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.
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.
I wish a one-state solution felt realistic — a world of Israelis and Arabs and Muslims and Jews living side by side with equal rights, fully integrated and defused of their hate, is a version of Israel that I would adore. But it seems less and less realistic with every new act of violence.
This sentence bothered me a lot, because I think it really hammers home that Ike Saul is drowning in both-sides-ism. There is a world where Israelis and Muslims and Jews live side by side with equal rights, fully integrated and defused of their hate: it's called "Israel." The 20% of Israel's citizens who are Palestinian Arabs are not the problem, here. Those Palestinians who turned their noses up at a single state solution put themselves (and their descendants) in the "box" Saul decries. Hamas does not want a world of Israelis and Arabs and Muslims and Jews living side by side with equal rights. Only the Israelis want that. There are no Arabic states in which diverse groups of people live side by side with equal rights.
Israelis will tell you that if Palestinians put their guns down then the war would end, but if Israel put their guns down they'd be wiped off the planet. I don't have a crystal ball and can’t tell you what is true. But what I am certain of is that every time Israel kills more innocents they engender more rage and hatred and recruit more Palestinians and Arabs to the cause against them. There is no disputing this.
It's amazing to watch people equivocate in their response to this single, incredibly hard truth. The reason Israelis tell you this is because all the evidence points to it being true. To say "there is no disputing" that Israelis killing innocents engenders rage, and yet mumble about crystal balls when it is pointed out that Hamas and their backers are fully committed to the extermination of Israel, is insane to me. Exactly one side of this conflict is openly genocidal, and it's not the Israelis. "Oh I agree that Hamas is evil but it's very important that we blame Israel even for that" is such a mind-boggling take, to me.
I'm mystified by this kind of response to my claim, which explicitly cribs the words of the article about "Israelis and Arabs and Muslims and Jews living side by side with equal rights." Suggesting countries that are neither noticeably diverse nor countries that are in any plausible way committed to equal rights does not meet the spirit of the original text. "Not counting expats, we have like, two or three different religious minorities in our country!" is, I grant, a kind of "diversity," but this is still not a cultural (much less jurisprudential) commitment to the kind of broad-spectrum liberal tolerance Westerners have in mind when they talk about diverse peoples living "side by side with equal rights."
"Lebanese Jews are afraid for their lives, but they do have Christians so technically they are a nation of diverse people living side by side" does not meet the standard of "Israelis and Arabs and Muslims and Jews living side by side with equal rights." And that's before addressing stuff like sex, sexuality, political freedom, and related concerns.
Israelis and Arabs and Muslims and Jews living side by side with equal rights
Jews usually have protected statuses in Western countries, with specific laws or law enforcement rules protecting them, social media companies having antisemitism-specific regulations and anti-antisemitism groups openly controlling their content...
Meanwhile there are anti-muslims rules and laws against hijabs, mosque building, honor-killing, etc.
It seems to me that it would be hard to say that muslims and jews have equal rights in the West.
Equal rights for Muslims requires respecting their right to commit honor-killings?
Well in a way it does if equal rights implies freedom to practice your religion.
I don't know much about the Quran but my understanding is that it's about a warlord who goes around killing his enemies and making their women his wives.
Meanwhile I think the Talmud is about a bunch of proto-lawyers bickering about different ways to interpret God's commands so as to not have to obey the most straightforward interpretation of it.
For example instead of staying home on Saturday as ordered by their God, they can claim the whole territory of NYC as their 'home' by creating a symbolic barrier all around it called an eruv.
Muslims who in my opinion have a more violent practice of their religion (as seen with violent bombings, beheadings, stabbings) are under a lot more scrutiny than jews who are experts at lawfare.
Hundreds of millions are probably spent to fight terrorism but white-collar criminals are more likely to get away with it, and some other types of crimes can also end up celebrated.
A few thousands deaths to explosive devices got us the Patriot Act and global internet surveillance meanwhile millions of death to opioids or abortion barely get any legislative action.
Tremendous efforts have been deployed to protect the general public from harms that can nebulously be attributed to islamic enthusiasts, while the harms that can nebulously be attributed to judaism enthusiasm have seen a great reduction in their quelling, from historical precedents.
As you yourself admitted, any problems committed by muslims in the West could also be blamed on jews:
If anything, the pluralist principles established by Jewish activism have benefited Muslims living in the West.
What we have now is angry muslims violently protesting in the West, clashing with native police forces on behalf of the jews who are the ones who made them angry, and who are the ones who facilitated their arrival in the first place.
