naraburns nihil supernum
6mo ago
(text post)
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Israel-Gaza Megathread #3
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.
One ripple effect of the Israel-Gaza war is the warp-speed unraveling of relations between President Biden and some of his most loyal voters: Muslims and Arab Americans. The open disdain toward Biden from many in a reliably Democratic bloc is among the many signs the conflict is quickly remaking U.S. domestic politics, with public fury over a Hamas attack that killed 1,400 Israelis colliding with the horror of entire families in the Gaza Strip being wiped out in Israel’s retaliatory strikes.
“It’s really crazy to me that the Democratic party destroyed 20-years … worth of good will with Muslims and Arabs in just 2 weeks, losing an entire generation that was raised in the progressive coalition, possibly forever,” Eman Abdelhadi, a University of Chicago professor of comparative human development who studies Palestinian Americans, wrote Thursday on X, formerly Twitter.
In an interview, Abdelhadi said community members weren’t surprised Biden was supportive of Israel. But “the degree, the blank check,” is scary, she said, especially given the mounting civilian casualty toll. Young people already are talking about sitting out the election in protest, she said. At a recent campus event that drew hundreds of students, Abdelhadi said, she told the audience, “I think Biden has lost the Muslim vote.”
“The entire room erupted into clapping,” she recalled. “This generation was raised in a time when Muslims and Arabs were constantly in contact with Democrats, felt and were part of the progressive coalition. Now that is completely disillusioned.”
Gallup polling showed that in early 2022, for the first time in more than 20 years, more Democrats said that “their sympathies” lie with the Palestinians than with the Israelis, 49 percent to 38 percent.
Publicly the administration has been fully supportive of Israel, while behind the scenes they're attempting to restrain them; the blackout in Gaza ended after barely over a day because US officials pressured the Israelis. Biden's response has been pretty reasonable, but this may turn into a bigger domestic issue if the invasion drags on.
I reckon the majority of Muslims will show up for Biden out of self interest. However Michigan in particular has a big levantine Arab community who care alot about this conflict. They are also mostly 2/3rd generation so wouldn't be affected by Trumps muslim ban.
With the razor sharp margins Biden got in several swing states, this could make him really vulnerable. He won Georgia with 12 000 votes, and the state has more than 70 000 Muslims.
I also wonder how this focus on Israel will play with other minority groups, like blacks and Hispanics. I think the feeling that your president and government is beholden to a foreign government you don't really care about can be alienating to alot of these voters. Particularly when Biden is not delivering on bread and butter issues.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
rudig 6mo ago
They are also mostly 2/3rd generation so wouldn't be affected by Trumps muslim ban.
As I've said before, the mistake was made in 1965, not in 2017. Either way, the best time to not open immigration to Arab Muslims was decades ago, but the second-best time is now. Even if I those second and third generation Muslims aren't personally impacted, I would wager that Trump's policy would piss them off enough that they're vote for the opposite party in an election. If Biden's embrace of Israel alienates them to the extent that they don't vote at all, that would have to be thought of as an unmitigated win for the Trump campaign.
There are 2 basic theories for how to win elections. One is that you win by convincing moderates who might plausibly vote either way to vote for your guy. The other is that you win by convincing your supporters to actually turn out and vote. Given the state of partisanship and the participation rate in even highly contentious elections with massive media attention, it seems likely that the second is the dominating factor in most elections. If something drains the enthusiasm of people who would have voted for you such that they fail to actually show up and vote, you can very much still lose, even if the other side is (in your opinion) objectively further from the point of view of the people who are sitting out.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
JulianRota 6mo ago
There's a third way! Dampening enthusiasm for your opponent to the extent that their people just don't show up in the necessary numbers may well be effective. I suspect it's less effective in the era of fortified elections, but even mailing something in might be too much effort for low-propensity voters that lack enthusiasm for any candidate.
I suppose it's a bit semantic, but I would consider that part of my second way. Perhaps better classified, the first way is to operate primarily on logically persuading people to support your candidate versus the other based on proposed policies. The second way is to operate primarily on the enthusiasm of strongly partisan voters to actually turn out, which would include both getting your supporters to want to turn out and vote, as well as getting the other guy's supporters to sit out the election instead of voting.
