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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
A short prompt of good news for starting the week- the likelihood of the current Gaza conflict ending just got significantly higher today, as Hamas has released at least the first 7 of 20 surviving hostages to Israel, with more expected later today (or maybe already completed), as part of a Trump-mediated peace deal that is excepted to culminate in a regional summit this week.
Big if carried through, and while there was leadup to it last week, there was a fair bit of (and fair grounds for) skepticism on if the deal would actually be followed through. There were questions on if Hamas even could deliver all the living hostages given how the hostages were often not under Hamas's direct organizational control (but sometimes under other groups), and this deal does not address the bodies of the dead hostages, among other things.
There is also some irony, or possibly some future culture war conspiracy theories, about how this will not get Trump a noble peace prize, since they announced that late last week.
That said- and I think this is good news in general- it's also worth noting this doesn't mean stability or even a lasting peace. While the Yemen-based Houthis have indicated they will stop their Red Sea attacks so long as Israel upholds the ceasefire, this runs into complications like how Hamas has already engaged in gun battles with gazan clans as it tries to re-assert control, which goes significant premise of Hamas being removed as the military and civil authority of Gaza. Which remains a huge, unanswered question which could restart this problem all over again, if Hamas remains in power for lack of anyone actively displacing. The NYT is running a piece on how mediators are already signaling this isn't a comprehensive deal for either side.
One thing that isn't in question, however, is that the return of the still-living hostages is going to reshape the underpinnings of Israeli politics, as the post-October 7 war cabinet coalition that kept Netanyahu in power will lose much of the reason for being. This means political instability, for worse or for better, as Israel rebalances. The next election would be no later than late next year regardless, and could come earlier.
Absent some new (and detrimental to all) nonsense, this means that a lot of the people who only supported Nnetanyahu because of the war will likely be more willing to withdraw their support and trigger early elections, which would be no later than about a year from now anyways. This does not, however, mean a general discrediting of the Israeli right, and a decades-belated return of the Israeli left (whose original decline was after the failure of the gaza withdrawal almost two decades ago). The war was a significant polarizing effect on Israeli politics and society, and while I'd not bet on Netanyahu I'd also not bet on any part of the political left seen as opposing the war for pro-Palestinian reasonings.
I'll end it there. While there is plenty of reasons things could yet again get worse, and while I am sure eventually they will, for the moment I'll encourage people to view this new news as good news, which can well make many people's lives better.
I don't have a direct reply, but I'm going to piggy back off this post because I'd written up a related issue. I’d like to look at the prisoner exchange ratio.
We’ve looked at this issue various times before on The Motte, with amazement at the disparate ratio of prisoners being exchanged on each side, and the risks involved in releasing
terroristsfreedom fighters in a prisoner exchange only to have the prisoners commit attacks on Israel in the future.This time its 20 Israeli hostages against a list of 1900 Palestinian prisoners.
One way of looking at this is that it’s a release of ‘Prisoners of War’ and that all POWs are released at the cessation of hostilities. Except that the hostages were civilians deliberately taken as.. well as hostages, to prevent military advancement and also as leverage in negotiations such as this peace deal.
In addition, the list of 1900 is not limited to ‘POWs’ captured during the latest war, but includes 250 other
terroristsfreedom fighters that have attacked Israel prior to the current war)If this peace plan doesn’t hold then Hamas would have bolstered its force by almost 2000 fighters, not for this war, but the future wars to come.
I don't blame Trump and other peacemakers for trying and I am a fan of lasting peace, but this exchange ratio has always been a bugbear of mine and I don't think I'm alone. At a minimum they should stagger out the prisoner release with the 250 non-POWs to be released after the peace holds for 5+ years.
I feel like the political leverage the hostages represented was probably worth a lot more to Hamas than 2000 additional warm bodies. In spite of any Israeli rhetoric to the contrary, I'm pretty sure if the ceasefire breaks down, Israel will no longer be fighting with one arm tied behind their back.
Israel was lining Palestinians up and then crushing them with bulldozers (see the story about the IDF soldier who killed himself because he couldn't live with being the driver), on top of torturing people with downs syndrome (Mohammad Bhar) and murdering small children (Hind Rajab). They deployed more explosive power relative to the size of their target than the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If you think this is them being restrained, you're making the case that Israel needs to be removed from the Earth before they can do this to anyone else.
