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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 13, 2025

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The Japan analogy doesn't work, because there is no active anti-Japan resistance due to Japan having already made amends and settled the conflicts those crimes took place in.

Lies. Japan denies culpability for its assorted war crimes in the second world war to this day.

but I did actually go out and protest against the Iraq war which 9/11 was used to justify.

It's amazing to me that you consider this a relevant analogy. The entire reason the invasion of Iraq wasn't justified was because the Iraqis weren't responsible for 9/11. It was a ginned-up casus belli. The Palestinians were responsible for October 7th. Do you really not understand how these two situations are incomparable, or are you just pretending not to?

Hell, right now the Israeli government is proudly bragging about how they tortured Greta Thunberg

Dying to see a source on this one.

Wow, what heartening news! Thanks for the pick-me up.

So you claim that your preferred solution is for a single-state solution in which Israel is renamed to Palestine. And yet, it cheers you up to learn that lots of people want the Israelis to pack up and move elsewhere. Why would that be the case, if it isn't your preferred solution? Dare I say you're not being entirely truthful about what your preferred solution is?

You may as well ask jews in the 1940s if Nazi Germany has a right to exist.

Of all the obnoxious rhetorical strategies pro-Palestine activists use, Holocaust appropriation must be the most distasteful. Other Arabs are a far bigger threat to Arabs than Israel has ever been.

But even leaving aside the relative death tolls, the reason this analogy doesn't work is because, prior to the Nazis, relations between Jews and Germans were fairly cordial, as evidenced by the fact that there were hundreds of thousands of Jews living inside Germany at the time. But Arabs hate Israelis now, and also hated them in 1948, before Israel had even been founded (back when they were just called "Jews"). You claim that Arabs hate Israelis as an inevitable consequence of decades of mistreatment, but they already hated them before any of this mistreatment. Am I supposed to pretend that this is just a coincidence? As ever, I find myself irresistibly drawn to the conclusion that this is an ethno-religious conflict dressed up as an anti-colonial one.

Hello! I've only recently returned from a holiday/retreat, where I wasn't able to access the Motte. I'm more than happy to continue this conversation but it has been a week, so I'd rather ask if you wanted to pick it back up first before I respond.

I feel like we're just talking past each other and it's not a very productive discussion. Thank you for offering your perspective and I hope you enjoyed your holiday.