomplish at least three significant objectives: it would firmly orient Saudi Arabia toward the West—and, ideally for the United States, away from China—under a security umbrella that would support Saudi regional leadership; it would pave the way for a regional defense alliance that includes Israel and moderate Arab states to maintain stability in the face of a bellicose and radical Iran; and it would facilitate Israel’s economic integration in the region.

 

[mojo pixy]

The Makdisi brothers YouTube channel has interview with John Mearsheimer. ( Another person who pops up a lot and I haven't read)

Beginning of video is Makdisi asking what Realism is in international relations. International relations isn't something I know about so it was useful that Makdisi went into this. John Mearsheimer is from the Realist school of international relations.

What I got from this is that Realist school looks at things as they are in international relations. The world is divided into states. Whilst a state controls its territory there is no overarching world state. So states have to look after there own interests.

It assumes they are rational actors. So for USA in Middle East its about a stable balance of power. This for USA would serve its interest best. It can then concentrate on things that matter more to it. Like rise of China/ Russia/ Ukraine.

Rationally this should mean in middle East it doesn't favour Israel and help its continue its ongoing military actions. It Rationally does not serve USA interests in the region to do this.

So why is it doing this? John Mearsheimer answer is that in USA the Israel lobby is very powerful. He has written a book on this. As he said this does contradict his take on International relations being driven by realism.

Why its able to do this he isn't able to explain. Other than that the lobbyists in USA are very able and good at what they are doing.

On the one hand this Realist view helps to get away from seeing it as all about imperialism. If a Realist was in charge of USA foreign policy Israel wouldn't be getting all the support its had from Biden. This is not to say Realist view is a radical one. Mearsheimer doesn't say that.

Looking at other stuff I have read on British Empire and the Middle East. There is argument ( put by some on left and also Imperialists at the time ) that supporting Zionism was a mistake/ not the only option for furthering Imperial aims.

Two arguements:

Why would an imperial power decide to support a settler colonial movement ( Zionism) when there were members of Arab elite ( landowners etc) who would have been persuaded to work with Imperial powers as long as they kept their privileges? Zionist movement brings an added complication. That wasn't necessary.

As the Mandate era showed the Zionist movement caused the British who ran the Mandate more problems. They could have ran the mandate more easily without Zionist presence. So writing the Balfour declaration into the Mandate was a mistake in terms of furthering long term interests of Empire.

I do think Mearsheimer Realist view supports the above now USA is in power not British.

From what ( I think) I understand from what was said in interview is that Realism assumes rational states seek a balance of power between them and other states.

Its probably quite useful way to understand regional and international conflicts. And not get into the its all about Imperialism or its about clash of civilizations- Good Vs Evil.

It cannot explain how a powerful democracy like USA ends up supporting a state that isn't acting in long term interests of USA. Why Israel lobby has so much influence. As Mearsheimer points out Democrat voters and a lot of public doesn't support Israel a hundred percent like Biden and other members of the governing classes in USA. He does think there is a generational change that has yet to be seen in the corridors of power. This will take some years to happen.

You keep doing this; posting about US interests, as if zionism were not at heart and from the start a jewish project of national self-determination. This approach is basically antisemitic (NB not you personally, but the approach you're using), for the simple reason that it sidelines and negates jewish experience, history and the (let's say) 'national impulse' and makes all that into nothing more than a tool of western imperialism. Which is certainly historically true of eg. Australia, Brazil or Canada, but of course not something we accuse those countries of; they are instead allowed to be themselves for themselves no matter how indigenous minorities there have to live nowadays.

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

You keep doing this; posting about US interests, as if zionism were not at heart and from the start a jewish project of national self-determination. This approach is basically antisemitic (NB not you personally, but the approach you're using), for the simple reason that it sidelines and negates jewish experience, history and the (let's say) 'national impulse' and makes all that into nothing more than a tool of western imperialism. Which is certainly historically true of eg. Australia, Brazil or Canada, but of course not something we accuse those countries of; they are instead allowed to be themselves for themselves no matter how indigenous minorities there have to live nowadays.

