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?
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.
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.
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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?
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.
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.
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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