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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   26694 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 23, 2026

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No specific news item for this culture war post, but perusing the comments on the various Iran war takes, I'm consistently baffled by people's attitudes towards Israel that I think are willfully uncharitable and blind to the history of the Middle East in general.

  1. First, there's this idea that Israel is the primary/principle cause of all instability in the region, and that if we suddenly removed all the Jews and gave back the land to the Palestinians, we would have peace. This is absurd. The violence in Lebanon between shiites/sunnis/christians, the question of the Kurds, and the Sunni/Shiite Cold (I guess hot now) war are all conflicts that have their origins long before the founding of Israel. Heck if Israel wasn't there to focus hatred on, the Arabs would probably fight among themselves even more.

  2. Secondly, it's extremely impractical, if not impossible to remove 6 million Jews from land they've now lived on for (at least) three generations. A second Nakba to correct for the first Nakba doesn't exactly seem just to me, and it's not like many of those Jews can actually go back to where they were from before emigrating to Israel. The Arab countries forcibly expelled all Sephardic Jews in 1948 after Israel won its independence (also weird how this was totally okay but Israel actions during the 1948 war are "genocide" or "ethnic cleansing". Israel also hasn't actually lost a war yet, and they won in 1948 without any outside help except for some weapons for the Czech Republic, so this would be an extremely hard sell to a population that really doesn't want to leave.

  3. Thirdly, it's not like Israel hasn't tried to find a peaceful solution to the Palestine question or with its neighbors. Rabin actually signed the Oslo accords (before he was assassinated) and it looked like the Palestinians would be able to move towards self governance. Unfortunately, every government the Palestinians have elected have made it their central platform to destroy Israel, so it's somewhat logical that Israel decided that they couldn't self-govern (similar logic to why Israel and Iran are fighting). When I was living in Israel in the summer of 2019 (not a Jew, just doing research), it looked this might be changing, but unfortunately October 2023 changed all that. In terms of its Arab neighbors, Israel has repeatedly given up territory for peace. Of course unfortunately neither Jordan nor Egypt want the West Bank/Gaza (and also refuse to treat second, third and even fourth generation Palestinian refuges as citizens).

  4. Fourthly, there's a (somewhat true) idea that Israel has an outsized influence in US politics. But the US also has an extremely outsized influence in Israeli politics. Up until the mid 1970s, Israel was heavily socialist country that had far more ties to the Soviet Union than the US wanted. Market liberalization similar to what happened under Reagen/Thatcher destroyed the Israeli Kibbutz system economically (among other things, I have a very long essay on my blog about this) that completely destroyed the Israeli left. Netenyahu is the logical result of this.

  5. Fifthly, the claims of Israeli genocide in Gaza seem to be greatly exaggerated and very selective when it comes to comparisons of other actual genocides going on in the world right now (Sudan). I've been hearing claims of genocide for at least ten years now, but somehow there are more Palestinians in Gaza now than there were then? If the Israelis are trying to genocide the Palestinians they're clearly not very good at it (might be more effective to give out birth control). Claims of apartheid are more fair, but are no different from how Palestinians are treated in Arab countries. Why the special criticism of Israel?

Maybe making a Jewish state in the Middle East wasn't a great idea. So what? We live in the world where that's been the case for nearly 80 years and it's not going away without another ethnic cleansing. Israel does cause a lot of chaos and conflict in the region, but 90% is in direct response to its neighbors wanting to destroy it and kill its entire population. Why is the answer to somehow endorse that, rather than admit that maybe its time for the Palestinians to give up claims to land they haven't lived on since WW2, and the population of the Middle East to accept (as their leaders by and large have) that Israel is here to stay.

Secondly, it's extremely impractical, if not impossible to remove 6 million Jews from land they've now lived on for (at least) three generations.

Is it? The Israelis didn't seem to have much problem expelling the Palestinians from land they had inhabited for much longer.

The Palestinians left on the promise the Arabs would kill all the Jews and then they'd go back. Didn't work out so well. I don't see Israeli Jews falling for that.

