Cenk Uygur

[Chap]

I think Cenk is right that Biden would have a good chance of ameliorating the tragedy and bringing it to an end if he threatened to sharply curtail any more aid to Israel unless they immediately agreed to enter into good faith negotiations towards a cease fire agreement.

Why are we giving Israel any aid in the first place?

American economic and military interests in the Middle East and Gulf area over the period since WWII have made it convenient to have a staunch ally in the region who can be presented as 'the only democracy in the Middle East'. However Netanyahu is making that increasingly difficult.

[Gunnar]

I think Cenk is right that Biden would have a good chance of ameliorating the tragedy and bringing it to an end if he threatened to sharply curtail any more aid to Israel unless they immediately agreed to enter into good faith negotiations towards a cease fire agreement.

Why are we giving Israel any aid in the first place?

To tell the truth, I'm leaning towards questioning that myself. It is becoming blazingly clear that Netanyahu and the extreme right religious fanatics whose support he seeks and needs to stay in power are at least as guilty of war crime atrocities as Hamas. There are at least tens of thousands and probably hundreds of thousand innocent Gazans killed or permanently maimed, both physically and emotionally by Israel's way over the top retaliation against both real and perceived enemies of Israel in Gaza, many of whom are not even Muslim, and probably the vast majority are not even Hamas! Israel's extreme brutality in Gaza will greatly exacerbate the religious and racial hatred and conflict in the region to the great detriment of everyone in the region, both Jews and Palestinians! The whole catastrophe is rather incontrovertible evidence that appeals to religious beliefs and loyalties more often lead to great harm and hatred than to good. Anyone really familiar with history cannot escape the realization that many of the worst human catastrophes and injustices have been motivated by sincerely religious zealots and their followers who believed or claimed to believe they were only doing the work of God.

Surely there can be no mistake about the fact that the 7 October attacks on Israelis by Hamas and other Palestinians were atrociously villainous and unjustifiable, but I can't believe that gave Israel the right to do something every bit as or even more villainous in retaliation. The vast majority of the Palestinians subsequently killed by IDF had nothing to do with that perfidy. Can there really be any serious doubt that Israel's action has probably created even more real enemies of Israel and Jews in general than the IDF has destroyed, and will probably, in the long run, make Israel's situation even more dangerous and untenable than before?

I can't help but strongly suspect that the whole Zionism movement and the establishment of the modern state of Israel has probably caused, overall, more harm than good for the world in general, and even for Jews and Judaism in particular. Even Israel is far from guilt free in this tragedy.

[Gunnar]

Why are we giving Israel any aid in the first place?

American economic and military interests in the Middle East and Gulf area over the period since WWII have made it convenient to have a staunch ally in the region who can be presented as 'the only democracy in the Middle East'. However Netanyahu is making that increasingly difficult.

Unquestionably true! Until and unless Israel and its leaders realize that, things will only get worse for everyone in that region, including Israel, and democracy has no chance of long-term survival, even in Israel. I think even what is left of Israeli democracy is beginning to fade away, thanks in large part to Netanyahu and his subservience to the most extreme right-wingers in Israeli politics.

[Kishkumen]

Why are we giving Israel any aid in the first place?

Because we agreed long ago to keep up the status quo that the British Empire had set in the Middle East.

[Dr. Shades]

Why are we giving Israel any aid in the first place?

Because we agreed long ago to keep up the status quo that the British Empire had set in the Middle East.

Why on Earth did we agree to such a thing as opposed to just letting the British do it themselves?

And what did we agree to receive in return?

[canpakes]

Because we agreed long ago to keep up the status quo that the British Empire had set in the Middle East.

Why on Earth did we agree to such a thing as opposed to just letting the British do it themselves?

And what did we agree to receive in return?

But …

[honorentheos]

Why on Earth did we agree to such a thing as opposed to just letting the British do it themselves?

And what did we agree to receive in return?

But …

I'm more conflicted on this than I was when I was young. It was fun to put the screws to Eisenhower, jab at Johnson, or click my tongue at Clinton. But I've come to appreciate the complexity of the world order that arose out of the US effectively serving as guarantor of a global economic system that probably fostered a more lasting peace than ever was possible had we either retreated into isolationism or engaged in traditional empire building at the end of WWII.

I don't know. If the world could have heeded our better angels maybe. But the last decade has shown the cracks that form when we seem to be stepping back and the world looks more like the end of the 19th century than anything.

Now, had Carter's solar panels stayed on the White House I think we'd much better off. The oil economy is a significant matter. But it's not the entire picture.

[Kishkumen]

I'm more conflicted on this than I was when I was young. It was fun to put the screws to Eisenhower, jab at Johnson, or click my tongue at Clinton. But I've come to appreciate the complexity of the world order that arose out of the US effectively serving as guarantor of a global economic system that probably fostered a more lasting peace than ever was possible had we either retreated into isolationism or engaged in traditional empire building at the end of WWII.

I don't know. If the world could have heeded our better angels maybe. But the last decade has shown the cracks that form when we seem to be stepping back and the world looks more like the end of the 19th century than anything.

Now, had Carter's solar panels stayed on the White House I think we'd much better off. The oil economy is a significant matter. But it's not the entire picture.

All great comments. Wish more people thought through things to this level. Wish more people were capable of doing so.

[Moksha]

I can't help but strongly suspect that the whole Zionism movement and the establishment of the modern state of Israel have probably caused, overall, more harm than good for the world in general, and even for Jews and Judaism in particular. Even Israel is far from guilt-free in this tragedy.

Britain and its American backers were not very far-sighted when they carved up Palestine. It seemed the right thing to do given the events of the Shoah, but has caused immense suffering ever since. Florida would have been a better choice. Annexing Mobile, Alabama, Biloxi, Mississippi, and parts of Cuba might have been a net positive.

For religious reasons, the Jews would have left the Bubba Gump shrimping fleet unscathed.

[Physics Guy]

I think that most of the world has probably had a large net benefit from American military supremacy over the past century, but that the United States has paid a high price for this. Maybe I just haven't studied it carefully enough but I find it hard to imagine how all that military investment can have paid off for Americans financially.

I'm pretty sure that maintaining a large but minimally equipped conscript army would have been a lot cheaper, in talent as well as in money. Instead the US armed forces have kept on pursuing advanced technology and recruiting a large share of their nation's smart people. That's exorbitantly expensive. Whatever compensations Americans can have won from their country's military superpower status, these could surely have been gotten more cheaply by some more direct means.

With all the resources that have gone into training and paying troops, and developing and building aircraft and vehicles and ships, it might have been possible to deliver universal health care and good education to Americans at home.