Hamas wrecked any chance of a just solution for the forseeable future. I am not excusing the apartheid state. They are war criminals and so are the Western governments that have enabled them for years. Both sides are terrible, though Hamas has now managed to pull off one of the greatest single massacres of civilians in recent history. 1ss or 2ss–fairy tales. All one can hope for is a bodycount that isn’t stratospheric
Israel will probably end up killing far more civilians and last I read have cut electricity and water. War crimes. They probably want as little reporting as possible from Gaza.
From the pro-Palestinian side, there was very slow progress towards the West seeing them as humans with equal rights. Not really there yet. There was a NYT editorial (on top of the four opinion pieces I mentioned) in May 2018 that said they found the Israeli case for using live ammo on unarmed demonstrators unconvincing and suggested using tear gas and watercannons instead. I might look it up, cut and paste the actual words. But that was a close paraphrase. You say that about people you don’t fully see as people compared to the shooters. Gosh, you killed some people there. You didn’t have to do that. Use water cannons in the future would be our advice.
Anyway, what little progress is gone, destroyed by Hamas going full ISIS. And some pro-Palestinian demonstrators are celebrating Hamas, because they are (insert string of curse words) stupid.
The Harvard kids (not sure if anyone is following this) are morons. But college radicals often are. Some are Palestinian. I would cut them slack–they know people who live there or might come from there themselves. But it is stupid to say that all blame falls on Israel. Hamas could have planned a daring attack focused solely on military targets that would have humiliated the Israelis, Bibi especially, and won over much of the world. But nope. They carefully planned for mass slaughter. Juan Cole thinks it was an ISIS-like calculation to start a regional conflict. Israel will react with enormous brutality and this will supposedly bring in Hezbollah (it might) and then others. People used to thinking of Israel as a happy prosperous place to live and visit won’t see it that way.
Brilliant idea if you want to be king of the ashes.
If Israel is allowed to go as far as some people suspect they will go, then take everything I just said about Hamas and apply it to Israel. And any Western government that continues to back them.
We should never have pandered to Israel this much anyway. Even if there was no peace agreement, the settlements continued to expand, the low-level (compared to what is happening now) violence against civilians was the norm, all the major human rights groups called it apartheid. Didn’t matter to the US or any of the other “civilized” Western countries. Jake Sullivan said just over a week ago that the Middle East was relatively calm. Won’t go into the intelligence failures. Don’t give a crap.
Hamas wrecked any chance of a just solution for the forseeable future. I am not excusing the apartheid state. They are war criminals and so are the Western governments that have enabled them for years. Both sides are terrible, though Hamas has now managed to pull off one of the greatest single massacres of civilians in recent history. 1ss or 2ss–fairy tales. All one can hope for is a bodycount that isn’t stratospheric
Israel will probably end up killing far more civilians and last I read have cut electricity and water. War crimes. They probably want as little reporting as possible from Gaza.
From the pro-Palestinian side, there was very slow progress towards the West seeing them as humans with equal rights. Not really there yet. There was a NYT editorial (on top of the four opinion pieces I mentioned) in May 2018 that said they found the Israeli case for using live ammo on unarmed demonstrators unconvincing and suggested using tear gas and watercannons instead. I might look it up, cut and paste the actual words. But that was a close paraphrase. You say that about people you don’t fully see as people compared to the shooters. Gosh, you killed some people there. You didn’t have to do that. Use water cannons in the future would be our advice.
Anyway, what little progress is gone, destroyed by Hamas going full ISIS. And some pro-Palestinian demonstrators are celebrating Hamas, because they are (insert string of curse words) stupid.
The Harvard kids (not sure if anyone is following this) are morons. But college radicals often are. Some are Palestinian. I would cut them slack–they know people who live there or might come from there themselves. But it is stupid to say that all blame falls on Israel. Hamas could have planned a daring attack focused solely on military targets that would have humiliated the Israelis, Bibi especially, and won over much of the world. But nope. They carefully planned for mass slaughter. Juan Cole thinks it was an ISIS-like calculation to start a regional conflict. Israel will react with enormous brutality and this will supposedly bring in Hezbollah (it might) and then others. People used to thinking of Israel as a happy prosperous place to live and visit won’t see it that way.
Brilliant idea if you want to be king of the ashes.
If Israel is allowed to go as far as some people suspect they will go, then take everything I just said about Hamas and apply it to Israel. And any Western government that continues to back them.
We should never have pandered to Israel this much anyway. Even if there was no peace agreement, the settlements continued to expand, the low-level (compared to what is happening now) violence against civilians was the norm, all the major human rights groups called it apartheid. Didn’t matter to the US or any of the other “civilized” Western countries. Jake Sullivan said just over a week ago that the Middle East was relatively calm. Won’t go into the intelligence failures. Don’t give a crap.
I usually try to stay out of discussions about I/P for the simple reason that I have friends and colleagues on either side of that wretched conflict, and all of them, too, are torn as to what can be done even as they worry for the fate of their relatives and loved ones with every new terror attack or escalation of settler politics.
All I can add, myself, is that the one thing I have found that really summarizes how I feel in this moment is going back and reading Book 24 of The Iliad with Priam going to Achilles seeking the release of Hector’s body.
That’s it. It’s worth a re-read. It captures so much.
And neither the siege, nor the war, nor the seething rage are close to being done.
I usually try to stay out of discussions about I/P for the simple reason that I have friends and colleagues on either side of that wretched conflict, and all of them, too, are torn as to what can be done even as they worry for the fate of their relatives and loved ones with every new terror attack or escalation of settler politics.
All I can add, myself, is that the one thing I have found that really summarizes how I feel in this moment is going back and reading Book 24 of The Iliad with Priam going to Achilles seeking the release of Hector’s body.
That’s it. It’s worth a re-read. It captures so much.
And neither the siege, nor the war, nor the seething rage are close to being done.
The whole thing seems ripe for a lot of conspiracy theories. A captured Hamas operative claimed that the operation had been in development for a year. And they were surprised when they met so little resistance.
Perhaps the original intention was to create some chaos and capture some hostages. And when they met no resistance, the Hamas operatives decided to engage in some mission creep in the form of letting their inner demons out to play.
The whole thing seems ripe for a lot of conspiracy theories. A captured Hamas operative claimed that the operation had been in development for a year. And they were surprised when they met so little resistance.
Perhaps the original intention was to create some chaos and capture some hostages. And when they met no resistance, the Hamas operatives decided to engage in some mission creep in the form of letting their inner demons out to play.
From what little I have read, the civilian killing seemed well planned. Either way, the inner demons were there.
From what little I have read, the civilian killing seemed well planned. Either way, the inner demons were there.
Goddamit, I just lost a long comment. I might reformulate in time, but in the first instance:
Janie’s comment about the hobgoblins in McK’s head was not “moral cowardice”, as he said. It referred to his longtime behaviour here of using us liberal/lefties as punching bags for attitudes which none of us hold. I look forward the the contextualization of why Israeli civilians, particularly children, had this coming.
Not a single person here (I believe, and contrary to McK’s previous comments, I have a pretty good memory) has ever said, or thought, this. I realise he cannot get his head around this concept, but it is perfectly possible to
a) condemn the actions of the Netanyahu and some previous governments regarding Palestine and the Palestinians
and at the same time
b) condemn and be horrified by the terrorist activities of e.g. Hamas.
I am a Jew, and perhaps not the only one here. I have friends and relatives in Israel, some of whom are holocaust survivors, and all of whom are patriotic and serve or have served in the IDF, and many of them are lefty/liberals. It is perfectly possible to condemn e.g. the extension of the settlements, and the anti-democratic feelers of the Netanyahu government, while also condemning the likes of Hamas.
This does remind me of when McK tried to say we were apologists for the PRC, and pulled one of his famous disappearing tricks after various forms of pushback, including my reminding him that I had numerous friends and loved ones in Hong Kong whose safety and freedom I hugely feared for, in the place in which I grew up.
Why does it take personal stories to begin to put this across? Why is it so impossible to believe that people can hold several ideas in their minds at the same time? Why is nuance so impossible to comprehend?
As for the reactions of Palestinians, why is it so impossible to understand that if you have lived under oppression and occupation for decades, it breeds resentment and/or hatred? Before this latest crisis, 250 Palestinians had been killed this year. There are very few saints, or people as disciplined or controlled as a Mandela, who can conquer their rage and hurt enough to try to find an actual solution.
Goddamit, I just lost a long comment. I might reformulate in time, but in the first instance:
Janie’s comment about the hobgoblins in McK’s head was not “moral cowardice”, as he said. It referred to his longtime behaviour here of using us liberal/lefties as punching bags for attitudes which none of us hold. I look forward the the contextualization of why Israeli civilians, particularly children, had this coming.
Not a single person here (I believe, and contrary to McK’s previous comments, I have a pretty good memory) has ever said, or thought, this. I realise he cannot get his head around this concept, but it is perfectly possible to
a) condemn the actions of the Netanyahu and some previous governments regarding Palestine and the Palestinians
and at the same time
b) condemn and be horrified by the terrorist activities of e.g. Hamas.
I am a Jew, and perhaps not the only one here. I have friends and relatives in Israel, some of whom are holocaust survivors, and all of whom are patriotic and serve or have served in the IDF, and many of them are lefty/liberals. It is perfectly possible to condemn e.g. the extension of the settlements, and the anti-democratic feelers of the Netanyahu government, while also condemning the likes of Hamas.
This does remind me of when McK tried to say we were apologists for the PRC, and pulled one of his famous disappearing tricks after various forms of pushback, including my reminding him that I had numerous friends and loved ones in Hong Kong whose safety and freedom I hugely feared for, in the place in which I grew up.
Why does it take personal stories to begin to put this across? Why is it so impossible to believe that people can hold several ideas in their minds at the same time? Why is nuance so impossible to comprehend?
As for the reactions of Palestinians, why is it so impossible to understand that if you have lived under oppression and occupation for decades, it breeds resentment and/or hatred? Before this latest crisis, 250 Palestinians had been killed this year. There are very few saints, or people as disciplined or controlled as a Mandela, who can conquer their rage and hurt enough to try to find an actual solution.
McKinney: You post, you invite comment.
I invite comment, not dishonest, bullying, simple-minded trollery. I’ll comment whenever and wherever I like.
No, you won’t. No elaboration needed.
I am unblocking you, but unless/until I change my mind, if you show up in one of my threads again I’ll apply the overall block until I can have a conversation with the other front-pagers.
McKinney: You post, you invite comment.
I invite comment, not dishonest, bullying, simple-minded trollery. I’ll comment whenever and wherever I like.
No, you won’t. No elaboration needed.
I am unblocking you, but unless/until I change my mind, if you show up in one of my threads again I’ll apply the overall block until I can have a conversation with the other front-pagers.
McKinney, since you seem to be unblocked for the moment, I invite you to explain why you decided that your initial comment/question on this topic should be quite so aggressive and combative? You may have been frustrated that on a blog which normally comments on topical political matters, no comments had been posted for three days, but still, why on earth do you think it OK to behave in quite so boorish and insulting a manner, let alone one so misguided in its premise?
I further invite you to consider the fact that your characterisation of the attitudes and opinions of us on this blog is frequently wrong: whenever one of us proves this to you (using personal stories, or not), you disappear. Only think how interesting it could be if you engaged with us in good faith, and tried to find out what our opinions were, instead of telling us (wrongly) what they are.
McKinney, since you seem to be unblocked for the moment, I invite you to explain why you decided that your initial comment/question on this topic should be quite so aggressive and combative? You may have been frustrated that on a blog which normally comments on topical political matters, no comments had been posted for three days, but still, why on earth do you think it OK to behave in quite so boorish and insulting a manner, let alone one so misguided in its premise?
I further invite you to consider the fact that your characterisation of the attitudes and opinions of us on this blog is frequently wrong: whenever one of us proves this to you (using personal stories, or not), you disappear. Only think how interesting it could be if you engaged with us in good faith, and tried to find out what our opinions were, instead of telling us (wrongly) what they are.
From today’s Guardian, by an Israeli who was in the country when it happened: But this was only half the reckoning.
The other hit most Israelis much harder: the apparatus of the state had failed. People in the south were hiding in safe rooms, under beds and in wardrobes, hoping and believing that help was coming; that in this kind of situation, the army and police would come to their rescue within minutes. But no one came. They had to wait for a whole day, calling television newsrooms and whispering their cries for help; many did not survive. The army was nowhere in sight. A few units were obliterated by the invading Palestinian forces, but most of the army was stationed far away in the West Bank, securing settlers’ provocations at the heart of Palestinian villages.
The prime minister appeared on television promising vengeance, rivers of blood and balls of fire, to people who were still being held captive and whose loved ones were taken hostage – without even mentioning what he was going to do to save them from this plight. Ever since, the huge mismanagement of the country under his reckless government has been exposed. Reserve soldiers complain of a lack of supplies, civilians volunteer to prepare food for them and others who were uprooted and abandoned. The government is after a victorious image of destruction in Gaza, as if we have not been shown the outcomes of such massacres thousands of times, to no avail.
I have bolded the phrase which conveys how much the actions of the Netanyahu government, with their appalling rightwing religious allies and concentration on the settlements, have contributed to some of the failure of the army to respond to the attrocity in time. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/11/israel-hamas-benjamin-netanyahu-peace
From today’s Guardian, by an Israeli who was in the country when it happened: But this was only half the reckoning.
The other hit most Israelis much harder: the apparatus of the state had failed. People in the south were hiding in safe rooms, under beds and in wardrobes, hoping and believing that help was coming; that in this kind of situation, the army and police would come to their rescue within minutes. But no one came. They had to wait for a whole day, calling television newsrooms and whispering their cries for help; many did not survive. The army was nowhere in sight. A few units were obliterated by the invading Palestinian forces, but most of the army was stationed far away in the West Bank, securing settlers’ provocations at the heart of Palestinian villages.
The prime minister appeared on television promising vengeance, rivers of blood and balls of fire, to people who were still being held captive and whose loved ones were taken hostage – without even mentioning what he was going to do to save them from this plight. Ever since, the huge mismanagement of the country under his reckless government has been exposed. Reserve soldiers complain of a lack of supplies, civilians volunteer to prepare food for them and others who were uprooted and abandoned. The government is after a victorious image of destruction in Gaza, as if we have not been shown the outcomes of such massacres thousands of times, to no avail.
I have bolded the phrase which conveys how much the actions of the Netanyahu government, with their appalling rightwing religious allies and concentration on the settlements, have contributed to some of the failure of the army to respond to the attrocity in time. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/11/israel-hamas-benjamin-netanyahu-peace
My father’s parents came to England from the Pale of Settlement as children. I have no living relatives in continental Europe. None. I profoundly understand the reasons for Israel’s existence.
I’m against killing people, almost always.
The bell tolls for us all.
My father’s parents came to England from the Pale of Settlement as children. I have no living relatives in continental Europe. None. I profoundly understand the reasons for Israel’s existence.
I’m against killing people, almost always.
The bell tolls for us all.
If you pop up here, McKT, my responses to you are in the other thread. You absolutely suck as a mindreader is part of it, but there’s more.
If you pop up here, McKT, my responses to you are in the other thread. You absolutely suck as a mindreader is part of it, but there’s more.
As a side note, I should say that my relative in her safe room told me on the telephone that Netanyahu’s cabinet were all idiots, or in her words “nitwits”, because of the necessity for him to include his far right religious allies despite their lack of expertise. Whether that was responsible or not for Israel ignoring the Egyptians’ warning three days before the assault, we will no doubt discover in time. But according to her, and to a retired Mossad officer I just saw on C4 News, the new unity government now has some very good, competent people in it. Let’s hope they have some effect in ensuring the Israeli response becomes more strategically (and in a humanitarian way) sensible.
As a side note, I should say that my relative in her safe room told me on the telephone that Netanyahu’s cabinet were all idiots, or in her words “nitwits”, because of the necessity for him to include his far right religious allies despite their lack of expertise. Whether that was responsible or not for Israel ignoring the Egyptians’ warning three days before the assault, we will no doubt discover in time. But according to her, and to a retired Mossad officer I just saw on C4 News, the new unity government now has some very good, competent people in it. Let’s hope they have some effect in ensuring the Israeli response becomes more strategically (and in a humanitarian way) sensible.
I suspect Mossad may spend a decade quietly dispatching various individuals in the Hamas leadership.
I suspect Mossad may spend a decade quietly dispatching various individuals in the Hamas leadership.
“After an hour of non-stop sirens and explosions, we heard for the first time the blood-curdling sound of automatic gunfire. At first, we heard it from a distance, from the fields. Then, the sound was much closer, coming from the road. And then, it was right inside our neighborhood, near the window of our house. We also heard shouting in Arabic and understood immediately what was going on: It was our worst nightmare playing out. Armed Hamas militants had infiltrated our kibbutz and were literally on our doorstep, while we were locked inside with our two little girls.” My 62-year-old Dad Fought Hamas Terrorists to Free My Family. The Israeli State Failed Us: We were living the dream. On October 7, we woke up to a nightmare. After hours in the bomb shelter with armed terrorists on the other side of the wall, at 4 P.M., we heard a knock on the window. ‘Sabba’s here,’ my daughter said, and we all burst into tears
“After an hour of non-stop sirens and explosions, we heard for the first time the blood-curdling sound of automatic gunfire. At first, we heard it from a distance, from the fields. Then, the sound was much closer, coming from the road. And then, it was right inside our neighborhood, near the window of our house. We also heard shouting in Arabic and understood immediately what was going on: It was our worst nightmare playing out. Armed Hamas militants had infiltrated our kibbutz and were literally on our doorstep, while we were locked inside with our two little girls.” My 62-year-old Dad Fought Hamas Terrorists to Free My Family. The Israeli State Failed Us: We were living the dream. On October 7, we woke up to a nightmare. After hours in the bomb shelter with armed terrorists on the other side of the wall, at 4 P.M., we heard a knock on the window. ‘Sabba’s here,’ my daughter said, and we all burst into tears
Further to which, another retired general, proving how absurd and puerile is any such notion as rightwing=good, lefties=bad (or, indeed, the obverse): If you don’t live in Israel or consume Israeli media, you don’t know who Yair Golan is. He is a 61-year-old retired Major General in the Israel army and a former parliament MK.
Yesterday, when IDF and the police were in complete chaos, Golan put on his old uniform, took his weapon, and drove into the war zone multiple times to rescue civilians under fire. He rescued two young adults hiding under a bush after 260 of their friends were murdered at an outdoor party. He answered a call from a journalist that his son was hiding under fire and simply said, “Give me his location, and I will bring him back home.” An hour later, the son called his father from Golan’s car.
Golan collected a small crew and went in and out of the war zone, rescuing dozens of people while exchanging fire with Hamas terrorists. He is 61, he could have stayed home, but he chose to risk his life for people he does not know.
Golan is one of the strongest voices from the Israeli left and was constantly attacked by the right wing in Israel. But when the time came, he was first fighting the barbaric attack. The same brain wiring that supports peace, is often the same wiring that drives people to do the right thing.
Further to which, another retired general, proving how absurd and puerile is any such notion as rightwing=good, lefties=bad (or, indeed, the obverse): If you don’t live in Israel or consume Israeli media, you don’t know who Yair Golan is. He is a 61-year-old retired Major General in the Israel army and a former parliament MK.
Yesterday, when IDF and the police were in complete chaos, Golan put on his old uniform, took his weapon, and drove into the war zone multiple times to rescue civilians under fire. He rescued two young adults hiding under a bush after 260 of their friends were murdered at an outdoor party. He answered a call from a journalist that his son was hiding under fire and simply said, “Give me his location, and I will bring him back home.” An hour later, the son called his father from Golan’s car.
Golan collected a small crew and went in and out of the war zone, rescuing dozens of people while exchanging fire with Hamas terrorists. He is 61, he could have stayed home, but he chose to risk his life for people he does not know.
Golan is one of the strongest voices from the Israeli left and was constantly attacked by the right wing in Israel. But when the time came, he was first fighting the barbaric attack. The same brain wiring that supports peace, is often the same wiring that drives people to do the right thing.
The Harvard kids (not sure if anyone is following this) are morons.
It seems that in McKinney’s mind, we’re all just like the Harvard kids, only without the the guts to put our thoughts to words within whatever unspecified timeframe he had in mind.
Whatever…
The Harvard kids (not sure if anyone is following this) are morons.
It seems that in McKinney’s mind, we’re all just like the Harvard kids, only without the the guts to put our thoughts to words within whatever unspecified timeframe he had in mind.
Whatever…
The Harvard kids are kids, and are missing large swaths of information and experience that might help them to not be awful in this moment. I hope they someday get there. Right now, though, they are being insensitive fools in ways that are counterproductive to their human rights goals.
The passage that GftNC excerpted from the Guardian sounds almost word-for-word like an account from one of our mass shootings, especially one from a school like Uvalde or Marjory Stoneman Douglas where everyone believed there was a plan in place to protect them all.
I’m not drawing any larger conclusions from the comparison, that’s just something that I noticed right away as a scholar of the rhetoric of violence and conflict.
The Harvard kids are kids, and are missing large swaths of information and experience that might help them to not be awful in this moment. I hope they someday get there. Right now, though, they are being insensitive fools in ways that are counterproductive to their human rights goals.
The passage that GftNC excerpted from the Guardian sounds almost word-for-word like an account from one of our mass shootings, especially one from a school like Uvalde or Marjory Stoneman Douglas where everyone believed there was a plan in place to protect them all.
I’m not drawing any larger conclusions from the comparison, that’s just something that I noticed right away as a scholar of the rhetoric of violence and conflict.
I had been trying to write a post to open up a thread to talk about this since this started, so I’ll just copy and paste
======
The wikipedia page on the conflict covers most of the points. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Israel%E2%80%93Hamas_war
Looking at the talk page gives you an idea of things that are contested, and but this appears to be the first major test of the wikipedia policy on contentious topics (if the page edits are anything to go by), which seems to have been amalgamated in late 2022. I’m not sure if this set of policies is connected to Saudi attempts to control content on Wikipedia https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jan/05/saudi-arabia-jails-two-wikipedia-staff-in-bid-to-control-content
though the timing seems linked. At any rate, this is to say caveat lector, but I think it is better than trying to sort out hidden biases in the flood of articles that are out there.
Here in Japan, there is not a lot of reporting on the conflict and any reporting we have is muted. Part of that is because war reportage has not been something that Japanese public really wants (there has been a similar situation with the Russia-Ukraine conflict). The Japanese government, in a similar manner, is rather hesitant, opting to not sign the G7 statement supporting Israel.
Fortunately for Japan, China’s response, a studied call for neutrality which is filtered through whatever reporting you see it, is drawing a lot more attention. I think this Aljazeera article gives a rundown of the reactions of various countries and serves as a reasonable summary. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/7/we-are-at-war-reactions-to-palestinian-hamas-surprise-attack-in-israel
This link is excerpts from Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) bluebooks about Palestine-Japan relations. https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep42597?seq=16
Japan has been a long and consistent supporter of a two state solution. China has been a consistent supporter of Palestine, but, because of the repression of the Uyghurs, who are primarily Muslim, the hypocrisy of supporting one while suppressing the other leads them to be circumspect. Furthermore, China has wanted to strengthen ties with Saudi Arabia, especially through the Belt and Road initiative as well as deepen ties with Israel, so any statement on the current conflict is going to be like walking on eggshells.
A number of pieces I’ve read discuss how the success of the Hamas offensive represents a total failure of Israeli intelligence, with some pieces wondering if Netanyahu can fob off the responsibility elsewhere. As I understand it, the potential rapproachment between Saudi Arabia and Israel was a big motivating factor for the offensive, which probably leads some to push Iranian organization, but given the operational secrecy, while I’m sure Iran gave logistic support, I can’t imagine that the secrecy could have been maintained with Iran knowing it was going off.
There are also some articles about how this is Israel’s 9-11, which actually has a deeper truth, given that early on, Israel supported Islamic fundamentalists in general (and perhaps Hamas in particular, though there is a lot of questions about this) as a divide and rule strategy to undercut the secular nationalism of the PLO. This strategy dates much further back, but it is a mirror of some of the factors that led to 9-11.
There is a distinct possibility of this thread going off the rails, so I hope we can keep the discussion informative and civil.
I had been trying to write a post to open up a thread to talk about this since this started, so I’ll just copy and paste
======
The wikipedia page on the conflict covers most of the points. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Israel%E2%80%93Hamas_war
Looking at the talk page gives you an idea of things that are contested, and but this appears to be the first major test of the wikipedia policy on contentious topics (if the page edits are anything to go by), which seems to have been amalgamated in late 2022. I’m not sure if this set of policies is connected to Saudi attempts to control content on Wikipedia https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jan/05/saudi-arabia-jails-two-wikipedia-staff-in-bid-to-control-content
though the timing seems linked. At any rate, this is to say caveat lector, but I think it is better than trying to sort out hidden biases in the flood of articles that are out there.
Here in Japan, there is not a lot of reporting on the conflict and any reporting we have is muted. Part of that is because war reportage has not been something that Japanese public really wants (there has been a similar situation with the Russia-Ukraine conflict). The Japanese government, in a similar manner, is rather hesitant, opting to not sign the G7 statement supporting Israel.
Fortunately for Japan, China’s response, a studied call for neutrality which is filtered through whatever reporting you see it, is drawing a lot more attention. I think this Aljazeera article gives a rundown of the reactions of various countries and serves as a reasonable summary. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/7/we-are-at-war-reactions-to-palestinian-hamas-surprise-attack-in-israel
This link is excerpts from Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) bluebooks about Palestine-Japan relations. https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep42597?seq=16
Japan has been a long and consistent supporter of a two state solution. China has been a consistent supporter of Palestine, but, because of the repression of the Uyghurs, who are primarily Muslim, the hypocrisy of supporting one while suppressing the other leads them to be circumspect. Furthermore, China has wanted to strengthen ties with Saudi Arabia, especially through the Belt and Road initiative as well as deepen ties with Israel, so any statement on the current conflict is going to be like walking on eggshells.
A number of pieces I’ve read discuss how the success of the Hamas offensive represents a total failure of Israeli intelligence, with some pieces wondering if Netanyahu can fob off the responsibility elsewhere. As I understand it, the potential rapproachment between Saudi Arabia and Israel was a big motivating factor for the offensive, which probably leads some to push Iranian organization, but given the operational secrecy, while I’m sure Iran gave logistic support, I can’t imagine that the secrecy could have been maintained with Iran knowing it was going off.
There are also some articles about how this is Israel’s 9-11, which actually has a deeper truth, given that early on, Israel supported Islamic fundamentalists in general (and perhaps Hamas in particular, though there is a lot of questions about this) as a divide and rule strategy to undercut the secular nationalism of the PLO. This strategy dates much further back, but it is a mirror of some of the factors that led to 9-11.
There is a distinct possibility of this thread going off the rails, so I hope we can keep the discussion informative and civil.
A number of pieces I’ve read discuss how the success of the Hamas offensive represents a total failure of Israeli intelligence, …
Some pundits have claimed that Hamas has been avoiding electronic communication for sensitive communications. …with some pieces wondering if Netanyahu can fob off the responsibility elsewhere.
And pundits point out that Bush the Younger was reelected after 9/11.
A number of pieces I’ve read discuss how the success of the Hamas offensive represents a total failure of Israeli intelligence, …
Some pundits have claimed that Hamas has been avoiding electronic communication for sensitive communications. …with some pieces wondering if Netanyahu can fob off the responsibility elsewhere.
And pundits point out that Bush the Younger was reelected after 9/11.
Rooting for the civilians.
Rooting for the civilians.
pundits point out that Bush the Younger was reelected after 9/11.
Well, Israel has a history of turfing out politicians who make these kinds of screw ups, cf Golda Meir and the Yom Kippur war.
pundits point out that Bush the Younger was reelected after 9/11.
Well, Israel has a history of turfing out politicians who make these kinds of screw ups, cf Golda Meir and the Yom Kippur war.
As I understand it, the potential rapproachment between Saudi Arabia and Israel was a big motivating factor for the offensive
I’ve seen that opinion. But I’ve also seen reports the Hamas had been planning this attack for two years. Was there been anything about an Israel/Saudi Arabia peace deal that far back? (I don’t recall anything. But I don’t follow day to day maneuverings in the Middle East all that closely.
At most, I suppose it could have been a motivation to attack just now. But it seems like Hamas was ready to go, so how much longer would they have waited, absent a possible agreement?
I rather think a likelier explanation for the timing is opportunism. Bibi pulled out most of his troops, to go defend settler provocations in Palestinian villages in the West Bank. It was just way too tempting an opening for Hamas to pass up. Hamas would have moved sooner or later. But to much less effect with the IDF troops actually on scene.
As I understand it, the potential rapproachment between Saudi Arabia and Israel was a big motivating factor for the offensive
I’ve seen that opinion. But I’ve also seen reports the Hamas had been planning this attack for two years. Was there been anything about an Israel/Saudi Arabia peace deal that far back? (I don’t recall anything. But I don’t follow day to day maneuverings in the Middle East all that closely.
At most, I suppose it could have been a motivation to attack just now. But it seems like Hamas was ready to go, so how much longer would they have waited, absent a possible agreement?
I rather think a likelier explanation for the timing is opportunism. Bibi pulled out most of his troops, to go defend settler provocations in Palestinian villages in the West Bank. It was just way too tempting an opening for Hamas to pass up. Hamas would have moved sooner or later. But to much less effect with the IDF troops actually on scene.
A lot of people think it was at least in part the Saudi deal. Biden was building off Trump’s Abraham Accords. Hell, I think the Abraham Accords and Biden’s obession with an Israeli Saudi deal was a kick in the teeth to Palestinians. They were negotiating to get Bonesaw to accept some vague promise to the Palestinians. If we spent a bit more time genuinely working for peace and something at least a bit just, there would be less incentive for people to support fanatics
Which is not an excuse for the fanatics committing a crime against humanity.
A lot of people think it was at least in part the Saudi deal. Biden was building off Trump’s Abraham Accords. Hell, I think the Abraham Accords and Biden’s obession with an Israeli Saudi deal was a kick in the teeth to Palestinians. They were negotiating to get Bonesaw to accept some vague promise to the Palestinians. If we spent a bit more time genuinely working for peace and something at least a bit just, there would be less incentive for people to support fanatics
Which is not an excuse for the fanatics committing a crime against humanity.
Didn’t finish my thought. The Palestinians felt they were losing their support from the Arab rulers ( not the people under those rulers) and so Israel would no longer see a minimally just solution with the Palestinians as necessary to have peace and prosperity with their neighbors. They could continue to take as much land as they wanted, keep the Gazans in their cage, and get their peace agreements and nobody would are, except for the usual pro forms BS proclamations by US state department spokespeople that we remain committed to a 2ss that nobody really believed was possible. That has been a theme that started with Trump. In fact, I don’t recall if they even bothered to pretend to support a 2ss. With Democrats, it is still a mantra they use. To brush off criticisms.
Some left wingers started pointing out that if a 2ss wasn’t in the cards, people should push fior one man one vote. I like that too but it is a nonstarter with Israelis and Palestinians who see Israelis mainly as soldiers or settlers ( and in Gaza, as snipers) were not necessarily enthusiastic.
But then Hamas went on their murder spree and Israel is doing its collective punishment thing, so it is impossible to imagine any choice except between a bloodbath and a ceasefire. In either case, what comes after?
Didn’t finish my thought. The Palestinians felt they were losing their support from the Arab rulers ( not the people under those rulers) and so Israel would no longer see a minimally just solution with the Palestinians as necessary to have peace and prosperity with their neighbors. They could continue to take as much land as they wanted, keep the Gazans in their cage, and get their peace agreements and nobody would are, except for the usual pro forms BS proclamations by US state department spokespeople that we remain committed to a 2ss that nobody really believed was possible. That has been a theme that started with Trump. In fact, I don’t recall if they even bothered to pretend to support a 2ss. With Democrats, it is still a mantra they use. To brush off criticisms.
Some left wingers started pointing out that if a 2ss wasn’t in the cards, people should push fior one man one vote. I like that too but it is a nonstarter with Israelis and Palestinians who see Israelis mainly as soldiers or settlers ( and in Gaza, as snipers) were not necessarily enthusiastic.
But then Hamas went on their murder spree and Israel is doing its collective punishment thing, so it is impossible to imagine any choice except between a bloodbath and a ceasefire. In either case, what comes after?
it is impossible to imagine any choice except between a bloodbath and a ceasefire. In either case, what comes after?
On the evidence of the past few decades: (eventual) ceasefire, continued gradual expansion of settlements (including those nominally illegal under Israeli law) and continued misery and hopelessness in Gaza, another bloodbath, another (eventual) ceasefire. Repeat endlessly.
If there is a way to break out of the pattern, one which could be supported by a majority of Israelis and of Palestinians, nobody has dreamed it up yet. Let alone figured out how to ram it down the throats of the ultra-Orthodox and Hamas. And it would have to be rammed down their throats, brutally and effectively — anything less would just get ignored by both, in their determination to destroy the other population.
it is impossible to imagine any choice except between a bloodbath and a ceasefire. In either case, what comes after?
On the evidence of the past few decades: (eventual) ceasefire, continued gradual expansion of settlements (including those nominally illegal under Israeli law) and continued misery and hopelessness in Gaza, another bloodbath, another (eventual) ceasefire. Repeat endlessly.
If there is a way to break out of the pattern, one which could be supported by a majority of Israelis and of Palestinians, nobody has dreamed it up yet. Let alone figured out how to ram it down the throats of the ultra-Orthodox and Hamas. And it would have to be rammed down their throats, brutally and effectively — anything less would just get ignored by both, in their determination to destroy the other population.
The Abraham accords date from 2020, so it actually fits in the timeline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Accords
It seems to me that all of this was set in motion when Rabin was assassinated in 1995. Maybe even set in stone.
The Abraham accords date from 2020, so it actually fits in the timeline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Accords
It seems to me that all of this was set in motion when Rabin was assassinated in 1995. Maybe even set in stone.
Hamas itself says it did this because of attacks on Palestinians in the WB and the Mosque ( forgot spelling) but they probably have multiple reasons and some hope it will become a wider war.
But the Accords aand now the attempt at a Saudi deal have been a concern even for the more moderate Palestinians. They feel abandoned.
Hamas itself says it did this because of attacks on Palestinians in the WB and the Mosque ( forgot spelling) but they probably have multiple reasons and some hope it will become a wider war.
But the Accords aand now the attempt at a Saudi deal have been a concern even for the more moderate Palestinians. They feel abandoned.
Maybe one day my plan will get adopted to solve the problem once and for all by moving Israel to Cyprus and Palestine to Eastern Germany (Greek Cypriots will get settled in Greece and Turkish Cypriots in Turkey thus solving another old and almost forgotten problem). Cyprus being an island is ideal for defensive purposes and the location is favorable in general. Putting Palestine between Germany and Poland also serves other purposes. Population density in those parts of Eastern Germany is very low and could use a large influx of people, in particular people as industrious as the Palestinans are said to be if given the opportunity. Climate change is steppifying those regions, so people used to arid agriculture will feel quite at home. A buffer between Poland and Germany could finally put a stop to the constant propaganda by the Polish rightwingers that Germany is just itching to get back the territories lost after 1945. And settling a majority Muslim population (I know that there are many Christian Palestinians too) on the left bank of the Oder river would drive those same rightwingers mad and apoplectic (Poland is notoriously opposed to any Muslim refugees anywhere in Europe but very open to white Christian ones e.g. from Ukraine even at home). I’d see that as a bonus.
The territory of Israel or at least the ‘holy’ sites would then be permanently removed from the map, if necessary by dropping a few very dirty nukes on the Temple Mount. China or – even better – North Korea (a rare neutral party in that conflict) could do that part. Maybe Ukraine could provide large quantities of topsoil from Chernobyl to ‘salt the Earth’ effectively on a longterm basis. Take the toy away from the three Abrahamic kids for good since they have proven that they will not find a solution that will by satisfying for all of them (since it seems important to them not just to have the toy but for the other to NOT have it). The ‘Holy’ part of that land is a cancer and cancer that can’t be treated otherwise has to be removed.
Btw, even the old Prussian electors and kings considered Muslims as settlers in the depopulated
areas of Eastern Brandenburg after the 30 Year War provied they were industrious, hard-working and morally upright. Friedrich Wilhelm I – the Soldier King – even had a building rededicated as a mosque for the Muslim soldiers that had come as refugees to Prussia and he openly declared that he would start to build more mosques or even pagan temples, if that would bring more needed settlers into the country. And he got quite angry when the Christian clerics opposed the idea.
(on the other hand there was admittedly a constant anti-Judaist strain in the house of Hohenzollern too).
Maybe one day my plan will get adopted to solve the problem once and for all by moving Israel to Cyprus and Palestine to Eastern Germany (Greek Cypriots will get settled in Greece and Turkish Cypriots in Turkey thus solving another old and almost forgotten problem). Cyprus being an island is ideal for defensive purposes and the location is favorable in general. Putting Palestine between Germany and Poland also serves other purposes. Population density in those parts of Eastern Germany is very low and could use a large influx of people, in particular people as industrious as the Palestinans are said to be if given the opportunity. Climate change is steppifying those regions, so people used to arid agriculture will feel quite at home. A buffer between Poland and Germany could finally put a stop to the constant propaganda by the Polish rightwingers that Germany is just itching to get back the territories lost after 1945. And settling a majority Muslim population (I know that there are many Christian Palestinians too) on the left bank of the Oder river would drive those same rightwingers mad and apoplectic (Poland is notoriously opposed to any Muslim refugees anywhere in Europe but very open to white Christian ones e.g. from Ukraine even at home). I’d see that as a bonus.
The territory of Israel or at least the ‘holy’ sites would then be permanently removed from the map, if necessary by dropping a few very dirty nukes on the Temple Mount. China or – even better – North Korea (a rare neutral party in that conflict) could do that part. Maybe Ukraine could provide large quantities of topsoil from Chernobyl to ‘salt the Earth’ effectively on a longterm basis. Take the toy away from the three Abrahamic kids for good since they have proven that they will not find a solution that will by satisfying for all of them (since it seems important to them not just to have the toy but for the other to NOT have it). The ‘Holy’ part of that land is a cancer and cancer that can’t be treated otherwise has to be removed.
Btw, even the old Prussian electors and kings considered Muslims as settlers in the depopulated
areas of Eastern Brandenburg after the 30 Year War provied they were industrious, hard-working and morally upright. Friedrich Wilhelm I – the Soldier King – even had a building rededicated as a mosque for the Muslim soldiers that had come as refugees to Prussia and he openly declared that he would start to build more mosques or even pagan temples, if that would bring more needed settlers into the country. And he got quite angry when the Christian clerics opposed the idea.
(on the other hand there was admittedly a constant anti-Judaist strain in the house of Hohenzollern too).
I was thinking Houston Texas would be a good place for your plan, Hartmut. The problem with Europe is that it is the heartland of antisemitism and has people there, but Houston is a land without a people for the people who’ve lost their land.
Now on a more serious note— I can never stay in character— MckT asked for context. Here is some— https://www.yahoo.com/news/not-hamas-gaza-residents-airstrikes-223635896.html
Note what the children are saying—“ The Jews are bombing us. “ The vast majority of children in Gaza have never seen a Jew except maybe a soldier or sniper. The blockade started in 2007. There have been numerous bombing campaigns, wars of various sizes. Unarmed protestors are shot if they protest near the wall. Gazans remember 2018 even if nobody else does. It wasn’t perfectly nonviolent — the idiots always show up—but the civil rights movement and BLM here wasn’t either, Unarmed Gazans were gunned down like rabid dogs.
The Hamas leaders are on the moral level of ISIS. But their younger followers were raised in a walled ghetto and if they are more than two years old experienced the last bombing campaign. A lot of people in our culture find it pretty easy to dehumanize other groups for no good reason at all. Hamas leaders have it easy.
I don’t understand why people growing up privileged have such extreme difficulty understanding something this obvious, except that privilege and power and ethnocentrism seems to have a negative effect on some people’s ability to empathize.
I was thinking Houston Texas would be a good place for your plan, Hartmut. The problem with Europe is that it is the heartland of antisemitism and has people there, but Houston is a land without a people for the people who’ve lost their land.
Now on a more serious note— I can never stay in character— MckT asked for context. Here is some— https://www.yahoo.com/news/not-hamas-gaza-residents-airstrikes-223635896.html
Note what the children are saying—“ The Jews are bombing us. “ The vast majority of children in Gaza have never seen a Jew except maybe a soldier or sniper. The blockade started in 2007. There have been numerous bombing campaigns, wars of various sizes. Unarmed protestors are shot if they protest near the wall. Gazans remember 2018 even if nobody else does. It wasn’t perfectly nonviolent — the idiots always show up—but the civil rights movement and BLM here wasn’t either, Unarmed Gazans were gunned down like rabid dogs.
The Hamas leaders are on the moral level of ISIS. But their younger followers were raised in a walled ghetto and if they are more than two years old experienced the last bombing campaign. A lot of people in our culture find it pretty easy to dehumanize other groups for no good reason at all. Hamas leaders have it easy.
I don’t understand why people growing up privileged have such extreme difficulty understanding something this obvious, except that privilege and power and ethnocentrism seems to have a negative effect on some people’s ability to empathize.
Don’t have much time, but FWIW most informed people I have read or spoken to seem to agree with what Donald says at 10.54 and 11.11 above. Doesn’t mean there wasn’t a plan for how to do it, when they decided it was the right time to do it, whether 2 years ago or not. And clearly, this kind of coordinated plan with the drones blowing up the satellite towers, and the paragliders etc, would have needed some time to put together, particularly while evading Israeli surveillance.
The whole thing is too terrible to contemplate, and the current Israeli response looks unbelievably heavy handed and (in the end) counter-productive. Counter-productive, that is, if what you want to produce is an eventual peace process and an end to the occupation, the settlements and the killings. Which the Bibi government clearly have not wanted to produce lo these many years, with enthusiastic backing from their loony overseas orthodox funders.
Don’t have much time, but FWIW most informed people I have read or spoken to seem to agree with what Donald says at 10.54 and 11.11 above. Doesn’t mean there wasn’t a plan for how to do it, when they decided it was the right time to do it, whether 2 years ago or not. And clearly, this kind of coordinated plan with the drones blowing up the satellite towers, and the paragliders etc, would have needed some time to put together, particularly while evading Israeli surveillance.
The whole thing is too terrible to contemplate, and the current Israeli response looks unbelievably heavy handed and (in the end) counter-productive. Counter-productive, that is, if what you want to produce is an eventual peace process and an end to the occupation, the settlements and the killings. Which the Bibi government clearly have not wanted to produce lo these many years, with enthusiastic backing from their loony overseas orthodox funders.
The responsibility for Hamas’s terrorist action lies entirely with Hamas – but this Israeli editorial calls out Netanyahu as an enabler. https://www.haaretz.com/ty-WRITER/0000017f-da25-d42c-afff-dff7a1c10000 …His life’s work was to turn the ship of state from the course steered by his predecessors, from Yitzhak Rabin to Ehud Olmert, and make the two-state solution impossible. En route to this goal, he found a partner in Hamas.
“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” he told a meeting of his Likud party’s Knesset members in March 2019. “This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.”..
The responsibility for Hamas’s terrorist action lies entirely with Hamas – but this Israeli editorial calls out Netanyahu as an enabler. https://www.haaretz.com/ty-WRITER/0000017f-da25-d42c-afff-dff7a1c10000 …His life’s work was to turn the ship of state from the course steered by his predecessors, from Yitzhak Rabin to Ehud Olmert, and make the two-state solution impossible. En route to this goal, he found a partner in Hamas.
“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” he told a meeting of his Likud party’s Knesset members in March 2019. “This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.”..
pundits point out that Bush the Younger was reelected after 9/11
Before the Falklands/Malvinas war, Margaret Thatcher was the least popular Prime Minister in polling history. After it she won a landslide victory. And it would probably never have happened had the UK sent the right signals about its determination to hold on to the islands.
pundits point out that Bush the Younger was reelected after 9/11
Before the Falklands/Malvinas war, Margaret Thatcher was the least popular Prime Minister in polling history. After it she won a landslide victory. And it would probably never have happened had the UK sent the right signals about its determination to hold on to the islands.
but Houston is a land without a people for the people who’ve lost their land.
Made me smile. Apart from that, Nigel’s comment is a really excellent reminder, and so succinct. Ehud Olmert was on C4 News the other night, and when asked what he would do in this situation he tried to be diplomatic, but ended up saying : “I would not have got into this situation.”
but Houston is a land without a people for the people who’ve lost their land.
Made me smile. Apart from that, Nigel’s comment is a really excellent reminder, and so succinct. Ehud Olmert was on C4 News the other night, and when asked what he would do in this situation he tried to be diplomatic, but ended up saying : “I would not have got into this situation.”
My joke got garbled— I was thinking of Palestinians moving to Houston, but then inexplicably brought up antisemitism. Anti- immigrant sentiment would be more relevant. Now I am explaining it. This is why I usually don’t tell jokes.
My joke got garbled— I was thinking of Palestinians moving to Houston, but then inexplicably brought up antisemitism. Anti- immigrant sentiment would be more relevant. Now I am explaining it. This is why I usually don’t tell jokes.
Tangential, but Hamas was on the opposite side from Iran and Hezbollah in the Syrian civil war and broke with them for awhile. Jake Sullivan in a Wikileaks email said Al Qaeda was on our side. https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/23225
Some Syrians who wanted democracy sided with groups, including Al Qaeda, because they were the more effective fighters. In the US people often took a brutal civil war and turned it into a fairy tale of pure evil vs pure good. But we were supporting the exact moral equivalent of Hamas, so was Hamas.
Tangential, but Hamas was on the opposite side from Iran and Hezbollah in the Syrian civil war and broke with them for awhile. Jake Sullivan in a Wikileaks email said Al Qaeda was on our side. https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/23225
Some Syrians who wanted democracy sided with groups, including Al Qaeda, because they were the more effective fighters. In the US people often took a brutal civil war and turned it into a fairy tale of pure evil vs pure good. But we were supporting the exact moral equivalent of Hamas, so was Hamas.
If one is willing to step back from the gruesome realities on the ground – which is hard – here is a good analysis: https://www.nybooks.com/online/2023/10/11/gaza-without-pretenses/
Since the right-wing coalition formed last year, and escpecially since both the rhetoric and the attacks by settlers became more and more brazen this year, while the Palestinians and Iranians were sidelined in the Arab-Israeli talks, I had a feeling that this wasn’t going to end well.
If one is willing to step back from the gruesome realities on the ground – which is hard – here is a good analysis: https://www.nybooks.com/online/2023/10/11/gaza-without-pretenses/
Since the right-wing coalition formed last year, and escpecially since both the rhetoric and the attacks by settlers became more and more brazen this year, while the Palestinians and Iranians were sidelined in the Arab-Israeli talks, I had a feeling that this wasn’t going to end well.
I think your joke worked anyway, Donald!
Meanwhile, anybody notice that McKinney, having thrown a completely misconceived grenade, has disappeared before having to deal with actual facts and information, not only about our views but also about serious analysis from Israel and elsewhere?
I think your joke worked anyway, Donald!
Meanwhile, anybody notice that McKinney, having thrown a completely misconceived grenade, has disappeared before having to deal with actual facts and information, not only about our views but also about serious analysis from Israel and elsewhere?
I’ll give McKinney credit for starting the conversation, even if he did it hamfistedly (putting it mildly). I was stopping by since the attacks to see if anyone had anything to say while having nothing to say myself. It was obvious to me what Janie meant in her “Keeping an Eye on Things” post when she wrote: Hard to know where to start, so I won’t.
So he got us back to being the horrible people we’re supposed to be.
I’ll give McKinney credit for starting the conversation, even if he did it hamfistedly (putting it mildly). I was stopping by since the attacks to see if anyone had anything to say while having nothing to say myself. It was obvious to me what Janie meant in her “Keeping an Eye on Things” post when she wrote: Hard to know where to start, so I won’t.
So he got us back to being the horrible people we’re supposed to be.
I am unblocking you, but unless/until I change my mind, if you show up in one of my threads again I’ll apply the overall block until I can have a conversation with the other front-pagers.
I have to say, I’m pretty indifferent to you and LJ’s opinions and even less concerned about being blocked. Like many on the left these days, you’re all about free speech as long as its free speech which meets your standards.
My tone and tenor is unchanged since I started commenting here in 2008. For years, many of the former commenters and I (and others to the right) had great exchanges. Not so much anymore. Rather, it’s dismissal or not particularly effective mockery and not worth a response.
Now, this from GFTNC: McKinney, since you seem to be unblocked for the moment, I invite you to explain why you decided that your initial comment/question on this topic should be quite so aggressive and combative? You may have been frustrated that on a blog which normally comments on topical political matters, no comments had been posted for three days, but still, why on earth do you think it OK to behave in quite so boorish and insulting a manner, let alone one so misguided in its premise?
I could begin anywhere, but let’s start with the usual fare one sees here regarding the American right. It is standard fare here to refer to conservatives as fascists, racists, misogynists and, my personal favorite “MAGATS”, meaning “maggots”. And you whine about my tone? Damn.
Another repeat trope here is “why won’t the good conservatives stand up to (fill in the blank, the NRA, Trump, racism, etc.) I waited over three days for some brave soul here to put something out there, drawing a line between fairness to Palestinians and, by design, murdering civilians, men, women and children.
In case you haven’t noticed, the internet is on fire with lefties contextualizing Hamas with some few on the left pushing back, e.g. Lanny Davis and Donald (who I will address shortly). But there is a lot of quibbling, e.g. “they are just college kids”–fuck that. Suppose they were calling for white supremacy–I imagine Nous and others would find a little less nuance if that were the case. You realize, do you not, they are celebrating mass murder as a matter of political policy?
Here is what I said that GFTNC objects to: This is all bullshit. This site–not at all shy when it comes to moral preening and self-identifying as the good people–has been silent for over three full days.
IIRC, OBWI’s current, much diminished presence in the blogosphere is populated mostly by people who lean if not outright support the Palestinian position. The silence, given the last few days news, is deafening, if not much worse.
This is not the first time–JanieM is consistent–that the complaint is “McKinney is a meanie.” There was a discussion a while back about snowflakes, in which the lefty commentariat here was uniformly offended by the term (“it’s mean!”), yet oblivious to it’s own marginalizing (with zero introspective analysis) of the half of the country that disagrees with them, see constant referrals to MAGATS, white supremacists, privileged white males, and all of the other labels the left uses in place of giving others the dignity of simply being humans who disagree.
This brings me to Donald. If you pop up here, McKT, my responses to you are in the other thread. You absolutely suck as a mindreader is part of it, but there’s more.
Donald, if you were a headliner here, we would have seen something in the three and half days of silence. You–and a few others on the left–are saying what the leadership here should have said but did not. We disagree on just about everything but your initial comment on the previous thread (which I wish I’d copied) was exactly what I would have expected from you as an intellectually honest, lefty outlier.
With that said, here are some topics on which I would appreciate your insight:
1. BDS–you support this group, IIRC. Here’s my issues:
A. Why Israel and not a host of other countries that are, in many ways, far worse?
B. What does the BDS movement expect from Israel: dissolution, be nicer to Gaza?, what?
C. Do you agree that BDS gives cover to anti-Semites, i.e. even though you and others you know are entirely free of anti-Semitism, is that true for others under the BDS umbrella?
2. Do you concede Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state? If you do, how should Israel accommodate entities that openly work toward it’s destruction?
HSH–yes, in some ways the lefties here are like the Harvard students, depending on the issues. As this site has evolved more and more into an echo chamber, it has lost much of its intellectual rigor. It has certainly lost any pretense for consistency. For example, you have to blind–sorry Donald–not to see the cover that BDS gives to anti-Semites yet no one here has ever commented on that. Yet, it is an article of faith that conservatives knowingly or implicitly give shade to white supremacists–a notion that is easily disproved by moving out of your zone and exploring non-lefties are thinking and writing these days. The responsibility for Hamas’s terrorist action lies entirely with Hamas – but this Israeli editorial calls out Netanyahu as an enabler.
Netanyahu has a lot to answer for, but the flaw in the editorial is the belief that Hamas and Palestinians in general favor a two state solution. I’ve seen no evidence of a Palestinian consensus for a two state solution with a commitment to peaceful co-existence, but I’m open to proof otherwise. Meanwhile, anybody notice that McKinney, having thrown a completely misconceived grenade, has disappeared before having to deal with actual facts and information, not only about our views but also about serious analysis from Israel and elsewhere?
LOL, too funny. See above. It took me so long to write and proof that I had to copy and repost. FYI, I work pretty much full time (self-employed, on my own, etc) and I like to hang out with my wife and friends. Since, you’ve made this complaint before, very few here engage anymore, so there really isn’t much to stick around for. I’m not going to quibble with mockery or dismissal. Also, I often am tied up continually on other matters and usually the thread has moved on and any comments I might otherwise have have gone stale.
But, the good news is that JanieM and LJ, champions of lively and reasoned engagement both, are contemplating blocking me.
HSH, not horrible. Just selectively “brave” and intellectually flabby, for the most part.
Maybe I’ll block myself.
I am unblocking you, but unless/until I change my mind, if you show up in one of my threads again I’ll apply the overall block until I can have a conversation with the other front-pagers.
I have to say, I’m pretty indifferent to you and LJ’s opinions and even less concerned about being blocked. Like many on the left these days, you’re all about free speech as long as its free speech which meets your standards.
My tone and tenor is unchanged since I started commenting here in 2008. For years, many of the former commenters and I (and others to the right) had great exchanges. Not so much anymore. Rather, it’s dismissal or not particularly effective mockery and not worth a response.
Now, this from GFTNC: McKinney, since you seem to be unblocked for the moment, I invite you to explain why you decided that your initial comment/question on this topic should be quite so aggressive and combative? You may have been frustrated that on a blog which normally comments on topical political matters, no comments had been posted for three days, but still, why on earth do you think it OK to behave in quite so boorish and insulting a manner, let alone one so misguided in its premise?
I could begin anywhere, but let’s start with the usual fare one sees here regarding the American right. It is standard fare here to refer to conservatives as fascists, racists, misogynists and, my personal favorite “MAGATS”, meaning “maggots”. And you whine about my tone? Damn.
Another repeat trope here is “why won’t the good conservatives stand up to (fill in the blank, the NRA, Trump, racism, etc.) I waited over three days for some brave soul here to put something out there, drawing a line between fairness to Palestinians and, by design, murdering civilians, men, women and children.
In case you haven’t noticed, the internet is on fire with lefties contextualizing Hamas with some few on the left pushing back, e.g. Lanny Davis and Donald (who I will address shortly). But there is a lot of quibbling, e.g. “they are just college kids”–fuck that. Suppose they were calling for white supremacy–I imagine Nous and others would find a little less nuance if that were the case. You realize, do you not, they are celebrating mass murder as a matter of political policy?
Here is what I said that GFTNC objects to: This is all bullshit. This site–not at all shy when it comes to moral preening and self-identifying as the good people–has been silent for over three full days.
IIRC, OBWI’s current, much diminished presence in the blogosphere is populated mostly by people who lean if not outright support the Palestinian position. The silence, given the last few days news, is deafening, if not much worse.
This is not the first time–JanieM is consistent–that the complaint is “McKinney is a meanie.” There was a discussion a while back about snowflakes, in which the lefty commentariat here was uniformly offended by the term (“it’s mean!”), yet oblivious to it’s own marginalizing (with zero introspective analysis) of the half of the country that disagrees with them, see constant referrals to MAGATS, white supremacists, privileged white males, and all of the other labels the left uses in place of giving others the dignity of simply being humans who disagree.
This brings me to Donald. If you pop up here, McKT, my responses to you are in the other thread. You absolutely suck as a mindreader is part of it, but there’s more.
Donald, if you were a headliner here, we would have seen something in the three and half days of silence. You–and a few others on the left–are saying what the leadership here should have said but did not. We disagree on just about everything but your initial comment on the previous thread (which I wish I’d copied) was exactly what I would have expected from you as an intellectually honest, lefty outlier.
With that said, here are some topics on which I would appreciate your insight:
1. BDS–you support this group, IIRC. Here’s my issues:
A. Why Israel and not a host of other countries that are, in many ways, far worse?
B. What does the BDS movement expect from Israel: dissolution, be nicer to Gaza?, what?
C. Do you agree that BDS gives cover to anti-Semites, i.e. even though you and others you know are entirely free of anti-Semitism, is that true for others under the BDS umbrella?
2. Do you concede Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state? If you do, how should Israel accommodate entities that openly work toward it’s destruction?
HSH–yes, in some ways the lefties here are like the Harvard students, depending on the issues. As this site has evolved more and more into an echo chamber, it has lost much of its intellectual rigor. It has certainly lost any pretense for consistency. For example, you have to blind–sorry Donald–not to see the cover that BDS gives to anti-Semites yet no one here has ever commented on that. Yet, it is an article of faith that conservatives knowingly or implicitly give shade to white supremacists–a notion that is easily disproved by moving out of your zone and exploring non-lefties are thinking and writing these days. The responsibility for Hamas’s terrorist action lies entirely with Hamas – but this Israeli editorial calls out Netanyahu as an enabler.
Netanyahu has a lot to answer for, but the flaw in the editorial is the belief that Hamas and Palestinians in general favor a two state solution. I’ve seen no evidence of a Palestinian consensus for a two state solution with a commitment to peaceful co-existence, but I’m open to proof otherwise. Meanwhile, anybody notice that McKinney, having thrown a completely misconceived grenade, has disappeared before having to deal with actual facts and information, not only about our views but also about serious analysis from Israel and elsewhere?
LOL, too funny. See above. It took me so long to write and proof that I had to copy and repost. FYI, I work pretty much full time (self-employed, on my own, etc) and I like to hang out with my wife and friends. Since, you’ve made this complaint before, very few here engage anymore, so there really isn’t much to stick around for. I’m not going to quibble with mockery or dismissal. Also, I often am tied up continually on other matters and usually the thread has moved on and any comments I might otherwise have have gone stale.
But, the good news is that JanieM and LJ, champions of lively and reasoned engagement both, are contemplating blocking me.
HSH, not horrible. Just selectively “brave” and intellectually flabby, for the most part.
Maybe I’ll block myself.
Deftly done, McKinney! You managed all that without taking notice that I had taken the trouble to actually answer your questions.
Maybe you thought I got everything right, which would be amazing. More likely, on the evidence, you weren’t actually interested in having one of those discussions you talk about. Color me underwhelmed.
Deftly done, McKinney! You managed all that without taking notice that I had taken the trouble to actually answer your questions.
Maybe you thought I got everything right, which would be amazing. More likely, on the evidence, you weren’t actually interested in having one of those discussions you talk about. Color me underwhelmed.
An open thread seemed not the proper place to start the discussion and I would not have wanted to be the one to start it either, so I waited for an on-topic thread. I have a certain suspicion that the meagre posting here in the last few days was for the same reason. Who wants to be the first to notice the in-door pachyderm?
As for pachyderms, naturally parts of the GOP see this as a chance to please Ras Putin by calling for transfer of all help for Ukraine to Israel since there is an “existential threat” to the latter. No, there currently is not. As nasty as the affair in Palestine is, it does not threaten the very existence of the state of Israel. The very existence of the Ukraine on the other hand is at stake once they run out of money and ammo. Israel is not lacking money but at worst some types of ammo (Iron Dome reserves must be running out given the constant barrage). And the supply of these projectiles is afaik completely independent of ammo supply for Ukraine. So, it’s all just another pretense from the usual suspects.
An open thread seemed not the proper place to start the discussion and I would not have wanted to be the one to start it either, so I waited for an on-topic thread. I have a certain suspicion that the meagre posting here in the last few days was for the same reason. Who wants to be the first to notice the in-door pachyderm?
As for pachyderms, naturally parts of the GOP see this as a chance to please Ras Putin by calling for transfer of all help for Ukraine to Israel since there is an “existential threat” to the latter. No, there currently is not. As nasty as the affair in Palestine is, it does not threaten the very existence of the state of Israel. The very existence of the Ukraine on the other hand is at stake once they run out of money and ammo. Israel is not lacking money but at worst some types of ammo (Iron Dome reserves must be running out given the constant barrage). And the supply of these projectiles is afaik completely independent of ammo supply for Ukraine. So, it’s all just another pretense from the usual suspects.
Honestly, McKinney, talk about intellectually incoherent! In your initial, grenade-throwing comment, you said you were waiting for “us” to provide: the contextualization of why Israeli civilians, particularly children, had this coming.
Like almost every other attitude you have accused “us” of having (e.g. agreeing that the halloween costumes were cultural appropriation, and the academics should have been cancelled), it has turned out that NOBODY commenting on this site has the views you were accusing us of holding. On the contrary, many many patriotic, IDF-serving Israeli lefties hold the kinds of views that many of “us” on this site have been expressing.
This is why Janie accused you of addressing the hobgoblins in your mind, not us. And why, less poetically, you have often been accused of setting us up as strawmen.
You thought we should have been commenting on the war earlier: many of us had better, and more distressing, things to do. Or were processing, or (unbelievable concept) thinking. You think MAGAts means maggots; I think hanging out with people who reluctantly support Trump because they are so horrified by the “extreme progessive left” (I can’t remember your actual phrase, although I notice on US media that some MAGAts are now calling the Dems communists) is rotting your (presumably once decent) brain. Get a grip, and own up to your own behaviour, for heaven’s sake.
Honestly, McKinney, talk about intellectually incoherent! In your initial, grenade-throwing comment, you said you were waiting for “us” to provide: the contextualization of why Israeli civilians, particularly children, had this coming.
Like almost every other attitude you have accused “us” of having (e.g. agreeing that the halloween costumes were cultural appropriation, and the academics should have been cancelled), it has turned out that NOBODY commenting on this site has the views you were accusing us of holding. On the contrary, many many patriotic, IDF-serving Israeli lefties hold the kinds of views that many of “us” on this site have been expressing.
This is why Janie accused you of addressing the hobgoblins in your mind, not us. And why, less poetically, you have often been accused of setting us up as strawmen.
You thought we should have been commenting on the war earlier: many of us had better, and more distressing, things to do. Or were processing, or (unbelievable concept) thinking. You think MAGAts means maggots; I think hanging out with people who reluctantly support Trump because they are so horrified by the “extreme progessive left” (I can’t remember your actual phrase, although I notice on US media that some MAGAts are now calling the Dems communists) is rotting your (presumably once decent) brain. Get a grip, and own up to your own behaviour, for heaven’s sake.
I notice on US media that some MAGAts are now calling the Dems communists
What do you mean with ‘now’?
That has been a rightwing sthick at least since the Russian revolution. Even Otto von effing Bismarck has been accused by USian rightwingers to be a commie.
The only thing that seems new is that they now call liberals commies and nazis in the same breath all the time (and adding a few epitheths from the current list of approved insults like ‘groomer’ most of the time).
I notice on US media that some MAGAts are now calling the Dems communists
What do you mean with ‘now’?
That has been a rightwing sthick at least since the Russian revolution. Even Otto von effing Bismarck has been accused by USian rightwingers to be a commie.
The only thing that seems new is that they now call liberals commies and nazis in the same breath all the time (and adding a few epitheths from the current list of approved insults like ‘groomer’ most of the time).
McKT–
I agree that ObiWi is only a faint shadow of what it was and I really miss the old days 15 years or so ago where you had rightwingers, centrist slightly right (wj). centrist libs, far lefties, and really far lefties all hashing it out. I don’t like the fact that it is mostly a monoculture here. Unfortunately it is that way in most places.
But you made a claim about us. It was false. The claim is actually true or truish about some people I read. But the fact is as I said in the other thread–there’s always been this group of far leftists who romanticize “freedom fighters” no matter how murderous and disgusting their actions. One phrase that is often used that lets you know what you are dealing with is “by any means necessary’. Just looked it up. I couldn’t remember if it came from Fanon or Malcolm X. Turns out both used it and Sartre before them.
Anyway, it is used to excuse every brutal thing a “liberation movement” chooses to do. The history of the 20th century clearly demonstrates what those movements turn into once the liberation is successful. Meet the new boss, basically.
So apparently we can all say, including me, that we all think Hamas is a ghastly organization as bad as ISIS and that you made false assumptions about all our views and it doesn’t matter to you. Well, you were wrong. It happens. There are some places online where you would have been partly right. Though these sorts of lefties were saying the same about Algeria, Vietnam, and now Israel-Palestine, so it’s mostly about the freedom fighter worship. The right isn’t exactly immune, since it did this in Afghanistan when the freedom fighters against the Russians were throwing acid into the faces of women who didn’t cover their face. And they did it with the contra terrorists. A lot of Westerners supported the Syrian freedom fighters, who were the ideological allies of Hamas and it was precisely that issue that caused the temporary rift between Hamas and Iran. The US government that if those freedom fighters we supported won, there would be a genocide of Alawites and maybe Christians, which is why many Christians and most Alawites supported Asad. Alawites in particular died in massive numbers defending the regime–it was that or run or die. You knew all this, right?
Anyway, I happen to agree that there are some tendencies to shut down speech on the left, broadly speaking. We know the truth about X, so we need to make sure false things aren’t spread on social media seems to be the idea. I am not at all comfortable with that. Pro-Palestinian activists have been complaining about this kind of pressure forever. You may not like your allies on that subject, but here we are.
McKT–
I agree that ObiWi is only a faint shadow of what it was and I really miss the old days 15 years or so ago where you had rightwingers, centrist slightly right (wj). centrist libs, far lefties, and really far lefties all hashing it out. I don’t like the fact that it is mostly a monoculture here. Unfortunately it is that way in most places.
But you made a claim about us. It was false. The claim is actually true or truish about some people I read. But the fact is as I said in the other thread–there’s always been this group of far leftists who romanticize “freedom fighters” no matter how murderous and disgusting their actions. One phrase that is often used that lets you know what you are dealing with is “by any means necessary’. Just looked it up. I couldn’t remember if it came from Fanon or Malcolm X. Turns out both used it and Sartre before them.
Anyway, it is used to excuse every brutal thing a “liberation movement” chooses to do. The history of the 20th century clearly demonstrates what those movements turn into once the liberation is successful. Meet the new boss, basically.
So apparently we can all say, including me, that we all think Hamas is a ghastly organization as bad as ISIS and that you made false assumptions about all our views and it doesn’t matter to you. Well, you were wrong. It happens. There are some places online where you would have been partly right. Though these sorts of lefties were saying the same about Algeria, Vietnam, and now Israel-Palestine, so it’s mostly about the freedom fighter worship. The right isn’t exactly immune, since it did this in Afghanistan when the freedom fighters against the Russians were throwing acid into the faces of women who didn’t cover their face. And they did it with the contra terrorists. A lot of Westerners supported the Syrian freedom fighters, who were the ideological allies of Hamas and it was precisely that issue that caused the temporary rift between Hamas and Iran. The US government that if those freedom fighters we supported won, there would be a genocide of Alawites and maybe Christians, which is why many Christians and most Alawites supported Asad. Alawites in particular died in massive numbers defending the regime–it was that or run or die. You knew all this, right?
Anyway, I happen to agree that there are some tendencies to shut down speech on the left, broadly speaking. We know the truth about X, so we need to make sure false things aren’t spread on social media seems to be the idea. I am not at all comfortable with that. Pro-Palestinian activists have been complaining about this kind of pressure forever. You may not like your allies on that subject, but here we are.
A perfect illustration of why Donald is worth reading and listening to.
I imagine all of us miss the old ObWi days, with Hilzoy et al. Maybe we (and most others) have become a monoculture because of how very poisonous the polarised debate has become. But accusing people, or groups, of holding views which they not only do not hold, but are often the diametric opposite of views they do hold, hardly helps. And doing it in offensive ways is not very helpful either.
I agree that sometimes McK has been taunted in ways I find (although, he apparently does not) objectionable. But that is a game where each side then feels perfectly justified in being more and more insulting, and certainly McK has demonstrated that in recent years.
As I said before, it would take much of the unpleasantness out if people (let’s say McKinney for now) asked what other people’s views are, rather than setting up wrong, insulting straw men to attack. Once people have given a view, there is plenty of time and opportunity to attack it, or disagree with it. You may not like your allies on that subject, but here we are.
Good luck with that! But here’s hoping….
A perfect illustration of why Donald is worth reading and listening to.
I imagine all of us miss the old ObWi days, with Hilzoy et al. Maybe we (and most others) have become a monoculture because of how very poisonous the polarised debate has become. But accusing people, or groups, of holding views which they not only do not hold, but are often the diametric opposite of views they do hold, hardly helps. And doing it in offensive ways is not very helpful either.
I agree that sometimes McK has been taunted in ways I find (although, he apparently does not) objectionable. But that is a game where each side then feels perfectly justified in being more and more insulting, and certainly McK has demonstrated that in recent years.
As I said before, it would take much of the unpleasantness out if people (let’s say McKinney for now) asked what other people’s views are, rather than setting up wrong, insulting straw men to attack. Once people have given a view, there is plenty of time and opportunity to attack it, or disagree with it. You may not like your allies on that subject, but here we are.
Good luck with that! But here’s hoping….
I will answer the Israel-Palestine questions specifically later, when I have time. Actually, I might have time now, so will start.
1. Why Israel? I think it is because Israel is seen by itself and others as a Western democracy and lefties tend to focus on those for good and bad reasons. The good reason is getting rid of the mote in one’s own eye. Bad reasons can be intellectual dishonesty. I think antisemitism sometimes, but a great many of the leading anti-Israel activists are Jewish and no, not self-hating. Their reasoning is the same–take care of your own stench first.
There was one guy, Gilad Atzmon, who I used to see quoted a bit because he was antizionist, but if you read a bit further he was a genuine self-hating antisemitic Jew. Really loathsome. I forgot the details–it was 10 years or more when I was looking up some of what he said. It had to do with Nazis having reasons for picking on Jews. I know of at least one person who cited him on his antizionist arguments not knowing about the really vile stuff. I also remember seeing people being made aware of the vile stuff and still defending him. So that’s crossing the line.
I think genuine antisemites usually let the cat out of the bag in some such way. Just being intensely critical of Israel means nothing. Okay, there might be some Bayesian argument against that–it does mean something, but by itself it is only a weak indicator.
The IHRA definition of antisemitism included some examples of possible indicators which were antizionist. If you took this at face value, every Palestinian would have to be an antisemite unless he endorsed his own expulsion.
But it turned out that Kenneth Stern, the author of it, only meant that people who said this or that about Israel might be possible antisemites. I don’t like that much either, but yeah, it could be. Stern, a Zionist, is very critical of attempts to make the IHRA an official definition used by governments.
I think I will post this first part now.
I will answer the Israel-Palestine questions specifically later, when I have time. Actually, I might have time now, so will start.
1. Why Israel? I think it is because Israel is seen by itself and others as a Western democracy and lefties tend to focus on those for good and bad reasons. The good reason is getting rid of the mote in one’s own eye. Bad reasons can be intellectual dishonesty. I think antisemitism sometimes, but a great many of the leading anti-Israel activists are Jewish and no, not self-hating. Their reasoning is the same–take care of your own stench first.
There was one guy, Gilad Atzmon, who I used to see quoted a bit because he was antizionist, but if you read a bit further he was a genuine self-hating antisemitic Jew. Really loathsome. I forgot the details–it was 10 years or more when I was looking up some of what he said. It had to do with Nazis having reasons for picking on Jews. I know of at least one person who cited him on his antizionist arguments not knowing about the really vile stuff. I also remember seeing people being made aware of the vile stuff and still defending him. So that’s crossing the line.
I think genuine antisemites usually let the cat out of the bag in some such way. Just being intensely critical of Israel means nothing. Okay, there might be some Bayesian argument against that–it does mean something, but by itself it is only a weak indicator.
The IHRA definition of antisemitism included some examples of possible indicators which were antizionist. If you took this at face value, every Palestinian would have to be an antisemite unless he endorsed his own expulsion.
But it turned out that Kenneth Stern, the author of it, only meant that people who said this or that about Israel might be possible antisemites. I don’t like that much either, but yeah, it could be. Stern, a Zionist, is very critical of attempts to make the IHRA an official definition used by governments.
I think I will post this first part now.
Like many on the left these days, you’re all about free speech as long as its free speech which meets your standards.
McK, you basically jumped in on a thread totally unrelated to the current Israeli / Hamas war to scold us all for not commenting on it in a timeframe that you found appropriate. Then made a bunch of inflammatory generalized statements about “us lefties”, ascribing to us points of view that were not in evidence and are not universally or even generally held by folks here.
All accompanied by a list of questions with a demand that we reply.
Not the first time this has happened, and not the first time folks here have asked that you try a different approach.
It was a combatative and provocative opening salvo. If you are actually interested in engaging the subject, there are better ways to go about it. If you’re just interested in yelling at a bunch of “lefties”, you have achieved your goal.
If you come to a party and crap in the punchbowl, it’s likely that you’ll be asked to leave. If that’s how it plays out, that’s on you.
Like many on the left these days, you’re all about free speech as long as its free speech which meets your standards.
McK, you basically jumped in on a thread totally unrelated to the current Israeli / Hamas war to scold us all for not commenting on it in a timeframe that you found appropriate. Then made a bunch of inflammatory generalized statements about “us lefties”, ascribing to us points of view that were not in evidence and are not universally or even generally held by folks here.
All accompanied by a list of questions with a demand that we reply.
Not the first time this has happened, and not the first time folks here have asked that you try a different approach.
It was a combatative and provocative opening salvo. If you are actually interested in engaging the subject, there are better ways to go about it. If you’re just interested in yelling at a bunch of “lefties”, you have achieved your goal.
If you come to a party and crap in the punchbowl, it’s likely that you’ll be asked to leave. If that’s how it plays out, that’s on you.
What does BDS expect?
It’s a hard question to answer because there is no one answer. Norman Finkelstein, a rather ferocious critic of Israel ( who lost most of his family as many did in the Holocaust) also criticized the BDS movement for various reasons. I think part of it was that sometimes it was for a single democratic state for both , but most often the goals were vague.
It is supposed to be a rights-based movement. The idea is that as it stands, Palestinians have no rights. This should change and we should boycott Israel until that changes. Change in what way? Their stated principle on the front page doesn’t say what the end goal is–just that Israel violates international law and that should stop.
Sometimes in practice that means a 1ss , a secular state with equal rights for everyone. Or a binantional state –I’m a little confused on that one. Or just, stop doing the things Israel is doing.
Personally I support it with caveats. If the sanctions ever became the harsh ones we impose on Iran or Venezuela or even worse, like the Gaza blockade, it would be immoral. Also, I would prefer that the US just stop giving them a blank check. People say “why do you single out Israel?” and I answer, yes, why do we blather on about their wonderful democratic values and give them billions per year to buy weapons (so it is also a subsidy to the MIC) when they democratically choose to practice apartheid? People seem to think being a democracy in itself somehow sprinkles magic morality dust on whatever a country does.
So I support BDS as symbolic pressure. It drives Israel nuts, or did, which is good. The solution could be 1SS, a binational state (??) or a 2ss. Not for me to push.
It’s probably dead for the forseeable future. States will probably pass even more laws trampling on people’s rights to protest.
What does BDS expect?
It’s a hard question to answer because there is no one answer. Norman Finkelstein, a rather ferocious critic of Israel ( who lost most of his family as many did in the Holocaust) also criticized the BDS movement for various reasons. I think part of it was that sometimes it was for a single democratic state for both , but most often the goals were vague.
It is supposed to be a rights-based movement. The idea is that as it stands, Palestinians have no rights. This should change and we should boycott Israel until that changes. Change in what way? Their stated principle on the front page doesn’t say what the end goal is–just that Israel violates international law and that should stop.
Sometimes in practice that means a 1ss , a secular state with equal rights for everyone. Or a binantional state –I’m a little confused on that one. Or just, stop doing the things Israel is doing.
Personally I support it with caveats. If the sanctions ever became the harsh ones we impose on Iran or Venezuela or even worse, like the Gaza blockade, it would be immoral. Also, I would prefer that the US just stop giving them a blank check. People say “why do you single out Israel?” and I answer, yes, why do we blather on about their wonderful democratic values and give them billions per year to buy weapons (so it is also a subsidy to the MIC) when they democratically choose to practice apartheid? People seem to think being a democracy in itself somehow sprinkles magic morality dust on whatever a country does.
So I support BDS as symbolic pressure. It drives Israel nuts, or did, which is good. The solution could be 1SS, a binational state (??) or a 2ss. Not for me to push.
It’s probably dead for the forseeable future. States will probably pass even more laws trampling on people’s rights to protest.
Does BDS provide cover for antisemitism?
Mostly answered. You never know the purity of people’s motives, but I think the majority of us, the vast majority, are not antisemites. I see a few people who probably are. Sometimes it is unmistakeable. People who defend Atzmon’s statements about the Holocaust, for example. Easy call. I go to rightwing sites too. It’s nearly always easy to pick out the antisemites there, because they are just blatant about it. Not talking about the average rightwinger there. Just the ones who clearly have a thing up their butts about Jews.
Does BDS provide cover for antisemitism?
Mostly answered. You never know the purity of people’s motives, but I think the majority of us, the vast majority, are not antisemites. I see a few people who probably are. Sometimes it is unmistakeable. People who defend Atzmon’s statements about the Holocaust, for example. Easy call. I go to rightwing sites too. It’s nearly always easy to pick out the antisemites there, because they are just blatant about it. Not talking about the average rightwinger there. Just the ones who clearly have a thing up their butts about Jews.
Do I concede Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state?
Nope. Now as a practical matter, it is, just as many countries are Muslim states and some are nominally Christian, though hopefully that doesn’t mean anything anymore except that Sunday is the main day most people get off (before the Labor movement added Saturday).
Countries should not be ethnically or religously based. There can be some past legacy of this,but it should be mostly meaningless.
Israel is a majority Jewish state because hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forcibly expelled, so it is wrong to say this was justified.
But it happened and most countries have disgusting histories. Ideally there would be a 1ss with equal rights for all. If the majority of Palestinians aren’t willing to endorse that and engage in a peaceful MLK style movement to reach it, then I am not going to waste much time on it. Not that this matters. It just won’t happen or even have a chance of happening. And whatever slight chance it had was massacred along with 1000 civilians by Hamas.
A 2ss also seems very remote. I would have said dead before Oct 7, because it was. The 1ss actually seemed as plausible with Bibi basically on the way to annexing the WB.
But maybe, whatever happens in Gaza, people will realize that we absolutely have to settle this issue without another ethnic cleansing or genocide or ever more violent murder sprees. Since a 1ss has zero chance, maybe the outside will impose a 2ss, which I assume Wj was suggesting. The details will be a huge problem, but settlements absolutely have to stop, and really, most or all of them should go or join the Paletinian state or else some desirable parts of Israel be given to the Palestinians.
Do I concede Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state?
Nope. Now as a practical matter, it is, just as many countries are Muslim states and some are nominally Christian, though hopefully that doesn’t mean anything anymore except that Sunday is the main day most people get off (before the Labor movement added Saturday).
Countries should not be ethnically or religously based. There can be some past legacy of this,but it should be mostly meaningless.
