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 -
So the war is (at least temporarily) over.
No one, myself included, fully believed Hamas was going to actually hand over the live hostages until they did so. They are now withholding the dead ones, which is more typical.
The joy about the hostages' release was obviously mixed with other feelings, hence Israeli social media being full of posts commemorating the dead, and Israeli talk in the streets full of mourning the release of terrorists and the inevitable encouraging of more kidnappings (an attempt at kidnapping was foiled the day before).
Still, there was a lot of joy to be had.
As for the long term repercussions of these two years of war... No one knows yet, obviously.
One thing I am somewhat curious to see is what happens with Gazans getting work permits to enter Israel — before the war that was a thing (thousands of permits and millions of dollars in wages), but in the wake of the revelation that they then gave maps of the places they visited to Hamas (in fairness — they were probably being threatened by Hamas if they didn't) I don't know if the communities surrounding Gaza will be willing to allow it again. A lot of those communities were pretty left-wing and peace-minded and I don't know to what extent that position changed after the massacres.
Also before the war the government was pursuing a strategy of "surely with enough money Hamas will just focus on governing" hence the (in Israeli terms) scandal over how much money Netanyahu was giving them from Qatar. I think the dream of them being pacified with money is pretty thoroughly dead on the Israeli side these days, and that might also affect the work permit equation.
West Bank Palestinians have been having a lot more difficulty getting entry permits since the war as well, I actually do expect that to ease up pretty significantly now, especially if things stay calm for like, a month. I hope I'm right about that.
A lot of I/P coexistence initiatives went into hibernation mode after the outbreak of the war. They had already started to come back before this ceasefire — I went to one a few months ago, a meeting of West Bank Palestinians and Israelis in a relatively more safe area of the West Bank (so Palestinians could get to it without needing entry permits and Israelis would be less scared of going than if it was held in other areas of the West Bank). I feel like that meetup is probably worth a separate post (it was fascinating) but in any case I do expect the coexistence initiatives to start doing a lot better if the sort-of peace also sort-of holds. The veterans of those groups say they're used to these kinds of ebbs and flows.
I am skeptical we get a break from the decades of missiles from Gaza because of the ostensible ceasefire — that hasn't been the case in all previous "ceasefires", so if it happened it would be a sign something is actually different about this one.
We're due an election in a year but historically Israel very very very rarely (aka: it happened one time) makes it all the way to the actual official due date instead of calling early elections. So we'll probably get one soon.
Anyway. For now it's "wait and see". I'm not optimistic about the summit in Egypt leading to any real change but I truly would love to be proven wrong and something good happens for once. And whatever the future holds, in the moment, right now, I am really happy that the last two years are over.
One thought that has just now come to me - how realistic would you consider it to unify only peaceful settlements of west bank palestinians into the israeli state? I've heard relatively little about west bank terrorism during the last war, and Hamas is not nearly as strong there, so there should be a decent number.
My pro-palestinian left-wing friends/acquintances think that the only solution to the current situation is one-state, with full legal rights to all palestinians. According to them, the palestinian hatred is purely due to the oppression suffered by the Israeli, and the violence will vanish if they are granted full rights. To me, that is pure insanity - at the very least Hamas has always been very clear that at the very least they want to throw out or subjugate the jews, they enjoy broad support by the palestinian populace and obviously they are the de-facto ruling party. The most likely outcome of unification is Hamas ruling all of Israel/Palestina, with the obvious repercussion for the jews.
But this doesn't apply if you only give rights to certain communities that have been peaceful, and would send a strong signal - peace, and you can become a citizen, terrorism, and you get to live among debris. Though, I guess the left would just frame it as evil annexation, so there's that.
That's the kind of thing that sounds good in theory but has at least two major issues I can think of in practice:
On the other hand, perhaps if approached on a clan-by-clan level it could be doable? That's not really very different from village-by-village (because a clan usually stays close together anyway). This is the kind of thing where it would help if I had better knowledge of clan politics, but all I know about it is things I absorb second hand from coworkers etc. Maybe I'll ask my husband later, he's active in hebrew-arabic language exchange groups and might have a better idea.
Anyway basically: I don't think the majority of Israelis would be opposed but that doesn't make it a feasible solution. Maybe someday though, if things develop in a promising direction.
Yeah, as said it was more a random idea I had in the moment; I wouldn't expect it to work, and asked more for the purpose of finding out why it is wrong.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Please do!
More options
Context Copy link
The violence of the Second Intifada wiped out the electoral-viability of Israel’s left. I would be surprised if issuance of work permits resumes anytime in the near future.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link