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Follow-Up On That Jewish Conspiracy
My post on the Israel-Palestine affair was the most widely-read thing I ever wrote; not something I anticipated from what was originally intended to be a learning exercise for myself. I've been meaning to address some of the thoughtful feedback I received but I've been busy. There were (alhamdulillah) no factual errors to correct and my overall thesis has not materially changed, but some connective context was missing and some of my points were badly articulated. I'll try to keep this post self-contained but you'll likely miss some context if you hadn't read the first part.
Why the Discourse™ is so Fucked
Before we get into specifics, it's important to first sketch out the discourse battlelines on this issue. Special shout-out again to Inverse Florida who wrote Denial by a thousand cuts barely a week after Hamas's attacks regarding the unusually prevalent campaign of factual denial by the Left/Progressives/"Woke" [1] on the pro-Palestinian side. Their essay helped me understand the dynamics more than any other piece of writing, and it was thoroughly depressing because Inverse makes an airtight argument I don't want to be true.
Woke ideology overwhelmingly spawned out of American left-of-center spaces and its core tenet is the Manichean worldview that neatly divides everyone into stark binary categories of oppressor versus oppressed. Because of its origins, the splits generally reflect only the tensions prevalent within U.S. culture wars (cis vs trans, white vs black, colonizer vs indigenous, and so on) and so the parody/reality for how it's applied to foreign conflicts is to ask: who is the white person in this dispute? Whoever that may be is automatically and permanently adjudicated as the malefactor, and so for the Israel-Palestine conflict, Jews are the 'white person' not because of their genetics but because they're shoehorned as fitting into the white/oppressor archetype (colonizers, imperialists, Western-aligned, successful, rich, etc).
Because of the oppression binary, Inverse Florida points out that another core tenet for Leftists is they see themselves as perpetually powerless, no matter how untrue that might be. Taken altogether, the typical defense mechanisms against Leftist criticism tends to boil down to "Maybe this Leftist did a bad thing, but you the observer are worse for noticing and drawing attention to something so insignificant." If significance swells past the point of viable dismissal, then the only option remaining is to deny, deny, deny. Whatever accusation is levied cannot be true and therefore is not true, all to protect the worldview from falling apart.
This translates into serious ire against anything whatsoever that deigns to complicate the cleanly-drawn villain/victim narrative. Because Oppressed = Virtuous, and because Hamas = Oppressed, condemning their rampage is impossible without severe cognitive malaise. Similarly, because Israel = Villain, any atrocities against Israelis must by definition be justified, and if you haven't found a reason it's because you need to keep looking. Any potential threat to this binary framework is a pestering gnat that must be immediately crushed in order to keep the gnawing cognitive dissonance at bay.
Again, I do not want to be right about this, but I have encountered no other plausible explanation why for example posters of kidnapped Israelis has whipped up so many into a frothy rage. This confrontation with two poster rippers is four tedious minutes long and not once are either of them able to articulate a modicum of justification for their actions. Only the 'pestering gnat' theory makes sense.
I've also experienced exactly the same dynamic recently with close friends I had known for years. I maintain an iron curtain between my writing and my personal social media accounts, but about two months ago I posted what I believed to have been a tepidly-worded condemnation of anti-Jewish elements among the pro-Palestinian movement. The vitriolic response was painfully predictable. I set alerts and within minutes a friend I had known for 13 years blocked me without explanation, an acquaintance excoriated me for bringing attention to something so insignificant, and another claimed ignorance about whether the bigotry I described even existed. Another close friend I've known for a decade to her credit tried to have a conversation about the topic, but then blocked me. Her final straw appears to have been when I pointed out the serious inaccuracies with the map she sent me. Dismiss, deny, and if those fail, disavow.
It's disturbing seeing so many folks on the pro-Palestinian side (to be clear, not all) robotically Beep Boop Beep into this position.[2] I have long viewed Woke ideology with some measure of guarded concern, but because of its blatant recurring incoherence, I figured it would eventually burn itself out into irrelevance after it has generated enough podcasting material. But it's clear I have severely underestimated the enduring influence of this ideology.
Pestering Gnats Everywhere
Once you have the 'pestering gnat' theory in mind, previously inexplicable behavior neatly falls into place. I mentioned the problem of media outlets blatantly lying by omission on this topic, but it's far worse than just one Vox video about Gaza. Amnesty International is a widely respected international human rights advocacy organization that issued a fucking 280-page novel in 2022 lamenting the injustices of Israel's security barriers. They outline scores of legitimate concerns (which I'll get to later) but across those hundreds of pages, not once does the report say anything about the rash of suicide bombings that prompted construction of the barriers and checkpoints. The only reference I could find was near the end on page 263 where they obliquely mention Israel justifies its policies on unspecified "security grounds". Amnesty International can't pretend to be ignorant here, as they already condemned the practice of Palestinian child suicide bombers in 2005.
