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Israel Reset
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Last: 3 yr ago by whiterock
Netanyahu is currently on trial for criminal corruption charges and has an approval rating among Israelis of less than 30%, he should rightfully be one of Biden's last calls. That's what short term decision making and a strong commitment to being an assh-le get you.
What?HuMcK said:
That's what short term decision making and a strong commitment to being an assh-le get you.
Netanyahu has demonstrated a clear partisan preference (short term decision making, acting as if Dems would never be back in power) and actively worked against the other parties. Still is, as he does all he can to tank the JCPOA. He's also kown to be an unrepentant assh-le. Those reasons are enough to snub him, but as I said he is also currently standing trial for criminal corruption charges and enjoys the support of less than 1/3rd of Israeli voters. It should be no surprise that the current POTUS Bibi has worked against decided to snub the corrupt piece or sht.
Will be interesting to see if Biden signs an Executive Order to tear down the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem.......
Nothing would surprise me at this point.
Nothing would surprise me at this point.
"Never underestimate Joe's ability to **** things up!"
-- Barack Obama
-- Barack Obama
Biden's handlers won't totally kick Israel to the curb......too many Dem Party regulars have been accepting Israeli cash for too long .
However once Harris takes over ....she will definitely abandon Israel to the wolves .
However once Harris takes over ....she will definitely abandon Israel to the wolves .
Pro-Israel but not necessarily pro-Netanyahu sounds like a good place to be.
why?bubbadog said:
Pro-Israel but not necessarily pro-Netanyahu sounds like a good place to be.
Dems are simply pivoting away from Trump's Arab Coalition to isolate Iran, to a more pro-Iranian policy. Such is completely illogical and counterproductive (as was Obama's policy.)
Huck is (typically) wrong. BIbi is going to be PM for a while.
https://www.jewishpress.com/news/israel/latest-polls-give-netanyahu-a-coalition-of-62/2021/02/15/
Democrat ME policy is disastrously misguided.
I'm not taking this view because it happens to be closer to current Dem policy than GOP policy. Being pro-Israel but not necessarily moving in lockstep with Israel's PM or governing party has been the policy of many GOP administrations, too. (As Sec. of State James Baker had some particularly harsh words for the Israeli government that happened to be in power.)whiterock said:why?bubbadog said:
Pro-Israel but not necessarily pro-Netanyahu sounds like a good place to be.
Dems are simply pivoting away from Trump's Arab Coalition to isolate Iran, to a more pro-Iranian policy. Such is completely illogical and counterproductive (as was Obama's policy.)
Huck is (typically) wrong. BIbi is going to be PM for a while.
https://www.jewishpress.com/news/israel/latest-polls-give-netanyahu-a-coalition-of-62/2021/02/15/
Democrat ME policy is disastrously misguided.
Distancing ourselves from Bibi does not necessarily mean moving toward Iran.
I happen to believe that Bibi's policies are going to hurt Israel in the long-term. So, for me, being pro-Israel means opposing many of his policies. I can go into more specifics in a longer post if you're interested.
Also, I don't like the way that Bibi tries to manipulate the US into being a lap dog proxy for his own policies, such as his attempts to get us to bomb Iran.
Cmon man, team Biden and the DC beltway are starving for war profits. That town wants middle east conflict on purpose.
Defense industry players, elected officials, the defense bureaucracy, and governments in the Middle East are intertwined and serve one another's interest, often at the expense of US foreign policy outcomes.
Defense industry players, elected officials, the defense bureaucracy, and governments in the Middle East are intertwined and serve one another's interest, often at the expense of US foreign policy outcomes.
Just on the thread to say lets dump the parasite state called Israel that spies on the USA and engages in election interference on a scale far larger than China or Russia.
We definitely have a military-industrial complex. But you don't need wars for war profits. You just need arms sales.Doc Holliday said:
Cmon man, team Biden and the DC beltway are starving for war profits. That town wants middle east conflict on purpose.
Defense industry players, elected officials, the defense bureaucracy, and governments in the Middle East are intertwined and serve one another's interest, often at the expense of US foreign policy outcomes.
Interesting that Trump was the one who approved a big arms sale in the Middle East -- arms that were actually being used to bomb civilians in a proxy war. Interesting also that your supposed warmonger Biden just cancelled that sale.
I don't know what Biden's specific policies toward Israel will be. Ask me about them once he has some.
In general, I think the idea of being pro-Israel but not (necessarily) pro-Bibi is sound, no matter whose policy it is.
Oh yeah ... all those unprecedented peace and diplomacy deals will really come back to bite the Israelis!
Peace and diplomacy deals are good. Probably wouldn't have happened without the US leaning on the Arab partners. I give Trump admin credit here.sombear said:
Oh yeah ... all those unprecedented peace and diplomacy deals will really come back to bite the Israelis!
