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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   27151 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 6, 2023

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This whole Israel-Palestine issue has made it even more clear than ever that politicians and many of the "elites" have literally no critical thinking skills or the ability to reason out one or two steps into the future. First there is the "Cease Fire People". It's understandable that people are upset seeing what is going on in Gaza with women and children, but what do they think a cease fire will accomplish? It is literally just kicking the can down the road again. Do they think Hamas will be more reasonable and someone people can negotiate with? If not, you are literally just allowing them to regroup and commit another terrorist attack that could destabilize the Middle East again in a few years. It's really that simple. If you want peace in the region, Hamas cannot be allowed to be in charge in Gaza. And if you asked the Egyptian government, they'd probably tell you the same thing since they just had their own issues wit the Muslim Brotherhood.

Then you have the people who think there will be peace if the Palestinians get their own state. Throwing out for a minute whether or not the Palestinians will attack Israel, the real question is how quickly they will start attacking each other an a civil war. We already know there was a Fatah–Hamas conflict recently, and why would they not fight each other again in a civil war that could very possibly be even worse than what's going on in Gaza? Looking at the neighboring countries, it's not exactly a place known for political stability.

I understand people seeing things on television that makes them sad and they just want it to stop. That's understandable. But has anyone in the State Department revolting against the Biden Administration for their stance on Israel given any reasonable plan for what comes next after a cease fire with Hamas? And I say this as someone who is not a Zionist or a huge fan of Israel.

Westerners just don't seem to be able to understand Muslim extremists. Hamas fighters are literally Islamists that can't be reasoned with. This should be obvious by now to everyone on planet earth after Al Qaeda and ISIS, but apparently some people still haven't learned this obvious fact. I don't know if it's because Westerners don't think that people could actually sincerely believe in their religion like that so they must be ACTUALLY motivated by something else (wrong, as their writings tell us), or their belief that inside everyone is a Westerner waiting to come out who supports gay marriage and diversity, a combination of this, or something else entirely. But if these people think that a cease fire with Hamas will lead to a long standing peace then they are delusional.

First there is the "Cease Fire People". It's understandable that people are upset seeing what is going on in Gaza with women and children, but what do they think a cease fire will accomplish? It is literally just kicking the can down the road again. Do they think Hamas will be more reasonable and someone people can negotiate with?

There are two kinds of "ceasefire people." The first are what are sometimes referred to as "useful idiots." These are people like, as it happens, my high school girlfriend, who has been posting on Instagram incessantly about a ceasefire. Does she have any idea what comes after a ceasefire? No, lol, of course not. She is simply upset that there are Things on TV that are not the Bachelor and she would like it if those Things stopped being on TV because they make her feel like Bad Things happen in the world. If Bad Things happen in the world then it's wrong of her to watch the Bachelor instead of trying to stop those Bad Things, so if those Bad Things could get off her TV that would be great thanks. Westerners (she is an American citizen but she is neither culturally American nor living in America) are made incredibly uncomfortable by violence by and large. Of course there are those who are not made uncomfortable by violence, what I term the Professionally Violent Class (cops, soldiers, bouncers, violent criminals, and graduates of these professions), but by and large Westerners are completely insulated from violence. Even in the "oh-so-violent" America, your odds of actually dealing with real physical violence on any given day are incredibly low if you're not a member of the Professionally Violent Class. So they see Bad Things happening on their television set or on twitter or instagram or whatever, and they say "oh my god that's horrible we have to stop it." There is no analysis beyond 'Bad Thing is happening -> we must stop Bad Thing.' It is an instinctual, gut-level reaction that speaks incredibly well of Western Civilization's ability to create a peaceful stable environment. Of course these are the same people who are trying to tear down Western Civilization but that's neither here nor there. Western Civilization has created a group of people who's relationship with violence is so incredibly abstract that just seeing it, not being subject to it, not participating in it, just seeing it makes them instinctively want to stop it. That is a shocking accomplishment.

Then there's the other type of "cease fire" person. They are the ideologue. They know that a ceasefire means Hamas gets to rebuild, recruit new members, and sing their victory from the rooftops. They are completely aware that a "ceasefire" is the best possible outcome for Hamas, and they are explicitly in favor of that, because for one reason or another they support Hamas. Maybe they're Palestinian and just really hate Jews/Israelis. Maybe they're Arab and just really hate Jews/Israelis. Maybe they're a member of Hamas, or one of a multitude of other Islamist organizations operating in the West under the guise of research or Islamic Brotherhood or what-have-you. These people are a small but not inconsiderable percentage of the "ceasefire" group.

So, to answer your questions, yesn't.

A ceasefire would accomplish a lot. For example, you can move a patient from hospital A to hospital B without fearing for his life, and perhaps he needs to be there now. You can leave your house if you feel it is dangerous to stay there, without being shot.

Israel don't want a ceasefire because Israel has an army of reservists. Those reservists can't be used forever, it cannot last more than a few months.

Moreover, I wonder what you think can be achieved without a ceasefire. Assume Israel kills all Hamas members, there are still a huge number of people who have lost someone (a child, a parent, an aunt...) and who will hate Israel forever.

“Kicking the can down the road” is a political tradition. The American Civil War happened because the Founding Fathers, who knew slavery was untenable, made the deliberate decision to “kick the can” in the interest of uniting the States of America against enemies within and without. The Long Peace following WWII has only contributed to the distaste current political powers have for interstate violence with short-term consequences.

On the subject of “Muslim extremists,” westerners have fully committed to the white lie post-9/11 that Muslims are actually peaceful lambs ashamed at the actions of their noblest freedom fighters. The negative consequences of believing this lie are negligible so long as their home country maintains a very small Muslim population.

It seems to me that the Biden administration really really does not want to get into a full-scale war in the Middle East right now. Hence the relatively restrained US response to various recent attacks that Iran-allied groups have launched against US assets.

I personally support trying to avoid a US-Iran war but I don't know why the Biden administration is being so cautious. Humanitarian considerations? Holdover of Obama-era rapprochement diplomacy towards Iran? Not wanting to endanger the delicate web of US relationships with various Middle Eastern groups? Fear that it would distract so many US resources into the Middle East that Russia would defeat Ukraine? Worries about next year's election? Maybe some mix of all of these?

Anyway, not everyone who is calling for a cease-fire is doing so because they have some sort of inaccurate views about Hamas. The Biden administration's official reason for pushing for a cease-fire is in order to free hostages. There may be all kinds of reasons for America's restrained response that have nothing to do with people inaccurately understanding Hamas or Islamism or whatever.

I don't know why the Biden administration is being so cautious.

One that you missed: the Far East. Post-Hong-Kong, there is ~0% support for unification in Taiwan, so Beijing wants to invade; the only thing that might possibly deter this is the USA, and that's a full-time job that doesn't leave room for side gigs. If the million-man-swim does happen, the USA faces two incredibly-terrible choices - either it can break its word and throw Taipei to the panda, with a resulting enormous blow to the Western alliance system, or it can fight a Third World War with the likely result of "Pyrrhic victory, millions of Americans dead".

My gut says this last, best hope for peace will probably fail anyway, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's not worth trying, and it certainly doesn't mean that people won't try it.

My gut says this last, best hope for peace will probably fail anyway

Where's a Babylon station when you need one?

Pro reunification sentiments went from about 11% to about 7%: https://esc.nccu.edu.tw/PageDoc/Detail?fid=7801&id=6963

16% to 7%; the final crackdown in Hong Kong was in 2020, but the major Hong Kong issues started in 2019 and that's AFAICT the reason for the massive signal in that year. And the three firm "no"s combined went from 44% to 58%.

Note also that the trend went from pro-Beijing in the mid-2010s to stable in the 2020s, at least when aggregating the two unificationist answers and the three hard-nos. I believe the PRC's claims that they want peaceful unification - they'd be stupid not to - but in 2018 the reports coming in to Xi would have looked way more conducive to that than they do now.

also, if the US fights China how am I getting my new iPhone

Worries about next year's election?

