site banner
PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   19424 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 21, 2025

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

5
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

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.

The differential between Palestine and Israel in terms of military capacity is greater than ever:

Far from it. Missile tech and drone tech is more dispersed than ever. Israel can't even occupy an area smaller than a municipality in almost two years even with exceptional brutality. Israel is a small country stuck in the same quagmire as South Vietnam, French Algeria or Rhodesia. They are never going to be a functioning country and permanently stuck in a state of emergency.

It is chutzpah of the highest order to rely on the charity and good will of your enemy to feed your people.

Expecting an enemy not to commit war crimes is normal. Israels behaviour has taught a sizeable portion of goyim what jewish mindset is and that the jewish view on this is fundamentally incompatible with a western mindset. The winning Palestinian strategy is to show the world what a bunch of religious fundamentalists on the west bank are actually like. There is a reason why western civilization despised these people for 2000 years and having them quoting biblical genocides while massacring starving Christians is an excellent way to bring back the west to our historical view of them.

Millions of Afghans died in the 80s. Millions of Vietnamese died, France was brutal against the Algerians. Being brutal against the locals is not an effective way to win. The British counter insurgency in Northern Ireland was far more effective.

  • -13

Israels behaviour has taught a sizeable portion of goyim what jewish mindset is and that the jewish view on this is fundamentally incompatible with a western mindset.

There’s never been a country at war going so softly.

Never has there been such pains to not kill civilians.

What you think is honestly morally reprehensible - which is fine! It is what it is.

If any ‘ goyim ‘ sees it this way then it’s due to MSM insane-washing Islam and Islamists.

To me this underscores that a one-state solution is actually the only plausible solution with a degree of stability or peace. You are correct, you can't get out of a permanent state of emergency or highly militarized watchfulness without low-level police stuff, that's what law and order actually looks like. And to do that, it seems to me that the end goal must be to get to a point where there are Jewish citizens, and Palestinian citizens, and the state becomes more secular. I'm not suggesting that needs to or even could happen overnight, but it could happen with enough dedication. That's obviously not the current trajectory, but I view it as inclement on the Israelis to at least make overtures in that direction if they want to keep any kind of moral-practical high ground.

To me this underscores that a one-state solution is actually the only plausible solution with a degree of stability or peace.

Yes, the peace of the mass grave for the Jews. Although the Palestinians, once they are done with that, will probably start warring with their neighbors.

Oh no, they don't need to wait for the destruction of Israel to start warring with their other neighbors.

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

western civilization despised these people

Not only western civilization, also ancient Mesopotamian civilizations, rooted in the Near East; The Assyrian and Babylonian empires, also Egypt.

Despise is a strong word. Sure the Babylonians annihilated Jerusalem, but the Israelites did foolishly try to rebel, and moving around conquered populations was a common tactic. Cyrus the Great famously let the exiles return and rebuild their temple. They did get into conflict with the Greeks and Romans over their unique heno/monotheistic thing.

There is a reason why western civilization despised these people for 2000 years

What is that reason?

Israels behaviour has taught a sizeable portion of goyim what jewish mindset is and that the jewish view on this is fundamentally incompatible with a western mindset. The winning Palestinian strategy is to show the world what a bunch of religious fundamentalists on the west bank are actually like

Doesn't this go immediately in reverse if there's any meaningful Muslim success. Like at the moment it's just very child-level oppressor/oppressed stuff from the majority of Western audiences, but if the boot was on the proverbial other foot it would be even uglier.

No, because the Western-left position is oikophobic, and Israel is coded western and white because they're rich, technologically advanced, and don't play the noble savage or starving charity case. Also, there are a lot of thoroughly-assimilated western jews who in actuality have about as much to do with west bank settlers as boston unitarians have with Egyptian copts, but who fill in the western mind when they think of "jew." Also, the left has been hijacked by opportunistic arab/islamic in-group pandering.

As a result, the left is going to be anti-zionist until Israel either disappears or creates a desert and calls it peace.

Also, the left has been hijacked by opportunistic arab/islamic in-group pandering.

Yeah, a lot of this discussion is basically delusional in that it treats it as an ideological battle with coherent positions for Westerners to settle. It's tribal for a lot of people. They feel no need to be fair so there's no magic judo trick to be pulled on them. Like any group engaged in competition, they've just learned learned the rules. That pressing a certain button helps their cause.

If they ever won outright the pretense that it's about oppression as such goes out the window.

You're acting like the immediate reaction to October 7th wasn't shock and revulsion. I'm saying if Arabic countries drew blood from Israel in any meaningful way this would all just spin up back the other way. I don't think the West is Oikophobic, the West is loserphillic.

