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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   26674 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 20, 2023

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Since special thread dedicated to current Middle Eastern issues fell into abeyance, I am posting latest war culture war report from the scorching sands of Middle East cold and brutal streets of Gotham City.

And the latest victim of the war is one Stuart Seldowitz, former humanitarian diplomacy consultant, National Security Council member and deputy director of the US State Department’s Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs,who fell in glorious struggle against terrorism was arrested by NYPD for persistent harrassment of halal food street vendor.

In one widely shared video, Seldowitz is heard to ask the unidentified vendor: “Did you rape your daughter like Muhammad did?” In another, he states: “If we killed 4,000 Palestinian kids, you know what? It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough.”

When the vendor says he doesn’t speak English, Seldowitz laughs and says, “That’s why you’re selling food in a food cart, because you’re ignorant,” before suggesting that the vendor will be deported to Egypt and tortured by intelligence agents.

“The mukhabarat in Egypt will get your parents,” Seldowitz said in the video. “Does your father like his fingernails? They will take them out one by one.” The vendor is heard asking Seldowitz to “please go” and saying that he would call the police.

An NYPD spokesperson told the outlet that they are aware of the videos and monitoring the situation but that no reports had been filed. The woman who posted the videos, who is believed to be a social activist and Columbia University graduate, said Seldowitz had been harassing the vendor for weeks.

According to some reports, the street vendor was allegedly previously tearing down posters with dead and kidnapped Israelis.

Whole incident was covered on dead bird site in every possible angle, if you are even only casual deadbirders, you already learned about it and made your own minds.

What is my take?

In the best possible world, no one would be tearing these posters, because there would be no such posters on the streets of Gotham City, because whole world, including Middle East, would live in peace and harmony, there would be no wars, no one would be killed, no one would be kidnapped, no house would be bombed or bulldozed.

In the second best possible world, no one would be tearing these posters, because there would be no such posters on the streets of Gotham City, because no one living in Gotham City would care enough about some war going on the other side of the world to deface their beloved city.

In the third best possible world, no one would be tearing these posters, because there would be no such posters on the streets of Gotham City, because laws of Gotham City against posting and graffiti would be strictly enforced and people splattering around unauthorized posters and leaflets would be fined (and, in case of repeated and persistent vandalism, deported from the city).

Well, we do not live in any of these worlds.

In the Xth best world, the media would stop signal-boosting all the evil cardiologists. Assuming that this actually happened as described, there's a difference between a non-representative person and a representative one. Rejoicing in the death of innocents is official activity of Hamas and common among Gazans. Signal-boosting the extremists on the other side to make it look like both sides do this equally is media deception.

Also note that "former X" is a variety of "not actually X".

Rejoicing in the death of innocents is official activity of Hamas and common among Gazans.

What if your opinion was not rejoicing but "we have to break some eggs", except you want to take it far farther than most reasonable observers or even Israelis want to? Is there a point where it gets problematic from a consequentialist perspective?

Second the evil cardiologist point. Don’t agree that Gazans in Gaza are the relevant comparison group - this behavior wouldn’t be as bizarre or noteworthy coming from some Israeli official living in Israel, where it makes more sense for tensions to run hot.

Random related detail - looked up a very prominent IR professor, Bruce Hoffman, the other day due to a favorable reference in another book. His twitter was full of retweets of pictures and videos of people tearing down the missing signs with requests to identify them (still has a similar one as his top tweet as of this writing). Hard to picture what the point of that is if not to encourage targeted harassment, so it’s not limited to this guy. Still just anecdotal though, not hard to evil cardiologist a group in a setting like this.

this behavior wouldn’t be as bizarre or noteworthy coming from some Israeli official living in Israel

And that is exactly why this resonates. Here we have a person who ostensibly was responsible for an equitable peace between the Palestinians and Israel, but whose response clearly shows an extreme bias to one nation, more like being a citizen of that one nation.

In the Xth best world, the media would stop signal-boosting all the evil cardiologists. Assuming that this actually happened as described, there's a difference between a non-representative person and a representative one.

If this person was just old geezer of no importance, no one would care about dispute between Stuart the Pensioner and Mohammed the Halal Vendor.

But this person is someone of note, and it is worthy to ask whether he is representative of his class and milieu, and, if so, what it means for understanding of American diplomacy and foreign policy, what it means for trust in American-negotiated "Mideast peace process".

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