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Is there any evidence to directly prove this claim? This sounds like a made up justification to validate your own opinions. The Middle East isn't divided by the US, it's divided by its own history of imperialism, colonization, oppression and violence based on religious and ethnic lines accross the centuries. There's really no incentive for the US keep the Middle East divided, not to mention that oil producing countries are already united through OPEC.
Besides, why would the US need a bully when it's directly allied with Gulf states? Not only that but those states are also allied with Israel. Who exactly is bullying who? The only agreed upon bully in the region is Iran, it's actually the uniting factor between the Gulf states and the Israelis. Not to mention that the US doesn't need a bully because it's more than capable of doing what it wants.
You understand that it's not only American allies that rely on Middle Eastern oil, right? China, India, Southeast Asia, and so on all rely on Middle Eastern oil and they all have a vested interest in keeping it flowing. If anything, the US is incentivized to sell its own oil since it's a net exporter.
Again, is there any source that backs up this prediction?
This idea that Israel only exists due to US funding is a myth. Israel won all its major wars by itself and it has one of the world's largest and most resilient economies. US aid, which is almost entirely in the form of loans or weapons contracts, account for less than 1% of Israel's GDP.
20% of Israel's citizens aren't Jewish. Also do you even know what Zionism is?
This is historically illiterate point of view. First of all, Israel isn't the bully in this conflict, especially before statehood. If you look at the actual history, you'll how muslims in the region collaborated with the Nazis to help eradicate the Jews during WWII or how the Arab world rejected the 1947 UN peace plan and invaded Israel with the intention to destroy it or again in 1967 during the six day war or again in 1973 Yom Kippur war or the 1920 Nebi Musa riots against Jews in Jerusalem or the 1921 Jaffa riots or the Jaffa deportations by the Ottomans in 1917 or the 1929 riots and massacres (including the Hebron Massacre which destroyed the ancient community there) or the insane number of Palestinian terrorist groups and their attacks on civilians. The number is comically large that there are entire databases dedicated just recording all of them:
https://www.johnstonsarchive.net/terrorism/terrisraelsum.html
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/comprehensive-listing-of-terrorism-victims-in-israel
Hell, even Wikipedia can't fit all of them in a single article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Terrorist_incidents_in_Israel_by_year
Ffs, the Palestinian leadership at the time, which is arguably the foundation of the modern Palestinian national identity, literally cooperated with the Nazis to a comical degree. The leader at the time, Amin al-Husseini, and his administration literally flew out to Germany and personally met with Hitler. There they both expressed praise and support for each other, and declared desire for cooperation to reach their mutual goals of defeating the British and genociding the Jews. Amin al-Husseini directly told Hitler that Jews shouldn't get a national home, that they were natural allies in their fight against the Jews, and that Fascism is a righteous ideology. Hitler was so impressed that he called him the most important leader in the Middle East and an Aryan because he was white, blone, and had blue eyes. The thing is that muslims at home celebrated the new ties with the axis powers and cooperation between went through the roof. The Palestinian identity was quite literally founded on antisemitism.
Do I need to keep going? I hope not. Keep in mind, this is all history. You can look all of this up yourself to verify.
We have already seen this play out at least three times. All of these wars were coalition wars provoked by the muslim Arabs seeking the full destruction of Israel, and every time Israel won.
What a bad take. The reason they're still fighting is because they're still being attacked.
Ahh yes. The Middle Easts own history. Clearly has nothing to do with French, British or US being the colonizing entities... And after all why would the US be interested in dividing a region that is connecting 3 continents and has the mos accessible of the main strategic ressources of the past two centuries.
And of course all the plans of the US that specifically talked about destroying nations like Iraq and Syria and the invasion of Iraq to do exactly that... All coincidences! Who would be so mean to assume this to be part of larger strategies?
This is such a brainless and oversimplified ideological point of view. If you actually bothered to look into the region, you would clearly see that there's a lot more going on. For example:
The list goes on and on. No matter how recent or how far back you go, this region has ALWAYS been unstable, violent, and tyrannical. This because it's in the crossroads of 3 continents like you said, but also because of geography and culture that reinforces the same cycles. Western powers did play a role, but trying to blame all the division, violence, and hatred in that region on the West is just ignorant.
