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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   28547 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 27, 2024

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I didn't really participate in the Israel-Gaza megathreads while they were live, for the same reason I don't participate in threads about crypto or YIMBYism: it wasn't a topic I knew much about, and I wasn't especially interested in educating myself. As an undergrad I'd attended a pro-Palestine march or two, and harboured some lingering vague, passive, semi-ironic anti-Zionist sentiment as a consequence; I was vaguely aware of the general contours of the history of the Israeli state (Six-Day War, USS Liberty, compulsory military service for men and women); I'd seen Waltz with Bashir many years ago; I recognised the names Netanyahu, Ariel Sharon, Yasser Arafat and PLO; and was under the general impression that a two-state solution would be in everyone's best interests, although I had absolutely no idea what this would look like in practice. While the megathreads were live, the word "Nakba" would have meant nothing to me, and I can't even say with confidence that I knew at the time that Gaza and the West Bank were non-contiguous.

I think my attitude of willing blissful ignorance changed when @ymeskhout posted his article "The Jewish Conspiracy to Change my Mind" and its followup. Like me, he approached the topic of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from a position of relative ignorance, and after doing some research came away far more sympathetic to the Israelis than the Palestinians.

While Israel-Gaza may not have had much staying power on the Motte as the Current Thing™ (there were only four megathreads posted a week apart), it's been a fairly durable Current Thing™ in the popular discourse, and looks to remain that way for the foreseeable, perhaps at least as long as the Ukraine war did before it. As a result of this, it's hard to avoid encountering new perspectives on the conflict, and I'm finding myself reading countless articles about it every week. Wary of echo chamber dynamics, I'm making a conscious effort to force myself to read articles which are less sympathetic to the Israelis. I've found Freddie deBoer's takes unnecessarily combative and employing some rather queasy Fanon-esque mental gymnastics, but found Sam Kriss's articles on the topic to be some of the best of his I've read. I admire that he's demonstrated an ability to do what so many outspoken anti-Zionists seem unable or unwilling to do: express deep-seated sympathy for the Palestinian cause, up to and including denying the right of the state of Israel to exist, while also acknowledging the shocking brutality of Hamas's combat tactics and condemning them without reservation.

One such Kriss post, "Against the Brave", takes as its thesis that both the Israelis and Palestinians should be ashamed of the horrific, unspeakable cruelties they've inflicted on one another over the decades, and that a shared acknowledgement and a shared shame is the only path towards reconciliation. I noticed that this post was liked by @ymeskhout himself, which got me wondering if, seven months into this conflict, his attitudes have changed since he wrote his "Jewish Conspiracy" posts. More broadly, have any of you changed your minds on any key aspects of the conflict since October 7th? Did any of you think a two-state solution was viable within a generation, but no longer think so (or vice versa)? Has the conflict changed your opinion of Netanyahu, for better or worse?

The Palestinians were in Mandatory Palestine peacefully living their lives and doing their thing when hundreds of thousands of Jews invaded their country, formed a fifth column, and declared independence at gunpoint.

I frankly don't care any more about the Palestinian people than I do the Indonesians or the Angolese (which is to say, not at all). But it's a constant source of amusement to me that there are seemingly about half a dozen people on the face of the planet earth who are able to vocalize the sentiment "What's happening to the Palestinians is what happened to the Indians, that's how the world works"

It was their land. We wanted it. So we took it. And put them all in reservations. So it goes

The Palestinians were in Mandatory Palestine peacefully living their lives

Really? Nothing happened in 1936-39?

The Palestinians were in Mandatory Palestine peacefully living their lives and doing their thing when hundreds of thousands of Jews invaded their country, formed a fifth column, and declared independence at gunpoint.

One of the most interesting thing abouts this conflict that I've had the pleasure of learning since I too like @Folamh3 have taken to catching up on the history is how much you can tell about someone by how they read the tea leaves on this conflict and decide to characterize events. There is enough back and forth over many years that one can justify just about any framing and find facts to fit the pattern. The story to you starts with as some sudden wave of hundreds of thousands of Jews all at once showing up, in a place where there was some kind of coherent community to even betray.

You're just wrong. Throwing ones hands up and saying 'there is enough back and forth over many years' is a cop out to actually understanding the history.

When the British took over Mandatory Palestine, the Ottoman Empire had been governing it for like half a millennia since anything interesting had happened there

I can highly recommend Darryl Cooper's Martyrmade podcast about the topic, it's about 30 hours long but it's worth it, goes through the whole story from the inception of modern zionism with Theodore Herzl

When the British took over Mandatory Palestine, the Ottoman Empire had been governing it for like half a millennia since anything interesting had happened there

Hmm. Let's do some rough napkin math.

Mandatory Palestine started in 1920, half a millennium back is 1420. Did anything much happen then? Well, let's start.

The Mamluks of Egypt were ruling the area, and had since they kicked the Crusaders out in the previous century.

In the sixteenth century the Turks invaded, and the levant came under Ottoman rule.

In the seventeenth there was the great Druze revolt, which destroyed several major cities.

In the eighteenth, around the time of the French and Indian War in America, local elites revolted against the Ottomans, drove them from the Levant and formed an independent Emirate under Sheikh Zahir al-Umar. This lasted some decades, from around 1730 to 1774, before the Ottomans were able to regain control of the area.

Twenty years later, Napoleon invaded, won, then lost at Acre.

In 1831, Egypt re-conquered the levant from the Ottomans, but withdrew nine years later. The Ottomans regained nominal control in 1840.

