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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32801 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023

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So I was doing some reading on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. I was vaguely pro-Israel before with disclaimers on how both sides are bad (like most others here I presume), but I just felt more and more pro-Israel the deeper I read (I'm not trying to astroturf, this is my true feelings on the matter). The Israeli demands during the 2000 Camp David Summit seem reasonable. The Palestinian leadership seem weirdly comfortable with ridiculous conspiracy theories about Israel trying to undermine the Al-Aqsa Mosque etc. The ban on non-Muslims from the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the ban on non-Muslim prayer on the Temple Mount, are both reprehensible. Every nook I look into, it seems like I support the Israeli side and the "both sides are bad" cases that I expected to find is largely missing.

Has anyone else had the experience of their position markedly shifting as the read up on the issue? Are the Israelis just better than PR, cunningly doing bad things to the Palestinian side under the radar, while counting on that the Palestinian reaction will be performed with much worse optics? What's the best moderate Palestinian take on an acceptable solution for a workable two-state solution?

Also, what are your predictions for the evolution of the conflict. Say that the year is 2043 and condition on no end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it: what does the conflict look like then? It seems unlikely to cool anytime soon, and the long run seems like a race between Palestinian demographics and Israeli economy, where I think Israel has the upper hand, especially if they are liberal with technological mass surveillance.

Given that, the only solution where the Arab residents of that land get to enjoy the benefits of being citizens of a liberal democracy, is that they are citizens of a liberal democracy jointly with the people who encircle them on all sides. And that means a one-state solution.

This seems totally unworkable to me. Why aren't you addressing the glaring counterargument: This would make Jews a minority with a high likelihood of mistreatment ("it can work pretty well" is hardly reassuring)?

You admit Israel holds all the cards here, so, uh, why should they do this as opposed to their current strategy of ‘ethnically cleansing the Palestinians just slowly enough that their western backers can pretend not to notice’? There’s nothing in it for them.

That currently the Arabs are the (bare) majority (still, I think?) of the whole territory with an evident reality of mistreatment?

So you're making some kind of platonic case: It would be better for the Arab majority to mistreat the Jewish minority that the current situation where the Jews mistreat the Arabs? Even if that's true in some platonic sense, it's still unworkable, the Jewish side will never agree to become the mistreated minority because of pure platonic reasoning.

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