This is one of those claims that not only conflicts with the facts on the ground but doesn't even really make sense on its face. Why would they need to leave for the "Arabs" (are Palestinians and Arabs different population now?) to kill the Jews? Wouldn't they stick around, participate in the genocide and partake of the loot?

If you're going to fire the halo rings it's better to be in a shield world.

Because no-one wants to get stuck in the middle of a war zone. Same reason there were refugee columns out of Belgium and northern France during the early days of WWI.

(are Palestinians and Arabs different population now?)

Non-Israeli Palestinians seem to be a generally hated (by other Arabs as well as by Israeli Jews) subpopulation of Arabs.

Well they aren't very productive citizens.

They produced a lot of unrest in Jordan and Egypt.

Don't forget Lebanon. The whole mess in the 1980s was caused by Palestinians.

You can describe any war refugee exodus like this. Most of Mariupol's population evacuated due to the war. Zelenskyy keeps talking about retaking Ukrainia territory. Does this mean that the refugees left on the promise that the Ukrainian army would kill all the Russians and then they'd go back?

More likely the refugees left on the grounds that whether the Ukranians ever recovered Mariupol or not, they'd be better off in Ukranian-controlled territory than Russian.

Arguably true for Palestinian refugees as well. There was no way to tell ahead of time that the Arabs remaining in territory conquered in 1948 would (eventually) be granted full citizenship in the State of Israel, but that Arabs remaining in territory conquered in 1967 would live the rest of their lives under military occupation or blockaded rump states.

That is not why they left.

A couple factors that make it much more difficult

  1. Israelis have the bomb.
  2. 6 million is a lot more than 750k, especially when almost every single person has significant military experience.
  3. Who's gonna do it? The Arabs? They've never won a war against the state of Israel. The West? Good luck dealing with the optics of destroying the only functional government in the Middle East to appease some Blue-haired leftists and Neo-nazis.

Israelis have the bomb.

6 million is a lot more than 750k, especially when almost every single person has significant military experience.

So did South Africa.

Who's gonna do it?

The US after the 2028 or 2032 election at the hands of an AOC, Mamdani, or Fuentes-like figure.

Imagine that instead of American carriers providing protection to Israel they instead imposed a Gaza-style blockade. Imagine that instead of paying Israel's neighbors to play nice they were instead paid to keep their borders closed. Imagine if the cargo planes full of munitions went to Israel's enemies instead. Imagine if, instead of providing veto protection from the UN, the US were a hostile force, imposing international sanctions and embargoes. Now imagine that an exception is made for outbound flights from Ben Gurion airport, so that Israeli Jews always have a golden bridge to escape across.

How long do you imagine Israel would last under such conditions? My guess is about a month.

How long do you imagine Israel would last under such conditions? My guess is about a month.

I'm pretty confident that the answer is "indefinitely." I think that Israel-haters don't really understand or appreciate what Israel could accomplish if its gloves came off.

Considerably longer than a month out of a combination of bloody-mindedness and their neighbors being incompetent at warfare

Getting the Jews to leave would be difficult. But the logistics of leaving would be trivial. But might makes right. They wanted their historical homeland. And to be honest most of the elites in the ME now like the Jews and find them as useful allies.

For Jewish wealth and ability to expand as a tribe there are likely better places for them to be. They could probably find better land in S America. Argentina doesn’t seem overpopulated. And legally their is an interesting provision in the Argentina constitution that would basically guarantee the right of Israel en masse to immigrate: Article 25 “The Federal Government shall encourage [or foster] European immigration; and it may not restrict, limit, or burden with any tax whatsoever the entry into Argentine territory of foreigners whose purpose is tilling the soil, improving industries, and introducing and teaching the sciences and the arts.”

European and good at science you say?

It would be much easier to find a place in Argentina to grow Israel to 50m people than in Israel.

European and good at science you say?

Among Israeli Jews, 45% are Mizrahi, who are about as European as the Arabs are. I'd hazard a guess that if I conducted a survey in which I showed respondents a photo of a Mizrahi Jew and a Palestinian Arab without telling them which was which, people would perform no better than chance at identifying them. 3% of Israeli Jews are Ethiopian. Less than half are Ashkenazi or Russian.