Except there was a really loud leftist/arab group celebrating Oct. 7 basically immediately. There were "Al Aqsa Flood"/pro-Palestinian parades/celebratory demonstrations in several US cities in early October, 2024, and lots of random hang-glider imagery.

Literally there were rallies celebrating the Oct 7 attack hours after. Complete with nazi slogans and cheers for the slaughter of "hipsters".

https://nypost.com/2023/10/08/nyc-pro-palestinian-rally-slammed-as-abhorrent-as-hamas-attacks-israel/

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/oct/10/pro-palestine-rally-sydney-opera-house-protest-australia-leaders-condemn-anti-jewish-chants

And many, many more.

Don't pretend for a single second that sympathy was extended towards Israel in any meaningful amount. The telegram channels were full of celebration and promises of painting Al Aqsa with Jewish blood and when it was clear that victory was not exhaustive then it immediately flipped to "we will suffer a genocide!".

The western left position is purely oikophobic. It is subversive and vanguardist in equal measure, casting down the holders of power while preserving institutions so that the left can occupy the vacant seats. The contempt the western left displays for its cultural proximates is a side effect of its primary desire to place themselves on top of the power structure by exploiting any underclass vector.

I keep talking about the Arab telegram channels that livestreamed slaughter of children to heart eyes and cheers, but it really just seems to be screaming into the void here. Azzam Pasha can declare his intent to slaughter jews, Hamas charter calls to slaughter jews, Quran 5:51 and Bukharin 2925 explicitly call for the distrust and killing of Jews, the list of attacks against Jews in mandatory Palestine is a long chronology of terrorism, Arab states expelled jews and confiscated property the moment Israel was created, but its the Jews who are the evil ones.

No one cares about the Yazidi or Armenians or Copts because they were successfully extinguished as viable populations by muslims. Justice is not the objective, fulfilling the demand for a Recurring Bad Guy like a saturday morning villain matters. Bin Laden and al-Baghdadi are dead so no one cares about islamic terrorism. Wait that example doesn't work Jalani is alive and Bedouin slaughter of Druze is ignored. Islamic fundamentalism exploits the meta of sympathy where grievance is automatically legitimate and self defense is oppression when successful recompense when not.

It really does seem like we’re seeing propaganda at work here.

Sam Harris (who lost his mind in 2016) calling Islam a death cult is the forever correct thing.

Until a time that religion is as neutered as present day American Christianity, they should hold no place at the civilization table.

Islam was kind of ok when appropriated by syncretists who appreciated the latitude offered by simply being Not The Dominant. Mutazilites, Sufiism, Ahmadism, Hui Islam.

This of course all went to shit when the Saudis leveraged their stewardship of Mecca and the Aramco money to turbocharge Wahabism. Maintaining local control by exploiting Islam is one thing, actively exporting it is another. Salafi dominance was only checked by matching ultraconservative evolutions in Hanafi and even Shafi subschools like Deobandism or Dawah. Its an arms race for Who Is The Best Muslim and governments that profited from islamism as a wedge issue now are struggling to tame the beast. Every country that tried to distract from internal failings by promoting religious revivalism always falls prey to even more extreme versions of the religion, and that becomes an impossible trap to escape. Failing regimes are propped up by external aid because the donors suffer more if the regime collapses, not because of the worthiness of the regime. Pakistan getting 40bn of World Bank loans is because its implosion will massively destabilize Western Europe through refugees and nuclear proliferation, not because a milirary dictatorship surviving off Islamist revivalism is a stable polity worth investing in.

This of course all went to shit when the Saudis leveraged their stewardship of Mecca and the Aramco money to turbocharge Wahabism. Maintaining local control by exploiting Islam is one thing, actively exporting it is another.

This might simply be inevitable. Progressives have a seemingly totally secular ideology with no holy site but they also often coalesce around a certain set of specific totems and doctrines, even across borders.

The world is too connected now, we simply know too much about one another. Many localized forms of Islam - especially the offshoot religions generally considered heretical - will always be put under pressure by people attempting to make them orthodox because it's so much easier to notice and police now.

I come from a seemingly laid-back Muslim background but even we had the sense that there was such a thing as being more devout and strict and people who went that route were praised. The potential for being forcibly realigned with more conservative versions of Islam was always lurking.

