naraburns nihil supernum
7mo 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.
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.
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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.
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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