So, when Zionism kicked up in the late 19th century, the Ottoman grip on the area had been slipping for centuries, living people remembered independence, French control, Egyptian control and the Ottoman was the most recent. The actual ability of the empire to govern the area was almost completely sub-contracted to local sheiks and mullahs, which is why the British-sponsored Arab Revolt of the first world war actually worked.

And during the ottoman empire land ownership was created, given to Arabs, some of which became absentee landlords(often by tricking the people who lived there into thinking the land rights were a scam) and later sold some of that land to the jews who moved in and kicked the Arab tenants off the land they bought. Hundreds of thousands of jews didn't show up out of no where, that's not an accurate paraphrasing of what hat happened and the details matter. The ottomans were in no way the same people as the Arabs in the land that they ruled over.

I'm not even fully on the side of the zionists but your description is cartoonishly one sided.

(Sorry in advance for double posting)

But we’ve made an idol out of self-pity. Being a Jew means being a victim. All histories contain suffering—but haven’t the Jews suffered most of all? In every century? In every country we’ve ever inhabited? Aren’t we the weak, the poor, the persecuted, and the despised? Weren’t we bullied at school, for our high intellects and our limp lokshen arms? Don’t other people have an obligation to feel bad for us? Even Jews who, like me, have never once been a victim of antisemitism—we’re still victims by descent. As a Jew, I’m not more likely to be impoverished, uneducated, or imprisoned than my gentile peers; in fact, precisely the opposite. But the victimhood remains. The one legacy of oppression I can never hope to escape. Like black tar on my skin. On Christmas Day last year, while the bombs continued to fall, the smug fucking face of smug Stephen Fry took over British TV to demand that the public do more to cherish and pity the Jews. Anything unpleasant—the taunts of some ordinary bigot, or the resistance of a people violently dispossessed for seventy-five years—gets folded into the vast archive of Jewish suffering, from Tiglath-Pileser to the death camps.

I really do agree with Kriss here. As a Jew I find Jewish self-pity nauseating and embarrassing, but even more than that I find it kind of humiliating. But it’s important to note that many Israelis would agree with him too.

Israel was not borne of Jewish self-pity. Crying about how the goyim are oppressing us is, after all, probably the oldest diaspora Jewish pastime. You can find thousands of examples of it over the centuries, from medieval England to 17th century Iran, from the Old Testament to the shtetl. Diasporic Jewish writing for much of the last millennium, in both the Middle East and Europe, often accepted gentile torment as either just punishment by God, or just as an unfortunate reality of the test imposed by God on earth in anticipation of the world to come. Efforts to actually end that victimhood were limited to individual community success stories in some countries at some times, but little else.

Israel was a response to that, an effort to break free of it, to not be victims again and forevermore.

Sure, it is true that some of Israel’s supporters use the ‘historical oppression’ angle to justify Zionism. Personally I find that distasteful, though I understand that in the modern western progressive milieu an oppressed victimhood framework is pretty much the only acceptable one. But the actual core of the idea is quite different. It’s a commitment against self-pity, an acknowledgment of the hard ways of the world, an acceptance that while spiritual salvation and religious purity have their value, they are insufficient when it comes to survival in our earthly lives.

Yes, I agree completely. I'm on a mailing list for Jews at my company and the neurosis makes me sick to my stomach sometimes. People talking about the latest microaggression, dredging up old trauma, people talking about where to move if/wheb the US gets uninhabitable for Jews - it's ridiculous. The USA remains a great place to be Jewish, the place that seems most likely to remain so, and if it doesn't, there comes a time to plant your feet in your homeland and make a stand.

Our one was very inactive, a few people posting about challah baking, some orthodox people who work in back office trade functions in NYC/NJ posting Torah readings or rebbe quotes, and Israelis in the engineering team posting about Israeli EDM/techno/whatever. Political discussion is discouraged but unfortunately ours has just become “hope you guys are feeling safe, here are some mental health resources” concernposting since October 7th.

Israel was not borne of Jewish self-pity.

Surely as a well read Jew, what did the Zionist think was going to happen to the Palestinians living on and around the lands they were buying and settling on ?

Because to me the whole idea of 'Israel' placed in the historical region seems extremely stupid. Surely in the 19th century, you could have foreseen that the same factors that caused population explosion in Europe - sanitation, medicine, better agriculture - would eventually spread to the mid East.

You also had a rich history of nationalist strife in Europe at the time. So settling a land in a situation that was virtually guaranteed to end up with a worse version of the Czech / German issue was just nuts. And we all know how Czech / German relations in Bohemia were eventually settled.

In the 19th century kicking savages off their land to set up settler colonies was less condemned.

It was pretty clear which way the wind was blowing by 1910s.

Churchill’s infamous quote about settler colonialism (“I do not admit that a great wrong”) was made in 1937.

Was he pandering to the clueless masses or expressing elite opinion of the day?

/images/17171051999771075.webp

It seems it was in a parliamentary panel on Palestine where this exact comparison was raised. In any case, he was a lifelong imperialist, which for much of the period was as much a liberal position as a conservative one. The liberals were more mercenary, and were divided over Empire, but there was a strong imperialist tendency in the liberal party early in the 20th century (referred to in contemporary politics as th gulf between the new idealists, moderates, liberal imperialists and - on the anti-empire side - little englanders). The early 20th century from around 1901 to 1935, despite the fact that Britain had already began its terminal decline and was already poorer than the US in absolute and per capita terms, was in fact the height of imperialist sentiment.