You see similar things with claims that evangelicals essentially invented modern homophobia in African nations. Those countries have just as much access to the latest advances in liberal theory. It's their own judgment that the evangelicals better align with the faith that makes them more attractive, not their money or overwhelming control over the American cultural industry. The other side has that. But it can't change that they feel one case is just stronger

I think Michael C. Cook puts it well in Ancient Religions, Modern Politics (albeit using an extreme example):

My approach likewise diverges from the view that there is no such thing as Islam, just many local Islams. This view is perfectly coherent in principle, and some fragments of reality do indeed help us to imagine what it would be like to live in a world in which it was true. A plausible example of the ever-increasing religious entropy that would characterize such a world may be found among the Muslim Chams of Indo-China, particularly those of Annam, as described by French observers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Their pantheon overlapped with that of their neighbors, the Hindu Chams, and included a mother goddess. They had a manuscript of the Bible that told of the creation of the sun god and moon goddess,8 and a central role in one of their rituals was played by a priestess.

This is not to say that they had lost touch with other forms of Islam altogether. They still knew about Allāh; indeed such was their respect for him that they abstained from sex on Mondays, the day of his birth.10 They still recited texts that bore some relationship to the Koran, and while the laity observed only a three-day Ramaḍān, the priests fasted for the full month.

Yet it does not take a card-carrying Wahhābī to feel an element of shock at this picture. We have here an example of a religion that has drifted so far from its origins as to be within sight of exemplifying a teasing idea developed by a philosopher of intellectual history: a tradition that has gradually changed over time to the point that no single element present at the start is still there at the end.

But to think of the Muslim world as nothing but a mosaic of religious traditions like that of the Chams would be very misleading. In the world in which we actually live, such unchecked drift is unlikely to continue indefinitely. A few centuries ago Islam was undoubtedly more polylithic than it is today, but it has never been a heap of rubble -- the centrifugal forces of time and distance are countered by the pull of homogenization.14 Such homogenizing forces were already at work in pre-modern times; more metropolitan forms of Islam have always had the potential to trump local differentiation. Modern conditions have rendered the effect even stronger. The Chams are again a case in point: a French source of 1891 mentions that some years previously three Muslim villages had abruptly abandoned the worship of their Cham gods; this was after a foreign Muslim who had made the pilgrimage to Mecca was passing through and condemned such practices.The pilgrim from Mecca had clearly put the Chams on the spot. But in a world in which there really was no such thing as Islam, just many local Islams, there would have been no spot for him to put them on.

Yazidi or Armenians or Copts because they were successfully extinguished as viable populations

All 3 currently exist. There are millions of the latter 2.

Poor Yazidi and Kurds. Its like the classic joke: Hitler announces a press conference announcing he will kill a million jews, romani and clowns. The reporters ask what did the clown do to deserve this.

The lot of a minority in an Arab state is to suffer indignities daily and attempts at forced conversions regularly, with the occasional pogrom for good measure. The lack of visible (to western eyes) discrimination is entirely due to subject populations being wholly subjugated or externinated. There are no more assyrians or chaldeans or zoroastrians, but because they are all gone there is 0 discrimination against them. If there is 0 discrimination it is 100% tolerance. I am logik.

There are no more assyrians or chaldeans or zoroastrians

Both exist, today!

Expecting an enemy not to commit war crimes is normal…that the jewish view on this is fundamentally incompatible with a western mindset.

The “West” has done the kind of thing Israel is doing within living memory. One could easily argue Hiroshima and Nagasaki were more directly targeted at civilians than any major Israeli action in Gaza. (And the motive was the same, to force an unconditional surrender.) Personally I don’t believe Western civilization started in 1970, but I suppose if you do then you can make that argument.

Israel is a small country stuck in the same quagmire as South Vietnam, French Algeria or Rhodesia.

All three of those conflicts were winnable. South Vietnam was too corrupt, the other two had settler populations with homelands to return to. Most Israelis don’t have that, and while Israel has plenty of corruption it isn’t yet close to South Vietnam tier.

massacring starving Christians

0.13% of the Gazan population pre-war was Christian. You might indeed ask why the vast majority of Christians have been driven out of the Middle East since 1913, from Egypt to Iraq.

The “West” has done the kind of thing Israel is doing within living memory.

The most obvious historical analogy is 9/11 and the Global War on Terror. Ironically nobody wants to use that one. Free Palestine types don’t want to because it shows that Israel’s response isn’t particularly unique and that America has glassed half the Middle East in response to terrorism before. Pro-Israel types don’t like it because it’s a reminder that what Israel is doing is probably a terrible idea in the long run.

the other two had settler populations with homelands to return to.

10 to 25 percent of the Jewish population of Israel has citizenship elsewhere and that’s disproportionately held by the wealthier upper strata of the population. Given western polices toward family migration that could probably expand to 40 percent in a matter of months. About one percent of the country’s Jewish population left the country in 2024.

