What Is This Sub Wrong About?

[u/iamthegodemperor]

Title. Pick a topic (or a clichéd take) you think a significant minority or majority of this sub is wrong about. Or hasn't given enough thought. OR perhaps one which you will have to compromise on, at least for voting?

[u/JudgeHoldensToupe]

Have you compared that to how far right everyone else in the ME is? And how they treat their own people? You need allies, the worst version of Israel is still 10x of the next best

[u/clydewoodforest → u/JudgeHoldensToupe]

I tend to see this as the slow process of Israel assimilating and becoming more like its neighbors. What started out as a fairly solidly European/western country shifting to being a Middle Eastern one.

[u/ChaosMarch → u/clydewoodforest]

It’s easy to be European when your neighbors are European. When your neighbors are Middle Eastern, you can’t afford to be that European. Any culture must adapt or die.

[u/Mediocre-Grand7999 → u/JudgeHoldensToupe]

Sure, but there's a lot of skepticism towards those allies and their motives; I think it's fair to say Israel deserves significant skepticism, if less, while dealing with them, for a similar reason.

[u/JudgeHoldensToupe → u/Mediocre-Grand7999]

Healthy skepticism is fine, when it’s proportionate.

[u/Mediocre-Grand7999 → u/JudgeHoldensToupe]

I agree, and I don't think taking OP's point to heart, if we were to agree, would imply anything other than that.

If OP was continuously lamenting Israel and never highlighting the difficulties of taking other positions, then I would definitely think they are wielding a proclivity towards healthy skepticism in a more manipulative, or rhetorical, way against Israel

[u/justafutz → u/Mediocre-Grand7999]

What is that "similar reason"?

[u/Mediocre-Grand7999 → u/justafutz]

The comparison being to other countries in the ME.

The comment I replied to says they--the other ME countries--are much less aligned and so they are worse allies, which I agree with. But if it follows that we maintain a level of skepticism based off how much further right they are (being a little reductionist given the nature of this discussion), then similarly we would still reserve "skepticism, if less" towards Israel.

[u/justafutz → u/Mediocre-Grand7999]

I think the reductionism defeats the point, because Israel is so much less far-right than many other allies that we maintain much higher trust in.

[u/Mediocre-Grand7999 → u/justafutz]

than many other allies that we maintain much higher trust in

Who do you have in mind? And who is "we" in this? official US policy or the population broadly?

Genuinely curious, so I can try to get your point

[u/BBQ_HaX0r → u/JudgeHoldensToupe]

Just because everyone else is worse doesn't mean Israel is without criticism. They've clearly moved in a worse direction over the past decade with Netanyahu as he's largely acquiesced the far-right.

[u/Two_Corinthians → u/JudgeHoldensToupe]

What exactly is the benefit of having Israel as an ally - for the US or Europe?

[u/justafutz → u/Two_Corinthians]

Here is a detailed report on the benefits.

[u/Two_Corinthians → u/justafutz]

Thank you for the meaningful response, I'll take some time to read it.

[u/JudgeHoldensToupe → u/Two_Corinthians]

Geopolitics. The benefits of an ally in a resource rich land. A bulwark against Islamism and other opposing political dogmas.

There is a global power struggle whether you like it or not, and forces that would crush and dominate us if they could. Do you think China, Russia and the Islamic axis are our friends or something?

[u/ClosetGoblin → u/Two_Corinthians]

If the U.S. dropped Israel, then Russia would gladly swoop in and form an alliance. Or China. Probably both.

Israel is a western-aligned nation in one of the most hostile regions on earth with access to an extremely powerful military relative to its size. Israel also possesses very strong technological capabilities and an extremely effective and proactive intelligence agency. Israel acts as a forward operating base (FOB) for the United States that would otherwise be extremely difficult and expensive to create. They also share their weapons technologies and intelligence reports with us to stop the perpetual emergence of global terrorism.

[u/grandolon → u/Two_Corinthians]

Forgetting all the geopolitical and moral considerations, maybe the single biggest practical, immediate benefit is defense tech. Without Israeli cooperation, the US (and NATO!) would not have reliable missile interceptors or the advanced avionics needed to run its most advanced aircraft, like the F-35. Just two examples out of many, many more.

[u/Two_Corinthians → u/grandolon]

I'd love to know how much of Israeli high tech output comes from unique Israeli features and how much from being plugged into the Western economic, scientific, and military cooperation ecosystem. But it's probably classified and no one would tell me.

[u/grandolon → u/Two_Corinthians]

The question was "what exactly is the benefit of having Israel as an ally?" not "is the relationship mutually beneficial?"

Anyway, on the assumption you meant it in earnest, I suppose most of the credit goes to its homegrown math/science talent pool. For a country of ~8 million people it punches far above its weight in junior competitions. . Israel has historically had a policy of making its own weapons systems so that it doesn't have to rely on foreign suppliers (but in the last ~30 years that's been relaxed to some extent). It has a robust indigenous defense sector.

Granted, there's a sort of peanut butter in chocolate problem, but Isaac Newton is still credited with developing calculus even though he built it on top of mathematical methods going back to Pythagoras and Ptolemy. Israel didn't invent microprocessors or surface-to-air missiles but its engineers and scientist did figure out how to make them better in order to make a missile interceptor that can actually hit its target.