I've noticed this as well. You'll have secular, non-religious and well adjusted Muslims turn into borderline Jihadists over the topic of Israel and Palestine.They will also start believing in insane Alex Jones tier conspiracies. I was talking to one who told me that Hamas didn't kill any civilians at the Music Festival on purpose and they were caught in the crossfire of them fighting the IDF. Some Jews are just as bad too. There's SJW Jews who believe in intersectionality and every progressive cause that will sound like Hitler when talking about Palestinians. This issue is so toxic it's not even able to be debated. It's like the trans issue multiplied by a billion.
This issue is so toxic it's not even able to be debated.
Yes. The meme is "the most complicated geopolitical issue of all time" is not really all that accurate. There are far more complicated geopolitical issues. The complicacy is just how emotional people are about the issue, not the issue itself, which you can more or less grasp within a day or two of reading.
How do I know this? Most I talk to about this issue who have the passion of a thousand suns about Palestine don't know the history of Israel, and funnier, Palestine itself. Most didn't even know that "Palestine" was under Ottoman rule before the British.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
f3zinker 6mo ago
The complicacy is just how emotional people are about the issue, not the issue itself, which you can more or less grasp within a day or two of reading.
Indeed. The number of people who didn't get the joke was high. But maybe that will eventually include MattY himself, as his habit of stepping on rakes and then blaming the foliage for swinging too wildly continues.
This issue is so toxic it's not even able to be debated
The last Model United Nations I attended would disagree, but then again it's a meme even in the US that having the reconciliation of Israel and Palestine be the objective almost inevitably ends in the delegates ending up in a deadlock haha
There is several things going on here. This is not only about islam, the Uighur situation is geographically/culturally more remote than anything the majority of muslims in the US know or understand. This is a case where optics really matter too. China doesnt broadcast the situation with the Uighurs. They deliberately go out of their way to not frame this in a religious/ethnic sense. You dont have videos of Xi invoking religious imagery of "children of light and darkness". China doesnt try to justify what is going on, they just pretend its not happening. On a global stage, China doesnt seem to have a problem with muslims. Seeing a many middle-easterns dont trust western news sources, its very easy to pretend nothing is happening with the Uighurs.
Both Israel and the palestinians on the other hand have a very active propaganda arms. The picture of Biden hugging Netanyahu will be spread far and wide. Many supporters of Israel invoke clash of civilization rhetoric that is popular on the christian right, but will rile up muslims. The toxoplasmosis of rage is in full effect here.
Republicans won the muslim vote before 9/11. While today's American muslims have a different ethnic makeup(less Arabic and more African), it's not implausible that republicans could make their margins look dramatically better by exploiting pride-type issues if democrats aren't perceived as better on Israel.
Muslims before 9/11 were essentially wealthy, largely secularized Levantines, North Africans and Iranians (plus a few black converts). Mass immigration has changed the profile as you suggest, but it’s been so total that it’s hard to see things returning to the previous situation.
There's a pretty big difference between an 80/20 split and a 60/40 split. Republicans will probably not win the muslim vote outright, but they can possibly prevent democrats from dominating it.
“It’s really crazy to me that the Democratic party destroyed 20-years … worth of good will with Muslims and Arabs in just 2 weeks, losing an entire generation that was raised in the progressive coalition, possibly forever,”
I'll believe it when I see it. If Palestine is your central issue you're not gonna get much help from Republicans.
If you are a socially conservative set of voters which sees no difference between democrats and republicans on your top issue while democrats are widely blamed for the erosion in your purchasing power, however...
Trump will inevitably get questions from Evangelicals during the campaign about Israel and is going to go full “the Israelis should do whatever they want to them, they gotta teach them a lesson they won’t forget” or something, and that’ll be that. Plus there’s the “Muslim ban”, the “Sharia come to USA soon????” Fox News stories etc. Plus Trump’s immigration plan is going to at least promise (he won’t do anything in reality, but he’ll promise) to crack down on ‘chain migration’ which is one of the largest ways Muslim Americans bring over family members.
Whatever their differences with Biden, they will hold their nose and vote for him. Even sitting it out is less and less likely the more Trump’s rhetoric heats up, which it will.
It's not equal though. People like Nikki Haley are going around saying "finish them" like this is a video game. Trump moved the embassy to Jerusalem. From any Palestinian perspective, one side is much worse than the other.
