naraburns nihil supernum
7mo ago
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Israel-Gaza Megathread #1
This is a megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
I've long felt that something essential was lost from the post-WWII world when we decided to define riots, pogroms, ethnic cleaning and genocide as atrocities that the civilized world could never tolerate, rather than as social technologies that humanity developed to bring permanent resolutions to seemingly intractable problems.
One of the most edifying experiences of my youth was an academic assignment in the GWOT era, when we were instructed to pick a terrorist group and study its formation and evolution. I knew everyone else would pick something Islamic, so I decided to pick something else to stand out, and I settled on Sri Lanka. For about 33 years (1976 to 2009), Sri Lanka saw a brutal civil war between the majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils, where the two sides could be neatly demarcated into separate ethnicities, separate religions, and separate languages - not dissimilar to the Israel-Palestine conflict. The Tamils were represented by the LTTE, which was a terrorist organization and a separatist group seeking to carve out an ethnostate from Tamil-dominated regions of the country. But the LTTE was also a remarkably sophisticated pseudo-state; most terrorist organizations don't have their own navy, air force, or intelligence apparatus, which are all things that the LTTE put together during their war against the Sri Lankan state.
I won't rehash the disputes and grievances of the war, since they are predictable and your imagination can reliably fill in the details from what you know of other ethnic conflicts, including the one in Israel. All race wars are eventually the same. Long story short is that tens of thousands of people died on both sides, and numerous foreign actors including the US, Norway, India, the EU, and the UN tried to intervene and broker a peace, and the conflict settled into a cycle of atrocities->diplomacy->ceasefires->new atrocities->new diplomacy->new ceasefires, on and on. And then in late 2006, the Sri Lankan government essentially said "fuck this", and decided to wage concentrated, merciless, full-throated war against the Tamils. They brought out the kinds of heavy weapons that you usually reserve for wars against foreign states, and they used them without hesitation, and with very little regard for civilian-combatant distinctions. They killed and killed and killed until the LTTE was begging for a ceasefire, which they ignored, and then kept killing until the LTTE was ground into the dirt, their leadership massacred, their leaderships' families massacred, everything destroyed - until the LTTE had no capacity to fight or do anything anymore, at which point the Sri Lankans declared victory, and the war was over.
None of this was "legal" or "ethical" or "moral". Countless crimes against humanity were committed. But the war was over, and has shown no signs of returning in the almost 15 years since its conclusion. No more bombs in public places, no more midnight massacres on farms and villages, no more burning streets. What does it say of our enlightened modern era that two and a half years of bloodthirsty war did more to bring about peace than the preceding 30-something years of talking and diplomacy and give-peace-a-chance rigmarole?
I understand that it's difficult to convince Jews that genocide is the answer. But if Gaza had been erased from the world years ago, everyone from squalling infants to doddering grandfathers, you would not have this problem. We used to know these things - all the population transfers and ethnic cleaning that took place after World War I and World War II were done with the understanding that you cannot expect certain groups to coexist in the same space peacefully for long, and that an atrocity in the present may prevent a greater atrocity in the future. We pretend to know better now, and to what end? To keep money flowing to NGOs, and hand out peace prizes to each other?
I've long felt that something essential was lost from the post-WWII world when we decided to define riots, pogroms, ethnic cleaning and genocide as atrocities that the civilized world could never tolerate, rather than as social technologies that humanity developed to bring permanent resolutions to seemingly intractable problems.
There's good reason that Britain pacified Afghanistan in the 19th century with far weaker supply chains and less glaring technological disparities, while it and the rest of NATO left in the 21st with their tail tucked between their legs.
Violence is the voice of the unheard, but it's also a universal language. If you can't solve most problems with violence, you're not using enough, and quite often, or at least here, a more dispassionate analysis will show that a quick burst of brutal violence obviates the need for more down the line.
At any rate, I think Western countries are cowardly in large part because most of the wars they've fought of late don't matter, lacking the stakes of their populations being genocided or living conditions cratering.
I find it ironic that you prefer the Israeli way of doing things that excludes you while you want to migrate to the west which if it followed the logic you praise, would rightfully exclude you from it.