Yes but if the boot were on the other foot (assuming somehow the Palestinians were militarily paramount to the same degree, maybe via the act of a warlock) the Palestinians would actually carry out an effective genocide instead of awkwardly trying to ferret out a deeply-buried guerilla insurgency without doing too much damage to civilian populations.
Historically, when the boot was on the other foot, the Palestinians regarded the Palestinian jews as their brothers and lived together for centuries. It was the zionist immigration project which caused hostilities to erupt.
That said, I don't really disagree with you. When you look at the Palestinians and what they've suffered at the hands of Israel, I find it highly likely that they'd take revenge when they were given power - which is one of the reasons why I think that Israel should have actually tried to live and coexist peacefully with their neighbors.
I've seen far too many confessions of deliberate targeting of children, as well as really nasty salami-slicing of exactly who counts as a civilian. I don't believe this is what Israel was doing, and neither do the Israelis if you read hebrew media sources rather than english ones.
Having weak and marginal Jews in your community that paid the dhimmi tax and that you could coerce the beautiful daughters into Islam is nothing like brotherhood, unless you want to tell me that the European ghettos were similar exemplars of tolerance and understanding. The Jews don't want to be dhimmi. No one wants to be a non-Muslim subject in a Islamic country if they can help it. Even the most tolerant Palestinian wants the Jews to live in a box outside of the holy places and be milked for taxes by the bridge troll.
I'm sorry, but your historical read is just wrong. The leftist perspective is simply delusional: too focused, as it were, in the splinters in others eyes to mind the logs in theirs. Your romanticization of Muslim tolerance is historical revisionism at best.
How much do you know about Jewish life in Palestine or the muslim world prior to Israel? Who was in charge of the government during the Jewish Golden Age?
Do you think the Palestinians want to be non-Jewish subjects in a Jewish country? Hell, I wouldn't want to be a non-Jewish subject in a Jewish country.
I think the last century of events has contributed rather heavily to negative attitudes towards jews amongst the Palestinians.
You might want to check up on your history before you make accusations like that - there were multiple times in history when the Jews fled to Muslim countries because Christian lands persecuted them too heavily. The great antipathy between the Islamic world and the Jews in the modern world is in large part due to the establishment of the state of Israel, and there's a wide variety of historical Jewish sources talking about how Muslim rule was preferrable to Christian rule. While you're right that Muslim tolerance was a far cry from the multicultural societies of the modern west, by the standards of those historical periods that tolerance was actually real - the Christians were treating them far worse at the time, and even some of the earliest Islamic documents (see the constitution of Medina) mention this shared connection with the Jews.
You're not beating the logs-in-eyes allegations. None of anything you said would reflect on how Arabs would treat Jews in a hypothetical one-state solution. The evidence we do have is from the expulsion of Mizrahim from all Arab countries to Israel - a pogrom you blame on Zionism. But they didn't do anything for Israel. They were completely innocent in the matter, but they were expelled and had their property confiscated anyway.
That was, undeniably, ethnic cleansing at the least. Genocide, if you stretch it. And you deny it so pithily, with a single sentence. As if the actions of Jews in Judea and Samaria reflected upon them as a whole.
Why should I trust you accusing Israel of genocide when you downplay the Arab one?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Exactly. Most of the peaceful era was with a relatively tiny population, the local arabs having fuck all control of their own composition due to the Ottoman empire (which was relatively peaceful so long as you paid the Dhimmi). The history of dominant muslim populations treatment of Religious minorities in the region trends a lot closer to an effective genocide than Israel somehow barely being able to make a dent in the Palestinian population over decades of supremacy.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
"Proactively provide evidence in proportion to how partisan and inflammatory your claim might be."
... which they deployed over the course of two entire years, as opposed to all of that explosive power being released in one go. And the death toll in that period was between a quarter* and three-fifths** of the death toll of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, making it abundantly clear that the primary function of all this explosive ordnance was not the taking of human life for its own sake, but the destruction of Hamas's tunnel network.
I'm baffled as to how you expect me to be horrified by this metric.
*Assuming a death toll of 246k in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and a death toll of 63k in Gaza.
**Assuming a death toll of 150k in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and a death toll of 90k in Gaza
I've actually already posted and discussed this particular story on the motte with multiple people - my apologies for assuming that this was just commonly accepted knowledge.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/21/middleeast/gaza-war-israeli-soldiers-ptsd-suicide-intl
Actually it doesn't make that clear at all - and if that's the case, then the IDF was actually just extremely incompetent, given that the tunnels are still there and they're making noises about how important it is that they be let in to clear out the tunnels. They've blown up the civilian infrastructure and all the hospitals, and there are more amputee children in Gaza than anywhere else in the world. If that was the goal then the IDF is incredibly incompetent - but they've demonstrated enough competence elsewhere that I just can't accept the claim that this was to destroy the tunnels.