Bibi's policies that I worry about for Israel's future are more about putting the country in an impossible situation as to whether its is going to be a democracy or a Jewish ethno-state in which Arabs (Israeli Arabs -- many of them Christians -- as well as Palestinians) will be second-class citizens. Right now, Bibi is trying to have it both ways, and that's not sustainable for Israel in the long run.
if Israel isn't an ethno-state, it will cease to exist.bubbadog said:Peace and diplomacy deals are good. Probably wouldn't have happened without the US leaning on the Arab partners. I give Trump admin credit here.sombear said:
Oh yeah ... all those unprecedented peace and diplomacy deals will really come back to bite the Israelis!
Bibi's policies that I worry about for Israel's future are more about putting the country in an impossible situation as to whether its is going to be a democracy or a Jewish ethno-state in which Arabs (Israeli Arabs -- many of them Christians -- as well as Palestinians) will be second-class citizens. Right now, Bibi is trying to have it both ways, and that's not sustainable for Israel in the long run.
Israel has several pathways forward, most of which will be dead ends of one sort or another.whiterock said:if Israel isn't an ethno-state, it will cease to exist.bubbadog said:Peace and diplomacy deals are good. Probably wouldn't have happened without the US leaning on the Arab partners. I give Trump admin credit here.sombear said:
Oh yeah ... all those unprecedented peace and diplomacy deals will really come back to bite the Israelis!
Bibi's policies that I worry about for Israel's future are more about putting the country in an impossible situation as to whether its is going to be a democracy or a Jewish ethno-state in which Arabs (Israeli Arabs -- many of them Christians -- as well as Palestinians) will be second-class citizens. Right now, Bibi is trying to have it both ways, and that's not sustainable for Israel in the long run.
1. Israel can try to maintain the current status quo, occupying the West Bank while continuing to expand settlements. That seems to be the policy Netanyahu favors, because it kicks the can down the road for the next generation. But as the expanding settlements change what the Israeli government calls "facts on the ground," they steadily foreclose the possibility of a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank, meaning that occupation would essentially be permanent -- and making Israel look too much like an apartheid state for comfort.
2. Israel can annex the West Bank, as many right-wingers (and some Palestinians too) desire and give them the same rights of citizenship as Palestinians who live within the pre-1967 borders of Israel have, including the ability to vote and serve in the Knesset. But this would be suicide for the idea of a Jewish state, since Arabs in this expanded Israel would then outnumber Jews. So that's a dead end.
3. Israel can annex the West Bank but not allow West Bank Arabs the same rights as West Bank Jews and other Israelis have. But in this case Israel could no longer claim to be the only democracy in the Middle East. It would in fact be an apartheid state. Israel was founded on the moral principle of creating a homeland where a persecuted people could be safe and govern themselves. This option is not morally viable.
4) the faulty premise underling your argument is implied territorial inviolability of West Bank. Israel will avoid what you describe by simply annexing all the jewish settlements in the West Bank and leaving the Palestinian neighborhoods autonomous. They will simply hold a plebiscite and hold up overwhelming support for annexation. At some point, this incentivizes Palestinian flexibility, as delaying for time risks permanent loss of very limited territory.bubbadog said:Israel has several pathways forward, most of which will be dead ends of one sort or another.whiterock said:if Israel isn't an ethno-state, it will cease to exist.bubbadog said:Peace and diplomacy deals are good. Probably wouldn't have happened without the US leaning on the Arab partners. I give Trump admin credit here.sombear said:
Oh yeah ... all those unprecedented peace and diplomacy deals will really come back to bite the Israelis!
Bibi's policies that I worry about for Israel's future are more about putting the country in an impossible situation as to whether its is going to be a democracy or a Jewish ethno-state in which Arabs (Israeli Arabs -- many of them Christians -- as well as Palestinians) will be second-class citizens. Right now, Bibi is trying to have it both ways, and that's not sustainable for Israel in the long run.
1. Israel can try to maintain the current status quo, occupying the West Bank while continuing to expand settlements. That seems to be the policy Netanyahu favors, because it kicks the can down the road for the next generation. But as the expanding settlements change what the Israeli government calls "facts on the ground," they steadily foreclose the possibility of a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank, meaning that occupation would essentially be permanent -- and making Israel look too much like an apartheid state for comfort.
2. Israel can annex the West Bank, as many right-wingers (and some Palestinians too) desire and give them the same rights of citizenship as Palestinians who live within the pre-1967 borders of Israel have, including the ability to vote and serve in the Knesset. But this would be suicide for the idea of a Jewish state, since Arabs in this expanded Israel would then outnumber Jews. So that's a dead end.
