naraburns nihil supernum
7mo 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.
This topic perhaps more than others is impossible to find good analysis of. Could some of you help me understand the arguments around something?
I routinely see people call Gaza "an open air prison". But...isnt' Egypt participating in this open air imprisonment? Egypt has a border with Gaza. If the Israelis are imprisoning the Gazans, then aren't the Egyptians doing the same thing?
And why would these two groups coordinate on this? Same question goes for: shutting of water/electricity. Why would Egypt help Israel with this? Why doesn't Egypt simply give the Gazans the water they need?
edit: I think my question was unclear here. I understand the obvious answers which are basically: Hamas/Gaza are terrorists. Of course Egypt doesn't want them. What I'm asking for is for somebody to steelman the liberal position that Gaza is an "open air prison" and that this is Israel's fault.
It seems like what you are really asking is "why are people acting like this is solely an ethnic Jewish/Arab conflict when Egypt is at least partially cooperating with Israel against Gaza." Because all of your questions are easy things answer if ethnicity isn't the only lens you use to look at the conflict. Egypt and Israel would both rather not have this impoverished and violent population incorporated into or freely mingling with their own people, and they act accordingly.
“Because the Gazans are violent sociopaths” is the obvious answer. What I am asking is what the people who call Gaza an “open air prison” give as an answer.
What I am asking is what the people who call Gaza an “open air prison” give as an answer.
The Egyptians are not enforcing a naval blockade, nor are they the occupying power of Gaza, running it under their military law. You can choose not to trade with someone, that doesn't make them your prisoner. If you choose that they can't trade with anyone, then they are your prisoner.
I would agree with this statement and I am curious how someone can disagree with it using honest direct arguments.
Egyptian government has never amounted to much more than a small group of generals using the country as a milking cow. For close to half a century these generals have been propped up by American money and weapons and diplomatic support. America does this with the express intention of getting the generals to stop fighting Israel and cooperate on issues such as Gaza.
I would agree with this statement and I am curious how someone can disagree with it using honest direct arguments.
Prisons generally aren't defined in terms of ruining your border-crossing relations with your neighbors.
The Gaza Strip's land borders are closed because Hamas has been historically unable or unwilling to manage its relations with its only two proximal neighbors. For Israel, well, it should be obvious. For Egypt, this is partly due to ideological deviations, especially Hamas's and other related group's relations to either radical theological movements that likewise threatened the more secular dictatorships, or had too-close relations with other Palestinian groups who caused infamous troubles for others who let them in (i.e. Lebanon, Jordan, and Kuwait). Another part for Egypt is that consequences of a war, beyond losing money, include dealing with unwanted costs as ever since the Sinai return any scattering of the Gazans into the desert now means their desert, and their problem, and that Palestinian's reputation for countries that let them in is, well, earned. Given that the easiest way to limit the war potential of two million Gazans is to throttle the inputs that get in, the Palestinian policy has maneuvered Gaza into a position that it's in both their neighbor's interests to close the border.
But closing land borders itself is not a prison, because land borders are not obliged or even required to be there in the first place. A prison is not simply 'the neighbors won't let me in,' or even 'I can't walk across the border.' South Korea is not a prison just because it's a de facto island bordered by North Korea. Canada is not a prison if the border with the US shuts down. Landlocked countries may be economically dependent on others for maritime access, but they don't become prisons if others refuse. Islands are even less so, even though they have no land borders.
It's not the land dynamic that defines the Gaza Strip circumstances, it's the sea access. And there's a considerably different, albeit less pejorative, description of that: blockade.
This is exactly what I am talking about. It devolves into a silly and extremely dishonest game of definitions. See, it is not an open prison, it is just a double whammy tight "land border" with a "blockade" on the sea side. Just like what Canada and the US have! And then of course there is always the attempt to justify why Gazans deserve to be imprisoned in this totally-not-open-air-prison because they elected bad people.
So Israel forced those people (who aren't usually actually from Gaza, but typically from areas south of what is now Israel, and have families all over Israel and West Bank) to emigrate to refugee camps in Gaza. And then made their exit illegal and dependent on rarely obtained "permits" that they can get for sustained good behavior. And also convinced Egypt through a combination of US bribery and regime self-interest arguments, to do the same. And also destroyed their only airport and closed down the sea access as well because it is totally not a prison, see, they are just not allowed to leave.