Horrified? I'm not expecting that at all. You claimed that Israel was being restrained and fighting with one arm behind their back. But when I look at what's left of Gaza now the idea that this is Israel being restrained just makes me believe that they need to be stopped or denazified before they get the chance to do this to anyone else.
If you don't want your hospitals and civilian infrastructure blown up, don't use them as weapons caches in flagrant violation of the Geneva convention. I really don't see what's so complicated about this.
When did I say that?
How do you think Israel ought to have prosecuted a war against a combatant like Hamas? What would you have done differently?
They didn't. Israel lied and just blew them all up anyway - I haven't seen any confirmation that these hospitals were actually terror bases. Rather, I've seen evidence that the fancy visuals they used to tell people those hospitals were terror bases were largely manufactured out of videogame assets https://www.972mag.com/israeli-army-3d-propaganda-animations/
My apologies! My posts have been so popular and generated so many replies I didn't realise you weren't actually the person I was replying to.
Well, first of all, I simply wouldn't institute apartheid - I'd give the Palestinians equal rights and full franchise, giving them an actual path to peaceful and shared co-existence, giving them a stake in a shared society that could lead to mutual success. But assuming that's out of the question because my government coalition is full of bloodthirsty ethnonationalists and if I resign I'll just get killed... I'd either flee the country or kill myself rather than take part.
But if I had to prosecute it... I would implement incredibly rigorous conduct rules and make sure that the IDF became the most ethical and well-behaved army in the world. I'd make sure that there's zero opportunity for hostile propaganda, fill the waves with stories about our brave soldiers helping rescue people from dangerous conditions and improving their lives. Be as brutal as you want with the people actually taking up arms, deploy drones to the tunnels etc... but guerilla forces can only operate with the help and assistance of the people around them. Public perception and reputation is incredibly important to Israel and I don't think the country is sustainable without support from the west - so I'd make sure that whatever I did, there wouldn't be gigantic protest movements against my country all over the world.
Your phrasing is very telling. Whatever I did. Because I really do get the distinct impression that whatever Israel does, people will be condemning it.
The gigantic protest movements against the country in question had begun in earnest less than a week after October 7th, well before Israel even had the opportunity to commit any war crimes. In New York, there were protests and calls to "globalise the intifada" literally the day after. (The less said about the people at these protests chanting "Allahu akbar" and "gas the Jews", the better.)
Call me crazy, but it kind of seems like at least a significant proportion of these protests have nothing to do with how Israel's military conducts itself, and more to do with the fact that Israel exists at all.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Having better weapons makes you the bad guy? When the Americans fought Nazi Germany, the Americans had way more bombs and planes than the Germans did. Does that mean the Americans were big meanies, or does it mean the Nazis shouldn't have picked a fight they couldn't win?
Palestine supporters do this all the time, and it's never persuasive. Israel fires more bombs, Israel kills more people, as if these are bad things to do in a war. Winning is evil? When they get attacked, the Israelis should chivalrously lower their military power to be equal to their opponents? It strikes as sour grapes; 'They're only winning because they have more weapons!' See: don't pick fights you can't win.
Every time someone says that the Israelis have killed more Palestinians than vice-versa or set off more bombs or whatever, my only thought it that they clearly haven't done enough because the Palestinians haven't stopped fighting yet! How can you set the bar for too many casualties in a war below the number required to win? You can hardly ask the Israelis to stop fighting and wait for the Palestinians to catch up in the kill count.
No, that's not the point being made.
Would you apply this argument to the jews of Nazi germany? Was it their fault for attacking the big meanie and then having a sook and cry about how badly it went for them? Why did they pick a fight they couldn't win?
I don't think that argument would convince you to support the nazis, and it isn't going to convince me to support the Israelis.
If the Palestinians stop fighting they believe they will be wiped out, which is supported by a vast number of statements from members of the Israeli government. What alternative are you leaving besides a final solution?
My position, which I have stated on here, remains that there should be a single state solution which includes the Israelis and Palestinians both.
