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naraburns  nihil supernum  7mo ago (text post)   28899 thread views

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.

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Keith Woods actually catches a lot of flak within the dissident right for being genuinely pro-Palestinian, he's maintained that position for years now. Most of the DR is anti-Zionist and ambivalent towards the Palestinians at best, Keith is an exception who identifies with the Palestinian struggle.

Contrary to Woods, anti-Zionism has been fashionable among the intelligentisa for many decades, and since its inception, Israel has been the object of international scorn.

...

We've been having an "honest" conversation about Zionism in the West for a long time. People like Keith Woods are just upset it hasn't been as explicitly antisemitic as they would like.

The anti-Zionism you are describing, which certainly exists, has existed within a fundamentally different strain of ideas than what could be considered anti-Semitism in the European tradition. That anti-Zionism is downstream from Marxist, anti-Colonial, anti-apartheid interpretations of history and influence on academia. There has been much debate over the line where the anti-Zionist stance begins to borrow influence from more traditional anti-Semitism, but there's been a very clear delineation for the most part.

While there has been more or less a handle on traditional European anti-Semitism in public consciousness and the public square, the quasi-Marxist anti-Zionism has been much more difficult to suppress. This means, in practice, while there is much protest over Jewish colonialism it is still taboo to talk about Jewish influence in American political or cultural life in any critical measure. I think what the DR hopes for is for this crisis to begin to bridge the gap between the two in the public discourse. The power, hypocrisy, and bloodlust coming to a head opens up the conversation to much more than just debates about colonialism.

We've noted in this thread how Keith exploded in popularity based mostly on a couple of Elon Musk retweets. Richard Hanania tweeting something like:

You’ve got to feel a bit sorry for cancelled Muslims.

You come here, learn the way to sound sophisticated is to be a person of color speaking out against a white oppressor.

You naturally apply the standard framework to Israel-Palestine, but suddenly find yourself unemployable.

Which received an emoji reply from Elon Musk is an example of the Israeli-Palestinian question expanding from its anti-colonial walled garden to tougher questions that have not been featured on college campuses or in school curriculum.

Likewise, Tucker Carlson recently gave some critique of American support for Zionism that threw Ben Shapiro into a blind rage on his show. Carlson's critique is fundamentally different from the left-wing anti-Zionism you are talking about. The DR is correct to pick up on the discourse getting closer to their own critique of Zionist influence in the West, which is closer to traditional European anti-Semitism and not simply an application of a Marxian anti-Colonialism argument.

Carlson's critique is fundamentally different from the left-wing anti-Zionism you are talking about.

I’d say Carlson’s criticism is more the traditional libertarian argument against overseas entanglements. Like the Marxist anticolonialist argument this occasionally borrows from ‘traditional antisemitism’ but isn’t really the same thing. Zionism and Israel aren’t really relevant to traditional antisemitism and unless there’s a big conflagration in Israel nobody on the more staunchly antisemitic side of the dissident right really cares about Israel. The only use for it is as a cudgel in accusations of hypocrisy. In Ben’s case though, while he isn’t sympathetic to wignatism, his position on illegal immigration at the southern border (and in general) is no more generous than that of such gentile figures as Trump or DeSantis, has criticized the legal immigration system for “favoring third world immigrants” and has argued that limiting legal immigration on grounds of culture and projected welfare usage are both acceptable to him. That puts him on the hard right of GOP in the US - as Hanania noted this week - and so painting him as a ‘traitor’ or whatever is kind of ridiculous when his position on immigration isn’t different to the average Fox host’s and isn’t even oceans away from Carlson’s.

In truth the DR doesn’t really want to accept that the number of hardcore Jennifer Rubin “mass immigration for thee but not for me” types (and even Rubin considers Israeli colonization of the West Bank a “racist” project that she opposes, and has spent more of the last week criticizing Netanyahu contra Biden than anything else) are actually pretty rare. Most hardcore Zionists are in Israel and don’t care about American domestic policy at all, while many hardcore pro-immigration blue haired Jewish college activists consider Israel a racist apartheid state. In between there is some hypocrisy, but I think the fair callout is that the DR:

a) Doesn’t actually care about Israel going full ethnonationalist, and with few exceptions has little or no sympathy with Palestinians

b) Would hate the views of the HIAS-type immigration activists and leftists just as much even if (and even when) they completely disavowed Israel and Zionism (and therefore could not be accused of any hypocrisy on this issue).

