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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   26696 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 11, 2023

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You can't divorce the discussion from the fact that Israel is slaughtering thousands of Gazan civilians, and it's especially rich that Jews have been able to force the discourse on an alleged call to genocide with a run-of-the-mill propaganda slogan like "Palestinians will be free in Palestine," when such slogans are common to every war in human history. We should be left in awe that they've been able to steer the discourse to pearl-clutching around that slogan while they openly endorse an ongoing ethnic cleansing. None of the hypocrisy you are trying to identify here between "POC vs Jews" on the free speech question can possibly hold a candle to the hypocritical Elite support for Zionist brutality. The fact this has been made an issue proves Jews are on the top of the pyramid, above and beyond the POC, and the kvetching over this controversy is just proof of that fact and not at all proof that Jews are put upon.

Israel is slaughtering thousands of Gazan civilians

This is bullshit. Sure, some civilians in Gaza are dying, but Israel is not intentionally killing them. They're dying because the Hamas faggots are standing next to women and children when they fire their rockets. They're dying because they support the terrorists stockpiling machine guns next to their kids' school supplies. Whatever the beef with Jews, it's Hamas and its supporters who are killing the people in Gaza.

an alleged call to genocide with a run-of-the-mill propaganda slogan like "Palestinians will be free in Palestine," when such slogans are common to every war in human history.

How else do you interpret “from the river to the sea”? That slogan clearly includes both Israel and Palestine, and Hamas’s original and 2017 charters both indicate that their ultimate goal is to wrest control of the entire area from Israel.

Look, I’m no fan of Israel’s actions, especially the settlements in the West Bank. I even argued here last week that we shouldn’t be supporting Israel in this conflict. But just because Israel isn’t a saint, it doesn’t mean Hamas is. Everyone who chants “from the river to the sea” while knowing what that means (most Americans don’t, including the ones chanting it) is mouthing support for genocide.

ETA: You can substitute “ethnic cleansing” for genocide if you prefer.

How else do you interpret “from the river to the sea”?

It could be interpreted as call for genocide, it could be also interpreted as call for one state solution, creation of one state where Palestinians and Jews would live happily together as equal citizens with equal rights (this means equal right to return to both Jews and Palestinians).

Could such state work?

Combined total population of current Holy Land is 12,8 million split roughly equally between Jews and Palestinians.

Outside of the land, total number of Palestinians is about 6 million, while Jews outside of Israel eligible by Law of Return to immigrate are about 17 million.

Assuming everyone returns home according to the plan, total population of the Holy Land will rise to respectable 36 million. Divided by 25,500 square km of land, it gives population density of ~ 1411 ppl/km2.

Hellish nightmare, you might say, just little less hellish than Houston, TX.

How would be Mega City Mideast governed? We are in the 21st century, democracy is out and absolute rule by Dictatorate of Supreme Judges is in. We are destined to dystopic future anyway, why not pick the cool British one?

Assuming everyone returns home according to the plan

How likely do you think that is to actually happen? And failing that, how do you prevent this single-state solution from undergoing Dan Carlin's "conquest via democracy"?

Assuming everyone returns home according to the plan

Ha. Not bloody likely.

Israel: slaughtering thousands of Gazan civilians

Nazi Germany: those Jews died of typhosis

Slaughtering, to me, seems like a highly incorrect use of the word. They are incidentally killing people in Gaza, some tiny percentage of which are civilians, most of whom are in the crossfire because they are being used as human shields by agents of Hamas, a foreign military operation that just conducted an act of aggression in Israel.

It seems rather likely to me that a large percentage are civilians, given how much Hamas tries to hide itself with civilians and inside civilian structures. Which doesn’t make the IDF’s collateral damage any less moral, in my opinion.

Oh I disagree. You can't have such a standard practice without willing participation of the vast majority of the population. Almost everyone over age 10 knows why they are there and is agreeing to it.

That may well be, but supporting the military doesn’t make you a combatant, or else the civilian/combatant distinction would be virtually meaningless in the vast majority of cases.

Yes I agree that the civilian/combatant distinction is useless in the vast majority of cases. I further assert most people asserted to be Palestinian Civilians would fail all but the most lenient tests if given a questionnaire with a perfect truth detector.

Now that’s interesting! Do you believe that there’s much of a point at all then, to making targeting civilians a war crime? Do you see the Oct 7 attack on Israeli civilians as a justified part of war-making?