It's perfectly reasonable to argue that Israel's security barrier is unjustified because it's too ineffective, or too costly, or too onerous, or too abusive --- and I definitely would love to hear those arguments --- but playing ostrich is anti-persuasive as I assume you're hiding something for a reason. Anyone who reads only this report (all 280 pages!) to educate themselves about the topic would be left with the bizarre and misleading impression that Israel chose to dedicate immense resources into building up an elaborate security apparatus because...they're mean I guess?
Similarly, the sanewashing is absolutely egregious. I was shocked to find out that everyone's favorite geographic chant has a completely different meaning in the original Arabic, conveniently transmogrifying "Palestine will be free" from the far less palatable "Palestine is Arab" in the original. It's so well known that throngs of protestors in front of the White House, far away from the region, know it well enough to repeat it.
This is plainly what a cognitive dissonance defense mechanism looks like. Anyone who exhibits this level of aversion towards tackling issues head-on in a transparent and honest manner is openly incriminating themselves. They're revealing lack of confidence in their advocacy, demonstrating a belief their position is indefensible without obfuscation.[3]
Maybe they're internally conflicted yet psychologically unwilling to directly confront the dissonance, or maybe they're consciously choosing to deceive. Regardless of the reason, it's an extremely worrisome development to see take hold on any topic.
Now, back to addressing some of my claims in the original post.
Apartheid: Same but Different
Given the scores of readers who misunderstood my point on this topic, I have to take responsibility for doing a terrible job articulating it. Under the section titled "Apartheid State", I discussed the economic status of Arab-Israelisbut in doing so I painted an unintentionally misleading picture of the Apartheid condemnation levied against Israel.
Some demographic clarification is necessary here. Before the founding of Israel, the common trait among the overwhelming majority of Mandatory Palestine's population is that they spoke Arabic. Hence, Arabs. After Israel was founded some of those Arabs remained within Israel's borders, were granted Israeli citizenship, and are colloquially referred to as 48-Arabs. While the other Arabs, the ones displaced from Israel's borders are referred to as Palestinians. After the 1967 Six Day war, Israel has fully occupied Gaza, the West Bank, and all of its Palestinian residents. The point here is the two Arab groups were virtually indistinguishable genetically/culturally/religiously before the schism, and any differences today is the result of cultural and political forks. Besides a limited family reunification program, Israel never made a meaningful attempt to offer Palestinians citizenship or otherwise integrate them. Instead, Palestinians have remained mired in a legal purgatory within isolated enclaves.
When we talk about "Apartheid" we're conjuring up South Africa's system of institutionalized racial segregation that began in 1948[4] and served as a humiliating stain on the country's reputation until widespread diplomatic condemnation forced its end in the early 1990s. So when Israel is described as an Apartheid state --- as a state with institutionalized racial segregation --- this denunciation can be understood as a reference to the Arabs (read: Palestinians) under Israeli military occupation, but it's incoherent when applied to Arabs who are full Israeli citizens. So is the dividing line actually based on race, or something else entirely?
I'm generally agnostic about vocabulary choices and what matters far more than which lexical denominator to affix is describing Palestinian conditions straightforwardly. Sam Kriss (whose writing I highly recommend) chimed in the comments with lurid details about the "calculated unfreedom" Palestinians live under. There is no denying that Palestinians endure abject poverty that is made even worse by the intrusive security apparatus and the passively-tolerated spate of settler violence. The occupation's legal system is explicitly bifurcated not along territorial boundaries, but along individual legal status. Jewish settlers in the West Bank fall under the jurisdiction of a civil justice system, while Palestinians in the West Bank are subject to military tribunals staffed entirely by Israeli soldiers (including the prosecutors, judges, and translators), with far lower evidentiary standards and an expanded scope of what counts as a criminal offense.
The comparison I aimed to draw with Arab-Israelis was a means of contemplating reasons why a hypothetical full Israeli annexation of the Palestinian territories and its people would be seen as anathema, at least from a material standpoint. If Arab citizens of Israel suffered a horrendous quality of life under Israeli sovereignty now, I could begin to understand some of the intense resistance to Israeli governance from Palestinian Arabs. But as I noted, Arab-Israelis enjoy far higher quality of life than almost anywhere else in the Arab world, so that potential explanation was a total dead-end to me.