3. Israel can annex the West Bank but not allow West Bank Arabs the same rights as West Bank Jews and other Israelis have. But in this case Israel could no longer claim to be the only democracy in the Middle East. It would in fact be an apartheid state. Israel was founded on the moral principle of creating a homeland where a persecuted people could be safe and govern themselves. This option is not morally viable.
5) generally speaking, your analysis ignores the starkness of being Israeli. They have nowhere to go; Arab societies are still built on Pact of Umar worldview and no Arab nation will never tolerate a Jewish minority as equals. Israel knows it will have to scratch out and defend a Jewish state, or....well, they have no other option. US policy should not quail from zionism. It is a post-WWII imperative worth defending. Palestinians can have a homeland. All they have to do is accede to an jewish homeland.
6) Trump policy undercut Arab support for the Palestinian cause by focusing them on the Iranian boogeyman. That's not hard to do, as Sunni fear of Iran/Shiism is quite irrational. By reverting to Obama's Iranian appeasement, Biden tipped the scales back in favor of the Palestinians, for no appreciable gain. Under Trump, Israel had never been in a more secure position in the region - Arab states were opening diplomatic relations, tacitly agreeing to military alliance with Israel. Win, win, win, etc....situation. How could anyone make the case that US policy in the region was not positive?
7) Trump's de-emphasis of the WOT also drastically lessened islamist pressures on the "arab/israeli dispute," appealing to Arab/Persian antipathies instead. Again, Biden has flipped the script in the wrong direction. The template of having a strong alliance with a Persian Shiite country surrounded by Sunni/non-Persian rivals is sound. The problem is, Iran is giving absolutely no signs of interest in such a relationship with the US. It is firmly entrenched as a rogue regime dependent on the Russia/China axis, happily so.
8) Given that situation, Trump's renewed emphasis on US/Saudi alliance recognizes global realities and strengthens our position, taking most of the Arab world out of tacit support for islamist campaigns against the west and unifying them against a common enemy. Biden, by comparison, returns to an idealistic policy agenda which harms everyone except our enemies. It's almost like Democrats WANT to have Israel teetering on the edge of war with it's neighbors and ever more dependent on the US....
Democrats are comfortable with a level of ambivalence toward Israel that Israel itself cannot afford to tolerate.
whiterock said:It's almost like Democrats WANT to have Israel teetering on the edge of war with it's neighbors and ever more dependent on the US....bubbadog said:Israel has several pathways forward, most of which will be dead ends of one sort or another.whiterock said:if Israel isn't an ethno-state, it will cease to exist.bubbadog said:Peace and diplomacy deals are good. Probably wouldn't have happened without the US leaning on the Arab partners. I give Trump admin credit here.sombear said:
Oh yeah ... all those unprecedented peace and diplomacy deals will really come back to bite the Israelis!
Bibi's policies that I worry about for Israel's future are more about putting the country in an impossible situation as to whether its is going to be a democracy or a Jewish ethno-state in which Arabs (Israeli Arabs -- many of them Christians -- as well as Palestinians) will be second-class citizens. Right now, Bibi is trying to have it both ways, and that's not sustainable for Israel in the long run.
1. Israel can try to maintain the current status quo, occupying the West Bank while continuing to expand settlements. That seems to be the policy Netanyahu favors, because it kicks the can down the road for the next generation. But as the expanding settlements change what the Israeli government calls "facts on the ground," they steadily foreclose the possibility of a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank, meaning that occupation would essentially be permanent -- and making Israel look too much like an apartheid state for comfort.
2. Israel can annex the West Bank, as many right-wingers (and some Palestinians too) desire and give them the same rights of citizenship as Palestinians who live within the pre-1967 borders of Israel have, including the ability to vote and serve in the Knesset. But this would be suicide for the idea of a Jewish state, since Arabs in this expanded Israel would then outnumber Jews. So that's a dead end.
3. Israel can annex the West Bank but not allow West Bank Arabs the same rights as West Bank Jews and other Israelis have. But in this case Israel could no longer claim to be the only democracy in the Middle East. It would in fact be an apartheid state. Israel was founded on the moral principle of creating a homeland where a persecuted people could be safe and govern themselves. This option is not morally viable.
I'll come back to your larger post when I have more time today, but for now I'll just focus on this. Why do you think the Sunni fear of Iran is irrational?whiterock said:bubbadog said:Israel has several pathways forward, most of which will be dead ends of one sort or another.whiterock said:if Israel isn't an ethno-state, it will cease to exist.bubbadog said:Peace and diplomacy deals are good. Probably wouldn't have happened without the US leaning on the Arab partners. I give Trump admin credit here.sombear said:
Oh yeah ... all those unprecedented peace and diplomacy deals will really come back to bite the Israelis!