But your logic in favor of nationalist violence implies far more besides that. Lets just say your general stance is completely incoherent. Is nationalist violence good when the Israelis do it only, or do you secretly find the west stupid for not being more hostile to you? Although the implications of your rhetoric of more violence no problems raises far more negative implications about what global powers should do. Or even specific countries fearing a dismal fate for their people in the future. Or should have done in the past.
I don't actually agree but I do think enough force and hostility is needed against those who deserve it and to promote civilization and justice. But adoring violence as the solution is wrongheaded and leads to a world under fire and predation of inoccents. Which you show no concern to avoiding. Obviously not letting someone with your backstabbing mentality come to the west would be the sane course. And stopping mass migration of foreigners in general. Which is good in general. But say some white nationalist when India had no nukes wanting to nuke India because they sew it as a threat would be an extremely immoral conduct.
I fail to see any sincere philosophical appreciation for violence and tribalism here. Rather, you are sucking up to Jewish ultra-nationalism.
I find it ironic that you prefer the Israeli way of doing things that excludes you while you want to migrate to the west which if it followed the logic you praise, would rightfully exclude you from it.
Not in the least, since I intend to go through legal channels as about the most Westernized an Indian can get, contributing to a valuable profession, and generally being prosocial. My idle musings about my potential path to American citizenship, should it ever materialize, was met with almost unanimous approval from pretty much every side of the political compass, be it here or on Reddit.
Can you say the same for the typical Palestinian? Hardly.
Is nationalist violence good when the Israelis do it only, or do you secretly find the west stupid for not being more hostile to you?
Case by case please. Certainly no to the latter, since they would be turning down a win-win deal.
I fail to see any sincere philosophical appreciation for violence and tribalism here. Rather you are sucking up to Jewish nationalism.
Ah yes, you (might) have genuine appreciation for the Palestinian cause, I suck up to the Jews. Well, if Mossad wants to pay me, I'll take it, I'm circumcized for medical reasons, but close enough! I am hardly uncritical of the Jews as a whole, given that they formented much of Western Wokism despite it now biting them in the ass.
I made no claim to show "sincere philosophical appreciation for violence and tribalism" at all, so you're forgiven for missing it.
What I am saying is that I prefer the outcome of Israeli dominion and pacification of the contested territories, and I don't particularly care about how they go about it. I do not think violence is anti-sacred and verboten, it's just as fungible as most things are as far as I'm concerned. Tribalism? If you deny that Jews, even those in Israel, have contributed much more to the globe than all their neighbors put together, then sure, you can abuse the term.
Please try to look for more subtle arguments than those before you claim that support for a particular nation engaging in violence and "tribalism" extends to universal adulation of such. It all depends on the outcome.
Not in the least, since I intend to go through legal channels as about the most Westernized an Indian can get, contributing to a valuable profession, and generally being prosocial.
Why should I, as an American, give you the benefit of that doubt? Why shouldn't I just assume that you're some basket-weaver taking a shit on the streets of Calcutta, or fresh from participating in a gang rape in some rural village? There are over one billion Indians and I'd bet very few of them are pro-Western doctors. Why are you privileged to paint all Palestinians with a broad brush, but I'm not privileged to paint all Indians with a broad brush?
Why shouldn't I just assume that you're some basket-weaver taking a shit on the streets of Calcutta, or fresh from participating in a gang rape in some rural village?
Because that would be unnecessarily antagonistic, which is against the rules.
By way of explanation, I was trying to highlight the most uncharitable view of his countrymen that I could think of in order to illustrate a point. I tend to be pro-Israel, but the repeated calls on this board for treating every Gazan as a Hamas terrorist up to the point of advocating for summary execution without evidence or even requirement of specific wrongdoing based on the assumption that all of them are predisposed towards violence rubs me the wrong way. While I understand there's a difference between making broad statements about groups on the other side of the world and actually singling out individual posters, one of my problems with the more racist-leaning elements on this board is that advocating for certain policies is easy when you assume that only other people will be affected by them. I don't put @self_made_human into this category, nor do I assume he is of the character I alluded to. The comment certainly wasn't intended to offend, but I believe I have more contact with actual hoi polloi working-class conservatives than the average poster here, and I can assure you that the kind of people who take the position he's advocating for are the same kind of people who refuse to patronize gas stations owned by Indians and Pakistanis and complain about local Nepali refugees meditating on their lawns. Anyway, I apologize.
the repeated calls on this board for treating every Gazan as a Hamas terrorist up to the point of advocating for summary execution without evidence or even requirement of specific wrongdoing
Well, there are, uh, a lot of posts happening on this topic so I apologize if this sort of thing is genuinely slipping through. I don't see every comment that gets reported, and there are other moderators, but I, at least, have yet to see a single comment in the queue that meets this description, even though I've seen several comments in the queue claiming that this sentiment is being expressed here, somewhere.