Right - Biden is going around hugging Netanyahu, but the Democratic party also contains Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. The antisemetic faction is not in control, but it actually exists in real numbers compared to the Republicans. It's like libertarians - the centre of gravity in both parties shits on your ideals constantly, but you actually have a toehold in one of them.
It could be the behind the scenes restrain was so the US would have time to get military assets into place to better defend Israel if it is attacked by another nation.
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Notes -
White House scrambles to repair relations with Arab, Muslim Americans
Publicly the administration has been fully supportive of Israel, while behind the scenes they're attempting to restrain them; the blackout in Gaza ended after barely over a day because US officials pressured the Israelis. Biden's response has been pretty reasonable, but this may turn into a bigger domestic issue if the invasion drags on.
I reckon the majority of Muslims will show up for Biden out of self interest. However Michigan in particular has a big levantine Arab community who care alot about this conflict. They are also mostly 2/3rd generation so wouldn't be affected by Trumps muslim ban.
With the razor sharp margins Biden got in several swing states, this could make him really vulnerable. He won Georgia with 12 000 votes, and the state has more than 70 000 Muslims.
I also wonder how this focus on Israel will play with other minority groups, like blacks and Hispanics. I think the feeling that your president and government is beholden to a foreign government you don't really care about can be alienating to alot of these voters. Particularly when Biden is not delivering on bread and butter issues.
As I've said before, the mistake was made in 1965, not in 2017. Either way, the best time to not open immigration to Arab Muslims was decades ago, but the second-best time is now. Even if I those second and third generation Muslims aren't personally impacted, I would wager that Trump's policy would piss them off enough that they're vote for the opposite party in an election. If Biden's embrace of Israel alienates them to the extent that they don't vote at all, that would have to be thought of as an unmitigated win for the Trump campaign.
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Muslims are a tiny minority aren't they? What are they going to do, vote Republican?
It isn’t just Muslims themselves but certain sympathizers. You don’t need a huge number for reduced turnout to result in an R victory.
Also if you will always vote and vote one party, then that party doesn’t really have to do anything for you.
Yup, that's why two party system is terrible.
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There are 2 basic theories for how to win elections. One is that you win by convincing moderates who might plausibly vote either way to vote for your guy. The other is that you win by convincing your supporters to actually turn out and vote. Given the state of partisanship and the participation rate in even highly contentious elections with massive media attention, it seems likely that the second is the dominating factor in most elections. If something drains the enthusiasm of people who would have voted for you such that they fail to actually show up and vote, you can very much still lose, even if the other side is (in your opinion) objectively further from the point of view of the people who are sitting out.
There's a third way! Dampening enthusiasm for your opponent to the extent that their people just don't show up in the necessary numbers may well be effective. I suspect it's less effective in the era of fortified elections, but even mailing something in might be too much effort for low-propensity voters that lack enthusiasm for any candidate.
I suppose it's a bit semantic, but I would consider that part of my second way. Perhaps better classified, the first way is to operate primarily on logically persuading people to support your candidate versus the other based on proposed policies. The second way is to operate primarily on the enthusiasm of strongly partisan voters to actually turn out, which would include both getting your supporters to want to turn out and vote, as well as getting the other guy's supporters to sit out the election instead of voting.
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It seems likely there are some internal power struggles going on behind the scenes in the Democratic party over this. Consider that one of Minnesota's representatives recently announced his intention to run against Biden for the Democratic nomination (despite almost no chance of success) and around the same time local Muslim community leaders issued Biden an ultimatum to call for a ceasefire by Oct 31st or lose their votes. The fractures in the Republican party have been center stage recently due to the fight for the speakership, but the Democratic party isn't looking to be in that much better shape.
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not voting at all would harm parties* for which they are voting now
*ok, party, due to USA duopoly
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The modal Muslim is going to have a hard time finding a political party even 1/1000th as anti-Israeli as they would like anywhere outside of Gaza.
The Palestine topic is a mind-killer of absolutely comical proportions for most Muslims.
I've noticed this as well. You'll have secular, non-religious and well adjusted Muslims turn into borderline Jihadists over the topic of Israel and Palestine.They will also start believing in insane Alex Jones tier conspiracies. I was talking to one who told me that Hamas didn't kill any civilians at the Music Festival on purpose and they were caught in the crossfire of them fighting the IDF. Some Jews are just as bad too. There's SJW Jews who believe in intersectionality and every progressive cause that will sound like Hitler when talking about Palestinians. This issue is so toxic it's not even able to be debated. It's like the trans issue multiplied by a billion.
