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.
Suppose you were a moderate leader of the Palestinians. What on Earth could you possibly do to end the suffering and negotiate a lasting peace?
Palestinians appear to feel very strongly about unrestricted right of return. In the failed Camp David talks, Arafat demanded 150,000 Palestinians in the diaspora be allowed to settle Israel per year while Israel pushed back and said 100,000 total, though they offered a $30 billion fund to help Palestinians abroad to attain permanent settlement abroad.
This is pretty far apart. Israel doesn’t want to be demographically obliterated but Palestinians that fled Israel consider it their ancestral home.
How do you reconcile this? Wouldn’t any Palestinian leader that negotiated a peace deal without this be considered illegitimate and probably marked for death?
On the other hand, would the hostilities even end if Israel somehow agreed to unrestricted ROR? There’s so much bad blood that even this is hard to imagine as being the thing that achieves lasting peace.
I’m not sure any concession short of Israel packs up and leaves forever would end the violence.
Is it wrong to demand that Israelis relocate to Florida? It’s not like they can’t move all of their holy buildings. Surely the terra itself isn’t sacred?
Suppose you were a moderate leader of the Palestinians. What on Earth could you possibly do to end the suffering and negotiate a lasting peace?
Emigrate to America. Infiltrate the Democratic party, convince them that continued sympathy for the Palestinians is actually bad and we should cut off 100% of aid to Gaza/West Bank, and blockade all other international aid. This defunds Hamas and Hezbollah and eventually Gaza and West Bank are just normal poor desert communities full of poor, tired, hungry, thirsty people who can set up governments appropriate for themselves. Then a 3 state solution naturally evolves with the city-state of Gaza on the coast and the small country of West Jordan on the river.
Iran alone can't fund the terror states anywhere near the level they currently operate at. And, without western sympathy, it doesn't benefit them to try.
Suppose you were a moderate leader of the Palestinians. What on Earth could you possibly do to end the suffering and negotiate a lasting peace?
Honestly, I think if the Palestinians had been led by a charismatic Western-PMC-friendly MLK or Nelson Mandela, rather than by self-enriching despots like Arafat, they could have gotten almost all of what they (claimed to) ask for. They probably could have, given a demonstrable period of peace, made a compelling case for equal rights for non-Jews in Israel! The 2000 and 2008 peace proposals seemed, at least to my eyes, pretty accommodating given the circumstances, but were still declined. At least some of this is, I think, because the Palestinian authorities don't seem to really to run a functioning government: even if Abbas agreed to a given proposal, there are at least a half-dozen Palestinian factions that he can't keep under control that would probably keep fighting. It's quite possible the leaders have to keep declining peace offers because it would expose how little authority they actually hold with their people.
On the other hand, given the events of recent weeks, I can also see how such a the events of earlier this month would be worse if they had successfully played for peace and open(er) borders and waited for a better time to strike. I've heard anecdotes that Gazans with work permits in Israel were involved (exact circumstances unclear) in planning the operation. Given an enemy so dead-set on your destruction at any cost to themselves (martyrdom!), how can you defeat them and win peace in hearts and minds? Or trust that any current peace isn't a quiet prelude to a larger surprise? Also, while there have been moments of hope post-Apartheid South Africa after Mandela, the promised utopian future for all of the late 90s seems to have fractured at the seams, with widespread civil infrastructure failures and emigration of those with better options.
Given an enemy so dead-set on your destruction at any cost to themselves (martyrdom!), how can you defeat them and win peace in hearts and minds?
Right, this is the heart of my question. Is there a path forward besides: wait for Palestinians to undergo a complete spiritual and cultural transformation? ( Or for the international community to give Israel a freebie on genocide)
Or, for that matter, a path forward besides waiting for Israel to undergo a complete spiritual and cultural transformation and then hope the Palestinians follow suit?
Why isn’t it also on Israel to try to find a leader like, I don’t know, a charismatic Jesus kind of guy who loves the Palestinians even though many of them will terrorize?
Is there a path forward besides: wait for Palestinians to undergo a complete spiritual and cultural transformation? ( Or for the international community to give Israel a freebie on genocide)
No, and we should.
Why isn’t it also on Israel to try to find a leader like, I don’t know, a charismatic Jesus kind of guy who loves the Palestinians even though many of them will terrorize?