The idea that the Israel-Palestine conflict reduces to anything as simple as "white settler-colonialists oppressing brown people" is a ludicrous fantasy.

Correct. Sometimes we forgot that not all Jews are Ashkenazi. In America and in global affairs it’s always an Ashkenazi.

European and good at science you say?

"Israelis are European" is more a slur by leftists than it is truth.

It's funny because, arguably, the winning left-wing critique is that Israelis act like Middle-Easterners, which is unacceptable for a Western nation.

I though all DNA test on specifically Ashkenazi have shown 50% European DNA and they lived in Europe or Russia for the past 1000 years.

Calling them European would seem to be significantly factually correct. We aren’t going back to the old days where truth telling is a slur or racists.

But Ashkenazim are not a majority, or indeed plurality, of Israeli Jews.

Most recently study I see - Israel was 44% Ashkenazi and 8% mixed. So about half and shrinking. They were the founders and basically until today the only ones that matter in the country.

The Nakba is estimated to have expelled 750k Palestinians from their land i.e. 7.4% of the current total population of Israel. From a purely pragmatic, logistical perspective, expelling 10 million people is going to be a lot harder than expelling 750k people.

Also, rather importantly, the Nakba was (for the most part, albeit this is controversial) Palestinians fleeing their homes willingly because of the war, and then later being refused right of return after Israel's victory.

It is a lot messier to force people out of their homes when they do not wish to leave of their own volition.

There were some high profile massacres to, um, encourage, the others to leave. Terrorism, basically.

If America wished it would be absolutely trivial to make Israel a country in which nobody would ever want to live.

Is it? The Israelis didn't seem to have much problem expelling the Palestinians from land they had inhabited for much longer.

There is a myth that Palestinian Arabs are some kind of ancient people who was in the area for a long time. In reality, the majority of Palestinian Arabs are descendants of people who immigrated to modern day Israel from other parts of the Ottoman Empire. In large part due to economic activity spurred by early Zionists. That's why so many Palestinian Arabs have names like "Al-Masri" which means "Egyptian"

As far as expulsions go, those were limited to a few key areas. Which is why to this day Israel has a substantial Arab minority.

In any event, I think that by "impractical," what was meant that (1) the Jews in Israel will never voluntarily agree to it; and (2) they are sufficiently strong militarily that as a practical matter nobody can make them do it.

Palestinians have 2x the proportion of ancient Levantine DNA as Ashkenazi (European) Jews, who make up most of the Israeli population

Palestinians have 2x the proportion of ancient Levantine DNA as Ashkenazi (European) Jews,

The Levant includes all or part of Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Syria, and Turkey. This area was all part of the Ottoman Empire in the late 1800s. So even if Palestinian Arabs have 100% Levantine DNA, it doesn't contradict my point: Most of the Palestinian Arabs moved to what's now Israel from other parts of the Ottoman Empire around the time of the early days of Zionism. That's why it's very common for them to have names like "Al-Masri" which means "Egypt."

who make up most of the Israeli population

I think this is inaccurate, I am pretty sure that Ashkenazim are a minority. I certainly agree that Ashkenazim lived in Europe for many generations before returning to Israel.

But the point is that the Palestinian Arabs are not some ancient people who has lived in the area of Israel since time immemorial. Rather, they are one of many many groups. The area has been conquered, invaded, settled, annexed, and lost probably dozens of times over the last few thousand years.

returning to Israel

So you're saying that the Eastern Euro Jews originated from Israel? Is there evidence for this?

Modern DNA studies strongly suggest that Ashkenazi Jews are descended patrilineally from Levantine Jews and matrilineally from Italians, likely local Roman women who were converted to Judaism by Jewish merchants and other emigrants from Palestine in the final centuries of the Western Roman Empire.

