naraburns nihil supernum
2yr 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.
But there's a reason none of those western democracies are in Israel's place, that reason has a lot to do with Israel's actions as a nation, and those actions do change what is reasonable for them to do, and who we should side with.
I can appreciate that the US is not Israel, but why aren't the actions of the Palestinians in the territories also a factor? If they had followed Gandhi (as mentioned elsewhere) they would have probably been a lot more successful and not suffered so much. And the physical and cultural destruction we carried out on Japan in WW2 which was surely far more outrageous was apparently very productive.
You're certainly right, I was just narrowly addressing the question by examining the US/Israel analogy it used. It definitely takes two to tango in situations like this, and either side probably could be in a better place today by being more civil in the past.
I do personally have an ethos that says the burden of being civilized and absorbing affronts while continuing to reach for peace should always be on the stronger and more comfortable party in any conflict, partially because they can afford it, partially because that burden is the only way to end up at anything like an equitable resolution to a conflict between a stronger and weaker party.
But I acknowledge that there's something there in the intuition of 'the stronger party should overwhelm the weaker party brutally and efficiently so that the bad equilibrium ends quickly and hopefully the new equilibrium is better for everyone'.
I think that approach is too vulnerable to abuse and exploitation and works worse overall, but maybe this is one of those cases where different contexts call for different solutions and I am overgeneralizing my heuristics to a situation where they don't work.
Good points, though, I suspect if Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea, Iran and Vietnam bordered us the American people would experience far more collateral damage and the US military would behave quite monstrously. Perhaps some degree of civility depends on circumstance and context, as you say.
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Notes -
I can appreciate that the US is not Israel, but why aren't the actions of the Palestinians in the territories also a factor? If they had followed Gandhi (as mentioned elsewhere) they would have probably been a lot more successful and not suffered so much. And the physical and cultural destruction we carried out on Japan in WW2 which was surely far more outrageous was apparently very productive.
You're certainly right, I was just narrowly addressing the question by examining the US/Israel analogy it used. It definitely takes two to tango in situations like this, and either side probably could be in a better place today by being more civil in the past.
I do personally have an ethos that says the burden of being civilized and absorbing affronts while continuing to reach for peace should always be on the stronger and more comfortable party in any conflict, partially because they can afford it, partially because that burden is the only way to end up at anything like an equitable resolution to a conflict between a stronger and weaker party.
But I acknowledge that there's something there in the intuition of 'the stronger party should overwhelm the weaker party brutally and efficiently so that the bad equilibrium ends quickly and hopefully the new equilibrium is better for everyone'.
I think that approach is too vulnerable to abuse and exploitation and works worse overall, but maybe this is one of those cases where different contexts call for different solutions and I am overgeneralizing my heuristics to a situation where they don't work.
/shrug, glad it's not my call.
Good points, though, I suspect if Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea, Iran and Vietnam bordered us the American people would experience far more collateral damage and the US military would behave quite monstrously. Perhaps some degree of civility depends on circumstance and context, as you say.
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