You keep doing this: chucking around the 'antisemitism' label far too easily, even when you refrain from accusing Gramsci personally. By all means contest the historical accuracy of statements on urban, but you can do that without such accusations. Just contest whatever it is you disagree with.

 

[mojo pixy]

Just contest whatever it is you disagree with.

That's what I did, and I explained why.

 

[Gramsci]

You keep doing this; posting about US interests, as if zionism were not at heart and from the start a jewish project of national self-determination. This approach is basically antisemitic (NB not you personally, but the approach you're using), for the simple reason that it sidelines and negates jewish experience, history and the (let's say) 'national impulse' and makes all that into nothing more than a tool of western imperialism. Which is certainly historically true of eg. Australia, Brazil or Canada, but of course not something we accuse those countries of; they are instead allowed to be themselves for themselves no matter how indigenous minorities there have to live nowadays.

I'm actually doing the opposite. I'm saying state of Israel wasn't and isn't it just a tool of western imperialism. It will side with imperial powers. France and UK over Suez for example. But does that to further its interests. State of Israel has its own agency and isn't just a tool of western imperialism is what I'm saying. As I said I don't have a hard line on this. I've been trying to avoid just categorising state of Israel as just about furthering imperial or US interests.

 

[mojo pixy]

I'm actually doing the opposite. I'm saying state of Israel wasn't and isn't it just a tool of western imperialism.

Yes and I'm saying it isn't that at all, any more than eg Ukraine is, or Taiwan is, or South Korea is. Except in a kind of second-campist narrative obvs, where that's primarily what all these places are.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Yes and I'm saying it isn't that at all, any more than eg Ukraine is, or Taiwan is, or South Korea is. Except in a kind of second-campist narrative obvs, where that's primarily what all these places are.

You can certainly argue that the original Zionists were not agents of Western imperialism. They opposed said imperialism, of course, in Mandate Palestine.

But it's a bit naive to think that Israel has not since become a tool of US imperialism. There's a reason why Biden said that if Israel didn't exist, they would have to invent it. He wasn't thinking about the necessity for a Jewish homeland in the area. He was thinking about US interests (US ruling elite interests, that is), which are the reason for the enormous sums of money the US has showered on Israel since 1970 - twice as much money as it as spent on any other country since 1946.

 

[Gramsci]

Yes and I'm saying it isn't that at all, any more than eg Ukraine is, or Taiwan is, or South Korea is. Except in a kind of second-campist narrative obvs, where that's primarily what all these places are.

You keep doing this; posting about US interests,

I've gone back and had quick trawl through some of my posts.

When I have posted about US its largely that I have been wary of the kind of its all about imperialism argument. Not an expert on campism. But understand its out of date and to simplistic.

That doesn't mean to say that geo politics doesn't come into it. For better or worse middle east has been an area where Imperial interests ( UK and France) and US have interests.

 

[Gramsci]

Looking up "campism" and came across this.

Been reading more on Syria recently.

Read this and third of way through this book. Both by Syrians.

Left analyses of imperialism must stand against ‘campism’ - Red Pepper

Syria and Israel may be in different geopolitical camps but their practices of population extermination are the same

www.redpepper.org.uk

Yassin al-Haj Saleh book does look at how Assad regime was colonial in its methods/ used Palestine issue cynically for it own benefit and as Red Pepper article says went at war with his own citizens. Literally- Yassin describes the way a scorched earth attack on rebel areas started early on when the rebellion was still peaceful demos.

Red Pepper article says this:

Assadism is perhaps best summed up by the pro-regime militia who wrote ‘Assad or we burn the country’ on the walls of besieged Syrian cities. This mirrors the practices of Israeli settler colonialism today, one perhaps best exposed by the IDF soldiers posing for holiday-style photographs amid the rubble of destroyed Palestinian homes in Gaza. In both cases there is a logic of extermination at play. But identifying such parallels is impossible in the campist perspective, which views one bombed out school as a horrible crime against humanity and another bombed out school as some kind of conspiracy to make a benevolent dictator look bad.