The Jews of Nazi Germany didn't attack the Germans. That's literally an antisemetic conspiracy theory invented by the Nazis to demonize the Jews, and I wasn't aware that anyone believed it except a few diehard neo-Nazis. Conventional history tells us that it was actually the Nazis who attacked the Jews.
If they believe that then they're simply wrong. If the Israelis wanted to wipe out the Palestinians they could have done it at any time. Ergo, they don't want to. Given that recent history suggests that every Palestinian attack on Israel is followed by an immediate upswing in Palestinian deaths, it is not clear to me how this course of action prevents the Israelis from wiping them out.
If wiping out is on the table, it seems clear to me that starting pointless wars over and over again for decades can only increase its likelihood. If it isn't on the table then the pointless wars are just that - a meaningless outpouring of useless hatred that accomplishes nothing and causes only misery.
That is in fact the point of my argument. The Palestinians were there before Israel was, and we can even directly identify many of the violent terror groups that helped establish Israel like Irgun and Lehi. The Palestinians didn't start this fight any more than the Jews of Nazi Germany started the holocaust.
Incorrect. Multiple high-ranking people in Israel and Israeli think-tanks have made it clear that they view the entirety of the region as being given to them by god, and that it should be an exclusively jewish homeland. The Palestinians aren't so stupid as to think nothing bad would happen to them when their homes become the exclusive homeland of another people!
Mass extermination of unwanted brown people to give your society a bit more lebensraum is the kind of gross crime against humanity that gets your nation completely ostracised from the rest of the world. Not only that, the actual human infrastructure of the state would likely have trouble - look at growing number of IDF suicides and imagine how much worse it would be if they were explicitly committing another holocaust without any figleaves. Just nuking them would engender such a hostile reaction from the rest of the world that Israel would simply cease to be a viable state.
In the absence of violent resistance Israel would simply do to Gaza what they are doing with the west bank and take over the land piecemeal. As I've said, they believe that a lack of resistance means they will simply be wiped out and dispossessed - and I think they're right to believe that. I do agree that this conflict is a meaningless source of misery and the world would be a better place if it didn't happen at all, but sadly I'm not in charge of the region.
When I use the word 'attacked,' I do not refer to the crime of existing while being Jewish. I use the word 'attacked' to refer to that thing where you use guns and bombs to kill people.
If the Palestinians were there first (debatable), so what? The German gentiles were undeniably 'there' before the German Jews. Does that mean the German Jews were 'attacking' the German gentiles with their presence? No. By logical extension, the Israelis are not 'attacking' the Palestinians by existing in their vicinity.
On the other hand, last year the Palestinians launched a literal attack on Israel. Lots of people died. It started a war. Ring any bells?
Then why are you so concerned that the Palestinians will be 'wiped out'? Since you've just explained why it can't possibly happen regardless of what the Palestinians do, you yourself prove that Palestinian 'resistance' is just a waste of lives. By your own argument there will be no 'wiping out' so what are we even talking about?
I see. When you say 'wiped out' you don't actually mean anyone will be killed. It's a kind of nonviolent 'wiping out' where people lose landownership in a dispute over whose ancestors stole what from whom, but continue living their lives without being bodily harmed in any way. This is one of those irregular verbs, you know, I'm buying a house, you're dispossessing the native population, he's committing genocide.
So in order to prevent the Jews from metaphorically 'wiping them out' (by existing nearby), the Palestinians must heroically resist (by massacring the Jews). I do not like this abuse of language.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I feel like the definition of the term "proportionality" as a military/conflict term was one of the major casualties of this war, but I also don't think it matters. If Israel were to have shut down the Iron Dome, so more of its own civilians were being killed, those misusing the term proportionality wouldn't have changed to "well, now it's not genocide/war crimes because the Israeli deaths are closer in count to the Palestinian deaths", it would be "good, that's what they deserve for attacking Gaza." At least, among the die-hards, rather than the normie supporters who hear about a bad thing on social media and take their views/marching orders from it. They'd just go along with whatever the newest talking point was instead.
I feel like it might be a tad uncharitable to have said that, but I've never seen anyone change their mind when confronted with the text or context of the various laws and regulations that cover waging ethical and legal warfare.
"Proportionality" never meant that death counts had to be close or that an ineffective attack has to be met with an ineffective response. That's just something Palestine supporters claim or imply because it's useful for them. Proportionality means that the collateral damage of an attack has to be proportional to its military objective.
Yes. That's the point I was trying to get across. I believe we are in full agreement.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link