However, it is worthwhile to examine whether the Arab-Israeli living arrangement, who are only 21% of all Israelis, can scale.
Ethnostate but Democratic
It's worth pointing out that the 48-Arabs did not always enjoy the legal equality they have today. The Zionists didn't really have a plan for how to integrate Arabs into Israel, and though they were granted 'citizenship' they were subject to martial law until 1966. This means that throughout Israel's existence, the only period when Israel did not have a bifurcated legal system split along ethnic lines was a brief window of time between 1966 and the beginning of its Palestinian occupation in 1967.
It's also worth pointing out that the hypothetical full Israeli annexation (including full citizenship to Palestinians) I mentioned would be supported by virtually nobody, least of all by Israel. The Muslim world would be howling with rage at what would be seen as the extinction of the Palestinian Cause, while worldwide condemnation would focus on the baseline disdain against territorial acquisition. Israel meanwhile, as a country explicitly founded as a refuge for Jews from across the world, would be unwilling to absorb the voter demographic shock.
Israel rightfully prides itself as a democratic enterprise, but there is no question that this adherence to democratic principles is at least in part conditional on not having too many of the wrong kind of voters. As Freddie DeBoer pointed out, the objective of an ethnostate will always be in tension with expanding the voter franchise. Arab-Israelis have full voting rights, but they're also only 21% of the population and therefore not a threat to Jewish voting supremacy on policy issues that fall along religious/ethnic lines. That calculus changes completely if the 4.9 million Palestinians living in occupied territories are added to Israel's 9.7 million population and its voter rolls. To the extent that ethnicity and religion can predict political stability within this region of the world, it's also reasonable to be concerned whether a one-state solution would repeat the same downward spiral neighboring Lebanon charted.
I notice a pointed discomfort among Israeli supporters in the West when I describe Israel as an ethnostate. It is! An ethnostate is any country organized along ethnic lines, and undeniably that's what Israel is! The label may have distasteful connotations, but that doesn't make it inaccurate! You may argue that an ethnostate is justified on this narrow exception because of the persistent history of Jewish oppression et cetera yadda yadda, and I'm sympathetic to those arguments but I have no patience for reality denial.
My preferred policy palette is basically libertarian, though I refer to myself as an anarchist because my overriding priority would be to see an archipelago of diverse systems of customized governance. You can call this the "Voltairean" vision of government in that I may disagree with someone's preferred form of government, but I will defend their right to establish it. "Let a hundred flowers of distinct governance systems bloom" as Mao famously said. I have severe disagreements with any government that cleaves along racial or ethnic lines, but I support anyone's right to found one.
I'm at peace with my position, but supporters of Israel who feel conflicted about the ethnostate/democracy tension are responsible for undergoing their own soul-searching to figure out what to prioritize at the margins. How much national Jewish identity is worth potentially sacrificing at the altar of expanding the democratic franchise? I can't answer that for you.
Violence for Thee, but not for Me
I'm not a pacifist and I transparently outlined the principles I rely upon to evaluate whether any application of violence is justified. It depends on how much the violence is oriented towards a specific goal, proportional to the objective, and carried out with humility. I applied these principles to denounce the depressingly common Palestinian practice of indiscriminate attacks against orthogonal civilian targets. Some of the pointed criticism I received in response to my essay carried the implication that I would be unwilling to denounce Israeli violence which fails to satisfy these principles, but I hold no such aversion.
1. A History of Jewish Violence
In fairness, I can understand the basis for such a suspicion. When I decried Israel's history of lying to cover up its war crimes, I cited only two examples from the IDF. There were illustrative examples, never intended to serve as a comprehensive list of all Zionist atrocities. Faceless Craven pointed out several omissions of atrocities by the Jewish side from across the history of the conflict, many I admittedly was not aware of at the time. Some notable examples I did not mention include the 1946 King David Hotel bombing by the Irgun which killed 91 people, the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre which was directly perpetrated by Christian Lebanese militias but with the support of the IDF and resulted in 460 to 3,500 dead civilians, or the 1994 Cave of the Patriarchs massacre where one far-right Zionist killed 29 people and injured 125.