Free Palestine types don’t want to because it shows that Israel’s response isn’t particularly unique and that America has glassed half the Middle East in response to terrorism before.

America has never "glassed" the Middle East. That idiom refers specifically to total nuclear destruction (from the idea that the nukes are literally turning the desert to glass). America has invaded the Middle East, and conquered parts of it (which were relinquished, in a more orderly (Iraq) or less orderly (Afghanistan) fashion), but no glassing or anything even close to it (e.g. Dresden-style firebombing) has taken place.

Nor, of course, has Israel glassed Gaza, though they've certainly bombed the hell out of it.

10 to 25 percent of the Jewish population of Israel has citizenship elsewhere and that’s disproportionately held by the wealthier upper strata of the population.

And how much of that is useless Russian citizenship?

And how much of that is useless Russian citizenship?

Do you really believe that if Israël fell the entire citizen population wouldn’t be welcomed into the west with open arms? The west needs young taxpayers, which Israël has.

Why do you keep spelling it like that?

Do you really believe that if Israël fell the entire citizen population wouldn’t be welcomed into the west with open arms? The west needs young taxpayers, which Israël has.

The Mizrahim, the religious slackers, the ultranationalists - probably not.

Do you really believe that if Israël fell the entire citizen population wouldn’t be welcomed into the west with open arms?

If Israel fell, it would because the West (including the US in particular) had decided it was the bad guy, and no, the entire citizen population would not be welcomed under those circumstances.

People keep welcoming White South Africans various places despite being anti-apartheid, though I guess it's been a few decades.

Trump did, and the Episcopal Church shut down their refugee organization so they didn't have to help.

Probably would be some scruples about the orthodox population since they're not the most enthused net contributors

I don't really have a horse in this race, but I think it's worth noting how you can reproduce this entire comment with Israel and Palestine swapped and change... nothing.

For example:

Expecting an enemy not to commit war crimes is normal. Palestinian behaviour has taught a sizeable portion of goyim what the Muslim mindset is and that the Muslim view on this is fundamentally incompatible with a western mindset. The winning Israeli strategy is to show the world what a bunch of religious fundamentalists on the west bank are actually like.

I wish it were normal to expect enemies not to commit war crimes. Someone ought to have told the Palestinians about that before 10/7.

War crimes are only crimes insofar as both sides can agree to - and actually do - abide by particular rules of warfare, either customary or explicit by treaty. Insofar as one party either verbally refuses to or actually breaches those rules, they lose the protection of the rules and are subject to the whim of whatever the opposing party wants to do them (and can actually do/get away with doing).

Even the Red Cross accepts the concept of reprisal as a means of forcing non-conforming belligerents to shape up and fly right.

Has it? Have the Palestinians acted in any way that is significantly different from any other group? They are not really doing anything to different from any other insurgency.

They have dug the world's largest tunnel network to shelter military personnel, deliberately intermingled it with the civilian population and vital civilian infrastructure, and denied those civilians the ability to shelter in it. They are trying to get their people killed.

For one, the extent to which Hamas operates from structures (hospitals, schools, etc) which are protected by international law is quite unusual.

I don't have a particularly strong view on the conflict but I do feel that the Israelis have a far greater chance of establishing and running a functional state than the other side.

far greater chance

Might this be a distinction without a difference.

If Hamas have a sufficiently low probability of success doubling, tripling or even 10 x, while a greater chance is still very, very low in absolute terms.

If Hamas laid down their arms and initiated an actual unconditional surrender Gaza would likely be a below-median but perfectly functional part of Israel within a decade. Vice-versa hahahaha.

That horse has bolted. Hard to go 'ok bros we didnt lose but lets try peace anyways' and survive if peace succeeded. The immediate response would be "we could have been ok but we followed you for NOTHING".

To rebuild, the existing foundation must be destroyed root and branch. Total Hamas defeat is in fact a clean starting point for a new Palestinian political conceptualization to emerge. Jordan would be best, but given what happened to the West Bank where the Palestinians chose irredentist claims such an outcome is distressingly remote.

Expecting an enemy not to commit war crimes is normal. Israels behaviour has taught a sizeable portion of goyim what jewish mindset is and that the jewish view on this is fundamentally incompatible with a western mindset. The winning Palestinian strategy is to show the world what a bunch of religious fundamentalists on the west bank are actually like. There is a reason why western civilization despised these people for 2000 years and having them quoting biblical genocides while massacring starving Christians is an excellent way to bring back the west to our historical view of them.