After the Empire collapsed they slowly migrated north, into Frankish lands, then the Rhineland, then slowly eastward over the following millennium, but there was relatively little intermarriage with natives through this time (or rather if and when there was, those people left the tribe and assimilated into the local gentile society). Modern ‘pure’ Ashkenazim (meaning those who don’t have recent non-Jewish ancestry due to intermarriage over the last 100 years or so, as many eg ex-Soviet Jews do) who have a Jewish mother and Jewish father tend to have little or no Slavic ancestry for this reason, even if their ancestors spent 500+ years in Slavic lands.

So you're saying that the Eastern Euro Jews originated from Israel? Is there evidence for this?

Yes. Are you seriously skeptical that such evidence exists?

Yes! I was asking genuinely. I did not know this. For most Russian Jews I know, they have Russian ancestors too.

Yes! I was asking genuinely. I did not know this. For most Russian Jews I know, they have Russian ancestors too.

The evidence I am aware of is follows:

  1. Oral and written tradition says that Jews originated from the land of Israel. In fact, the word "Jewish" comes from "Judea."

  2. Modern DNA evidence which connects Eastern European Jews to other groups of Jews such as Mizrachi and Sephardi. If all Jewish groups are connected, it's reasonable to conclude that there is a common place of origin.

  3. Modern DNA evidence (apparently) says that Eastern European Jews have some degree of Levantine genes. Again, the reasonable conclusion is that Israel is the source.

To be sure, it's pretty obvious that the various groups of Jews have admixture from other areas. Just looking, you can tell that European Jews look more European than Sephardi or Mizrachi or Ethiopian Jews.

Ashkenazi (European) Jews, who make up most of the Israeli population

Untrue. Ashkenazi Jews only make up 32% of Israeli Jews, or 23% of Israel's population. The single biggest Jewish demographic in Israel are the Mizrahi Jews, representing 45% of Israeli Jews or 33% of the population of the country.

Okay but isn't the categorization used here... pretty odd? It differentiates Ashkenazim from "Soviet Jews", who presumably are either Ashkenazi or even more European, and it doesn't appear to differentiate Sephardim from Mizrahim, even though Sephardim (afaik?) are also quite European in ancestry. Also, some of those in the "Mixed" category would presumably be, like, Ashkenazim/"Soviet" mixed, if these are really the categories used.

I wouldn't differentiate the two. My bet is the "Soviet Jews" here are genetically quite similar to the Ashkenazim.

It's more of a chronological categorisation than an ethnic one. Ashkenazim who emigrated to Israel around 1948 would presumably have a lot of ancestry in common with Russian Jews, but the Russian Jews are mostly those who emigrated from the USSR in a large influx around 1989. Because of this, they're a distinct cohort in terms of culture, language and history, if not ethnicity.

It is surprising that they don't mention Sephardim etc. anywhere in the article. Maybe there really aren't that many of them?

The majority of Israeli Jews are Mizrahi, not Ashkenazi.

I believe there is a theory that Palestinians are the Jews who were bad at reading. Judaism requires a large amount of reading sacred text so the ones who were bad at reading left the tribe. NYC folks and West Virginia folks dislike each other so the conflict makes sense.

But New Yorkers and the red tribe elite also dislike each other- indeed far more than thé red tribe elite and hillbillies.

Palestinian Christians in particular (a genetically-distinct subpopulation of Palestinians) are the closest DNA match to ~2nd century Galilean DNA according to Global25 Coordinates.

Only a tiny minority of Palestinians are Christians. Its why its so disingenuous when rightists show the far below 1% tiny minority of Gazan Christians as somehow central figures and victims in that conflict. The truth is that Arab Christians have been fleeing the Levant for the West since the 1800s, long, long, long before Israel’s founding, and largely fleeing persecution by people of the same faith as 99% of modern day Palestinians.

Describing Palestinian Christians as central victims of Israel is like saying the primary victims of Israel and America’s bombing of current day Iran are Iranian Jews.

My understanding is that Palestinian Christians are so rare as to be irrelevant, save occasionally when used as a propaganda tool, and are generally even worse off than Muslim Palestinians.

By contrast, Arab Christian Israelis are, I believe, the most successful non-Jewish group in Israel? It's not a paradise for them either, but they are doing pretty well by regional standards.