Beyond specific acts, it's perfectly relevant to examine how much the Israeli government tacitly encourages a culture of indemnity for gratuitous violence perpetrated by its own. In 1991, a 13-year-old Palestinian girl named Iman Darweesh Al Hams was shot and killed by an IDF commander who emptied his machine gun into her. The commander expressed no regrets, saying he would've done the same had she been 3-years-old, and was cleared of any wrongdoing by a military court. The same issue can be examined regarding broader Israeli culture as reflected by who gets elected to its highest office. Menachem Begin, the leader of the Irgun and the guy responsible for the King David Hotel bombing, was elected Prime Minister in 1977. Yitzhak Shamir, the leader of the Stern Gang, a Zionist terrorist group that splintered from the Irgun because they weren't radical enough was elected Prime Minister in 1986. As did Ariel Sharon in 2001, despite his involvement in the Sabra and Shatila massacre and a list of antics way too insane and numerous to get into here. One of the dominant political entity in Israel today is the right-wing Likud party, and it was founded by Sharon and Begin.
Evidently in the realm of Israeli politics a history of egregious violence against non-Jews is not a drawback, but potentially a sought-after qualification for a significant portion of the electorate. You could be charitable and maybe argue this simply reflects a legitimate desire for leaders who have a demonstrated commitment to national security, and with direct experience in armed conflict. But just as I denounced homicidal bloodthirst within Palestinian culture, I must do the same for Israeli culture. I would be betraying my principles otherwise.
2. Ceasefire When?
Relatedly, my post was published as Israel's pulverization of Gaza was ramping up but it was quiet on that specific issue. That was not obfuscation, I just do not have the information or expertise to play armchair commander. I can't fully trust casualty numbers from Hamas but even halving their claims leaves you with at least 10,000 Gazans killed by Israel, a number far beyond my capacity to comprehend. The IDF already admitted their proportionality calculus accepts the obliteration of 50 civilians in exchange for a chance to kill one Hamas commander. The IDF may claim to care about minimizing civilian casualties, but if 3 Israeli hostages waving white flags can get mistakenly killed by the IDF, we have plenty of reasons to question that commitment's veracity. Israel may be pursuing a perfectly justifiable objective (destroying Hamas), and the preceding examples are all absolutely damning indicators against sufficient proportionality and humility, but it's not conclusive without answering the question: compared to what?
I admit without any hesitation that Israel's actions in Gaza have been immensely destructive. But as noted by the highly recommended Trembling Mad, raw numbers alone are insufficient for adjudicating moral culpability, no matter how far off-the-charts they might be. The falsifiability argument would be to imagine a hypothetical Israel that is pursuing the exact same military objectives, but whose commitment towards minimizing collateral destruction is earnest and unimpeachable. I fully expect the civilian death toll accumulated by this hypothetical Israel to be lower than it is in reality, but it cannot be zero. This is purely a result of the baseline challenges of confronting a surreptitious belligerent within a dense urban environment. And yet, unless we have viable alternatives to contrast Israel's behavior against, it's difficult to accurately evaluate Israel's level of misconduct (and again, I already said there are ample reasons for suspicion).
The calls for an Israeli ceasefire are directly implicated by this question. I've repeatedly asked and desperately searched for any suggestions for how Israel should conduct its war differently, and it's near-impossible to get a straight answer because so many ceasefire advocates outright reject the premise that Israel has any justifiable objectives whatsoever. Watch AOC's serious discomfort in reaction to this very simple question. To his credit, Cenk Uygur is the only pro-Palestinian advocate I've come across willing to articulate an alternative, but his idea that Israel should just send special forces into Hamas's tunnels is advertising serious ignorance about the subject matter. If you've come across any other viable alternatives, I'm desperate to see them.
I anticipate perplexity for how it's possible for me to express support for Israel in spite of what I wrote above, and the simple answer is my support should be understood as a comparative ranking relative to the alternatives within this conflict. Nobody is under any obligation to pick any side --- and more power to you if you choose to abstain --- but I picked to avoid the simplistic nihilism that comes along with decrying everyone's hands as equally dirty. I disagree that they are, and I stake my position from a place of clear-eyed transparency, fully acknowledging Israel's sins. Because it would be another betrayal of my principles for me to engage in the same dismissal and denial I condemn in others.
In Which I Solve Everything
There's no reason for anyone to listen to what I have to say here regarding any potential solutions --- Wikipedia binging hasn't deluded me to that extreme --- but I'll offer more scattered thoughts.
Popular Israeli support for Likud and its hardline focus on security has historically risen in response to heightened Palestinian violence. Right now Netanyahu and Likud appear to be reviled by most Israelis for their massive fuck-up on October 7th, but it seems highly unlikely to expect appetite for a two-state solution (which necessarily requires accepting increasing Palestinian autonomy) to do anything but continue to crash among the Israeli public.
