Is this an accurate picture of settlement in the West Bank?

[Lumpenproletariat]

How can "settlements" be evil?

Do you understand that the settlements should not even be there in the first place, and giving them up is not even a negotiation point?

Why should the settlements not be there?

This would make more sense if the complaint was that Palestinians (or Arabs or Muslims) are being driven out to make room for Jewish settlements, or are being prohibited from building their own settlements, or similar complaint. The complaints or condemnations should not be directed against "settlements" but against those who are preventing settlements or constructions or developments.

Were Palestinian homes or villages blown up in order to provide Lebensraum for these Israeli settlements?

Do you understand reality?

Giving them up is a huge bargaining chip. The left wants Israel to simply throw away the one real bargaining chip they have.

Israel's biggest bargaining chip is it's ability and willingness to kill thousands of civilians in a single night. The promise not to drop artillery shells, drones, white phosphorus, cluster bombs, and nuclear warheads on Palestinian communities is the only chip it needs in this bargain.

Promising not to sink Palestinian fishing boats in Palestinian territorial waters and to stop diverting Palestinian water supplies away from Palestinian farms are really good bargaining chips, too. And allowing the Palestinians to sell their natural gas on the open market instead of forcing them to bring all of it to Israel is another good one. Then there's the opening of borders with Egypt and Jordan, allowing Palestinians who marry abroad to bring their spouses into Palestine, removing the checkpoints that strangle commerce in Gaza and the West Bank, etc. The list goes on and on.

If the Israeli government is guilty of acts like this, then that's what it should be condemned for, not for building settlements.

It sounds like there might be some legitimate complaints against the Israelis, but all we hear about is that "settlements" are evil.

It would make more sense if the pro-Palestinian supporters contributed toward a building program by Palestinians, maybe including infrastructure and development of water resources -- something positive -- and if the Israeli government responds by sending Darth Vader and his thugs to suppress the workers or blow them up or bulldoze the constructions, then resist the Israeli aggressors at that point.

It's easier to sympathize with someone who is clearly trying to do something positive and constructive but is being suppressed by the Evil Empire than to sympathize with someone whose only complaint is that their enemy is building homes.

If it reduces down to a dispute over land ownership, then homesteading is the best resolution. Whoever builds there (or has built there) owns it. Whoever destroys or threatens something built by another is the aggressor.

 

[Axulus]

What's the life expectancy of a Jew in Palestine?

We are talking about a situation after a peace settlement. When you move into someone else's territory, you either find a way to live among them in peace or you move out.

 

[funinspace]

Why should the settlements not be there?

This would make more sense if the complaint was that Palestinians (or Arabs or Muslims) are being driven out to make room for Jewish settlements, or are being prohibited from building their own settlements, or similar complaint. The complaints or condemnations should not be directed against "settlements" but against those who are preventing settlements or constructions or developments.

Were Palestinian homes or villages blown up in order to provide Lebensraum for these Israeli settlements?

Do you understand reality?

Giving them up is a huge bargaining chip. The left wants Israel to simply throw away the one real bargaining chip they have.

Israel's biggest bargaining chip is it's ability and willingness to kill thousands of civilians in a single night. The promise not to drop artillery shells, drones, white phosphorus, cluster bombs, and nuclear warheads on Palestinian communities is the only chip it needs in this bargain.

Promising not to sink Palestinian fishing boats in Palestinian territorial waters and to stop diverting Palestinian water supplies away from Palestinian farms are really good bargaining chips, too. And allowing the Palestinians to sell their natural gas on the open market instead of forcing them to bring all of it to Israel is another good one. Then there's the opening of borders with Egypt and Jordan, allowing Palestinians who marry abroad to bring their spouses into Palestine, removing the checkpoints that strangle commerce in Gaza and the West Bank, etc. The list goes on and on.

If the Israeli government is guilty of acts like this, then that's what it should be condemned for, not for building settlements.

It sounds like there might be some legitimate complaints against the Israelis, but all we hear about is that "settlements" are evil.

It would make more sense if the pro-Palestinian supporters contributed toward a building program by Palestinians, maybe including infrastructure and development of water resources -- something positive -- and if the Israeli government responds by sending Darth Vader and his thugs to suppress the workers or blow them up or bulldoze the constructions, then resist the Israeli aggressors at that point.

