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Comment by aprilthird2021 | Hacker News Reader

aprilthird2021

> UNESCO’s decision to admit the “State of Palestine” as a Member State is highly problematic, contrary to U.S. policy, and contributed to the proliferation of anti-Israel rhetoric within the organization.

I asked this when the administration decided to attack funding for research at Harvard University over wild claims, and I ask again, why are we willing to shoot ourselves in the knees for Israel?

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Because some rich supremacists happen to support Israel, and they happen to be a large number of financial contributors to Ivy league universities.

For politics at large, there is a very powerful lobby.

A great talk from Mearsheimer on the subject https://youtu.be/RTksWA1I2UI The man deserves upmost respect to have courageously spoken and written about it, all along. On a more recent video he mentions the level of threats and attacks he has been subject to for his exposing of that lobby.

Because Israel is both a critical component of our global surveillance and information warfare programs, and a convenient shield against criticism and investigation.

How is it a critical component of our global surveillance and info warfare? If anything they steal so much from us and give very little in return. They have sold our military secrets to China, stolen nuclear material and secrets from us, and hacked American journalists and citizens and American big tech companies. I don't even think China has done that much damage to us

Because it’s not actually about Israel.

As a Jewish American my experience has lately been that about 25% of the Jews in my circle have always been Republicans and are all-in on this administration, believing that Jewish people and the State of Israel have no better friend than Donald Trump, and that all previous (Democratic) administrations have been anti-Israel. The other 75% are moderate Democrats who roll their eyes at the idea that Trump, his admin, or the vast majority of his voters care one iota about Jews or Israel, that they've found a convenient pretext for clamping down on private institutions and free speech, and see only minor differences in their actual foreign policy vis-a-vis the Middle East and Israel.

I consider myself a moderate's moderate and I do see where everyone's coming from, but if you held a gun to my head I'd probably agree with you: it's not actually about Israel.

So we want to shoot ourselves in the knees, for fun? It's clearly about Israel, otherwise we wouldn't be giving a country billions that we can't trust with our military secrets (because they sell them to our adversaries), that has a track record of killing American citizens and never prosecuting anyone responsible, and who constantly defies us despite relying on us to even exist

Multiple things can be true at the same time. US military / political support for Israel is multifaceted. But I’d argue trumps use of Israel as a reason to punish academia or withdraw from unesco is not.

So the only use of Israel to us is as an untrustworthy ally and a cudgel to bludgeon our own citizens with. Great. Love that

That’s most obviously not true but whatever. Not even sure why you’re hating on Israel when the point at hand is it’s just one of many rhetorical tools that this admin uses disingenuously.

Very roughly...

The Bible foretells the return of the Jewish people to the land of Israel and the subsequent rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem as a precursor to the end times. IE, without Israel, Christians don't get to go to heaven.

That’s just the excuse for a certain segment of the fundamentalists. Trump doesn’t give a shit about Israel. It’s about attacking all institutions that aren’t aligned with him.

You think if Harvard went “America first,” he’d be trying to shut them down?

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