Do you believe that there’s much of a point at all then, to making targeting civilians a war crime?

Targeting how? Am I bombing a football stadium during gametime with a MOAB? Sure. Give that Colonel or Major the death penalty after the war.

But almost always when it is applicable, its a street level thing where you are operating with near zero info, often nowadays soldiers are intentionally dressing as civilians, and "civilians" are running interference for their local boys. In that case, blow the whole block and I don't see where the crime is. If I am "supporting" the military with a vote, I also am not a civilian, because the purpose of voting is to avoid internal civil wars. But that is not a good standard for the other side to try and figure out. So just lay off women and children that are in basements where there are no other men at all. If any men want to profess equal amounts of non-participation they should begin a military resistance movement against the government that they do not support.

Edit I forgot this part

Do you see the Oct 7 attack on Israeli civilians as a justified part of war-making?

Not really. They didn't make any real attempts to target IDF soft targets. They just targeted the equivalent of a football stadium, a concert. They also actively fled engagement with IDF instead, fleeing them, and targeting residences where they had zero reason to expect to particularly find IDF resources. Also, it was a surprise attack. I don't subscribe to the idea that you have to hamstring yourself in war, like a lot of progressives seem to think Great Britain/USA/Israel/France should do, but it does show a certain lack of courage. Combined with their cowardly appeals to the UN/western progressives for a ceasefire since 10/7 I think it betrays a guilty mind of a people who know they are not conducting themselves in a way compatible with being considered members of a human society.

If I am "supporting" the military with a vote, I also am not a civilian, because the purpose of voting is to avoid internal civil wars.

This might be your personal opinion, but international law disagrees and clearly lays out who is combatant and who is civilian.

https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/api-1977/article-50

Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), 8 June 1977.

Article 50 - Definition of civilians and civilian population

  1. A civilian is any person who does not belong to one of the categories of persons referred to in Article 4 A (1), (2), (3) and (6) of the Third Convention and in Article 43 of this Protocol. In case of doubt whether a person is a civilian, that person shall be considered to be a civilian.
  1. The civilian population comprises all persons who are civilians.
  1. The presence within the civilian population of individuals who do not come within the definition of civilians does not deprive the population of its civilian character.

These categories are there:

https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/gciii-1949/article-4

(1) Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.

(2) Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:

(a) that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;

(b) that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;

(c) that of carrying arms openly;

(d) that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

...

(4) Persons who accompany the armed forces without actually being members thereof, such as civilian members of military aircraft crews, war correspondents, supply contractors, members of labour units or of services responsible for the welfare of the armed forces, provided that they have received authorization from the armed forces which they accompany, who shall provide them for that purpose with an identity card similar to the annexed model.

...

(6) Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war.

back to Oct 7 event:

Not really. They didn't make any real attempts to target IDF soft targets.

They did.

In December this figure was further revised using social security data to 1,139.[14] This number consists of 764 civilians, including 36 children, and 373 security forces,[14] the youngest of whom was 10 months old and the eldest 25 people over age 80.[14][175]

...

They also actively fled engagement with IDF instead, fleeing them, and targeting residences where they had zero reason to expect to particularly find IDF resources.

According to your previous definition, voting is act of combat and anyone who votes is therefore legitimate target.

Combined with their cowardly appeals

And now you keep adding another things.

Just say what you want to say: "We good, ug. They bad, ug ug. We kill them, this good, ug ug ug. They kill us, this bad, ug ug ug ug."

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Okay, so we’re mostly in agreement then.

Targeting how? Am I bombing a football stadium during gametime with a MOAB? Sure. Give that Colonel or Major the death penalty after the war.

Do you agree that there should be laws on the books (aka war crimes) that criminalize killing civilians in cases like this when there is clearly no reason to believe military assets will be affected, so that said colonel or major can actually be tried and given the death penalty after the war?

If I am "supporting" the military with a vote, I also am not a civilian, because the purpose of voting is to avoid internal civil wars. But that is not a good standard for the other side to try and figure out. So just lay off women and children that are in basements where there are no other men at all.

And if those women voted for the enemy military force? Or if those women work in factories producing munitions during the day, but are now cowering before you in a basement, is it therefore justified to shoot them as a non-civilian?

And if an unarmed man is hiding with the rest of his family in that basement, is it justified to take him specifically out and shoot him? Why only the man but not the women?

