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PaperclipPerfector  12d ago (text post)   33571 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 15, 2025

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  • I: Red Tribe Criminals

What's the deal with biker gangs?

Hunter S. Thompson followed a biker gang called the Hell's Angels. He wrote a book about his experience and the Angels became the most famous biker club/gang/organization in the world. The romanticization of biker gangs traveled far thanks to the interwoven cross-section of 1960s counterculture that helped popularize it. Groups of American ruffians on two-wheeled transport, sexual revolutionaries, and psychedelic entrepreneurs found commonality in their love of drugs and rebellion to the Man.

It's obligatory to mention that one time in 1969 where the Rolling Stones chose to hire America's most famous biker gang to provide security for a concert with 300,000 attendees. Things went about as well as one might expect. The ignominy of Altamont is sometimes framed as the end of an era. Bay Area hippies played a part in elevating their preferred drug traffickers and bad boy cousin heavies to legendary Americana status-- on par with other household outlaw names.

A romanticized, rugged individualist archetype is a favorite of Americans. If you tack on criminal then, baby, you got a stew goin'. The outlaw who plays by their own rules is not welcome in our towns, they are certainly not welcome around our daughters, but Americans undeniably welcome their stories into our imaginations. Media of the 21st century carries on the tale which, yes, includes dangerous, criminal elements, but also includes loyalty, faith, patriotism.

These are red blooded, freedom loving types of criminals. This is the organized crime profile of the Red Tribe. Someone probably once wondered why the swarthy ethnic criminals get to rent space in American heads -- Mexicans, Italians, even the Jews got their own -- before deciding it was only right that the white, protestant Middle America should collect rent too. Respectable New England derived stock would never have allowed us to entertain a criminal mythos. It was the pioneers, ruffians, and rebels who helped shape the story of the American outlaw, and probably created it. These are the progeny of the Borderers, the trailblazers, underclass, and bushwhackers found far away from refined cosmopolitanism of Yankees.

If you want to talk about biker culture and its intersectional qualities I invite it. I found another intersection reason to flesh out this idle thought last week. All roads lead to Gaza.

  • II: What's the deal with the GHF operation in Gaza?

GHF would be the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation that popped up to distribute food aid this year. The organization itself was established in February in anticipation of Israel relieving its own embargo to manage food distribution. In May, only weeks after the program got off the ground, the founding GHF director quit. This was reported as a protest exit. The man himself said he quit as a duty to "strictly [adhere] to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence." This was, well, hmm interesting. As far as I know he never went so far to say, "Israel and the spooks took over," but that'd be one interpretation.

Charities dislike the GHF. The UN dislikes the GHF. The only entities that appear to support the GHF are Israel, the US State Department which throws some cash at it, and a number of evangelical Christian charities. Which is about about where the lines are drawn on more general opinion on Israel and its conflicts. Mike Huckabee, US ambassador to Israel, said private donations helped as well:

"It is not currently being funded largely by the U.S. There are other countries, there are NGOs, there are humanitarian funds, and there are private individuals who have funded it, all of which have requested to remain anonymous. I think they don't want to become the targets of the hate that has befitted those who have tried to do something positive in what is a very difficult situation."

  • III: Deus Vult!

What do biker gangs and food distribution in Gaza have in common?

Reportedly there happens to be an American style biker gang social club operating out of Gaza right now. In the spirit Ukraine's Azov Battalion Brigade the BBC reported a story, constructed a story, or both: Anti-Islamic US biker gang members run security at deadly Gaza aid sites.

The firm guarding sites where aid is distributed in Gaza has been using members of a US biker gang with a history of hostility to Islam to run its armed security, a BBC investigation has found.

BBC News has confirmed the identities of 10 members of the Infidels Motorcycle Club working in Gaza for UG Solutions - a private contractor providing security at Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites, where hundreds of civilians seeking food have been killed in scenes of chaos and gunfire.

Towards the end of the article the BBC expands its claims up to 40 -- out of 320 total -- security contractors from the Infidels Motorcycle Club (IMC) based on an unnamed source. IMC has a website. They present themselves as GWOT veterans who "reject the radical jihadist movement that threatens liberty and freedom around the world. The Infidels MC will support the fight against terrorism as military members, contractors in support of the military, and as patriotic Americans supporting our fighting forces from the homeland." Wayback machine confirms the group's roots online go as far back as 2008 when they wrote:

Brothers in the Military You know what it feels like not to be welcomed in a country that is a third world shit hole. You were probably called an "infidel". Call me an Infidel! That's what I am. Be proud of what you have done. We thank all our brothers that service this country.

The company which recruits the security contractors still has openings for the role. I don't think I am recruiting for a cause, though if anyone does go to Gaza I would be most interested in reading your experience.

I expect there are a number of selection effects that shape the pipeline for Gazan breadline security. The compensation, as I understand, is competitive (~1000 USD/day) but not extraordinarily generous for a you may die, become a news story, or become a war criminal war zone. Even if salary was high enough to attract the most talented professionals, those who want a steady, high paying role might stick with relatively secure jobs on merchant shipping and corporate jobs at home or in the field. The more charity friendly contractors could already work for UN affiliated NGOs in more respectable organizations-- roles unassociated with a barrage of weekly accusations of massacres. The more mercenary, thrill seeking contractors looking to "Get some!" are perhaps more likely far away from a thousand prying media eyes in the middle of Africa. These are merely guesses.

The GHF adjacent (associated or blamed maybe) massacres are reported with some regularity. I personally remain agnostic to specific reports of "hundreds reported killed near aid distribution sites in Gaza." It is a callous position, but given so many interests do not care for the GHF, Israel, or America I have high confidence any damning videos will find little resistance surfacing. So far I am not aware of any that might suggest hundreds are being massacred while waiting for food. I extend the same courtesy to the GHF as well. One instance I recalled from this Summer was a report of Hamas members who allegedly "threw grenades" and injured GHF staff at a distribution site. It is possible Hamas militants did attack GHF staff and charity staff with grenades, although the journalists found and shared a different kind of testimony. That testimony built a picture of armed contractors throwing stun grenades to disperse a pugilistic crowd and 'aid seekers' throwing the stun grenades right back. That all sounds very plausible.

It would be nice to have journalists I could more-or-less trust with access to report on the ground, but we only have "Gen Z Republican influencers" invited by Israel. They don't buy a lot of purchase with me, although some are not wholly discredited.

BBC's reporting does succeed in persuading me to move a peg towards unprofessional shitshow on the Genocide Scale. Hiring members of a social club who idealize themselves as Christian warriors on a crusade would be low on my list. That is if I had the option to prioritize professionals able to run a tight ship in a contested war zone and controversial mission. If one did want to build a group to shoot civilians, or ignore cases of it, then ideological and righteous reasons to keep their mouths shut about crimes would be convenient. For whatever reason, the GHF hired up to a few 1095 fans to carry out their mission. Ukraine has great use for fanaticism and is no position to purge radicals, but the GHF shouldn't share this need. Chicano gangbangers exist in the US Army, but Chicano gangbangers don't make up 12% of its forces. I'm not saying that Crusader Kings enjoyers can't execute a clean charity mission, but...

When I wrote this, there was a brief press push around the story, but since then not much more.

  • Why would the GHF choose to employ radicals?
  • Does The Motte attract any private security who might guess better? Is it a buyers or sellers employment market for an organization that sets up shop in 3 months?
  • Or, maybe this is not that big of a deal?

I could believe that the BBC would write this story no matter if their investigation found 100 or 1 contractors with "crusade" mentions. Reckoning with ones faith in a far and distant land is a thing. Finding people with the same experiences to form a social club is a thing. At best, there's a performative aspect that gets all the blame. These fellas volunteered for a charity mission, are getting paid for it, and the Pope has not issued a decree.

biker gangs

My uncle was president of the Sacramento chapter for a period in the 60's.