I've been more convinced by Richard Hanania.

https://www.richardhanania.com/p/israel-must-crush-palestinian-hopes

https://www.richardhanania.com/p/why-palestine-cant-deliver-peace

The tl;dr of those two pieces is that first, Palestinians really, really hate Israelis, even more than Nazis hated Jews, and the conflict will not be able to be diplomatically resolved. And second, even if through a mass PR campaign and enormous concessions Israel managed to get 99.9% Palestinians to accept true peace in the form of either a one or two state solution, just .1% of Palestinians sticking with Hamas and Islamic Jihad would be thousands of active terrorists, which is unacceptable to Israel.

If 99.9% acceptance is not good enough then that is a problem. Expecting 100% acceptance is essentially saying no peace.

Given all the water under the bridge some level of resistance is going to occur. There is simply no way around it.

If that really is Israels position, then all Palestine might as well fight now. Because they are never going to be able to guarantee 100% of people will accept peace and not carry out attacks. Which means there is no way out for them.

Hopefully that isn't Israels position (even if they wouldn't say it) and they understand expecting a 100% peaceable populace after the history here is a pipe dream.

Numbers like 99.9% and 100% numbers are just exaggerations to make a point. Realistically though, you probably need at least 80% of the population to be on board with the idea that it's not worthwhile getting engaged in suicidal conflicts with a neighboring country before that country can accept them as a peaceful neighbor. Otherwise there's too big a chance that violent minority seize power and redirect all resources to renewed war efforts. Frankly I'd be stunned to see any polls suggesting that even 50% of Gazans think it might be worth trying to make a decent society for themselves with what they have, as opposed to continuing pointless attacks against Israel. I believe that's the point Hanania is making - the PA could officially be installed in power in Gaza tomorrow but given the state of that society they'd just be overthrown by Hamas again (with popular support) and who would declare war again etc.

Right, I'd probably agree somewhere about 80%, with higher obviously being better! And right now with the state of tensions Hamas or something like it would just re-emerge, completely agree. Eroding support for Hamas is key here, and history unfortunately suggests that the only way to do that is time and lack of huge incidents.

Support from Catholics for the IRA surged when the UK put in place internment and very aggressive tactics and reduced when the UK pulled back, treated terrorism more as a police action, and began to lift discrimination against Catholics, this led to Catholics becoming wealthier, and with fewer direct reasons to hate the British, IRA support began to drop until Warrington and Enniskillen (where IRA bombs killed children and pensioners) meant their support collapsed. Then the IRA came to the table and accepted a deal they had basically rejected 20 years before.

But there are still attacks today, fewer bombings because those take more organizations but punishment beatings, shootings, kneecapping etc. So I think some level of violence is going to have to be built in to any realistic proposal.

Most peoples are able to achieve 100% peace. Maybe not 100% agreement, but 100% willingness not to join partisan terrorist groups when they lose the vote. I don't think Palestinians would, I think at least 0.1% would commit terrorist attacks in a way most peoples wouldn't. And unlike other peoples such as the Irish, just being given their own state and some concessions wouldn't be enough to mollify them, I think they'd keep doing it until they controlled all of Israel/Palestine.

I think that 100% peace would never happen either. I also think Palestine will never defeat Israel militarily either, that if they did it'd be just as big of a humanitarian crisis, and keeping this miserable status quo for the next centuries isn't the best was can do. That's why I think the best outcome would be a refugee process where Palestinians officially don't get the right of return, and are relocated to other countries. Hell, I think it'd be cheaper for a lot of places if there was some international cooperation to build the Palestinians a nice artificial island they can live on far way from Israel.

Most peoples are able to achieve 100% peace. Maybe not 100% agreement, but 100% willingness not to join partisan terrorist groups when they lose the vote.

I think history shows you are incorrect. My own home nation Northern Ireland (with parallels to Israel/Palestine) has not.

There are still terrorist attacks in Northern Ireland, there are just many fewer of them than they used to be. So no, the Irish were not 100% mollified by having their own state either. That is my point, after a conflict like this, only being satisfied with 100% peace is a demand that can never be met.

Most peoples after a decades long conflict like this will have some percentage who are so hurt and have lost so much and hate so much that they will try to continue the conflict. That is simply part of humanity, and there is no use pretending it isn't. It applies to the Palestinians, the Irish and everyone else. The only healer is time, a slow de-escalation where fewer people are being radicalized (on both sides) and so the worst of the conflict is decades in the past. Then you might be able to get a majority on board, but there will always be some who will not, until they die off of old age. The paras back home are still shooting, firebombing and kneecapping people 26 years after peace. Just fewer and fewer of them.

I admittedly underestimated the amount of continuing Irish terrorism then. I would still predict that the amount of continuing Palestinian terrorism after any Ireland-like peace deal would be far greater and at a level that would make decreasing tensions impossible.

Right now it absolutely would be, but remember the Troubles simmered down over years, until by the 90's it was much less intense than in the 70's. So it takes decades to lower those tensions, and for those who had family or friends killed to feel less raw, which fuels the whole merry-go-round.

Weren’t the troubles also a notable increase on previous tensions? My admittedly layman’s understanding is that Catholics in Northern Ireland were treated rather badly but content with essentially peaceful protests between Irish independence and Bloody Sunday, and that the troubles were a move to terrorism which eventually died down and got capped, the remaining terrorists being basically just ethnically-organized gangs like the crips or ms-13 at this point.

Well......it depends from when you are measuring. Broadly the civil rights movement in the 60's "provoked" responses from Loyalist paramilitaries. The RUC siding (usually) with the Loyalists then became targets during riots, which led to them moving into Catholic areas in force (or trying at least). This led to bombings and the like pre- Bloody Sunday. But many of the parades were celebrating the Easter Uprising, some 50 years before. So whether you count 1922 to 1966 as an increase in tensions or just a lull is subjective. There were riots in the 30's and 50's and the IRA only called off its Border Campaign in 1962, it just wasn't very effective.

