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 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.
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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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