This alliance allows the US to maintain a stronger foothold in the Middle East and exert hegemonic power via proxy.
This isn't the only reason, of course, but it's part of it.
And the US wants a foothold in the middle east because oil.
Well, that and keeping ~~the USSR~~ Russia and China out
I don't think the US isn't interested in the oil opportunities in the Middle East, but I think the US wants a foothold everywhere and anywhere across the globe to maintain its position as a global superpower.
Yes, the US wants that foothold because of oil. It's not because we wish to become rich off it, it's because oil is essential to keeping our economy stable. Keeping the region stable, or at least "stable" in America's best interests, is paramount.
Doesn't matter what anyone's opinion on our oil consumption is, even in the face of global warming. At this point in time, we need it.
Without oil our economy plummets and that affects the whole world. And we can't fix it anytime soon. I'm seeing hope, but it's painfully slow. FFS, trying to fix this mess bucks the richest interests on the planet. And if we guillotined every one of them, we'd still be in the same place.
I see a lot of talk around here calling talk of the "economy" bullshit, like those numbers only affect the rich, and fuck 'em. Like it or not, we all participate in the economy.
In turn, we're all hurt if it crashes. And that includes the rest of the world. Anyone here old enough to remember the gas station lines after the Iranian revolution?
And spare me talk of coulda/shoula/woulda. America could have done a dozen things better to avoid all this. We didn't. And here we are.
Read a lot of answers and yours is succinct.
Israel is the largest American aircraft carrier in the world that cannot be sunk, does not carry even one American soldier, and is located in a critical region for American national security.
~ Alexander Haig
Biden said it himself back in the day, its a foothold in the Middle East, "if israel did not exist we would need to create an israel" im paraphrasing but the clip is on YouTube
Everyone that understands military doctrine would understand that one of the main purposes of Israel was to act as a staging ground to extend power throughout the middle east. There is also a sizeable voting block of christians that place special emphasis on the formation and continued support of Israel.
This is the only correct answer here. Everything else is just uneducated and emotional ramblings.
The US supports plenty of fucked up countries because we gain something from them. In the same way Saudi Arabia supplies us oil, Israel provides an American stronghold in the middle east to operate out of. With the political importance and violent instability of the middle east the US finds Israel a necessity to its ambitions.
Let's be honest, there's a shit ton of money involved as well. From campaign donations to the military industrial complex, people are getting paid by Israel and jewish persons. They have a powerful lobby and influential people around the nation.
They have historic ties and Israel is an important strategic ally in the middle east for the US.
The answer is simple and almost no one gets it: The U.S. will NEVER give up a military foothold in the middle east. They will ignore every atrocity Israel commits if it means we have a place to sortie from.
That's it.
It's not a religious conspiracy, it's not about back room money deals.
It's about military power and our ability to strike anywhere in the world with 2 hours notice.
This is the most simple answer and the truth. Not only that, but our hands are generally tied to a fault when it comes to these allies. This is why Biden has had some words to say, but there’s no actual teeth to them. He literally can’t do shit. Any other administration would be the same.
Roughly 4 out of 5 companies I've seen that have received investments in my industry in the past 5 years have been Israel R&D startup companies.
Not my wheel house, but if I had to guess, the ruling class in the states has a lot of investments tied up in Israel.
Take with a grain of salt, as this is just an anecdotal observation.
They want an ally in the middle east? A bunch of countries in that area don't like them.
Israel is a military toehold in the region. Israel desperately needs our help, so we help Israel because it allows us to have someone who desperately needs our help in the region.
Without US money there’d be no Iron Dome. There’d be no Israel of any kind. Israel needs the US, and that is why we chose Israel as our local ally.
From Machiavelli’s The Prince:
The Romans, in the countries which they annexed, observed closely these measures; they sent colonies and maintained friendly relations with[2] the minor powers, without increasing their strength; they kept down the greater, and did not allow any strong foreign powers to gain authority
Considering a selfish, manipulative, ahem Machiavellian worldview, the reason the US supports Israel is because Israel is the local minor power, which can only become the local major power with our help.
With US help, Israel is on top over there. Without it, Israel is a minor power. That is why Israel, specifically, gets our military investments.
I think this issue is also more nuanced than you'll see it given credit for in the media.
I think there's some strong "War in Iraq" parallels that can be drawn that might help reflect why the US is reacting the way they are.
To summarize, small group of terrorists commit an attack that is one of the worst in the nations history. This country that was attacked has a much better funded military, and they roll in to exact retribution, notionally under the banner of "stopping the people who did this and not letting it happen again." The war of revenge is hugely detrimental to the civilian population therein, and human rights violations occur.
Most establishment politicians were/are fully on board with the War in Iraq. Why wouldn't they be on board with Israel right now? It's basically the same situation again.