(I don't doubt that some comments might be reasonably interpreted this way, but presentation matters. So long as no one explicitly says "all Gazans should be assumed terrorists and shot on sight," less direct claims like "I just don't see how Israel has clear options when it comes to clearly distinguishing between guilty Hamas and innocent Gazans, here" should be interpreted more charitably.)
(I also tend to object to people making sweeping characterizations of "this board" while themselves disclaiming such characterizations; you are not stuck in traffic, you are traffic. The way you've done it here is relatively mild, but still, I don't think it is beneficial for you, or anyone, to approach conversations here as me-against-the-Motte's-hivemind.)
I don't necessarily mind thought experiments that encourage people to put themselves in someone else's shoes, either, but still it would probably be best to not illustrate those thoughts in terms of the direct personal application of an unflattering stereotype of a user's professed identity.
For what it's worth, I think this comment from over the weekend, and its relative lack of pushback, is what may be leading people to believe that people are saying things like this.
You can give me whatever you like, it matters not in the least unless you're my immigration officer.
Besides, while I'm just as fond of rhetoric as the next person, I'm pretty certain you know that's not true.
And if it's not true, then I suggest you wait till evidence arises that I'm street-shitting in California and not Calcutta, though the former is a cherished pan-American tradition practised by junkies and hobos of any ethnicity. Surprising few Indians among them, to be sure, but if that's not additional reason to support Affirmative Action in immigration to mitigate disparities, what is?
You're missing the point. If you're advocating that Palestinians should be painted with a broad brush based on their worst stereotypes, then why shouldn't Indians be given the same treatment? Your argument presupposes I treat you as an individual, while you want to deny such treatment to any individual from Gaza.
Am I? I have very little outright animosity against a Palestinian who doesn't support Hamas, I think it's a shame they're caught up in the conflict. Yet clearly they're not numerous or vocal enough to be in charge, or they'd have chased them out of town after tarring and feathering them.
For what it's worth, I don't think Israeli reprisals are utterly indiscriminate, while innocents will be caught in the crossfire, I expect those who die to be selected from Hamas than their allies far more than a random sampling would expect. The friends and family being blown up with a Hamas terrorist are significantly more likely to be sympathizers. As for hospitals and schools, with a captive population, perhaps Hamas should reconsider stashing their ammunition there, in a calculated move to curry international favor when Israel blows them up.
Evidently that's enough for me to look the other way, or even cheer for the Israelis. I deny that your analogy works at all really.
Dude, you support mass murder and are praising a state that excludes you from it for its nationalism.
You are definitely a hypocrite.
Not in the least, since I intend to go through legal channels as about the most Westernized an Indian can get, contributing to a valuable profession, and generally being prosocial. My idle musings about my potential path to American citizenship, should it ever materialize, was met with almost unanimous approval from pretty much every side of the political compass, be it here or on Reddit.
You are an antiwestern racist who doesn't respect the native peoples human rights to national self determiantion and sovereignity and have said you would vote for the political party the democrats which is the most unhinged in said direction. Also, you are not part of the Western people you are replacing and making a minority in their own country but part of the colonization and discrimination. When you arrive to the USA you will benefit from discrimination in your favor and join the forces of discrimination against the natives. Which you are screwing by displacing and replacing in their own land.
Your migration is not the same as small migration from and towards a country that respects it self, and is sustainble, but part of colonization.
The Israelis care about numbers and not being overwhelmed by foreign ethnic groups and you praise them for it. Why? Because you are hypocritical.
Ah yes, you (might) have genuine appreciation for the Palestinian cause, I suck up to the Jews.
I show no bias in favor of the Palestinians by opposing mass murder and foreign occupation. I attacked the Palestinians for having a muslim fanatical imperialist mentality, actually. I dislike both Hamas, have a negative view about the fanaticism of Muslims in general, and dislike Israel, have a negative view of Jewish fanaticism in general. I am very much willing to condemn different factions. I complained about historical nazis, I complained about the groups I mentioned, I oppose those with a pushover mentality and I oppose those who are fanatical violent racist supremacists for foreign groups too. Or even for their own.