It's easier to sympathize with someone who is clearly trying to do something positive and constructive but is being suppressed by the Evil Empire than to sympathize with someone whose only complaint is that their enemy is building homes.

If it reduces down to a dispute over land ownership, then homesteading is the best resolution. Whoever builds there (or has built there) owns it. Whoever destroys or threatens something built by another is the aggressor.

Israel is committing a systematic partitioning the occupied West Bank. They declare Palestinian land state land, and then destroy Palestinian development. It is apartheid pure and simple. Outside groups do try to help Palestinians It is pretty hard to protest against tanks and automatic weapons of a powerful occupier....

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...ing-of-palestinian-olive-groves-10321936.html


One Palestinian families struggle to survive the Israeli strangulation even though they have lived on that spot for a hundred years:
https://electronicintifada.net/content/sowing-steadfastness-harvesting-hope/16771

And supported by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA):
https://palestineinsight.net/tag/elca/

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Do you understand reality?

Giving them up is a huge bargaining chip. The left wants Israel to simply throw away the one real bargaining chip they have.

Israel's biggest bargaining chip is it's ability and willingness to kill thousands of civilians in a single night. The promise not to drop artillery shells, drones, white phosphorus, cluster bombs, and nuclear warheads on Palestinian communities is the only chip it needs in this bargain.

Bargaining value zero. Hamas likes to engineer civilian casualties.

Promising not to sink Palestinian fishing boats in Palestinian territorial waters and to stop diverting Palestinian water supplies away from Palestinian farms are really good bargaining chips, too.

They're sinking smugglers.

The water situation isn't nearly as one-sided as you present it as being. The real problem is the Palestinian farms are nowhere near as water-efficient as the Israeli ones.

And allowing the Palestinians to sell their natural gas on the open market instead of forcing them to bring all of it to Israel is another good one. Then there's the opening of borders with Egypt and Jordan, allowing Palestinians who marry abroad to bring their spouses into Palestine, removing the checkpoints that strangle commerce in Gaza and the West Bank, etc. The list goes on and on.

The list of errors goes on and on, that is.

Israel has no control over the border with Egypt. It's Egypt that wants nothing to do with the Palestinians. When they get into Egypt they use Egyptian soil to attack Israel.

As for marrying abroad and bringing their spouses--are you sure of that? What I've heard is that Israel won't allow bringing a spouse from Palestine to Israel. And that was because the abuse rate was basically 100%.

And the checkpoints don't strange commerce unless Hamas wants them to. It's just Hamas routinely lobs rounds at the crossings in order to shut them down. Hamas doesn't want the farmers--they don't want people to be able to make it without supporting Hamas.

In other words, commit suicide.

Uh, no. Actually not.

What's the life expectancy of a Jew in Palestine?

You tell us.

If you're trying to make the claim that Jews can't survive among Palestinians you have thousands of years of history to draw upon as a source. Go for it.

And I suppose you also think the right solution to BLM is to put blacks back in slavery?

Not that it would even work over there--once an oppressor is thrown off allowing them to return to power is very bloody.

Meanwhile, if you truly believe that Jews living in Palestinian areas are in deadly danger, why aren't you denouncing the movement of Jewish families into West Bank settlements? They're bringing children into what you say is deadly peril, and all you offer up is a meek little "I don't like it"?

You're the one trying to put them in deadly peril.

- - - Updated - - -

What's the life expectancy of a Jew in Palestine?

We are talking about a situation after a peace settlement. When you move into someone else's territory, you either find a way to live among them in peace or you move out.

Living in Palestine was presented as an option.

It's not. It would be dying in Palestine. That's what tends to happen to undefended Jews in Palestine.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Israel is committing a systematic partitioning the occupied West Bank. They declare Palestinian land state land, and then destroy Palestinian development. It is apartheid pure and simple. Outside groups do try to help Palestinians It is pretty hard to protest against tanks and automatic weapons of a powerful occupier....

