naraburns nihil supernum
2yr ago
(text post)
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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 been thinking: what's the Palestinian path to victory?
Any way one looks at it, the only way to get at this would be a war with Israel's neighbors joining in
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.
This kind of war had already been tried without success. Three times. Stop trying to be zerg, try to become protos.
Take a look at the map - and let's make some assumptions - Israel doesn't care about Gaza strip as long as it is peaceful, but views the west bank territory as existential about their survival. To me this looks close enough to the current situation. So no matter how unrealistic it is - the gaza strip should be the beginning and the heart of the new Palestine. Also it is centuries long project. Deal with it. Gaza strip is extremely low in territory, devoid of natural resources and has high population.
So the first step is to make Gaza into a city state as the likes of singapore/hong kong/dubai. This can be done if there is enough capital, government will to prioritize education and so on.
Capital is the easy part. Competent government is not.
Your goal is to bring your gdp per capita to insane levels. Then you begin massive projects of land reclamation. You will need it. Your goal is to become richer, tidier and just plain better place to be than Israel. It could be done - after all israel did the similar thing themselves.
Now here comes the tricky part - once you are there you naturally start bleeding Egypt and Israel dry - the best and brightest will try to come there - there are enough Arabs in Israel that you can intermerry - people that will give their children Israel passports and the right to own property there. So you just start buying. And voting. Eventually in a couple of generations you may be able to displace them or assimilate enough of them to not matter.
But Palestine cannot win while being a shithole, so they must asap stop being shithole at least in the gaza strip.
Do you really think that Gaza has the human capital to be the next Singapore? Dubai has oil, Hong Kong has the Chinese, Gaza has...the same kind of Arabs you find in Jordan and Lebanon.
Singapore doesn't have the human capital to become Singapore. It succeeds only because it's the one good harbour for 1000 miles on the busiest trade route in the world (and the colonial British built that harbour). "Muh human capital, muh good governance" is a PR stunt by the Singapore People's Action Party to try and make itself look good via narrative control, but it has very little factual basis.
Singapore has Chinese people. The Chinese diaspora is always successful. Whether they're in SE Asia, Australia, Europe, America, they're always smart, entrepreneurial and law-abiding. I disagree with you about the PAP, I think LKY genuinely was one of the greatest statesman in history, but regardless, when your main ethnic group has an IQ of ~110, creating a wealthy city-state is actually possible.
Human capital is not something you have, it is something you create. Lebanon was quite prosperous place before the civil war, and I think that Jordan is the only oasis of normalcy in the region. (Too much "money can buy everything vice" in Dubai for my taste, Doha is quite conservative and Muskat will eventually be awesome place, but not yet, Erbil is amazing but too militarized).
I think that there is snowball's chance in hell in competent ruler that will get this territory's shit together. But I pointed one of the few roads ahead - whatever specs of palestine that are left must develop on their own territory. It may be nigh impossible task - but is absolute must for them to get any kind of win.
I was speaking more in the HBD-sense. Hong Kong and Singapore have Chinese people, with an average IQ of ~110. Levant Arabs have average IQs in the low-80s. Maybe the Gazans would be able to carve out a niche like some of the Gulf states have, but they'd have to do it without oil and gas wealth to kickstart the process.
The problem is that Singapore, Hong Kong, and Dubai didn't spend decades resisting foreign (to them) military occupation before lobbing missiles at their neighbors. They were never controlled politically be separatist terrorist groups. China didn't spend years blockading Hong Kong because the international community was in agreement that they were nothing but trouble. Until Hamas loses all power in Gaza, any economic development is going to be stymied by restrictions (by both Israel and Egypt) and reluctance of foreign investors to take risks there. Hamas is more interested in sticking it to Israel now than it is signing peace accords and trying to convince everyone that the situation is okay. Even if they did, there would be a new generation of Palestinian nationalists behind them to take up where they left off; after all, Hamas was formed as a response to the PLO becoming more of a political entity and less of an active force, though their exile in Tunis probably didn't help.