Palestinian Christians and Israeli Christians are both essentially thé economic elites of their local Arab communities. They’re not ‘worse off’ in a meaningful way.

I'm not an expert, but my sense was that there are various forms of low-level discrimination in Israel? It's not particularly bad, especially considering the region, and there's the joke that Arab Christians are 'the Jews of Israel' (i.e. a highly-educated over-achieving minority), but if the question is just "is it worse to be an Israeli Christian than an Israeli Jew?", the answer is yes.

Only being 2x a bunch of random European Ashkenazis seems less than expected

The proportions are quite high (80% vs. 40%)

I gotta ask, do you honestly expect this to be even slightly convincing to anyone who isn't already on board? You sound like every denier who has ever had to justify something unjustifiable.

And, if you wanna go for right makes right morality, then surely you'll be perfectly fine if one day the shoe is on the other foot and the Palestinians achieve military supremacy?

And, if you wanna go for right makes right morality, then surely you'll be perfectly fine if one day the shoe is on the other foot and the Palestinians achieve military supremacy?

Call of hypocrisy go both ways, if this comes to pass surely you likewise would be outraged if the Palestinians expelled the jews or had a legal system that treated them differently to the Palestinians?

Yeah, of course I would.

This might come as a shock to you but my stance against ethnic cleansing is principled. I am not a conflict theorist on this issue. It is the thing itself I take issue with, not merely that it is being done to the wrong people.

then surely you'll be perfectly fine if one day the shoe is on the other foot and the Palestinians achieve military supremacy?

If the Palestinians have the whip hand they will rape, torture, dispossess and genocide the Jews regardless of anything Israel has or hasn’t done at any point since its founding. They did this before Israel, they will do it after it.

They did this before Israel, they will do it after it.

???

My understanding is that the Jewish population of Palestine was small before the Zionist movement, and relations with their Muslim and Christian neighbors were not particularly problematic.

I am referring more generally to the long history of persecution in Muslim lands. You’re right that for most of the last 500 years the population of Palestine was very low. It’s also why I don’t really entertain claims the the Jews are “native” to the land, this is a cheap and halfhearted Zionist comeback - Israelis should be proud of being settler colonialists, like many great historical peoples.

if one day the shoe is on the other foot and the Palestinians achieve military supremacy?

I'll believe it when I see it.

the Palestinians achieve military supremacy?

They'd have to have more schools than weapons depots, and maybe not rip out water mains installed by bleeding hearts to convert into weapons.

Flying pigs will convert to Judaism first.

I gotta ask, do you honestly expect this to be even slightly convincing to anyone who isn't already on board?

Yes. But I think what you are asking is whether I expect to convince anyone who is an Israel-hater. The answer to that is "no."

then surely you'll be perfectly fine if one day the shoe is on the other foot and the Palestinians achieve military supremacy?

Apparently you are not aware that the Arabs (this was before "Palestinians" were invented) expelled the Jews from Gaza City, Hebron, and many other places. And, as a supporter of Israel, I would have been okay with letting it go if they had stopped there instead of trying to wipe out all of Israel.

But in any event, to answer your question, if (1) the Palestinian Arabs achieved military supremacy; and (2) there was a Jewish minority in or near "Palestine" that constantly engaged in aggression and terrorism with the idea of wiping out all the Palestinian Arabs; then (3) those Arabs would be justified in expelling that portion of the Jewish minority that was causing problems, justified in occupying Jewish territory for defensive purposes, etc.

Well, I'm glad you admitted to being in favor of ethnic cleansing at least.

"Ethnic cleansing" plus 50 years is just a normal border.

Well, I'm glad you admitted to being in favor of ethnic cleansing at least.

I think it would be more fair to say that I'm not categorically opposed to ethnic cleansing. As another poster pointed out, there are scenarios where it is the least bad option.

Perhaps more importantly, if there was an ethnic cleansing at some point in the past, I don't necessarily believe that there is a categorical imperative to undo it.

Are there no circumstances where something like ethnic cleansing is not the least bad option? I think I'm in favor of ethnic cleansing the same way I am in favor of abortion.

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