In large measure the Western response has created this mindset. It did so by casting Israel as always the perpetrator no matter what anyone else did, or how restrained they were in response. Eventually they understood that restraint doesn’t help them at all, and that it quite often emboldens those who attack them. Eventually the threat of UN and international condemnation holds no weight because it’s not like they weren’t going to be condemned anyway, so who cares.

The British counter insurgency in Northern Ireland was far more effective.

By what metrics are you basing this assertion on? I believe this is not the first time you've made this comparison. The counter-insurgency concluded with a power-sharing agreement between Protestants and Catholics, the unconditional release of all imprisoned IRA members, a recognition of the right of Northern Ireland to secede from the UK if a plurality of its residents approved, and the dissolution of the Northern Irish police force in favour of a new police force which was required to employ Protestants and Catholics in equal numbers. Is that what an effective counter-insurgency looks like to you?

The fact that they achieved peace and created a functioning society in which many protestants live. Subjegating Palestinians is never going to work as the conflict isn't going to end if there is no deal for the Palestinians to accept. You can't have a large portion of the country that fundamentally doesn't accept the current order and have no reason to do so.

The lives of peaceful Israeli Arabs are on average some of the best in the region (especially if you take out all of the 'oh we have oil and support a 10%-citizen population with infinite money cheat'), peace deals have been offered previously, the best case scenario for independent Palestine is Lebanon 2: Electric Boogaloo. Any semi-rational person is surrendering.

The lives of peaceful Israeli Arabs are on average some of the best in the region.

They have denied most people living their citizenship. People are banned from living on the land the family has lived on for generations.

Why should they sign a peace deal with a country that wants 70+ of the land and with a country that is attacking all its neighbours? It is a concession with nothing to gain.

What? The Arabs living in actual Israel have full citizenship and famously have representation in the Israel parliament. If you're going to be a jew-hater at least get the facts right.

First of all, that's quite an uncharitable take. The comment didn't read to me as Jew-hating.

Equally as famously, most Palestinians in Israel (or the area overall, depending on how you parse the term) are not citizens and live under second-class conditions. If we're being fair, that's partly because the PA is supposed to be in charge but actually are mostly grifters, so they've delegated blame, but ultimately you don't really see Israel trying to expand citizenship to more Palestinians, even though by your own logic that would probably increase their peacefulness?

If we're being fair, that's partly because the PA is supposed to be in charge but actually are mostly grifters, so they've delegated blame, but ultimately you don't really see Israel trying to expand citizenship to more Palestinians

Given that PA territory is under full civil administration by PA, I'm not sure how would you expect Israel giving citizenship to Arabs living there. Security arrangements are more complex, but for this it doesn't matter - PA enjoys pretty much complete self-rule in civil matters (and so did Gaza btw) so calling Arabs living there "second class" compared to Israelis is just bizarre - they are not Israelis at all. As for PA leadership being grotesquely corrupt and indifferent to the needs of the population - that's extremely common situation in the Middle East, and Israel can't really fix it. It could annex the PA territory, kick out the PA and provide its own institutions, but nobody wants that. Short of that, the Arabs will have to do with the institutions they can build for themselves, and if those are not great, it's not Israel's fault.

More comments

The one-state solution with enfranchised Palestinians is my preferred solution, and when I lived there I saw some moves towards this, especially in the West Bank (particularly in East Jerusalem). Unfortunately I don’t think that’s palatable to the Israeli electorate any more after 10/7.

When I refer to Israel I’m referring to the parts of the country that are broadly recognized. Not West Bank, Gaza, or the Golan Heights. In these territories, Arabs have full citizenship and can vote and have elected many people to the Knesset. They definitely are still discriminated against, but in a manner much more similar to American racial politics vs. the apartheid. It’s also not like there’s no intra-Jewish tension either. Lots of Sephardic/Ashkenazi conflict along racial lines.

What I find frustrating is the equating of these two groups of Arabs. Those who live in Israel have relatively normal lives, probably better than they would have in their neighboring countries. Those in the West Bank/gaza are living in occupied territory.

In terms of jew hating, I'm not responding to this comment in particular but further up thread where he said things like

There is a reason why western civilization despised these people for 2000 years and having them quoting biblical genocides while massacring starving Christians is an excellent way to bring back the west to our historical view of them.

I don't deny their second-class within Israel but is an independent Palestine likely to develop living conditions that are on aggregate better?

More comments

and with a country that is attacking all its neighbours?

As I've already pointed out in this thread, such a description applies to a significant chunk of Middle Eastern nations, which hasn't stopped them from signing peace agreements with each other in the recent past.

