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It's not technically culture war, but Hamas has just attacked Israel en-masse, overwhelming the Iron Dome with 5000 rockets and even sending raiding parties into Israel. It looks like Haman and/or Shabak haven't done their job at all, and Israel has been caught with its pants down.
For the culture war angle, I think the biggest question is of retribution. On one hand, Israeli public will now demand a reaction that makes the ongoing Hamas attack pale in comparison. On the other hand, what can Israel do to a very densely populated Gaza strip that won't be branded as a war crime or ethnic cleansing?
The thing that's gotten me the most is the cheering crowds in the UK who have zero fear of being arrested on "hate speech" charges (unlike anyone who criticizes them), and the academics justifying it saying "Postcolonial, anticolonial, and decolonial are not just words you heard in your EDI workshop," with reminders that they're going to do it to Americans next
It's endless: Dartmouth, Berkeley, Columbia, CUNY, journal editors, professors, HR bureaucrats, the entire blue ecosystem all cheering rape and torture and kidnapping and screaming that my children are next with no fear of any consequences. Armed american terrorist groups who get hagiographies from NPR accusing anyone opposed to massacring children of being pearl clutching racists.
Random union twitter accounts posting "Palestine is rising, long live the resistance🌹" as if it was the most natural thing in the world for them to be doing, while the DSA organizes to support the attacks.
Spend an hour reading the "decolonization" tag. They are telling you what they are, and like Noah Smith I am getting "sort of negatively polarized against these people."
It feels less like masks dropping than like it happened so suddenly that everyone forgot to put their masks on in the first place. The Bataclan attack and European truck massacres developed slowly enough that people could adopt effective strategies: /r/news managed to delete all mention of the attacks for an entire day, and by the time it was acknowledged to have happened the party line was "this awful event had nothing to do with any cause we support."
Now we're just getting the raw unfiltered reactions, just like the combat footage, and we see what the real intentions are.
I’m not sure I believe in Noah’s takes right now. Though I do think he’s correct in “sort of negatively polarized”. That stuff I think really helps Trump being the main factor. We will end up having a close election and these fringy parts of the Dem coalition will turn off voters.
But his end of Pax Romana take seems off to me.
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/youre-not-going-to-like-what-comes
This is definitely possible. And one reason I support the Ukraine War. But I still think this is more in the column of “potential” and probably <50%. These Hamas attacks are not it. It’s so far more like 9/11 and the best reason for it seems to be to break the Saudi-Israel growing alliance. His main point for the end of the Pax Romana is China’s growing might. Concerning but I still tend to think they will try and fit in the system.
I think the bigger issue is internal fracturing of America harming our ability to act.
Why?
What possible motivation could the Chinese have to support the Pax Americana? They have been talking loudly for decades about the need to shift to a multipolar world and the replacement of the current system. They are explicitly allied with Russia in order to destroy the current system, and they have been working on projects to take the place of the current system for decades.
Pax Americana has worked out really well for China so far. Maybe they like getting richer and richer in the current system.
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