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Notes -
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results. This kind of war had already been tried without success. Three times. Stop trying to be zerg, try to become protos.
Take a look at the map - and let's make some assumptions - Israel doesn't care about Gaza strip as long as it is peaceful, but views the west bank territory as existential about their survival. To me this looks close enough to the current situation. So no matter how unrealistic it is - the gaza strip should be the beginning and the heart of the new Palestine. Also it is centuries long project. Deal with it. Gaza strip is extremely low in territory, devoid of natural resources and has high population.
So the first step is to make Gaza into a city state as the likes of singapore/hong kong/dubai. This can be done if there is enough capital, government will to prioritize education and so on.
Capital is the easy part. Competent government is not.
Your goal is to bring your gdp per capita to insane levels. Then you begin massive projects of land reclamation. You will need it. Your goal is to become richer, tidier and just plain better place to be than Israel. It could be done - after all israel did the similar thing themselves.
Now here comes the tricky part - once you are there you naturally start bleeding Egypt and Israel dry - the best and brightest will try to come there - there are enough Arabs in Israel that you can intermerry - people that will give their children Israel passports and the right to own property there. So you just start buying. And voting. Eventually in a couple of generations you may be able to displace them or assimilate enough of them to not matter.
But Palestine cannot win while being a shithole, so they must asap stop being shithole at least in the gaza strip.
Do you really think that Gaza has the human capital to be the next Singapore? Dubai has oil, Hong Kong has the Chinese, Gaza has...the same kind of Arabs you find in Jordan and Lebanon.
Singapore doesn't have the human capital to become Singapore. It succeeds only because it's the one good harbour for 1000 miles on the busiest trade route in the world (and the colonial British built that harbour). "Muh human capital, muh good governance" is a PR stunt by the Singapore People's Action Party to try and make itself look good via narrative control, but it has very little factual basis.
Singapore has Chinese people. The Chinese diaspora is always successful. Whether they're in SE Asia, Australia, Europe, America, they're always smart, entrepreneurial and law-abiding. I disagree with you about the PAP, I think LKY genuinely was one of the greatest statesman in history, but regardless, when your main ethnic group has an IQ of ~110, creating a wealthy city-state is actually possible.
Triads are a thing.
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Human capital is not something you have, it is something you create. Lebanon was quite prosperous place before the civil war, and I think that Jordan is the only oasis of normalcy in the region. (Too much "money can buy everything vice" in Dubai for my taste, Doha is quite conservative and Muskat will eventually be awesome place, but not yet, Erbil is amazing but too militarized).
I think that there is snowball's chance in hell in competent ruler that will get this territory's shit together. But I pointed one of the few roads ahead - whatever specs of palestine that are left must develop on their own territory. It may be nigh impossible task - but is absolute must for them to get any kind of win.
I was speaking more in the HBD-sense. Hong Kong and Singapore have Chinese people, with an average IQ of ~110. Levant Arabs have average IQs in the low-80s. Maybe the Gazans would be able to carve out a niche like some of the Gulf states have, but they'd have to do it without oil and gas wealth to kickstart the process.
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The problem is that Singapore, Hong Kong, and Dubai didn't spend decades resisting foreign (to them) military occupation before lobbing missiles at their neighbors. They were never controlled politically be separatist terrorist groups. China didn't spend years blockading Hong Kong because the international community was in agreement that they were nothing but trouble. Until Hamas loses all power in Gaza, any economic development is going to be stymied by restrictions (by both Israel and Egypt) and reluctance of foreign investors to take risks there. Hamas is more interested in sticking it to Israel now than it is signing peace accords and trying to convince everyone that the situation is okay. Even if they did, there would be a new generation of Palestinian nationalists behind them to take up where they left off; after all, Hamas was formed as a response to the PLO becoming more of a political entity and less of an active force, though their exile in Tunis probably didn't help.
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100 years ago very few Westerners would have thought that places like South Korea and Singapore had the human capital to become what they are today.
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