Very cool, is he still with us? Get'em on here! (But probably Friday Fun not on my Gaza polluted post)

No. He was shot and killed by his girlfriend during a domestic dispute Halloween night in '89.

The romanticization of biker gangs traveled far thanks to the interwoven cross-section of 1960s counterculture that helped popularize it. Groups of American ruffian drug traffickers on two-wheeled transport, sexual revolutionaries, and psychedelic entrepreneurs found commonality in their love of drugs and rebellion to the Man.

Even before the 60s, see the Marlon Brando movie The Wild One from 1953, based on a story allegedly based on a true incident. See the famous quote from the movie.

The film's screenplay was based on Frank Rooney's short story "Cyclists' Raid", published in the January 1951 Harper's Magazine and anthologized in The Best American Short Stories 1952. Rooney's story was inspired by sensationalistic media coverage of an American Motorcyclist Association motorcycle rally that got out of hand on the Fourth of July weekend in 1947 in Hollister, California. The overcrowding, drinking and street stunting were given national attention in the July 21, 1947, issue of Life, with a possibly staged photograph of a wild drunken man on a motorcycle. The events, conflated with the newspaper and magazine reports, Rooney's short story, and the film The Wild One are part of the legend of the Hollister riot.

So post-Second World War veterans returned home, more disposable income and better conditions in the 50s, a rise in interest in all kinds of communal activities, leading to a lot of guys getting interested in motorbikes as a hobby and club activity, along with a bunch of guys who would always be the type to be rule-breakers involved in motorbiking, and the tension between 'back to normie society and its rules after living in a different environment during wartime' and 'sliding into involvement with criminality' leading to, as you say, the romantic view of the guys living outside strict rules of conventional society in their own replacement culture as modern-day pioneers.

Why would the GHF choose to employ radicals?

One of Hamas' things is control over aid distribution in Gaza. They infiltrate and intimidate the normal aid workers.

Normal aid workers and security services aren't thrilled about the idea of getting kinetic with Hamas to distribute aid. Hiring radicals makes more sense than hiring people in denial about the situation.

people in denial about the situation

Honestly, I'd argue tapping non-Israeli radicals for this makes the most sense here for that reason.

See, to win this war and get the best outcome for Palestinians, you don't need to kill all the Palestinians (obviously). You just need to kill enough of the Hamasi until the Palestinians can subjugate them on their own.

This is what the UN doesn't get (the leftists who make up the organization adore the Hamasi for political reasons and their defeat would harm them back home[1]), and it's what the IDF no longer understands (because they are far less willing to draw a distinction between Hamasi and Palestinian, and also because their interests are only minimally served by a denazified de-Hamasified Palestine that recovers and proceeds to actually make something of itself).

[1] The destruction of the Hamasi would show that violent parasitism won't be tolerated, and because it would prove that having a certain skin color won't save you. Both of those things are explicitly policy goals of the left, hence the proxy war in the West over it.

You just need to kill enough of the Hamasi until the Palestinians can subjugate them on their own.

Why would the Palestinians do that? They mostly either support Hamas or oppose Hamas from the side of thinking they're not killing enough Jews.

There's motorcycle clubs and then there's motorcycle clubs. Some motorcycle clubs are considered "1%ers", referring to a 1947 claim by the American Motorcycle Association that 99% of their members were law-abiding and only 1% were "outlaw". The Hell's Angels that Hunter S. Thompson wrote about are probably the best known of the 1%ers. The Infidels do not appear to be considered 1%ers either by themselves or by law enforcement. So, a rather different type of group.

As for why you'd hire people who absolutely hate Islam and Islamists for security in Gaza... damn good way of reducing the possibility of the group being suborned or infiltrated, I'd say.

You and @DradisPing are way overthinking it. The whole “infidel” thing and all the crusader stuff is just Millennial GWOT-Boomer edgelord cringe of the type that was very popular with American soldiers that served in the Middle East in the 2000s. You know, the demographic that’s going to make up 95 percent of the personnel of American Private Military Companies. It’s a motorcycle club for veterans, it’s not a surprise to see a bunch of them getting hired by a PMC through networking to do security contracting work in the Middle East.

I nixed a lot of biker musings, but yes the IMC is not a criminal gang. As I understand, even those sharing a national name and a 1%-er patch can still vary a great deal in criminality on a chapter by chapter basis. Anyway I only mean to draw a line between prominent markers across the hobby. Which definitely seems like a thing. The only biker clubs members (big bikes, loud pipes, cool patches) I've spoken with have been nice enough people of the trades, not criminals, but there was no question which tribe they belonged to.*

Damn good way of reducing the possibility of the group being suborned or infiltrated, I'd say.

True. A case in point with the Anthony Aguilar guy whose name and stories got full blast as a "whistleblower" before complications to his credibility.

Even the 1% clubs, like most gangs, are a lot more nebulous and pourous than most people assume. They will have a core group of hardened criminals, but most of the guys hanging around the club, including a large portion of members, never do anything more extreme than some disorderly conduct and bar fights. Most of the older guys have aged out of the crime and are basically just ordinary suburban dads who get a little rowdier than usual on the weekends. It can be hard to tell who is who because the gun-running meth heads with prison time under their belts hang out with basically fully legit mechanics and retired cops, wearing the same cuts and riding the same bikes.

For every actual criminal, you'll have three or four peripheral hangers-on who want to feel dangerous and intimidate the normies, but are basically ordinary people with regular jobs who like to play dress up and go on road trips with the boys. The ordinary members shield the criminal members behind a veil of plausible deniability, providing cover stories and helping the criminals blend in to the larger group. To an outsider, the nice veteran who runs the club's annual Christmas toy drive and the guy smuggling fentanyl for the cartel are virtually indistinguishable.

(Source: my best friend growing up had a rough childhood and spent a few years as a full member of one of the major outlaw clubs. While people around him were selling drugs and guns, he was able to mostly steer clear of it, outside being given the occasional package to deliver that he wasn't allowed to ask questions about and showing up as a show of force whenever one of his brothers got into some sort of fight)

retired cops

1%er gangs won't allow members who have ever been in law enforcement or correctional work, at least in theory.

Yes, in theory, but I've found that local law enforcement tends to be much more intertwined with organized crime in practice than you would expect in theory. Cops and gangs tend to recruit from very similar populations of violence-prone working class men, with your typical highway patrolman having far more in common culturally with his biker neighbor than with the teachers at his kid's school, for example.

The ordinary members shield the criminal members behind a veil of plausible deniability, providing cover stories and helping the criminals blend in to the larger group.

It's interesting to ponder how that mirrors the common description of Antifa around here. I guess some tactics Just Work, and every group that succeeds in the long term eventually converges on them.

Yeah it's a very similar dynamic that seems to repeat everywhere you look. The vanguard actually willing to engage in personal violence is always dwarfed by the masses of people willing to hide and protect them but not willing to engage in violence themselves.

There's motorcycle clubs and then there's motorcycle clubs.

One of the most interesting gigs I ever played was at a hell's Angels clubhouse.

One of my bandmates took a wrong turn on the way to the bathroom and ended up in a non-public area. A biker that must have been at least 6'5" picked him up by the jacket and held him against the wall while another guy searched him to make sure he wasn't a cop or a thief. Once they cleared him, they frog-marched him to the John and told him that PRIVATE means PRIVATE.

I have absolutely no doubt that those guys would have killed the guy if anything had looked out of place.

Other than that they were great clients. The guy tending bar kept us two hours past our booked time by handing each of us a $50 bill at the top of each hour. Some of them even helped us load out.