Palestine, unlike Lebanon, would be ethnically pure. The Christians are mostly gone, there wasn’t a large Shia population to begin with.

Sorry they would emulate the great economic and wellbeing successes of Syria, Jordan, Egypt etcetera.

50 thousands Arab Christians would be very surprised to know they are "mostly gone". Gaza, indeed, was pretty much cleansed of Christians by Hamas, which is what happens when you give Islamic fundamentalists free reign of the territory, but in PA, where comparatively less insane Fateh is ruling, Christians still exist. Of course, just as all the good-wishers of the world totally ignored what happened to Christians who used to live in Gaza, if PA decides to cleanse all Christians from PA territory, nobody would even squeak, no Jews - no news. Things like that happened many times in other places (in the Middle East and outside) and no students on college campuses ever protested about it. You all know why.

50 thousand out of almost five million is, indeed, mostly gone. Christians used their IQ advantage to look around, realize it was time to get the hell out of dodge, and then promptly do so. 1% of the population can't fight a Lebanese civil war.

created a functioning society in which many protestants live

The way this is framed suggests to me that you didn't realise the Protestants were the ones holding the whip at the outset of the insurgency.

Subjegating Palestinians is never going to work as the conflict isn't going to end if there is no deal for the Palestinians to accept.

On at least three occasions, the Palestinians have been offered deals significantly more generous than that offered to Northern Irish Catholics in 1998. They have refused all of them because they refuse to compromise, to their own detriment more than to that of the Israelis.

The current genocidaires of China (by internment), Iran (by ethnic displacement) and North Korea (by starvation) are currently suffering zero consequences for their actions. Suppose that yes, Israel is stuck with such a charge. So what? That's not a strategy, that's a tactic, one that is failing. If your logic is then 'the Jews will be ashamed, and everyone will embargo them into dissolution' then it is incomplete. Who, if anyone, would try and enforce any consequence?

The Arabs aren't lining up to invade Israel. Certainly, the Europeans lack the capacity. Indeed, the expected behavior of the international community to an active genocide is to do nothing and fiercely regret its aftermath.

But that's ceding the point, and accepting the charge on face value. If they are at war, then they are not responsible for feeding the enemy's civilians. The Allies didn't worry themselves about their enemy's starving civilians. Neither did the Axis. If they are not at war, and they are policing occupied territory, then they can distribute aid as they wish. They don't need to feed those who are waging a guerilla war against them, or incorporate them into their aid mechanism. The Americans didn't worry themselves about feeding the Taliban.

So which one is it?

Israel is a small country, but Gaza is even smaller. It is perfectly possible for them to enforce a complete blockade on their terms. This is not something any other colonial occupying power has had the power to accomplish. Israel wants a total and complete surrender, unconditional and without third party mediation. The longer it takes, the worse the Palestinian people will suffer. They want a political solution that solves the Gaza problem forever, no matter how much the international community calls them war criminals. What do they care? They're already a pariah state to half the world.

They're never going to return back to the status quo. UNWRA and the NGOs will never be allowed back. Using food as a tool for regime change isn't moral in the least, but then again, kidnapping civilians for use as hostages at the bargaining table isn't moral, either.

Being brutal against the locals is not an effective way to win.

You just cherrypicked several unsuccessful attempts even in relatively late times. Croats literally performed ethnic cleansing of Serbs under NATO umbrella and were successful. Czechoslovakia and Poland were absolutely brutal toward native Germans living in the area for 500+ years and were successful in solving the "German problem" creating ethnically homogenous states. Plus don't forget about ongoing war in Ukraine with "war crimes" aplenty.

What you described is all poxy/colonial wars with little to no investment of local population. The comparison of Israel as a colonial power similar to France in Algeria is absolutely misguided, millions of Israelis cannot just pack and leave such as French from Algeria or Americans from Vietnam or Soviets from Afghanistan. Again, just look at Ukraine war where Russians are willing to shoulder losses two orders of magnitude higher compared to their previous colonial military engagements. It is a completely different game.

So in other words Israel's only strategy would be creating a giant refugee crisis 300 km from Europe. Nobody wants that. Israel is a small state that is going to be in constant conflict with everyone and everything around them.

Rhodesia and French Algeria existed longer than Israel and had people who had lived there for generations. Jews are rootless cosmopolitans and should find a new home.

Israel is a small state that is going to be in constant conflict with everyone and everything around them.

This is incorrect.

Rhodesia and French Algeria existed longer than Israel and had people who had lived there for generations.

