Even though the ultra-orthodox are breeding like rabbits they (at least the men) are generally dedicated religious scholars, economically parasitic, opposed to serving in the military, and they (oddly enough) have very serious religious reservations about the political legitimacy of the state of Israel. If I were an Israeli I’m not sure I’d want to rely on them as the go-to group for saving Israel demographically.
In the long run Israel will be fine as long as the US exists. Using a variety of well honed pressure points they have mastered the fine art over the last 70+ years of manipulating the United States to dance (even if grumblingly) to their every whim and that’s all they need. Unless they start eating Muslim babies for the Passover Feast they will be fine.
I wish I knew where this mythology that the existence of Israel depends on US support came from, or that the US dances to an Israeli tune. It certainly isn’t supported by the facts.
Far from supporting Israel for “70+ years”, serious US support for Israel only emerged during the '73 War - and only became institutionalized (together with serious support for Egypt) as part of the Camp David peace process.
Earlier, the US was quite ambivalent about Israel, provided little to no official support during its actual existential crises (such as the '48 and '67 wars), and in '56, actually forced Israel (plus the UK and France) to back down over the invasion of Egypt.
Israel survived the real trials in its history not because of US support, but despite a lack of US support - at a time when its Arab opponents were both absolutely and relatively more powerful, and more united, than they are now. There is no indication that a withdrawal of US support would be fatal to it.
Like feasible, distributable nuclear energy or some presently unimagined source.
Take away the need for oil and you take away the entire significance of the ME except to those who actually live there. And, in that situation, the Israelis are on top for generations (and probably longer).
What you’re leaving out is that the Muslim population in the US is increasing and the Jewish population is decreasing. This has already had an influence in shaping political support from European countries, and it will have the same effect in the US as well. In addition, many younger US Jews don’t identify with Israel to the same extent as the older generation, especially in left-wing circles.
Evangelical and consevative support is considerably more significant in guiding US policies in the US than Jewish support. American Jews form a small percentage of the US population - 2.6%.
The Canadian percentage is even smaller - 1.4% - and the current government of Canada is just as favourable towards Israel.
Again, not that US support is the sine qua non of Israeli survival.
I disagree. There are a lot more evangelicals and conservatives, and they are supportive of Israel, but the core of support is the Jewish population. And this is because the Jewish population, besides for being a relatively wealthy and influential population in general, is also really committed to support of Israel. (Or, as Jesse Jackson once put it: “all the Hymies want to talk about is Israel”.) In politics it’s not just about what you support but how strongly you support it.
Politicians running for office and trying to make it with the evangelicals and conservatives don’t make a huge deal of their support for Israel, but politicians angling for the support of Jews do.
AIPAC doesn’t have the influence that it has because of the support of evangelicals and conservatives.
And that ties in to my point. If Jewish support for Israel cools, it would influence the extent to which the US remains supportive, even independent of other factors.
I could be wrong, but ISTM that that’s just something that’s specific to this particular to this administration.
Disagree. I believe you are simply factually wrong. The number of Jews is simply too small to explain US support (assuming one does not buy various anti-semitic theories of the ‘Jews running everything’).
The notion that the US is likely, in the conceivable future, to increase sympathy for Muslims at the expense of Israel as a result of Muslim immigration strikes me as defying reality - the reason being: the majority of US citizens who are neither Muslim nor Jew by and large support Israel and do not sympathize with Muslims at the expense of Israel. No amount of liberal Jewish withdrawal of support for Israel, or immigration of Muslims, is likely to change that.
Europe has its own historical issues, which are different from those of the US.
This demonstrates my point: it isn’t a matter of Jewish support. The Federal Conservatives in Canada are not reliant on Jewish votes for their electoral wins: the percentage of Muslims in Canada is far higher than that of Jews, and far higher in Canada than the US (2.8% in Canada, 0.8% in the US - based on 2010 Pew Report).
In short, in Canada there are 2.8% Muslims and only 1.4% Jews; whereas in the US, there are only 0.8% Muslims, to 2.6% Jews.
If your theory were correct, one would reasonably suppose official government rhetoric in support of Israel would be lesser in Canada than the US, as Canada has fewer Jews (by far) than Muslims, while the US has fewer Muslims than Jews. However, this is not the case. To the extent that your theory is testable by actual evidence, it does not work.