And Israel and the EU help Azerbaijan to continue ethnic cleansing of Armenians, in particular Israel by sending drones in exchange for Azerbaijani oil
The Kurdish identity was deliberately squashed by the Western imperialists France and UK when they drew the borders after the fall of the Ottoman empire
Turkey went into Cyprus when a western aided fascist Greek military junta government tried to take over Cyprus and make it part of Greece with ethnic cleansing against the Turks in Cyprus. Calling it an illegal occupation is again a western imperialist narrative ignoring the complicity in attempted ethnic cleansing or worse genocide by the Greek fascist military junta government of the time. In fact Turkey stepping in was pivotal to the fascist military junta falling apart and Greece returning to Democracy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_invasion_of_Cyprus
So already in your first three points you are showing either a lack of understanding, or deliberately downplaying the effects of western imperialist rule and its continuation into today. Armenians are allies of Palestine as they understand that they are victim of the same forces. In particular the Israel-Azerbaijan axis shows that it is not about religion, but about classic imperialist motives of ressources, power and money.
This is blatantly false. France and Greece, for example, explicitly supported Armenia and the rest of the EU and NATO was largely neutral except for Turkey because they were dealing with Covid lockdowns.
This is true but the squashing of the Kurds didn't start with the West nor did end there, they merely continued something that already existed. The Ottoman Empire and the Arab empires before it were all explicitly suppressed the Kurds.
Such embarrassing ignorance. This is from the very wiki article that you linked:
The international community condemns Turkey's illegal occupation of Cyprus. There is a reason why no country on earth except for the occupier, Turkey, recognizes this fake puppet state as a country. Even Turkey's other puppet, Azerbaijan, which is the most loyal of Turkey's allies doesn't recognize it.
Not only is the international community unanimously against Turkey, but they also violated the Treaty of Guaranteed of 1960. This was a joint agreement between Turkey, Cyprus, Greece, and the UK regarding the protection and territorial integrity of Cyprus. Turkey was one four principal signatories and one of the three supposed protectorates of Cyprus, and they only signed the treaty a few years before their occupation.
This is taken directly from the Treaty of Guarantee of 1960:
You can read the full treaty right here: https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/CY%20GR%20TR_600816_Treaty%20of%20Guarantee.pdf
As you can see Turkey is in clear violation of this treaty. It is refusing to cooperate with the other protectorates of this treaty and it is directly violating Cyprus' sovereignty and territorial integrity.
But actually gets even worse because the Turkish speaking Cypriots want to reunite with their Greek neighbors and unify the island, and there are have been ongoing demonstrations by the native people there for DECADES against Turkish occupation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Turkish_Cypriot_protests (50,000 to 80,000 people turned out, that's about 1/3 of the 170,000 native Turkish speaking Cypriots) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/09/rising-anger-with-turkey-drives-calls-for-reunification-in-crisis-hit-northern-cyprus https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/15/erdogan-met-by-protests-from-turkish-cypriots-during-visit-northern-cyprus https://cyprus-mail.com/2024/04/26/hundreds-of-turkish-cypriots-protest-against-govt/ https://apnews.com/article/europe-middle-east-government-and-politics-united-nations-suburbs-235658ac64b564902747dc2225933899 https://apnews.com/ea58f13ac33a49479048df04357d78c7/Turkish-Cypriots-protest-Turkey's-'unwanted'-meddling
What does Turkey do in response to this very clear opposition from the native Turkish speaking Cypriots who want them to leave, respect the treaties they've signed, and want to unite with the rest of the island? That's right Turkey sends in over 100,000 non native Turkish residents to occupy the island: https://assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/XRef/X2H-Xref-ViewHTML.asp?FileID=10153&lang=EN#:~:text=According%20to%20reliable%20estimates%2C%20their,way%20from%20those%20in%20Cyprus. http://www.mfa.gov.cy/mfa/Embassies/Embassy_Vienna/vienna.nsf/page74_en/page74_en?OpenDocument
Which by the way is a clear violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention's Article 49 which includes:
https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.33_GC-IV-EN.pdf
Calling Turkey's illegal occupation of Northern Cyprus anything but that shows that you're either a historically ignorant, a bootlicker, or an authoritarian extremist like a Marxist or Fascist. Though in your case, it's probably all 3.
I wonder how it feels to be confidentially incorrect. I can't really tell if this a projection or just a lack of self awareness.