If some far-left groups are now suggesting to make muslims a protected class due to historical abuse by people in power in the Middle-East (ie Israeli or British colonizers etc), and get their way, then perhaps the balance will be somewhat restored.
Until then I disagree that muslims and jews have equal rights in the West.
Or you need to clarify what you mean by 'equal rights'.
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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.
This sentence bothered me a lot, because I think it really hammers home that Ike Saul is drowning in both-sides-ism. There is a world where Israelis and Muslims and Jews live side by side with equal rights, fully integrated and defused of their hate: it's called "Israel." The 20% of Israel's citizens who are Palestinian Arabs are not the problem, here. Those Palestinians who turned their noses up at a single state solution put themselves (and their descendants) in the "box" Saul decries. Hamas does not want a world of Israelis and Arabs and Muslims and Jews living side by side with equal rights. Only the Israelis want that. There are no Arabic states in which diverse groups of people live side by side with equal rights.
It's amazing to watch people equivocate in their response to this single, incredibly hard truth. The reason Israelis tell you this is because all the evidence points to it being true. To say "there is no disputing" that Israelis killing innocents engenders rage, and yet mumble about crystal balls when it is pointed out that Hamas and their backers are fully committed to the extermination of Israel, is insane to me. Exactly one side of this conflict is openly genocidal, and it's not the Israelis. "Oh I agree that Hamas is evil but it's very important that we blame Israel even for that" is such a mind-boggling take, to me.
Lebanon, albeit it’s not exactly peaceful, would seem to fit the bill.
...how?
In July of 2020, Nagi Gergi Zeidan wrote, "Today, there are 29 Jews left in Lebanon — and they are all hiding." This does not appear to have changed.
Lebanon still has Christians, as does Egypt.
What do you think that gets you?
I'm mystified by this kind of response to my claim, which explicitly cribs the words of the article about "Israelis and Arabs and Muslims and Jews living side by side with equal rights." Suggesting countries that are neither noticeably diverse nor countries that are in any plausible way committed to equal rights does not meet the spirit of the original text. "Not counting expats, we have like, two or three different religious minorities in our country!" is, I grant, a kind of "diversity," but this is still not a cultural (much less jurisprudential) commitment to the kind of broad-spectrum liberal tolerance Westerners have in mind when they talk about diverse peoples living "side by side with equal rights."
"Lebanese Jews are afraid for their lives, but they do have Christians so technically they are a nation of diverse people living side by side" does not meet the standard of "Israelis and Arabs and Muslims and Jews living side by side with equal rights." And that's before addressing stuff like sex, sexuality, political freedom, and related concerns.
Which country would qualify this standard?
Jews usually have protected statuses in Western countries, with specific laws or law enforcement rules protecting them, social media companies having antisemitism-specific regulations and anti-antisemitism groups openly controlling their content... Meanwhile there are anti-muslims rules and laws against hijabs, mosque building, honor-killing, etc. It seems to me that it would be hard to say that muslims and jews have equal rights in the West.
Well in a way it does if equal rights implies freedom to practice your religion.
I don't know much about the Quran but my understanding is that it's about a warlord who goes around killing his enemies and making their women his wives. Meanwhile I think the Talmud is about a bunch of proto-lawyers bickering about different ways to interpret God's commands so as to not have to obey the most straightforward interpretation of it.
For example instead of staying home on Saturday as ordered by their God, they can claim the whole territory of NYC as their 'home' by creating a symbolic barrier all around it called an eruv.
Muslims who in my opinion have a more violent practice of their religion (as seen with violent bombings, beheadings, stabbings) are under a lot more scrutiny than jews who are experts at lawfare.
Hundreds of millions are probably spent to fight terrorism but white-collar criminals are more likely to get away with it, and some other types of crimes can also end up celebrated.
A few thousands deaths to explosive devices got us the Patriot Act and global internet surveillance meanwhile millions of death to opioids or abortion barely get any legislative action.
Tremendous efforts have been deployed to protect the general public from harms that can nebulously be attributed to islamic enthusiasts, while the harms that can nebulously be attributed to judaism enthusiasm have seen a great reduction in their quelling, from historical precedents.
As you yourself admitted, any problems committed by muslims in the West could also be blamed on jews:
What we have now is angry muslims violently protesting in the West, clashing with native police forces on behalf of the jews who are the ones who made them angry, and who are the ones who facilitated their arrival in the first place.
If some far-left groups are now suggesting to make muslims a protected class due to historical abuse by people in power in the Middle-East (ie Israeli or British colonizers etc), and get their way, then perhaps the balance will be somewhat restored. Until then I disagree that muslims and jews have equal rights in the West.
Or you need to clarify what you mean by 'equal rights'.
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