461–470 of 586 posts
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Just watching how emergency workers in Lebanon get double tapped (among hundreds of hundreds of other awful things), how Hospital are getting bombed killing doctors and medical personnel to Red Cross and WHO total indignation is enough to tell you that Israel is a war crime machine.
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I don't like how Americans dismiss their own agency in this all. This is not being forced on us by Israel. A huge and underdiscussed reason why the US and Israel have the relationship they do is because of the roughly 100m American Evangelicals that want it that way. That's also why the GOP is seen as the party more favorable to Israel (not that the Democrats are necessarily adversarial, but they clearly aren't as ag…
It's not American evangelicals. It's been a long campaign and the evangelicals are still being targeted by Israel because no one else is left, but there aren't enough American evangelicals to swing things. Not to mention, it often comes down to primary voters, to say nothing of Hollywood/media blacklists > the Democrats are necessarily adversarial, but they clearly aren't as agreeable as a whole). Democrats only chan…
I don't think I've ever seen in all of my wide understanding of history, such a tiny state successfully make an empire its vassal. Truly an astounding feat. It would be highly entertaining if it didn't bode poorly for humanity.
I don't like how Americans dismiss their own agency in this all. This is not being forced on us by Israel. A huge and underdiscussed reason why the US and Israel have the relationship they do is because of the roughly 100m American Evangelicals that want it that way. That's also why the GOP is seen as the party more favorable to Israel (not that the Democrats are necessarily adversarial, but they clearly aren't as ag…
As I said, things are changing, but it's still largely verboten to speak baldly against Israel as a democrat. In the senate, there are people who oppose arms sales to Israel, largely because of the Leahy law prohibiting arms sales to countries who commit war crimes, but few speak strongly against the clear slaughter (let alone describe it as a genocide as the rest of the world seems comfortable doing), or ascribe it solely to Netanyahu. This, when democratic voters mostly do not have a favorable view of Israel, seems to be a fundamental failure of representation.
On the republican side, Massie and previously MTG were opposed. Only about 43% of republican voters strongly support Israel. I don't believe any senator opposes arms sales to Israel. Again, this seems like a failure of representation.
To characterize this as a symptom of evangelicalism is historically understandable, but young evangelicals do not follow this trend, and even historically it's only a small part of the story.
But, americans rarely vote based on foreign policy (something like 3-5% of americans depending on the election). That we well and truly are culpable for.
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I don't like how Americans dismiss their own agency in this all. This is not being forced on us by Israel. A huge and underdiscussed reason why the US and Israel have the relationship they do is because of the roughly 100m American Evangelicals that want it that way. That's also why the GOP is seen as the party more favorable to Israel (not that the Democrats are necessarily adversarial, but they clearly aren't as ag…
Only roughly half of evangelicals in the US actually support the state of Israel. I've never even heard of any of my local reps mentioning Israel when running, course maybe I either wasn't looking for it, or the target audience? I have friends from all walks of life, and trust me when I tell you, the GOP isn't all in on Israel. Which is weirder to me, because I'll hear about how antisemitic the right is, and then in…
Despite the Right trying to redefine antisemitism in terms of opposition to the State of Israel, anti-semitism and anti-Zionism are somewhwere between uncorrelated and anti-correlated. Certainly, dispensationalist, eschatologically-motivated Christian Zionism (the main reason for the tie between evangelicalism and support for Israel) is not at all associated with pro-Judaism.
> When you factor in that roughly half of evangelicals (which can be Democrats too mind you)
Evangelicals “can be” Democrats, but again the Israel-Evangelicalism tie is mainly specifically through dispensationalism, which is almost exclusive to White evangelicalism, and White evangelicals split about 85/15 Republican (or Republican-leaning independent) vs Democrat (+Dem leaners).
> I know we benefit militarily from Israel when you factor in all the technology we've designed for them, that we can use for ourselves (Iron dome comes to mind)
Funny that would be the example that comes to mind, because Iron Dome was developed by Israel (by Israeli state-owned defense firms), not by the US for Israel.
You may be confusing it with the similarly named American (proposed) “Golden Dome” system, whose name Iron Dome inspired, but we didn't develop.that for Israel either (in fact, it hasn’t actually been developed), the only connection to Israel is the inspiration for the name.
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I have heard casual antisemitism from strongly pro-Israel evangelicals. There is no reason to think these attitudes are mutually exclusive.
Theologically their support for Israel is rooted in antisemitism. They need Israel to trigger the end times so Jews and other nonbelievers will be punished and ultimately destroyed. If you pry and ask the right questions, they'll admit that they don't want this to happen, because they really want all those Jews and nonbelievers to convert and be saved. This is also antisemitism, but it's wrapped up in a millenia-old…
Dispensationalism isn’t a “millennia old”; its a 19th Century doctrine. (Younger than the United States, older than Christian Fundamentalism.)
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What did I say that was anti-semetic? Being anti-zionist != anti-semantic... My dearest friends are jewish and have no qualms with my opinions and completely agree with me that Israel needs to be stopped by any means necessary. Now that I think about it, literally all the closest people in my life are Jewish. Ive never been called anti-semitic by anyone who isn't a blood thirsty Zionist using Judiasm as a shield.
You are not convincing anyone here.
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I don't like how Americans dismiss their own agency in this all. This is not being forced on us by Israel. A huge and underdiscussed reason why the US and Israel have the relationship they do is because of the roughly 100m American Evangelicals that want it that way. That's also why the GOP is seen as the party more favorable to Israel (not that the Democrats are necessarily adversarial, but they clearly aren't as ag…
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…
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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I don't like how Americans dismiss their own agency in this all. This is not being forced on us by Israel. A huge and underdiscussed reason why the US and Israel have the relationship they do is because of the roughly 100m American Evangelicals that want it that way. That's also why the GOP is seen as the party more favorable to Israel (not that the Democrats are necessarily adversarial, but they clearly aren't as ag…
That's really interesting. I am an Evangelical, and no one that I know supports Israel. Could it be something else?
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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…
John Mearsheimer fully discredited himself around the start of Ukrainian war.
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Only roughly half of evangelicals in the US actually support the state of Israel. I've never even heard of any of my local reps mentioning Israel when running, course maybe I either wasn't looking for it, or the target audience? I have friends from all walks of life, and trust me when I tell you, the GOP isn't all in on Israel. Which is weirder to me, because I'll hear about how antisemitic the right is, and then in…
> Which is weirder to me, because I'll hear about how antisemitic the right is, and then in the same breath hear people blame them for Israel's support? Despite the Right trying to redefine antisemitism in terms of opposition to the State of Israel, anti-semitism and anti-Zionism are somewhwere between uncorrelated and anti-correlated. Certainly, dispensationalist, eschatologically-motivated Christian Zionism (the ma…
I don't think it splits along traditional right/left lines. The ADL is not typically considered right-wing, and they're what everyone cites to conflate the two concepts. Furthermore you're seeing this adopted at the university level to effects chilling to campus free speech in ways I've never seen before—again, not typically a right wing bastion. Then you have right-wing figures like Candice Owens, Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly who have all spoken out against Israel. Now those may be fringe figures but they're on the right fringe. It seems like it's the center, the broad center, that is scared to rock the boat.