Various anti-Catholic curfews and internment campaigns inflamed tensions as did the Ballymurphy massacre, then Bloody Sunday. It was certainly worse after that, but I don't think we could classify it as peaceful beforehand.

I found both of those articles very persuasive, and also this one: https://www.richardhanania.com/p/how-trump-proved-foreign-policy-experts

There probably used to be some path where a two-state solution was okay or even preferable. Where there were probably other solutions that involved practical solutions and probably some compromise. I sadly think that time has passed.

Right now, regardless of morals, the simple fact is that Israel destroyed Gaza, Israel controls Gaza, and therefore Israel has a moral responsibility to rebuild and improve Gaza. To the tune of billions, quite frankly. You break it, you buy it. What is the path to peace? A lot of kumbaya shit, love everyone and embrace a multipolar state is the only remaining actual option. Note that in my opinion, this requires probably more effort on the part of the Palestinians overall but also crucially, it requires initiation from the Israelis. They have both the moral and practical requirement to be "first" when it comes to displaying love. Probably some sort of truth and reconciliation type thing is needed. Execute Israeli soldiers who committed war crimes even. Forgive a good number of lesser evils on both sides. Build some trust. This will at some point require ending the apartheid-adjacent, second-class treatment of Palestinians. The settlement sniping back and forth has got to stop. At some point, Palestinians might want to consider becoming more (traditionally) politically active. They have 20% of the population and 10% of the Knesset.

I reject that there is a moral argument that Israel has to rebuild Gaza.

Gaza was wrecked because it deserved to be wrecked. The idea that Israel has to rebuild Gaza is sort of some American philosophy being a Christian nation, but let me remind you Judaism is a pre-Christian religion. If Gaza did to Rome what they did to Israel Rome would crucify them, enslave a lot, and salt the earth so they never come back. In Judaism you can take vengeance for vengeance sake. Regardless, the morality you speak of is not my morality. I think even from a Catholic Just War Theory eviction can be argued as appropriate. Maybe $3k and a flight to somewhere else is morally fine.

Even after WW2 Germans were often evicted from lands they lived pre-WW2. That has been the case in many wars. Syria wasn’t rebuilt.

As far as war strategy goes I think Israel’s only rational move is full eviction at this point. I think the idea of rebuilding Gaza is neither morally universal or good military strategy.

where you suggest Israel to send Palestinians to?

To the West, or to hell: both have approximately the same amount of youth-corrupting, hedonism enabling Satans.

In the end, it is the West who will accept these refugees, these bitter and forlorn exiles dreaming of a fatherland that is denied to them. The historical experience shows what will happen, as their welcomes wear out, as they stubbornly refuse to assimilate. We called them Jews, and they will appeal to their numb and insensate hosts for relief until the end of time.

I don’t think it is Israelis problem. Drive them out.

Right now, regardless of morals, the simple fact is that Israel destroyed Gaza, Israel controls Gaza, and therefore Israel has a moral responsibility to rebuild and improve Gaza. To the tune of billions, quite frankly. You break it, you buy it.

Israel withdrew from Gaza, the governing body that took over was Hamas, Hamas started the war that destroyed Gaza.

It has never been a principle of war that you get to attack people, they whoop you and then they have to fix everything for you.

I don’t think there’s an issue imposing a Palestinian state upon the Israelis. Many in Israel would welcome it. The issue is with how that Palestinian state was structured, who ran it, how it was governed, and how the deep-seated Palestinian desire for revenge was tackled.

As it is, Independent Palestine would be declared, elect Hamas or equivalents, attempt a military campaign against Israel, be destroyed and be occupied. <— You Are Here etc etc. The only way to avoid this scenario is for the Palestinians to be ruled by someone who can actually control them. The Western powers, for all their moral frustration around Rafah, are unwilling to do this or to finance it; colonialism is in any case a tricky business. The Muslim countries don’t want to be seen dealing with Israel too openly, and besides Palestinians have caused many of them issues over the years.

Israel isn’t big enough, rich enough or politically powerful enough to attempt an Uighur-level pacification of Palestinians, even if it wanted to (which it doesn’t, really). The traditional, biblical outcomes of this kind of tribal conflict are off the table (at least for Israel) for reasons of modernity and geopolitics.

On the far left the solution is obviously to just make all Palestinians (including foreign descendants) citizens, rename the country Palestine and hope that everything surely works out. On the center left, it’s even more vague, essentially some version of withdraw, ‘accept’ a Palestinian state, pull back settlers and hope for peace. (See above.)

So there aren’t really any solutions. One can’t really fault the Arabs for refusing to accept the Palestinians, since they dislike them for many of the same reasons the Israelis do (violent, vengeful, doesn’t understand when it’s beat). On the Israeli side, “apartheid” was not the status quo for reasons of racial hostility, all the checkpoints and walls and restrictions on Palestinians entering Israel exist solely because of repeated Palestinian terror attacks against Israel citizens.

On the Palestinian side it is hard to find any logical undercurrent, but we might assume that - somewhere within - they truly and actually believe that the Jews might one day pack up and go home. That seems unlikely to me. The French in North Africa still had France, at least then. The white Rhodesians and South Africans made up less than 10% of the population, they were fewer than 4% in the former case and they were politically divided in the latter. The Israelis are half the total population and consider Israel their homeland. They will fight to the end.