Because then we would lose 8 Million productive humans so some crazy people can occupy a really cool coastline.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
dr_analog 6mo ago
Suppose you were a moderate leader of the Palestinians. What on Earth could you possibly do to end the suffering and negotiate a lasting peace?
Right now? Nothing. The cynics are right that the Palestinian people* do not actually want peace. When they say they want peace, what they mean is they want the Israel to stop attacking them. So that they can rebuild and prepare for the next attack. This is the blackpill, cynical view, and it's terrible and tragic, and it's also correct.
This does not mean I think Palestinians deserve to be genocided or that being part of a "death cult," as others have so colorfully put it, is in their genes. But it is very much part of the current culture and political ethos, and it's been baked in for generations. Whether or not they are justified in this view is beside the point. Argue about the creation of Israel and who wronged who first harder all you want, but that doesn't change the current situation on the ground. Palestinians want Israel literally destroyed, which makes any halfway compromise difficult. All you're really offering is a temporary ceasefire. The only long term peace (assuming that actually eradicating Israel is off the table - which for moral and practical purposes it almost certainly is) is a cultural change among the Palestinians that leads to the next generation being willing to genuinely coexist and "bury the hatchet." I think this is theoretically possible, with sufficiently strong and dedicated leadership willing to pursue this. You'd need both Palestinians and Israelis fully bought into the project, and right now, and for the foreseeable future, neither of them are. It would be a very long-term project, and I am very pessimistic about it happening in any of our lifetimes. I think one side or the other committing genocide is more likely.
Obviously, I do not literally mean every single Palestinians. There are Palestinians who want peace, who would genuinely embrace peaceful coexistence with Jews. But they are a small minority with functionally no political influence in Palestine for the foreseeable future.
Suppose you were a moderate leader of the Palestinians. What on Earth could you possibly do to end the suffering and negotiate a lasting peace?
Nothing. You try, you get killed and replaced by someone less moderate.
Wouldn’t any Palestinian leader that negotiated a peace deal without this be considered illegitimate and probably marked for death?
Yes.
Is it wrong to demand that Israelis relocate to Florida? It’s not like they can’t move all of their holy buildings. Surely the terra itself isn’t sacred?
Is it wrong to demand that Israelis relocate to Florida? It’s not like they can’t move all of their holy buildings. Surely the terra itself isn’t sacred?
Of course the land is sacred to them.
/tableflip
Ok, so...
Isn't this the Israelis falling a bit below the sanity waterline? Yes it's true they're surrounded on all sides by people who are so toxic that they would rather die than coexist with Israelis, or even just share a border with them, and yes these other people are behaving really, really badly. But given that Israel is not allowed to solve this the old fashioned way (genocide), and all avenues for peace have epsilon probability of success, ... shouldn't they just nope out?
I agree it sets a terrible precedent that your neighbors can get their way just by succumbing to a deep and apparently permanent craze, and ideally you'd like to prevail against them, but at some point shouldn't you just move to a better neighborhood? Unlike the Palestinians, there are other nations of the world that would welcome them.
Israelis seem destined to be in this fight for centuries, and they're apparently okay with it.
And when a bunch of 3rd world refugees get let in to America? America is only safe for Jews for as long as the current iteration of the Republican party survives as a major force in politics. If the left keeps winning, Jews eventually lose out in their own coalition of outsiders and the firing squad comes for them (for being competent and having money). If the current right collapses and re-organizes in a white nationalistic way, the Jews also lose, now being hated by the majority of both major parties. The reason for Israel is for Jews to govern Jews and hold borders for Jews.
The reason why Israel is important to the Israelis is not so much because they can't live anywhere else - Jews live in lots of not-Israel places. It's because they want a country - a place where Jews control the state apparatus and therefore the state apparatus will never be turned against Jews. It's there to be a refuge for Jews that need to flee persecution in other countries (as has indeed happened multiple times).
Do you think the US would be willing to allow Florida to secede and become New Israel?
The specific location of that country is obviously critical to them though -- Jerusalem being a sticky point in terms of where exactly the lines are drawn is maybe the most obvious example?
At this point you'd never get them to pack up and leave (absent massive genocide of course). But the early Zionists like Herzl were insistent on a Jewish state, but flexible about its location. There was discussion about establishing the Jewish state in places like Uganda or Argentina.
