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Comment by joelbluminator | Hacker News Reader

Hungary aside, most of Israel's allies in the region are dictatorships, actaully all of them: Egypt, Jordan, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Morocco (arguably, let's agree it's not a liberal democracy) and so on and so on. There are zero democracies in the area. So it's easy to see Israel's interest in supplying technology to those regimes and assuring good relations; it's not like the oppositions to these dictators are any better, the Muslim Brotherhood is appalling. Now Hungary isn't really important to Israel and is part of the EU, may have been wiser to not do that.

> This is Netanyahu's legacy, a proto dictator, arming dictators.

Isn't the U.S selling arms to Saudi Arabia?

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> Hungary aside, most of Israel's allies in the region are dictatorships

Not just in the region. In the 1970s, Israel worked with apartheid South Africa to develop nuclear weapons. South Africa has subsequently been disarmed, but Israel has not been.

Incidentally, in 1963 JFK was trying to stop Israel's nuclear weapons program because American intelligence had failed to turn up any evidence that other countries in the region were pursuing the same. In a letter to Ben-Gurion, JFK wrote:

> "I can well appreciate your concern for developments in the UAR. But I see no present or imminent nuclear threat to Israel from there. I am assured that our intelligence on this question is good and that the Egyptians do not presently have any installation comparable to Dimona, nor any facilities potentially capable of nuclear weapons production. But, of course, if you have information that would support a contrary conclusion, I should like to receive it from you through Ambassador Barbour. We have the capacity to check it."

Egypt never developed nuclear weapons.

Well times changed, Iran is very close to nuclear weapons

in response to Israel developing them first...

So I guess strategically for Israel, making nukes was a mistake.

In the area, I agree. But Netanyahu chose to spurn democratic European allies and allign Israel with Hungary and Poland. Basically he made western Europe an enemy of Israel because he chose settlements over a peace process, to alleviate the foreign pressure he alligned Israel with Hungary and Poland, also helping Russia with its cold European conflict.

> Isn't the U.S selling arms to Saudi Arabia?

How's that relevant? If you're fishing for hypocrisy, be assured I dislike the US take on democracy and it's leaders of late no less than Netanyahu.

But At least the US has a constitution, checks and balances. And a tradition of freedom and democracy. Israel has a growing population, the parts that grow are mostly lacking any sense of democratic values or tradition. Guess which electorate Netanyahu spurned and which he focused his Messiyah propaganda on.

I'm not fishing for hypocrisy, that's quite a strong word. But there is some bias I'm sensing here. You would probably never say "Obama's legacy is arming dictators" though it's part of his legacy for sure. Merkel's as well.

> And a tradition of freedom and democracy

The U.S was a de facto apartheid state until the 60s. The UK castrated gays up until quite recently. Liberal democracy as we know it today is quite new. I'm not a Netanyahu fan, quite far from it, but bias is bias.

And don’t forget all the coups the US has forged in Latam and Africa, the first years of the patriot act (NSA spying on citizens), putting kids in cages, et cetera.

US and UK policy isn't at all confused about that - Israel couldn't operate the way it does without our support and direct subsidy. Both countries also use Israeli crowd control and intelligence tech on their domestic populations, just like all of those Sunni royal families attacking their Shia populations. It's only the West Wing fans that are confused about how their country works.

Thanks for the support btw :)

> So it's easy to see Israel's interest in supplying technology to those regimes and assuring good relations;

It's easy to see that it's in my interest to kill a woman on an unlit street and nick her purse. What kind of argument is this??

It's especially aggravating since so much propaganda comes out touting Israel as a democracy and decrying the savage Palestinians for being a dictatorship.

It's probably not in your interest since you'd go to jail and the whole metaphor seems quite simplistic to me. Since you seem to be talking about ethics, not interests, If Israel supports Egypt's El-Sisi is that immoral? Yes he is a despot, but the opposition is worse. Same can be said about Israel's support to the Palestinian Authority. It's quite difficult to know what the right thing to do is. Israel wants good relation with these countries for obvious reasons.

They support who they can control, that’s it.