On the Israeli side, there is a fair amount of exasperation. “We lived in exile for 2000 years, so can you” is a sentiment I have heard on a number of occasions. When that classic trope of the nature documentary, the old king, the patriarch, being supplanted by some younger challenger who beats him in combat, steals his territory and females, and sends the elder male into exile, occurs, we accept it as part of the cycle of life in nature. Nothing that has happened in Israel is uncommon in human history. Countless peoples are conquered by those more advanced and more capable. That is life.

Most Israelis don’t care what happens to the Palestinians, but they wish for them to stop being a nuisance. Economic growth has been tried and has failed. Ideological indoctrination would be unacceptable to the Palestinians or the wider Muslim world. What does that leave?

It’s worth noting that states which successfully rule over populations similar to the Palestinians do not do so with rainbows and kittens. Any solution which contains the Palestinians will likely be unacceptable to the left.

If the Palestinians end up being oppressed by other Middle Eastern Muslims, the left will look the other way.

I think this is largely correct. I don’t see true statehood as an option because of the things you mentioned. Giving Palestine a state just means they use the state as a launching pad for war. Social trust on both sides is gone, so there’s no chance of negotiations of any sort.

But even if the states want to exist side by side, I don’t think there’s enough land there for two states. It’s the size of New Hampshire, and has mountains and one coast to the Mediterranean. Every resource is going to be fought over because they’re all important.

I continue to read books about the subject, watch Arabic and Israeli news channels, and talk to Arabs.

I have come to the same conclusion as you, more or less - I am broadly more sympathetic to the Israeli position, but I reject the elimination sentiments of the most strident pro-Israeli voices (the ones who believe essentially all Palestinians are Hamas supporters who deserve what they get) and believe the current government (and specifically Netanyahu) has cynically and intentionally subverted any possibility of peace.

The Palestinians did have many opportunities for peace; they rejected them because they found the terms degrading and unjust. Whether or not they were justified in feeling that way (I think they kind of were, but a rational people would have accepted defeat and an honorable peace), here we are.

Lately I have been practicing my Arabic by researching the words سبية ("sibiya") and صبية ("Sabiya"). The first means, basically "captured girls" or "sex slaves," the second means more innocuously, "girls." Etymologically they have different roots, but to a non-Arabic speaker, they sound almost the same.

These are the words being disputed on Twitter by pro- and anti-Zionists after this video was published.

My Arabic isn't good enough to determine what exactly the Hamas guy is saying, but I've seen native Arabic speakers on Twitter insisting he's just calling them "girls" and other native Arabic speakers saying he's clearly referring to them as "sabiya," which was historically used to refer to women captured in war.

Does it matter? Probably not. Israel doesn't really have an endgame here. They will continue to immiserate the Palestinians, and the Palestinians will continue to hate them enough to die rather than make peace.

Lately I have been practicing my Arabic by researching the words سبية ("sibiya") and صبية ("Sabiya"). The first means, basically "captured girls" or "sex slaves," the second means more innocuously, "girls." Etymologically they have different roots, but to a non-Arabic speaker, they sound almost the same.

These are the words being disputed on Twitter by pro- and anti-Zionists after this video was published.

My Arabic isn't good enough to determine what exactly the Hamas guy is saying, but I've seen native Arabic speakers on Twitter insisting he's just calling them "girls" and other native Arabic speakers saying he's clearly referring to them as "sabiya," which was historically used to refer to women captured in war.

This level of linguistic analysis is just a bizarrely isolated demand for rigor. The idea that Hamas would resort to every other depravity that's on film for the world to see but would draw the line at violating the sexual boundaries of kidnapped women is something I don't think anyone actually believes.

Freddie deBoer:

the claims about widespread sexual assaults been proven to have absolutely no sourcing or evidence beyond Israel propaganda.

Freddie again (Ctrl-F "hasbara").

See this article by Inverse Florida (Ctrl-F "rape").

Believe it or not, a lot of Arabs (and leftist Hamas supporters) do sincerely believe that rape is a bridge they haven't/wouldn't cross. I think they are delusional apologists, on the level of Sandy Hook conspiracists and Holocaust deniers, but it is an actual debate, and to the degree that I engage with these people, I wanted to know what the actual words meant.

Right, I get you.

any possibility of peace

Can you explain more about how this possibility would proceed? All explanations I've seen involve an implicit step consisting of "and then the Palestinians decide to stop hating Israel with such passionate intensity that they'll sacrifice their own wellbeing to harm Israel and Israelis" and I genuinely don't understand, mechanically, how that step is supposed to be achieved.

My more-or-less-unconditional support for Israel in this conflict is rooted in the seeming impossibility of durably appeasing the Palestinians at any reasonable cost.

Time. You need time, preferably decades with no huge triggers on either side. You need the family and friends of those killed on both sides to have their emotions less raw and possibly to die off, then with fewer direct immediate victims of violence you might be able to move forward.

Notably for this you would need moderate leadership on both sides, who can slowly push for slight de-escalation, year by year. It can't be immediate, they would be killed or replaced. Probably propped up and supported by external actors. Then in 20 years or 30 you won't have peace, but you'll have a simmering conflict with many fewer victims. Hopefully you'll also have seen economic improvements and wealthier, safer people are more likely to agree to peace.

In other words it kind of looks like what happened before October 7th, where there would be mostly ineffectual rocket attacks, it just would have needed a Hamas leadership who weren't plotting October 7th and a Israeli leadership that were reining in the various settlers slowly. Both sides need someone who is willing to be just unpopular enough to dial down the heat, but not unpopular enough to get assassinated or deposed.