Israel is a majority Jewish state because hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forcibly expelled, so it is wrong to say this was justified.
But it happened and most countries have disgusting histories. Ideally there would be a 1ss with equal rights for all. If the majority of Palestinians aren’t willing to endorse that and engage in a peaceful MLK style movement to reach it, then I am not going to waste much time on it. Not that this matters. It just won’t happen or even have a chance of happening. And whatever slight chance it had was massacred along with 1000 civilians by Hamas.
A 2ss also seems very remote. I would have said dead before Oct 7, because it was. The 1ss actually seemed as plausible with Bibi basically on the way to annexing the WB.
But maybe, whatever happens in Gaza, people will realize that we absolutely have to settle this issue without another ethnic cleansing or genocide or ever more violent murder sprees. Since a 1ss has zero chance, maybe the outside will impose a 2ss, which I assume Wj was suggesting. The details will be a huge problem, but settlements absolutely have to stop, and really, most or all of them should go or join the Paletinian state or else some desirable parts of Israel be given to the Palestinians.
Why Israel? I think it is because Israel is seen by itself and others as a Western democracy and lefties tend to focus on those for good and bad reasons.
I think, even more, it is a reflection of when Israel actually was a Western democracy. Whether is still is seems to me to be debatable. (Although the prevalence of religious zealots in American politics these days could be argued to make it in line with current levels of Western democracy.)
Back in the late 60s, during the 6 Day War, a humorist named Art Hoppe wrote a column (I saw it in the San Francisco Chronicle; don’t know if it spread more widely) called “A Guide for Neutral Thinkers.”** This in response to the American government spokesman saying that we would be “neutral in thought, word, and deed.” One of his lines which I remember was:
Israel is so small and so democratic, and the Arab states are, to put it neutrally, Arab states.
I think that mindset is still informing our policy on Israel today. Even though the world, in the Middle East as elsewhere, has evolved enormously in the past half century.
** I was hoping that is had been put online somewhere. But if it has, I have been unable to find it.
Why Israel? I think it is because Israel is seen by itself and others as a Western democracy and lefties tend to focus on those for good and bad reasons.
I think, even more, it is a reflection of when Israel actually was a Western democracy. Whether is still is seems to me to be debatable. (Although the prevalence of religious zealots in American politics these days could be argued to make it in line with current levels of Western democracy.)
Back in the late 60s, during the 6 Day War, a humorist named Art Hoppe wrote a column (I saw it in the San Francisco Chronicle; don’t know if it spread more widely) called “A Guide for Neutral Thinkers.”** This in response to the American government spokesman saying that we would be “neutral in thought, word, and deed.” One of his lines which I remember was:
Israel is so small and so democratic, and the Arab states are, to put it neutrally, Arab states.
I think that mindset is still informing our policy on Israel today. Even though the world, in the Middle East as elsewhere, has evolved enormously in the past half century.
** I was hoping that is had been put online somewhere. But if it has, I have been unable to find it.
I hope you apologize, McKT. I do think we need more conservatives around, and more people to my left, for that matter, so that I appear reasonable and centrist.
I hope you apologize, McKT. I do think we need more conservatives around, and more people to my left, for that matter, so that I appear reasonable and centrist.
” srael is so small and so democratic,”
The Palestinians who hadn’t been expelled in 48 were under military rule inside Israel until 1966.
Westerners tend to see the problem starting in 67. It got worse then.
And since I am bashing the Israelis, the Palestinian side had its first anti-zionist pogrom in the early 20’s. There was another in the late 20’s when the mob massacred Jewish families who were native to the region. (To be fair, some of their Palestinian neighbors rescued some of them from the mob, or so I remember reading.) Palestinian “resistance” when violent always seemed to involve terrorism, though many or most “resistance” movements seem to be like this. The Zionist ones started using terrorism in the late 30’s, I think.
But anyway, democratic states can democratically decide to do things that aren’t wonderful. There were no good old days, just days that weren’t quite so bad at times.
” srael is so small and so democratic,”
The Palestinians who hadn’t been expelled in 48 were under military rule inside Israel until 1966.
Westerners tend to see the problem starting in 67. It got worse then.
And since I am bashing the Israelis, the Palestinian side had its first anti-zionist pogrom in the early 20’s. There was another in the late 20’s when the mob massacred Jewish families who were native to the region. (To be fair, some of their Palestinian neighbors rescued some of them from the mob, or so I remember reading.) Palestinian “resistance” when violent always seemed to involve terrorism, though many or most “resistance” movements seem to be like this. The Zionist ones started using terrorism in the late 30’s, I think.
But anyway, democratic states can democratically decide to do things that aren’t wonderful. There were no good old days, just days that weren’t quite so bad at times.
settlements absolutely have to stop, and really, most or all of them should go or join the Palestinian state or else some desirable parts of Israel be given to the Palestinians.
Unfortunately, most of the settlers are there on the West Bank precisely because they want to “reclaim” it for Israel, driving out the Palestinians in the process. There’s absolutely no way they would join a Palestinian state. Nor that they would stop expanding and proliferating the settlements as fast as they can, unless prevented by main force.
Which means that part of any solution (at least, one which doesn’t involve wholesale relocation of the Palestinians) will require breaking the settler movement. Which will not be trivial for any Israeli government.
settlements absolutely have to stop, and really, most or all of them should go or join the Palestinian state or else some desirable parts of Israel be given to the Palestinians.
Unfortunately, most of the settlers are there on the West Bank precisely because they want to “reclaim” it for Israel, driving out the Palestinians in the process. There’s absolutely no way they would join a Palestinian state. Nor that they would stop expanding and proliferating the settlements as fast as they can, unless prevented by main force.
Which means that part of any solution (at least, one which doesn’t involve wholesale relocation of the Palestinians) will require breaking the settler movement. Which will not be trivial for any Israeli government.
I agree that ObiWi is only a faint shadow of what it was and I really miss the old days 15 years or so ago where you had rightwingers, centrist slightly right (wj). centrist libs, far lefties, and really far lefties all hashing it out.
Actually, I don’t miss being lectured by people on what a great idea, or at least how necessary, the Iraq or Afghanistan wars were, and how we would sort the ME out once and for all – it actually fills me with sadness how we talked about these countries almost daily, non-stop for years and now they are almost completely forgotten. It feels like a frivolous parlour game in retrospect.
I miss hilzoy and a few others, though.
Btw, Fanon is actually very much worth reading and he had an extremely interesting life as well.
I agree that ObiWi is only a faint shadow of what it was and I really miss the old days 15 years or so ago where you had rightwingers, centrist slightly right (wj). centrist libs, far lefties, and really far lefties all hashing it out.
Actually, I don’t miss being lectured by people on what a great idea, or at least how necessary, the Iraq or Afghanistan wars were, and how we would sort the ME out once and for all – it actually fills me with sadness how we talked about these countries almost daily, non-stop for years and now they are almost completely forgotten. It feels like a frivolous parlour game in retrospect.
I miss hilzoy and a few others, though.
Btw, Fanon is actually very much worth reading and he had an extremely interesting life as well.
But there is a lot of quibbling, e.g. “they are just college kids”–fuck that. Suppose they were calling for white supremacy–I imagine Nous and others would find a little less nuance if that were the case. You realize, do you not, they are celebrating mass murder as a matter of political policy?
Because I assume that McKinney can still read, even if he cannot comment, and because it’s worth working through this set of assumptions.
Suppose they were calling for white supremacy. That, too, happens on my campus in various ways and during inflammatory times. We have a pretty full gamut of political views here on campus (and in my classroom).
Yep, still kids with limited information, and limited experience.
I taught a class about children in armed conflict for almost a decade. Many of my students wanted to write about the various “schools” being run by terrorist organizations as a tool for indoctrination and recruitment. I’ve had liberal kids, conservative kids, and Chinese nationalist kids write about this (and a few islamic kids, but -understandably – no Jewish kids). Not a lot of white supremacy in these papers, but certainly a large helping of islamophobia and dehumanizing going on.
Yep, still kids with limited information, and limited experience.
College kids treat college like a magic circle a lot of the time. It’s a place to play with ideas and identities. They are mostly performing for each other and not thinking at all about the larger world being an audience. And for the most part, adults treat college as just that as well. We certainly don’t take commentary from 20-year-olds as serious policy proposals. That and their lack of emotional baffles leads to some pretty stupid rhetoric.
If you want them to learn, rather than just get defensive and combative, you have to start by asking questions and digging past their performance art to their actual intentions and concerns, then you have to ask them to think about how their mode of presentation works or doesn’t work to actually support their concerns. Then you need to get them thinking about who they want to actually listen to their concerns. Then you restate what they said to you and point them in that direction where they are actually trying to talk to those people.
That’s pretty much my teaching method for any difficult topic. Learning has to start with the students’ actual questions and concerns. You have to ignore the performances*.
Because they are just kids and I want them to learn.
I’ve also been in rooms where actual skinheads were trying to actually injure and drive out actual minority targets (complete with a couple of people getting stabbed).
Those skinheads were not kids. I didn’t try to talk to them. I tried to help stop them.
I don’t conflate those two different situations. They seem pretty clearly different to me, and I find attempts to conflate them transparently manipulative and simplistic.
*There’s also a need to create a non-threatening classroom environment, so you do have to intervene to keep things civil there. But if you want to actually inform the offender and steer them towards justice and compassion, you have to follow that up with listening during conferences and office hours and do the guiding away from their audience.
But there is a lot of quibbling, e.g. “they are just college kids”–fuck that. Suppose they were calling for white supremacy–I imagine Nous and others would find a little less nuance if that were the case. You realize, do you not, they are celebrating mass murder as a matter of political policy?
Because I assume that McKinney can still read, even if he cannot comment, and because it’s worth working through this set of assumptions.
Suppose they were calling for white supremacy. That, too, happens on my campus in various ways and during inflammatory times. We have a pretty full gamut of political views here on campus (and in my classroom).
Yep, still kids with limited information, and limited experience.
I taught a class about children in armed conflict for almost a decade. Many of my students wanted to write about the various “schools” being run by terrorist organizations as a tool for indoctrination and recruitment. I’ve had liberal kids, conservative kids, and Chinese nationalist kids write about this (and a few islamic kids, but -understandably – no Jewish kids). Not a lot of white supremacy in these papers, but certainly a large helping of islamophobia and dehumanizing going on.
Yep, still kids with limited information, and limited experience.
College kids treat college like a magic circle a lot of the time. It’s a place to play with ideas and identities. They are mostly performing for each other and not thinking at all about the larger world being an audience. And for the most part, adults treat college as just that as well. We certainly don’t take commentary from 20-year-olds as serious policy proposals. That and their lack of emotional baffles leads to some pretty stupid rhetoric.
If you want them to learn, rather than just get defensive and combative, you have to start by asking questions and digging past their performance art to their actual intentions and concerns, then you have to ask them to think about how their mode of presentation works or doesn’t work to actually support their concerns. Then you need to get them thinking about who they want to actually listen to their concerns. Then you restate what they said to you and point them in that direction where they are actually trying to talk to those people.
That’s pretty much my teaching method for any difficult topic. Learning has to start with the students’ actual questions and concerns. You have to ignore the performances*.
Because they are just kids and I want them to learn.
I’ve also been in rooms where actual skinheads were trying to actually injure and drive out actual minority targets (complete with a couple of people getting stabbed).
Those skinheads were not kids. I didn’t try to talk to them. I tried to help stop them.
I don’t conflate those two different situations. They seem pretty clearly different to me, and I find attempts to conflate them transparently manipulative and simplistic.
*There’s also a need to create a non-threatening classroom environment, so you do have to intervene to keep things civil there. But if you want to actually inform the offender and steer them towards justice and compassion, you have to follow that up with listening during conferences and office hours and do the guiding away from their audience.
The modern car bomb got perfected by the (future) Israelis to fight the British in Palestine. The Palestinians just adopted it.
The Nazis tried to use antisemitism to get the Palestinians as allies against the British (by telling them that the British would hand Palestine over to the Jews). It was only moderately successful at the time but it laid the seeds for a lot of modern Arab antisemitism (as a racial not religious thing).
The modern car bomb got perfected by the (future) Israelis to fight the British in Palestine. The Palestinians just adopted it.
The Nazis tried to use antisemitism to get the Palestinians as allies against the British (by telling them that the British would hand Palestine over to the Jews). It was only moderately successful at the time but it laid the seeds for a lot of modern Arab antisemitism (as a racial not religious thing).
But the fact is as I said in the other thread–there’s always been this group of far leftists who romanticize “freedom fighters” no matter how murderous and disgusting their actions. One phrase that is often used that lets you know what you are dealing with is “by any means necessary’. Just looked it up. I couldn’t remember if it came from Fanon or Malcolm X. Turns out both used it and Sartre before them.
Yep, the Harvard kids have likely read a bit of Fanon, and of Said, and maybe a bit of Ngūgī or Bhabha, got all drunk on the ideas, and ran right out to play Plato’s Cave Puppet Theatre with the ideas.
Most of them have very little actual understanding of the actual world or experiences of oppressed peoples. Others do have some experience, but come from enough privilege that they were insulated from the worst of it and are trying to atone for their privilege by acts of radical solidarity, hoping the backlash against them will lend them some legitimacy and let them stop feeling like tourists and impostors.
It’s a mistake to treat them the same as one would treat an actual Hamas member. Doing so just legitimates their fantasy of authenticity.
But the fact is as I said in the other thread–there’s always been this group of far leftists who romanticize “freedom fighters” no matter how murderous and disgusting their actions. One phrase that is often used that lets you know what you are dealing with is “by any means necessary’. Just looked it up. I couldn’t remember if it came from Fanon or Malcolm X. Turns out both used it and Sartre before them.
Yep, the Harvard kids have likely read a bit of Fanon, and of Said, and maybe a bit of Ngūgī or Bhabha, got all drunk on the ideas, and ran right out to play Plato’s Cave Puppet Theatre with the ideas.
Most of them have very little actual understanding of the actual world or experiences of oppressed peoples. Others do have some experience, but come from enough privilege that they were insulated from the worst of it and are trying to atone for their privilege by acts of radical solidarity, hoping the backlash against them will lend them some legitimacy and let them stop feeling like tourists and impostors.
It’s a mistake to treat them the same as one would treat an actual Hamas member. Doing so just legitimates their fantasy of authenticity.
geez McKinney
geez McKinney
Never heard of Ngugi or Bhabha. Will look them up, if only via wikipedia.
I read a biography of Fanon that came out years ago and may reread someday. I think I read his famous book once, but forgot all of it, even including the name.
Never heard of Ngugi or Bhabha. Will look them up, if only via wikipedia.
I read a biography of Fanon that came out years ago and may reread someday. I think I read his famous book once, but forgot all of it, even including the name.
I think I read his famous book once, but forgot all of it, even including the name.
Probably The Wretched of the Earth, though Black Skin, White Masks would also qualify as a famous book.
Ngūgī’s most influential book is Decolonizing the Mind.
I’m not really up to speed on Bhabha, but his name comes up a lot amongst my anti-colonialist colleagues.
Also Achille Mbembé’s Necropolitics, which is directly engaged with the situation in Israel and Palestine.
I think I read his famous book once, but forgot all of it, even including the name.
Probably The Wretched of the Earth, though Black Skin, White Masks would also qualify as a famous book.
Ngūgī’s most influential book is Decolonizing the Mind.
I’m not really up to speed on Bhabha, but his name comes up a lot amongst my anti-colonialist colleagues.
Also Achille Mbembé’s Necropolitics, which is directly engaged with the situation in Israel and Palestine.
“Unfortunately, most of the settlers are there on the West Bank precisely because they want to “reclaim” it for Israel, driving out the Palestinians in the process.”
Yeah, that’s why I and others argued for a 1ss, though for me at least October 7 has destroyed that idea. But the argument was/is that you can’t take the land without taking the people and the rest follows. And the Gazans should not be left in a prison camp.
Hamas–well as Juan Cole pointed out a day or two ago, Hamas has had its pragmatic periods. Evidently they reverted back to crime against humanity mode.
Which is what is going to make a ceasefire hard to envision as politically possible. I haven’t followed the news since early this morning, but the bombing of Gaza is horrific.
“Unfortunately, most of the settlers are there on the West Bank precisely because they want to “reclaim” it for Israel, driving out the Palestinians in the process.”
Yeah, that’s why I and others argued for a 1ss, though for me at least October 7 has destroyed that idea. But the argument was/is that you can’t take the land without taking the people and the rest follows. And the Gazans should not be left in a prison camp.
Hamas–well as Juan Cole pointed out a day or two ago, Hamas has had its pragmatic periods. Evidently they reverted back to crime against humanity mode.
Which is what is going to make a ceasefire hard to envision as politically possible. I haven’t followed the news since early this morning, but the bombing of Gaza is horrific.
Donald: Anyway, I happen to agree that there are some tendencies to shut down speech on the left, broadly speaking. We know the truth about X, so we need to make sure false things aren’t spread on social media seems to be the idea. I am not at all comfortable with that.
Response 1: Like those famous lefties Moms for Liberty, the liberty consisting of their freedom to make sure my kids (well, grandkids) can’t read anything the Moms don’t want their kids to read (if they even have kids), all in the service of shutting down word of my very existence as a gay person, among other topics. The new closet is being legislated in places like Florida and rammed through local school boards all over the country by shouting … lefties? (oh, wait) … instead of being tacitly enforced by social stigma and pressure as in the old days. (The shouting, of course, is in no way meant to shut down the speech of people who disagree with them. Nope, not in the slightest.)
Response 2: there are some tendencies to shut down speech on the leftamong humans, broadly speaking
Donald: Anyway, I happen to agree that there are some tendencies to shut down speech on the left, broadly speaking. We know the truth about X, so we need to make sure false things aren’t spread on social media seems to be the idea. I am not at all comfortable with that.
Response 1: Like those famous lefties Moms for Liberty, the liberty consisting of their freedom to make sure my kids (well, grandkids) can’t read anything the Moms don’t want their kids to read (if they even have kids), all in the service of shutting down word of my very existence as a gay person, among other topics. The new closet is being legislated in places like Florida and rammed through local school boards all over the country by shouting … lefties? (oh, wait) … instead of being tacitly enforced by social stigma and pressure as in the old days. (The shouting, of course, is in no way meant to shut down the speech of people who disagree with them. Nope, not in the slightest.)
Response 2: there are some tendencies to shut down speech on the leftamong humans, broadly speaking
Donald again: But anyway, democratic states can democratically decide to do things that aren’t wonderful. There were no good old days, just days that weren’t quite so bad at times.
Just as there were no good old days at ObWi, just days that weren’t quite so bad at times.
No one now posting has any illusions of being able to fill Hilzoy’s shoes; I don’t think anyone I’ve ever run across online or in real life could do that.
But that just makes it all the more necessary that the people who do comment here help make it a relatively safe place for arguments across various political dividing lines. There’s only so much bomb-throwing nastiness that’s going to be tolerated. All of the tiny handful of people who’ve been blocked since I started writing posts were blocked for that reason: making civil discourse for all practical purposes impossible.
Donald again: But anyway, democratic states can democratically decide to do things that aren’t wonderful. There were no good old days, just days that weren’t quite so bad at times.
Just as there were no good old days at ObWi, just days that weren’t quite so bad at times.
No one now posting has any illusions of being able to fill Hilzoy’s shoes; I don’t think anyone I’ve ever run across online or in real life could do that.
But that just makes it all the more necessary that the people who do comment here help make it a relatively safe place for arguments across various political dividing lines. There’s only so much bomb-throwing nastiness that’s going to be tolerated. All of the tiny handful of people who’ve been blocked since I started writing posts were blocked for that reason: making civil discourse for all practical purposes impossible.
JanieM.
I don’t have a problem with civility controls. In fact, I vaguely remember one or two bombthrowers on the very far left getting banned for bad behavior. I’ve no problem with that. I miss the wider range of views though.
On censorship, I should have been clearer. Censorship attempts on the right are a given. I visit a site populated by mostly the right and tend to snicker to myself at their claims that censorship and anti-free speech is entirely a leftwing thing. I think some of the advocacy for information control on the liberal side is a new thing. Or newer. I usually don’t agree with the substance of rightwing positions, just their right to express it.
So yeah, it’s humans. Personally I would censor every member of that species.
JanieM.
I don’t have a problem with civility controls. In fact, I vaguely remember one or two bombthrowers on the very far left getting banned for bad behavior. I’ve no problem with that. I miss the wider range of views though.
On censorship, I should have been clearer. Censorship attempts on the right are a given. I visit a site populated by mostly the right and tend to snicker to myself at their claims that censorship and anti-free speech is entirely a leftwing thing. I think some of the advocacy for information control on the liberal side is a new thing. Or newer. I usually don’t agree with the substance of rightwing positions, just their right to express it.
So yeah, it’s humans. Personally I would censor every member of that species.
Good point on where a lot of the most dramatic and consequential censorship is taking place.
Long live civil discourse! It is perfectly possible to disagree very vehemently, without resorting to insult or straw-manning. It’s an art, actually, and when done right all the more devastating and convincing.
On the Israel/Gaza situation: there are no good solutions. Everywhere you turn it’s terrible, and likely to remain so for a long time. I do think we need more conservatives around, and more people to my left, for that matter, so that I appear reasonable and centrist.
I agree, but not for the same (jokey) reason. Let a thousand flowers bloom (to misquote that intensely humane figure Mao), as long as their representatives are capable of conducting the conversation in a civilised and good faith manner.
Good point on where a lot of the most dramatic and consequential censorship is taking place.
Long live civil discourse! It is perfectly possible to disagree very vehemently, without resorting to insult or straw-manning. It’s an art, actually, and when done right all the more devastating and convincing.
On the Israel/Gaza situation: there are no good solutions. Everywhere you turn it’s terrible, and likely to remain so for a long time. I do think we need more conservatives around, and more people to my left, for that matter, so that I appear reasonable and centrist.
I agree, but not for the same (jokey) reason. Let a thousand flowers bloom (to misquote that intensely humane figure Mao), as long as their representatives are capable of conducting the conversation in a civilised and good faith manner.
I think some of the advocacy for information control on the liberal side is a new thing. Or newer. I usually don’t agree with the substance of rightwing positions, just their right to express it.
I have always worried about this problem in relation to free speech and I don’t have a solution, any more than I have a solution to Israel/Palestine. And behind my sarcasm, such as it was, what I’m really thinking of is not the right of individual human beings to express their opinions on, let’s say, social media, but the challenge posed by (dis)information spread by bots, believed and amplified by humans, and picked up by news media as valid because after all, people are thinking such and such. And so on around the cycle.
But I don’t even know if it’s worse now that we have social media. I read a historically-based novel with a plot strand involving the Nazi removal of French Jews to camps, and a lot of preparation of the population for that was (apparently) done on the radio. The mass (if not social) media of the day.
I think some of the advocacy for information control on the liberal side is a new thing. Or newer. I usually don’t agree with the substance of rightwing positions, just their right to express it.
I have always worried about this problem in relation to free speech and I don’t have a solution, any more than I have a solution to Israel/Palestine. And behind my sarcasm, such as it was, what I’m really thinking of is not the right of individual human beings to express their opinions on, let’s say, social media, but the challenge posed by (dis)information spread by bots, believed and amplified by humans, and picked up by news media as valid because after all, people are thinking such and such. And so on around the cycle.
But I don’t even know if it’s worse now that we have social media. I read a historically-based novel with a plot strand involving the Nazi removal of French Jews to camps, and a lot of preparation of the population for that was (apparently) done on the radio. The mass (if not social) media of the day.
By “preparation of the population” I mean turning the non-Jewish population against the Jews, so that the removals could proceed with the support of everyone else.
By “preparation of the population” I mean turning the non-Jewish population against the Jews, so that the removals could proceed with the support of everyone else.
I actually think that our speech problems have nothing to do with free speech and everything to do with our media algorithms for what sorts of speech get boosted or promoted. I don’t think that the enlightenment philosophy surrounding freedom of speech are robust enough to deal with the sort of mass media insurgencies we are having to contend with today.
I actually think that our speech problems have nothing to do with free speech and everything to do with our media algorithms for what sorts of speech get boosted or promoted. I don’t think that the enlightenment philosophy surrounding freedom of speech are robust enough to deal with the sort of mass media insurgencies we are having to contend with today.
I actually think that our speech problems have nothing to do with free speech and everything to do with our media algorithms for what sorts of speech get boosted or promoted.
Eventually, I expect we will have to resurrect some version of the Fairness Doctrine that covers both traditional media and online (mass) media. Not sure how that will be managed, starting with how to define “mass media” for the online world. Nor how we deal with fact checking — since alternative realities are a big part of the problem.
But we’re going to have to come up with something. IMHO
I actually think that our speech problems have nothing to do with free speech and everything to do with our media algorithms for what sorts of speech get boosted or promoted.
Eventually, I expect we will have to resurrect some version of the Fairness Doctrine that covers both traditional media and online (mass) media. Not sure how that will be managed, starting with how to define “mass media” for the online world. Nor how we deal with fact checking — since alternative realities are a big part of the problem.
But we’re going to have to come up with something. IMHO
Agree. It’s like overdriving your headlights. None of our societal media safeties are built for this sort of speed or density of traffic.
Agree. It’s like overdriving your headlights. None of our societal media safeties are built for this sort of speed or density of traffic.
And with all the attacks on public education, we’re also driving with the dims on all the time.
And with all the attacks on public education, we’re also driving with the dims on all the time.
Eventually, I expect we will have to resurrect some version of the Fairness Doctrine that covers both traditional media and online (mass) media.
I very much agree. Longtime ObWiers will know that the Fairness Doctrine has long been an obsession of mine. I thought, in a list of things vying for the title, abolishing it was one of the worst things Reagan did. When I lamented it, and blamed it partly for Fox News, well-informed people here told me (I did not know) that it would not have applied to Fox News because Fox is on cable. But that is the kind of adjustment that could, and should, have been made. Whether a resurrection will work, when the genie has been so long out of the bottle, is an open question.
Eventually, I expect we will have to resurrect some version of the Fairness Doctrine that covers both traditional media and online (mass) media.
I very much agree. Longtime ObWiers will know that the Fairness Doctrine has long been an obsession of mine. I thought, in a list of things vying for the title, abolishing it was one of the worst things Reagan did. When I lamented it, and blamed it partly for Fox News, well-informed people here told me (I did not know) that it would not have applied to Fox News because Fox is on cable. But that is the kind of adjustment that could, and should, have been made. Whether a resurrection will work, when the genie has been so long out of the bottle, is an open question.
The Fairness Doctrine existed because bandwidth was limited and its space was overseen by the federal government.
With cable, and then massively and transformatively with the Web, those bandwidth restrictions were rendered inconsequential. I, and other technolibertarian utopianists in the Web 1.0 days saw this as a golden opportunity to democratize access to media.
Sadly, we were wrong, and I have repented that optimism and naïveté. What we got was a DDoS attack on the protocols of civility and on institutional expertise.
I’m not sure that the Fairness Doctrine would make a dent in this, though. What we need is not better curation, or even weeding; we need to slow the information cycle to give more opportunities to interrupt cybercascades.
The Fairness Doctrine existed because bandwidth was limited and its space was overseen by the federal government.
With cable, and then massively and transformatively with the Web, those bandwidth restrictions were rendered inconsequential. I, and other technolibertarian utopianists in the Web 1.0 days saw this as a golden opportunity to democratize access to media.
Sadly, we were wrong, and I have repented that optimism and naïveté. What we got was a DDoS attack on the protocols of civility and on institutional expertise.
I’m not sure that the Fairness Doctrine would make a dent in this, though. What we need is not better curation, or even weeding; we need to slow the information cycle to give more opportunities to interrupt cybercascades.
Morning all, just a note, it was the three of us as we couldn’t get a hold of Russell, but he has signed off on the course of action. The email for the site isn’t my main email, but it is open, if anyone else has a concern that they would like to pass on, feel free. I’d also point out that it wasn’t because this was attack on the front pagers: If the same kind of vitriol was directed at another commenter, regardless of where they stood, the bomb-thrower should expect to be kicked out.
Morning all, just a note, it was the three of us as we couldn’t get a hold of Russell, but he has signed off on the course of action. The email for the site isn’t my main email, but it is open, if anyone else has a concern that they would like to pass on, feel free. I’d also point out that it wasn’t because this was attack on the front pagers: If the same kind of vitriol was directed at another commenter, regardless of where they stood, the bomb-thrower should expect to be kicked out.
I have never known what liberals are talking about on this. It seems to have started with claims about Russian social media interference in the 2016 election,but there were studies that found basically no evidence that it mattered. And it seemed absurd to me at the time, a kind of liberal attempt to find a way to explain the idiot’s victory. It was Boris and Natasha. Unfortunately Rocky and Bulkwinkle had slacked off on the job.
People have always told massive lies about various things, especially the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. I am going to give that a rest for now— want to do something else tonight besides this blog, but I have two specific things in mind. And on a completely different subject, creationists built an entire alternative to mainstream science built on BS. Being Christian myself, I used to follow that closely, before finally getting bored by it, but it was all designed to protect fundamentalists from believing things that could threaten them. You could keep creationism out of public school science classes with some court cases, but not out of people’s minds.
I grew up after age 8 in Memphis. People had some real brain worms in their head about race. Long before the internet. You are going to have to look long and hard to find any social media lie that did as much harm as racism promulgated in the old fashioned days before communication technology had advanced beyond the newspaper and later the telegraph.
More generally, I don’t trust any authority to keep things honest in any way other than persuasion. Sometimes the authority figures are wrong.
It is rare for me to say this, but the thread has been thread jacked. Not that I had anything I wanted to say on I- P tonight.
I have never known what liberals are talking about on this. It seems to have started with claims about Russian social media interference in the 2016 election,but there were studies that found basically no evidence that it mattered. And it seemed absurd to me at the time, a kind of liberal attempt to find a way to explain the idiot’s victory. It was Boris and Natasha. Unfortunately Rocky and Bulkwinkle had slacked off on the job.
People have always told massive lies about various things, especially the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. I am going to give that a rest for now— want to do something else tonight besides this blog, but I have two specific things in mind. And on a completely different subject, creationists built an entire alternative to mainstream science built on BS. Being Christian myself, I used to follow that closely, before finally getting bored by it, but it was all designed to protect fundamentalists from believing things that could threaten them. You could keep creationism out of public school science classes with some court cases, but not out of people’s minds.
I grew up after age 8 in Memphis. People had some real brain worms in their head about race. Long before the internet. You are going to have to look long and hard to find any social media lie that did as much harm as racism promulgated in the old fashioned days before communication technology had advanced beyond the newspaper and later the telegraph.
More generally, I don’t trust any authority to keep things honest in any way other than persuasion. Sometimes the authority figures are wrong.
It is rare for me to say this, but the thread has been thread jacked. Not that I had anything I wanted to say on I- P tonight.
I feel like I currently don’t understand what’s going on.
How has the thread been threadjacked? Surely the question of mis/disinformation and whether it can or should be censored is also central to much about the I-P war? My beloved but all-in rightwing American friend ranted to me about the beheading of scores of Israeli babies, and told me that Gaza should be bombed into oblivion, and a (liberal) friend here also talked about 50 babies having been beheaded at the kibbutz. As far as I can tell from the cagey respectable news reports, this has still not been verified, although some babies were killed and maybe had their throats slit. It reminds me of the horror stories about babies in incubators in the Iraq invasion of Kuwait, which turned out to be pure propaganda. This kind of thing (horrific, over-the-top atrocities, as if what happened isn’t bad enough) is generated to inflame public opinion, and render it more tolerant of disproportionate responses.
Also, sorry to dwell on unpleasantness, but has McK been kicked out? I thought he was just banned from Janie’s threads. I have noticed that he sometimes comes in for a fair amount of personal flak around here, although he has said it doesn’t bother him (belied I think by today’s “McKinney is mean!” shtick) and it seemed to me that although he did casually insult Janie, and also nous (he often does, and lj too), he was really generally spraying his strawman idiocy around at all of us. I hope it is not illegit to ask exactly what his current status is?
I feel like I currently don’t understand what’s going on.
How has the thread been threadjacked? Surely the question of mis/disinformation and whether it can or should be censored is also central to much about the I-P war? My beloved but all-in rightwing American friend ranted to me about the beheading of scores of Israeli babies, and told me that Gaza should be bombed into oblivion, and a (liberal) friend here also talked about 50 babies having been beheaded at the kibbutz. As far as I can tell from the cagey respectable news reports, this has still not been verified, although some babies were killed and maybe had their throats slit. It reminds me of the horror stories about babies in incubators in the Iraq invasion of Kuwait, which turned out to be pure propaganda. This kind of thing (horrific, over-the-top atrocities, as if what happened isn’t bad enough) is generated to inflame public opinion, and render it more tolerant of disproportionate responses.
Also, sorry to dwell on unpleasantness, but has McK been kicked out? I thought he was just banned from Janie’s threads. I have noticed that he sometimes comes in for a fair amount of personal flak around here, although he has said it doesn’t bother him (belied I think by today’s “McKinney is mean!” shtick) and it seemed to me that although he did casually insult Janie, and also nous (he often does, and lj too), he was really generally spraying his strawman idiocy around at all of us. I hope it is not illegit to ask exactly what his current status is?
I have never known what liberals are talking about on this. It seems to have started with claims about Russian social media interference in the 2016 election,but there were studies that found basically no evidence that it mattered. And it seemed absurd to me at the time, a kind of liberal attempt to find a way to explain the idiot’s victory.
Adam Silverman talks about Russian misinformation efforts fairly regularly in his nightly Ukraine posts at BJ. Since it’s related to his line of work, I do put some stock into what he says, though on the other hand I take him with at least one grain of salt, because he has bees in his bonnet like everyone else.
I have argued to nous fairly recently that, in effect, there’s nothing new under the sun — bias and ethnic hatreds have been around forever, only the technology changes. I guess provisionally I feel that the undergirding human darkness has always been there, but every new era finds a new way to exploit it, and every new way of exploiting it is a new and scary challenge.
As for thread-jacking — there’s nothing to prevent anyone from adding more comments about the (or any) war. Threads almost always wander, and maybe it’s all one war anyhow.
I have never known what liberals are talking about on this. It seems to have started with claims about Russian social media interference in the 2016 election,but there were studies that found basically no evidence that it mattered. And it seemed absurd to me at the time, a kind of liberal attempt to find a way to explain the idiot’s victory.
Adam Silverman talks about Russian misinformation efforts fairly regularly in his nightly Ukraine posts at BJ. Since it’s related to his line of work, I do put some stock into what he says, though on the other hand I take him with at least one grain of salt, because he has bees in his bonnet like everyone else.
I have argued to nous fairly recently that, in effect, there’s nothing new under the sun — bias and ethnic hatreds have been around forever, only the technology changes. I guess provisionally I feel that the undergirding human darkness has always been there, but every new era finds a new way to exploit it, and every new way of exploiting it is a new and scary challenge.
As for thread-jacking — there’s nothing to prevent anyone from adding more comments about the (or any) war. Threads almost always wander, and maybe it’s all one war anyhow.
GftNC — look at the next post.
GftNC — look at the next post.
Oh, thanks Janie, I had completely missed that.
Oh, thanks Janie, I had completely missed that.
Just read it. Absolutely fair enough.
Just read it. Absolutely fair enough.
At no point in 1993 could I have produced a photorealistic deepfake to back my conspiracy theory, share that with 14 million people, and have a media ecology that automatically steered those 14 million people to other sites that reinforced my claims with their own faked and recycled content. Nor would I be making $2k per video, five videos a week, off of the channel traffic.
At no point in 1993 could I have produced a photorealistic deepfake to back my conspiracy theory, share that with 14 million people, and have a media ecology that automatically steered those 14 million people to other sites that reinforced my claims with their own faked and recycled content. Nor would I be making $2k per video, five videos a week, off of the channel traffic.
It seems to have started with claims about Russian social media interference in the 2016 election,but there were studies that found basically no evidence that it mattered.
“It had no significant effect” is not the same as “it didn’t happen”.
And, to me, if it happened, it matters, whether it tipped the scale or not.
Not looking for an argument, just my POV.
It seems to have started with claims about Russian social media interference in the 2016 election,but there were studies that found basically no evidence that it mattered.
“It had no significant effect” is not the same as “it didn’t happen”.
And, to me, if it happened, it matters, whether it tipped the scale or not.
Not looking for an argument, just my POV.
The fact that anything can be photographically faked in a convincing way is new, but again, people successfully told gigantic lies long before with deep consequences. And now people are starting to realize photos can be convincingly faked. People always had to make decisions on who they could trust. This was true with atrocity stories, for example. Sometimes you only get the definitive forensic analysis, if at all, much later, when it might be irrelevant except for historians.
The fact that anything can be photographically faked in a convincing way is new, but again, people successfully told gigantic lies long before with deep consequences. And now people are starting to realize photos can be convincingly faked. People always had to make decisions on who they could trust. This was true with atrocity stories, for example. Sometimes you only get the definitive forensic analysis, if at all, much later, when it might be irrelevant except for historians.
Yep, in 1993 I could have faked evidence, but getting that evidence to a mass audience would have been much harder, the information would have spread much slower, there would be fewer inputs into the information loop pushing the signal higher, and the gatekeepers in the media would have bigger inputs into the information loop to counter the trend sooner.
All the inputs make it a lot harder, especially when the inputs are taking advantage of the algorithms to get more of a boost.
Shock and awe. Overwhelm the system. Maneuver warfare.
It’s not a change in types of information, it’s a change in the information ecology.
Yep, in 1993 I could have faked evidence, but getting that evidence to a mass audience would have been much harder, the information would have spread much slower, there would be fewer inputs into the information loop pushing the signal higher, and the gatekeepers in the media would have bigger inputs into the information loop to counter the trend sooner.
All the inputs make it a lot harder, especially when the inputs are taking advantage of the algorithms to get more of a boost.
Shock and awe. Overwhelm the system. Maneuver warfare.
It’s not a change in types of information, it’s a change in the information ecology.
It’s not a change in types of information, it’s a change in the information ecology.
My first thought is that the new ecology needs to evolve a top predator. With the caveat that it not be focused on taking down the weak.
It’s not a change in types of information, it’s a change in the information ecology.
My first thought is that the new ecology needs to evolve a top predator. With the caveat that it not be focused on taking down the weak.
I’m going to reply to some things tomorrow, maybe. But there have been some pretty gigantic lies in the near and distant past. Possibly the biggest of all with the largest of all consequences is the denial of human caused climate change and that doesn’t really require anything except the usual self- interested tribalism and a lot of money. Nothing high tech needed. Just good old fashioned political and corporate BS.
But as it is a war thread, I could talk about war- related lies instead. But not now. Got a new fantasy novel to try.
I’m going to reply to some things tomorrow, maybe. But there have been some pretty gigantic lies in the near and distant past. Possibly the biggest of all with the largest of all consequences is the denial of human caused climate change and that doesn’t really require anything except the usual self- interested tribalism and a lot of money. Nothing high tech needed. Just good old fashioned political and corporate BS.
But as it is a war thread, I could talk about war- related lies instead. But not now. Got a new fantasy novel to try.
Lies: the tobacco industry comes to mind. Not as consequential as climate change, but bad enough.
Lies: the tobacco industry comes to mind. Not as consequential as climate change, but bad enough.
I’m looking forward to that rant. I see several things in the op ed that are worth critique even while I share her sense of frustration with the people who would celebrate anything about this moment.
And, at least to my way of thinking, discussing the difficulties with media and free speech in this moment parallels the other discussion. Clausewitz’s “war is a continuation of politics/policy with other means” and his explanations of what he means there clearly puts war as a subset of political discourse, and many of the same game theory models apply to both armed warfare and information warfare.
It’s not the size or the danger of the misinformation that has changed with our media ecology, it’s the challenge of trying to defend against and neutralize it. Disinformation and propaganda is more contagious, spreads faster, hides itself better, and mutates more quickly than do our defenses against them.
That’s going to require different approaches to preventative measures.
I’m looking forward to that rant. I see several things in the op ed that are worth critique even while I share her sense of frustration with the people who would celebrate anything about this moment.
And, at least to my way of thinking, discussing the difficulties with media and free speech in this moment parallels the other discussion. Clausewitz’s “war is a continuation of politics/policy with other means” and his explanations of what he means there clearly puts war as a subset of political discourse, and many of the same game theory models apply to both armed warfare and information warfare.
It’s not the size or the danger of the misinformation that has changed with our media ecology, it’s the challenge of trying to defend against and neutralize it. Disinformation and propaganda is more contagious, spreads faster, hides itself better, and mutates more quickly than do our defenses against them.
That’s going to require different approaches to preventative measures.
It’s literally the same people that push climate denial for the fossil fuel industry that worked for Big Tobacco. And they simply apply the same successful techniques they developed for that purpose.
It’s literally the same people that push climate denial for the fossil fuel industry that worked for Big Tobacco. And they simply apply the same successful techniques they developed for that purpose.
Looking forward to the rant as well. I haven’t seen the outpouring of support from the US left, but I’m not in a position to claim it doesn’t exist and I can’t really speak to it without knowing more about who is saying it and who they represent. But the opening of Goldberg’s piece seemed really off. On Tuesday evening, I was drinking on the porch of my friend and neighbor Misha Shulman, the Israel-born rabbi of a progressive New York synagogue called the New Shul. All day, he’d been on the phone with congregants deeply distraught over the massacres and mass kidnappings in Israel.
Hey, I’m sitting with a drink at my good friend who has all these people at first and second separation in fear for the lives, could you pass the red wine? Of course, this validates my opinion because, though I don’t know anyone over there, I’m with someone who is.
Perhaps this is why I would never be a good op-ed writer, you have to treat everyone you are with as a transactional relationship that may let you open an op-ed like this. If Taiwan is invaded, maybe I can start by talking about eating at the Taiwanese restaurant and how the owners are panic filled while I eat my stinky tofu.
Looking forward to the rant as well. I haven’t seen the outpouring of support from the US left, but I’m not in a position to claim it doesn’t exist and I can’t really speak to it without knowing more about who is saying it and who they represent. But the opening of Goldberg’s piece seemed really off. On Tuesday evening, I was drinking on the porch of my friend and neighbor Misha Shulman, the Israel-born rabbi of a progressive New York synagogue called the New Shul. All day, he’d been on the phone with congregants deeply distraught over the massacres and mass kidnappings in Israel.
Hey, I’m sitting with a drink at my good friend who has all these people at first and second separation in fear for the lives, could you pass the red wine? Of course, this validates my opinion because, though I don’t know anyone over there, I’m with someone who is.
Perhaps this is why I would never be a good op-ed writer, you have to treat everyone you are with as a transactional relationship that may let you open an op-ed like this. If Taiwan is invaded, maybe I can start by talking about eating at the Taiwanese restaurant and how the owners are panic filled while I eat my stinky tofu.
Ok, now Israel has demanded that 1.1 million people move from the northern Gaza to southern Gaza within 24 hours or else they will be doomed. This is of course impossible and both the UN and the WHO have told Israel to change course.
If the goal of Hamas was to escalate tensions and have Israel overreact so that public opinion turns against them, they might have succeeded (well, maybe not as far as public opinion is concerned, at least not yet).
Ok, now Israel has demanded that 1.1 million people move from the northern Gaza to southern Gaza within 24 hours or else they will be doomed. This is of course impossible and both the UN and the WHO have told Israel to change course.
If the goal of Hamas was to escalate tensions and have Israel overreact so that public opinion turns against them, they might have succeeded (well, maybe not as far as public opinion is concerned, at least not yet).
If the goal of Hamas was to escalate tensions and have Israel overreact so that public opinion turns against them
I think this was indeed one of their main goals. And I think they have succeeded, so far at least. Whether the wiser heads in the new government of national unity will prevail, and come up with a response that is less like a crudely wielded hammer on an anvil, and more strategic, remains to be seen, but so far it’s not good. And it will probably be too late anyway.
If the goal of Hamas was to escalate tensions and have Israel overreact so that public opinion turns against them
I think this was indeed one of their main goals. And I think they have succeeded, so far at least. Whether the wiser heads in the new government of national unity will prevail, and come up with a response that is less like a crudely wielded hammer on an anvil, and more strategic, remains to be seen, but so far it’s not good. And it will probably be too late anyway.
Hamas don’t give a fuck about the Palestinian loss of life. Israel have (unbelievably) asked 1.1 million people (half Gaza’s total population) to vacate northern Gaza ahead of a ground action. Latest headline from the Guardian: Israel-Hamas war live: Hamas tells people to stay put after Israeli military tells Gaza City residents to evacuate
They are daring the Israelis to do it with the people still there, and the Israelis may well do so. So, if that happens, which of them is responsible for the slaughter? The hideousness of this situation only increases….
Hamas don’t give a fuck about the Palestinian loss of life. Israel have (unbelievably) asked 1.1 million people (half Gaza’s total population) to vacate northern Gaza ahead of a ground action. Latest headline from the Guardian: Israel-Hamas war live: Hamas tells people to stay put after Israeli military tells Gaza City residents to evacuate
They are daring the Israelis to do it with the people still there, and the Israelis may well do so. So, if that happens, which of them is responsible for the slaughter? The hideousness of this situation only increases….
Given the history of the 1948 “you Palestinians better move away for your safety!” it not surprising that a demand that northern Gaza be evacuated faces resistance.
Given the history of the 1948 “you Palestinians better move away for your safety!” it not surprising that a demand that northern Gaza be evacuated faces resistance.
Yes, that does seem to be their rationale, at least on the face of it. But I also believe it is the most horrific game of chicken, on both sides.
Yes, that does seem to be their rationale, at least on the face of it. But I also believe it is the most horrific game of chicken, on both sides.
“ They are daring the Israelis to do it with the people still there, and the Israelis may well do so. So, if that happens, which of them is responsible for the slaughter? The hideousness of this situation only increases….”
Israel will be responsible. Hamas is disgracing itself and is a secondary villain in this case. But each side is primarily responsible for their own crimes and secondarily responsible for how they either incite or react to what the other does. But yeah, Hamas sucks.
Both the Israeli government and Hamas need to be brought up to the ICC and while in the past I have said things like this knowing full well it was a fantasy, if this Israeli action goes through, it needs to happen here. How could there be peace without justice for both sides?
Alternatively, Israel could be the new Syria. I used to make that analogy that if Hamas posed a real threat, you could do an almost one to one mapping between the various factions in the two countries and how they behave and line up.. people fearing a terrible enemy will line up with the side that they see as less likely to kill them.
“ They are daring the Israelis to do it with the people still there, and the Israelis may well do so. So, if that happens, which of them is responsible for the slaughter? The hideousness of this situation only increases….”
Israel will be responsible. Hamas is disgracing itself and is a secondary villain in this case. But each side is primarily responsible for their own crimes and secondarily responsible for how they either incite or react to what the other does. But yeah, Hamas sucks.
Both the Israeli government and Hamas need to be brought up to the ICC and while in the past I have said things like this knowing full well it was a fantasy, if this Israeli action goes through, it needs to happen here. How could there be peace without justice for both sides?
Alternatively, Israel could be the new Syria. I used to make that analogy that if Hamas posed a real threat, you could do an almost one to one mapping between the various factions in the two countries and how they behave and line up.. people fearing a terrible enemy will line up with the side that they see as less likely to kill them.
The ICC presumably has no jurisdiction, came to think of it. Or so I vaguely recall.
I don’t know if there is a mechanism. Maybe something like a South African truth commission.? Look into the crimes of both sides.
But I can’t see the Palestinians accepting the notion that only their crimes matter, that their babies don’t. And Israel isn’t going to accept Hamas. Nice long prison sentences for all surviving thugs on both sides would be a start. People always say (ludicrously) that the US could join the ICC and we would be in no danger of their interference because we have this justice system which looks into our own crimes. Yes, people say that seriously. They are right our politicians would be in no danger.
But maybe the equally wonderful Israeli system could actually— oh never mind. Dumb idea.
The ICC presumably has no jurisdiction, came to think of it. Or so I vaguely recall.
I don’t know if there is a mechanism. Maybe something like a South African truth commission.? Look into the crimes of both sides.
But I can’t see the Palestinians accepting the notion that only their crimes matter, that their babies don’t. And Israel isn’t going to accept Hamas. Nice long prison sentences for all surviving thugs on both sides would be a start. People always say (ludicrously) that the US could join the ICC and we would be in no danger of their interference because we have this justice system which looks into our own crimes. Yes, people say that seriously. They are right our politicians would be in no danger.
But maybe the equally wonderful Israeli system could actually— oh never mind. Dumb idea.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/13/pogrom-israel-angel-of-death-gaza-hamas-jews That fear, and anger, seem set to bring a terrible retribution. Early on Friday morning, Israel gave residents of the north of Gaza – more than a million people – 24 hours to evacuate to the south. Given that, along with relentless airstrikes, Israel has already imposed a total siege on the strip, denying the 2 million Palestinians within food, fuel, electricity and water, it’s no wonder the UN has warned that such a mass movement of people will bring “devastating humanitarian consequences”.
Among Palestinians and their allies, the Friday edict prompted a graver fear, one rooted in history. They suspect that Israel is preparing a de facto expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza into Egypt, the permanent “transfer” long demanded by the Israeli far right – with its baleful echo of the original dispossession of 1948. Still, Israel says it is determined that, after Black Saturday, it must wipe Hamas off the face of the Earth, and its allies, including the US, seem to have given it a green light to try. Such a goal, even if it’s inherently unachievable, will surely entail a ground invasion. The angel of death is licking his lips.
***
I suspect there are some progressives who – even unconsciously – hesitate before expressing full sympathy for the murdered young festival-goers and ageing kibbutz peaceniks because they worry that, if they do, that will somehow diminish their support for the Palestinians. That is a mistake.
Because Hamas is not identical with the Palestinian cause: it is a curse on it. With a founding charter, never revoked, packed with explicit, medieval anti-Jewish hatred, it has become an Isis-style force of bloodcurdling cruelty, one that brings calamity down on its own people – a calamity that threatens now to become even more devastating.
It isn’t that difficult. You can condemn Hamas and name its actions as evil, even as you support the Palestinians in their quest for a life free of occupation and oppression.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/13/pogrom-israel-angel-of-death-gaza-hamas-jews That fear, and anger, seem set to bring a terrible retribution. Early on Friday morning, Israel gave residents of the north of Gaza – more than a million people – 24 hours to evacuate to the south. Given that, along with relentless airstrikes, Israel has already imposed a total siege on the strip, denying the 2 million Palestinians within food, fuel, electricity and water, it’s no wonder the UN has warned that such a mass movement of people will bring “devastating humanitarian consequences”.
Among Palestinians and their allies, the Friday edict prompted a graver fear, one rooted in history. They suspect that Israel is preparing a de facto expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza into Egypt, the permanent “transfer” long demanded by the Israeli far right – with its baleful echo of the original dispossession of 1948. Still, Israel says it is determined that, after Black Saturday, it must wipe Hamas off the face of the Earth, and its allies, including the US, seem to have given it a green light to try. Such a goal, even if it’s inherently unachievable, will surely entail a ground invasion. The angel of death is licking his lips.
***
I suspect there are some progressives who – even unconsciously – hesitate before expressing full sympathy for the murdered young festival-goers and ageing kibbutz peaceniks because they worry that, if they do, that will somehow diminish their support for the Palestinians. That is a mistake.
Because Hamas is not identical with the Palestinian cause: it is a curse on it. With a founding charter, never revoked, packed with explicit, medieval anti-Jewish hatred, it has become an Isis-style force of bloodcurdling cruelty, one that brings calamity down on its own people – a calamity that threatens now to become even more devastating.
It isn’t that difficult. You can condemn Hamas and name its actions as evil, even as you support the Palestinians in their quest for a life free of occupation and oppression.
The ICC presumably has no jurisdiction
The ICC decided in February 2021 that it has territorial jurisdiction in the State of Palestine, and started investigating alleged crimes there almost immediately. Israel is not cooperating.
The ICC presumably has no jurisdiction
The ICC decided in February 2021 that it has territorial jurisdiction in the State of Palestine, and started investigating alleged crimes there almost immediately. Israel is not cooperating.
It isn’t that difficult. You can condemn Hamas and name its actions as evil, even as you support the Palestinians in their quest for a life free of occupation and oppression.
How many substitutions could be made for “Hamas” and “Palestinians” in this quote without it losing its relevance?
It isn’t that difficult. You can condemn Hamas and name its actions as evil, even as you support the Palestinians in their quest for a life free of occupation and oppression.
How many substitutions could be made for “Hamas” and “Palestinians” in this quote without it losing its relevance?
From today’s NYT, on the laws of war and how they apply to both sides in this war. I have copied and pasted a subscriber-only newsletter by Amanda Taub – they say it’s also an article in the main paper, which I could just give a guest link to, but I cannot find it. It can be difficult to hold onto reason through the fog of grief that is the natural response to what has occurred in recent days in Israel and Gaza.
But international law offers a framework for how to analyze what is happening, even while atrocities and deaths from the Hamas incursion are still being documented, and the consequences of Israel’s siege and airstrikes on the crowded Gaza Strip, home to millions of civilians, continue to unfold. New information is coming out every day. Details will take time to verify, misinformation is already widespread, and it can be easy to get bogged down in debates over unconfirmed allegations. The laws of war offer a guide to what matters most, and to what should happen next.
Two principles are particularly helpful. The first is that the “why” and the “how” of war are separate legal questions. The justice or injustice of a cause of war does not change the obligation to fight it according to the rules of humanitarian law.
The second, related principle, from which much of humanitarian law derives, is that civilians are entitled to protection. Armies and other armed groups cannot target them directly. Nor can they disproportionately harm them in the course of pursuing legitimate military goals. And those obligations still apply even if the other side violates them by targeting civilians themselves.
‘Protections for human beings’
The origins of the law of war go back centuries. But its modern form was a reaction to the world wars of the 20th century. In 1928, the Kellogg-Briand Pact, an international treaty, outlawed most forms of war. It was followed by the U.N. Charter of 1945, which clarified the ban on aggressive war, the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and 1977, and the further development of international criminal law in the second half of the 20th century, leading to the establishment of the International Criminal Court in 2002.
The law governing when states can use military force is known as “jus ad bellum,” a Latin term that refers to the law regulating the use of force internationally.
Today, this law is very strict, essentially forbidding states to use force against each other except in self-defense, said Oona Hathaway, a professor at Yale Law School and co-author of “The Internationalists: How a Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World.”
“It used to be the case that states could go to war for pretty much any reason,” Hathaway said. “They could go to war for debt collection. They could go to war, you know, to respond to wife stealing. They could go to war because other side is interfering with their trade relations. But that is no longer true.”
But regardless of whether there are legitimate grounds to use force, she said, all parties to the conflict are still expected to follow the humanitarian laws governing the conduct of the war itself, known as “jus in bello” — law regulating the conduct of hostilities.
Anyone who has spent much time on social media recently will have seen people conflate the justness of the conflict itself with the justness of the way it is being conducted. Some have appeared to excuse the killing of Israeli civilians on the basis that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories is wrong, while others appeared to dismiss the killing of Palestinian civilians in airstrikes on the grounds that Israel is right to defend itself from attack.
Treating causes and conduct as two separate questions, as the law does, is a way to hold the complexity of war and the political questions that underlie it in clear focus, without losing sight of the shared humanity on all sides.
That same goal guided the development of the laws of war. “International law has traditionally separated the two in an effort to protect people in warfare, no matter the justification for the initial use of force,” said Monica Hakimi, a Columbia Law School professor. “They wanted to make sure that both sides were equally protected in war, so as to make war as humane as possible.”
The core principle of jus in bello is that civilians cannot be targeted for military purposes, or disproportionately harmed as a means to a military end. That’s true regardless of the legality of the underlying conflict, and regardless of whether the opposing side has itself violated humanitarian law.
“The most straightforward way to think about that is just that the protections are protections for human beings,” said Tom Dannenbaum, a professor at the Fletcher School at Tufts University who is an expert on humanitarian law.
“Many of those human beings have nothing to do with violations by the state or nonstate armed groups with which they’re somehow connected,” he said. It would not make sense, he said, to reduce or eliminate civilians’ rights in reaction to the behavior of armed groups they do not control.
Hamas has killed more than 1,200 Israelis, of whom 222 were soldiers, according to the Israeli government. The civilians killed included young people attending a music festival, babies, children and the elderly.
“There is no question,” Dannenbaum said, that the Hamas assault “involved multiple war crimes and crimes against humanity, some of which are ongoing. Those are not close calls.”
The attackers also took approximately 150 people hostage. Volker Turk, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a statement on Tuesday that the taking of hostages is prohibited by international law, and called on Palestinian armed groups to immediately and unconditionally release all captured civilians.
“Hamas is bound by, but has a practice of violating, the basic provisions of international humanitarian law,” Hakimi said. Acts such as systematic murder and hostage-taking are grave violations of the Geneva Conventions, as well as crimes under international criminal law.
Hamas could not be reached for comment, but Moussa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas political official, said that the group “obeys all international and moral laws” in an interview with The Economist on Oct. 10, three days after the attack on Israel.
In the same statement that decried hostage-taking, Turk, the U.N. official, raised grave concerns about Israel’s actions in Gaza. On Monday, Israel’s defense minister Yoav Gallant had announced a complete siege of the territory, saying that “no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel” would be allowed into the 25 mile-long strip of land that is home to more than two million people, approximately half of whom are under 18.
“The imposition of sieges that endanger the lives of civilians by depriving them of goods essential for their survival is prohibited under international humanitarian law,” Turk said.
Dannenbaum, an expert on siege law, said that the defense minister’s statement appeared to be an unusually clear-cut example of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, which is considered a violation of international humanitarian law, a crime against humanity and a war crime. (Though, he noted, jurisdiction over some war crimes would depend on whether the conflict is considered inter-state.)
“When you have a blanket, unequivocal, total cutoff of food, water, electricity and fuel, it’s just straightforward,” he said. “Gallant’s statement, explicit, without caveat, and from the top, stands out.”
Ophir Falk, a foreign policy adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, told The New York Times on Thursday: “Israel is acting in complete compliance with international law, and always has.”
Israel has been heavily bombarding Gaza in recent days, part of a campaign against Hamas that a military spokesman said would be “bigger and more severe” than previous actions in the territory.
Under international law, even attacks on legitimate military targets are illegal if they disproportionately harm civilians, Hakimi said.
According to a Thursday statement from Gaza’s health ministry, 1,354 people have been killed by airstrikes since Saturday and 6,049 had been wounded. The previous day, the ministry said that about 60 percent of those injured are women and children. Attacks have targeted hospitals and schools where Israel has claimed that Hamas members were hiding.
Falk, the adviser to Netanyahu, said that questions of the proportionality of harm to civilians were “tactical and operational” matters that he would not discuss, but that Israel was bombing military targets, and always warned civilians that attacks were imminent. However, on Tuesday, Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an Israeli military spokesman, said that the Israeli Air Force was too stretched to fire the warning strikes — known as “roof knocks” — that it has fired in previous Gaza conflicts to encourage Palestinian civilians to leave an area before it is hit with larger missiles. Gazans say that few warnings have been given.
And because Gaza is under siege and heavy bombardment, civilians have few avenues of escape, even if warned.
“You can have disagreements about whether something is or is not proportional, because you can have disagreements about the value of the military targets,” Hakimi said. However, there are limits to those arguments, she said, saying that it would not be permissible to justify mass civilian casualties by saying that their deaths would shorten the overall conflict, for example.
The question of what is proportional is a balancing test that has to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, she said.
From today’s NYT, on the laws of war and how they apply to both sides in this war. I have copied and pasted a subscriber-only newsletter by Amanda Taub – they say it’s also an article in the main paper, which I could just give a guest link to, but I cannot find it. It can be difficult to hold onto reason through the fog of grief that is the natural response to what has occurred in recent days in Israel and Gaza.
But international law offers a framework for how to analyze what is happening, even while atrocities and deaths from the Hamas incursion are still being documented, and the consequences of Israel’s siege and airstrikes on the crowded Gaza Strip, home to millions of civilians, continue to unfold. New information is coming out every day. Details will take time to verify, misinformation is already widespread, and it can be easy to get bogged down in debates over unconfirmed allegations. The laws of war offer a guide to what matters most, and to what should happen next.
Two principles are particularly helpful. The first is that the “why” and the “how” of war are separate legal questions. The justice or injustice of a cause of war does not change the obligation to fight it according to the rules of humanitarian law.
The second, related principle, from which much of humanitarian law derives, is that civilians are entitled to protection. Armies and other armed groups cannot target them directly. Nor can they disproportionately harm them in the course of pursuing legitimate military goals. And those obligations still apply even if the other side violates them by targeting civilians themselves.
‘Protections for human beings’
The origins of the law of war go back centuries. But its modern form was a reaction to the world wars of the 20th century. In 1928, the Kellogg-Briand Pact, an international treaty, outlawed most forms of war. It was followed by the U.N. Charter of 1945, which clarified the ban on aggressive war, the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and 1977, and the further development of international criminal law in the second half of the 20th century, leading to the establishment of the International Criminal Court in 2002.
The law governing when states can use military force is known as “jus ad bellum,” a Latin term that refers to the law regulating the use of force internationally.
Today, this law is very strict, essentially forbidding states to use force against each other except in self-defense, said Oona Hathaway, a professor at Yale Law School and co-author of “The Internationalists: How a Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World.”
“It used to be the case that states could go to war for pretty much any reason,” Hathaway said. “They could go to war for debt collection. They could go to war, you know, to respond to wife stealing. They could go to war because other side is interfering with their trade relations. But that is no longer true.”
But regardless of whether there are legitimate grounds to use force, she said, all parties to the conflict are still expected to follow the humanitarian laws governing the conduct of the war itself, known as “jus in bello” — law regulating the conduct of hostilities.
Anyone who has spent much time on social media recently will have seen people conflate the justness of the conflict itself with the justness of the way it is being conducted. Some have appeared to excuse the killing of Israeli civilians on the basis that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories is wrong, while others appeared to dismiss the killing of Palestinian civilians in airstrikes on the grounds that Israel is right to defend itself from attack.
Treating causes and conduct as two separate questions, as the law does, is a way to hold the complexity of war and the political questions that underlie it in clear focus, without losing sight of the shared humanity on all sides.
That same goal guided the development of the laws of war. “International law has traditionally separated the two in an effort to protect people in warfare, no matter the justification for the initial use of force,” said Monica Hakimi, a Columbia Law School professor. “They wanted to make sure that both sides were equally protected in war, so as to make war as humane as possible.”
The core principle of jus in bello is that civilians cannot be targeted for military purposes, or disproportionately harmed as a means to a military end. That’s true regardless of the legality of the underlying conflict, and regardless of whether the opposing side has itself violated humanitarian law.
“The most straightforward way to think about that is just that the protections are protections for human beings,” said Tom Dannenbaum, a professor at the Fletcher School at Tufts University who is an expert on humanitarian law.
“Many of those human beings have nothing to do with violations by the state or nonstate armed groups with which they’re somehow connected,” he said. It would not make sense, he said, to reduce or eliminate civilians’ rights in reaction to the behavior of armed groups they do not control.
Hamas has killed more than 1,200 Israelis, of whom 222 were soldiers, according to the Israeli government. The civilians killed included young people attending a music festival, babies, children and the elderly.
“There is no question,” Dannenbaum said, that the Hamas assault “involved multiple war crimes and crimes against humanity, some of which are ongoing. Those are not close calls.”
The attackers also took approximately 150 people hostage. Volker Turk, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a statement on Tuesday that the taking of hostages is prohibited by international law, and called on Palestinian armed groups to immediately and unconditionally release all captured civilians.
“Hamas is bound by, but has a practice of violating, the basic provisions of international humanitarian law,” Hakimi said. Acts such as systematic murder and hostage-taking are grave violations of the Geneva Conventions, as well as crimes under international criminal law.
Hamas could not be reached for comment, but Moussa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas political official, said that the group “obeys all international and moral laws” in an interview with The Economist on Oct. 10, three days after the attack on Israel.
In the same statement that decried hostage-taking, Turk, the U.N. official, raised grave concerns about Israel’s actions in Gaza. On Monday, Israel’s defense minister Yoav Gallant had announced a complete siege of the territory, saying that “no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel” would be allowed into the 25 mile-long strip of land that is home to more than two million people, approximately half of whom are under 18.
“The imposition of sieges that endanger the lives of civilians by depriving them of goods essential for their survival is prohibited under international humanitarian law,” Turk said.
Dannenbaum, an expert on siege law, said that the defense minister’s statement appeared to be an unusually clear-cut example of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, which is considered a violation of international humanitarian law, a crime against humanity and a war crime. (Though, he noted, jurisdiction over some war crimes would depend on whether the conflict is considered inter-state.)
“When you have a blanket, unequivocal, total cutoff of food, water, electricity and fuel, it’s just straightforward,” he said. “Gallant’s statement, explicit, without caveat, and from the top, stands out.”
Ophir Falk, a foreign policy adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, told The New York Times on Thursday: “Israel is acting in complete compliance with international law, and always has.”
Israel has been heavily bombarding Gaza in recent days, part of a campaign against Hamas that a military spokesman said would be “bigger and more severe” than previous actions in the territory.
Under international law, even attacks on legitimate military targets are illegal if they disproportionately harm civilians, Hakimi said.
According to a Thursday statement from Gaza’s health ministry, 1,354 people have been killed by airstrikes since Saturday and 6,049 had been wounded. The previous day, the ministry said that about 60 percent of those injured are women and children. Attacks have targeted hospitals and schools where Israel has claimed that Hamas members were hiding.
Falk, the adviser to Netanyahu, said that questions of the proportionality of harm to civilians were “tactical and operational” matters that he would not discuss, but that Israel was bombing military targets, and always warned civilians that attacks were imminent. However, on Tuesday, Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an Israeli military spokesman, said that the Israeli Air Force was too stretched to fire the warning strikes — known as “roof knocks” — that it has fired in previous Gaza conflicts to encourage Palestinian civilians to leave an area before it is hit with larger missiles. Gazans say that few warnings have been given.
And because Gaza is under siege and heavy bombardment, civilians have few avenues of escape, even if warned.
“You can have disagreements about whether something is or is not proportional, because you can have disagreements about the value of the military targets,” Hakimi said. However, there are limits to those arguments, she said, saying that it would not be permissible to justify mass civilian casualties by saying that their deaths would shorten the overall conflict, for example.
The question of what is proportional is a balancing test that has to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, she said.
Israel will be responsible. Hamas is disgracing itself and is a secondary villain in this case. But each side is primarily responsible for their own crimes and secondarily responsible for how they either incite or react to what the other does.
Plus Hamas tells people to stay put after Israeli military tells Gaza City residents to evacuate
So yes, Israel will be responsible. BUT if Hamas, aka the guys on site with the guns, is ordering people to stay put, they are equally responsible. They don’t get a pass just because they didn’t actually cut lose with machine guns at anyone trying to leave. The serious threat to do so is sufficient.
Israel will be responsible. Hamas is disgracing itself and is a secondary villain in this case. But each side is primarily responsible for their own crimes and secondarily responsible for how they either incite or react to what the other does.
Plus Hamas tells people to stay put after Israeli military tells Gaza City residents to evacuate
So yes, Israel will be responsible. BUT if Hamas, aka the guys on site with the guns, is ordering people to stay put, they are equally responsible. They don’t get a pass just because they didn’t actually cut lose with machine guns at anyone trying to leave. The serious threat to do so is sufficient.
By this point, it is simply impossible to do a plausible allocation of blame. Both sides deserve blame for their immediate actions. But can quite justifiably cite recent provocations by the other for whatever they did. And the same cycle extends back decades. To the point that everything blurs in the mists of time.
All that can realistically (ha!) be done is some third party step in, draw a line, and say “From today, all past injustices are erased. All that will matter is what happens going forward. And we, said outsider, will mercilessly deal with anybody who steps out of line, even a little. No appeal.” Maintain that for a generation or two (i.e. until everybody involved today is dead and gone**), and it might, might, make it possible produce something like a just and lasting peace.
The alternatives, just to be clear, are a) a Forever War, or b) genocide by one side and/or the other.
Volunteers to be that third party are now being accepted. No compensation will be provided, including supplies and equipment, beyond the satisfaction of doing something necessary. Expect denunciations from diverse parties outside the immediate area. Definitely no thanks from the principals. (In fact, joint resentment of you may be what helps bring them together.)
** The experience in the United States with true believers in the Lost Cause suggests that the time required is more likely to be a century. And require serious control over getting the historical facts taught in the schools. With absolutely no opt out for home schooling or “religious schools.”
By this point, it is simply impossible to do a plausible allocation of blame. Both sides deserve blame for their immediate actions. But can quite justifiably cite recent provocations by the other for whatever they did. And the same cycle extends back decades. To the point that everything blurs in the mists of time.
All that can realistically (ha!) be done is some third party step in, draw a line, and say “From today, all past injustices are erased. All that will matter is what happens going forward. And we, said outsider, will mercilessly deal with anybody who steps out of line, even a little. No appeal.” Maintain that for a generation or two (i.e. until everybody involved today is dead and gone**), and it might, might, make it possible produce something like a just and lasting peace.
The alternatives, just to be clear, are a) a Forever War, or b) genocide by one side and/or the other.
Volunteers to be that third party are now being accepted. No compensation will be provided, including supplies and equipment, beyond the satisfaction of doing something necessary. Expect denunciations from diverse parties outside the immediate area. Definitely no thanks from the principals. (In fact, joint resentment of you may be what helps bring them together.)
** The experience in the United States with true believers in the Lost Cause suggests that the time required is more likely to be a century. And require serious control over getting the historical facts taught in the schools. With absolutely no opt out for home schooling or “religious schools.”
BUT if Hamas, aka the guys on site with the guns, is ordering people to stay put, they are equally responsible.
What Hamas seems to be saying is not that they are threatening anyone who leaves, but rather that without a guaranteed right to return to North Gaza, the Israelis are just forcibly displacing them in preparation for annexing the land. Anyone who leaves may never be allowed to return.
Which sounds plausible and is in line with what the hardliners in Israel have been agitating for.
No need to threaten a populace that already lives under the threat of violent eviction in order to get them to stay put. Staying put is their act of resistance for the non-extremists.
BUT if Hamas, aka the guys on site with the guns, is ordering people to stay put, they are equally responsible.
What Hamas seems to be saying is not that they are threatening anyone who leaves, but rather that without a guaranteed right to return to North Gaza, the Israelis are just forcibly displacing them in preparation for annexing the land. Anyone who leaves may never be allowed to return.
Which sounds plausible and is in line with what the hardliners in Israel have been agitating for.
No need to threaten a populace that already lives under the threat of violent eviction in order to get them to stay put. Staying put is their act of resistance for the non-extremists.
Herzog openly said the civilian population is responsible.
Sounds like Hamas’s reasoning to me. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/israel-gaza-isaac-herzog_n_65295ee8e4b03ea0c004e2a8
So we now have two governments ( or whatever one calls Hamas) that see civilians as legitimate targets and say so openly. Though Hamas, weirdly, is backtracking from its usual practice of applauding every time an Israeli civilian is killed and now argues it gave orders not to do this. I think they realize the propaganda situation did not develop necessarily to their advantage. A little late for that.
Herzog openly said the civilian population is responsible.
Sounds like Hamas’s reasoning to me. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/israel-gaza-isaac-herzog_n_65295ee8e4b03ea0c004e2a8
So we now have two governments ( or whatever one calls Hamas) that see civilians as legitimate targets and say so openly. Though Hamas, weirdly, is backtracking from its usual practice of applauding every time an Israeli civilian is killed and now argues it gave orders not to do this. I think they realize the propaganda situation did not develop necessarily to their advantage. A little late for that.
Meanwhile, I just saw a Palestinian neurologist speaking to C4 News from Gaza. He confirms that Hamas has set up roadblocks and (as well as warning about another Nakba) they are preventing Gazans from evacuating to the south. He said his own estimate is that at least 2,500 Gazans are dead, but many buried under rubble etc. IDF spokesman on same program saying that they absolutely DO NOT regard civilians as legitimate targets.
Meanwhile, I just saw a Palestinian neurologist speaking to C4 News from Gaza. He confirms that Hamas has set up roadblocks and (as well as warning about another Nakba) they are preventing Gazans from evacuating to the south. He said his own estimate is that at least 2,500 Gazans are dead, but many buried under rubble etc. IDF spokesman on same program saying that they absolutely DO NOT regard civilians as legitimate targets.
Well, how does he define ‘civilian’ or ‘target’? Or ‘regard’ for that matter?
“We targeted that bus not the driver or the passengers with our 500 pound bomb.” “Those were not civilians but potential recruits of our foe.”
Well, how does he define ‘civilian’ or ‘target’? Or ‘regard’ for that matter?
“We targeted that bus not the driver or the passengers with our 500 pound bomb.” “Those were not civilians but potential recruits of our foe.”
She. But yup. It’s hard to know what the hell they are prepared to do, or will do.
She. But yup. It’s hard to know what the hell they are prepared to do, or will do.
We have two guarantees: the civilian death toll will be unacceptably high, and each side knows this, has planned for it, and intends to try to weaponize the outrage against the other side.
We have two guarantees: the civilian death toll will be unacceptably high, and each side knows this, has planned for it, and intends to try to weaponize the outrage against the other side.
if Hamas, aka the guys on site with the guns, is ordering people to stay put, they are equally responsible.
Firstly, there is no practical way for 1.1 million people to leave.
Secondly, forced displacement, of civilian populations, establishing free fire zones, blocking of goods necessary for survival are all war crimes.
So no, it’s Israel who is repsonsible – if they go through with this.
Cf. UN, WHO, Amnesty, Medecines sans Frontieres etc.
if Hamas, aka the guys on site with the guns, is ordering people to stay put, they are equally responsible.
Firstly, there is no practical way for 1.1 million people to leave.
Secondly, forced displacement, of civilian populations, establishing free fire zones, blocking of goods necessary for survival are all war crimes.
So no, it’s Israel who is repsonsible – if they go through with this.
Cf. UN, WHO, Amnesty, Medecines sans Frontieres etc.
Firstly, there is no practical way for 1.1 million people to leave.
No argument. But if Hamas are preventing anyone from leaving (as it appears they are), that makes them culpable as well. Secondly, forced displacement, of civilian populations, establishing free fire zones, blocking of goods necessary for survival are all war crimes.
Also true. But we were (I thought) talking about people getting killed with bullets, bombs, etc. Blockades, forced displacement, etc. are indeed war crimes. But not the subject we were addressing.
Firstly, there is no practical way for 1.1 million people to leave.
No argument. But if Hamas are preventing anyone from leaving (as it appears they are), that makes them culpable as well. Secondly, forced displacement, of civilian populations, establishing free fire zones, blocking of goods necessary for survival are all war crimes.
Also true. But we were (I thought) talking about people getting killed with bullets, bombs, etc. Blockades, forced displacement, etc. are indeed war crimes. But not the subject we were addressing.
Westerners habitually say we don’t target cvilians and then level neighborhoods or cities in some cases. It’s bad form to actually say that civilians are guilty, so Herzog was probably speaking off script and saying what he really thinks.
On the other side some Palestinians are fantasizing about liberation via violence and using euphemisms that come out of far left jargon. Decolonization is a popular phrase. The idiocy on parts of the far left is not limited to college kids.
Westerners habitually say we don’t target cvilians and then level neighborhoods or cities in some cases. It’s bad form to actually say that civilians are guilty, so Herzog was probably speaking off script and saying what he really thinks.
On the other side some Palestinians are fantasizing about liberation via violence and using euphemisms that come out of far left jargon. Decolonization is a popular phrase. The idiocy on parts of the far left is not limited to college kids.
But if Hamas are preventing anyone from leaving (as it appears they are), that makes them culpable as well.
I think the distinction that novakant is seeking to make here is that Hamas is exploiting and worsening the situation that Israel is initiating by demanding a hurried and impossible evacuation. Absent that demand, and the promised violence that they will unleash, Hamas would have no one to hinder from leaving.
None of which makes Hamas’ actions any less cynical or monstrous.
In the same light, we can say that Hamas is responsible for the deaths of any hostages they took in the event of those hostages being killed by Israeli forces during a military offensive in Gaza. Those hostages would not have been there had they not first been forcibly abducted.
But if Hamas are preventing anyone from leaving (as it appears they are), that makes them culpable as well.
I think the distinction that novakant is seeking to make here is that Hamas is exploiting and worsening the situation that Israel is initiating by demanding a hurried and impossible evacuation. Absent that demand, and the promised violence that they will unleash, Hamas would have no one to hinder from leaving.
None of which makes Hamas’ actions any less cynical or monstrous.
In the same light, we can say that Hamas is responsible for the deaths of any hostages they took in the event of those hostages being killed by Israeli forces during a military offensive in Gaza. Those hostages would not have been there had they not first been forcibly abducted.
Everyone can stop talking now. The Onion has weighed in. Seriously, they say everything I would want to say ( including the potshots at leftwing terrorist fanboys) and they are funny doing it. Starts off as the headline suggests, but it gets to the lefties eventually. https://www.theonion.com/the-onion-stands-with-israel-because-it-seems-like-yo-1850922505
Everyone can stop talking now. The Onion has weighed in. Seriously, they say everything I would want to say ( including the potshots at leftwing terrorist fanboys) and they are funny doing it. Starts off as the headline suggests, but it gets to the lefties eventually. https://www.theonion.com/the-onion-stands-with-israel-because-it-seems-like-yo-1850922505
The Onion, as so often, makes further comment superfluous.
The Onion, as so often, makes further comment superfluous.
Thanks, GftNC. A very good read. Beinart’s evolution on this topic has been remarkable, and welcomed in this quarter.
Thanks, GftNC. A very good read. Beinart’s evolution on this topic has been remarkable, and welcomed in this quarter.
If it’s useful to anyone, I am able to read NYT and WaPo pieces in Firefox set up not to allow scripts. I use Chrome for most things, and there I let scripts run. (Mostly.) (Though I have an adblocker on both browsers.)
Gift links were a nice invention, though. Thanks to both Donald and GftNC for pointing out that essay, which I am partway through.
If it’s useful to anyone, I am able to read NYT and WaPo pieces in Firefox set up not to allow scripts. I use Chrome for most things, and there I let scripts run. (Mostly.) (Though I have an adblocker on both browsers.)
Gift links were a nice invention, though. Thanks to both Donald and GftNC for pointing out that essay, which I am partway through.
Timing is everything. Friday’s xkcd, while nominally about road signs, seems entirely on point for the Israel/Palestine situation. https://xkcd.com/2841/
Timing is everything. Friday’s xkcd, while nominally about road signs, seems entirely on point for the Israel/Palestine situation. https://xkcd.com/2841/
Interview with Beinart in Slate, right after the massacre. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/10/peter-beinart-israel-palestine-conflict.html
He has become a hero of mine. I don’t have many. Other lefty figures are often flawed — I learn a lot from them, but might think they have their limits or blind spots.
But Beinart started out as an Iraq War advocate and moved steadily as bobbyp mentioned and in recent years he is one of the most empathic people that I know. And he isn’t someone on the sidelines like me. It is his community. For him to be so incredibly balanced is amazing.