Of course that's not what actually happened - the fact that Israel is their ancestral homeland with great religious significance made it obviously the most desirable location. But table stakes for anyone who wants to argue that they should go somewhere else is they need to also explain which country is going to give up territory to them, rather than merely allow them to immigrate.
Many opportunities which would have made the problem more tractable have presented themselves in the past -- now those are passed, and here we are. The current reality is that two (apparently) incompatible groups are claiming the same piece of dirt -- this does not present any obvious solutions.
It seems they are going with "reduce their attacks to minor annoyance". While latest Hamas raid was humiliating and many people were murdered it is actually not SO problematic.
Isn't this the Israelis falling a bit below the sanity waterline?
No, and that you think so just means you do not accept their terminal values. Whether those terminal values are ipso facto insane can't be decided from the fact that they have homicidal opponents with conflicting terminal values.
But given that Israel is not allowed to solve this the old fashioned way (genocide), and all avenues for peace have epsilon probability of success, ... shouldn't they just nope out?
You're privileging some of the givens. That they want the holy land is also a given.
No, and that you think so just means you do not accept their terminal values. Whether those terminal values are ipso facto insane can't be decided from the fact that they have homicidal opponents with conflicting terminal values.
Yes I suppose am rejecting religious devotion to a piece of land as a terminal value when there is abundance of land on Earth that’s far less problematic. I consider this sub-sane.
This is independent from why the homicidal opponents want it, IMO.
"The Lord had said to Abram, 'Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.'"
(Genesis 12:1-7 NIV)
"On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, 'To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates—the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.'"
(Genesis 15:18-21 NIV)
"'So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.'"
(Exodus 3:8 NIV)
"The Lord said to Moses, 'Command the Israelites and say to them: ‘When you enter Canaan, the land that will be allotted to you as an inheritance is to have these boundaries...’"
(Numbers 34:1-12 NIV)
"See, I have given you this land. Go in and take possession of the land the Lord swore he would give to your fathers—to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—and to their descendants after them."
(Deuteronomy 1:8 NIV)
"'Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them—to the Israelites.'"
(Joshua 1:2-6 NIV)
I feel like the obvious answer as a benevolent dictator would be to throw the Israelis' game back in their faces. Focus on building up Gaza as an Independent city state/tax haven a la Singapore or Monoco and once economic self sufficiency has been achieved start buying up the neighboring land and moving your people on to that land. Don't fight so much as just act like the land is yours by right and dare your opponents to put a stop to it.
Of course, this isn't going to happen because Hamas is an apocalyptic death-cult comprised of guys who thought that the Muslim Brotherhood and PLA were booth "too chill" for their tastes, and due to some unfortunate quirks of Islamic political and moral theory no one else is really inclined to stand up to them.
The wages of sin are death, and the wages must be paid.
Even if the average Gazan wasn't part of a death cult, a benevolent dictator couldn't turn Gaza into an awesome city state anytime soon. It is full of Gazans. Gazans are unproductive even in America.
I don't think I know how to accomplish what you propose. I have some ideas I could try, but they are contradictory. I am not very well aware of a way to use authoritarian power to impose good culture on a society, particularly given that even though I am dictator, I still have but one life. I could try the Attaturk and Pinochet approaches, but I don't think it would actually work in Gaza.
I have some ideas I could try, but they are contradictory.
Successful strategies often are. The fundamental flaw of rationalism is that it expects the world to be rational, IE abide by the rules of inductive reason, but we aint that fortunate.
Turning Gaza into Singapore is not so much “throw the Israelis' game back in their faces” as much as “literally doing exactly what they hoped for in 2005”. The Singapore analogy was thrown around quite a bunch at the time, and even since.
(They can’t buy land in Israel though, it’s all owned by the government or a proxy)
You will be surprised how easy it is to steal another nations's prettiest humans if your GDP is 4 times greater. There will be more than enough mixed and dual citizenship people that will have strong voice in a couple of generations.
About the Israel land. If gaza ever get substantially richer than Israel there will be a lot of intermixing going on. First between Israeli arabs and Gazans and probably even some jews. So in couple of generations gaza will have substantial population with valid property claims in Israel.
A rags to riches story of small backwater with big population and high birth rates has happened couple of times already.
And the whole subthread is that you are playing Caesar:2023 gaza strip edition. Aka you are benevolent competent dictator that is sufficiently ruthless. Palestine has had a choice last 80 years - admit you lost and develop over what you have left or suffer in misery. There is never too late to take the sane one.