Other than that they were great clients.

Doesn't surprise me. After playing at Altamont in 1969 and seeing the Hell's Angels version of security, the Grateful Dead still played HA benefit shows in November 1970 and March 1972. Garcia played benefit shows for them with his solo band in 1973 and 1976. The Dead had a long history with the HA prior to Altamont (apparently Sonny Barger and Garcia got along well), but even so, they'd have to be really good clients to continue the association after Altamont.

TIL Tucker Carlson eulogized Barger.

In July 2022, the Hells Angels made a request to hold a memorial service for Barger at the Oakland Coliseum in East Oakland the following month.[186] Instead, Barger's funeral was held at a motorsports racetrack in Stockton on September 24, 2022. An estimated 7,000 people attended, and the event was peaceful.[187] Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson spoke at the funeral. Carlson said that he had been a fan of Barger since his college years, quoted Barger as saying "stay loyal, remain free, and always value honor", and added: "I want to pay tribute to the man who spoke those words".[188] Barger was laid to rest at Sacramento Valley National Cemetery in Dixon.[2]

Hiring members of a social club who idealize themselves as Christian warriors on a crusade would be low on my list.

Uh, do they actually idealize themselves as Christian warriors?

The red tribe stereotype of biker gangs is that they definitely don’t understand themselves as Christians, they have maybe-not-actually-believed Viking pagan ideas, but may- and often do- have more of a soft spot for Christianity compared to other abrahamaic religions(especially Islam). Theres filter bubble effects dictating this, obviously.

Uh, do they actually idealize themselves as Christian warriors?

I mean I'm pretty sure that the Hell's Angels draw more heavily on the Christian mythos than neo-paganism or whatnot?

"Christian warriors" may not be quite the right label though, I must admit...

Uh, do they actually idealize themselves as Christian warriors?

Biker gangs broadly I don't know, but yes I would say this biker club that chooses to get tattoos with Christian iconography, references the crusades, and identifies themselves as an infidel in the land of Islam idealize themselves as Christian warriors rather than pagans.

Unrelated to Gaza, biker gangs are interesting since they operate as franchises that also expand to non-American contexts, leading to cases like the Nordic Biker War between the Swedish/Finnish branches of Hells Angels and Bandidos, two 1% gangs that originate in the US. These also attract or are in some cases dominated by immigrants from outside of Europe, such as in the notorious case of Satudarah, a gang that has caused news in several European countries (I had actually assumed it was Swedish before opening up the Wikipedia page since I had mostly encountered news about the Swedish chapter).

It's interesting that non-Americans and even non-Westerners interested in joining the criminal lifestyle would so often choose a format that is, as said, so very specifically American, both historically and regarding cultural signifiers. It's a problem for the concept of integration that we now have transnational criminal gangs and indeed criminal subcultures that offer one potential model of integration... just integration into something that is not beneficial to the host socities.

It's interesting that non-Americans and even non-Westerners interested in joining the criminal lifestyle would so often choose a format that is, as said, so very specifically American,

A couple lines I cut mentioned this. As an American, the aesthetic does feel like it should be out of place in the Netherlands (Satudarah), but clearly somewhere like the Mongolian Steppe is natural. I have no idea if Mongolian riders share criminal aspects. Australia also shares (or shared) a comparable individualist frontier spirit and history, along with a similar fascination with bushwhacker outlaws, that it also seems a natural candidate for outlaw bikie gangs.

I just read a few (extremely boring) books for a social studies exam, and one thing that I still manage to remember from them is a claim, in a section mentioning the analysis of subcultures, that motorcycle gangs can be seen as a replication of certain elements of industrial working class existence, like the machinery, the noise, the metal surfaces of the bike etc. resembling a factory and the general idea of conquest of nature, which would of course also apply to Western European industrial working class descendents.

Nordic countries also share wide open spaces in the Northern regions, apart from Denmark.

See, Finns on bikes seems appropriate. Swedes? Ehhh...

that motorcycle gangs can be seen as a replication of certain elements of industrial working class existence

Neat. I am only partially surprised this connection has been made. You could also tie in the post-war origins that @HereAndGone provided context for above. The American proletariat returned home from the war to replace the women in manufacturing who they perceived as having emasculating their manhood. Without any other way to ease their suppressed class consciousness or account for their male insecurity they sought out to create alternative recreational hobbies with an industrial identity...

I offer an alternative:

Machine go brrhuum-brrhuum-brrhuum and chuugha-chuugha-chuuugha-chuuugha and vvvvvvrrrRRRRRrrrroooooom. Boy like machine. Boy ride machine. Machine go fast.

Yeah, I never watched Sons of Anarchy when this was the big new hit TV show, but didn't the motorcycle club in that start off that very way? Vets back from the war (Vietnam in this case) found a motorcycle club, and gradually over the years it becomes a criminal outfit.

I mean American red tribe culture is globally very competitive, especially among non-elites, more broadly. BBQ tastes good, guns and pickup trucks are cool, jeans are real practical and comfortable, country music is easy to inculturate and you can dance to it, etc. That comes with the good, thé bad, and the ugly.

jeans are real practical and comfortable

Jeans are absolutely not “American red tribe culture.” They were invented by two Jewish immigrants in San Francisco, and popularized as casual wear by urban greasers in the 1950s and 1960s.

country music is easy to inculturate and you can dance to it, etc.

This is only true if you strip it of much of the sociocultural content that was central to country music for much of its existence. The oeuvre of Conway Twitty is not global dance music. Country can only be made into a global commodity by converting it into “generically lower-middle-class music with aspirationally-American characteristics.”

Conway "first, pop hits in the '50s" Twitty? I mean sure he later made a country turn but it's ooooooonly maaaaaaaaaake believe! :D (Sorry, it's just too apropos; I know he did actually always want to be country, etc.)

I mean, have you heard modern country in its heartland? French, Afrikaans, irish, etc country music is truer to form than that.

modern country

is often a continuation of hair metal: https://youtube.com/watch?v=tB4049jsY7U?si=eJOU4o5nJyC1OvwX but it's not too hard to find stuff truer to form: https://youtube.com/watch?v=9CZ5X-c8Lng?si=cMSqzbs4447DyCfc or https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ew43GEJaj3A?si=GOz3kVfo9eqDDXMa

Already in the 80s, power ballads made this move. Many Skid Row songs sound like bluegrass with distortion https://youtube.com/watch?v=2pkpsxEyi-k?si=C5ANtceRZXBWn1Nm or Poison and Cinderella playing "the blues" https://youtube.com/watch?v=D7wdLAM1yjc?si=7PsmZOLhKvbzShft

On a practical level biker gangs, like many gangs, actually exist less from the financial angle (though that helps) but from (often violent but not always) kids from broken families getting caught up in a group that fills most of the needs a family would normally fill. Brotherhood, purpose, importance, outlets for anger, structure, exhilaration at breaking the rules, all that. It's a fake family in the ways that count, of course, but much like pets filling child-sized holes, it works pretty well overall - that's why it exists.

I agree the GHF seems to exist also to fill a need. The need here is someone else to take blame and occasionally do gruntwork. Yes, useful stooges, though Israel isn't the only one who likes a GHF-like entity so I would be cautious in assuming Israel is the only one propping them up. I wouldn't be surprised even if some enemies of Israel also support them for some reason or another.

I'm pretty sure the GHF has been hollowed out as the more legit people have left. I remember hearing I think this story a month and a half ago where you can start to see not only some pretty outright deception by some level of GHF leadership but also the more good guys get disillusioned and leave, with more callous people left. I should pause here and note that the job given to them is actually terrible. Holding mobs at bay while distributing food is genuinely dangerous. But unlike the military, it appears that there are effectively very few actual rules of engagement. Personally, again, I feel like this is the point, GHF again is there to take the blame and do the dirty work when it's convenient for them to do so. I think the violence exists, probably not massacre level, but people are definitely being killed when seeking aid for bad reasons. The scale is unclear. Personally I think it's bigger than you think, but it's not a great news environment to say the least.