I’d say Carlson’s criticism is more the traditional libertarian argument against overseas entanglements.

There was also a latent anti-Semitism in the libertarian anti-interventionist movement represented by those like Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul. The association of "Neocons" with Zionists in the American policy apparatus was fairly ubiquitous there, and complaint about Zionist influence in American foreign policy is certainly an echo of traditional European anti-Semitism and distinct from the anti-Colonial arguments.

In Ben’s case though, while he isn’t sympathetic to wignatism, his position on illegal immigration at the southern border (and in general) is no more generous than that of such gentile figures as Trump or DeSantis, has criticized the legal immigration system for “favoring third world immigrants” and has argued that limiting legal immigration on grounds of culture and projected welfare usage are both acceptable to him. That puts him on the hard right of GOP in the US

Ben Shapiro famously tweeted that "And by the way, I don't give a damn about the so-called 'browning of America.' Color doesn't matter. Ideology does." But of course, when it comes to Israel he massively cares about demographics, although he can hide behind the unique fact that membership to his "ideology" is genetically inherited.

I don't necessarily disagree that Ben Shapiro represents the "most right" you can go on that issue in the mainstream, but that's kind of the point. It demonstrates the gatekeeping. You can oppose immigration up until you start presenting arguments motivated by a white identity and character, or advocating for the interests of white people. People like Ben Shapiro have been absolutely essential in keeping those gates, so him representing the "maximum kosher" anti-immigration posture would be evidence for the DR argument instead of against it. If Ben Shapiro acknowledged the validity of white identarian arguments against demographic change you would have a point, but he does not do so. Shapiro's ethnic fanaticism is also represented by his recent rant against the West for "latent Jew hatred." So he doesn't care about the browning of the West, but he really does care about the latent Jew hatred of the West, despite how the West has bent over backwards to accommodate the Jews in the past several decades. It's par for the course.

In truth the DR doesn’t really want to accept that the number of hardcore Jennifer Rubin “mass immigration for thee but not for me” types (and even Rubin considers Israeli colonization of the West Bank a “racist” project that she opposes, and has spent more of the last week criticizing Netanyahu contra Biden than anything else) are actually pretty rare.

The DR's position doesn't rely on the number of Jennifer Rubins, it relies on an analysis of the broader popular culture and academic consensus which pathologizes white identity and sacralizes Jewish identity. The number of people who pathologize white identity and worship Jewish identity is very high among both Jews and whites.

I don't see very many DR people pretending to care about the Palestinians per se (there are some, sure). Israel absolutely matters here because it exposes this consensus as being a farce, it's just an exercise in Jewish power rather than a morally consistent framework derived from truthful moral enlightenment.

Ben Shapiro famously tweeted that "And by the way, I don't give a damn about the so-called 'browning of America.' Color doesn't matter. Ideology does." But of course, when it comes to Israel he massively cares about demographics, although he can hide behind the unique fact that membership to his "ideology" is genetically inherited.

It can be very easily argued that ben Shapiro’s problem with hamas is ideological. He often mentions that there is a large amount of Palestinians living in Israel. I haven’t heard him say they need to be removed.

And I think it can be very easily argued that people like Shapiro are afforded quite a bit more charity than other people. Transfer is not a dirty word, Ben'2003:

Half measures merely postpone our realization that the Arabs dream of Israel's destruction. Without drastic measures, the Arab dream will come true. In the short term, the establishment of a "Palestinian state" based in Judea, Samaria and Gaza cuts Israel to the bone. In some places, Israel would be an unthinkable 9 miles wide. In the long term, the growth of the hostile Israeli-Arab population within pre-1967 Israel bodes ill for the future of the Jewish state. As University of Haifa professor Arnon Soffer says, "The trends and indicators all point to an economic and ecological catastrophe waiting to happen and of the death knell of the ideological dream of a Jewish state."