Nothing to do with them thinking one is better for the citizens living under their selected rulers control.

Israel doesn’t care about half the people within its borders. Saying they choose who to support based on how that person will treat their citizens is laughable.

> They support who they can control, that’s it.

Or they support who won't try to destroy them, see - I said it in a non demonizing way.

> Saying they choose who to support based on how that person will treat their citizens is laughable

I wasn't saying that. I was just saying, at least in the case of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia (and also the Palestinian Authority), it's not clear at all that selling them tech/arms is immoral.

> Yes he is a despot, but the opposition is worse.

As long as you're just willing to make things up, everything is justifiable.

> Yes he is a despot, but the opposition is worse.

This is the exact mental process that has brought most dictators into power.

It's either a true statement in the general case of that region of the middle east or it isn't. I'm not sure what you're trying to argue.

1) It’s a false dichotomy. There are more paths forward other than “tolerate <ally>’s misbehavior” and “let <perceived threat> control the region”. The fact that this line is used by those who want more power should make anyone wary.

2) Tolerating the gross misbehavior of one state or leader because you perceive them as a bulwark against other worse leaders is an extremely foolish course. Not only does it expose ones ideals as being hollow and situational, but it often creates new problems that must be contained later.

> 2) Tolerating the gross misbehavior of one state or leader because you perceive them as a bulwark against other worse leaders is an extremely foolish course. Not only does it expose ones ideals as being hollow and situational, but it often creates new problems that must be contained later.

The summary of US foreign policy since WW2 x)

But Israel is a democracy and the Palestinians didn't have elections for 15 years already. These are facts, not propaganda.

But apparently they (Nethanyahu and co) do not have problems with supporting dictatorships where it suits them, nor of subverting their own democracy. That is the point I'm making.

Unfortunately that is the case with almost every significant democracy under the Sun.

Just count all the European countries that prop up Saudi Arabia and make business with Putin and Xi. Most of them are even afraid to call Taiwan by its name.

because in Israël's case, they've been at war repeatedly with their neighbors, so maybe they want to have good relationship to avoid further conflicts?

> Isn't the U.S selling arms to Saudi Arabia?

The US and UK sell arms to all of these countries. That's not a good sign; the US even directly subsidizes the military and police of some of them. We like dictatorships that make our political donors money.

I’d argue that we like dictatorships that align with our strategic interests. Raytheon doesn’t really care who we sell arms to, as long as they get sold. The politicians want to back anyone that’ll push back against our mortal enemy <strike>the USSR</strike> Iran.

> There are zero democracies in the area

Lebanon used to be more democratic; Iran was democratic at one point. What happened to Mossadegh?

Neither of them was democratic as in liberal, free press, human rights etc etc. Iran afaik was a full blown dictatorship before the islamic revolution (it's still a dictatorship, but different), Lebanon's history is more complicated but I stand by my view that it was never a liberal democracy, definitely not in the last 40 years.

>Iran afaik was a full blown dictatorship before the islamic revolution

Yes, but he was talking about before that wasn't he? Iran was a democracy (flawed, but still) before the US–UK alliance overthrew the parliamentary system and installed a puppet dictator, to keep stealing their oil.

I'm no expert on the history of Iran, but no, it doesn't seem it ever was (Most countries in the region ever were or are one now). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_the_Imperial_S...

"The reign of Reza Shah was totalitarian and dictatorial at a time when totalitarian governments and dictatorships were common in the Middle East and the world[8] and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was some years in the future."

It was more of a democracy before the 1953 coup [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...

OK, it was more of a democracy at that time I agree. That was 70 years ago.

Again, you've got the wrong time period.

For the 3rd time, I'm talking about the regime that was overthrown to put in the Shah Reza Pahlavi...

You could be right, I will read up on that. But again, you are pointing to a very specific point in history, that was an exception to the rule.

>Lebanon used to be more democratic.

Lebanon used to be a state. More democratic? Perhaps.

>What happened to Mossadegh?

One of the first things Mossadegh did was to suspend elections because the opposition was winning too much.

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