Bibi's policies that I worry about for Israel's future are more about putting the country in an impossible situation as to whether its is going to be a democracy or a Jewish ethno-state in which Arabs (Israeli Arabs -- many of them Christians -- as well as Palestinians) will be second-class citizens. Right now, Bibi is trying to have it both ways, and that's not sustainable for Israel in the long run.
1. Israel can try to maintain the current status quo, occupying the West Bank while continuing to expand settlements. That seems to be the policy Netanyahu favors, because it kicks the can down the road for the next generation. But as the expanding settlements change what the Israeli government calls "facts on the ground," they steadily foreclose the possibility of a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank, meaning that occupation would essentially be permanent -- and making Israel look too much like an apartheid state for comfort.
2. Israel can annex the West Bank, as many right-wingers (and some Palestinians too) desire and give them the same rights of citizenship as Palestinians who live within the pre-1967 borders of Israel have, including the ability to vote and serve in the Knesset. But this would be suicide for the idea of a Jewish state, since Arabs in this expanded Israel would then outnumber Jews. So that's a dead end.
3. Israel can annex the West Bank but not allow West Bank Arabs the same rights as West Bank Jews and other Israelis have. But in this case Israel could no longer claim to be the only democracy in the Middle East. It would in fact be an apartheid state. Israel was founded on the moral principle of creating a homeland where a persecuted people could be safe and govern themselves. This option is not morally viable.
6) Trump policy undercut Arab support for the Palestinian cause by focusing them on the Iranian boogeyman. That's not hard to do, as Sunni fear of Iran/Shiism is quite irrational. By reverting to Obama's Iranian appeasement, Biden tipped the scales back in favor of the Palestinians, for no appreciable gain. Under Trump, Israel had never been in a more secure position in the region - Arab states were opening diplomatic relations, tacitly agreeing to military alliance with Israel. Win, win, win, etc....situation. How could anyone make the case that US policy in the region was not positive?
Iran and Saudi Arabia are the two Arab powers in the Persian Gulf region, and they're engaged in a power struggle that the Iranians currently are winning, thanks to their influence in Iraq and Lebanon, their military commitments in Syria and their proxy war in Yemen. The Saudis have a significant Shia minority and fear that the Iranians could foment unrest and turn them against the regime.
Fear of Iran goes beyond the context of regional power balance. In every Sunni nation there is a fear that Iran is a threat to destabilize their country. It goes all the way back to the Sunni/Shia split at the battle of Karbala. Shiism is not about theological differences with Sunnism; it's about the legitimacy of Sunnism itself. Theologically, there's less difference between sunni/shia than between catholic/protestant. But Shia do no recognize most of the hadith's which form the basis of Sunni society.bubbadog said:I'll come back to your larger post when I have more time today, but for now I'll just focus on this. Why do you think the Sunni fear of Iran is irrational?whiterock said:bubbadog said:Israel has several pathways forward, most of which will be dead ends of one sort or another.whiterock said:if Israel isn't an ethno-state, it will cease to exist.bubbadog said:Peace and diplomacy deals are good. Probably wouldn't have happened without the US leaning on the Arab partners. I give Trump admin credit here.sombear said:
Oh yeah ... all those unprecedented peace and diplomacy deals will really come back to bite the Israelis!
Bibi's policies that I worry about for Israel's future are more about putting the country in an impossible situation as to whether its is going to be a democracy or a Jewish ethno-state in which Arabs (Israeli Arabs -- many of them Christians -- as well as Palestinians) will be second-class citizens. Right now, Bibi is trying to have it both ways, and that's not sustainable for Israel in the long run.
1. Israel can try to maintain the current status quo, occupying the West Bank while continuing to expand settlements. That seems to be the policy Netanyahu favors, because it kicks the can down the road for the next generation. But as the expanding settlements change what the Israeli government calls "facts on the ground," they steadily foreclose the possibility of a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank, meaning that occupation would essentially be permanent -- and making Israel look too much like an apartheid state for comfort.
2. Israel can annex the West Bank, as many right-wingers (and some Palestinians too) desire and give them the same rights of citizenship as Palestinians who live within the pre-1967 borders of Israel have, including the ability to vote and serve in the Knesset. But this would be suicide for the idea of a Jewish state, since Arabs in this expanded Israel would then outnumber Jews. So that's a dead end.
3. Israel can annex the West Bank but not allow West Bank Arabs the same rights as West Bank Jews and other Israelis have. But in this case Israel could no longer claim to be the only democracy in the Middle East. It would in fact be an apartheid state. Israel was founded on the moral principle of creating a homeland where a persecuted people could be safe and govern themselves. This option is not morally viable.