And here is a prediction - even if somehow there is new eradication of the jews and palestinians take all their land tommorow - the new palstine will be a shithole forever from which they will still try to escape. Case in point - lebanon, zimbabwe, south africa, libya. The dog caught the car and the death spiral started. The change in a country starts in the soul, not in the territory.
A rags to riches story of small backwater with big population and high birth rates has happened couple of times already.
Sure, but which of those cases ended up "substantially richer than Israel ". Israel is already one of the richest countries in the world. A random countries can't just up and make themselves richer than that because they decide to. The vast majority of functioning western countries are far poorer than Israel. You can't just decide that you want to be richer and make it so.
Lebanon was a reasonably nice place to live when the maronites were firmly in charge, and Zimbabwe under white rule was…
Oh. Yes, Palestinian ruled territories will always be shitholes.
Of course, this isn't going to happen because Hamas is an apocalyptic death-cult comprised of guys who thought that the Muslim Brotherhood and PLA were booth "too chill" for their tastes, and due to some unfortunate quirks of Islamic political and moral theory no one else is really inclined to stand up to them.
Right. I’m asking how can a moderate leader succeed given the Hamas death cult. Is this hopeless?
I would not say it is hopeless. But as with recovery from addiction, the first step in the change is wanting to change. This is where the afore mentioned "unfortunate quirks of Islamic political and moral theory" come into play.
You're dealing with a population that believes firmly in "external loci of control" and that if something good or bad happens it's because "God wills it" rather than as a consequence of prior actions. Accordingly convincing them to straighten up and fly right is going to be an uphill battle.
If I were the czar of Gaza, I would declare an independent state which in theory includes Judea and Samaria but in practice encompasses only Gaza. I would build up the economy, utilize foreign aid for the benefit of my citizens, absolutely forbid any violence towards Israel.
In 5-10 years, when things start to improve, I would use diplomatic means and international pressure on Israel to gain control of Oslo A territories in Judea and Samaria (but not B and C), instead of Fatah. There I could build an even stronger economy, again ruthlessly putting down any violence against Israel. At this point I have a state. I negotiate with Jordan and Egypt to allow independent travel between Samaria and Gaza. I’ve already been recognized in the 80’s, so I don’t need to jump that hurdle. I will now solve the refugee crisis by bringing back every descendant of ‘48 to my new state. We are now a thriving state, leaning heavily on international aid and tourism but not blockaded.
This is the hard part, since Israel might interfere from here on out, but I will draw the optimistic scenario. I demand that Israel complies with Oslo, as I have, and gain civil control of Oslo B territories. From here I will use more diplomacy and world pressure to finalize my borders, roughly drawing on the ‘48 armistice line but NOT adhering strictly to it, since it’s mostly meaningless. I offer the settlers in area C citizenship in my country, and since I have shown no violence towards them they might actually accept. We now live in peace. I win.
Isn’t this the “miracle happens” part? Aren’t the extremists going to question whose side you’re truly on? Won’t you be marginalized or assassinated as more moderate Palestinian leaders have been?
assume last paragraph is a joke
Not actually. It may be less detached from reality than expecting Palestinians to stop doing violence to Israel over the next 100 years.
It’s not “miracle happens” so much as “violence happens”. If I’m a leader in Gaza then I get to do that. If I can’t do that then what’s the point if the exercise? Just to prove that Gaza’s culture is irredeemable?
Your last paragraph is ridiculous on so many levels. Maybe least of which is that you think it’s possible to send the Temple Mount and Cave of the Patriarch anywhere. I agree it’s ridiculous to expect the Arabs to change, by the way, which is why they must go.
Your last paragraph is ridiculous on so many levels. Maybe least of which is that you think it’s possible to send the Temple Mount and Cave of the Patriarch anywhere.
I was actually asking a genuine question. Despite even being married to an ethnic Jew at some point, the fine details of what Jews consider sacred didn't make it to me. It's not very common knowledge in the US aside from maybe uhh the city of Jerusalem has some holy sites? Something about a wall? And a temple?
No temple; there is famously no temple. The Temple Mount. It's a hill. There's an ancient wall too. Neither is practically movable, and even if you could move them, I'm sure that would be considered to be defiling them. Also if you moved them, Muslims would find that to be a casus bellum, because they're holy sites for them too.
