• Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    And why not? He has virtually unlimited U.S. weapons as well as bi-partisan support from U.S. politicians. It’s as though we’re just setting our attack dog loose on everyone.

    It’s fucking astonishing that we have any relationship with Israel at all these days. The U.S. gets absolutely nothing out of this one-sided relationship.

    Israel offers us:

    -No unique strategic military position (we have that area covered already).

    -No high-value industrial benefits (no natural resources or unique trade).

    -No military arsenal or manpower support (their arsenal comes from us and their personnel is quite limited).

    It’s time to let them make friends with their neighbors on their own. They don’t need us to do that and we sure as fuck don’t need them.

    • Chaotic Entropy@feddit.uk
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      2 months ago

      The US is a parent sitting and watching its problem child beat the shit out of the other children in the playpark. Other concerned parents keep asking the US to do something, to which they shrug and say “kids will be kids, what can you do” while handing their child a knuckleduster.

    • WalnutLum@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      Main thing the US gets from Israel is Market Capital Export.

      Israel accounts for what, like 30-40% of all recent American acquired startups?

      • Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Do you have a source for this?

        My understanding is the primary trade between the U.S and Israel is diamonds. We each export over $1B worth of diamonds and also each import over $1B worth of diamonds between one another. In the past year, the U.S. imported about half a billion dollars more from Israel than it exported to Israel (again mostly diamonds in both directions).

        The diamond trade between our countries does not justify our participation in unnecessary wars (or genocides) in my opinion. It seems unlikely to be the reason we are so committed to this relationship. I think AIPAC’s financial involvement in our elections represents a much bigger reason we support Israel.

    • Spiralvortexisalie@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Hacking and Blackmail are Israeli strengths. The two most common theories I hear are that that elected officials are impressed with the Israeli hacking capabilities and rather keep them on our side, or they are actively exploiting those capabilities to bend politicians to their will. Seeing how Israel operates in public with innocent civilians it seems rather obvious our predicament.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        The problem with hacking and intelligence is they’re vulnerable to hard power. In other words you can hack stuff but you’re not going to hack your way out of Delta raiding your office. If Israel is using their hacking and intelligence to blackmail politicians then they’re constantly one fuck away from “find out”.

      • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Israel controlling politicians via blackmail seems to be the obvious truth for a long time.

        Also a lot of technologies and systems good for collecting material for blackmail come from Israel or are associated with it. ICQ and Viber, for example. While Telegram is apparently unofficially associated.

        There were rumors of Epstein’s connections to Israel and that his island was most of intended for collecting such material.

        There’s plenty of spyware coming from Israel sold to governments and such.

        There have been a few Israeli operations of the nature supporting that spying is what they do most, and exactly in the way most convenient for blackmail, and all the rest being secondary.

        But these are not as important as for Israelis themselves it being absolutely normal to say that yes, that’s what Mossad does and should do, that’s its job - to get power base for Israel’s interests, blackmail of politicians and any crime involved. They put it in that “desperate need for survival” framing, but it’s the common idea for them.

        And while what Israel does currently is disgusting, I would dream of Armenians ever having such an influence net. With very few limitations on means to achieve it.

        • LustyArgonian@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          Highly recommend the book One Nation Under Blackmail by Whitney Webb. Yes it’s entirely possible the currency we trade with Israel is intelligence based

          • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            Will read, thanks.

            I didn’t name the solution - the solution is the culture of coming clear, and the culture of it being followed up by the wide society, and the culture of legal relativity - as in Watergate, it was, ahem, illegal to break into someone’s office, but that’s not the important part.

            If a politician today admits to things they’ve done that Mossad can blackmail them with - I’d expect rape, pedophilia, murders for pleasure, all that, because bribes alone are almost legal and it’s very rare that someone gets prosecuted, - they’ll be crucified for the act, their punishment won’t be made softer by them coming clear, and the worst part is that there won’t be any real investigation of the blackmailers.

            There should be widespread understanding of the threats. All the cockroaches should be brought to light.

    • mojo_raisin@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Unfortunately, as long as we leave political offices to be filled by the worst of us this will continue. Voting is only half the battle.