naraburns nihil supernum
6mo ago
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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.
Before, during and after the 1947–1949 war, hundreds of Palestinian towns and villages were depopulated and destroyed. Geographic names throughout the country were erased and replaced with Hebrew names, sometimes derivatives of the historical Palestinian nomenclature, and sometimes new inventions. Numerous non-Jewish historical sites were destroyed, not just during the wars, but in a subsequent process over a number of decades. For example, over 80% of Palestinian village mosques have been destroyed, and artefacts have been removed from museums and archives.
You shouldn't be able to get away with this sort of thing right in the middle of the 20th century. After that, it's no wonder if there are Palestinians who will never accept Israel, and I also think Israel doesn't really have a leg to stand on to negotiate, as it's not really a legitimate state, just a top-down imposition.
Debating this elsewhere, some reactions were "Oh, but the Arabs wouldn't accept the partition plan", but why should they, why does the UN have the right to just impose that on them? Actually, the UN involvement just makes Israel seem like another High Modernist fuck up, another of the numerous errors of the first half of the 20th century.
Addressing something Ike Saul said below:
I don’t view Israelis and Brits as colonizers any more than the Assyrians or the Babylonians or the Romans or the Mongols or the Egyptians or the Ottomans who all battled over the same strip of land from as early as 800 years before Jesus’s time until now. The Jews who founded Israel just happened to have won the last big battle for it.
No, I am not moved by appeals to ancient history. That cycle has to end at some point, and the end of WW II seems like a good stopping point for that sort of shenanigan.
Also, you can't have your high officials expressing themselves like the guy above and like this:
Gallant said that he had ordered “a complete siege of the Gaza Strip,” which is home to 2.2 million Palestinians, nearly half of them children. “There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed,” he said. “We are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly.”
Netanyahu:
The weak crumble, are slaughtered and are erased from history while the strong, for good or for ill, survive. The strong are respected, and alliances are made with the strong, and in the end peace is made with the strong.
You can't talk like this and then pretend you're the civilized party here! Though of course, looking at the so-called developed nations, especially America, maybe they don't talk like this, but they sure behave like it, so maybe there actually are no or few civilizations around.
But that doesn't make me think Israel is legitimate, it just makes me think the developed world is fake too.
It was almost inconceivable that this wasteland had been made by Jews, that my people and my religion could have created something so ungodly. I did not recognise myself in this mirror. Jews—like Mel Brooks, like Franz Kafka, like Albert Einstein, like Bruno Schulz, like Woody Allen, like the Coen brothers, like Walter Benjamin, like me. People with sexual hangups and a good sense of humour. Bookish men with overbearing mothers. Latkes and lokshen pudding. Candles on a Friday night. Jews, the guilty conscience of Europe, the bearers of messianic hope through every generation—reduced to this.
American support for an ethno-nationalist state can't last. All it takes is a sufficiently left-wing administration coming around to undo this by simply withdrawing support, which could easily happen in the next few decades.
Apologies if this is too much heat, but looking at the circumstances of Israel's founding, Israel genuinely just seems to me to be an injustice. Maybe Israel could have happened legitimately if they hadn't been in such a hurry, and maybe the hurry could have been excused because of the Holocaust, but not to the point that you pull a Nakba.
EDIT: And of course, Hamas' attacks were barbarous, but that doesn't really conjure up legitimacy for the state of Israel. Why should they?
You’ve just now looked up the ‘48 war, then came up with a bunch of quotes to support your new-found opinion that just happens to mirror the same talking points as every other pro-Hamas person in the world? Is that supposed to be believable?
That actually is the truth yeah, I didn't have a particularly strong opinion on this, though I suppose I was never pro-Israel. I'm not pro-Hamas either, although, to be fair, I don't know who has the moral authority to actually punish them. Possibly only the Palestinians themselves. Reading up more on the history of Zionism prior to the partition, I'm increasingly of the view this was a bad idea. Two of the quotes came from The Intercept article I linked to, Netanyahu's from this thread, and the Sam Kriss article I read months ago when it came out.
Frankly, I don’t believe you. You’ve already stated that you think Israel “should never have existed”, and that we should “forgive Hitler” - whatever forgiveness to a dead man even means. Maybe he should apologize first. Of course, I have no way to prove that one way or another.