More comments

You can't divorce the discussion from the fact that Israel is slaughtering thousands of Gazan civilians

Can you divorce from you mind the mass rape and murder of Oct 7? Wasn't that called exhilarating by a few groups on Oct 8?

The fact this has been made an issue proves Jews are on the top of the pyramid, above and beyond the POC

Well ‘the Jews’ just failed to oust Harvard’s WOC president despite making up a majority of its most generous donors, which would suggest otherwise. Israel isn’t ‘slaughtering’ Gazan civilians, casualty rates in Gaza are within expected parameters for fighting in a dense, highly populated urban environment and don’t suggest any large scale targeting of non-combatants unaffiliated with Hamas.

Not only do Hamas’ own casualty figures fluctuate in a deeply suspicious way, but even if they were accurate they’d suggest a less than 1% civilian death rate, which again is extremely low in historical terms for the invasion of a dense city (or even in general). Gaza’s population is three times that of Dresden before it was bombed, and yet in two months of heavy bombing and a ground invasion, even Hamas argues that fewer died than did in a single allied bombing there.

Gaza’s population is three times that of Dresden before it was bombed, and yet in two months of heavy bombing and a ground invasion, even Hamas argues that fewer died than did in a single allied bombing there.

Dresden was firebombed and the majority of the city was outright annihilated by the resulting firestorm. The firebombed japanese cities, or for that matter the nuclear bombings, would be similarly poor examples for comparison. Why not compare to casualties from the bombing of Britain, or some other example of indiscriminate bombing, adjusted by weight of bombs dropped? Presumably Israel is dropping guided weapons; if they are producing more casualties per ton of bombs dropped than examples of indiscriminate bombing in WWII, that seems like it ought to be recognized as a significant result.

The bombing of Britain wasn't a war crime (or at least isn't widely considered one), so the comparison wouldn't really demonstrate anything.

Presumably Israel is dropping guided weapons; if they are producing more casualties per ton of bombs dropped than examples of indiscriminate bombing in WWII, that seems like it ought to be recognized as a significant result.

Not really; when you make more precise bombs you generally also make them smaller (some of the big bunker-busters being exceptions). The proper measure would be civilian casualties per some measure of military effectiveness.

Not really; when you make more precise bombs you generally also make them smaller (some of the big bunker-busters being exceptions).

Hence per ton of bombs dropped.

Works the wrong way. If I used to drop 100 tons of bomb to destroy a target and it killed 5 civilians (destroying the target but mostly hitting other stuff) and now I drop 10 tons of precision bomb and it kills 1 civilian (destroying the target that the civilian was at/nearby), going by tonnage makes the second one look worse.

Israel isn’t ‘slaughtering’ Gazan civilians, casualty rates in Gaza are within expected parameters for fighting in a dense, highly populated urban environment and don’t suggest any large scale targeting of non-combatants unaffiliated with Hamas.

Israel is slaughtering Gazan civilians, it is building settlements to ethnically cleanse the West Bank. It is Apartheid by any reasonable standard, with Gazans as functionally less-than second class non-citizens of Israel. Using Dresden as a benchmark for whether or not we can consider there to be a slaughter of civilians is revealing of just how motivated you are to deny the reality of the situation.

Why not just embrace the Richard Hanania approach of supporting it rather than denying that it is actually happening?

On the one hand, you don't think we can call this a slaughter of civilians because the death toll isn't at the level of Dresden, but on the other hand you are Very Concerned that students on campus are saying that Palestinians should be free. Like I said, we should be left gasping in awe at the inversion of reality we are watching unfold at the pinnacle of the Ivory Tower, and even here.

Using Dresden as a benchmark for whether or not we can consider there to be a slaughter of civilians is revealing of just how motivated you are to deny the reality of the situation.

Dresden is considered a controversial case and had a casualty rate either an order or multiple orders of magnitude higher than the current conflict depending on who you believe, sure.

But that reminds me, you’ve argued that extraordinarily high civilian death rates on the Eastern Front in WW2 were merely sad realities of warfare (rather than any deliberate extermination), but less than 1% of Gaza’s population (a substantial part of which is armed combatants) dying in an invasion is a “slaughter”? More Jews died at Iasi in a few days than civilians have died in Gaza since October 7th.

If killing sub-1% of the civilian population in collateral damage during an invasion is a “slaughter”, then the term applies to almost any major military action to the extent it’s almost redundant.

