Quote:
Originally Posted by Sephiroth
None of you critics of Israel's retaliation have come up with an answer as to how Israel should have reacted. The barbarity of Hamas is not warranted by Israel's historic treatment of Palestinians.
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Here's my last answer to your question:
https://www.cableforum.uk/board/show...postcount=1059
As you imply, the key to this is the US who have a considerable degree of control & influence over Israel esp. in the area of military aid. If they exercise this leverage, like George Bush Snr did in 1991:
George H.W. Bush’s pressure on Israel provides model for progressives
Quote:
HuffPost, May 2021
Even as Thursday’s cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinian militia Hamas brings an end to the latest round of Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed, there are signs that the recent violence could have a long-term effect on U.S. policy in the region.
Namely, the high civilian death toll of the Israeli bombing campaign ― conducted in response to a barrage of rockets fired indiscriminately into Israel ― has breathed new life into calls for a reassessment of the United States’ financial and diplomatic support for Israel.
Proponents of imposing tougher conditions on the United States’ annual $3.8 billion military aid package to Israel are now concentrated mostly on the political left. But the most recent U.S. president to actually use the threat of withheld aid to change Israeli policy was Republican George H.W. Bush.
Although the circumstances today are not identical, Bush’s showdown with Israel in 1991 over the terms of U.S. loan guarantees serves as an illustration of what a more evenhanded U.S. approach to the conflict could look like. Bush withheld the loan guarantees until he was satisfied that the money borrowed with U.S. assistance would not go toward Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories.
“Bush established consequences for bad behavior, and he got results,” said James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute. “It can happen again.”
At the very least, progressives see Bush’s actions as a useful reminder that renegotiating U.S. aid to Israel is not an extreme, left-wing idea.
“The issue of leveraging U.S. aid to Israel has become so far dragged in the direction of radical foreign policy hawks that people forget how common-sense of a position it was just a few decades ago,” said Waleed Shahid, a spokesperson for Justice Democrats, a left-wing group that has helped unseat a number of hawkish Democrats.
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then there could be hope ...