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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   17024 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 19, 2025

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Two Israeli embassy staff were shot dead late yesterday night as they were walking just outside the Capitol Jewish Museum. The Capitol Police have identified the suspect as one Elias Rodriguez of Chicago. Reportedly, Rodriguez shouted “Free Palestine” as he executed the couple, who were engaged to be married.

I have been meaning to write a “Civil War vibe-check” top-level post. My intuition was that the danger of such a nightmare scenario was receding, having peaked twice, with the mass-shooting at the Congressional baseball team practice game, and the George Floyd Riot/January Sixth Riot forming a stockbroker’s double blow-off top before a consistent decline in risk.

Recently multiple events have made me question this. The Zizian cult killings, the suicide bombing in Palm Springs over the weekend, and now this, make me feel like something is perhaps coming. Maybe not a full Syrian Civil War, but at least another Days of Rage similar to the period in the 1970s after the great wave broke and began to recede. I would appreciate hearing anyone’s thoughts.

Israel bombed an embassy a few months ago and has a long history of fighting dirty. They shouldn't be surprised that they get the same treatment back. The expectation can't be that they can finance terrorism, assassinate people, and bomb embassies and then not get the same back.

Assuming, for the sake of argument, that we accept all your characterizations are accurate, can you give any examples of countries waging war in the modern era whom you would not consider to be "fighting dirty," using the same criteria by which you are judging Israel?

I will go out on a limb and say that I do not consider the Israeli airstrike against an Iranian general in Damascus all that bad.

Attacking an embassy is both an act of war against the host country and the country running the embassy.

Killing a general, his staff, and civilian Iranian embassy employees alongside two Syrian civilians (a mother and her child) is not great, but it is pretty tame both in the context of the Syrian civil war and compared to what Israel considers acceptable civilian casualties when taking out Hamas leaders in Gaza.

There is also a point to be made that this probably was a causal factor in the collapse of the Assad regime which happened in the same year, ending (hopefully) a decades long civil war.

Now, if you show me that the two Israelis which were killed were instrumental in the Israeli military efforts, perhaps tasked with sourcing US weapons, and the attacker picked them for that reason, then I will grudgingly grant you that they would have been acceptable targets from Iran's point of view.

But based on what I heard, some dude just shot two random embassy employees because he was unhappy with Israel.

Well agreed that compared to Israels other bombings in this war, this event is not so bad. The problems is that Israeli propagandist in the west always try to make every attack on them some major moral and civilizational issue. So playing by their own rules its relevant that Israel has no problem at all attacking an embassy and killing staff there.

There doesnt need seem to be more proof of this claim:

There is also a point to be made that this probably was a causal factor in the collapse of the Assad regime which happened in the same year, ending (hopefully) a decades long civil war.

Than this one:

Now, if you show me that the two Israelis which were killed were instrumental in the Israeli military efforts, perhaps tasked with sourcing US weapons, and the attacker picked them for that reason,

It seems like a case of isolated demand of rigor.

The problems is that Israeli propagandist in the west always try to make every attack on them some major moral and civilizational issue.

I feel like this argument burned out for me during the first Trump term when the "Muslim bans" were castigated for clear racial/religious animus and disparate impact on a subset (even a fairly limited one) of (mostly-)Muslim nations. I thought the arguments were somewhat reasonable and compelling that the combination of a history of disparaging remarks and policies (which may perhaps have been defensible in isolation) was at least arguably a bridge too far (see a near-divided SCOTUS in Trump v. Hawaii).

But in the case of Israel, self-styled "anti-Zionists" (many of whom were clearly against Trump's travel bans on the above basis) manage to make no shortage of religious/ethnic animus comments, and propose policies that disparately impact the (unitary) set of Jewish-majority states: Your rules, applied fairly.

Which embassy did they bomb? And when? I’ve just did some cursory Googling but I didn’t turn up anything.

Airstrike on the Iranian embassy in Damascus last year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_airstrike_on_the_Iranian_consulate_in_Damascus

Seems unlikely, he said it happened a few months ago.

Which, notably, caught... people planning the financing of terrorism, assassinations, and bombardment against Israel at the time.

International law objects to many things, but it doesn't render military targets invalid. Rather, the military use of protected sites removes the protected status of normally protected sites.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_airstrike_on_the_Iranian_consulate_in_Damascus

Your tone sounds like it's dismissing the concerns, but your claims are the furthest thing possible from reassuring.

Who's funding terrorists on American soil? How can the US claim to protect their allies when it can't even protect their staff? Who would want this outcome (okay, that's kind of a long list)?

A "reassuring" way for embassy staff to be shot dead is random crossfire from an unrelated crime. State-sponsored assassination or terrorism is the worst scenario.

Well I think OP means that the US have chosen to ally itself with Israel, a country that routinely does these kind of actions in other countries (including western allied ones). Im sure DC spends big amounts of money on security for the Israeli embassy, but there will always be some lone wolf willing to throw away their life and thats why these low level staffers got targeted.

Well I think OP means that the US have chosen to ally itself with Israel, a country that routinely does these kind of actions in other countries (including western allied ones).

Routinely? Name one time they shot up a western embassy.

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