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...ing-of-palestinian-olive-groves-10321936.html
View attachment 9319

One Palestinian families struggle to survive the Israeli strangulation even though they have lived on that spot for a hundred years:
https://electronicintifada.net/content/sowing-steadfastness-harvesting-hope/16771

And supported by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA):
https://palestineinsight.net/tag/elca/

No. The Palestinians deliberately build on state land so Israel will come tear the stuff down and fools will believe Israel is being a bad guy. Even the EU gets in on it building in places they know they don't own.

And note how it's olive trees. Their standard symbol. Never mind how many of the "attacks" occur on the Sabbath--something no hardliner Jew would do!

 

[funinspace]

Yeah, they should have planted bananas...

Posting more for others that may read this than assuming Loren would actually consider the other side of anything...

Israel is committing a systematic partitioning the occupied West Bank. They declare Palestinian land state land, and then destroy Palestinian development. It is apartheid pure and simple. Outside groups do try to help Palestinians It is pretty hard to protest against tanks and automatic weapons of a powerful occupier....

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...ing-of-palestinian-olive-groves-10321936.html
View attachment 9319

One Palestinian families struggle to survive the Israeli strangulation even though they have lived on that spot for a hundred years:
https://electronicintifada.net/content/sowing-steadfastness-harvesting-hope/16771

And supported by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA):
https://palestineinsight.net/tag/elca/

No. The Palestinians deliberately build on state land so Israel will come tear the stuff down and fools will believe Israel is being a bad guy. Even the EU gets in on it building in places they know they don't own.

And note how it's olive trees. Their standard symbol. Never mind how many of the "attacks" occur on the Sabbath--something no hardliner Jew would do!

Yeah, I'm sure this Texas ELCA Synod has just been brainwashed or buffalo'ed....
https://ntnl.org/event/tent-of-nations-dallas/

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/emergentvillage/2014/11/we-refuse-to-be-enemies/

Last spring I found myself on a multi-generational family farm, now called Tent of Nations, outside of Bethlehem. I felt empathy and deep admiration as I listened to Daoud Nasser, a Palestinian Christian farmer, tell his story of waging peace in order to keep the rights to his family’s farm. He told of his grandparents, who bought their farm in Palestine in 1916, and of their deep connection to this land. We sat in the underground caves that they used to live in – they literally lived inside the land. He told about his awful 20 year current struggle to keep their farm and, most astonishingly, their commitment to waging peace – not war – with the Israeli government that is trying to take it away.

When the government shut off their water, they made rain collection pools. Its pretty hard to farm, or live, without water in that parched land. And across the valley in the encroaching Israeli settlements, for which the government wants his land, we could see swimming pools and sprinklers. When the government shut off his electricity, Daoud built solar panels. When the government put demolition orders on his home, he made his grandparent’s caves habitable once again. When the government tore up and placed immovable boulders on the road leading to his farm, they went back to walking. When the government tore up 1500 of his olive trees last spring, he invited friends from all over the world to come help replant them.

Tent of Nations has become internationally known because of their long fight to keep their land. They have received support from organizations all over the world, including from progressive Jewish organizations, to help pay their crushing court bills. People around the world believe in the Nasser’s right to keep their land, and they are similarly struck by the humble posture with which they are waging peace in this struggle to keep their land.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Do you understand that the settlements should not even be there in the first place, and giving them up is not even a negotiation point?

Do you understand reality?

Giving them up is a huge bargaining chip.

That they cannot legally justify in the first place. That's not a bargaining chip, it's a case of Israel actually being demonstrably and objectively in the wrong. "Giving them up" is not a bargaining chip, it's what they're legally required to do.

I'll ask you again: WHY do Israeli citizens want to live in areas outside their internationally recognized borders, surrounded by Palestinians, totally dependent on the constant vigilance of the military for their safety? Why do the settlers GO to settlements in the first place?

What's the life expectancy of a Jew in Palestine?

i don't actually know. Do YOU?

 

[fromderinside]

Myths built on myths. All the west bank and most of Isreal can never be 'state' land since no internationally recognized authority has ever said that it was. The last time that took place was in 1948. So all lands taken by force after that are subject to reallocation by nations and the international community. The Israeli state we've been talking about here is a fiction based on "I won so it's mine principles". Such land can be reclaimed by international agreement. If Israel didn't have it's origin in western democracies action under cover of the UN it wouldn't exist. Biblical claims are not valid according to existing international law.