100% of it is this.

On a more cynical note: the need to keep gas prices low prior to the 2024 election.

It's worth noting that, throughout 2022, there was daily news about rapprochement with Iran that seemed timed to lower oil prices. The Biden admin also drained the SPR to levels not seen since the early 1980s in an effort to suppress oil prices. This is a major priority for them.

A 50 cent increase in gas prices might be worth 1 point in the polls on election day.

Never underestimate just how simple and stupid American politics can be.

The “cease fire” people are the same people who were calling for a “no fly zone” over Ukraine.

I believe Israel has been seeking a ceasefire for about 20 years now. In fact, I’d say that their entire response here is because Palestine continues violating the various cease fires being implemented.

I disagree. I'm one of the people calling for a ceasefire, but at the same time I thought a "no fly zone" over Ukraine constituted suicidal imperial overreach and the start of WW3. I also don't believe that Israel has been seeking a ceasefire for about 20 years now - this claim just seems straightforwardly false to me. Have you heard the term "mowing the grass"?

Would Hamas agree to this ceasefire? For how long?

Attacking your enemy, then crying for a ceasefire when they retaliate seems a bit ridiculous. Maybe Hamas should have considered a ceasefire on October 6th.

Would Hamas agree to this ceasefire? For how long?

I don't know - if you know any Hamas representatives on the Motte I could ask to find out, please tag them so we can ask. As for how long, ideally it would result in negotiation and diplomacy rather than violent military confrontation, hence being permanent.

Attacking your enemy, then crying for a ceasefire when they retaliate seems a bit ridiculous.

To the best of my knowledge, Hamas isn't calling for a ceasefire. Westerners who played no part in either the initial attack or the revenge it garnered are the ones asking for ceasefires... but I do agree that taking territory then calling for ceasefires to prevent people from taking it back is a ridiculous strategy.

I don’t know

Then what are you asking for? If you don’t think that Hamas would even agree to it (and there is plenty of evidence that they wouldn’t), then what does this even mean?

I don't think the Israelis would agree to it either - but that doesn't mean I can't say that a ceasefire would be ideal and voice my support for it. Similarly, I protested against the Iraq war because I thought that simply not invading Iraq was a better idea, despite knowing that George Bush probably wouldn't agree to it.

"mowing the grass"

When they go in every couple of years and collapse tunnels, destroy weapons depots, and take out terrorists? What follows from that? Should they not do that?

Personally I think they shouldn't do that, but that question doesn't actually matter - we're not talking about morality here. The point being argued is whether or not Israel has been seeking a ceasefire - the "mowing the grass" term refers to them accepting a policy that requires going in and doing that every few years. That's not exactly what I'd call "seeking a ceasefire".

The point being argued is whether or not Israel has been seeking a ceasefire - the "mowing the grass" term refers to them accepting a policy that requires going in and doing that every few years.

In response to new escalations. They they make a new ceasefire. Hamas defects. Defection escalates until they mow the grass again. Repeat the cycle. Which is the point. This cease fire, like all cease fires, would be followed by Hamas defection and escalation until they have to go in again.

The point being made is that the Israelis are knowingly pursuing and accepting policies that lead to violent confrontations every few years. I am not interested in assigning moral blame to anybody here - I am trying to answer the question "Is Israel seeking a ceasefire", and the Israeli policy of mowing the lawn is a sign to me that they are not.

Building settlements in the West Bank is a strange way of seeking a ceasefire. Israel is a small country, but it is not so small that there is no other room where Israeli Jews can build settlements besides the West Bank.

The “cease fire” people are the same people who were calling for a “no fly zone” over Ukraine.

Any examples? Not generally what I'm seeing.

Out of the two pols I most associate with the actual no-fly zone demand in 2022 - Adam Kinzinger in US and Tobias Ellwood in UK - the first appears to be 100 % for Israel no matter what and the second has some qualifications about their tactics but is still mostly pro-Israel, and a quick browse of is timeline does not show a call for a ceasefire.

In my experience the most pro-interventionist side in the West regarding the Ukraine War was the sort of centrist or centre-right types who would at least mostly fall on the solidly pro-Israel side in the current war, particularly bolstered by the indications of a Russia-Hamas connection (how real that connection is is another matter).

How often does any protesting partisan have an actionable plan? At least in the US, chanting slogans is free. You get to show team solidarity without having to work out all the details.

This isn’t unique to Palestine, or to issues involving Muslims, or to elites, or whatever. Your mistake is interpreting this as a specific failing rather than the normal mode of tribal operation.

How often does any protesting partisan have an actionable plan?

Not often, but it does happen.

  • Marijuana legalization: Give marijuana a legal status similar to tobacco, or maybe even completely unregulated.
  • Gay marriage: Change one line in one law, (as well as the several dozen things that surround it).
  • Anti-Vax: Remove vaccine mandates (normal medical privacy will deal with the rest).

Oddly, I can't think of many that are ongoing or that have admitted defeat. I'm sure that they exist, but American marijuana legalization is the only one that comes to mind.

And if you asked the Egyptian government, they'd probably tell you the same thing since they just had their own issues wit the Muslim Brotherhood.

Was the issue here that the Muslim Brotherhood won the parliamentary elections after Mubarak stepped down? If so, that is an issue that goes much deeper than Hamas. You are taking issue with the political preferences of the people of Egypt themselves.

If you want peace in the region, Hamas cannot be allowed to be in charge in Gaza.

I don't know why you assume that current Israeli policy is the one most likely to achieve that goal. Israel could have leveraged the Hamas attack to get other actors to work together toward eliminating Hamas, but that opportunity is waning more and more with every civilian casualty in Gaza. And, even if Hamas is eliminated, the end result will probably be the creation of Hamas 2.0.

And let's not forget that current Israeli policy is at least in part based on what is best for the Netanyahu administration, not what is best for Israel. And many of the elites whom you criticize are very much aware of that.

Israel could have leveraged the Hamas attack to get other actors to work together toward eliminating Hamas

Who? The US isn't going to go in there. Most of the other Arab states don't even recognize Israel. They are going to go in there and kill Palestinians on behalf of the Jews?

the end result will probably be the creation of Hamas 2.0.

If they stay in power than Hamas 1.0 is already there.

  1. They don't have to recognize Israel to cooperate with them against a common enemy. The US and the Taliban have been known to cooperate versus ISIS et al
  2. My point is that might be another option other than going in and killing Palestinians.

That's a not very subtle dodge to the direct question of 'Who?'

Unfortunately for the Palestinians, conventional militaries able and willing to invade a terrorist state already entrenched in an urban warfare setting don't magically appear from wishing. The regional Arab states weren't going, nor were the Americans or the Europeans, nor are the Chinese, nor are the Indians, nor are the Russians, nor nor nor...

My point is that might be another option other than going in and killing Palestinians.

Of course there are other options. The preferred one by most regional and external observors was for the Israelis to not go in, and let Hamas 1.0 keep trying to kill them. It just wasn't an option the Israelis were going to choose.

Unfortunately for the Palestinians, conventional militaries able and willing to invade a terrorist state already entrenched in an urban warfare setting don't magically appear from wishing.

I don’t know why you are talking about invasions in response to a post when I explicitly said I was referring to options other than invasion.

There are plenty of regional and international actors who would be happy to see Hamas eliminated. Egypt is an obvious one. Not to mention actors within Palestine. However, due to Netanyahu's choices, there were more on October 8 than now.

I know you were referring to options other than invasion. I just think you were exposing your lack of seriousness by doing so.

I am talking about invasions because Hamas already established what is functionally a revaunchist police state by literally throwing the previous regime off the roof and not facing notable civil resistance sense. It is not and was not going to be dislodged from political and civil control of the Gaza Strip absent military force, of which there was no viable domestic usurption base due to having shot or thrown the relevant competitors to their deaths, which leaves only external military intervention to seize control of the population and state aparatus that controls the population, meaning invasion.

