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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 28, 2025

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Alright, your solution is jews driven into the sea, got it. Glad we got to the bottom of it.

No, that's your solution. Acquire some reading comprehension!

So the options you see for the Israelis are that they can do "diplomacy" which you cannot define, or some fantasy of the, nuclear armed, state collapsing into barbarism. I just don't think you've thought at all about this subject.

You need to develop reading comprehension. I cannot stress this enough. There are many things the Israelis can do. I maintain that more diplomacy and less bombing would advance their position in terms of peace and stability. Obviously it wouldn't advance the goal of territorial expansion since diplomacy requires negotiation, give and take. But Israel is a small country, territorial expansion is not sustainable with their resources. Israel only pursuing the 'bomb first, annex later' strategy because the US provides cover from the negative consequences of their strategy, US power is upholding an unnatural, unstable equilibrium.

Your 'solution' is the fastest and surest route to disaster for Israel by torpedoing the source of Israeli strength, American support. Their prior strategy of 'pretending to negotiate, sabotaging negotiations, dividing opponents and then blaming others when the Palestinians don't accept bad terms' worked pretty well, far better than your 'blow everything up and get sanctioned into the ground' approach might.

Do you imagine there is some kind of "diplomacy" slider in the Knesset that the Israelis just refuse to toggle? Who are they doing diplomacy with? Iran? Hamas? If you think this is their best plan surely you have developed it past one word.

Your 'solution' is the fastest and surest route to disaster for Israel by torpedoing the source of Israeli strength, American support.

Israel won wars before America became involved in the region buying arms from places like Czechslovakia although they have a sophisticated home grown arms industry now. Maybe they could keep the Iron dome going without US support, maybe they couldn't and then they'd suffer more casualties. Despite what you seem to think those casualties would incentivize them to be more aggressive not less due to the asymmetries involved.

Do you imagine there is some kind of "diplomacy" slider in the Knesset that the Israelis just refuse to toggle?

Yes, obviously. Their whole modus operandi is knocking down Palestinian houses, playing divide and conquer, supporting Hamas to split up the Palestinians (Bibi is on record calling for this as part of the strategy to prevent a Palestinian state, before it backfired massively), progressively annexing more land, conducting the most insanely bad faith negotiations, often bombing the Palestinians to make them break things off. Gunning down hundreds of peaceful protestors in 2019 is not very 'diplomatic'.

And then they whine about even the slightest reverse hysterically.

I can see why Israel doesn't like the Palestinians, they're very irritating. But the cost of being a 10 million size country is that Israel lacks the freedom of action to massacre with impunity like China or Russia could.

maybe they couldn't and then they'd suffer more casualties

There's no 'maybe'. It's physically impossible for Israel to maintain its high-tech industries and tax base if they're sanctioned. They don't produce much steel or oil, they're not sanction proofed, they don't have the necessary resources. They do R&D and some advanced manufacturing, not all the basics and precursors for those weapons. The average Rhodesian or South African soldier was worth 10x or 50x their number in black insurgents. Overwhelming qualitative superiority was totally irrelevant to the outcome of their wars.

Israel is heading towards sanctions today. Intensifying the conflict would only hasten sanctions, which can destroy the country in a way that Palestinians can't.

You're not answering the question and I'm not going to address your gish gallop until you do. Who precisely do they do diplomacy with? A PA that they install over Gaza and no one recognizes? Lay out an actual plan instead of using every opportunity to litigate a plainly one sided retelling of history.

edit: my suspicion is that what you actually mean by "diplomacy" and why you're being weaselly around giving it definition is that by "diplomacy" you mean Israel should dissolve itself either by granting an unlimited right of return, essentially becoming an Arab state or by even more extreme means. Alternatively you could just not know anything about the region and not understand that dissolving itself as a state is the minimum demand from the other actors you're asking them to be diplomatic with.

Alternatively you could just not know anything about the region and not understand that dissolving itself as a state is the minimum demand from the other actors you're asking them to be diplomatic with.

Totally wrong. Read my posts above, understand them, then research the 2002 Arab League peace plan, then at least read the wikipedia article on diplomacy and learn that it means give-and-take rather than just accepting people's demands.

I'm not going to lay out a peace plan because that's not my job and you don't understand any of the history, second-order effects or even the simpler points I'm making so it would just be pointless nit-picking. Your own theory is that Israel should intensify its bombing and destruction (with no further details provided, naturally), doubling down on a predictable political failure.

then research the 2002 Arab League peace plan, then at least read the wikipedia article on diplomacy and learn that it means give-and-take rather than just accepting people's demands.

Ah yes, the plan hamas refused to even acknowledge and included vague language about a "right to return" that was never clarified. Isreal has since normalized relationships with the member stares since then anyways. So say they went all in on 2002 what does that change today? Hamas wasn't party, iran wasn't party. The houthis weren't party(Yemen was but the faction of Yemen that isn't controlled by the houthis).

But the again the idea that the Israelis haven't been diplomatic is a lie. They just have a set of pretty reasonable non-negotiables like their ability to maintain security. And, the real sticking point, that they won't let in a vague number of refugees that would make them a minority. These requirements haven't prevented them from having normal relations with their neighbors like Jordan and Egypt or regional powers like the Saudis.

Your own theory is that Israel should intensify its bombing and destruction (with no further details provided, naturally), doubling down on a predictable political failure.

This is not my "theory", its what I believe the result of your plan to sanction Isreal world realistically result in.