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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?
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.
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:
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.
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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