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.
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.
As we’ve discussed, the IDF will be humiliated if they go into Gaza on foot, and I say that as someone very sympathetic to Zionism. It’s a losing move. Expelling the Palestinians isn’t viable, Sisi can never accept them given recent Egyptian history with the Muslim brotherhood and obviously nobody else is going to take them, especially not the surrounding states and not Europe either in the current political climate. I don’t consider genocide likely (we can quibble about definitions but I’d say 200,000 or more Gazan casualties would likely meet that definition), but who knows at this point.
In general I’m no big believer in democracy. I think the solution, if the Israelis were to commit to the extreme casualties required, would be large scale indoctrination, a combination of extreme laicite and Full Xinjiang (VoA propaganda edition). The same, of course, would have to happen to the Ultra Orthodox to save Israel, and perhaps no less harshly - children taken from families, religious dress banned, religious media heavily curtailed, forcible secularization and so on. Of course, it will never happen, so regardless of what happens with the Arabs (and there my loyalties are clear enough), Israel will continue to decline into another desert shithole, which was perhaps always its ultimate fate. American Jews can only hope we never have to move there.
Since there are no realistic, viable solutions on hand, I wonder: what would/could China do in this situation?
There is Xinjiang, of course, but Muslims there were not nearly so well-armed as Hamas (their big terrorist attack being a knifing at a train station), and Uyghers weren't nearly as hostile to Han people as Palestinians are to Israeli Jews. And the ratio of Han to Uygher is much better than Israeli to Gazan.
China also has substantially more informal state capacity than Israel as well: subduing Xinjiang wasn't a project of the PLA but 1.5 million CCP cadres deployed to control ~20M Uyghers. Given there are 2M Gazans, this suggests Israel would need at least 150k and more likely 300k for a similar project in Gaza. Maybe offer some kind of multi-year Birthright trip to subdue Gaza? Doesn't seem plausible.
It seems like, even if Israel did have the will to go full Xinjiang, it just doesn't have the capacity to. (Which I don't think you or anyone serious is calling for.)
China also has substantially more informal state capacity than Israel as well: subduing Xinjiang wasn't a project of the PLA but 1.5 million CCP cadres deployed to control ~20M Uyghers.
FYI Xinjiang has a population of 25M, and apparently Uyghers only comprise 45% of that (11.6M, concentrated in certain areas), while Han comprised 42% (10.9M). Im not sure about the 1.5M number you gave here, but basically the ratio would demand even more Israelis to govern Gaza.
Another thing people forget about China/CCP's towards Xinjiang is that it started basically since Xinjiang was absorbed into the PRC in 1949. Actually the ideas of settling non-Turkic (aka non-Uygher), non-Muslim Chinese (mostly Han) in Xinjiang started in the 1830s during the Qing Dynasty. More of the Han migration into XJ were spurred by the Sino-Soviet split. By 1970s XJ was already 40% Han, and it's only increased since then.
This means China/CCP has had a lot of time to experiment and try different policies etc in Xinjiang. All the while, China was experiencing unrest and protests inside Xinjiang, and terror attacks/bombings/killings outside of Xinjiang. Seriously read through the timeline here, there's a ton of interesting events and stories. I mean, who knew China was training and equipping some of the Afghan Mujahadeen against the Soviets!?
And as China has gotten richer, it has been able to allocate more resources to controlling XJ. Combine more resources with the aforementioned experience, China/CCP has only become more effective at governing XJ and pacifying the population there.
But yeah in the end, Israel is a tiny place and they only have so many people, and a country that is always cognizant of being surrounded by potential/historical enemies. Plus Israel does respect some (?) press freedoms, and Gazans can freely access the internet, so the PR battle can be quite difficult for Israel.
Meanwhile, to a normal Chinese living in Beijing or Shanghai, Xinjiang is this near-mythical faraway place that produces grapes and now is starting to become a ski destination. There used to be more visible Uygher population in big cities, most visible in halal restaurants (and it personally felt like all marijuana dealers were Uygher, apparently grown in Xinjiang. No the weed was not good at all). They are a lot less visible in cities today, from personal experience. Unless a big terrorist act succeeds (2014 train station attack for example), the general Chinese public really doesn't think about Xinjiang. Then you add on information restrictions for internet, and the internal censorship, and the lack of any foreign press in Xinjiang - occasionally some news article can "shed light" but in the end, no foreign journalist would be able to access Xinjiang like they can access Gaza. The PR battle is totally different versus TikToks made by Palestinians showcasing what it's like on the ground when Israel bombs Gaza.
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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.