I don’t want to make too much of that because if you have to be a saint to get to a just solution then people are screwed. And other people both Israeli and American Jews and Palestinians share the same views, along with some of us on the sidelines.
Also, it is embarrassing to be a fanboy.
Interview with Beinart in Slate, right after the massacre. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/10/peter-beinart-israel-palestine-conflict.html
He has become a hero of mine. I don’t have many. Other lefty figures are often flawed — I learn a lot from them, but might think they have their limits or blind spots.
But Beinart started out as an Iraq War advocate and moved steadily as bobbyp mentioned and in recent years he is one of the most empathic people that I know. And he isn’t someone on the sidelines like me. It is his community. For him to be so incredibly balanced is amazing.
I don’t want to make too much of that because if you have to be a saint to get to a just solution then people are screwed. And other people both Israeli and American Jews and Palestinians share the same views, along with some of us on the sidelines.
Also, it is embarrassing to be a fanboy.
Donald — first thoughts, and maybe too pollyanna-ishly, but I don’t think everyone has to be a saint to get to a just solution. Think of MLK and Gandhi and Mandela — in each case, their leadership provided a focal point for the many people who *did* want some solution other than endless hatred and bloodshed.
Donald — first thoughts, and maybe too pollyanna-ishly, but I don’t think everyone has to be a saint to get to a just solution. Think of MLK and Gandhi and Mandela — in each case, their leadership provided a focal point for the many people who *did* want some solution other than endless hatred and bloodshed.
Myself, I don’t think that’s pollyanna-ish. None of those men was a saint, although they did of course have pretty unusual qualities. God knows, it would be hard for somebody to emerge who was able to skirt the poisonous polarisation, and tap into the capacity of people a) to compromise, and b) to abandon hatred. But I guess it would always have been hard, and yet they did emerge. I see no sign at the moment, though.
Myself, I don’t think that’s pollyanna-ish. None of those men was a saint, although they did of course have pretty unusual qualities. God knows, it would be hard for somebody to emerge who was able to skirt the poisonous polarisation, and tap into the capacity of people a) to compromise, and b) to abandon hatred. But I guess it would always have been hard, and yet they did emerge. I see no sign at the moment, though.
Hope is the only superpower that is within our mundane and mortal reach.
I’ve been selling science fiction to my students through the lens of hopepunk for a couple years now. I’ve explained the concept to them, but this may be the quarter that I have them read the ur-version of this vision: https://festive.ninja/one-atom-of-justice-one-molecule-of-mercy-and-the-empire-of-unsheathed-knives-alexandra-rowland/
We all understand on some level that MLK and Mandela don’t win because humans become more just. They win because the reality of what we become without the hope they represent scares the collective pants off of us. These moments of revolutionary horror are never good, never moral, never righteous, but I’m not sure that we would ever choose the path of MLK and Mandela were we not arrested in mortal fear of the horrors we have witnessed that come from the rejection of the harder, moral path.
Hope is the only superpower that is within our mundane and mortal reach.
I’ve been selling science fiction to my students through the lens of hopepunk for a couple years now. I’ve explained the concept to them, but this may be the quarter that I have them read the ur-version of this vision: https://festive.ninja/one-atom-of-justice-one-molecule-of-mercy-and-the-empire-of-unsheathed-knives-alexandra-rowland/
We all understand on some level that MLK and Mandela don’t win because humans become more just. They win because the reality of what we become without the hope they represent scares the collective pants off of us. These moments of revolutionary horror are never good, never moral, never righteous, but I’m not sure that we would ever choose the path of MLK and Mandela were we not arrested in mortal fear of the horrors we have witnessed that come from the rejection of the harder, moral path.
That’s a really interesting and extraordinary piece, nous. I’m still absorbing it, and thinking about it.
But the sentence that really jumped out at me, and almost electrified me, was: And if you do have choices still, remember: Nonviolent resistance, too, comes from a place of rage.
Thank you.
That’s a really interesting and extraordinary piece, nous. I’m still absorbing it, and thinking about it.
But the sentence that really jumped out at me, and almost electrified me, was: And if you do have choices still, remember: Nonviolent resistance, too, comes from a place of rage.
Thank you.
Thanks for the guest link, though it looks like the save as html and drag file to browser still works.
I’ve been reading up, though with Google search algorithms tuned to newer and perhaps less reliable, it’s tough. I thought this Guardian explainer https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/13/why-israel-palestine-conflict-history
was good. Is it just me, or do any others wonder about how Lebanon might be tied into this?
When it first came up (perhaps the WSJ was the source) about Iran’s hand in this, it struck be as a bit off because Hezbollah, which is much more tightly connected to Iran, while having some training connections to Hamas, is organizationally very distinct, so seeing Iran’s hand in the invasion by Hamas is more wishful that realistic, istm. (and I think that there are people who would love a causus belli with Iran) Here are a couple of links https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/10/09/hezbollah-lebanon-hamas-war-israel-iran/ https://www.npr.org/2023/10/10/1204789074/israel-hamas-hezbollah-iran
Going back and reading all this really makes me despair.
Thanks for the guest link, though it looks like the save as html and drag file to browser still works.
I’ve been reading up, though with Google search algorithms tuned to newer and perhaps less reliable, it’s tough. I thought this Guardian explainer https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/13/why-israel-palestine-conflict-history
was good. Is it just me, or do any others wonder about how Lebanon might be tied into this?
When it first came up (perhaps the WSJ was the source) about Iran’s hand in this, it struck be as a bit off because Hezbollah, which is much more tightly connected to Iran, while having some training connections to Hamas, is organizationally very distinct, so seeing Iran’s hand in the invasion by Hamas is more wishful that realistic, istm. (and I think that there are people who would love a causus belli with Iran) Here are a couple of links https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/10/09/hezbollah-lebanon-hamas-war-israel-iran/ https://www.npr.org/2023/10/10/1204789074/israel-hamas-hezbollah-iran
Going back and reading all this really makes me despair.
http://foreignpolicy.com is very good
I also found the analysis at http://vox.com as well as the coverage at the http://newyorker.com helpful,
and for an inside view http://haaretz.com
But I should probably stop following this and finish my novel for the book group, as I feel the same despair as lj – and what the heck can I do about all this…
http://foreignpolicy.com is very good
I also found the analysis at http://vox.com as well as the coverage at the http://newyorker.com helpful,
and for an inside view http://haaretz.com
But I should probably stop following this and finish my novel for the book group, as I feel the same despair as lj – and what the heck can I do about all this…
For anyone interested, this is Yuval Noah Hariri interviewed by Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell. The interview starts at the 2 minute mark. I think there’s lots of good and important stuff in it. https://pca.st/3dai5qj2#
For anyone interested, this is Yuval Noah Hariri interviewed by Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell. The interview starts at the 2 minute mark. I think there’s lots of good and important stuff in it. https://pca.st/3dai5qj2#
When he describes the effects on Israel of the long Netanyahu rule, the similarities with Trump are absolutely chilling.
When he describes the effects on Israel of the long Netanyahu rule, the similarities with Trump are absolutely chilling.
When he describes the effects on Israel of the long Netanyahu rule, the similarities with Trump are absolutely chilling.
Probably because the two are so alike. Right down to trying to use elected office to evade criminal charges. (More accurately, criminal convictions and sentences.) Which is why they got along so well.
What’s happened is that Bibi assumed that TIFG was history after losing in 2020. So he seamlessly pivoted to Biden. (Putin, being a bit craftier, kept his options open. Just in case.) TIFG just can’t forgive such, as he sees it, disloyalty.
I suppose we should be grateful that TIFG didn’t contrive a foreign war to bolster his election chances. But then, his ego might have kept him from realizing he might need to.
When he describes the effects on Israel of the long Netanyahu rule, the similarities with Trump are absolutely chilling.
Probably because the two are so alike. Right down to trying to use elected office to evade criminal charges. (More accurately, criminal convictions and sentences.) Which is why they got along so well.
What’s happened is that Bibi assumed that TIFG was history after losing in 2020. So he seamlessly pivoted to Biden. (Putin, being a bit craftier, kept his options open. Just in case.) TIFG just can’t forgive such, as he sees it, disloyalty.
I suppose we should be grateful that TIFG didn’t contrive a foreign war to bolster his election chances. But then, his ego might have kept him from realizing he might need to.
And he broadens it out to beyond Israel and the US: I’ve just seen him (Harari) on C4 News emphasising that the destruction of the liberal world order as pushed by various populist regimes (he does not exempt the UK) has meant that what follows is what must follow the destruction of order: damaging disorder and chaos.
And he broadens it out to beyond Israel and the US: I’ve just seen him (Harari) on C4 News emphasising that the destruction of the liberal world order as pushed by various populist regimes (he does not exempt the UK) has meant that what follows is what must follow the destruction of order: damaging disorder and chaos.
I know a lot of people here read BJ in any case, but Adam’s latest post on the war brings a lot of nitty-gritty information from various points of view. I generally can’t keep up with his Ukraine posts, but I always at least skim them. The ones on Israel/Hamas are just as informative.
I know a lot of people here read BJ in any case, but Adam’s latest post on the war brings a lot of nitty-gritty information from various points of view. I generally can’t keep up with his Ukraine posts, but I always at least skim them. The ones on Israel/Hamas are just as informative.
That’s a really good, informative post at BJ, Janie. Thanks, I don’t know why I don’t look in on them more often….
That’s a really good, informative post at BJ, Janie. Thanks, I don’t know why I don’t look in on them more often….
Adam’s posts on Ukraine, featuring quotes from “Special Kherson Cat” seems like a nice companion to the ObWi Shooting Kitteh.
Adam’s posts on Ukraine, featuring quotes from “Special Kherson Cat” seems like a nice companion to the ObWi Shooting Kitteh.
I feel the same despair as lj
FWIW, this is me now. The stories out of Gaza are horrendous, and seeing the Israelis do exactly what Hamas wanted them to do is so very upsetting. Meanwhile, the (liberal, lefty) cousin in the safe room sounds more and more ground down and despairing. Sunt lacrimae rerum.
I feel the same despair as lj
FWIW, this is me now. The stories out of Gaza are horrendous, and seeing the Israelis do exactly what Hamas wanted them to do is so very upsetting. Meanwhile, the (liberal, lefty) cousin in the safe room sounds more and more ground down and despairing. Sunt lacrimae rerum.
This is a letter from several prominent Jewish lawyers, which appeared in the FT this morning. It is behind a paywall, so I am linking the version which includes a form for others to join their names to it if wished. I think it is very well worth the brief read. https://forms.gle/7mJn5g8iPzk278saA
This is a letter from several prominent Jewish lawyers, which appeared in the FT this morning. It is behind a paywall, so I am linking the version which includes a form for others to join their names to it if wished. I think it is very well worth the brief read. https://forms.gle/7mJn5g8iPzk278saA
I think it is very well worth the brief read.
Indeed. Thank you.
I think it is very well worth the brief read.
Indeed. Thank you.
Without knowing who did the hospital bombing— I am open to either possibility—I disagree with the letter that GTfnc linked to some degree.
It is correct about Hamas. I am not a lawyer, but in my layperson view they committed a crime against humanity. I want a ceasefire— at the same time I can’t see ever treating Hamas as a quasi government again, This doesn’t mean every member of the group is guilty— I gather they do a lot of civil functions. But the leadership is guilty. Ideally there would be trials. More on that daydream in a second.
So I want a ceasefire because thousands of innocent Palestinians are dying. But realistically the Hamas leaders are dead men walking, as people say. If they come above ground Israel will drone them sooner or later, probably killing some nearby civilians. The West just does that sort of thing. In the case of whoever is guilty of this operation, they have it coming. And if we give ourselves the right to summary justice for their war criminals, never to be applied to ours, it is wrong, but it sure beats what is happening now. That is my completely cynical view.
Assassinations are better than massive indiscriminate bombing.
Ideally, though, both sides should be thoroughly investigated by impartial bodies and tried for crimes. In both cases this ought to go way back, Israel has been killing unarmed protestors forever. Hamas has been committing terrorist actions and cheering those of others forever. Israel’s settlement program is illegal by international law and Amnesty International, HRW, and B’Tselem all say an Israel is guilty of apartheid.
If this latest hospital bombing was Israel, and of course I don’t know, I think there could be a serious effort at holding them legally accountable. The West always dodged responsibikity for its air strikes while calling similar strikes by Russia barbaric, but not even the West could justify this hospital attack. However it might be Islamic Jihad for all I know at the moment.
Without knowing who did the hospital bombing— I am open to either possibility—I disagree with the letter that GTfnc linked to some degree.
It is correct about Hamas. I am not a lawyer, but in my layperson view they committed a crime against humanity. I want a ceasefire— at the same time I can’t see ever treating Hamas as a quasi government again, This doesn’t mean every member of the group is guilty— I gather they do a lot of civil functions. But the leadership is guilty. Ideally there would be trials. More on that daydream in a second.
So I want a ceasefire because thousands of innocent Palestinians are dying. But realistically the Hamas leaders are dead men walking, as people say. If they come above ground Israel will drone them sooner or later, probably killing some nearby civilians. The West just does that sort of thing. In the case of whoever is guilty of this operation, they have it coming. And if we give ourselves the right to summary justice for their war criminals, never to be applied to ours, it is wrong, but it sure beats what is happening now. That is my completely cynical view.
Assassinations are better than massive indiscriminate bombing.
Ideally, though, both sides should be thoroughly investigated by impartial bodies and tried for crimes. In both cases this ought to go way back, Israel has been killing unarmed protestors forever. Hamas has been committing terrorist actions and cheering those of others forever. Israel’s settlement program is illegal by international law and Amnesty International, HRW, and B’Tselem all say an Israel is guilty of apartheid.
If this latest hospital bombing was Israel, and of course I don’t know, I think there could be a serious effort at holding them legally accountable. The West always dodged responsibikity for its air strikes while calling similar strikes by Russia barbaric, but not even the West could justify this hospital attack. However it might be Islamic Jihad for all I know at the moment.
By the way, Palestinians I am sure would utterly reject the notion that only one side’s war criminals should be either tried or assassinated.
Hard to argue with that. But only one side has an air force so justice doesn’t have much to do with it.. I wonder, though, since drone technology is getting better, if it will always be the Western countries dispensing their form of summary justice, usually along with some innocent bystanders. Often enough only innocent bystanders. But anyway, this could change.
By the way, Palestinians I am sure would utterly reject the notion that only one side’s war criminals should be either tried or assassinated.
Hard to argue with that. But only one side has an air force so justice doesn’t have much to do with it.. I wonder, though, since drone technology is getting better, if it will always be the Western countries dispensing their form of summary justice, usually along with some innocent bystanders. Often enough only innocent bystanders. But anyway, this could change.
It is interesting to contemplate what the Gazans could do with some drones. Especially since a drone could loop around and come (apparently) from Egypt. Plausible deniability, and far better targeting than the rockets Hamas has been using.
In Israeli shoes, I’d be thinking hard about getting to a resolution, any resolution, before that happens. Even if it means giving up the West Bank settlements. (Settlements which, I note, are even more exposed to drone attacks.) The settlers may have political clout. But the rest of the country has more.
It is interesting to contemplate what the Gazans could do with some drones. Especially since a drone could loop around and come (apparently) from Egypt. Plausible deniability, and far better targeting than the rockets Hamas has been using.
In Israeli shoes, I’d be thinking hard about getting to a resolution, any resolution, before that happens. Even if it means giving up the West Bank settlements. (Settlements which, I note, are even more exposed to drone attacks.) The settlers may have political clout. But the rest of the country has more.
Don’t mean to be picky, but I would avoid the conflation ‘Gazans’ and Hamas.
Also, as I understand it, the way was paved for the initial attacks with drones. https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/in-israel-gaza-war-hamas-off-the-shelf-drones-destroy-million-dollar-hardware-4471329 When Hamas started the terror attack on Israel on Saturday, it sent a swarm of commercial drones armed with small bombs. While Hamas men razed the border with bulldozers and came in powered gliders – which itself was a surprise of sorts – it sent the drones to attack watch towers along the border fence. The Israeli watch towers are protected from the sides with armour, but have no roof. The bombs dropped by the drones fell straight into the gunner’s seat, disabling Israel’s first line of border defence.
Also, I think there is less deniability with drones, even if they come from somewhere else, someone has to target something or someone. So I imagine they will be used if Israel tries a shock and awe attack on Gaza, but not to attack Israel. https://www.businessinsider.com/israel-has-tools-to-counter-hamas-drones-but-may-struggle-2023-10 The full breadth of Hamas’ drone arsenal will not become evident until Israel attacks. But analysts suggest Hamas has both commercial off-the-shelf drones as well as loitering munitions (also known as one-way attack or “kamikaze” drones), likely developed with Iranian help. The first Hamas drones appeared in 2014, when a few were launched from Gaza into Israel.
The drone question is problematic enough that Israel is doing ECM, but that may interfere with many of their current defenses.
Don’t mean to be picky, but I would avoid the conflation ‘Gazans’ and Hamas.
Also, as I understand it, the way was paved for the initial attacks with drones. https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/in-israel-gaza-war-hamas-off-the-shelf-drones-destroy-million-dollar-hardware-4471329 When Hamas started the terror attack on Israel on Saturday, it sent a swarm of commercial drones armed with small bombs. While Hamas men razed the border with bulldozers and came in powered gliders – which itself was a surprise of sorts – it sent the drones to attack watch towers along the border fence. The Israeli watch towers are protected from the sides with armour, but have no roof. The bombs dropped by the drones fell straight into the gunner’s seat, disabling Israel’s first line of border defence.
Also, I think there is less deniability with drones, even if they come from somewhere else, someone has to target something or someone. So I imagine they will be used if Israel tries a shock and awe attack on Gaza, but not to attack Israel. https://www.businessinsider.com/israel-has-tools-to-counter-hamas-drones-but-may-struggle-2023-10 The full breadth of Hamas’ drone arsenal will not become evident until Israel attacks. But analysts suggest Hamas has both commercial off-the-shelf drones as well as loitering munitions (also known as one-way attack or “kamikaze” drones), likely developed with Iranian help. The first Hamas drones appeared in 2014, when a few were launched from Gaza into Israel.
The drone question is problematic enough that Israel is doing ECM, but that may interfere with many of their current defenses.
While I agree one shouldn’t conflate Gazans and Hamas, in this case I suspect quite a few Gazans who hate Hamas probably would want to strike at Israel, just as is true of Israelis and their own government and Gaza.
Biden is appearing to endorse Israel’s version. The Israelis claim to have evidence, including tape of Hamas people shocked it was theirs. That I think would be easy to fake. They habitually deny atrocities. Of course if it is true the other side will never admit it either. There is audio evidence and films, so I am waiting to see what independent groups say. Whoever did this, the US government can’t admit to any Israeli war crimes— they can’t say it about the power cutoff or question the extent of the bombing or the evacuation orders, including to hospitals and they can’t say it about this if Israel did it. The motive to lie in this one is overwhelming on both sides. So I think it means groups that have technical experts and a history of condemning both sides.
While I agree one shouldn’t conflate Gazans and Hamas, in this case I suspect quite a few Gazans who hate Hamas probably would want to strike at Israel, just as is true of Israelis and their own government and Gaza.
Biden is appearing to endorse Israel’s version. The Israelis claim to have evidence, including tape of Hamas people shocked it was theirs. That I think would be easy to fake. They habitually deny atrocities. Of course if it is true the other side will never admit it either. There is audio evidence and films, so I am waiting to see what independent groups say. Whoever did this, the US government can’t admit to any Israeli war crimes— they can’t say it about the power cutoff or question the extent of the bombing or the evacuation orders, including to hospitals and they can’t say it about this if Israel did it. The motive to lie in this one is overwhelming on both sides. So I think it means groups that have technical experts and a history of condemning both sides.
Last sentence sounds like I am attributing the bombing to human rights organizations. Not what I meant.
Last sentence sounds like I am attributing the bombing to human rights organizations. Not what I meant.
As Berlatsky says, Israel is in a cul de sac which has been years (decades) in the making.
It is not at all obvious that there is a way out. However I think it safe to say that there is no way out that the current Israeli government would be willing to even consider for an instant. Which means that the cycle, the downward spiral, will continue for a while yet. If there is any realistic way for outsiders to help turn things around, I am not seeing it.
As Berlatsky says, Israel is in a cul de sac which has been years (decades) in the making.
It is not at all obvious that there is a way out. However I think it safe to say that there is no way out that the current Israeli government would be willing to even consider for an instant. Which means that the cycle, the downward spiral, will continue for a while yet. If there is any realistic way for outsiders to help turn things around, I am not seeing it.
Leaning towards the Palestinian rocket theory now. I have gone back and forth. I don’t care what the Israelis say, but the BBC contacted various experts and it looked more like the Israeli story made more sense. People in war tell the truth when it favors them.
I think an immediate ceasefire followed by serious pressure for a 2ss or else a 1ss if the Israelis refuse to give back enough to make a two state solution work. Stop pandering to them. The US helped get things to this point with all the pandering. Hamas officials or the top ones anyway can’t participate in any negotiations. I don’t think the top Israelis should either, but I am trying to be semi- realistic. Israel is a recognized government democratically elected ( by the lucky people who have the vote) so they have to be recognized. Bibi might not be around long anyway.
Work out a solution acceptable to people on both sides sick of this nonsense and shove the extremists out.
Leaning towards the Palestinian rocket theory now. I have gone back and forth. I don’t care what the Israelis say, but the BBC contacted various experts and it looked more like the Israeli story made more sense. People in war tell the truth when it favors them.
I think an immediate ceasefire followed by serious pressure for a 2ss or else a 1ss if the Israelis refuse to give back enough to make a two state solution work. Stop pandering to them. The US helped get things to this point with all the pandering. Hamas officials or the top ones anyway can’t participate in any negotiations. I don’t think the top Israelis should either, but I am trying to be semi- realistic. Israel is a recognized government democratically elected ( by the lucky people who have the vote) so they have to be recognized. Bibi might not be around long anyway.
Work out a solution acceptable to people on both sides sick of this nonsense and shove the extremists out.
Hamas officials or the top ones anyway can’t participate in any negotiations. I don’t think the top Israelis should either, but I am trying to be semi- realistic. Israel is a recognized government democratically elected ( by the lucky people who have the vote) so they have to be recognized.
The challenge (OK, one of the challenges) is to figure out who could negotiate on behalf of the Palestinians. The PLA might arguably have some legitimacy for the West Bank. But not for Palestinians in the Gaza. So, who to talk to?
I don’t have an answer for that. But until and unless there is an answer, negotiations can’t even start.
Hamas officials or the top ones anyway can’t participate in any negotiations. I don’t think the top Israelis should either, but I am trying to be semi- realistic. Israel is a recognized government democratically elected ( by the lucky people who have the vote) so they have to be recognized.
The challenge (OK, one of the challenges) is to figure out who could negotiate on behalf of the Palestinians. The PLA might arguably have some legitimacy for the West Bank. But not for Palestinians in the Gaza. So, who to talk to?
I don’t have an answer for that. But until and unless there is an answer, negotiations can’t even start.
“…it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you.”
Is that how to talk about mass murder?
“…it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you.”
Is that how to talk about mass murder?
No. But I assumed it was uncertainty about exactly how to refer to the perpetrators – Hamas? Islamic Jihad? Some other group’s name including ISIS? But maybe I was being too tolerant…
No. But I assumed it was uncertainty about exactly how to refer to the perpetrators – Hamas? Islamic Jihad? Some other group’s name including ISIS? But maybe I was being too tolerant…
Walked out of work into a huge pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel protest in front of the building. Street full of people, completely blocked. I was able to get to train station. The move to the Techwood campus will be an inconvenience for me, but at least once we finally vacate CNN Center I will not be working at a focal point for demonstrations.
Walked out of work into a huge pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel protest in front of the building. Street full of people, completely blocked. I was able to get to train station. The move to the Techwood campus will be an inconvenience for me, but at least once we finally vacate CNN Center I will not be working at a focal point for demonstrations.
Biden might have trouble winning Michigan. It turns out people get mad when their relatives are bombed.
I’m trivializing it–even for myself I feel as sense of extreme anger when I see John Kirby claiming to care about civilians and then saying, oh well, that’s war. If you don’t have a ceasefire, sure. And then the endless concern, always in the future, that Israel might do something naughty. Like cut off power or bomb indiscriminately. But like the threats to the two state solution, the threat is always way off on the horizon.
Kirby did this before, back in the Obama era with respect to Yemen.
Might find a link later. It’s an odd job, being the apologist for the bombing of civilians.
And yeah, Trump is worse, etc… I wonder if the argument would be so glib if somehow the Democrats nominated one of the far lefties (a subset of far lefties, to be clear) who brush off the mass murder of Hamas. This is done in various ways–sometimes outright support, sometimes as “no moral equivalence between oppresser and oppressed”. I think when someone is holding a gun in front of someone (like an old woman or a child) without a gun and decides to use it, the global question of who belongs to the oppressed group fades into the background, and the oppressed/oppressor relationship becomes very localized, but some people live in abstractions. “No moral equivalence” is a greatly overused phrase.
But the mainstream Western world has its own little abstract ways to deal with what it does.
Biden might have trouble winning Michigan. It turns out people get mad when their relatives are bombed.
I’m trivializing it–even for myself I feel as sense of extreme anger when I see John Kirby claiming to care about civilians and then saying, oh well, that’s war. If you don’t have a ceasefire, sure. And then the endless concern, always in the future, that Israel might do something naughty. Like cut off power or bomb indiscriminately. But like the threats to the two state solution, the threat is always way off on the horizon.
Kirby did this before, back in the Obama era with respect to Yemen.
Might find a link later. It’s an odd job, being the apologist for the bombing of civilians.
And yeah, Trump is worse, etc… I wonder if the argument would be so glib if somehow the Democrats nominated one of the far lefties (a subset of far lefties, to be clear) who brush off the mass murder of Hamas. This is done in various ways–sometimes outright support, sometimes as “no moral equivalence between oppresser and oppressed”. I think when someone is holding a gun in front of someone (like an old woman or a child) without a gun and decides to use it, the global question of who belongs to the oppressed group fades into the background, and the oppressed/oppressor relationship becomes very localized, but some people live in abstractions. “No moral equivalence” is a greatly overused phrase.
But the mainstream Western world has its own little abstract ways to deal with what it does.
Biden might have trouble winning Michigan. It turns out people get mad when their relatives are bombed.
Meanwhile, one of our neighboring cities (Richmond, CA) just became the first in the US to formally declare “solidarity with the Palestinians.” Not that this indicates any chance of Biden losing California, of course.
Biden might have trouble winning Michigan. It turns out people get mad when their relatives are bombed.
Meanwhile, one of our neighboring cities (Richmond, CA) just became the first in the US to formally declare “solidarity with the Palestinians.” Not that this indicates any chance of Biden losing California, of course.
If there isn’t a ceasefire soon the anger in some parts of the Democratic voting pool will likely spread. I can still do the “ Republicans are explicitly genocidal while Democrats are merely horrific” calculation but I have had my moments of intense anger, as when Biden questioned the Palestinian numbers and he and Kirby did the “ yes, it is sad civilians die in war” spiel. Go to Gaza and count the bodies yourself, Mr. President. They are your responsibility to some degree. Yes, one can wonder about official statistics from any government at war (or pseudo government) but the scale and horror is pretty well conveyed by those reporters and health workers and ordinary people still able to get messages out. Doctors doing operations without anesthesia, children with massive burns. Reporters themselves are getting killed or losing their families.
If Biden actually cared he could make it a top priority to have US intelligence or military estimate them and since people like me wouldn’t trust a word coming from him ( do not trust governments in a war or supporting a side in a war) he could do all in his power to have very brave independent observers get in there, visit hospitals ( those still functioning) and other sites and do the best they can to give the world those accurate numbers he probably doesn’t want people to know,.
And of course the war could escalate and we might find out after years of theoretical arguments how vulnerable aircraft carriers are to missiles. Or how Israel with its nukes will react if a large number of Hezbollah missiles gets through and Iran is in the fight, though hopefully they are thinking about that too. Though they might also be thinking that the Israel monopoly in the region needs to end, which to me seems bad. I haven’t read that last part, but it has to have crossed minds. How unfortunate that Trump ended the treaty and Biden tried to be hardnosed in getting it back and continued Trump’s policy of bypassing the long defunct two state solution and treating Palestinians as minor obstacles to creating a regional alliance against Iran. To be fair, nobody except maybe Egypt predicted Hamas’s mass murder spree. But a new intifada— everyone paying attention expected that. It was building in the WB along with the settler pogroms.
I feel like people are sticking their heads in the sand.. Not meaning people here, just in general. But anyway, even hoping the war doesn’t go regional ( or bigger, ) it might make a bad difference in the election and the US is likeky to be greatly diminished in the eyes of the Global South. One can’t blame all of that on the giant narcissistic toddler who was President and might be again.
If there isn’t a ceasefire soon the anger in some parts of the Democratic voting pool will likely spread. I can still do the “ Republicans are explicitly genocidal while Democrats are merely horrific” calculation but I have had my moments of intense anger, as when Biden questioned the Palestinian numbers and he and Kirby did the “ yes, it is sad civilians die in war” spiel. Go to Gaza and count the bodies yourself, Mr. President. They are your responsibility to some degree. Yes, one can wonder about official statistics from any government at war (or pseudo government) but the scale and horror is pretty well conveyed by those reporters and health workers and ordinary people still able to get messages out. Doctors doing operations without anesthesia, children with massive burns. Reporters themselves are getting killed or losing their families.
If Biden actually cared he could make it a top priority to have US intelligence or military estimate them and since people like me wouldn’t trust a word coming from him ( do not trust governments in a war or supporting a side in a war) he could do all in his power to have very brave independent observers get in there, visit hospitals ( those still functioning) and other sites and do the best they can to give the world those accurate numbers he probably doesn’t want people to know,.
And of course the war could escalate and we might find out after years of theoretical arguments how vulnerable aircraft carriers are to missiles. Or how Israel with its nukes will react if a large number of Hezbollah missiles gets through and Iran is in the fight, though hopefully they are thinking about that too. Though they might also be thinking that the Israel monopoly in the region needs to end, which to me seems bad. I haven’t read that last part, but it has to have crossed minds. How unfortunate that Trump ended the treaty and Biden tried to be hardnosed in getting it back and continued Trump’s policy of bypassing the long defunct two state solution and treating Palestinians as minor obstacles to creating a regional alliance against Iran. To be fair, nobody except maybe Egypt predicted Hamas’s mass murder spree. But a new intifada— everyone paying attention expected that. It was building in the WB along with the settler pogroms.
I feel like people are sticking their heads in the sand.. Not meaning people here, just in general. But anyway, even hoping the war doesn’t go regional ( or bigger, ) it might make a bad difference in the election and the US is likeky to be greatly diminished in the eyes of the Global South. One can’t blame all of that on the giant narcissistic toddler who was President and might be again.
Just glanced at the NYT and saw an article where Biden is trying to do something I very much agree with — limit drilling in Wyoming and do other things, to predictable outrage. Climate change is the biggest issue of all, except nuclear war, and there are a million other issues ( like gun control) where the difference is very clear and even on Gaza. But I get so sick of how bad they are on issues like Gaza and saying “ lesser evil” on that wears very thin very fast.
Just glanced at the NYT and saw an article where Biden is trying to do something I very much agree with — limit drilling in Wyoming and do other things, to predictable outrage. Climate change is the biggest issue of all, except nuclear war, and there are a million other issues ( like gun control) where the difference is very clear and even on Gaza. But I get so sick of how bad they are on issues like Gaza and saying “ lesser evil” on that wears very thin very fast.
Couldn’t read it from here. It was on Adam H Johnson’s X account.
Couldn’t read it from here. It was on Adam H Johnson’s X account.
Netanyahu senior adviser on Israeli operations: ‘Tonight we are starting payback’
So, what do you call the last three weeks?
Honestly, it’s statements like this that give the impression that at least the Israeli leadership is no better morally than the monsters they fight.
I do not envy anyone who has to make decisions in Israel about how to deal with Hamas (at least as much of their own bastard child as Osama bin Laden was the US’s) hiding among a dense civilian population but (of course there is a ‘but’) talking like this is at least not helpful to put it mildly.
Checking Youtube comments one gets the general (and I assume false) impression that by now we are asked only which genocide we do support with any position apart from that getting shouted down immediately. OK, there is the third option: thoughts and prayers (which all too often is just a thin veneer for: both sides should convert to fundamentalist christianity instantly, otherwise why limit oneself to just a single genocide?)
Netanyahu senior adviser on Israeli operations: ‘Tonight we are starting payback’
So, what do you call the last three weeks?
Honestly, it’s statements like this that give the impression that at least the Israeli leadership is no better morally than the monsters they fight.
I do not envy anyone who has to make decisions in Israel about how to deal with Hamas (at least as much of their own bastard child as Osama bin Laden was the US’s) hiding among a dense civilian population but (of course there is a ‘but’) talking like this is at least not helpful to put it mildly.
Checking Youtube comments one gets the general (and I assume false) impression that by now we are asked only which genocide we do support with any position apart from that getting shouted down immediately. OK, there is the third option: thoughts and prayers (which all too often is just a thin veneer for: both sides should convert to fundamentalist christianity instantly, otherwise why limit oneself to just a single genocide?)
FWIW, this by Jonathan Freedland is in today’s Grauniad, headlined “The tragedy of the Israel-Palestine conflict is this: underneath all the horror is a clash of two just causes – This isn’t a contest of heroes and villains – but two peoples in deep pain, fated to share the same land”: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/27/tragedy-israel-palestine-conflict-horror
Also I have just been forwarded this by someone who was a few days ago making the same headline point to me as Sebag Montefiore makes in this Atlantic piece. I let my Atlantic sub lapse, so for anyone interested, here it is. I have not read it yet, but as described to me it sounds well worth the read: The Decolonization Narrative Is Dangerous and False
It does not accurately describe either the foundation of Israel or the tragedy of the Palestinians.
By Simon Sebag Montefiore
Peace in the israel-palestine conflict had already been difficult to achieve before Hamas’s barbarous October 7 attack and Israel’s military response. Now it seems almost impossible, but its essence is clearer than ever: Ultimately, a negotiation to establish a safe Israel beside a safe Palestinian state.
Whatever the enormous complexities and challenges of bringing about this future, one truth should be obvious among decent people: killing 1,400 people and kidnapping more than 200, including scores of civilians, was deeply wrong. The Hamas attack resembled a medieval Mongol raid for slaughter and human trophies—except it was recorded in real time and published to social media. Yet since October 7, Western academics, students, artists, and activists have denied, excused, or even celebrated the murders by a terrorist sect that proclaims an anti-Jewish genocidal program. Some of this is happening out in the open, some behind the masks of humanitarianism and justice, and some in code, most famously “from the river to the sea,” a chilling phrase that implicitly endorses the killing or deportation of the 9 million Israelis. It seems odd that one has to say: Killing civilians, old people, even babies, is always wrong. But today say it one must.
How can educated people justify such callousness and embrace such inhumanity? All sorts of things are at play here, but much of the justification for killing civilians is based on a fashionable ideology, “decolonization,” which, taken at face value, rules out the negotiation of two states—the only real solution to this century of conflict—and is as dangerous as it is false.
I always wondered about the leftist intellectuals who supported Stalin, and those aristocratic sympathizers and peace activists who excused Hitler. Today’s Hamas apologists and atrocity-deniers, with their robotic denunciations of “settler-colonialism,” belong to the same tradition but worse: They have abundant evidence of the slaughter of old people, teenagers, and children, but unlike those fools of the 1930s, who slowly came around to the truth, they have not changed their views an iota. The lack of decency and respect for human life is astonishing: Almost instantly after the Hamas attack, a legion of people emerged who downplayed the slaughter, or denied actual atrocities had even happened, as if Hamas had just carried out a traditional military operation against soldiers. October 7 deniers, like Holocaust deniers, exist in an especially dark place.
The decolonization narrative has dehumanized Israelis to the extent that otherwise rational people excuse, deny, or support barbarity. It holds that Israel is an “imperialist-colonialist” force, that Israelis are “settler-colonialists,” and that Palestinians have a right to eliminate their oppressors. (On October 7, we all learned what that meant.) It casts Israelis as “white” or “white-adjacent” and Palestinians as “people of color.”
This ideology, powerful in the academy but long overdue for serious challenge, is a toxic, historically nonsensical mix of Marxist theory, Soviet propaganda, and traditional anti-Semitism from the Middle Ages and the 19th century. But its current engine is the new identity analysis, which sees history through a concept of race that derives from the American experience. The argument is that it is almost impossible for the “oppressed” to be themselves racist, just as it is impossible for an “oppressor” to be the subject of racism. Jews therefore cannot suffer racism, because they are regarded as “white” and “privileged”; although they cannot be victims, they can and do exploit other, less privileged people, in the West through the sins of “exploitative capitalism” and in the Middle East through “colonialism.”
This leftist analysis, with its hierarchy of oppressed identities—and intimidating jargon, a clue to its lack of factual rigor—has in many parts of the academy and media replaced traditional universalist leftist values, including internationalist standards of decency and respect for human life and the safety of innocent civilians. When this clumsy analysis collides with the realities of the Middle East, it loses all touch with historical facts.
Indeed, it requires an astonishing leap of ahistorical delusion to disregard the record of anti-Jewish racism over the two millennia since the fall of the Judean Temple in 70 C.E. After all, the October 7 massacre ranks with the medieval mass killings of Jews in Christian and Islamic societies, the Khmelnytsky massacres of 1640s Ukraine, Russian pogroms from 1881 to 1920—and the Holocaust. Even the Holocaust is now sometimes misconstrued—as the actor Whoopi Goldberg notoriously did—as being “not about race,” an approach as ignorant as it is repulsive.
Contrary to the decolonizing narrative, Gaza is not technically occupied by Israel—not in the usual sense of soldiers on the ground. Israel evacuated the Strip in 2005, removing its settlements. In 2007, Hamas seized power, killing its Fatah rivals in a short civil war. Hamas set up a one-party state that crushes Palestinian opposition within its territory, bans same-sex relationships, represses women, and openly espouses the killing of all Jews.
Very strange company for leftists.
Of course, some protesters chanting “from the river to the sea” may have no idea what they’re calling for; they are ignorant and believe that they are simply endorsing “freedom.” Others deny that they are pro-Hamas, insisting that they are simply pro-Palestinian—but feel the need to cast Hamas’s massacre as an understandable response to Israeli-Jewish “colonial” oppression. Yet others are malign deniers who seek the death of Israeli civilians.
The toxicity of this ideology is now clear. Once-respectable intellectuals have shamelessly debated whether 40 babies were dismembered or some smaller number merely had their throats cut or were burned alive. Students now regularly tear down posters of children held as Hamas hostages. It is hard to understand such heartless inhumanity. Our definition of a hate crime is constantly expanding, but if this is not a hate crime, what is? What is happening in our societies? Something has gone wrong.
In a further racist twist, Jews are now accused of the very crimes they themselves have suffered. Hence the constant claim of a “genocide” when no genocide has taken place or been intended. Israel, with Egypt, has imposed a blockade on Gaza since Hamas took over, and has periodically bombarded the Strip in retaliation for regular rocket attacks. After more than 4,000 rockets were fired by Hamas and its allies into Israel, the 2014 Gaza War resulted in more than 2,000 Palestinian deaths. More than 7,000 Palestinians, including many children, have died so far in this war, according to Hamas. This is a tragedy—but this is not a genocide, a word that has now been so devalued by its metaphorical abuse that it has become meaningless.
I should also say that Israeli rule of the Occupied Territories of the West Bank is different and, to my mind, unacceptable, unsustainable, and unjust. The Palestinians in the West Bank have endured a harsh, unjust, and oppressive occupation since 1967. Settlers under the disgraceful Netanyahu government have harassed and persecuted Palestinians in the West Bank: 146 Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem were killed in 2022 and at least 153 in 2023 before the Hamas attack, and more than 90 since. Again: This is appalling and unacceptable, but not genocide.
Although there is a strong instinct to make this a Holocaust-mirroring “genocide,” it is not: The Palestinians suffer from many things, including military occupation; settler intimidation and violence; corrupt Palestinian political leadership; callous neglect by their brethren in more than 20 Arab states; the rejection by Yasser Arafat, the late Palestinian leader, of compromise plans that would have seen the creation of an independent Palestinian state; and so on. None of this constitutes genocide, or anything like genocide. The Israeli goal in Gaza—for practical reasons, among others—is to minimize the number of Palestinian civilians killed. Hamas and like-minded organizations have made it abundantly clear over the years that maximizing the number of Palestinian casualties is in their strategic interest. (Put aside all of this and consider: The world Jewish population is still smaller than it was in 1939, because of the damage done by the Nazis. The Palestinian population has grown, and continues to grow. Demographic shrinkage is one obvious marker of genocide. In total, roughly 120,000 Arabs and Jews have been killed in the conflict over Palestine and Israel since 1860. By contrast, at least 500,000 people, mainly civilians, have been killed in the Syrian civil war since it began in 2011.)
If the ideology of decolonization, taught in our universities as a theory of history and shouted in our streets as self-evidently righteous, badly misconstrues the present reality, does it reflect the history of Israel as it claims to do? It does not. Indeed, it does not accurately describe either the foundation of Israel or the tragedy of the Palestinians.
According to the decolonizers, Israel is and always has been an illegitimate freak-state because it was fostered by the British empire and because some of its founders were European-born Jews.
In this narrative, Israel is tainted by imperial Britain’s broken promise to deliver Arab independence, and its kept promise to support a “national home for the Jewish people,” in the language of the 1917 Balfour Declaration. But the supposed promise to Arabs was in fact an ambiguous 1915 agreement with Sharif Hussein of Mecca, who wanted his Hashemite family to rule the entire region. In part, he did not receive this new empire because his family had much less regional support than he claimed. Nonetheless, ultimately Britain delivered three kingdoms—Iraq, Jordan, and Hejaz—to the family.
The imperial powers—Britain and France—made all sorts of promises to different peoples, and then put their own interests first. Those promises to the Jews and the Arabs during World War I were typical. Afterward, similar promises were made to the Kurds, the Armenians, and others, none of which came to fruition. But the central narrative that Britain betrayed the Arab promise and backed the Jewish one is incomplete. In the 1930s, Britain turned against Zionism, and from 1937 to 1939 moved toward an Arab state with no Jewish one at all. It was an armed Jewish revolt, from 1945 to 1948 against imperial Britain, that delivered the state.
Israel exists thanks to this revolt, and to international law and cooperation, something leftists once believed in. The idea of a Jewish “homeland” was proposed in three declarations by Britain (signed by Balfour), France, and the United States, then promulgated in a July 1922 resolution by the League of Nations that created the British “mandates” over Palestine and Iraq that matched French “mandates” over Syria and Lebanon. In 1947, the United Nations devised the partition of the British mandate of Palestine into two states, Arab and Jewish.
The carving of such states out of these mandates was not exceptional, either. At the end of World War II, France granted independence to Syria and Lebanon, newly conceived nation-states. Britain created Iraq and Jordan in a similar way. Imperial powers designed most of the countries in the region, except Egypt.
Nor was the imperial promise of separate homelands for different ethnicities or sects unique. The French had promised independent states for the Druze, Alawites, Sunnis, and Maronites but in the end combined them into Syria and Lebanon. All of these states had been “vilayets” and “sanjaks” (provinces) of the Turkish Ottoman empire, ruled from Constantinople, from 1517 until 1918.
The concept of “partition” is, in the decolonization narrative, regarded as a wicked imperial trick. But it was entirely normal in the creation of 20th-century nation-states, which were typically fashioned out of fallen empires. And sadly, the creation of nation-states was frequently marked by population swaps, huge refugee migrations, ethnic violence, and full-scale wars. Think of the Greco-Turkish war of 1921–22 or the partition of India in 1947. In this sense, Israel-Palestine was typical.
At the heart of decolonization ideology is the categorization of all Israelis, historic and present, as “colonists.” This is simply wrong. Most Israelis are descended from people who migrated to the Holy Land from 1881 to 1949. They were not completely new to the region. The Jewish people ruled Judean kingdoms and prayed in the Jerusalem Temple for a thousand years, then were ever present there in smaller numbers for the next 2,000 years. In other words, Jews are indigenous in the Holy Land, and if one believes in the return of exiled people to their homeland, then the return of the Jews is exactly that. Even those who deny this history or regard it as irrelevant to modern times must acknowledge that Israel is now the home and only home of 9 million Israelis who have lived there for four, five, six generations.
Most migrants to, say, the United Kingdom or the United States are regarded as British or American within a lifetime. Politics in both countries is filled with prominent leaders—Suella Braverman and David Lammy, Kamala Harris and Nikki Haley—whose parents or grandparents migrated from India, West Africa, or South America. No one would describe them as “settlers.” Yet Israeli families resident in Israel for a century are designated as “settler-colonists” ripe for murder and mutilation. And contrary to Hamas apologists, the ethnicity of perpetrators or victims never justifies atrocities. They would be atrocious anywhere, committed by anyone with any history. It is dismaying that it is often self-declared “anti-racists” who are now advocating exactly this murder by ethnicity.
Those on the left believe migrants who escape from persecution should be welcomed and allowed to build their lives elsewhere. Almost all of the ancestors of today’s Israelis escaped persecution.
If the “settler-colonist” narrative is not true, it is true that the conflict is the result of the brutal rivalry and battle for land between two ethnic groups, both with rightful claims to live there. As more Jews moved to the region, the Palestinian Arabs, who had lived there for centuries and were the clear majority, felt threatened by these immigrants. The Palestinian claim to the land is not in doubt, nor is the authenticity of their history, nor their legitimate claim to their own state. But initially the Jewish migrants did not aspire to a state, merely to live and farm in the vague “homeland.” In 1918, the Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann met the Hashemite Prince Faisal Bin Hussein to discuss the Jews living under his rule as king of greater Syria. The conflict today was not inevitable. It became so as the communities refused to share and coexist, and then resorted to arms.
Even more preposterous than the “colonizer” label is the “whiteness” trope that is key to the decolonization ideology. Again: simply wrong. Israel has a large community of Ethiopian Jews, and about half of all Israelis—that is, about 5 million people—are Mizrahi, the descendants of Jews from Arab and Persian lands, people of the Middle East. They are neither “settlers” nor “colonialists” nor “white” Europeans at all but inhabitants of Baghdad and Cairo and Beirut for many centuries, even millennia, who were driven out after 1948.
A word about that year, 1948, the year of Israel’s War of Independence and the Palestinian Nakba (“Catastrophe”), which in decolonization discourse amounted to ethnic cleansing. There was indeed intense ethnic violence on both sides when Arab states invaded the territory and, together with Palestinian militias, tried to stop the creation of a Jewish state. They failed; what they ultimately stopped was the creation of a Palestinian state, as intended by the United Nations. The Arab side sought the killing or expulsion of the entire Jewish community—in precisely the murderous ways we saw on October 7. And in the areas the Arab side did capture, such as East Jerusalem, every Jew was expelled.
In this brutal war, Israelis did indeed drive some Palestinians from their homes; others fled the fighting; yet others stayed and are now Israeli Arabs who have the vote in the Israeli democracy. (Some 25 percent of today’s Israelis are Arabs and Druze.) About 700,000 Palestinians lost their homes. That is an enormous figure and a historic tragedy. Starting in 1948, some 900,000 Jews lost their homes in Islamic countries and most of them moved to Israel. These events are not directly comparable, and I don’t mean to propose a competition in tragedy or hierarchy of victimhood. But the past is a lot more complicated than the decolonizers would have you believe.
Out of this imbroglio, one state emerged, Israel, and one did not, Palestine. Its formation is long overdue.
It is bizarre that a small state in the Middle East attracts so much passionate attention in the West that students run through California schools shouting “Free Palestine.” But the Holy Land has an exceptional place in Western history. It is embedded in our cultural consciousness, thanks to the Hebrew and Christian Bibles, the story of Judaism, the foundation of Christianity, the Quran and the creation of Islam, and the Crusades that together have made Westerners feel involved in its destiny. The British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, the real architect of the Balfour Declaration, used to say that the names of places in Palestine “were more familiar to me than those on the Western Front.” This special affinity with the Holy Land initially worked in favor of the Jewish return, but lately it has worked against Israel. Westerners eager to expose the crimes of Euro-American imperialism but unable to offer a remedy have, often without real knowledge of the actual history, coalesced around Israel and Palestine as the world’s most vivid example of imperialist injustice.
The open world of liberal democracies—or the West, as it used to be called—is today polarized by paralyzed politics, petty but vicious cultural feuds about identity and gender, and guilt about historical successes and sins, a guilt that is bizarrely atoned for by showing sympathy for, even attraction to, enemies of our democratic values. In this scenario, Western democracies are always bad actors, hypocritical and neo-imperialist, while foreign autocracies or terror sects such as Hamas are enemies of imperialism and therefore sincere forces for good. In this topsy-turvy scenario, Israel is a living metaphor and penance for the sins of the West. The result is the intense scrutiny of Israel and the way it is judged, using standards rarely attained by any nation at war, including the United States.
But the decolonizing narrative is much worse than a study in double standards; it dehumanizes an entire nation and excuses, even celebrates, the murder of innocent civilians. As these past two weeks have shown, decolonization is now the authorized version of history in many of our schools and supposedly humanitarian institutions, and among artists and intellectuals. It is presented as history, but it is actually a caricature, zombie history with its arsenal of jargon—the sign of a coercive ideology, as Foucault argued—and its authoritarian narrative of villains and victims. And it only stands up in a landscape in which much of the real history is suppressed and in which all Western democracies are bad-faith actors. Although it lacks the sophistication of Marxist dialectic, its self-righteous moral certainty imposes a moral framework on a complex, intractable situation, which some may find consoling. Whenever you read a book or an article and it uses the phrase “settler-colonialist,” you are dealing with ideological polemic, not history.
Ultimately, this zombie narrative is a moral and political cul-de-sac that leads to slaughter and stalemate. That is no surprise, because it is based on sham history: “An invented past can never be used,” wrote James Baldwin. “It cracks and crumbles under the pressures of life like clay.”
Even when the word decolonization does not appear, this ideology is embedded in partisan media coverage of the conflict and suffuses recent condemnations of Israel. The student glee in response to the slaughter at Harvard, the University of Virginia, and other universities; the support for Hamas amongst artists and actors, along with the weaselly equivocations by leaders at some of America’s most famous research institutions, have displayed a shocking lack of morality, humanity, and basic decency.
One repellent example was an open letter signed by thousands of artists, including famous British actors such as Tilda Swinton and Steve Coogan. It warned against imminent Israel war crimes and totally ignored the casus belli: the slaughter of 1,400 people.
The journalist Deborah Ross wrote in a powerful Times of London article that she was “utterly, utterly floored” that the letter contained “no mention of Hamas” and no mention of the “kidnapping and murder of babies, children, grandparents, young people dancing peacefully at a peace festival. The lack of basic compassion and humanity, that’s what was so unbelievably flooring. Is it so difficult? To support and feel for Palestinian citizens … while also acknowledging the indisputable horror of the Hamas attacks?” Then she asked this thespian parade of moral nullities: “What does it solve, a letter like that? And why would anyone sign it?”
The Israel-Palestine conflict is desperately difficult to solve, and decolonization rhetoric makes even less likely the negotiated compromise that is the only way out.
Since its founding in 1987, Hamas has used the murder of civilians to spoil any chance of a two-state solution. In 1993, its suicide bombings of Israeli civilians were designed to destroy the two-state Olso Accords that recognized Israel and Palestine. This month, the Hamas terrorists unleashed their slaughter in part to undermine a peace with Saudi Arabia that would have improved Palestinian politics and standard of life, and reinvigorated Hamas’s sclerotic rival, the Palestinian Authority. In part, they served Iran to prevent the empowering of Saudi Arabia, and their atrocities were of course a spectacular trap to provoke Israeli overreaction. They are most probably getting their wish, but to do this they are cynically exploiting innocent Palestinian people as a sacrifice to political means, a second crime against civilians. In the same way, the decolonization ideology, with its denial of Israel’s right to exist and its people’s right to live safely, makes a Palestinian state less likely if not impossible.
The problem in our countries is easier to fix: Civic society and the shocked majority should now assert themselves. The radical follies of students should not alarm us overmuch; students are always thrilled by revolutionary extremes. But the indecent celebrations in London, Paris, and New York City, and the clear reluctance among leaders at major universities to condemn the killings, have exposed the cost of neglecting this issue and letting “decolonization” colonize our academy.
Parents and students can move to universities that are not led by equivocators and patrolled by deniers and ghouls; donors can withdraw their generosity en masse, and that is starting in the United States. Philanthropists can pull the funding of humanitarian foundations led by people who support war crimes against humanity (against victims selected by race). Audiences can easily decide not to watch films starring actors who ignore the killing of children; studios do not have to hire them. And in our academies, this poisonous ideology, followed by the malignant and foolish but also by the fashionable and well intentioned, has become a default position. It must forfeit its respectability, its lack of authenticity as history. Its moral nullity has been exposed for all to see.
Again, scholars, teachers, and our civil society, and the institutions that fund and regulate universities and charities, need to challenge a toxic, inhumane ideology that has no basis in the real history or present of the Holy Land, and that justifies otherwise rational people to excuse the dismemberment of babies.
Israel has done many harsh and bad things. Netanyahu’s government, the worst ever in Israeli history, as inept as it is immoral, promotes a maximalist ultranationalism that is both unacceptable and unwise. Everyone has the right to protest against Israel’s policies and actions but not to promote terror sects, the killing of civilians, and the spreading of menacing anti-Semitism.
The Palestinians have legitimate grievances and have endured much brutal injustice. But both of their political entities are utterly flawed: the Palestinian Authority, which rules 40 percent of the West Bank, is moribund, corrupt, inept, and generally disdained—and its leaders have been just as abysmal as those of Israel.
Hamas is a diabolical killing sect that hides among civilians, whom it sacrifices on the altar of resistance—as moderate Arab voices have openly stated in recent days, and much more harshly than Hamas’s apologists in the West. “I categorically condemn Hamas’s targeting of civilians,” the Saudi veteran statesman Prince Turki bin Faisal movingly declared last week. “I also condemn Hamas for giving the higher moral ground to an Israeli government that is universally shunned even by half of the Israeli public … I condemn Hamas for sabotaging the attempt of Saudi Arabia to reach a peaceful resolution to the plight of the Palestinian people.” In an interview with Khaled Meshaal, a member of the Hamas politburo, the Arab journalist Rasha Nabil highlighted Hamas’s sacrifice of its own people for its political interests. Meshaal argued that this was just the cost of resistance: “Thirty million Russians died to defeat Germany,” he said.
Nabil stands as an example to Western journalists who scarcely dare challenge Hamas and its massacres. Nothing is more patronizing and even Orientalist than the romanticization of Hamas’s butchers, whom many Arabs despise. The denial of their atrocities by so many in the West is an attempt to fashion acceptable heroes out of an organization that dismembers babies and defiles the bodies of murdered girls. This is an attempt to save Hamas from itself. Perhaps the West’s Hamas apologists should listen to moderate Arab voices instead of a fundamentalist terror sect.
Hamas’s atrocities place it, like the Islamic State and al-Qaeda, as an abomination beyond tolerance. Israel, like any state, has the right to defend itself, but it must do so with great care and minimal civilian loss, and it will be hard even with a full military incursion to destroy Hamas. Meanwhile, Israel must curb its injustices in the West Bank—or risk destroying itself— because ultimately it must negotiate with moderate Palestinians.
So the war unfolds tragically. As I write this, the pounding of Gaza is killing Palestinian children every day, and that is unbearable. As Israel still grieves its losses and buries its children, we deplore the killing of Israeli civilians just as we deplore the killing of Palestinian civilians. We reject Hamas, evil and unfit to govern, but we do not mistake Hamas for the Palestinian people, whose losses we mourn as we mourn the death of all innocents.
In the wider span of history, sometimes terrible events can shake fortified positions: Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin made peace after the Yom Kippur War; Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat made peace after the Intifada. The diabolical crimes of October 7 will never be forgotten, but perhaps, in the years to come, after the scattering of Hamas, after Netanyahuism is just a catastrophic memory, Israelis and Palestinians will draw the borders of their states, tempered by 75 years of killing and stunned by one weekend’s Hamas butchery, into mutual recognition. There is no other way.
Simon Sebag Montefiore is the author of Jerusalem: The Biography and most recently The World: A Family History of Humanity.
FWIW, this by Jonathan Freedland is in today’s Grauniad, headlined “The tragedy of the Israel-Palestine conflict is this: underneath all the horror is a clash of two just causes – This isn’t a contest of heroes and villains – but two peoples in deep pain, fated to share the same land”: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/27/tragedy-israel-palestine-conflict-horror
Also I have just been forwarded this by someone who was a few days ago making the same headline point to me as Sebag Montefiore makes in this Atlantic piece. I let my Atlantic sub lapse, so for anyone interested, here it is. I have not read it yet, but as described to me it sounds well worth the read: The Decolonization Narrative Is Dangerous and False
It does not accurately describe either the foundation of Israel or the tragedy of the Palestinians.
By Simon Sebag Montefiore
Peace in the israel-palestine conflict had already been difficult to achieve before Hamas’s barbarous October 7 attack and Israel’s military response. Now it seems almost impossible, but its essence is clearer than ever: Ultimately, a negotiation to establish a safe Israel beside a safe Palestinian state.
Whatever the enormous complexities and challenges of bringing about this future, one truth should be obvious among decent people: killing 1,400 people and kidnapping more than 200, including scores of civilians, was deeply wrong. The Hamas attack resembled a medieval Mongol raid for slaughter and human trophies—except it was recorded in real time and published to social media. Yet since October 7, Western academics, students, artists, and activists have denied, excused, or even celebrated the murders by a terrorist sect that proclaims an anti-Jewish genocidal program. Some of this is happening out in the open, some behind the masks of humanitarianism and justice, and some in code, most famously “from the river to the sea,” a chilling phrase that implicitly endorses the killing or deportation of the 9 million Israelis. It seems odd that one has to say: Killing civilians, old people, even babies, is always wrong. But today say it one must.
How can educated people justify such callousness and embrace such inhumanity? All sorts of things are at play here, but much of the justification for killing civilians is based on a fashionable ideology, “decolonization,” which, taken at face value, rules out the negotiation of two states—the only real solution to this century of conflict—and is as dangerous as it is false.
I always wondered about the leftist intellectuals who supported Stalin, and those aristocratic sympathizers and peace activists who excused Hitler. Today’s Hamas apologists and atrocity-deniers, with their robotic denunciations of “settler-colonialism,” belong to the same tradition but worse: They have abundant evidence of the slaughter of old people, teenagers, and children, but unlike those fools of the 1930s, who slowly came around to the truth, they have not changed their views an iota. The lack of decency and respect for human life is astonishing: Almost instantly after the Hamas attack, a legion of people emerged who downplayed the slaughter, or denied actual atrocities had even happened, as if Hamas had just carried out a traditional military operation against soldiers. October 7 deniers, like Holocaust deniers, exist in an especially dark place.
The decolonization narrative has dehumanized Israelis to the extent that otherwise rational people excuse, deny, or support barbarity. It holds that Israel is an “imperialist-colonialist” force, that Israelis are “settler-colonialists,” and that Palestinians have a right to eliminate their oppressors. (On October 7, we all learned what that meant.) It casts Israelis as “white” or “white-adjacent” and Palestinians as “people of color.”
This ideology, powerful in the academy but long overdue for serious challenge, is a toxic, historically nonsensical mix of Marxist theory, Soviet propaganda, and traditional anti-Semitism from the Middle Ages and the 19th century. But its current engine is the new identity analysis, which sees history through a concept of race that derives from the American experience. The argument is that it is almost impossible for the “oppressed” to be themselves racist, just as it is impossible for an “oppressor” to be the subject of racism. Jews therefore cannot suffer racism, because they are regarded as “white” and “privileged”; although they cannot be victims, they can and do exploit other, less privileged people, in the West through the sins of “exploitative capitalism” and in the Middle East through “colonialism.”
This leftist analysis, with its hierarchy of oppressed identities—and intimidating jargon, a clue to its lack of factual rigor—has in many parts of the academy and media replaced traditional universalist leftist values, including internationalist standards of decency and respect for human life and the safety of innocent civilians. When this clumsy analysis collides with the realities of the Middle East, it loses all touch with historical facts.
Indeed, it requires an astonishing leap of ahistorical delusion to disregard the record of anti-Jewish racism over the two millennia since the fall of the Judean Temple in 70 C.E. After all, the October 7 massacre ranks with the medieval mass killings of Jews in Christian and Islamic societies, the Khmelnytsky massacres of 1640s Ukraine, Russian pogroms from 1881 to 1920—and the Holocaust. Even the Holocaust is now sometimes misconstrued—as the actor Whoopi Goldberg notoriously did—as being “not about race,” an approach as ignorant as it is repulsive.
Contrary to the decolonizing narrative, Gaza is not technically occupied by Israel—not in the usual sense of soldiers on the ground. Israel evacuated the Strip in 2005, removing its settlements. In 2007, Hamas seized power, killing its Fatah rivals in a short civil war. Hamas set up a one-party state that crushes Palestinian opposition within its territory, bans same-sex relationships, represses women, and openly espouses the killing of all Jews.
Very strange company for leftists.
Of course, some protesters chanting “from the river to the sea” may have no idea what they’re calling for; they are ignorant and believe that they are simply endorsing “freedom.” Others deny that they are pro-Hamas, insisting that they are simply pro-Palestinian—but feel the need to cast Hamas’s massacre as an understandable response to Israeli-Jewish “colonial” oppression. Yet others are malign deniers who seek the death of Israeli civilians.
The toxicity of this ideology is now clear. Once-respectable intellectuals have shamelessly debated whether 40 babies were dismembered or some smaller number merely had their throats cut or were burned alive. Students now regularly tear down posters of children held as Hamas hostages. It is hard to understand such heartless inhumanity. Our definition of a hate crime is constantly expanding, but if this is not a hate crime, what is? What is happening in our societies? Something has gone wrong.
In a further racist twist, Jews are now accused of the very crimes they themselves have suffered. Hence the constant claim of a “genocide” when no genocide has taken place or been intended. Israel, with Egypt, has imposed a blockade on Gaza since Hamas took over, and has periodically bombarded the Strip in retaliation for regular rocket attacks. After more than 4,000 rockets were fired by Hamas and its allies into Israel, the 2014 Gaza War resulted in more than 2,000 Palestinian deaths. More than 7,000 Palestinians, including many children, have died so far in this war, according to Hamas. This is a tragedy—but this is not a genocide, a word that has now been so devalued by its metaphorical abuse that it has become meaningless.
I should also say that Israeli rule of the Occupied Territories of the West Bank is different and, to my mind, unacceptable, unsustainable, and unjust. The Palestinians in the West Bank have endured a harsh, unjust, and oppressive occupation since 1967. Settlers under the disgraceful Netanyahu government have harassed and persecuted Palestinians in the West Bank: 146 Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem were killed in 2022 and at least 153 in 2023 before the Hamas attack, and more than 90 since. Again: This is appalling and unacceptable, but not genocide.
Although there is a strong instinct to make this a Holocaust-mirroring “genocide,” it is not: The Palestinians suffer from many things, including military occupation; settler intimidation and violence; corrupt Palestinian political leadership; callous neglect by their brethren in more than 20 Arab states; the rejection by Yasser Arafat, the late Palestinian leader, of compromise plans that would have seen the creation of an independent Palestinian state; and so on. None of this constitutes genocide, or anything like genocide. The Israeli goal in Gaza—for practical reasons, among others—is to minimize the number of Palestinian civilians killed. Hamas and like-minded organizations have made it abundantly clear over the years that maximizing the number of Palestinian casualties is in their strategic interest. (Put aside all of this and consider: The world Jewish population is still smaller than it was in 1939, because of the damage done by the Nazis. The Palestinian population has grown, and continues to grow. Demographic shrinkage is one obvious marker of genocide. In total, roughly 120,000 Arabs and Jews have been killed in the conflict over Palestine and Israel since 1860. By contrast, at least 500,000 people, mainly civilians, have been killed in the Syrian civil war since it began in 2011.)
If the ideology of decolonization, taught in our universities as a theory of history and shouted in our streets as self-evidently righteous, badly misconstrues the present reality, does it reflect the history of Israel as it claims to do? It does not. Indeed, it does not accurately describe either the foundation of Israel or the tragedy of the Palestinians.
According to the decolonizers, Israel is and always has been an illegitimate freak-state because it was fostered by the British empire and because some of its founders were European-born Jews.
In this narrative, Israel is tainted by imperial Britain’s broken promise to deliver Arab independence, and its kept promise to support a “national home for the Jewish people,” in the language of the 1917 Balfour Declaration. But the supposed promise to Arabs was in fact an ambiguous 1915 agreement with Sharif Hussein of Mecca, who wanted his Hashemite family to rule the entire region. In part, he did not receive this new empire because his family had much less regional support than he claimed. Nonetheless, ultimately Britain delivered three kingdoms—Iraq, Jordan, and Hejaz—to the family.
The imperial powers—Britain and France—made all sorts of promises to different peoples, and then put their own interests first. Those promises to the Jews and the Arabs during World War I were typical. Afterward, similar promises were made to the Kurds, the Armenians, and others, none of which came to fruition. But the central narrative that Britain betrayed the Arab promise and backed the Jewish one is incomplete. In the 1930s, Britain turned against Zionism, and from 1937 to 1939 moved toward an Arab state with no Jewish one at all. It was an armed Jewish revolt, from 1945 to 1948 against imperial Britain, that delivered the state.
Israel exists thanks to this revolt, and to international law and cooperation, something leftists once believed in. The idea of a Jewish “homeland” was proposed in three declarations by Britain (signed by Balfour), France, and the United States, then promulgated in a July 1922 resolution by the League of Nations that created the British “mandates” over Palestine and Iraq that matched French “mandates” over Syria and Lebanon. In 1947, the United Nations devised the partition of the British mandate of Palestine into two states, Arab and Jewish.
The carving of such states out of these mandates was not exceptional, either. At the end of World War II, France granted independence to Syria and Lebanon, newly conceived nation-states. Britain created Iraq and Jordan in a similar way. Imperial powers designed most of the countries in the region, except Egypt.
Nor was the imperial promise of separate homelands for different ethnicities or sects unique. The French had promised independent states for the Druze, Alawites, Sunnis, and Maronites but in the end combined them into Syria and Lebanon. All of these states had been “vilayets” and “sanjaks” (provinces) of the Turkish Ottoman empire, ruled from Constantinople, from 1517 until 1918.
The concept of “partition” is, in the decolonization narrative, regarded as a wicked imperial trick. But it was entirely normal in the creation of 20th-century nation-states, which were typically fashioned out of fallen empires. And sadly, the creation of nation-states was frequently marked by population swaps, huge refugee migrations, ethnic violence, and full-scale wars. Think of the Greco-Turkish war of 1921–22 or the partition of India in 1947. In this sense, Israel-Palestine was typical.
At the heart of decolonization ideology is the categorization of all Israelis, historic and present, as “colonists.” This is simply wrong. Most Israelis are descended from people who migrated to the Holy Land from 1881 to 1949. They were not completely new to the region. The Jewish people ruled Judean kingdoms and prayed in the Jerusalem Temple for a thousand years, then were ever present there in smaller numbers for the next 2,000 years. In other words, Jews are indigenous in the Holy Land, and if one believes in the return of exiled people to their homeland, then the return of the Jews is exactly that. Even those who deny this history or regard it as irrelevant to modern times must acknowledge that Israel is now the home and only home of 9 million Israelis who have lived there for four, five, six generations.
Most migrants to, say, the United Kingdom or the United States are regarded as British or American within a lifetime. Politics in both countries is filled with prominent leaders—Suella Braverman and David Lammy, Kamala Harris and Nikki Haley—whose parents or grandparents migrated from India, West Africa, or South America. No one would describe them as “settlers.” Yet Israeli families resident in Israel for a century are designated as “settler-colonists” ripe for murder and mutilation. And contrary to Hamas apologists, the ethnicity of perpetrators or victims never justifies atrocities. They would be atrocious anywhere, committed by anyone with any history. It is dismaying that it is often self-declared “anti-racists” who are now advocating exactly this murder by ethnicity.
Those on the left believe migrants who escape from persecution should be welcomed and allowed to build their lives elsewhere. Almost all of the ancestors of today’s Israelis escaped persecution.
If the “settler-colonist” narrative is not true, it is true that the conflict is the result of the brutal rivalry and battle for land between two ethnic groups, both with rightful claims to live there. As more Jews moved to the region, the Palestinian Arabs, who had lived there for centuries and were the clear majority, felt threatened by these immigrants. The Palestinian claim to the land is not in doubt, nor is the authenticity of their history, nor their legitimate claim to their own state. But initially the Jewish migrants did not aspire to a state, merely to live and farm in the vague “homeland.” In 1918, the Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann met the Hashemite Prince Faisal Bin Hussein to discuss the Jews living under his rule as king of greater Syria. The conflict today was not inevitable. It became so as the communities refused to share and coexist, and then resorted to arms.
Even more preposterous than the “colonizer” label is the “whiteness” trope that is key to the decolonization ideology. Again: simply wrong. Israel has a large community of Ethiopian Jews, and about half of all Israelis—that is, about 5 million people—are Mizrahi, the descendants of Jews from Arab and Persian lands, people of the Middle East. They are neither “settlers” nor “colonialists” nor “white” Europeans at all but inhabitants of Baghdad and Cairo and Beirut for many centuries, even millennia, who were driven out after 1948.
A word about that year, 1948, the year of Israel’s War of Independence and the Palestinian Nakba (“Catastrophe”), which in decolonization discourse amounted to ethnic cleansing. There was indeed intense ethnic violence on both sides when Arab states invaded the territory and, together with Palestinian militias, tried to stop the creation of a Jewish state. They failed; what they ultimately stopped was the creation of a Palestinian state, as intended by the United Nations. The Arab side sought the killing or expulsion of the entire Jewish community—in precisely the murderous ways we saw on October 7. And in the areas the Arab side did capture, such as East Jerusalem, every Jew was expelled.
In this brutal war, Israelis did indeed drive some Palestinians from their homes; others fled the fighting; yet others stayed and are now Israeli Arabs who have the vote in the Israeli democracy. (Some 25 percent of today’s Israelis are Arabs and Druze.) About 700,000 Palestinians lost their homes. That is an enormous figure and a historic tragedy. Starting in 1948, some 900,000 Jews lost their homes in Islamic countries and most of them moved to Israel. These events are not directly comparable, and I don’t mean to propose a competition in tragedy or hierarchy of victimhood. But the past is a lot more complicated than the decolonizers would have you believe.
Out of this imbroglio, one state emerged, Israel, and one did not, Palestine. Its formation is long overdue.
It is bizarre that a small state in the Middle East attracts so much passionate attention in the West that students run through California schools shouting “Free Palestine.” But the Holy Land has an exceptional place in Western history. It is embedded in our cultural consciousness, thanks to the Hebrew and Christian Bibles, the story of Judaism, the foundation of Christianity, the Quran and the creation of Islam, and the Crusades that together have made Westerners feel involved in its destiny. The British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, the real architect of the Balfour Declaration, used to say that the names of places in Palestine “were more familiar to me than those on the Western Front.” This special affinity with the Holy Land initially worked in favor of the Jewish return, but lately it has worked against Israel. Westerners eager to expose the crimes of Euro-American imperialism but unable to offer a remedy have, often without real knowledge of the actual history, coalesced around Israel and Palestine as the world’s most vivid example of imperialist injustice.
The open world of liberal democracies—or the West, as it used to be called—is today polarized by paralyzed politics, petty but vicious cultural feuds about identity and gender, and guilt about historical successes and sins, a guilt that is bizarrely atoned for by showing sympathy for, even attraction to, enemies of our democratic values. In this scenario, Western democracies are always bad actors, hypocritical and neo-imperialist, while foreign autocracies or terror sects such as Hamas are enemies of imperialism and therefore sincere forces for good. In this topsy-turvy scenario, Israel is a living metaphor and penance for the sins of the West. The result is the intense scrutiny of Israel and the way it is judged, using standards rarely attained by any nation at war, including the United States.
But the decolonizing narrative is much worse than a study in double standards; it dehumanizes an entire nation and excuses, even celebrates, the murder of innocent civilians. As these past two weeks have shown, decolonization is now the authorized version of history in many of our schools and supposedly humanitarian institutions, and among artists and intellectuals. It is presented as history, but it is actually a caricature, zombie history with its arsenal of jargon—the sign of a coercive ideology, as Foucault argued—and its authoritarian narrative of villains and victims. And it only stands up in a landscape in which much of the real history is suppressed and in which all Western democracies are bad-faith actors. Although it lacks the sophistication of Marxist dialectic, its self-righteous moral certainty imposes a moral framework on a complex, intractable situation, which some may find consoling. Whenever you read a book or an article and it uses the phrase “settler-colonialist,” you are dealing with ideological polemic, not history.
Ultimately, this zombie narrative is a moral and political cul-de-sac that leads to slaughter and stalemate. That is no surprise, because it is based on sham history: “An invented past can never be used,” wrote James Baldwin. “It cracks and crumbles under the pressures of life like clay.”
Even when the word decolonization does not appear, this ideology is embedded in partisan media coverage of the conflict and suffuses recent condemnations of Israel. The student glee in response to the slaughter at Harvard, the University of Virginia, and other universities; the support for Hamas amongst artists and actors, along with the weaselly equivocations by leaders at some of America’s most famous research institutions, have displayed a shocking lack of morality, humanity, and basic decency.
One repellent example was an open letter signed by thousands of artists, including famous British actors such as Tilda Swinton and Steve Coogan. It warned against imminent Israel war crimes and totally ignored the casus belli: the slaughter of 1,400 people.
The journalist Deborah Ross wrote in a powerful Times of London article that she was “utterly, utterly floored” that the letter contained “no mention of Hamas” and no mention of the “kidnapping and murder of babies, children, grandparents, young people dancing peacefully at a peace festival. The lack of basic compassion and humanity, that’s what was so unbelievably flooring. Is it so difficult? To support and feel for Palestinian citizens … while also acknowledging the indisputable horror of the Hamas attacks?” Then she asked this thespian parade of moral nullities: “What does it solve, a letter like that? And why would anyone sign it?”
The Israel-Palestine conflict is desperately difficult to solve, and decolonization rhetoric makes even less likely the negotiated compromise that is the only way out.
Since its founding in 1987, Hamas has used the murder of civilians to spoil any chance of a two-state solution. In 1993, its suicide bombings of Israeli civilians were designed to destroy the two-state Olso Accords that recognized Israel and Palestine. This month, the Hamas terrorists unleashed their slaughter in part to undermine a peace with Saudi Arabia that would have improved Palestinian politics and standard of life, and reinvigorated Hamas’s sclerotic rival, the Palestinian Authority. In part, they served Iran to prevent the empowering of Saudi Arabia, and their atrocities were of course a spectacular trap to provoke Israeli overreaction. They are most probably getting their wish, but to do this they are cynically exploiting innocent Palestinian people as a sacrifice to political means, a second crime against civilians. In the same way, the decolonization ideology, with its denial of Israel’s right to exist and its people’s right to live safely, makes a Palestinian state less likely if not impossible.
The problem in our countries is easier to fix: Civic society and the shocked majority should now assert themselves. The radical follies of students should not alarm us overmuch; students are always thrilled by revolutionary extremes. But the indecent celebrations in London, Paris, and New York City, and the clear reluctance among leaders at major universities to condemn the killings, have exposed the cost of neglecting this issue and letting “decolonization” colonize our academy.
Parents and students can move to universities that are not led by equivocators and patrolled by deniers and ghouls; donors can withdraw their generosity en masse, and that is starting in the United States. Philanthropists can pull the funding of humanitarian foundations led by people who support war crimes against humanity (against victims selected by race). Audiences can easily decide not to watch films starring actors who ignore the killing of children; studios do not have to hire them. And in our academies, this poisonous ideology, followed by the malignant and foolish but also by the fashionable and well intentioned, has become a default position. It must forfeit its respectability, its lack of authenticity as history. Its moral nullity has been exposed for all to see.
Again, scholars, teachers, and our civil society, and the institutions that fund and regulate universities and charities, need to challenge a toxic, inhumane ideology that has no basis in the real history or present of the Holy Land, and that justifies otherwise rational people to excuse the dismemberment of babies.
Israel has done many harsh and bad things. Netanyahu’s government, the worst ever in Israeli history, as inept as it is immoral, promotes a maximalist ultranationalism that is both unacceptable and unwise. Everyone has the right to protest against Israel’s policies and actions but not to promote terror sects, the killing of civilians, and the spreading of menacing anti-Semitism.
The Palestinians have legitimate grievances and have endured much brutal injustice. But both of their political entities are utterly flawed: the Palestinian Authority, which rules 40 percent of the West Bank, is moribund, corrupt, inept, and generally disdained—and its leaders have been just as abysmal as those of Israel.
Hamas is a diabolical killing sect that hides among civilians, whom it sacrifices on the altar of resistance—as moderate Arab voices have openly stated in recent days, and much more harshly than Hamas’s apologists in the West. “I categorically condemn Hamas’s targeting of civilians,” the Saudi veteran statesman Prince Turki bin Faisal movingly declared last week. “I also condemn Hamas for giving the higher moral ground to an Israeli government that is universally shunned even by half of the Israeli public … I condemn Hamas for sabotaging the attempt of Saudi Arabia to reach a peaceful resolution to the plight of the Palestinian people.” In an interview with Khaled Meshaal, a member of the Hamas politburo, the Arab journalist Rasha Nabil highlighted Hamas’s sacrifice of its own people for its political interests. Meshaal argued that this was just the cost of resistance: “Thirty million Russians died to defeat Germany,” he said.
Nabil stands as an example to Western journalists who scarcely dare challenge Hamas and its massacres. Nothing is more patronizing and even Orientalist than the romanticization of Hamas’s butchers, whom many Arabs despise. The denial of their atrocities by so many in the West is an attempt to fashion acceptable heroes out of an organization that dismembers babies and defiles the bodies of murdered girls. This is an attempt to save Hamas from itself. Perhaps the West’s Hamas apologists should listen to moderate Arab voices instead of a fundamentalist terror sect.
Hamas’s atrocities place it, like the Islamic State and al-Qaeda, as an abomination beyond tolerance. Israel, like any state, has the right to defend itself, but it must do so with great care and minimal civilian loss, and it will be hard even with a full military incursion to destroy Hamas. Meanwhile, Israel must curb its injustices in the West Bank—or risk destroying itself— because ultimately it must negotiate with moderate Palestinians.
So the war unfolds tragically. As I write this, the pounding of Gaza is killing Palestinian children every day, and that is unbearable. As Israel still grieves its losses and buries its children, we deplore the killing of Israeli civilians just as we deplore the killing of Palestinian civilians. We reject Hamas, evil and unfit to govern, but we do not mistake Hamas for the Palestinian people, whose losses we mourn as we mourn the death of all innocents.