That is kind of my question yes. Does the solution require a leader that’s sane and visionary enough to want peace and prosperity with cosmopolitan sensibilities while at the same time is capable of doing violence to his own people to avoid any violence coming to Israel and ruining the plan. And keeping this up for decades.
FWIW I like your answer a lot and I don’t think preventing violence against Israel would be unattainable for a Gazan leader with a strong enough power base. I’m thinking here of Kadyrov in Chechnya. You’d want to start by finding a smart powerful and mercenary figure within Hamas. Give them enough money to build up their power base, bribe minor players, have major rivals killed. Give them weapons and allow them to build a Praetorian Guard of elite Hamas fighters who live like kings and get all the chicks. Develop very strict internal messaging norms around Israel and violence — general calls for a unified Palestine one day are fine, but no direct exhortations to violence. Make it so that anyone who fucks with you ends up dead, and anyone who works with you gets money and women.
This shouldn’t be politically impossible. Everyone is responsive to multiple social incentives and these in turn can be influenced with money. It will just take a lot of time, money, and finding the right people.
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Notes -
Suppose you were a moderate leader of the Palestinians. What on Earth could you possibly do to end the suffering and negotiate a lasting peace?
Palestinians appear to feel very strongly about unrestricted right of return. In the failed Camp David talks, Arafat demanded 150,000 Palestinians in the diaspora be allowed to settle Israel per year while Israel pushed back and said 100,000 total, though they offered a $30 billion fund to help Palestinians abroad to attain permanent settlement abroad.
This is pretty far apart. Israel doesn’t want to be demographically obliterated but Palestinians that fled Israel consider it their ancestral home.
How do you reconcile this? Wouldn’t any Palestinian leader that negotiated a peace deal without this be considered illegitimate and probably marked for death?
On the other hand, would the hostilities even end if Israel somehow agreed to unrestricted ROR? There’s so much bad blood that even this is hard to imagine as being the thing that achieves lasting peace.
I’m not sure any concession short of Israel packs up and leaves forever would end the violence.
Is it wrong to demand that Israelis relocate to Florida? It’s not like they can’t move all of their holy buildings. Surely the terra itself isn’t sacred?
Emigrate to America. Infiltrate the Democratic party, convince them that continued sympathy for the Palestinians is actually bad and we should cut off 100% of aid to Gaza/West Bank, and blockade all other international aid. This defunds Hamas and Hezbollah and eventually Gaza and West Bank are just normal poor desert communities full of poor, tired, hungry, thirsty people who can set up governments appropriate for themselves. Then a 3 state solution naturally evolves with the city-state of Gaza on the coast and the small country of West Jordan on the river.
Unfortunately, you can't actually cut off other international aid; in particular you can't stop Iran without open warfare.
Iran alone can't fund the terror states anywhere near the level they currently operate at. And, without western sympathy, it doesn't benefit them to try.
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Honestly, I think if the Palestinians had been led by a charismatic Western-PMC-friendly MLK or Nelson Mandela, rather than by self-enriching despots like Arafat, they could have gotten almost all of what they (claimed to) ask for. They probably could have, given a demonstrable period of peace, made a compelling case for equal rights for non-Jews in Israel! The 2000 and 2008 peace proposals seemed, at least to my eyes, pretty accommodating given the circumstances, but were still declined. At least some of this is, I think, because the Palestinian authorities don't seem to really to run a functioning government: even if Abbas agreed to a given proposal, there are at least a half-dozen Palestinian factions that he can't keep under control that would probably keep fighting. It's quite possible the leaders have to keep declining peace offers because it would expose how little authority they actually hold with their people.
On the other hand, given the events of recent weeks, I can also see how such a the events of earlier this month would be worse if they had successfully played for peace and open(er) borders and waited for a better time to strike. I've heard anecdotes that Gazans with work permits in Israel were involved (exact circumstances unclear) in planning the operation. Given an enemy so dead-set on your destruction at any cost to themselves (martyrdom!), how can you defeat them and win peace in hearts and minds? Or trust that any current peace isn't a quiet prelude to a larger surprise? Also, while there have been moments of hope post-Apartheid South Africa after Mandela, the promised utopian future for all of the late 90s seems to have fractured at the seams, with widespread civil infrastructure failures and emigration of those with better options.