Its like there is a choice outside of this scumbag behavior that one can choose.
Just cause you support genocide and mass violence in favor of the Jews, don't mistake your own indecency for those of others.
You really are a non Jew who favors Jewish supremacy and mass murder in Israel. Own for it. Now as for why you are sucking up to Jewish extremism, is part of your antiwestern agenda, since the western establishment pushes the same racism against natives and unhinged racism in favor of the Jews as you do. You are willing to support mass murder and Jewish ultranationalism for social status within circles that Jewish supremacy has some valiance like the rationalists.
In any case your racist double standards and hypocricy betrays your lack of philosophical sophistication.
What I am saying is that I prefer the outcome of Israeli dominion and pacification of the contested territories, and I don't particularly care about how they go about it. I do not think violence is anti-sacred and verboten, it's just as fungible as most things are as far as I'm concerned. Tribalism? If you deny that Jews, even those in Israel, have contributed much more to the globe than all their neighbors put together, then sure, you can abuse the term.
Is that you being the westernized Indian? Supporting mass murder as something to not care about and push aside? Maybe like the Jewish migrants in Palestine, you will support this logic against the natives of the western country you will live in. Seems you are quite willing to support colonialism, if it serves your interest.
Masss murder and ultranationalists who abuse the human rights of others winning is worth it because reasons, is not a valid argument.
If you deny that Jews, even those in Israel, have contributed much more to the globe than all their neighbors put together, then sure, you can abuse the term.
The Germans hold records of patents per capita in europe and the Japanese were also much more succdessful than other Asians. And the British contributed much more to humanity than India in modernity. Is mass murder in favor of ethnic domination of these countries good then? Should the British have pacified India harder? What kind of abuse of logic is this?
Israel will still be standing without committing atrocities against the Palestinians. You have never come close to making the work to justify your claims in favor of mass murder.
I am glad you exposed how you and others here are Jewish supremacists. Oh the crocodile tears spent about certain forms of extremism when a different one is the most common one instead.
And your way of thinking would justify a smarter group going around the globe murdering the natives and replacing them everywhere, while promoting hardcore fertility for themselves.
All the liberal ideology you aligned with is hollow. You know what you support aligns more with, right?
It is insane to support mass murder of Palestinians because you consider Jews superior.
While, I think HBD is true, and the anti HBD ers want to silence it so they can get away with being racists under the "overepresentation is due to oppression" narrative, it does seem that when it comes to the Jews in particular we do have HBD leading to the most vile extremism of you and others supporting mass murder which is a very real danger that has materialized.
Although, I think a narrative with HBD is partly to blame and the general ideology of Jewish superiority and they can do no wrong is also directly related. The narrative that connects human biological difference with the right to destroy other groups because yours is superior does deserve to be a taboo. I still am against antiHBDism ideology and the narrative it connects with, but a certain ideology related with HBD should also be kept down.
Dude, you support mass murder and are praising a state that excludes you from it for its nationalism.
Remind me why should I care? I have no plans on going to Israel, except on vacation. After they've dealt with people bombing the concerts, and not just with poor reviews.
The fact that it nominally discriminates against me, yet I still support it, ought to show that I have principles beyond whether or not one side or another is rooting for me.
Now, do tell me how the Palestinians would react to an atheist Indian from a culturally Hindu background shacking up with them? Assuming I was daft enough to. Let's hope the circumcision pulls its weight again.
You are an antiwestern racist
A pro-western racist, or at least a believer in HBD making most claims of rampant racism obsolete in the West, come on dawg. Don't tell me that that is disqualifying for citizenship, or else a large chunk of the West would have to relocate.
In any case your racist double standards and hypocricy betrays your lack of philosophical sophistication.
What does your inability to see that people can and do care about very different things than you do say about you?
Is that you being the westernized Indian? Supporting mass murder as something to not care about and push aside?
I am large. I contain multitudes.
Masss murder and ultranationalists who abuse the human rights of others winning is worth it because reasons, is not a valid arguement.
Agree to disagree?