Back to the point you make, I think it's something like a bunch of people go over and those with a conscience often go back soon, or fall into the morally compromised soldier position that happens in basically every war. So it works as a distillery for the cruel or callous. It's absolutely a shit job that few want to do. There are only so many places you can find semi-lawless violence-prone people in need of a job in America. The cartels certainly aren't going to let their people go and do it. So biker gangs is actually a great and logical fit and that surprises me precisely not at all. The other group would be financially distressed former soldiers of course, but motivation to go to yet another war-torn middle eastern country with a hostile local population has got to be... well... yeah, relatively low, though I imagine nonetheless they still fill out a good portion of the manpower.

Now again as I will say every time when it comes to Israel: Israel should be the one taking on all of this themselves. They directly created this cratered, destroyed, lawless zone with arbitrary and changing rules for civilians and a crippling need to import virtually all of its food, and need to take responsibility for it - direct responsibility for it. They don't probably because they have a borderline genocidal apathy towards gazans. I'm sympathetic, really I am, but apathy isn't a full moral cover.

On a practical level biker gangs, like many gangs, actually exist less from the financial angle (though that helps) but from (often violent but not always) kids from broken families getting caught up in a group that fills most of the needs a family would normally fill. Brotherhood, purpose, importance, outlets for anger, structure, exhilaration at breaking the rules, all that. It's a fake family in the ways that count, of course, but much like pets filling child-sized holes, it works pretty well overall - that's why it exists.

On one end is La Cosa Nostra. The mafia has all the usual organized crime traits including a shared ethnic identity and occultist rituals. Unlike, for example, Salvadoran gangs the mob was regularly motivated by business interests more than common thuggery. Matt Lakeman has a great blog post on El Salvador which includes a chunk on the history of its gangs. Technically Salvadoran gangs made money like the American mob or any other organized crime outfit. They provided a living for members primarily by extorting impoverished people. Even accounting for the poverty, Lakeman says their violence was usually more street conflict than financial as the mob or cartels might operate. Even guys at the high end of the hierarchy were making peanuts.

I picture biker gangs as landing between the two. Although, there are many instances of serious and significant criminal enterprise involving bikers. The decentralized nature and sheer number of criminals on 2 wheels makes it a difficult comparison. The bonds, friendship, and potential for a surrogate family apply to all of them and to non-criminal clubs, too.

I remember hearing I think this story a month and a half ago

Yeah, I don't know what to think about that guy. He made claims as a "whistleblower," did rounds of press, then claimed a kid was killed who turned out to not be killed and was instead "saved" by Israelis so as to avoid him being murdered to prove he was killed. I never did see anything to refute that counter-counter-propaganda with regards to that dead kid claim. There were other efforts to discredit that guy. Mess, noise, I don't know. Someone's muddy psyop working on me as planned I suppose.

They directly created this cratered, destroyed, lawless zone with arbitrary and changing rules for civilians and a crippling need to import virtually all of its food, and need to take responsibility for it - direct responsibility for it.

Israel doesn't win humanitarian plaudits or reprieves by taking responsibility which could mean a lot of things. Nonetheless, I agree it looks like they meander and coast on current status quo to avoid certain outcomes. They probably prefer it this way than a hypothetical Hamas-less Gaza with a path to statehood. They do have their reasons.

We have a few confessions from soldiers about this.

Three days ago in the Hebrew language Haaretz (translated)

For Bani, a sniper in the Nahal Brigade, changing roles is no longer enough. The wound he describes is too deep, too profound. "It started about two months ago," he testifies. "Every day, we have the same mission: securing humanitarian aid in the northern Gaza Strip." His day, and that of his comrades, begins at 3:30 a.m. Accompanied by drones and armored forces, they set up a sniper position and wait. According to him, between 7:30 and 8:30, the trucks arrive and start unloading their contents. Meanwhile, the residents try to advance to secure a good spot in line, but there's a boundary they don't notice. "A line that, if they cross it, I'm allowed to shoot them," Bani explains. "It's like a game of cat and mouse. They try to approach from different routes, and I'm there with the sniper rifle, with officers shouting at me, 'Take them down, take them down! I fire 50-60 rounds every day, I stopped counting kills. I have no idea how many l've killed, a lot. Children."

Regarding the “boundary they don’t notice”, these may be invisible or only known to the IDF soldiers:

Establishing an invisible “security perimeter” then shooting civilians who cross it has become common practice in Gaza, Israeli soldiers have testified. When asked how his squad decided whether to shoot unarmed Palestinians, Raab said: “Its a question of distance. There is a line that we define. They don’t know where this line is, but we do.”

Raab quoted in the above is an American-Israel dual citizen who was tricked by a journalist into confessing to the killing of a family in Gaza, though not at a food distribution site. He shot an unarmed man, the man’s brother who went to retrieve his body, then the father who went to retrieve the bodies of his sons. This example is unusual in that an international team of journalists pursued all the evidence they could on this one particular instance over five months. So we have a confession, a video of the killing, interviews with witnesses and survivors and the family, death records, and geolocations.

More testimonials from soldiers at the aid sites includes

It's a killing field," one soldier said. "Where I was stationed, between one and five people were killed every day. They're treated like a hostile force – no crowd-control measures, no tear gas – just live fire with everything imaginable: heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars. Then, once the center opens, the shooting stops, and they know they can approach. Our form of communication is gunfire." The soldier added, "We open fire early in the morning if someone tries to get in line from a few hundred meters away, and sometimes we just charge at them from close range. But there's no danger to the forces." According to him, "I'm not aware of a single instance of return fire. There's no enemy, no weapons." He also said the activity in his area of service is referred to as Operation Salted Fish – the name of the Israeli version of the children's game "Red light, green light".

[a different testimony] In one incident, the soldier was instructed to fire a shell toward a crowd gathered near the coastline. "Technically, it's supposed to be warning fire – either to push people back or stop them from advancing," he said. "But lately, firing shells has just become standard practice. Every time we fire, there are casualties and deaths, and when someone asks why a shell is necessary, there's never a good answer. Sometimes, merely asking the question annoys the commanders." In that case, some people began to flee after the shell was fired, and according to the soldier, other forces subsequently opened fire on them. "If it's meant to be a warning shot, and we see them running back to Gaza, why shoot at them?" he asked. "Sometimes we're told they're still hiding, and we need to fire in their direction because they haven't left. But it's obvious they can't leave if the moment they get up and run, we open fire." The soldier said this has become routine. "You know it's not right. You feel it's not right – that the commanders here are taking the law into their own hands. But Gaza is a parallel universe. You move on quickly. The truth is, most people don't even stop to think about it."

[a different testimony] "I was at a similar event. From what we heard, more than ten people were killed there," said another senior reserve officer commanding forces in the area. "When we asked why they opened fire, we were told it was an order from above and that the civilians had posed a threat to the troops. I can say with certainty that the people were not close to the forces and did not endanger them. It was pointless – they were just killed, for nothing. This thing called killing innocent people – it's been normalized. We were constantly told there are no noncombatants in Gaza, and apparently that message sank in among the troops."

