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Let's talk about Israel and Palestine.
Okay, I can hear you sighing already. But before you look away, let's talk about Clausewitz.
War is a continuation of politics by other means. In our ideological age, where everything is political, it may not seem profound: but it establishes a commonality between the military and civilian where analogies can be made. Like, 'what if we have no ability to fight a war, but continue it anyway?' Could we just... filibuster, our enemies, until they give us the political ends we desire?
This concept is similar to the Trotskyite concept of 'no war, no peace'. (That the policy ended in disaster and Brest-Litovsk bodes ill.) In the Clausewitzian model, war is conducted between states. The loser gives concessions to the winner, with the assumption that even a bad peace is better than a bad war, that ending hostilities - even for the moment - is the best way to bring about revanchist policy.
The differential between Palestine and Israel in terms of military capacity is greater than ever: it was never at par, even in 1948. Seventy-five years later and the Arabs might as well be Ewoks against the Empire. Not to say that they lack the capacity to harm the Israelis, but they have no military capacity to enforce political goals on their enemy. Even now, their demands for a ceasefire are entirely one sided: they are simply outmatched in every conceivable military dimension.
There exists a hope in the Palestinian cause, that there will be a tipping point where they can present to the international community of some Israeli atrocity that will bring about a external intervention. It is the only card they have to play. But now that Israel has control of the food aid that goes into Gaza with the ousting of UNWRA, time is no longer on their side. Their enemy will never consent to a return to the former status quo, no matter how urgently the international community chastises them.
Not coming to terms and holding on for maximalist goals may seem like a cheat in insurgency warfare. But inevitably, reality and physical limits intrude onto the nationalist fantasy. It is chutzpah of the highest order to rely on the charity and good will of your enemy to feed your people. This conflict - indefinitely sustained by Soviet leftist dregs of the anti-colonialist cause - will come to an end not through some master stroke of diplomacy, but a famine long in the making.
Hamas sought to use international sympathy as a weapon, relying on the services provided by American and European NGOs so that they could devote all the funds they neglected to invest in their civilians into their military. Now that military is destroyed, they have no leverage at all. The Israelis are not bluffing. They will not give in, no matter what the pressure. They are perfectly willing to watch Gaza starve until some entity comes out of the territory that they can negotiate with.
As Calgacus would say, "They make a desert and call it peace." Modern problems require Roman solutions. The fatal Palestinian mistake was that they always assumed Israel would come to the negotiating table. After fifty years of fruitless negotiation, the Israelis finally have had enough. There will be no more deals, no more bargains. Just the short, terminal drop to destruction.
It’ll be nice to see siege warfare make a return.
Ive read 'Gaza is starving' since 2023 end Oct. Hell I've seen that headline since 2013. First time I've seen starvation cause population expansion.
To be clear, you think that Gazans aren't starving, and the population is growing, during the war? What a strange take. (Statistically anyways in the pre-war period it's quite possible for a subset to starve while a different subset is above-replacement fertile, so I kind of wonder if you're just conflating headlines)
Yes there is no famine. The gazans are not starving, distribution is uneven and that is causing likely malnutrition and food insecurity but not famine. Famine is a loaded term to evoke sympathetic terms, so lets use the famine cases and population effects.
https://adst.org/2014/05/the-famine-in-biafra-usaids-response-to-the-nigerian-civil-war/ Biafra war:
1967 prewar population: 13-15m Deaths attributable to famine: 1-3m Percentage: 8-25%
https://www.refugeesinternational.org/events-and-testimony/accountability-for-starvation-deaths-in-tigray-six-months-after-the-war/ Tigray War: 2020 prewar population: 6m Dearhs attributable to famine: 150-600k Percentage: 2.5%-10%
Now lets look at Gaza: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/7/24/death-toll-from-starvation-in-gaza-rises-to-115-as-israeli-attacks-continue 2023 prewar population 2023 prewar population: 1.9-.2m Deaths attributable to famine: 111 Percentage: rounding error. Literally.
If the argument is caloric insufficiency, goods restriction, etc, fine. Thats real. But the argument is that Gaza is being starved to death, and the numbers simply don't bear that out.
Total deaths is about 50-60k in Gaza, which by Hamas accounts is entirely pregnant women and journalists. Oh wait no Hamas itself said that they have replenished their numbers of dead "matyrs" https://www.memri.org/tv/sami-abu-zuhri-hamas-gaza-war-babies-women-wombs-martyred-american-campuses
Famine is a loaded term, not to be employed lightly. Whatever the morality of the Gazan suffering - I make clear that I have no sympathy for people who incompetently execute their desires to assault their neighbours only to whine about retaliation after - the charge of famine is one that deserves to be taken seriously. Harvard college students on hunger strike go below the 1200 calorie per day average, Gazans report mass starvation and famine since 2023 yet have rounding error deaths attributable to hunger. I'll revise my position if the external blockade results in the so called mass starvation, but I've got family records of eating pondweed to survive, with multiple children dying during ww2 and entire clan extensions wiped out during the great leap forward. Don't fucking toss around "famine" just because its a high valence term, it degrades the meaning.
Gaza had near 0 capacity to grow its own food after it blew up its greenhouses and it relies entirely on foreign trade/aid to obtain food. It attacks said source of aid, then whines when aid is restricted in turn. It is pure bad faith action and it places the burden of responsibility on the defender for the consequences suffered by the attacker which is an insane inversion of responsibility. Hamas and PA rejected solutions that require commitment to peace and acknowledgment of Israel, holding out for maximalist aims. The 2 or 3 state solution is ideal, but will a Palestinian state be held responsible if it continues to launch attacks or fails to hold its own bad actors responsible? Jordan and Egypts masterstrokes were to disclaim West Bank and Gaza as their territories, leaving then to be Israels problem going forward. Hamas and PA are also unable to function without Israeli aid but also are existentially founded on opposition to Israels existence. This is an impossible circle to square and the expectation that Israel should moderate its "stop trying to kill us every time we step away" position is insane. Israel has 20% Arabs, what happened to the Gazan christians. Hell what happened to the Shia.
