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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026

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Both of which are outside of pre-1967 Israeli territory;

Yes, and Israel acquired that territory via force of arms. If Israel can do it, why not Russia? If Israel can do it, why can't China do the same to Taiwan?

and as many of the Palestinian Arabs object to Jews existing as equals,

Of Hamas, right? (Padme, her face concerned!)

Of course! But you'd also have to launch mass prosecutions for anyone in the Israeli government who supported the illegal settlements or the military action in Gaza. You'd also have to take every single Israeli who supported the ethnic cleansing of Gaza or otherwise held racist views towards the Palestinians and put them through some re-education, but if there's real accountability and progress I'm confident you could have peace between the two populations.

Do you know of any organisations condemning Israeli actions in Gaza/the West Bank/the Golan Heights who also explicitly reject Palestinian claims on pre-1967 Israeli territory?

I don't care about pre-1967 Israeli territory - why do you think that the perpetrators of the Deir Yassin massacre should be rewarded? I was under the impression that you're opposed to taking territory through violence!

I would prefer that no clay be taken by force of arms; however, if that option is unavailable, and one side or the other must gain from the conflict, I would prefer that the side gaining territory be the side that was minding its own damn business.

But we have a chance to simply undo the entire problem! A single state solution definitively repudiates the idea that claiming territory via force of arms is acceptable. Anything else sends the message that it is perfectly fine, and leaves you unable to condemn anything Russia, China or even North Korea decides it wants to do.

Yes, and Israel acquired that territory via force of arms. If Israel can do it, why not Russia? If Israel can do it, why can't China do the same to Taiwan?

Because after the World Wars, we realised that industrial warfare was increasingly destructive and needed to be stopped. Undoing all previous land seizures would involve untangling a colossal rats'-nest of claims and counter-claims, many of which left few if any records; thus we drew a line in the sand at 1945: going forward, no nation would be allowed to take land from another by force of arms.

This left the question of European colonies, one of which was the British territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. The United Nations passed a resolution dividing the territory into a Jewish state, an Arab state, and an internationalised Jerusalem. The Jews were willing to accept this proposal; the Arabs rejected it, started a war intended to drive the Jews into the sea, and failed. (Had the Arabs accepted the proposal, there would be a Palestinian state consisting of the Gaza Strip extended northward along the coast to Ashdod and southward along the Egyptian border halfway to the Gulf of Aqaba, an expanded West Bank surrounding Jerusalem and connecting to Gaza at a quadripoint, an area on the northern coast and Lebanese border extending to Acre and Nazareth and connecting to the West Bank at a quadripoint, and an exclave at Jaffa. They would also have a slight majority of the land area north of the 31st parallel, south of which is the Negev desert.)

Of course! But you'd also have to launch mass prosecutions for anyone in the Israeli government who supported the illegal settlements or the military action in Gaza. You'd also have to take every single Israeli who supported the ethnic cleansing of Gaza or otherwise held racist views towards the Palestinians and put them through some re-education, but if there's real accountability and progress I'm confident you could have peace between the two populations.

So your proposal would involve both sides receiving remedial 'things they should have learned in kindergarten' lessons? You are at least more reasonable than the Ideology Which Refuses To Be Named....

I don't care about pre-1967 Israeli territory - why do you think that the perpetrators of the Deir Yassin massacre should be rewarded?

Because they didn't start the war.

I was under the impression that you're opposed to taking territory through violence!

If someone gains territory in a war that they started, that incentivises further aggression. If someone loses territory in a war that they started, however....

A single state solution definitively repudiates the idea that claiming territory via force of arms is acceptable.

Unfortunately, it also leaves the Jewish people, with their long history of persecutions and expulsions, a minority in every state in the world, and thus making their survival (at least in the age of modern passport and immigration controls) dependent on whether the Nations are feeling generous that day; the example of the MS St Louis makes that a non-starter.

If other countries were to open their borders, a one-state solution might become feasible.