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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026

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Fundamentally Israel failed in Gaza. They couldn't ethnically cleanse it.

Israel ethnically cleansed Gaza in 2005; Gaza is pretty much ethnically spotless. If you mean genocide, say so.

"Failure" implies that ethnically cleansing it was their goal in the first place. Maybe both of the ulterior motives you claimed for their war in Gaza were just inaccurate?

Israel consistently claimed that their goals were to destroy Hamas and recover the Israeli hostages. For the last two and a half years you insisted that this was just window dressing, and their real goal was to engineer a massive refugee crisis on Europe's doorstep and/or ethnically cleanse Gaza of all Palestinians.

Your predicted refugee crisis never materialised, and millions of Palestinians still live in Gaza. Meanwhile, the majority of the hostages have been recovered, and Hamas has taken a severe beating. As a consequence, the war is winding down, consistent with Israel having achieved its stated aims.

Doesn't this strongly suggest that you were simply mistaken in your apprehension of Israel's real aims?