I don't believe either of these is true for Rhodesia, at least, though the latter claim might be technically true extremely tendentiously. Rhodesia existed, either as a colony or a self-declared state, for 56. Since the first settlers moved in at 1890s or so, there might have been some families that would have gone back 3 or even 4 generations, but most white Rhodesians had moved in only after WW2 (the white population was 65 000 in 1940 and peaked at 300 000 in 1975).

Israel is a... state that is going to be in constant conflict with everyone and everything around them.

I note that this is a description which applies equally well to literally every country in the Middle East, and yet for some reason you're only calling for the Israelis to find a new home.

Israel has engaged in military action against Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Yemen and Iraq. Who else comes close to that much war?

Let's have a look. In the last hundred years, and excluding the second world war (for the reason illustrated by its title), by my count:

  • Bahrain has been involved in 2 conflicts, one involving Saudi Arabia.
  • Egypt has been involved in 6 conflicts (including several civil wars) variously involving Israel, Yemen and Saudi Arabia.
  • Iran has been involved in 16 conflicts (including several civil wars/revolutions) variously involving Azerbaijan, the no-longer extant Kurdish republic, Kuwait, Iraq, Israel and Saudi Arabia.
  • Iraq has been involved in 22 conflicts (including several civil wars, insurgencies etc.) variously involving Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Kuwait and Israel.
  • Jordan has been involved in 3 conflicts variously involving both Israel and Palestine.
  • Kuwait has been involved in 2 conflicts variously involving Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
  • Lebanon has been involved in 11 conflicts (including numerous civil wars) variously involving Syria, Israel and Palestine.
  • Saudi Arabia has been involved in 11 conflicts variously involving Yemen, Egypt, Iraq, Bahrain, Iran and the UAE.
  • Syria has been involved in 14 conflicts (including numerous civil wars) variously involving Lebanon, Israel and the no-longer extant United Arab Republic.
  • Turkey has been involved in 5 conflicts (including civil wars, revolutions *etc.), one involving the Iraqi Kurds.
  • Yemen has been involved in 17 conflicts (including numerous civil wars) variously involving Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and Israel.

"A state that is in constant conflict with everyone and everything around them" seems to describe the modal Middle Eastern country pretty well. Given the base rate of conflict and strife in the region, Israel really doesn't strike me as much of an outlier. It's almost unique in the region in having underwent zero civil wars or violent revolutions (attempted or successful) in the last hundred years i.e. since its founding. Contrary to the claim that responsibility for Middle Eastern instability ultimately rests with the Great Satan Israel, the majority of the conflicts listed above didn't directly involve Israel in any capacity.

As an aside, can I just say that "Arab solidarity" is like "military intelligence": a contradiction in terms.

Israel has engaged in acts of aggression against six countries in the past coupleof months. Note that many of the conflicts cited above are related to Israel or the fallout of Isreali caused issues, for example Lebanon. Iraq has had wars caused by AIPAC funded politicians.

That's all true, but doesn't change the fact that routine acts of military aggression against your neighbours or your own people have been the norm in pretty much the entirety of the Middle East for the last century. It's also plainly obvious that many of the acts of aggression you cite were defensive in nature.

So in other words Israel's only strategy would be creating a giant refugee crisis 300 km from Europe.

Other countries do that. Syrians do that, Sudanese do that, Pakistanis do that. In a sense Palestinians from Gaza are peanuts when it comes to potential issues and resulting refugee crisis right know in the whole Sahel region.

Nobody wants that. Israel is a small state that is going to be in constant conflict with everyone and everything around them.

Not really. Many of Israel's neighbors - like Egypt or Saudi Arabia - don't give a single shit about Palestinians except for some platitudes. In fact it is Western countries who are more active in this sense. Plus I think that this is already old news, Israel will be considered a bad guy no matter what - there are people who still throw 1948 expulsion at them

Sudan is nowhere near the Sahel, but even aside from that, how many of those Sudanese refugees are going to Europe?

Sudan us part of Sahel, read up In fact the broader instability also attracts additional countries and factions such as mercenary factions from Lybia fighting in to Sudan or Ethiopia.

They will not "go find a new home" because getting in on the business of colonizing/genociding/enlightening the savages that the western civilization has been enjoying for the past 2000 years is strictly better for them than staying at the complete mercy of said western civilization.

They could find some plot of land in Africa or Latin America with a far lower population to resettle to. Their claim to Israel is that they bought the land in exchange for half the skin on their babies pensises which is a rediculus premise for a country.

  • -11

Their claim to Israel is that they bought the land in exchange for half the skin on their babies pensises which is a rediculus premise for a country.

Reductive racism back on the menu!