As we’ve discussed, the IDF will be humiliated if they go into Gaza on foot, and I say that as someone very sympathetic to Zionism. It’s a losing move. Expelling the Palestinians isn’t viable, Sisi can never accept them given recent Egyptian history with the Muslim brotherhood and obviously nobody else is going to take them, especially not the surrounding states and not Europe either in the current political climate. I don’t consider genocide likely (we can quibble about definitions but I’d say 200,000 or more Gazan casualties would likely meet that definition), but who knows at this point.
In general I’m no big believer in democracy. I think the solution, if the Israelis were to commit to the extreme casualties required, would be large scale indoctrination, a combination of extreme laicite and Full Xinjiang (VoA propaganda edition). The same, of course, would have to happen to the Ultra Orthodox to save Israel, and perhaps no less harshly - children taken from families, religious dress banned, religious media heavily curtailed, forcible secularization and so on. Of course, it will never happen, so regardless of what happens with the Arabs (and there my loyalties are clear enough), Israel will continue to decline into another desert shithole, which was perhaps always its ultimate fate. American Jews can only hope we never have to move there.
Since there are no realistic, viable solutions on hand, I wonder: what would/could China do in this situation?
There is Xinjiang, of course, but Muslims there were not nearly so well-armed as Hamas (their big terrorist attack being a knifing at a train station), and Uyghers weren't nearly as hostile to Han people as Palestinians are to Israeli Jews. And the ratio of Han to Uygher is much better than Israeli to Gazan.
China also has substantially more informal state capacity than Israel as well: subduing Xinjiang wasn't a project of the PLA but 1.5 million CCP cadres deployed to control ~20M Uyghers. Given there are 2M Gazans, this suggests Israel would need at least 150k and more likely 300k for a similar project in Gaza. Maybe offer some kind of multi-year Birthright trip to subdue Gaza? Doesn't seem plausible.
It seems like, even if Israel did have the will to go full Xinjiang, it just doesn't have the capacity to. (Which I don't think you or anyone serious is calling for.)
FYI Xinjiang has a population of 25M, and apparently Uyghers only comprise 45% of that (11.6M, concentrated in certain areas), while Han comprised 42% (10.9M). Im not sure about the 1.5M number you gave here, but basically the ratio would demand even more Israelis to govern Gaza.
Another thing people forget about China/CCP's towards Xinjiang is that it started basically since Xinjiang was absorbed into the PRC in 1949. Actually the ideas of settling non-Turkic (aka non-Uygher), non-Muslim Chinese (mostly Han) in Xinjiang started in the 1830s during the Qing Dynasty. More of the Han migration into XJ were spurred by the Sino-Soviet split. By 1970s XJ was already 40% Han, and it's only increased since then.
This means China/CCP has had a lot of time to experiment and try different policies etc in Xinjiang. All the while, China was experiencing unrest and protests inside Xinjiang, and terror attacks/bombings/killings outside of Xinjiang. Seriously read through the timeline here, there's a ton of interesting events and stories. I mean, who knew China was training and equipping some of the Afghan Mujahadeen against the Soviets!?
And as China has gotten richer, it has been able to allocate more resources to controlling XJ. Combine more resources with the aforementioned experience, China/CCP has only become more effective at governing XJ and pacifying the population there.
But yeah in the end, Israel is a tiny place and they only have so many people, and a country that is always cognizant of being surrounded by potential/historical enemies. Plus Israel does respect some (?) press freedoms, and Gazans can freely access the internet, so the PR battle can be quite difficult for Israel.
Meanwhile, to a normal Chinese living in Beijing or Shanghai, Xinjiang is this near-mythical faraway place that produces grapes and now is starting to become a ski destination. There used to be more visible Uygher population in big cities, most visible in halal restaurants (and it personally felt like all marijuana dealers were Uygher, apparently grown in Xinjiang. No the weed was not good at all). They are a lot less visible in cities today, from personal experience. Unless a big terrorist act succeeds (2014 train station attack for example), the general Chinese public really doesn't think about Xinjiang. Then you add on information restrictions for internet, and the internal censorship, and the lack of any foreign press in Xinjiang - occasionally some news article can "shed light" but in the end, no foreign journalist would be able to access Xinjiang like they can access Gaza. The PR battle is totally different versus TikToks made by Palestinians showcasing what it's like on the ground when Israel bombs Gaza.
As far as the 1.5 million number, I got it from a admittedly throwaway line in https://interpret.csis.org/imposing-the-partys-core-values-in-xinjiang/
Other sources, suggesting 1.1M as of 2018 and "over a million" at the end of 2019:
https://apnews.com/article/ap-top-news-international-news-prayer-weddings-occasions-9ca1c29fc9554c1697a8729bba4dd93b
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/asia-pacific/become-family-china-sends-officials-to-stay-with-xinjiang-minorities-1.4118327
Good catch on Xinjiang's ethnic makeup being only around half Uygher.
Thanks, was curious on how that was sources/calculated
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