An argument I've regularly encountered from more honest advocates on the pro-Palestinian side is they first acknowledge the concerns over Palestinian violence as legitimate, but then they claim that Israeli's intrusive security measures are ultimately counterproductive because they provoke further radicalization and thus further violence. This strikes me as a naive argument, but I admit I have no way of falsifying it except through hypotheticals. Imagine Israel suddenly announcing a complete policy shift: every military checkpoint and every concrete barrier will be completely dismantled, and every Palestinian will have full autonomy to move about wherever they please within Israel, free of any security screening of any kind...how many Jews do you expect to be murdered the next day? I can't give an exact number beyond "a fucking fuckton".
I don't see how any mutual de-escalation can be viable given the fanatical devotion commanded by Palestinian militancy. Richard Hanania is correct to argue that Palestinians are maxed out on hatred, with Hamas's military wing (al-Qassam Brigades) garnering the highest approval rating among Palestinians, polling at 89%. If you want to draw an equivalency between al-Qassam and the terrorizing violence doled out by extreme Zionist settlers, that's fair! But the comparison cannot hold regarding overall societal sentiment, as Israelis demonstrably express far more disagreement on the application of military deterrence and other issues. As recently as July 2023, 15% of Israelis were willing to negotiate on a resolution with Hamas, despite the group's penchant for rocket barrages.
When I cite the insanity of Palestinian militancy, I wonder how many think I'm exaggerating. If you didn't learn about Farfour the Mouse last time, here's another chance to see the level of fanatical indoctrination aimed at Palestinian children. I can't stress how illuminating it is to see footage from the Hamas TV show Tomorrow's Pioneers. I cannot claim that this show is representative of Palestinian opinion (and the linked video highlights many who expressed public disagreement) but the detail I found most unsettling were the number of young callers to the show readily naming and singing from a disturbingly long roster of songs all about genocidal martyrdom.
I would hope it's apparent how much of an outlier this level of unbridled animosity is, inculcated from a very young age. For everyone's sake, Palestinians are in urgent need of severe deradicalization, but I cannot fathom what that process could look like.
And finally, where should Palestinians live? I'm writing this from the comfort of my home as someone who has never known displacement, and my immigration story involved a cushy plane seat, so discount what I have to say accordingly. In my previous post, I did not but should have addressed the issue of displaced Palestinians' right of return. Matt Yglesias examined this issue in greater detail, and his article highlights one of the core tensions I already touched upon though. Let's assume the worst case displacement scenario (a scenario I am explicitly not endorsing and bringing up solely to analyze its ramifications) where Israel rounds up and forcibly deports all 4.9 million Palestinians currently living under Israeli occupation. What happens next?
If we consider all the major Arab countries who claim to be ardent supporters of the Palestinian people (e.g. Egypt population 100 million, Saudi Arabia 35M, Algeria 43M, Iran 83M, etc.), what would prevent any of them from opening their borders to the survivors of a second Nakba? Countries all over the world regularly accomodate refugees and mass migrations. Over the course of the ongoing Syrian civil war, Turkey (population 85 million) already has accepted 3.3 million Syrian refugees in what is functionally a permanent arrangement. If Turkey managed this influx on its own (to be clear, not without strife or hardship) I don't see what would prevent the aforementioned countries from enacting a similar endeavor.
The answer is while there may not be practical barriers towards accommodating millions of Palestinian refugees, there are serious political hurdles. Remember that from 1948 to 1967, Gaza was partof Egypt and the West Bank was part of Jordan. When Israel signed a peace treaty with Egypt in 1978, Egypt was offered Gaza back but they declined and instead renounced any territorial claims over it. Jordan pulled a similar move and relinquished its claims over the West Bank in 1988 and eventually stripped West Bank Palestinians of the Jordanian citizenship they had.
To recap my main thesis again, none of this makes any sense unless you incorporate the ideological component that needs Palestinians to remain stuck where they are, playing their role as the downtrodden in this grand theatrical production, all to ensure the jihadi casus belli against the Jews is maintained. This is what makes this conflict so perverse, so many people are just fucking pawns. Had Gaza been re-absorbed and became assimilated as just another governorate of Egypt, or had the share of Jordanians with Palestinian descent continued to increase beyond the estimated 50% it already is today, what remaining grievances would be worth the self-immolation remedy?
The key takeaway in understanding the intractability of this conflict is that much is deliberately constructed to remain that way. While I can't claim to offer any viable solutions, its perpetuity will remain partly a result of the aversion towards transparent acknowledgements of reality, and a result of the persistent unwillingness to critically examine the actual motivations of those involved.