6) Trump policy undercut Arab support for the Palestinian cause by focusing them on the Iranian boogeyman. That's not hard to do, as Sunni fear of Iran/Shiism is quite irrational. By reverting to Obama's Iranian appeasement, Biden tipped the scales back in favor of the Palestinians, for no appreciable gain. Under Trump, Israel had never been in a more secure position in the region - Arab states were opening diplomatic relations, tacitly agreeing to military alliance with Israel. Win, win, win, etc....situation. How could anyone make the case that US policy in the region was not positive?
Iran and Saudi Arabia are the two Arab powers in the Persian Gulf region, and they're engaged in a power struggle that the Iranians currently are winning, thanks to their influence in Iraq and Lebanon, their military commitments in Syria and their proxy war in Yemen. The Saudis have a significant Shia minority and fear that the Iranians could foment unrest and turn them against the regime.
As a result (and at the risk of oversimplification), the difference between Sunni/Shia could be boiled down to this: Sunnis believe political leadership selects the imams; Shias believe the imams select the political leadership. So any Sunni ruler looks at Shiism as an ideological threat to his/her legitimacy. Philosophically, the logic flows rather straightforwardly.
.
What is illogical is being so concerned about that issue in light of real world demographics: Shiites are 15% of the islamic population world wide, and 90% of them live in Iran. So beyond some of the smaller countries where they are significant percentages of the population they are not a practical threat (insurgency or coup) in very many places.
In the Persian Gulf area, however, there are also ethnic (arab vs persian) and geo-power concerns laid across the sectarian issue. US policy should seek to deny control of the shatter zones of the persian gulf and levant region area to any of the four competing regional powers - Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Saudi. Saudi is of course the least of those powers militarily, but they are in a unique position to galvanze an islamic world in a bloc against Iran on the Sunni/Shia question. And as protector of the holy sites, Saudi has legitimacy that old colonial powers (Turkey, Egypt) do not have to organize international coalitions.
Trump policy very wisely exploited that to isolate Iran.
He literally got the Saudis to put away the dream of islamist revival (at western expense) to focus on isolation of Iran.
And Biden is throwing it all away.
Great series of posts. Another ironic reality is that Iran enjoys terrific support from Russia.whiterock said:Fear of Iran goes beyond the context of regional power balance. In every Sunni nation there is a fear that Iran is a threat to destabilize their country. It goes all the way back to the Sunni/Shia split at the battle of Karbala. Shiism is not about theological differences with Sunnism; it's about the legitimacy of Sunnism itself. Theologically, there's less difference between sunni/shia than between catholic/protestant. But Shia do no recognize most of the hadith's which form the basis of Sunni society.bubbadog said:I'll come back to your larger post when I have more time today, but for now I'll just focus on this. Why do you think the Sunni fear of Iran is irrational?whiterock said:bubbadog said:Israel has several pathways forward, most of which will be dead ends of one sort or another.whiterock said:if Israel isn't an ethno-state, it will cease to exist.bubbadog said:Peace and diplomacy deals are good. Probably wouldn't have happened without the US leaning on the Arab partners. I give Trump admin credit here.sombear said:
Oh yeah ... all those unprecedented peace and diplomacy deals will really come back to bite the Israelis!
Bibi's policies that I worry about for Israel's future are more about putting the country in an impossible situation as to whether its is going to be a democracy or a Jewish ethno-state in which Arabs (Israeli Arabs -- many of them Christians -- as well as Palestinians) will be second-class citizens. Right now, Bibi is trying to have it both ways, and that's not sustainable for Israel in the long run.
1. Israel can try to maintain the current status quo, occupying the West Bank while continuing to expand settlements. That seems to be the policy Netanyahu favors, because it kicks the can down the road for the next generation. But as the expanding settlements change what the Israeli government calls "facts on the ground," they steadily foreclose the possibility of a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank, meaning that occupation would essentially be permanent -- and making Israel look too much like an apartheid state for comfort.
2. Israel can annex the West Bank, as many right-wingers (and some Palestinians too) desire and give them the same rights of citizenship as Palestinians who live within the pre-1967 borders of Israel have, including the ability to vote and serve in the Knesset. But this would be suicide for the idea of a Jewish state, since Arabs in this expanded Israel would then outnumber Jews. So that's a dead end.
3. Israel can annex the West Bank but not allow West Bank Arabs the same rights as West Bank Jews and other Israelis have. But in this case Israel could no longer claim to be the only democracy in the Middle East. It would in fact be an apartheid state. Israel was founded on the moral principle of creating a homeland where a persecuted people could be safe and govern themselves. This option is not morally viable.
6) Trump policy undercut Arab support for the Palestinian cause by focusing them on the Iranian boogeyman. That's not hard to do, as Sunni fear of Iran/Shiism is quite irrational. By reverting to Obama's Iranian appeasement, Biden tipped the scales back in favor of the Palestinians, for no appreciable gain. Under Trump, Israel had never been in a more secure position in the region - Arab states were opening diplomatic relations, tacitly agreeing to military alliance with Israel. Win, win, win, etc....situation. How could anyone make the case that US policy in the region was not positive?
