Comment by rozap

Comment by rozap 2 days ago

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Israel is not really an ally. They routinely spy on the US, and according the the CIA, spy on us as aggressively as the Chinese and Russians do. During the Cold war, they used intel as a bargaining chip and passed classified material to the Soviets. Their nuclear program was started primarily with stolen radioactive material that they exfiltrated from the US. These stories go on and on and on, and they're just the ones we know about. Jonathan Pollard was hardly the only spy, but it was the most high profile.

It's naive to call them an ally. It's an extremely complicated relationship, made more toxic by the extreme power that AIPAC holds over our politicians. Every president since LBJ has been duped, outwitted and embarrassed by Israel. Frenemy would be more accurate.

temac 2 days ago

The USA spies all the time on everybody so by your own def they should be not really an ally of anybody.

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  • viridian 2 days ago

    I don't think the US is really first tier peer-allies with anyone, all friendly nations are on the spectrum of assets we utilize to cultural vassals that operate as reputationally independent extensions of the American empire.

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mschuster91 2 days ago

The primary reason why Israel is widely considered an ally is their extensive intel network across Arabia and possibly half of Africa. No one matches the Mossad and the semi-private private intel industry of Israel in terms of capabilities.

Another reason is that Israel is a relatively stable, Western aligned democracy in a sea of dictatorships, kingdoms, fiefdoms and failed states... which are all organized in OPEC. The US needs a powerful Israel as a check-and-balance against OPEC - a credible threat that if OPEC ever repeats another Oil Crisis, they'll get putsched away.

> They routinely spy on the US, and according the the CIA, spy on us as aggressively as the Chinese and Russians do.

So what, I'm German, y'all spied on Schröder and Merkel as well, and it's only thanks to Snowden we actually know of that.

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  • codedokode 2 days ago

    But OPEC is not a military organization. It is just minor countries trying to agree on a fair and just price of oil.

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    • mschuster91 2 days ago

      > It is just minor countries trying to agree on a fair and just price of oil.

      Well, and that power can be abused as well, particularly for a military that relies on fossil fuels as extensively as the US. Additionally, there's not just the "classic" way of fighting wars (i.e. shooting stuff and blowing up stuff), but there's also economic warfare - and hiking the price of a vital good in war is an extremely effective weapon.

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trallnag 2 days ago

Don't all agencies spy on each other? Few years the BND (Germany) collaborated with the CIA (America) to spy on other nations

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