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 find the position that I am reflexively most inclined to subscribe to here to be woefully underrepresented in the discourse: neither side is in the wrong. If a village of hunter-gatherers hunts some elephants, and then the remnant elephant herd tramples the village, goring women and children in the process, would you say that either the hunters or the elephants are wrong and evil? Both sides are just doing what they must to survive (and retain the hope to thrive). If anyone is to blame at all, it's whoever put them in this position where they have no other choice to begin with - but even that responsibility seems to largely lie with diffuse, impersonal and/or simply long-gone forces.
I would think the hunter-gathers were evil if the method they chose to use to hunt elephants involved intentionally killing children. Similarly, while the people who flew airplanes into office buildings on 9/11 were evil, the people who bombed the USS Cole were not.
But hunter-gatherers are primitive and elephants are animals. From noble man I expect more.
That Hamas murdered civilians on the music festival and paraded a half naked dead women around really moves the needle on my moral compass.
BUT, this is also a false dichotomy. There are not only two sides: Beside Hamas there is the Fatah-ruled Palestinian National Authority. While there is surely a lot to criticize them for, the GDP in the West Bank is twice as high than in Gaza strip. And Israel itself has plural opinions (I think Netanyahu is done after the crisis, this was a colossal failure of government on every level.)
What is the advantage of nobility that you would expect here, say if we instead imagined a scenario between two advanced alien species with incompatible terraforming needs fighting over a planet? The only one I can think of is that the noble/sentient/advanced combatants are supposed to be able to arrive upon a mutually-acceptable compromise rather than continuing negative-sum war - and here the combatants in the Middle East, taken as whole polities, strike me as more beast than man in a way that is an all too common downside of entities that are pluralistic (whether it's the democratic or the anarchic sort of pluralistic), in that they do not actually have the collective executive function to actually make credible promises.
Supposing an Israeli government entered some agreement with Palestine that involved them keeping enough land and freedom that they can expect a reasonable existence going forward, what is to stop an internal competitor who tells the Israeli people that they do not have to settle for less to upend the fragile balance of power and take over with an agenda of ignoring the agreement? Conversely, we already know how effective any Palestinian promises of bringing their own terrorists under control were, and presumably any serious attempt by Abbas to crack down on or even merely deliver Hamas to the Israeli blade would just result in his own swift elimination.
West Bank vs Gaza strip
My impression is that the West Bank is also simply less squeezed: unlike Gaza, which is essentially an overpopulated open-air prison, they still have some measure of usable farmland relative to the amount of population, and Jordan might also be a more helpful neighbour than Egypt.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
4bpp 6mo ago
Sure, the Belfour Declaration and its consequences have been a disaster for the Levant.
OK, now what? The position that both sides have a legitimate beef is all well and good as far as it goes. I agree with it and have done my best to articulate it to people who are less inherently sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians. I may have even moved them a little in that direction! But so what? After I understand the situation, I still have to deal with what actually exists on the ground now. For me, that means siding with Israel not based on some deep-rooted claim regarding who should really control the region, but based on simple friend-enemy distinction.
I find the position that I am reflexively most inclined to subscribe to here to be woefully underrepresented in the discourse: neither side is in the wrong.
My view is close to but not quite this. More that the moral question just doesn't even matter. What difference does it make? Outside of certain gardens of enlightened thought, this is just how these things go and the moral question interacts with the reality as a mere shadow force.
The Palestinians/Arabs fought multiple times and they lost. Vae victis. Israel is living in a region full of enemies it apparently cannot eliminate or make peace with, shit will happen.
Part of that may be my ex-muslim contrarianism (I find it obscene how much people tied to Arabs* via Islam care about this relative to other conflicts, as with the daughters of Jerusalem, people really should weep for themselves and what's coming) but it is what it is.
* It's an open question how much Arabs feel tied to us. Many Arabs states clearly don't care anymore about Palestine and they certainly don't care about Muslims in China. I find it hard to believe they'll treat us any better in any comparable situation. I doubt they see us as equals. And I'm supposed to weep that they utterly failed Palestine because religious fellow-feeling?