While other international actors would have been happy to see Hamas eliminated, they notably weren't going to be doing it themselves, which brings back the direct question of 'who.'

Which you have still avoided answering.

Westerners just don't seem to be able to understand Muslim extremists. Hamas fighters are literally Islamists that can't be reasoned with. This should be obvious by now to everyone on planet earth after Al Qaeda and ISIS, but apparently some people still haven't learned this obvious fact.

If you look at polling, in America at least, there's a wildly obvious correlation between how long someone's lived on the planet (and thus dealt with Muslim extremists) and how they view this conflict. There's also a neat little cliff at the line of people who experienced 9/11 and did not.

Finally, there's another vast gulf between social media and reality. The Economist had a whole article on just this phenomenon:

Do such views reflect overall opinion? At our request dmr, an ai-technology firm, collected 1m posts from Instagram, Twitter and YouTube from October 7th to 23rd. All contained hashtags from a list with similar numbers of pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian terms in English, or replied to such posts. dmr then built a machine-learning model to classify posts as backing one side, the other or neither. It was trained on content in English, but also processed posts in any language that included English hashtags. dmr found a sharp shift against Israel over time. On October 7th the two sides had roughly equal shares of support. By October 19th pro-Palestinian posts were 3.9 times more common than pro-Israeli ones.

Israel has fared far worse online than in surveys of overall public opinion. A poll of Americans by YouGov found three backers of Israel for every Palestinian supporter on October 20th—a day with twice as many pro-Palestinian posts on American social media as pro-Israeli ones. In Britain, another YouGov survey found equal support for each side that day, when the Palestinians won the British social-media battle by a six-to-one margin.

(and thus dealt with Muslim extremists)

Funny how large parts of the world have no muslim extremists whatsoever. It isn't a problem in places that don't have large scale immigration or a historic muslim population. The endless war on terror combined with mass immigration was a fiasco.

There's also a neat little cliff at the line of people who experienced 9/11 and did not.

9/11 was a valuable lesson. Due to immigration policy, people living in a cave in Afghanistan were let into the US. After predictable results the US decides to invade Iraq, a country with no connection to 9/11. The result is massive waves of refugees in to Europe and more terrorism, crime and social issues. Islamic terrorism exploded as a problem post neo con wars in the middle east. Young people have grown up seeing the 20-year fiasco of nation building in the Middle East.

If there is anything learned from dealing with muslims it is that the best outcome is stable arab states with no wars in the middle east. Interventionism in the middle east has been a resounding failure. Bombing Libya let a million muslims into Europe while creating a terrorist bastion on our boarder. Arming moderate jihadists in Syria led to waves of terrorism across Europe along with waves of refugees.

As for social media I remember the days before the invasion of Iraq when the entire media and population were against the war in almost the entire world. The exception was the US which was in a frenzy over wanting to invade a country that had done nothing to deserve it. The difference was the media in the US promoting the war while media in most other countries the media wasn't in a pro war frenzy. The US has a more pro Israel media than Israel itself and it is one of few countries in which Israel is popular. Americans being pro Israel is largely caused by the US mainstream media heavily pushing a pro Israel agenda. WIthout an extreme pro israel bias in the information space the opinions on the conflict would normalize to what it is in most of the rest of the world.

History didn't start on 9/11. The US has been meddling in various Middle Eastern countries since at least World War II, and arguably earlier. How do you resolve the dilemma of having popular governments who want to have good relations with you, but which relations are contingent on selling them weapons they explicitly intend to use against a country you're a strong supporter of, if not exactly allied with? What if the alternative to selling them weapons is that they'll end up buying them from your biggest geopolitical rival instead? The US tried to walk a fine line on this policy throughout the postwar era, and it's easy to criticize them for it now but hard to state confidently what a better path would have been. You can say the same of a hundred other foreign policy decisions the US made in the region between WWII and 9/11.

I agree that the Iraq invasion was a mistake, and said so at the time, but it's kind of a "you had to be there" sort of thing. The feeling—if not the explicit argument being made—was that Islamic terrorism was only able to reach into the United States because of the support of anti-American dictatorial governments that tolerated their presence. The 9/11 hijackers may have been Saudi, but the Taliban let them operate with impunity in Afghanistan. Sadaam was an old enemy and a convenient target, so even if his actual connection to terrorism was tenuous, it wasn't difficult to imagine him harboring terrorists. Plus, these people were universally despised by their own populations, who would be glad to get them out of the way.

It's also worth pointing out that Cold War-era stereotypes about third world countries "not being ready for democracy" were seen as increasingly old-fashioned. Much had been written by that point about how America's insistence on keeping dictators and emirs in power over democratically elected governments that might be too leftist led directly the predicament we were in. At best, some would find an outlet for their dissatisfaction with the current government in religious fanaticism. At worst, the fanatics would take over the government entirely, and use America's support of the previous regime as license to engage in terrorism at the state level, as in Iran. If these long-suffering people were only finally given the chance to determine their own futures, they'd find a better path forward. Everyone forgets the cheering in the streets the day Baghdad fell and the statue of Saddam was toppled. Of course, it didn't exactly work out like that, and one could have easily predicted that at the time, but the argument was there.

Immigration policy didn’t have anything to do with 9/11, and neither did afghanis(the people involved in 9/11 were Saudi nationals).

were they operating out of saudia, or somewhere else?

I think it’s a combination of a lot of things.

Most Westerners live in extremely safe societies where war is something they see on the news. Americans are safer than even Europeans, having never had a war on their own soil since the end of the American Civil War in 1865. We’ve had a few attacks on our own soil: Pearl Harbor, and 9/11. This makes understanding the need to fight the war a bit more difficult. To a Westerner, war is optional even when you are being attacked. I think much the same of crime — for most people, living in suburbs and gated communities, crime isn’t a reality to them. It feels bad to lock up a thief who stole from a store. But, living in a high crime area full of drugs and gangs where everywhere makes it harder to live a normal life, and makes it far more likely that you yourself will be mugged or assaulted.

Second, most westerners haven’t taken their religion seriously since at least the end of WW2. Looking at the supposed rise of Christian Nationalism, what the term seems to mean is Christians who actually believe in Christianity and live by it. They don’t like drag queens or transsexuals because they understand the Bible to say those things are wrong. They want the traditional family structure as they believe the Bible commands this. The elite see this as weird, but it’s actually the default state of humanity. Most people throughout history have made moral decisions based on their religion, and most humans do today. But if you understand religion to be “go to church, temple, synagogue, or mosque once a week and ignore it the rest of the time”, you have no way to understand people who orient themselves by scriptures. They literally have no lived experience with people who think like a religious person, so they don’t understand that Hamas means what they say, that Allah commands them to war and dying as a martyr.

Third, the university teaches that all of history runs on economics. Poverty causes crime and war and terrorism. The only solutions are thus economic and redistribution or wealth. So they’re learning only one toolset. If you just made Hamas rich enough, they’ll stop. The fact that Gaza is awash in aide and the leadership make the list of rich, and are still launching attacks should show that they don’t care about the money. But the West seems unable to look for other reasons for the attack. So the problem cannot be anything other than Israel hoarding the wealth and the land and refusing to share.

having never had a war on their own soil since the end of the American Civil War in 1865.

I suppose Alaska doesn't count as "American soil" then?

To be fair, Alaska was still a territory at the time, rather than a full-fledged state.

First: yes, the Western insulation from war and violence is doing a lot of the work on this issue. Our decisions over here won’t ever lead to a rocket hitting our neighborhood. As long as supporting/condemning Palestine is basically cost-free, we’re going to get people playing tribal politics rather than carefully trying to construct a solution. No surprise.

Second: no way. Calls for a ceasefire are the fruit of a deeply Christian national character. They are the extreme form of turning the other cheek. This holds true even when the perpetrators are unrepentant, because Christian thought just views punishment differently. “Eye for an eye” is Old Testament, after all.

