this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2025
33 points (100.0% liked)
Overseas News
647 readers
2 users here now
A place for Australians and friends to share news from the other countries. Like all communities here, we discuss topics from the Australian perspective.
If you're looking for a global /c/worldnews instead, search for the many options on federated instances.
Rules
- Follow the aussie.zone rules
- We are not a generic World News clone. News must be relevant to Australians and our region. Obvious disregard will earn an warning and then a ban if continued. (If an article isn't from an Oceanian news outlet, and it doesn’t mention Australia, then it’s probably off-topic)
- Leave seppocentrism at the door. If you don't know what that means, you're not ready to post here yet.
- Avoid editorialising headlines. Opinions go in the comments, not the post.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
If you want the best from 'allies' then the US should have been the partner of choice in most of that little list.
Your thoughts on Israel are tiring, a refusal to see a genocide when it is happening in front of you is sad. I hope one day you'll recognise the ridiculousness of your equivalences with their far less powerful neighbours. Even if you could prove a genocide against Israel by those neighbours (which cant be done), one genocide doesn't absolve another genocide. A crime against humanity stands as a black mark against those who sink to those levels of depravity.
The reason NZ is the partner of choice, is because they are the only nation we can rely on. I alluded to this earlier, my view is we should accept less influence, but be more able to protect ourselves. Essentially we have become too reliant on the alliance structure as a means of securing our power and prosperity, to a fault. I advocate a paring back of this reliance, which inherently means a trade off of international power, but means we will be a more reliable partner, and not a subject, in a conflict.
Edit: less of a subject
Ah yes, it's the israeli's fault they don't subscribe to a backwards religion, treat their women like cattle, and spend most of their time praying to a god that doesn't exist instead of working to improve diplomatic relations and business capacity of their own countries.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-12/australia-reacts-us-steel-tariffs-poor-friend-partner/105040948
They're a little less of a friend now, it's completely understandable why we would rely on them in the past but times change eh?
I did see this though:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-27/south-korea-wins-bid-to-build-australian-army-vehicles/102653824
Just wish we could get those bloody ships out of Americas grubby tiny hands but this might just be realpolitik
Thats just weird to call a country founded on a religion thats older than Islam, and quite closely related in many ways not backwards, if Islam is a backwards religion then the same can be said of Judaism and Christianity.
Most of what you said there can just as easily be laid at Israel's feet. Sans treat their women like cattle, but they treat other humans, like arab Israelis, or Gazans, or west bankers like cattle, so they aren't any better, they just target different groups.
But I don't blame these peoples religions for any of their immoral behaviours, its not the religion that makes a crap human, its their lack of empathy and morals to those they deem as other to their own.
As far as improving diplomatic relations, and improving business capacity Israel should also listen to that advice. Their actions since October 7th have vanished all semblance of a 'most moral army' concept. Their actions before Oct 7th were already leading to hard questions about colonialism. They've materially hurt their international business prospects to a level akin to coal companies, this effects things like borrrowing capacity, complicates expansion and mergers in a less friendly world, they are costs that must be borne. Of course their great benefactor, USA, will ease this pain a great deal but even they can only do so much.
Take these much vaunted Abraham Accords, the autocrat MBS is now in a position where to proceed with them could destabilize their piece of shit regime due to the ill feeling in Arab nations about the treatment of Gazans. So if international diplomacy and business relations were really that important here, Israel again is just as bad as the rest.
Take their judicial system, it has been undermined by its executive branch time and again, making a mockery of a 'rule of law', something pretty essential to inspire business investment. Not to mention the lack of justice the aforementioned Arab-Israelis, and Palestinians recieve.
Their key difference, it seems, is again they have the force of the worlds largest military, and possibly largest economy full square behind them, allowing Israel to defy gravity. But lets not believe they are any better, its long since past that those arguments could be made.
I'll have a read of the South Korea contract piece, looks interesting.
Strong doubt
Queers escape Gaza to get to Israel and for good reason, Israeli is the closest middle eastern neighbour to the west that I can think of but we have the advantage of not living next to Islamic Jihadi's, the worst ours can do is hold signs like:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_anti-Islam_film_protests#/media/File:2012_Sydney_protest.jpg
Such lovely people, I have no idea why people would have an issue with them and say they can't integrate into the west
Look at how America responded to 9/11, I don't want to imagine what we would be doing in NZ right now if they were firing rockets at us, suiciding bombing, beheading, kidnapping and torturing
I wonder why :P
Everything you mentioned will have a negative effect on the economy but Israeli is still
How Israel Got So Rich While Surrounded By Enemies
https://youtu.be/bnvj1-3hIoo?t=555
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/18/israels-stock-market-outperforms-middle-east-despite-multi-front-wars.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Israel
Incredible
But I guess my main point is, any Gaza based troubles should fade away quickly once it calms down
NZ on the other hand afaik is in a worse position than us when it comes to manufacturing military hardware
At the same time Israel would just be for air defence, they are in a unique position of being surrounded by lovely people on all sides
Would it be possible for us to manufacture weapons and military equipment? I'd like to think we could but I just don't see it at the moment, not without a significant increase in robotics
Oh, and stock markets tend to do well when governments flush the econony with cash. It shouldn't be a surprise that Israel's stock market is doing well while their government spends money on weapons, manpower, et al, to attack its neighbours.
