5041

But Hamas has also used Ambulances to transport fighters and military equipment.

5042

Sure, but this is not a reason to throw up one’s hands and say “I just find it hard to believe the IDF shot at an ambulance!”

5043

I agree, I was kind of skeptical in this case based on the wording, as multiple stories were just describing the ambulance as having bullet holes, and after the kind of fight we saw there, I can see that as being easily caused by collateral damage from the Hamas fighters shooting, at least as easily as the IDF shooting.

But the fact that Hamas intentionally uses ambulances, and possibly even were doing so in this case, is fucked up… because it’s intentionally exploiting the fact that they know the IDF doesn’t WANT to shoot ambulances, if for no other reason than it’s bad PR.

In actual war, shooting ambulances is a war crime… but so is using ambulances for military purposes.

In this thread, we focus on Israel because they’re the more powerful entity… but man, Hamas really sucks balls.

5044

There is no evidence that this bolded part is the case, and 20 years of history of the IDF preventing any ambulance from rescuing victims in Jenin, simply as a matter of policy.

5045

This is a sort of classic response when Israel commits a war crime. People go “oh well they can’t possibly have done that”. Except usually, they did indeed do that.

5046

Same with police brutality in the US, although that seems to be slowly changing thanks to so many people having recording devices.

5047

Given that Israel routinely delays and interferes with even peaceful medical movements during times of calm, if the people involved are Palestinian, it’s not too hard to imagine their actions during a time of unrest.

5048
5049
5050

and

5051

There are now calls for a genersl strike. Israel is responding to fascism the way we should have so far.

5052
5053

How about we cut off the defense aid spigot already?

5054

Aid with Israel is not a one way street. They are a useful ally to have in the region.

5055

And when the price tag for what you’re getting from the arrangement gets too expensive you reevaluate.

This isn’t rocket science, in fact it even has a name: realpolitik

5056

We can do fine without them, and it has been at least 30 years since they’ve had any need for us to stand behind them.

5057

I suspect the antifascist forces in Israel would stiĺl work with us and likely be more reasonable. Neyanyahu is like putin. We need to let what happens happen there. I suspect trump would send cia to help the regime. I hope biden doesnt.

5058

So you are aware of what our military actually does with Israel, and think that those things don’t matter?

5059

It isn’t that they don’t matter, it’s whether they are worth the cost. And the cost is huge.

It’s one thing to be on record guaranteeing Israel’s survival in the face of existential threats, as we were for many years when those threats were quite real. We can argue about how seriously Tehran actually threatens Israel today but the state is no longer surrounded by heavily armed hostile entities, so the existential part of that threat has dropped considerably. So whatever guarantees we make should probably be re-evaluated in the context of Israel being the undisputed superpower of the region.

More importantly though, being seen as tied to the hip with Israel makes any diplomacy, cooperation, or mutual assistance in the region extremely difficult. It undercuts our own power in many ways, from making us look like the tail is wagging the dog, to forcing us into diplomatic stances that constrain our options artificially. We also have allowed our support for Israel to become far less balanced than it should be, with Israel having an effective veto over some of our possible actions and in turn allowing Israel to be very selective with how it helps us out–witness the initial lack of support for Ukraine.

I’m not sure what we should do overall–as you say, Israel is and has been a part of our relationship in the region since 1948, definitely since after 1967. But your logic is about the same as the logic that had us backing the elitist neocolonialists in Saigon, the murderous thug juntas throughout the Americas, and a host of other unsavory bastards who also provided supposedly valuable strategic support over the years around the world. And yes, I am saying that Netanyahu’s government is moving closer and closer to being in the same league as Pinochet, Battista, Somoza, et al.

5060

This is worthy of its own discussion, but sadly I think the war in Ukraine means we’re going right back to that approach, or at least some modern version of it.

Russia being openly hostile and China seeking to create their own order around Fortress America and Fortress Europe almost certainly means that we will no longer be conducting diplomacy based on values, but rather based on far less admirable strategic interests.

I also don’t think that policy in the past was purely about local strategic aims, it was also a more fundamental battle for influence over the world as a whole.

Maybe we’ll be slightly more aware of not causing undue harm this time around, but I don’t think there’s any question that our future foreign policy (throughout the western world) will serve to embolden a number of terrible leaders, and I think we are broadly going to let them be terrible as long as they’re ours, or as long as that relationship serves to foil the Chinese.