(I also disagree with your characterization of Christian fundamentalism, but that’s beside the point.)

Telling the Israelis not to fight back is deontological. There are good things and bad things, and bombing Palestine is presumed to be a bad thing. All the rest of this discourse—the naïveté, the tone-deafness, the lack of an alternate plan—stems from this one assumption.

because Christian thought just views punishment differently. “Eye for an eye” is Old Testament, after all.

It kind of seems like when you say "eye for an eye" you mean "makes the whole world blind", i.e. forgiveness instead of retribution. Just to be clear, the Old Testament is in favor of eye for an eye.

If anyone injures his neighbor, as he has done it shall be done to him, fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; whatever injury he has given a person shall be given to him.

Leviticus 24, 19-20.

The elite see this as weird, but it’s actually the default state of humanity. Most people throughout history have made moral decisions based on their religion, and most humans do today.

I would disagree quite strenuously with this, the default state of humanity is a hunter-gatherer with no concept of what we would understand as "religion". I would even go further and say that conflating religion with morality is a relatively "modern" development. In most pagan religions the relationship individuals and groups have with the gods is a very practical and transactional affair, you give offerings to gods in an attempt to gain their support and help, morality does not really enter into it. To a pagan gods are basically just very powerful people and a fact of life that you have to deal with. In fact, I would say that you can also see traces of this thinking in christianity, particularly in the old testament before god had a kid and mellowed out a bit. You really get the impression that the hebrew god is worshipped because he is unfathomably powerful and terrifying rather than because he is some font of morality.

You really get the impression that the hebrew god is worshipped because he is unfathomably powerful and terrifying rather than because he is some font of morality.

That's very explicit in the Old Testament especially the early parts. They make explicit covenants with that are about earthly rewards like having lots of descendants or being given possession of the promised land. There isn't anything about an afterlife better than that of a shade in Sheol.

God's punishments for breaking the covenant are earthly ones that usually involve bringing a foreign army against them. These stories of God's punishment mostly seem like post-hoc justifications for why Judah was defeated in battle and conquered despite having the support of the Lord of Hosts. They rationalize it as them having broken the covenant first.

This idea of God and the universe having a moral bent is something inserted later into Judaism through Zoroastrianism and Greek philosophy.

They make explicit covenants with that are about earthly rewards...

Sure, but what kind of things do they agree to do in those covenants?

The entirety of the Mosaic law found in the Torah? Are you trying to make some kind of point with this question or do you somehow not know that?

And you see no connection whatsoever between the Mosaic law and any sense of morality?

No, I don't think a law against eating pork has any bearing on morality.

I get what you mean now and I reject the implications.

Moses, like all great thinkers, was both original and true. In that, what he said that was true wasn't original and what he said that was original wasn't true.

I prefer Zoroaster. I think laws against kicking pregnant dogs make much more sense morally, than laws against eating shrimp.

That you disagree with the moral vision presented does not imply that the whole thing, at its time, in the perspective of the people involved, had nothing to do with morality.

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No, I don't think a law against eating pork has any bearing on morality.

It is easy to explain.

Leave current world where food comes from well stocked supermarket refrigerators open 24/7/365.

Leave even world of your peasant ancestors living, I presume, in lands with temperate wet climates where pigs roamed in the forests and fed themselves for most of the year and had to be fed only during winter.

Enter dry and treeless world of Near East. In this world, pigs had to be fed for all year, with food that could otherwise feed people. In this world, pigs were not necessity, but luxury for the rich. People who try to explain pig ban in desert religions as health measure are wrong, it is explicit populist, pro-social measure.

You are certainly aware that the Bible is one of the most extremist and revolutionary books ever written, book that rejects all structures of oppression in its time and place, book whose vision of better world is world of anarcho-syndicalist peasant communes without (or with strictly limited) monarchy, without feudalism, without landlordism, without usury and loan sharking, without standing army and permanent slavery(OFC excepting Gentiles). See biblical commandments that do not make sense to you in this light, and they will fit.

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See also acoup on oaths:

Remember that an oath is essentially a contract, cosigned by a god – when you are dealing with that kind of power, you absolutely want to be sure you have dotted all of the ‘i’s and crossed all of the ‘t’s. Most pre-modern religions are very concerned with what we sometimes call ‘orthopraxy’ (‘right practice’ – compare orthodoxy, ‘right doctrine’). Intent doesn’t matter nearly as much as getting the exact form or the ritual precisely correct (for comparison, ancient paganisms tend to care almost exclusively about orthopraxy, whereas medieval Christianity balances concern between orthodoxy and orthopraxy (but with orthodoxy being the more important)).

Even without formal religion, I just can't believe that early humans didn't have moral frameworks, just from the simple fact that moral systems facilitate group cohesion and survival. There's just no way hunter-gatherers were a bunch of homo economicuses, and only modern humans have morality. Morality isn't a byproduct of civilization; it's one of its foundational building blocks.

I think the objection was to saying most moral decisions were “based on their religion”, not that moral decision making didn’t happen at all.

The OP’s conclusion relies on religion as moral fabric rather than religion as a transaction. I believe the latter was much more common, historically, until the Middle Ages or maybe even the Enlightenment. Even though people were always making decisions (and judging others) based on morality.

  • I don't know if it's because Westerners don't think that people could actually sincerely believe in their religion like that so they must be ACTUALLY motivated by something else (wrong, as their writings tell us), or their belief that inside everyone is a Westerner waiting to come out who supports gay marriage and diversity,

It's both of these things. And their go-to reason for why these sorts of people behave the way they do is "socioeconomic inequality." IMO this is the result of a reductionist worldview that flattens everything to care/harm. And then even only economic care/harm, because have as a society lacked widely agreed upon moral common ground to work from that the only pure evil that can be imagined anymore is economic privation. Any other evil can ultimately be traced back to a resource-poor upbringing or generational poverty or economic exploitation.

They can't conceive of faith or honor or things like that, those must be false consciousnesses obscuring the true, material cause of the anger.

On the one hand we have a group that wants millions of arabs to live in the same town as their grandparents live. On the other hand we have a group that wants millions of arabs to be refugees. There are good moral reasons to oppose ethnic cleansing but also the massive net positive of arabs staying put in their home towns. If one doesn't want large numbers of arabs on the move, the natural response is to support Hamas. Israel's efforts to destabilize Syria have been a major humanitarian crisis but has also had consequences reaching far beyond the local region. Religion or not, there is no reason for the Palestinians not to fight back.

Israel has offered the Palestinians a state numerous times. Israelis interfered in Gaza very little for the past 15 years and even abandoned settlements on the territory. It seems the Palestinians too prefer to remain "refugees" (if that term can be applied to people living somewhere for three generations with at least some degree of autonomy).

Why would the Palestinians agree to less than half of their land? As for Gaza they are under a blockade and can't export goods. They have the right to strike back as long as Israel is conducting acts of war against them.

Why would the Palestinians agree to less than half of their land?

Because they have lost repeated wars over ownership of the land, and the consequence of losing is not getting what you want. I.e., the same reason why Silesia, Pomerania, and Prussia are no longer parts of Germany, why the western coast of Anatolia and Constantinople are not Greek, and why California is no longer part of Mexico.

Because they have lost repeated wars over ownership of the land

This is just pure racism. The Palestinians didn't fight those wars, countries like Egypt did.

What else but armed insurrection (i.e. war as waged by the stateless) do you call the 1st and 2nd Intifada?

Both Intifada's were long after the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians that happened during the Arab–Israeli Wars. You can't retroactively justify ethnic cleansing by arguing that revolt against that cleansing and the subsequent oppression, justified the ethnic cleansing and oppression.

I've never heard anyone argue that a person who fights back after getting sucker punched, retroactively deserved that sucker punch because they fought back. So I have a hard time believing that your argument reflects a principle you hold in general.

Because that's the best they are going to get.

Gaza is under blockade because they elected a regime that ran on the platform of eradicating Jews and Israel.