Here is the bottom line: If you believe that the Jewish state has a right to exist, then you must allow Israel to transfer the Palestinians and the Israeli-Arabs from Judea, Samaria, Gaza and Israel proper. It's an ugly solution, but it is the only solution. And it is far less ugly than the prospect of bloody conflict ad infinitum. When two populations are constantly enmeshed in conflict, it is insane to suggest that somehow deep-seated ideological change will miraculously occur, allowing the two sides to live together.

Unfortunately, this insanity is generally accepted as "the only way forward." President Bush accepts it because it is politically palatable. The Arabs accept it because for them, it is a Trojan horse. The Israelis accept it because they are afraid that if they expel the Arabs, they will be called Nazis.

For anyone who lived through the Holocaust, or who has relatives who died in it, being called a Nazi is unspeakably terrible. That is the secret weapon of the Arabs. Any time the Jews get wise and threaten mass expulsion of Arabs, the Arabs pull out their big stick, equating Nazism with Zionism. Their cartoons merge swastikas with stars of David. Their newspapers call Ariel Sharon another Adolf Hitler. Their spokespeople cry "Genocide!" And the Jews cower in fear that they could be equated with their parents' murderers.

The Jews don't realize that expelling a hostile population is a commonly used and generally effective way of preventing violent entanglements. There are no gas chambers here. It's not genocide; it's transfer. It's not Hitler; it's Churchill.

[…] Arab-Jewish conflict is exponentially more volatile than German-Polish conflict ever was. And the solution is far easier. If there was "room in Germany for the German populations of East Prussia and of the other territories," as Churchill stated, there is certainly room in the spacious Muslim states of the Middle East for 5 million Palestinians and Israeli Arabs. If Germans, who had a centuries-old connection to the newly created Polish territory, could be expelled, then surely Palestinians, whose claim to Judea, Samaria and Gaza is dubious at best, can be expelled.

It's time to stop being squeamish. Jews are not Nazis. Transfer is not genocide. And anything else isn't a solution.

Now, granted, he was 19 at the time. Perhaps he has mellowed out, realized there are still softer ways to solve conflicts… As did Hanania.

Incidentally, like a third of Israeli population is younger than 18.

On the object level, I even agree with him that population exchanges and land swaps work. As does overwhelming power.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/so-heres-giant-list-all-dumb-stuff-ive-ever-done-ben-shapiro

That article is the first on his list of dumb stuff he’s said, and retracts.

That idea was stupid and immoral. I have myself called that idea “inhumane and impractical,” as well as a “moral and philosophical error.” It is also worth noting that the same people who decried the transfer column as genocidal and ethnic cleansing were very much in favor of forcing every single Jew out of the Gaza Strip in 2006, and seem fine with complete destruction of Israeli settlements in favor of a Judenrein Palestinian state.

"inhumane and impractical":

Some on the right have proposed population transfer from the Gaza Strip or West Bank as a solution. This is both inhumane and impractical. Moving millions of Palestinians out of areas they have known for their entire lives will certainly not pave the way to peace. Moreover, these Palestinians will have no place to go, since their brethren across the Arab would prefer to keep them cooped up in dismal poverty than house them in their own lands.

In the end, both right and left agree that a population separation is necessary. That does not mean Palestinian statehood, which will undoubtedly result in another Iran directly on Israel's borders. It means instead moving beyond utopianism and making mental peace with the fact that no solution will be permanent. Israel will have to protect its citizens, and it will have to continue to police Palestinian borders. Settlements are not the problem here. Removing settlements is not the solution. The problem is intractable.

Ben really is very good at kvetching and handwringing. Every time I notice such an amusing character and see how much attention and respect American conservative gentiles afford him, I also remember my more hot-headed sentiments about… well, we all can grow up to some extent.

The fact of the matter, though, is that he provides no argument against ethnic cleansing (why won't it pave the way to peace? why should we believe he won't regretfully admit it's the lesser evil post factum?) and does not accept that any deescalation by Israel would be «part of the solution». His «retraction» of endorsement for explicit cleansing ends in justifying expansion of settlements, thus it serves as just another, cleverer defense for the slower form of cleansing that Israel conducts. "Population separation", but no statehood, no concessions, no dialogue, just more bulldozers and control points and increasingly bold settlers. He has grown up from a trigger-happy youth into a professional propagandist moving in lockstep with Bibi's long term project. Good for him.

But in any case, now you have "heard" him say they need to be removed.

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