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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024

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In my view, someone boycotting Israel could, theoretically not be anti-Semitic, but I don't know of any organised movement that qualifies.

For such a movement to demonstrate not being anti-Semites, they would need to state conditions XYZ, such that:

  1. Israel could fulfil XYZ without jeopardising its existence, and
  2. the movement declares that, if Israel fulfils XYZ, they will end the boycott.

However, doing this would lose the support of those who oppose Israel not out of sympathy for Palestinian children but anger that the Jews have somewhere where they can exist without the permission of the Nations.

However, doing this would lose the support of those who oppose Israel not out of sympathy for Palestinian children but anger that the Jews have somewhere where they can exist without the permission of the Nations.

That is a very uncharitable way to say "The rules of war that you say we have to follow, you have to follow them too." How many people who were complaining about the "kids in cages" at the southern border are ardent Zionists and don't see any inconsistency in their beliefs about the morality of border enforcement? Chuck Schumer is one of these types of people, in 2007 he went to a fundraising gala for Efrat, an Israeli anti-abortion lobby group while being 100% pro choice when it comes to American fetuses.

How many Zionists would tolerate what's happening to Gaza if Gaza were located in South Africa?

Interesting how such "isolated demands for rigor" regarding how America is run never seem to apply to Israel.

That is a very uncharitable way to say "The rules of war that you say we have to follow, you have to follow them too."

Hamas does not follow the rules of war. Furthermore, the rules of war do not say half the things Israel's opponents claim they say.

How many people who were complaining about the "kids in cages" at the southern border are ardent Zionists and don't see any inconsistency in their beliefs about the morality of border enforcement?

Does it matter? Anyway, how many Mexicans were launching rockets at El Paso and San Diego? Was there some operation where an organized group directed by the Mexican government (or whatever group controlled the territory) came in and killed and kidnapped a bunch of random Americans? The situations aren't all that similar.

How many people would tolerate what's happening in Gaza if Gaza were located in South Africa?

Depends on who was doing it and who was getting it done to, naturally.

Alright, tell you what, when AIPAC gets disbanded and we get a formal apology for the Epstein-Island blackmail operation, I'll stop bringing up Israel's ongoing genocide every chance I get. Nobody American under 65 cares about Israel, the umbilical cord is getting cut sooner or later, and if they want someone to fight Iran, they need to do it themselves.

PS: Israel having free college and free healthcare while we don't is also a sore spot to your average Democrat voter, Israel should align their social spending to be more like ours if they don't want us to resent sending them money.

PS2: I could write a book pointing out specific hypocritical political arguments pushed by dual-citizenship types and you'll just say "That's not the Israeli government, you can't hold the actions of the diaspora against the state Israel, that's collective punishment and immoral." That would be a great argument if Israel hadn't been using indiscriminate bombing and food/water/electricity/medical aid denial as collective punishment this entire time.

As an aside, do you remember what happened to the activist Rachel Corrie back in 2003? The IDF crushed her with a bulldozer quite intentionally as dozens of people watched, and nothing ever came of it. I was pretty young when that happened and it made a lasting impact in how I view the Israeli government. Don't the US and Israel supposedly have a "special relationship" like we have with the UK? I don't think the British would discourage Americans activists from protesting in the UK by turning one into a soggy pizza using heavy machinery. Not very friendly at all.

Israel is not committing a genocide in Gaza, they’re winning a war in an urban environment.

It’s really not that different than anything Russia did in Grozny or Aleppo. And it’s definitely more humane and circumspect than what America did in Dresden, or Hiroshima, or Pyongyang, or Hanoi, or Cambodia. Although many (though certainly not all) strong supporters of Israel will weep bitter soyjack tears when such tactics are used by any other party in any other situation.

strong supporters of Israel will weep bitter soyjack tears when such tactics are used by any other party in any other situation.

It is more often the inverse in my experience.

Maybe it’s just the sites I go to but what I mostly see is:

Pro-Israel/Pro-Ukraine (“I am an Eglin Air Force Base shill-bot”)

Pro-Palestine/Pro-Ukraine (“I support the Current Thing at my Ivy League university”)

I think there is a faction of Pro-Russia/Pro-Palestine third-worldist tankies (“GLORY TO COMRADE DOLEZAL! GLORY TO R/STUPIDPOL!”), but those are considerable rarer.

I’ve literally never seen a Pro-Israel/Pro-Russia poster in the wild, probably because those people are all posting on Hebrew or Russian language websites.

Pro-Israel/Pro-Russia poster in the wild

I don't track individual poster opinion enough to say if any individual person fits this bill on the Motte, but that is close to the vibe of this place. The Motte is heavily Jewish and overwhelmingly pro-Israel outside of a few dedicated posters like SecureSignals that even the mods are palpably hostile to. The Motte isn't exactly pro-Russia but it is more willing to view the conflict with Mearsheimer-style nuance than normies, along with a dedicate subset of outright pro-Russia posters.

I take this as the Motte being largely composed of disaffected American blue-tribe contrarians. If the blue tribe/college standard is Palestine/Ukraine by virtue of being contrarians the Motte will naturally gravitate more towards Israel/Russia