If they didn't fight back they would have been pushed out of Palestine a long time ago. There are still millions of Palestinians in Palestine because they fight back and defend themselves.

How would they have been pushed out if they had a sovereign state? Remaining a quasi territory of Israel is much worse if your goal is to keep your territory.

Again, Israel withdrew from Gaza over a decade ago and they insist on attacking the Israeli civilian population. Pushing gazans out of gaza was totally off the table until the Hamas self defense operation last month.

How would they have been pushed out if they had a sovereign state?

Sovereignty was never on the table, the Israeli "offer" has always been contingent on demands of demilitarization along with various Israeli control of borders and airspace.

Gaza is under a blockade which is an act of war. If Israel is blockading Gaza than the people of Gaza have every right to use military force against Israel.

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massive net positive of arabs staying put in their home towns.

It's been three quarters of a century since their grandparents lived in those towns, and the vast majority of Palestinians haven't ever even seen their "home towns," which don't even exist anymore in any meaningful sense.

It's been three quarters of a century since their grandparents lived in those towns, and the vast majority of Palestinians haven't ever even seen their "home towns," which don't even exist anymore in any meaningful sense.

This is a much stronger argument against the creation of the State of Israel than it is against a Palestinian right of return. The Second Temple hasn't existed for a lot longer than the Palestinian hometowns that were destroyed/ethnically cleansed to create Israel.

Give me a time machine, and I pledge to use the same argument against those trying to create the state of Israel.

It is clear as long as Israel is an expansionist country pushing Palestinians out of their homes, blockading them and making it impossible to have a continous Palestine there won't be peace. Israel undermines nearby countries such as Syria creating fallout that spreads across the region and into Europe in the form of waves of refugees. Israel and their expansionist policies are a major source of the regions problems and they are not interested in letting millions of Arabs live in peace in the town their family has lived in for generations.

When Americans were too into a warmongering fury 20 years ago the Iraqis and taliban helped them come to their senses with a firm and proper lessons in not sticking one's nose where it doesn't belong. The Palestinians are currently doing the same. Israel needs a good hard punch in order to learn to keep out of Palestinian territory. Unless Israel gets a proper shakedown the Israel problem and the massive waves of migrants they produce won't be stopped.

what kind of hard punch you thinking? 1948? 1967? 1973? I mean were these just not hard enough punches?

Israel needs a good hard punch in order to learn to keep out of Palestinian territory.

You... really didn't learn from the Palestinian history for this one, lol.

Israel needs a good hard punch in order to learn to keep out of Palestinian territory.

As college students at the best institutions across America have recently informed us with various chants: Palestine is from the river to the sea.

All Israelis are colonizers, occupiers, etc from that point of view.

Even the Israeli Arabs?

Eh, I suppose most Palestinians would call them house niggers, so I don't see that making much of a difference.

I've seen this kind of discussed. Dozens of Thai citizens and some other East Asians were captured or killed in the attack. Were these foreign visiting students and temporary guest workers "colonizers"? I've seen people say yes. If they are working with and for colonizers, they count also. There's no free pass from accusation for merely not being Jewish or Israeli.

And to be excessively fair, if they really are concerned about colonizing illegal occupiers, then they shouldn't give a pass for "just visiting" or being an Arab Israeli or something.

the Iraqis and taliban helped them come to their senses with a firm and proper lessons in not sticking one's nose where it doesn't belong

Yeah, the Iraqis did such a great job teaching that lesson that they are still using the constitution that Americans wrote for them. Let's be clear: the Iraqi "insurgency" was not some sort of anti-Imperialist endeavor; it was a civil war. That is why the "insurgents" killed vastly more civilians than they did coalition troops.

And the Taliban was so good at teaching that lesson that they killed all of an average of 100 US servicemen per year

While the Taliban's K/D ratio was atrocious, they were effective at:

  • Incurring massive economic & social costs to America
  • Recouping power immediately after the occupation ended

Did we learn any lessons? Survey says no. But I feel like America lost the war in Afghanistan for all intents and purposes.

Incurring massive economic & social costs to America

Not really. $100 billion per year = about $300 bucks per American, or

Recouping power immediately after the occupation ended

Yes, but the key there is "after the occupation ended."

Did we learn any lessons?

Well, in order to learn lessons, we have to understand what actually happened, it seems to me

Ehh capitalizing it over the course of a 20 year conflict is a bit of a slight of hand. I didn't want to pay $300/year || $6,000 in taxes to pay for Iraq and Afghanistan. You've also got 6,000 Americans killed (ARV of $7.5m apiece) which isn't factored into those costs, much less the QALY's of the wounded.

Even if you exclude casualty values, ~$45k per enemy combatant is expensive, and this is assuming no value for the civilians we killed.

This was one of the most expensive mistakes in US history by almost any metric. It's annoying that it was so obvious for so long, and the only person with the balls to actually stop the madness was Joe fucking Biden.

and the only person with the balls to actually stop the madness was Joe fucking Biden.

No, the only one with the balls to try and start the process of stopping was Trump. The only one who didn't have a choice in the matter was Biden. And also Biden doesn't choose what he's having for breakfast, so you can't really imply he's even a conscious agent anymore.

Biden was the only person in Obama's administration who was pushing to ramp down the war.

I'm not a fan of the guy, I don't think anyone with more than a couple brain cells to rub together could be. This presidency has been a disaster, including the pull out. But I won't avoid giving credit where it's due.

I didn't want to pay either; nevertheless, there is no way that the costs can be described as "massive."

~$45k per enemy combatant is expensive,

But relatively cheap for educating millions of Afghan girls. If you are going to weigh costs and benefits, you have to include all of them.

Why do I care about the education of afghan girls? It’s not going to do them, or anyone else, any good.

There is tons of economic research that says otherwise.

Was the increase in the education of Afghan girls worth the increase in sexual abuse of Afghan boys?

Probably? I'd assume so given most common values, unless the figures are grossly lopsided.

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I don't know. That's the point: All costs and benefits have to be included.

Actually trump was withdrawing, he just didn’t finish the job before he lost an election.

I know that, and he does get partial credit.

Ehh it had largely stopped by the time Trump came into place. Trump even had a planned exit. Biden to his credit continued with the exit but kind of fucked it up.

Lot of projection going on here.

Perhaps you'd like to hear it from the Hamas spokesman in an official interview with the NYT?

I hope that the state of war with Israel will become permanent on all the borders, and that the Arab world will stand with us,” Taher El-Nounou, a Hamas media adviser, told The Times

From a member of their Politburo (an apt name, I might add)

“Hamas’s goal is not to run Gaza and to bring it water and electricity and such,” said Mr. al-Hayya, the politburo member. “Hamas, the Qassam and the resistance woke the world up from its deep sleep and showed that this issue must remain on the table.”

“This battle was not because we wanted fuel or laborers,” he added. “It did not seek to improve the situation in Gaza. This battle is to completely overthrow the situation.”

keep out of Palestinian territory.

This is disconnected from reality. Americans can fuck off and run half a world away. But Palestinian territory equals all of Israel, according to the Palestinians. And the various ne'erdowells in Gaza were regularly lobbing missiles, no matter the situation with the Israel settlers in the margins of the West Bank. Their issue is the existence of the state of Israel, not some rounding-error settlements. And Israel isn't going anywhere.

And Israel isn't going anywhere.

I wouldn't be so sure. History actually has some good examples of nations in very similar circumstances - ever read up on the history of the Kingdoms of Outremer? So far I haven't seen a single bit of data that convinces me Israel isn't on the same historical trajectory.

Huh. I've never met someone for whom the Israeli policy of nuclear non-acknowledgement actually worked so well.

The Crusader Kingdoms, after all, fell to conventional invasion by neighboring Kingdoms/Empires more interested in fighting them than eachother. Israel, by contrast, is generally believed to have nuclear weapons, and as such its neighboring Kingdoms who could conduct conventional invasions are not particularly interested in fighting them directly anymore.