[a different testimony] They talk about using artillery on a junction full of civilians as if it's normal," said a military source who attended the meeting. "An entire conversation about whether it's right or wrong to use artillery, without even asking why that weapon was needed in the first place. What concerns everyone is whether it'll hurt our legitimacy to keep operating in Gaza. The moral aspect is practically nonexistent. No one stops to ask why dozens of civilians looking for food are being killed every day." "The fact that live fire is directed at a civilian population – whether with artillery, tanks, snipers, or drones – goes against everything the army is supposed to stand for," he said, criticizing the decisions made on the ground. "Why are people collecting food being killed just because they stepped out of line, or because some commander doesn't like that they're cutting in? Why have we reached a point where a teenager is willing to risk his life just to pull a sack of rice off a truck? And that's who we're firing artillery at?"

[a different testimony] “The claim that these are isolated cases doesn't align with incidents in which grenades were dropped from the air and mortars and artillery were fired at civilians," said one legal official. "This isn't about a few people being killed – we're talking about dozens of casualties every day."

Then of course you have the doctor testimonials. A popular Dutch newspaper just did a big investigation on this last week:

Each time a food distribution point opens, doctors in the hospitals see dozens of civilians arriving with gunshot wounds. Most are boys—teenagers and young adults. They are brought in large groups at once on donkey carts. Some still carry empty food bags. Several doctors notice a pattern in the injuries. The targeted body part differs each day, as if it’s coordinated work, they suggest.

The targeted body part differs each day, as if it’s coordinated work, they suggest.

Shots so precise they choose which body part gets the bullet consistently correct and the kids are surviving day after day racking up bullet wounds? And we're to credulously believe this?

This tells me little about Israeli snipers and much about the credibility of de Volkskrant. Rather puts a stink on other similarly crazed stories. But maybe those other ones are true and this happens to be a single deranged lie smuggled into a list of true stories. Maybe.

Instead of brushing off something a deranged lie, you can argue why you think that it’s a deranged lie. The injury clustering claim is made by Nick Maynard, whose credentials are:

  • Former clinical director of surgery at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, one of the largest hospitals in the UK

  • Lead reviewer for professional standards of the Royal College of Surgeons of England for 10 years

He describes it as follows to NPR

I think seeing four young teenagers come in, in the space of one hour, with gunshot wounds to their testicles, which we have never seen before, is beyond coincidence. Seeing as one of my ER doctors did, seeing 12 or more patient[s], young teenagers coming in with gunshot wounds to the head and neck, all at the same time, is beyond coincidence. The clustering of symptoms is what makes it so dramatic. And it is something that we at all levels — ER doctors, general surgeons, urology surgeons, neurosurgeons — have all recognized this clustering of injuries.

Have the past 5 years not taught you that medical credentials are no guarantee against lying -- indeed they seem pretty well correlated when the lies are in service of a cause that the professional hodls dear? I thought you were all about Noticing stuff?

"What's the difference between God and a surgeon?"

If I recall correctly we've had several instances of doctors caught lying about just this kinda thing specifically, no?

Yes. I recall long ago seeing early youtube videos about doctors detailing Israeli atrocities. Turns out they were fake and the doctors were lying. This has been somewhat common for a couple decades that I'm aware of.

I recall it being mostly non-American doctors - which means radically different professional standards (and standards of professionalism) as well as totally different life background. This may be my brain flattering my biases however.

And yet the media keeps reporting these stories as if there's every reason to believe them.

Then, once the center opens, the shooting stops, and they know they can approach.

If the shooting stops once the center opens, then I'd expect them to start showing up after the opening time. Unless they often run out, but idk if that's the case.

They’re boys who try to storm the food distribution sites. Killing those who try to steal food distributed in times of war and famine has happened for thousands of years, it’s critical to preventing both fatal crowd crushes (which have killed dozens or hundreds regularly at aid distribution sites across Africa and the Middle East for many decades) and, even more importantly, to preventing young men and teenage boys from taking all the food, which they’re very liable to do and which leaves nothing for the elderly, women and young children.

As the Dutch example says,

Most are boys—teenagers and young adults.

No random sample of the population, especially when in global times of famine and in refugee camp situations women tend to be disproportionately responsible for food collection.

You have a hostile, deeply dysgenic population that has repeatedly decided to commit suicide-by-IDF for 70 years, where young boys are raised from toddlerhood to believe that being martyred by an Israeli bullet is the highest calling and achievement in life. They have no fear, it’s almost impressive. This is an ethnoreligious (ethno because it doesn’t really encompass all practicing Muslims) ideology devoted to the afterlife absolutely, far moreso than any other widely practiced Abrahamic denomination. Even millenarian Christian movements often have a love for life.

If it sounds very early 2000s hitchens atheist boomerish to describe the worldview of a lot of deeply committed Palestinian Sunni ethnonationalists as a “death cult” then so be it, but there is truth to it. Most children early on develop the ability to respond to positive or negative stimulus. Animals like horses and dogs are trained with gentle(ish) physical feedback, with punishment and reward. If you’re beaten and beaten for 75 years you might just surrender - not even to a terrible, North Korean or Cuban or Yemeni QOL but to a quality of life that is still much better than the regional average for your tribal cousins (which was the life most Palestinians had before the borders were closed or tightened after the last intifada; Israel had plenty of need for decently paid blue collar labor). Gazans don’t. They just keep fighting.

In a way, the war on Gaza is kind of like the battle against psycho drug addict violent homeless people like Decarlos Brown. Is rehabilitation possible? Is “justice reform” possible? When someone has 15+ convictions and just keeps on crusading against advanced civilization, well, at some point you have to accept that they have no intention of living peacefully. Unlike countless peoples, including the Jews for millennia for that matter, the Gazans are not content to live as vassals or dhimmis. Perhaps there is honor in that, but there are consequences to it too. So be it.

Killing those who try to steal food distributed in times of war and famine has happened for thousands of years, it’s critical to preventing both fatal crowd crushes

So what, the IDF machine-guns them to avoid crowd crushes??? They draw invisible, imaginary lines that, when crossed, get the Gazans shot? Come on, there's a very simple answer here. Few would justify Palestinian suicide bombings like this - 'it was for the Israeli's own good that the Palestinians blew up that bus full of civilians, they crossed an invisible Palestinian security line or something.' Suicide bombings are acts of hatred.

The Israelis also hate the Palestinians. That's why they torture them, blow them up, steal their land, knock down their houses, use all these elaborate terror tactics, shoot them when they're unarmed and obviously no threat. They've been doing this for years, before and after the present conflict.

An Israeli army officer who fired the entire magazine of his automatic rifle into a 13-year-old Palestinian girl and then said he would have done the same even if she had been three years old was acquitted on all charges by a military court yesterday.

The Palestinians sure are easy to hate. But there's no way to replace 'Israeli hatred' in the equation here. I fully imagine a skeptical mottizen might try to look into this, is there context, could he have thought she was carrying a bomb? Of course not:

After soldiers first opened fire, she dropped her schoolbag which was then hit by several bullets establishing that it did not contain explosive. At that point she was no longer carrying the bag and, the tape revealed, was heading away from the army post when she was shot.

Naturally the soldiers leave the command post, there's this random girl they need to kill!

Although the military speculated that Iman might have been trying to "lure" the soldiers out of their base so they could be attacked by accomplices, Capt R made the decision to lead some of his troops into the open. Shortly afterwards he can be heard on the recording saying that he has shot the girl and, believing her dead, then "confirmed the kill".

"I and another soldier ... are going in a little nearer, forward, to confirm the kill ... Receive a situation report. We fired and killed her ... I also confirmed the kill. Over," he said.

Palestinian witnesses said they saw the captain shoot Iman twice in the head, walk away, turn back and fire a stream of bullets into her body.

On the tape, Capt R then "clarifies" to the soldiers under his command why he killed Iman: "This is commander. Anything that's mobile, that moves in the [security] zone, even if it's a three-year-old, needs to be killed."