The Germans hold records of patents per capita in europe and the Japanese were also much more succdessful than other Asians. And the British contributed much more to humanity than India in modernity. Is mass murder in favor of ethnic domination of these countries good then? Should the British have pacified India harder? What kind of abuse of logic is this?
I suppose it's yet another forgivable sin to not read every single comment posted on the Motte, but rest assured that I am on record stating that I believe that a counterfactual world where the British remained in charge of India for decades longer than 1947 would likely have lead to a better outcome, at least for the Indians.
If the Brits and Germans were fighting somebody as profoundly unsympathetic as I find the Palestinians, then sure? Say what you will about India, but we give back more than we take, especially in the talented diaspora I hope to represent.
Israel will still be standing without commiting attrocities against the Palestinians.
Vice-versa.
And your way of thinking would justify a smarter group going around the globe murdering the natives and replacing them everywhere, while promoting hardcore fertility for themselves.
All the liberal ideology you aligned with is hollow. You know what you support aligns more with, right?
If they're accused of murdering the natives, they're not putting their all into it. Then again, the Jews came first, so they're the oppressed native people fighting for the side of freedom and liberty /s
Once again, I never claimed to be a liberal. At most, I'm a classical liberal, with libertarian sympathies, and I could add a dozen more qualifiers to that list. Your attempt to fit me into a convenient bucket leaves my limbs, my dick, and most of my brains sticking out.
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Notes -
I've long felt that something essential was lost from the post-WWII world when we decided to define riots, pogroms, ethnic cleaning and genocide as atrocities that the civilized world could never tolerate, rather than as social technologies that humanity developed to bring permanent resolutions to seemingly intractable problems.
One of the most edifying experiences of my youth was an academic assignment in the GWOT era, when we were instructed to pick a terrorist group and study its formation and evolution. I knew everyone else would pick something Islamic, so I decided to pick something else to stand out, and I settled on Sri Lanka. For about 33 years (1976 to 2009), Sri Lanka saw a brutal civil war between the majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils, where the two sides could be neatly demarcated into separate ethnicities, separate religions, and separate languages - not dissimilar to the Israel-Palestine conflict. The Tamils were represented by the LTTE, which was a terrorist organization and a separatist group seeking to carve out an ethnostate from Tamil-dominated regions of the country. But the LTTE was also a remarkably sophisticated pseudo-state; most terrorist organizations don't have their own navy, air force, or intelligence apparatus, which are all things that the LTTE put together during their war against the Sri Lankan state.
I won't rehash the disputes and grievances of the war, since they are predictable and your imagination can reliably fill in the details from what you know of other ethnic conflicts, including the one in Israel. All race wars are eventually the same. Long story short is that tens of thousands of people died on both sides, and numerous foreign actors including the US, Norway, India, the EU, and the UN tried to intervene and broker a peace, and the conflict settled into a cycle of atrocities->diplomacy->ceasefires->new atrocities->new diplomacy->new ceasefires, on and on. And then in late 2006, the Sri Lankan government essentially said "fuck this", and decided to wage concentrated, merciless, full-throated war against the Tamils. They brought out the kinds of heavy weapons that you usually reserve for wars against foreign states, and they used them without hesitation, and with very little regard for civilian-combatant distinctions. They killed and killed and killed until the LTTE was begging for a ceasefire, which they ignored, and then kept killing until the LTTE was ground into the dirt, their leadership massacred, their leaderships' families massacred, everything destroyed - until the LTTE had no capacity to fight or do anything anymore, at which point the Sri Lankans declared victory, and the war was over.
None of this was "legal" or "ethical" or "moral". Countless crimes against humanity were committed. But the war was over, and has shown no signs of returning in the almost 15 years since its conclusion. No more bombs in public places, no more midnight massacres on farms and villages, no more burning streets. What does it say of our enlightened modern era that two and a half years of bloodthirsty war did more to bring about peace than the preceding 30-something years of talking and diplomacy and give-peace-a-chance rigmarole?
I understand that it's difficult to convince Jews that genocide is the answer. But if Gaza had been erased from the world years ago, everyone from squalling infants to doddering grandfathers, you would not have this problem. We used to know these things - all the population transfers and ethnic cleaning that took place after World War I and World War II were done with the understanding that you cannot expect certain groups to coexist in the same space peacefully for long, and that an atrocity in the present may prevent a greater atrocity in the future. We pretend to know better now, and to what end? To keep money flowing to NGOs, and hand out peace prizes to each other?
