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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   19225 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.

Apparently his manifesto is here: https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/the-israel-embassy-shooter-manifesto

A word about the morality of armed demonstration. Those of us against the genocide take satisfaction in arguing that the perpetrators and abettors have forfeited their humanity. I sympathize with this viewpoint and understand its value in soothing the psyche which cannot bear to accept the atrocities it witnesses, even mediated through the screen. But inhumanity has long since shown itself to be shockingly common, mundane, prosaically human. A perpetrator may then be a loving parent, a filial child, a generous and charitable friend, an amiable stranger, capable of moral strength at times when it suits him and sometimes even when it does not, and yet be a monster all the same. Humanity doesn't exempt one from accountability. The action would have been morally justified taken 11 years ago during Protective Edge, around the time I personally became acutely aware of our brutal conduct in Palestine. But I think to most Americans such an action would have been illegible, would seem insane. I am glad that today at least there are many Americans for which the action will be highly legible and, in some funny way, the only sane thing to do.

I suppose for context, here’s something published in Haaretz-Israel yesterday (auto translated): https://archive.md/yI4Dy

In the eyes of Israeli-Jews from all walks of life, thirsting for a "solution" to the Palestinian problem, a survey conducted in March, which sought to examine a series of "impolite" questions, whose place we would not recognize in surveys that are regularly conducted in Israel, shows this. The survey was conducted by one of the HMs at the request of Penn State University, among 1,005 respondents who constitute a representative sample of the Jewish population in Israel. To the question "Do you support the claim that the IDF, when conquering an enemy city, should act in a manner similar to the way the Israelites acted when they conquered Jericho under the leadership of Joshua, that is, kill all its inhabitants?" 47% of all respondents responded in the affirmative. 65% of those surveyed responded that there is a contemporary incarnation of Amalek, and of these, 93% responded that the commandment to wipe out the memory of Amalek is also relevant to that modern-day Amalek.

About two months ago, Supreme Court Justice David Mintz rejected the petition of the "Gisha" organization to oblige Israel to ensure the supply of humanitarian aid to the Strip, stating that this is a "biblical war of commandment," and in effect authorized the denial of food, water, and medicine to millions of Gazans. The ruling by Mintz, a resident of the Dolev settlement, who was joined by President Yitzhak Amit and Judge Noam Solberg, from the Alon Shvut settlement, is already taking its toll.

Researchers of the education system point to a sharp shift in the nationalist, ethnocentric direction in the curriculum since the second intifada, and this process has led to high support for deportation and extermination, especially among those who completed their studies in the last 20 years. 66% of those aged 40 and under support the deportation of Arab citizens of Israel, and 58% want to see the IDF do what Joshua did in Jericho

I'm sure a lot of people would have said the same thing about Nazi Germany as about Jericho. This mostly tells you how bad Nazi Germany is, not the Jews.

Polling from the WWII era disagrees —

https://x.com/gen0m1cs/status/1913800277792039250

Only 25% of active soldiers “really hated” Nazis. 31% felt no personal hatred and 38% thought they were “pretty much like we are”. Among those 25% who “really hated Nazis”, perhaps some amount of them would want to genocide every German, but I doubt it’s more than a few %. And only 29% thought that America shouldn’t supply aid to Germans. Those polled were active soldiers, not the general population like in the Israel polling. So not even an America soldier who literally fought against the Nazis feels the way an Israeli civilian feels about Gazans.

So a quarter of American soldiers - who had suffered zero effects back home, other than a bit of minor rationing - still "really hated" Nazis. And that wouod be, to my understanding, before really being too aware of the Holocaust. Imagine if the Nazis had committed the same atrocities to Americans on American soil as Hamas did on 10/7.

They had Pearl Harbor, but Americans didn’t hate the Japanese much either, from 1940s Gallop polls you can find online. Of course they did use nuclear weapons at the end, which would be a fair comparison.

Imagine if

Or we can just look at 9/11? America didn’t bomb every Iraqi dwelling until every member of the Taliban surrendered. That would be sociopathic. And this caused more casualties than in Israel.

America didn’t bomb every Iraqi dwelling until every member of the Taliban surrendered. That would be sociopathic.

Leaving aside the conflation of Iraq and Afghanistan, that’s a ridiculous comparison, because neither Iraq nor Japan nor Germany were entirely or mostly or even substantially urban.