I'm entirely aware that their nuclear weapons exist, I just fail to see how they'd be useful in saving the country. Yes, they're capable of preventing a massive ground invasion from the arab states around them right now, but there's no guarantee that will last forever, nor is there any guarantee that military annihilation is the only way Israel could come to an end. While it was the foreign invasions that dealt the deathblow in the case of Outremer, they could only have happened as a result of longer term problems that simply weren't solved, and several other calamities could have taken their place - such as a plague or famine. Heavy reliance on foreign western powers, complicated and expensive social arrangements (the orthodox population of 'useless eaters'/christian scholars), a strategy revolving around keeping the various islamic nations at odds with one another and unable to unite in any real way... these are all serious issues, and having nuclear weapons only helps with that last one, and even there that effectiveness just might dwindle over time. If the Muslim brotherhood knew that attacking Israel from Egypt would get the current government nuked, they'd take that deal in a heartbeat. A hypothetical united Arab world would be an exceedingly difficult problem for Israel to deal with, and far too complicated a problem to simply nuke into submission.

Well, that's certainly a novel theory, and given the longevity of the Crusader Kingdoms and rarity of total state collapse without external intervention, a generally non-falsifiable one that would outlast either of our time on the mortal coil.

I generally am not moved by conditionals that already failed to occur (Egypt was already ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood- it did not take the deal in a heartbeat), presumption of uninterupted trend lines that justify inevitable disaster without shaping (the othrodox population claim), or hypotheticals that run contrary to historical experience or macro trends (lol, said pan-Arabism, RIP), so as such I'll just leave that I find your failure to see how nukes would be useful in saving a country unconvincing as evidence that they don't have more relevance that historical metaphors with fundamentally different assumptions.

a generally non-falsifiable one that would outlast either of our time on the mortal coil.

No, the theory I'm proposing is actually extremely testable. Maybe you're in your late 60s, but I don't see American support for Israel lasting for the rest of our lifetimes, and that's the most significant of the factors that I listed. We can't really test that right now, but when you look at the demographics of the US and the views of the populations that are going to be a majority in the future I don't think there's any guarantee that financial support to Israel continues.

(Egypt was already ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood- it did not take the deal in a heartbeat)

Yes, because Egypt was being ruled by the Muslim brotherhood - why would they want THEIR government to get attacked by Israel given that they know they'd lose? I'm talking about a situation where the Muslim brotherhood aren't in power, yet have the ability to elicit a military response from Israel targeted at the government that's throwing them in jail and declared them a terrorist organisation.

presumption of uninterupted trend lines that justify inevitable disaster without shaping (the othrodox population claim)

There's no presumption of trend lines here - the orthodox population is simply a weight hanging around Israel's neck. They have complicated social reasons for maintaining a large population who cannot help militarily or economically in any real way, which is a problem given that Israel itself doesn't have enough of an economy to support itself and the outsized defence expenditures it needs to stay safe. Even assuming that the orthodox all stopped having children, that's still a dependent population of some size that Israel will have to support for no gain. They can do that now, but that's going to become a bigger issue as support gets cut off.

hypotheticals that run contrary to historical experience or macro trends (lol, said pan-Arabism, RIP)

I don't think it is terribly contrary to historical experience for extremely warlike and quarrelsome populations to be united by charismatic leaders. This has happened multiple times throughout history, and while it doesn't have to be pan-Arabism I don't think the idea of some movement or charismatic leader uniting a few countries into a larger coalition is terribly ahistorical.

find your failure to see how nukes would be useful in saving a country unconvincing as evidence

Nuclear weapons are a solution for a fairly narrow set of problems. Domestic political unrest spurred by economic issues after the collapse of material western support despite a continued need for outsized defence expenditure doesn't fall into that category. And if you really don't see any evidence or historical analogues for nuclear weapons being unable to save a country from internal problems, please point out where the USSR is today and explain how their nuclear arsenal saved them from collapse.

That is an impressive number of mis-chosen historical allusions that don't quite demonstrate what you think they do and even less about nuclear deterrence, but as already noted we'll be dead before it would be disproven by not manifesting as relied upon so again, general shrug at unconvincing perception in lieu of evidence.

The USSR collapsed out of apathy. The Russian Soviet Republic was replaced by the Russian Federation, they were and are a majority. The Palestinians winning would wipe the Israelis off the map in a way the crumbling of the USSR didn’t kill all Russians. the rationale for use of nuclear weapons is completely different.

As for American support, most current US migrants are Central American Christians (largely Catholic, but many Latin Catholics convert to Evangelical Christianity after moving to the US) fleeing leftist regimes (chiefly Venezuela), not generally a particularly anti-Israel demographic.

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I have always cynically assumed that the real purpose of Israeli nuclear weapons is to blackmail western governments into continuing enthusiastic support, via the 'Samson option'.

The reality is that Israel has created millions of refugees, is creating havoc in the region and waves of migrants toward Europe. They are expanding and clearly have ambitions to grow their country. The Palestinians are well within their rights to fight back. Israel is a permanent threat to its neighbours, who aren't going anywhere. There is no guarantee of peace for Israel's neighbors as long as Israel is a militarized and aggressive nation. As long as Israel is blocking Gaza, killing hundreds of civilians a year and conducting air strikes on Gaza they have every reason to continue fighting. For us in Europe it would be a major win to not have Israel stir up chaos on our border.

The Palestinian population is approaching the population of Algeria in 1960 with Israel having a population that has a large component of religious fanatics who can't fight and combined with one of the scrawniest populations around. There is absolutely strong reasons to believe an insurgency could win.

I can see how Palestinians have a right to fight for what they want: some issues aren't able to be resolved by dialog because of irreconcilable values, and violence is the only solution. But once you believe there's a legitimate war going on, both sides have the right to commit violence. I don't see the current bombing and invasion of Gaza as furthering Israel's interests, but I also don't see destroying enemies who want to destroy you as something that makes Israel worthy of condemnation: they're responding like any state would, just as Palestinians are responding like any colonized indigenous population in the same circumstances would.

Algeria is an interesting comparison, but I think it breaks down. Algeria could be ethnically cleansed of Frenchmen because they were a numerical minority, they had a place to go and, critically, the existence of the French state wasn't threatened. The same isn't true of Israel, which suggests that a Palestinian insurgency to ethnically cleanse Israel of Jews is more likely to fail.

there is a big difference between messing about on a different continent and messing about next door.

Like all those African migrants coming into Europe? Or Central and South American migrants moving in the millions into the U.S.?

Not if the population of Israel largely consists of people who migrated from Eastern Europe.

and suddenly all the open border people are policing the heritage of a people. to be fair i have no idea what your position on this issue is.

That’s not exactly as true anymore. First 20% of Israel are non Jewish Arabs. A lot of immigration last few decades have been Arab Jews and they have higher fertility.

The Eastern European countries callously refuse the right of return for second and third generation emigrants living in Israel.

The majority of the population of Israel was born in Israel.

Oh theyve got critical thinking skills.

They do not however, use these skills to craft public policy proposals which if implemented would lead to stated goals.

Instead, they think very critically about how their proposals will impact the opinions of voters and donors.

This is what the current systems incentivizes, so it is what happens.

The "humanitarian pause" is of course a nonsense idea, but it sounds good. More specifically, it is defensible to a large range of opinions.

I apologize if this comes off as straw-man-y but if your argument is functionally "Hamas is so evil they should not be allowed to continue to exist so it's fine when Israel kills thousands of innocents to stop them" then your argument is missing a few steps! Someone put this more pithily than me on Twitter but if Israel killed my whole family, who have nothing to do with Hamas, in pursuit of killing some Hamas member my first response would be to start Hamas 2. Do you imagine that a lasting peace is going to be achieved by killing thousands of innocents to get rid of Hamas?

I suspect a majority of the people who are calling for a ceasefire agree you that Hamas is evil. I've seen lots of people make points about how Hamas oppresses Palestinians in Gaza. How they haven't allowed elections in almost 20 years. Those people just disagree that Hamas is "murdering thousands of innocent people to stop them" evil.