Having put forth my view I offer contradicting information.

http://www.seekingtruth.co.uk/israel_borders.htm

and

http://www.seekingtruth.co.uk/israel_borders.htm

I only ask that you condition your reading of these texts as including biblical views as well as international law and that Israel has no more rights to call captured territory state land than do the Arabs living in that land even without state sponsorship.

 

[crispy]

Myths built on myths. All the west bank and most of Isreal can never be 'state' land since no internationally recognized authority has ever said that it was. The last time that took place was in 1948. So all lands taken by force after that are subject to reallocation by nations and the international community. The Israeli state we've been talking about here is a fiction based on "I won so it's mine principles". Such land can be reclaimed by international agreement. If Israel didn't have it's origin in western democracies action under cover of the UN it wouldn't exist. Biblical claims are not valid according to existing international law.

Having put forth my view I offer contradicting information.

http://www.seekingtruth.co.uk/israel_borders.htm

and

http://www.seekingtruth.co.uk/israel_borders.htm

I only ask that you condition your reading of these texts as including biblical views as well as international law and that Israel has no more rights to call captured territory state land than do the Arabs living in that land even without state sponsorship.

To be honest, the academic discussion of history is irrelevant to the fact that the Palestinians living there right now, and the last ~100 years are being displaced, and discriminated, by a state that does not represent them. As you can see in the links, the area was very multicultural, and actually functioning just fine until someone had the brilliant idea to create a jewish state.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Posting more for others that may read this than assuming Loren would actually consider the other side of anything...

The basic problem is you assume the personal accounts are accurate.

 

[Arctish]

Israel's biggest bargaining chip is it's ability and willingness to kill thousands of civilians in a single night. The promise not to drop artillery shells, drones, white phosphorus, cluster bombs, and nuclear warheads on Palestinian communities is the only chip it needs in this bargain.

Bargaining value zero. Hamas likes to engineer civilian casualties.

Response value 2. I would have given it a zero but bullshit is good fertilizer.

The ability to kill more of an opponent's people than it has to kill yours has always been the biggest bargaining chip in a peace deal. Promises to give back stuff you stole is paltry by comparison.

*Side note: what Hamas likes or doesn't like has nothing to do with the strength of Israel's bargaining position. Hamas doesn't even represent the Palestinians, ffs.

Promising not to sink Palestinian fishing boats in Palestinian territorial waters and to stop diverting Palestinian water supplies away from Palestinian farms are really good bargaining chips, too.

They're sinking smugglers.

<citation needed>

The water situation isn't nearly as one-sided as you present it as being. The real problem is the Palestinian farms are nowhere near as water-efficient as the Israeli ones.

More bullshit.

The real problem is that it's Palestinian water from Palestinian aquifers on Palestinian land, but Israel steals it and sends it to illegal settlements built on stolen land.

BTW, you might want to check your facts. Water consumption per capita is higher in the settlements than in Palestinian villages. If anyone is wasting water, it's the settlers.

And allowing the Palestinians to sell their natural gas on the open market instead of forcing them to bring all of it to Israel is another good one. Then there's the opening of borders with Egypt and Jordan, allowing Palestinians who marry abroad to bring their spouses into Palestine, removing the checkpoints that strangle commerce in Gaza and the West Bank, etc. The list goes on and on.

The list of errors goes on and on, that is.

Israel has no control over the border with Egypt. It's Egypt that wants nothing to do with the Palestinians. When they get into Egypt they use Egyptian soil to attack Israel.

More bullshit.

Israel built and maintains a frigging wall between Gaza and Eqypt despite the fact that the land there isn't part of Israel. The one time the Gazans managed to blast a hole in it and travel freely into Egypt without IDF interference, they went shopping for groceries.

Of course, you know all this. And you know I know you know. I'm tempted to dig up your own words out of the archives to prove you know about Israel's determination to control the border between Gaza and Egypt, and that you enthusiastically support Israel's efforts. So why are you even trying to bullshit on this point?

As for marrying abroad and bringing their spouses--are you sure of that? What I've heard is that Israel won't allow bringing a spouse from Palestine to Israel. And that was because the abuse rate was basically 100%.

Yes, I'm sure. And before you start spouting your usual pulled-from-thin-air apologetics, let me remind you that we're talking about non-Israelis living outside of Israel. It isn't any of Israel business who they marry, where their spouses are from, or where they want to live.