Why not just embrace the Richard Hanania approach of supporting it rather than denying that it is actually happening?

I’m not Israeli, but if I were I’d be far harsher and less compromising. Perhaps that would make me a bad leader. I advocated right here, as I recall, that Israel should start executing fighting age men until the will to fight back is eliminated, for example.

you are Very Concerned that students on campus are saying that Palestinians should be free.

Not at all. I have few real opinions about freedom of speech, given neither I nor those I consider hostile to me support it. But, as a citizen of present day America, I would run a university as the presidents promised this week (or last, I forget) in Congress, without any restrictions on legal speech by faculty or students.

I have never contested that the high mortality due to war reality, reprisals etc. certainly constitutes a "slaughter of civilians", and again, I don't know why you insist on pointing to particularly notable examples of this and insisting they are a minimum benchmark for acknowledging the reality of what is happening on the ground. What is happening right now in Gaza is a reprisal.

I advocated right here, as I recall, that Israel should start executing fighting age men without charge until the will to fight back is eliminated, for example.

You don't appreciate how fragile Israel is. It only exists by the pathological grace of European people. It's been an albatross around the neck of the White world. The Jews haven't built an inspiring outpost of civilization. It's an embarrassment in every regard: politically, ideologically, aesthetically, geopolitically. It's been a massively destabilizing force geopolitically, it has costed the United States immense wealth, blood, and prestige on the world stage to such an extent as to actually threaten its hegemony.

The real reason why propaganda slogans are so threatening is because they threaten an erosion of Western support for Israel, which is absolutely terrifying for them, and rightfully so. It has nothing to do with "muh genocidal rhetoric". It's about clamping down on campus opposition to Israel.

You don't appreciate how fragile Israel is.

If the West stopped caring either way about Israel tomorrow, what do you suppose would happen to it?

Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iran successfully invade?

Israel doesn't need to be militarily defeated, it just needs to be a worse alternative for a sufficient number of Israeli citizens than anywhere else they would live in the world. Without the support of the US the Arab world could easily tip the scales, and that's a much lower bar. The fanatics would stay and breed and the high quality would just leave. It's a recipe for the end of Israel regardless.

Especially if being Israeli becomes low-status in the Western world. The more high quality Jews will leave it behind.

Is a world in which the West drops all support for Israel likely to be particularly welcome to Israeli Jewish migrants?

Europe shows that exasperation with the Zionist project is not equivalent to resolve in keeping out unwanted migrants. As of October of this year Israelis don't even need a Visa to travel to the US. If Jews are good at doing anything, it's picking up and moving after a plague of their own design.

You can't divorce the discussion from the fact that Israel is slaughtering thousands of Gazan civilians

Israel is, as far as anyone can tell, following the laws of war on protection of civilians, although I suppose they could just let Hamas attack them again instead.

with a run-of-the-mill propaganda slogan like "Palestinians will be free in Palestine," when such slogans are common to every war in human history

This slogan is 1) blatantly false(Palestine will continue to lose) and 2) actually is ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’, which implies an end to Israel. Israeli Jews will get genocided or ethnically cleansed if that happens. So yes, it is an implicit call for… something unpleasant.

Israel is engaging in an ethnic cleansing, the "legality" doesn't matter as that is simply a function of the support of the United States. The legality of settlements or blockades doesn't matter either. It's an Apartheid state... It's everything the managerial elite claim to oppose. But the real problem is a fucking slogan saying Palestinians will be free? Give me a break, seriously. It's a testament to their penchant for narrative control that they make a fucking slogan the big Controversy of the Day, and even people here take the bait by claiming that this shows how Jews are just so put upon by Academia. It's completely absurd.

Something tells me that the Jewish donor class that pushed out Liz would support ending Apartheid, regardless of the consequences for white South Africans, while also supporting Israeli Apartheid in order to safeguard Israeli Jews. And then, to cover up their monumental hypocrisy, they will drum up controversy over a slogan like "from the River to the Sea" to claim they are the victims of "genocidal rhetoric" while they actively support an Apartheid regime engaging in ethnic cleansing.

Israel engages in ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, but the Gaza operation is a military operation with military targeting, not ethnic cleansing. The settlements in the West Bank are bad and should be condemned, they don’t justify even more ethnic cleansing in return.

Gaza is its own country though...

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