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Notes -
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.
There are some elements of this. Israel occasionally does shitty/illiberal stuff that isn't widely publicized. There's a specific flavor for these activities. They're all too complex to explain in a tweet, so the masses of lefty Palestinian propagandists can't describe them effectively and Israel "gets away with it".
That being said, it still pales in comparison to the absurdly violent and irrational behavior of Palestine. All it really does is prove that the whole situation does retain some elements of ambiguity and moral greyness.
I can see how this could be an effective strategy on the part of the Israelis, but The Motte seems like an ideal place to pick a few choice anecdotes in a longer form to sway readers. I, at least, would be interested in reading a few examples.
Conversely, appealing to an amorphous blob of never-enumerated misbehaviors is also a fairly common media strategy (see "X is problematic" in recent years).
Is it not rational to assume that any state actor will make missteps, especially in a highly-contentious area like the middle east? I'm not going to go on a deep fact-finding mission with rich sources but:
Slaps on the wrist for IDF soldiers committing (in my mind) significant offenses.
Disproportionate retaliation during conflicts where palestinian losses are 1-2 orders of magnitude greater and include non-combatants. I seem to recall a cycle of violence where ~ 20 israeli soldiers were killed vs 2,000 palestinian deaths (mostly combatants, some civvies).
General discrimination and tiered citizenship for arab citizens, with a lot of complex court and legal wrangling to justify additional settlements or evict arabs.
You can push away 1 by saying "well every armed conflict has some psychos in it". Item 2: the indiscriminate (being extremely charitable) targeting of israeli civilians by palestine justifies a great K/D, plus Israel can't help having an effective military. Number 3 can be excused by pointing out that a lot of these racist policies are extremely effective at preventing terrorism.
These are pragmatic approaches for a state surrounded by various actors who want them wiped off the planet, sure. What you can't say is that any of these things could be classified as a liberal policy.
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