The fact that there were extra steps and justifications to Gaza becoming an open air prison, doesn't change the fact that it is now an open air prison.
This is exactly what I am talking about. It devolves into a silly and extremely dishonest game of definitions.
Well, yes, using pejoratives with different meanings as motte-and-baily arguments is silly and dishonest. This is part of why the pro-Palestinians regularly shoot their cause in the foot by rhetorical over-reach.
You asked how someone could disagree with a pejorative using direct and honest argument. The most direct and honest argument is that the pejorative you use doesn't mean what you think it means if you think it accurately applies.
If you don't think it accurately applies, the charge of silly dishonesty may indeed apply, but not from the people point to word meaning.
See, it is not an open prison, it is just a double whammy tight "land border" with a "blockade" on the sea side. Just like what Canada and the US have!
This, however, would be dishonest, because this was not the point made. The point made wasn't Gaza and the other examples were alike- the point was that the reason they were not alike isn't the nature of the land boundary, but the sea boundary. There was even a specific word describing it that you seem disinclined to use.
Blockade. Which is a shame to neglect, because blockades are recognized as acts of war for a reason. Blockades can be tied to many ruinous impacts, acts of aggression, indiscriminate impacts, and so on. Not a nice word, blockade.
But... it doesn't work as well as the claim as 'prison', because it doesn't have the same connotations of total control of the individual that the word 'prison' does. Even as an act of war, a war is a conflict between two sides, which implicitly acknowledges mutual agency and even potentially appropriateness, whereas prisons can be argued to be unilateral impositions at no-fault of the subjected faction. If Israel is running a prison, the argument can be made that imprisonment is unjust, doesn't follow the principles of justice, and the entire project illegitimate. If Israel is acknowledged as running a blockade, the argument context shifts to having to explain why, which may end up conceding that the conditions that are acknowledged as occasionally justifying blockades- terrible as they are- apply.
So, of course, the pro-Palestinian narratives ignore the blockade, unless needed to be acknowledged in technical terms to maintain the prison metaphor.
So Israel forced those people (who aren't usually actually from Gaza, but typically from areas south of what is now Israel, and have families all over Israel and West Bank) to emigrate to refugee camps in Gaza.
The Arabs lost a war they intended to have existential stakes for the Israelis, yes. Multiple wars, even.
This does not make it a prison. It establishes it as a refugee camp.
And then made their exit illegal and dependent on rarely obtained "permits" that they can get for sustained good behavior.
The Gazans continued such attempts at war that uncontrolled access would have obvious and natural follow-on effects for continuing and expanding the war-potential, yes. There was a point where Gaza would- accurately- be described as occupied.
This does not make it a prison. This made it an occupation state, as long as the occupiers remain in place. Which stopped not-quite two decades ago.
And also convinced Egypt through a combination of US bribery and regime self-interest arguments, to do the same.
The Palestinians really mucked it up here, yes. Basic asymmetric conflict theory is to maintain your patron-networks and support zones without making yourself more trouble than you're worth. The Palestinians failed, both in their chosen alignments and in not enforcing displine on their movement / tolerating autonomous actors who threatened their backers. Making it in your mutually-hating neighbors' self-interest to cooperate against you is a terrible own-goal. (Or would it be dark-humor as own-gaol?)
Regardless, this (still) does not make it a prison. This makes it diplomatically isolated from its neighbors.
And also destroyed their only airport and closed down the sea access as well because it is totally not a prison, see, they are just not allowed to leave.
And here we go back to that there's a word for this that isn't prison: the word is blockade.
At no point in the summarization of several decades did you describe what- in any other context- would be recognized as not-a-prison. What you described was a refugee camp from the losing side of a war, that was subjected to an occupation state, which lost it's external patrons and made itself a security threat to all its neighbors, and which after being released from occupatation continued to allow violence until it was instead blockading.
None of this is nice. None of this is beneficient. But it is a much more honest and direct point than claiming the Gazans have been imprisoned.
