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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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
I don’t think it would be kumbayh in the Middle East if Israel suddenly disappeared, but historically the most common political arrangement in the Arab world is for there to be a large caliphate or empire dominating the region. Geographically, Israel splits the Arab world in two, preventing such an entity from forming. It might be good for the current great powers to keep the Arabs from coalescing into a single world power, but it does increase regional instability.
You’re right that Israel is not committing a genocide. I do think it’s apartheid though. Maybe apartheid is okay in certain circumstances (ending it didn’t work out particularly well for white South Africans), but this is not a political system that is typically tolerated in the civilized world. Something like the Gaza War would have happened if one of the apartheid-era bantustans had openly declared war on White South Africa.
I think there is an option for South Africa-style Truth and Reconciliation. It would be difficult after October 7 and the Gaza War, but I think it is still possible. Israelis don’t want to do this, for understandable reasons, but they could if they collectively wanted to.
Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination didn’t fall out of a coconut tree. He was killed by an Israeli for the explicit reason that he was willing to make peace with the Palestinians and hand over occupied land to them. This and the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre by Baruch Goldstein were massive escalations by Israeli extremists to torpedo the peace process.
I was a lot more sympathetic to Israel as an ethnostate proof-of-concept before they dragged my country into a major war. There is a criticism of ethnonationalism that since every ethnic group considers itself God’s gift to humanity, ethnostates will be especially prone to lash-out and start wars when they don’t get the respect they think they deserve. Israel has spectacularly failed to disprove this criticism.
I have found that in discussions of Israel, those who criticize Israel are reluctant to define terms like "apartheid." I think the reason for this is that it's not possible to define these sorts of terms broadly enough so that they apply to Israel while at the same time narrowly enough so that they don't apply to large numbers of other countries.
Would you be willing to provide a definition? Given your (tentative?) conclusion that Israel is an apartheid state, I think it's reasonable that you should explain what you mean by "apartheid."
Looking at the map, I would have to disagree. Israel is on the very edge of the Levant. Besides, in 1947 pretty much the entire Arab world was united against Israel and pan-Arabism fizzled out. If they are not able to unite with a clear common enemy, it's difficult to see how they would unite without one.
I'm curious how am apartheid definition could be applied to other countries/what other countries you have in mind, so I'll bite for your trap.
To establish a baseline:
"Apartheid (meaning "separateness" in Afrikaans) was a legally enforced system of institutionalized racial segregation and discrimination.
I would consider the West Bank to be part of Israel. I don't really care about de jure "ownership" because Israel clearly control access to the West Bank and maintains a monopoly of force over it. Same with Gaza. If they successfully gave those areas away to Egypt/whoever, then it won't be Israeli land. But until then it is.
So why is it apartheid?
both people in Gaza and the West Bank are wildly unable to travel to various parts of Israel, or even within those territories (segregation).
they have absolutely 0 control over their governance or laws (discrimination).
not just geographically segregated from Israel at large, they are also economically discriminated against in terms of allowable employment, trade, etc. (segregation and discrimination).
I realize that Israeli settlements in the WB (and they used to do them in Gaza too!) don't really fit into an "apartheid" definition, but they pretty clearly demonstrate the power and rights disparity between the Israeli government and the people who live in WB/Gaza. The Israeli government keeps nibbling on the WB, creating more and more places where the people of the West Bank are not allowed to go (segregation AND discrimination).
Now, do I think they should just tear down all the walls and make one happy state? No. The Palestinians are nightmare neighbors. There's a reason Egypt doesn't want Gaza lmao. But the Palestinians can both be awful neighbors and still be subject to apartheid. Theyre partially awful neighbors BECAUSE of the apartheid.
I don't have a proposal to a turnkey solution, and frankly I think there's so much bad blood this will just... never end until one side or the other gets genuinely ethnically cleansed and this gets put to bed.
But I'm pretty happy calling this a form or derivative of apartheid!
Now spring your trap! What other countries can be grouped by this?
You can call a tail a leg, but that don't make it so.
If you consider the West Bank part of Israel (see above), then there are Israeli Jews who are ALSO unable to travel to various parts of Israel.
What would you call the WB then? It's obviously not a sovereign state, as it lacks... sovereignty.
I genuinely don't know what you're referring to here, but I'd love to know more?
It is occupied territory.
Israeli Jews are forbidden from entering Area A of the West Bank.
Okay so if I change my comment above to: "I would consider the West Bank to an occupied part of Israel. I don't really care about de jure "ownership" because Israel clearly control access to the West Bank and maintains a monopoly of force over it. "
I even said "I don't care about de jure ownership" and was focusing on effective control, which Israel clearly maintains over the area.
Why? I assume because there's a genuine fear of them getting lynched?
Idk if "the dominant power of the area doesn't let it's otherwise free citizens into that area because it's concerned they'll be mobbed by the people they're apartheid-ing" really proves its not apartheid.
I don't think anyone would have gone "oh in that case it's fine" if the south African government said "oh it's not apartheid, we don't let the whites into the ghettos either!"
No, it is not an occupied part of Israel; that would imply almost the opposite (e.g. South Lebanon is now an occupied part of Lebanon, not Israel). It is an occupied land for which no permanent sovereign exists, which is a strange state, certainly, but distinct from being part of Israel.
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