I do think there are differences between state of Israel and Assad regime. Israel does have a democracy. Assad regime was not just authoritarian it was run by one family and its close circle.

What the article is saying is that the campist perspective cannot criticise both.

 

[mojo pixy]

You can certainly argue that the original Zionists were not agents of Western imperialism. They opposed said imperialism, of course, in Mandate Palestine.

But it's a bit naive to think that Israel has not since become a tool of US imperialism. There's a reason why Biden said that if Israel didn't exist, they would have to invent it. He wasn't thinking about the necessity for a Jewish homeland in the area. He was thinking about US interests (US ruling elite interests, that is), which are the reason for the enormous sums of money the US has showered on Israel since 1970 - twice as much money as it as spent on any other country since 1946.

Reading a snopes synopsis of the quote in question, it seems the 'interests' he was talking about were specifically oil interests. I think this is rather different from and far narrower than any sense of Western Imperialism. What's really in the USA's interests, is for Saudi Arabia and its allies to keep producing more oil than Iran and its. Israel is a regional power which is not shia islam, consequently from the US point of view it makes a perfect foil, to keep Iran from getting too strong versus Saudi Arabia. KSA as we have seen is currently more open to agreements with Israel, than with Iran.

 

[PTK]

Yes and I'm saying it isn't that at all, any more than eg Ukraine is, or Taiwan is, or South Korea is. Except in a kind of second-campist narrative obvs, where that's primarily what all these places are.

If it has not been for the support of US imperialism, neither South Korea nor Taiwan would exist as states today.

 

[mojo pixy]

If it has not been for the support of US imperialism, neither South Korea nor Taiwan would exist as states today.

On the other hand Israel 100% would still exist regardless.

 

[Gramsci]

I really do not think that Israel would have existed regardless of Imperial powers. From the time British Empire onwards.

Up to the present as well. if Biden hadn't been making sure that US supplied it with weapons then Israel would have great difficulty pursuing its military campaigns in Gaza, Lebanon and now Syria.

 

[Gramsci]

Been reading more of Yassin Al Haj Saleh book today.

The Impossible Revolution | Hurst Publishers

The intellectual voice of the Syrian revolution recounts the devastating impact of the Assads' tyrannical rule. Foreword by Robin Yassin-Kassab Translated by Ibtihal Mahmood

www.hurstpublishers.com

Here he is talking about Israel in chapter 5

The establishment of the Israeli state in the Arab Levant, followed by the West’s peculiar, unfair, and wholesale support of this armed stronghold, reinforced absolute Arabism’s aspirations of internal homogeneity and segregation from the outside world. Strong, domineering, and armed to the teeth, exempt from international law by the special immunity granted it on religious grounds by the world’s greatest powers, Israel facilitated the militarization of thought and of public life in our countries, and greatly complicated the questions of any political and cultural change in our societies. There is no doubt that Assad’s Baathist regime exploited the Palestinian cause, but Israeli colonialism gave its claims real foundation. The Palestinian issue has shaken confidence in the West and its organizations. It provides fertile ground for calls for segregation, and has been accompanied by cultural and political paranoia (which is at once ever-boastful and ever-complaining).

He's saying this as an opponent of the Assad regime. Imprisoned by it for many years.

It's possible to critique the West, Israel and Arab regimes like Assad's Syria. That is not fall into the trap of campism.

Just to add a lot in the book so far is critique of Baathist Arab Nationalism. Which he sees as inventing an essentialist single Arab identity in a part of world with people living side by side with a lot of cultural / class differences. Imposing one single form of Arab nationalism which Assad family carried on in there rule did a lot of harm. Ie he's not just going on about Israel

 

[mojo pixy]

I really do not think that Israel would have existed regardless of Imperial powers. From the time British Empire onwards.

The british helped, no doubt (so of course did the nazis in their own way). But once modern political zionism existed I think its fruition in form of land was inevitable. 1900 years of control, oppression, exile and slaughter made it so.

 

[Boris Sprinkler]

The financial institutions that govern this world are of interest to protect.
Made to work and born to die.
Let’s make robots to kill other humans.
Racist Cunts