naraburns nihil supernum
1yr 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.
orthoxerox
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2rafa 1yr ago
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.
Why kill the hen that lays demographic eggs? As long as there are enough secular Jews, haredim are an interest-bearing account that shouldn't be touched if you don't really have to.
Because Israel is a democracy, and the switch from “they’re not a threat, we could convert them any time if we wanted to” to “oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck, now we live under a feckless theocracy that spurns modernity” can happen so quickly you don’t notice it until after it’s happened.
Perhaps these so-called democracy-enjoyers should think a little more about breeding if they are concerned about the country democratically turning into a theocracy.
Why does it even matter to them anyway?
Most of them will probably be dead by the time it becomes a theocracy, and if they are not, they can still probably enjoy the spoils of some other dying democracy.
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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.
Why kill the hen that lays demographic eggs? As long as there are enough secular Jews, haredim are an interest-bearing account that shouldn't be touched if you don't really have to.
Because Israel is a democracy, and the switch from “they’re not a threat, we could convert them any time if we wanted to” to “oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck, now we live under a feckless theocracy that spurns modernity” can happen so quickly you don’t notice it until after it’s happened.
Perhaps these so-called democracy-enjoyers should think a little more about breeding if they are concerned about the country democratically turning into a theocracy. Why does it even matter to them anyway? Most of them will probably be dead by the time it becomes a theocracy, and if they are not, they can still probably enjoy the spoils of some other dying democracy.
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