But if these people think that a cease fire with Hamas will lead to a long standing peace then they are delusional.

I don't think most people think a present ceasefire will lead to long standing peace, I think they are much more focused on the immediate goal of preventing the deaths of thousands (tens of thousands?) of innocent civilians.

Do you think this is the first time in military history that there was collateral damage? Do you think that conquered people always resist?

Also do you think it is good strategy to basically encourage human shields (provided side A arranges it so that if Party B attacks A, then B will cause collateral damage and be prevented from the collateral damage)? It seems like a really bad idea.

Do you think this is the first time in military history that there was collateral damage?

No, but nor do I think collateral damage is always permissible.

Do you think that conquered people always resist?

What does Palestinians "not resist[ing]" even look like in this context? They are penned in Gaza with nowhere to go. Regularly assailed by air from Israel with little ability to resist or retaliate. How much resistance could they cease doing?

Also do you think it is good strategy to basically encourage human shields (provided side A arranges it so that if Party B attacks A, then B will cause collateral damage and be prevented from the collateral damage)? It seems like a really bad idea.

What has been the actual effect of Israel's killing of human shields on Hamas' willingness to use human shields? Has it actually decreased? Has killing human shields been an effective deterrent in preventing Hamas' use of them? Or has it just killed a thousands of innocent people?

It’s been highly effective in getting people like Biden calling for a cease fire that heavily benefits Hamas.

Resisting is talking about after the war; not during.

They have built 300 miles of tunnels under Gaza for this exact war. Not resisting may have been not preparing for war.

Plus they have had random rocket launches for a long time. Which might be more of a threat to Israel since the Iron dome as a solution is expensive. They can’t trade unlimited missiles without going bankrupt against Gaza.

The US provides Iron Dome funding on demand so it may as well be unlimited from Israel's perspective.

The next wave of voters are anti-Israel. And there may be limits on this so for geopolitical games I don’t think Israel can count on that.

While using civilians as human shields is certainly morally dubious, continuing to use them after your opponent calls your bluff and it makes no further difference is even worse.

So my sympathies for Hamas, negative as they were, can only go one way.

While using civilians as human shields is certainly morally dubious

Can you provide a falsifiable definition of what a "human shield" is? I've never seen one. What is the objective scientific difference between a legitimate tragic human shield and an aggressor killing a civilian without mercy ostensibly to get at a "valid" target, and just invoking the phrase "human shield" to abrogate moral consequences for their actions? How many people or what methods are used when one shifts from the other?

If a bomb is dropped and kills 10 people to get at one that operated much of his guerilla field planning from home is that human shields? 100? 2? If a cop shoots through a hostage to kill a fugitive killer is that a human shields (blameless and free from personal responsibility for their actions)? What if it's a drugee and not a killer?

It's all about intent and capabilities. When a guerilla force has an entire city to operate in, yet insists on placing weapon caches inside a hospital, that's certainly one. Or someone holding a gun to a hostage's head.

I really don't see anything particularly difficult about it. Is the enemy relying on your unwillingness to kill neutral third parties (or even their civilian supporters) to deter you from offing them? That's a human shield, not that cases like having the Pentagon in DC, because nobody does that to stop them getting literally nuked.

I am not sympathetic to Hamas. I do not think Hamas deserves any sympathy. I do think the innocent Palestinians who Hamas is using as human shields deserve sympathy.

I am not sympathetic to Hamas.

This contradicts your earlier statement that, under similar circumstances, you would take similar actions.

if Israel killed my whole family, who have nothing to do with Hamas, in pursuit of killing some Hamas member my first response would be to start Hamas 2

I take this to mean that you find it understandable and morally acceptable to engage in the actions Hamas has engaged in, as revenge for unjust acts that have affected them.

Fair enough, I have a little sympathy for Hamas. But I recognize that they are evil in both their actions against Israelis and Palestinians alike and want to see them defeated.

I actually find that the Israeli government has done many things that I'd consider to be evil as well - using Palestinians as human shields (as in literally tying children to military vehicles), deploying white phosphorous in civilian areas, sexual abuse of Palestinian women... That said I'm not a particularly big fan of Hamas, so I want to see both of them defeated.

Do you imagine that a lasting peace is going to be achieved by killing thousands of innocents to get rid of Hamas?

It’s pretty easy to imagine when you look at some historical examples, eg. pacification of Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan in WWII, which in fact resulted in not only lasting peace, but in fact strong alliance with the former adversary who killed hundreds of thousands of innocents using the same tactics used by Israel today.

This is a great point, and one I've never thought about. I was about to push back on the possibility of Palestinian culture being able to recover from something like this, but is it really that much of a departure from Imperial Japan's levels of hatred/propensity to commit atrocities?

I suppose one challenge is even if you pacify Palestine, you still have hotbeds of radical Islam outside of it (nationally, geographically) to support the ideology. Germany could be encircled, Japan is an Island, but you can't put a palm over the entirety of the middle east and west Africa at the same time.

Yeah, I don’t really want to argue for high likelihood of this scenario in Palestinian context, just that it doesn’t seem at all impossible considering the plentiful historical examples.

Part of the reason we have lasting peace with those countries is the vast amount of economic resources we spent to help build those countries back up after the war. Do you think that's going to happen here? After Israel's war with Hamas is over are they going to deliver a bunch of resources to Gaza and the West Bank to help the development of a peaceful Palestinian state? I am skeptical!

Israel provided jobs to gazans before this. West bank is noticeably wealthier / HDI / whatever your metric is comparee to Gaza. I think Gaza would economically grow it fully embraced Israeli economic partnership

After Israel's war with Hamas is over are they going to deliver a bunch of resources to Gaza and the West Bank to help the development of a peaceful Palestinian state? I am skeptical!

If they thought that this was a viable possibility? Maybe. I think that the hatred is a bit more entrenched than it was in Japan/Germany.

I mean, it's hard to imagine that they won't use resources to try to destroy Israel. When given a choice they have show that that is exactly what they will do.

If Hamas formally surrendered and then allowed Israel occupation the aid would flow in. Same terms as Japan or Germany accepted - unconditional surrender.

I am not convinced. What was the situation in Gaza pre-Israeli withdrawal?

You could give Hamas all of the aid we gave to Israel and they would waste it trying to kill Israelis instead of building up their country.

Sure, I agree. I think Hamas is evil. But I don't think that's true of Palestinians in general. Same as the Nazi Germany government or the imperial Japanese government.

That's not really my argument. My argument is if they do a cease fire with Hamas, we will literally just be here in 5-10 years from now at best. They knew what the response to this would be and they did it anyway. These are people who put weapons under schools and hospitals and dares people to blow them up. We may get Hamas 2.0 after this, but if we do a cease fire and Hamas stays in power, we 100% get Hamas 1.0 in power no matter what.

What will a cease fire even accomplish? Allow these people to move to safety? Move where? Hamas uses them as human shields and will embed themselves in the population. And there's nowhere safe to move them because nobody wants these people. Egypt, Europe, America, and other Arabs don't want them.

Have any of these cease fire people proposed any plan for how we won't be here again very soon? Possibly in just a few weeks. Can Hamas even be trusted with a cease fire? We know they will commit terrorist attacks as soon as possible and take advantage of any kindness offered to them.

That's not really my argument. My argument is if they do a cease fire with Hamas, we will literally just be here in 5-10 years from now at best. They knew what the response to this would be and they did it anyway. These are people who put weapons under schools and hospitals and dares people to blow them up. We may get Hamas 2.0 after this, but if we do a cease fire and Hamas stays in power, we 100% get Hamas 1.0 in power no matter what.

How is Israel's current strategy going to prevent us from being back here in 10-15 years? Say Israel kills every member of Hamas, not just in Gaza, but the entire world. What is the plan for after that? Do we go back to the pre-2005 occupation of Gaza by Israel? The same one the preceded Hamas' rise to power? Does Israel go back to treating Gaza like an open air prison? Will whatever group that fills the power vacuum left by Hamas be friendlier with Israel?

