site banner

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 26, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

3
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Can someone explain the ongoing crisis in Israel? I have trouble making sense of it.

From what I see described online the leftwing (broadly defined) has made a series of anti-democratic grabs for power through the judiciary since the 90s through abusing the mess that is Israel's legal system.

The rightwing, now dominated by a combination of far rightists and religious extremists are unhappy about this and seeks to curtail the supreme court's ability to prevent legislation from happening based on shit all. The opposition to how the judiciary operates is broader than the current coalition in power but due to polarisation people can't agree on what should be done.

This makes everyone very mad. Both sides sees the conflict as existential and widespread protests are now happening.

The reform by itself isn't really bad on an object level, the issue is that Bibi is a piece of shit and parts of his coalition are extremists and people fear what they might do with the democratic mandate they've won.

People are so hysterical that I have trouble making sense of this and would appreciate for someone more in the know to add context and correct me where necessary. I'm open to having completely misunderstood this.

A slaps B

B slaps A

A slaps B

... Repeat a gazillion times. A and B, both kinda suck in their own sucky ways.

That's an extremely rudimentary but useful model of the Israel-Palestine issue in a nutshell. You won't find any conclusion. You can spend a month going over every event in painstaking detail to arrive at the conclusion above.

I have personally given up trying to make sense of it, it's the culture war to end all culture wars, every explanation of an event I can read up on has 10 recursive yet alternating asterisks about it's actually just propaganda.

The current dispute in Israel is about Netanyahu's proposed judicial reform. It has nothing to do with the Palestinian conflict.

Yeah I figured, I was out of the loop

I'm not wondering about Israel Palestine.