Former German diplomat Wolfgang Ischinger says Western leaders should be making more threats and be willing to follow them through.

The West should spend less time fretting about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s red lines and set its own, says veteran German diplomat Wolfgang Ischinger.

“Russia keeps saying, if you do this, if you cross this or that red line, we might escalate,” said the 78-year-old onetime chairman of the Munich Security Conference. “Why don’t we turn this thing around and say to them: ‘We have lines and if you bomb one more civilian building, then you shouldn’t be surprised if, say, we deliver Taurus cruise missiles or America allows Ukraine to strike military targets inside Russia’?”

That way the onus will be on Moscow to decide whether to cross the red lines — or face the consequences.

      • nogooduser@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        There is a red line. The west keeps saying over and over again that they must defend themselves within international law.

        The problem is that they either ignore the red line or deny that it was ever crossed.

      • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        It’s insane. Shows how much of international politics isn’t “Which country benefits from what”, but “What levers of decisionmaking are manipulated by whom”. A little lobbying and foreign PR goes a long way.

          • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            Laws are meaningless if criminals are not held accountable. It doesn’t matter that anyone who supports Israel supports fascism — 30% of US voters support fascism. The fact is that as long as the US (and 5 eyes) supports and arms Netanyahu, the genocide will continue; everything they declare to the contrary is nothing more than a virtue signal.

            The ICJ and all opposition is meaningless unless they are willing to take collective economic and military action again Israel and its supporters. They will not.

        • cygnus@lemmy.ca
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          3 months ago

          What levers of decisionmaking are manipulated by whom

          I hope you aren’t saying what I think you’re saying here.

          In any case, the main reason for western support of Israel is the same as the reason for western support of Turkey. Both have obnoxious leadership but both are in key geographic locations, and the value of having them on-side against their neighbours is greater than the value in cutting them loose.

          • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            I hope you aren’t saying what I think you’re saying here.

            That Israel has established a death grip on American politics since the 1980s?

            In any case, the main reason for western support of Israel is the same as the reason for western support of Turkey. Both have obnoxious leadership but both are in key geographic locations, and the value of having them on-side against their neighbours is greater than the value in cutting them loose.

            Gonna press X to doubt. Turkiye controls one of the most vital straits in the world. Israel primarily specializes in antagonizing its neighbors, many of whom are also our close allies, damaging our international reputation, pouring money in to corrupt our domestic political processes (not that we really need help with that, but the corruption becomes more pro-Israel), while murdering American citizens and selling American secrets to our enemies.

          • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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            3 months ago

            And millions in AIPAC money. The Jews control the world conspiracy theory is of course false, but you’d be extremely naive if you think the decades and dollars Usrael spent creating a government and public that’s friendly to its interests isn’t a big part of the US government’s current attitude.

            • cygnus@lemmy.ca
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              3 months ago

              Americans stop making everything about the US challenge (impossible)

              You know most other western countries support Israel too, right?

      • RubberDuck@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        They have that right tough. It’s just what we are all witnessing goes “a little” further than that.

        • the post of tom joad@sh.itjust.works
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          3 months ago

          They have that right tough

          hard disagree. Maybe if a foreign country wanted to create a Jewish ethnostate it should have set the borders inside its own sovereign lands instead of displacing 300k people it didn’t give a shit about and causing an immediate regional war and decades of ongoing conflict?

          Maybe then we could consider Israel a real country. Seeing how it didn’t go that way? What israel deserves is to dissolve

          • RubberDuck@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            And in your suggested dissolution of the state of Israel, what happens then? And what happens to the Jews that now live there?

              • RubberDuck@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                That’s not an answer to the question though, you are advocating for the dissolution, so let’s put it on the table…

                  • RubberDuck@lemmy.world
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                    3 months ago

                    No, you made a statement that required a follow up question… requiring you to elaborate. But I have the feeling that you are answering like this cause you simply refuse to say the quiet part out loud, or are to cowardly to come out and say it. But that’s OK. I think most people reading your response get what you mean.

            • eacapesamsara@sh.itjust.works
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              3 months ago

              The same thing that happened to the Jews that lived there for millenia before Israel was created, the become normal citizens with no special rights or mandates, and are actually subject to laws intended on keeping all people safe, not just Jews. It worked continuously for millenia through dozens of different ruling states with a half dozen ruling religions, the state of Israel and it’s fascism utilizing ng Jewish supremacy as a base ideology fucked that up.

              • RubberDuck@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                Well, that looks like it ignores reality a bit. That the current state of Israel is doing fucked up stuff atm gets no arguement from me, but it did not happen in a vacuum.

                Spouting revisionist nonsense about how equal the Jews where treated all over the world also does not help the situation either. Nor does ignoring the current situation and how if the state where to be dissolved and a new state created in its place that would give all people of the region equal rights and protections… they would magically all get along.

                So again… what then? What would you suggest?

                • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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                  3 months ago

                  Spouting revisionist nonsense about how equal the Jews where treated all over the world also does not help the situation either.

                  I mean in many places they were. Raging antisemitism was mostly a European problem. That’s why they kept fleeing to Muslim lands.

                  • RubberDuck@lemmy.world
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                    3 months ago

                    Uhm… what? Kept fleeing to Muslim lands? Antisemitism a European thing… wow… someone did a number on you man… I’d suggest you ask for a refund from school.

            • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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              3 months ago

              Nothing??? Just put them and Palestinians in the same place and make them create the equal multiethnic democracy Israel said it would but didn’t become.

              • RubberDuck@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                Yeah, we tried that. With the neighboring countries intervening and waging war, and the following wars we ended up here. But this time it will be different.

                • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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                  3 months ago

                  Uh… What? Israel is, and has always been from the planning phase, a Jewish-dominated settler colony. This is literally why they caused the Nakba. How does that sound like a multiethnic democracy?

                  • RubberDuck@lemmy.world
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                    3 months ago

                    The original plans where also a lot smaller and entitled Palestinians to a lot of land and their own state. Neighboring countries and Palestinians would not have it. The region was english ruled because the ottomans sided with Germany in ww1… they where by definition the baddies. Then WW2 happened. You seem to be cherry picking a lot of stuff that happened over the course of the last 120 years or so for that area.