And the checkpoints don't strange commerce unless Hamas wants them to. It's just Hamas routinely lobs rounds at the crossings in order to shut them down. Hamas doesn't want the farmers--they don't want people to be able to make it without supporting Hamas.

<citation needed>

What's the life expectancy of a Jew in Palestine?

You tell us.

If you're trying to make the claim that Jews can't survive among Palestinians you have thousands of years of history to draw upon as a source. Go for it.

And I suppose you also think the right solution to BLM is to put blacks back in slavery?

Not that it would even work over there--once an oppressor is thrown off allowing them to return to power is very bloody.

^This^ isn't even good for fertilizer. Not only does it not make any sense in the context of the conversation, it doesn't make any sense as a stand alone comment.

You were hinting very broadly that Jews can't survive among Palestinians. Show us where you got that idea. If you decide to stand by this claim, please explain why you don't give a damn about all those little Jewish children who are being placed in what you say is deadly peril.

- - - Updated - - -

What's the life expectancy of a Jew in Palestine?

We are talking about a situation after a peace settlement. When you move into someone else's territory, you either find a way to live among them in peace or you move out.

Living in Palestine was presented as an option.

It's not. It would be dying in Palestine. That's what tends to happen to undefended Jews in Palestine.

The comment that started this side track was that the settlers could remain in the West Bank after the formation of the Palestinian State if they wanted to, not that they'd be prevented from going back to Israel. Anyway, if you truly believe that Jews living among Palestinians have a reduced life expectancy, you should throw your support behind getting them back inside Israel as soon as possible.

So why don't you?

 

[repoman]

This is a bit out of left field, but do you think that explicit american white nationalists and european ethnic nationalists want Israel to have a two state solution with the removal of settlements OR a one state apartheid solution?

Seems like they like the example of ethnically conscious state as a justification of their own ideology. But it would make for sense for their goals to have a two state solution that works well.



It is a poison pill to take on the large number of non jewish people who ALSO hate the Jews fiercely from their history. The revenge the palestinians may have on the jews in a single state in a couple or few decades after a demographic shift to jews being a smaller minority could be really terrible. The people in this region have long fucking memories.

Remember, humans are genocidal animals.

 

[Malintent]

What would happen if the US just "pulled out" of the middle east entirely. Just basically said, "we're out. Good luck to you all. whomever wishes to trade with the US may, but we ain't helping any of you out with any of your issues with each other. may the best diplomat or army win. good luck to you all and may your personal version of god bless you, whatever that means." And then buy some popcorn... seriously, what do you think would happen?

 

[funinspace]

What would happen if the US just "pulled out" of the middle east entirely. Just basically said, "we're out. Good luck to you all. whomever wishes to trade with the US may, but we ain't helping any of you out with any of your issues with each other. may the best diplomat or army win. good luck to you all and may your personal version of god bless you, whatever that means." And then buy some popcorn... seriously, what do you think would happen?

The Israeli stock market would go into a major correction; the Egyptian military would go "Oh shit"; the House of Saud would go "OOOH FUCK!!!!"; and the pet chihuahuan Bahrain royal dictatorship would go "OOOH DOUBLE FUCK!!!!".

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Bargaining value zero. Hamas likes to engineer civilian casualties.

Response value 2. I would have given it a zero but bullshit is good fertilizer.

The ability to kill more of an opponent's people than it has to kill yours has always been the biggest bargaining chip in a peace deal. Promises to give back stuff you stole is paltry by comparison.

Except world opinion won't let Israel simply kill all the combatants. Thus the ability to do so is meaningless.

*Side note: what Hamas likes or doesn't like has nothing to do with the strength of Israel's bargaining position. Hamas doesn't even represent the Palestinians, ffs.

The control a reasonable chunk of the Palestinian population. That population has no voice other than what Hamas says.

The real problem is that it's Palestinian water from Palestinian aquifers on Palestinian land, but Israel steals it and sends it to illegal settlements built on stolen land.

Claiming it's Palestinian water doesn't make it so.

BTW, you might want to check your facts. Water consumption per capita is higher in the settlements than in Palestinian villages. If anyone is wasting water, it's the settlers.

