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naraburns  nihil supernum  6mo ago (text post)   29920 thread views

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.

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[NYTimes, Friedman] Why a Gaza Invasion and ‘Once and for All’ Thinking Are Wrong for Israel

When The Times’s Israel correspondent Isabel Kershner recently asked an Israeli Army tank driver, Shai Levy, 37, to describe the purpose of the looming Israeli invasion of Gaza, he said something that really caught my ear. It was “to restore honor to Israel,” he said.

All these Islamist/jihadist movements — the Taliban, Hamas, ISIS, Al Qaeda, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, the Houthis — have deep cultural, social, religious and political roots in their societies. And they have access to endless supplies of humiliated young men, many of whom have never been in a job, power or a romantic relationship: a lethal combination that makes them easy to mobilize for mayhem.

And that’s why, to this day, none of these movements have been eliminated once and for all. They can, though, be isolated, diminished, delegitimized and decapitated — as America has done with ISIS and Al Qaeda. But that requires patience, precision, lots of allies and alternatives that have legitimacy within the societies from which these young men emerge.

Perhaps the greatest political challenge is what to do with surplus young men. It is this group that lies behind most terrorism, ISIS, inceldom, much of the dissident right, most challenges with policing and crime. Rich countries have more options than poorer ones, as do countries with lower birthrates compared to higher ones (due to reductions in the proportion of violent, dispossessed young men as a percentage of the total population).

Dump hormone blockers into the water provided to Gaza. Science says they're 100% harmless, and they'd prevent development of aggressive masculine traits.

Just open free Halal McDonalds and Pizza Hut, free supermarkets packed full of goods with high fructose corn syrup and give out free Steamdecks and Starlink access and flat screen tvs. Free cellphones with TikTok and Insta and Tinder baked in. Free condoms, free birth control pills. Start up the Real Housewives of the Gaza Strip and make a whole bunch of tv shows ostensibly set in the Islamic Middle East but pushing Western sexual mores. Open free pharmacies giving out opiates and antidepressants. We can do so much better than blue jeans and rock music nowadays.

Bring the full force of Western Decadence against them, and see who the strong horse really is.

Sounds like an incentive for western NEETs to go full pepewar on society so they can have all that appeasement too.

I think we could say, they already have most of those things, even in the US welfare will take you a long way towards most of them. Subsidized internet access is available in my state at least. In the Gaza case we're just not allowing them to pick what they spend the money on, so it doesn't end up buying AK's and so on.

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