VIM
20d ago
The problem for pro-Israel propagandists is that their position has only ever been tenable in an environment of bipartisan censorship and the election of Trump destroyed the tools of effective censorship. Obviously the association of Trump and Netanyahu hurts boomer lib support for Israel but at the same time his pivot to social media totally discredited all of the traditional gatekeepers on the right. Israel supporters have always been reliant on the exact same weapons as the "woke" and when they're deprived of those weapons they flounder against the most basic opposition from their right.
Case in point: Douglas Murray, supposedly one of the sharpest champions of the pro-Zionist position debated Dave Smith on Rogan and was reduced to making 2020 level arguments about "trusting the experts". The comment section is an absolute bloodbath, and this between probably the best champion the pro-Israel side has (among Rogan regulars, anyway) and a comedian.
VIM
21d ago
That's probably why they're trying to change the punishment to "get deported to a Salvadoran megaprison for life"
VIM
1mo ago
You sound very certain that America could have easily ended Israel's incursion into Gaza and lifted Israel's decades long naval blockade from Gaza (was also a demand I'm not sure if they dropped that one) and avoided [this] cost.
Yes, because much like the question of whether the Houthis would obey a ceasefire we already have proof that this is the case. Namely, Witkoff was able to impose a highly unfavorable ceasefire on Netanyahu by doing nothing more than raising his voice. America has practically infinite leverage over Israel and practically none over the Houthis.
Coordination requires understanding. "Don't do a piracy to twist my arm" is a pretty good understanding. "Don't invade other countries" is also an understanding, but at least when Israel invades other countries these days it is mostly its neighbors and doesn't tax Italian and Egyptian shipping.
Why should Americans care about Italo-Egyptian shipping any more than Israel invading its neighbors? For there to even be a "global order" to defend you actually need to defend it consistently, otherwise it's just "might makes right" with extra steps, and in this case American airpower alone lacks the might to stop the Houthis.
VIM
1mo ago
The Anti-Woke see an opportunity to use the weapons developed by the Woke against them by mobilizing the normie Republicans and the Philosemitic Democrats against the Woke.
I'll believe this when I see any "Woke weapons" used other than anti-semitism.
We've seen this song and dance before with the university admins: right wingers were played into pushing against "anti-semitic Woke" administrators, the admins were fired and they were pretty much universally replaced by "Zionist Woke" instead. There was no wider victory for "anti-Woke" forces, they were simply played into fighting a battle that's basically orthogonal to their real interests.
VIM
1mo ago
So to sum up, American taxpayers must fund several dozens of fully furnished hospitals or schools worth of munitions to blow up some fanatic who eats one piece of dirt per day with no prospect of stopping said fanatic's friends from doing what they would have done anyway because, uh, something something global order?
If the "global order" is what you care about then the far simpler solution for America would be to crack down on Israel, a country currently invading half of its neighbors and flagrantly defying every post-war international institution which also happens to be entirely dependent on American support to sustain said invasions. We don't need to "take the Houthis at their word" because there have been two ceasefires and in both cases the Houthis ceased fire, something that can't be said about the Israelis.
A sensible world would be one where we don't waste billions of dollars on a strategy we know won't work when we could save billions on one that we know would work
VIM
1mo ago
Third option: it's a glaring exception to an otherwise anti-woke paradigm driven by short term political considerations rather than ideology. For now a lot of Republicans don't really care about the contradiction but as time passes the status quo will be untenable and they'll have to chose between returning to the woke paradigm to defend the concept of anti-semitism or abandon it entirely
VIM
1mo ago
They're of no relevance until an Arab enraged at unconditional American support for their enemies flies a plane into a building, kills over a thousand Americans and provokes a multi-decade forever war
VIM
1mo ago
What if getting bombed is the goal? So far the only thing bombing has achieved is making the Houthis look indomitable and costing the American taxpayer several billion dollars.
VIM
1mo ago
The justification doesn't require it only apply to campus protesters, though. One could easily imagine a Dem deporting Jordan Peterson and other non-citizens for "interfering with foreign policy"
Murray was literally shuttled in to Gaza by the IDF and spent over 3 hours on Rogan refusing to make the slightest criticism of Israel, if he isn't a "propagandist" then I'm not sure who is
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