In reality, footage of postwar Dresden, Berlin and Tokyo looks pretty similar to footage of urban Gaza today. 5% of Germany’s civilian population died in the war by most estimates, more in many major cities. Again the numbers in Gaza are similar (WW2 was longer, but the pitched phase of urban fighting that saw most of those casualties was actually much shorter). Iraq saw far fewer civilian casualties because the Baathist government was deeply unpopular, its military was a traditional uniformed military built on the failed Arab military model of the 1970s and the majority Shia population eagerly dismantled what remained of Hussein’s regime. Go back to America’s last genuinely major conflict in Vietnam (again, predominantly rural at the time of fighting which inherently means a much lower civilian casualty rate) and the civilian casualties spike accordingly, because the enemy had morale.

That is, by the way, what it takes to root out a highly entrenched urban guerilla force that doesn’t wear uniforms, has an extensive tunnel network and embraces hiding among the civilian population. The only alternative Israel’s detractors can offer to the way the war has already been prosecuted amounts to ‘just leave and negotiate from a distance’. That is a valid approach, and a fair argument (and one I agree with), but it is not and can never be a military strategy, only a diplomatic one. Militarily, strategists offer no alternative. If you were in charge of the IDF and were given the order to militarily destroy Hamas with the soldiers Israel has and the equipment it has, you could likely come up with no military strategy that had fewer civilian casualties than the current approach.

Falluja was fought against insurgents in Iraq. While 60% or more of the buildings in Gaza are destroyed, after this battle (the worst of the urban combat in Iraq) only 20% max were destroyed. Why didn’t America just bomb the city until everyone died? Al Qaeda was fought in the battle of Ramadi. Years long urban battle. Why didn’t America just blow up every single dwelling? Same for in Baghdad, over 2 years.

In reality, footage of postwar Dresden, Berlin and Tokyo looks pretty similar to footage of urban Gaza today

Comparing Hamas, with limited offensive capabilities, to Nazi Germany, doesn’t make much sense. They were compared in the above to show that even the comically worst enemy of history weren’t despised with genocidal intent as Israelis despise Palestinians. But you can’t compare Hamas and their kidnappings / killings to a Nazi invasion of continental Europe. The best comparison is our fight against Al Qaeda and insurgents. They launched an attack on American soil that killed twice the number as Oct 7. We went after Al Qaeda and Baathists as a result. We didn’t aim to starve them to death. This is the closest thing to a 1-to-1 comparison. Vietnam was a notably bad war, people still bring it up all the time as an example of what not to do.

If you were in charge of the IDF and were given the order to militarily destroy Hamas with the soldiers Israel has and the equipment it has, you could likely come up with no military strategy that had fewer civilian casualties than the current approach.

This is unfalsifiable. The few accounts we get from the ground indicate little regard for human life. The recent video of the ambulance workers being killed is an example. You can do what Americans did in Iraq and go into Gaza on the ground. You can enter tunnels and raid homes like we did in Vietnam. If they are unwilling to do this out of fear, then Israel should give up and make compromises. I don’t think the answer is starvation and trying to destroy everything in Gaza.

Falluja was fought against insurgents in Iraq. While 60% or more of the buildings in Gaza are destroyed, after this battle (the worst of the urban combat in Iraq) only 20% max were destroyed.

The battle of falluja was less than 2 months long and there weren't extensive tunnel networks dug out specifically to prevent the forces from being effectively routed. This is the type of war Hamas specifically prepared to fight and provoke. You need to deal with there being two agentic sides to this conflict.

even the comically worst enemy of history weren’t despised with genocidal intent as Israelis despise Palestinians.

This has a lot to do with holocaust justification for the war being post hoc and Americans just not really caring a much about a conflict half the world away as evidenced by the long resistance to entering it.

They launched an attack on American soil that killed twice the number as Oct 7. We went after Al Qaeda and Baathists as a result. We didn’t aim to starve them to death. This is the closest thing to a 1-to-1 comparison.

Afghanistan just isn't in any way comparable to Gaza.

This is unfalsifiable.

A call for an alternative strategy is definitely falsifiable although it's a weird term to use. The relevant question is what do you actually do if you're Israel and recognize that your neighbor is lead by a death cult that legitimately will go to whatever ends are within their ability to kill as many of your people as possible and have extensive tunnel networks that make actually rooting them out nearly impossible. Your options are basically extreme violence, as we see now, or just enduring regular attacks.

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