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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   29326 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 2023

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Another factor Netanyahu will have to consider is his goal of rapprochement between Israel and a bunch of more despotic and American aligned Arab countries. A bloody ground war and occupation would kill such goals for many years to come

I think you underestimate the sheer venality and corruption of these puppet Arab regimes.

If the escalation continues, I think the Israeli politics will change beyond recognition in the near future. For some decades now the OG-European-Labour-Zionist-Secular elite of the country totally lost its grasp on democratic majorities but have been holding on to power through risky political shenanigans. Their preferred approach to the Arab problem has clearly failed. While they were in no way bastions of humanism towards Arabs, these people still represented much more Western instincts about what is acceptable to do against your enemy. At least they were careful that when they felt atrocities were necessary, they worked well on the Western PR. Things might get much uglier very fast in the near term.

The rise of Israeli religious-right is demographic and structural. I doubt this event will have any real bearing on political trends over the long-term. Besides, many of the seculars are just as hawkish on security matters even if they are better at optics.

I think you underestimate the sheer venality and corruption of these puppet Arab regimes.

Immovable object and unstoppable force clashes. The corruption of Arab regimes vs the Jew hate of their populations.

I doubt this event will have any real bearing on political trends over the long-term.

I actually think it might. The fears of a coup by the IDF/Mossad elite was always a limiting factor in the judicial overhaul ambitions of Netanyahu. Now the protests are going to be stopped for the foreseeable future and the army/intelligence extremely busy fighting a war under the command of Netanyahu. He has to win only once and break the institutional power of the old guard and it will be gone forever. Israel will be a forever changed country. He will have plenty opportunities now. So much so that a significant proportion of the people that I have sent "bro are you okay" messages yesterday eventually confessed to me they suspect some Netanyahu conspiracy about yesterday's events. Of course I don't agree with this take much, and I think this mindset is due to the omnipotency narrative the average Israeli has convinced himself about IDF/Mossad, and they reflexively do not want to even contemplate these institutions genuinely failing.

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