In the wider span of history, sometimes terrible events can shake fortified positions: Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin made peace after the Yom Kippur War; Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat made peace after the Intifada. The diabolical crimes of October 7 will never be forgotten, but perhaps, in the years to come, after the scattering of Hamas, after Netanyahuism is just a catastrophic memory, Israelis and Palestinians will draw the borders of their states, tempered by 75 years of killing and stunned by one weekend’s Hamas butchery, into mutual recognition. There is no other way.
Simon Sebag Montefiore is the author of Jerusalem: The Biography and most recently The World: A Family History of Humanity.
how Israel with its nukes will react if a large number of Hezbollah missiles gets through and Iran is in the fight,
Israel’s problem, for decades now, is that there isn’t really another country threatening to attack it.
Yes, Iran is supporting Hezbollah. Just like the US is supporting Ukraine. But using that as an excuse to start lobbing nukes around is ridiculous. (Not to say that Netanyahu might not try it, if his personal position gets too dicey. But that decision won’t have anything to do with Israel’s situation.)
No, Israel’s actual enemy is right next door, where a nuke would be every by as dangerous to Israel’s people as to its enemy. In short, suicidal.
how Israel with its nukes will react if a large number of Hezbollah missiles gets through and Iran is in the fight,
Israel’s problem, for decades now, is that there isn’t really another country threatening to attack it.
Yes, Iran is supporting Hezbollah. Just like the US is supporting Ukraine. But using that as an excuse to start lobbing nukes around is ridiculous. (Not to say that Netanyahu might not try it, if his personal position gets too dicey. But that decision won’t have anything to do with Israel’s situation.)
No, Israel’s actual enemy is right next door, where a nuke would be every by as dangerous to Israel’s people as to its enemy. In short, suicidal.
I couldn’t finish the Montefiore piece. I found it to be dehumanizing, exactly the same as the subset of the left who praised Hamas’s mass murder. Hamas’s action that day will rank as one of the worst pogroms in history.
But I won’t go through the rest of his essay. Lumping all people who favored a 1ss as in the same category as Hamas apologists is racist crap. You can disagree with the realism, but at this stage every decent solution has been made impossible by both Hamas and the long string of murders and brutalities committed by Israel in the course of keeping Palestinians under their thumb while stealing more land. The 2ss has been a joke for years. Israel kept building settlements. The West was perfectly willing to overlook this. Biden was. Now the decent liberals, who see themselves as morally superior to the idiot leftists who admire Hamas, think they can crush Hamas and kill untold numbers of Palestinian civilians and then they will make up for it by working hard to reach a two state solution.
Palestinians will spit in their faces. I say this on the basis that I would. What the West has done and is supporting now is unforgivable.
There are decent and sometimes genuinely heroic people on both sides and plenty of innocent victims, the latter group increasing in numbers by the minute. And there is no realistic decent solution in the short run in large part because of Hamas, but also because of all the Westerners who were content to look the other way and make noises about a 2ss while Israel continued to build settlements with no consequences whatsoever. And who excuse carpet bombing, the cutting of power, and also the cutting of communication as the bombing increases.
Ceasefire AND hostage release now. Then ICC investigation into both sides. But the noble West won’t allow that. The West is comprised of civilized folk, the people who have the right to justice on behalf of Western victims, even if that justice causes vastly larger numbers of innocent deaths on the other side and never mind that the civilized West cheerfully overlooked the murder of unarmed Palestinian demonstrators as a matter of routine. Accountability is to be imposed by the civilized on the savages.
And even if you disagree with this, is it hard to imagine what Palestinians will think? Including all those who hated Hamas before Oct 7, who see the Western world lining up with the country that is killing entire families? There is now a term Palestinian doctors use for a child who is the only surviving member of his or her family.
I couldn’t finish the Montefiore piece. I found it to be dehumanizing, exactly the same as the subset of the left who praised Hamas’s mass murder. Hamas’s action that day will rank as one of the worst pogroms in history.
But I won’t go through the rest of his essay. Lumping all people who favored a 1ss as in the same category as Hamas apologists is racist crap. You can disagree with the realism, but at this stage every decent solution has been made impossible by both Hamas and the long string of murders and brutalities committed by Israel in the course of keeping Palestinians under their thumb while stealing more land. The 2ss has been a joke for years. Israel kept building settlements. The West was perfectly willing to overlook this. Biden was. Now the decent liberals, who see themselves as morally superior to the idiot leftists who admire Hamas, think they can crush Hamas and kill untold numbers of Palestinian civilians and then they will make up for it by working hard to reach a two state solution.
Palestinians will spit in their faces. I say this on the basis that I would. What the West has done and is supporting now is unforgivable.
There are decent and sometimes genuinely heroic people on both sides and plenty of innocent victims, the latter group increasing in numbers by the minute. And there is no realistic decent solution in the short run in large part because of Hamas, but also because of all the Westerners who were content to look the other way and make noises about a 2ss while Israel continued to build settlements with no consequences whatsoever. And who excuse carpet bombing, the cutting of power, and also the cutting of communication as the bombing increases.
Ceasefire AND hostage release now. Then ICC investigation into both sides. But the noble West won’t allow that. The West is comprised of civilized folk, the people who have the right to justice on behalf of Western victims, even if that justice causes vastly larger numbers of innocent deaths on the other side and never mind that the civilized West cheerfully overlooked the murder of unarmed Palestinian demonstrators as a matter of routine. Accountability is to be imposed by the civilized on the savages.
And even if you disagree with this, is it hard to imagine what Palestinians will think? Including all those who hated Hamas before Oct 7, who see the Western world lining up with the country that is killing entire families? There is now a term Palestinian doctors use for a child who is the only surviving member of his or her family.
Sadly, I concur, Donald.
I’d love to change the world, but I don’t know what to do. If only there were someone we *could* leave it all up to.
Sadly, I concur, Donald.
I’d love to change the world, but I don’t know what to do. If only there were someone we *could* leave it all up to.
Donald, I agree with almost every word you say. I am still getting through the SSM piece, interrupted by various things going on here, but when you say Lumping all people who favored a 1ss as in the same category as Hamas apologists is racist crap.
can you point me to where he says something like this?
Donald, I agree with almost every word you say. I am still getting through the SSM piece, interrupted by various things going on here, but when you say Lumping all people who favored a 1ss as in the same category as Hamas apologists is racist crap.
can you point me to where he says something like this?
Donald, are you missing a sentence? After the last one I expected one naming the term. I tried to google for it but there were just too man hits describing the general situation.
Donald, are you missing a sentence? After the last one I expected one naming the term. I tried to google for it but there were just too man hits describing the general situation.
Oh, Gftnc, I don’t want to sound like I am snapping at you. But I have had it with mainstream Western views in this subject. The subset of the far left that applauds Hamas needs to be called out and condemned, but the overwhelming majority of people doing it need to read some Palestinian views, which cover a range of views. And they really need to be honest about what many Israeli officials have said, along with many of their supporters. The vileness on that side is as great as it is in the pro Hamas side. I
Nous— agreed. I want a ceasefire and hostage release. No idea if that is possible. Beyond that, everybody including me is smoking something.
Wj—
I am not sure if Hezbollah will or won’t be deterred, along with Iran. If there is a ground invasion and casualties skyrocket, they might. I have no idea if the Hezbollah arsenal can get through Iron dome. Supposing large numbers of rockets do. Israel will do the same to Lebanon. Maybe Iran if Iran gets in, or they will expect us to do it.
It isn’t that hard to imagine going up the escalation ladder. How far up depends on how much damage Hezbollah can do. I hope they and the Iranians are content to do small scale things and be deterred.. But who exactly saw Hamas , taking Israel by complete surprise and killing 1400 people? They probably assumed they would have allies. Maybe they will.
Also, I don’t expect world leaders to be unfailingly rational. It is one if the insane things about nuclear weapons. We just assume that people will always be rational and nobody will make a mistake. We go through the Cold War by luck at a couple of points. Thinking nuclear was is unlikely based on that is reasoning that is flawed by a self selection effect.
Oh, Gftnc, I don’t want to sound like I am snapping at you. But I have had it with mainstream Western views in this subject. The subset of the far left that applauds Hamas needs to be called out and condemned, but the overwhelming majority of people doing it need to read some Palestinian views, which cover a range of views. And they really need to be honest about what many Israeli officials have said, along with many of their supporters. The vileness on that side is as great as it is in the pro Hamas side. I
Nous— agreed. I want a ceasefire and hostage release. No idea if that is possible. Beyond that, everybody including me is smoking something.
Wj—
I am not sure if Hezbollah will or won’t be deterred, along with Iran. If there is a ground invasion and casualties skyrocket, they might. I have no idea if the Hezbollah arsenal can get through Iron dome. Supposing large numbers of rockets do. Israel will do the same to Lebanon. Maybe Iran if Iran gets in, or they will expect us to do it.
It isn’t that hard to imagine going up the escalation ladder. How far up depends on how much damage Hezbollah can do. I hope they and the Iranians are content to do small scale things and be deterred.. But who exactly saw Hamas , taking Israel by complete surprise and killing 1400 people? They probably assumed they would have allies. Maybe they will.
Also, I don’t expect world leaders to be unfailingly rational. It is one if the insane things about nuclear weapons. We just assume that people will always be rational and nobody will make a mistake. We go through the Cold War by luck at a couple of points. Thinking nuclear was is unlikely based on that is reasoning that is flawed by a self selection effect.
And the Iranians and others might decide that deterrence should go both ways. Which would be very very bad.
But then we would try to stop them. Which would also be very bad.
Our whole model for how to do things over there—make alliances between brutal Arab monarchies and Israel against Iran while just ignoring the Palestinians has the potential to be a dumber mistake than the Iraq War.
End of my ranting for the day. It is nice outside.
And the Iranians and others might decide that deterrence should go both ways. Which would be very very bad.
But then we would try to stop them. Which would also be very bad.
Our whole model for how to do things over there—make alliances between brutal Arab monarchies and Israel against Iran while just ignoring the Palestinians has the potential to be a dumber mistake than the Iraq War.
End of my ranting for the day. It is nice outside.
Donald, I did not and do not think you were snapping at me. And, as I say, I agree almost entirely with what you say. But I was curious about where SSM said anything like that; I am more than halfway through and do not think I have encountered it. Certainly, I and all my intimates are longstanding critics of long term Israeli policies, but criticism of the colonialism narrative seems worth contemplating, given how many states were created by the great powers in a similar high-handed way, and yet so few of them or their populations face calls for eradication.
Donald, I did not and do not think you were snapping at me. And, as I say, I agree almost entirely with what you say. But I was curious about where SSM said anything like that; I am more than halfway through and do not think I have encountered it. Certainly, I and all my intimates are longstanding critics of long term Israeli policies, but criticism of the colonialism narrative seems worth contemplating, given how many states were created by the great powers in a similar high-handed way, and yet so few of them or their populations face calls for eradication.
Hamas’s action that day will rank as one of the worst pogroms in history.
Donald, I agree with most of what you said. But this sentence is patently ridiculous. Even if you restrict yourself to the Nazis, it’s a stretch. And as you go further back you find even more mass murders of Jews. If, for completeness, you incluse the Gypsies (Roma), you find even more over time (including by the Nazis).
Then there is the genocide of the Tutsi in 1994 in Rwanda: 500,000 to 800,000 dead in 3 months. Or, today, the underreported ongoing genocide of the Rohingya in Myanmar.
Yes, what Hamas did was horrific. But it was a very long way from the worst pogroms in history.
Hamas’s action that day will rank as one of the worst pogroms in history.
Donald, I agree with most of what you said. But this sentence is patently ridiculous. Even if you restrict yourself to the Nazis, it’s a stretch. And as you go further back you find even more mass murders of Jews. If, for completeness, you incluse the Gypsies (Roma), you find even more over time (including by the Nazis).
Then there is the genocide of the Tutsi in 1994 in Rwanda: 500,000 to 800,000 dead in 3 months. Or, today, the underreported ongoing genocide of the Rohingya in Myanmar.
Yes, what Hamas did was horrific. But it was a very long way from the worst pogroms in history.
To re-emphasise, I can’t offhand think of anything Donald says in his last few comments with which I disagree. But, as a close friend of mine who has been working for years for Palestinian rights, and has put the Palestinian case to diplomats and politicians for years has just said to me, he hates the anti-colonialism argument because it merges into the intractability thesis. And I have replied to him that the latter is indeed a counsel of despair, but that the anti-colonialism argument should still be considered on its own merits. It is perfectly possible to condemn Israeli actions of the last few decades, in particular the purposeful expansion of the settlements with their attempts to alter facts on the ground, not to mention the widescale mistreatment of Palestinians, without buying into a currently convenient but not really applicable discourse of colonialism.
To re-emphasise, I can’t offhand think of anything Donald says in his last few comments with which I disagree. But, as a close friend of mine who has been working for years for Palestinian rights, and has put the Palestinian case to diplomats and politicians for years has just said to me, he hates the anti-colonialism argument because it merges into the intractability thesis. And I have replied to him that the latter is indeed a counsel of despair, but that the anti-colonialism argument should still be considered on its own merits. It is perfectly possible to condemn Israeli actions of the last few decades, in particular the purposeful expansion of the settlements with their attempts to alter facts on the ground, not to mention the widescale mistreatment of Palestinians, without buying into a currently convenient but not really applicable discourse of colonialism.
But it was a very long way from the worst pogroms in history.
I have to say, this was one of the very few things Donald said which gave me pause (although I believe from Israeli relatives that the footage of what happened in the kibbutzim is unbelievably terrible). Just as, and I think SSM makes this point, it is wrong to call what the Israelis are doing in Gaza genocide. War crimes almost certainly, collective punishment and astonishingly inhumane actions, but not genocide. Words have meanings and, as I have said before in less tortured situations, we must fight to retain the means to have meaningful discussion.
But it was a very long way from the worst pogroms in history.
I have to say, this was one of the very few things Donald said which gave me pause (although I believe from Israeli relatives that the footage of what happened in the kibbutzim is unbelievably terrible). Just as, and I think SSM makes this point, it is wrong to call what the Israelis are doing in Gaza genocide. War crimes almost certainly, collective punishment and astonishingly inhumane actions, but not genocide. Words have meanings and, as I have said before in less tortured situations, we must fight to retain the means to have meaningful discussion.
I’m not really interested in semantics at the moment, it’s the daily rising death toll that gives me pause, especially considering the fact that 40% of them are children.
I’m not really interested in semantics at the moment, it’s the daily rising death toll that gives me pause, especially considering the fact that 40% of them are children.
Not to forget the injured, especially since there’s no adequate health care anymore.
Not to forget the injured, especially since there’s no adequate health care anymore.
I couldn’t finish the Montefiore piece. I found it to be dehumanizing, exactly the same as the subset of the left who praised Hamas’s mass murder.
I read about half, and skimmed the rest as it was simply repeating points made in the first half (Israelis good. Palestinian/Arabs bad). I would agree with Donald’s overall assessment.
However, the anti-colonialism argument, as employed by some (you know those folks) does seem to have fatal flaws.
This conflict strikes me as more similar to the conquest and removal of the Native Americans from North America (it did take several hundred years as I recall), and frankly, I don’t have much hope for this one ultimately turning out much different than its predeccessor, with the only difference being near total displacement vs. utter decimation.
Call me a crazy idealist but given the sham that the two state solution has become, I still cling to the one state solution.
I couldn’t finish the Montefiore piece. I found it to be dehumanizing, exactly the same as the subset of the left who praised Hamas’s mass murder.
I read about half, and skimmed the rest as it was simply repeating points made in the first half (Israelis good. Palestinian/Arabs bad). I would agree with Donald’s overall assessment.
However, the anti-colonialism argument, as employed by some (you know those folks) does seem to have fatal flaws.
This conflict strikes me as more similar to the conquest and removal of the Native Americans from North America (it did take several hundred years as I recall), and frankly, I don’t have much hope for this one ultimately turning out much different than its predeccessor, with the only difference being near total displacement vs. utter decimation.
Call me a crazy idealist but given the sham that the two state solution has become, I still cling to the one state solution.
There are guys in Israel, some of them part of the government, who WANT a genocide and occasionally even revive the term ‘final solution’. But as of yet they are unable to get their way because any potential ally knows that they would not get away with it. I assume these guys are elated about the licence they got through Hamas’ actions to bomb and kill more or less at will. They probably hope that sooner or later Egypt will be forced to open the border and that they can then close it again behind the last Palestinian. And the Palestinians are unwilling to leave because they expect exactly that to happen. Sinai is not the Omaheke but Israel has its fair share of von Trothas.
That groups like Hamas have an official goal of genocide is well-known enough, so I mention it only for completeness sake. Both sides are quite happy to be able to point to the other side to justify their own barbaric acts, so on and on it goes.
And, unfortunately, both sides have a very strained relationship to the truth, so nothing either side claims should be taken as true without careful checking. And both sides go a long way to prevent exactly that since the radicals of both sides profit from having the zone shit-filled.
I see no way out and they want it that way.
There are guys in Israel, some of them part of the government, who WANT a genocide and occasionally even revive the term ‘final solution’. But as of yet they are unable to get their way because any potential ally knows that they would not get away with it. I assume these guys are elated about the licence they got through Hamas’ actions to bomb and kill more or less at will. They probably hope that sooner or later Egypt will be forced to open the border and that they can then close it again behind the last Palestinian. And the Palestinians are unwilling to leave because they expect exactly that to happen. Sinai is not the Omaheke but Israel has its fair share of von Trothas.
That groups like Hamas have an official goal of genocide is well-known enough, so I mention it only for completeness sake. Both sides are quite happy to be able to point to the other side to justify their own barbaric acts, so on and on it goes.
And, unfortunately, both sides have a very strained relationship to the truth, so nothing either side claims should be taken as true without careful checking. And both sides go a long way to prevent exactly that since the radicals of both sides profit from having the zone shit-filled.
I see no way out and they want it that way.
This conflict strikes me as more similar to the conquest and removal of the Native Americans from North America
John Chivington is alive and well and living in Israel, so to speak.
But unlike then there are actual savages calling the shots on the other side.
This conflict strikes me as more similar to the conquest and removal of the Native Americans from North America
John Chivington is alive and well and living in Israel, so to speak.
But unlike then there are actual savages calling the shots on the other side.
Two rhetorical points at which I would like to intervene in this conversation.
First, if we are going to try to qualify whether or not the term “genocide” is appropriate (in this, a non-legal context) we should pause to consider not just the meaning of the word, but also what political purpose it serves the try to bracket off that term, and whether the preferred alternatives do justice to the reality, and indifferent brutality, of the (largely one-sided) human suffering being perpetrated in the non-genocidal atrocities. None of the alternatives I’ve heard carry sufficient force to represent the horror, and thus they give cover to the perpetuation of these anti-human policies.
Even “apartheid” (a term rigorously applied to the policies by Eyal Weizman in his detailed and exhaustive study of the shrinking maps of Palestinian territories, and the policies of movement) seems a far more bloodless term than the appalling conditions in the Palestinian territories warrants.
I think we’ll find that if we do this, we will actually make it easier to condemn Hamas and support the innocent non-combatants, and maybe also open up some space to push back against the inhuman settlement policies that perpetuate the conflict.
Secondly, Anti-Colonialism is a wide and varied field that does (in my experience with the topic) a lot of careful and necessary work producing counter-narratives to the existing histories and their erasure of the violence of colonialism. If we are going to criticize “you know who” in these conversations, could we at the very least try to be more precise in what specific attitudes or moral stances we are opposing, and not turn “anti-colonial” into another empty propaganda term like “woke” or “CRT”? These conversations get entirely hollowed out by the culture war.
Two rhetorical points at which I would like to intervene in this conversation.
First, if we are going to try to qualify whether or not the term “genocide” is appropriate (in this, a non-legal context) we should pause to consider not just the meaning of the word, but also what political purpose it serves the try to bracket off that term, and whether the preferred alternatives do justice to the reality, and indifferent brutality, of the (largely one-sided) human suffering being perpetrated in the non-genocidal atrocities. None of the alternatives I’ve heard carry sufficient force to represent the horror, and thus they give cover to the perpetuation of these anti-human policies.
Even “apartheid” (a term rigorously applied to the policies by Eyal Weizman in his detailed and exhaustive study of the shrinking maps of Palestinian territories, and the policies of movement) seems a far more bloodless term than the appalling conditions in the Palestinian territories warrants.
I think we’ll find that if we do this, we will actually make it easier to condemn Hamas and support the innocent non-combatants, and maybe also open up some space to push back against the inhuman settlement policies that perpetuate the conflict.
Secondly, Anti-Colonialism is a wide and varied field that does (in my experience with the topic) a lot of careful and necessary work producing counter-narratives to the existing histories and their erasure of the violence of colonialism. If we are going to criticize “you know who” in these conversations, could we at the very least try to be more precise in what specific attitudes or moral stances we are opposing, and not turn “anti-colonial” into another empty propaganda term like “woke” or “CRT”? These conversations get entirely hollowed out by the culture war.
First, if we are going to try to qualify whether or not the term “genocide” is appropriate (in this, a non-legal context) we should pause to consider not just the meaning of the word, but also what political purpose it serves the try to bracket off that term, and whether the preferred alternatives do justice to the reality, and indifferent brutality, of the (largely one-sided) human suffering being perpetrated in the non-genocidal atrocities. None of the alternatives I’ve heard carry sufficient force to represent the horror, and thus they give cover to the perpetuation of these anti-human policies.
I’m quite prepared to call what the Israeli forces are doing to Gaza “indiscriminate mass murder”, which I’m assuming you don’t think gives “cover to the perpetuation of these anti-human policies”? I don’t much like what seems to be a snide implication that insisting that words be used accurately, at least here, is a subterfuge to downplay the reality of what the Israelis are doing in Gaza.
If we lose the true meanings of words, we eventually lose even the ability to think clearly.
First, if we are going to try to qualify whether or not the term “genocide” is appropriate (in this, a non-legal context) we should pause to consider not just the meaning of the word, but also what political purpose it serves the try to bracket off that term, and whether the preferred alternatives do justice to the reality, and indifferent brutality, of the (largely one-sided) human suffering being perpetrated in the non-genocidal atrocities. None of the alternatives I’ve heard carry sufficient force to represent the horror, and thus they give cover to the perpetuation of these anti-human policies.
I’m quite prepared to call what the Israeli forces are doing to Gaza “indiscriminate mass murder”, which I’m assuming you don’t think gives “cover to the perpetuation of these anti-human policies”? I don’t much like what seems to be a snide implication that insisting that words be used accurately, at least here, is a subterfuge to downplay the reality of what the Israelis are doing in Gaza.
If we lose the true meanings of words, we eventually lose even the ability to think clearly.
I’m reluctant to label the founding of Israel as colonialism. At minimum, that makes it too easy to ignore inconvenient facts which do not fit the narrative.
But the settlements in the West Bank (and in Gaza, before they were withdrawn) definitely look exactly like colonialism. Actually, unless you accept the fantasy the the Lord gave the land to the Jews a couple of millennia ago, and so it is theirs forever, there’s no real justification for them beyond “might makes right.”
I’m reluctant to label the founding of Israel as colonialism. At minimum, that makes it too easy to ignore inconvenient facts which do not fit the narrative.
But the settlements in the West Bank (and in Gaza, before they were withdrawn) definitely look exactly like colonialism. Actually, unless you accept the fantasy the the Lord gave the land to the Jews a couple of millennia ago, and so it is theirs forever, there’s no real justification for them beyond “might makes right.”
I don’t much like what seems to be a snide implication that insisting that words be used accurately, at least here, is a subterfuge to downplay the reality of what the Israelis are doing in Gaza.
Then it’s good that I was implying no such subterfuge. I worry less about individual intentions than I do about the collective weight of such arguments. I’m reluctant to label the founding of Israel as colonialism. At minimum, that makes it too easy to ignore inconvenient facts which do not fit the narrative.
I understand why people object to the way that Israel gets described as a Settler Colonialist State, and I think that those objections can and have been used to undermine the legitimacy of Israel as a nation state.
When it comes to looking at the situation there, though, an Anti-Colonialist lens often makes sense, and reveals deeper issues that need to be addressed – unless anyone wishes to say that the politics of the area were not distorted by the colonial politics of the British and the Turks in the wake of the First World War.
I don’t much like what seems to be a snide implication that insisting that words be used accurately, at least here, is a subterfuge to downplay the reality of what the Israelis are doing in Gaza.
Then it’s good that I was implying no such subterfuge. I worry less about individual intentions than I do about the collective weight of such arguments. I’m reluctant to label the founding of Israel as colonialism. At minimum, that makes it too easy to ignore inconvenient facts which do not fit the narrative.
I understand why people object to the way that Israel gets described as a Settler Colonialist State, and I think that those objections can and have been used to undermine the legitimacy of Israel as a nation state.
When it comes to looking at the situation there, though, an Anti-Colonialist lens often makes sense, and reveals deeper issues that need to be addressed – unless anyone wishes to say that the politics of the area were not distorted by the colonial politics of the British and the Turks in the wake of the First World War.
I’m reluctant to label the founding of Israel as colonialism. At minimum, that makes it too easy to ignore inconvenient facts which do not fit the narrative.
Well, it depends on how you are talking about colonialism. It seems you are defining it as these various colonial powers as billiard balls and Israel is one of the billiard balls, albeit newer and smaller. But looking at it from a longer term, (which I think you have to), and bearing in mind nous’ admonition, it takes on some of those features. The discussion over Zionism as colonialism is worth considering, but this then brings up the question of defining the relationship between Zionism and Israel, which is pretty fraught.
Of course, anytime something becomes an -ism, you have a problem with reducing it to an overly simplistic concept, but rather than rejecting it as colonialism, it might be better to consider how embedded colonial narratives are and which narratives might be influencing our interpretation of events.
I’m reluctant to label the founding of Israel as colonialism. At minimum, that makes it too easy to ignore inconvenient facts which do not fit the narrative.
Well, it depends on how you are talking about colonialism. It seems you are defining it as these various colonial powers as billiard balls and Israel is one of the billiard balls, albeit newer and smaller. But looking at it from a longer term, (which I think you have to), and bearing in mind nous’ admonition, it takes on some of those features. The discussion over Zionism as colonialism is worth considering, but this then brings up the question of defining the relationship between Zionism and Israel, which is pretty fraught.
Of course, anytime something becomes an -ism, you have a problem with reducing it to an overly simplistic concept, but rather than rejecting it as colonialism, it might be better to consider how embedded colonial narratives are and which narratives might be influencing our interpretation of events.
deeper issues that need to be addressed – unless anyone wishes to say that the politics of the area were not distorted by the colonial politics of the British and the Turks in the wake of the First World War.
Colonial politics distorted the politics of lots of areas of the world. One could imagine magically redrawing borders across most of Africa (and radically changing the core legal systems of those involved) to reverse those. Short of that, talking about the impact of colonialism is a useful historical exercise. But pretty much useless for deciding how best to go forward today.
One might equally use the lens of the impact on the Mongol conquest in the 1200s, or the Ottoman invasion in the early 1500s, to frame discussions of the disputes between Eastern and Western Europe. Yes, there unquestionably was an impact. Yes, those impacts had consequences which linger to this day. But they aren’t particularly useful in deciding how to deal with current disputes.
deeper issues that need to be addressed – unless anyone wishes to say that the politics of the area were not distorted by the colonial politics of the British and the Turks in the wake of the First World War.
Colonial politics distorted the politics of lots of areas of the world. One could imagine magically redrawing borders across most of Africa (and radically changing the core legal systems of those involved) to reverse those. Short of that, talking about the impact of colonialism is a useful historical exercise. But pretty much useless for deciding how best to go forward today.
One might equally use the lens of the impact on the Mongol conquest in the 1200s, or the Ottoman invasion in the early 1500s, to frame discussions of the disputes between Eastern and Western Europe. Yes, there unquestionably was an impact. Yes, those impacts had consequences which linger to this day. But they aren’t particularly useful in deciding how to deal with current disputes.
Then it’s good that I was implying no such subterfuge.
Excellent. In which case I apologise for taking it personally. But I feel very strongly that if one misuses words such as genocide one ends up becoming responsible for hysterically inflated terminology, with one result among others being that in the end there is no word to describe that particular phenomenon.
And actually, FWIW, “apartheid” is far from a bloodless word for people who actually witnessed it, or were subjected to it. It (along perhaps with the somewhat analogous example of the Nuremberg laws), expresses the particularly hideous phenomenon of legal separation and discrimination (regarding work, dwelling place, travel etc) by race, religion or ethnicity. And inevitably, the discriminated against in such ways are also at the mercy of physical and other kinds of mistreatment by those doing the discriminating. And if you meant to suggest that conditions in the SA townships were less terrible than those in Gaza or the West Bank before the current crisis, I don’t think that’s true either.
What Israel (and particularly the various Likud and Netanyahu regimes) has been doing, and is doing, to the Palestinians is bad enough, without misusing language for it.
Then it’s good that I was implying no such subterfuge.
Excellent. In which case I apologise for taking it personally. But I feel very strongly that if one misuses words such as genocide one ends up becoming responsible for hysterically inflated terminology, with one result among others being that in the end there is no word to describe that particular phenomenon.
And actually, FWIW, “apartheid” is far from a bloodless word for people who actually witnessed it, or were subjected to it. It (along perhaps with the somewhat analogous example of the Nuremberg laws), expresses the particularly hideous phenomenon of legal separation and discrimination (regarding work, dwelling place, travel etc) by race, religion or ethnicity. And inevitably, the discriminated against in such ways are also at the mercy of physical and other kinds of mistreatment by those doing the discriminating. And if you meant to suggest that conditions in the SA townships were less terrible than those in Gaza or the West Bank before the current crisis, I don’t think that’s true either.
What Israel (and particularly the various Likud and Netanyahu regimes) has been doing, and is doing, to the Palestinians is bad enough, without misusing language for it.
One might equally use the lens of the impact on the Mongol conquest in the 1200s, or the Ottoman invasion in the early 1500s, to frame discussions of the disputes between Eastern and Western Europe.
but one wouldn’t say that was colonialism. The Mongol conquests were possibly the result of a messianic leader or from a disruption of trade or a change in climate. It was also the conflict between nomadic and sedentary cultures.
As for the Ottoman invasion, while it might not have provided anything useful in dealing with NATO expansion, I’m sure as hell that all the parties were aware of it, as I am sure that anyone commenting on Türkiye (always happy to get a chance to type a diaeresis!) had better know about the Ottoman stuff.
One might equally use the lens of the impact on the Mongol conquest in the 1200s, or the Ottoman invasion in the early 1500s, to frame discussions of the disputes between Eastern and Western Europe.
but one wouldn’t say that was colonialism. The Mongol conquests were possibly the result of a messianic leader or from a disruption of trade or a change in climate. It was also the conflict between nomadic and sedentary cultures.
As for the Ottoman invasion, while it might not have provided anything useful in dealing with NATO expansion, I’m sure as hell that all the parties were aware of it, as I am sure that anyone commenting on Türkiye (always happy to get a chance to type a diaeresis!) had better know about the Ottoman stuff.
anyone commenting on Türkiye (always happy to get a chance to type a diaeresis!) had better know about the Ottoman stuff.
Likewise anyone commenting on the breakup of ex-Yugoslavia. Which events demonstrate the folly of hanging on to long ago resentments.
anyone commenting on Türkiye (always happy to get a chance to type a diaeresis!) had better know about the Ottoman stuff.
Likewise anyone commenting on the breakup of ex-Yugoslavia. Which events demonstrate the folly of hanging on to long ago resentments.
The Mongol conquests were possibly the result of a messianic leader or from a disruption of trade or a change in climate. It was also the conflict between nomadic and sedentary cultures.
Except that, whatever the original motivation, a lot of the places the Mongols overran ended up with Mongolian rulers for generations.
As a side note, it occurs to me that Americans’ history may have given us a distorted view of colonialism. Here (ditto Canada, Australia and New Zealand) the “colonies” actually were populated overwhelmingly by descendants of the colonial power. But other colonies: India, Vietnam, Congo, etc.? Nothing like — they had foreign rulers, but not immigrants anything near outnumbering the original inhabitants.
The Mongol conquests were possibly the result of a messianic leader or from a disruption of trade or a change in climate. It was also the conflict between nomadic and sedentary cultures.
Except that, whatever the original motivation, a lot of the places the Mongols overran ended up with Mongolian rulers for generations.
As a side note, it occurs to me that Americans’ history may have given us a distorted view of colonialism. Here (ditto Canada, Australia and New Zealand) the “colonies” actually were populated overwhelmingly by descendants of the colonial power. But other colonies: India, Vietnam, Congo, etc.? Nothing like — they had foreign rulers, but not immigrants anything near outnumbering the original inhabitants.
And actually, FWIW, “apartheid” is far from a bloodless word for people who actually witnessed it, or were subjected to it.
Point taken, and also this is exactly in line with what I am talking about as the notion of bearing unflinching witness. I’m not arguing that people should use the term “genocide” for what is happening in the Palestinian Territories, merely that none of the alternative descriptions carry the same sense of horror and urgency, and that the current situation in Gaza probably warrants that sense of horror and urgency. I’m not asking that the sense of what genocide is should be changed, merely that we don’t use it to create one pole of a continuum of suffering, and then police its use in order to interrupt the outrage directed against other forms, or to try to weight the scales in favor of one side in a conflict where both are guilty of atrocities.
wj – you seem too quick to dismiss anti-colonialism as an aid to understanding current and future politics. You can’t understand the current attitudes in the Global South (term used reservedly here) towards the plight of Ukraine and how it plays into Chinese foreign policy without an understanding of anti-colonialism.
And actually, FWIW, “apartheid” is far from a bloodless word for people who actually witnessed it, or were subjected to it.
Point taken, and also this is exactly in line with what I am talking about as the notion of bearing unflinching witness. I’m not arguing that people should use the term “genocide” for what is happening in the Palestinian Territories, merely that none of the alternative descriptions carry the same sense of horror and urgency, and that the current situation in Gaza probably warrants that sense of horror and urgency. I’m not asking that the sense of what genocide is should be changed, merely that we don’t use it to create one pole of a continuum of suffering, and then police its use in order to interrupt the outrage directed against other forms, or to try to weight the scales in favor of one side in a conflict where both are guilty of atrocities.
wj – you seem too quick to dismiss anti-colonialism as an aid to understanding current and future politics. You can’t understand the current attitudes in the Global South (term used reservedly here) towards the plight of Ukraine and how it plays into Chinese foreign policy without an understanding of anti-colonialism.
On pogroms, I should have said I wasn’t including the Nazis. I think what they did goes way way beyond pogroms. Krystallnacht was a pogrom. The Holocaust was orders of magnitude beyond that.I was thinking of the period under the Tsars ( and including current day Ukraine). Possibly I am wrong,but I usually thought when people talked about pogroms they were usually thinking of those. They, along with Dreyfus, were a big part of the motivation for modern Zionism, or so I thought.
And those pogroms typically involved death tolls of dozens or sometimes hundreds.
So I was sloppy. I apologize.
During the Russian civil war there were gigantic slaughters of Jews in Ukraine, mainly by the Whites but I think Orlando Figes says all factions did it to some degree. The total death toll I have seen estimated at anywhere from tens to low hundreds of thousands.
I might be wrong, but leaving the Nazis aside my impression was that Oct 7 might have been one of the largest single day slaughters of Jews in modern history. Maybe not.
I’ll probably ignore other issues tonight. Laundry needs to be done.
On pogroms, I should have said I wasn’t including the Nazis. I think what they did goes way way beyond pogroms. Krystallnacht was a pogrom. The Holocaust was orders of magnitude beyond that.I was thinking of the period under the Tsars ( and including current day Ukraine). Possibly I am wrong,but I usually thought when people talked about pogroms they were usually thinking of those. They, along with Dreyfus, were a big part of the motivation for modern Zionism, or so I thought.
And those pogroms typically involved death tolls of dozens or sometimes hundreds.
So I was sloppy. I apologize.
During the Russian civil war there were gigantic slaughters of Jews in Ukraine, mainly by the Whites but I think Orlando Figes says all factions did it to some degree. The total death toll I have seen estimated at anywhere from tens to low hundreds of thousands.
I might be wrong, but leaving the Nazis aside my impression was that Oct 7 might have been one of the largest single day slaughters of Jews in modern history. Maybe not.
I’ll probably ignore other issues tonight. Laundry needs to be done.
Hartmut— I have seen the term, but can’t remember it. It was some translation of Arabic.
Hartmut— I have seen the term, but can’t remember it. It was some translation of Arabic.
You can’t understand the current attitudes in the Global South (term used reservedly here) towards the plight of Ukraine and how it plays into Chinese foreign policy without an understanding of anti-colonialism.
I seem to be exceptionally dense tonight. So Russia invades Ukraine. With the explicit intent of ruling them, in defiance of the manifest desires of the natives. And then Russia cuts off Ukrainian exports of grain, thus cutting critical food supplies to the Global South. All of which inspires the Global South to favor . . . Russia?
Is it really more important to oppose someone whose support includes (but is hardly limited to) ex-colonial powers than to oppose someone who is engaging in exactly the sort of behavior you (justifiably) resent having done to you? On top of deliberately hurting you — perhaps trying for a variation on “blame the victim”?
You can’t understand the current attitudes in the Global South (term used reservedly here) towards the plight of Ukraine and how it plays into Chinese foreign policy without an understanding of anti-colonialism.
I seem to be exceptionally dense tonight. So Russia invades Ukraine. With the explicit intent of ruling them, in defiance of the manifest desires of the natives. And then Russia cuts off Ukrainian exports of grain, thus cutting critical food supplies to the Global South. All of which inspires the Global South to favor . . . Russia?
Is it really more important to oppose someone whose support includes (but is hardly limited to) ex-colonial powers than to oppose someone who is engaging in exactly the sort of behavior you (justifiably) resent having done to you? On top of deliberately hurting you — perhaps trying for a variation on “blame the victim”?
Argh. One last clarification. As was probably obvious innnmy previous clarification, I was thinking solely of pogroms against Jews in talking about Oct 7.
The massacre of El Mozote in El Salvador ( where we were supporting the government) killed almost 1000. The military in total murdered maybe 50,000. Guatemala’s slaughters in the same time period have been called genocidal. The Indonesians killed maybe 500,000 to a million in a slaughter applauded by the US. I still have to read Vince Blevins’s book on that. So yeah, I am vaguely aware of other mass slaughters.
Now I will absolutely shut up and check the laundry.
Argh. One last clarification. As was probably obvious innnmy previous clarification, I was thinking solely of pogroms against Jews in talking about Oct 7.
The massacre of El Mozote in El Salvador ( where we were supporting the government) killed almost 1000. The military in total murdered maybe 50,000. Guatemala’s slaughters in the same time period have been called genocidal. The Indonesians killed maybe 500,000 to a million in a slaughter applauded by the US. I still have to read Vince Blevins’s book on that. So yeah, I am vaguely aware of other mass slaughters.
Now I will absolutely shut up and check the laundry.
Donald, I am envious. I have been putting of laundry all day. Even though I know it will still be there tomorrow. Sometimes, procrastination just doesn’t get it done. I guess you’ve found a better way.
Donald, I am envious. I have been putting of laundry all day. Even though I know it will still be there tomorrow. Sometimes, procrastination just doesn’t get it done. I guess you’ve found a better way.
Laundry done. Wj— I generally just do it Saturday night. Used to do it Friday.
Hartmut, here is a link to a dctir UN Gaza. https://twitter.com/GhassanAbuSitt1/status/1713517364497514971
The acronym was given in English. WCNSF
Wounded child no surviving family.
I think I have seen this elsewhere. I thought in Arabic and then translated but maybe not
Laundry done. Wj— I generally just do it Saturday night. Used to do it Friday.
Hartmut, here is a link to a dctir UN Gaza. https://twitter.com/GhassanAbuSitt1/status/1713517364497514971
The acronym was given in English. WCNSF
Wounded child no surviving family.
I think I have seen this elsewhere. I thought in Arabic and then translated but maybe not
I seem to be exceptionally dense tonight. So Russia invades Ukraine. With the explicit intent of ruling them, in defiance of the manifest desires of the natives. And then Russia cuts off Ukrainian exports of grain, thus cutting critical food supplies to the Global South. All of which inspires the Global South to favor . . . Russia?
If Ukraine had simply rolled over and submitted to Putin, the flow of grain would not have been interrupted. And since the war and thus the interruption of the grain flow is not likely to end soon as long as the West supports Ukraine, it’s ‘natural’ to blame the West and the stubborn Ukrainians for the problem. Not that ‘we’ are much better. ‘We’ tolerate lots of atrocities committed elsewhewre as long as it guarantees cheap goods on our markets and intervene mostly only when they interfere with the flow of those cheap goods (oil in particular). ‘We’ have tolerated or even outright installed murderous regimes all over the world because those were more favorable for the profits of ‘our’ companies and for the low prices of goods they promised (while democratic or – the horror – leftist governments were far too unreliable on that or even dared rising the prices in order that their population should get a fair share).
So, the Global South is merely pragmatic. They do not expect justice to play any role and thus calculate that Russia winning will get them what they need quicker than any vage hope of Ukraine prevailing. Or worse: If Russia gets punished, that will mainly be through sanctions including export bans on grain, natural gas etc., so a Russian defeat could perpetuate the supply shortage. Therefore: Go, Russia, go!
I seem to be exceptionally dense tonight. So Russia invades Ukraine. With the explicit intent of ruling them, in defiance of the manifest desires of the natives. And then Russia cuts off Ukrainian exports of grain, thus cutting critical food supplies to the Global South. All of which inspires the Global South to favor . . . Russia?
If Ukraine had simply rolled over and submitted to Putin, the flow of grain would not have been interrupted. And since the war and thus the interruption of the grain flow is not likely to end soon as long as the West supports Ukraine, it’s ‘natural’ to blame the West and the stubborn Ukrainians for the problem. Not that ‘we’ are much better. ‘We’ tolerate lots of atrocities committed elsewhewre as long as it guarantees cheap goods on our markets and intervene mostly only when they interfere with the flow of those cheap goods (oil in particular). ‘We’ have tolerated or even outright installed murderous regimes all over the world because those were more favorable for the profits of ‘our’ companies and for the low prices of goods they promised (while democratic or – the horror – leftist governments were far too unreliable on that or even dared rising the prices in order that their population should get a fair share).
So, the Global South is merely pragmatic. They do not expect justice to play any role and thus calculate that Russia winning will get them what they need quicker than any vage hope of Ukraine prevailing. Or worse: If Russia gets punished, that will mainly be through sanctions including export bans on grain, natural gas etc., so a Russian defeat could perpetuate the supply shortage. Therefore: Go, Russia, go!
I’m reluctant to speak of the war; I share GftNC’s thoughts.
The population dynamics in Gaza are extraordinary. Contrary to what npr implies, life expectancy is normal enough – a little higher than in Russia, a little lower than in the USA. But the birth rate is almost the highest in the world outside Africa.
After the Nakba in 1948, the population of Gaza was about 200 thousand, most of them refugees. In 1970 it was about 340,000. By 2000 it had reached 1 million. It’s now over 2.2 million and growing.
I’m reluctant to speak of the war; I share GftNC’s thoughts.
The population dynamics in Gaza are extraordinary. Contrary to what npr implies, life expectancy is normal enough – a little higher than in Russia, a little lower than in the USA. But the birth rate is almost the highest in the world outside Africa.
After the Nakba in 1948, the population of Gaza was about 200 thousand, most of them refugees. In 1970 it was about 340,000. By 2000 it had reached 1 million. It’s now over 2.2 million and growing.
That’s one of the fundamental dilemmas of Israel. Given the birthrates, it will have to face the question sooner rather than later, whether to stay a democracy (equal rights for non-Jewish citizens) or a Jewish state (no or second-class citizenships for non-Jews). Both at the same time will not be possible any longer in a single state. That’s why even many conservatives used to be for a two-state solution. These days the answer (from the right) seems clear: “We should get rid of democracy anyway and a combination with ethnic cleansing and keeping the complete territory suits us very well.”
And USian rightwingers look on with extreme envy.
That’s one of the fundamental dilemmas of Israel. Given the birthrates, it will have to face the question sooner rather than later, whether to stay a democracy (equal rights for non-Jewish citizens) or a Jewish state (no or second-class citizenships for non-Jews). Both at the same time will not be possible any longer in a single state. That’s why even many conservatives used to be for a two-state solution. These days the answer (from the right) seems clear: “We should get rid of democracy anyway and a combination with ethnic cleansing and keeping the complete territory suits us very well.”
And USian rightwingers look on with extreme envy.
Not trying to start a fight, but I feel like you have a very narrow conception of colonialism. Since the West was the most successful, it is often assumed that colonialism=Western colonialism, but there are actually a lot of varieties and a rather extensive literature. I’ve read some of it, primarily dealing with Asia in general and Japan in particular, and my takeaway is that there is an attempt to separate colonialism from modernization. Unfortunately, the two are entwined and it is not so simple to separate them, especially as legal and economic systems lock particular understandings and asymmetries in place.
I’m not sure how much you are taking from the Montefiore article, and I’ve not heard of him before, but looking at his other writing and his description as a pop historian (He doesn’t seem to have done any actual historical research, but seems more of a summarizer), he tends to look at history through a great man lens. I don’t want to trash him without having read his books, but looking at the reviews, he seems to ascribe to a great man theory of history and we can sufficiently understand historical trends and patters by limiting our study to that. I’m not saying that one shouldn’t, but for things like colonialism, relying on individuals or small groups of people is going to give a warped picture.
Harmut talks about the pragmatism of the Global South, and that is certainly true, but this hesitation at accepting the foregone conclusions of the West is not a new thing, I was just thinking of Radhabinod Pal, the Indian judge who voted not guilty in the Tokyo War Tribunal. Unfortunately, his ruling has been used by Japanese nationalists to claim innocence, but this article discusses how his ruling actually sets out those issues. https://apjjf.org/2011/9/44/Nakajima-Takeshi/3627/article.html
This is not to apply these concepts to Hamas, just to point out that these things are not really so cut and dried.
Not trying to start a fight, but I feel like you have a very narrow conception of colonialism. Since the West was the most successful, it is often assumed that colonialism=Western colonialism, but there are actually a lot of varieties and a rather extensive literature. I’ve read some of it, primarily dealing with Asia in general and Japan in particular, and my takeaway is that there is an attempt to separate colonialism from modernization. Unfortunately, the two are entwined and it is not so simple to separate them, especially as legal and economic systems lock particular understandings and asymmetries in place.
I’m not sure how much you are taking from the Montefiore article, and I’ve not heard of him before, but looking at his other writing and his description as a pop historian (He doesn’t seem to have done any actual historical research, but seems more of a summarizer), he tends to look at history through a great man lens. I don’t want to trash him without having read his books, but looking at the reviews, he seems to ascribe to a great man theory of history and we can sufficiently understand historical trends and patters by limiting our study to that. I’m not saying that one shouldn’t, but for things like colonialism, relying on individuals or small groups of people is going to give a warped picture.
Harmut talks about the pragmatism of the Global South, and that is certainly true, but this hesitation at accepting the foregone conclusions of the West is not a new thing, I was just thinking of Radhabinod Pal, the Indian judge who voted not guilty in the Tokyo War Tribunal. Unfortunately, his ruling has been used by Japanese nationalists to claim innocence, but this article discusses how his ruling actually sets out those issues. https://apjjf.org/2011/9/44/Nakajima-Takeshi/3627/article.html
This is not to apply these concepts to Hamas, just to point out that these things are not really so cut and dried.
“ I feel like you have a very narrow conception of colonialism.“
Who is that for? I don’t know if it is me.I doubt anyone here needs to be told that Japanese colonialism was horrific— I am not a big fan of the idea that the West is some uniquely evil expansionist culture. I also think that it helps understand things like the Israeli Palestinian issue if we take a more granular approach to the past. The interaction with the Native Americans involved atrocities on both sides. The Comanche were for a long time the dominant military power in their region. People in a given time and place are not necessarily aware of the good vs evil grand narratives that a Howard Zinn might write later.
Got a funeral to attend and other things going on.
“ I feel like you have a very narrow conception of colonialism.“
Who is that for? I don’t know if it is me.I doubt anyone here needs to be told that Japanese colonialism was horrific— I am not a big fan of the idea that the West is some uniquely evil expansionist culture. I also think that it helps understand things like the Israeli Palestinian issue if we take a more granular approach to the past. The interaction with the Native Americans involved atrocities on both sides. The Comanche were for a long time the dominant military power in their region. People in a given time and place are not necessarily aware of the good vs evil grand narratives that a Howard Zinn might write later.
Got a funeral to attend and other things going on.
Oh,, here is a thread where Erik Loomis brushes off the murder of children by Nat Turner. https://twitter.com/ErikLoomis/status/1693666259408126252
I don’t know what he would say about Oct 7. Not the same situation, of course, but similar in that it raises the question as to whether the oppressed have a license to do anything. Loomis gets to play brave transgressive radical about things that happened nearly 200 years ago.
Going now.
Oh,, here is a thread where Erik Loomis brushes off the murder of children by Nat Turner. https://twitter.com/ErikLoomis/status/1693666259408126252
I don’t know what he would say about Oct 7. Not the same situation, of course, but similar in that it raises the question as to whether the oppressed have a license to do anything. Loomis gets to play brave transgressive radical about things that happened nearly 200 years ago.
Going now.
Not trying to start a fight, but I feel like you have a very narrow conception of colonialism.
***
Who is that for?
It could be me, since I introduced the Montefiore piece, or maybe wj who went into the colonialism argument a bit. I notice that lj prefers to talk about what he has gathered about SSM’s background and practice (obviously important), rather than what he says (in my view at least as important). I had a very quick look into him, and FWIW found this: Q: Can you tell us a little more about how you research? Has the process changed over the years?
A: My first three big history books were based on archival research so I simply went to the archives in Moscow, Tbilisi, London and Paris amongst others. Now my books are more based on synthesis and wide reading, but I always use old fashioned notecards.
Q: The common phrase is that history is written by the victors. Do you think this is true?
A: Yes, often, but it is also frequently written by the survivors and victims who outlive the victors. https://aspectsofhistory.com/author_interviews/simon-sebag-montefiore/
Not trying to start a fight, but I feel like you have a very narrow conception of colonialism.
***
Who is that for?
It could be me, since I introduced the Montefiore piece, or maybe wj who went into the colonialism argument a bit. I notice that lj prefers to talk about what he has gathered about SSM’s background and practice (obviously important), rather than what he says (in my view at least as important). I had a very quick look into him, and FWIW found this: Q: Can you tell us a little more about how you research? Has the process changed over the years?
A: My first three big history books were based on archival research so I simply went to the archives in Moscow, Tbilisi, London and Paris amongst others. Now my books are more based on synthesis and wide reading, but I always use old fashioned notecards.
Q: The common phrase is that history is written by the victors. Do you think this is true?
A: Yes, often, but it is also frequently written by the survivors and victims who outlive the victors. https://aspectsofhistory.com/author_interviews/simon-sebag-montefiore/
While I think of it, and I think it is important that I say this having put myself in the position of objector to incorrect terminology, I have been bothered in retrospect by proposing that instead of “genocide” (which it isn’t) the Israeli actions in Gaza could be called “indiscriminate mass murder”. On second thoughts, I don’t believe this: “murder” necessarily involves the intention to kill the victim. I think it is more correct to call their actions “indiscriminate mass killing of civilians”. To my mind, this is exactly right, and correctly conveys the necessary information that the perpetrator is perfectly aware that as a result of their actions great numbers of innocent civilians will die.
Anybody else’s mileage may vary: I care that the language used would, for just one example, stand up in court .
While I think of it, and I think it is important that I say this having put myself in the position of objector to incorrect terminology, I have been bothered in retrospect by proposing that instead of “genocide” (which it isn’t) the Israeli actions in Gaza could be called “indiscriminate mass murder”. On second thoughts, I don’t believe this: “murder” necessarily involves the intention to kill the victim. I think it is more correct to call their actions “indiscriminate mass killing of civilians”. To my mind, this is exactly right, and correctly conveys the necessary information that the perpetrator is perfectly aware that as a result of their actions great numbers of innocent civilians will die.
Anybody else’s mileage may vary: I care that the language used would, for just one example, stand up in court .
“ I feel like you have a very narrow conception of colonialism.“
Who is that for? I don’t know if it is me.
Actually, that was for wj, who wrote I’m reluctant to label the founding of Israel as colonialism. At minimum, that makes it too easy to ignore inconvenient facts which do not fit the narrative.
As for looking at Montefiore’s process, I don’t want to make this about the writer, but it seems to me that a historian is not simply someone who goes into an archive, looks up some things and summarizes them, it is a person who is familiar with the ideas of others and the larger theories about the event(s) being researched. I am reminded of Newt Gingrich’s PhD thesis. https://tropicsofmeta.com/2016/07/14/newts-predictably-gonzo-dissertation-belgian-colonialism-for-the-win/
While I don’t mean to go nuclear on Montefiore by putting him in a barrel with Newt, but I wonder how many people thought ‘an, Montefiore is a historian, so he must have some expert knowledge about this’ when he’s actually just like any of us, reaching into our own experiences and trying to draw conclusions.
“ I feel like you have a very narrow conception of colonialism.“
Who is that for? I don’t know if it is me.
Actually, that was for wj, who wrote I’m reluctant to label the founding of Israel as colonialism. At minimum, that makes it too easy to ignore inconvenient facts which do not fit the narrative.
As for looking at Montefiore’s process, I don’t want to make this about the writer, but it seems to me that a historian is not simply someone who goes into an archive, looks up some things and summarizes them, it is a person who is familiar with the ideas of others and the larger theories about the event(s) being researched. I am reminded of Newt Gingrich’s PhD thesis. https://tropicsofmeta.com/2016/07/14/newts-predictably-gonzo-dissertation-belgian-colonialism-for-the-win/
While I don’t mean to go nuclear on Montefiore by putting him in a barrel with Newt, but I wonder how many people thought ‘an, Montefiore is a historian, so he must have some expert knowledge about this’ when he’s actually just like any of us, reaching into our own experiences and trying to draw conclusions.
I think Israel is deliberately killing civilians now because they shoot unarmed demonstrators in peacetime. They aren’t going to be better now. It’s not exactly a new thing in Israel’s history, any more than terrorism is something new on the Palestinian side. I can’t prove it. It just makes sense given how they act in peace.
Also, Western countries did it deliberately in WW 2 and in Korea. The Israeli ambassador to the UK invoked Dresden as a model in an interview with Sky News. I watched it on YouTube. She also invoked Mosul where she said 100,000 died when the coalition defeated ISIS,—actually more like 10,000, but it shows where her mind was at.
Westerners in the modern era tend to have a bit of doublethink going on when discussing civilian casualties. No, I don’t mean you, Gftnc. We disagree on this but I am thinking of people like the amabasssdor who says she doesn’t want to kill civilians and then shows her complete willingness to do it. Her words probably match your description— she is willing to bomb indiscriminately. But I think the people in charge are bombing homes and apartments to kill people, just like they cut the power. It is punishment.
Herzog said earlier there were no innocent civilians in Gaza because they could have overthrown Hamas, which is exactly what a terrorist would say. So there’s a mindset there and probably also some doublethink.
And the Israeli far right — well, to me they seem like Hamas.
I think Israel is deliberately killing civilians now because they shoot unarmed demonstrators in peacetime. They aren’t going to be better now. It’s not exactly a new thing in Israel’s history, any more than terrorism is something new on the Palestinian side. I can’t prove it. It just makes sense given how they act in peace.
Also, Western countries did it deliberately in WW 2 and in Korea. The Israeli ambassador to the UK invoked Dresden as a model in an interview with Sky News. I watched it on YouTube. She also invoked Mosul where she said 100,000 died when the coalition defeated ISIS,—actually more like 10,000, but it shows where her mind was at.
Westerners in the modern era tend to have a bit of doublethink going on when discussing civilian casualties. No, I don’t mean you, Gftnc. We disagree on this but I am thinking of people like the amabasssdor who says she doesn’t want to kill civilians and then shows her complete willingness to do it. Her words probably match your description— she is willing to bomb indiscriminately. But I think the people in charge are bombing homes and apartments to kill people, just like they cut the power. It is punishment.
Herzog said earlier there were no innocent civilians in Gaza because they could have overthrown Hamas, which is exactly what a terrorist would say. So there’s a mindset there and probably also some doublethink.
And the Israeli far right — well, to me they seem like Hamas.
Okay,LJ.
Btw, is there an open thread? I was about to post a link to something about Biden’s political chances which is partly about the wars but also about his unpopularity on domestic issues ( which I am not sure I get exactly) but that definitely doesn’t belong here.
Gotta go anyway. Antiwar zoom meeting. I hate zoom meetings. Hate meetings, come to think of it.
Okay,LJ.
Btw, is there an open thread? I was about to post a link to something about Biden’s political chances which is partly about the wars but also about his unpopularity on domestic issues ( which I am not sure I get exactly) but that definitely doesn’t belong here.
Gotta go anyway. Antiwar zoom meeting. I hate zoom meetings. Hate meetings, come to think of it.
I’ll open one up now.
I’ll open one up now.
Words have meanings and, as I have said before in less tortured situations, we must fight to retain the means to have meaningful discussion.
First, the meanings of words change. (And as you imply in your comment about standing up in court, useful meanings differ in different contexts.)
You can’t stop the process of language change any more than you can stop the tides. If you want to name the definition you want to use and have a discussion around that, fine, but I don’t see that as having happened here. And even after a discussion people might not agree, either about which definition the discussion should revolve around or whether the current situation meets a particular definition.
Secondly, speaking of ill-used words, one of my own hobbyhorses and one of the most carelessly used words in the language is “we.” Especially when followed by “must.” And even more when “fight” is added on. My feeling is apparently shared even beyond the joke about Tonto and the Lone Ranger.
In any case, in this context, you fight your battles, I’ll fight mine. Sometimes they’ll be the same battle, sometimes not. Anybody else’s mileage may vary: I care that the language used would, for just one example, stand up in court .
My mileage varies pretty widely from that.
When it’s important for someone to specify what definition they’re using, then hopefully they will, and, as I said above, good discussion and more clarity may follow. But this is not a court of law, and in general I don’t intend to hold myself to either the vocabulary or the debate practices of the courtroom.
As I have said before in another context.
*****
I found the Wikipedia article on ethnic cleansing interesting in relation to definitions.
Words have meanings and, as I have said before in less tortured situations, we must fight to retain the means to have meaningful discussion.
First, the meanings of words change. (And as you imply in your comment about standing up in court, useful meanings differ in different contexts.)
You can’t stop the process of language change any more than you can stop the tides. If you want to name the definition you want to use and have a discussion around that, fine, but I don’t see that as having happened here. And even after a discussion people might not agree, either about which definition the discussion should revolve around or whether the current situation meets a particular definition.
Secondly, speaking of ill-used words, one of my own hobbyhorses and one of the most carelessly used words in the language is “we.” Especially when followed by “must.” And even more when “fight” is added on. My feeling is apparently shared even beyond the joke about Tonto and the Lone Ranger.
In any case, in this context, you fight your battles, I’ll fight mine. Sometimes they’ll be the same battle, sometimes not. Anybody else’s mileage may vary: I care that the language used would, for just one example, stand up in court .
My mileage varies pretty widely from that.
When it’s important for someone to specify what definition they’re using, then hopefully they will, and, as I said above, good discussion and more clarity may follow. But this is not a court of law, and in general I don’t intend to hold myself to either the vocabulary or the debate practices of the courtroom.
As I have said before in another context.
*****
I found the Wikipedia article on ethnic cleansing interesting in relation to definitions.
wj – Is it really more important to oppose someone whose support includes (but is hardly limited to) ex-colonial powers than to oppose someone who is engaging in exactly the sort of behavior you (justifiably) resent having done to you? On top of deliberately hurting you — perhaps trying for a variation on “blame the victim”?
Is this really how you are understanding the situation? It seems quite reductive to me. Hartmut’s characterization of the Global South reading of the situation seems more in line with the popular thinking outside of North America and Europe. And whether or not I think that their views are productive or any less reductive than the representations of the conflict in “Western” media, I think it’s important to keep this perception of the West’s double standards in mind.
Back to my wish for more granularity where “anti-colonialism” is evoked in our conversation here, I think it’s a perfectly reasonable request that we not broad brush entire approaches to thinking about politics and history in a way that reduces them to an easily demonizable caricature. I’ve already seen that happen with “anti-racist,” “CRT,” “woke,” “marxist,” “postmodern,” etc. in ways that demonstrate that the person doing the demonizing has no real understanding of what these things are, and is mostly seeking to marginalize voices that they find disruptive to their own political goals.
There are many brilliant scholars who come from former colonies who have spent their lives trying to respond to the received narratives of history that they were taught, which put them in a box and limited the sort of responses and critiques they were allowed to put forth. Their critical responses and methodologies for opening up a space for critical colonial voices forms the body of what we call postcolonial, or anti-colonial, or decolonial theory. These three terms often get used interchangeably, and there is overlap in approach and methodology, but the terms also reveal some interesting disconnects and differences in approach or methodology.
I want to encourage you all to spend a bit of time trying to come to terms with the actual substance of these scholars’ critiques and understanding the reasons why they felt compelled to respond in the ways that they have before the labels we use silence them once again through guilt by association.
I think it is possible to listen while also maintaining a critical perspective. One can learn a lot from watching, say, The Battle of Algiers, and understand the perspective of Ali La Pointe, and even sympathize with his motivations, while also condemning their attacks on non-combatants.
wj – Is it really more important to oppose someone whose support includes (but is hardly limited to) ex-colonial powers than to oppose someone who is engaging in exactly the sort of behavior you (justifiably) resent having done to you? On top of deliberately hurting you — perhaps trying for a variation on “blame the victim”?
Is this really how you are understanding the situation? It seems quite reductive to me. Hartmut’s characterization of the Global South reading of the situation seems more in line with the popular thinking outside of North America and Europe. And whether or not I think that their views are productive or any less reductive than the representations of the conflict in “Western” media, I think it’s important to keep this perception of the West’s double standards in mind.
Back to my wish for more granularity where “anti-colonialism” is evoked in our conversation here, I think it’s a perfectly reasonable request that we not broad brush entire approaches to thinking about politics and history in a way that reduces them to an easily demonizable caricature. I’ve already seen that happen with “anti-racist,” “CRT,” “woke,” “marxist,” “postmodern,” etc. in ways that demonstrate that the person doing the demonizing has no real understanding of what these things are, and is mostly seeking to marginalize voices that they find disruptive to their own political goals.
There are many brilliant scholars who come from former colonies who have spent their lives trying to respond to the received narratives of history that they were taught, which put them in a box and limited the sort of responses and critiques they were allowed to put forth. Their critical responses and methodologies for opening up a space for critical colonial voices forms the body of what we call postcolonial, or anti-colonial, or decolonial theory. These three terms often get used interchangeably, and there is overlap in approach and methodology, but the terms also reveal some interesting disconnects and differences in approach or methodology.
I want to encourage you all to spend a bit of time trying to come to terms with the actual substance of these scholars’ critiques and understanding the reasons why they felt compelled to respond in the ways that they have before the labels we use silence them once again through guilt by association.
I think it is possible to listen while also maintaining a critical perspective. One can learn a lot from watching, say, The Battle of Algiers, and understand the perspective of Ali La Pointe, and even sympathize with his motivations, while also condemning their attacks on non-combatants.
we must fight to retain the means to have meaningful discussion.
Obviously, anybody who doesn’t believe in fighting, or striving, to retain the means to have meaningful discussion is interesting to hear from! And, as clarification (although I doubt if many here need it), for anybody who objects to the construction “we must fight” in such a case, I mean of course that in my opinion it is the sign of people of goodwill that they resist the pull of emotional (or indeed ideological) manipulation to popularise and normalise the degradation of language, with the consequent loss of the ability to accurately express meaning.
You can’t stop language from changing, that’s for sure, but two of the most famous genocides in recent history (the Armenian and the holocaust) consisting of course of the attempted extermination of entire peoples, took place in the last century or so, and it seems a little soon to allow the word to refer to any of the regrettably frequent appalling massacres the world witnesses. What then would we call the attempted extermination of entire peoples? Myself, I do not favour “ethnic cleansing” because of its (admittedly openly and purposefully used) euphemism, but each to their own.
we must fight to retain the means to have meaningful discussion.
Obviously, anybody who doesn’t believe in fighting, or striving, to retain the means to have meaningful discussion is interesting to hear from! And, as clarification (although I doubt if many here need it), for anybody who objects to the construction “we must fight” in such a case, I mean of course that in my opinion it is the sign of people of goodwill that they resist the pull of emotional (or indeed ideological) manipulation to popularise and normalise the degradation of language, with the consequent loss of the ability to accurately express meaning.
You can’t stop language from changing, that’s for sure, but two of the most famous genocides in recent history (the Armenian and the holocaust) consisting of course of the attempted extermination of entire peoples, took place in the last century or so, and it seems a little soon to allow the word to refer to any of the regrettably frequent appalling massacres the world witnesses. What then would we call the attempted extermination of entire peoples? Myself, I do not favour “ethnic cleansing” because of its (admittedly openly and purposefully used) euphemism, but each to their own.
Obviously, anybody who doesn’t believe in fighting, or striving, to retain the means to have meaningful discussion is interesting to hear from!
That is not what I said, and it is not what I meant. My comment was about the fact that I disagree with you about what those means might be, which is a separate question.
Twisting people’s words also gets in the way of meaningful discussion.
Obviously, anybody who doesn’t believe in fighting, or striving, to retain the means to have meaningful discussion is interesting to hear from!
That is not what I said, and it is not what I meant. My comment was about the fact that I disagree with you about what those means might be, which is a separate question.
Twisting people’s words also gets in the way of meaningful discussion.
But Janie, it was that very sentence you specifically objected to! Disagreeing about the means would never be problematic, as far as I can see, it would just be a natural part of the discussion.
I think calling that “twisting people’s words” is extremely unfair.
However, I do know from past discussions that you have a particular aversion to that particular construction, interpreting it as pressure to, as it were, go along with the sentiment (often self-righteous) of the person using it. Whereas for me, it is a form of words signifying a deeply held (but perfectly arguable-with) conviction. If, for example, you had said to me “I don’t think that focussing on the exact meaning of the word genocide helps to retain the means to have a meaningful discussion about this” I would disagree with you, but so what – that’s one of the things we do here. But that was not what you said.
But Janie, it was that very sentence you specifically objected to! Disagreeing about the means would never be problematic, as far as I can see, it would just be a natural part of the discussion.
I think calling that “twisting people’s words” is extremely unfair.
However, I do know from past discussions that you have a particular aversion to that particular construction, interpreting it as pressure to, as it were, go along with the sentiment (often self-righteous) of the person using it. Whereas for me, it is a form of words signifying a deeply held (but perfectly arguable-with) conviction. If, for example, you had said to me “I don’t think that focussing on the exact meaning of the word genocide helps to retain the means to have a meaningful discussion about this” I would disagree with you, but so what – that’s one of the things we do here. But that was not what you said.
For clarification, I quoted GftNC: Words have meanings and, as I have said before in less tortured situations, we must fight to retain the means to have meaningful discussion.
I think there’s a hidden assumption in there, a variation on presuming the conclusion (which I am too tired to tease out), which I think facilitated GftNC’s being able to misconstrue what I meant. A misinterpretation that I did not anticipate, unfortunately.
My response was an attempt to say that far from words being fixed, and all of us “people of goodwill” using them the same way and understanding the same things by them, sometimes, in order to have a meaningful discussion, we have to discuss the meanings of words first, and agree on what definition we’re going to use. That, I think, is a more fundamental sine qua non of “meaningful discussion” than assuming we already know what the nailed down meanings of words are.
*****
Also as to this: Myself, I do not favour “ethnic cleansing” because of its (admittedly openly and purposefully used) euphemism, but each to their own.
“To each their own” implies that I favor the phrase “ethnic cleansing.” I never said that, either. But the wiki includes some debate on whether the phrase should even be used, and that is part of the same question of definitions.
For clarification, I quoted GftNC: Words have meanings and, as I have said before in less tortured situations, we must fight to retain the means to have meaningful discussion.
I think there’s a hidden assumption in there, a variation on presuming the conclusion (which I am too tired to tease out), which I think facilitated GftNC’s being able to misconstrue what I meant. A misinterpretation that I did not anticipate, unfortunately.
My response was an attempt to say that far from words being fixed, and all of us “people of goodwill” using them the same way and understanding the same things by them, sometimes, in order to have a meaningful discussion, we have to discuss the meanings of words first, and agree on what definition we’re going to use. That, I think, is a more fundamental sine qua non of “meaningful discussion” than assuming we already know what the nailed down meanings of words are.
*****
Also as to this: Myself, I do not favour “ethnic cleansing” because of its (admittedly openly and purposefully used) euphemism, but each to their own.
“To each their own” implies that I favor the phrase “ethnic cleansing.” I never said that, either. But the wiki includes some debate on whether the phrase should even be used, and that is part of the same question of definitions.
I went back to see something I said about this several hours ago. It was: If we lose the true meanings of words, we eventually lose even the ability to think clearly.
I mean, this seems so very obvious to me as to be axiomatic. Would you have objected to that too? How about “If people lose the true meanings of words, they eventually lose even the ability to think clearly?” That disposes of the dreaded “we”, at any rate.
I went back to see something I said about this several hours ago. It was: If we lose the true meanings of words, we eventually lose even the ability to think clearly.
I mean, this seems so very obvious to me as to be axiomatic. Would you have objected to that too? How about “If people lose the true meanings of words, they eventually lose even the ability to think clearly?” That disposes of the dreaded “we”, at any rate.
No, I wasn’t assuming that you favoured the phrase “ethnic cleansing”, although I see how it looks like that. It just seemed the only other expression on offer at the time…Anyway, I don’t want to fight with you. Times are hard enough already.
No, I wasn’t assuming that you favoured the phrase “ethnic cleansing”, although I see how it looks like that. It just seemed the only other expression on offer at the time…Anyway, I don’t want to fight with you. Times are hard enough already.
My 9:05 was composed before I saw GftNC’s 9:00.
That’s all I’m going to say.
My 9:05 was composed before I saw GftNC’s 9:00.
That’s all I’m going to say.
The word genocide is overused in my personal opinion, but the legal definition is pretty broad. Here is an article arguing fir using the word about Gaza. https://jewishcurrents.org/a-textbook-case-of-genocide
It’s become standard on the antiwar left to use it here. At my antiwar meeting people were using it on the signs they were planning to carry.
We probably need some term like mass killings as Gftnc said as something intermediate between, um, war crimes ( which nowadays seems almost tame) and genocide and save genocide for when very large percentages of a group are killed, but it seems “ genocide” is the word people reach for and it’s been that way for decades.
I sometimes used to say Yemen was near genocidal, thinking if the giant famine death toll caused by the blockade. I was adhering to my own private atrocity scale. It was really bad, but a step below Rwanda level or Nazi level crimes. But nobody followed my lead.
“ Crimes against humanity “ is sometimes used and to me sounds like something really bad, but not necessarily genocide. But I don’t know the legal meaning. Will look up after I post this.
The word genocide is overused in my personal opinion, but the legal definition is pretty broad. Here is an article arguing fir using the word about Gaza. https://jewishcurrents.org/a-textbook-case-of-genocide
It’s become standard on the antiwar left to use it here. At my antiwar meeting people were using it on the signs they were planning to carry.
We probably need some term like mass killings as Gftnc said as something intermediate between, um, war crimes ( which nowadays seems almost tame) and genocide and save genocide for when very large percentages of a group are killed, but it seems “ genocide” is the word people reach for and it’s been that way for decades.
I sometimes used to say Yemen was near genocidal, thinking if the giant famine death toll caused by the blockade. I was adhering to my own private atrocity scale. It was really bad, but a step below Rwanda level or Nazi level crimes. But nobody followed my lead.
“ Crimes against humanity “ is sometimes used and to me sounds like something really bad, but not necessarily genocide. But I don’t know the legal meaning. Will look up after I post this.
And here is a piece on apartheid and its application to Israel. In recent years HRW, Amnesty International and B’Tselem have all decided to apply it to Israel. https://jewishcurrents.org/understanding-apartheid
And here is a piece on apartheid and its application to Israel. In recent years HRW, Amnesty International and B’Tselem have all decided to apply it to Israel. https://jewishcurrents.org/understanding-apartheid
I guess it was not all I was going to say. If people lose the true meanings of words, they eventually lose even the ability to think clearly?
Yes, I would and did object to that as well (whether with “we” or “people”), rather profoundly, but it really comes under everything else I’ve already said.
Once again it seems to me that there’s something missing in the logic of the sentence, some gap where it is just assumed that the first part entails the second part.
But to me, “true meanings” is a slippery concept, just like the words they are alleged to apply to. Even in court! Or else we would need far fewer courtrooms and judges.
There’s a wonderful passage in one of Chomsky’s books about what the word “London” means — I probably don’t have the book anymore, and probably wouldn’t be able to find it in the attic even if I had it, and I’m not at home anyhow. Maybe lj has the book and can find the passage — the book is called New horizons in the study of language and mind.
To go back to the sentence I quoted: if people have some idea of what *they* understand a word to mean, I would never say that they can’t think clearly just because that isn’t what you or I or Bryan Garner understand the word to mean. If words had “true meanings,” language would be math.
And I say that as a well-known stickler about language in many ways.
Meanwhile, if everyone in the discussion of the war is willing to use your definition, fine. I should have stayed out of it.
I guess it was not all I was going to say. If people lose the true meanings of words, they eventually lose even the ability to think clearly?
Yes, I would and did object to that as well (whether with “we” or “people”), rather profoundly, but it really comes under everything else I’ve already said.
Once again it seems to me that there’s something missing in the logic of the sentence, some gap where it is just assumed that the first part entails the second part.
But to me, “true meanings” is a slippery concept, just like the words they are alleged to apply to. Even in court! Or else we would need far fewer courtrooms and judges.
There’s a wonderful passage in one of Chomsky’s books about what the word “London” means — I probably don’t have the book anymore, and probably wouldn’t be able to find it in the attic even if I had it, and I’m not at home anyhow. Maybe lj has the book and can find the passage — the book is called New horizons in the study of language and mind.
To go back to the sentence I quoted: if people have some idea of what *they* understand a word to mean, I would never say that they can’t think clearly just because that isn’t what you or I or Bryan Garner understand the word to mean. If words had “true meanings,” language would be math.
And I say that as a well-known stickler about language in many ways.
Meanwhile, if everyone in the discussion of the war is willing to use your definition, fine. I should have stayed out of it.
(again, cross-posted — this time with Donald — but i have to stop now, I have other engagements atm)
(again, cross-posted — this time with Donald — but i have to stop now, I have other engagements atm)
Donald, I don’t know if you saw it earlier in the thread, but personally I’ve never had a problem with the use of “apartheid” in the Israeli context. I think it’s a reasonable analogy.
Donald, I don’t know if you saw it earlier in the thread, but personally I’ve never had a problem with the use of “apartheid” in the Israeli context. I think it’s a reasonable analogy.
Hi Gftnc. I missed that. This was a busy day for me.
Another article. This one about Israeli right wanting to do a second Nakba.
Oct 7 threw things back decades. Brought out the worst in almost everyone.
Hi Gftnc. I missed that. This was a busy day for me.
Another article. This one about Israeli right wanting to do a second Nakba.
Oct 7 threw things back decades. Brought out the worst in almost everyone.
Words are tricky things. They have meanings, but also connotations, and resonances. They change their faces as contexts and audiences change. They absolutely have meanings, but any attempt to pin a signifier securely to its signified is going to end in frustration.
People who speak of Israel participating in the genocide of the Palestinians are not speaking in a legal register. They are speaking out of frustration at the way that a people so marked and defined by genocide can become so indifferent to the mass suffering of another people at their political hand. It’s like a note on one string striking a sympathetic vibration in another tuned to a different, but consonant note. Legal language does its best to damp the other strings and seek to true the single note. Political discourse is a mass of undamped strings.
Words are tricky things. They have meanings, but also connotations, and resonances. They change their faces as contexts and audiences change. They absolutely have meanings, but any attempt to pin a signifier securely to its signified is going to end in frustration.
People who speak of Israel participating in the genocide of the Palestinians are not speaking in a legal register. They are speaking out of frustration at the way that a people so marked and defined by genocide can become so indifferent to the mass suffering of another people at their political hand. It’s like a note on one string striking a sympathetic vibration in another tuned to a different, but consonant note. Legal language does its best to damp the other strings and seek to true the single note. Political discourse is a mass of undamped strings.
I think a major point about ‘genocide’ is that by now it has two disctinct legal meanings:
1) the physical extermination of a group/entity by killing the members and/or preventing their reproduction.
2) the cultural extinction of a group by systematic destruction of the defining parts of the culture.
The latter includes for example programs of taking children away from their parents to prevent them from inheriting the culture (e.g. done in Australia or Canada) and suppressing the expression of the culture (e.g. the suppression of Sami culture in Northern Scandinavia or Scottish culture after Culloden) including use of the language.
Turkey used to have a policy of simply denying that Kurds exist (defining them as ‘mountain Turks’)
In Israel there have always been ideas like that concerniug the Palestinians. Starting by classifying them as simply Arabs (who could be moved to other Arabian countries) thus denying them a distinct cultural identity per se; destroying settlements and planting forests above to give the impression that there never was a non-Jewish population there in the first place etc.
This would fit the definition of an attempted cultural genocide without physical extermination (‘merely’ expulsion).
But there are also the Chivingtons-in-spirit that think that the ‘problem’ requires a physical extermination* and anything else is at best temporary. And the killing of children is in case of doubt more important than that of adults since ‘just’ killing the adults leaves children thirsting for revenge.
The extreme Right in Israel is more an more open about favoring a physical genocide, not content anymore with the previous salami tactics of just a cultural one.
The physical genocides of the 20th century had cultural precursors. In the case of the Holocaust we even have a case where a ‘peaceful’ one (increasing volontary assimilation and secularisation of Jews in Germany) was seen as a danger by those that were ‘anti-semitic’ not just ‘anti-judaist’ (and who actually appropriated the linguistic term ‘semitic’ to distinguish between ‘race’ and ‘culture’).
In Israel there is an extremist movement that has in essence the same thoughts and e.g. sees mixed marriages between Palestinians and Jews as a mortal danger to their idea of a racially defined Jewish ethno-state. And, unfortunately, those are a core constituency of some Israeli rightwing parties (the same way that some GOPsters court outright neo-nazis).
‘Arab’ antisemitism, again unfortunately, got groomed by the original Nazis and they found their willing helpers (e.g. in the person of the grand mufti of Jerusalem) who ‘translated’ it and fused it with traditional (Quranic) anti-Jewish prejudices. Post-WW2 that became a tool of opportunistic politicians all over the region.
And now we have a mutually supportive mess and no easy way out.
*as Stalin put it**: The people are the problem. No people, no problem.