There is no Gaza famine. There is no Gaza genocide. There is no Israel ethnic state. All the arguments against Israel are tortured caricatures to ensure that a big bad bogeyman is available to act as a recurring saturday morning cartoon villain, always coming back with a dastardly plan so the cheerleaders can shout hooray when the bad guy gets egg on its face. Maybe the Israelis should make sure their entire cabinet and media team is made up of Mizrahis or Beta Israelis, preferably the swarthier and more squashnosed ones to emphasize lack of slavicised ancestry.
Oh god is it all anti-slav discrimination again? Putin senpai please notice your kin!
I can respect most of that. However I'd politely note that I never used the word famine. I was trying to figure out a little more detail about your position. I do want to also note that when the invasion happened, Israeli tanks basically flattened half the farmland that was left, and I can dig up an article or two with the satellite receipts if you really want, but I think the point is a bit of a distraction/moot because even the extant greenhouses and fields were never going to be enough in the first place. Hunger is still pretty awful subjectively, even if it doesn't result in death, of course. (On a personal note, yes I agree it deserves to be taken seriously. I have a good number of pioneer/homesteader type ancestors, and some of what they had to do to survive on occasion is pretty gruesome.)
In the end I don't think we can fully escape the original shadow: Is it realistic for Israel to "step away" from a problem of their own creation? Or should we care about "who started it"? Personally I'm of the admittedly minority opinion that Israel should only be bound by guilt up to, say, 1978, and then only slightly, '82 or '85 also seem reasonable. Yet we still have to be realistic. Everyone has their own houses to clean: the PA needs to get their act together, Hamas needs to stop existing (or more accurately Gazans need to entirely reject them), Israel needs to come up with a reconstruction plan for Gaza which its own bombs ultimately busted up, and the neighbors of Israel have no real responsibility to help but it would be nice if they pitched in a little bit. I also think Israel ultimately can't have it both ways: either they retain control, as a Jewish bloc, over their democracy, or they don't, but they have to be honest about why in both cases (timelines and details are negotiable); parallel to this, either they figure out a more durable two-state-ish solution, or resign themselves to being permanently interventionist forever, and they are literally the only ones capable of taking the lead there, because of their large negotiating position and functioning government. Is it somewhat unfair that Israel needs to man up and take responsibility, because no one else will? Yes. But as my dad likes to say, life aint fair.
"of their own creation" is doing too much heavy lifting. In 1948 the Arabs invaded immediately, with Egypt and Jordan making little effort to integrate the Gaza and West Bank polities that were their nominal responsibility. When Jordan tried, they were rewarded with Black September. Lebanon collapsed when Palestinians allied with Hezbollah to use a functional state as a shield to launch rockets from. Gazan fields are a nice thing to show, because it immediately invalidates the "open air prison" narrative that makes Gaza seem like Kowloon Walled City under constant bombardment. Turns out there ARE open fields where Hamas could have operated from instead of under hospitals!
Ultimately holding Israel responsible ignores that the agency that Palestinians display repeatedly. Given the choice between a hardline maximalist versus a theoretical cooperative entity they have ALWAYS chosen hardline maximalism. There is no actor in Palestine territories calling for peace and recognition of Israel, and their cause is supported not just by geographicallyproximate Arabs who on a good day find it incredibly funny to irritate Israel eternally and on a bad day (most days) wish to drown the sands in Jewish blood in accordance with the Quran, but by rich westerners who at best are ideologically blinded by manichean moral framings and at worst are just barely (and cowardly) hiding their antisemitism. Hate jews if one wishes, as many do, but at least be honest. Sophistry works in echo chambers not in reality.
The arab population within Israel is 20%. They are the Palestinian arabs that stayed in place and did not flee, and for that they were granted citizenship and participation in a project that makes this population the richest and most prosperous of their monoethnic neighbours. This domestic population has assholes just like the Haredi and settlers are largely assholes, but it is not nearly as bad as the Palestinians who are given maximal succour for their eternal dickishness.
There is a two state solution REPEATEDLY offered. It is Hamas that and PA that reject a 2 state solution that does not involve ISRAELI disarmanent and permanent withdrawal from Gaza. Hamas wants eternal ceasefire (Israel ceases Hamas fires) and no disarmanent. I see zero demands for accountability for Hamas and the Gazans who express repeatedly their desire for Hamas to press maximalist claims, and I directly attribute such fervent optimism to foreign pressure on Israel to accept the unworkable. Hamas repeatedly breaks ceasefires to cheers from Palestinians and their win condition is satisfied either way.
Israel is not being ALLOWED to take responsibility because international pressure is inconsistent and shapes domestic politics into temporally transient positions. There is little chance Israel can effect either a maximalist cleansing operation or a reconstruction effort with both eternal foreign pressure and Gazan intransigence. Again, the hypocrisy is on full display. No one gives a single shit about Arktash, Palestine is incomplete until it is made whole from river to the sea with jews expelled to the void.
Maybe they should do that. Arab populations exploded with foreign food and healthcare access. On their own recognizance they would not be able to feed or medicate themselves and their populations would revert to the limit of their organic capability. Again, Israelis should just Migrant Fleet on a 4 year Carnival Cruise buyout. It'll also improve the reputation of that cursed company.
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