Actually this isn't true. Israel and Armenia are pretty neutral towards each other. Armenia was the only country in West Asia, other than Israel, to not recognize Palestine as a country. Actually they only did so yesterday, and everybody sees this as a tit for tat for Israel signing that arms contract with Azerbaijan back in 2012 where they gave them drones and other military equipment (which the Azeri dictator Aliyev used against them in 2020) over the next few years in exchange for their oil (which makes up 40-60% of their oil imports) and having Azerbaijan and Turkey remain allies against Iran... but despite this there's calls in Israel to recognize the Armenian genocide and talks in Armenia to buy Israeli weapons: https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-armenia-mulls-procuring-iai-missiles-report-1001482068 https://www.thejc.com/lets-talk/why-israel-must-now-recognise-the-armenian-genocide-jvxgn8k7
Armenia used to be a strong Russian ally in hopes of having Russia protect it from Azerbaijan, and it's big ally Turkey, a NATO member. However, when Azerbaijan attacked and Armenia invoked it's defense clause, Russia refused to help. Not only that but it's puppet Belarus, publicly came out in support Azerbaijan. Because of this Armenia has publicly announced it's intent to withdraw from the CSTO and draw closer to the West, especially after France, Greece, and even the US (remember that Nancy Pelosi trip?) all showed support to Armenia over Azerbaijan. Which leaves Armenia in a very weird and complicated geopolitical situation. Trying to oversimplify their geopolitical situation is just stupid.
I've been reading your posts. You make excellent points very often, clearly drawing from a deep knowledge of the region.
However continually calling people names and insulting their intelligence will tend to stop them from really hearing your message and just inflame the situation. You could just not type that stuff and then everything else you type would have more impact. It'd be a pity to waste all that effort.
I sometimes get frustrated with the people I argue with and these stuff slip out. However, what you're saying is a true and your criticism is valid. I'll definitely keep this in mind. I appreciate your comment.
Yes your frustration is totally understandable. It is a very heated topic and a lot of bad faith arguments are thrown around.
Sometimes I remind myself not to hope that the person I'm replying to will understand my reply or acknowledge that I'm right - instead I post my reply for the lurkers to read, who are far more numerous. The lurker has not publicly said anything so their ego is not fixed on defending their position and they are more likely to receive what I contribute with an open mind.
With this wider context, the goal changes. When the target audience shifts to the readers then there is no longer a need to continue a long back and forth discussion (the person replying to me will never change their mind anyway!) once I have made my point clearly. It's ok if the other person has the last word if by having it they discredit themselves by demonstrating a closed mind - the lurkers will see it.
I hope this helps.
That's actually a very interesting perspective. Thanks for sharing
Oooh. I attracted a 1-day old account that conveniently doesn’t know about U.S. statecraft toward the Middle East for the last 70 years, doesn’t know about the long history of arms transfers to Israel, doesn’t know about the Balfour Declaration, the Jewish terrorism against Britain and Palestine until Britain left the area, or the genocides that happened as soon as Britain stopped offering protection to the Palestinians. You conveniently seem to fail to understand geopolitics in any meaningful contexts.
And then you “Source?” my (very well informed) opinions.
lol. No. Don’t waste my time.
Lol imagine feeling so attacked by someone calling out and criticizing your blatantly made up and ignorant claims that you actually resort to a toddler level insult where you call me stupid, call yourself "well informed" (lmao), and then put yourself on the back for it as if you actually did anything more than clown yourself. I was right on the money, you don't actually have any idea what you're talking about. You just regurgitate the propaganda you consume on echo chambers like Lemmy, and then make up stuff to fill the gaps. But I agree, I won't waste your time because that would mean I would be wasting my time on somebody who doesn't actually bring anything of value. Now scurry back to your echo chamber before the big scary knowledge comes and destroys your ignorant worldviews. Shoo, go on then
Support your claims.
Edit: With like, actual sources.
And I didn’t call you stupid. I insinuated that your motives were suspect and that you are dishonest. But I am beginning to think you lack the ability to actually make supportable claims or debate people - which would probably mean … eh. *shrug*
8 hour old account with 42 comments...
I really hope it's a hasbara account working hard and not someone with such an unbelievable capacity for missing the point.
Name the claim and I'll provide you with a source.