** I do not know whether this is attributed or a proven quote.
I think a major point about ‘genocide’ is that by now it has two disctinct legal meanings:
1) the physical extermination of a group/entity by killing the members and/or preventing their reproduction.
2) the cultural extinction of a group by systematic destruction of the defining parts of the culture.
The latter includes for example programs of taking children away from their parents to prevent them from inheriting the culture (e.g. done in Australia or Canada) and suppressing the expression of the culture (e.g. the suppression of Sami culture in Northern Scandinavia or Scottish culture after Culloden) including use of the language.
Turkey used to have a policy of simply denying that Kurds exist (defining them as ‘mountain Turks’)
In Israel there have always been ideas like that concerniug the Palestinians. Starting by classifying them as simply Arabs (who could be moved to other Arabian countries) thus denying them a distinct cultural identity per se; destroying settlements and planting forests above to give the impression that there never was a non-Jewish population there in the first place etc.
This would fit the definition of an attempted cultural genocide without physical extermination (‘merely’ expulsion).
But there are also the Chivingtons-in-spirit that think that the ‘problem’ requires a physical extermination* and anything else is at best temporary. And the killing of children is in case of doubt more important than that of adults since ‘just’ killing the adults leaves children thirsting for revenge.
The extreme Right in Israel is more an more open about favoring a physical genocide, not content anymore with the previous salami tactics of just a cultural one.
The physical genocides of the 20th century had cultural precursors. In the case of the Holocaust we even have a case where a ‘peaceful’ one (increasing volontary assimilation and secularisation of Jews in Germany) was seen as a danger by those that were ‘anti-semitic’ not just ‘anti-judaist’ (and who actually appropriated the linguistic term ‘semitic’ to distinguish between ‘race’ and ‘culture’).
In Israel there is an extremist movement that has in essence the same thoughts and e.g. sees mixed marriages between Palestinians and Jews as a mortal danger to their idea of a racially defined Jewish ethno-state. And, unfortunately, those are a core constituency of some Israeli rightwing parties (the same way that some GOPsters court outright neo-nazis).
‘Arab’ antisemitism, again unfortunately, got groomed by the original Nazis and they found their willing helpers (e.g. in the person of the grand mufti of Jerusalem) who ‘translated’ it and fused it with traditional (Quranic) anti-Jewish prejudices. Post-WW2 that became a tool of opportunistic politicians all over the region.
And now we have a mutually supportive mess and no easy way out.
*as Stalin put it**: The people are the problem. No people, no problem.
** I do not know whether this is attributed or a proven quote.
A bit late, just getting to this now before dinner.
Janie, thanks to the wonders of Google books, you (and others) can read Chomsky’s quote here I think) https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=johr4hURMPgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=New+horizons+in+the+study+of+language+and+mind&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=London&f=false
and click on page 37. There’s a lot to discuss about that, and Chomsky relegates that to ‘I-language’, which is not what lingustics is supposed to investigate (sez he). That relegation of the messy facts of meaning to a separate category is why a lot of linguistics disagree with Chomskyan linguistics, but in terms of identifying how terms that might seen pretty concrete are actually rather slippery, the passage is pretty good. I may return to this in a post.
And colonialism. Again, not trying to pile on wj, but I’d echo nous’ request that you consider the discourse surrounding colonialism not as simply a single narrative, but a complex set of histories. Anti/post/decolonial studies is new enough that there is not a single narrative. As nous points out, a lot of this is scholars from former colonies, which is why the American discourse on this is not as rich: We didn’t technically have colonies. This brings up a whole pot of issues that I won’t go into here, but it seems understandable to me that a South American scholar’s understanding of what colonialism means will be different from an Indian scholars, which would be different from an Indonesian which would be different from a scholar from Senegal. I can understand hesitation at applying the model to Israel without carefully considering all the questions, but when you say At minimum, that makes it too easy to ignore inconvenient facts which do not fit the narrative.
This sounds like you are suggesting that the previous narrative, that the colonizing powers had the best interests of the colonized in mind, doesn’t ignore those inconvenient facts. Even if you want to argue that it is a singular narrative, (I don’t believe it is) it still is bringing a lot of facts to the table that need to be seen.
I’d love to give you a good reference to read, but I think it is impossible because issues that are touched by colonialism are too many to cover. Museum collections, language and grammar, sports, music, food, dress, the list goes on and on. I did find this “Anti-colonial thought and global social theory” https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsoc.2023.1143776/full
which has a lot of references to track down.
A bit late, just getting to this now before dinner.
Janie, thanks to the wonders of Google books, you (and others) can read Chomsky’s quote here I think) https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=johr4hURMPgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=New+horizons+in+the+study+of+language+and+mind&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=London&f=false
and click on page 37. There’s a lot to discuss about that, and Chomsky relegates that to ‘I-language’, which is not what lingustics is supposed to investigate (sez he). That relegation of the messy facts of meaning to a separate category is why a lot of linguistics disagree with Chomskyan linguistics, but in terms of identifying how terms that might seen pretty concrete are actually rather slippery, the passage is pretty good. I may return to this in a post.
And colonialism. Again, not trying to pile on wj, but I’d echo nous’ request that you consider the discourse surrounding colonialism not as simply a single narrative, but a complex set of histories. Anti/post/decolonial studies is new enough that there is not a single narrative. As nous points out, a lot of this is scholars from former colonies, which is why the American discourse on this is not as rich: We didn’t technically have colonies. This brings up a whole pot of issues that I won’t go into here, but it seems understandable to me that a South American scholar’s understanding of what colonialism means will be different from an Indian scholars, which would be different from an Indonesian which would be different from a scholar from Senegal. I can understand hesitation at applying the model to Israel without carefully considering all the questions, but when you say At minimum, that makes it too easy to ignore inconvenient facts which do not fit the narrative.
This sounds like you are suggesting that the previous narrative, that the colonizing powers had the best interests of the colonized in mind, doesn’t ignore those inconvenient facts. Even if you want to argue that it is a singular narrative, (I don’t believe it is) it still is bringing a lot of facts to the table that need to be seen.
I’d love to give you a good reference to read, but I think it is impossible because issues that are touched by colonialism are too many to cover. Museum collections, language and grammar, sports, music, food, dress, the list goes on and on. I did find this “Anti-colonial thought and global social theory” https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsoc.2023.1143776/full
which has a lot of references to track down.
Didn’t Maine start out as a colony of Massachusetts?
But when the tyrannical imperialists of Connecticut tried to set up colonies in NE Pennsylvania, they were soundly defeated in the First, then the Second, finally the THIRD Pennamite/Yankee wars.
(which were more like tavern brawls than ‘wars’, but things were smaller back then)
Didn’t Maine start out as a colony of Massachusetts?
But when the tyrannical imperialists of Connecticut tried to set up colonies in NE Pennsylvania, they were soundly defeated in the First, then the Second, finally the THIRD Pennamite/Yankee wars.
(which were more like tavern brawls than ‘wars’, but things were smaller back then)
Again, not trying to pile on wj, but I’d echo nous’ request that you consider the discourse surrounding colonialism not as simply a single narrative, but a complex set of histories.
I thought that was close to the point I was trying to make. The “Global South” (speaking of massive generalizations) seems to be taking, or drifting towards taking, a position favoring Russia over Ukraine. Yet, to the extent that the collection of peoples and countries included in the Global South have a common characteristic,** it is that they were invaded and taken over by others, i.e. colonialism — at least as I understand the term. (Typically, but not necessarily, European others). Which is to say, precisely what Russia is attempting in Ukraine.
It is, of course, a generalization. That’s what happens when we lump so many disparate groups together — nuance and differences get lost.
** If there is a different common characteristic that others here are thinking of, by all means let me know.
Again, not trying to pile on wj, but I’d echo nous’ request that you consider the discourse surrounding colonialism not as simply a single narrative, but a complex set of histories.
I thought that was close to the point I was trying to make. The “Global South” (speaking of massive generalizations) seems to be taking, or drifting towards taking, a position favoring Russia over Ukraine. Yet, to the extent that the collection of peoples and countries included in the Global South have a common characteristic,** it is that they were invaded and taken over by others, i.e. colonialism — at least as I understand the term. (Typically, but not necessarily, European others). Which is to say, precisely what Russia is attempting in Ukraine.
It is, of course, a generalization. That’s what happens when we lump so many disparate groups together — nuance and differences get lost.
** If there is a different common characteristic that others here are thinking of, by all means let me know.
Didn’t Maine start out as a colony of Massachusetts?
In case this isn’t totally “snarky” from Snarki…
I don’t think so, at least not in the sense that Mass. conquered and took over Maine and then Maine seceded later. Maine *was* part of Massachusetts when the US was created, and it did secede and become a state in its own right in 1820.
But the Wiki has a long history of land manipulations that I don’t have time to read, but lots of back and forth amongst the native peoples, the French, and the English.
Didn’t Maine start out as a colony of Massachusetts?
In case this isn’t totally “snarky” from Snarki…
I don’t think so, at least not in the sense that Mass. conquered and took over Maine and then Maine seceded later. Maine *was* part of Massachusetts when the US was created, and it did secede and become a state in its own right in 1820.
But the Wiki has a long history of land manipulations that I don’t have time to read, but lots of back and forth amongst the native peoples, the French, and the English.
I think a lot of …-colonial scholars would say that the colonialism of the US is settler colonialism, as opposed to the mercantilism of the UK.
I think a lot of …-colonial scholars would say that the colonialism of the US is settler colonialism, as opposed to the mercantilism of the UK.
So to which kind of colonialism would you attribute Russia’s plans for Ukraine? Or perhaps it is a third kind…?
So to which kind of colonialism would you attribute Russia’s plans for Ukraine? Or perhaps it is a third kind…?
lj — thanks for the reference. That is indeed the passage I was thinking of, and I had even found it, but was utterly focused on copying text into a comment, and didn’t even think of linking it.
Also, thanks to nous for your 2:09 a.m. comment. You said much more clearly an approximation of what I was groping for.
lj — thanks for the reference. That is indeed the passage I was thinking of, and I had even found it, but was utterly focused on copying text into a comment, and didn’t even think of linking it.
Also, thanks to nous for your 2:09 a.m. comment. You said much more clearly an approximation of what I was groping for.
Russia and Ukraine is a particularly thorny case. From Russia’s POV Ukraine is the original Russia since the Russians consider the Kievan Rus as the seed Russia grew from.
It’s as if the capital of Italy was Verona because the unification of Italy left the full papal state intact and now the Italian government would try to take that part by force because Rome should naturally be the Italian capital. Or even more close, as if the papal state had been reconstituted after 1945 and the RW Italian goverment now would demand a forced reunion (while the pope has some literal divisions at hand to defend against that) and employ lots of mercenaries recruited from the diverse Italian and Sicilian mafia organisations.
Of course most of Italy was early on a part of the Holy Roman Empire and thus should be part of Germany. Germany in the borders of 1237 – Naples must stay German*
*a joke I once read on the wall of a public toilet. It’s a double joke since it refers to the 1937 German borders (when Silesia was still part of Germany) that were the original idea about the post-WW2 borders of Germany and stayed part of the longterm political demands of the Western German government until 1990 and to the official ‘birth year’ of the German capital Berlin [first mentioned in a surviving document in 1237].
The joke is aimed as the eternally-yesterdayers (Ewiggestrige) who still demand the lost territories back but are also very xenophobic and would hate (Southern) Italians becoming German citizens.
Russia and Ukraine is a particularly thorny case. From Russia’s POV Ukraine is the original Russia since the Russians consider the Kievan Rus as the seed Russia grew from.
It’s as if the capital of Italy was Verona because the unification of Italy left the full papal state intact and now the Italian government would try to take that part by force because Rome should naturally be the Italian capital. Or even more close, as if the papal state had been reconstituted after 1945 and the RW Italian goverment now would demand a forced reunion (while the pope has some literal divisions at hand to defend against that) and employ lots of mercenaries recruited from the diverse Italian and Sicilian mafia organisations.
Of course most of Italy was early on a part of the Holy Roman Empire and thus should be part of Germany. Germany in the borders of 1237 – Naples must stay German*
*a joke I once read on the wall of a public toilet. It’s a double joke since it refers to the 1937 German borders (when Silesia was still part of Germany) that were the original idea about the post-WW2 borders of Germany and stayed part of the longterm political demands of the Western German government until 1990 and to the official ‘birth year’ of the German capital Berlin [first mentioned in a surviving document in 1237].
The joke is aimed as the eternally-yesterdayers (Ewiggestrige) who still demand the lost territories back but are also very xenophobic and would hate (Southern) Italians becoming German citizens.
wj – perhaps read some decolonial perspectives on colonial power and try to wrap your head around where they are coming from in their approach to these issues? That would seem like a good use of your anthro background. Then maybe revisit your questions through a cross-cultural lens and see if they are the right questions or if another approach yields more productive exchange?
I don’t have enough anti/de/post-colonial reading under my own belt to speak for that perspective, and I’m certainly not in a place to speak for, or translate, for any of the Global Souths.
wj – perhaps read some decolonial perspectives on colonial power and try to wrap your head around where they are coming from in their approach to these issues? That would seem like a good use of your anthro background. Then maybe revisit your questions through a cross-cultural lens and see if they are the right questions or if another approach yields more productive exchange?
I don’t have enough anti/de/post-colonial reading under my own belt to speak for that perspective, and I’m certainly not in a place to speak for, or translate, for any of the Global Souths.
I too found nous’s 2.09 profound and in a sense beautiful. But it seems to me that it describes a phenomenon of language (the resonances, the vibrations of sympathetic strings) which, despite its undoubted truth, is more applicable to poetry than when, for example, one is trying to describe immoral or criminal acts. And, although I may be alone in this here, I hope some day that the perpetrators of atrocities can be brought to some kind of justice. It may be a forlorn hope.
Also, when nous refers to the way that a people so marked and defined by genocide can become so indifferent to the mass suffering of another people at their political hand, he describes exactly the disbelief and horror felt by many Jews, like myself for example, who oppose the treatment of the Palestinians in general, let alone the current horrific events.
But the trouble with calling it a genocide, when it is not, is that as well as the sensitive well-meaning people who are responding to the sympathetic vibration in another string tuned to a different, but consonant note, it can also be used by those very, very many gleeful antisemites who (because they are too sophisticated to be actual deniers) constantly accuse the Jews, or Israelis, of “weaponising” the holocaust, and are therefore only too delighted to be able to turn round and accuse them of doing the same thing. It is not the same thing. It is its own terrible thing.
And, as a further gloss for anybody who wants it (not Janie, I’m guessing) on my previous statement that If we lose the true meanings of words, we eventually lose even the ability to think clearly, the operative word is “eventually”. At the moment I can explain why this is not a genocide, but if one accedes to blurring the meaning of too many words, so that meaning (like facts) becomes entirely subjective, in the end explanation will become impossible. And then the ministry of propaganda will become Minitrue, and we may as well have on our walls “WAR IS PEACE,” “FREEDOM IS SLAVERY,” and “IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.”
I too found nous’s 2.09 profound and in a sense beautiful. But it seems to me that it describes a phenomenon of language (the resonances, the vibrations of sympathetic strings) which, despite its undoubted truth, is more applicable to poetry than when, for example, one is trying to describe immoral or criminal acts. And, although I may be alone in this here, I hope some day that the perpetrators of atrocities can be brought to some kind of justice. It may be a forlorn hope.
Also, when nous refers to the way that a people so marked and defined by genocide can become so indifferent to the mass suffering of another people at their political hand, he describes exactly the disbelief and horror felt by many Jews, like myself for example, who oppose the treatment of the Palestinians in general, let alone the current horrific events.
But the trouble with calling it a genocide, when it is not, is that as well as the sensitive well-meaning people who are responding to the sympathetic vibration in another string tuned to a different, but consonant note, it can also be used by those very, very many gleeful antisemites who (because they are too sophisticated to be actual deniers) constantly accuse the Jews, or Israelis, of “weaponising” the holocaust, and are therefore only too delighted to be able to turn round and accuse them of doing the same thing. It is not the same thing. It is its own terrible thing.
And, as a further gloss for anybody who wants it (not Janie, I’m guessing) on my previous statement that If we lose the true meanings of words, we eventually lose even the ability to think clearly, the operative word is “eventually”. At the moment I can explain why this is not a genocide, but if one accedes to blurring the meaning of too many words, so that meaning (like facts) becomes entirely subjective, in the end explanation will become impossible. And then the ministry of propaganda will become Minitrue, and we may as well have on our walls “WAR IS PEACE,” “FREEDOM IS SLAVERY,” and “IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.”
I see that sounds like I am mocking the sensitive well-meaning people who think “genocide” an acceptable term under these circumstances. I’m not. But as I say, I think a little deeper thought shows that it is unsuitable for discussing atrocities which, when described by their accurate terms, will hopefully be found to be grave breaches of the international laws of war, and therefore probably war crimes.
I see that sounds like I am mocking the sensitive well-meaning people who think “genocide” an acceptable term under these circumstances. I’m not. But as I say, I think a little deeper thought shows that it is unsuitable for discussing atrocities which, when described by their accurate terms, will hopefully be found to be grave breaches of the international laws of war, and therefore probably war crimes.
I suspect that, for some, “genocide” has become rather like “woke” has become for others: a handy label for pretty much anything they object to. Limited only by involving some number of deaths — the actual number not necessarily within orders of magnitude of what actually wiping out a culture or a nation would entail.
I suspect that, for some, “genocide” has become rather like “woke” has become for others: a handy label for pretty much anything they object to. Limited only by involving some number of deaths — the actual number not necessarily within orders of magnitude of what actually wiping out a culture or a nation would entail.
Except that “woke” is just a sarcastic label for an attitude, but both “genocide” and the more accurate alternatives are all referring to the actual killing of people. Just as we worry that slippage in “genocide” could dilute the meaning, we also have to be sure that our objections to the use don’t dilute the horror of the deaths that are happening.
We aren’t dealing with micro aggressions here. These are both atrocities being perpetrated against non-combatant populations.
I trust we all agree on this, but that needs to be foregrounded.
Except that “woke” is just a sarcastic label for an attitude, but both “genocide” and the more accurate alternatives are all referring to the actual killing of people. Just as we worry that slippage in “genocide” could dilute the meaning, we also have to be sure that our objections to the use don’t dilute the horror of the deaths that are happening.
We aren’t dealing with micro aggressions here. These are both atrocities being perpetrated against non-combatant populations.
I trust we all agree on this, but that needs to be foregrounded.
I certainly agree with that.
I certainly agree with that.
I want to point out that the legal definition of genocide is again quite broad and you can see it explained in the Jewish Currents article I linked above, which is an argument for saying Israel is practicing genocide. And people, not just lefties, have been using the term fir crimes far smaller than the Holocaust for quite a while.
I would like an intermediate term like mass killings, but that ship has sailed.
I want to point out that the legal definition of genocide is again quite broad and you can see it explained in the Jewish Currents article I linked above, which is an argument for saying Israel is practicing genocide. And people, not just lefties, have been using the term fir crimes far smaller than the Holocaust for quite a while.
I would like an intermediate term like mass killings, but that ship has sailed.
Yes, personally I am aware of the terms of the Genocide Convention,: Article I
The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to
punish.
Article II
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with
intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as
such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its
physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Article III
The following acts shall be punishable:
(a) Genocide;
(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
(d) Attempt to commit genocide;
(e) Complicity in genocide.
Given the wording I have bolded, I think it is clear that what is happening in Gaza is not genocide, because what the Israeli government is doing is not committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Personally I agree that many extreme rightwing Israelis (and their American funders) would be delighted to destroy, at a stroke, all Palestinians and maybe (you could argue) all Muslims. But that is not the aim of the IDF or the government, whatever the secret wish in some of their hearts. Their aim is to destroy Hamas, and they show no compunction in trying to do so when it necessitates killing large numbers of civilians, so to my mind this is without doubt a war crime. As for whether they intend to drive the Gazans out of Gaza and into Egypt, never to return, the jury is out, but I can quite see why the Gazans fear it may be so.
Yes, personally I am aware of the terms of the Genocide Convention,: Article I
The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to
punish.
Article II
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with
intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as
such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its
physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Article III
The following acts shall be punishable:
(a) Genocide;
(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
(d) Attempt to commit genocide;
(e) Complicity in genocide.
Given the wording I have bolded, I think it is clear that what is happening in Gaza is not genocide, because what the Israeli government is doing is not committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Personally I agree that many extreme rightwing Israelis (and their American funders) would be delighted to destroy, at a stroke, all Palestinians and maybe (you could argue) all Muslims. But that is not the aim of the IDF or the government, whatever the secret wish in some of their hearts. Their aim is to destroy Hamas, and they show no compunction in trying to do so when it necessitates killing large numbers of civilians, so to my mind this is without doubt a war crime. As for whether they intend to drive the Gazans out of Gaza and into Egypt, never to return, the jury is out, but I can quite see why the Gazans fear it may be so.
I think the “ in part” is the portion that lets you say it is genocide. I think you could also say the same about Oct 7. Some Israeli leaders have made genocidal- sounding remarks. I think ( my opinion of course, not claiming I can prove it) that they are deliberately trying to kill civilians. Not in whole but in part.
I am not a lawyer and don’t know how such arguments would fare in court. Also, as I said before, I would prefer a scale of terms for atrocities and genocide would be restricted to extreme cases like The Holocaust and what the Nazis did to the Roma, as well as Rwanda and a few others. On a smaller scale numerically, I think California put a bounty on Indian scalps in the 1800’s. That was genocidal.
Anyway, I don’t want to argue for a word usage that I would prefer was different. If I go to a protest and someone hands me a poster with genocide on it ( stop funding genocide in Gaza is one people in the local group use) I would carry it. If someone came up to argue I would say personally I prefer “ mass killings”. But I doubt the arguer would be satisfied with that. I would probably make and carry my own mass killing sign.
The word usage has moved on.
I think the “ in part” is the portion that lets you say it is genocide. I think you could also say the same about Oct 7. Some Israeli leaders have made genocidal- sounding remarks. I think ( my opinion of course, not claiming I can prove it) that they are deliberately trying to kill civilians. Not in whole but in part.
I am not a lawyer and don’t know how such arguments would fare in court. Also, as I said before, I would prefer a scale of terms for atrocities and genocide would be restricted to extreme cases like The Holocaust and what the Nazis did to the Roma, as well as Rwanda and a few others. On a smaller scale numerically, I think California put a bounty on Indian scalps in the 1800’s. That was genocidal.
Anyway, I don’t want to argue for a word usage that I would prefer was different. If I go to a protest and someone hands me a poster with genocide on it ( stop funding genocide in Gaza is one people in the local group use) I would carry it. If someone came up to argue I would say personally I prefer “ mass killings”. But I doubt the arguer would be satisfied with that. I would probably make and carry my own mass killing sign.
The word usage has moved on.
So to which kind of colonialism would you attribute Russia’s plans for Ukraine? Or perhaps it is a third kind…?
There are a lot more to choose from https://www.historians.org/research-and-publications/perspectives-on-history/october-2015/a-typology-of-colonialism
Even though we were talking about Israel in relation to colonialism, drift happens. We can look at the Russia-Ukraine conflict through the lens of colonialism, there are a bunch of pieces discussing Putin’s need to return to an imperial Russia, here’s a quick link https://ecfr.eu/article/putin-pushkin-and-the-decline-of-the-russian-empire/
While imperialism and colonialism are two separate terms, they share quite a bit of overlap. Certainly, Putin has made a lot of assumptions about the Ukraine and the initial actions were right out of the colonialism 101 playbook. Putin might have benefitted from reading some of the literature on decolonialism…
So to which kind of colonialism would you attribute Russia’s plans for Ukraine? Or perhaps it is a third kind…?
There are a lot more to choose from https://www.historians.org/research-and-publications/perspectives-on-history/october-2015/a-typology-of-colonialism
Even though we were talking about Israel in relation to colonialism, drift happens. We can look at the Russia-Ukraine conflict through the lens of colonialism, there are a bunch of pieces discussing Putin’s need to return to an imperial Russia, here’s a quick link https://ecfr.eu/article/putin-pushkin-and-the-decline-of-the-russian-empire/
While imperialism and colonialism are two separate terms, they share quite a bit of overlap. Certainly, Putin has made a lot of assumptions about the Ukraine and the initial actions were right out of the colonialism 101 playbook. Putin might have benefitted from reading some of the literature on decolonialism…
I think the “ in part” is the portion that lets you say it is genocide.
Donald: yes, I assumed that was what was driving it for people who thought so. But it seems clear to me that for it to qualify, you have to have an intent to destroy, even in part, a national, ethnical racial or religious group. And that actual intent, regarding any of those categories, seems clearly missing. But I have to say, on the whole, I think we agree. I have no argument whatsoever with “mass killings” or (as I have already said) “indiscriminate mass killings of civilians”, and that seems quite appalling enough.
I think the “ in part” is the portion that lets you say it is genocide.
Donald: yes, I assumed that was what was driving it for people who thought so. But it seems clear to me that for it to qualify, you have to have an intent to destroy, even in part, a national, ethnical racial or religious group. And that actual intent, regarding any of those categories, seems clearly missing. But I have to say, on the whole, I think we agree. I have no argument whatsoever with “mass killings” or (as I have already said) “indiscriminate mass killings of civilians”, and that seems quite appalling enough.
Gftnc— we mostly agree. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/30/us/politics/biden-israel.html
I was going to dig up links— I watched an interview with the Israeli ambassador to the UK with sky news on YouTube where she talked about Dresden as a model and also Mosul. The civilian death toll there was around 10,000, but she mistakenly said 100,000. However, that showed her mindset. And now that the Biden Administration is getting a bit uneasy, the NYT decides it can write about the fact that Israeli officials think the mass bombing campaigns in WW2 are a model for how they can behave in Gaza. Including Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That doesn’t mean using nukes— they mean they are willing to cause that level of harm.
At some point if the death toll got high enough I would use the genocide word. But it becomes arbitrary exactly when. Not now. But if it drags on and this is their attitude, then yes. I think Biden was unforgivable in his comment about Palestinian numbers. He is complicit in all the deaths so far. But evidently they are getting very worried or there wouldn’t be this NYT article which I interpret as a message from the Biden Administration to the world that they are trying to hold back these rightwing lunatics.
Gftnc— we mostly agree. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/30/us/politics/biden-israel.html
I was going to dig up links— I watched an interview with the Israeli ambassador to the UK with sky news on YouTube where she talked about Dresden as a model and also Mosul. The civilian death toll there was around 10,000, but she mistakenly said 100,000. However, that showed her mindset. And now that the Biden Administration is getting a bit uneasy, the NYT decides it can write about the fact that Israeli officials think the mass bombing campaigns in WW2 are a model for how they can behave in Gaza. Including Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That doesn’t mean using nukes— they mean they are willing to cause that level of harm.
At some point if the death toll got high enough I would use the genocide word. But it becomes arbitrary exactly when. Not now. But if it drags on and this is their attitude, then yes. I think Biden was unforgivable in his comment about Palestinian numbers. He is complicit in all the deaths so far. But evidently they are getting very worried or there wouldn’t be this NYT article which I interpret as a message from the Biden Administration to the world that they are trying to hold back these rightwing lunatics.
While imperialism and colonialism are two separate terms, they share quite a bit of overlap. Certainly, Putin has made a lot of assumptions about the Ukraine and the initial actions were right out of the colonialism 101 playbook. Putin might have benefitted from reading some of the literature on decolonialism…
The thing is, what Putin intends to do is to utterly destroy Ukrainian language and culture. Which would appear to meet the classic definition of genocide. Colonialism might be one of the planned tools, but the genocide is the ultimate goal.
While imperialism and colonialism are two separate terms, they share quite a bit of overlap. Certainly, Putin has made a lot of assumptions about the Ukraine and the initial actions were right out of the colonialism 101 playbook. Putin might have benefitted from reading some of the literature on decolonialism…
The thing is, what Putin intends to do is to utterly destroy Ukrainian language and culture. Which would appear to meet the classic definition of genocide. Colonialism might be one of the planned tools, but the genocide is the ultimate goal.
I was thinking of the annexation of the Crimea, which looks, in hindsight, like the first steps. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_Russian_Federation
About the assumption, Putin seemed to think that the Russian forces would be welcomed as liberators and protectors. Again, this seems to be a pretty common trope in colonialism, the idea that the larger power knows best.
I was thinking of the annexation of the Crimea, which looks, in hindsight, like the first steps. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_Russian_Federation
About the assumption, Putin seemed to think that the Russian forces would be welcomed as liberators and protectors. Again, this seems to be a pretty common trope in colonialism, the idea that the larger power knows best.
Putin seemed to think that the Russian forces would be welcomed as liberators and protectors.
Originally, yes. But, as is not uncommon, goals have changed as the fighting has continued. Putin has moved on from liberation to (cultural) extermination.
Putin seemed to think that the Russian forces would be welcomed as liberators and protectors.
Originally, yes. But, as is not uncommon, goals have changed as the fighting has continued. Putin has moved on from liberation to (cultural) extermination.
Meanwhile in Washington the plan is to transfer money from the IRS to the IDF so to speak. The (House) GOP is currently only willing to pass a support bill (for Israel, Ukraine and the Southern border), if Ukraine help is stripped from it completely (pretending that they will deal with it in a separate bill) and that the money for Israel is coming completely from the budget of the IRS, in particular the enforcement arm. And they have the nerve to say that this is to keep it budget neutral and to prevent the deficit from getting worse.
Meanwhile in Washington the plan is to transfer money from the IRS to the IDF so to speak. The (House) GOP is currently only willing to pass a support bill (for Israel, Ukraine and the Southern border), if Ukraine help is stripped from it completely (pretending that they will deal with it in a separate bill) and that the money for Israel is coming completely from the budget of the IRS, in particular the enforcement arm. And they have the nerve to say that this is to keep it budget neutral and to prevent the deficit from getting worse.
In my mind, ‘genocide’ means about what the Genocide Convention says it means.
To me, one good reason not to use ‘genocide’ to mean ‘mass killing which I think worse than other mass killings’ is that it forces a judgment on the speaker. I don’t want to call the recent Hamas murders ‘genocide’, I don’t want to call the IDF murders ‘genocide’, I want to condemn them for what they are.
In my mind, ‘genocide’ means about what the Genocide Convention says it means.
To me, one good reason not to use ‘genocide’ to mean ‘mass killing which I think worse than other mass killings’ is that it forces a judgment on the speaker. I don’t want to call the recent Hamas murders ‘genocide’, I don’t want to call the IDF murders ‘genocide’, I want to condemn them for what they are.
In my mind, ‘genocide’ means about what the Genocide Convention says it means.
To me, one good reason not to use ‘genocide’ to mean ‘mass killing which I think worse than other mass killings’ is that it forces a judgment on the speaker. I don’t want to call the recent Hamas murders ‘genocide’, I don’t want to call the IDF murders ‘genocide’, I want to condemn them for what they are.
In my mind, ‘genocide’ means about what the Genocide Convention says it means.
To me, one good reason not to use ‘genocide’ to mean ‘mass killing which I think worse than other mass killings’ is that it forces a judgment on the speaker. I don’t want to call the recent Hamas murders ‘genocide’, I don’t want to call the IDF murders ‘genocide’, I want to condemn them for what they are.
“The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name.”
“The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name.”
In a way I think this piece is the best one I have seen on the war because it shows what the Israeli system is like during peacetime. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/03/opinion/unarmed-teen-israel-gaza.html
For those who can’t read it, ( I don’t know how to do that thing where I let everyone read it) I will summaruze.
The piece is by a lawyer for an organization called Adalah in Israel which fights within the system for Palestinian rights. There have always been Israeli Jews and Israeli Palestinians working together doing this type of thing— they are heroes fighting a losing battle.
The writer tells about a 15 year old boy in Gaza who was on his family’s land who was shot during peace by an Israeli sniper and put in a wheelchair. They sued the Israeli government for compensation. They lost and the Supreme Court in Israel ( the good guys tge protestors were defending before Oct 7) upheld a law that says Gazans can’t sue the government in situations like this.
The boy was now a 24 year old man but recently was killed in an air strike.
In a way I think this piece is the best one I have seen on the war because it shows what the Israeli system is like during peacetime. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/03/opinion/unarmed-teen-israel-gaza.html
For those who can’t read it, ( I don’t know how to do that thing where I let everyone read it) I will summaruze.
The piece is by a lawyer for an organization called Adalah in Israel which fights within the system for Palestinian rights. There have always been Israeli Jews and Israeli Palestinians working together doing this type of thing— they are heroes fighting a losing battle.
The writer tells about a 15 year old boy in Gaza who was on his family’s land who was shot during peace by an Israeli sniper and put in a wheelchair. They sued the Israeli government for compensation. They lost and the Supreme Court in Israel ( the good guys tge protestors were defending before Oct 7) upheld a law that says Gazans can’t sue the government in situations like this.
The boy was now a 24 year old man but recently was killed in an air strike.
Netanyahu’s response to Blinken, denying a humanitarian pause while Hamas continues to hold hostages, shows the world that, in effect, his government is treating all of Gaza as hostages. The equivalency is implicit. And disturbing. And (sadly) unsurprising for anyone who has been paying attention since the start of the occupation.
My sympathies lie with the multitude of people of good faith and compassion, whose agency in this matter has been hijacked by the bloodthirsty nihilists who are supposed to represent them.
Netanyahu’s response to Blinken, denying a humanitarian pause while Hamas continues to hold hostages, shows the world that, in effect, his government is treating all of Gaza as hostages. The equivalency is implicit. And disturbing. And (sadly) unsurprising for anyone who has been paying attention since the start of the occupation.
My sympathies lie with the multitude of people of good faith and compassion, whose agency in this matter has been hijacked by the bloodthirsty nihilists who are supposed to represent them.
My sympathies lie with the multitude of people of good faith and compassion, whose agency in this matter has been hijacked by the bloodthirsty nihilists who are supposed to represent them.
Amen.
My sympathies lie with the multitude of people of good faith and compassion, whose agency in this matter has been hijacked by the bloodthirsty nihilists who are supposed to represent them.
Amen.
Decided to put this comment in the war thread. The quoted comment is mine from the other thread.
“ drone strikes aimed as carefully as possible at Hamas leaders would be very easy to defend and the U.S. could have taken that position”
You wouldn’t use 2000 lb bombs in a refugee camp in targeting a Hamas leader. Israel,probably creates more future terrorists than it kills with such tactics, plus the power cutoff, denounced as a war crime when Putin. Demanding adherence to the laws of war should be a no brainer.
Everyone in the world now sees the West has very open double standards on the laws of war. I think that our support for the Saudi war in Yemen was actually worse than Gaza up to this point— the blockade there killed the majority of the 400,000 who died and they were mostly children. But Israel gets huge attention, both positive and negative and while Yemen got caught creed maybe once a month and most people ignored it, Israel- Palestine is front page news. The double standards on human rights are right out there in the open. And Biden and most of our politicians jumped in with total support for everything Israel wanted to do, some pro forma talk about laws of war but also supporting everything Israel actually did. Now that protests are building, they are starting to see the PR problem and State Department people who have been sidelined are very upset, but I think Biden is still just treating this as a PR problem. Say some stuff about “ humanitarian pauses” which are utterly inadequate and which Netanyahu rejects.
Biden can only hope the war ends long before the campaign season starts and the press moves on.
Ukraine is also going to be a political problem, I suspect, since the offensive failed. I think that was a sh@tshow from the beginning but never had anything useful to say. Still don’t. I read some pro Russian sites and they think they are winning.
Decided to put this comment in the war thread. The quoted comment is mine from the other thread.
“ drone strikes aimed as carefully as possible at Hamas leaders would be very easy to defend and the U.S. could have taken that position”
You wouldn’t use 2000 lb bombs in a refugee camp in targeting a Hamas leader. Israel,probably creates more future terrorists than it kills with such tactics, plus the power cutoff, denounced as a war crime when Putin. Demanding adherence to the laws of war should be a no brainer.
Everyone in the world now sees the West has very open double standards on the laws of war. I think that our support for the Saudi war in Yemen was actually worse than Gaza up to this point— the blockade there killed the majority of the 400,000 who died and they were mostly children. But Israel gets huge attention, both positive and negative and while Yemen got caught creed maybe once a month and most people ignored it, Israel- Palestine is front page news. The double standards on human rights are right out there in the open. And Biden and most of our politicians jumped in with total support for everything Israel wanted to do, some pro forma talk about laws of war but also supporting everything Israel actually did. Now that protests are building, they are starting to see the PR problem and State Department people who have been sidelined are very upset, but I think Biden is still just treating this as a PR problem. Say some stuff about “ humanitarian pauses” which are utterly inadequate and which Netanyahu rejects.
Biden can only hope the war ends long before the campaign season starts and the press moves on.
Ukraine is also going to be a political problem, I suspect, since the offensive failed. I think that was a sh@tshow from the beginning but never had anything useful to say. Still don’t. I read some pro Russian sites and they think they are winning.
Argh. Some weird typos and accidental deletions above but you can probably figure out the meaning.
Argh. Some weird typos and accidental deletions above but you can probably figure out the meaning.
Putin’s investment in The Orange One and his merry GOPsters is paying off after all it seems.
Even Zelensky is quoted that without US help Ukraine can’t remain in the fight for long. And the House GOP has already decoupled help for Ukraine from the help for Israel and this in turn is coupled to help for rich tax cheats. Priorities!!! Even the senate GOP is disgruntled about that but without the House there can’t be anything financial/budget since that has to originate from the House. So, by doing nothing the House GOPsters get most of what they want and their (pay)masters rejoice.
Putin’s investment in The Orange One and his merry GOPsters is paying off after all it seems.
Even Zelensky is quoted that without US help Ukraine can’t remain in the fight for long. And the House GOP has already decoupled help for Ukraine from the help for Israel and this in turn is coupled to help for rich tax cheats. Priorities!!! Even the senate GOP is disgruntled about that but without the House there can’t be anything financial/budget since that has to originate from the House. So, by doing nothing the House GOPsters get most of what they want and their (pay)masters rejoice.
Donald,
while you are absolutely correct to deplore how some conflicts are ignored while others get attention, I think that much of that is simply whether people have personal connections to the region in question.
Chances are good that you know (maybe directly, maybe at one step) someone in/from Israel, Ukraine, Armenia, Northern Ireland, or Lebanon. Less likely Yemen. Or South Sudan. Or Ethiopia. Or Myanmar.
And probably more that I’m forgetting.
That’s just humans being primates and how primates prioritize based on how “closely” connected they are.
Still good to remind everyone that the world is larger than just our own circle of acquaintances.
Donald,
while you are absolutely correct to deplore how some conflicts are ignored while others get attention, I think that much of that is simply whether people have personal connections to the region in question.
Chances are good that you know (maybe directly, maybe at one step) someone in/from Israel, Ukraine, Armenia, Northern Ireland, or Lebanon. Less likely Yemen. Or South Sudan. Or Ethiopia. Or Myanmar.
And probably more that I’m forgetting.
That’s just humans being primates and how primates prioritize based on how “closely” connected they are.
Still good to remind everyone that the world is larger than just our own circle of acquaintances.
Ukraine is also going to be a political problem, I suspect, since the offensive failed. I think that was a sh@tshow from the beginning but never had anything useful to say. Still don’t. I read some pro Russian sites and they think they are winning.
I don’t doubt that the Russians think they are winning. Or, at least, feel constrained to say so publicly. But the way they keep blowing thru troops and equipment, without obviously accomplishing anything, suggests that position is debatable.
Sure, they’ve got more cannon fodder available. But it says something that they’re reduced to begging ammo and guns from North Korea. Not something you do unless you’re pretty desperate. And not a source with unlimited supplies available.
As for the Ukrainian offensive having failed? Well, it certainly wasn’t a reprise of their sweeping success a year ago. But then, nobody who bothered to look at the situation thought it would be. The situations were just totally different.
What it has done is make some small advances while bleeding the Russians. And it is characteristic of attacks against dug in positions like this that they look like they are getting nowhere . . . right up until they suddenly break thru. Are they going to break thru any time soon? No real way to tell (absent far more extensive intelligence on both sides’ situations). But it is premature to conclude that they won’t.
Will the Ukraine war be a political issue next year? Probably not. There will doubtless be lots of posturing, especially in the House. But as long as no Americans are fighting and dying, the average voter has lots of far more pressing concerns.
Ukraine is also going to be a political problem, I suspect, since the offensive failed. I think that was a sh@tshow from the beginning but never had anything useful to say. Still don’t. I read some pro Russian sites and they think they are winning.
I don’t doubt that the Russians think they are winning. Or, at least, feel constrained to say so publicly. But the way they keep blowing thru troops and equipment, without obviously accomplishing anything, suggests that position is debatable.
Sure, they’ve got more cannon fodder available. But it says something that they’re reduced to begging ammo and guns from North Korea. Not something you do unless you’re pretty desperate. And not a source with unlimited supplies available.
As for the Ukrainian offensive having failed? Well, it certainly wasn’t a reprise of their sweeping success a year ago. But then, nobody who bothered to look at the situation thought it would be. The situations were just totally different.
What it has done is make some small advances while bleeding the Russians. And it is characteristic of attacks against dug in positions like this that they look like they are getting nowhere . . . right up until they suddenly break thru. Are they going to break thru any time soon? No real way to tell (absent far more extensive intelligence on both sides’ situations). But it is premature to conclude that they won’t.
Will the Ukraine war be a political issue next year? Probably not. There will doubtless be lots of posturing, especially in the House. But as long as no Americans are fighting and dying, the average voter has lots of far more pressing concerns.
But as long as no Americans are fighting and dying, the average voter has lots of far more pressing concerns.
But that also means that the support money can be (and is) demagogued as wasteful spending that also keeps the gas prices high. And that is something the low-information voters are vulnerable for.
But as long as no Americans are fighting and dying, the average voter has lots of far more pressing concerns.
But that also means that the support money can be (and is) demagogued as wasteful spending that also keeps the gas prices high. And that is something the low-information voters are vulnerable for.
Israel gets a lot of attention because it’s considered a Western outpost in an illiberal Middle Eastern region. And the Middle Eastern region considers it the sharp point of Western invasion.
Here’s an interview with Sam Harris and Eric Weinstein wherein they discuss and debate the nature of, history, and future of the Israel-Palestine conflict and what can and can’t be done about it. You may not agree with them much but you’re likely to get some nuances that you haven’t encountered elsewhere. “Sam Harris is an American neuroscientist, author, and podcast host. A central voice in the New Atheism movement, he is a well-known critic of religious ideology. Eric Weinstein is a mathematical physicist, public thinker, and host of the podcast ‘The Portal’.” Sam Harris X Eric Weinstein: Israel-Palestine
Israel gets a lot of attention because it’s considered a Western outpost in an illiberal Middle Eastern region. And the Middle Eastern region considers it the sharp point of Western invasion.
Here’s an interview with Sam Harris and Eric Weinstein wherein they discuss and debate the nature of, history, and future of the Israel-Palestine conflict and what can and can’t be done about it. You may not agree with them much but you’re likely to get some nuances that you haven’t encountered elsewhere. “Sam Harris is an American neuroscientist, author, and podcast host. A central voice in the New Atheism movement, he is a well-known critic of religious ideology. Eric Weinstein is a mathematical physicist, public thinker, and host of the podcast ‘The Portal’.” Sam Harris X Eric Weinstein: Israel-Palestine
Jumping back and forth between threads. Anyway, this is a portion of a NYT editorial from Dec 2016 about Aleppo.
“ Mr. Putin’s bloody actions — the bombing of civilian neighborhoods, the destruction of hospitals, the refusal to allow noncombatants to receive food, fuel and medical supplies — are all in violation of international law. At the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday, Samantha Power, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, said to Mr. Assad, Russia and Iran that they had put a “noose” around Aleppo’s civilians and: “It should shame you. Instead, by all appearances, it is emboldening you.””
Jumping back and forth between threads. Anyway, this is a portion of a NYT editorial from Dec 2016 about Aleppo.
“ Mr. Putin’s bloody actions — the bombing of civilian neighborhoods, the destruction of hospitals, the refusal to allow noncombatants to receive food, fuel and medical supplies — are all in violation of international law. At the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday, Samantha Power, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, said to Mr. Assad, Russia and Iran that they had put a “noose” around Aleppo’s civilians and: “It should shame you. Instead, by all appearances, it is emboldening you.””
The difference between Syria and Israel has entirely to do with the heavy influence of both the Israel lobby and the Evangelicals in US politics. No one is going to argue that Syria has any right to exist as the only possible homeland for an oppressed people, and there are no messianic death cults built around the historical necessity of war in Syria to hasten the coming of your favorite members-only utopia and comeuppance for all the losers who totally deserve what they get.
Makes it easy (for some) to condemn Syria and hard to condemn Israel.
The difference between Syria and Israel has entirely to do with the heavy influence of both the Israel lobby and the Evangelicals in US politics. No one is going to argue that Syria has any right to exist as the only possible homeland for an oppressed people, and there are no messianic death cults built around the historical necessity of war in Syria to hasten the coming of your favorite members-only utopia and comeuppance for all the losers who totally deserve what they get.
Makes it easy (for some) to condemn Syria and hard to condemn Israel.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/04/us/politics/israel-gaza-deaths-bombs.html
Biden wants them to use 250 lb bombs rather than 1000 to 2000 lbs.
Area destroyed varies as two thirds power of yield, so assuming a 250 lb has 8 times less explosive ( probably not that simple) it would destroy 4 times less. Assuming same number of bombs dropped, maybe we have 1000 dead children at this point.
He also wants some sort of commando tactics or counterinsurgency or whatever the proper term would be. Israel is in a place where everybody hates them. They will be subjected to ambushes and btw, they have a history of using Palestinian civilians as human shields. The Israelis are hardly likely to risk the lives of their own men trying to spare the lives of Gazans, especially if they think the civilians might be cooperating with Hamas fighters in setting up ambushes. In Iraq it was a multi- sided war and some Iraqis would side with the US to keep other Iraqis from killing them. This war is a bit simpler.
Biden is delusional.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/04/us/politics/israel-gaza-deaths-bombs.html
Biden wants them to use 250 lb bombs rather than 1000 to 2000 lbs.
Area destroyed varies as two thirds power of yield, so assuming a 250 lb has 8 times less explosive ( probably not that simple) it would destroy 4 times less. Assuming same number of bombs dropped, maybe we have 1000 dead children at this point.
He also wants some sort of commando tactics or counterinsurgency or whatever the proper term would be. Israel is in a place where everybody hates them. They will be subjected to ambushes and btw, they have a history of using Palestinian civilians as human shields. The Israelis are hardly likely to risk the lives of their own men trying to spare the lives of Gazans, especially if they think the civilians might be cooperating with Hamas fighters in setting up ambushes. In Iraq it was a multi- sided war and some Iraqis would side with the US to keep other Iraqis from killing them. This war is a bit simpler.
Biden is delusional.
Hamas wrecked any chance of a just solution for the forseeable future. I am not excusing the apartheid state. They are war criminals and so are the Western governments that have enabled them for years. Both sides are terrible, though Hamas has now managed to pull off one of the greatest single massacres of civilians in recent history. 1ss or 2ss–fairy tales. All one can hope for is a bodycount that isn’t stratospheric
Israel will probably end up killing far more civilians and last I read have cut electricity and water. War crimes. They probably want as little reporting as possible from Gaza.
From the pro-Palestinian side, there was very slow progress towards the West seeing them as humans with equal rights. Not really there yet. There was a NYT editorial (on top of the four opinion pieces I mentioned) in May 2018 that said they found the Israeli case for using live ammo on unarmed demonstrators unconvincing and suggested using tear gas and watercannons instead. I might look it up, cut and paste the actual words. But that was a close paraphrase. You say that about people you don’t fully see as people compared to the shooters. Gosh, you killed some people there. You didn’t have to do that. Use water cannons in the future would be our advice.
Anyway, what little progress is gone, destroyed by Hamas going full ISIS. And some pro-Palestinian demonstrators are celebrating Hamas, because they are (insert string of curse words) stupid.
The Harvard kids (not sure if anyone is following this) are morons. But college radicals often are. Some are Palestinian. I would cut them slack–they know people who live there or might come from there themselves. But it is stupid to say that all blame falls on Israel. Hamas could have planned a daring attack focused solely on military targets that would have humiliated the Israelis, Bibi especially, and won over much of the world. But nope. They carefully planned for mass slaughter. Juan Cole thinks it was an ISIS-like calculation to start a regional conflict. Israel will react with enormous brutality and this will supposedly bring in Hezbollah (it might) and then others. People used to thinking of Israel as a happy prosperous place to live and visit won’t see it that way.
Brilliant idea if you want to be king of the ashes.
If Israel is allowed to go as far as some people suspect they will go, then take everything I just said about Hamas and apply it to Israel. And any Western government that continues to back them.
We should never have pandered to Israel this much anyway. Even if there was no peace agreement, the settlements continued to expand, the low-level (compared to what is happening now) violence against civilians was the norm, all the major human rights groups called it apartheid. Didn’t matter to the US or any of the other “civilized” Western countries. Jake Sullivan said just over a week ago that the Middle East was relatively calm. Won’t go into the intelligence failures. Don’t give a crap.
Hamas wrecked any chance of a just solution for the forseeable future. I am not excusing the apartheid state. They are war criminals and so are the Western governments that have enabled them for years. Both sides are terrible, though Hamas has now managed to pull off one of the greatest single massacres of civilians in recent history. 1ss or 2ss–fairy tales. All one can hope for is a bodycount that isn’t stratospheric
Israel will probably end up killing far more civilians and last I read have cut electricity and water. War crimes. They probably want as little reporting as possible from Gaza.
From the pro-Palestinian side, there was very slow progress towards the West seeing them as humans with equal rights. Not really there yet. There was a NYT editorial (on top of the four opinion pieces I mentioned) in May 2018 that said they found the Israeli case for using live ammo on unarmed demonstrators unconvincing and suggested using tear gas and watercannons instead. I might look it up, cut and paste the actual words. But that was a close paraphrase. You say that about people you don’t fully see as people compared to the shooters. Gosh, you killed some people there. You didn’t have to do that. Use water cannons in the future would be our advice.
Anyway, what little progress is gone, destroyed by Hamas going full ISIS. And some pro-Palestinian demonstrators are celebrating Hamas, because they are (insert string of curse words) stupid.
The Harvard kids (not sure if anyone is following this) are morons. But college radicals often are. Some are Palestinian. I would cut them slack–they know people who live there or might come from there themselves. But it is stupid to say that all blame falls on Israel. Hamas could have planned a daring attack focused solely on military targets that would have humiliated the Israelis, Bibi especially, and won over much of the world. But nope. They carefully planned for mass slaughter. Juan Cole thinks it was an ISIS-like calculation to start a regional conflict. Israel will react with enormous brutality and this will supposedly bring in Hezbollah (it might) and then others. People used to thinking of Israel as a happy prosperous place to live and visit won’t see it that way.
Brilliant idea if you want to be king of the ashes.
If Israel is allowed to go as far as some people suspect they will go, then take everything I just said about Hamas and apply it to Israel. And any Western government that continues to back them.
We should never have pandered to Israel this much anyway. Even if there was no peace agreement, the settlements continued to expand, the low-level (compared to what is happening now) violence against civilians was the norm, all the major human rights groups called it apartheid. Didn’t matter to the US or any of the other “civilized” Western countries. Jake Sullivan said just over a week ago that the Middle East was relatively calm. Won’t go into the intelligence failures. Don’t give a crap.
I usually try to stay out of discussions about I/P for the simple reason that I have friends and colleagues on either side of that wretched conflict, and all of them, too, are torn as to what can be done even as they worry for the fate of their relatives and loved ones with every new terror attack or escalation of settler politics.
All I can add, myself, is that the one thing I have found that really summarizes how I feel in this moment is going back and reading Book 24 of The Iliad with Priam going to Achilles seeking the release of Hector’s body.
That’s it. It’s worth a re-read. It captures so much.
And neither the siege, nor the war, nor the seething rage are close to being done.
I usually try to stay out of discussions about I/P for the simple reason that I have friends and colleagues on either side of that wretched conflict, and all of them, too, are torn as to what can be done even as they worry for the fate of their relatives and loved ones with every new terror attack or escalation of settler politics.
All I can add, myself, is that the one thing I have found that really summarizes how I feel in this moment is going back and reading Book 24 of The Iliad with Priam going to Achilles seeking the release of Hector’s body.
That’s it. It’s worth a re-read. It captures so much.
And neither the siege, nor the war, nor the seething rage are close to being done.
Jewish Currents has a summary of the current situation–
https://jewishcurrents.org/the-hamas-attacks-and-israeli-response-an-explainer
Here is an essay from last year about apartheid–
https://jewishcurrents.org/understanding-apartheid
Jewish Currents has a summary of the current situation–
https://jewishcurrents.org/the-hamas-attacks-and-israeli-response-an-explainer
Here is an essay from last year about apartheid–
https://jewishcurrents.org/understanding-apartheid
The whole thing seems ripe for a lot of conspiracy theories. A captured Hamas operative claimed that the operation had been in development for a year. And they were surprised when they met so little resistance.
Perhaps the original intention was to create some chaos and capture some hostages. And when they met no resistance, the Hamas operatives decided to engage in some mission creep in the form of letting their inner demons out to play.
The whole thing seems ripe for a lot of conspiracy theories. A captured Hamas operative claimed that the operation had been in development for a year. And they were surprised when they met so little resistance.
Perhaps the original intention was to create some chaos and capture some hostages. And when they met no resistance, the Hamas operatives decided to engage in some mission creep in the form of letting their inner demons out to play.
From what little I have read, the civilian killing seemed well planned. Either way, the inner demons were there.
From what little I have read, the civilian killing seemed well planned. Either way, the inner demons were there.
Goddamit, I just lost a long comment. I might reformulate in time, but in the first instance:
Janie’s comment about the hobgoblins in McK’s head was not “moral cowardice”, as he said. It referred to his longtime behaviour here of using us liberal/lefties as punching bags for attitudes which none of us hold.
I look forward the the contextualization of why Israeli civilians, particularly children, had this coming.
Not a single person here (I believe, and contrary to McK’s previous comments, I have a pretty good memory) has ever said, or thought, this. I realise he cannot get his head around this concept, but it is perfectly possible to
a) condemn the actions of the Netanyahu and some previous governments regarding Palestine and the Palestinians
and at the same time
b) condemn and be horrified by the terrorist activities of e.g. Hamas.
I am a Jew, and perhaps not the only one here. I have friends and relatives in Israel, some of whom are holocaust survivors, and all of whom are patriotic and serve or have served in the IDF, and many of them are lefty/liberals. It is perfectly possible to condemn e.g. the extension of the settlements, and the anti-democratic feelers of the Netanyahu government, while also condemning the likes of Hamas.
This does remind me of when McK tried to say we were apologists for the PRC, and pulled one of his famous disappearing tricks after various forms of pushback, including my reminding him that I had numerous friends and loved ones in Hong Kong whose safety and freedom I hugely feared for, in the place in which I grew up.
Why does it take personal stories to begin to put this across? Why is it so impossible to believe that people can hold several ideas in their minds at the same time? Why is nuance so impossible to comprehend?
As for the reactions of Palestinians, why is it so impossible to understand that if you have lived under oppression and occupation for decades, it breeds resentment and/or hatred? Before this latest crisis, 250 Palestinians had been killed this year. There are very few saints, or people as disciplined or controlled as a Mandela, who can conquer their rage and hurt enough to try to find an actual solution.
Goddamit, I just lost a long comment. I might reformulate in time, but in the first instance:
Janie’s comment about the hobgoblins in McK’s head was not “moral cowardice”, as he said. It referred to his longtime behaviour here of using us liberal/lefties as punching bags for attitudes which none of us hold.
I look forward the the contextualization of why Israeli civilians, particularly children, had this coming.
Not a single person here (I believe, and contrary to McK’s previous comments, I have a pretty good memory) has ever said, or thought, this. I realise he cannot get his head around this concept, but it is perfectly possible to
a) condemn the actions of the Netanyahu and some previous governments regarding Palestine and the Palestinians
and at the same time
b) condemn and be horrified by the terrorist activities of e.g. Hamas.
I am a Jew, and perhaps not the only one here. I have friends and relatives in Israel, some of whom are holocaust survivors, and all of whom are patriotic and serve or have served in the IDF, and many of them are lefty/liberals. It is perfectly possible to condemn e.g. the extension of the settlements, and the anti-democratic feelers of the Netanyahu government, while also condemning the likes of Hamas.
This does remind me of when McK tried to say we were apologists for the PRC, and pulled one of his famous disappearing tricks after various forms of pushback, including my reminding him that I had numerous friends and loved ones in Hong Kong whose safety and freedom I hugely feared for, in the place in which I grew up.
Why does it take personal stories to begin to put this across? Why is it so impossible to believe that people can hold several ideas in their minds at the same time? Why is nuance so impossible to comprehend?
As for the reactions of Palestinians, why is it so impossible to understand that if you have lived under oppression and occupation for decades, it breeds resentment and/or hatred? Before this latest crisis, 250 Palestinians had been killed this year. There are very few saints, or people as disciplined or controlled as a Mandela, who can conquer their rage and hurt enough to try to find an actual solution.
McKinney: You post, you invite comment.
I invite comment, not dishonest, bullying, simple-minded trollery.
I’ll comment whenever and wherever I like.
No, you won’t. No elaboration needed.
I am unblocking you, but unless/until I change my mind, if you show up in one of my threads again I’ll apply the overall block until I can have a conversation with the other front-pagers.
McKinney: You post, you invite comment.
I invite comment, not dishonest, bullying, simple-minded trollery.
I’ll comment whenever and wherever I like.
No, you won’t. No elaboration needed.
I am unblocking you, but unless/until I change my mind, if you show up in one of my threads again I’ll apply the overall block until I can have a conversation with the other front-pagers.
McKinney, since you seem to be unblocked for the moment, I invite you to explain why you decided that your initial comment/question on this topic should be quite so aggressive and combative? You may have been frustrated that on a blog which normally comments on topical political matters, no comments had been posted for three days, but still, why on earth do you think it OK to behave in quite so boorish and insulting a manner, let alone one so misguided in its premise?
I further invite you to consider the fact that your characterisation of the attitudes and opinions of us on this blog is frequently wrong: whenever one of us proves this to you (using personal stories, or not), you disappear. Only think how interesting it could be if you engaged with us in good faith, and tried to find out what our opinions were, instead of telling us (wrongly) what they are.
McKinney, since you seem to be unblocked for the moment, I invite you to explain why you decided that your initial comment/question on this topic should be quite so aggressive and combative? You may have been frustrated that on a blog which normally comments on topical political matters, no comments had been posted for three days, but still, why on earth do you think it OK to behave in quite so boorish and insulting a manner, let alone one so misguided in its premise?
I further invite you to consider the fact that your characterisation of the attitudes and opinions of us on this blog is frequently wrong: whenever one of us proves this to you (using personal stories, or not), you disappear. Only think how interesting it could be if you engaged with us in good faith, and tried to find out what our opinions were, instead of telling us (wrongly) what they are.
From today’s Guardian, by an Israeli who was in the country when it happened:
But this was only half the reckoning.
The other hit most Israelis much harder: the apparatus of the state had failed. People in the south were hiding in safe rooms, under beds and in wardrobes, hoping and believing that help was coming; that in this kind of situation, the army and police would come to their rescue within minutes. But no one came. They had to wait for a whole day, calling television newsrooms and whispering their cries for help; many did not survive. The army was nowhere in sight. A few units were obliterated by the invading Palestinian forces, but most of the army was stationed far away in the West Bank, securing settlers’ provocations at the heart of Palestinian villages.
The prime minister appeared on television promising vengeance, rivers of blood and balls of fire, to people who were still being held captive and whose loved ones were taken hostage – without even mentioning what he was going to do to save them from this plight. Ever since, the huge mismanagement of the country under his reckless government has been exposed. Reserve soldiers complain of a lack of supplies, civilians volunteer to prepare food for them and others who were uprooted and abandoned. The government is after a victorious image of destruction in Gaza, as if we have not been shown the outcomes of such massacres thousands of times, to no avail.
I have bolded the phrase which conveys how much the actions of the Netanyahu government, with their appalling rightwing religious allies and concentration on the settlements, have contributed to some of the failure of the army to respond to the attrocity in time.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/11/israel-hamas-benjamin-netanyahu-peace
From today’s Guardian, by an Israeli who was in the country when it happened:
But this was only half the reckoning.
The other hit most Israelis much harder: the apparatus of the state had failed. People in the south were hiding in safe rooms, under beds and in wardrobes, hoping and believing that help was coming; that in this kind of situation, the army and police would come to their rescue within minutes. But no one came. They had to wait for a whole day, calling television newsrooms and whispering their cries for help; many did not survive. The army was nowhere in sight. A few units were obliterated by the invading Palestinian forces, but most of the army was stationed far away in the West Bank, securing settlers’ provocations at the heart of Palestinian villages.
The prime minister appeared on television promising vengeance, rivers of blood and balls of fire, to people who were still being held captive and whose loved ones were taken hostage – without even mentioning what he was going to do to save them from this plight. Ever since, the huge mismanagement of the country under his reckless government has been exposed. Reserve soldiers complain of a lack of supplies, civilians volunteer to prepare food for them and others who were uprooted and abandoned. The government is after a victorious image of destruction in Gaza, as if we have not been shown the outcomes of such massacres thousands of times, to no avail.
I have bolded the phrase which conveys how much the actions of the Netanyahu government, with their appalling rightwing religious allies and concentration on the settlements, have contributed to some of the failure of the army to respond to the attrocity in time.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/11/israel-hamas-benjamin-netanyahu-peace
My father’s parents came to England from the Pale of Settlement as children. I have no living relatives in continental Europe. None. I profoundly understand the reasons for Israel’s existence.
I’m against killing people, almost always.
The bell tolls for us all.
My father’s parents came to England from the Pale of Settlement as children. I have no living relatives in continental Europe. None. I profoundly understand the reasons for Israel’s existence.
I’m against killing people, almost always.
The bell tolls for us all.
If you pop up here, McKT, my responses to you are in the other thread. You absolutely suck as a mindreader is part of it, but there’s more.
If you pop up here, McKT, my responses to you are in the other thread. You absolutely suck as a mindreader is part of it, but there’s more.
As a side note, I should say that my relative in her safe room told me on the telephone that Netanyahu’s cabinet were all idiots, or in her words “nitwits”, because of the necessity for him to include his far right religious allies despite their lack of expertise. Whether that was responsible or not for Israel ignoring the Egyptians’ warning three days before the assault, we will no doubt discover in time. But according to her, and to a retired Mossad officer I just saw on C4 News, the new unity government now has some very good, competent people in it. Let’s hope they have some effect in ensuring the Israeli response becomes more strategically (and in a humanitarian way) sensible.
As a side note, I should say that my relative in her safe room told me on the telephone that Netanyahu’s cabinet were all idiots, or in her words “nitwits”, because of the necessity for him to include his far right religious allies despite their lack of expertise. Whether that was responsible or not for Israel ignoring the Egyptians’ warning three days before the assault, we will no doubt discover in time. But according to her, and to a retired Mossad officer I just saw on C4 News, the new unity government now has some very good, competent people in it. Let’s hope they have some effect in ensuring the Israeli response becomes more strategically (and in a humanitarian way) sensible.
I suspect Mossad may spend a decade quietly dispatching various individuals in the Hamas leadership.
I suspect Mossad may spend a decade quietly dispatching various individuals in the Hamas leadership.
“After an hour of non-stop sirens and explosions, we heard for the first time the blood-curdling sound of automatic gunfire. At first, we heard it from a distance, from the fields. Then, the sound was much closer, coming from the road. And then, it was right inside our neighborhood, near the window of our house. We also heard shouting in Arabic and understood immediately what was going on: It was our worst nightmare playing out. Armed Hamas militants had infiltrated our kibbutz and were literally on our doorstep, while we were locked inside with our two little girls.”
My 62-year-old Dad Fought Hamas Terrorists to Free My Family. The Israeli State Failed Us: We were living the dream. On October 7, we woke up to a nightmare. After hours in the bomb shelter with armed terrorists on the other side of the wall, at 4 P.M., we heard a knock on the window. ‘Sabba’s here,’ my daughter said, and we all burst into tears
“After an hour of non-stop sirens and explosions, we heard for the first time the blood-curdling sound of automatic gunfire. At first, we heard it from a distance, from the fields. Then, the sound was much closer, coming from the road. And then, it was right inside our neighborhood, near the window of our house. We also heard shouting in Arabic and understood immediately what was going on: It was our worst nightmare playing out. Armed Hamas militants had infiltrated our kibbutz and were literally on our doorstep, while we were locked inside with our two little girls.”
My 62-year-old Dad Fought Hamas Terrorists to Free My Family. The Israeli State Failed Us: We were living the dream. On October 7, we woke up to a nightmare. After hours in the bomb shelter with armed terrorists on the other side of the wall, at 4 P.M., we heard a knock on the window. ‘Sabba’s here,’ my daughter said, and we all burst into tears
Further to which, another retired general, proving how absurd and puerile is any such notion as rightwing=good, lefties=bad (or, indeed, the obverse):
If you don’t live in Israel or consume Israeli media, you don’t know who Yair Golan is. He is a 61-year-old retired Major General in the Israel army and a former parliament MK.
Yesterday, when IDF and the police were in complete chaos, Golan put on his old uniform, took his weapon, and drove into the war zone multiple times to rescue civilians under fire. He rescued two young adults hiding under a bush after 260 of their friends were murdered at an outdoor party. He answered a call from a journalist that his son was hiding under fire and simply said, “Give me his location, and I will bring him back home.” An hour later, the son called his father from Golan’s car.
Golan collected a small crew and went in and out of the war zone, rescuing dozens of people while exchanging fire with Hamas terrorists. He is 61, he could have stayed home, but he chose to risk his life for people he does not know.
Golan is one of the strongest voices from the Israeli left and was constantly attacked by the right wing in Israel. But when the time came, he was first fighting the barbaric attack. The same brain wiring that supports peace, is often the same wiring that drives people to do the right thing.
Further to which, another retired general, proving how absurd and puerile is any such notion as rightwing=good, lefties=bad (or, indeed, the obverse):
If you don’t live in Israel or consume Israeli media, you don’t know who Yair Golan is. He is a 61-year-old retired Major General in the Israel army and a former parliament MK.
Yesterday, when IDF and the police were in complete chaos, Golan put on his old uniform, took his weapon, and drove into the war zone multiple times to rescue civilians under fire. He rescued two young adults hiding under a bush after 260 of their friends were murdered at an outdoor party. He answered a call from a journalist that his son was hiding under fire and simply said, “Give me his location, and I will bring him back home.” An hour later, the son called his father from Golan’s car.
Golan collected a small crew and went in and out of the war zone, rescuing dozens of people while exchanging fire with Hamas terrorists. He is 61, he could have stayed home, but he chose to risk his life for people he does not know.
Golan is one of the strongest voices from the Israeli left and was constantly attacked by the right wing in Israel. But when the time came, he was first fighting the barbaric attack. The same brain wiring that supports peace, is often the same wiring that drives people to do the right thing.
The Harvard kids (not sure if anyone is following this) are morons.
It seems that in McKinney’s mind, we’re all just like the Harvard kids, only without the the guts to put our thoughts to words within whatever unspecified timeframe he had in mind.
Whatever…
The Harvard kids (not sure if anyone is following this) are morons.
It seems that in McKinney’s mind, we’re all just like the Harvard kids, only without the the guts to put our thoughts to words within whatever unspecified timeframe he had in mind.
Whatever…
The Harvard kids are kids, and are missing large swaths of information and experience that might help them to not be awful in this moment. I hope they someday get there. Right now, though, they are being insensitive fools in ways that are counterproductive to their human rights goals.
The passage that GftNC excerpted from the Guardian sounds almost word-for-word like an account from one of our mass shootings, especially one from a school like Uvalde or Marjory Stoneman Douglas where everyone believed there was a plan in place to protect them all.
I’m not drawing any larger conclusions from the comparison, that’s just something that I noticed right away as a scholar of the rhetoric of violence and conflict.
The Harvard kids are kids, and are missing large swaths of information and experience that might help them to not be awful in this moment. I hope they someday get there. Right now, though, they are being insensitive fools in ways that are counterproductive to their human rights goals.
The passage that GftNC excerpted from the Guardian sounds almost word-for-word like an account from one of our mass shootings, especially one from a school like Uvalde or Marjory Stoneman Douglas where everyone believed there was a plan in place to protect them all.
I’m not drawing any larger conclusions from the comparison, that’s just something that I noticed right away as a scholar of the rhetoric of violence and conflict.
I had been trying to write a post to open up a thread to talk about this since this started, so I’ll just copy and paste
======
The wikipedia page on the conflict covers most of the points.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Israel%E2%80%93Hamas_war
Looking at the talk page gives you an idea of things that are contested, and but this appears to be the first major test of the wikipedia policy on contentious topics (if the page edits are anything to go by), which seems to have been amalgamated in late 2022. I’m not sure if this set of policies is connected to Saudi attempts to control content on Wikipedia
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jan/05/saudi-arabia-jails-two-wikipedia-staff-in-bid-to-control-content
though the timing seems linked. At any rate, this is to say caveat lector, but I think it is better than trying to sort out hidden biases in the flood of articles that are out there.
Here in Japan, there is not a lot of reporting on the conflict and any reporting we have is muted. Part of that is because war reportage has not been something that Japanese public really wants (there has been a similar situation with the Russia-Ukraine conflict). The Japanese government, in a similar manner, is rather hesitant, opting to not sign the G7 statement supporting Israel.
Fortunately for Japan, China’s response, a studied call for neutrality which is filtered through whatever reporting you see it, is drawing a lot more attention. I think this Aljazeera article gives a rundown of the reactions of various countries and serves as a reasonable summary.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/7/we-are-at-war-reactions-to-palestinian-hamas-surprise-attack-in-israel
This link is excerpts from Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) bluebooks about Palestine-Japan relations.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep42597?seq=16
Japan has been a long and consistent supporter of a two state solution. China has been a consistent supporter of Palestine, but, because of the repression of the Uyghurs, who are primarily Muslim, the hypocrisy of supporting one while suppressing the other leads them to be circumspect. Furthermore, China has wanted to strengthen ties with Saudi Arabia, especially through the Belt and Road initiative as well as deepen ties with Israel, so any statement on the current conflict is going to be like walking on eggshells.
A number of pieces I’ve read discuss how the success of the Hamas offensive represents a total failure of Israeli intelligence, with some pieces wondering if Netanyahu can fob off the responsibility elsewhere. As I understand it, the potential rapproachment between Saudi Arabia and Israel was a big motivating factor for the offensive, which probably leads some to push Iranian organization, but given the operational secrecy, while I’m sure Iran gave logistic support, I can’t imagine that the secrecy could have been maintained with Iran knowing it was going off.
There are also some articles about how this is Israel’s 9-11, which actually has a deeper truth, given that early on, Israel supported Islamic fundamentalists in general (and perhaps Hamas in particular, though there is a lot of questions about this) as a divide and rule strategy to undercut the secular nationalism of the PLO. This strategy dates much further back, but it is a mirror of some of the factors that led to 9-11.
There is a distinct possibility of this thread going off the rails, so I hope we can keep the discussion informative and civil.
I had been trying to write a post to open up a thread to talk about this since this started, so I’ll just copy and paste
======
The wikipedia page on the conflict covers most of the points.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Israel%E2%80%93Hamas_war
Looking at the talk page gives you an idea of things that are contested, and but this appears to be the first major test of the wikipedia policy on contentious topics (if the page edits are anything to go by), which seems to have been amalgamated in late 2022. I’m not sure if this set of policies is connected to Saudi attempts to control content on Wikipedia
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jan/05/saudi-arabia-jails-two-wikipedia-staff-in-bid-to-control-content
though the timing seems linked. At any rate, this is to say caveat lector, but I think it is better than trying to sort out hidden biases in the flood of articles that are out there.
Here in Japan, there is not a lot of reporting on the conflict and any reporting we have is muted. Part of that is because war reportage has not been something that Japanese public really wants (there has been a similar situation with the Russia-Ukraine conflict). The Japanese government, in a similar manner, is rather hesitant, opting to not sign the G7 statement supporting Israel.
Fortunately for Japan, China’s response, a studied call for neutrality which is filtered through whatever reporting you see it, is drawing a lot more attention. I think this Aljazeera article gives a rundown of the reactions of various countries and serves as a reasonable summary.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/7/we-are-at-war-reactions-to-palestinian-hamas-surprise-attack-in-israel
This link is excerpts from Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) bluebooks about Palestine-Japan relations.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep42597?seq=16
Japan has been a long and consistent supporter of a two state solution. China has been a consistent supporter of Palestine, but, because of the repression of the Uyghurs, who are primarily Muslim, the hypocrisy of supporting one while suppressing the other leads them to be circumspect. Furthermore, China has wanted to strengthen ties with Saudi Arabia, especially through the Belt and Road initiative as well as deepen ties with Israel, so any statement on the current conflict is going to be like walking on eggshells.
A number of pieces I’ve read discuss how the success of the Hamas offensive represents a total failure of Israeli intelligence, with some pieces wondering if Netanyahu can fob off the responsibility elsewhere. As I understand it, the potential rapproachment between Saudi Arabia and Israel was a big motivating factor for the offensive, which probably leads some to push Iranian organization, but given the operational secrecy, while I’m sure Iran gave logistic support, I can’t imagine that the secrecy could have been maintained with Iran knowing it was going off.
There are also some articles about how this is Israel’s 9-11, which actually has a deeper truth, given that early on, Israel supported Islamic fundamentalists in general (and perhaps Hamas in particular, though there is a lot of questions about this) as a divide and rule strategy to undercut the secular nationalism of the PLO. This strategy dates much further back, but it is a mirror of some of the factors that led to 9-11.
There is a distinct possibility of this thread going off the rails, so I hope we can keep the discussion informative and civil.
A number of pieces I’ve read discuss how the success of the Hamas offensive represents a total failure of Israeli intelligence, …
Some pundits have claimed that Hamas has been avoiding electronic communication for sensitive communications.
…with some pieces wondering if Netanyahu can fob off the responsibility elsewhere.
And pundits point out that Bush the Younger was reelected after 9/11.
A number of pieces I’ve read discuss how the success of the Hamas offensive represents a total failure of Israeli intelligence, …
Some pundits have claimed that Hamas has been avoiding electronic communication for sensitive communications.
…with some pieces wondering if Netanyahu can fob off the responsibility elsewhere.
And pundits point out that Bush the Younger was reelected after 9/11.
Rooting for the civilians.
Rooting for the civilians.
pundits point out that Bush the Younger was reelected after 9/11.
Well, Israel has a history of turfing out politicians who make these kinds of screw ups, cf Golda Meir and the Yom Kippur war.
pundits point out that Bush the Younger was reelected after 9/11.
Well, Israel has a history of turfing out politicians who make these kinds of screw ups, cf Golda Meir and the Yom Kippur war.
As I understand it, the potential rapproachment between Saudi Arabia and Israel was a big motivating factor for the offensive
I’ve seen that opinion. But I’ve also seen reports the Hamas had been planning this attack for two years. Was there been anything about an Israel/Saudi Arabia peace deal that far back? (I don’t recall anything. But I don’t follow day to day maneuverings in the Middle East all that closely.
At most, I suppose it could have been a motivation to attack just now. But it seems like Hamas was ready to go, so how much longer would they have waited, absent a possible agreement?
I rather think a likelier explanation for the timing is opportunism. Bibi pulled out most of his troops, to go defend settler provocations in Palestinian villages in the West Bank. It was just way too tempting an opening for Hamas to pass up. Hamas would have moved sooner or later. But to much less effect with the IDF troops actually on scene.
As I understand it, the potential rapproachment between Saudi Arabia and Israel was a big motivating factor for the offensive
I’ve seen that opinion. But I’ve also seen reports the Hamas had been planning this attack for two years. Was there been anything about an Israel/Saudi Arabia peace deal that far back? (I don’t recall anything. But I don’t follow day to day maneuverings in the Middle East all that closely.
At most, I suppose it could have been a motivation to attack just now. But it seems like Hamas was ready to go, so how much longer would they have waited, absent a possible agreement?
I rather think a likelier explanation for the timing is opportunism. Bibi pulled out most of his troops, to go defend settler provocations in Palestinian villages in the West Bank. It was just way too tempting an opening for Hamas to pass up. Hamas would have moved sooner or later. But to much less effect with the IDF troops actually on scene.
A lot of people think it was at least in part the Saudi deal. Biden was building off Trump’s Abraham Accords. Hell, I think the Abraham Accords and Biden’s obession with an Israeli Saudi deal was a kick in the teeth to Palestinians. They were negotiating to get Bonesaw to accept some vague promise to the Palestinians. If we spent a bit more time genuinely working for peace and something at least a bit just, there would be less incentive for people to support fanatics
Which is not an excuse for the fanatics committing a crime against humanity.
A lot of people think it was at least in part the Saudi deal. Biden was building off Trump’s Abraham Accords. Hell, I think the Abraham Accords and Biden’s obession with an Israeli Saudi deal was a kick in the teeth to Palestinians. They were negotiating to get Bonesaw to accept some vague promise to the Palestinians. If we spent a bit more time genuinely working for peace and something at least a bit just, there would be less incentive for people to support fanatics
Which is not an excuse for the fanatics committing a crime against humanity.
Didn’t finish my thought. The Palestinians felt they were losing their support from the Arab rulers ( not the people under those rulers) and so Israel would no longer see a minimally just solution with the Palestinians as necessary to have peace and prosperity with their neighbors. They could continue to take as much land as they wanted, keep the Gazans in their cage, and get their peace agreements and nobody would are, except for the usual pro forms BS proclamations by US state department spokespeople that we remain committed to a 2ss that nobody really believed was possible. That has been a theme that started with Trump. In fact, I don’t recall if they even bothered to pretend to support a 2ss. With Democrats, it is still a mantra they use. To brush off criticisms.
Some left wingers started pointing out that if a 2ss wasn’t in the cards, people should push fior one man one vote. I like that too but it is a nonstarter with Israelis and Palestinians who see Israelis mainly as soldiers or settlers ( and in Gaza, as snipers) were not necessarily enthusiastic.
But then Hamas went on their murder spree and Israel is doing its collective punishment thing, so it is impossible to imagine any choice except between a bloodbath and a ceasefire. In either case, what comes after?
Didn’t finish my thought. The Palestinians felt they were losing their support from the Arab rulers ( not the people under those rulers) and so Israel would no longer see a minimally just solution with the Palestinians as necessary to have peace and prosperity with their neighbors. They could continue to take as much land as they wanted, keep the Gazans in their cage, and get their peace agreements and nobody would are, except for the usual pro forms BS proclamations by US state department spokespeople that we remain committed to a 2ss that nobody really believed was possible. That has been a theme that started with Trump. In fact, I don’t recall if they even bothered to pretend to support a 2ss. With Democrats, it is still a mantra they use. To brush off criticisms.
Some left wingers started pointing out that if a 2ss wasn’t in the cards, people should push fior one man one vote. I like that too but it is a nonstarter with Israelis and Palestinians who see Israelis mainly as soldiers or settlers ( and in Gaza, as snipers) were not necessarily enthusiastic.