Iran and Saudi Arabia are the two Arab powers in the Persian Gulf region, and they're engaged in a power struggle that the Iranians currently are winning, thanks to their influence in Iraq and Lebanon, their military commitments in Syria and their proxy war in Yemen. The Saudis have a significant Shia minority and fear that the Iranians could foment unrest and turn them against the regime.
As a result (and at the risk of oversimplification), the difference between Sunni/Shia could be boiled down to this: Sunnis believe political leadership selects the imams; Shias believe the imams select the political leadership. So any Sunni ruler looks at Shiism as an ideological threat to his/her legitimacy. Philosophically, the logic flows rather straightforwardly.
.
What is illogical is being so concerned about that issue in light of real world demographics: Shiites are 15% of the islamic population world wide, and 90% of them live in Iran. So beyond some of the smaller countries where they are significant percentages of the population they are not a practical threat (insurgency or coup) in very many places.
In the Persian Gulf area, however, there are also ethnic (arab vs persian) and geo-power concerns laid across the sectarian issue. US policy should seek to deny control of the shatter zones of the persian gulf and levant region area to any of the four competing regional powers - Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Saudi. Saudi is of course the least of those powers militarily, but they are in a unique position to galvanze an islamic world in a bloc against Iran on the Sunni/Shia question. And as protector of the holy sites, Saudi has legitimacy that old colonial powers (Turkey, Egypt) do not have to organize international coalitions.
Trump policy very wisely exploited that to isolate Iran.
He literally got the Saudis to put away the dream of islamist revival (at western expense) to focus on isolation of Iran.
And Biden is throwing it all away.
yes. Iran has warm water ports, something the (barely blue water) Russian navy badly needs. Iran also is a customer for military and nuclear equipment. A close relationship between Russia/Iran also deters Iran from meddling in the central asian shatter zones, destabilization of which would negatively affect Russian interests.ATL Bear said:Great series of posts. Another ironic reality is that Iran enjoys terrific support from Russia.whiterock said:Fear of Iran goes beyond the context of regional power balance. In every Sunni nation there is a fear that Iran is a threat to destabilize their country. It goes all the way back to the Sunni/Shia split at the battle of Karbala. Shiism is not about theological differences with Sunnism; it's about the legitimacy of Sunnism itself. Theologically, there's less difference between sunni/shia than between catholic/protestant. But Shia do no recognize most of the hadith's which form the basis of Sunni society.bubbadog said:I'll come back to your larger post when I have more time today, but for now I'll just focus on this. Why do you think the Sunni fear of Iran is irrational?whiterock said:bubbadog said:Israel has several pathways forward, most of which will be dead ends of one sort or another.whiterock said:if Israel isn't an ethno-state, it will cease to exist.bubbadog said:Peace and diplomacy deals are good. Probably wouldn't have happened without the US leaning on the Arab partners. I give Trump admin credit here.sombear said:
Oh yeah ... all those unprecedented peace and diplomacy deals will really come back to bite the Israelis!
Bibi's policies that I worry about for Israel's future are more about putting the country in an impossible situation as to whether its is going to be a democracy or a Jewish ethno-state in which Arabs (Israeli Arabs -- many of them Christians -- as well as Palestinians) will be second-class citizens. Right now, Bibi is trying to have it both ways, and that's not sustainable for Israel in the long run.
1. Israel can try to maintain the current status quo, occupying the West Bank while continuing to expand settlements. That seems to be the policy Netanyahu favors, because it kicks the can down the road for the next generation. But as the expanding settlements change what the Israeli government calls "facts on the ground," they steadily foreclose the possibility of a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank, meaning that occupation would essentially be permanent -- and making Israel look too much like an apartheid state for comfort.
2. Israel can annex the West Bank, as many right-wingers (and some Palestinians too) desire and give them the same rights of citizenship as Palestinians who live within the pre-1967 borders of Israel have, including the ability to vote and serve in the Knesset. But this would be suicide for the idea of a Jewish state, since Arabs in this expanded Israel would then outnumber Jews. So that's a dead end.
3. Israel can annex the West Bank but not allow West Bank Arabs the same rights as West Bank Jews and other Israelis have. But in this case Israel could no longer claim to be the only democracy in the Middle East. It would in fact be an apartheid state. Israel was founded on the moral principle of creating a homeland where a persecuted people could be safe and govern themselves. This option is not morally viable.
