Islamists and US interests

Submitted by sara (United States), Jun 22, 2012 at 19:25

Hi Ianus (my long response was just lost and I am attempting to recreate my thoughts...)

Your question:"Do you think that the US supports Israel as a matter of principle and not of opportunism " ?

Does it matter? Just as I do not question the motives of the millions of Evangelicals who lobby, support and promote tourism in Israel because they are hoping to achieve the Rapture, so do I accept the support of the US for Israel without questioning motives, only results. I appreciate their support much more than most of the American Jewish synagogues who qualify their support and aid. Besides, we could argue about the degree of support actually given by the various US administrations in pressuring Israel to give back land, enter agreements and endanger herself, but that is another topic. As long as it is mutually beneficial for both parties, it matters not what the nature of the motives are.

You ask: "do you think that bringing al-Qaeda and the Moslem Brotherhood to power in Libya, Egypt and attempts to do the same in Syria are seen in Israel as promoting Israel's security and national interests?"

Of course not. The more fanatic and religiously based they are, the greater the chance they will act irrationally and without the impact of deterrence (see Iran and the Mahdi). Israel was able to maintain the upper hand in the past by show of strength, deterrence. But that only goes so far when religious beliefs are dictating policy. Any regression to primitive thinking is detrimental to society in general. As I have been discussing with a gentleman in another topic, the impact of Islamist parties coming to power is disheartening at the least. The west continually misreads the Arab culture and assumes that they seek freedom and progress because we arrogantly assume that they are like us. This is not the case, and that goes double for pious Muslims.

That said, I was happy to see Hamas take over in Gaza to erase the pretense of Fatah/PA so called moderate manipulations. At least Hamas does not pretend to be peaceful and Israel has not, as of yet, been pressured to deal directly with a terror org.

As to US hegemony, I think that many would agree that it is preferable to have the US as a world power instead of some of the other options (and this may be in flux given the debt to China). I do not disagree with you in terms of their policies with Muslims, but we must face the fact that many US administrations have had to deal with the Arabs for oil out of necessity and this has shaped policy. When a day comes that the oil is less of a factor, we may see a change. What is wrong with enlightened self interest? I have no issue with power, there will always be the greatest one, and they change with the times. I am much more afraid of the successors to come. Our biggest mistake is not understanding the vast differences in cultures and values. Nation- building has not been a raging success with any country in the ME. The only reason we should care is because they are sitting on the oil (which in my opinion we should have seized in Iraq to even the playing field...).

I guess that we differ, you and I, in that you are most concerned with motive and policy, while I am most concerned with the cultural misinformation, I believe that if we understood better (and I do not mean from a humanitarian standpoint), we could control the outcome better. That is the ultimate irony isn't it? That these liberals who insist on equality, everyone must have the same, be the same, think the same, are in effect incredibly intolerant of the fact that there are real differences between cultures, and these differences are critical to acknowledge and understand in order to get along. This ludicrous endless lip service to "Equality" that everyone can see is a farce gets us into a lot of trouble.

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