But then Hamas went on their murder spree and Israel is doing its collective punishment thing, so it is impossible to imagine any choice except between a bloodbath and a ceasefire. In either case, what comes after?
it is impossible to imagine any choice except between a bloodbath and a ceasefire. In either case, what comes after?
On the evidence of the past few decades: (eventual) ceasefire, continued gradual expansion of settlements (including those nominally illegal under Israeli law) and continued misery and hopelessness in Gaza, another bloodbath, another (eventual) ceasefire. Repeat endlessly.
If there is a way to break out of the pattern, one which could be supported by a majority of Israelis and of Palestinians, nobody has dreamed it up yet. Let alone figured out how to ram it down the throats of the ultra-Orthodox and Hamas. And it would have to be rammed down their throats, brutally and effectively — anything less would just get ignored by both, in their determination to destroy the other population.
it is impossible to imagine any choice except between a bloodbath and a ceasefire. In either case, what comes after?
On the evidence of the past few decades: (eventual) ceasefire, continued gradual expansion of settlements (including those nominally illegal under Israeli law) and continued misery and hopelessness in Gaza, another bloodbath, another (eventual) ceasefire. Repeat endlessly.
If there is a way to break out of the pattern, one which could be supported by a majority of Israelis and of Palestinians, nobody has dreamed it up yet. Let alone figured out how to ram it down the throats of the ultra-Orthodox and Hamas. And it would have to be rammed down their throats, brutally and effectively — anything less would just get ignored by both, in their determination to destroy the other population.
The Abraham accords date from 2020, so it actually fits in the timeline
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Accords
It seems to me that all of this was set in motion when Rabin was assassinated in 1995. Maybe even set in stone.
The Abraham accords date from 2020, so it actually fits in the timeline
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Accords
It seems to me that all of this was set in motion when Rabin was assassinated in 1995. Maybe even set in stone.
Hamas itself says it did this because of attacks on Palestinians in the WB and the Mosque ( forgot spelling) but they probably have multiple reasons and some hope it will become a wider war.
But the Accords aand now the attempt at a Saudi deal have been a concern even for the more moderate Palestinians. They feel abandoned.
Hamas itself says it did this because of attacks on Palestinians in the WB and the Mosque ( forgot spelling) but they probably have multiple reasons and some hope it will become a wider war.
But the Accords aand now the attempt at a Saudi deal have been a concern even for the more moderate Palestinians. They feel abandoned.
Maybe one day my plan will get adopted to solve the problem once and for all by moving Israel to Cyprus and Palestine to Eastern Germany (Greek Cypriots will get settled in Greece and Turkish Cypriots in Turkey thus solving another old and almost forgotten problem). Cyprus being an island is ideal for defensive purposes and the location is favorable in general. Putting Palestine between Germany and Poland also serves other purposes. Population density in those parts of Eastern Germany is very low and could use a large influx of people, in particular people as industrious as the Palestinans are said to be if given the opportunity. Climate change is steppifying those regions, so people used to arid agriculture will feel quite at home. A buffer between Poland and Germany could finally put a stop to the constant propaganda by the Polish rightwingers that Germany is just itching to get back the territories lost after 1945. And settling a majority Muslim population (I know that there are many Christian Palestinians too) on the left bank of the Oder river would drive those same rightwingers mad and apoplectic (Poland is notoriously opposed to any Muslim refugees anywhere in Europe but very open to white Christian ones e.g. from Ukraine even at home). I’d see that as a bonus.
The territory of Israel or at least the ‘holy’ sites would then be permanently removed from the map, if necessary by dropping a few very dirty nukes on the Temple Mount. China or – even better – North Korea (a rare neutral party in that conflict) could do that part. Maybe Ukraine could provide large quantities of topsoil from Chernobyl to ‘salt the Earth’ effectively on a longterm basis. Take the toy away from the three Abrahamic kids for good since they have proven that they will not find a solution that will by satisfying for all of them (since it seems important to them not just to have the toy but for the other to NOT have it). The ‘Holy’ part of that land is a cancer and cancer that can’t be treated otherwise has to be removed.
Btw, even the old Prussian electors and kings considered Muslims as settlers in the depopulated
areas of Eastern Brandenburg after the 30 Year War provied they were industrious, hard-working and morally upright. Friedrich Wilhelm I – the Soldier King – even had a building rededicated as a mosque for the Muslim soldiers that had come as refugees to Prussia and he openly declared that he would start to build more mosques or even pagan temples, if that would bring more needed settlers into the country. And he got quite angry when the Christian clerics opposed the idea.
(on the other hand there was admittedly a constant anti-Judaist strain in the house of Hohenzollern too).
Maybe one day my plan will get adopted to solve the problem once and for all by moving Israel to Cyprus and Palestine to Eastern Germany (Greek Cypriots will get settled in Greece and Turkish Cypriots in Turkey thus solving another old and almost forgotten problem). Cyprus being an island is ideal for defensive purposes and the location is favorable in general. Putting Palestine between Germany and Poland also serves other purposes. Population density in those parts of Eastern Germany is very low and could use a large influx of people, in particular people as industrious as the Palestinans are said to be if given the opportunity. Climate change is steppifying those regions, so people used to arid agriculture will feel quite at home. A buffer between Poland and Germany could finally put a stop to the constant propaganda by the Polish rightwingers that Germany is just itching to get back the territories lost after 1945. And settling a majority Muslim population (I know that there are many Christian Palestinians too) on the left bank of the Oder river would drive those same rightwingers mad and apoplectic (Poland is notoriously opposed to any Muslim refugees anywhere in Europe but very open to white Christian ones e.g. from Ukraine even at home). I’d see that as a bonus.
The territory of Israel or at least the ‘holy’ sites would then be permanently removed from the map, if necessary by dropping a few very dirty nukes on the Temple Mount. China or – even better – North Korea (a rare neutral party in that conflict) could do that part. Maybe Ukraine could provide large quantities of topsoil from Chernobyl to ‘salt the Earth’ effectively on a longterm basis. Take the toy away from the three Abrahamic kids for good since they have proven that they will not find a solution that will by satisfying for all of them (since it seems important to them not just to have the toy but for the other to NOT have it). The ‘Holy’ part of that land is a cancer and cancer that can’t be treated otherwise has to be removed.
Btw, even the old Prussian electors and kings considered Muslims as settlers in the depopulated
areas of Eastern Brandenburg after the 30 Year War provied they were industrious, hard-working and morally upright. Friedrich Wilhelm I – the Soldier King – even had a building rededicated as a mosque for the Muslim soldiers that had come as refugees to Prussia and he openly declared that he would start to build more mosques or even pagan temples, if that would bring more needed settlers into the country. And he got quite angry when the Christian clerics opposed the idea.
(on the other hand there was admittedly a constant anti-Judaist strain in the house of Hohenzollern too).
I was thinking Houston Texas would be a good place for your plan, Hartmut. The problem with Europe is that it is the heartland of antisemitism and has people there, but Houston is a land without a people for the people who’ve lost their land.
Now on a more serious note— I can never stay in character— MckT asked for context. Here is some—
https://www.yahoo.com/news/not-hamas-gaza-residents-airstrikes-223635896.html
Note what the children are saying—“ The Jews are bombing us. “ The vast majority of children in Gaza have never seen a Jew except maybe a soldier or sniper. The blockade started in 2007. There have been numerous bombing campaigns, wars of various sizes. Unarmed protestors are shot if they protest near the wall. Gazans remember 2018 even if nobody else does. It wasn’t perfectly nonviolent — the idiots always show up—but the civil rights movement and BLM here wasn’t either, Unarmed Gazans were gunned down like rabid dogs.
The Hamas leaders are on the moral level of ISIS. But their younger followers were raised in a walled ghetto and if they are more than two years old experienced the last bombing campaign. A lot of people in our culture find it pretty easy to dehumanize other groups for no good reason at all. Hamas leaders have it easy.
I don’t understand why people growing up privileged have such extreme difficulty understanding something this obvious, except that privilege and power and ethnocentrism seems to have a negative effect on some people’s ability to empathize.
I was thinking Houston Texas would be a good place for your plan, Hartmut. The problem with Europe is that it is the heartland of antisemitism and has people there, but Houston is a land without a people for the people who’ve lost their land.
Now on a more serious note— I can never stay in character— MckT asked for context. Here is some—
https://www.yahoo.com/news/not-hamas-gaza-residents-airstrikes-223635896.html
Note what the children are saying—“ The Jews are bombing us. “ The vast majority of children in Gaza have never seen a Jew except maybe a soldier or sniper. The blockade started in 2007. There have been numerous bombing campaigns, wars of various sizes. Unarmed protestors are shot if they protest near the wall. Gazans remember 2018 even if nobody else does. It wasn’t perfectly nonviolent — the idiots always show up—but the civil rights movement and BLM here wasn’t either, Unarmed Gazans were gunned down like rabid dogs.
The Hamas leaders are on the moral level of ISIS. But their younger followers were raised in a walled ghetto and if they are more than two years old experienced the last bombing campaign. A lot of people in our culture find it pretty easy to dehumanize other groups for no good reason at all. Hamas leaders have it easy.
I don’t understand why people growing up privileged have such extreme difficulty understanding something this obvious, except that privilege and power and ethnocentrism seems to have a negative effect on some people’s ability to empathize.
Don’t have much time, but FWIW most informed people I have read or spoken to seem to agree with what Donald says at 10.54 and 11.11 above. Doesn’t mean there wasn’t a plan for how to do it, when they decided it was the right time to do it, whether 2 years ago or not. And clearly, this kind of coordinated plan with the drones blowing up the satellite towers, and the paragliders etc, would have needed some time to put together, particularly while evading Israeli surveillance.
The whole thing is too terrible to contemplate, and the current Israeli response looks unbelievably heavy handed and (in the end) counter-productive. Counter-productive, that is, if what you want to produce is an eventual peace process and an end to the occupation, the settlements and the killings. Which the Bibi government clearly have not wanted to produce lo these many years, with enthusiastic backing from their loony overseas orthodox funders.
Don’t have much time, but FWIW most informed people I have read or spoken to seem to agree with what Donald says at 10.54 and 11.11 above. Doesn’t mean there wasn’t a plan for how to do it, when they decided it was the right time to do it, whether 2 years ago or not. And clearly, this kind of coordinated plan with the drones blowing up the satellite towers, and the paragliders etc, would have needed some time to put together, particularly while evading Israeli surveillance.
The whole thing is too terrible to contemplate, and the current Israeli response looks unbelievably heavy handed and (in the end) counter-productive. Counter-productive, that is, if what you want to produce is an eventual peace process and an end to the occupation, the settlements and the killings. Which the Bibi government clearly have not wanted to produce lo these many years, with enthusiastic backing from their loony overseas orthodox funders.
The responsibility for Hamas’s terrorist action lies entirely with Hamas – but this Israeli editorial calls out Netanyahu as an enabler.
https://www.haaretz.com/ty-WRITER/0000017f-da25-d42c-afff-dff7a1c10000
…His life’s work was to turn the ship of state from the course steered by his predecessors, from Yitzhak Rabin to Ehud Olmert, and make the two-state solution impossible. En route to this goal, he found a partner in Hamas.
“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” he told a meeting of his Likud party’s Knesset members in March 2019. “This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.”..
The responsibility for Hamas’s terrorist action lies entirely with Hamas – but this Israeli editorial calls out Netanyahu as an enabler.
https://www.haaretz.com/ty-WRITER/0000017f-da25-d42c-afff-dff7a1c10000
…His life’s work was to turn the ship of state from the course steered by his predecessors, from Yitzhak Rabin to Ehud Olmert, and make the two-state solution impossible. En route to this goal, he found a partner in Hamas.
“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” he told a meeting of his Likud party’s Knesset members in March 2019. “This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.”..
pundits point out that Bush the Younger was reelected after 9/11
Before the Falklands/Malvinas war, Margaret Thatcher was the least popular Prime Minister in polling history. After it she won a landslide victory. And it would probably never have happened had the UK sent the right signals about its determination to hold on to the islands.
pundits point out that Bush the Younger was reelected after 9/11
Before the Falklands/Malvinas war, Margaret Thatcher was the least popular Prime Minister in polling history. After it she won a landslide victory. And it would probably never have happened had the UK sent the right signals about its determination to hold on to the islands.
but Houston is a land without a people for the people who’ve lost their land.
Made me smile. Apart from that, Nigel’s comment is a really excellent reminder, and so succinct. Ehud Olmert was on C4 News the other night, and when asked what he would do in this situation he tried to be diplomatic, but ended up saying : “I would not have got into this situation.”
but Houston is a land without a people for the people who’ve lost their land.
Made me smile. Apart from that, Nigel’s comment is a really excellent reminder, and so succinct. Ehud Olmert was on C4 News the other night, and when asked what he would do in this situation he tried to be diplomatic, but ended up saying : “I would not have got into this situation.”
My joke got garbled— I was thinking of Palestinians moving to Houston, but then inexplicably brought up antisemitism. Anti- immigrant sentiment would be more relevant. Now I am explaining it. This is why I usually don’t tell jokes.
My joke got garbled— I was thinking of Palestinians moving to Houston, but then inexplicably brought up antisemitism. Anti- immigrant sentiment would be more relevant. Now I am explaining it. This is why I usually don’t tell jokes.
Tangential, but Hamas was on the opposite side from Iran and Hezbollah in the Syrian civil war and broke with them for awhile. Jake Sullivan in a Wikileaks email said Al Qaeda was on our side.
https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/23225
Some Syrians who wanted democracy sided with groups, including Al Qaeda, because they were the more effective fighters. In the US people often took a brutal civil war and turned it into a fairy tale of pure evil vs pure good. But we were supporting the exact moral equivalent of Hamas, so was Hamas.
Tangential, but Hamas was on the opposite side from Iran and Hezbollah in the Syrian civil war and broke with them for awhile. Jake Sullivan in a Wikileaks email said Al Qaeda was on our side.
https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/23225
Some Syrians who wanted democracy sided with groups, including Al Qaeda, because they were the more effective fighters. In the US people often took a brutal civil war and turned it into a fairy tale of pure evil vs pure good. But we were supporting the exact moral equivalent of Hamas, so was Hamas.
If one is willing to step back from the gruesome realities on the ground – which is hard – here is a good analysis:
https://www.nybooks.com/online/2023/10/11/gaza-without-pretenses/
Since the right-wing coalition formed last year, and escpecially since both the rhetoric and the attacks by settlers became more and more brazen this year, while the Palestinians and Iranians were sidelined in the Arab-Israeli talks, I had a feeling that this wasn’t going to end well.
If one is willing to step back from the gruesome realities on the ground – which is hard – here is a good analysis:
https://www.nybooks.com/online/2023/10/11/gaza-without-pretenses/
Since the right-wing coalition formed last year, and escpecially since both the rhetoric and the attacks by settlers became more and more brazen this year, while the Palestinians and Iranians were sidelined in the Arab-Israeli talks, I had a feeling that this wasn’t going to end well.
I think your joke worked anyway, Donald!
Meanwhile, anybody notice that McKinney, having thrown a completely misconceived grenade, has disappeared before having to deal with actual facts and information, not only about our views but also about serious analysis from Israel and elsewhere?
I think your joke worked anyway, Donald!
Meanwhile, anybody notice that McKinney, having thrown a completely misconceived grenade, has disappeared before having to deal with actual facts and information, not only about our views but also about serious analysis from Israel and elsewhere?
I’ll give McKinney credit for starting the conversation, even if he did it hamfistedly (putting it mildly). I was stopping by since the attacks to see if anyone had anything to say while having nothing to say myself. It was obvious to me what Janie meant in her “Keeping an Eye on Things” post when she wrote:
Hard to know where to start, so I won’t.
So he got us back to being the horrible people we’re supposed to be.
I’ll give McKinney credit for starting the conversation, even if he did it hamfistedly (putting it mildly). I was stopping by since the attacks to see if anyone had anything to say while having nothing to say myself. It was obvious to me what Janie meant in her “Keeping an Eye on Things” post when she wrote:
Hard to know where to start, so I won’t.
So he got us back to being the horrible people we’re supposed to be.
I am unblocking you, but unless/until I change my mind, if you show up in one of my threads again I’ll apply the overall block until I can have a conversation with the other front-pagers.
I have to say, I’m pretty indifferent to you and LJ’s opinions and even less concerned about being blocked. Like many on the left these days, you’re all about free speech as long as its free speech which meets your standards.
My tone and tenor is unchanged since I started commenting here in 2008. For years, many of the former commenters and I (and others to the right) had great exchanges. Not so much anymore. Rather, it’s dismissal or not particularly effective mockery and not worth a response.
Now, this from GFTNC:
McKinney, since you seem to be unblocked for the moment, I invite you to explain why you decided that your initial comment/question on this topic should be quite so aggressive and combative? You may have been frustrated that on a blog which normally comments on topical political matters, no comments had been posted for three days, but still, why on earth do you think it OK to behave in quite so boorish and insulting a manner, let alone one so misguided in its premise?
I could begin anywhere, but let’s start with the usual fare one sees here regarding the American right. It is standard fare here to refer to conservatives as fascists, racists, misogynists and, my personal favorite “MAGATS”, meaning “maggots”. And you whine about my tone? Damn.
Another repeat trope here is “why won’t the good conservatives stand up to (fill in the blank, the NRA, Trump, racism, etc.) I waited over three days for some brave soul here to put something out there, drawing a line between fairness to Palestinians and, by design, murdering civilians, men, women and children.
In case you haven’t noticed, the internet is on fire with lefties contextualizing Hamas with some few on the left pushing back, e.g. Lanny Davis and Donald (who I will address shortly). But there is a lot of quibbling, e.g. “they are just college kids”–fuck that. Suppose they were calling for white supremacy–I imagine Nous and others would find a little less nuance if that were the case. You realize, do you not, they are celebrating mass murder as a matter of political policy?
Here is what I said that GFTNC objects to:
This is all bullshit. This site–not at all shy when it comes to moral preening and self-identifying as the good people–has been silent for over three full days.
IIRC, OBWI’s current, much diminished presence in the blogosphere is populated mostly by people who lean if not outright support the Palestinian position. The silence, given the last few days news, is deafening, if not much worse.
This is not the first time–JanieM is consistent–that the complaint is “McKinney is a meanie.” There was a discussion a while back about snowflakes, in which the lefty commentariat here was uniformly offended by the term (“it’s mean!”), yet oblivious to it’s own marginalizing (with zero introspective analysis) of the half of the country that disagrees with them, see constant referrals to MAGATS, white supremacists, privileged white males, and all of the other labels the left uses in place of giving others the dignity of simply being humans who disagree.
This brings me to Donald.
If you pop up here, McKT, my responses to you are in the other thread. You absolutely suck as a mindreader is part of it, but there’s more.
Donald, if you were a headliner here, we would have seen something in the three and half days of silence. You–and a few others on the left–are saying what the leadership here should have said but did not. We disagree on just about everything but your initial comment on the previous thread (which I wish I’d copied) was exactly what I would have expected from you as an intellectually honest, lefty outlier.
With that said, here are some topics on which I would appreciate your insight:
1. BDS–you support this group, IIRC. Here’s my issues:
A. Why Israel and not a host of other countries that are, in many ways, far worse?
B. What does the BDS movement expect from Israel: dissolution, be nicer to Gaza?, what?
C. Do you agree that BDS gives cover to anti-Semites, i.e. even though you and others you know are entirely free of anti-Semitism, is that true for others under the BDS umbrella?
2. Do you concede Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state? If you do, how should Israel accommodate entities that openly work toward it’s destruction?
HSH–yes, in some ways the lefties here are like the Harvard students, depending on the issues. As this site has evolved more and more into an echo chamber, it has lost much of its intellectual rigor. It has certainly lost any pretense for consistency. For example, you have to blind–sorry Donald–not to see the cover that BDS gives to anti-Semites yet no one here has ever commented on that. Yet, it is an article of faith that conservatives knowingly or implicitly give shade to white supremacists–a notion that is easily disproved by moving out of your zone and exploring non-lefties are thinking and writing these days.
The responsibility for Hamas’s terrorist action lies entirely with Hamas – but this Israeli editorial calls out Netanyahu as an enabler.
Netanyahu has a lot to answer for, but the flaw in the editorial is the belief that Hamas and Palestinians in general favor a two state solution. I’ve seen no evidence of a Palestinian consensus for a two state solution with a commitment to peaceful co-existence, but I’m open to proof otherwise.
Meanwhile, anybody notice that McKinney, having thrown a completely misconceived grenade, has disappeared before having to deal with actual facts and information, not only about our views but also about serious analysis from Israel and elsewhere?
LOL, too funny. See above. It took me so long to write and proof that I had to copy and repost. FYI, I work pretty much full time (self-employed, on my own, etc) and I like to hang out with my wife and friends. Since, you’ve made this complaint before, very few here engage anymore, so there really isn’t much to stick around for. I’m not going to quibble with mockery or dismissal. Also, I often am tied up continually on other matters and usually the thread has moved on and any comments I might otherwise have have gone stale.
But, the good news is that JanieM and LJ, champions of lively and reasoned engagement both, are contemplating blocking me.
HSH, not horrible. Just selectively “brave” and intellectually flabby, for the most part.
Maybe I’ll block myself.
I am unblocking you, but unless/until I change my mind, if you show up in one of my threads again I’ll apply the overall block until I can have a conversation with the other front-pagers.
I have to say, I’m pretty indifferent to you and LJ’s opinions and even less concerned about being blocked. Like many on the left these days, you’re all about free speech as long as its free speech which meets your standards.
My tone and tenor is unchanged since I started commenting here in 2008. For years, many of the former commenters and I (and others to the right) had great exchanges. Not so much anymore. Rather, it’s dismissal or not particularly effective mockery and not worth a response.
Now, this from GFTNC:
McKinney, since you seem to be unblocked for the moment, I invite you to explain why you decided that your initial comment/question on this topic should be quite so aggressive and combative? You may have been frustrated that on a blog which normally comments on topical political matters, no comments had been posted for three days, but still, why on earth do you think it OK to behave in quite so boorish and insulting a manner, let alone one so misguided in its premise?
I could begin anywhere, but let’s start with the usual fare one sees here regarding the American right. It is standard fare here to refer to conservatives as fascists, racists, misogynists and, my personal favorite “MAGATS”, meaning “maggots”. And you whine about my tone? Damn.
Another repeat trope here is “why won’t the good conservatives stand up to (fill in the blank, the NRA, Trump, racism, etc.) I waited over three days for some brave soul here to put something out there, drawing a line between fairness to Palestinians and, by design, murdering civilians, men, women and children.
In case you haven’t noticed, the internet is on fire with lefties contextualizing Hamas with some few on the left pushing back, e.g. Lanny Davis and Donald (who I will address shortly). But there is a lot of quibbling, e.g. “they are just college kids”–fuck that. Suppose they were calling for white supremacy–I imagine Nous and others would find a little less nuance if that were the case. You realize, do you not, they are celebrating mass murder as a matter of political policy?
Here is what I said that GFTNC objects to:
This is all bullshit. This site–not at all shy when it comes to moral preening and self-identifying as the good people–has been silent for over three full days.
IIRC, OBWI’s current, much diminished presence in the blogosphere is populated mostly by people who lean if not outright support the Palestinian position. The silence, given the last few days news, is deafening, if not much worse.
This is not the first time–JanieM is consistent–that the complaint is “McKinney is a meanie.” There was a discussion a while back about snowflakes, in which the lefty commentariat here was uniformly offended by the term (“it’s mean!”), yet oblivious to it’s own marginalizing (with zero introspective analysis) of the half of the country that disagrees with them, see constant referrals to MAGATS, white supremacists, privileged white males, and all of the other labels the left uses in place of giving others the dignity of simply being humans who disagree.
This brings me to Donald.
If you pop up here, McKT, my responses to you are in the other thread. You absolutely suck as a mindreader is part of it, but there’s more.
Donald, if you were a headliner here, we would have seen something in the three and half days of silence. You–and a few others on the left–are saying what the leadership here should have said but did not. We disagree on just about everything but your initial comment on the previous thread (which I wish I’d copied) was exactly what I would have expected from you as an intellectually honest, lefty outlier.
With that said, here are some topics on which I would appreciate your insight:
1. BDS–you support this group, IIRC. Here’s my issues:
A. Why Israel and not a host of other countries that are, in many ways, far worse?
B. What does the BDS movement expect from Israel: dissolution, be nicer to Gaza?, what?
C. Do you agree that BDS gives cover to anti-Semites, i.e. even though you and others you know are entirely free of anti-Semitism, is that true for others under the BDS umbrella?
2. Do you concede Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state? If you do, how should Israel accommodate entities that openly work toward it’s destruction?
HSH–yes, in some ways the lefties here are like the Harvard students, depending on the issues. As this site has evolved more and more into an echo chamber, it has lost much of its intellectual rigor. It has certainly lost any pretense for consistency. For example, you have to blind–sorry Donald–not to see the cover that BDS gives to anti-Semites yet no one here has ever commented on that. Yet, it is an article of faith that conservatives knowingly or implicitly give shade to white supremacists–a notion that is easily disproved by moving out of your zone and exploring non-lefties are thinking and writing these days.
The responsibility for Hamas’s terrorist action lies entirely with Hamas – but this Israeli editorial calls out Netanyahu as an enabler.
Netanyahu has a lot to answer for, but the flaw in the editorial is the belief that Hamas and Palestinians in general favor a two state solution. I’ve seen no evidence of a Palestinian consensus for a two state solution with a commitment to peaceful co-existence, but I’m open to proof otherwise.
Meanwhile, anybody notice that McKinney, having thrown a completely misconceived grenade, has disappeared before having to deal with actual facts and information, not only about our views but also about serious analysis from Israel and elsewhere?
LOL, too funny. See above. It took me so long to write and proof that I had to copy and repost. FYI, I work pretty much full time (self-employed, on my own, etc) and I like to hang out with my wife and friends. Since, you’ve made this complaint before, very few here engage anymore, so there really isn’t much to stick around for. I’m not going to quibble with mockery or dismissal. Also, I often am tied up continually on other matters and usually the thread has moved on and any comments I might otherwise have have gone stale.
But, the good news is that JanieM and LJ, champions of lively and reasoned engagement both, are contemplating blocking me.
HSH, not horrible. Just selectively “brave” and intellectually flabby, for the most part.
Maybe I’ll block myself.
Deftly done, McKinney! You managed all that without taking notice that I had taken the trouble to actually answer your questions.
Maybe you thought I got everything right, which would be amazing. More likely, on the evidence, you weren’t actually interested in having one of those discussions you talk about. Color me underwhelmed.
Deftly done, McKinney! You managed all that without taking notice that I had taken the trouble to actually answer your questions.
Maybe you thought I got everything right, which would be amazing. More likely, on the evidence, you weren’t actually interested in having one of those discussions you talk about. Color me underwhelmed.
An open thread seemed not the proper place to start the discussion and I would not have wanted to be the one to start it either, so I waited for an on-topic thread. I have a certain suspicion that the meagre posting here in the last few days was for the same reason. Who wants to be the first to notice the in-door pachyderm?
As for pachyderms, naturally parts of the GOP see this as a chance to please Ras Putin by calling for transfer of all help for Ukraine to Israel since there is an “existential threat” to the latter. No, there currently is not. As nasty as the affair in Palestine is, it does not threaten the very existence of the state of Israel. The very existence of the Ukraine on the other hand is at stake once they run out of money and ammo. Israel is not lacking money but at worst some types of ammo (Iron Dome reserves must be running out given the constant barrage). And the supply of these projectiles is afaik completely independent of ammo supply for Ukraine. So, it’s all just another pretense from the usual suspects.
An open thread seemed not the proper place to start the discussion and I would not have wanted to be the one to start it either, so I waited for an on-topic thread. I have a certain suspicion that the meagre posting here in the last few days was for the same reason. Who wants to be the first to notice the in-door pachyderm?
As for pachyderms, naturally parts of the GOP see this as a chance to please Ras Putin by calling for transfer of all help for Ukraine to Israel since there is an “existential threat” to the latter. No, there currently is not. As nasty as the affair in Palestine is, it does not threaten the very existence of the state of Israel. The very existence of the Ukraine on the other hand is at stake once they run out of money and ammo. Israel is not lacking money but at worst some types of ammo (Iron Dome reserves must be running out given the constant barrage). And the supply of these projectiles is afaik completely independent of ammo supply for Ukraine. So, it’s all just another pretense from the usual suspects.
Honestly, McKinney, talk about intellectually incoherent! In your initial, grenade-throwing comment, you said you were waiting for “us” to provide:
the contextualization of why Israeli civilians, particularly children, had this coming.
Like almost every other attitude you have accused “us” of having (e.g. agreeing that the halloween costumes were cultural appropriation, and the academics should have been cancelled), it has turned out that NOBODY commenting on this site has the views you were accusing us of holding. On the contrary, many many patriotic, IDF-serving Israeli lefties hold the kinds of views that many of “us” on this site have been expressing.
This is why Janie accused you of addressing the hobgoblins in your mind, not us. And why, less poetically, you have often been accused of setting us up as strawmen.
You thought we should have been commenting on the war earlier: many of us had better, and more distressing, things to do. Or were processing, or (unbelievable concept) thinking. You think MAGAts means maggots; I think hanging out with people who reluctantly support Trump because they are so horrified by the “extreme progessive left” (I can’t remember your actual phrase, although I notice on US media that some MAGAts are now calling the Dems communists) is rotting your (presumably once decent) brain. Get a grip, and own up to your own behaviour, for heaven’s sake.
Honestly, McKinney, talk about intellectually incoherent! In your initial, grenade-throwing comment, you said you were waiting for “us” to provide:
the contextualization of why Israeli civilians, particularly children, had this coming.
Like almost every other attitude you have accused “us” of having (e.g. agreeing that the halloween costumes were cultural appropriation, and the academics should have been cancelled), it has turned out that NOBODY commenting on this site has the views you were accusing us of holding. On the contrary, many many patriotic, IDF-serving Israeli lefties hold the kinds of views that many of “us” on this site have been expressing.
This is why Janie accused you of addressing the hobgoblins in your mind, not us. And why, less poetically, you have often been accused of setting us up as strawmen.
You thought we should have been commenting on the war earlier: many of us had better, and more distressing, things to do. Or were processing, or (unbelievable concept) thinking. You think MAGAts means maggots; I think hanging out with people who reluctantly support Trump because they are so horrified by the “extreme progessive left” (I can’t remember your actual phrase, although I notice on US media that some MAGAts are now calling the Dems communists) is rotting your (presumably once decent) brain. Get a grip, and own up to your own behaviour, for heaven’s sake.
I notice on US media that some MAGAts are now calling the Dems communists
What do you mean with ‘now’?
That has been a rightwing sthick at least since the Russian revolution. Even Otto von effing Bismarck has been accused by USian rightwingers to be a commie.
The only thing that seems new is that they now call liberals commies and nazis in the same breath all the time (and adding a few epitheths from the current list of approved insults like ‘groomer’ most of the time).
I notice on US media that some MAGAts are now calling the Dems communists
What do you mean with ‘now’?
That has been a rightwing sthick at least since the Russian revolution. Even Otto von effing Bismarck has been accused by USian rightwingers to be a commie.
The only thing that seems new is that they now call liberals commies and nazis in the same breath all the time (and adding a few epitheths from the current list of approved insults like ‘groomer’ most of the time).
McKT–
I agree that ObiWi is only a faint shadow of what it was and I really miss the old days 15 years or so ago where you had rightwingers, centrist slightly right (wj). centrist libs, far lefties, and really far lefties all hashing it out. I don’t like the fact that it is mostly a monoculture here. Unfortunately it is that way in most places.
But you made a claim about us. It was false. The claim is actually true or truish about some people I read. But the fact is as I said in the other thread–there’s always been this group of far leftists who romanticize “freedom fighters” no matter how murderous and disgusting their actions. One phrase that is often used that lets you know what you are dealing with is “by any means necessary’. Just looked it up. I couldn’t remember if it came from Fanon or Malcolm X. Turns out both used it and Sartre before them.
Anyway, it is used to excuse every brutal thing a “liberation movement” chooses to do. The history of the 20th century clearly demonstrates what those movements turn into once the liberation is successful. Meet the new boss, basically.
So apparently we can all say, including me, that we all think Hamas is a ghastly organization as bad as ISIS and that you made false assumptions about all our views and it doesn’t matter to you. Well, you were wrong. It happens. There are some places online where you would have been partly right. Though these sorts of lefties were saying the same about Algeria, Vietnam, and now Israel-Palestine, so it’s mostly about the freedom fighter worship. The right isn’t exactly immune, since it did this in Afghanistan when the freedom fighters against the Russians were throwing acid into the faces of women who didn’t cover their face. And they did it with the contra terrorists. A lot of Westerners supported the Syrian freedom fighters, who were the ideological allies of Hamas and it was precisely that issue that caused the temporary rift between Hamas and Iran. The US government that if those freedom fighters we supported won, there would be a genocide of Alawites and maybe Christians, which is why many Christians and most Alawites supported Asad. Alawites in particular died in massive numbers defending the regime–it was that or run or die. You knew all this, right?
Anyway, I happen to agree that there are some tendencies to shut down speech on the left, broadly speaking. We know the truth about X, so we need to make sure false things aren’t spread on social media seems to be the idea. I am not at all comfortable with that. Pro-Palestinian activists have been complaining about this kind of pressure forever. You may not like your allies on that subject, but here we are.
McKT–
I agree that ObiWi is only a faint shadow of what it was and I really miss the old days 15 years or so ago where you had rightwingers, centrist slightly right (wj). centrist libs, far lefties, and really far lefties all hashing it out. I don’t like the fact that it is mostly a monoculture here. Unfortunately it is that way in most places.
But you made a claim about us. It was false. The claim is actually true or truish about some people I read. But the fact is as I said in the other thread–there’s always been this group of far leftists who romanticize “freedom fighters” no matter how murderous and disgusting their actions. One phrase that is often used that lets you know what you are dealing with is “by any means necessary’. Just looked it up. I couldn’t remember if it came from Fanon or Malcolm X. Turns out both used it and Sartre before them.
Anyway, it is used to excuse every brutal thing a “liberation movement” chooses to do. The history of the 20th century clearly demonstrates what those movements turn into once the liberation is successful. Meet the new boss, basically.
So apparently we can all say, including me, that we all think Hamas is a ghastly organization as bad as ISIS and that you made false assumptions about all our views and it doesn’t matter to you. Well, you were wrong. It happens. There are some places online where you would have been partly right. Though these sorts of lefties were saying the same about Algeria, Vietnam, and now Israel-Palestine, so it’s mostly about the freedom fighter worship. The right isn’t exactly immune, since it did this in Afghanistan when the freedom fighters against the Russians were throwing acid into the faces of women who didn’t cover their face. And they did it with the contra terrorists. A lot of Westerners supported the Syrian freedom fighters, who were the ideological allies of Hamas and it was precisely that issue that caused the temporary rift between Hamas and Iran. The US government that if those freedom fighters we supported won, there would be a genocide of Alawites and maybe Christians, which is why many Christians and most Alawites supported Asad. Alawites in particular died in massive numbers defending the regime–it was that or run or die. You knew all this, right?
Anyway, I happen to agree that there are some tendencies to shut down speech on the left, broadly speaking. We know the truth about X, so we need to make sure false things aren’t spread on social media seems to be the idea. I am not at all comfortable with that. Pro-Palestinian activists have been complaining about this kind of pressure forever. You may not like your allies on that subject, but here we are.
A perfect illustration of why Donald is worth reading and listening to.
I imagine all of us miss the old ObWi days, with Hilzoy et al. Maybe we (and most others) have become a monoculture because of how very poisonous the polarised debate has become. But accusing people, or groups, of holding views which they not only do not hold, but are often the diametric opposite of views they do hold, hardly helps. And doing it in offensive ways is not very helpful either.
I agree that sometimes McK has been taunted in ways I find (although, he apparently does not) objectionable. But that is a game where each side then feels perfectly justified in being more and more insulting, and certainly McK has demonstrated that in recent years.
As I said before, it would take much of the unpleasantness out if people (let’s say McKinney for now) asked what other people’s views are, rather than setting up wrong, insulting straw men to attack. Once people have given a view, there is plenty of time and opportunity to attack it, or disagree with it.
You may not like your allies on that subject, but here we are.
Good luck with that! But here’s hoping….
A perfect illustration of why Donald is worth reading and listening to.
I imagine all of us miss the old ObWi days, with Hilzoy et al. Maybe we (and most others) have become a monoculture because of how very poisonous the polarised debate has become. But accusing people, or groups, of holding views which they not only do not hold, but are often the diametric opposite of views they do hold, hardly helps. And doing it in offensive ways is not very helpful either.
I agree that sometimes McK has been taunted in ways I find (although, he apparently does not) objectionable. But that is a game where each side then feels perfectly justified in being more and more insulting, and certainly McK has demonstrated that in recent years.
As I said before, it would take much of the unpleasantness out if people (let’s say McKinney for now) asked what other people’s views are, rather than setting up wrong, insulting straw men to attack. Once people have given a view, there is plenty of time and opportunity to attack it, or disagree with it.
You may not like your allies on that subject, but here we are.
Good luck with that! But here’s hoping….
I will answer the Israel-Palestine questions specifically later, when I have time. Actually, I might have time now, so will start.
1. Why Israel? I think it is because Israel is seen by itself and others as a Western democracy and lefties tend to focus on those for good and bad reasons. The good reason is getting rid of the mote in one’s own eye. Bad reasons can be intellectual dishonesty. I think antisemitism sometimes, but a great many of the leading anti-Israel activists are Jewish and no, not self-hating. Their reasoning is the same–take care of your own stench first.
There was one guy, Gilad Atzmon, who I used to see quoted a bit because he was antizionist, but if you read a bit further he was a genuine self-hating antisemitic Jew. Really loathsome. I forgot the details–it was 10 years or more when I was looking up some of what he said. It had to do with Nazis having reasons for picking on Jews. I know of at least one person who cited him on his antizionist arguments not knowing about the really vile stuff. I also remember seeing people being made aware of the vile stuff and still defending him. So that’s crossing the line.
I think genuine antisemites usually let the cat out of the bag in some such way. Just being intensely critical of Israel means nothing. Okay, there might be some Bayesian argument against that–it does mean something, but by itself it is only a weak indicator.
The IHRA definition of antisemitism included some examples of possible indicators which were antizionist. If you took this at face value, every Palestinian would have to be an antisemite unless he endorsed his own expulsion.
But it turned out that Kenneth Stern, the author of it, only meant that people who said this or that about Israel might be possible antisemites. I don’t like that much either, but yeah, it could be. Stern, a Zionist, is very critical of attempts to make the IHRA an official definition used by governments.
I think I will post this first part now.
I will answer the Israel-Palestine questions specifically later, when I have time. Actually, I might have time now, so will start.
1. Why Israel? I think it is because Israel is seen by itself and others as a Western democracy and lefties tend to focus on those for good and bad reasons. The good reason is getting rid of the mote in one’s own eye. Bad reasons can be intellectual dishonesty. I think antisemitism sometimes, but a great many of the leading anti-Israel activists are Jewish and no, not self-hating. Their reasoning is the same–take care of your own stench first.
There was one guy, Gilad Atzmon, who I used to see quoted a bit because he was antizionist, but if you read a bit further he was a genuine self-hating antisemitic Jew. Really loathsome. I forgot the details–it was 10 years or more when I was looking up some of what he said. It had to do with Nazis having reasons for picking on Jews. I know of at least one person who cited him on his antizionist arguments not knowing about the really vile stuff. I also remember seeing people being made aware of the vile stuff and still defending him. So that’s crossing the line.
I think genuine antisemites usually let the cat out of the bag in some such way. Just being intensely critical of Israel means nothing. Okay, there might be some Bayesian argument against that–it does mean something, but by itself it is only a weak indicator.
The IHRA definition of antisemitism included some examples of possible indicators which were antizionist. If you took this at face value, every Palestinian would have to be an antisemite unless he endorsed his own expulsion.
But it turned out that Kenneth Stern, the author of it, only meant that people who said this or that about Israel might be possible antisemites. I don’t like that much either, but yeah, it could be. Stern, a Zionist, is very critical of attempts to make the IHRA an official definition used by governments.
I think I will post this first part now.
Like many on the left these days, you’re all about free speech as long as its free speech which meets your standards.
McK, you basically jumped in on a thread totally unrelated to the current Israeli / Hamas war to scold us all for not commenting on it in a timeframe that you found appropriate. Then made a bunch of inflammatory generalized statements about “us lefties”, ascribing to us points of view that were not in evidence and are not universally or even generally held by folks here.
All accompanied by a list of questions with a demand that we reply.
Not the first time this has happened, and not the first time folks here have asked that you try a different approach.
It was a combatative and provocative opening salvo. If you are actually interested in engaging the subject, there are better ways to go about it. If you’re just interested in yelling at a bunch of “lefties”, you have achieved your goal.
If you come to a party and crap in the punchbowl, it’s likely that you’ll be asked to leave. If that’s how it plays out, that’s on you.
Like many on the left these days, you’re all about free speech as long as its free speech which meets your standards.
McK, you basically jumped in on a thread totally unrelated to the current Israeli / Hamas war to scold us all for not commenting on it in a timeframe that you found appropriate. Then made a bunch of inflammatory generalized statements about “us lefties”, ascribing to us points of view that were not in evidence and are not universally or even generally held by folks here.
All accompanied by a list of questions with a demand that we reply.
Not the first time this has happened, and not the first time folks here have asked that you try a different approach.
It was a combatative and provocative opening salvo. If you are actually interested in engaging the subject, there are better ways to go about it. If you’re just interested in yelling at a bunch of “lefties”, you have achieved your goal.
If you come to a party and crap in the punchbowl, it’s likely that you’ll be asked to leave. If that’s how it plays out, that’s on you.
What does BDS expect?
It’s a hard question to answer because there is no one answer. Norman Finkelstein, a rather ferocious critic of Israel ( who lost most of his family as many did in the Holocaust) also criticized the BDS movement for various reasons. I think part of it was that sometimes it was for a single democratic state for both , but most often the goals were vague.
It is supposed to be a rights-based movement. The idea is that as it stands, Palestinians have no rights. This should change and we should boycott Israel until that changes. Change in what way? Their stated principle on the front page doesn’t say what the end goal is–just that Israel violates international law and that should stop.
Sometimes in practice that means a 1ss , a secular state with equal rights for everyone. Or a binantional state –I’m a little confused on that one. Or just, stop doing the things Israel is doing.
Personally I support it with caveats. If the sanctions ever became the harsh ones we impose on Iran or Venezuela or even worse, like the Gaza blockade, it would be immoral. Also, I would prefer that the US just stop giving them a blank check. People say “why do you single out Israel?” and I answer, yes, why do we blather on about their wonderful democratic values and give them billions per year to buy weapons (so it is also a subsidy to the MIC) when they democratically choose to practice apartheid? People seem to think being a democracy in itself somehow sprinkles magic morality dust on whatever a country does.
So I support BDS as symbolic pressure. It drives Israel nuts, or did, which is good. The solution could be 1SS, a binational state (??) or a 2ss. Not for me to push.
It’s probably dead for the forseeable future. States will probably pass even more laws trampling on people’s rights to protest.
What does BDS expect?
It’s a hard question to answer because there is no one answer. Norman Finkelstein, a rather ferocious critic of Israel ( who lost most of his family as many did in the Holocaust) also criticized the BDS movement for various reasons. I think part of it was that sometimes it was for a single democratic state for both , but most often the goals were vague.
It is supposed to be a rights-based movement. The idea is that as it stands, Palestinians have no rights. This should change and we should boycott Israel until that changes. Change in what way? Their stated principle on the front page doesn’t say what the end goal is–just that Israel violates international law and that should stop.
Sometimes in practice that means a 1ss , a secular state with equal rights for everyone. Or a binantional state –I’m a little confused on that one. Or just, stop doing the things Israel is doing.
Personally I support it with caveats. If the sanctions ever became the harsh ones we impose on Iran or Venezuela or even worse, like the Gaza blockade, it would be immoral. Also, I would prefer that the US just stop giving them a blank check. People say “why do you single out Israel?” and I answer, yes, why do we blather on about their wonderful democratic values and give them billions per year to buy weapons (so it is also a subsidy to the MIC) when they democratically choose to practice apartheid? People seem to think being a democracy in itself somehow sprinkles magic morality dust on whatever a country does.
So I support BDS as symbolic pressure. It drives Israel nuts, or did, which is good. The solution could be 1SS, a binational state (??) or a 2ss. Not for me to push.
It’s probably dead for the forseeable future. States will probably pass even more laws trampling on people’s rights to protest.
Does BDS provide cover for antisemitism?
Mostly answered. You never know the purity of people’s motives, but I think the majority of us, the vast majority, are not antisemites. I see a few people who probably are. Sometimes it is unmistakeable. People who defend Atzmon’s statements about the Holocaust, for example. Easy call. I go to rightwing sites too. It’s nearly always easy to pick out the antisemites there, because they are just blatant about it. Not talking about the average rightwinger there. Just the ones who clearly have a thing up their butts about Jews.
Does BDS provide cover for antisemitism?
Mostly answered. You never know the purity of people’s motives, but I think the majority of us, the vast majority, are not antisemites. I see a few people who probably are. Sometimes it is unmistakeable. People who defend Atzmon’s statements about the Holocaust, for example. Easy call. I go to rightwing sites too. It’s nearly always easy to pick out the antisemites there, because they are just blatant about it. Not talking about the average rightwinger there. Just the ones who clearly have a thing up their butts about Jews.
Do I concede Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state?
Nope. Now as a practical matter, it is, just as many countries are Muslim states and some are nominally Christian, though hopefully that doesn’t mean anything anymore except that Sunday is the main day most people get off (before the Labor movement added Saturday).
Countries should not be ethnically or religously based. There can be some past legacy of this,but it should be mostly meaningless.
Israel is a majority Jewish state because hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forcibly expelled, so it is wrong to say this was justified.
But it happened and most countries have disgusting histories. Ideally there would be a 1ss with equal rights for all. If the majority of Palestinians aren’t willing to endorse that and engage in a peaceful MLK style movement to reach it, then I am not going to waste much time on it. Not that this matters. It just won’t happen or even have a chance of happening. And whatever slight chance it had was massacred along with 1000 civilians by Hamas.
A 2ss also seems very remote. I would have said dead before Oct 7, because it was. The 1ss actually seemed as plausible with Bibi basically on the way to annexing the WB.
But maybe, whatever happens in Gaza, people will realize that we absolutely have to settle this issue without another ethnic cleansing or genocide or ever more violent murder sprees. Since a 1ss has zero chance, maybe the outside will impose a 2ss, which I assume Wj was suggesting. The details will be a huge problem, but settlements absolutely have to stop, and really, most or all of them should go or join the Paletinian state or else some desirable parts of Israel be given to the Palestinians.
Do I concede Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state?
Nope. Now as a practical matter, it is, just as many countries are Muslim states and some are nominally Christian, though hopefully that doesn’t mean anything anymore except that Sunday is the main day most people get off (before the Labor movement added Saturday).
Countries should not be ethnically or religously based. There can be some past legacy of this,but it should be mostly meaningless.
Israel is a majority Jewish state because hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forcibly expelled, so it is wrong to say this was justified.
But it happened and most countries have disgusting histories. Ideally there would be a 1ss with equal rights for all. If the majority of Palestinians aren’t willing to endorse that and engage in a peaceful MLK style movement to reach it, then I am not going to waste much time on it. Not that this matters. It just won’t happen or even have a chance of happening. And whatever slight chance it had was massacred along with 1000 civilians by Hamas.
A 2ss also seems very remote. I would have said dead before Oct 7, because it was. The 1ss actually seemed as plausible with Bibi basically on the way to annexing the WB.
But maybe, whatever happens in Gaza, people will realize that we absolutely have to settle this issue without another ethnic cleansing or genocide or ever more violent murder sprees. Since a 1ss has zero chance, maybe the outside will impose a 2ss, which I assume Wj was suggesting. The details will be a huge problem, but settlements absolutely have to stop, and really, most or all of them should go or join the Paletinian state or else some desirable parts of Israel be given to the Palestinians.
Why Israel? I think it is because Israel is seen by itself and others as a Western democracy and lefties tend to focus on those for good and bad reasons.
I think, even more, it is a reflection of when Israel actually was a Western democracy. Whether is still is seems to me to be debatable. (Although the prevalence of religious zealots in American politics these days could be argued to make it in line with current levels of Western democracy.)
Back in the late 60s, during the 6 Day War, a humorist named Art Hoppe wrote a column (I saw it in the San Francisco Chronicle; don’t know if it spread more widely) called “A Guide for Neutral Thinkers.”** This in response to the American government spokesman saying that we would be “neutral in thought, word, and deed.” One of his lines which I remember was:
I think that mindset is still informing our policy on Israel today. Even though the world, in the Middle East as elsewhere, has evolved enormously in the past half century.
** I was hoping that is had been put online somewhere. But if it has, I have been unable to find it.
Why Israel? I think it is because Israel is seen by itself and others as a Western democracy and lefties tend to focus on those for good and bad reasons.
I think, even more, it is a reflection of when Israel actually was a Western democracy. Whether is still is seems to me to be debatable. (Although the prevalence of religious zealots in American politics these days could be argued to make it in line with current levels of Western democracy.)
Back in the late 60s, during the 6 Day War, a humorist named Art Hoppe wrote a column (I saw it in the San Francisco Chronicle; don’t know if it spread more widely) called “A Guide for Neutral Thinkers.”** This in response to the American government spokesman saying that we would be “neutral in thought, word, and deed.” One of his lines which I remember was:
I think that mindset is still informing our policy on Israel today. Even though the world, in the Middle East as elsewhere, has evolved enormously in the past half century.
** I was hoping that is had been put online somewhere. But if it has, I have been unable to find it.
I hope you apologize, McKT. I do think we need more conservatives around, and more people to my left, for that matter, so that I appear reasonable and centrist.
I hope you apologize, McKT. I do think we need more conservatives around, and more people to my left, for that matter, so that I appear reasonable and centrist.
” srael is so small and so democratic,”
The Palestinians who hadn’t been expelled in 48 were under military rule inside Israel until 1966.
Westerners tend to see the problem starting in 67. It got worse then.
And since I am bashing the Israelis, the Palestinian side had its first anti-zionist pogrom in the early 20’s. There was another in the late 20’s when the mob massacred Jewish families who were native to the region. (To be fair, some of their Palestinian neighbors rescued some of them from the mob, or so I remember reading.) Palestinian “resistance” when violent always seemed to involve terrorism, though many or most “resistance” movements seem to be like this. The Zionist ones started using terrorism in the late 30’s, I think.
But anyway, democratic states can democratically decide to do things that aren’t wonderful. There were no good old days, just days that weren’t quite so bad at times.
” srael is so small and so democratic,”
The Palestinians who hadn’t been expelled in 48 were under military rule inside Israel until 1966.
Westerners tend to see the problem starting in 67. It got worse then.
And since I am bashing the Israelis, the Palestinian side had its first anti-zionist pogrom in the early 20’s. There was another in the late 20’s when the mob massacred Jewish families who were native to the region. (To be fair, some of their Palestinian neighbors rescued some of them from the mob, or so I remember reading.) Palestinian “resistance” when violent always seemed to involve terrorism, though many or most “resistance” movements seem to be like this. The Zionist ones started using terrorism in the late 30’s, I think.
But anyway, democratic states can democratically decide to do things that aren’t wonderful. There were no good old days, just days that weren’t quite so bad at times.
settlements absolutely have to stop, and really, most or all of them should go or join the Palestinian state or else some desirable parts of Israel be given to the Palestinians.
Unfortunately, most of the settlers are there on the West Bank precisely because they want to “reclaim” it for Israel, driving out the Palestinians in the process. There’s absolutely no way they would join a Palestinian state. Nor that they would stop expanding and proliferating the settlements as fast as they can, unless prevented by main force.
Which means that part of any solution (at least, one which doesn’t involve wholesale relocation of the Palestinians) will require breaking the settler movement. Which will not be trivial for any Israeli government.
settlements absolutely have to stop, and really, most or all of them should go or join the Palestinian state or else some desirable parts of Israel be given to the Palestinians.
Unfortunately, most of the settlers are there on the West Bank precisely because they want to “reclaim” it for Israel, driving out the Palestinians in the process. There’s absolutely no way they would join a Palestinian state. Nor that they would stop expanding and proliferating the settlements as fast as they can, unless prevented by main force.
Which means that part of any solution (at least, one which doesn’t involve wholesale relocation of the Palestinians) will require breaking the settler movement. Which will not be trivial for any Israeli government.
I agree that ObiWi is only a faint shadow of what it was and I really miss the old days 15 years or so ago where you had rightwingers, centrist slightly right (wj). centrist libs, far lefties, and really far lefties all hashing it out.
Actually, I don’t miss being lectured by people on what a great idea, or at least how necessary, the Iraq or Afghanistan wars were, and how we would sort the ME out once and for all – it actually fills me with sadness how we talked about these countries almost daily, non-stop for years and now they are almost completely forgotten. It feels like a frivolous parlour game in retrospect.
I miss hilzoy and a few others, though.
Btw, Fanon is actually very much worth reading and he had an extremely interesting life as well.
I agree that ObiWi is only a faint shadow of what it was and I really miss the old days 15 years or so ago where you had rightwingers, centrist slightly right (wj). centrist libs, far lefties, and really far lefties all hashing it out.
Actually, I don’t miss being lectured by people on what a great idea, or at least how necessary, the Iraq or Afghanistan wars were, and how we would sort the ME out once and for all – it actually fills me with sadness how we talked about these countries almost daily, non-stop for years and now they are almost completely forgotten. It feels like a frivolous parlour game in retrospect.
I miss hilzoy and a few others, though.
Btw, Fanon is actually very much worth reading and he had an extremely interesting life as well.
But there is a lot of quibbling, e.g. “they are just college kids”–fuck that. Suppose they were calling for white supremacy–I imagine Nous and others would find a little less nuance if that were the case. You realize, do you not, they are celebrating mass murder as a matter of political policy?
Because I assume that McKinney can still read, even if he cannot comment, and because it’s worth working through this set of assumptions.
Suppose they were calling for white supremacy. That, too, happens on my campus in various ways and during inflammatory times. We have a pretty full gamut of political views here on campus (and in my classroom).
Yep, still kids with limited information, and limited experience.
I taught a class about children in armed conflict for almost a decade. Many of my students wanted to write about the various “schools” being run by terrorist organizations as a tool for indoctrination and recruitment. I’ve had liberal kids, conservative kids, and Chinese nationalist kids write about this (and a few islamic kids, but -understandably – no Jewish kids). Not a lot of white supremacy in these papers, but certainly a large helping of islamophobia and dehumanizing going on.
Yep, still kids with limited information, and limited experience.
College kids treat college like a magic circle a lot of the time. It’s a place to play with ideas and identities. They are mostly performing for each other and not thinking at all about the larger world being an audience. And for the most part, adults treat college as just that as well. We certainly don’t take commentary from 20-year-olds as serious policy proposals. That and their lack of emotional baffles leads to some pretty stupid rhetoric.
If you want them to learn, rather than just get defensive and combative, you have to start by asking questions and digging past their performance art to their actual intentions and concerns, then you have to ask them to think about how their mode of presentation works or doesn’t work to actually support their concerns. Then you need to get them thinking about who they want to actually listen to their concerns. Then you restate what they said to you and point them in that direction where they are actually trying to talk to those people.
That’s pretty much my teaching method for any difficult topic. Learning has to start with the students’ actual questions and concerns. You have to ignore the performances*.
Because they are just kids and I want them to learn.
I’ve also been in rooms where actual skinheads were trying to actually injure and drive out actual minority targets (complete with a couple of people getting stabbed).
Those skinheads were not kids. I didn’t try to talk to them. I tried to help stop them.
I don’t conflate those two different situations. They seem pretty clearly different to me, and I find attempts to conflate them transparently manipulative and simplistic.
*There’s also a need to create a non-threatening classroom environment, so you do have to intervene to keep things civil there. But if you want to actually inform the offender and steer them towards justice and compassion, you have to follow that up with listening during conferences and office hours and do the guiding away from their audience.
But there is a lot of quibbling, e.g. “they are just college kids”–fuck that. Suppose they were calling for white supremacy–I imagine Nous and others would find a little less nuance if that were the case. You realize, do you not, they are celebrating mass murder as a matter of political policy?
Because I assume that McKinney can still read, even if he cannot comment, and because it’s worth working through this set of assumptions.
Suppose they were calling for white supremacy. That, too, happens on my campus in various ways and during inflammatory times. We have a pretty full gamut of political views here on campus (and in my classroom).
Yep, still kids with limited information, and limited experience.
I taught a class about children in armed conflict for almost a decade. Many of my students wanted to write about the various “schools” being run by terrorist organizations as a tool for indoctrination and recruitment. I’ve had liberal kids, conservative kids, and Chinese nationalist kids write about this (and a few islamic kids, but -understandably – no Jewish kids). Not a lot of white supremacy in these papers, but certainly a large helping of islamophobia and dehumanizing going on.
Yep, still kids with limited information, and limited experience.
College kids treat college like a magic circle a lot of the time. It’s a place to play with ideas and identities. They are mostly performing for each other and not thinking at all about the larger world being an audience. And for the most part, adults treat college as just that as well. We certainly don’t take commentary from 20-year-olds as serious policy proposals. That and their lack of emotional baffles leads to some pretty stupid rhetoric.
If you want them to learn, rather than just get defensive and combative, you have to start by asking questions and digging past their performance art to their actual intentions and concerns, then you have to ask them to think about how their mode of presentation works or doesn’t work to actually support their concerns. Then you need to get them thinking about who they want to actually listen to their concerns. Then you restate what they said to you and point them in that direction where they are actually trying to talk to those people.
That’s pretty much my teaching method for any difficult topic. Learning has to start with the students’ actual questions and concerns. You have to ignore the performances*.
Because they are just kids and I want them to learn.
I’ve also been in rooms where actual skinheads were trying to actually injure and drive out actual minority targets (complete with a couple of people getting stabbed).
Those skinheads were not kids. I didn’t try to talk to them. I tried to help stop them.
I don’t conflate those two different situations. They seem pretty clearly different to me, and I find attempts to conflate them transparently manipulative and simplistic.
*There’s also a need to create a non-threatening classroom environment, so you do have to intervene to keep things civil there. But if you want to actually inform the offender and steer them towards justice and compassion, you have to follow that up with listening during conferences and office hours and do the guiding away from their audience.
The modern car bomb got perfected by the (future) Israelis to fight the British in Palestine. The Palestinians just adopted it.
The Nazis tried to use antisemitism to get the Palestinians as allies against the British (by telling them that the British would hand Palestine over to the Jews). It was only moderately successful at the time but it laid the seeds for a lot of modern Arab antisemitism (as a racial not religious thing).
The modern car bomb got perfected by the (future) Israelis to fight the British in Palestine. The Palestinians just adopted it.
The Nazis tried to use antisemitism to get the Palestinians as allies against the British (by telling them that the British would hand Palestine over to the Jews). It was only moderately successful at the time but it laid the seeds for a lot of modern Arab antisemitism (as a racial not religious thing).
But the fact is as I said in the other thread–there’s always been this group of far leftists who romanticize “freedom fighters” no matter how murderous and disgusting their actions. One phrase that is often used that lets you know what you are dealing with is “by any means necessary’. Just looked it up. I couldn’t remember if it came from Fanon or Malcolm X. Turns out both used it and Sartre before them.
Yep, the Harvard kids have likely read a bit of Fanon, and of Said, and maybe a bit of Ngūgī or Bhabha, got all drunk on the ideas, and ran right out to play Plato’s Cave Puppet Theatre with the ideas.
Most of them have very little actual understanding of the actual world or experiences of oppressed peoples. Others do have some experience, but come from enough privilege that they were insulated from the worst of it and are trying to atone for their privilege by acts of radical solidarity, hoping the backlash against them will lend them some legitimacy and let them stop feeling like tourists and impostors.
It’s a mistake to treat them the same as one would treat an actual Hamas member. Doing so just legitimates their fantasy of authenticity.
But the fact is as I said in the other thread–there’s always been this group of far leftists who romanticize “freedom fighters” no matter how murderous and disgusting their actions. One phrase that is often used that lets you know what you are dealing with is “by any means necessary’. Just looked it up. I couldn’t remember if it came from Fanon or Malcolm X. Turns out both used it and Sartre before them.
Yep, the Harvard kids have likely read a bit of Fanon, and of Said, and maybe a bit of Ngūgī or Bhabha, got all drunk on the ideas, and ran right out to play Plato’s Cave Puppet Theatre with the ideas.
Most of them have very little actual understanding of the actual world or experiences of oppressed peoples. Others do have some experience, but come from enough privilege that they were insulated from the worst of it and are trying to atone for their privilege by acts of radical solidarity, hoping the backlash against them will lend them some legitimacy and let them stop feeling like tourists and impostors.
It’s a mistake to treat them the same as one would treat an actual Hamas member. Doing so just legitimates their fantasy of authenticity.
geez McKinney
geez McKinney
Never heard of Ngugi or Bhabha. Will look them up, if only via wikipedia.
I read a biography of Fanon that came out years ago and may reread someday. I think I read his famous book once, but forgot all of it, even including the name.
Never heard of Ngugi or Bhabha. Will look them up, if only via wikipedia.
I read a biography of Fanon that came out years ago and may reread someday. I think I read his famous book once, but forgot all of it, even including the name.
I think I read his famous book once, but forgot all of it, even including the name.
Probably The Wretched of the Earth, though Black Skin, White Masks would also qualify as a famous book.
Ngūgī’s most influential book is Decolonizing the Mind.
I’m not really up to speed on Bhabha, but his name comes up a lot amongst my anti-colonialist colleagues.
Also Achille Mbembé’s Necropolitics, which is directly engaged with the situation in Israel and Palestine.
I think I read his famous book once, but forgot all of it, even including the name.
Probably The Wretched of the Earth, though Black Skin, White Masks would also qualify as a famous book.
Ngūgī’s most influential book is Decolonizing the Mind.
I’m not really up to speed on Bhabha, but his name comes up a lot amongst my anti-colonialist colleagues.
Also Achille Mbembé’s Necropolitics, which is directly engaged with the situation in Israel and Palestine.
“Unfortunately, most of the settlers are there on the West Bank precisely because they want to “reclaim” it for Israel, driving out the Palestinians in the process.”
Yeah, that’s why I and others argued for a 1ss, though for me at least October 7 has destroyed that idea. But the argument was/is that you can’t take the land without taking the people and the rest follows. And the Gazans should not be left in a prison camp.
Hamas–well as Juan Cole pointed out a day or two ago, Hamas has had its pragmatic periods. Evidently they reverted back to crime against humanity mode.
Which is what is going to make a ceasefire hard to envision as politically possible. I haven’t followed the news since early this morning, but the bombing of Gaza is horrific.
“Unfortunately, most of the settlers are there on the West Bank precisely because they want to “reclaim” it for Israel, driving out the Palestinians in the process.”
Yeah, that’s why I and others argued for a 1ss, though for me at least October 7 has destroyed that idea. But the argument was/is that you can’t take the land without taking the people and the rest follows. And the Gazans should not be left in a prison camp.
Hamas–well as Juan Cole pointed out a day or two ago, Hamas has had its pragmatic periods. Evidently they reverted back to crime against humanity mode.
Which is what is going to make a ceasefire hard to envision as politically possible. I haven’t followed the news since early this morning, but the bombing of Gaza is horrific.
Donald: Anyway, I happen to agree that there are some tendencies to shut down speech on the left, broadly speaking. We know the truth about X, so we need to make sure false things aren’t spread on social media seems to be the idea. I am not at all comfortable with that.
Response 1: Like those famous lefties Moms for Liberty, the liberty consisting of their freedom to make sure my kids (well, grandkids) can’t read anything the Moms don’t want their kids to read (if they even have kids), all in the service of shutting down word of my very existence as a gay person, among other topics. The new closet is being legislated in places like Florida and rammed through local school boards all over the country by shouting … lefties? (oh, wait) … instead of being tacitly enforced by social stigma and pressure as in the old days. (The shouting, of course, is in no way meant to shut down the speech of people who disagree with them. Nope, not in the slightest.)
Response 2: there are some tendencies to shut down speech
on the leftamong humans, broadly speakingDonald: Anyway, I happen to agree that there are some tendencies to shut down speech on the left, broadly speaking. We know the truth about X, so we need to make sure false things aren’t spread on social media seems to be the idea. I am not at all comfortable with that.
Response 1: Like those famous lefties Moms for Liberty, the liberty consisting of their freedom to make sure my kids (well, grandkids) can’t read anything the Moms don’t want their kids to read (if they even have kids), all in the service of shutting down word of my very existence as a gay person, among other topics. The new closet is being legislated in places like Florida and rammed through local school boards all over the country by shouting … lefties? (oh, wait) … instead of being tacitly enforced by social stigma and pressure as in the old days. (The shouting, of course, is in no way meant to shut down the speech of people who disagree with them. Nope, not in the slightest.)
Response 2: there are some tendencies to shut down speech
on the leftamong humans, broadly speakingDonald again: But anyway, democratic states can democratically decide to do things that aren’t wonderful. There were no good old days, just days that weren’t quite so bad at times.
Just as there were no good old days at ObWi, just days that weren’t quite so bad at times.
No one now posting has any illusions of being able to fill Hilzoy’s shoes; I don’t think anyone I’ve ever run across online or in real life could do that.
But that just makes it all the more necessary that the people who do comment here help make it a relatively safe place for arguments across various political dividing lines. There’s only so much bomb-throwing nastiness that’s going to be tolerated. All of the tiny handful of people who’ve been blocked since I started writing posts were blocked for that reason: making civil discourse for all practical purposes impossible.
Donald again: But anyway, democratic states can democratically decide to do things that aren’t wonderful. There were no good old days, just days that weren’t quite so bad at times.
Just as there were no good old days at ObWi, just days that weren’t quite so bad at times.
No one now posting has any illusions of being able to fill Hilzoy’s shoes; I don’t think anyone I’ve ever run across online or in real life could do that.
But that just makes it all the more necessary that the people who do comment here help make it a relatively safe place for arguments across various political dividing lines. There’s only so much bomb-throwing nastiness that’s going to be tolerated. All of the tiny handful of people who’ve been blocked since I started writing posts were blocked for that reason: making civil discourse for all practical purposes impossible.
JanieM.
I don’t have a problem with civility controls. In fact, I vaguely remember one or two bombthrowers on the very far left getting banned for bad behavior. I’ve no problem with that. I miss the wider range of views though.
On censorship, I should have been clearer. Censorship attempts on the right are a given. I visit a site populated by mostly the right and tend to snicker to myself at their claims that censorship and anti-free speech is entirely a leftwing thing. I think some of the advocacy for information control on the liberal side is a new thing. Or newer. I usually don’t agree with the substance of rightwing positions, just their right to express it.
So yeah, it’s humans. Personally I would censor every member of that species.
JanieM.
I don’t have a problem with civility controls. In fact, I vaguely remember one or two bombthrowers on the very far left getting banned for bad behavior. I’ve no problem with that. I miss the wider range of views though.
On censorship, I should have been clearer. Censorship attempts on the right are a given. I visit a site populated by mostly the right and tend to snicker to myself at their claims that censorship and anti-free speech is entirely a leftwing thing. I think some of the advocacy for information control on the liberal side is a new thing. Or newer. I usually don’t agree with the substance of rightwing positions, just their right to express it.
So yeah, it’s humans. Personally I would censor every member of that species.
Good point on where a lot of the most dramatic and consequential censorship is taking place.
Long live civil discourse! It is perfectly possible to disagree very vehemently, without resorting to insult or straw-manning. It’s an art, actually, and when done right all the more devastating and convincing.
On the Israel/Gaza situation: there are no good solutions. Everywhere you turn it’s terrible, and likely to remain so for a long time.
I do think we need more conservatives around, and more people to my left, for that matter, so that I appear reasonable and centrist.
I agree, but not for the same (jokey) reason. Let a thousand flowers bloom (to misquote that intensely humane figure Mao), as long as their representatives are capable of conducting the conversation in a civilised and good faith manner.
Good point on where a lot of the most dramatic and consequential censorship is taking place.
Long live civil discourse! It is perfectly possible to disagree very vehemently, without resorting to insult or straw-manning. It’s an art, actually, and when done right all the more devastating and convincing.
On the Israel/Gaza situation: there are no good solutions. Everywhere you turn it’s terrible, and likely to remain so for a long time.
I do think we need more conservatives around, and more people to my left, for that matter, so that I appear reasonable and centrist.
I agree, but not for the same (jokey) reason. Let a thousand flowers bloom (to misquote that intensely humane figure Mao), as long as their representatives are capable of conducting the conversation in a civilised and good faith manner.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/hamas-deputy-chief-lies-we-dont-target-civilians-we-only-attacked-idf-israel-planned-gaza-offensive/
Well, this is some area of commonality. Hamas lies about its own atrocities and claims it only targets the military. Usually they just brag about them.
I think I saw something like this at the beginning one one of the sites I read and had some faint hope they meant it, that they had learned something. That didn’t last long.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/hamas-deputy-chief-lies-we-dont-target-civilians-we-only-attacked-idf-israel-planned-gaza-offensive/
Well, this is some area of commonality. Hamas lies about its own atrocities and claims it only targets the military. Usually they just brag about them.
I think I saw something like this at the beginning one one of the sites I read and had some faint hope they meant it, that they had learned something. That didn’t last long.
I think some of the advocacy for information control on the liberal side is a new thing. Or newer. I usually don’t agree with the substance of rightwing positions, just their right to express it.
I have always worried about this problem in relation to free speech and I don’t have a solution, any more than I have a solution to Israel/Palestine. And behind my sarcasm, such as it was, what I’m really thinking of is not the right of individual human beings to express their opinions on, let’s say, social media, but the challenge posed by (dis)information spread by bots, believed and amplified by humans, and picked up by news media as valid because after all, people are thinking such and such. And so on around the cycle.
But I don’t even know if it’s worse now that we have social media. I read a historically-based novel with a plot strand involving the Nazi removal of French Jews to camps, and a lot of preparation of the population for that was (apparently) done on the radio. The mass (if not social) media of the day.
I think some of the advocacy for information control on the liberal side is a new thing. Or newer. I usually don’t agree with the substance of rightwing positions, just their right to express it.
I have always worried about this problem in relation to free speech and I don’t have a solution, any more than I have a solution to Israel/Palestine. And behind my sarcasm, such as it was, what I’m really thinking of is not the right of individual human beings to express their opinions on, let’s say, social media, but the challenge posed by (dis)information spread by bots, believed and amplified by humans, and picked up by news media as valid because after all, people are thinking such and such. And so on around the cycle.
But I don’t even know if it’s worse now that we have social media. I read a historically-based novel with a plot strand involving the Nazi removal of French Jews to camps, and a lot of preparation of the population for that was (apparently) done on the radio. The mass (if not social) media of the day.
By “preparation of the population” I mean turning the non-Jewish population against the Jews, so that the removals could proceed with the support of everyone else.
By “preparation of the population” I mean turning the non-Jewish population against the Jews, so that the removals could proceed with the support of everyone else.
I actually think that our speech problems have nothing to do with free speech and everything to do with our media algorithms for what sorts of speech get boosted or promoted. I don’t think that the enlightenment philosophy surrounding freedom of speech are robust enough to deal with the sort of mass media insurgencies we are having to contend with today.
I actually think that our speech problems have nothing to do with free speech and everything to do with our media algorithms for what sorts of speech get boosted or promoted. I don’t think that the enlightenment philosophy surrounding freedom of speech are robust enough to deal with the sort of mass media insurgencies we are having to contend with today.
The radio also played a significant role in the Rwanda genocide.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_T%C3%A9l%C3%A9vision_Libre_des_Mille_Collines#:~:text=exterminate%22%20the%20Tutsis.-,During%20the%20genocide%20against%20Tutsis%20in%20Rwanda,of%20all%20Tutsis%20in%20Rwanda.
The radio also played a significant role in the Rwanda genocide.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_T%C3%A9l%C3%A9vision_Libre_des_Mille_Collines#:~:text=exterminate%22%20the%20Tutsis.-,During%20the%20genocide%20against%20Tutsis%20in%20Rwanda,of%20all%20Tutsis%20in%20Rwanda.
I actually think that our speech problems have nothing to do with free speech and everything to do with our media algorithms for what sorts of speech get boosted or promoted.
Eventually, I expect we will have to resurrect some version of the Fairness Doctrine that covers both traditional media and online (mass) media. Not sure how that will be managed, starting with how to define “mass media” for the online world. Nor how we deal with fact checking — since alternative realities are a big part of the problem.
But we’re going to have to come up with something. IMHO
I actually think that our speech problems have nothing to do with free speech and everything to do with our media algorithms for what sorts of speech get boosted or promoted.
Eventually, I expect we will have to resurrect some version of the Fairness Doctrine that covers both traditional media and online (mass) media. Not sure how that will be managed, starting with how to define “mass media” for the online world. Nor how we deal with fact checking — since alternative realities are a big part of the problem.
But we’re going to have to come up with something. IMHO
Agree. It’s like overdriving your headlights. None of our societal media safeties are built for this sort of speed or density of traffic.
Agree. It’s like overdriving your headlights. None of our societal media safeties are built for this sort of speed or density of traffic.
And with all the attacks on public education, we’re also driving with the dims on all the time.
And with all the attacks on public education, we’re also driving with the dims on all the time.
Eventually, I expect we will have to resurrect some version of the Fairness Doctrine that covers both traditional media and online (mass) media.
I very much agree. Longtime ObWiers will know that the Fairness Doctrine has long been an obsession of mine. I thought, in a list of things vying for the title, abolishing it was one of the worst things Reagan did. When I lamented it, and blamed it partly for Fox News, well-informed people here told me (I did not know) that it would not have applied to Fox News because Fox is on cable. But that is the kind of adjustment that could, and should, have been made. Whether a resurrection will work, when the genie has been so long out of the bottle, is an open question.
Eventually, I expect we will have to resurrect some version of the Fairness Doctrine that covers both traditional media and online (mass) media.
I very much agree. Longtime ObWiers will know that the Fairness Doctrine has long been an obsession of mine. I thought, in a list of things vying for the title, abolishing it was one of the worst things Reagan did. When I lamented it, and blamed it partly for Fox News, well-informed people here told me (I did not know) that it would not have applied to Fox News because Fox is on cable. But that is the kind of adjustment that could, and should, have been made. Whether a resurrection will work, when the genie has been so long out of the bottle, is an open question.
The Fairness Doctrine existed because bandwidth was limited and its space was overseen by the federal government.
With cable, and then massively and transformatively with the Web, those bandwidth restrictions were rendered inconsequential. I, and other technolibertarian utopianists in the Web 1.0 days saw this as a golden opportunity to democratize access to media.
Sadly, we were wrong, and I have repented that optimism and naïveté. What we got was a DDoS attack on the protocols of civility and on institutional expertise.
I’m not sure that the Fairness Doctrine would make a dent in this, though. What we need is not better curation, or even weeding; we need to slow the information cycle to give more opportunities to interrupt cybercascades.
The Fairness Doctrine existed because bandwidth was limited and its space was overseen by the federal government.
With cable, and then massively and transformatively with the Web, those bandwidth restrictions were rendered inconsequential. I, and other technolibertarian utopianists in the Web 1.0 days saw this as a golden opportunity to democratize access to media.
Sadly, we were wrong, and I have repented that optimism and naïveté. What we got was a DDoS attack on the protocols of civility and on institutional expertise.
I’m not sure that the Fairness Doctrine would make a dent in this, though. What we need is not better curation, or even weeding; we need to slow the information cycle to give more opportunities to interrupt cybercascades.
Morning all, just a note, it was the three of us as we couldn’t get a hold of Russell, but he has signed off on the course of action. The email for the site isn’t my main email, but it is open, if anyone else has a concern that they would like to pass on, feel free. I’d also point out that it wasn’t because this was attack on the front pagers: If the same kind of vitriol was directed at another commenter, regardless of where they stood, the bomb-thrower should expect to be kicked out.
Morning all, just a note, it was the three of us as we couldn’t get a hold of Russell, but he has signed off on the course of action. The email for the site isn’t my main email, but it is open, if anyone else has a concern that they would like to pass on, feel free. I’d also point out that it wasn’t because this was attack on the front pagers: If the same kind of vitriol was directed at another commenter, regardless of where they stood, the bomb-thrower should expect to be kicked out.
I have never known what liberals are talking about on this. It seems to have started with claims about Russian social media interference in the 2016 election,but there were studies that found basically no evidence that it mattered. And it seemed absurd to me at the time, a kind of liberal attempt to find a way to explain the idiot’s victory. It was Boris and Natasha. Unfortunately Rocky and Bulkwinkle had slacked off on the job.
People have always told massive lies about various things, especially the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. I am going to give that a rest for now— want to do something else tonight besides this blog, but I have two specific things in mind. And on a completely different subject, creationists built an entire alternative to mainstream science built on BS. Being Christian myself, I used to follow that closely, before finally getting bored by it, but it was all designed to protect fundamentalists from believing things that could threaten them. You could keep creationism out of public school science classes with some court cases, but not out of people’s minds.
I grew up after age 8 in Memphis. People had some real brain worms in their head about race. Long before the internet. You are going to have to look long and hard to find any social media lie that did as much harm as racism promulgated in the old fashioned days before communication technology had advanced beyond the newspaper and later the telegraph.
More generally, I don’t trust any authority to keep things honest in any way other than persuasion. Sometimes the authority figures are wrong.
It is rare for me to say this, but the thread has been thread jacked. Not that I had anything I wanted to say on I- P tonight.
I have never known what liberals are talking about on this. It seems to have started with claims about Russian social media interference in the 2016 election,but there were studies that found basically no evidence that it mattered. And it seemed absurd to me at the time, a kind of liberal attempt to find a way to explain the idiot’s victory. It was Boris and Natasha. Unfortunately Rocky and Bulkwinkle had slacked off on the job.
People have always told massive lies about various things, especially the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. I am going to give that a rest for now— want to do something else tonight besides this blog, but I have two specific things in mind. And on a completely different subject, creationists built an entire alternative to mainstream science built on BS. Being Christian myself, I used to follow that closely, before finally getting bored by it, but it was all designed to protect fundamentalists from believing things that could threaten them. You could keep creationism out of public school science classes with some court cases, but not out of people’s minds.
I grew up after age 8 in Memphis. People had some real brain worms in their head about race. Long before the internet. You are going to have to look long and hard to find any social media lie that did as much harm as racism promulgated in the old fashioned days before communication technology had advanced beyond the newspaper and later the telegraph.
More generally, I don’t trust any authority to keep things honest in any way other than persuasion. Sometimes the authority figures are wrong.
It is rare for me to say this, but the thread has been thread jacked. Not that I had anything I wanted to say on I- P tonight.
I feel like I currently don’t understand what’s going on.
How has the thread been threadjacked? Surely the question of mis/disinformation and whether it can or should be censored is also central to much about the I-P war? My beloved but all-in rightwing American friend ranted to me about the beheading of scores of Israeli babies, and told me that Gaza should be bombed into oblivion, and a (liberal) friend here also talked about 50 babies having been beheaded at the kibbutz. As far as I can tell from the cagey respectable news reports, this has still not been verified, although some babies were killed and maybe had their throats slit. It reminds me of the horror stories about babies in incubators in the Iraq invasion of Kuwait, which turned out to be pure propaganda. This kind of thing (horrific, over-the-top atrocities, as if what happened isn’t bad enough) is generated to inflame public opinion, and render it more tolerant of disproportionate responses.
Also, sorry to dwell on unpleasantness, but has McK been kicked out? I thought he was just banned from Janie’s threads. I have noticed that he sometimes comes in for a fair amount of personal flak around here, although he has said it doesn’t bother him (belied I think by today’s “McKinney is mean!” shtick) and it seemed to me that although he did casually insult Janie, and also nous (he often does, and lj too), he was really generally spraying his strawman idiocy around at all of us. I hope it is not illegit to ask exactly what his current status is?
I feel like I currently don’t understand what’s going on.
How has the thread been threadjacked? Surely the question of mis/disinformation and whether it can or should be censored is also central to much about the I-P war? My beloved but all-in rightwing American friend ranted to me about the beheading of scores of Israeli babies, and told me that Gaza should be bombed into oblivion, and a (liberal) friend here also talked about 50 babies having been beheaded at the kibbutz. As far as I can tell from the cagey respectable news reports, this has still not been verified, although some babies were killed and maybe had their throats slit. It reminds me of the horror stories about babies in incubators in the Iraq invasion of Kuwait, which turned out to be pure propaganda. This kind of thing (horrific, over-the-top atrocities, as if what happened isn’t bad enough) is generated to inflame public opinion, and render it more tolerant of disproportionate responses.
Also, sorry to dwell on unpleasantness, but has McK been kicked out? I thought he was just banned from Janie’s threads. I have noticed that he sometimes comes in for a fair amount of personal flak around here, although he has said it doesn’t bother him (belied I think by today’s “McKinney is mean!” shtick) and it seemed to me that although he did casually insult Janie, and also nous (he often does, and lj too), he was really generally spraying his strawman idiocy around at all of us. I hope it is not illegit to ask exactly what his current status is?
I have never known what liberals are talking about on this. It seems to have started with claims about Russian social media interference in the 2016 election,but there were studies that found basically no evidence that it mattered. And it seemed absurd to me at the time, a kind of liberal attempt to find a way to explain the idiot’s victory.
Adam Silverman talks about Russian misinformation efforts fairly regularly in his nightly Ukraine posts at BJ. Since it’s related to his line of work, I do put some stock into what he says, though on the other hand I take him with at least one grain of salt, because he has bees in his bonnet like everyone else.
I have argued to nous fairly recently that, in effect, there’s nothing new under the sun — bias and ethnic hatreds have been around forever, only the technology changes. I guess provisionally I feel that the undergirding human darkness has always been there, but every new era finds a new way to exploit it, and every new way of exploiting it is a new and scary challenge.
As for thread-jacking — there’s nothing to prevent anyone from adding more comments about the (or any) war. Threads almost always wander, and maybe it’s all one war anyhow.
I have never known what liberals are talking about on this. It seems to have started with claims about Russian social media interference in the 2016 election,but there were studies that found basically no evidence that it mattered. And it seemed absurd to me at the time, a kind of liberal attempt to find a way to explain the idiot’s victory.
Adam Silverman talks about Russian misinformation efforts fairly regularly in his nightly Ukraine posts at BJ. Since it’s related to his line of work, I do put some stock into what he says, though on the other hand I take him with at least one grain of salt, because he has bees in his bonnet like everyone else.
I have argued to nous fairly recently that, in effect, there’s nothing new under the sun — bias and ethnic hatreds have been around forever, only the technology changes. I guess provisionally I feel that the undergirding human darkness has always been there, but every new era finds a new way to exploit it, and every new way of exploiting it is a new and scary challenge.
As for thread-jacking — there’s nothing to prevent anyone from adding more comments about the (or any) war. Threads almost always wander, and maybe it’s all one war anyhow.
GftNC — look at the next post.
GftNC — look at the next post.
Oh, thanks Janie, I had completely missed that.
Oh, thanks Janie, I had completely missed that.
Just read it. Absolutely fair enough.
Just read it. Absolutely fair enough.
At no point in 1993 could I have produced a photorealistic deepfake to back my conspiracy theory, share that with 14 million people, and have a media ecology that automatically steered those 14 million people to other sites that reinforced my claims with their own faked and recycled content. Nor would I be making $2k per video, five videos a week, off of the channel traffic.
At no point in 1993 could I have produced a photorealistic deepfake to back my conspiracy theory, share that with 14 million people, and have a media ecology that automatically steered those 14 million people to other sites that reinforced my claims with their own faked and recycled content. Nor would I be making $2k per video, five videos a week, off of the channel traffic.
It seems to have started with claims about Russian social media interference in the 2016 election,but there were studies that found basically no evidence that it mattered.
“It had no significant effect” is not the same as “it didn’t happen”.
And, to me, if it happened, it matters, whether it tipped the scale or not.
Not looking for an argument, just my POV.
It seems to have started with claims about Russian social media interference in the 2016 election,but there were studies that found basically no evidence that it mattered.
“It had no significant effect” is not the same as “it didn’t happen”.
And, to me, if it happened, it matters, whether it tipped the scale or not.
Not looking for an argument, just my POV.
The fact that anything can be photographically faked in a convincing way is new, but again, people successfully told gigantic lies long before with deep consequences. And now people are starting to realize photos can be convincingly faked. People always had to make decisions on who they could trust. This was true with atrocity stories, for example. Sometimes you only get the definitive forensic analysis, if at all, much later, when it might be irrelevant except for historians.
The fact that anything can be photographically faked in a convincing way is new, but again, people successfully told gigantic lies long before with deep consequences. And now people are starting to realize photos can be convincingly faked. People always had to make decisions on who they could trust. This was true with atrocity stories, for example. Sometimes you only get the definitive forensic analysis, if at all, much later, when it might be irrelevant except for historians.
Yep, in 1993 I could have faked evidence, but getting that evidence to a mass audience would have been much harder, the information would have spread much slower, there would be fewer inputs into the information loop pushing the signal higher, and the gatekeepers in the media would have bigger inputs into the information loop to counter the trend sooner.
All the inputs make it a lot harder, especially when the inputs are taking advantage of the algorithms to get more of a boost.
Shock and awe. Overwhelm the system. Maneuver warfare.
It’s not a change in types of information, it’s a change in the information ecology.
Yep, in 1993 I could have faked evidence, but getting that evidence to a mass audience would have been much harder, the information would have spread much slower, there would be fewer inputs into the information loop pushing the signal higher, and the gatekeepers in the media would have bigger inputs into the information loop to counter the trend sooner.
All the inputs make it a lot harder, especially when the inputs are taking advantage of the algorithms to get more of a boost.
Shock and awe. Overwhelm the system. Maneuver warfare.
It’s not a change in types of information, it’s a change in the information ecology.
It’s not a change in types of information, it’s a change in the information ecology.
My first thought is that the new ecology needs to evolve a top predator. With the caveat that it not be focused on taking down the weak.
It’s not a change in types of information, it’s a change in the information ecology.
My first thought is that the new ecology needs to evolve a top predator. With the caveat that it not be focused on taking down the weak.
I’m going to reply to some things tomorrow, maybe. But there have been some pretty gigantic lies in the near and distant past. Possibly the biggest of all with the largest of all consequences is the denial of human caused climate change and that doesn’t really require anything except the usual self- interested tribalism and a lot of money. Nothing high tech needed. Just good old fashioned political and corporate BS.
But as it is a war thread, I could talk about war- related lies instead. But not now. Got a new fantasy novel to try.
I’m going to reply to some things tomorrow, maybe. But there have been some pretty gigantic lies in the near and distant past. Possibly the biggest of all with the largest of all consequences is the denial of human caused climate change and that doesn’t really require anything except the usual self- interested tribalism and a lot of money. Nothing high tech needed. Just good old fashioned political and corporate BS.
But as it is a war thread, I could talk about war- related lies instead. But not now. Got a new fantasy novel to try.
Lies: the tobacco industry comes to mind. Not as consequential as climate change, but bad enough.
Lies: the tobacco industry comes to mind. Not as consequential as climate change, but bad enough.
Goldberg just wrote what I said about the subset of the far left Hamas boosters.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/12/opinion/columnists/israel-gaza-massacre-left.html
I agree and yet the column infuriated me. Rant coming tomorrow., I guess.
Still haven’t started my fantasy novel, darn it.
Goldberg just wrote what I said about the subset of the far left Hamas boosters.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/12/opinion/columnists/israel-gaza-massacre-left.html
I agree and yet the column infuriated me. Rant coming tomorrow., I guess.
Still haven’t started my fantasy novel, darn it.
I’m looking forward to that rant. I see several things in the op ed that are worth critique even while I share her sense of frustration with the people who would celebrate anything about this moment.
And, at least to my way of thinking, discussing the difficulties with media and free speech in this moment parallels the other discussion. Clausewitz’s “war is a continuation of politics/policy with other means” and his explanations of what he means there clearly puts war as a subset of political discourse, and many of the same game theory models apply to both armed warfare and information warfare.
It’s not the size or the danger of the misinformation that has changed with our media ecology, it’s the challenge of trying to defend against and neutralize it. Disinformation and propaganda is more contagious, spreads faster, hides itself better, and mutates more quickly than do our defenses against them.
That’s going to require different approaches to preventative measures.
I’m looking forward to that rant. I see several things in the op ed that are worth critique even while I share her sense of frustration with the people who would celebrate anything about this moment.
And, at least to my way of thinking, discussing the difficulties with media and free speech in this moment parallels the other discussion. Clausewitz’s “war is a continuation of politics/policy with other means” and his explanations of what he means there clearly puts war as a subset of political discourse, and many of the same game theory models apply to both armed warfare and information warfare.
It’s not the size or the danger of the misinformation that has changed with our media ecology, it’s the challenge of trying to defend against and neutralize it. Disinformation and propaganda is more contagious, spreads faster, hides itself better, and mutates more quickly than do our defenses against them.
That’s going to require different approaches to preventative measures.
It’s literally the same people that push climate denial for the fossil fuel industry that worked for Big Tobacco. And they simply apply the same successful techniques they developed for that purpose.
It’s literally the same people that push climate denial for the fossil fuel industry that worked for Big Tobacco. And they simply apply the same successful techniques they developed for that purpose.
Looking forward to the rant as well. I haven’t seen the outpouring of support from the US left, but I’m not in a position to claim it doesn’t exist and I can’t really speak to it without knowing more about who is saying it and who they represent. But the opening of Goldberg’s piece seemed really off.
On Tuesday evening, I was drinking on the porch of my friend and neighbor Misha Shulman, the Israel-born rabbi of a progressive New York synagogue called the New Shul. All day, he’d been on the phone with congregants deeply distraught over the massacres and mass kidnappings in Israel.
Hey, I’m sitting with a drink at my good friend who has all these people at first and second separation in fear for the lives, could you pass the red wine? Of course, this validates my opinion because, though I don’t know anyone over there, I’m with someone who is.
Perhaps this is why I would never be a good op-ed writer, you have to treat everyone you are with as a transactional relationship that may let you open an op-ed like this. If Taiwan is invaded, maybe I can start by talking about eating at the Taiwanese restaurant and how the owners are panic filled while I eat my stinky tofu.
Looking forward to the rant as well. I haven’t seen the outpouring of support from the US left, but I’m not in a position to claim it doesn’t exist and I can’t really speak to it without knowing more about who is saying it and who they represent. But the opening of Goldberg’s piece seemed really off.
On Tuesday evening, I was drinking on the porch of my friend and neighbor Misha Shulman, the Israel-born rabbi of a progressive New York synagogue called the New Shul. All day, he’d been on the phone with congregants deeply distraught over the massacres and mass kidnappings in Israel.
Hey, I’m sitting with a drink at my good friend who has all these people at first and second separation in fear for the lives, could you pass the red wine? Of course, this validates my opinion because, though I don’t know anyone over there, I’m with someone who is.
Perhaps this is why I would never be a good op-ed writer, you have to treat everyone you are with as a transactional relationship that may let you open an op-ed like this. If Taiwan is invaded, maybe I can start by talking about eating at the Taiwanese restaurant and how the owners are panic filled while I eat my stinky tofu.
Ok, now Israel has demanded that 1.1 million people move from the northern Gaza to southern Gaza within 24 hours or else they will be doomed. This is of course impossible and both the UN and the WHO have told Israel to change course.
If the goal of Hamas was to escalate tensions and have Israel overreact so that public opinion turns against them, they might have succeeded (well, maybe not as far as public opinion is concerned, at least not yet).
Ok, now Israel has demanded that 1.1 million people move from the northern Gaza to southern Gaza within 24 hours or else they will be doomed. This is of course impossible and both the UN and the WHO have told Israel to change course.
If the goal of Hamas was to escalate tensions and have Israel overreact so that public opinion turns against them, they might have succeeded (well, maybe not as far as public opinion is concerned, at least not yet).
If the goal of Hamas was to escalate tensions and have Israel overreact so that public opinion turns against them
I think this was indeed one of their main goals. And I think they have succeeded, so far at least. Whether the wiser heads in the new government of national unity will prevail, and come up with a response that is less like a crudely wielded hammer on an anvil, and more strategic, remains to be seen, but so far it’s not good. And it will probably be too late anyway.
If the goal of Hamas was to escalate tensions and have Israel overreact so that public opinion turns against them
I think this was indeed one of their main goals. And I think they have succeeded, so far at least. Whether the wiser heads in the new government of national unity will prevail, and come up with a response that is less like a crudely wielded hammer on an anvil, and more strategic, remains to be seen, but so far it’s not good. And it will probably be too late anyway.
Hamas don’t give a fuck about the Palestinian loss of life. Israel have (unbelievably) asked 1.1 million people (half Gaza’s total population) to vacate northern Gaza ahead of a ground action. Latest headline from the Guardian:
Israel-Hamas war live: Hamas tells people to stay put after Israeli military tells Gaza City residents to evacuate
They are daring the Israelis to do it with the people still there, and the Israelis may well do so. So, if that happens, which of them is responsible for the slaughter? The hideousness of this situation only increases….
Hamas don’t give a fuck about the Palestinian loss of life. Israel have (unbelievably) asked 1.1 million people (half Gaza’s total population) to vacate northern Gaza ahead of a ground action. Latest headline from the Guardian:
Israel-Hamas war live: Hamas tells people to stay put after Israeli military tells Gaza City residents to evacuate
They are daring the Israelis to do it with the people still there, and the Israelis may well do so. So, if that happens, which of them is responsible for the slaughter? The hideousness of this situation only increases….
Given the history of the 1948 “you Palestinians better move away for your safety!” it not surprising that a demand that northern Gaza be evacuated faces resistance.
Given the history of the 1948 “you Palestinians better move away for your safety!” it not surprising that a demand that northern Gaza be evacuated faces resistance.
Yes, that does seem to be their rationale, at least on the face of it. But I also believe it is the most horrific game of chicken, on both sides.
Yes, that does seem to be their rationale, at least on the face of it. But I also believe it is the most horrific game of chicken, on both sides.
“ They are daring the Israelis to do it with the people still there, and the Israelis may well do so. So, if that happens, which of them is responsible for the slaughter? The hideousness of this situation only increases….”
Israel will be responsible. Hamas is disgracing itself and is a secondary villain in this case. But each side is primarily responsible for their own crimes and secondarily responsible for how they either incite or react to what the other does. But yeah, Hamas sucks.
Both the Israeli government and Hamas need to be brought up to the ICC and while in the past I have said things like this knowing full well it was a fantasy, if this Israeli action goes through, it needs to happen here. How could there be peace without justice for both sides?
Alternatively, Israel could be the new Syria. I used to make that analogy that if Hamas posed a real threat, you could do an almost one to one mapping between the various factions in the two countries and how they behave and line up.. people fearing a terrible enemy will line up with the side that they see as less likely to kill them.
“ They are daring the Israelis to do it with the people still there, and the Israelis may well do so. So, if that happens, which of them is responsible for the slaughter? The hideousness of this situation only increases….”
Israel will be responsible. Hamas is disgracing itself and is a secondary villain in this case. But each side is primarily responsible for their own crimes and secondarily responsible for how they either incite or react to what the other does. But yeah, Hamas sucks.
Both the Israeli government and Hamas need to be brought up to the ICC and while in the past I have said things like this knowing full well it was a fantasy, if this Israeli action goes through, it needs to happen here. How could there be peace without justice for both sides?
Alternatively, Israel could be the new Syria. I used to make that analogy that if Hamas posed a real threat, you could do an almost one to one mapping between the various factions in the two countries and how they behave and line up.. people fearing a terrible enemy will line up with the side that they see as less likely to kill them.
The ICC presumably has no jurisdiction, came to think of it. Or so I vaguely recall.
I don’t know if there is a mechanism. Maybe something like a South African truth commission.? Look into the crimes of both sides.
But I can’t see the Palestinians accepting the notion that only their crimes matter, that their babies don’t. And Israel isn’t going to accept Hamas. Nice long prison sentences for all surviving thugs on both sides would be a start. People always say (ludicrously) that the US could join the ICC and we would be in no danger of their interference because we have this justice system which looks into our own crimes. Yes, people say that seriously. They are right our politicians would be in no danger.
But maybe the equally wonderful Israeli system could actually— oh never mind. Dumb idea.
The ICC presumably has no jurisdiction, came to think of it. Or so I vaguely recall.
I don’t know if there is a mechanism. Maybe something like a South African truth commission.? Look into the crimes of both sides.
But I can’t see the Palestinians accepting the notion that only their crimes matter, that their babies don’t. And Israel isn’t going to accept Hamas. Nice long prison sentences for all surviving thugs on both sides would be a start. People always say (ludicrously) that the US could join the ICC and we would be in no danger of their interference because we have this justice system which looks into our own crimes. Yes, people say that seriously. They are right our politicians would be in no danger.
But maybe the equally wonderful Israeli system could actually— oh never mind. Dumb idea.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/13/pogrom-israel-angel-of-death-gaza-hamas-jews
That fear, and anger, seem set to bring a terrible retribution. Early on Friday morning, Israel gave residents of the north of Gaza – more than a million people – 24 hours to evacuate to the south. Given that, along with relentless airstrikes, Israel has already imposed a total siege on the strip, denying the 2 million Palestinians within food, fuel, electricity and water, it’s no wonder the UN has warned that such a mass movement of people will bring “devastating humanitarian consequences”.
Among Palestinians and their allies, the Friday edict prompted a graver fear, one rooted in history. They suspect that Israel is preparing a de facto expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza into Egypt, the permanent “transfer” long demanded by the Israeli far right – with its baleful echo of the original dispossession of 1948. Still, Israel says it is determined that, after Black Saturday, it must wipe Hamas off the face of the Earth, and its allies, including the US, seem to have given it a green light to try. Such a goal, even if it’s inherently unachievable, will surely entail a ground invasion. The angel of death is licking his lips.
***
I suspect there are some progressives who – even unconsciously – hesitate before expressing full sympathy for the murdered young festival-goers and ageing kibbutz peaceniks because they worry that, if they do, that will somehow diminish their support for the Palestinians. That is a mistake.
Because Hamas is not identical with the Palestinian cause: it is a curse on it. With a founding charter, never revoked, packed with explicit, medieval anti-Jewish hatred, it has become an Isis-style force of bloodcurdling cruelty, one that brings calamity down on its own people – a calamity that threatens now to become even more devastating.
It isn’t that difficult. You can condemn Hamas and name its actions as evil, even as you support the Palestinians in their quest for a life free of occupation and oppression.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/13/pogrom-israel-angel-of-death-gaza-hamas-jews
That fear, and anger, seem set to bring a terrible retribution. Early on Friday morning, Israel gave residents of the north of Gaza – more than a million people – 24 hours to evacuate to the south. Given that, along with relentless airstrikes, Israel has already imposed a total siege on the strip, denying the 2 million Palestinians within food, fuel, electricity and water, it’s no wonder the UN has warned that such a mass movement of people will bring “devastating humanitarian consequences”.
Among Palestinians and their allies, the Friday edict prompted a graver fear, one rooted in history. They suspect that Israel is preparing a de facto expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza into Egypt, the permanent “transfer” long demanded by the Israeli far right – with its baleful echo of the original dispossession of 1948. Still, Israel says it is determined that, after Black Saturday, it must wipe Hamas off the face of the Earth, and its allies, including the US, seem to have given it a green light to try. Such a goal, even if it’s inherently unachievable, will surely entail a ground invasion. The angel of death is licking his lips.
***
I suspect there are some progressives who – even unconsciously – hesitate before expressing full sympathy for the murdered young festival-goers and ageing kibbutz peaceniks because they worry that, if they do, that will somehow diminish their support for the Palestinians. That is a mistake.
Because Hamas is not identical with the Palestinian cause: it is a curse on it. With a founding charter, never revoked, packed with explicit, medieval anti-Jewish hatred, it has become an Isis-style force of bloodcurdling cruelty, one that brings calamity down on its own people – a calamity that threatens now to become even more devastating.
It isn’t that difficult. You can condemn Hamas and name its actions as evil, even as you support the Palestinians in their quest for a life free of occupation and oppression.
The ICC presumably has no jurisdiction
The ICC decided in February 2021 that it has territorial jurisdiction in the State of Palestine, and started investigating alleged crimes there almost immediately. Israel is not cooperating.
The ICC presumably has no jurisdiction
The ICC decided in February 2021 that it has territorial jurisdiction in the State of Palestine, and started investigating alleged crimes there almost immediately. Israel is not cooperating.
It isn’t that difficult. You can condemn Hamas and name its actions as evil, even as you support the Palestinians in their quest for a life free of occupation and oppression.
How many substitutions could be made for “Hamas” and “Palestinians” in this quote without it losing its relevance?
It isn’t that difficult. You can condemn Hamas and name its actions as evil, even as you support the Palestinians in their quest for a life free of occupation and oppression.
How many substitutions could be made for “Hamas” and “Palestinians” in this quote without it losing its relevance?
From today’s NYT, on the laws of war and how they apply to both sides in this war. I have copied and pasted a subscriber-only newsletter by Amanda Taub – they say it’s also an article in the main paper, which I could just give a guest link to, but I cannot find it.
It can be difficult to hold onto reason through the fog of grief that is the natural response to what has occurred in recent days in Israel and Gaza.
But international law offers a framework for how to analyze what is happening, even while atrocities and deaths from the Hamas incursion are still being documented, and the consequences of Israel’s siege and airstrikes on the crowded Gaza Strip, home to millions of civilians, continue to unfold. New information is coming out every day. Details will take time to verify, misinformation is already widespread, and it can be easy to get bogged down in debates over unconfirmed allegations. The laws of war offer a guide to what matters most, and to what should happen next.
Two principles are particularly helpful. The first is that the “why” and the “how” of war are separate legal questions. The justice or injustice of a cause of war does not change the obligation to fight it according to the rules of humanitarian law.
The second, related principle, from which much of humanitarian law derives, is that civilians are entitled to protection. Armies and other armed groups cannot target them directly. Nor can they disproportionately harm them in the course of pursuing legitimate military goals. And those obligations still apply even if the other side violates them by targeting civilians themselves.
‘Protections for human beings’
The origins of the law of war go back centuries. But its modern form was a reaction to the world wars of the 20th century. In 1928, the Kellogg-Briand Pact, an international treaty, outlawed most forms of war. It was followed by the U.N. Charter of 1945, which clarified the ban on aggressive war, the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and 1977, and the further development of international criminal law in the second half of the 20th century, leading to the establishment of the International Criminal Court in 2002.
The law governing when states can use military force is known as “jus ad bellum,” a Latin term that refers to the law regulating the use of force internationally.
Today, this law is very strict, essentially forbidding states to use force against each other except in self-defense, said Oona Hathaway, a professor at Yale Law School and co-author of “The Internationalists: How a Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World.”
“It used to be the case that states could go to war for pretty much any reason,” Hathaway said. “They could go to war for debt collection. They could go to war, you know, to respond to wife stealing. They could go to war because other side is interfering with their trade relations. But that is no longer true.”
But regardless of whether there are legitimate grounds to use force, she said, all parties to the conflict are still expected to follow the humanitarian laws governing the conduct of the war itself, known as “jus in bello” — law regulating the conduct of hostilities.
Anyone who has spent much time on social media recently will have seen people conflate the justness of the conflict itself with the justness of the way it is being conducted. Some have appeared to excuse the killing of Israeli civilians on the basis that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories is wrong, while others appeared to dismiss the killing of Palestinian civilians in airstrikes on the grounds that Israel is right to defend itself from attack.
Treating causes and conduct as two separate questions, as the law does, is a way to hold the complexity of war and the political questions that underlie it in clear focus, without losing sight of the shared humanity on all sides.
That same goal guided the development of the laws of war. “International law has traditionally separated the two in an effort to protect people in warfare, no matter the justification for the initial use of force,” said Monica Hakimi, a Columbia Law School professor. “They wanted to make sure that both sides were equally protected in war, so as to make war as humane as possible.”
The core principle of jus in bello is that civilians cannot be targeted for military purposes, or disproportionately harmed as a means to a military end. That’s true regardless of the legality of the underlying conflict, and regardless of whether the opposing side has itself violated humanitarian law.
“The most straightforward way to think about that is just that the protections are protections for human beings,” said Tom Dannenbaum, a professor at the Fletcher School at Tufts University who is an expert on humanitarian law.
“Many of those human beings have nothing to do with violations by the state or nonstate armed groups with which they’re somehow connected,” he said. It would not make sense, he said, to reduce or eliminate civilians’ rights in reaction to the behavior of armed groups they do not control.
Hamas has killed more than 1,200 Israelis, of whom 222 were soldiers, according to the Israeli government. The civilians killed included young people attending a music festival, babies, children and the elderly.
“There is no question,” Dannenbaum said, that the Hamas assault “involved multiple war crimes and crimes against humanity, some of which are ongoing. Those are not close calls.”
The attackers also took approximately 150 people hostage. Volker Turk, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a statement on Tuesday that the taking of hostages is prohibited by international law, and called on Palestinian armed groups to immediately and unconditionally release all captured civilians.
“Hamas is bound by, but has a practice of violating, the basic provisions of international humanitarian law,” Hakimi said. Acts such as systematic murder and hostage-taking are grave violations of the Geneva Conventions, as well as crimes under international criminal law.
Hamas could not be reached for comment, but Moussa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas political official, said that the group “obeys all international and moral laws” in an interview with The Economist on Oct. 10, three days after the attack on Israel.
In the same statement that decried hostage-taking, Turk, the U.N. official, raised grave concerns about Israel’s actions in Gaza. On Monday, Israel’s defense minister Yoav Gallant had announced a complete siege of the territory, saying that “no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel” would be allowed into the 25 mile-long strip of land that is home to more than two million people, approximately half of whom are under 18.
“The imposition of sieges that endanger the lives of civilians by depriving them of goods essential for their survival is prohibited under international humanitarian law,” Turk said.
Dannenbaum, an expert on siege law, said that the defense minister’s statement appeared to be an unusually clear-cut example of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, which is considered a violation of international humanitarian law, a crime against humanity and a war crime. (Though, he noted, jurisdiction over some war crimes would depend on whether the conflict is considered inter-state.)
“When you have a blanket, unequivocal, total cutoff of food, water, electricity and fuel, it’s just straightforward,” he said. “Gallant’s statement, explicit, without caveat, and from the top, stands out.”
Ophir Falk, a foreign policy adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, told The New York Times on Thursday: “Israel is acting in complete compliance with international law, and always has.”
Israel has been heavily bombarding Gaza in recent days, part of a campaign against Hamas that a military spokesman said would be “bigger and more severe” than previous actions in the territory.
Under international law, even attacks on legitimate military targets are illegal if they disproportionately harm civilians, Hakimi said.
According to a Thursday statement from Gaza’s health ministry, 1,354 people have been killed by airstrikes since Saturday and 6,049 had been wounded. The previous day, the ministry said that about 60 percent of those injured are women and children. Attacks have targeted hospitals and schools where Israel has claimed that Hamas members were hiding.
Falk, the adviser to Netanyahu, said that questions of the proportionality of harm to civilians were “tactical and operational” matters that he would not discuss, but that Israel was bombing military targets, and always warned civilians that attacks were imminent. However, on Tuesday, Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an Israeli military spokesman, said that the Israeli Air Force was too stretched to fire the warning strikes — known as “roof knocks” — that it has fired in previous Gaza conflicts to encourage Palestinian civilians to leave an area before it is hit with larger missiles. Gazans say that few warnings have been given.
And because Gaza is under siege and heavy bombardment, civilians have few avenues of escape, even if warned.
“You can have disagreements about whether something is or is not proportional, because you can have disagreements about the value of the military targets,” Hakimi said. However, there are limits to those arguments, she said, saying that it would not be permissible to justify mass civilian casualties by saying that their deaths would shorten the overall conflict, for example.
The question of what is proportional is a balancing test that has to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, she said.
From today’s NYT, on the laws of war and how they apply to both sides in this war. I have copied and pasted a subscriber-only newsletter by Amanda Taub – they say it’s also an article in the main paper, which I could just give a guest link to, but I cannot find it.
It can be difficult to hold onto reason through the fog of grief that is the natural response to what has occurred in recent days in Israel and Gaza.
But international law offers a framework for how to analyze what is happening, even while atrocities and deaths from the Hamas incursion are still being documented, and the consequences of Israel’s siege and airstrikes on the crowded Gaza Strip, home to millions of civilians, continue to unfold. New information is coming out every day. Details will take time to verify, misinformation is already widespread, and it can be easy to get bogged down in debates over unconfirmed allegations. The laws of war offer a guide to what matters most, and to what should happen next.
Two principles are particularly helpful. The first is that the “why” and the “how” of war are separate legal questions. The justice or injustice of a cause of war does not change the obligation to fight it according to the rules of humanitarian law.
The second, related principle, from which much of humanitarian law derives, is that civilians are entitled to protection. Armies and other armed groups cannot target them directly. Nor can they disproportionately harm them in the course of pursuing legitimate military goals. And those obligations still apply even if the other side violates them by targeting civilians themselves.
‘Protections for human beings’
The origins of the law of war go back centuries. But its modern form was a reaction to the world wars of the 20th century. In 1928, the Kellogg-Briand Pact, an international treaty, outlawed most forms of war. It was followed by the U.N. Charter of 1945, which clarified the ban on aggressive war, the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and 1977, and the further development of international criminal law in the second half of the 20th century, leading to the establishment of the International Criminal Court in 2002.
The law governing when states can use military force is known as “jus ad bellum,” a Latin term that refers to the law regulating the use of force internationally.
Today, this law is very strict, essentially forbidding states to use force against each other except in self-defense, said Oona Hathaway, a professor at Yale Law School and co-author of “The Internationalists: How a Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World.”
“It used to be the case that states could go to war for pretty much any reason,” Hathaway said. “They could go to war for debt collection. They could go to war, you know, to respond to wife stealing. They could go to war because other side is interfering with their trade relations. But that is no longer true.”
But regardless of whether there are legitimate grounds to use force, she said, all parties to the conflict are still expected to follow the humanitarian laws governing the conduct of the war itself, known as “jus in bello” — law regulating the conduct of hostilities.
Anyone who has spent much time on social media recently will have seen people conflate the justness of the conflict itself with the justness of the way it is being conducted. Some have appeared to excuse the killing of Israeli civilians on the basis that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories is wrong, while others appeared to dismiss the killing of Palestinian civilians in airstrikes on the grounds that Israel is right to defend itself from attack.
Treating causes and conduct as two separate questions, as the law does, is a way to hold the complexity of war and the political questions that underlie it in clear focus, without losing sight of the shared humanity on all sides.
That same goal guided the development of the laws of war. “International law has traditionally separated the two in an effort to protect people in warfare, no matter the justification for the initial use of force,” said Monica Hakimi, a Columbia Law School professor. “They wanted to make sure that both sides were equally protected in war, so as to make war as humane as possible.”
The core principle of jus in bello is that civilians cannot be targeted for military purposes, or disproportionately harmed as a means to a military end. That’s true regardless of the legality of the underlying conflict, and regardless of whether the opposing side has itself violated humanitarian law.
“The most straightforward way to think about that is just that the protections are protections for human beings,” said Tom Dannenbaum, a professor at the Fletcher School at Tufts University who is an expert on humanitarian law.
“Many of those human beings have nothing to do with violations by the state or nonstate armed groups with which they’re somehow connected,” he said. It would not make sense, he said, to reduce or eliminate civilians’ rights in reaction to the behavior of armed groups they do not control.
Hamas has killed more than 1,200 Israelis, of whom 222 were soldiers, according to the Israeli government. The civilians killed included young people attending a music festival, babies, children and the elderly.
“There is no question,” Dannenbaum said, that the Hamas assault “involved multiple war crimes and crimes against humanity, some of which are ongoing. Those are not close calls.”
The attackers also took approximately 150 people hostage. Volker Turk, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a statement on Tuesday that the taking of hostages is prohibited by international law, and called on Palestinian armed groups to immediately and unconditionally release all captured civilians.
“Hamas is bound by, but has a practice of violating, the basic provisions of international humanitarian law,” Hakimi said. Acts such as systematic murder and hostage-taking are grave violations of the Geneva Conventions, as well as crimes under international criminal law.
Hamas could not be reached for comment, but Moussa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas political official, said that the group “obeys all international and moral laws” in an interview with The Economist on Oct. 10, three days after the attack on Israel.
In the same statement that decried hostage-taking, Turk, the U.N. official, raised grave concerns about Israel’s actions in Gaza. On Monday, Israel’s defense minister Yoav Gallant had announced a complete siege of the territory, saying that “no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel” would be allowed into the 25 mile-long strip of land that is home to more than two million people, approximately half of whom are under 18.
“The imposition of sieges that endanger the lives of civilians by depriving them of goods essential for their survival is prohibited under international humanitarian law,” Turk said.
Dannenbaum, an expert on siege law, said that the defense minister’s statement appeared to be an unusually clear-cut example of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, which is considered a violation of international humanitarian law, a crime against humanity and a war crime. (Though, he noted, jurisdiction over some war crimes would depend on whether the conflict is considered inter-state.)
“When you have a blanket, unequivocal, total cutoff of food, water, electricity and fuel, it’s just straightforward,” he said. “Gallant’s statement, explicit, without caveat, and from the top, stands out.”
Ophir Falk, a foreign policy adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, told The New York Times on Thursday: “Israel is acting in complete compliance with international law, and always has.”
Israel has been heavily bombarding Gaza in recent days, part of a campaign against Hamas that a military spokesman said would be “bigger and more severe” than previous actions in the territory.
Under international law, even attacks on legitimate military targets are illegal if they disproportionately harm civilians, Hakimi said.
According to a Thursday statement from Gaza’s health ministry, 1,354 people have been killed by airstrikes since Saturday and 6,049 had been wounded. The previous day, the ministry said that about 60 percent of those injured are women and children. Attacks have targeted hospitals and schools where Israel has claimed that Hamas members were hiding.
Falk, the adviser to Netanyahu, said that questions of the proportionality of harm to civilians were “tactical and operational” matters that he would not discuss, but that Israel was bombing military targets, and always warned civilians that attacks were imminent. However, on Tuesday, Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an Israeli military spokesman, said that the Israeli Air Force was too stretched to fire the warning strikes — known as “roof knocks” — that it has fired in previous Gaza conflicts to encourage Palestinian civilians to leave an area before it is hit with larger missiles. Gazans say that few warnings have been given.
And because Gaza is under siege and heavy bombardment, civilians have few avenues of escape, even if warned.
“You can have disagreements about whether something is or is not proportional, because you can have disagreements about the value of the military targets,” Hakimi said. However, there are limits to those arguments, she said, saying that it would not be permissible to justify mass civilian casualties by saying that their deaths would shorten the overall conflict, for example.
The question of what is proportional is a balancing test that has to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, she said.
Israel will be responsible. Hamas is disgracing itself and is a secondary villain in this case. But each side is primarily responsible for their own crimes and secondarily responsible for how they either incite or react to what the other does.
Plus
Hamas tells people to stay put after Israeli military tells Gaza City residents to evacuate
So yes, Israel will be responsible. BUT if Hamas, aka the guys on site with the guns, is ordering people to stay put, they are equally responsible. They don’t get a pass just because they didn’t actually cut lose with machine guns at anyone trying to leave. The serious threat to do so is sufficient.
Israel will be responsible. Hamas is disgracing itself and is a secondary villain in this case. But each side is primarily responsible for their own crimes and secondarily responsible for how they either incite or react to what the other does.
Plus
Hamas tells people to stay put after Israeli military tells Gaza City residents to evacuate
So yes, Israel will be responsible. BUT if Hamas, aka the guys on site with the guns, is ordering people to stay put, they are equally responsible. They don’t get a pass just because they didn’t actually cut lose with machine guns at anyone trying to leave. The serious threat to do so is sufficient.
By this point, it is simply impossible to do a plausible allocation of blame. Both sides deserve blame for their immediate actions. But can quite justifiably cite recent provocations by the other for whatever they did. And the same cycle extends back decades. To the point that everything blurs in the mists of time.
All that can realistically (ha!) be done is some third party step in, draw a line, and say “From today, all past injustices are erased. All that will matter is what happens going forward. And we, said outsider, will mercilessly deal with anybody who steps out of line, even a little. No appeal.” Maintain that for a generation or two (i.e. until everybody involved today is dead and gone**), and it might, might, make it possible produce something like a just and lasting peace.
The alternatives, just to be clear, are a) a Forever War, or b) genocide by one side and/or the other.
Volunteers to be that third party are now being accepted. No compensation will be provided, including supplies and equipment, beyond the satisfaction of doing something necessary. Expect denunciations from diverse parties outside the immediate area. Definitely no thanks from the principals. (In fact, joint resentment of you may be what helps bring them together.)
** The experience in the United States with true believers in the Lost Cause suggests that the time required is more likely to be a century. And require serious control over getting the historical facts taught in the schools. With absolutely no opt out for home schooling or “religious schools.”
By this point, it is simply impossible to do a plausible allocation of blame. Both sides deserve blame for their immediate actions. But can quite justifiably cite recent provocations by the other for whatever they did. And the same cycle extends back decades. To the point that everything blurs in the mists of time.
All that can realistically (ha!) be done is some third party step in, draw a line, and say “From today, all past injustices are erased. All that will matter is what happens going forward. And we, said outsider, will mercilessly deal with anybody who steps out of line, even a little. No appeal.” Maintain that for a generation or two (i.e. until everybody involved today is dead and gone**), and it might, might, make it possible produce something like a just and lasting peace.
The alternatives, just to be clear, are a) a Forever War, or b) genocide by one side and/or the other.
Volunteers to be that third party are now being accepted. No compensation will be provided, including supplies and equipment, beyond the satisfaction of doing something necessary. Expect denunciations from diverse parties outside the immediate area. Definitely no thanks from the principals. (In fact, joint resentment of you may be what helps bring them together.)
** The experience in the United States with true believers in the Lost Cause suggests that the time required is more likely to be a century. And require serious control over getting the historical facts taught in the schools. With absolutely no opt out for home schooling or “religious schools.”
BUT if Hamas, aka the guys on site with the guns, is ordering people to stay put, they are equally responsible.
What Hamas seems to be saying is not that they are threatening anyone who leaves, but rather that without a guaranteed right to return to North Gaza, the Israelis are just forcibly displacing them in preparation for annexing the land. Anyone who leaves may never be allowed to return.
Which sounds plausible and is in line with what the hardliners in Israel have been agitating for.
No need to threaten a populace that already lives under the threat of violent eviction in order to get them to stay put. Staying put is their act of resistance for the non-extremists.
BUT if Hamas, aka the guys on site with the guns, is ordering people to stay put, they are equally responsible.
What Hamas seems to be saying is not that they are threatening anyone who leaves, but rather that without a guaranteed right to return to North Gaza, the Israelis are just forcibly displacing them in preparation for annexing the land. Anyone who leaves may never be allowed to return.
Which sounds plausible and is in line with what the hardliners in Israel have been agitating for.
No need to threaten a populace that already lives under the threat of violent eviction in order to get them to stay put. Staying put is their act of resistance for the non-extremists.
Herzog openly said the civilian population is responsible.
Sounds like Hamas’s reasoning to me.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/israel-gaza-isaac-herzog_n_65295ee8e4b03ea0c004e2a8
So we now have two governments ( or whatever one calls Hamas) that see civilians as legitimate targets and say so openly. Though Hamas, weirdly, is backtracking from its usual practice of applauding every time an Israeli civilian is killed and now argues it gave orders not to do this. I think they realize the propaganda situation did not develop necessarily to their advantage. A little late for that.
Herzog openly said the civilian population is responsible.
Sounds like Hamas’s reasoning to me.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/israel-gaza-isaac-herzog_n_65295ee8e4b03ea0c004e2a8
So we now have two governments ( or whatever one calls Hamas) that see civilians as legitimate targets and say so openly. Though Hamas, weirdly, is backtracking from its usual practice of applauding every time an Israeli civilian is killed and now argues it gave orders not to do this. I think they realize the propaganda situation did not develop necessarily to their advantage. A little late for that.
Meanwhile, I just saw a Palestinian neurologist speaking to C4 News from Gaza. He confirms that Hamas has set up roadblocks and (as well as warning about another Nakba) they are preventing Gazans from evacuating to the south. He said his own estimate is that at least 2,500 Gazans are dead, but many buried under rubble etc. IDF spokesman on same program saying that they absolutely DO NOT regard civilians as legitimate targets.
Meanwhile, I just saw a Palestinian neurologist speaking to C4 News from Gaza. He confirms that Hamas has set up roadblocks and (as well as warning about another Nakba) they are preventing Gazans from evacuating to the south. He said his own estimate is that at least 2,500 Gazans are dead, but many buried under rubble etc. IDF spokesman on same program saying that they absolutely DO NOT regard civilians as legitimate targets.
Well, how does he define ‘civilian’ or ‘target’? Or ‘regard’ for that matter?
“We targeted that bus not the driver or the passengers with our 500 pound bomb.” “Those were not civilians but potential recruits of our foe.”
Well, how does he define ‘civilian’ or ‘target’? Or ‘regard’ for that matter?
“We targeted that bus not the driver or the passengers with our 500 pound bomb.” “Those were not civilians but potential recruits of our foe.”
She. But yup. It’s hard to know what the hell they are prepared to do, or will do.
She. But yup. It’s hard to know what the hell they are prepared to do, or will do.
We have two guarantees: the civilian death toll will be unacceptably high, and each side knows this, has planned for it, and intends to try to weaponize the outrage against the other side.
We have two guarantees: the civilian death toll will be unacceptably high, and each side knows this, has planned for it, and intends to try to weaponize the outrage against the other side.
if Hamas, aka the guys on site with the guns, is ordering people to stay put, they are equally responsible.
Firstly, there is no practical way for 1.1 million people to leave.
Secondly, forced displacement, of civilian populations, establishing free fire zones, blocking of goods necessary for survival are all war crimes.
So no, it’s Israel who is repsonsible – if they go through with this.
Cf. UN, WHO, Amnesty, Medecines sans Frontieres etc.
if Hamas, aka the guys on site with the guns, is ordering people to stay put, they are equally responsible.
Firstly, there is no practical way for 1.1 million people to leave.
Secondly, forced displacement, of civilian populations, establishing free fire zones, blocking of goods necessary for survival are all war crimes.
So no, it’s Israel who is repsonsible – if they go through with this.
Cf. UN, WHO, Amnesty, Medecines sans Frontieres etc.
Firstly, there is no practical way for 1.1 million people to leave.
No argument. But if Hamas are preventing anyone from leaving (as it appears they are), that makes them culpable as well.
Secondly, forced displacement, of civilian populations, establishing free fire zones, blocking of goods necessary for survival are all war crimes.
Also true. But we were (I thought) talking about people getting killed with bullets, bombs, etc. Blockades, forced displacement, etc. are indeed war crimes. But not the subject we were addressing.
Firstly, there is no practical way for 1.1 million people to leave.
No argument. But if Hamas are preventing anyone from leaving (as it appears they are), that makes them culpable as well.
Secondly, forced displacement, of civilian populations, establishing free fire zones, blocking of goods necessary for survival are all war crimes.
Also true. But we were (I thought) talking about people getting killed with bullets, bombs, etc. Blockades, forced displacement, etc. are indeed war crimes. But not the subject we were addressing.
Westerners habitually say we don’t target cvilians and then level neighborhoods or cities in some cases. It’s bad form to actually say that civilians are guilty, so Herzog was probably speaking off script and saying what he really thinks.
On the other side some Palestinians are fantasizing about liberation via violence and using euphemisms that come out of far left jargon. Decolonization is a popular phrase. The idiocy on parts of the far left is not limited to college kids.
Westerners habitually say we don’t target cvilians and then level neighborhoods or cities in some cases. It’s bad form to actually say that civilians are guilty, so Herzog was probably speaking off script and saying what he really thinks.
On the other side some Palestinians are fantasizing about liberation via violence and using euphemisms that come out of far left jargon. Decolonization is a popular phrase. The idiocy on parts of the far left is not limited to college kids.
But if Hamas are preventing anyone from leaving (as it appears they are), that makes them culpable as well.
I think the distinction that novakant is seeking to make here is that Hamas is exploiting and worsening the situation that Israel is initiating by demanding a hurried and impossible evacuation. Absent that demand, and the promised violence that they will unleash, Hamas would have no one to hinder from leaving.
None of which makes Hamas’ actions any less cynical or monstrous.
In the same light, we can say that Hamas is responsible for the deaths of any hostages they took in the event of those hostages being killed by Israeli forces during a military offensive in Gaza. Those hostages would not have been there had they not first been forcibly abducted.
But if Hamas are preventing anyone from leaving (as it appears they are), that makes them culpable as well.
I think the distinction that novakant is seeking to make here is that Hamas is exploiting and worsening the situation that Israel is initiating by demanding a hurried and impossible evacuation. Absent that demand, and the promised violence that they will unleash, Hamas would have no one to hinder from leaving.
None of which makes Hamas’ actions any less cynical or monstrous.
In the same light, we can say that Hamas is responsible for the deaths of any hostages they took in the event of those hostages being killed by Israeli forces during a military offensive in Gaza. Those hostages would not have been there had they not first been forcibly abducted.
According to the Palestinian Health Authority, an Israeli air strike killed 70 people fleeing northern Gaza.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/10/13/world/israel-news-gaza-hamas-war
According to the Palestinian Health Authority, an Israeli air strike killed 70 people fleeing northern Gaza.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/10/13/world/israel-news-gaza-hamas-war
Everyone can stop talking now. The Onion has weighed in. Seriously, they say everything I would want to say ( including the potshots at leftwing terrorist fanboys) and they are funny doing it. Starts off as the headline suggests, but it gets to the lefties eventually.
https://www.theonion.com/the-onion-stands-with-israel-because-it-seems-like-yo-1850922505
Everyone can stop talking now. The Onion has weighed in. Seriously, they say everything I would want to say ( including the potshots at leftwing terrorist fanboys) and they are funny doing it. Starts off as the headline suggests, but it gets to the lefties eventually.
https://www.theonion.com/the-onion-stands-with-israel-because-it-seems-like-yo-1850922505
The Onion, as so often, makes further comment superfluous.
The Onion, as so often, makes further comment superfluous.
Peter Beinart, if you have a NYT subscription. From my pov, perfect.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/14/opinion/palestinian-ethical-resistance-answers-grief-and-rage.html
Peter Beinart, if you have a NYT subscription. From my pov, perfect.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/14/opinion/palestinian-ethical-resistance-answers-grief-and-rage.html
I’ve just started reading it, and from the first few paragraphs it looks exactly right to me too. Here is a guest link I get with my subscription:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/14/opinion/palestinian-ethical-resistance-answers-grief-and-rage.html?unlocked_article_code=KtULgQiWG7iVv7a2kBOO0S_GVv73_YHENW_8R6ondUPDjkeleo0Znhzt5nEtDjsZ5tVOdKBAUeCmHtGEAAD-P8VDo022SNBYUp_aR3RhmkZtLQ7MH7WRKtmacPGsDl2Eb7gBV_LTanbf1nP34QGFw-8XvtA5Ks60JFhykDPVoRD0PVNA2riJ0NjCa9cVJ8UZQHjQdiew-B69b8mnLFVNoi5ce8T5ac1JhYAHjV8wgspFCehtXqCy5oLi8A5IrMaqzIkfO7qoqc8hPH6ZLXrc0_kHWLork5kKDJEuK1A1j1niXLDbcexPsHCjEQSQiYt-UStVkIJ8v7JDIkB40ero2Alabarjub2SvNDhFYF01mNqrvS5-9Be_RCBVeLXdU4&smid=url-share
I’ve just started reading it, and from the first few paragraphs it looks exactly right to me too. Here is a guest link I get with my subscription:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/14/opinion/palestinian-ethical-resistance-answers-grief-and-rage.html?unlocked_article_code=KtULgQiWG7iVv7a2kBOO0S_GVv73_YHENW_8R6ondUPDjkeleo0Znhzt5nEtDjsZ5tVOdKBAUeCmHtGEAAD-P8VDo022SNBYUp_aR3RhmkZtLQ7MH7WRKtmacPGsDl2Eb7gBV_LTanbf1nP34QGFw-8XvtA5Ks60JFhykDPVoRD0PVNA2riJ0NjCa9cVJ8UZQHjQdiew-B69b8mnLFVNoi5ce8T5ac1JhYAHjV8wgspFCehtXqCy5oLi8A5IrMaqzIkfO7qoqc8hPH6ZLXrc0_kHWLork5kKDJEuK1A1j1niXLDbcexPsHCjEQSQiYt-UStVkIJ8v7JDIkB40ero2Alabarjub2SvNDhFYF01mNqrvS5-9Be_RCBVeLXdU4&smid=url-share
Thanks, GftNC. A very good read. Beinart’s evolution on this topic has been remarkable, and welcomed in this quarter.
Thanks, GftNC. A very good read. Beinart’s evolution on this topic has been remarkable, and welcomed in this quarter.
If it’s useful to anyone, I am able to read NYT and WaPo pieces in Firefox set up not to allow scripts. I use Chrome for most things, and there I let scripts run. (Mostly.) (Though I have an adblocker on both browsers.)
Gift links were a nice invention, though. Thanks to both Donald and GftNC for pointing out that essay, which I am partway through.
If it’s useful to anyone, I am able to read NYT and WaPo pieces in Firefox set up not to allow scripts. I use Chrome for most things, and there I let scripts run. (Mostly.) (Though I have an adblocker on both browsers.)
Gift links were a nice invention, though. Thanks to both Donald and GftNC for pointing out that essay, which I am partway through.
Timing is everything. Friday’s xkcd, while nominally about road signs, seems entirely on point for the Israel/Palestine situation.
https://xkcd.com/2841/
Timing is everything. Friday’s xkcd, while nominally about road signs, seems entirely on point for the Israel/Palestine situation.
https://xkcd.com/2841/
Interview with Beinart in Slate, right after the massacre.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/10/peter-beinart-israel-palestine-conflict.html
He has become a hero of mine. I don’t have many. Other lefty figures are often flawed — I learn a lot from them, but might think they have their limits or blind spots.
But Beinart started out as an Iraq War advocate and moved steadily as bobbyp mentioned and in recent years he is one of the most empathic people that I know. And he isn’t someone on the sidelines like me. It is his community. For him to be so incredibly balanced is amazing.
I don’t want to make too much of that because if you have to be a saint to get to a just solution then people are screwed. And other people both Israeli and American Jews and Palestinians share the same views, along with some of us on the sidelines.
Also, it is embarrassing to be a fanboy.
Interview with Beinart in Slate, right after the massacre.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/10/peter-beinart-israel-palestine-conflict.html
He has become a hero of mine. I don’t have many. Other lefty figures are often flawed — I learn a lot from them, but might think they have their limits or blind spots.
But Beinart started out as an Iraq War advocate and moved steadily as bobbyp mentioned and in recent years he is one of the most empathic people that I know. And he isn’t someone on the sidelines like me. It is his community. For him to be so incredibly balanced is amazing.
I don’t want to make too much of that because if you have to be a saint to get to a just solution then people are screwed. And other people both Israeli and American Jews and Palestinians share the same views, along with some of us on the sidelines.
Also, it is embarrassing to be a fanboy.
Donald — first thoughts, and maybe too pollyanna-ishly, but I don’t think everyone has to be a saint to get to a just solution. Think of MLK and Gandhi and Mandela — in each case, their leadership provided a focal point for the many people who *did* want some solution other than endless hatred and bloodshed.
Donald — first thoughts, and maybe too pollyanna-ishly, but I don’t think everyone has to be a saint to get to a just solution. Think of MLK and Gandhi and Mandela — in each case, their leadership provided a focal point for the many people who *did* want some solution other than endless hatred and bloodshed.
Myself, I don’t think that’s pollyanna-ish. None of those men was a saint, although they did of course have pretty unusual qualities. God knows, it would be hard for somebody to emerge who was able to skirt the poisonous polarisation, and tap into the capacity of people a) to compromise, and b) to abandon hatred. But I guess it would always have been hard, and yet they did emerge. I see no sign at the moment, though.
Myself, I don’t think that’s pollyanna-ish. None of those men was a saint, although they did of course have pretty unusual qualities. God knows, it would be hard for somebody to emerge who was able to skirt the poisonous polarisation, and tap into the capacity of people a) to compromise, and b) to abandon hatred. But I guess it would always have been hard, and yet they did emerge. I see no sign at the moment, though.
Hope is the only superpower that is within our mundane and mortal reach.
I’ve been selling science fiction to my students through the lens of hopepunk for a couple years now. I’ve explained the concept to them, but this may be the quarter that I have them read the ur-version of this vision:
https://festive.ninja/one-atom-of-justice-one-molecule-of-mercy-and-the-empire-of-unsheathed-knives-alexandra-rowland/
We all understand on some level that MLK and Mandela don’t win because humans become more just. They win because the reality of what we become without the hope they represent scares the collective pants off of us. These moments of revolutionary horror are never good, never moral, never righteous, but I’m not sure that we would ever choose the path of MLK and Mandela were we not arrested in mortal fear of the horrors we have witnessed that come from the rejection of the harder, moral path.
Hope is the only superpower that is within our mundane and mortal reach.
I’ve been selling science fiction to my students through the lens of hopepunk for a couple years now. I’ve explained the concept to them, but this may be the quarter that I have them read the ur-version of this vision:
https://festive.ninja/one-atom-of-justice-one-molecule-of-mercy-and-the-empire-of-unsheathed-knives-alexandra-rowland/
We all understand on some level that MLK and Mandela don’t win because humans become more just. They win because the reality of what we become without the hope they represent scares the collective pants off of us. These moments of revolutionary horror are never good, never moral, never righteous, but I’m not sure that we would ever choose the path of MLK and Mandela were we not arrested in mortal fear of the horrors we have witnessed that come from the rejection of the harder, moral path.
That’s a really interesting and extraordinary piece, nous. I’m still absorbing it, and thinking about it.
But the sentence that really jumped out at me, and almost electrified me, was:
And if you do have choices still, remember: Nonviolent resistance, too, comes from a place of rage.
Thank you.
That’s a really interesting and extraordinary piece, nous. I’m still absorbing it, and thinking about it.
But the sentence that really jumped out at me, and almost electrified me, was:
And if you do have choices still, remember: Nonviolent resistance, too, comes from a place of rage.
Thank you.
Thanks for the guest link, though it looks like the save as html and drag file to browser still works.
I’ve been reading up, though with Google search algorithms tuned to newer and perhaps less reliable, it’s tough. I thought this Guardian explainer
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/13/why-israel-palestine-conflict-history
was good. Is it just me, or do any others wonder about how Lebanon might be tied into this?
When it first came up (perhaps the WSJ was the source) about Iran’s hand in this, it struck be as a bit off because Hezbollah, which is much more tightly connected to Iran, while having some training connections to Hamas, is organizationally very distinct, so seeing Iran’s hand in the invasion by Hamas is more wishful that realistic, istm. (and I think that there are people who would love a causus belli with Iran) Here are a couple of links
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/10/09/hezbollah-lebanon-hamas-war-israel-iran/
https://www.npr.org/2023/10/10/1204789074/israel-hamas-hezbollah-iran
Going back and reading all this really makes me despair.
Thanks for the guest link, though it looks like the save as html and drag file to browser still works.
I’ve been reading up, though with Google search algorithms tuned to newer and perhaps less reliable, it’s tough. I thought this Guardian explainer
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/13/why-israel-palestine-conflict-history
was good. Is it just me, or do any others wonder about how Lebanon might be tied into this?
When it first came up (perhaps the WSJ was the source) about Iran’s hand in this, it struck be as a bit off because Hezbollah, which is much more tightly connected to Iran, while having some training connections to Hamas, is organizationally very distinct, so seeing Iran’s hand in the invasion by Hamas is more wishful that realistic, istm. (and I think that there are people who would love a causus belli with Iran) Here are a couple of links
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/10/09/hezbollah-lebanon-hamas-war-israel-iran/
https://www.npr.org/2023/10/10/1204789074/israel-hamas-hezbollah-iran
Going back and reading all this really makes me despair.
http://foreignpolicy.com is very good
I also found the analysis at http://vox.com as well as the coverage at the http://newyorker.com helpful,
and for an inside view http://haaretz.com
But I should probably stop following this and finish my novel for the book group, as I feel the same despair as lj – and what the heck can I do about all this…
http://foreignpolicy.com is very good
I also found the analysis at http://vox.com as well as the coverage at the http://newyorker.com helpful,
and for an inside view http://haaretz.com
But I should probably stop following this and finish my novel for the book group, as I feel the same despair as lj – and what the heck can I do about all this…
For anyone interested, this is Yuval Noah Hariri interviewed by Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell. The interview starts at the 2 minute mark. I think there’s lots of good and important stuff in it.
https://pca.st/3dai5qj2#
For anyone interested, this is Yuval Noah Hariri interviewed by Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell. The interview starts at the 2 minute mark. I think there’s lots of good and important stuff in it.
https://pca.st/3dai5qj2#
When he describes the effects on Israel of the long Netanyahu rule, the similarities with Trump are absolutely chilling.
When he describes the effects on Israel of the long Netanyahu rule, the similarities with Trump are absolutely chilling.
When he describes the effects on Israel of the long Netanyahu rule, the similarities with Trump are absolutely chilling.
Probably because the two are so alike. Right down to trying to use elected office to evade criminal charges. (More accurately, criminal convictions and sentences.) Which is why they got along so well.
What’s happened is that Bibi assumed that TIFG was history after losing in 2020. So he seamlessly pivoted to Biden. (Putin, being a bit craftier, kept his options open. Just in case.) TIFG just can’t forgive such, as he sees it, disloyalty.
I suppose we should be grateful that TIFG didn’t contrive a foreign war to bolster his election chances. But then, his ego might have kept him from realizing he might need to.
When he describes the effects on Israel of the long Netanyahu rule, the similarities with Trump are absolutely chilling.
Probably because the two are so alike. Right down to trying to use elected office to evade criminal charges. (More accurately, criminal convictions and sentences.) Which is why they got along so well.
What’s happened is that Bibi assumed that TIFG was history after losing in 2020. So he seamlessly pivoted to Biden. (Putin, being a bit craftier, kept his options open. Just in case.) TIFG just can’t forgive such, as he sees it, disloyalty.
I suppose we should be grateful that TIFG didn’t contrive a foreign war to bolster his election chances. But then, his ego might have kept him from realizing he might need to.
And he broadens it out to beyond Israel and the US: I’ve just seen him (Harari) on C4 News emphasising that the destruction of the liberal world order as pushed by various populist regimes (he does not exempt the UK) has meant that what follows is what must follow the destruction of order: damaging disorder and chaos.
And he broadens it out to beyond Israel and the US: I’ve just seen him (Harari) on C4 News emphasising that the destruction of the liberal world order as pushed by various populist regimes (he does not exempt the UK) has meant that what follows is what must follow the destruction of order: damaging disorder and chaos.
I know a lot of people here read BJ in any case, but Adam’s latest post on the war brings a lot of nitty-gritty information from various points of view. I generally can’t keep up with his Ukraine posts, but I always at least skim them. The ones on Israel/Hamas are just as informative.
I know a lot of people here read BJ in any case, but Adam’s latest post on the war brings a lot of nitty-gritty information from various points of view. I generally can’t keep up with his Ukraine posts, but I always at least skim them. The ones on Israel/Hamas are just as informative.
That’s a really good, informative post at BJ, Janie. Thanks, I don’t know why I don’t look in on them more often….
That’s a really good, informative post at BJ, Janie. Thanks, I don’t know why I don’t look in on them more often….
Adam’s posts on Ukraine, featuring quotes from “Special Kherson Cat” seems like a nice companion to the ObWi Shooting Kitteh.
Adam’s posts on Ukraine, featuring quotes from “Special Kherson Cat” seems like a nice companion to the ObWi Shooting Kitteh.
I feel the same despair as lj
FWIW, this is me now. The stories out of Gaza are horrendous, and seeing the Israelis do exactly what Hamas wanted them to do is so very upsetting. Meanwhile, the (liberal, lefty) cousin in the safe room sounds more and more ground down and despairing. Sunt lacrimae rerum.
I feel the same despair as lj
FWIW, this is me now. The stories out of Gaza are horrendous, and seeing the Israelis do exactly what Hamas wanted them to do is so very upsetting. Meanwhile, the (liberal, lefty) cousin in the safe room sounds more and more ground down and despairing. Sunt lacrimae rerum.
This is a letter from several prominent Jewish lawyers, which appeared in the FT this morning. It is behind a paywall, so I am linking the version which includes a form for others to join their names to it if wished. I think it is very well worth the brief read.
https://forms.gle/7mJn5g8iPzk278saA
This is a letter from several prominent Jewish lawyers, which appeared in the FT this morning. It is behind a paywall, so I am linking the version which includes a form for others to join their names to it if wished. I think it is very well worth the brief read.
https://forms.gle/7mJn5g8iPzk278saA
I think it is very well worth the brief read.
Indeed. Thank you.
I think it is very well worth the brief read.
Indeed. Thank you.
Without knowing who did the hospital bombing— I am open to either possibility—I disagree with the letter that GTfnc linked to some degree.
It is correct about Hamas. I am not a lawyer, but in my layperson view they committed a crime against humanity. I want a ceasefire— at the same time I can’t see ever treating Hamas as a quasi government again, This doesn’t mean every member of the group is guilty— I gather they do a lot of civil functions. But the leadership is guilty. Ideally there would be trials. More on that daydream in a second.
So I want a ceasefire because thousands of innocent Palestinians are dying. But realistically the Hamas leaders are dead men walking, as people say. If they come above ground Israel will drone them sooner or later, probably killing some nearby civilians. The West just does that sort of thing. In the case of whoever is guilty of this operation, they have it coming. And if we give ourselves the right to summary justice for their war criminals, never to be applied to ours, it is wrong, but it sure beats what is happening now. That is my completely cynical view.
Assassinations are better than massive indiscriminate bombing.
Ideally, though, both sides should be thoroughly investigated by impartial bodies and tried for crimes. In both cases this ought to go way back, Israel has been killing unarmed protestors forever. Hamas has been committing terrorist actions and cheering those of others forever. Israel’s settlement program is illegal by international law and Amnesty International, HRW, and B’Tselem all say an Israel is guilty of apartheid.
If this latest hospital bombing was Israel, and of course I don’t know, I think there could be a serious effort at holding them legally accountable. The West always dodged responsibikity for its air strikes while calling similar strikes by Russia barbaric, but not even the West could justify this hospital attack. However it might be Islamic Jihad for all I know at the moment.
Without knowing who did the hospital bombing— I am open to either possibility—I disagree with the letter that GTfnc linked to some degree.
It is correct about Hamas. I am not a lawyer, but in my layperson view they committed a crime against humanity. I want a ceasefire— at the same time I can’t see ever treating Hamas as a quasi government again, This doesn’t mean every member of the group is guilty— I gather they do a lot of civil functions. But the leadership is guilty. Ideally there would be trials. More on that daydream in a second.
So I want a ceasefire because thousands of innocent Palestinians are dying. But realistically the Hamas leaders are dead men walking, as people say. If they come above ground Israel will drone them sooner or later, probably killing some nearby civilians. The West just does that sort of thing. In the case of whoever is guilty of this operation, they have it coming. And if we give ourselves the right to summary justice for their war criminals, never to be applied to ours, it is wrong, but it sure beats what is happening now. That is my completely cynical view.
Assassinations are better than massive indiscriminate bombing.
Ideally, though, both sides should be thoroughly investigated by impartial bodies and tried for crimes. In both cases this ought to go way back, Israel has been killing unarmed protestors forever. Hamas has been committing terrorist actions and cheering those of others forever. Israel’s settlement program is illegal by international law and Amnesty International, HRW, and B’Tselem all say an Israel is guilty of apartheid.
If this latest hospital bombing was Israel, and of course I don’t know, I think there could be a serious effort at holding them legally accountable. The West always dodged responsibikity for its air strikes while calling similar strikes by Russia barbaric, but not even the West could justify this hospital attack. However it might be Islamic Jihad for all I know at the moment.
By the way, Palestinians I am sure would utterly reject the notion that only one side’s war criminals should be either tried or assassinated.
Hard to argue with that. But only one side has an air force so justice doesn’t have much to do with it.. I wonder, though, since drone technology is getting better, if it will always be the Western countries dispensing their form of summary justice, usually along with some innocent bystanders. Often enough only innocent bystanders. But anyway, this could change.
By the way, Palestinians I am sure would utterly reject the notion that only one side’s war criminals should be either tried or assassinated.
Hard to argue with that. But only one side has an air force so justice doesn’t have much to do with it.. I wonder, though, since drone technology is getting better, if it will always be the Western countries dispensing their form of summary justice, usually along with some innocent bystanders. Often enough only innocent bystanders. But anyway, this could change.
It is interesting to contemplate what the Gazans could do with some drones. Especially since a drone could loop around and come (apparently) from Egypt. Plausible deniability, and far better targeting than the rockets Hamas has been using.
In Israeli shoes, I’d be thinking hard about getting to a resolution, any resolution, before that happens. Even if it means giving up the West Bank settlements. (Settlements which, I note, are even more exposed to drone attacks.) The settlers may have political clout. But the rest of the country has more.
It is interesting to contemplate what the Gazans could do with some drones. Especially since a drone could loop around and come (apparently) from Egypt. Plausible deniability, and far better targeting than the rockets Hamas has been using.
In Israeli shoes, I’d be thinking hard about getting to a resolution, any resolution, before that happens. Even if it means giving up the West Bank settlements. (Settlements which, I note, are even more exposed to drone attacks.) The settlers may have political clout. But the rest of the country has more.
Don’t mean to be picky, but I would avoid the conflation ‘Gazans’ and Hamas.
Also, as I understand it, the way was paved for the initial attacks with drones.
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/in-israel-gaza-war-hamas-off-the-shelf-drones-destroy-million-dollar-hardware-4471329
When Hamas started the terror attack on Israel on Saturday, it sent a swarm of commercial drones armed with small bombs. While Hamas men razed the border with bulldozers and came in powered gliders – which itself was a surprise of sorts – it sent the drones to attack watch towers along the border fence. The Israeli watch towers are protected from the sides with armour, but have no roof. The bombs dropped by the drones fell straight into the gunner’s seat, disabling Israel’s first line of border defence.
Also, I think there is less deniability with drones, even if they come from somewhere else, someone has to target something or someone. So I imagine they will be used if Israel tries a shock and awe attack on Gaza, but not to attack Israel.
https://www.businessinsider.com/israel-has-tools-to-counter-hamas-drones-but-may-struggle-2023-10
The full breadth of Hamas’ drone arsenal will not become evident until Israel attacks. But analysts suggest Hamas has both commercial off-the-shelf drones as well as loitering munitions (also known as one-way attack or “kamikaze” drones), likely developed with Iranian help. The first Hamas drones appeared in 2014, when a few were launched from Gaza into Israel.
The drone question is problematic enough that Israel is doing ECM, but that may interfere with many of their current defenses.
Don’t mean to be picky, but I would avoid the conflation ‘Gazans’ and Hamas.
Also, as I understand it, the way was paved for the initial attacks with drones.
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/in-israel-gaza-war-hamas-off-the-shelf-drones-destroy-million-dollar-hardware-4471329
When Hamas started the terror attack on Israel on Saturday, it sent a swarm of commercial drones armed with small bombs. While Hamas men razed the border with bulldozers and came in powered gliders – which itself was a surprise of sorts – it sent the drones to attack watch towers along the border fence. The Israeli watch towers are protected from the sides with armour, but have no roof. The bombs dropped by the drones fell straight into the gunner’s seat, disabling Israel’s first line of border defence.
Also, I think there is less deniability with drones, even if they come from somewhere else, someone has to target something or someone. So I imagine they will be used if Israel tries a shock and awe attack on Gaza, but not to attack Israel.
https://www.businessinsider.com/israel-has-tools-to-counter-hamas-drones-but-may-struggle-2023-10
The full breadth of Hamas’ drone arsenal will not become evident until Israel attacks. But analysts suggest Hamas has both commercial off-the-shelf drones as well as loitering munitions (also known as one-way attack or “kamikaze” drones), likely developed with Iranian help. The first Hamas drones appeared in 2014, when a few were launched from Gaza into Israel.
The drone question is problematic enough that Israel is doing ECM, but that may interfere with many of their current defenses.
While I agree one shouldn’t conflate Gazans and Hamas, in this case I suspect quite a few Gazans who hate Hamas probably would want to strike at Israel, just as is true of Israelis and their own government and Gaza.
Biden is appearing to endorse Israel’s version. The Israelis claim to have evidence, including tape of Hamas people shocked it was theirs. That I think would be easy to fake. They habitually deny atrocities. Of course if it is true the other side will never admit it either. There is audio evidence and films, so I am waiting to see what independent groups say. Whoever did this, the US government can’t admit to any Israeli war crimes— they can’t say it about the power cutoff or question the extent of the bombing or the evacuation orders, including to hospitals and they can’t say it about this if Israel did it. The motive to lie in this one is overwhelming on both sides. So I think it means groups that have technical experts and a history of condemning both sides.
While I agree one shouldn’t conflate Gazans and Hamas, in this case I suspect quite a few Gazans who hate Hamas probably would want to strike at Israel, just as is true of Israelis and their own government and Gaza.
Biden is appearing to endorse Israel’s version. The Israelis claim to have evidence, including tape of Hamas people shocked it was theirs. That I think would be easy to fake. They habitually deny atrocities. Of course if it is true the other side will never admit it either. There is audio evidence and films, so I am waiting to see what independent groups say. Whoever did this, the US government can’t admit to any Israeli war crimes— they can’t say it about the power cutoff or question the extent of the bombing or the evacuation orders, including to hospitals and they can’t say it about this if Israel did it. The motive to lie in this one is overwhelming on both sides. So I think it means groups that have technical experts and a history of condemning both sides.
Last sentence sounds like I am attributing the bombing to human rights organizations. Not what I meant.
Last sentence sounds like I am attributing the bombing to human rights organizations. Not what I meant.
This essay from Judith Butler is interesting:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n20/judith-butler/the-compass-of-mourning
This essay from Judith Butler is interesting:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n20/judith-butler/the-compass-of-mourning
And this article provides some historical context:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/18/opinion/netanyahu-israel-gaza.html
And this article provides some historical context:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/18/opinion/netanyahu-israel-gaza.html
Read this just now. I give it some merit points.
https://open.substack.com/pub/digressionsimpressions/p/israels-strategic-cul-de-sac?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Read this just now. I give it some merit points.
https://open.substack.com/pub/digressionsimpressions/p/israels-strategic-cul-de-sac?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
novakant,
Butler’s essay is very good. Thanks.
novakant,
Butler’s essay is very good. Thanks.
As Berlatsky says, Israel is in a cul de sac which has been years (decades) in the making.
It is not at all obvious that there is a way out. However I think it safe to say that there is no way out that the current Israeli government would be willing to even consider for an instant. Which means that the cycle, the downward spiral, will continue for a while yet. If there is any realistic way for outsiders to help turn things around, I am not seeing it.
As Berlatsky says, Israel is in a cul de sac which has been years (decades) in the making.
It is not at all obvious that there is a way out. However I think it safe to say that there is no way out that the current Israeli government would be willing to even consider for an instant. Which means that the cycle, the downward spiral, will continue for a while yet. If there is any realistic way for outsiders to help turn things around, I am not seeing it.
Leaning towards the Palestinian rocket theory now. I have gone back and forth. I don’t care what the Israelis say, but the BBC contacted various experts and it looked more like the Israeli story made more sense. People in war tell the truth when it favors them.
I think an immediate ceasefire followed by serious pressure for a 2ss or else a 1ss if the Israelis refuse to give back enough to make a two state solution work. Stop pandering to them. The US helped get things to this point with all the pandering. Hamas officials or the top ones anyway can’t participate in any negotiations. I don’t think the top Israelis should either, but I am trying to be semi- realistic. Israel is a recognized government democratically elected ( by the lucky people who have the vote) so they have to be recognized. Bibi might not be around long anyway.
Work out a solution acceptable to people on both sides sick of this nonsense and shove the extremists out.
Leaning towards the Palestinian rocket theory now. I have gone back and forth. I don’t care what the Israelis say, but the BBC contacted various experts and it looked more like the Israeli story made more sense. People in war tell the truth when it favors them.
I think an immediate ceasefire followed by serious pressure for a 2ss or else a 1ss if the Israelis refuse to give back enough to make a two state solution work. Stop pandering to them. The US helped get things to this point with all the pandering. Hamas officials or the top ones anyway can’t participate in any negotiations. I don’t think the top Israelis should either, but I am trying to be semi- realistic. Israel is a recognized government democratically elected ( by the lucky people who have the vote) so they have to be recognized. Bibi might not be around long anyway.
Work out a solution acceptable to people on both sides sick of this nonsense and shove the extremists out.
Hamas officials or the top ones anyway can’t participate in any negotiations. I don’t think the top Israelis should either, but I am trying to be semi- realistic. Israel is a recognized government democratically elected ( by the lucky people who have the vote) so they have to be recognized.
The challenge (OK, one of the challenges) is to figure out who could negotiate on behalf of the Palestinians. The PLA might arguably have some legitimacy for the West Bank. But not for Palestinians in the Gaza. So, who to talk to?
I don’t have an answer for that. But until and unless there is an answer, negotiations can’t even start.
Hamas officials or the top ones anyway can’t participate in any negotiations. I don’t think the top Israelis should either, but I am trying to be semi- realistic. Israel is a recognized government democratically elected ( by the lucky people who have the vote) so they have to be recognized.
The challenge (OK, one of the challenges) is to figure out who could negotiate on behalf of the Palestinians. The PLA might arguably have some legitimacy for the West Bank. But not for Palestinians in the Gaza. So, who to talk to?
I don’t have an answer for that. But until and unless there is an answer, negotiations can’t even start.
“…it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you.”
Is that how to talk about mass murder?
“…it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you.”
Is that how to talk about mass murder?
No. But I assumed it was uncertainty about exactly how to refer to the perpetrators – Hamas? Islamic Jihad? Some other group’s name including ISIS? But maybe I was being too tolerant…
No. But I assumed it was uncertainty about exactly how to refer to the perpetrators – Hamas? Islamic Jihad? Some other group’s name including ISIS? But maybe I was being too tolerant…
Walked out of work into a huge pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel protest in front of the building. Street full of people, completely blocked. I was able to get to train station. The move to the Techwood campus will be an inconvenience for me, but at least once we finally vacate CNN Center I will not be working at a focal point for demonstrations.
Walked out of work into a huge pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel protest in front of the building. Street full of people, completely blocked. I was able to get to train station. The move to the Techwood campus will be an inconvenience for me, but at least once we finally vacate CNN Center I will not be working at a focal point for demonstrations.
Biden might have trouble winning Michigan. It turns out people get mad when their relatives are bombed.
I’m trivializing it–even for myself I feel as sense of extreme anger when I see John Kirby claiming to care about civilians and then saying, oh well, that’s war. If you don’t have a ceasefire, sure. And then the endless concern, always in the future, that Israel might do something naughty. Like cut off power or bomb indiscriminately. But like the threats to the two state solution, the threat is always way off on the horizon.
Kirby did this before, back in the Obama era with respect to Yemen.
Might find a link later. It’s an odd job, being the apologist for the bombing of civilians.
And yeah, Trump is worse, etc… I wonder if the argument would be so glib if somehow the Democrats nominated one of the far lefties (a subset of far lefties, to be clear) who brush off the mass murder of Hamas. This is done in various ways–sometimes outright support, sometimes as “no moral equivalence between oppresser and oppressed”. I think when someone is holding a gun in front of someone (like an old woman or a child) without a gun and decides to use it, the global question of who belongs to the oppressed group fades into the background, and the oppressed/oppressor relationship becomes very localized, but some people live in abstractions. “No moral equivalence” is a greatly overused phrase.
But the mainstream Western world has its own little abstract ways to deal with what it does.
Biden might have trouble winning Michigan. It turns out people get mad when their relatives are bombed.
I’m trivializing it–even for myself I feel as sense of extreme anger when I see John Kirby claiming to care about civilians and then saying, oh well, that’s war. If you don’t have a ceasefire, sure. And then the endless concern, always in the future, that Israel might do something naughty. Like cut off power or bomb indiscriminately. But like the threats to the two state solution, the threat is always way off on the horizon.
Kirby did this before, back in the Obama era with respect to Yemen.
Might find a link later. It’s an odd job, being the apologist for the bombing of civilians.
And yeah, Trump is worse, etc… I wonder if the argument would be so glib if somehow the Democrats nominated one of the far lefties (a subset of far lefties, to be clear) who brush off the mass murder of Hamas. This is done in various ways–sometimes outright support, sometimes as “no moral equivalence between oppresser and oppressed”. I think when someone is holding a gun in front of someone (like an old woman or a child) without a gun and decides to use it, the global question of who belongs to the oppressed group fades into the background, and the oppressed/oppressor relationship becomes very localized, but some people live in abstractions. “No moral equivalence” is a greatly overused phrase.
But the mainstream Western world has its own little abstract ways to deal with what it does.
Biden might have trouble winning Michigan. It turns out people get mad when their relatives are bombed.
Meanwhile, one of our neighboring cities (Richmond, CA) just became the first in the US to formally declare “solidarity with the Palestinians.” Not that this indicates any chance of Biden losing California, of course.
Biden might have trouble winning Michigan. It turns out people get mad when their relatives are bombed.