But if you really are new to the subject, I ask you to consider: before 1947, Jews were spread out all over mandatory Palestine. In Hebron, in east Jerusalem, in Kfar Etzion in Samaria. After 1949, every place conquered by the Jordanians and Egyptians - formerly mandatory Palestine - suddenly became judenfrei. The Jews were all mysteriously gone. On the other side of the armistice line, there still existed a mixed population. In fact, this happened all over the Middle East, where Jewish communities would suddenly vanish from Muslim countries. So tell me, please, why do you think these countries have any right to exist? They also have their own sectarian violence going on until today, of course, where minorities have not been totally wiped out yet.
(That article is awful, by the way. The kind of foreign misunderstanding that’s close to getting it, but then misses the mark so widely it almost makes me want to defend the government I was just protesting against. He actually thinks anyone wants to shut down electricity on Shabbat? Jesus, how about shutting up?)
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Notes -
So I looked up more on this Nakba:
You shouldn't be able to get away with this sort of thing right in the middle of the 20th century. After that, it's no wonder if there are Palestinians who will never accept Israel, and I also think Israel doesn't really have a leg to stand on to negotiate, as it's not really a legitimate state, just a top-down imposition.
Debating this elsewhere, some reactions were "Oh, but the Arabs wouldn't accept the partition plan", but why should they, why does the UN have the right to just impose that on them? Actually, the UN involvement just makes Israel seem like another High Modernist fuck up, another of the numerous errors of the first half of the 20th century.
Addressing something Ike Saul said below:
No, I am not moved by appeals to ancient history. That cycle has to end at some point, and the end of WW II seems like a good stopping point for that sort of shenanigan.
Also, you can't have your high officials expressing themselves like the guy above and like this:
Netanyahu:
You can't talk like this and then pretend you're the civilized party here! Though of course, looking at the so-called developed nations, especially America, maybe they don't talk like this, but they sure behave like it, so maybe there actually are no or few civilizations around.
But that doesn't make me think Israel is legitimate, it just makes me think the developed world is fake too.
Sam Kriss had a great article on Israel from some time ago:
American support for an ethno-nationalist state can't last. All it takes is a sufficiently left-wing administration coming around to undo this by simply withdrawing support, which could easily happen in the next few decades.
Apologies if this is too much heat, but looking at the circumstances of Israel's founding, Israel genuinely just seems to me to be an injustice. Maybe Israel could have happened legitimately if they hadn't been in such a hurry, and maybe the hurry could have been excused because of the Holocaust, but not to the point that you pull a Nakba.
EDIT: And of course, Hamas' attacks were barbarous, but that doesn't really conjure up legitimacy for the state of Israel. Why should they?
You’ve just now looked up the ‘48 war, then came up with a bunch of quotes to support your new-found opinion that just happens to mirror the same talking points as every other pro-Hamas person in the world? Is that supposed to be believable?
That actually is the truth yeah, I didn't have a particularly strong opinion on this, though I suppose I was never pro-Israel. I'm not pro-Hamas either, although, to be fair, I don't know who has the moral authority to actually punish them. Possibly only the Palestinians themselves. Reading up more on the history of Zionism prior to the partition, I'm increasingly of the view this was a bad idea. Two of the quotes came from The Intercept article I linked to, Netanyahu's from this thread, and the Sam Kriss article I read months ago when it came out.
Frankly, I don’t believe you. You’ve already stated that you think Israel “should never have existed”, and that we should “forgive Hitler” - whatever forgiveness to a dead man even means. Maybe he should apologize first. Of course, I have no way to prove that one way or another.
But if you really are new to the subject, I ask you to consider: before 1947, Jews were spread out all over mandatory Palestine. In Hebron, in east Jerusalem, in Kfar Etzion in Samaria. After 1949, every place conquered by the Jordanians and Egyptians - formerly mandatory Palestine - suddenly became judenfrei. The Jews were all mysteriously gone. On the other side of the armistice line, there still existed a mixed population. In fact, this happened all over the Middle East, where Jewish communities would suddenly vanish from Muslim countries. So tell me, please, why do you think these countries have any right to exist? They also have their own sectarian violence going on until today, of course, where minorities have not been totally wiped out yet.
(That article is awful, by the way. The kind of foreign misunderstanding that’s close to getting it, but then misses the mark so widely it almost makes me want to defend the government I was just protesting against. He actually thinks anyone wants to shut down electricity on Shabbat? Jesus, how about shutting up?)
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