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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   37624 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 3, 2025

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If he actually manages to do it, which is silly to even contemplate and will never be allowed by Israel in a million years, it could be a very nice solution to this problem.

You just go in there, with the most powerful military in the world, and announce your intention.

We will give the profits of this special economic zone (minus a small cut for our protection), and a complete pardon, to any Gazans that sign up, to them in perpetuity and to their children. You will be as Saudis, as Emiratis, as Singaporeans, princes of one of the richest trading hubs in the world, friends of the United States. And it's the very people who used to bomb you and your children who'll envy you and seek to work under you. You will go from total destitution, to the richest people in the world.

But if you oppose us, the most powerful empire to ever exist, you shall be totally and utterly destroyed with no mercy.

Who wouldn't take that deal? Even if you're the head of Hamas, it's a damn good deal. The only flaw I see is that Americans have not exactly proven trustworthy, and that placing yourself at their mercy may not be the best of ideas. But Trump has a good pedigree here, what with the Abraham accords and the recent cease fire. He could make that personal commitment.

AMERICA has not proven trustworthy? Gazans waited one negative second before starting the Hamas Fatah civil war, where gazans cheered gleefully as Fatah (and Hamas) members were thrown off rooftops and shot in the streets. Israel tried a Singapore On The Med model with the gilded cage for Gaza following the 2005 pullout. All that happened was the Gazans tore down the infrastructure left behind for them, deliberately impoverished themselves to demand greater aid from externals, and plotted to slaughter the few jews who sought to help them by providing employment. If Hamas rolled through and said 'we are going to Tel Aviv to execute Netanyahu' half the Israelis might have closed the highways for Hamas. Instead Hamas wanted roads paved with blood.

Gaza is Hamas, Hamas is Gaza. A good deal is them ruling over a pile of dead enemies, even as the list of enemies grows ever longer and stronger with each passing day. Left to their own devices the BEST case scenario for Gaza is authoritarian strongman rule by a western ally who had the funds and thr institutional backing to keep dissident elements in check. Left to their own devices and Gaza will implode like Yemen, with the only question being how many neighbors it tries to take out before fizzling out.

There is no just world or fairness in international relations and one's reputation matters even to scoundrels.

Anyone in the middle east, in particular in the levant, in particular in gaza, is untrustworthy.

Yet, America's ability to broker agreements still relies on how those untrustworthy actors trust it.

You may see this principle at work in Ukraine: however much the Ukrainians have indeed violated Minsk, they are still unlikely to value a Russian guarantee of security because that has been violated before.

Now if you want to use the difficulty of the situation to just carpet bomb the place and build casinos on the graves of the locals who are all terrorists anyways, that's your prerogative. But I've always been a proponent of peace, diplomacy and armed neutrality, and I'm not going to change my mind because you consider some people savages, as if that's a novelty.

If he actually manages to do it, which is silly to even contemplate and will never be allowed by Israel in a million years, it could be a very nice solution to this problem.

Why would Israel not allow it? Being the neighbor of the US Outlying Possession of Gaza is a great deal for them compared to being the neighbor of Palestinian Gaza. It's not like Trump wouldn't let Israelis go to the resorts.

I think they want the land for themselves, frankly.

And it's the very people who used to bomb you and your children who'll envy you and seek to work under you.

But if you oppose us, the most powerful empire to ever exist, you shall be totally and utterly destroyed with no mercy.

If Israel wants to take Gaza over after it has been rebuilt it US would just give it to them, or maybe give them extra aid to "buy" it with.

People assume that US interests and Israeli interests are inextricably aligned, through lobbying and other mechanisms, but I don't see why that would be some unchanging law of the universe. The US has played allies against each other countless times before, and it even has involved Israel before too.

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