Let’s be clear here, my response was in the context of Israel about to lose and be overrun. In that context, it is evil to simply say fuck it and launch all your weapons out of spite to take out as many people as they can. If they are about to lose, they can either kill themselves or surrender, but I would never support a last-ditch attack to kill as many Arabs and Muslims as they can. And since I consider surrender to be the lesser negative in this case, I think they should do that
Realistically, what do I think would happen? I think people like to confuse Arab governments with their people a lot. A lot of people in these countries are angry and want to destroy Israel, but I think a lot of government pragmatically uses Israel to distract from other problems. Most of the crazy people will not be in charge. So I think yes, there will be some deaths, but the heads of states will try to look magnanimous (having won the war) and allow most Jews to live as second class citizens in the newly created United Palestine.
Make no mistake, it won’t be easy for them, but no, I absolutely reject the notion that a triumphant Arab coalition would kill all the Jews like Hitler. Therefore, if they are going to lose a war, they should surrender and plead for mercy
Jews don’t run everything, but Jews are disproportionately wealthy, influential, and active in politics. It goes well beyond the 2.4%.
And again, they have historically been very committed to supporting Israel, which also counts for a lot more than 2.4%. If 2.4% of the voters care passionately about something and the rest of the population is largely ambivalent, then that 2.4% will win out.
Again, “the majority of US citizens who are neither Muslim nor Jew” don’t care about it nearly as much as either Muslims or Jews. In addition, having a lot of Muslims means having more connection to Muslims worldwide, depictions of Muslim suffering etc.
Europe has its own historical issues, which are different from those of the US.
I’ve suggested that support in Canada is specific to the current government. Do you disagree with this?
That destroys the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction which is key to preventing great power wars in general. Also your first suggestion sounds oddly like that of Ghandhi proposing that all the Jews should have committed suicide as a “protest” against Hitler.
I don’t care about a passage or frankly a hundred passages picked out from a thousand year old book. Real people will respond how they want. Some will be good, some will be bad. A plead for mercy, in the face of annihilation, is the better course than indiscriminate slaughter by launching all your nukes
I don’t care about MAD. At the point of losing a war, MAD is toast, you lost. There is no need to sacrifice more human lives to uphold some paranoid doctrine. Personally, I would never launch nukes as a last desperate attempt to reinforce some outdated philosophy. By the time we get to that point, no good can come of it. MAD, to me, is only good as a deterrence. Once the war’s started and won, deterrence is pointless
The big stick that Israel swings in the US is massive and penetrating political influence via focused interest groups and huge campaign finance donors like Sheldon Adelson who is a cash pump for numerous conservative politicians and who isn’t giving a dime to anyone not 110% in Israel’s corner.
While it may be true that without US military support Israel could get by, the US provides a wide spectrum of political cover and prevents Israel from being formally and seriously sanctioned economically for their land grabs and political treatment of the Palestinians. Without US political cover their ability to get away with this behavior without economic sanctions would be a lot more problematic.
Also important is Jews in the U.S., small a portion of our population as they are, also are highly geographically concentrated. More than 50% live in the States of New York (#1), California (#2) and Florida (#3). Given the way politics works in America a minority that is already extremely small, and is concentrated in primarily States that are not politically all that relevant (due to being locked in for one party) suggests they can’t be the primary reason for American support of Israel. Especially not when the party in power in those two States is actually the lesser supporter of Israel if you’re picking between the two powers. Why then would the GOP support Israel with far greater vehemence, when most Jews are in States that will never vote Republican? When in fact Jews as a group don’t vote Republican, either–Obama got 70% of the Jewish vote. Showing that not only is it unlikely the Jewish population here is why America supports Israel, but actually showing that actual Jews here don’t seem to care all that much about Israel either. If they viewed it as their be all end all it’s hard to figure out why 70% would vote for Obama. Argue what you will if there was a pro-Israel candidate in 2012 it was Romney, no Barack.
No, the conservative Christian or even just various realpolitik arguments explain far better why the United States has consistently supported Israel. When the majority of American Jews don’t even appear to vote on the Israeli issues it’s hard to ascribe any of America’s support of Israel to them.
What are you talking about? I was making the point that there isn’t anything that could justify Israel (or anyone) killing 400 million Arabs.
Nor would it justify the mass murder of a significant fraction of humanity.
And the vast majority of people killed by a genocidal nuclear war would also be “helpless people”.
This entire argument just demonstrates America’s continuing pervasive racism, and how thoroughly most of them have dehumanized Arabs. This is hardly the first time I’ve seen it suggested that killing the entire Arab population of the world would be good thing.
Would the extermination of all white people be a justified act in retaliation for what various white dominated regimes have done throughout history? Or is genocide only justifiable if the victims aren’t white?
