naraburns nihil supernum
6mo ago
(text post)
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Israel-Gaza Megathread #2
This is a refreshed 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.
BurdensomeCount
Singapore is the only country that learned the correct lessons from the British Empire.
6mo ago
Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav'n. - Lucifer, Paradise Lost.
Some people here have said that it is just and right for the Palestinian people to continue to fight to the death against their Israeli "Oppressors", even though under most reasonable cases they would be better off if they just accepted the Israelis as their superiors and started living like your median Israeli Arab. Certainly the Israeli Arabs are doing decently, with their being no large scale oppression against them, even though Israel has far more control over them than it does with the Palestinians (which is not what you'd expect from a state that hated them, you'd expect a positive correlation between how much power a state has over a person and how much it oppresses them).
The mindless lashing out by Hamas two weeks ago initially made me think they were extremely stupid, given that compared to them Israel was basically a sleeping beast, which they provoked into waking up and retaliating by kicking it. However I refuse to believe that Hamas leadership can altogether
be this idiotic (with a population of 2 million people, even if your average IQ is 90 you can easily fill out your top ranks with IQ 130+ people), surely they knew that what they were doing had zero hope of bringing down the Zionists and all it would do is kill the Palestinian cause for decades since their only hope is to win the "sentiment of the rest of the world" war until Israel is pressured into making concessions. Murdering/pillaging civilians, then posting videos online celebrating what you did is absolutely not the way to go about it.
The more I reflect on why they would ever do what they did, the more convinced I am that the actions of Hamas and those who prefer to fight to the death rather than accept life under the Israelis are, in a word, simply Satanic. Note that the Palestinians have no good plan for how they would materially improve the lives of their citizens if Israel sudden disappeared in the blink of an eye beyond going in an feeding off the surplus left behind. Their plan for prosperity is: 1. Get rid of Israel. 2. Things magically get better and everyone is happy. They don't even bother to try and demonstrate that they are serious about improving life for the common man, there are no "political party manifestos" of what Hamas would do to improve lives if suddenly they got everything they say they want. They are just interested in fighting the stronger power in the area and deposing them so they can be the strong power instead. At the very least they could come up with a serious and convincing plan of how the Levant would be better off and what they would do to make people's lives better if/when they win their struggle. They have no positive vision, end of story.
Just as Milton's Lucifer preferred to rule over ashes rather than live a subservient life under God, these terrorists prefer to force the Palestinians to live out a life in terrible conditions with them at the head rather than accept the comparative Heaven on Earth experienced by Israeli Arabs. Such actions are literally Satanic, as was understood by humans hundreds of years ago, and yet, even today there is a very large contingent of the world that supports those who get their political inspiration from the Prince of Darkness. The mind boggles.
Their plan for prosperity is: 1. Get rid of Israel. 2. Things magically get better
I think this may be demonstrating a major disconnect in mindset. Simply put: material prosperity is not a terminal value for most groups of people, and for some may barely be a value at all.
It's like mentioning how the Amish could be more prosperous if only they used modern technology. Of course they could! The explicitly think that's a bad thing, in a way that many valueless post-modernists seem to fail to understand. Have you considered that maybe Palestinians just genuinely feel that being free, impoverished, and Islamic is actually better than less free, wealthy, and progressive? Having actual values beyond "have money" doesn't make them Satanic.
I'm not even pro-Palestine (far, far from it actually,) but this read of them is just so far from any traditional Islamist I've ever met that I had to say something. If you're one of those people with no values beyond "win," don't forget that other people actually have other values, and say hi to Moloch for me.
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Notes -
Some people here have said that it is just and right for the Palestinian people to continue to fight to the death against their Israeli "Oppressors", even though under most reasonable cases they would be better off if they just accepted the Israelis as their superiors and started living like your median Israeli Arab. Certainly the Israeli Arabs are doing decently, with their being no large scale oppression against them, even though Israel has far more control over them than it does with the Palestinians (which is not what you'd expect from a state that hated them, you'd expect a positive correlation between how much power a state has over a person and how much it oppresses them).
The mindless lashing out by Hamas two weeks ago initially made me think they were extremely stupid, given that compared to them Israel was basically a sleeping beast, which they provoked into waking up and retaliating by kicking it. However I refuse to believe that Hamas leadership can altogether be this idiotic (with a population of 2 million people, even if your average IQ is 90 you can easily fill out your top ranks with IQ 130+ people), surely they knew that what they were doing had zero hope of bringing down the Zionists and all it would do is kill the Palestinian cause for decades since their only hope is to win the "sentiment of the rest of the world" war until Israel is pressured into making concessions. Murdering/pillaging civilians, then posting videos online celebrating what you did is absolutely not the way to go about it.
The more I reflect on why they would ever do what they did, the more convinced I am that the actions of Hamas and those who prefer to fight to the death rather than accept life under the Israelis are, in a word, simply Satanic. Note that the Palestinians have no good plan for how they would materially improve the lives of their citizens if Israel sudden disappeared in the blink of an eye beyond going in an feeding off the surplus left behind. Their plan for prosperity is: 1. Get rid of Israel. 2. Things magically get better and everyone is happy. They don't even bother to try and demonstrate that they are serious about improving life for the common man, there are no "political party manifestos" of what Hamas would do to improve lives if suddenly they got everything they say they want. They are just interested in fighting the stronger power in the area and deposing them so they can be the strong power instead. At the very least they could come up with a serious and convincing plan of how the Levant would be better off and what they would do to make people's lives better if/when they win their struggle. They have no positive vision, end of story.
Just as Milton's Lucifer preferred to rule over ashes rather than live a subservient life under God, these terrorists prefer to force the Palestinians to live out a life in terrible conditions with them at the head rather than accept the comparative Heaven on Earth experienced by Israeli Arabs. Such actions are literally Satanic, as was understood by humans hundreds of years ago, and yet, even today there is a very large contingent of the world that supports those who get their political inspiration from the Prince of Darkness. The mind boggles.
I think this may be demonstrating a major disconnect in mindset. Simply put: material prosperity is not a terminal value for most groups of people, and for some may barely be a value at all.
It's like mentioning how the Amish could be more prosperous if only they used modern technology. Of course they could! The explicitly think that's a bad thing, in a way that many valueless post-modernists seem to fail to understand. Have you considered that maybe Palestinians just genuinely feel that being free, impoverished, and Islamic is actually better than less free, wealthy, and progressive? Having actual values beyond "have money" doesn't make them Satanic.
I'm not even pro-Palestine (far, far from it actually,) but this read of them is just so far from any traditional Islamist I've ever met that I had to say something. If you're one of those people with no values beyond "win," don't forget that other people actually have other values, and say hi to Moloch for me.
+1
Here is where again I reference value rationality:
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