I think that a lot of what you see online forgets that this wasn't some random thing where Israel just decided to commit a genocide out of nowhere. But just like how 9/11 didn't justify the War in Iraq, 10/7 doesn't justify what's happening now. But it's somewhat understandable why it's happening, and why people support it.
I remember right after 9/11, the vast majority of people were on board with sending troops in. The dissenters were super few and far between. This is just that again, but Israel this time.
Iraq didn't have anything to do with 9-11. I think you mean Afghanistan.
Nobody else has pointed out that theres roughly as many Jewish people in the US as in Israel. Which in the run-up to an election is not a voting base you would want to upset.
Jews are not a uniform voting bloc, divided on many issues, Israel being one of them.
Strategic military foothold in the Middle East.
Israel's an ally and America doesn't exactly have the moral high ground to stand on cutting off israel for terror bombing civlians in the middle east.
More practically, Biden seems to think he can negotiate more from israel by playing at being on their side in this conflict than by joining the international condemnation against them, and to his credit he has achieved concessions from israel in the hypothetical post war, and managed hostage swaps between israel and hamas.
Lastly there's the old saying about never letting a good crisis go to waste, the houthis have gone and made absolute asses of themselves with their red sea blockade over this war, and the US and KSA MICs are both explosively orgasmic at the campaign against them going from being labelled a humanitarian disaster to suddenly being a borderline service to the international community.
The longer Israel keeps it up, the longer the Houthis keep making everyone hate them, the longer MBS has to wipe what he sees as one of his biggest security threats off the map without catching flak from most of the international community. You could almost argue that Israel and KSA are passing the "everyone hates us!" ball back and forth to cover for each other's designs on complete subjugation of their immediate neighbors.
I am more curious as to why these completely legal (non rule breaking or trolling comments) are being deleted by lemmy moderation. My app shows removed comments.
If you think you are seeing what people really think of the conflict on this site, you are not. Agendas are being pushed
We need more transparency and community engagement. I think instead of someone being banned or their comment being removed, it should go up for a vote between a random selection of users.
Sort of like the criminal justice system. Be judged by a jury of your peers. Not just some arbitrary official who decides your fate and you have zero recourse.
Western powers support Israel because the Middle East is a strategically important region and Western powers have exactly one reliable partner there. I mean, look at what the House of Saud can get away with just for being a semi-reliable partner.
How exactly is Israel reliable when they do whatever they want regardless of western powers?
Christofascists and Zionists are pretty good friends, and as they are at the head of both countries it's pretty reasonable for them to support eachother country.
Christofascists and Zionists are pretty good friends
It's the same picture. Evangelical Christians are Zionists, because the Jews returning to the Holy Land is a precondition for the Rapture.
(They don't actually give a flying fuck about the Jewish people themselves, to be clear. They just wanna get Raptured.)
Money.
As a US citizen, I really wish we wouldn't. I know a lot of us are against it too.
https://www.aipac.org/ is an influential lobbying organization. Your elected leaders listen to influential lobbying organizations.
Because Isreal is a leading military power in the Middle East. They are Western in most of their views and the US can deal with them. You can’t say the same about any of the other Middle Eastern nations.
Israel is coming down hard on Gaza and Hamas to make an example of them. They are going to send that strip back to the Stone Age. This operation is a statement, “this is what happens when you fuck with us. “
No other Middle Eastern powers give a shit about Gaza. They make noises to appease their populations. But no other Nation has offered direct military assistance or action.
In short it would be stupid to drop Israel as an ally over this.
The US had no essential friends in the Middle East. So the UK made one for them.
About 30% of it is the end of the world cult that believes that for Jesus to come back to take them Israel must exist.
The rest is just the usual reasons they love bombing the middle east.
The military industrial complex needed some new juice after the US left Afghanistan. Those businesses can't scale back and the defense budget can't be reduced, no, never.
Biden may not be a genocidal maniac, but he is a warmonger. I'm hoping his presidency will get people to realize that the Democratic party desires war just as much as Republicans, but that doesn't look like it's happening
One thing I haven't seen mentioned is how the Jewish were treated by all countries in WWII. Going against Israel gives the opposing party ammunition that only works due to most people not understanding the politics at play
Because while "what we can mostly all agree" to that, Biden does not think that Israel is engaged in genocide.
Just because a group of people perceive something to be the absolute truth, doesn't mean everyone interpret reality the same way.
It'll all make a lot more sense in a few years, when the Lord Jesus Christ descends from the clouds to collect his chosen. Let's just say you'll be pretty glad we killed all those Palestinian kids then. It's pretty basic foreign policy stuff, if you read your Bible.
Because Israel helped the US a ton during the cold war. Mossad are pretty good at what they do, and what they did a lot of was spying on Moscow.
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