[1] Words are very fuzzy beasts and I'm normally very reluctant to use terms like 'Woke' because of its charged ambiguity, but unfortunately there are scant other alternatives available to uncontroversially describe an undeniably real phenomenon.
[2] What I'm describing is simply a particularly intense variant of cognitive dissonance, and it's not at all exclusive to just Western Leftists. Anyone else who ever experiences the serious mental discomfort upon realizing their closely-held beliefs could be in jeopardy of being contradicted by reality is susceptible to similarly severe reactions.
[3] Just because an advocate believes dishonesty is necessary to advance their cause does not mean they're correct!
[4] Quelle coïncidence.
They are utterly dishonest war propaganda, pretending not to be. For instance, in the link you posted, one such campaign is said to have the name 'Let the World Know.' But who doesn't know about the kidnapped people? It is utterly disingenuous to pretend that this is just to inform people. Your link furthermore claims:
"There is no Israeli flag on these posters. There is no mention of politics. They are as anodyne as the missing children that used to appear on the side of American milk cartons."
This is again utterly dishonest. The choice to put these people on posters, rather than the people put in prison without trial by Israel, which to me is kidnapping as well, is a political choice. The choice to not put pictures of killed Palestinian civilians on the posters (as well) is a political choice. The choice to put these posters up in Western nations across the world is a political choice, just like it would be a different political choice to put these posters up in front of the Knesset, or in front of a Hamas building in Qatar.
As another poster said, the milk carton kids are intended to allow people to recognize these kids in the streets or whatever, but there is no plausible way that a person will run into a kidnapped Israeli in SF and will then be able to help them by running to the police.
Unless you are willing to seriously discuss the real goal of these posters, and the dishonesty behind the refusal to openly state those goals, I don't see how you can get to a correct analysis.
You’d be surprised. n=1 here, but one friend of mine said something along the lines of “Who cares about October 7th, like, 8 people died or something.” He’s a young, relatively well-informed recent college grad, which just goes to show how effective the Hamas propaganda machine is.
This is a real problem that I have with western supporters of Palestine, who like to pretend that the whole casus belli for the current conflict (i.e. a massive terrorist attack in which videos of civilians being murdered were spread as propaganda for the attackers; contrast this with the general embarrassment from pro-Israelis regarding civilian deaths at Israeli hands [^1]) just didn’t happen. The removal of pro-Israeli propaganda posters that do point out “Yes, this actually happened” speaks to this desire to erase memory of the event that sparked the current war, in order to keep westerners like my friend in a continued state of ignorance.
I have far more respect for people like KulakRevolt, who, consistent with his frequently-professed intellectual stance, says “Yes, the Palestinians did rape and murder all those civilians, with the explicit intention of doing so, with the explicit intention of firing up their own side, and this was a good thing, a natural response to Israeli oppression, and a model for westerners facing our own tyranny.” It’s neither shameful nor dishonest, unlike the people who deny or minimize the attack on October 7.
ETA: There’s a symmetry here, by the way, between westerners who minimize the actions of Hamas and westerners/Israelis who minimize the actions of Israel. For what it’s worth, I assign equal moral blame to someone tearing down posters calling attention to dead Gazans as I do to someone tearing down the kidnapped Israeli posters. There are, however, a couple of symmetry-breaking factors here:
[^1] If you have any evidence of internal Israeli propaganda celebrating the deaths of civilians as a result of their current Gaza campaign, please keep me informed, and I’ll update my beliefs regarding the barbarity of the Israeli populace.
The chance that he's seen Hamas propaganda seems negligible. There are many far more likely explanations, such that he's ignorant of news in general and is concerned with charming the ladies, or is part of a bubble that doesn't signal boost these things (which doesn't mean that it signal boosts Hamas' propaganda).
I consider it rather extremist and leaning towards false or at least unproven conspiracy beliefs to simply assume that beliefs like this are caused by Hamas' propaganda. It also completely denies people any agency. Using the same logic you can explain all kinds of things as being caused directly by propaganda, like your beliefs about Israel being caused by propaganda from Israel, people who have doubt about the elections because controlled by Putin, conservative Catholics being controlled by the Pope, etc.
Yeah, you’re right—it was inaccurate of me to characterize it as a “Hamas propaganda machine”. I have no reason to believe that a priori Hamas has an extensive propaganda operation targeting Anglophones (and quite frankly, such an operation is far more in line with Israel’s modus operandi).
