Top UN legal investigators conclude Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza

Comments on this post are disabled for new accounts, but in the era of anti-BDS regulation and other measures aimed specifically at curtailing practical freedom of speech surrounding this conflict, can we really comment freely on this without anonymity? The vast majority (38/50) of US states have passed some form of anti-BDS legislation. We can also expect corporate retaliation against employees who speak about this issue in a "wrong way".

For anyone else not familiar with "anti-BDS":

"Anti-BDS laws are legislation that retaliate against those that engage in Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. With regard to the Arab–Israeli conflict, many supporters of the State of Israel have often advocated or implemented anti-BDS laws, which effectively seek to retaliate against people and organizations engaged in boycotts of Israel-affiliated entities."

From Wikipedia. Also: "Not to be confused with Anti-BDSM laws."

From a historical, economic, social perspective... Why does Israel hold so much power over the world?

The theory I've been operating under is that Israel was created as a pretty bad solution to displaced Jews post-WWII, and operates essentially as a vassal state of the US's commercial military interests as a totally intractable perma-war in the region to ensure that even in lieu of other conflict taxpayer money can continuously be laundered to them in the form of expended munitions.

There's obviously a lot more going on from a social/religious perspective, but I'm prone to thinking of large-scale shifts and trends in terms of economic incentives.

I believe it's the other way around: The western governments, media and legislative bodies are under Israeli control.

Have you seen how the US Congress, half of which boos the US presidents along party lines, suddenly all rise up and fall in line when Netanyahu visits the Congress?

https://idsb.tmgrup.com.tr/ly/uploads/images/2024/07/28/thum...

Have you see the strange photos of all US politicians with yamakas near this wall in Israel as if they're pledging allegiance to something?

It's humiliating

It is humiliating, but that makes no sense at all from a power dynamics perspective. Israel is just not that powerful, economically, militarily, or socially. The US's military industrial complex is, and basically every politician is beholden to powerful capital interests, the MIC among them. Unconditional and enthusiastic support of Israel, then, is a proxy for support of those financial interests, hence the visits, deference, etc. This backed up by the very real threat of a handful of powerful lobbying groups that will and have coordinated to redirect funding to opponents of anyone they deem insufficiently deferential.

I see we are going full conspiracy theories in this thread...

How can you say it’s a conspiracy theory when you see tons of verified news articles with all of these Western politicians so supplicant to Israel and Israeli politicians?

What’s surprising is that this not a bigger part of the conversation.