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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 28, 2025

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Eh, they're not "release the hostages" starving yet.

About as insightful a comment as "Eh, they are not 'free Palestine' raped yet" would have been about Oct 7th.

There are several parallel subthreads already discussing to what extent the starvation actually affects Hamas, and you choose to ignore them and instead post this Twitter-level dunk.

Notice the discontinuity with your comparison.

Hamas invaded Israel, committed a bunch of war crimes, and now has no method nor seemingly intention of feeding their own people. Which apparently is Israel's fault?

You're comparing Hamas' crimes to their incompetence, and in so doing illustrating my point.

Which apparently is Israel's fault?

When they're the ones blocking all routes and all aid in, yes.

Does Gaza produce anything besides death cultist mouths to feed?

Not so much anymore since the mass destruction of buildings and orchards, and the intentional destruction of water sources.

Your comment is as ridiculous as wondering why a prisoner who is locked in a cell requires food being brought in, and can't just grow his own food, when any attempt to create a mini-farm, would be destroyed by the guards.

Even prisoners still produce toilet wine. Gaza seems to have been a total economic basketcase going back decades.

Toilet wine is not agriculture. It's a mere conversion of one food stuff to another, and doesn't produce nutrients. Toilet wine is made from food given to the prisoners by the guards, so it's a very poor argument in the context of food self-sufficiency of Gaza.

Keep in mind that Gaza is a desert region, so farming there is not easy. Especially since Gaza lies at the sea, so you have salt-water intrusion into the ground water. And the various disruptive behaviors of the Israeli settlers and government goes back for decades, which makes it a lot harder to farm. The area is also heavily overpopulated, in part due to the Israeli policy of taking ever more land from the Palestinians. The population density of Gaza is slightly smaller than of Hong Kong, so it is effectively a city state. It is not reasonable to expect much agriculture with that level of population density.

Gaza seems to have been a total economic basketcase going back decades.

Do you really think that it is reasonable to expect anything else given the conditions during those decades? For example, Israel never allowed Gaza to build a harbor so they could trade with other nations. If you were in charge in Gaza, how would you create a healthy economy?

The area is also heavily overpopulated, in part due to the Israeli policy of taking ever more land from the Palestinians.

Letting Israeli settlers move to the Gaza Strip was policy after they took it from Egypt in the Six Day War in 1967 (Gaza Strip population 380 thousand), but that ended in 2005 when Israel withdrew unilaterally, leaving the Gazans (population 1.3 million) with everything within the Egyptian borders from 1948, all of which they retained for the next 18 years, until after October 7th (population 2.2 million, 40% 15 years old or younger).

Israel has been taking ever more land from the West Bank, but (correct me if I'm wrong!) the Palestinians there have generally been stuck in the enclaves there, not displaced to Gaza.

If you were in charge in Gaza, how would you create a healthy economy?

In charge de facto, with full popular support? It would have to start the same way Dresden's and Tokyo's and Hiroshima's economic recovery did: by surrendering to the vastly militarily superior opponent. The first Gazan rocket attack after the Israeli withdrawal was "several hours later"! Instead of setting internal security to torturing and killing political opponents and "collaborators", I'd reserve war-related prosecution and imprisonment for anyone who commits perfidy after the surrender.

Just "in charge" de jure, still having to negotiate peace and prevent violations of it but within a population that's still only 40% in favor of negotiations vs 30% in support of armed resistance? I'd probably shave my facial hair, try to buy a fake id, and otherwise "disappear" before the next war over who's really in charge or the victors' decision to execute me as a collaborator.

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