Right, this is the heart of my question. Is there a path forward besides: wait for Palestinians to undergo a complete spiritual and cultural transformation? ( Or for the international community to give Israel a freebie on genocide)
Or, for that matter, a path forward besides waiting for Israel to undergo a complete spiritual and cultural transformation and then hope the Palestinians follow suit?
Why isn’t it also on Israel to try to find a leader like, I don’t know, a charismatic Jesus kind of guy who loves the Palestinians even though many of them will terrorize?
No, and we should.
Because then we would lose 8 Million productive humans so some crazy people can occupy a really cool coastline.
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Jesus can die on his cross. A bit much to expect the same of all Christians.
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Right now? Nothing. The cynics are right that the Palestinian people* do not actually want peace. When they say they want peace, what they mean is they want the Israel to stop attacking them. So that they can rebuild and prepare for the next attack. This is the blackpill, cynical view, and it's terrible and tragic, and it's also correct.
This does not mean I think Palestinians deserve to be genocided or that being part of a "death cult," as others have so colorfully put it, is in their genes. But it is very much part of the current culture and political ethos, and it's been baked in for generations. Whether or not they are justified in this view is beside the point. Argue about the creation of Israel and who wronged who first harder all you want, but that doesn't change the current situation on the ground. Palestinians want Israel literally destroyed, which makes any halfway compromise difficult. All you're really offering is a temporary ceasefire. The only long term peace (assuming that actually eradicating Israel is off the table - which for moral and practical purposes it almost certainly is) is a cultural change among the Palestinians that leads to the next generation being willing to genuinely coexist and "bury the hatchet." I think this is theoretically possible, with sufficiently strong and dedicated leadership willing to pursue this. You'd need both Palestinians and Israelis fully bought into the project, and right now, and for the foreseeable future, neither of them are. It would be a very long-term project, and I am very pessimistic about it happening in any of our lifetimes. I think one side or the other committing genocide is more likely.
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Nothing. You try, you get killed and replaced by someone less moderate.
Yes.
Of course the land is sacred to them.
/tableflip
Ok, so...
Isn't this the Israelis falling a bit below the sanity waterline? Yes it's true they're surrounded on all sides by people who are so toxic that they would rather die than coexist with Israelis, or even just share a border with them, and yes these other people are behaving really, really badly. But given that Israel is not allowed to solve this the old fashioned way (genocide), and all avenues for peace have epsilon probability of success, ... shouldn't they just nope out?
I agree it sets a terrible precedent that your neighbors can get their way just by succumbing to a deep and apparently permanent craze, and ideally you'd like to prevail against them, but at some point shouldn't you just move to a better neighborhood? Unlike the Palestinians, there are other nations of the world that would welcome them.
Israelis seem destined to be in this fight for centuries, and they're apparently okay with it.
And do what? Conquer so other part of our planet? How it would solve anything?
I was thinking buy condos in Florida like millions of Jews before them?
And when a bunch of 3rd world refugees get let in to America? America is only safe for Jews for as long as the current iteration of the Republican party survives as a major force in politics. If the left keeps winning, Jews eventually lose out in their own coalition of outsiders and the firing squad comes for them (for being competent and having money). If the current right collapses and re-organizes in a white nationalistic way, the Jews also lose, now being hated by the majority of both major parties. The reason for Israel is for Jews to govern Jews and hold borders for Jews.
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The reason why Israel is important to the Israelis is not so much because they can't live anywhere else - Jews live in lots of not-Israel places. It's because they want a country - a place where Jews control the state apparatus and therefore the state apparatus will never be turned against Jews. It's there to be a refuge for Jews that need to flee persecution in other countries (as has indeed happened multiple times).
Do you think the US would be willing to allow Florida to secede and become New Israel?
The specific location of that country is obviously critical to them though -- Jerusalem being a sticky point in terms of where exactly the lines are drawn is maybe the most obvious example?
At this point you'd never get them to pack up and leave (absent massive genocide of course). But the early Zionists like Herzl were insistent on a Jewish state, but flexible about its location. There was discussion about establishing the Jewish state in places like Uganda or Argentina.
Of course that's not what actually happened - the fact that Israel is their ancestral homeland with great religious significance made it obviously the most desirable location. But table stakes for anyone who wants to argue that they should go somewhere else is they need to also explain which country is going to give up territory to them, rather than merely allow them to immigrate.