There's good reason that Britain pacified Afghanistan in the 19th century with far weaker supply chains and less glaring technological disparities, while it and the rest of NATO left in the 21st with their tail tucked between their legs.
Violence is the voice of the unheard, but it's also a universal language. If you can't solve most problems with violence, you're not using enough, and quite often, or at least here, a more dispassionate analysis will show that a quick burst of brutal violence obviates the need for more down the line.
At any rate, I think Western countries are cowardly in large part because most of the wars they've fought of late don't matter, lacking the stakes of their populations being genocided or living conditions cratering.
I find it ironic that you prefer the Israeli way of doing things that excludes you while you want to migrate to the west which if it followed the logic you praise, would rightfully exclude you from it.
But your logic in favor of nationalist violence implies far more besides that. Lets just say your general stance is completely incoherent. Is nationalist violence good when the Israelis do it only, or do you secretly find the west stupid for not being more hostile to you? Although the implications of your rhetoric of more violence no problems raises far more negative implications about what global powers should do. Or even specific countries fearing a dismal fate for their people in the future. Or should have done in the past.
I don't actually agree but I do think enough force and hostility is needed against those who deserve it and to promote civilization and justice. But adoring violence as the solution is wrongheaded and leads to a world under fire and predation of inoccents. Which you show no concern to avoiding. Obviously not letting someone with your backstabbing mentality come to the west would be the sane course. And stopping mass migration of foreigners in general. Which is good in general. But say some white nationalist when India had no nukes wanting to nuke India because they sew it as a threat would be an extremely immoral conduct.
I fail to see any sincere philosophical appreciation for violence and tribalism here. Rather, you are sucking up to Jewish ultra-nationalism.
Not in the least, since I intend to go through legal channels as about the most Westernized an Indian can get, contributing to a valuable profession, and generally being prosocial. My idle musings about my potential path to American citizenship, should it ever materialize, was met with almost unanimous approval from pretty much every side of the political compass, be it here or on Reddit.
Can you say the same for the typical Palestinian? Hardly.
Case by case please. Certainly no to the latter, since they would be turning down a win-win deal.
Ah yes, you (might) have genuine appreciation for the Palestinian cause, I suck up to the Jews. Well, if Mossad wants to pay me, I'll take it, I'm circumcized for medical reasons, but close enough! I am hardly uncritical of the Jews as a whole, given that they formented much of Western Wokism despite it now biting them in the ass.
I made no claim to show "sincere philosophical appreciation for violence and tribalism" at all, so you're forgiven for missing it.
What I am saying is that I prefer the outcome of Israeli dominion and pacification of the contested territories, and I don't particularly care about how they go about it. I do not think violence is anti-sacred and verboten, it's just as fungible as most things are as far as I'm concerned. Tribalism? If you deny that Jews, even those in Israel, have contributed much more to the globe than all their neighbors put together, then sure, you can abuse the term.
Please try to look for more subtle arguments than those before you claim that support for a particular nation engaging in violence and "tribalism" extends to universal adulation of such. It all depends on the outcome.
Why should I, as an American, give you the benefit of that doubt? Why shouldn't I just assume that you're some basket-weaver taking a shit on the streets of Calcutta, or fresh from participating in a gang rape in some rural village? There are over one billion Indians and I'd bet very few of them are pro-Western doctors. Why are you privileged to paint all Palestinians with a broad brush, but I'm not privileged to paint all Indians with a broad brush?
Because that would be unnecessarily antagonistic, which is against the rules.
By way of explanation, I was trying to highlight the most uncharitable view of his countrymen that I could think of in order to illustrate a point. I tend to be pro-Israel, but the repeated calls on this board for treating every Gazan as a Hamas terrorist up to the point of advocating for summary execution without evidence or even requirement of specific wrongdoing based on the assumption that all of them are predisposed towards violence rubs me the wrong way. While I understand there's a difference between making broad statements about groups on the other side of the world and actually singling out individual posters, one of my problems with the more racist-leaning elements on this board is that advocating for certain policies is easy when you assume that only other people will be affected by them. I don't put @self_made_human into this category, nor do I assume he is of the character I alluded to. The comment certainly wasn't intended to offend, but I believe I have more contact with actual hoi polloi working-class conservatives than the average poster here, and I can assure you that the kind of people who take the position he's advocating for are the same kind of people who refuse to patronize gas stations owned by Indians and Pakistanis and complain about local Nepali refugees meditating on their lawns. Anyway, I apologize.
