naraburns nihil supernum
1yr ago
(text post)
29862 thread views
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.
It is a bit lame to post a twitter link and say I agree with it, but this piece resonates with me so much that I wanted to share it here. I still believe this place is majority composed of reasonable people, notwithstanding the couple of accounts that has spent the last couple of weeks plotting genocide scenarios and reliving their war on terror "they hate us for our freedoms" high one last time.
To delve deeper into the uncomfortable topic of the looming genocide, I also increasingly get the feeling that contrary to the expectations of some whose view of geopolitics is eerily similar to RTS mechanics, the genocidal military power IDF is displaying right now is ultimately going to harm Israel a lot more than it helps. I think it mainly has to do with political/military leadership trying to cover their ass and muffle their enormous failures with the sound of bombs. If IDF really goes through with their plan which seems likely to cost civilian lives in the hundreds of thousands, I don't think the nation of Israel will ever recover from this.
It is a country that is already losing two of its most powerful weapons:
Endlessly idealistic and intelligent Ashkenazi founders who knew to out-think and out-work their opponents at very turn, and most importantly to not lose the sight of their goal even when they had to take very nasty decisions at times: to create a people. Not to destroy one. These people are not only losing out in demography but also they are losing the soul of the nation. Their spirit will not survive a Gazan genocide.
Zionist influence in the Western world. Through a combination of dedication, money, human quality, well-crafted propaganda, historical guilt and Cold War positioning, Zionists has always had a very unique power position in Western institutions, especially the US ones. This is quickly disappearing. Western Jews are assimilating into the PMC deracinated blob at a breathtaking pace. They are losing the set of assumptions that motivated them to identify with their kin in Israel, and they are losing the power that comes from ethnic favoritism. A Gazan genocide is very likely going to be the final nail in the coffin here.
I fully agree that the situation with Gaza is entirely unsustainable. But if Israelis go through with what they are plotting right now, they will slowly but surely find out that they are 7 million souls surviving in an ocean of half a billion through miracles, and they are pissing in the miracle potion.
sarker
It isn't happening, and if it is, it's a bad thing
Pasha 1yr ago
You cannot keep two million people living in the conditions people in Gaza are living in and expect peace.
What exactly is so bad about Gaza?
As far as I can tell, until the recent turmoil:
they had electricity
life expectancy was 75 years so they presumably have some reasonable healthcare
obesity rate is 20% so presumably they have enough to eat
they can't leave, but the blockade only begun in earnest after the battle of gaza in 2007. Also Egypt is also not letting them in
I wouldn't want to personally live there, but it didn't exactly seem like hell on earth and much of what's wrong with it is the result of the gazans' own actions.
life expectancy was 75 years so presumably they have some decent healthcare
Fair enough although you get a LOT of mileage out of germ theory, half-decent sanitation, vaccines, and cheap readily available antibiotics. Obstetrics makes a difference too. If you combine that with half-decent nutrition you no shit have most of the gains you get from modern medicine right there. The rest is essentially incremental improvement plus trauma surgery; maybe you could stretch and throw obstetricians in that as well.
Alongside the bigotry they have also been dealt debilitating losses in war, militarily and morally by Israel.
I suspect that even if we try to buy off each Palestinian with a billion dollars, many will spit on it since they place avenging their defeat over everything else, including their own prosperity.
I am a bit worried that Social media is biasing my opinions on Muslims given how the response of the vast majority of the Muslim diaspora has been extremely predictable with a small minority even being willing to concede that this looks really bad and perhaps there are lines that shouldn't be crossed.
I say this because I am good friends with a number of muslims (Indians) and I now sometimes wonder if the warmth only exists because I never discuss politics IRL.
---- A few minutes later ----
Now that the burst of angst has passed by and with a more clear mind I'd hope the general materialism that pervades middle class Indian thought also includes the Muslims since it is a much easier vice to control or justify.
sky high unemployment rate, youthful population, the corrosive mental effects of dependence on outsiders/foreign aid, and hatred of their neighbors/occupiers inculcated from birth. perfect cocktail for insurgency
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Notes -
https://x.com/Ike_Saul/status/1711780282725011520
It is a bit lame to post a twitter link and say I agree with it, but this piece resonates with me so much that I wanted to share it here. I still believe this place is majority composed of reasonable people, notwithstanding the couple of accounts that has spent the last couple of weeks plotting genocide scenarios and reliving their war on terror "they hate us for our freedoms" high one last time.
To delve deeper into the uncomfortable topic of the looming genocide, I also increasingly get the feeling that contrary to the expectations of some whose view of geopolitics is eerily similar to RTS mechanics, the genocidal military power IDF is displaying right now is ultimately going to harm Israel a lot more than it helps. I think it mainly has to do with political/military leadership trying to cover their ass and muffle their enormous failures with the sound of bombs. If IDF really goes through with their plan which seems likely to cost civilian lives in the hundreds of thousands, I don't think the nation of Israel will ever recover from this.
It is a country that is already losing two of its most powerful weapons:
I fully agree that the situation with Gaza is entirely unsustainable. But if Israelis go through with what they are plotting right now, they will slowly but surely find out that they are 7 million souls surviving in an ocean of half a billion through miracles, and they are pissing in the miracle potion.
What exactly is so bad about Gaza?
As far as I can tell, until the recent turmoil:
they had electricity
life expectancy was 75 years so they presumably have some reasonable healthcare
obesity rate is 20% so presumably they have enough to eat
they can't leave, but the blockade only begun in earnest after the battle of gaza in 2007. Also Egypt is also not letting them in
I wouldn't want to personally live there, but it didn't exactly seem like hell on earth and much of what's wrong with it is the result of the gazans' own actions.
Fair enough although you get a LOT of mileage out of germ theory, half-decent sanitation, vaccines, and cheap readily available antibiotics. Obstetrics makes a difference too. If you combine that with half-decent nutrition you no shit have most of the gains you get from modern medicine right there. The rest is essentially incremental improvement plus trauma surgery; maybe you could stretch and throw obstetricians in that as well.
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2rafa calls them an honour based tribal culture.
Alongside the bigotry they have also been dealt debilitating losses in war, militarily and morally by Israel.
I suspect that even if we try to buy off each Palestinian with a billion dollars, many will spit on it since they place avenging their defeat over everything else, including their own prosperity.
I am a bit worried that Social media is biasing my opinions on Muslims given how the response of the vast majority of the Muslim diaspora has been extremely predictable with a small minority even being willing to concede that this looks really bad and perhaps there are lines that shouldn't be crossed.
I say this because I am good friends with a number of muslims (Indians) and I now sometimes wonder if the warmth only exists because I never discuss politics IRL.
---- A few minutes later ----
Now that the burst of angst has passed by and with a more clear mind I'd hope the general materialism that pervades middle class Indian thought also includes the Muslims since it is a much easier vice to control or justify.
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Context Copy link
sky high unemployment rate, youthful population, the corrosive mental effects of dependence on outsiders/foreign aid, and hatred of their neighbors/occupiers inculcated from birth. perfect cocktail for insurgency
many other countries have similar conditions, now and historically, and it didn't lead to anything like this
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