this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2024
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This is a pretty standard summary of the Suez crisis tbh. Geopolitics is weird, and sometimes leftists make major L's, like the USSR supporting the creation of Isreal, based on a misapplication of the national question. The world isn't a simple "good guy/bad guy" Marvel movie-ass binary.
If you want a really fucked up example, look at the Biafra War
Given that this is just general background on the Suez crisis, that kind of "general knowledge" typically don't require citations, but making the claim "The suez crisis formed the basis for a growing US-Isreal Alliance" is a claim that needs backed up. Hence why that's the sentence that gets a footnote.
So, if I'm writing a book about the world system of the late 18th century, and I say "In 1776, The American colonists declared independence" give some background information, and then proceed to make a claim about the impact that independence had on, global trade. Then I need to back up the claim about global trade.
The background on The american war of independence is just that, background, and doesn't require citations. Because there's a presumed general knowledge that if you're reading this book, you won't need that explained to you.
Out of curiosity, what's the footnote in question? What does it say?
Yeah it sucks that the USSR supported something that has turned out so ridiculously bad but I can understand that this wasn't obvious at the time and geopolitics can be very hard especially when you're up against imperialist powers who hate your existence.
This is the footnote:
Ok, yeah this makes sense. This footnote is backing up the "suez crisis formed the basis for a growing US-Israel Alliance" claim, by pointing to a separate historian who's making the same claim (Since of multiple people came to the same conclusion then you can argue that the evidence points to that interpretation of the facts of the case).
And the explanation given by the other author gives two reasons:
Ihe US didn't want to invade, in order to paint itself as more restrained than the Soviets, re: the Invasion of Hungary.
Israel could serve as an imperial outpost, and thus a check on Arab leftists, like Nasser, in lieu of an invasion.