6) Trump policy undercut Arab support for the Palestinian cause by focusing them on the Iranian boogeyman. That's not hard to do, as Sunni fear of Iran/Shiism is quite irrational. By reverting to Obama's Iranian appeasement, Biden tipped the scales back in favor of the Palestinians, for no appreciable gain. Under Trump, Israel had never been in a more secure position in the region - Arab states were opening diplomatic relations, tacitly agreeing to military alliance with Israel. Win, win, win, etc....situation. How could anyone make the case that US policy in the region was not positive?
Iran and Saudi Arabia are the two Arab powers in the Persian Gulf region, and they're engaged in a power struggle that the Iranians currently are winning, thanks to their influence in Iraq and Lebanon, their military commitments in Syria and their proxy war in Yemen. The Saudis have a significant Shia minority and fear that the Iranians could foment unrest and turn them against the regime.
As a result (and at the risk of oversimplification), the difference between Sunni/Shia could be boiled down to this: Sunnis believe political leadership selects the imams; Shias believe the imams select the political leadership. So any Sunni ruler looks at Shiism as an ideological threat to his/her legitimacy. Philosophically, the logic flows rather straightforwardly.
.
What is illogical is being so concerned about that issue in light of real world demographics: Shiites are 15% of the islamic population world wide, and 90% of them live in Iran. So beyond some of the smaller countries where they are significant percentages of the population they are not a practical threat (insurgency or coup) in very many places.
In the Persian Gulf area, however, there are also ethnic (arab vs persian) and geo-power concerns laid across the sectarian issue. US policy should seek to deny control of the shatter zones of the persian gulf and levant region area to any of the four competing regional powers - Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Saudi. Saudi is of course the least of those powers militarily, but they are in a unique position to galvanze an islamic world in a bloc against Iran on the Sunni/Shia question. And as protector of the holy sites, Saudi has legitimacy that old colonial powers (Turkey, Egypt) do not have to organize international coalitions.
Trump policy very wisely exploited that to isolate Iran.
He literally got the Saudis to put away the dream of islamist revival (at western expense) to focus on isolation of Iran.
And Biden is throwing it all away.
But mostly, it's about Russian efforts to detabilize western interests in the Persian Gulf.
Russia is basically a third world country with nuclear weapons. It's economy is smaller than the Texas economy. So yeah, it has a fearsome military, but it cannot sustain a war of attrition on its own soil, much less an international coalition for any length of time.
But what Russia can do is frustrate US policy, destabilize US allies, etc...... They are pretty skilled at that game, and play it relentlessly. That's what their Iranian game is all about. They seek to use Iran as China uses North Korea.....a rogue client state that constantly threatens to flip tables on US interests.
Russia definitely isn't third world, although they certainly lag most major Western nations. Nevertheless, I wholeheartedly concur with your assessment. Iran and Syria are the primary conduits whereby Russia meddles in the Middle East, and pokes Israel from time to time. Syria and Iran have been allies for decades, and in consort with Russia have been thorns in the US' side for a long time.whiterock said:yes. Iran has warm water ports, something the (barely blue water) Russian navy badly needs. Iran also is a customer for military and nuclear equipment. A close relationship between Russia/Iran also deters Iran from meddling in the central asian shatter zones, destabilization of which would negatively affect Russian interests.ATL Bear said:Great series of posts. Another ironic reality is that Iran enjoys terrific support from Russia.whiterock said:Fear of Iran goes beyond the context of regional power balance. In every Sunni nation there is a fear that Iran is a threat to destabilize their country. It goes all the way back to the Sunni/Shia split at the battle of Karbala. Shiism is not about theological differences with Sunnism; it's about the legitimacy of Sunnism itself. Theologically, there's less difference between sunni/shia than between catholic/protestant. But Shia do no recognize most of the hadith's which form the basis of Sunni society.bubbadog said:I'll come back to your larger post when I have more time today, but for now I'll just focus on this. Why do you think the Sunni fear of Iran is irrational?whiterock said:bubbadog said:Israel has several pathways forward, most of which will be dead ends of one sort or another.whiterock said:if Israel isn't an ethno-state, it will cease to exist.bubbadog said:Peace and diplomacy deals are good. Probably wouldn't have happened without the US leaning on the Arab partners. I give Trump admin credit here.sombear said:
Oh yeah ... all those unprecedented peace and diplomacy deals will really come back to bite the Israelis!
Bibi's policies that I worry about for Israel's future are more about putting the country in an impossible situation as to whether its is going to be a democracy or a Jewish ethno-state in which Arabs (Israeli Arabs -- many of them Christians -- as well as Palestinians) will be second-class citizens. Right now, Bibi is trying to have it both ways, and that's not sustainable for Israel in the long run.
1. Israel can try to maintain the current status quo, occupying the West Bank while continuing to expand settlements. That seems to be the policy Netanyahu favors, because it kicks the can down the road for the next generation. But as the expanding settlements change what the Israeli government calls "facts on the ground," they steadily foreclose the possibility of a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank, meaning that occupation would essentially be permanent -- and making Israel look too much like an apartheid state for comfort.