But to say that he isn’t influenced by propaganda is false. I know the guy, and when he takes out his phone at a meal, I see the Instagram Reels that he scrolls through: in between basketball videos and the like, there’s inevitably some girl exhorting that the Gazan Genocide be stopped. Just about everyone I know is pro-Palestine, and to the extent that I’ve seen their information diets, it’s much of the same. The only exceptions besides myself are Jews.
As for me: I wouldn’t characterize myself as pro-Israel, so much as I’m “anti-anti-Israeli Westerners” [^1]. To the extent I know anything about what’s gone on, it’s from lurking threads here. Prior to October 7, I was generally sympathetic to Palestine. Sure, shortly after the attacks, I did lose a lot of that sympathy, but I remember still lamenting the inevitable Palestinian carnage that would follow. But my tune started to change a few days later. I was chatting with someone I had just met, and jokingly said “inshallah” in some context, only for her to get offended: “How could you make jokes like that with everything that’s going on?” I was confused, since she didn’t look Jewish or anything, only for her to continue: “Don’t make light of the Gazan Genocide!” Huh? Hundreds of Israelis were murdered Bronze-Age-Style a few days ago, their corpses were dragged through the streets and spat at on by the populace on video [^2] — and the first thing on your mind is Gaza?
This attitude, which seems to assume that Israel, one day, for no reason at all, started invading Gaza, is what really turned me against pro-Palestinian Westerners. And it’s everywhere. It characterizes the dominant views of most of my friends. It’s what you see in articles like this one, recently posted in a comment in another thread, which conveniently neglects to mention why Israeli officials on October 8 were saying (admittedly genocidal-sounding) statements. It’s what I’ve seen in person at a pro-Palestine protest where people hold signs calling for an end to the genocide next to signs with hangglider iconography [^3]. The best phrase I can think of to characterize this situation is, ironically, “The [pro-]Palestinian cries out in pain as he strikes you.”
Admittedly, I do get fired up when dealing with pro-Palestinian Westerners like this. The reason why is because I can’t help but pattern-match to situations like the Rittenhouse case, where all that everyone knows is that Kyle Rittenhouse CROSSED STATE LINES to MURDER SOMEONE at a RACIAL JUSTICE PROTEST (and not that he was a second away from being fired upon by his attacker). I can’t help but pattern-match to the George Floyd case, where all that everyone knows is that he was MURDERED by a RACIST COP (and not the fentanyl, counterfeiting, armed burglary, and all the rest). It’s just such a dishonest manipulation of information, and seeing even right-wingers whom I would normally expect to call this sort of thing out fall for it especially grates on me.
And to bring it back to the main point I was making in my original comment (which you ignored): those “missing person” posters are necessary, because large numbers of people genuinely don’t know what triggered the current bombings and the current war. To me, opposing the proliferation of these posters is opposing the proliferation of the information that Kyle Rittenhouse was almost shot to death, or opposing the proliferation of information that George Floyd, a career criminal, did attempt to use counterfeit money, and that the submission hold that killed him was specifically intended to be non-lethal. In all of these cases, there is an ideological reason for sharing this information. And yet, it’s necessary if we want to have an accurate, balanced view of the issue.
Anyway, I ended up writing quite a bit; sorry. I started writing this because I wanted to start addressing my bad habit of replying to comments and then not addressing people’s responses to me, and it looks like you were the victim. I hope that this at least clarifies my position.
[^1] I’m referring here to people who are fervently anti-Israel with regard to the current conflict. Those who dislike US taxpayer money being spent on Israel, or who disdain the influence of AIPAC, I’m more in agreement with.
[^2] From what I remember, unlike the claims of rape or beheadings, this was definitively verified on videos that the Hamas militants themselves recorded.
[^3] I am very reluctant to use this term, but this seems like a very rare thing indeed: an honest-to-God dogwhistle. If you’re like my friend, you don’t know what the significance of a hangglider is. But if you’re pro-Palestine and in the know, then you know.
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I don't understand what definition of "dishonest war propaganda" you're using. If the posters fit the bill because their real goal is to bring attention to an issue rather than serve to assist in recovery efforts, does that mean anyone bringing attention to an issue is engaging in propaganda?
The dishonesty I'm referring to is the denial in the article that there is a political element to it and that it is the same as the kids on milk cartons. It is simply a lie to claim that they expect Californians to assist in the recovery efforts by helping a kidnapped Israeli that they encounter in SF or such.
And I do believe that a lot of what people communicate about 'issues' is biased and is intended to advance an agenda, even if they do not consciously see it as propaganda, but just believe (or 'believe'*) that their very biased views are just correct.