The US supporting both sides contingent on violence not being too excessive and putting pressure on both to come to the table, over and over and over again for the next 20 years.

Sure, if you can wish into place a Palestinian leadership who would not attempt to butcher Israelis for 20 or 30 years, then the plan could work.

But you can't! Hamas is here. They aren't going quietly. And they aren't some exogenous force. By all accounts I've seen, Palestinians support Hamas, and Palestinians supported the October 7 attacks. A plan that relies on an unachievable counterfactual isn't a plan.

Time has not diminished the Jewish desire for Zionism. If we are to give credit to the Palestinians, they seem equally determined. Would you give them two thousand years to get over it?

To paraphrase the Kingdom of Heaven, as Saladin speaks to Balian: 'Jerusalem is nothing and everything!'

They don't have to get over their desire, many Catholics in NI still want Northern Ireland to become part of the Republic. But being willing to fight and die for something when you are comfortable and treated well and none of your immediate family have been killed, is a very different proposition.

A large segment of the Palestinian population is irrationally motivated by hate and intergenerational grievances, and their leadership has always been corrupt. I don't believe peace would ever be "easy" or smooth. That said, it's also simplistic to think they are literally all irredeemable vengeance-monsters. Any peace process will necessarily have to be a long term and painful one - the current generation isn't going to suddenly stop wanting to kill Israelis, but there have been efforts by some Palestinians to change things. It will only work in a staged way where the next generation has things better and is less inclined to become martys.

Sometimes these efforts are undermined by their own people (the conflict between Fatah and Hamas is complicated, and not entirely Israel's fault but Israel isn't innocent of responsibility either), and sometimes very deliberately undermined by Israel. If the Israelis take your attitude: "We'll have peace only if and when every last Palestinian renounces violence and accepts the status quo, and until then, we'll keep bombing," no, there will never be peace. At the moment, that does seem to be Israeli policy.

Just to cite one example where I do blame the Israelis, the West Bank settlements are literally the "settler colonialist project" that gets thrown at them a lot. It's explicitly a project to displace Palestinians and fuck them over. Gaza is a hellhole and probably can't be anything else in the foreseeable future, but the West Bank could be the start of an actual Palestinian state with cooperation between them and Israel, but Netanyahu has (IMO) intentionally made the West Bank a sore spot and another conflict front.

Israel's current attitude is "We have the power, so suck it." I can't say I blame them (especially after October 7) but I also can't say I blame Palestinians for hating them. A "peace process" would have to start with the Israelis acknowledging the Palestinians have legitimate grievances instead of just saying "This is 100% all your fault." Clearly they are not going to do that. So here we are.

The details of the Oslo process and why it failed, the Camp David accords, Clinton's peace efforts (whatever else you believe about Bill Clinton, he made a genuine effort with Israel and Palestine) are very complicated. The popular narrative right now is "It was all undermined by Arafat," and honestly, I'd say that's only about 60% true.

The popular narrative right now is "It was all undermined by Arafat," and honestly, I'd say that's only about 60% true.

Who gets the other 40% of the blame, if you don't mind me asking?

Mostly the Israelis, but also other Palestinian factions (notably Hamas).

"We'll have peace only if and when every last Palestinian renounces violence and accepts the status quo, and until then, we'll keep bombing," no, there will never be peace. At the moment, that does seem to be Israeli policy.

Wait, why not? If Israel decided to ignore optics, accept whatever level of collateral damage as was necessary, and bombed every Palestinian that didn't renounce violence, and only bombed them, then Israel would stop when only the non-irredeemable non-vengeance-monsters were left, and there'd be no more violence, yes?

I mean, given the current state of Palestinian culture, this would be at least genocide in the wholescale and eradication of their culture, and would probably end up being genocide in terms of actual real genocide, yes, but that would stop the violence.

Wait, why not? If Israel decided to ignore optics, accept whatever level of collateral damage as was necessary, and bombed every Palestinian that didn't renounce violence, and only bombed them, then Israel would stop when only the non-irredeemable non-vengeance-monsters were left, and there'd be no more violence, yes?

Sure, but that would effectively be pretty close to actual genocide. I don't think Israel is literally committing genocide right now, but I think what they've decided is acceptable collateral damage is on the far end of "looking kind of like war crimes." Whether or not you agree, it is for certain that Israel at this time (and for a long time even before October 7) does not believe and does not care that peace will ever be on the table.

Because they aren't willing to kill them all, whether that is due to morality or the fact their allies would not allow it. So given they are not willing to do that, and given history shows that even if most of the population accepts peace, there will always be hold outs, then demanding 100% peacefulness is an impossibility.

That is the problem here, if you aren't willing to kill them all, and you also are not willing to accept 95% peace, then you are stuck in the current situation for the foreseeable future. You can get to 100% peace by genocide yes, but that is already off the table.

There have been countless national hatreds that have cooled down, at least to a manageable level, quite fast after a peace has been achieved. I've never understood the contention that Palestinians would be such a special case that this is unimaginable.

The Palestinians aren't just the Palestinians they're the - increasingly tenuous - foothold on Jerusalem for the entire Ummah (and a symbol of Muslim humiliation that has to be addressed)

This is why they have outsized support, and all sorts of special benefits that other refugees don't get and are seen as an ongoing moral issue for the entire Muslim world, even if many leaders have bent to the facts on the ground (and American bribes).

A lot of groups don't have this sort of situation to embolden their radicals who want the whole thing.