How about this: the entire Arab claim to the region is from a pedophiliac warlord preaching tolerance when he was weak and sheltered by the Banu Qurayza, then he betrayed them and enslaved their women and children through promising religiously ordained rape and slavery of unbelievers to mobilize desert nomads into a bandit horde. The chronological Quran is the inverse of the Bible: peace tolerance and manumission before victory, absolutist Arab supremacism justifying subjugation and humiliation of unbelievers once a power base was established.

THAT is the root of Arab claim to the region, forced conversions and displacements of Copts and Maronites and total annihilation of Chaldeans and Assyrians and Zoroastrians. Baby foreskins are currency to purchase land? What a wonderful concept. Arabs certainly found it easy to pay for their lucre with thriving Zanzibar slave eunuchs too, though simply slaughtering locals and forcibly converting remnants was also a great currency.

All this framing is obviously intensely hostile and deliberately so, because reductive polemicism opens up similar avenues of attack to other actors, avenues by which the directionality of hostility make clear why such polemicism is avoided by modern anti-israelis. Objecting to the jewish state on such grounds means objecting to the Ottoman Mamluk and Sassanid/Roman predecessors as well. Return to glorious Eber-Nari as the last relatively clean incarnation of that damnable region.

Or they have a claim that they have actually lived there for centuries and have strong family ties to the place. Unlike 1.5 million Israelis who showed up from Eastern Europe in the 90s claiming to live there because of penis skin. Not to mention that many Palestinians are Christian, especially before Israel wrecked the Christian population.

And the Jews lived in Jerusalem before per the Roman record, till they were displaced by invaders later on. Guess its a new invader now, or are we going "no take backsies". In which case India better return Dehli to Islamabad per the Mughal Empire.

Jewish settlement of Israel going back millennia is well-documented.

They could find some plot of land in Africa or Latin America with a far lower population to resettle to.

Should've sold them Gascoyne, seriously.

Yeah. Having lived up in Darwin for a year I'd love to see how the Israelis would have approached certain local issues compared to the Australians, plus that's genuinely a super high potential piece of land that could have led to a prosperous and strong state.

If no one wanted that land in Africa and Latin America why should the Jews?

Your schtick of acting like Israel is the only country in history to ever do naked conquest as opposed to simply being the most recent one is getting stale. At least when the bleeding heart progs do it, their historical and ethical myopia is consistent. When you combine trying to paint Israel as evil for the actions of Israel and trying to paint Israel as evil because Jews have been uniquely evil for 2000 years it's just incoherent.

Your schtick of acting like Israel is the only country in history to ever do naked conquest as opposed to simply being the most recent one is getting stale.

Israel’s only real crime was getting founded just a couple of years after that type of thing became unfashionable.

At the exact same time Israel declared independence, an ethnic cleansing/population exchange a literal order of magnitude larger was already going on in another part of the same empire.

They're a country out of time. It can't go on.

More comments

Because having a jewish ethnostate built in a densely populated area close to Europe is a bad idea and something that will lead to constant headache for the rest of us. Israel in the middle east has been 80 years of trouble and is set up to be another 80 years of trouble. AIPAC and the Zionist lobby has pushed for a multitude of disastrous wars both for the region and for Europe as well as for American tax payers. Israel is a permanent welfare queen due to its placement.

Israel was not placed there for some rational reason but because of a belief in that the land could be bought for mutilated baby penises. Either Israel can learn to coexist with its neighbours in peace or it should relocate.

Millions of Afghans died in the 80s. Millions of Vietnamese died, France was brutal against the Algerians. Being brutal against the locals is not an effective way to win.

It is. They just weren't brutal enough.

Then modern western societies, liberal or not, are incapable of being brutal enough to win counterinsurgencies with no public support. Apartheid South Africa couldn’t do it. Salazar’s Portugal couldn’t do it.

It's kind of incredible how the Vietnam war has seemed to fade so quickly from the public consciousness over the last decade or two. Maybe deserves a main thread post at some point.

Well Vietnam Syndrome has been replaced by Iraq Syndrome.

So a newer example plus the passage of time is all it takes to change public consciousness.

Creating a jewish state by genociding all the people living there including a large portion of Christians is abhorrent. Palestine's best asset is jews posting content in English and showing the world what Talmudic logic is like.

Large portion of Christians? The Gaza Christian population is about a tenth of a percent (potentially something to do with how the locals have historically treated members of other religions). Israel's population is about a sixth Islamic, who for the most part live in conditions a bit worse than the Jews but still rich, affluent, educated and healthy compared to the rest of the Middle East.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats