naraburns nihil supernum
6mo 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? Ie. what's the course of action that would lead to an establishment of a from-the-river-to-the-sea Palestine? (Not focusing here on the desirability of that path etc.)
Any way one looks at it, the only way to get at this would be a war with Israel's neighbors joining in. Of course this hasn't happened since Yom Kippur War, and much of Israel's foreign and security policy has been successfully trying to make sure this doesn't happen. Egypt and Jordan have peace treaties with Israel and reasonably non-hostile governments (with their own reasons to hope that the situation stays stable), Lebanon and Syria are destabilized, Saudis are too dependent on US and too focused elsewhere to be a threat.
However, as far as I've understood, Egyptian and Jordanian populations continue to be strongly pro-Palestine, Jordan has a huge amount of Palestinian refugees, and Egypt continues to have many problems that make it a potential flash point. Would a sufficiently atrocious response by Israel have a possibility of leading to revolutions and strongly anti-Israel regimes taking power? Might Lebanon and Syria be stabilized, with Lebanon falling under Hezbollah rule? If all of Israel's neighbors started another big war, can Israel repeat the same as in 1947, 1968 and 1973? The traditional answer would be "probably", but the state of IDF currently looks like there's a lot of mythology and hot air underpinning that proposition.
I genuinely have no idea about these things, which is why I'm asking here.
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.
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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Notes -
I've been thinking: what's the Palestinian path to victory? Ie. what's the course of action that would lead to an establishment of a from-the-river-to-the-sea Palestine? (Not focusing here on the desirability of that path etc.)
Any way one looks at it, the only way to get at this would be a war with Israel's neighbors joining in. Of course this hasn't happened since Yom Kippur War, and much of Israel's foreign and security policy has been successfully trying to make sure this doesn't happen. Egypt and Jordan have peace treaties with Israel and reasonably non-hostile governments (with their own reasons to hope that the situation stays stable), Lebanon and Syria are destabilized, Saudis are too dependent on US and too focused elsewhere to be a threat.
However, as far as I've understood, Egyptian and Jordanian populations continue to be strongly pro-Palestine, Jordan has a huge amount of Palestinian refugees, and Egypt continues to have many problems that make it a potential flash point. Would a sufficiently atrocious response by Israel have a possibility of leading to revolutions and strongly anti-Israel regimes taking power? Might Lebanon and Syria be stabilized, with Lebanon falling under Hezbollah rule? If all of Israel's neighbors started another big war, can Israel repeat the same as in 1947, 1968 and 1973? The traditional answer would be "probably", but the state of IDF currently looks like there's a lot of mythology and hot air underpinning that proposition.
I genuinely have no idea about these things, which is why I'm asking here.
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.
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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