Yes. The meme is "the most complicated geopolitical issue of all time" is not really all that accurate. There are far more complicated geopolitical issues. The complicacy is just how emotional people are about the issue, not the issue itself, which you can more or less grasp within a day or two of reading.
How do I know this? Most I talk to about this issue who have the passion of a thousand suns about Palestine don't know the history of Israel, and funnier, Palestine itself. Most didn't even know that "Palestine" was under Ottoman rule before the British.
Matt Yglesias has a solution:
All we need to work on is [3] and the rest falls into place! Seems like it might be a problem...
Things were just so much more honest when the troublesome step was "???".
Indeed. The number of people who didn't get the joke was high. But maybe that will eventually include MattY himself, as his habit of stepping on rakes and then blaming the foliage for swinging too wildly continues.
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The last Model United Nations I attended would disagree, but then again it's a meme even in the US that having the reconciliation of Israel and Palestine be the objective almost inevitably ends in the delegates ending up in a deadlock haha
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What would the response be to, "Why don't you also get upset at China for how it treats Muslims?"
Anecdotally. Just pure red hot rage and goalpost shifting and whataboutism.
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There is several things going on here. This is not only about islam, the Uighur situation is geographically/culturally more remote than anything the majority of muslims in the US know or understand. This is a case where optics really matter too. China doesnt broadcast the situation with the Uighurs. They deliberately go out of their way to not frame this in a religious/ethnic sense. You dont have videos of Xi invoking religious imagery of "children of light and darkness". China doesnt try to justify what is going on, they just pretend its not happening. On a global stage, China doesnt seem to have a problem with muslims. Seeing a many middle-easterns dont trust western news sources, its very easy to pretend nothing is happening with the Uighurs.
Both Israel and the palestinians on the other hand have a very active propaganda arms. The picture of Biden hugging Netanyahu will be spread far and wide. Many supporters of Israel invoke clash of civilization rhetoric that is popular on the christian right, but will rile up muslims. The toxoplasmosis of rage is in full effect here.
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China doesn't control the (a) Holy Land.
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Republicans won the muslim vote before 9/11. While today's American muslims have a different ethnic makeup(less Arabic and more African), it's not implausible that republicans could make their margins look dramatically better by exploiting pride-type issues if democrats aren't perceived as better on Israel.
Muslims before 9/11 were essentially wealthy, largely secularized Levantines, North Africans and Iranians (plus a few black converts). Mass immigration has changed the profile as you suggest, but it’s been so total that it’s hard to see things returning to the previous situation.
There's a pretty big difference between an 80/20 split and a 60/40 split. Republicans will probably not win the muslim vote outright, but they can possibly prevent democrats from dominating it.
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There are quite a few in Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia. And they can vote for a third party (which is pretty much how Hillary Clinton lost swing states in 2016)
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I'll believe it when I see it. If Palestine is your central issue you're not gonna get much help from Republicans.
If you are a socially conservative set of voters which sees no difference between democrats and republicans on your top issue while democrats are widely blamed for the erosion in your purchasing power, however...
Trump will inevitably get questions from Evangelicals during the campaign about Israel and is going to go full “the Israelis should do whatever they want to them, they gotta teach them a lesson they won’t forget” or something, and that’ll be that. Plus there’s the “Muslim ban”, the “Sharia come to USA soon????” Fox News stories etc. Plus Trump’s immigration plan is going to at least promise (he won’t do anything in reality, but he’ll promise) to crack down on ‘chain migration’ which is one of the largest ways Muslim Americans bring over family members.
Whatever their differences with Biden, they will hold their nose and vote for him. Even sitting it out is less and less likely the more Trump’s rhetoric heats up, which it will.
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It's not equal though. People like Nikki Haley are going around saying "finish them" like this is a video game. Trump moved the embassy to Jerusalem. From any Palestinian perspective, one side is much worse than the other.
Right - Biden is going around hugging Netanyahu, but the Democratic party also contains Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. The antisemetic faction is not in control, but it actually exists in real numbers compared to the Republicans. It's like libertarians - the centre of gravity in both parties shits on your ideals constantly, but you actually have a toehold in one of them.
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It could be the behind the scenes restrain was so the US would have time to get military assets into place to better defend Israel if it is attacked by another nation.
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