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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 28, 2024

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Followup to my post here earlier where I wondered why Israel didn't forcibly establish filtration camps to stop the world, acquire every person in Gaza, determine which collaborate with Hamas, and release the remainder: The Telegraph: Former British special forces poised to deliver aid to new Gaza ‘gated communities’. They're proposing doing just that, controlling who gets into their safe zones, just in-place rather than stopping the world to do it. Props to I think @2rafa for calling it in advance.

I'm not sure how to expect the proposal to evolve from here as it makes contact with reality, though we can expect some likely elements from first principles:

  • creates an authentication system from scratch
  • enables physical segregation of approved and non-approved Gazans
  • enables inspection of goods passing through the physical border
  • enables inspection of any point in the safe zone on demand with no warning
  • enables detection of people and goods that are somehow present without passing through an inspection and vetting process
  • enables incremental expansion of the safe zone to cover a greater portion of the city
  • enables collaboration and hand-off of the reins from Israeli power structures to friendly Palestinian power structures.

How do you all see it working out? What will work, what won't? What failure modes are most likely?

How do you all see it working out? What will work, what won't? What failure modes are most likely?

What exactly is the end goal here? Do you actually think that building concentration camps is something you do when you're expecting to negotiate peace with the population you're interning in them? Israel at the very least should have some distinct memories of what it means when a government builds concentration camps for your ethnicity. I think that there'll be violent resistance from the Palestinian population (amongst whom Hamas support rates are doubtless trending 100% at this point), but that didn't stop the german concentration camps from doing their job. Personally I think that the camps will be a failure in the long term - the damage they do to the moral credibility of Israel and Israel's supporters will outweigh any potential benefits. But in the short term, Mordechai Kahan and a few other officials will make a lot of money, and in that sense the camps will be a success.

Do you actually think that building concentration camps is something you do when you're expecting to negotiate peace with the population you're interning in them?

Im pretty sure this was a big part of US Native American policy. It helped that the population differential was way higher, but people in Santa Fe don’t have to worry about Radical Navajo Terrorism anymore.

... But the Navajo have generally had "stay between these sacred mountains" as a pre-existing element of their culture, which is why they are one of the least conquered Native Nation today. Maybe the Comanche or Apache would be better examples? Geronimo's whole claim to fame was successfully terrorizing settlers until finally being imprisoned in Oklahoma.

It would be trivial to point to a tribe that was wiped out as an example of a successful counterterrorism policy. The question is if it is possible to pacify a people without killing approximately all of them.

Cherokees.