Joe Biden has vowed that US commitment to defend Israel against Iran was “ironclad” as concerns rose in Washington that a “significant” Iranian strike could happen within days, in retaliation for the bombing of an Iranian consular building in Damascus.
“We also want to address the Iranian threat to launch a significant – they’re threatening to launch a significant attack in Israel,” Biden said. “As I told Prime Minister Netanyahu, our commitment to Israel’s security against these threats from Iran and its proxies is ironclad. Let me say it again, ironclad. We’re gonna do all we can to protect Israel’s security.”
Is it? Are two massacres more right than one? If it was a question of “Let Palestinians be genocided OR let Israel be attacked and potentially start WW3”, I might be inclined to agree on principle. But it’s not an either/or. Iran isn’t going to knock out Israel in three days. Genocidaires tend to intensify their genocidal efforts when under attack, not diminish it. Letting Israel get invaded just means that we have a massive body count of Israeli civilians in addition, not instead of the Palestinian genocide.
Defending Israel against outside attack is the less bad option for now.
Ultimately, we should decouple from Israel completely, but even then, the more invasions of sovereign countries are tolerated, the more it will happen. That’s one of many, many reasons the Iraq War was such a colossal fucking atrocity.
I would like to emphasize that my position on genocide is the same - the more it is tolerated, the more it will happen, and the moral move would be to put immense pressure on Israel to cease its ongoing operations and restore the flow of aid to Gaza, at minimum.
welcome to how we got here.
at a certain point, you have to recognize that “not as bad” is still “Bad enough”.
Israel and Netanyahu are probably going to accelerate the genocide no matter what we do. Iran getting involved will make it worse. doesn’t mean we need to fucking support the genocidal maniac in committing more genocidal maniac- and remember, Netanyahu et al want to have a war with Iran, too.
Your acting like it’s somehow hypocritical to condemn both countries. it’s not. it’s hypocritical to not condemn both countries.
Fuck man, have you looked at the international scene? The Middle East more than most? We don’t have ‘good’ choices, they’re all ‘bad enough’. And inaction is a choice just as any other. Inaction SHOULD be chosen in many scenarios - but because it is often the best choice, not because it relieves moral responsibility. It doesn’t.
The moral option is to pick the path with the least bad outcome.
No longer supporting the ongoing genocide is a very different issue than allowing Iran to attack Israel. Discouraging Iran from attacking Israel is not supporting one genocide - it is preventing another.
Am I? News to me. I stated outright that Israel is committing genocide currently. How much harsher do you want me to get in condemnation? Is ‘genocide’ no longer the lowest sin a country can commit? Do I have to invent a new form of democide to assign them before my condemnation is strong enough?
It’s not about condemnation. It’s about what happens if we allow Iran to provoke a war with Israel. It’s inhumane to demand another 100,000+ (assuming it DOESN’T kick off WW3) added to the body count because 30,000+ have already been killed. Why? What does allowing Iran to attack Israel solve?
Materially speaking, what are the effects, and can you answer for them?
It’s also an about what happens if we allow Israel to provoke a war with Iran. They’re both escalating.
Remind me again which one is getting billions of dollars worth of weapons?
Biden can “condemn” Israel until he’s blue in the face. But he’s still arming them, still enabling them- and Israel sees that as tacit approval.
Right now, it’s Israel that is destabilizing the Middle East the most. Its attacks on Iranian generals, in Syria, against houthis. Raids in the West Bank. Genocide in Gaza.