The fact that there were extra steps and justifications to Gaza becoming an open air prison, doesn't change the fact that it is now an open air prison.
The point that it is not an open-air prison is what makes the claim a pejorative rather than a fact.
"Because Arab states taking in Palestinians and naturalizing them means Israel wins and ends international pressure for Palestinian statehood" (since, as with the Ostsiedler, they will cease to exist in the land from which they have left). Same reason since 1948.
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Notes -
This topic perhaps more than others is impossible to find good analysis of. Could some of you help me understand the arguments around something?
I routinely see people call Gaza "an open air prison". But...isnt' Egypt participating in this open air imprisonment? Egypt has a border with Gaza. If the Israelis are imprisoning the Gazans, then aren't the Egyptians doing the same thing?
And why would these two groups coordinate on this? Same question goes for: shutting of water/electricity. Why would Egypt help Israel with this? Why doesn't Egypt simply give the Gazans the water they need?
edit: I think my question was unclear here. I understand the obvious answers which are basically: Hamas/Gaza are terrorists. Of course Egypt doesn't want them. What I'm asking for is for somebody to steelman the liberal position that Gaza is an "open air prison" and that this is Israel's fault.
It seems like what you are really asking is "why are people acting like this is solely an ethnic Jewish/Arab conflict when Egypt is at least partially cooperating with Israel against Gaza." Because all of your questions are easy things answer if ethnicity isn't the only lens you use to look at the conflict. Egypt and Israel would both rather not have this impoverished and violent population incorporated into or freely mingling with their own people, and they act accordingly.
“Because the Gazans are violent sociopaths” is the obvious answer. What I am asking is what the people who call Gaza an “open air prison” give as an answer.
The Egyptians are not enforcing a naval blockade, nor are they the occupying power of Gaza, running it under their military law. You can choose not to trade with someone, that doesn't make them your prisoner. If you choose that they can't trade with anyone, then they are your prisoner.
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I would agree with this statement and I am curious how someone can disagree with it using honest direct arguments.
Egyptian government has never amounted to much more than a small group of generals using the country as a milking cow. For close to half a century these generals have been propped up by American money and weapons and diplomatic support. America does this with the express intention of getting the generals to stop fighting Israel and cooperate on issues such as Gaza.
It is quite a simple explanation really.
Prisons generally aren't defined in terms of ruining your border-crossing relations with your neighbors.
The Gaza Strip's land borders are closed because Hamas has been historically unable or unwilling to manage its relations with its only two proximal neighbors. For Israel, well, it should be obvious. For Egypt, this is partly due to ideological deviations, especially Hamas's and other related group's relations to either radical theological movements that likewise threatened the more secular dictatorships, or had too-close relations with other Palestinian groups who caused infamous troubles for others who let them in (i.e. Lebanon, Jordan, and Kuwait). Another part for Egypt is that consequences of a war, beyond losing money, include dealing with unwanted costs as ever since the Sinai return any scattering of the Gazans into the desert now means their desert, and their problem, and that Palestinian's reputation for countries that let them in is, well, earned. Given that the easiest way to limit the war potential of two million Gazans is to throttle the inputs that get in, the Palestinian policy has maneuvered Gaza into a position that it's in both their neighbor's interests to close the border.
But closing land borders itself is not a prison, because land borders are not obliged or even required to be there in the first place. A prison is not simply 'the neighbors won't let me in,' or even 'I can't walk across the border.' South Korea is not a prison just because it's a de facto island bordered by North Korea. Canada is not a prison if the border with the US shuts down. Landlocked countries may be economically dependent on others for maritime access, but they don't become prisons if others refuse. Islands are even less so, even though they have no land borders.
It's not the land dynamic that defines the Gaza Strip circumstances, it's the sea access. And there's a considerably different, albeit less pejorative, description of that: blockade.
This is exactly what I am talking about. It devolves into a silly and extremely dishonest game of definitions. See, it is not an open prison, it is just a double whammy tight "land border" with a "blockade" on the sea side. Just like what Canada and the US have! And then of course there is always the attempt to justify why Gazans deserve to be imprisoned in this totally-not-open-air-prison because they elected bad people.