EDIT: While we're at it, there is the question of what separate and distinct Palestinian identity (separate from being Arab) exists outside of the conflict with Israel.

One of the more "hopeful" things I've seen is videos of Hamas fighters beating and shooting Gazans. Which is horrible. But it implies that Gazan support for Hamas might not be as great as we out here think. From a certain point of view, asking Gazans whether they support Hamas and hate Israel is like asking people in Soviet Russia whether they support the Communist Party and hate capitalism. We know that journalists in Gaza had to toe the Hamas party line; that surely applies to residents as well. We have no idea how much is informed belief, how much is brainwashing, and how much is an outright lie to avoid being killed by their own government.

It's probably too much to hope that Gazans don't hate Israel by this point, but maybe if Hamas is fatally weakened (somehow), and then if Israel stops killing so many of them, then maybe enough Gazans would choose to try something different in the future. I wouldn't bet on this happening, but it doesn't seem as impossible as most paths to peace. (Or at least, most paths that don't involve genocide or ethnic cleansing.)

On what grounds do the Gazans hate Hamas? If it's a twenty Stalins sort of thing where they hate Hamas because Hamas hasn't been able to kill enough Jews, that a kind of hate still doesn't leave much room for hope.

Abstractly, there are plenty of grounds for Gazans to hate Hamas.

In practice, there are quotes from exceptionally brave dissidents, and people who have escaped. That's only a small number of people, though, and it's hard to tell how representative they are. Which is why the videos are useful, because they demonstrate that Hamas is being brutal toward Gazans, and in general I'd expect that type of brutality to make Gazans hate Hamas more than in a counterfactual world where Hamas treated Gazans better.

"They're being brutal towards us instead of the Jews" isn't hopeful either.

The problem is that "Gazans don't like Hamas" doesn't mean "Gazans would be peaceful without Hamas".

I have a bit of hope, which I don't expect most other people to share, because I think these sorts of events can snap people out of their otherwise-fixed mindsets. It can be shocking to find out that people you believed and trusted turn out to be lying monsters, and likewise when people that you hated and feared turn out to be completely normal.

It's kinda why I'm here.

Something I find myself idly wondering these days is whether my moral calculus is changing as I believe the range of possible options is narrowing.

I think there was actually a decent chance of something approaching a viable peace circa the Oslo Accords; maybe if Arafat takes one for the team and risks the fate of Sadat or Rabin, maybe if the Israelis are a little more flexible, maybe a million other possibilities... but whatever the case that is gone. And so is I think my hope that anything can be achieved through diplomatic negotiation. You know back in the '90s there was the fantastic optimism that we could actually settle all these big world problems without it coming to the truck bomb and the bayonet, and for the most part things did OK: the Troubles got resolved, most of the potential genocides in the Balkans averted, the Soviet Union came apart mostly peacefully (which was something of a quasi-miracle I don't think we fully appreciate), a myriad of lesser conflicts were solved or at the very least muted. Maybe, just maybe, we could learn to the bury the hatchet, and I think there was very real and tangible progress toward that end in the Middle East.

Of course that's impossible now, or at least for a generation you'd think. Obviously there's lots of blame on both sides regardless on which frame of analysis you choose, but more to the point is that the respective parties in charge (Hamas and the pro-settlement Israeli hardliners) are both locked in a sort of hostile symbiotic relationship where their actions keep entrenching their ostensible opponent, who in turn further cement the other's legitimacy. I don't see any way to break out of that in the short term, which means no peace by means anywhere within this framework of international law and cooperation.

Which means that you kind of have to pick which side would you prefer to annihilate the other. Because that is the only possible resolution to this in the near-future. Grudgingly I suppose I would pick Israel. But really I'd rather not pick. I don't want any of my government's money or time or attention to go to this. Let them fight or let them make peace but it's got nothing to do with me.

Obviously there's lots of blame on both sides regardless on which frame of analysis you choose, but more to the point is that the respective parties in charge (Hamas and the pro-settlement Israeli hardliners) are both locked in a sort of hostile symbiotic relationship where their actions keep entrenching their ostensible opponent,

This is typical both-sides thinking that I think people resort to because they're desperate to think Israel must have done something to deserve Gazans hating them so much. You can be entirely against settlements and recognise the obvious truth that they have approximately zero effect on Hamas' attitudes towards Israel.

the respective parties in charge (Hamas and the pro-settlement Israeli hardliners) are both locked in a sort of hostile symbiotic relationship where their actions keep entrenching their ostensible opponent, who in turn further cement the other's legitimacy.

This telling seems to assume that absent the settlements, the Palestinians' intergenerational rage would subside and they'd embrace peaceful coexistence with Israel. Do you genuinely believe that to be the case? My weary conclusion is that they're stuck in an intergenerational rage spiral sustained mostly by hope (fueled by the actions of their supporters abroad) that they'll be able to prevail and eliminate Israel. Apace with Richard Hanania, I think peace can be achieved only by crushing their hopes -- and that doing so is worth substantial trauma in the present to break the region out of their seemingly durable and miserable stalemate. In this telling, the settlements are superfluous.

I think at this point the Palestinians (or at least some of their leaders) think if they just hold out for another generation and keep things stirred up so they can accuse the Israelis of genocide, Israel will have lost the PR war and will lose foreign (including US) support. At that point we can get a repeat of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war only with Iran helping out, and then Israel will be destroyed and the Palestinians can spend a few months leisurely hunting down and killing any survivors. It might be a good strategy except for two things

  1. Israel might win anyway.

  2. The Samson Option. The Israelis are at least as stubborn as the Palestinians, and if they think they're losing a war for their existence they will use the nukes. Which is not going to turn out well for anyone.