* Lots of people seem to suddenly believe different things than what they initially say, or put on posters, if you question them a little.
I interpreted that differently. The author doesn't say they expect Californians to assist in the recovery effort of kidnapped Israelis, the comparison to milk cartons is that the posters are just as "anodyne". The author says there is "no mention of politics" but I agree that putting up the posters is itself a political act and totally agree that it's driven by an agenda. I see the posters of kidnapped Israelis akin to a memorial of sorts, very similar to the "missing" posters of 9/11 victims. There is no indication that the posters could ever help recover a 9/11 victim from the rubble, but they're likely put up as a way to remember someone lost, and maybe remind the public of the significance of the event.
If someone claimed posters of Israelis posted in Brooklyn somehow helped rescue efforts, I would agree with you that they're dishonest. But if they claimed it was to bring attention to an issue, then I don't see the dishonesty.
I still don't consider it a believable explanation. Memorials have a fairly standard ritual, involving a shrine in a public space where people can go to light candles, leave flowers, wreaths, leave pictures, put up signs, etc. Very often, the shrine is placed at the place of death or a park. I'm sure that you've seen that kind of thing often enough in the news or real life.
It seems pretty clear to me that those aren't memorials, but attempts to find missing people. That is why you put up posters all over the place, or on milk cartons, to find missing people.
I disagree and believe that these were genuine attempts (aside from the handwritten sentence on the wall, which seems more like a prayer to god, and the actual shrine in the last picture that probably had no call to find the person, although the entire shrine is not visible). It seems very common for people to have trouble accepting a sudden death without a body as proof. Denial is one of the stages of grief after all. Arguing that people could not feel this way due to rational fact ignores that feelings do not obey reason.
The common cliche in Hollywood where a supposed death where it is not beyond any doubt that the person actually died, is typically a fake out, may also influence how people react.
The link you gave tells us that one such poster stated: "Please help bring them home alive." So the poster seems to match your criteria for dishonesty, because there apparently was an expectation that people would spring into action to help the rescue efforts. The only plausible way in which Americans could do this are all highly political, one way or the other (pushing for continuing the war, to trade prisoners, to make peace, to abolish Israel, or praying for Jesus coming back to earth, etc). I suspect that the people tearing down the posters make assumptions about what the desired means is of liberating the Israeli kidnappees, if only by what is left off from the posters, which is any mention of Palestinian victims.
At the very least, I consider it unsurprising that if a conflict involves Palestinian and Israeli victims, and someone sufficiently cares about Palestinian victims, they get upset over posters that only name Israeli victims. It can be true that this means that they don't care about Israeli victims, but it can for example also mean that they consider each life equally valuable, especially if they can count. It is not necessarily bias against Israelis when one considers the ongoing killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians of more importance than saving up to 240 people (depending on when the posters went up, the number may be considerably lower). And people can of course also be upset by a disparity in attention in general and it may thus trigger an already existing dissatisfaction with perceived unfairness. I'm sure that as a member of this forum you are familiar with people upset over biases in (sub)cultures or in the media, and perhaps becoming rather eager to interpret new evidence in that light.
In any case, I remain of the belief that your statement that the only plausible explanation for anger at the posters is a Manichean view specifically involving an oppressor/oppressed dynamic, does not speak well about your epistemology, at least on this topic.
Sure, this happens regularly for many issues and it's not a response I respect as it stems from the same cognitive dissonance aversion. If a pro-Israeli activist was tearing down posters relaying the plight of Palestinian people, I would similarly decry them as similarly motivated. You're reading into the actions of the people who tear down the posters and providing your own explanation for their behavior but even assuming your explanation is true, "upset at attention disparity" is a loathsome emotional motivator no matter what issue it's applied to. What would be more fitting is hearing from the people tearing down the posters directly, and the only explanations I encountered were either delusional (paraphrasing: "this is all lies, no one was kidnapped") or vague objections about how the posters are not "helpful". This is how censors act when they encounter facts inconvenient to their preferred narrative they don't want anyone else to know about, and I'll never respect that mission.
And again, I fully agree that the posters are a political act, and that they are driven by an agenda, and that they provide no practical assistance towards rescue efforts except as a political call to action.
You were the one claiming that only your singular explanation was possible. I'm not claiming that my explanation is right, just that is another viable explanation.
You're right, it was unfair of me to criticize you for doing the same thing I did.
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I mean there is a plausible way they would run into a "kidnapped" Israeli in San Francisco, but it's not the police they'd run to...
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