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Notes -
I find the position that I am reflexively most inclined to subscribe to here to be woefully underrepresented in the discourse: neither side is in the wrong. If a village of hunter-gatherers hunts some elephants, and then the remnant elephant herd tramples the village, goring women and children in the process, would you say that either the hunters or the elephants are wrong and evil? Both sides are just doing what they must to survive (and retain the hope to thrive). If anyone is to blame at all, it's whoever put them in this position where they have no other choice to begin with - but even that responsibility seems to largely lie with diffuse, impersonal and/or simply long-gone forces.
I would think the hunter-gathers were evil if the method they chose to use to hunt elephants involved intentionally killing children. Similarly, while the people who flew airplanes into office buildings on 9/11 were evil, the people who bombed the USS Cole were not.
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But hunter-gatherers are primitive and elephants are animals. From noble man I expect more.
That Hamas murdered civilians on the music festival and paraded a half naked dead women around really moves the needle on my moral compass.
BUT, this is also a false dichotomy. There are not only two sides: Beside Hamas there is the Fatah-ruled Palestinian National Authority. While there is surely a lot to criticize them for, the GDP in the West Bank is twice as high than in Gaza strip. And Israel itself has plural opinions (I think Netanyahu is done after the crisis, this was a colossal failure of government on every level.)
What is the advantage of nobility that you would expect here, say if we instead imagined a scenario between two advanced alien species with incompatible terraforming needs fighting over a planet? The only one I can think of is that the noble/sentient/advanced combatants are supposed to be able to arrive upon a mutually-acceptable compromise rather than continuing negative-sum war - and here the combatants in the Middle East, taken as whole polities, strike me as more beast than man in a way that is an all too common downside of entities that are pluralistic (whether it's the democratic or the anarchic sort of pluralistic), in that they do not actually have the collective executive function to actually make credible promises.
Supposing an Israeli government entered some agreement with Palestine that involved them keeping enough land and freedom that they can expect a reasonable existence going forward, what is to stop an internal competitor who tells the Israeli people that they do not have to settle for less to upend the fragile balance of power and take over with an agenda of ignoring the agreement? Conversely, we already know how effective any Palestinian promises of bringing their own terrorists under control were, and presumably any serious attempt by Abbas to crack down on or even merely deliver Hamas to the Israeli blade would just result in his own swift elimination.
My impression is that the West Bank is also simply less squeezed: unlike Gaza, which is essentially an overpopulated open-air prison, they still have some measure of usable farmland relative to the amount of population, and Jordan might also be a more helpful neighbour than Egypt.
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Sure, the Belfour Declaration and its consequences have been a disaster for the Levant.
OK, now what? The position that both sides have a legitimate beef is all well and good as far as it goes. I agree with it and have done my best to articulate it to people who are less inherently sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians. I may have even moved them a little in that direction! But so what? After I understand the situation, I still have to deal with what actually exists on the ground now. For me, that means siding with Israel not based on some deep-rooted claim regarding who should really control the region, but based on simple friend-enemy distinction.
More options
Context Copy link
My view is close to but not quite this. More that the moral question just doesn't even matter. What difference does it make? Outside of certain gardens of enlightened thought, this is just how these things go and the moral question interacts with the reality as a mere shadow force.
The Palestinians/Arabs fought multiple times and they lost. Vae victis. Israel is living in a region full of enemies it apparently cannot eliminate or make peace with, shit will happen.
Part of that may be my ex-muslim contrarianism (I find it obscene how much people tied to Arabs* via Islam care about this relative to other conflicts, as with the daughters of Jerusalem, people really should weep for themselves and what's coming) but it is what it is.
* It's an open question how much Arabs feel tied to us. Many Arabs states clearly don't care anymore about Palestine and they certainly don't care about Muslims in China. I find it hard to believe they'll treat us any better in any comparable situation. I doubt they see us as equals. And I'm supposed to weep that they utterly failed Palestine because religious fellow-feeling?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link