I've never claimed the other side are full of lovely people, thats not point. There you go again with your equivalences. Let me explain, when one person murders a brother and that victim's brother then goes and murders the original murderers brother, two crimes have been committed, and each murderer is answerable for their crimes. You ikplicitly advocate eye for an eye with your tacit support of Israels actions. Eye for an eye simply leads to ongoing feuds, as we see a lot of with Israel and their neighbours, time for a different approach.
You're a massive fan of Israel obviously, but try looking at the experience from the other side. The crimes they've committed aren't forgotten, theres a long history there, and it doesn't do anyone well to ignore one side in favour of the other. The colonial take over of that land, the ongoing persecution of the people i've already mentioned isn't absolved because they've had crimes committed against them. Its perplexing that i have to restate this.
My point about NZ is they're the only country we can rely on to a high degree, not whatever you think i said about their miltary and technological capability. I've said this a couple different ways now.
I think the disconnect is your impressed and argue that we should cleave to powerful allies, whereas i'm impressed and argue that we should cleave to those willing to uphold some semblance of moral values. Until we both realise we aren't valuing the same things here, we won't be able to see the others point of view.
All you said about Israel's economy was a bit wasted, i actually accounted for that and didn't dismiss it. But to ignore the fact their close relationship and support from the United States, and European countries like Britain and France and their efforts in building up that place as an 'unsinkable aircraft carrier' misses the point of why their economy is so 'blessed'. I find it incredible you would ignore that. There are few economies that can sustainably pull themselves up without massive support from benefactors, Israel isn't incredible, its a natural outcome of continued unquestioning investment and support. My point is, thats been put at risk, and made harder since their behaviour since Oct 7th, and now they aren't materially different from their neighbours in that regard.
Left wing progressives don't tend to let go of things. They've been on this train for a long time. I generally find its good to listen to those people, they aren't shunted off on a different tangent like the rest of society so easily is. Thats my experience with left wing progresssives, maybe we've had different interactions there.
Yeah we clearly don't see eye to eye at all
It's the only nation in the middle east with values close to ours, if Israel isn't incredible, then what are all the countries around Israel?
Lets look at Gaza since it's the one you can probably relate to the most:
First they are given back their land and have a functioning democracy, the first thing they do is hold a vote and immediately elect Islamic State Terrorists who have a plan to wipe out Israel, great start :) All their neighbours puts up guard fences because who the fuck wants to have open borders with islamic militants, they then proceed (instead of aiming for a diplomatic solution) fire rockets, dig tunnels to invade and terrorise/kidnap/torture/kill Israeli's, spread endless anti-israel propaganda, enslave their women who appear to be popping out 5-10 children on average, train those kids to become jihadi's, and continue to hound their closest neighbours, THEN in one of the most dumbest acts of war I've ever seen, invade Israel when they are at their weakest due to a holiday so they can cause the most damage in classic islamic militant manners possible, seemingly forgetting that Israel is not some tribe in Syria they can pick on and massacre.
This is all after they were kicked out of Jordan:
AND restricted on other side of the wall with Egypt:
I have no idea how they ended up in the situation they're in, must just be bad luck? 😀
Give me a break, Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Nigeria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Lebanon, these are all muslim majority countries sitting right next to trillion dollar muslim petro-states, where's their highly advanced progressive economies? I'd love to hear "gays leaving melbourne for highly progressive (and incredible :D ) Qatar"
Dubai built a giant dick in the sand, you should ask them why they didn't invest in the thriving business environment of Islamic State Iraq and Syria.
I am to both, Israel is acting towards the Palestiniains very similar to how we would because we share similar moral values, they are the closest to us in the middle east.
As I tried to explain with the "moderate muslims" holding signs like "behead all those who insult the prophet", we simply aren't in the same circumstances as the Israeli's, if that man was your neighbour, who actually went through with his sincere moderate muslim beliefs and beheaded your son/daughter/mother/father, you'd have a very different opinion and so would the people around you.
How about this for a point:
60/40 split and we're not even in an active war with them!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Australian_Indigenous_Voice_referendum
Imagine if we were back at war like in the 1800's? How close to 0% do you think we could get the Yes vote? j/k we wouldn't even have a vote.
Side note: Interesting how the people closest to living with the Indigenous are the most hostile, while inner cities which are full of rich white people are the most in favour? Funny 😀
In fact I'd argue there's a good chance we'd be worse, Israel has nukes and one of the most powerful armies in the world, it could have completely wiped Palestine off the map, I know if the USA was sitting next to them it would not put up with this shit at all, if Palestinians pulled the same shit they did on Oct 7th to the USA there'd probably be a McDonalds right in the middle of Gaza and a big American flag right now.
So yeah, I think our circumstances are different but not our values, it's very easy to go around and be all high and moral when you're not the one living next to the scariest motherfuckers on the planet.
This is too long already, good chat but this'll be my last post
All you and I have said in essence doesn't matter.
Their problem is the crimes they are committing in Gaza now. They could be the most enlightened unicorns the world has seen, they are still committing the heinous crime of starvation and mass punishment, and about a third of their 'enemy' seem to be children, you don't wipe your hands of this, and we don't let them.
Israel doesn't have values like our own, maybe at some point the two countries were more aligned in that respect. Our history is sordid, and we continue to have problems and always will. We are changing as a nation, slowly, but i live in a very different country, and better, than i grew up in.
We don't have to choose a best mate in the middle east, thats okay, i never tried to say any were better. We're a world away and can afford to keep all at arms length, thats a choice we can make.
So i think the equivalences you draw aren't useful. Israel is a nation committing crimes against humanity, compare their actions against UN conventions, or the Rome Statute, etc..