At no point did the Israeli troops come under attack.

Hatred is a clear and necessary requirement to understand what's going on in key elements of the Israeli military and society. Otherwise we're just left with absurdities like 'we were shooting the children with heavy machineguns and artillery so that older men wouldn't steal all the food and leave them with nothing'. The 'drug addict who gets let out of jail for the 15th time' analogy isn't appropriate, it's a case where some well-organized, well-connected home-invaders beat the crap out of the home-owner, lock him up in the basement and while lambasting his poverty and squalid conditions, use them as proof of why they should be in charge.

Countries do this, that's how borders get made after all. But dressing it up like this is ridiculous. Israel can't have it's anti-genocide, anti-imperialist, we're just defending ourselves cake and chow down on imperial expansion, ethnic cleansing and forceful subjugation.

deeply dysgenic

Let's not forget these guys outwitted Mossad and the whole Israeli-American intelligence complex with their surprise attack on October 7th. You'd think these high-IQ Israelis with all the most amazing gadgetry wouldn't get sneak-attacked a second time on Yom Kippur but apparently that little bit of readiness is too much to ask.

So what, the IDF machine-guns them to avoid crowd crushes??? They draw invisible, imaginary lines that, when crossed, get the Gazans shot? Come on, there's a very simple answer here. Few would justify Palestinian suicide bombings like this - 'it was for the Israeli's own good that the Palestinians blew up that bus full of civilians, they crossed an invisible Palestinian security line or something.' Suicide bombings are acts of hatred.

The Israelis also hate the Palestinians. That's why they torture them, blow them up, steal their land, knock down their houses, use all these elaborate terror tactics, shoot them when they're unarmed and obviously no threat. They've been doing this for years, before and after the present conflict.

I mean the situation for 70 years has been Israel gives the tiniest bit of leeway to Palestinians, which jihadists immediately exploit to kill Israelis. It’s obviously not a good thing, but there’s no line that won’t be crossed by Palestinians, and thus Israel no longer has any social trust whatsoever for Palestinians. They’ve been suckered too many times, so the6 see no reason to give quarter. Your “obviously unarmed” Palestinian might well be wearing a bomb (this happened for decades, which is why when Israelis strip captures to their underwear — looking for suicide vests. The supposedly apartheid tactic of making Palestinians use a separate bus stop and be searched before getting on a bus is a response to bus bombings in the 1990s.

Your “obviously unarmed” Palestinian might well be wearing a bomb

So the logical, rational thing to do is to go out, chase her down as she runs away and magdump her?

The captain didn't believe she had a bomb, he just wanted to kill this girl.

Let's not forget these guys outwitted Mossad and the whole Israeli-American intelligence complex with their surprise attack on October 7th.

Secular Israeli society is also undergoing severe genetic decline as a consequence of Ashkenazi - Mizrachi intermarriage, and the more endogamous Charedim don’t serve in the IDF or Mossad, so you will find no disagreement from me there.

Few would justify Palestinian suicide bombings like this - 'it was for the Israeli's own good that the Palestinians blew up that bus full of civilians, they crossed an invisible Palestinian security line or something.' Suicide bombings are acts of hatred.

It was extremely common in the mid 90s in mainstream Western leftist (not even radically, mainstream-ish publications like the NYRB, the Guardian’s opinion section, the Center-left French and Italian press) to justify the first intifada’s terror attacks against civilians including teenagers and children on similar grounds, that these were dispossessed people just trying to defend their land and doing what they could in protest. It’s nothing new, it’s common even.

it's a case where some well-organized, well-connected home-invaders beat the crap out of the home-owner, lock him up in the basement and while lambasting his poverty and squalid conditions, use them as proof of why they should be in charge.

If some Native American terror movement rises out of the alcoholic emptiness of the reservations to start committing terror attacks against white American civilians, including children then I fully expect that the reaction on this sub will be the same as the Israeli one.

that these were dispossessed people just trying to defend their land and doing what they could in protest

These narratives were justifying Palestinian hatred of Israel, which is different from saying 'They’re boys who try to storm the food distribution sites'. It's the same kind of difference between 'Yes the Palestinians attack Israeli civilians but that's OK because X' and 'actually, there is no such thing as an Israeli civilian, they're fighting-age men/women and due to conscription they're all military targets - anything is permitted'. The former is an attempt at some kind of moral argument excusing admitted hatred, the latter is a way to cover up actions that stem from hatred as practical necessity. If the Israelis were really so concerned about old men and women/children getting food, they wouldn't restrict food aid so much. There are many better ways to prevent crowd crush or rationalize food distribution besides machine-gun fire and artillery!

The whole concept is bizarre. Suppose the Palestinians somehow laid so many roadside bombs Israelis couldn't get food without being gruesomely maimed. Then the Palestinians say 'oh they were clearly trying to steal food, we were simply punishing thieves per age-old traditions - cutting a leg here or there with a landmine works wonders to prevent theft'. It's just adding insult to injury.

If some Native American terror movement rises out of the alcoholic emptiness of the reservations to start committing terror attacks against white American civilians

The key difference is that native Americans get all kinds of special privileges in America. Native Americans get special casino rights, scholarships and all kinds of affirmative action.

Many on this forum are too accustomed to dismissing racism and oppression. Most of the time, the concept is used inappropriately. Blacks in America receive all kinds of special privileges, the US media and govt tries to sweep black anti-white terror attacks under the rug. So the narrative that they're systemically oppressed doesn't hold. The US military doesn't set up 'if you come near our command post we will shoot you and then confirm the kill' zones in black neighbourhoods. If George Floyd was a 13 year old girl being shot at from long range, people here would likely have a different stance.

Nevertheless, it is possible for one people to actually oppress another. Palestinians don't get to jury-vote their coethnics out of crimes in Israeli courts, there is/was no Palestinian president of Israel... they're actually being oppressed.

Nevertheless, it is possible for one people to actually oppress another. Palestinians don't get to jury-vote their coethnics out of crimes in Israeli courts, there is/was no Palestinian president of Israel... they're actually being oppressed.

Sure, but why? Because they’ve engaged in a (so far) futile decades-long campaign to reverse the Jewish settlement of the levant that eventually angered the settlers enough that they imposed a series of escalating forms of oppression on them. Losing East Jerusalem, much of the West Bank, various other territories was the direct consequence of losing wars (just as it was for the Native Americans) many times in a row. The walls and checkpoints that prevent many Palestinians from living and working in Israel were likewise erected solely in response to terror attacks on Israeli civilians committed by these people and in their name. At every juncture, the noose tightened slowly because the Palestinians did not admit defeat and surrender, culturally and militarily, which is the route to survival for any conquered people.

Native Americans have reservations and affirmative action, sure, but many live on territory far removed from their ancestral homeland due to the westward forced migrations of the 19th century, and in total they have only a tiny percentage of their historical holdings (obviously), far less proportionally than the Palestinians have. Much of the Indian welfare and casino apparatus also only came into being a century or more after the great majority of the country was ethnically cleansed of most or all of its native population, so Israel has time yet.

Many on this forum are too accustomed to dismissing racism and oppression. Most of the time, the concept is used inappropriately. Blacks in America receive all kinds of special privileges, the US media and govt tries to sweep black anti-white terror attacks under the rug.

There has been no effective organized black nationalist movement in American history, and the last ineffective one fizzled out in the 1970s. Crime stats are one thing (almost no black-on-white crime is ‘terrorism’, that ascribes a political and ideological aspiration to the perpetrators that, as mentioned, they just don’t have), 300 armed and trained black men aren’t invading the country club to slaughter the men and rape the women as part of a race war against whites designed to drive them back to Europe, that isn’t something that happens in America.