Many opportunities which would have made the problem more tractable have presented themselves in the past -- now those are passed, and here we are. The current reality is that two (apparently) incompatible groups are claiming the same piece of dirt -- this does not present any obvious solutions.
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It seems they are going with "reduce their attacks to minor annoyance". While latest Hamas raid was humiliating and many people were murdered it is actually not SO problematic.
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We could try resurrecting the Schlatter plan.
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No, and that you think so just means you do not accept their terminal values. Whether those terminal values are ipso facto insane can't be decided from the fact that they have homicidal opponents with conflicting terminal values.
You're privileging some of the givens. That they want the holy land is also a given.
Yes I suppose am rejecting religious devotion to a piece of land as a terminal value when there is abundance of land on Earth that’s far less problematic. I consider this sub-sane.
This is independent from why the homicidal opponents want it, IMO.
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The religious Jews would not agree.
Even if it were true, you can't exactly move the Temple Mount.
I mean the Samaritans did it, so it's possible
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I feel like the obvious answer as a benevolent dictator would be to throw the Israelis' game back in their faces. Focus on building up Gaza as an Independent city state/tax haven a la Singapore or Monoco and once economic self sufficiency has been achieved start buying up the neighboring land and moving your people on to that land. Don't fight so much as just act like the land is yours by right and dare your opponents to put a stop to it.
Of course, this isn't going to happen because Hamas is an apocalyptic death-cult comprised of guys who thought that the Muslim Brotherhood and PLA were booth "too chill" for their tastes, and due to some unfortunate quirks of Islamic political and moral theory no one else is really inclined to stand up to them.
The wages of sin are death, and the wages must be paid.
Even if the average Gazan wasn't part of a death cult, a benevolent dictator couldn't turn Gaza into an awesome city state anytime soon. It is full of Gazans. Gazans are unproductive even in America.
As a benevolent dictator that's one of the first things you should be looking to fix. Crack down on those unfortunate cultural quirks
I don't think I know how to accomplish what you propose. I have some ideas I could try, but they are contradictory. I am not very well aware of a way to use authoritarian power to impose good culture on a society, particularly given that even though I am dictator, I still have but one life. I could try the Attaturk and Pinochet approaches, but I don't think it would actually work in Gaza.
Successful strategies often are. The fundamental flaw of rationalism is that it expects the world to be rational, IE abide by the rules of inductive reason, but we aint that fortunate.
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Turning Gaza into Singapore is not so much “throw the Israelis' game back in their faces” as much as “literally doing exactly what they hoped for in 2005”. The Singapore analogy was thrown around quite a bunch at the time, and even since.
(They can’t buy land in Israel though, it’s all owned by the government or a proxy)
You will be surprised how easy it is to steal another nations's prettiest humans if your GDP is 4 times greater. There will be more than enough mixed and dual citizenship people that will have strong voice in a couple of generations.
I have no idea what you mean by that. Did you reply to the wrong comment?
About the Israel land. If gaza ever get substantially richer than Israel there will be a lot of intermixing going on. First between Israeli arabs and Gazans and probably even some jews. So in couple of generations gaza will have substantial population with valid property claims in Israel.
I look on with pleasant confusion verging on bemusement when someone suggests that this is a real possibility worth even raising.
A rags to riches story of small backwater with big population and high birth rates has happened couple of times already.
And the whole subthread is that you are playing Caesar:2023 gaza strip edition. Aka you are benevolent competent dictator that is sufficiently ruthless. Palestine has had a choice last 80 years - admit you lost and develop over what you have left or suffer in misery. There is never too late to take the sane one.
And here is a prediction - even if somehow there is new eradication of the jews and palestinians take all their land tommorow - the new palstine will be a shithole forever from which they will still try to escape. Case in point - lebanon, zimbabwe, south africa, libya. The dog caught the car and the death spiral started. The change in a country starts in the soul, not in the territory.
Did any of those have a diaspora with a long track record of poor economic performance and above average criminality?
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Sure, but which of those cases ended up "substantially richer than Israel ". Israel is already one of the richest countries in the world. A random countries can't just up and make themselves richer than that because they decide to. The vast majority of functioning western countries are far poorer than Israel. You can't just decide that you want to be richer and make it so.
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Lebanon was a reasonably nice place to live when the maronites were firmly in charge, and Zimbabwe under white rule was… Oh. Yes, Palestinian ruled territories will always be shitholes.
