I’m sorry lol I can’t let you get away with lying. Israel was the aggressor in at least the 6 day war and the suez crisis. So no Israel has attacked other nations before they were attacked. And are you seriously claiming Israel does not use political subversion against its enemies when it can? That’s a bold claim.
No, you are the liar. Egypt, Syria and Jordan were the aggressors in the 6-day war. Massing forces on the border, openly proclaiming that they're about to attack, and cutting off Israel's trade routes are all aggressions.
Give me evidence of Israeli political subversion of other countries. And I'm not talking something like the Mossad blackmailing some politicians, I'm talking the big stuff that Iran does, like creating entire political parties royal more to Iran rather than their home countries that are trying to gain the leadership of the country. And no, before you predictably bring it up, the Israeli lobby in the US is just an influence group like hundreds of others, it's not anything similar to a power grab.
Have they stopped? No offense, but yqll may be our ally but we don't trust you guys at all. Glady work with yall
They only ever did it once or twice, it's mostly involved a convoluted series of events involving third parties such as European countries (so not literally just meeting Chinese officials and handing over tech), it was the transfer of Israeli tech with a limited amount of American tech in it (so it's not like they just gave out blueprints for American radars or anything of the sort) and private companies were involved so it isn't even entirely clear that the Israeli government greenlit any of it. And when the US passed on that it's concerned about what's happening, the Israeli government took action to stop everything immediately.
The reason you hear that Israel is passing sensitive tech to China like it's some sort of routine thing is because Israel's enemies want to use these incidents (which in the overall were fairly minor) to create a schism between Israel and the US. That's why there aren't any similar scandals where the same happens
with the UK, or
the German and French..
Okay, why should I, as an American, give a damn? As far as I'm concerned, I have no dog in that fight and would be glad to let the Israelis figure out on their own how to deal with that.
Because Iran will not stop with ME borders. Once it consolidates it's control over the ME, it will move on to try and fuck with Europe, Asia, and eventually the US. Once it sets its roots in it will be nigh-impossible to push the monster back into Pandora's box, and they won't be any more inclined to friendship and cooperation with the US than China or Russia are, and probably a great deal less.
It's the same question you can ask about any expansionist regime. Nazi Germany is a good example for this (Godwin's law or not, it fits the situation).
In other words, you can't really define anything and rely on conjecture to make your case while expecting others to engage in contextualize as it fits your own interests.
What conjecture? The fact that Iran has an explicit policy of expanding the Islamic revolution and that it's acting on it right now is not conjecture.
Sure, but neither did Iran go into Syria or Iraq with anything other than removing the threat ISIS posed to themselves and Shia Muslims.
Hahahaha that's laughable. ISIS is no longer a real threat to anyone, yet Iran and its proxies are more entrenched in Iraq and Syria than ever. Both (especially Iraq, since it's less fractured and the American presence there is waning, unlike Russian presence in Syria) are very close to becoming Iranian puppet states. Iraqi Shiite militias
explicitly and openly loyal to Tehran are doing whatever they want, openly defying the government and in many cases
strong arming it, and their power is only growing. Their presence has nothing to do with ISIS, not even in the slightest.
So just like Iran's situation?
Pretty obviously, no.
Or does Operation Eagle Claw, the various Mossad operations against Iran, etc not count for some weird reason?
Excuse me? Operation Eagle Claw was a direct response to Iranian attack on America's embassy. Thanks for proving my point for me that Iran's aggression has nothing to do with America's actions, by the way. Similarly, the Mossad attacks come after Iranian aggressions, not the other way around.
We can further expand that by calling bullshit on the claim Israel doesn't sockpuppet 3rd parties by pointing out the existence of the Lebanese Kataeb Party.
Evidence that Israel has anything to do with Kataeb?
We can also point out the numerous groups Israel has supported in Arab nations and Iran to undermine them,
such as the Lavon Affair?
An intelligence agency handling some members of a local population for pinpoint operations != militias better trained and armed than the country's military residing within that country's borders and taking orders from Iran, in conjunction with powerful political parties running interference so that the government is politically powerless to oppose them. The former is a fairly minor and standard way of warfare between enemy states, the latter is a complete subversion and attempt to take over.
That you equate territorial ambitions with ideology is interesting, and rather makes your earlier remarks about "Liberal Democracy" very curious indeed. And sure, Israel doesn't have territorial ambitions beyond the West Bank....if you ignore the existence of the Golan Heights
A territory taken in
defensive action, and offered back to Syria in the past in return to a peace agreement. If Israel had any territorial ambitions, it wouldn't have given back the Sinai desert, a move that halved its own territorial control, nor would it have given Gaza to the Palestinians or gave up parts of the West Bank as part of the Oslo Accords.
Israel has no ideology that dictates territorial ambitions, while Iran does. Israeli actions prove it values peace more than territory, Iran's actions prove the contrary. Your attempts to draw a parallel are sad.
, the desire to annex Lebanon up to the Litani River, etc.
HAHAHAHAHA wow, why don't you repeat the antisemitic claim that Israel wants to rule from the Nile to the Euphrates while you're at it. Where do you get this bullshit?
In your mind, maybe, according to International Law and basic use of critical thinking, absolutely not. Supposedly annexing the Sinai is a defensive action but Iran supporting Syria in its Civil War isn't? Yeah, not buying it chief.
It doesn't really matter if you're buying it or not, it's the reality. A country that is attacked and take a buffer zone from its attacker in retaliation is very different from a country politically and militarily taking over 5 unrelated countries that never attacked it.
