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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?
That is what I was thinking of, yes :)
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