Well, there are, uh, a lot of posts happening on this topic so I apologize if this sort of thing is genuinely slipping through. I don't see every comment that gets reported, and there are other moderators, but I, at least, have yet to see a single comment in the queue that meets this description, even though I've seen several comments in the queue claiming that this sentiment is being expressed here, somewhere.
(I don't doubt that some comments might be reasonably interpreted this way, but presentation matters. So long as no one explicitly says "all Gazans should be assumed terrorists and shot on sight," less direct claims like "I just don't see how Israel has clear options when it comes to clearly distinguishing between guilty Hamas and innocent Gazans, here" should be interpreted more charitably.)
(I also tend to object to people making sweeping characterizations of "this board" while themselves disclaiming such characterizations; you are not stuck in traffic, you are traffic. The way you've done it here is relatively mild, but still, I don't think it is beneficial for you, or anyone, to approach conversations here as me-against-the-Motte's-hivemind.)
I don't necessarily mind thought experiments that encourage people to put themselves in someone else's shoes, either, but still it would probably be best to not illustrate those thoughts in terms of the direct personal application of an unflattering stereotype of a user's professed identity.
For what it's worth, I think this comment from over the weekend, and its relative lack of pushback, is what may be leading people to believe that people are saying things like this.
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You can give me whatever you like, it matters not in the least unless you're my immigration officer.
Besides, while I'm just as fond of rhetoric as the next person, I'm pretty certain you know that's not true.
And if it's not true, then I suggest you wait till evidence arises that I'm street-shitting in California and not Calcutta, though the former is a cherished pan-American tradition practised by junkies and hobos of any ethnicity. Surprising few Indians among them, to be sure, but if that's not additional reason to support Affirmative Action in immigration to mitigate disparities, what is?
You're missing the point. If you're advocating that Palestinians should be painted with a broad brush based on their worst stereotypes, then why shouldn't Indians be given the same treatment? Your argument presupposes I treat you as an individual, while you want to deny such treatment to any individual from Gaza.
Am I? I have very little outright animosity against a Palestinian who doesn't support Hamas, I think it's a shame they're caught up in the conflict. Yet clearly they're not numerous or vocal enough to be in charge, or they'd have chased them out of town after tarring and feathering them.
For what it's worth, I don't think Israeli reprisals are utterly indiscriminate, while innocents will be caught in the crossfire, I expect those who die to be selected from Hamas than their allies far more than a random sampling would expect. The friends and family being blown up with a Hamas terrorist are significantly more likely to be sympathizers. As for hospitals and schools, with a captive population, perhaps Hamas should reconsider stashing their ammunition there, in a calculated move to curry international favor when Israel blows them up.
Evidently that's enough for me to look the other way, or even cheer for the Israelis. I deny that your analogy works at all really.
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Dude, you support mass murder and are praising a state that excludes you from it for its nationalism.
You are definitely a hypocrite.
You are an antiwestern racist who doesn't respect the native peoples human rights to national self determiantion and sovereignity and have said you would vote for the political party the democrats which is the most unhinged in said direction. Also, you are not part of the Western people you are replacing and making a minority in their own country but part of the colonization and discrimination. When you arrive to the USA you will benefit from discrimination in your favor and join the forces of discrimination against the natives. Which you are screwing by displacing and replacing in their own land.
Your migration is not the same as small migration from and towards a country that respects it self, and is sustainble, but part of colonization.
The Israelis care about numbers and not being overwhelmed by foreign ethnic groups and you praise them for it. Why? Because you are hypocritical.
I show no bias in favor of the Palestinians by opposing mass murder and foreign occupation. I attacked the Palestinians for having a muslim fanatical imperialist mentality, actually. I dislike both Hamas, have a negative view about the fanaticism of Muslims in general, and dislike Israel, have a negative view of Jewish fanaticism in general. I am very much willing to condemn different factions. I complained about historical nazis, I complained about the groups I mentioned, I oppose those with a pushover mentality and I oppose those who are fanatical violent racist supremacists for foreign groups too. Or even for their own.