There is a world in which the Palestinians accepted the reasonable 1967 borders (after already losing to Israel twice), kept a substantial proportion of their land, fortified their borders with the help of their Arab neighbors (such that no settlers would be coming in) and set up a relatively peaceful coexistence with Israel. As they did before and after, they chose otherwise. Gaza would not have been destroyed if Hamas hadn’t gambled on Hezbollah and West Bank Palestinians successfully joining a huge uprising on October 7th.

The Arabs are actually oppressed, certainly. But they are oppressed because they have continued to make very bad decisions in service of their pride over their comfort, liberty and life for so many years and show no sign of stopping. They had options and still do, if worse ones.

Sure, but why? Because they’ve engaged in a (so far) futile decades-long campaign to reverse the Jewish settlement of the levant that eventually angered the settlers enough that they imposed a series of escalating forms of oppression on them.

You're just describing how imperialism works, that's how countries get their borders. My point is that defensive violence is basically reasonable. It can't be less reasonable than offensive violence.

Most accept this and would take it a step further, viewing defensive violence as legitimate and offensive violence as wrong. Israel routinely says it's fighting a defensive struggle for survival to justify its tactics and campaigns, to justify foreign military aid and diplomatic assistance. But they're fighting offensively.

the Palestinians accepted the reasonable 1967 borders

The Israelis didn't accept those borders and rejected them, that's why they took various territories beyond '67 borders in the Six Day War. They changed those borders and have continued to cement their territorial holdings by splitting up the Palestinian held land in the West Bank, creating new settlements.

Reasonable borders are based on power and Israeli power is unstable.

Israel is not a great power due to its small size and doesn't have the luxury of prosecuting this kind of campaign, they only get away with it due to US diplomatic and military support. Without America, they would've run out of bombs to blow up Gaza with and much else besides. Without America, their missile defence would be much less effective. Without American diplomacy and aid deals their neighbours would be much more hostile. The Israeli situation is unstable, they have a high-tech economy dependent on not being sanctioned, a high-tech military dependent on US weapons, a fractious democracy unsuited for juche-style isolation.

Constantly angering the Arab and Islamic world is not a smart idea. Israelis may be better at fighting but they're vastly outnumbered. This is not America vs native Americans. It is provocative and obnoxious behaviour to derive national legitimacy from harsh treatment in the ghettoes and expulsions in Eastern Europe and then ghettoize the locals of a graciously granted strip of land, while continuously striving to expand it for lebensraum. This kind of behaviour has and will reduce favourability in the West.

The Palestinians have made bad decisions, so has Israel. There may not be much sympathy for yet another Israeli crisis where they 'need' a surge of aid and support to get out of a fix. What is their plan for China inciting trouble, getting Hamas some first-rate MANPADs, ATGMs and killer drones to drag the US into more MENA drama? What is their plan for EU sanctions or the US walking away? Or even just a prolonged insurgency and skirmishing with Iran that wrecks their economy? Vae victis works both ways.

Constantly angering the Arab and Islamic world is not a smart idea. Israelis may be better at fighting but they're vastly outnumbered. This is not America vs native Americans. It is provocative and obnoxious behaviour to derive national legitimacy from harsh treatment in the ghettoes and expulsions in Eastern Europe and then ghettoize the locals of a graciously granted strip of land, while continuously striving to expand it for lebensraum. This kind of behaviour has and will reduce favourability in the West.

Yes, Israel was founded in the wrong place.

Most accept this and would take it a step further, viewing defensive violence as legitimate and offensive violence as wrong.

I reject the characterization of colonialism as wrong. The end of empire led to a sustained and considerable decline in quality of life in many parts of the world.

What is their plan for EU sanctions or the US walking away? Or even just a prolonged insurgency and skirmishing with Iran that wrecks their economy? Vae victis works both ways.

While I agree that Israel’s future is very uncertain Israeli unreasonableness has yet to be tested. In the event of European sanctions and American disengagement, an end to all aid, a prolonged military crisis and food supply issues, I think there’s every chance that in the resulting domestic political upheaval they negotiate with the Europeans and Gulf Arabs and agree to some kind of two-state solution; they know if they’re overrun its lights out forever, or at least another 2000 years.

So what, the IDF machine-guns them to avoid crowd crushes???

What do you suggest the IDF do instead? Let them take all the food?

Machine-gunning and shelling people to avoid crowd crushes is obviously and inherently counter-productive.

If the IDF cared so much about how food was distributed in Gaza, they should try doing some food distributions themselves, win hearts and minds. Having food makes you popular amongst the hungry! US/British troops were very, very popular in Germany post-war since they controlled the food and treated the Germans with a very, very basic level of respect - even though they'd just bombed and blasted the country to ruins.

The IDF doesn't want to distribute food, they think it's too risky getting close to these guys? Then let some UN or NGOs do it.

But the IDF wants to starve the population as part of their campaign strategy and out of hatred, which is why they shoot people trying to get food and make it so extremely difficult to bring food in at all.

US/British troops post-war were in full control of Germany, so they didn't have to deal with Nazis who would forcibly take the food when they tried distributing food to German civilians.

US troops also were in full control of Japan, a nation expected to violently resist such, but they didn't, in part due to a careful occupation and how we actually imported quite large quantities of food to keep them from starvation there too. What do you know, now we're allies. Weird.

We should also just get this out of the way - if there's a sufficient amount of food going in to Gaza, food riots don't happen. Because, you know, people have enough food. Israel dropped the ball on food imports from the very early days! If I remember right, they declared a blockade a few days after the attack, and it was almost two weeks or something like that until food began flowing again - and even then, slowly and not enough. I feel like people aren't really aware of, or thinking through, the absolute numbers involved. A bit down this page there's a nice little chart. Before the attacks, it took 500 trucks a day to "break even" food-wise. That's about 15,000 truckloads per month, yes? Please look at that chart. November 2023 only 2,548 trucks entered over the entire month. Now, people have disputed these numbers, and I'm not 100% sure of the correct ones. But some have tried, here's one attempt which landed on a ca. 200/day figure, or 6,000 per month. That was never hit even once even at maximum aid flow. The chart shows that aid showed up more in the 3,000 per month range. So there's quite obviously a major gap here. And by gap I mean malnutrition, and even death, because food distribution systems have variability in coverage, even the really good ones.

It built up to critical mass over the last nearly two years. And now some people are stating with a straight face, oh look at all the riots, it's the fault of the Gazans, as if the situation just happened out of nowhere. That's a good example of victim blaming missing the point.

US troops also were in full control of Japan

The point is that they could only do this because they were in full control. Israel cannot do this, because they don't have full control over Gaza.

if there's a sufficient amount of food going in to Gaza, food riots don't happen. Because, you know, people have enough food.

That doesn't follow. Food that goes into Gaza freely would just be taken by Hamas. Hamas would then offer it only to people who follow their orders, up to and including becoming suicide bombers so their family gets fed.

Then let some UN or NGOs do it.

Yes, let the organizations that are actively trying to secure a Hamas win distribute food. That'll definitely fix the problem.

An explicitly pro-Israel NGO doing it would have better results, because they will genuinely attempt to make sure that does not occur, but their work would be frustrated because of (and by) the above.

So the army doesn't want to distribute food. They don't want to let anyone else distribute food. But they do want to shoot people coming up to get food... Doesn't take a genius to see what's going on here! And it's not a sincere concern for crowd crush and equitable distribution of aid.

Airdrop an overwhelming amount of non-perishable food into Gaza. Hamas wants to control the population by controlling the food supply? Make sure that everyone has access to such large amounts of food that Hamas can't realistically take it from everyone.

This doesn't help. There's no amount of food that Hamas can't realistically take. There's an amount that they can't realistically eat themselves, but they'd just take it and destroy the amount they can't eat.

