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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   27470 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 20, 2023

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I know quite a few Muslims who refuse to drink Starbucks for this reason. There are a lot of collages of Jewish-founded or run businesses that float around on WhatsApp etc in the Arab/Muslim world.

In a deracinated, secularizing world in which the core Islamic territory is increasingly divided in two by the Saudi/Iranian Sunni/Shia proxy conflict, Palestine is literally the sole unifying cause for the global ummah, they can’t really agree on anything else.

This also explains Muslim radicalization about it, it’s the only cause that a traditionalist 75 year old grandfather who prays five times a day and his 21 year old feminist art student granddaughter who doesn’t even wear hijab can agree on with similar zeal. For many Westernized Muslims, a combination of generic POC-‘anticolonial’ activism in general and Palestine advocacy specifically is what being a Muslim means to them.

(That’s not unique to Muslims, of course, plenty of progressive Christians and Jews do similar things, but it is important to remember in these discussions.)

I find it so hard to want to support the the Palestinian cause even if they have legitimate grievances, because their tactics are so deplorable--the deliberate use of violence and martyrdom and their citizens as fodder to invoke sympathy from the Western masses. It's like an extreme version of performance art or theatrics.

I find it so hard to want to support the the Palestinian cause even if they have legitimate grievances, because their tactics are so deplorable

I don't think we should conflate Hamas with all Palestinians.

Take a look at this: https://www.awrad.org/en/article/10719/Wartime-Poll-Results-of-an-Opinion-Poll-Among-Palestinians-in-the-West-Bank-and-Gaza-Strip

See the tables of results. The press release doesn't mention the objectionable bits.

68% of Palestinians "extremely support" the October 7 terror. Only 7% oppose it.

Edit: 68% of those in WB. 59.3% overall. 46.6% in GS for "extremely support".

But for WB + GS overall you have 75% who support or extremely support the terror.

They are currently being bombed, though. That tends to cause people to circle the wagons. At present I very much doubt any Palestinians will say no to anything that sounds even remotely anti-Israeli.

June 2023, 1200+ adults in Gaza Strip: https://www.pcpsr.org/sites/default/files/Poll%2088%20English%20full%20text%20June%202023.pdf

Page 25.

70% support or strongly support killing civilians inside Israel.

Sure?

It's not news to me that the Palestinians hate the Israelis. Even well before October 7, I am confident that it would be suicidal to walk down the street in Gaza City wearing a kippah, or bearing any sign of either Jewish or Israeli identity. The Palestinians have never liked or empathised with the Israelis.

I expect anti-Israeli feeling to have only intensified as a result of October 7 and the aftermath - so these sets of figures don't surprise me.

If it's not news to you, why did you try to argue that the results in the first poll was due to the current retaliatory bombing?

I wasn't arguing that they were entirely due to the current war, or that in the absence of the invasion Palestinians would be kind and welcoming towards Israelis or anything like that.

What I believe, in plain terms, is that 1) the Palestinians in general have an extremely negative view of Israel and the Jews, and 2) the current war is likely to only increase both the prevalence and the intensity of those views, and discredit any Palestinian moderates (who were indeed only a minority previously).

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