Also, #3, Israel no longer appears willing to let the current situation fester for another generation.

They don't have a choice; they can't genocide the Palestnians and they can't expel them, so the best they can do is put them under military occupation.

Yeah. They can also try to negotiate with a third country for their expulsion.

Nobody wants the Palestinians.

It may not work. But I bet Israel could offer a lot in exchange, especially to a country that doesn't have much to begin with. There were reports that Netanyahu was negotiating with Congo, for example.

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The Samson Option. The Israelis are at least as stubborn as the Palestinians, and if they think they're losing a war for their existence they will use the nukes. Which is not going to turn out well for anyone.

If you're playing the long game there's a future where some Middle Eastern Muslim state gets nukes. This makes Israel just genociding the Palestinians and/or its other enemies a much more fraught endeavor. Such a nation might not have a choice but to signal it'd intervene, or its leadership could be overthrown.

That still leads to a nuclear war in the Middle East, just a less one-sided one. The Palestinians still lose, though they may not care; they'd probably prefer for their remnant population to live in the radioactive ruins of Jerusalem dominated by Iranians than to live in the West Bank dominated by Jews.

As 2rafa said, the line is that Israelis are colonists and will fold and "go home"...somewhere. How much people believe that line or it's just the best PR position, I dunno. They walk around carrying keys to houses they've never seen. Who knows how many drunk the Koolaid?

I doubt Palestinians outright want to burn. But are they willing to gamble on burning if they believe that, when Israel no longer has the ability to act with impunity and has to choose between mutual annihilation and backing down, it will fold?

Israelis are colonists and will fold and "go home"...somewhere.

Do Palestinians actually say this? I’ve definitely heard it from their Hajnali groupies. But it seems like Palestinians miss the days of Hitler.

As 2rafa said, the line is that Israelis are colonists and will fold and "go home"...somewhere.

That's just a line used because it ties in with the progressive project. My read is that the Palestinians would accept the Jews leaving, but they'd prefer them dead.

I doubt Palestinians outright want to burn. But are they willing to gamble on burning if they believe that, when Israel no longer has the ability to act with impunity and has to choose between mutual annihilation and backing down, it will fold?

The choice they would give the Israeli Jews is between mutual annihilation and unilateral elimination, and the Jews are going to pick mutual every time.

This telling seems to assume that absent the settlements, the Palestinians' intergenerational rage would subside and they'd embrace peaceful coexistence with Israel. Do you genuinely believe that to be the case?

I don't think it's so easy to say. But the settlements are very obviously a sore spot for Palestinians, and more to the point seem to indicate that making deals with Israel is a fruitless gesture - any diplomatic agreement is not worth the paper they are written on if Israel will just move in settlers at gunpoint. And it isn't just Palestinians that Israel is double-crossing with respect to the settlements, they make these deals with their allies to limit them and go do them anyways. From the perspective of a secular Palestinian, why on earth would you trust a foe who willingly violates the trust of their friends, let alone their enemies?

I don't think we need to reach the question of whether the settlements are a good idea, or a morally just course of action for Israel. All that we need for present purposes is skepticism that the settlements play a causal role in the Palestinians' intolerable bloodlust. And my cup runneth over with skepticism on that front.

both locked in a sort of hostile symbiotic relationship where their actions keep entrenching their ostensible opponent, who in turn further cement the other's legitimacy.

I believe Scott (PBUH) coined the term “toxoplasmosis of rage” to describe exactly this sort of escalatory spiral

There is that element of it, but I suspect that both Hamas and the Israeli right are a little more deliberate about it than parasites. I think they to a certain extent deliberately prop up each other, and seek to antagonize them.

Bezalel Smotrich infamously had that 2015 quote about Hamas being an asset:

“The Palestinian Authority is a burden and Hamas is an asset. On the same international field, in this game of delegitimization, and think about it for a moment: the Palestinian Authority is a burden, and Hamas is an asset. It is a terrorist organization. No one will recognize it. No one will give it status at the ICC. No one will let it put forth a resolution at the U.N. Security Council. ...”

That's some galaxy-brained thinking, right there.

It's not so exotic, really. If your goal is to crush your opponent, it is to your benefit for them to discredit themselves.

It isn't necessarily a good tactical move to speak that observation into the microphone, of course...

In terms of "adopting a strategy that sacrifices one's own people for the greater good", it's quite in line with Hamas' thinking.

Kind of a similar category to Biden's campaign secretly hoping for Trump to say the n-word or something. Do you want a major presidential candidate to say the n-word? If you're American, no; better that we have two enlightened saints arguing based on high-minded principled policy differences. But if you're the Biden campaign, of course you do. And that doesn't make Biden analogous to Hamas in any central sense.

Kind of a similar category to Biden's campaign secretly hoping for Trump to say the n-word or something.

You mean like this Vox article from yesterday?

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No, this is like Hillary Clinton (and the rest of the like-minded Democratic establishment) wanting Trump as her opposition because he looked like such a doofus to her. Seemed like a great idea, up until he won, and now the majority of the Republican party is behind him, and his attitude is becoming more and more dominant on the right. This is the future she (and her people) made.

Smotrich could go on saying "it's good that our opposition is terrorist", right up until they raped, killed, and kidnapped a bunch of Israelis. It's the fable of the scorpion and the frog - what did he think terrorists do, occupy campuses and chant slogans? But maybe Smotrich thinks that sacrificing a small number of his own people will help him in the long run. Just like Hamas thinks that sacrificing a small number of their own people will help them in the long run.

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