I'm pretty sure there is zero evidence of this, and it frankly doesn't make any sense. Especially this far into the war, most of "Hamas" is probably not grizzled veterans, they're young men who have been radicalized by suffering around them - in other words, regular Palestinians who have an affinity for the local people (because they are the local people). They aren't going to be destroying food to spite Israel by some kind of convoluted logic.

They wouldn't do it to spite Israel, they would do it because having control over the food supply means having control over the people.

Seems like the sort of thing that would be easy to document terrible optics for Hamas. They're usually pretty good at managing optics.

Hamas has done plenty of things that are terrible optics already. The media just refuses to publicize them.

Even sending rockets into Israel was terrible optics, but Hamas got away with it.

I also want an overwhelming number of guns (specifically pistols) airdropped into Gaza too. A Tokarev for every man, woman, and child.

Hamas is already as armed as they need to be and wouldn't benefit from more guns (and these personal defense weapons aren't really suitable for waging a non-civil war). I want everyone else to be, so that when Hamas tries to seize the food or set up forward bases in places in which they are not welcome they get shot the fuck up. Israel already has to assume every Palestinian is armed because Palestinians and Hamasi look the exact same, so it's not hurting them.

That is a fantastic idea, and I would strongly endorse it. how much would this cost? It can't possibly be more than we waste on any number of military or social programs of far more dubious effectiveness.

My estimate is that it'd cost ~$10B / year to drop 2 humanitarian daily rations per person per day (4400 calories / person / day) on Gaza by helicopter. You might be able to cut those costs by 3x in a reasonable way, I'm doubtful that you could drop them by 10x.

On the other hand I bet you wouldn't actually need to keep it up for a year to break the Hamas stranglehold on food distribution.

You might be able to cut those costs by 3x in a reasonable way, I'm doubtful that you could drop them by 10x.

What's your estimate on flight costs for helicopter versus C-130? Because I bet you could figure out a way to drop those things out the back of a cargo aircraft by the palletload and have 90%+ reach the ground intact; from eating MREs a few times, I don't remember them being very heavy for their volume, and the packaging is durable...

Maybe ditch the Humanitarian rations and just start dropping sacks of dry beans and rice with cut-rate parachutes? Like, really optimize for usable calories on the ground for the cheapest price possible, where harm to the payload is a minimal concern.

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Hatred is a clear and necessary requirement to understand what's going on in key elements of the Israeli military and society

While I think it's trivially true that there's a lot of Palestinian hatred going around in Israel, I don't agree that it's a "necessary requirement" for what we observe. The Israeli forces could conceivably have decided to engage in this sort of savagery as a calculated 'terrorist' tactic intended to break their enemies' spirits and force a surrender. Even a completely dispassionate army could come up with that strategy, though actual hatred among the soldiery is unquestionably helpful in ensuring it is implemented.

There’s no compelling evidence that they are trying to steal food or storm the sites. In some cases they are fired upon 800 meters away from a site. In other cases they are fired upon when waiting in line too early. The state of the aid distribution, if anything, make stampedes and other risks more likely, which the UN and aid groups have warned about since the start of it (even before that). The examples of stampedes which you link occurred inside buildings and in small alleys, and there’s no excuse for a stampede to occur in an open area with almost no remaining building. Additionally, the use of live rounds makes no sense when dealing with an emaciated unarmed crowd so far away, when even a paintball gun would do a better job both deterring any unwanted crowd movement and also in delineating the desired passage for the population.

The reason boys collect the aid might be because the IDF frequently shoots civilians. From the UN Human Right’s Council report on the 16th:

Importantly, the Commission has found that children have been directly targeted in various ways by the Israeli security forces since 7 October 2023, including during evacuations, at shelters, and more recently at GHF distribution sites. Medical professionals told the Commission that they have treated children with direct gunshot and sniper wounds, often to the head and abdomen, indicating that the Israeli security forces have intentionally targeted children during their military operations in Gaza. In relation to the attacks along the evacuation routes and within designated safe areas, the Commission found that the Israeli security forces had clear knowledge of the presence of Palestinian civilians, including children. Nevertheless, Israeli security forces shot at and killed civilians, including children who were holding makeshift white flags. Some children, including toddlers, were shot in the head by snipers.

The reason boys collect the aid might be because the IDF frequently shoots civilians.

An unarmed man is no more bullet resistant than an unarmed woman, so this is a strange argument. If the Gazans had surrendered, the only IDF casualties would be due to unexploded ordnance and friendly fire. Clearly given ongoing military casualties and regular firefights this is not the case, therefore the Gazans have not yet surrendered. If you look at footage of food distribution lines in violent conflict zones anywhere else in the world (esp in places like East Africa) there are almost always substantial numbers of women. The highly disproportionate number of fighting age male casualties in the ‘peaceful’ aid lines is very telling in this regard.

I don’t trust the UN when they say being against mass immigration to Europe is Dacian, so why should I trust them when they say that everyone shot outside these aid centers is an innocent lamb, especially when there have been countless firefights outside them since the invasion of Gaza began in 2023.

Who are the Gazans and how would they go about surrendering?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c74z4gy5g31o

Gaza aid site offered a 'women only' day. It didn't stop the killing

Palestinian men mostly take on the risk, jostling to secure a box of food for their family […]

Sheikh al-Eid died from a bullet injury to the neck. She is one of two women known to have been killed on Thursday's "women's day". The BBC also spoke to the family of the second woman who was killed, Khadija Abu Anza. One sister, Samah, who was with her said that they were travelling to a GHF aid site when an Israeli tank and troops arrived. From a distance of just metres, the troops first fired warning shots as they told them to move back, Samah said on Friday. "We started walking back and then she was hit by the bullet," Samah said. "They shot her in the neck and she died immediately."

There are also risks because Israel is arming and funding criminals gangs in Gaza, gangs affiliated with the Islamic State:

"Some people here die from stabbings and attacks — all over food. We've all turned into mafias and road blockers."

Pretty obvious why men would want to venture to get aid in these conditions. You’re right that in UN-patrolled areas this doesn’t happen, but Israel has (naturally) prevented UN-mediated aid distribution.

An unarmed man is no more bullet resistant than an unarmed woman

He is more expendable though.

Only in a polygamous society which I'm not sure is very common in Gaza.

Historically, marriage to cousins was once common. Polygamous marriages are rare among Muslim Palestinians, except among some Bedouin communities. As Palestine does not have a civil marriage option, marriage law follows the religious faith of the couple.

Can Palestinian widows not remarry?

You would still only have as many pregnant women as there are men, making men a bottleneck to reproduction the same as women.

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I thought that's why they came up with polygamy to begin with...

This still doesn't mean that shooting them with live ammunition is the best option.

You can use razor wire to fence off a secure area and form a narrow corridor for aid recipients. You can use rubber bullets against those who try to get through the wire. You can use tear gas to disperse rowdy crowds. You don't have to shoot a hole through every Arab that doesn't show sufficient obeisance, as estimated by the IDF soldier on guard duty today.

Those are the tools used against an unruly population that has not yet reached the final straw of the other side. This war has been going on for 75 years. Rubber bullets, razor wire, tear gas, these have all featured extensively, they still are used in the West Bank. But at some point, empathy declines and then fades. The views of Israelis have hardened, the views of Palestinians are unchanged. The move from rubber bullets to real ones is an inevitable consequence of that dynamic over decades.

I don’t think it’s irreversible, by the way. Foreign powers could force change, Israel could collapse (in which case the dynamic would only be inverted, with far more brutality and bloodshed for that matter), or the Palestinians could surrender, truly this time. I am a poor gambler, so I will leave the odds of each of those to others.

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