The alternative is you are being a dishonest actor then in your arguments.
You're free to think as you wish, it won't change the reality in the Middle East.
I'm going to be generous and assume this is cognitive dissonance because otherwise, see above. Israel has never tried political subversion? We've already pointed out two cases of the complete opposite of that in the form of the Lavon Affair in Egypt and the Phalangists in Lebanon. Israel has only ever attacked another nation after being attacked itself? Would come as a hell of a shock to Egypt, France and Britain given the Suez Crisis and the whole justification of the Six Day War, given that was a flagrant example of attacking without being attacked. How about bombing Syria? Iraq? All the intelligence operations in Iran that continue to this day?
Both are piss-poor examples for "political subversion", as I've explained above.
Yeah, your arguments don't work when somebody has a basic level of knowledge about the region.
This is amusing considering your utter lack of understanding in even the most basic flow of events and facts in the thread about the recent thread about the Gaza flare-up.
You result to personal attacks because you are unable to present any real case to this effect, so attempt to hide the lackings of your argument.
Suuuure I do. Or maybe I've just elected to comment on your obvious ignorance on the matters we're discussing?
Care to explain how or why this would be opposed to U.S. interests? Even better, whose interests are we referring to when we make this claim? There has not been a valid reason for the U.S. to be in the Middle East for sometime and this is reflected by many in the United States; the Neocons and the like may want eternal war there but I and most Americans certainly don't.
Already explained above. Iran will hardly stop with the ME.
It's already starting to flex its muscles elsewhere. When most countries, especially in the West, carry out covert operations in enemy countries, it's to safeguard national interests, or to defensively preempt an aggressive action by the enemy country. Iran does it (when it doesn't simply
bomb random civilians instead) with an eye to exporting the Islamic revolution.
It's not "conjecture", it's a rational analysis based on both Iran's words and actions. If you want to be willfully blind to the threat then go ahead, but when Americans start getting targeted don't say that you weren't warned, or that you don't understand why it's happening.
The only one that brought up degrees was you, ironically, and my point was quite clearly if we are going to take the benchmark of Iranians saying "Death to America" as the basis of policy, then it's worth applying that to all parties then. Here again, you have taken to goal post shifting by adding your own editorialization to the comments made.
I agree, but your own standard makes my argument for me. Yes, Israel is very likely to attack Iran, but by Israel's own words we know its purely a defensive measure. We also don't know what "by any means necessary" entails, so any conjecture on that part is demagoguery. There is no equivalent "Death to Iran" chant in either the US or Israel. Iran, however, is very explicit in its goals and in how it wants to achieve them,
often in a very detailed way too. They are simply not comparable, and no amount of disingenuous attempts to claim goal-post shifting is going to change this fundamental fact.
Again, we see a goal post shift in that we now have to have a biased reading and again bring in degrees to the equation. How about we take it a step further? Only Israel has nuclear weapons, Iran doesn't; should we take the open ended threats of a nuclear power more seriously than a non-nuclear power given their capacity to inflict greater damage in carrying out their threats?
No. Open ended threats are not on the same level as explicit threats. We've been through this already.
Oh, this gonna be gud.
The Israeli angle was noted as far back as the 1990s and
continues to this day;
2013 is "to this day"? An Israeli official apologizing to the US and then resigning his post in response to American complaints is not taking responsibility and stopping the activity? An incident in the 1990's and one in 2013 is not, in fact, "a couple of incidents", which is exactly what I said happened? Care to prove any
actually ongoing transfers of technology?
care to explain when and how Israel stopped?
No. Care to explain when and how Israel
continued? The burden of evidence is on
you.
As for China not being Israel's enemy and thus this somehow legitimizes their actions, care to explain again, how this makes them any different than Iran other than being extremely two faced?
What has the transfer of technology to China has to do with Iran? Iran is a problem because of it's expansionism and extremist ideology, not because of any transfers of technology.
Also, the US doesn't seem to mind transferring technology to Israel's enemies, given its generous sales of weapons to Saudi Arabia well before the latter warmed-up to Israel.
Or, to take us back to the original question once again: Why should I, as an American, be concerned about Iran when Israel is doing equal actions negative to American security?
Because what Israel has done is a mistake rather than malicious action? Because the impact of Israel's actions is minor to negligible, while Iran's efforts are global in their impact? Because the UK, Germany, France and others are doing exactly the same thing as Israel did, yet nobody has made a big deal out of it?
Why should one more American soldier or American Penny be spent on a backstabbing "ally"? So far you've failed to answer that on any account and I don't think you will be able to either.
First of all, you have not spent a single soldier on Israel. Your wars were with Iraq and Afghanistan while Israel's principal enemies are Iran, Syria and Lebanon. I know that it's a common trope among white supremacists to claim "America is fighting Israel's wars for them" (not that I'm accusing you of being one, I'm not, but you might have picked up a few cues from them in regards to Israel specifically), but in reality Israel had always fought its own wars, not a single American soldier has ever died for Israel's sake.
You do spend some American pennies on Israeli security (a fairly negligible amount given the size of your economy) from which you reap pretty hefty benefits, especially compared to even higher expenditures on
military bases all around the world that give you essentially nothing other than military response capabilities in those areas, but are otherwise nothing but money drains. If you want to stop that aid then go ahead, you'll weaken your own defense industry by stopping the indirect subsidy, you'll lose out on a
few sweet joint R&D deals, and Israel will have a lot to lose too, but both countries can also live without this aid, although both will be all the poorer for it.