Its like there is a choice outside of this scumbag behavior that one can choose.
Just cause you support genocide and mass violence in favor of the Jews, don't mistake your own indecency for those of others.
You really are a non Jew who favors Jewish supremacy and mass murder in Israel. Own for it. Now as for why you are sucking up to Jewish extremism, is part of your antiwestern agenda, since the western establishment pushes the same racism against natives and unhinged racism in favor of the Jews as you do. You are willing to support mass murder and Jewish ultranationalism for social status within circles that Jewish supremacy has some valiance like the rationalists.
In any case your racist double standards and hypocricy betrays your lack of philosophical sophistication.
Is that you being the westernized Indian? Supporting mass murder as something to not care about and push aside? Maybe like the Jewish migrants in Palestine, you will support this logic against the natives of the western country you will live in. Seems you are quite willing to support colonialism, if it serves your interest.
Masss murder and ultranationalists who abuse the human rights of others winning is worth it because reasons, is not a valid argument.
The Germans hold records of patents per capita in europe and the Japanese were also much more succdessful than other Asians. And the British contributed much more to humanity than India in modernity. Is mass murder in favor of ethnic domination of these countries good then? Should the British have pacified India harder? What kind of abuse of logic is this?
Israel will still be standing without committing atrocities against the Palestinians. You have never come close to making the work to justify your claims in favor of mass murder.
I am glad you exposed how you and others here are Jewish supremacists. Oh the crocodile tears spent about certain forms of extremism when a different one is the most common one instead.
And your way of thinking would justify a smarter group going around the globe murdering the natives and replacing them everywhere, while promoting hardcore fertility for themselves.
All the liberal ideology you aligned with is hollow. You know what you support aligns more with, right?
It is insane to support mass murder of Palestinians because you consider Jews superior.
While, I think HBD is true, and the anti HBD ers want to silence it so they can get away with being racists under the "overepresentation is due to oppression" narrative, it does seem that when it comes to the Jews in particular we do have HBD leading to the most vile extremism of you and others supporting mass murder which is a very real danger that has materialized.
Although, I think a narrative with HBD is partly to blame and the general ideology of Jewish superiority and they can do no wrong is also directly related. The narrative that connects human biological difference with the right to destroy other groups because yours is superior does deserve to be a taboo. I still am against antiHBDism ideology and the narrative it connects with, but a certain ideology related with HBD should also be kept down.
Remind me why should I care? I have no plans on going to Israel, except on vacation. After they've dealt with people bombing the concerts, and not just with poor reviews.
The fact that it nominally discriminates against me, yet I still support it, ought to show that I have principles beyond whether or not one side or another is rooting for me.
Now, do tell me how the Palestinians would react to an atheist Indian from a culturally Hindu background shacking up with them? Assuming I was daft enough to. Let's hope the circumcision pulls its weight again.
A pro-western racist, or at least a believer in HBD making most claims of rampant racism obsolete in the West, come on dawg. Don't tell me that that is disqualifying for citizenship, or else a large chunk of the West would have to relocate.
What does your inability to see that people can and do care about very different things than you do say about you?
I am large. I contain multitudes.
Agree to disagree?
I suppose it's yet another forgivable sin to not read every single comment posted on the Motte, but rest assured that I am on record stating that I believe that a counterfactual world where the British remained in charge of India for decades longer than 1947 would likely have lead to a better outcome, at least for the Indians.
If the Brits and Germans were fighting somebody as profoundly unsympathetic as I find the Palestinians, then sure? Say what you will about India, but we give back more than we take, especially in the talented diaspora I hope to represent.
Vice-versa.
If they're accused of murdering the natives, they're not putting their all into it. Then again, the Jews came first, so they're the oppressed native people fighting for the side of freedom and liberty /s
Once again, I never claimed to be a liberal. At most, I'm a classical liberal, with libertarian sympathies, and I could add a dozen more qualifiers to that list. Your attempt to fit me into a convenient bucket leaves my limbs, my dick, and most of my brains sticking out.
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Yes, there is really no war that cannot be won by killing enough of the enemy. Only the number that counts as ‘enough’ and the precise definition of ‘enemy’ vary. Less than 2000 American soldiers died in Afghanistan, it simply wasn’t a serious war. More Israelis have likely died since Saturday.
Citation needed.
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