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Proxies can be bought as can politicians, but fair point on the rest.
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Right. I’m asking how can a moderate leader succeed given the Hamas death cult. Is this hopeless?
I would not say it is hopeless. But as with recovery from addiction, the first step in the change is wanting to change. This is where the afore mentioned "unfortunate quirks of Islamic political and moral theory" come into play.
You're dealing with a population that believes firmly in "external loci of control" and that if something good or bad happens it's because "God wills it" rather than as a consequence of prior actions. Accordingly convincing them to straighten up and fly right is going to be an uphill battle.
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If I were the czar of Gaza, I would declare an independent state which in theory includes Judea and Samaria but in practice encompasses only Gaza. I would build up the economy, utilize foreign aid for the benefit of my citizens, absolutely forbid any violence towards Israel.
In 5-10 years, when things start to improve, I would use diplomatic means and international pressure on Israel to gain control of Oslo A territories in Judea and Samaria (but not B and C), instead of Fatah. There I could build an even stronger economy, again ruthlessly putting down any violence against Israel. At this point I have a state. I negotiate with Jordan and Egypt to allow independent travel between Samaria and Gaza. I’ve already been recognized in the 80’s, so I don’t need to jump that hurdle. I will now solve the refugee crisis by bringing back every descendant of ‘48 to my new state. We are now a thriving state, leaning heavily on international aid and tourism but not blockaded.
This is the hard part, since Israel might interfere from here on out, but I will draw the optimistic scenario. I demand that Israel complies with Oslo, as I have, and gain civil control of Oslo B territories. From here I will use more diplomacy and world pressure to finalize my borders, roughly drawing on the ‘48 armistice line but NOT adhering strictly to it, since it’s mostly meaningless. I offer the settlers in area C citizenship in my country, and since I have shown no violence towards them they might actually accept. We now live in peace. I win.
Edit: I assume your last paragraph is a joke.
You are now dead. Start back at step 1.
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Isn’t this the “miracle happens” part? Aren’t the extremists going to question whose side you’re truly on? Won’t you be marginalized or assassinated as more moderate Palestinian leaders have been?
Not actually. It may be less detached from reality than expecting Palestinians to stop doing violence to Israel over the next 100 years.
Not if I strike first
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It’s not “miracle happens” so much as “violence happens”. If I’m a leader in Gaza then I get to do that. If I can’t do that then what’s the point if the exercise? Just to prove that Gaza’s culture is irredeemable?
Your last paragraph is ridiculous on so many levels. Maybe least of which is that you think it’s possible to send the Temple Mount and Cave of the Patriarch anywhere. I agree it’s ridiculous to expect the Arabs to change, by the way, which is why they must go.
I was actually asking a genuine question. Despite even being married to an ethnic Jew at some point, the fine details of what Jews consider sacred didn't make it to me. It's not very common knowledge in the US aside from maybe uhh the city of Jerusalem has some holy sites? Something about a wall? And a temple?
No temple; there is famously no temple. The Temple Mount. It's a hill. There's an ancient wall too. Neither is practically movable, and even if you could move them, I'm sure that would be considered to be defiling them. Also if you moved them, Muslims would find that to be a casus bellum, because they're holy sites for them too.
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That is kind of my question yes. Does the solution require a leader that’s sane and visionary enough to want peace and prosperity with cosmopolitan sensibilities while at the same time is capable of doing violence to his own people to avoid any violence coming to Israel and ruining the plan. And keeping this up for decades.
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FWIW I like your answer a lot and I don’t think preventing violence against Israel would be unattainable for a Gazan leader with a strong enough power base. I’m thinking here of Kadyrov in Chechnya. You’d want to start by finding a smart powerful and mercenary figure within Hamas. Give them enough money to build up their power base, bribe minor players, have major rivals killed. Give them weapons and allow them to build a Praetorian Guard of elite Hamas fighters who live like kings and get all the chicks. Develop very strict internal messaging norms around Israel and violence — general calls for a unified Palestine one day are fine, but no direct exhortations to violence. Make it so that anyone who fucks with you ends up dead, and anyone who works with you gets money and women.
This shouldn’t be politically impossible. Everyone is responsive to multiple social incentives and these in turn can be influenced with money. It will just take a lot of time, money, and finding the right people.
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