naraburns nihil supernum
6mo 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.
Question to those who have researched this: how true is it that Israel helped create Hamas? The general idea being that the Israeli government provided substantial resources to baby Hamas to act as a counterweight to the PLO. Which I want to put in my quiver of "governments being too clever for their own good," but the popular sources I've seen for mostly just repeat the story without sourcing it.
This is purely of historical interest: it has pretty much no bearing on what Israel, Hamas, or their international allies can or should do (aside from encouraging a general rejection of clever clandestine activities). My main complaint about the sources I had found is because they were primarily interested in scoring points against Israel, so I approach it with skepticism but still do care about the history (and do enjoy keeping a collection of government fuckups).
I honestly think you can just ignore it. People still talk about rumored CIA activity in Iran and Congo in the 1950s as the reason those countries still suck today. It's nuclear grade cope and not worth considering.
If Kermit Roosevelt can take a suitcase full of cash into Iran in the 1950s and force them to overthrow their democratic leader (not actually democratic by the way, but whatever), what does that say about Iranians? Why are they so weak? Why don't they have any agency at all? It's all so stupid. The people who would blame the current situation on trivial (or even non-existent) events that happened decades ago are in fantasy land and should be treated as such.
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Notes -
Question to those who have researched this: how true is it that Israel helped create Hamas? The general idea being that the Israeli government provided substantial resources to baby Hamas to act as a counterweight to the PLO. Which I want to put in my quiver of "governments being too clever for their own good," but the popular sources I've seen for mostly just repeat the story without sourcing it.
No one actually knows anything about this stuff. It's all just conjecture. Healthy skepticism would seem like the default mode.
But even if Israeli did provide clandestine resources to Hamas 35 years ago, how does that relate to today?
Overall, the idea that Israel is responsible for Hamas would be similar to the idea that the Winklevoss twins created Facebook.
This is purely of historical interest: it has pretty much no bearing on what Israel, Hamas, or their international allies can or should do (aside from encouraging a general rejection of clever clandestine activities). My main complaint about the sources I had found is because they were primarily interested in scoring points against Israel, so I approach it with skepticism but still do care about the history (and do enjoy keeping a collection of government fuckups).
I honestly think you can just ignore it. People still talk about rumored CIA activity in Iran and Congo in the 1950s as the reason those countries still suck today. It's nuclear grade cope and not worth considering.
If Kermit Roosevelt can take a suitcase full of cash into Iran in the 1950s and force them to overthrow their democratic leader (not actually democratic by the way, but whatever), what does that say about Iranians? Why are they so weak? Why don't they have any agency at all? It's all so stupid. The people who would blame the current situation on trivial (or even non-existent) events that happened decades ago are in fantasy land and should be treated as such.
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