site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  10mo ago (text post)   13116 thread views

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.

9
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Related, but not exactly the same topic, this Tweet from a Jerusalem Post columnist in response to pro-Palestine protest marches in London really struck me:

London. Now.

This is horrifying.

How are Jews meant to stay in the U.K.?

While I am not an anti-Semite and could reasonably be described as mildly philo-Semitic, goddamn this kind of thing looks terrible from the perspective of anyone that isn't particularly Islam-friendly. To be blunt about it, I don't like Islam and wish there had never been any Muslim immigrants to Western nations. To the extent that Muslim immigration to Western nations is tolerable, it's the extent to which those Muslims practice a liberalized, watered-down form of Islam that is barely recognizable as anything other than generic monotheism with a couple idiosyncrasies of diet thrown in. Having places with women in beekeeper outfits everywhere sucks and I think most Americans and Brits that are being bluntly honest about the matter agree.

Of course, saying that out loud plays terribly, because somehow we decided that "Islamophobia" is a sin. Unless, apparently, you're Jewish, in which case you're able to write things like the above. Saying, "how are Brits supposed to live with this?" is off the table, but catering to the tiny segment of British Jews, that is an important consideration when it comes to whether having a bunch of jihad enthusiasts in London is a bad idea. If someone like me that likes Jews, likes Israel, and basically agrees with the claim in the Tweet finds this style of thinking grating, I'd wager that the anti-Semites would be just about apoplectic.

To steelman, the Jerusalem Post columnist is less responding to "pro-Palestine marches", but what he sees as specifically pro-Hamas and often pro-October 7th protests. It's a little less easy to provide examples in the United Kingdom, given the officially-steep punishments for support of Hamas or violence, but to everyone's non-surprise enforcement is a more complex matter and explicit support of Hamas, intifada, or generally "from river to sea" style not-very-deniable stuff were supposedly pretty common. And the head of police decided that the police shouldn't be making charges for hate crimes acts where it's political or anything.

To break that steelman, even that has been a sin to other alliances and allegiances. Reacting to "KillAllMen" or "EndWhiteness" or Solanas fangirling or the like hasn't been acceptable in mainstream discourse for literally a decade, if not longer. For whatever these laws and rules and norms that the Post author wants to bring down might have claimed equal protection and equal restriction to all, in practice they exist to protect 'the powerless', where this is defined in some coincidentally very political directions.

So in many ways, it's 'just' that Freeman is surprised to find that groups he likes are on the other side of that scale for once. And there's certainly people for whom that's a cutting criticism, not just of their current arguments but their entire philosophy -- Chemerinsky is the punching-bag du jour, as he's provided long and significant philosophical support and institutional inaction -- but it's not clear Freeman, specifically, is a particularly central example of that set. He's no universalist hero who complained when other people's ox were getting gored, don't get me wrong, but neither was he waiting until this moment to notice that his group was often pushed to the outside.

And every single one of those people was blasted as racist, and throttled by Big Tech. How exactly do you expect your list to prove that what they were saying was widely seen as acceptable by the establishment?

Nigel Farage is a frequent guest on a major television network, Tucker Carlson and Rush Limbaugh reached tens of millions of people per year with no interruption, Trump, irrespective of Big Tech "throttling", is given non-stop coverage by every news agency in the world.

The fact that they're popular doesn't change the fact that what they're saying is seen as outside the bounds of acceptable discourse by the establishment. If they are within said bounds, then Big Tech trying to limit their reach should be a national, or international scandal.

I don't know what you mean by the "establishment", but whatever that means, it has nothing to do with my argument, which is that collectively these people are able to reach huge audiences with very little to impede them.

The fact that they're able to reach their audience has nothing to do with the argument that what they're saying is seen as unacceptable in polite discourse, as opposed to a Jewish person saying literally the same thing.

Sure, anyone is free to call them racist. I think some of them might be. What's that got to do with anything?

If the cries of "racist" were limited to nobodies on the internet, no one would care. The problem is that they come from every respectable institution that claims to be neutral, only explicitly right-wing institutions don't do it. It is then a bit rich to hear the exact same complaint they were making from people calling them racist all this time.

You're right, I should have explicitly stated that I was referring to "Islamophobia" being unacceptable in liberal circles and coding as a hard-right sentiment. The JP columnist I linked to is very much on the broader left, and I suppose I still think of that set as my ingroup.

What am I looking at in that tweet? Guess I'm supposed to know that's a pro-Hamas protest?

I didn't investigate, I assume it'll be the mixed bag that a lot of these protests are, with some combination of people that would say they're just pro-Palestinian and others being more hardcore.

I don't understand why it's his fault that you can't criticize islam without the woke singing you the song of the oppressed.

Whether it's his fault or not is orthogonal to the point that it sucks that saying, "this sucks for Jews" is fine, but saying, "this sucks for Brits" isn't.

You only found out now that the identity of the victim or of the speaker matters more to the woke than the facts or the content of the speech? Why is it grating or apoplexy-inducing to have people agree with you?

I quickly went through his twitter (my god, is this woke/girlbossy style tiresome).

But aside from the usual profession of faith

I am a gay Jew. I am a Zionist. I am progressive. I believe in fighting with & for other oppressed groups. But... I feel betrayed by the progressive world’s antisemitism & I am furious. But still... I won’t stop believing in progressive values. I won’t stop fighting. 2:27 PM · Dec 31, 2019

He seems very very focused on antisemitism, especially from other progressives. I didn’t see any condamnation of ‘white’ islamophobia.

Almost all of my experiences with antisemitism have been from the left. My first relationship was ruined by it. My university career was ruined by it. Friendships have been ruined by it. I have been traumatised & scarred by it. Do not tell me it isn't real.

My world-renowned and extremely rigorous vibe analysis says he is literally one of the woke even now, and this entire ordeal has barely shaken his faith in the SocJus movement that I am retarded and fell for an obvious troll.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats