starman2003 wrote:Josephus mentioned a great deal of animosity between Greek and jewish communities in Caesaria. Evidently such animosity was widespread and exploded during the Kitos revolt.
I have read Josephus and he does not give me the impression that he propagates the view that there exists collective hatred at least not on the part of the Greeks and certainly not of the kind like in the examples I mentioned and we don't really need Josephus when we can see that ourselves by examining literature, when there are so many Greek works in theatre, song, poetry, history taking the piss out of Persians but we do not observe anything not even near that against the Jews and the reasons are also obvious, namely that they never posed an existential threat. The fact is that the Jews revolted against their imperialist masters which at the time happened to be the Romans, but they could not take it out on the Romans because there were hardly any Romans in the East so they took it out on the Greeks whom they saw as the agents of the enemy and to animate the rebels they had to build a narrative, in response I am most certain that Greeks in the area responded in kind and animosities took place without a doubt but this did not even register in the Greek mainland, Greek historians, philosophers and schools did not even bother. Cassius Dio who is a Greek and who wrote the history of the Roman-Jewish wars reported it because he obviously had to but we don't observe any "widespread" narrative. Plutarch who is the proverbial Greek folk historian, a priest of Delphi, educated in Athens, he took it upon himself to define
the Greek narrative of the time, he lived during that period and he does not even mention it because he simply did not consider it worthy of mention.
You believe it was 'widespread' but how is that possible when they could have retaliated by killing the Jews in Athens, Asia Minor, Byzantium and all the other Jewish communities scattered across the Greek heartlands but they didn't. So I think you have misinterpreted the situation.
It surely says something that no foreign state supports Israel likes the US does, and that support stems from internal political pressure not strategic interests.
I don't think that is true. Western states support Israel tacitly, the US supports it brazenly and goes a step further than others but that does not mean that this is the actual standard that defines 'support' in international relations.
The extra bit that Israel manages to get from the US is probably because of internal pressure but it would get regular support without that kind of internal pressure regardless because Israel as a western country is indirectly integrated within the defensive dogma of NATO even if it is not officially in NATO.
Arab and muslim states needn't be our enemies just because they aren't "western."
Ofc not, in Greece I reckon we have a good balance between the Arab world and Israel because we need the Arab world more than other Europeans do, the Israeli political establishment has come to terms with that reality.
Other western states and more specifically the US have different requirements from the "Arab world", first of all they have bought out half of it and so they can afford to be more pro-Israel.
As Walt and Mearsheimer noted, US backing of Israel was a key reason for 9/11. It wasn't an attempt by terrorists to "take away our freedom" necessitating a "war on terror" as the propagandists put it. Arabs struck at the US for backing their archenemy.
This is very partly true, Arabs struck at the US because it is the prime banner-man of the colonial powers that divided the M-E in Sykes-Picot, Israel is relevant only in so far as it acts as the most obvious thorn of that Sykes-Picot reality within the Arab narrative.
And there's no good reason to back Israel at the expense of relations with the vastly bigger arab/muslim world, which is also tremendously more important economically. Most other states, in Europe and Asia, have long sensed this. US State Dept pros and academics may privately concur but they're totally overshadowed by the pro-Israel bunch.
True, but what makes you think that the long-term interests of the west is to have permanent peace? If the west wanted, it would have put Israel in order, would have made peace long time ago. It is easy to believe that Jewish lobbyists are the only ones preventing this but that is hardly true, they play their part for sure but the M-E and Africa are the only places left as playground. This is important for imperial powers and their industries. Israel is part of the western designs to maintain these conditions in the M-E and not the other way around and it is funny that people believe that Jews can actually take over the entire western apparatus and enforce their global designs when in fact they are merely cogs within it, like all western nations have their cogs within that infrastructure.
Within a few years or so, the worst of the present mess in the levant should be cleared up, and the perennial arab-israel dispute resume center stage--with further consequences for the Israel's backer here...
Think about this, if the Jews were as omni-powerful as people assume they are, they would not be living in conditions of permanent existential fear.
EN EL ED EM ON
...take your common sense with you, and leave your prejudices behind...