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.
How are people still so naive about Islamic extremists? After ISIS, The Taliban, Al Qaeda, 9/11, all of the terrorist attacks in Europe, etc you still have people in the West who refuse to believe Islamic extremists (which includes Hamas) could commit atrocities and are bad faith actors in this conflict.
Take for example the 40 babies fiasco, where many people (especially on the Left) were talking about war propaganda and how dumb people were for believing that Hamas would do that. Islamic extremists absolutely would do that! These same people who on the same day shot up a whole music festival, murdered innocent children and took toddlers as hostages! But we are supposed to believe killing babies is too far? There is almost no amount of savagery by Islamic extremists that should shock anyone at this point, especially after ISIS, but here we are I guess.
Or take for another example this hospital explosion. It's looking like Israel didn't do it based on new intelligence, but maybe they did. At this point it still is unclear. But one thing I know for sure is that you should not take the word of Hamas seriously on who did it. This is an organization who has put weapons under hospitals and schools and is known to not give a shit if their actions led to Palestinian children's deaths. In fact, they often try to make that happen as a weapon in the information war against. So yes, they absolutely would blow up their own hospital to make Israel look bad, so you shouldn't take the word of Islamic extremists seriously on this issue. Yet you have journalists and politicians in the West taking them at their word on this atrocity. Ironically, these are often some of the same kinds of people who make fun of the Right for falling for fake news and Russian disinformation.
I'm truly at a loss for words here with this conflict. How is this possible? Is there anything that can wake people up to this issue after all these years or is this just something we have to live with?
Replace this with any other culture war issue (and,for Americans, that's what it is) IQ, crime,gender medicine.
Let's say people are utterly credulous about the evidence from their side (including from non credible sources), then suddenly have isolated demands for rigor for any contradictory evidence, stake out absolute stances ("that never happens") and only partly walk them back after allowing the misinformation to fester as long as possible.
What conclusion would you draw?
I make an exception for Trudeau. There the explanation is that he just is a deeply unwise person who makes premature and dangerous comments to virtual signal (see the mass graves thing) A fool more than a self serving partisan for whom truth is secondary or is in such a bubble and compromised epistemic position that it functionally is.
Despite how ghastly the behavior of the underdog, people are eager to side with them because they believe that they are only the underdog because they are oppressed, and the oppressor is ultimately the one that's morally culpable for their behavior. If they were not oppressed, their natural state would be peaceful and humane.
This leads to a confabulation of sorts. The underdog is both given the benefit of the doubt about potential bad behavior and they are also absolved of responsibility when their behavior is undeniably bad.
This situation is also tailor-made for the sort of bad faith I'm describing because there's already a belief on the pro-"underdog" side (driven by an assumption that words determine reality) that "validating narratives" directly leads to harm. This is often strange and self-serving in US contexts (accepting the "detransitioner narrative" will in no way lead to trans "genocide", no matter what partisans say), but if there's any time it's likely to be true it's here.
When you have people like Nikki Haley saying "finish them" about an operation that must kill or displace a bunch of unarmed Palestinians to have any efficacy I can see why people utterly opposed to that want to run as much interference as possible.
"X never happens" when you know all you're doing is forcing your opponent to go do research is asinine in a domestic context but, insofar as you believe no one should die, you actually have an incentive to muddy the waters and blunt sympathy for Israel. The US is its benefactor after all and so it may really matter this time.
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Notes -
How are people still so naive about Islamic extremists? After ISIS, The Taliban, Al Qaeda, 9/11, all of the terrorist attacks in Europe, etc you still have people in the West who refuse to believe Islamic extremists (which includes Hamas) could commit atrocities and are bad faith actors in this conflict.
Take for example the 40 babies fiasco, where many people (especially on the Left) were talking about war propaganda and how dumb people were for believing that Hamas would do that. Islamic extremists absolutely would do that! These same people who on the same day shot up a whole music festival, murdered innocent children and took toddlers as hostages! But we are supposed to believe killing babies is too far? There is almost no amount of savagery by Islamic extremists that should shock anyone at this point, especially after ISIS, but here we are I guess.
Or take for another example this hospital explosion. It's looking like Israel didn't do it based on new intelligence, but maybe they did. At this point it still is unclear. But one thing I know for sure is that you should not take the word of Hamas seriously on who did it. This is an organization who has put weapons under hospitals and schools and is known to not give a shit if their actions led to Palestinian children's deaths. In fact, they often try to make that happen as a weapon in the information war against. So yes, they absolutely would blow up their own hospital to make Israel look bad, so you shouldn't take the word of Islamic extremists seriously on this issue. Yet you have journalists and politicians in the West taking them at their word on this atrocity. Ironically, these are often some of the same kinds of people who make fun of the Right for falling for fake news and Russian disinformation.
I'm truly at a loss for words here with this conflict. How is this possible? Is there anything that can wake people up to this issue after all these years or is this just something we have to live with?
Who said they're naive?
Replace this with any other culture war issue (and,for Americans, that's what it is) IQ, crime,gender medicine.
Let's say people are utterly credulous about the evidence from their side (including from non credible sources), then suddenly have isolated demands for rigor for any contradictory evidence, stake out absolute stances ("that never happens") and only partly walk them back after allowing the misinformation to fester as long as possible.
What conclusion would you draw?
I make an exception for Trudeau. There the explanation is that he just is a deeply unwise person who makes premature and dangerous comments to virtual signal (see the mass graves thing) A fool more than a self serving partisan for whom truth is secondary or is in such a bubble and compromised epistemic position that it functionally is.
Despite how ghastly the behavior of the underdog, people are eager to side with them because they believe that they are only the underdog because they are oppressed, and the oppressor is ultimately the one that's morally culpable for their behavior. If they were not oppressed, their natural state would be peaceful and humane.
This leads to a confabulation of sorts. The underdog is both given the benefit of the doubt about potential bad behavior and they are also absolved of responsibility when their behavior is undeniably bad.
This situation is also tailor-made for the sort of bad faith I'm describing because there's already a belief on the pro-"underdog" side (driven by an assumption that words determine reality) that "validating narratives" directly leads to harm. This is often strange and self-serving in US contexts (accepting the "detransitioner narrative" will in no way lead to trans "genocide", no matter what partisans say), but if there's any time it's likely to be true it's here.
When you have people like Nikki Haley saying "finish them" about an operation that must kill or displace a bunch of unarmed Palestinians to have any efficacy I can see why people utterly opposed to that want to run as much interference as possible.
"X never happens" when you know all you're doing is forcing your opponent to go do research is asinine in a domestic context but, insofar as you believe no one should die, you actually have an incentive to muddy the waters and blunt sympathy for Israel. The US is its benefactor after all and so it may really matter this time.
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