What will a cease fire even accomplish?

It will prevent the deaths of thousands or tens of thousands of innocent civilians, many of them children? That is enough of a goal for a lot of people!

They knew what the response to this would be and they did it anyway.

No, you're the one incapable of critical thinking or looking at consequences a few moves ahead right now. Hamas didn't do this in spite of the Israeli response, they did it to provoke the Israeli response. Hamas' end game was exactly this scenario: torpedo the Israeli-Arab rapprochement created by the Abraham Accords for another generation, so that the can gets kicked down the road another 50 years.

The reaction of much of the global public, especially the Muslim population, to the mass slaughter of civilians in Gaza is not something that Israel is in a position to change. Braying like a jackass that the human terrain isn't acting rationally to your standards is as useless as politicians who complain about the voters.

The ground invasion is what Hamas wanted from the start, it's a trap. It's sad to me that so many people are so brain poisoned from watching too many Hollywood action films that they see a trap and say "Well a real hero goes in anyway and figures out a way."

No, I addressed this. Yes, their response was to kill as many civilians as possible in Israel to start a conflict, not caring at all how it negatively affects the people they supposedly govern since they don't care about governing or civilians. This is because they are Islamists and religious extremists who can't be reasoned with, which is why they all have to die if any peace is possible. Any cease fire gives them exactly what they want. The only possible way they they "win" is because Israel isn't allowed to finish the job because of Western leftists crying about a cease fire that kicks the can down the road 5-10 years. They need to all be killed so their gambit fails and they realize if they pull this shit again they all die and their city will be destroyed. This would also be true if a secular Palestinian government was in power and Israel disappeared off the map.

The "trap" is to stop now and slowly turn the West against Israel while allowing Hamas to stay in power. This is what Hamas actually wants, not to be eradicated off this earth permanently.

When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles.

Yes, their response was to kill as many civilians as possible in Israel to start a conflict, not caring at all how it negatively affects the people they supposedly govern since they don't care about governing or civilians. This is because they are Islamists and religious extremists who can't be reasoned with, which is why they all have to die if any peace is possible

This isn't really a good way of putting it. Hamas and the citizens of Gaza actually do read the international news and some of them even speak hebrew - which means that they understand what it means when Netanyahu holds up funny little maps that show Palestine not existing at all. Israel is very explicitly an ethnonationalist country that exists for the sake of the jewish people, and that has some very obvious connotations when they present maps which show Israel completely swallowing up Palestine!

Why should Hamas care about what happens to their population when doing nothing and accepting the status quo proposed by the Israelis means that they're all gone anyway? The Israelis are right there in the public eye letting them know that accepting a diplomatic solution means either their extermination or their permanent expulsion from the lands they've lived in for thousands of years. What's their motive to just give in and accept a slow death?

This is because they are Islamists and religious extremists who can't be reasoned with, which is why they all have to die if any peace is possible.

Having dealt with Islamic extremists in person before, this is just not true. They aren't brainless automatons. They have a specific belief system, and can be negotiated and reasoned with. Ironically Israel proves this all the time when they negotiate with them. Just like everyone else they are subject to peer pressure, fear, and everything else. They are not intractable problem. Though they are a difficult one.

One of the biggest mistakes people tend to make is not understanding that.

The ground invasion is what Hamas wanted from the start, it's a trap. It's sad to me that so many people are so brain poisoned from watching too many Hollywood action films that they see a trap and say "Well a real hero goes in anyway and figures out a way."

Al Qaeda thought they were setting a trap for the West with 9/11. Now, Bin Laden and his contemporary lieutenants are dead and Al Qaeda is scattered and broken, fighting over scraps in sub-Saharan Africa, and the West is mostly annoyed that it had to spend the time and money to do that to them.

Sometimes, it really does work out that the 'hero' goes in anyway and figures things out just fine. Provided the Biden administration doesn't knuckle under to its Left flank and start applying real pressure to get Israel to stop, Hamas is going to be crushed in the ground invasion and Israel will re-occupy the Gaza Strip, probably eventually handing over (Non-democratic) control to the PA.

https://apnews.com/article/afghanistan-taliban-takeover-anniversary-explainer-10711b53a73638f46f2eb534b15b1a63

And yet...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_terrorism_in_Europe

This list seems to have entries running all the way up to 2021.

Did you know that Osama Bin Laden, no bullshit, was a big Asimov fan? And that one way to translate "The Foundation" into Arabic is "Al-Qaeda?"

Al Qaeda lost, but the idiotic heroism here also lost. Aside from the economic and human costs, we spent two decades with our energies focused on fighting illiterate goat herders and incels instead of countering the actual threats to a US-led world order.

A tiny portion of our energies, maybe. It's not like these things are mutually exclusive.

Of course, a huge part of that was that the American people didn't really care, at the end of the day, once Bin Laden was dead. Israelis will care about what happens in the Gaza Strip.

the human terrain does act rationally, historically, when smalltime warlords make contact with the empire. fight and everyone dies, or submit and live. "the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must." and the palestinians are not the neutral melians.

if they're astute enough to make moves for the reasons you suggest that's worse, they have no excuse to not know they have no realpolitik win condition. they kill a few jews and get bombed in response, some win. their dream scenario of a land push victory that kills a lot of jews ends with every nuke israel has and 100 million dead arabs.

the greater their intelligence as actors then the necessarily more irrationally-driven-by-jew-hate. you can't beat israel. if as a people they were actually smart they'd start cutting their sleeping leaders' throats. but they don't. supposing israel has some hand in supplying and motivating their own quasi-insurgency is also farcical, i see no reason to doubt israel would take final peace without further bloodshed, and i am left, especially if they possess the faculties you give them, with seeing people of such hate they would rather murder jews than live in a functioning state.

blowback risks? nah. the cause of blowback isn't brutality, it's not enough brutality. there's not a 21st century solution to peace in the middle east. it could be decades, but israel is eventually going to stop listening to outside complaining and start responding to terrorism with wildly disproportionate force. when their neighbors know a single guy sneaking into a house will result in a dozen sorties per dead kid and there isn't a power in the world who can get israel to stop, then there will be peace.

right, the point: pleading for israel to stop almost assuredly causes more deaths, not less.

Why are all your previous posts properly capitalized and this one written in ironic all-lowercase? I find this such an annoying way of typing that I couldn't even read your post all the way through.

idiosyncrasy

I've actually grown tired of it, but I've been dealing with some monster writer's block lately and was hoping the "looser" nocaps would help get the ball rolling again.

There is a realpolitik solution though, which is to redraw borders and separate IL and PA into two contiguous viable states. Even if this will not assuage Palestinian seething, a clear international border would be a lot easier for IL to defend and a lot harder for PA to violate than the current situation where IL is the warden and PA is the inmate in a cramped open-air prison but for the sake of appearances they have to pretend it is not quite so, and also IL wants to seize half of PA's cell to extend his break room. The problem with this solution was that it would probably entail some territorial concessions from IL, and also shut down their real agenda which is to gradually seize any remaining worthwhile PA-held land and squeeze them out or provoke them into self-destructing. This is a hard sell as long as IL knows that it enjoys unconditional support from the Western world when push comes to shove, and in that light the PA strategy of provoking IL into visible atrocities now seems as good as any (as it seems like one of the moves that have better chance to compromise the unconditional support).

Toothless "pleading" for IL to stop might indeed just result in continuation of the status quo and many more violent deaths over the next century (but taken to its extreme, this argument might just as well be fielded for something like "fine, I guess we can let them literally genocide all that is left of PA, it's clear that we can't stop it anyway and the sooner they all die the fewer future people will be born to cause more deaths"), but "pleading" that is backed with "...or we may lose our next election to Ilhan Omar/the AfD/??? and then you will truly be on your own" may bring about the two-state solution.

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