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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 14, 2026

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Think about your nearest urban center. Then think about how it would look if 80% of spaces in it contained at least one valid target. A weapons cache in every mailbox.

There isn't much single family housing in Gaza. I'd expect almost every apartment building to have a cache or combatant in it, yes.

Each store clerk a combatant

This is pretty much true IMO. People vastly underestimate the popularity of Hamas and terrorism amongst Palestinians. Plus, how is this store being stocked? By Hamas handouts from what they get from NGOs. There is no domestic production of good in Gaza so the only way you can run a store is if you are cozy with Hamas, you probably let them store weapons in the larder from time to time and fund their operations with your sales as well through kickbacks and bribes, otherwise they cut you and find a new store owner that plays ball.

Multiply this over the ~100 km2 controlled by Hamas. Would it look like the pictures?

I was, charitably to myself, excluding the already destroyed/abandoned parts, and I guess the camps where people are frisked before going in.

See, that 1% makes a big difference. Americans have the privilege of being choosy about our involvement. Support for Palestine is almost entirely predicted on whether one thinks the collateral damage is avoidable.

I dont think it is, but this also isn't about being picky about involvement, if America and Europe went to true neutral status Israel would be significantly worse off WRT to America, and slightly better off WRT Europe, but Gaza would just die on their own without Israel having to do anything. You have to be actively pro-Gaza to get to this point!