Try again. Some of that Israeli water is being multi-counted. (Sewer water cleaned and used for irrigation.)

Israel has no control over the border with Egypt. It's Egypt that wants nothing to do with the Palestinians. When they get into Egypt they use Egyptian soil to attack Israel.

More bullshit.

Israel built and maintains a frigging wall between Gaza and Eqypt despite the fact that the land there isn't part of Israel. The one time the Gazans managed to blast a hole in it and travel freely into Egypt without IDF interference, they went shopping for groceries.

[Citation needed]

And the time they blasted a hole in it was for the purpose of letting a bunch of terrorists into Egypt to attack Israel. While other might have used it that wasn't the purpose.

Yes, I'm sure. And before you start spouting your usual pulled-from-thin-air apologetics, let me remind you that we're talking about non-Israelis living outside of Israel. It isn't any of Israel business who they marry, where their spouses are from, or where they want to live.

Samara's repeated applications over the years to gain his wife resident status in the West Bank were turned down. Jailed by Israel in the past for membership in radical nationalist factions, he was barred from leaving the West Bank two years ago when he attempted to travel to a conference in Jordan.

In other words, Israel won't let in a terrorist associate.

As for the other article--if they can't travel how did they meet and fall in love?

And the checkpoints don't strange commerce unless Hamas wants them to. It's just Hamas routinely lobs rounds at the crossings in order to shut them down. Hamas doesn't want the farmers--they don't want people to be able to make it without supporting Hamas.

<citation needed>

It's called the news, something you pay no attention to if it doesn't come from the left.

And I suppose you also think the right solution to BLM is to put blacks back in slavery?

Not that it would even work over there--once an oppressor is thrown off allowing them to return to power is very bloody.

^This^ isn't even good for fertilizer. Not only does it not make any sense in the context of the conversation, it doesn't make any sense as a stand alone comment.

The point is your "solution" is to put those who have thrown off their oppressors back under the foot of those oppressors--oppressors who by now want nothing less than extirpation.

You were hinting very broadly that Jews can't survive among Palestinians. Show us where you got that idea. If you decide to stand by this claim, please explain why you don't give a damn about all those little Jewish children who are being placed in what you say is deadly peril.

They can't survive in Palestine without military defense--something you want to strip from them.

We don't have a lot of data on unguarded Jewish survival in Palestine for the simple reason it's so dangerous that nobody does it willingly. All we have are the data points from those who take a wrong turn or the like, some manage to get back to Jewish areas alive, some don't.

Living in Palestine was presented as an option.

It's not. It would be dying in Palestine. That's what tends to happen to undefended Jews in Palestine.

The comment that started this side track was that the settlers could remain in the West Bank after the formation of the Palestinian State if they wanted to, not that they'd be prevented from going back to Israel. Anyway, if you truly believe that Jews living among Palestinians have a reduced life expectancy, you should throw your support behind getting them back inside Israel as soon as possible.

So why don't you?

Staying in Palestine was presented as an option to avoid the costs of moving them to Israel.

Even making the comment shows how utterly out of touch with the reality you are. It's like saying that you don't need to move just because a lion cage is being built around your house.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What would happen if the US just "pulled out" of the middle east entirely. Just basically said, "we're out. Good luck to you all. whomever wishes to trade with the US may, but we ain't helping any of you out with any of your issues with each other. may the best diplomat or army win. good luck to you all and may your personal version of god bless you, whatever that means." And then buy some popcorn... seriously, what do you think would happen?

Nuclear war.

Pulling out would mean the Islamists would end up in power and they're not going to be stopped short of war. Since they would have a nuclear arsenal the resulting war would be nuclear.

Perhaps with Israel, if not then with either the US or Russia.

 

[Axulus]

What would happen if the US just "pulled out" of the middle east entirely. Just basically said, "we're out. Good luck to you all. whomever wishes to trade with the US may, but we ain't helping any of you out with any of your issues with each other. may the best diplomat or army win. good luck to you all and may your personal version of god bless you, whatever that means." And then buy some popcorn... seriously, what do you think would happen?