So Israel forced those people (who aren't usually actually from Gaza, but typically from areas south of what is now Israel, and have families all over Israel and West Bank) to emigrate to refugee camps in Gaza. And then made their exit illegal and dependent on rarely obtained "permits" that they can get for sustained good behavior. And also convinced Egypt through a combination of US bribery and regime self-interest arguments, to do the same. And also destroyed their only airport and closed down the sea access as well because it is totally not a prison, see, they are just not allowed to leave.
The fact that there were extra steps and justifications to Gaza becoming an open air prison, doesn't change the fact that it is now an open air prison.
Well, yes, using pejoratives with different meanings as motte-and-baily arguments is silly and dishonest. This is part of why the pro-Palestinians regularly shoot their cause in the foot by rhetorical over-reach.
You asked how someone could disagree with a pejorative using direct and honest argument. The most direct and honest argument is that the pejorative you use doesn't mean what you think it means if you think it accurately applies.
If you don't think it accurately applies, the charge of silly dishonesty may indeed apply, but not from the people point to word meaning.
This, however, would be dishonest, because this was not the point made. The point made wasn't Gaza and the other examples were alike- the point was that the reason they were not alike isn't the nature of the land boundary, but the sea boundary. There was even a specific word describing it that you seem disinclined to use.
Blockade. Which is a shame to neglect, because blockades are recognized as acts of war for a reason. Blockades can be tied to many ruinous impacts, acts of aggression, indiscriminate impacts, and so on. Not a nice word, blockade.
But... it doesn't work as well as the claim as 'prison', because it doesn't have the same connotations of total control of the individual that the word 'prison' does. Even as an act of war, a war is a conflict between two sides, which implicitly acknowledges mutual agency and even potentially appropriateness, whereas prisons can be argued to be unilateral impositions at no-fault of the subjected faction. If Israel is running a prison, the argument can be made that imprisonment is unjust, doesn't follow the principles of justice, and the entire project illegitimate. If Israel is acknowledged as running a blockade, the argument context shifts to having to explain why, which may end up conceding that the conditions that are acknowledged as occasionally justifying blockades- terrible as they are- apply.
So, of course, the pro-Palestinian narratives ignore the blockade, unless needed to be acknowledged in technical terms to maintain the prison metaphor.
The Arabs lost a war they intended to have existential stakes for the Israelis, yes. Multiple wars, even.
This does not make it a prison. It establishes it as a refugee camp.
The Gazans continued such attempts at war that uncontrolled access would have obvious and natural follow-on effects for continuing and expanding the war-potential, yes. There was a point where Gaza would- accurately- be described as occupied.
This does not make it a prison. This made it an occupation state, as long as the occupiers remain in place. Which stopped not-quite two decades ago.
The Palestinians really mucked it up here, yes. Basic asymmetric conflict theory is to maintain your patron-networks and support zones without making yourself more trouble than you're worth. The Palestinians failed, both in their chosen alignments and in not enforcing displine on their movement / tolerating autonomous actors who threatened their backers. Making it in your mutually-hating neighbors' self-interest to cooperate against you is a terrible own-goal. (Or would it be dark-humor as own-gaol?)
Regardless, this (still) does not make it a prison. This makes it diplomatically isolated from its neighbors.
And here we go back to that there's a word for this that isn't prison: the word is blockade.
At no point in the summarization of several decades did you describe what- in any other context- would be recognized as not-a-prison. What you described was a refugee camp from the losing side of a war, that was subjected to an occupation state, which lost it's external patrons and made itself a security threat to all its neighbors, and which after being released from occupatation continued to allow violence until it was instead blockading.
None of this is nice. None of this is beneficient. But it is a much more honest and direct point than claiming the Gazans have been imprisoned.
The point that it is not an open-air prison is what makes the claim a pejorative rather than a fact.
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"Because Arab states taking in Palestinians and naturalizing them means Israel wins and ends international pressure for Palestinian statehood" (since, as with the Ostsiedler, they will cease to exist in the land from which they have left). Same reason since 1948.
Arab states taking in Palestinians has also resulted in a number of civil conflicts, including the civil war in Lebanon and Black September in Jordan.
Yes, that’s certainly a very important secondary reason.
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They would either deny the question exists or allege Israeli pressure campaigns.
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