2. Israel can annex the West Bank, as many right-wingers (and some Palestinians too) desire and give them the same rights of citizenship as Palestinians who live within the pre-1967 borders of Israel have, including the ability to vote and serve in the Knesset. But this would be suicide for the idea of a Jewish state, since Arabs in this expanded Israel would then outnumber Jews. So that's a dead end.
3. Israel can annex the West Bank but not allow West Bank Arabs the same rights as West Bank Jews and other Israelis have. But in this case Israel could no longer claim to be the only democracy in the Middle East. It would in fact be an apartheid state. Israel was founded on the moral principle of creating a homeland where a persecuted people could be safe and govern themselves. This option is not morally viable.
6) Trump policy undercut Arab support for the Palestinian cause by focusing them on the Iranian boogeyman. That's not hard to do, as Sunni fear of Iran/Shiism is quite irrational. By reverting to Obama's Iranian appeasement, Biden tipped the scales back in favor of the Palestinians, for no appreciable gain. Under Trump, Israel had never been in a more secure position in the region - Arab states were opening diplomatic relations, tacitly agreeing to military alliance with Israel. Win, win, win, etc....situation. How could anyone make the case that US policy in the region was not positive?
Iran and Saudi Arabia are the two Arab powers in the Persian Gulf region, and they're engaged in a power struggle that the Iranians currently are winning, thanks to their influence in Iraq and Lebanon, their military commitments in Syria and their proxy war in Yemen. The Saudis have a significant Shia minority and fear that the Iranians could foment unrest and turn them against the regime.
As a result (and at the risk of oversimplification), the difference between Sunni/Shia could be boiled down to this: Sunnis believe political leadership selects the imams; Shias believe the imams select the political leadership. So any Sunni ruler looks at Shiism as an ideological threat to his/her legitimacy. Philosophically, the logic flows rather straightforwardly.
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What is illogical is being so concerned about that issue in light of real world demographics: Shiites are 15% of the islamic population world wide, and 90% of them live in Iran. So beyond some of the smaller countries where they are significant percentages of the population they are not a practical threat (insurgency or coup) in very many places.
In the Persian Gulf area, however, there are also ethnic (arab vs persian) and geo-power concerns laid across the sectarian issue. US policy should seek to deny control of the shatter zones of the persian gulf and levant region area to any of the four competing regional powers - Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Saudi. Saudi is of course the least of those powers militarily, but they are in a unique position to galvanze an islamic world in a bloc against Iran on the Sunni/Shia question. And as protector of the holy sites, Saudi has legitimacy that old colonial powers (Turkey, Egypt) do not have to organize international coalitions.
Trump policy very wisely exploited that to isolate Iran.
He literally got the Saudis to put away the dream of islamist revival (at western expense) to focus on isolation of Iran.
And Biden is throwing it all away.
But mostly, it's about Russian efforts to detabilize western interests in the Persian Gulf.
Russia is basically a third world country with nuclear weapons. It's economy is smaller than the Texas economy. So yeah, it has a fearsome military, but it cannot sustain a war of attrition on its own soil, much less an international coalition for any length of time.
But what Russia can do is frustrate US policy, destabilize US allies, etc...... They are pretty skilled at that game, and play it relentlessly. That's what their Iranian game is all about. They seek to use Iran as China uses North Korea.....a rogue client state that constantly threatens to flip tables on US interests.
I also like your parallel to China and North Korea, although Iran isn't as isolated from the rest of the world as NK is, which makes it even more difficult for sanctions to work. Our own allies violated them regularly (looking at you Germany).
One of the best strategies against Persian Gulf instability lately has been our own fossil fuel independence and leadership. But we all know where that's going with the new administration, and thus we find ourselves digging up tired efforts to be an Iranian friend. A nation mind you where we have zero economic ties, thus all negotiating leverage is dependent upon other proxies. Now that we're pulling out support for Yemen, we'll see if and how Iranian, and by default Russian, influence continues to tighten around the Gulf.
Remember when everyone praised the Arab Spring? Boy was that a disaster.
it was amazing to see the news media all pile on the anti-colonial narrative "arabs rising up to demand (western style) dictators give in to (western style) democracy, when in fact the real dynamic was arab societies moving toward islamism. Every arab spring uprising which resulted in regime change saw islamist (or more-islamist) regimes come to power. Two years later, even the most moderate islamic countries, from Indonesia to Morocco, had islamist-led governments.ATL Bear said:
Remember when everyone praised the Arab Spring? Boy was that a disaster.
Just goes to show how utterly clueless is the deep state media about reality, so lost in their own critical theory narratives that the are literally disinformation outlets.