Iran would probably get nukes. Saudi Arabia would respond in kind. Egypt would be next. Israel would also significantly ramp up its nuclear arms production. You then have a situation where we would be just one coup away from a radical Islamist regime from getting access to nuclear weapons. Nukes are also much more likely to make their way to the black market at some future date. Weapons that eventually could be used to target the US and/or its allies.

On top of that, you create even more of a power vacuum. Russia and Iran (and possibly China, although it has shown much less of a willingness to do so) will rush in to fill it. Their goals in the region will tend to prevail. Iran will have more ability to ferment instability in Saudi Arabia and try to overturn that regime. Iran's theocracy has a doctrine of expansion and conversion, so they'll have much freer reign to try to fulfill that goal.

Any major events that take place after we pull out will not be contained to just the Middle East. NATO ally Turkey is right in the thick of things, and, as we saw recently with Syria, refugees can and will flood into Europe. This situation affects our own politics and arguably helped get Trump elected (with people's fears of Muslim immigration to the US and Hillary's willingness to increase the number of refugees we let in). Who knows what kind of situations that occur there will drag us back in anyway?

 

[Malintent]

What would happen if the US just "pulled out" of the middle east entirely. Just basically said, "we're out. Good luck to you all. whomever wishes to trade with the US may, but we ain't helping any of you out with any of your issues with each other. may the best diplomat or army win. good luck to you all and may your personal version of god bless you, whatever that means." And then buy some popcorn... seriously, what do you think would happen?

Nuclear war.

Pulling out would mean the Islamists would end up in power and they're not going to be stopped short of war. Since they would have a nuclear arsenal the resulting war would be nuclear.

Perhaps with Israel, if not then with either the US or Russia.

don't care about Russia or Israel.. why would the US be attacked for letting them come to power? I said stop being involved at all, not ignore any move against the US. I was thinking along the lines of, "we out, do what you want, but if you so much as look nasty in our general direction, we will glass-top your entire country"... something like that.

 

[Malintent]

What would happen if the US just "pulled out" of the middle east entirely. Just basically said, "we're out. Good luck to you all. whomever wishes to trade with the US may, but we ain't helping any of you out with any of your issues with each other. may the best diplomat or army win. good luck to you all and may your personal version of god bless you, whatever that means." And then buy some popcorn... seriously, what do you think would happen?

Iran would probably get nukes. Saudi Arabia would respond in kind. Egypt would be next. Israel would also significantly ramp up its nuclear arms production. You then have a situation where we would be just one coup away from a radical Islamist regime from getting access to nuclear weapons. Nukes are also much more likely to make their way to the black market at some future date. Weapons that eventually could be used to target the US and/or its allies.

On top of that, you create even more of a power vacuum. Russia and Iran (and possibly China, although it has shown much less of a willingness to do so) will rush in to fill it. Their goals in the region will tend to prevail. Iran will have more ability to ferment instability in Saudi Arabia and try to overturn that regime. Iran's theocracy has a doctrine of expansion and conversion, so they'll have much freer reign to try to fulfill that goal.

Any major events that take place after we pull out will not be contained to just the Middle East. NATO ally Turkey is right in the thick of things, and, as we saw recently with Syria, refugees can and will flood into Europe. This situation affects our own politics and arguably helped get Trump elected (with people's fears of Muslim immigration to the US and Hillary's willingness to increase the number of refugees we let in). Who knows what kind of situations that occur there will drag us back in anyway?

So they all invade each other.. fine. THEN WHAT? the middle east is run by Islamists... OK, so what? Europe can deal with their immigration issues and we will deal with ours. How big can a country get with so few resources? Oil is not forever.

 

[Elixir]

Iran would probably get nukes. Saudi Arabia would respond in kind. Egypt would be next. Israel would also significantly ramp up its nuclear arms production. You then have a situation where we would be just one coup away from a radical Islamist regime from getting access to nuclear weapons. Nukes are also much more likely to make their way to the black market at some future date. Weapons that eventually could be used to target the US and/or its allies.

Once Israel and Iran nuke each other out of existence, neither of them will be a problem. Anyone left looking on who wants their country to suffer a similar fate, can go ahead and mount an attack on the US. The only reason anyone might want to do that would be to fulfill some religious apocalyptic prophesy. I suspect that once Israel and Iran have shown the way to oblivion, there wouldn't be many left who are eager to follow...