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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 22, 2024

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Operation Poseidon Archer

Reported by CNN:

The United States has named the ongoing operation to target Houthi assets in Yemen “Operation Poseidon Archer,” according to two US officials.

The named operation suggests a more organized, formal and potentially long-term approach to the operations in Yemen, where the US has been hitting Houthi infrastructure as the Iran-backed rebel group has vowed to keep targeting commercial vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

I have mixed feelings about this. It is clearly the responsibility of the imperial hegemon to protect global shipping lanes. But by that same logic, it's time for the imperial hegemon to force a settlement onto the Israelis due to their never-ending destabilization of the region. That would entail the EU forcing a peace onto Israel, performing a Special Military Operation within Israel if necessary.

Bring back the 117 AD borders, with EU administration of Jerusalem. Jews may live in Jerusalem, wail at their wall and study Torah in peace, but it is utterly nonsensical for the West to continue to bear the burden of Israeli destabilization of the region.

This washy middle ground of appealing to imperial obligations when it comes to Middle Eastern intervention, without control of the "vassal" state destabilizing the region, is a never-ending pattern that has to stop. The US and EU has more than enough leverage to force a settlement onto Israel.

Let's say Israel agrees to a two-state solution but Palestine just keeps attacking Israel over and over. What is Israel entitled to do in response? Do they just keep retaliating tit-for-tat? Are they allowed to invade, depose the government, but then must leave just to return when the new government does the same thing? Do they just have to improve their defences?

Say the EU forces a two-state solution which includes EU administration of Jerusalem and the resettlement of all Jewish settlers out of the West Bank. Is a Palestinian state going to attack Tel-Aviv? Or Jewish locals in EU-administered Jerusalem? Then it's the EU's problem to solve that. That's a better arrangement than America being forced to fight all the enemies through the Middle East of a rogue Israel which it doesn't control.

This does assume a remilitarization of Europe which is already underway due to Russian aggression against Ukraine.

Is a Palestinian state going to attack Tel-Aviv?

Why not? In your fantasy, the Palestinian position is better, and much closer to victory than they are today. We know to what extent Europeans will go to disarm Arabs and impose a peace. Europeans are not prepared to trade their lives for peace in Israel, and even if they were, then I don't see why they themselves don't become the "rogue state" destabilizing the Middle East. A European force that is willing to occupy and pacify Gaza/West Bank could very well be even more threatening to a power like Iran than the Jews are today. The devil you know and all that.

I don't even disagree that if lasting peace becomes a desirable goal, then Israel's right should have to come to terms with the reality of a two-state solution. It is possible the West could play a role in making this happen, but it does feel as if we are further from this fantasy than we were 20 years ago.

Israel's right should have to come to terms with the reality of a two-state solution

Or just do some good old fashioned ethnic cleansing. They're probably extremely cynical about the possibility of civilizing the Palestinians, understandably so.