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.
I welcome all rebuttals, but ideally they address things I actually wrote rather than things you imagine I wrote. I don't know what else I can do except to re-emphasize that I aim to write very transparently, and it's a waste of everyone's time to try and read in between the lines to find out my "true" positions. You are actively encouraged to ask clarifying questions if anything I wrote seems ambiguous. Absent other explanations, I must infer that resorting to this kind of strawmanning stems from a place of frustration — a sign of difficulty in engaging with the points I've clearly laid out.
For example, right out of the gate:
Why? Why do Jews have a right to invade someone else’s land and ethnically cleanse the native populace? Why aren’t jews obligated to live in humanitarian multiculturalism like ever other western nation on the planet, and instead get violent ethnonationalism that inherently can not cohabitate with the non-Jewish natives of the land they are (violently) immigrating to? Why do the Palestinian people not have a right to resist this?
Notice that I said I believe motivations for a Jewish homeland to be sound, and that's distinct from implementations. In the abstract, a Jewish homeland anywhere does not require either invasion or cleansing, but in practice it might be inevitable given the modern geopolitical reality of not having any unclaimed land anywhere. I don't have a good answer for how Zionists could've accomplished their goal completely peacefully, but I also wasn't writing a post about the righteousness of how Israel was founding.
Addressing some of your substantive points:
What value is there in passivity? Look to the West Bank and see what a more passive stance has achieved. Nothing but further expansion of Jewish colonies and a tightening noose around the Palestinians’ neck. That’s pretty damning. I think it’s objective at this point that “just be more peaceful” is an utter failure and an invitation to personal destruction.
This is fair pushback. I responded to a similar argument in this other comment.
No you aren’t [in favor of 100% open borders]. No apologist for Zionism is. It’s logically impossible.
One state solution? Again, like every western nation is expected. An immediate reversal of “settlements” (colonies) would be a start.
There's the practical hurdle, in that Israel prides itself on its democracy but likely only as long as Jews remain a voting majority. It's not likely they'll be willing to take the demographic and political shift that would come with full annexation; the tension between ethnostate and democracy will never go away. Even if we assume this was feasible, I'm not at all convinced that a one-state solution would mollify the fanatical wing of the broader Palestinian cause.
Did you know Israel has anti-miscegenation laws? There are probably others on the planet but Israel is literally the only one I know of that exists in the modern day.
I was confused by this but understand you meant anti-interfaith marriage laws. No, I didn't know that Israel has no mechanism for legally recognizing interfaith marriages conducted within its borders. It doesn't surprise me given its status as an ethnostate and the heavy influence the extreme Zionist wing has over its politics (e.g. Lehava organization advocates for exactly this). Its aversion to interfaith marriages is not significantly different from how the topic is treated in Islam. From my own limited experience, any time a Moroccan was about to marry a kafir, the immediate question was always whether the spouse was going to convert to Islam.
But second that there were checkpoint guards everywhere even in “Palestinian” territory...This is the apartheid.
This is fair, I wasn't as clear as I should have been when addressing the Apartheid issue. The comparison I aimed to draw was to wonder why full annexation by Israel is seen as anathema, from a material standpoint (I already acknowledged Israel's resistance to accepting Palestinians as voting citizens). I could understand the concern if Arab-Israelis had a horrendous quality of life, but they don't. The Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza do endure abject poverty that is made even worse but the intrusive security apparatus and the passively-tolerated spate of settler violence. I concede I should have addressed those circumstances in greater detail, but it would not have materially changed my main point which is the need to critically evaluate the self-professed motivations behind the Palestinian cause, to see which ones hold up with the facts. The problem is genuine valid grievances like the untenable life under occupation get shoved into the same overflowing laundry hamper to provide cover for objective insanity, like suicidal rage over stolen family land someone's grandparents never set foot on.
Lmk if you think there are other points I should address, but please make sure it's in response to something I actually wrote. I welcome all clarifying questions!
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Notes -
I welcome all rebuttals, but ideally they address things I actually wrote rather than things you imagine I wrote. I don't know what else I can do except to re-emphasize that I aim to write very transparently, and it's a waste of everyone's time to try and read in between the lines to find out my "true" positions. You are actively encouraged to ask clarifying questions if anything I wrote seems ambiguous. Absent other explanations, I must infer that resorting to this kind of strawmanning stems from a place of frustration — a sign of difficulty in engaging with the points I've clearly laid out.
For example, right out of the gate:
Notice that I said I believe motivations for a Jewish homeland to be sound, and that's distinct from implementations. In the abstract, a Jewish homeland anywhere does not require either invasion or cleansing, but in practice it might be inevitable given the modern geopolitical reality of not having any unclaimed land anywhere. I don't have a good answer for how Zionists could've accomplished their goal completely peacefully, but I also wasn't writing a post about the righteousness of how Israel was founding.
Addressing some of your substantive points:
This is fair pushback. I responded to a similar argument in this other comment.
"I generally take the "Voltairean" position of "I disagree with your chosen form of government, but will defend your right to establish it". I have my own palette of preferred government policies, but also don't want to force them on anyone else (basically think of enclaves in Snow Crash)."
There's the practical hurdle, in that Israel prides itself on its democracy but likely only as long as Jews remain a voting majority. It's not likely they'll be willing to take the demographic and political shift that would come with full annexation; the tension between ethnostate and democracy will never go away. Even if we assume this was feasible, I'm not at all convinced that a one-state solution would mollify the fanatical wing of the broader Palestinian cause.
I was confused by this but understand you meant anti-interfaith marriage laws. No, I didn't know that Israel has no mechanism for legally recognizing interfaith marriages conducted within its borders. It doesn't surprise me given its status as an ethnostate and the heavy influence the extreme Zionist wing has over its politics (e.g. Lehava organization advocates for exactly this). Its aversion to interfaith marriages is not significantly different from how the topic is treated in Islam. From my own limited experience, any time a Moroccan was about to marry a kafir, the immediate question was always whether the spouse was going to convert to Islam.
This is fair, I wasn't as clear as I should have been when addressing the Apartheid issue. The comparison I aimed to draw was to wonder why full annexation by Israel is seen as anathema, from a material standpoint (I already acknowledged Israel's resistance to accepting Palestinians as voting citizens). I could understand the concern if Arab-Israelis had a horrendous quality of life, but they don't. The Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza do endure abject poverty that is made even worse but the intrusive security apparatus and the passively-tolerated spate of settler violence. I concede I should have addressed those circumstances in greater detail, but it would not have materially changed my main point which is the need to critically evaluate the self-professed motivations behind the Palestinian cause, to see which ones hold up with the facts. The problem is genuine valid grievances like the untenable life under occupation get shoved into the same overflowing laundry hamper to provide cover for objective insanity, like suicidal rage over stolen family land someone's grandparents never set foot on.
Lmk if you think there are other points I should address, but please make sure it's in response to something I actually wrote. I welcome all clarifying questions!
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