Meanwhile, one of our neighboring cities (Richmond, CA) just became the first in the US to formally declare “solidarity with the Palestinians.” Not that this indicates any chance of Biden losing California, of course.
If there isn’t a ceasefire soon the anger in some parts of the Democratic voting pool will likely spread. I can still do the “ Republicans are explicitly genocidal while Democrats are merely horrific” calculation but I have had my moments of intense anger, as when Biden questioned the Palestinian numbers and he and Kirby did the “ yes, it is sad civilians die in war” spiel. Go to Gaza and count the bodies yourself, Mr. President. They are your responsibility to some degree. Yes, one can wonder about official statistics from any government at war (or pseudo government) but the scale and horror is pretty well conveyed by those reporters and health workers and ordinary people still able to get messages out. Doctors doing operations without anesthesia, children with massive burns. Reporters themselves are getting killed or losing their families.
If Biden actually cared he could make it a top priority to have US intelligence or military estimate them and since people like me wouldn’t trust a word coming from him ( do not trust governments in a war or supporting a side in a war) he could do all in his power to have very brave independent observers get in there, visit hospitals ( those still functioning) and other sites and do the best they can to give the world those accurate numbers he probably doesn’t want people to know,.
And of course the war could escalate and we might find out after years of theoretical arguments how vulnerable aircraft carriers are to missiles. Or how Israel with its nukes will react if a large number of Hezbollah missiles gets through and Iran is in the fight, though hopefully they are thinking about that too. Though they might also be thinking that the Israel monopoly in the region needs to end, which to me seems bad. I haven’t read that last part, but it has to have crossed minds. How unfortunate that Trump ended the treaty and Biden tried to be hardnosed in getting it back and continued Trump’s policy of bypassing the long defunct two state solution and treating Palestinians as minor obstacles to creating a regional alliance against Iran. To be fair, nobody except maybe Egypt predicted Hamas’s mass murder spree. But a new intifada— everyone paying attention expected that. It was building in the WB along with the settler pogroms.
I feel like people are sticking their heads in the sand.. Not meaning people here, just in general. But anyway, even hoping the war doesn’t go regional ( or bigger, ) it might make a bad difference in the election and the US is likeky to be greatly diminished in the eyes of the Global South. One can’t blame all of that on the giant narcissistic toddler who was President and might be again.
If there isn’t a ceasefire soon the anger in some parts of the Democratic voting pool will likely spread. I can still do the “ Republicans are explicitly genocidal while Democrats are merely horrific” calculation but I have had my moments of intense anger, as when Biden questioned the Palestinian numbers and he and Kirby did the “ yes, it is sad civilians die in war” spiel. Go to Gaza and count the bodies yourself, Mr. President. They are your responsibility to some degree. Yes, one can wonder about official statistics from any government at war (or pseudo government) but the scale and horror is pretty well conveyed by those reporters and health workers and ordinary people still able to get messages out. Doctors doing operations without anesthesia, children with massive burns. Reporters themselves are getting killed or losing their families.
If Biden actually cared he could make it a top priority to have US intelligence or military estimate them and since people like me wouldn’t trust a word coming from him ( do not trust governments in a war or supporting a side in a war) he could do all in his power to have very brave independent observers get in there, visit hospitals ( those still functioning) and other sites and do the best they can to give the world those accurate numbers he probably doesn’t want people to know,.
And of course the war could escalate and we might find out after years of theoretical arguments how vulnerable aircraft carriers are to missiles. Or how Israel with its nukes will react if a large number of Hezbollah missiles gets through and Iran is in the fight, though hopefully they are thinking about that too. Though they might also be thinking that the Israel monopoly in the region needs to end, which to me seems bad. I haven’t read that last part, but it has to have crossed minds. How unfortunate that Trump ended the treaty and Biden tried to be hardnosed in getting it back and continued Trump’s policy of bypassing the long defunct two state solution and treating Palestinians as minor obstacles to creating a regional alliance against Iran. To be fair, nobody except maybe Egypt predicted Hamas’s mass murder spree. But a new intifada— everyone paying attention expected that. It was building in the WB along with the settler pogroms.
I feel like people are sticking their heads in the sand.. Not meaning people here, just in general. But anyway, even hoping the war doesn’t go regional ( or bigger, ) it might make a bad difference in the election and the US is likeky to be greatly diminished in the eyes of the Global South. One can’t blame all of that on the giant narcissistic toddler who was President and might be again.
Just glanced at the NYT and saw an article where Biden is trying to do something I very much agree with — limit drilling in Wyoming and do other things, to predictable outrage. Climate change is the biggest issue of all, except nuclear war, and there are a million other issues ( like gun control) where the difference is very clear and even on Gaza. But I get so sick of how bad they are on issues like Gaza and saying “ lesser evil” on that wears very thin very fast.
Just glanced at the NYT and saw an article where Biden is trying to do something I very much agree with — limit drilling in Wyoming and do other things, to predictable outrage. Climate change is the biggest issue of all, except nuclear war, and there are a million other issues ( like gun control) where the difference is very clear and even on Gaza. But I get so sick of how bad they are on issues like Gaza and saying “ lesser evil” on that wears very thin very fast.
This link was apparently one of those gift links or whatever. I don’t have a subscription to FT but could read it.
https://www.ft.com/content/a3fded7d-7b91-4733-9e28-e3eb84026554
This link was apparently one of those gift links or whatever. I don’t have a subscription to FT but could read it.
https://www.ft.com/content/a3fded7d-7b91-4733-9e28-e3eb84026554
Couldn’t read it from here. It was on Adam H Johnson’s X account.
Couldn’t read it from here. It was on Adam H Johnson’s X account.
So, what do you call the last three weeks?
Honestly, it’s statements like this that give the impression that at least the Israeli leadership is no better morally than the monsters they fight.
I do not envy anyone who has to make decisions in Israel about how to deal with Hamas (at least as much of their own bastard child as Osama bin Laden was the US’s) hiding among a dense civilian population but (of course there is a ‘but’) talking like this is at least not helpful to put it mildly.
Checking Youtube comments one gets the general (and I assume false) impression that by now we are asked only which genocide we do support with any position apart from that getting shouted down immediately. OK, there is the third option: thoughts and prayers (which all too often is just a thin veneer for: both sides should convert to fundamentalist christianity instantly, otherwise why limit oneself to just a single genocide?)
So, what do you call the last three weeks?
Honestly, it’s statements like this that give the impression that at least the Israeli leadership is no better morally than the monsters they fight.
I do not envy anyone who has to make decisions in Israel about how to deal with Hamas (at least as much of their own bastard child as Osama bin Laden was the US’s) hiding among a dense civilian population but (of course there is a ‘but’) talking like this is at least not helpful to put it mildly.
Checking Youtube comments one gets the general (and I assume false) impression that by now we are asked only which genocide we do support with any position apart from that getting shouted down immediately. OK, there is the third option: thoughts and prayers (which all too often is just a thin veneer for: both sides should convert to fundamentalist christianity instantly, otherwise why limit oneself to just a single genocide?)
FWIW, this by Jonathan Freedland is in today’s Grauniad, headlined “The tragedy of the Israel-Palestine conflict is this: underneath all the horror is a clash of two just causes – This isn’t a contest of heroes and villains – but two peoples in deep pain, fated to share the same land”:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/27/tragedy-israel-palestine-conflict-horror
Also I have just been forwarded this by someone who was a few days ago making the same headline point to me as Sebag Montefiore makes in this Atlantic piece. I let my Atlantic sub lapse, so for anyone interested, here it is. I have not read it yet, but as described to me it sounds well worth the read:
The Decolonization Narrative Is Dangerous and False
It does not accurately describe either the foundation of Israel or the tragedy of the Palestinians.
By Simon Sebag Montefiore
Peace in the israel-palestine conflict had already been difficult to achieve before Hamas’s barbarous October 7 attack and Israel’s military response. Now it seems almost impossible, but its essence is clearer than ever: Ultimately, a negotiation to establish a safe Israel beside a safe Palestinian state.
Whatever the enormous complexities and challenges of bringing about this future, one truth should be obvious among decent people: killing 1,400 people and kidnapping more than 200, including scores of civilians, was deeply wrong. The Hamas attack resembled a medieval Mongol raid for slaughter and human trophies—except it was recorded in real time and published to social media. Yet since October 7, Western academics, students, artists, and activists have denied, excused, or even celebrated the murders by a terrorist sect that proclaims an anti-Jewish genocidal program. Some of this is happening out in the open, some behind the masks of humanitarianism and justice, and some in code, most famously “from the river to the sea,” a chilling phrase that implicitly endorses the killing or deportation of the 9 million Israelis. It seems odd that one has to say: Killing civilians, old people, even babies, is always wrong. But today say it one must.
How can educated people justify such callousness and embrace such inhumanity? All sorts of things are at play here, but much of the justification for killing civilians is based on a fashionable ideology, “decolonization,” which, taken at face value, rules out the negotiation of two states—the only real solution to this century of conflict—and is as dangerous as it is false.
I always wondered about the leftist intellectuals who supported Stalin, and those aristocratic sympathizers and peace activists who excused Hitler. Today’s Hamas apologists and atrocity-deniers, with their robotic denunciations of “settler-colonialism,” belong to the same tradition but worse: They have abundant evidence of the slaughter of old people, teenagers, and children, but unlike those fools of the 1930s, who slowly came around to the truth, they have not changed their views an iota. The lack of decency and respect for human life is astonishing: Almost instantly after the Hamas attack, a legion of people emerged who downplayed the slaughter, or denied actual atrocities had even happened, as if Hamas had just carried out a traditional military operation against soldiers. October 7 deniers, like Holocaust deniers, exist in an especially dark place.
The decolonization narrative has dehumanized Israelis to the extent that otherwise rational people excuse, deny, or support barbarity. It holds that Israel is an “imperialist-colonialist” force, that Israelis are “settler-colonialists,” and that Palestinians have a right to eliminate their oppressors. (On October 7, we all learned what that meant.) It casts Israelis as “white” or “white-adjacent” and Palestinians as “people of color.”
This ideology, powerful in the academy but long overdue for serious challenge, is a toxic, historically nonsensical mix of Marxist theory, Soviet propaganda, and traditional anti-Semitism from the Middle Ages and the 19th century. But its current engine is the new identity analysis, which sees history through a concept of race that derives from the American experience. The argument is that it is almost impossible for the “oppressed” to be themselves racist, just as it is impossible for an “oppressor” to be the subject of racism. Jews therefore cannot suffer racism, because they are regarded as “white” and “privileged”; although they cannot be victims, they can and do exploit other, less privileged people, in the West through the sins of “exploitative capitalism” and in the Middle East through “colonialism.”
This leftist analysis, with its hierarchy of oppressed identities—and intimidating jargon, a clue to its lack of factual rigor—has in many parts of the academy and media replaced traditional universalist leftist values, including internationalist standards of decency and respect for human life and the safety of innocent civilians. When this clumsy analysis collides with the realities of the Middle East, it loses all touch with historical facts.
Indeed, it requires an astonishing leap of ahistorical delusion to disregard the record of anti-Jewish racism over the two millennia since the fall of the Judean Temple in 70 C.E. After all, the October 7 massacre ranks with the medieval mass killings of Jews in Christian and Islamic societies, the Khmelnytsky massacres of 1640s Ukraine, Russian pogroms from 1881 to 1920—and the Holocaust. Even the Holocaust is now sometimes misconstrued—as the actor Whoopi Goldberg notoriously did—as being “not about race,” an approach as ignorant as it is repulsive.
Contrary to the decolonizing narrative, Gaza is not technically occupied by Israel—not in the usual sense of soldiers on the ground. Israel evacuated the Strip in 2005, removing its settlements. In 2007, Hamas seized power, killing its Fatah rivals in a short civil war. Hamas set up a one-party state that crushes Palestinian opposition within its territory, bans same-sex relationships, represses women, and openly espouses the killing of all Jews.
Very strange company for leftists.
Of course, some protesters chanting “from the river to the sea” may have no idea what they’re calling for; they are ignorant and believe that they are simply endorsing “freedom.” Others deny that they are pro-Hamas, insisting that they are simply pro-Palestinian—but feel the need to cast Hamas’s massacre as an understandable response to Israeli-Jewish “colonial” oppression. Yet others are malign deniers who seek the death of Israeli civilians.
The toxicity of this ideology is now clear. Once-respectable intellectuals have shamelessly debated whether 40 babies were dismembered or some smaller number merely had their throats cut or were burned alive. Students now regularly tear down posters of children held as Hamas hostages. It is hard to understand such heartless inhumanity. Our definition of a hate crime is constantly expanding, but if this is not a hate crime, what is? What is happening in our societies? Something has gone wrong.
In a further racist twist, Jews are now accused of the very crimes they themselves have suffered. Hence the constant claim of a “genocide” when no genocide has taken place or been intended. Israel, with Egypt, has imposed a blockade on Gaza since Hamas took over, and has periodically bombarded the Strip in retaliation for regular rocket attacks. After more than 4,000 rockets were fired by Hamas and its allies into Israel, the 2014 Gaza War resulted in more than 2,000 Palestinian deaths. More than 7,000 Palestinians, including many children, have died so far in this war, according to Hamas. This is a tragedy—but this is not a genocide, a word that has now been so devalued by its metaphorical abuse that it has become meaningless.
I should also say that Israeli rule of the Occupied Territories of the West Bank is different and, to my mind, unacceptable, unsustainable, and unjust. The Palestinians in the West Bank have endured a harsh, unjust, and oppressive occupation since 1967. Settlers under the disgraceful Netanyahu government have harassed and persecuted Palestinians in the West Bank: 146 Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem were killed in 2022 and at least 153 in 2023 before the Hamas attack, and more than 90 since. Again: This is appalling and unacceptable, but not genocide.
Although there is a strong instinct to make this a Holocaust-mirroring “genocide,” it is not: The Palestinians suffer from many things, including military occupation; settler intimidation and violence; corrupt Palestinian political leadership; callous neglect by their brethren in more than 20 Arab states; the rejection by Yasser Arafat, the late Palestinian leader, of compromise plans that would have seen the creation of an independent Palestinian state; and so on. None of this constitutes genocide, or anything like genocide. The Israeli goal in Gaza—for practical reasons, among others—is to minimize the number of Palestinian civilians killed. Hamas and like-minded organizations have made it abundantly clear over the years that maximizing the number of Palestinian casualties is in their strategic interest. (Put aside all of this and consider: The world Jewish population is still smaller than it was in 1939, because of the damage done by the Nazis. The Palestinian population has grown, and continues to grow. Demographic shrinkage is one obvious marker of genocide. In total, roughly 120,000 Arabs and Jews have been killed in the conflict over Palestine and Israel since 1860. By contrast, at least 500,000 people, mainly civilians, have been killed in the Syrian civil war since it began in 2011.)
If the ideology of decolonization, taught in our universities as a theory of history and shouted in our streets as self-evidently righteous, badly misconstrues the present reality, does it reflect the history of Israel as it claims to do? It does not. Indeed, it does not accurately describe either the foundation of Israel or the tragedy of the Palestinians.
According to the decolonizers, Israel is and always has been an illegitimate freak-state because it was fostered by the British empire and because some of its founders were European-born Jews.
In this narrative, Israel is tainted by imperial Britain’s broken promise to deliver Arab independence, and its kept promise to support a “national home for the Jewish people,” in the language of the 1917 Balfour Declaration. But the supposed promise to Arabs was in fact an ambiguous 1915 agreement with Sharif Hussein of Mecca, who wanted his Hashemite family to rule the entire region. In part, he did not receive this new empire because his family had much less regional support than he claimed. Nonetheless, ultimately Britain delivered three kingdoms—Iraq, Jordan, and Hejaz—to the family.
The imperial powers—Britain and France—made all sorts of promises to different peoples, and then put their own interests first. Those promises to the Jews and the Arabs during World War I were typical. Afterward, similar promises were made to the Kurds, the Armenians, and others, none of which came to fruition. But the central narrative that Britain betrayed the Arab promise and backed the Jewish one is incomplete. In the 1930s, Britain turned against Zionism, and from 1937 to 1939 moved toward an Arab state with no Jewish one at all. It was an armed Jewish revolt, from 1945 to 1948 against imperial Britain, that delivered the state.
Israel exists thanks to this revolt, and to international law and cooperation, something leftists once believed in. The idea of a Jewish “homeland” was proposed in three declarations by Britain (signed by Balfour), France, and the United States, then promulgated in a July 1922 resolution by the League of Nations that created the British “mandates” over Palestine and Iraq that matched French “mandates” over Syria and Lebanon. In 1947, the United Nations devised the partition of the British mandate of Palestine into two states, Arab and Jewish.
The carving of such states out of these mandates was not exceptional, either. At the end of World War II, France granted independence to Syria and Lebanon, newly conceived nation-states. Britain created Iraq and Jordan in a similar way. Imperial powers designed most of the countries in the region, except Egypt.
Nor was the imperial promise of separate homelands for different ethnicities or sects unique. The French had promised independent states for the Druze, Alawites, Sunnis, and Maronites but in the end combined them into Syria and Lebanon. All of these states had been “vilayets” and “sanjaks” (provinces) of the Turkish Ottoman empire, ruled from Constantinople, from 1517 until 1918.
The concept of “partition” is, in the decolonization narrative, regarded as a wicked imperial trick. But it was entirely normal in the creation of 20th-century nation-states, which were typically fashioned out of fallen empires. And sadly, the creation of nation-states was frequently marked by population swaps, huge refugee migrations, ethnic violence, and full-scale wars. Think of the Greco-Turkish war of 1921–22 or the partition of India in 1947. In this sense, Israel-Palestine was typical.
At the heart of decolonization ideology is the categorization of all Israelis, historic and present, as “colonists.” This is simply wrong. Most Israelis are descended from people who migrated to the Holy Land from 1881 to 1949. They were not completely new to the region. The Jewish people ruled Judean kingdoms and prayed in the Jerusalem Temple for a thousand years, then were ever present there in smaller numbers for the next 2,000 years. In other words, Jews are indigenous in the Holy Land, and if one believes in the return of exiled people to their homeland, then the return of the Jews is exactly that. Even those who deny this history or regard it as irrelevant to modern times must acknowledge that Israel is now the home and only home of 9 million Israelis who have lived there for four, five, six generations.
Most migrants to, say, the United Kingdom or the United States are regarded as British or American within a lifetime. Politics in both countries is filled with prominent leaders—Suella Braverman and David Lammy, Kamala Harris and Nikki Haley—whose parents or grandparents migrated from India, West Africa, or South America. No one would describe them as “settlers.” Yet Israeli families resident in Israel for a century are designated as “settler-colonists” ripe for murder and mutilation. And contrary to Hamas apologists, the ethnicity of perpetrators or victims never justifies atrocities. They would be atrocious anywhere, committed by anyone with any history. It is dismaying that it is often self-declared “anti-racists” who are now advocating exactly this murder by ethnicity.
Those on the left believe migrants who escape from persecution should be welcomed and allowed to build their lives elsewhere. Almost all of the ancestors of today’s Israelis escaped persecution.
If the “settler-colonist” narrative is not true, it is true that the conflict is the result of the brutal rivalry and battle for land between two ethnic groups, both with rightful claims to live there. As more Jews moved to the region, the Palestinian Arabs, who had lived there for centuries and were the clear majority, felt threatened by these immigrants. The Palestinian claim to the land is not in doubt, nor is the authenticity of their history, nor their legitimate claim to their own state. But initially the Jewish migrants did not aspire to a state, merely to live and farm in the vague “homeland.” In 1918, the Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann met the Hashemite Prince Faisal Bin Hussein to discuss the Jews living under his rule as king of greater Syria. The conflict today was not inevitable. It became so as the communities refused to share and coexist, and then resorted to arms.
Even more preposterous than the “colonizer” label is the “whiteness” trope that is key to the decolonization ideology. Again: simply wrong. Israel has a large community of Ethiopian Jews, and about half of all Israelis—that is, about 5 million people—are Mizrahi, the descendants of Jews from Arab and Persian lands, people of the Middle East. They are neither “settlers” nor “colonialists” nor “white” Europeans at all but inhabitants of Baghdad and Cairo and Beirut for many centuries, even millennia, who were driven out after 1948.
A word about that year, 1948, the year of Israel’s War of Independence and the Palestinian Nakba (“Catastrophe”), which in decolonization discourse amounted to ethnic cleansing. There was indeed intense ethnic violence on both sides when Arab states invaded the territory and, together with Palestinian militias, tried to stop the creation of a Jewish state. They failed; what they ultimately stopped was the creation of a Palestinian state, as intended by the United Nations. The Arab side sought the killing or expulsion of the entire Jewish community—in precisely the murderous ways we saw on October 7. And in the areas the Arab side did capture, such as East Jerusalem, every Jew was expelled.
In this brutal war, Israelis did indeed drive some Palestinians from their homes; others fled the fighting; yet others stayed and are now Israeli Arabs who have the vote in the Israeli democracy. (Some 25 percent of today’s Israelis are Arabs and Druze.) About 700,000 Palestinians lost their homes. That is an enormous figure and a historic tragedy. Starting in 1948, some 900,000 Jews lost their homes in Islamic countries and most of them moved to Israel. These events are not directly comparable, and I don’t mean to propose a competition in tragedy or hierarchy of victimhood. But the past is a lot more complicated than the decolonizers would have you believe.
Out of this imbroglio, one state emerged, Israel, and one did not, Palestine. Its formation is long overdue.
It is bizarre that a small state in the Middle East attracts so much passionate attention in the West that students run through California schools shouting “Free Palestine.” But the Holy Land has an exceptional place in Western history. It is embedded in our cultural consciousness, thanks to the Hebrew and Christian Bibles, the story of Judaism, the foundation of Christianity, the Quran and the creation of Islam, and the Crusades that together have made Westerners feel involved in its destiny. The British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, the real architect of the Balfour Declaration, used to say that the names of places in Palestine “were more familiar to me than those on the Western Front.” This special affinity with the Holy Land initially worked in favor of the Jewish return, but lately it has worked against Israel. Westerners eager to expose the crimes of Euro-American imperialism but unable to offer a remedy have, often without real knowledge of the actual history, coalesced around Israel and Palestine as the world’s most vivid example of imperialist injustice.
The open world of liberal democracies—or the West, as it used to be called—is today polarized by paralyzed politics, petty but vicious cultural feuds about identity and gender, and guilt about historical successes and sins, a guilt that is bizarrely atoned for by showing sympathy for, even attraction to, enemies of our democratic values. In this scenario, Western democracies are always bad actors, hypocritical and neo-imperialist, while foreign autocracies or terror sects such as Hamas are enemies of imperialism and therefore sincere forces for good. In this topsy-turvy scenario, Israel is a living metaphor and penance for the sins of the West. The result is the intense scrutiny of Israel and the way it is judged, using standards rarely attained by any nation at war, including the United States.
But the decolonizing narrative is much worse than a study in double standards; it dehumanizes an entire nation and excuses, even celebrates, the murder of innocent civilians. As these past two weeks have shown, decolonization is now the authorized version of history in many of our schools and supposedly humanitarian institutions, and among artists and intellectuals. It is presented as history, but it is actually a caricature, zombie history with its arsenal of jargon—the sign of a coercive ideology, as Foucault argued—and its authoritarian narrative of villains and victims. And it only stands up in a landscape in which much of the real history is suppressed and in which all Western democracies are bad-faith actors. Although it lacks the sophistication of Marxist dialectic, its self-righteous moral certainty imposes a moral framework on a complex, intractable situation, which some may find consoling. Whenever you read a book or an article and it uses the phrase “settler-colonialist,” you are dealing with ideological polemic, not history.
Ultimately, this zombie narrative is a moral and political cul-de-sac that leads to slaughter and stalemate. That is no surprise, because it is based on sham history: “An invented past can never be used,” wrote James Baldwin. “It cracks and crumbles under the pressures of life like clay.”
Even when the word decolonization does not appear, this ideology is embedded in partisan media coverage of the conflict and suffuses recent condemnations of Israel. The student glee in response to the slaughter at Harvard, the University of Virginia, and other universities; the support for Hamas amongst artists and actors, along with the weaselly equivocations by leaders at some of America’s most famous research institutions, have displayed a shocking lack of morality, humanity, and basic decency.
One repellent example was an open letter signed by thousands of artists, including famous British actors such as Tilda Swinton and Steve Coogan. It warned against imminent Israel war crimes and totally ignored the casus belli: the slaughter of 1,400 people.
The journalist Deborah Ross wrote in a powerful Times of London article that she was “utterly, utterly floored” that the letter contained “no mention of Hamas” and no mention of the “kidnapping and murder of babies, children, grandparents, young people dancing peacefully at a peace festival. The lack of basic compassion and humanity, that’s what was so unbelievably flooring. Is it so difficult? To support and feel for Palestinian citizens … while also acknowledging the indisputable horror of the Hamas attacks?” Then she asked this thespian parade of moral nullities: “What does it solve, a letter like that? And why would anyone sign it?”
The Israel-Palestine conflict is desperately difficult to solve, and decolonization rhetoric makes even less likely the negotiated compromise that is the only way out.
Since its founding in 1987, Hamas has used the murder of civilians to spoil any chance of a two-state solution. In 1993, its suicide bombings of Israeli civilians were designed to destroy the two-state Olso Accords that recognized Israel and Palestine. This month, the Hamas terrorists unleashed their slaughter in part to undermine a peace with Saudi Arabia that would have improved Palestinian politics and standard of life, and reinvigorated Hamas’s sclerotic rival, the Palestinian Authority. In part, they served Iran to prevent the empowering of Saudi Arabia, and their atrocities were of course a spectacular trap to provoke Israeli overreaction. They are most probably getting their wish, but to do this they are cynically exploiting innocent Palestinian people as a sacrifice to political means, a second crime against civilians. In the same way, the decolonization ideology, with its denial of Israel’s right to exist and its people’s right to live safely, makes a Palestinian state less likely if not impossible.
The problem in our countries is easier to fix: Civic society and the shocked majority should now assert themselves. The radical follies of students should not alarm us overmuch; students are always thrilled by revolutionary extremes. But the indecent celebrations in London, Paris, and New York City, and the clear reluctance among leaders at major universities to condemn the killings, have exposed the cost of neglecting this issue and letting “decolonization” colonize our academy.
Parents and students can move to universities that are not led by equivocators and patrolled by deniers and ghouls; donors can withdraw their generosity en masse, and that is starting in the United States. Philanthropists can pull the funding of humanitarian foundations led by people who support war crimes against humanity (against victims selected by race). Audiences can easily decide not to watch films starring actors who ignore the killing of children; studios do not have to hire them. And in our academies, this poisonous ideology, followed by the malignant and foolish but also by the fashionable and well intentioned, has become a default position. It must forfeit its respectability, its lack of authenticity as history. Its moral nullity has been exposed for all to see.
Again, scholars, teachers, and our civil society, and the institutions that fund and regulate universities and charities, need to challenge a toxic, inhumane ideology that has no basis in the real history or present of the Holy Land, and that justifies otherwise rational people to excuse the dismemberment of babies.
Israel has done many harsh and bad things. Netanyahu’s government, the worst ever in Israeli history, as inept as it is immoral, promotes a maximalist ultranationalism that is both unacceptable and unwise. Everyone has the right to protest against Israel’s policies and actions but not to promote terror sects, the killing of civilians, and the spreading of menacing anti-Semitism.
The Palestinians have legitimate grievances and have endured much brutal injustice. But both of their political entities are utterly flawed: the Palestinian Authority, which rules 40 percent of the West Bank, is moribund, corrupt, inept, and generally disdained—and its leaders have been just as abysmal as those of Israel.
Hamas is a diabolical killing sect that hides among civilians, whom it sacrifices on the altar of resistance—as moderate Arab voices have openly stated in recent days, and much more harshly than Hamas’s apologists in the West. “I categorically condemn Hamas’s targeting of civilians,” the Saudi veteran statesman Prince Turki bin Faisal movingly declared last week. “I also condemn Hamas for giving the higher moral ground to an Israeli government that is universally shunned even by half of the Israeli public … I condemn Hamas for sabotaging the attempt of Saudi Arabia to reach a peaceful resolution to the plight of the Palestinian people.” In an interview with Khaled Meshaal, a member of the Hamas politburo, the Arab journalist Rasha Nabil highlighted Hamas’s sacrifice of its own people for its political interests. Meshaal argued that this was just the cost of resistance: “Thirty million Russians died to defeat Germany,” he said.
Nabil stands as an example to Western journalists who scarcely dare challenge Hamas and its massacres. Nothing is more patronizing and even Orientalist than the romanticization of Hamas’s butchers, whom many Arabs despise. The denial of their atrocities by so many in the West is an attempt to fashion acceptable heroes out of an organization that dismembers babies and defiles the bodies of murdered girls. This is an attempt to save Hamas from itself. Perhaps the West’s Hamas apologists should listen to moderate Arab voices instead of a fundamentalist terror sect.
Hamas’s atrocities place it, like the Islamic State and al-Qaeda, as an abomination beyond tolerance. Israel, like any state, has the right to defend itself, but it must do so with great care and minimal civilian loss, and it will be hard even with a full military incursion to destroy Hamas. Meanwhile, Israel must curb its injustices in the West Bank—or risk destroying itself— because ultimately it must negotiate with moderate Palestinians.
So the war unfolds tragically. As I write this, the pounding of Gaza is killing Palestinian children every day, and that is unbearable. As Israel still grieves its losses and buries its children, we deplore the killing of Israeli civilians just as we deplore the killing of Palestinian civilians. We reject Hamas, evil and unfit to govern, but we do not mistake Hamas for the Palestinian people, whose losses we mourn as we mourn the death of all innocents.
In the wider span of history, sometimes terrible events can shake fortified positions: Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin made peace after the Yom Kippur War; Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat made peace after the Intifada. The diabolical crimes of October 7 will never be forgotten, but perhaps, in the years to come, after the scattering of Hamas, after Netanyahuism is just a catastrophic memory, Israelis and Palestinians will draw the borders of their states, tempered by 75 years of killing and stunned by one weekend’s Hamas butchery, into mutual recognition. There is no other way.
Simon Sebag Montefiore is the author of Jerusalem: The Biography and most recently The World: A Family History of Humanity.
FWIW, this by Jonathan Freedland is in today’s Grauniad, headlined “The tragedy of the Israel-Palestine conflict is this: underneath all the horror is a clash of two just causes – This isn’t a contest of heroes and villains – but two peoples in deep pain, fated to share the same land”:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/27/tragedy-israel-palestine-conflict-horror
Also I have just been forwarded this by someone who was a few days ago making the same headline point to me as Sebag Montefiore makes in this Atlantic piece. I let my Atlantic sub lapse, so for anyone interested, here it is. I have not read it yet, but as described to me it sounds well worth the read:
The Decolonization Narrative Is Dangerous and False
It does not accurately describe either the foundation of Israel or the tragedy of the Palestinians.
By Simon Sebag Montefiore
Peace in the israel-palestine conflict had already been difficult to achieve before Hamas’s barbarous October 7 attack and Israel’s military response. Now it seems almost impossible, but its essence is clearer than ever: Ultimately, a negotiation to establish a safe Israel beside a safe Palestinian state.
Whatever the enormous complexities and challenges of bringing about this future, one truth should be obvious among decent people: killing 1,400 people and kidnapping more than 200, including scores of civilians, was deeply wrong. The Hamas attack resembled a medieval Mongol raid for slaughter and human trophies—except it was recorded in real time and published to social media. Yet since October 7, Western academics, students, artists, and activists have denied, excused, or even celebrated the murders by a terrorist sect that proclaims an anti-Jewish genocidal program. Some of this is happening out in the open, some behind the masks of humanitarianism and justice, and some in code, most famously “from the river to the sea,” a chilling phrase that implicitly endorses the killing or deportation of the 9 million Israelis. It seems odd that one has to say: Killing civilians, old people, even babies, is always wrong. But today say it one must.
How can educated people justify such callousness and embrace such inhumanity? All sorts of things are at play here, but much of the justification for killing civilians is based on a fashionable ideology, “decolonization,” which, taken at face value, rules out the negotiation of two states—the only real solution to this century of conflict—and is as dangerous as it is false.
I always wondered about the leftist intellectuals who supported Stalin, and those aristocratic sympathizers and peace activists who excused Hitler. Today’s Hamas apologists and atrocity-deniers, with their robotic denunciations of “settler-colonialism,” belong to the same tradition but worse: They have abundant evidence of the slaughter of old people, teenagers, and children, but unlike those fools of the 1930s, who slowly came around to the truth, they have not changed their views an iota. The lack of decency and respect for human life is astonishing: Almost instantly after the Hamas attack, a legion of people emerged who downplayed the slaughter, or denied actual atrocities had even happened, as if Hamas had just carried out a traditional military operation against soldiers. October 7 deniers, like Holocaust deniers, exist in an especially dark place.
The decolonization narrative has dehumanized Israelis to the extent that otherwise rational people excuse, deny, or support barbarity. It holds that Israel is an “imperialist-colonialist” force, that Israelis are “settler-colonialists,” and that Palestinians have a right to eliminate their oppressors. (On October 7, we all learned what that meant.) It casts Israelis as “white” or “white-adjacent” and Palestinians as “people of color.”
This ideology, powerful in the academy but long overdue for serious challenge, is a toxic, historically nonsensical mix of Marxist theory, Soviet propaganda, and traditional anti-Semitism from the Middle Ages and the 19th century. But its current engine is the new identity analysis, which sees history through a concept of race that derives from the American experience. The argument is that it is almost impossible for the “oppressed” to be themselves racist, just as it is impossible for an “oppressor” to be the subject of racism. Jews therefore cannot suffer racism, because they are regarded as “white” and “privileged”; although they cannot be victims, they can and do exploit other, less privileged people, in the West through the sins of “exploitative capitalism” and in the Middle East through “colonialism.”
This leftist analysis, with its hierarchy of oppressed identities—and intimidating jargon, a clue to its lack of factual rigor—has in many parts of the academy and media replaced traditional universalist leftist values, including internationalist standards of decency and respect for human life and the safety of innocent civilians. When this clumsy analysis collides with the realities of the Middle East, it loses all touch with historical facts.
Indeed, it requires an astonishing leap of ahistorical delusion to disregard the record of anti-Jewish racism over the two millennia since the fall of the Judean Temple in 70 C.E. After all, the October 7 massacre ranks with the medieval mass killings of Jews in Christian and Islamic societies, the Khmelnytsky massacres of 1640s Ukraine, Russian pogroms from 1881 to 1920—and the Holocaust. Even the Holocaust is now sometimes misconstrued—as the actor Whoopi Goldberg notoriously did—as being “not about race,” an approach as ignorant as it is repulsive.
Contrary to the decolonizing narrative, Gaza is not technically occupied by Israel—not in the usual sense of soldiers on the ground. Israel evacuated the Strip in 2005, removing its settlements. In 2007, Hamas seized power, killing its Fatah rivals in a short civil war. Hamas set up a one-party state that crushes Palestinian opposition within its territory, bans same-sex relationships, represses women, and openly espouses the killing of all Jews.
Very strange company for leftists.
Of course, some protesters chanting “from the river to the sea” may have no idea what they’re calling for; they are ignorant and believe that they are simply endorsing “freedom.” Others deny that they are pro-Hamas, insisting that they are simply pro-Palestinian—but feel the need to cast Hamas’s massacre as an understandable response to Israeli-Jewish “colonial” oppression. Yet others are malign deniers who seek the death of Israeli civilians.
The toxicity of this ideology is now clear. Once-respectable intellectuals have shamelessly debated whether 40 babies were dismembered or some smaller number merely had their throats cut or were burned alive. Students now regularly tear down posters of children held as Hamas hostages. It is hard to understand such heartless inhumanity. Our definition of a hate crime is constantly expanding, but if this is not a hate crime, what is? What is happening in our societies? Something has gone wrong.
In a further racist twist, Jews are now accused of the very crimes they themselves have suffered. Hence the constant claim of a “genocide” when no genocide has taken place or been intended. Israel, with Egypt, has imposed a blockade on Gaza since Hamas took over, and has periodically bombarded the Strip in retaliation for regular rocket attacks. After more than 4,000 rockets were fired by Hamas and its allies into Israel, the 2014 Gaza War resulted in more than 2,000 Palestinian deaths. More than 7,000 Palestinians, including many children, have died so far in this war, according to Hamas. This is a tragedy—but this is not a genocide, a word that has now been so devalued by its metaphorical abuse that it has become meaningless.
I should also say that Israeli rule of the Occupied Territories of the West Bank is different and, to my mind, unacceptable, unsustainable, and unjust. The Palestinians in the West Bank have endured a harsh, unjust, and oppressive occupation since 1967. Settlers under the disgraceful Netanyahu government have harassed and persecuted Palestinians in the West Bank: 146 Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem were killed in 2022 and at least 153 in 2023 before the Hamas attack, and more than 90 since. Again: This is appalling and unacceptable, but not genocide.
Although there is a strong instinct to make this a Holocaust-mirroring “genocide,” it is not: The Palestinians suffer from many things, including military occupation; settler intimidation and violence; corrupt Palestinian political leadership; callous neglect by their brethren in more than 20 Arab states; the rejection by Yasser Arafat, the late Palestinian leader, of compromise plans that would have seen the creation of an independent Palestinian state; and so on. None of this constitutes genocide, or anything like genocide. The Israeli goal in Gaza—for practical reasons, among others—is to minimize the number of Palestinian civilians killed. Hamas and like-minded organizations have made it abundantly clear over the years that maximizing the number of Palestinian casualties is in their strategic interest. (Put aside all of this and consider: The world Jewish population is still smaller than it was in 1939, because of the damage done by the Nazis. The Palestinian population has grown, and continues to grow. Demographic shrinkage is one obvious marker of genocide. In total, roughly 120,000 Arabs and Jews have been killed in the conflict over Palestine and Israel since 1860. By contrast, at least 500,000 people, mainly civilians, have been killed in the Syrian civil war since it began in 2011.)
If the ideology of decolonization, taught in our universities as a theory of history and shouted in our streets as self-evidently righteous, badly misconstrues the present reality, does it reflect the history of Israel as it claims to do? It does not. Indeed, it does not accurately describe either the foundation of Israel or the tragedy of the Palestinians.
According to the decolonizers, Israel is and always has been an illegitimate freak-state because it was fostered by the British empire and because some of its founders were European-born Jews.
In this narrative, Israel is tainted by imperial Britain’s broken promise to deliver Arab independence, and its kept promise to support a “national home for the Jewish people,” in the language of the 1917 Balfour Declaration. But the supposed promise to Arabs was in fact an ambiguous 1915 agreement with Sharif Hussein of Mecca, who wanted his Hashemite family to rule the entire region. In part, he did not receive this new empire because his family had much less regional support than he claimed. Nonetheless, ultimately Britain delivered three kingdoms—Iraq, Jordan, and Hejaz—to the family.
The imperial powers—Britain and France—made all sorts of promises to different peoples, and then put their own interests first. Those promises to the Jews and the Arabs during World War I were typical. Afterward, similar promises were made to the Kurds, the Armenians, and others, none of which came to fruition. But the central narrative that Britain betrayed the Arab promise and backed the Jewish one is incomplete. In the 1930s, Britain turned against Zionism, and from 1937 to 1939 moved toward an Arab state with no Jewish one at all. It was an armed Jewish revolt, from 1945 to 1948 against imperial Britain, that delivered the state.
Israel exists thanks to this revolt, and to international law and cooperation, something leftists once believed in. The idea of a Jewish “homeland” was proposed in three declarations by Britain (signed by Balfour), France, and the United States, then promulgated in a July 1922 resolution by the League of Nations that created the British “mandates” over Palestine and Iraq that matched French “mandates” over Syria and Lebanon. In 1947, the United Nations devised the partition of the British mandate of Palestine into two states, Arab and Jewish.
The carving of such states out of these mandates was not exceptional, either. At the end of World War II, France granted independence to Syria and Lebanon, newly conceived nation-states. Britain created Iraq and Jordan in a similar way. Imperial powers designed most of the countries in the region, except Egypt.
Nor was the imperial promise of separate homelands for different ethnicities or sects unique. The French had promised independent states for the Druze, Alawites, Sunnis, and Maronites but in the end combined them into Syria and Lebanon. All of these states had been “vilayets” and “sanjaks” (provinces) of the Turkish Ottoman empire, ruled from Constantinople, from 1517 until 1918.
The concept of “partition” is, in the decolonization narrative, regarded as a wicked imperial trick. But it was entirely normal in the creation of 20th-century nation-states, which were typically fashioned out of fallen empires. And sadly, the creation of nation-states was frequently marked by population swaps, huge refugee migrations, ethnic violence, and full-scale wars. Think of the Greco-Turkish war of 1921–22 or the partition of India in 1947. In this sense, Israel-Palestine was typical.
At the heart of decolonization ideology is the categorization of all Israelis, historic and present, as “colonists.” This is simply wrong. Most Israelis are descended from people who migrated to the Holy Land from 1881 to 1949. They were not completely new to the region. The Jewish people ruled Judean kingdoms and prayed in the Jerusalem Temple for a thousand years, then were ever present there in smaller numbers for the next 2,000 years. In other words, Jews are indigenous in the Holy Land, and if one believes in the return of exiled people to their homeland, then the return of the Jews is exactly that. Even those who deny this history or regard it as irrelevant to modern times must acknowledge that Israel is now the home and only home of 9 million Israelis who have lived there for four, five, six generations.
Most migrants to, say, the United Kingdom or the United States are regarded as British or American within a lifetime. Politics in both countries is filled with prominent leaders—Suella Braverman and David Lammy, Kamala Harris and Nikki Haley—whose parents or grandparents migrated from India, West Africa, or South America. No one would describe them as “settlers.” Yet Israeli families resident in Israel for a century are designated as “settler-colonists” ripe for murder and mutilation. And contrary to Hamas apologists, the ethnicity of perpetrators or victims never justifies atrocities. They would be atrocious anywhere, committed by anyone with any history. It is dismaying that it is often self-declared “anti-racists” who are now advocating exactly this murder by ethnicity.
Those on the left believe migrants who escape from persecution should be welcomed and allowed to build their lives elsewhere. Almost all of the ancestors of today’s Israelis escaped persecution.
If the “settler-colonist” narrative is not true, it is true that the conflict is the result of the brutal rivalry and battle for land between two ethnic groups, both with rightful claims to live there. As more Jews moved to the region, the Palestinian Arabs, who had lived there for centuries and were the clear majority, felt threatened by these immigrants. The Palestinian claim to the land is not in doubt, nor is the authenticity of their history, nor their legitimate claim to their own state. But initially the Jewish migrants did not aspire to a state, merely to live and farm in the vague “homeland.” In 1918, the Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann met the Hashemite Prince Faisal Bin Hussein to discuss the Jews living under his rule as king of greater Syria. The conflict today was not inevitable. It became so as the communities refused to share and coexist, and then resorted to arms.
Even more preposterous than the “colonizer” label is the “whiteness” trope that is key to the decolonization ideology. Again: simply wrong. Israel has a large community of Ethiopian Jews, and about half of all Israelis—that is, about 5 million people—are Mizrahi, the descendants of Jews from Arab and Persian lands, people of the Middle East. They are neither “settlers” nor “colonialists” nor “white” Europeans at all but inhabitants of Baghdad and Cairo and Beirut for many centuries, even millennia, who were driven out after 1948.
A word about that year, 1948, the year of Israel’s War of Independence and the Palestinian Nakba (“Catastrophe”), which in decolonization discourse amounted to ethnic cleansing. There was indeed intense ethnic violence on both sides when Arab states invaded the territory and, together with Palestinian militias, tried to stop the creation of a Jewish state. They failed; what they ultimately stopped was the creation of a Palestinian state, as intended by the United Nations. The Arab side sought the killing or expulsion of the entire Jewish community—in precisely the murderous ways we saw on October 7. And in the areas the Arab side did capture, such as East Jerusalem, every Jew was expelled.
In this brutal war, Israelis did indeed drive some Palestinians from their homes; others fled the fighting; yet others stayed and are now Israeli Arabs who have the vote in the Israeli democracy. (Some 25 percent of today’s Israelis are Arabs and Druze.) About 700,000 Palestinians lost their homes. That is an enormous figure and a historic tragedy. Starting in 1948, some 900,000 Jews lost their homes in Islamic countries and most of them moved to Israel. These events are not directly comparable, and I don’t mean to propose a competition in tragedy or hierarchy of victimhood. But the past is a lot more complicated than the decolonizers would have you believe.
Out of this imbroglio, one state emerged, Israel, and one did not, Palestine. Its formation is long overdue.
It is bizarre that a small state in the Middle East attracts so much passionate attention in the West that students run through California schools shouting “Free Palestine.” But the Holy Land has an exceptional place in Western history. It is embedded in our cultural consciousness, thanks to the Hebrew and Christian Bibles, the story of Judaism, the foundation of Christianity, the Quran and the creation of Islam, and the Crusades that together have made Westerners feel involved in its destiny. The British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, the real architect of the Balfour Declaration, used to say that the names of places in Palestine “were more familiar to me than those on the Western Front.” This special affinity with the Holy Land initially worked in favor of the Jewish return, but lately it has worked against Israel. Westerners eager to expose the crimes of Euro-American imperialism but unable to offer a remedy have, often without real knowledge of the actual history, coalesced around Israel and Palestine as the world’s most vivid example of imperialist injustice.
The open world of liberal democracies—or the West, as it used to be called—is today polarized by paralyzed politics, petty but vicious cultural feuds about identity and gender, and guilt about historical successes and sins, a guilt that is bizarrely atoned for by showing sympathy for, even attraction to, enemies of our democratic values. In this scenario, Western democracies are always bad actors, hypocritical and neo-imperialist, while foreign autocracies or terror sects such as Hamas are enemies of imperialism and therefore sincere forces for good. In this topsy-turvy scenario, Israel is a living metaphor and penance for the sins of the West. The result is the intense scrutiny of Israel and the way it is judged, using standards rarely attained by any nation at war, including the United States.
But the decolonizing narrative is much worse than a study in double standards; it dehumanizes an entire nation and excuses, even celebrates, the murder of innocent civilians. As these past two weeks have shown, decolonization is now the authorized version of history in many of our schools and supposedly humanitarian institutions, and among artists and intellectuals. It is presented as history, but it is actually a caricature, zombie history with its arsenal of jargon—the sign of a coercive ideology, as Foucault argued—and its authoritarian narrative of villains and victims. And it only stands up in a landscape in which much of the real history is suppressed and in which all Western democracies are bad-faith actors. Although it lacks the sophistication of Marxist dialectic, its self-righteous moral certainty imposes a moral framework on a complex, intractable situation, which some may find consoling. Whenever you read a book or an article and it uses the phrase “settler-colonialist,” you are dealing with ideological polemic, not history.
Ultimately, this zombie narrative is a moral and political cul-de-sac that leads to slaughter and stalemate. That is no surprise, because it is based on sham history: “An invented past can never be used,” wrote James Baldwin. “It cracks and crumbles under the pressures of life like clay.”
Even when the word decolonization does not appear, this ideology is embedded in partisan media coverage of the conflict and suffuses recent condemnations of Israel. The student glee in response to the slaughter at Harvard, the University of Virginia, and other universities; the support for Hamas amongst artists and actors, along with the weaselly equivocations by leaders at some of America’s most famous research institutions, have displayed a shocking lack of morality, humanity, and basic decency.
One repellent example was an open letter signed by thousands of artists, including famous British actors such as Tilda Swinton and Steve Coogan. It warned against imminent Israel war crimes and totally ignored the casus belli: the slaughter of 1,400 people.
The journalist Deborah Ross wrote in a powerful Times of London article that she was “utterly, utterly floored” that the letter contained “no mention of Hamas” and no mention of the “kidnapping and murder of babies, children, grandparents, young people dancing peacefully at a peace festival. The lack of basic compassion and humanity, that’s what was so unbelievably flooring. Is it so difficult? To support and feel for Palestinian citizens … while also acknowledging the indisputable horror of the Hamas attacks?” Then she asked this thespian parade of moral nullities: “What does it solve, a letter like that? And why would anyone sign it?”
The Israel-Palestine conflict is desperately difficult to solve, and decolonization rhetoric makes even less likely the negotiated compromise that is the only way out.
Since its founding in 1987, Hamas has used the murder of civilians to spoil any chance of a two-state solution. In 1993, its suicide bombings of Israeli civilians were designed to destroy the two-state Olso Accords that recognized Israel and Palestine. This month, the Hamas terrorists unleashed their slaughter in part to undermine a peace with Saudi Arabia that would have improved Palestinian politics and standard of life, and reinvigorated Hamas’s sclerotic rival, the Palestinian Authority. In part, they served Iran to prevent the empowering of Saudi Arabia, and their atrocities were of course a spectacular trap to provoke Israeli overreaction. They are most probably getting their wish, but to do this they are cynically exploiting innocent Palestinian people as a sacrifice to political means, a second crime against civilians. In the same way, the decolonization ideology, with its denial of Israel’s right to exist and its people’s right to live safely, makes a Palestinian state less likely if not impossible.
The problem in our countries is easier to fix: Civic society and the shocked majority should now assert themselves. The radical follies of students should not alarm us overmuch; students are always thrilled by revolutionary extremes. But the indecent celebrations in London, Paris, and New York City, and the clear reluctance among leaders at major universities to condemn the killings, have exposed the cost of neglecting this issue and letting “decolonization” colonize our academy.
Parents and students can move to universities that are not led by equivocators and patrolled by deniers and ghouls; donors can withdraw their generosity en masse, and that is starting in the United States. Philanthropists can pull the funding of humanitarian foundations led by people who support war crimes against humanity (against victims selected by race). Audiences can easily decide not to watch films starring actors who ignore the killing of children; studios do not have to hire them. And in our academies, this poisonous ideology, followed by the malignant and foolish but also by the fashionable and well intentioned, has become a default position. It must forfeit its respectability, its lack of authenticity as history. Its moral nullity has been exposed for all to see.
Again, scholars, teachers, and our civil society, and the institutions that fund and regulate universities and charities, need to challenge a toxic, inhumane ideology that has no basis in the real history or present of the Holy Land, and that justifies otherwise rational people to excuse the dismemberment of babies.
Israel has done many harsh and bad things. Netanyahu’s government, the worst ever in Israeli history, as inept as it is immoral, promotes a maximalist ultranationalism that is both unacceptable and unwise. Everyone has the right to protest against Israel’s policies and actions but not to promote terror sects, the killing of civilians, and the spreading of menacing anti-Semitism.
The Palestinians have legitimate grievances and have endured much brutal injustice. But both of their political entities are utterly flawed: the Palestinian Authority, which rules 40 percent of the West Bank, is moribund, corrupt, inept, and generally disdained—and its leaders have been just as abysmal as those of Israel.
Hamas is a diabolical killing sect that hides among civilians, whom it sacrifices on the altar of resistance—as moderate Arab voices have openly stated in recent days, and much more harshly than Hamas’s apologists in the West. “I categorically condemn Hamas’s targeting of civilians,” the Saudi veteran statesman Prince Turki bin Faisal movingly declared last week. “I also condemn Hamas for giving the higher moral ground to an Israeli government that is universally shunned even by half of the Israeli public … I condemn Hamas for sabotaging the attempt of Saudi Arabia to reach a peaceful resolution to the plight of the Palestinian people.” In an interview with Khaled Meshaal, a member of the Hamas politburo, the Arab journalist Rasha Nabil highlighted Hamas’s sacrifice of its own people for its political interests. Meshaal argued that this was just the cost of resistance: “Thirty million Russians died to defeat Germany,” he said.
Nabil stands as an example to Western journalists who scarcely dare challenge Hamas and its massacres. Nothing is more patronizing and even Orientalist than the romanticization of Hamas’s butchers, whom many Arabs despise. The denial of their atrocities by so many in the West is an attempt to fashion acceptable heroes out of an organization that dismembers babies and defiles the bodies of murdered girls. This is an attempt to save Hamas from itself. Perhaps the West’s Hamas apologists should listen to moderate Arab voices instead of a fundamentalist terror sect.
Hamas’s atrocities place it, like the Islamic State and al-Qaeda, as an abomination beyond tolerance. Israel, like any state, has the right to defend itself, but it must do so with great care and minimal civilian loss, and it will be hard even with a full military incursion to destroy Hamas. Meanwhile, Israel must curb its injustices in the West Bank—or risk destroying itself— because ultimately it must negotiate with moderate Palestinians.
So the war unfolds tragically. As I write this, the pounding of Gaza is killing Palestinian children every day, and that is unbearable. As Israel still grieves its losses and buries its children, we deplore the killing of Israeli civilians just as we deplore the killing of Palestinian civilians. We reject Hamas, evil and unfit to govern, but we do not mistake Hamas for the Palestinian people, whose losses we mourn as we mourn the death of all innocents.
In the wider span of history, sometimes terrible events can shake fortified positions: Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin made peace after the Yom Kippur War; Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat made peace after the Intifada. The diabolical crimes of October 7 will never be forgotten, but perhaps, in the years to come, after the scattering of Hamas, after Netanyahuism is just a catastrophic memory, Israelis and Palestinians will draw the borders of their states, tempered by 75 years of killing and stunned by one weekend’s Hamas butchery, into mutual recognition. There is no other way.
Simon Sebag Montefiore is the author of Jerusalem: The Biography and most recently The World: A Family History of Humanity.
how Israel with its nukes will react if a large number of Hezbollah missiles gets through and Iran is in the fight,
Israel’s problem, for decades now, is that there isn’t really another country threatening to attack it.
Yes, Iran is supporting Hezbollah. Just like the US is supporting Ukraine. But using that as an excuse to start lobbing nukes around is ridiculous. (Not to say that Netanyahu might not try it, if his personal position gets too dicey. But that decision won’t have anything to do with Israel’s situation.)
No, Israel’s actual enemy is right next door, where a nuke would be every by as dangerous to Israel’s people as to its enemy. In short, suicidal.
how Israel with its nukes will react if a large number of Hezbollah missiles gets through and Iran is in the fight,
Israel’s problem, for decades now, is that there isn’t really another country threatening to attack it.
Yes, Iran is supporting Hezbollah. Just like the US is supporting Ukraine. But using that as an excuse to start lobbing nukes around is ridiculous. (Not to say that Netanyahu might not try it, if his personal position gets too dicey. But that decision won’t have anything to do with Israel’s situation.)
No, Israel’s actual enemy is right next door, where a nuke would be every by as dangerous to Israel’s people as to its enemy. In short, suicidal.
I couldn’t finish the Montefiore piece. I found it to be dehumanizing, exactly the same as the subset of the left who praised Hamas’s mass murder. Hamas’s action that day will rank as one of the worst pogroms in history.
But I won’t go through the rest of his essay. Lumping all people who favored a 1ss as in the same category as Hamas apologists is racist crap. You can disagree with the realism, but at this stage every decent solution has been made impossible by both Hamas and the long string of murders and brutalities committed by Israel in the course of keeping Palestinians under their thumb while stealing more land. The 2ss has been a joke for years. Israel kept building settlements. The West was perfectly willing to overlook this. Biden was. Now the decent liberals, who see themselves as morally superior to the idiot leftists who admire Hamas, think they can crush Hamas and kill untold numbers of Palestinian civilians and then they will make up for it by working hard to reach a two state solution.
Palestinians will spit in their faces. I say this on the basis that I would. What the West has done and is supporting now is unforgivable.
There are decent and sometimes genuinely heroic people on both sides and plenty of innocent victims, the latter group increasing in numbers by the minute. And there is no realistic decent solution in the short run in large part because of Hamas, but also because of all the Westerners who were content to look the other way and make noises about a 2ss while Israel continued to build settlements with no consequences whatsoever. And who excuse carpet bombing, the cutting of power, and also the cutting of communication as the bombing increases.
Ceasefire AND hostage release now. Then ICC investigation into both sides. But the noble West won’t allow that. The West is comprised of civilized folk, the people who have the right to justice on behalf of Western victims, even if that justice causes vastly larger numbers of innocent deaths on the other side and never mind that the civilized West cheerfully overlooked the murder of unarmed Palestinian demonstrators as a matter of routine. Accountability is to be imposed by the civilized on the savages.
And even if you disagree with this, is it hard to imagine what Palestinians will think? Including all those who hated Hamas before Oct 7, who see the Western world lining up with the country that is killing entire families? There is now a term Palestinian doctors use for a child who is the only surviving member of his or her family.
I couldn’t finish the Montefiore piece. I found it to be dehumanizing, exactly the same as the subset of the left who praised Hamas’s mass murder. Hamas’s action that day will rank as one of the worst pogroms in history.
But I won’t go through the rest of his essay. Lumping all people who favored a 1ss as in the same category as Hamas apologists is racist crap. You can disagree with the realism, but at this stage every decent solution has been made impossible by both Hamas and the long string of murders and brutalities committed by Israel in the course of keeping Palestinians under their thumb while stealing more land. The 2ss has been a joke for years. Israel kept building settlements. The West was perfectly willing to overlook this. Biden was. Now the decent liberals, who see themselves as morally superior to the idiot leftists who admire Hamas, think they can crush Hamas and kill untold numbers of Palestinian civilians and then they will make up for it by working hard to reach a two state solution.
Palestinians will spit in their faces. I say this on the basis that I would. What the West has done and is supporting now is unforgivable.
There are decent and sometimes genuinely heroic people on both sides and plenty of innocent victims, the latter group increasing in numbers by the minute. And there is no realistic decent solution in the short run in large part because of Hamas, but also because of all the Westerners who were content to look the other way and make noises about a 2ss while Israel continued to build settlements with no consequences whatsoever. And who excuse carpet bombing, the cutting of power, and also the cutting of communication as the bombing increases.
Ceasefire AND hostage release now. Then ICC investigation into both sides. But the noble West won’t allow that. The West is comprised of civilized folk, the people who have the right to justice on behalf of Western victims, even if that justice causes vastly larger numbers of innocent deaths on the other side and never mind that the civilized West cheerfully overlooked the murder of unarmed Palestinian demonstrators as a matter of routine. Accountability is to be imposed by the civilized on the savages.
And even if you disagree with this, is it hard to imagine what Palestinians will think? Including all those who hated Hamas before Oct 7, who see the Western world lining up with the country that is killing entire families? There is now a term Palestinian doctors use for a child who is the only surviving member of his or her family.
Sadly, I concur, Donald.
I’d love to change the world, but I don’t know what to do. If only there were someone we *could* leave it all up to.
Sadly, I concur, Donald.
I’d love to change the world, but I don’t know what to do. If only there were someone we *could* leave it all up to.
Donald, I agree with almost every word you say. I am still getting through the SSM piece, interrupted by various things going on here, but when you say
Lumping all people who favored a 1ss as in the same category as Hamas apologists is racist crap.
can you point me to where he says something like this?
Donald, I agree with almost every word you say. I am still getting through the SSM piece, interrupted by various things going on here, but when you say
Lumping all people who favored a 1ss as in the same category as Hamas apologists is racist crap.
can you point me to where he says something like this?
Donald, are you missing a sentence? After the last one I expected one naming the term. I tried to google for it but there were just too man hits describing the general situation.
Donald, are you missing a sentence? After the last one I expected one naming the term. I tried to google for it but there were just too man hits describing the general situation.
Oh, Gftnc, I don’t want to sound like I am snapping at you. But I have had it with mainstream Western views in this subject. The subset of the far left that applauds Hamas needs to be called out and condemned, but the overwhelming majority of people doing it need to read some Palestinian views, which cover a range of views. And they really need to be honest about what many Israeli officials have said, along with many of their supporters. The vileness on that side is as great as it is in the pro Hamas side. I
Nous— agreed. I want a ceasefire and hostage release. No idea if that is possible. Beyond that, everybody including me is smoking something.
Wj—
I am not sure if Hezbollah will or won’t be deterred, along with Iran. If there is a ground invasion and casualties skyrocket, they might. I have no idea if the Hezbollah arsenal can get through Iron dome. Supposing large numbers of rockets do. Israel will do the same to Lebanon. Maybe Iran if Iran gets in, or they will expect us to do it.
It isn’t that hard to imagine going up the escalation ladder. How far up depends on how much damage Hezbollah can do. I hope they and the Iranians are content to do small scale things and be deterred.. But who exactly saw Hamas , taking Israel by complete surprise and killing 1400 people? They probably assumed they would have allies. Maybe they will.
Also, I don’t expect world leaders to be unfailingly rational. It is one if the insane things about nuclear weapons. We just assume that people will always be rational and nobody will make a mistake. We go through the Cold War by luck at a couple of points. Thinking nuclear was is unlikely based on that is reasoning that is flawed by a self selection effect.
Oh, Gftnc, I don’t want to sound like I am snapping at you. But I have had it with mainstream Western views in this subject. The subset of the far left that applauds Hamas needs to be called out and condemned, but the overwhelming majority of people doing it need to read some Palestinian views, which cover a range of views. And they really need to be honest about what many Israeli officials have said, along with many of their supporters. The vileness on that side is as great as it is in the pro Hamas side. I
Nous— agreed. I want a ceasefire and hostage release. No idea if that is possible. Beyond that, everybody including me is smoking something.
Wj—
I am not sure if Hezbollah will or won’t be deterred, along with Iran. If there is a ground invasion and casualties skyrocket, they might. I have no idea if the Hezbollah arsenal can get through Iron dome. Supposing large numbers of rockets do. Israel will do the same to Lebanon. Maybe Iran if Iran gets in, or they will expect us to do it.
It isn’t that hard to imagine going up the escalation ladder. How far up depends on how much damage Hezbollah can do. I hope they and the Iranians are content to do small scale things and be deterred.. But who exactly saw Hamas , taking Israel by complete surprise and killing 1400 people? They probably assumed they would have allies. Maybe they will.
Also, I don’t expect world leaders to be unfailingly rational. It is one if the insane things about nuclear weapons. We just assume that people will always be rational and nobody will make a mistake. We go through the Cold War by luck at a couple of points. Thinking nuclear was is unlikely based on that is reasoning that is flawed by a self selection effect.
And the Iranians and others might decide that deterrence should go both ways. Which would be very very bad.
But then we would try to stop them. Which would also be very bad.
Our whole model for how to do things over there—make alliances between brutal Arab monarchies and Israel against Iran while just ignoring the Palestinians has the potential to be a dumber mistake than the Iraq War.
End of my ranting for the day. It is nice outside.
And the Iranians and others might decide that deterrence should go both ways. Which would be very very bad.
But then we would try to stop them. Which would also be very bad.
Our whole model for how to do things over there—make alliances between brutal Arab monarchies and Israel against Iran while just ignoring the Palestinians has the potential to be a dumber mistake than the Iraq War.
End of my ranting for the day. It is nice outside.
Donald, I did not and do not think you were snapping at me. And, as I say, I agree almost entirely with what you say. But I was curious about where SSM said anything like that; I am more than halfway through and do not think I have encountered it. Certainly, I and all my intimates are longstanding critics of long term Israeli policies, but criticism of the colonialism narrative seems worth contemplating, given how many states were created by the great powers in a similar high-handed way, and yet so few of them or their populations face calls for eradication.
Donald, I did not and do not think you were snapping at me. And, as I say, I agree almost entirely with what you say. But I was curious about where SSM said anything like that; I am more than halfway through and do not think I have encountered it. Certainly, I and all my intimates are longstanding critics of long term Israeli policies, but criticism of the colonialism narrative seems worth contemplating, given how many states were created by the great powers in a similar high-handed way, and yet so few of them or their populations face calls for eradication.
Hamas’s action that day will rank as one of the worst pogroms in history.
Donald, I agree with most of what you said. But this sentence is patently ridiculous. Even if you restrict yourself to the Nazis, it’s a stretch. And as you go further back you find even more mass murders of Jews. If, for completeness, you incluse the Gypsies (Roma), you find even more over time (including by the Nazis).
Then there is the genocide of the Tutsi in 1994 in Rwanda: 500,000 to 800,000 dead in 3 months. Or, today, the underreported ongoing genocide of the Rohingya in Myanmar.
Yes, what Hamas did was horrific. But it was a very long way from the worst pogroms in history.
Hamas’s action that day will rank as one of the worst pogroms in history.
Donald, I agree with most of what you said. But this sentence is patently ridiculous. Even if you restrict yourself to the Nazis, it’s a stretch. And as you go further back you find even more mass murders of Jews. If, for completeness, you incluse the Gypsies (Roma), you find even more over time (including by the Nazis).
Then there is the genocide of the Tutsi in 1994 in Rwanda: 500,000 to 800,000 dead in 3 months. Or, today, the underreported ongoing genocide of the Rohingya in Myanmar.
Yes, what Hamas did was horrific. But it was a very long way from the worst pogroms in history.
To re-emphasise, I can’t offhand think of anything Donald says in his last few comments with which I disagree. But, as a close friend of mine who has been working for years for Palestinian rights, and has put the Palestinian case to diplomats and politicians for years has just said to me, he hates the anti-colonialism argument because it merges into the intractability thesis. And I have replied to him that the latter is indeed a counsel of despair, but that the anti-colonialism argument should still be considered on its own merits. It is perfectly possible to condemn Israeli actions of the last few decades, in particular the purposeful expansion of the settlements with their attempts to alter facts on the ground, not to mention the widescale mistreatment of Palestinians, without buying into a currently convenient but not really applicable discourse of colonialism.
To re-emphasise, I can’t offhand think of anything Donald says in his last few comments with which I disagree. But, as a close friend of mine who has been working for years for Palestinian rights, and has put the Palestinian case to diplomats and politicians for years has just said to me, he hates the anti-colonialism argument because it merges into the intractability thesis. And I have replied to him that the latter is indeed a counsel of despair, but that the anti-colonialism argument should still be considered on its own merits. It is perfectly possible to condemn Israeli actions of the last few decades, in particular the purposeful expansion of the settlements with their attempts to alter facts on the ground, not to mention the widescale mistreatment of Palestinians, without buying into a currently convenient but not really applicable discourse of colonialism.
But it was a very long way from the worst pogroms in history.
I have to say, this was one of the very few things Donald said which gave me pause (although I believe from Israeli relatives that the footage of what happened in the kibbutzim is unbelievably terrible). Just as, and I think SSM makes this point, it is wrong to call what the Israelis are doing in Gaza genocide. War crimes almost certainly, collective punishment and astonishingly inhumane actions, but not genocide. Words have meanings and, as I have said before in less tortured situations, we must fight to retain the means to have meaningful discussion.
But it was a very long way from the worst pogroms in history.
I have to say, this was one of the very few things Donald said which gave me pause (although I believe from Israeli relatives that the footage of what happened in the kibbutzim is unbelievably terrible). Just as, and I think SSM makes this point, it is wrong to call what the Israelis are doing in Gaza genocide. War crimes almost certainly, collective punishment and astonishingly inhumane actions, but not genocide. Words have meanings and, as I have said before in less tortured situations, we must fight to retain the means to have meaningful discussion.
I’m not really interested in semantics at the moment, it’s the daily rising death toll that gives me pause, especially considering the fact that 40% of them are children.
I’m not really interested in semantics at the moment, it’s the daily rising death toll that gives me pause, especially considering the fact that 40% of them are children.
Not to forget the injured, especially since there’s no adequate health care anymore.
Not to forget the injured, especially since there’s no adequate health care anymore.
I couldn’t finish the Montefiore piece. I found it to be dehumanizing, exactly the same as the subset of the left who praised Hamas’s mass murder.
I read about half, and skimmed the rest as it was simply repeating points made in the first half (Israelis good. Palestinian/Arabs bad). I would agree with Donald’s overall assessment.
However, the anti-colonialism argument, as employed by some (you know those folks) does seem to have fatal flaws.
This conflict strikes me as more similar to the conquest and removal of the Native Americans from North America (it did take several hundred years as I recall), and frankly, I don’t have much hope for this one ultimately turning out much different than its predeccessor, with the only difference being near total displacement vs. utter decimation.
Call me a crazy idealist but given the sham that the two state solution has become, I still cling to the one state solution.
I couldn’t finish the Montefiore piece. I found it to be dehumanizing, exactly the same as the subset of the left who praised Hamas’s mass murder.
I read about half, and skimmed the rest as it was simply repeating points made in the first half (Israelis good. Palestinian/Arabs bad). I would agree with Donald’s overall assessment.
However, the anti-colonialism argument, as employed by some (you know those folks) does seem to have fatal flaws.
This conflict strikes me as more similar to the conquest and removal of the Native Americans from North America (it did take several hundred years as I recall), and frankly, I don’t have much hope for this one ultimately turning out much different than its predeccessor, with the only difference being near total displacement vs. utter decimation.
Call me a crazy idealist but given the sham that the two state solution has become, I still cling to the one state solution.
There are guys in Israel, some of them part of the government, who WANT a genocide and occasionally even revive the term ‘final solution’. But as of yet they are unable to get their way because any potential ally knows that they would not get away with it. I assume these guys are elated about the licence they got through Hamas’ actions to bomb and kill more or less at will. They probably hope that sooner or later Egypt will be forced to open the border and that they can then close it again behind the last Palestinian. And the Palestinians are unwilling to leave because they expect exactly that to happen. Sinai is not the Omaheke but Israel has its fair share of von Trothas.
That groups like Hamas have an official goal of genocide is well-known enough, so I mention it only for completeness sake. Both sides are quite happy to be able to point to the other side to justify their own barbaric acts, so on and on it goes.
And, unfortunately, both sides have a very strained relationship to the truth, so nothing either side claims should be taken as true without careful checking. And both sides go a long way to prevent exactly that since the radicals of both sides profit from having the zone shit-filled.
I see no way out and they want it that way.
There are guys in Israel, some of them part of the government, who WANT a genocide and occasionally even revive the term ‘final solution’. But as of yet they are unable to get their way because any potential ally knows that they would not get away with it. I assume these guys are elated about the licence they got through Hamas’ actions to bomb and kill more or less at will. They probably hope that sooner or later Egypt will be forced to open the border and that they can then close it again behind the last Palestinian. And the Palestinians are unwilling to leave because they expect exactly that to happen. Sinai is not the Omaheke but Israel has its fair share of von Trothas.
That groups like Hamas have an official goal of genocide is well-known enough, so I mention it only for completeness sake. Both sides are quite happy to be able to point to the other side to justify their own barbaric acts, so on and on it goes.
And, unfortunately, both sides have a very strained relationship to the truth, so nothing either side claims should be taken as true without careful checking. And both sides go a long way to prevent exactly that since the radicals of both sides profit from having the zone shit-filled.
I see no way out and they want it that way.
This conflict strikes me as more similar to the conquest and removal of the Native Americans from North America
John Chivington is alive and well and living in Israel, so to speak.
But unlike then there are actual savages calling the shots on the other side.
This conflict strikes me as more similar to the conquest and removal of the Native Americans from North America
John Chivington is alive and well and living in Israel, so to speak.
But unlike then there are actual savages calling the shots on the other side.
Two rhetorical points at which I would like to intervene in this conversation.
First, if we are going to try to qualify whether or not the term “genocide” is appropriate (in this, a non-legal context) we should pause to consider not just the meaning of the word, but also what political purpose it serves the try to bracket off that term, and whether the preferred alternatives do justice to the reality, and indifferent brutality, of the (largely one-sided) human suffering being perpetrated in the non-genocidal atrocities. None of the alternatives I’ve heard carry sufficient force to represent the horror, and thus they give cover to the perpetuation of these anti-human policies.
Even “apartheid” (a term rigorously applied to the policies by Eyal Weizman in his detailed and exhaustive study of the shrinking maps of Palestinian territories, and the policies of movement) seems a far more bloodless term than the appalling conditions in the Palestinian territories warrants.
I think we’ll find that if we do this, we will actually make it easier to condemn Hamas and support the innocent non-combatants, and maybe also open up some space to push back against the inhuman settlement policies that perpetuate the conflict.
Secondly, Anti-Colonialism is a wide and varied field that does (in my experience with the topic) a lot of careful and necessary work producing counter-narratives to the existing histories and their erasure of the violence of colonialism. If we are going to criticize “you know who” in these conversations, could we at the very least try to be more precise in what specific attitudes or moral stances we are opposing, and not turn “anti-colonial” into another empty propaganda term like “woke” or “CRT”? These conversations get entirely hollowed out by the culture war.
Two rhetorical points at which I would like to intervene in this conversation.
First, if we are going to try to qualify whether or not the term “genocide” is appropriate (in this, a non-legal context) we should pause to consider not just the meaning of the word, but also what political purpose it serves the try to bracket off that term, and whether the preferred alternatives do justice to the reality, and indifferent brutality, of the (largely one-sided) human suffering being perpetrated in the non-genocidal atrocities. None of the alternatives I’ve heard carry sufficient force to represent the horror, and thus they give cover to the perpetuation of these anti-human policies.
Even “apartheid” (a term rigorously applied to the policies by Eyal Weizman in his detailed and exhaustive study of the shrinking maps of Palestinian territories, and the policies of movement) seems a far more bloodless term than the appalling conditions in the Palestinian territories warrants.
I think we’ll find that if we do this, we will actually make it easier to condemn Hamas and support the innocent non-combatants, and maybe also open up some space to push back against the inhuman settlement policies that perpetuate the conflict.
Secondly, Anti-Colonialism is a wide and varied field that does (in my experience with the topic) a lot of careful and necessary work producing counter-narratives to the existing histories and their erasure of the violence of colonialism. If we are going to criticize “you know who” in these conversations, could we at the very least try to be more precise in what specific attitudes or moral stances we are opposing, and not turn “anti-colonial” into another empty propaganda term like “woke” or “CRT”? These conversations get entirely hollowed out by the culture war.
First, if we are going to try to qualify whether or not the term “genocide” is appropriate (in this, a non-legal context) we should pause to consider not just the meaning of the word, but also what political purpose it serves the try to bracket off that term, and whether the preferred alternatives do justice to the reality, and indifferent brutality, of the (largely one-sided) human suffering being perpetrated in the non-genocidal atrocities. None of the alternatives I’ve heard carry sufficient force to represent the horror, and thus they give cover to the perpetuation of these anti-human policies.
I’m quite prepared to call what the Israeli forces are doing to Gaza “indiscriminate mass murder”, which I’m assuming you don’t think gives “cover to the perpetuation of these anti-human policies”? I don’t much like what seems to be a snide implication that insisting that words be used accurately, at least here, is a subterfuge to downplay the reality of what the Israelis are doing in Gaza.
If we lose the true meanings of words, we eventually lose even the ability to think clearly.
First, if we are going to try to qualify whether or not the term “genocide” is appropriate (in this, a non-legal context) we should pause to consider not just the meaning of the word, but also what political purpose it serves the try to bracket off that term, and whether the preferred alternatives do justice to the reality, and indifferent brutality, of the (largely one-sided) human suffering being perpetrated in the non-genocidal atrocities. None of the alternatives I’ve heard carry sufficient force to represent the horror, and thus they give cover to the perpetuation of these anti-human policies.
I’m quite prepared to call what the Israeli forces are doing to Gaza “indiscriminate mass murder”, which I’m assuming you don’t think gives “cover to the perpetuation of these anti-human policies”? I don’t much like what seems to be a snide implication that insisting that words be used accurately, at least here, is a subterfuge to downplay the reality of what the Israelis are doing in Gaza.
If we lose the true meanings of words, we eventually lose even the ability to think clearly.
I’m reluctant to label the founding of Israel as colonialism. At minimum, that makes it too easy to ignore inconvenient facts which do not fit the narrative.
But the settlements in the West Bank (and in Gaza, before they were withdrawn) definitely look exactly like colonialism. Actually, unless you accept the fantasy the the Lord gave the land to the Jews a couple of millennia ago, and so it is theirs forever, there’s no real justification for them beyond “might makes right.”
I’m reluctant to label the founding of Israel as colonialism. At minimum, that makes it too easy to ignore inconvenient facts which do not fit the narrative.
But the settlements in the West Bank (and in Gaza, before they were withdrawn) definitely look exactly like colonialism. Actually, unless you accept the fantasy the the Lord gave the land to the Jews a couple of millennia ago, and so it is theirs forever, there’s no real justification for them beyond “might makes right.”
I don’t much like what seems to be a snide implication that insisting that words be used accurately, at least here, is a subterfuge to downplay the reality of what the Israelis are doing in Gaza.
Then it’s good that I was implying no such subterfuge. I worry less about individual intentions than I do about the collective weight of such arguments.
I’m reluctant to label the founding of Israel as colonialism. At minimum, that makes it too easy to ignore inconvenient facts which do not fit the narrative.
I understand why people object to the way that Israel gets described as a Settler Colonialist State, and I think that those objections can and have been used to undermine the legitimacy of Israel as a nation state.
When it comes to looking at the situation there, though, an Anti-Colonialist lens often makes sense, and reveals deeper issues that need to be addressed – unless anyone wishes to say that the politics of the area were not distorted by the colonial politics of the British and the Turks in the wake of the First World War.
I don’t much like what seems to be a snide implication that insisting that words be used accurately, at least here, is a subterfuge to downplay the reality of what the Israelis are doing in Gaza.
Then it’s good that I was implying no such subterfuge. I worry less about individual intentions than I do about the collective weight of such arguments.
I’m reluctant to label the founding of Israel as colonialism. At minimum, that makes it too easy to ignore inconvenient facts which do not fit the narrative.
I understand why people object to the way that Israel gets described as a Settler Colonialist State, and I think that those objections can and have been used to undermine the legitimacy of Israel as a nation state.
When it comes to looking at the situation there, though, an Anti-Colonialist lens often makes sense, and reveals deeper issues that need to be addressed – unless anyone wishes to say that the politics of the area were not distorted by the colonial politics of the British and the Turks in the wake of the First World War.
I’m reluctant to label the founding of Israel as colonialism. At minimum, that makes it too easy to ignore inconvenient facts which do not fit the narrative.
Well, it depends on how you are talking about colonialism. It seems you are defining it as these various colonial powers as billiard balls and Israel is one of the billiard balls, albeit newer and smaller. But looking at it from a longer term, (which I think you have to), and bearing in mind nous’ admonition, it takes on some of those features. The discussion over Zionism as colonialism is worth considering, but this then brings up the question of defining the relationship between Zionism and Israel, which is pretty fraught.
Of course, anytime something becomes an -ism, you have a problem with reducing it to an overly simplistic concept, but rather than rejecting it as colonialism, it might be better to consider how embedded colonial narratives are and which narratives might be influencing our interpretation of events.
I’m reluctant to label the founding of Israel as colonialism. At minimum, that makes it too easy to ignore inconvenient facts which do not fit the narrative.
Well, it depends on how you are talking about colonialism. It seems you are defining it as these various colonial powers as billiard balls and Israel is one of the billiard balls, albeit newer and smaller. But looking at it from a longer term, (which I think you have to), and bearing in mind nous’ admonition, it takes on some of those features. The discussion over Zionism as colonialism is worth considering, but this then brings up the question of defining the relationship between Zionism and Israel, which is pretty fraught.
Of course, anytime something becomes an -ism, you have a problem with reducing it to an overly simplistic concept, but rather than rejecting it as colonialism, it might be better to consider how embedded colonial narratives are and which narratives might be influencing our interpretation of events.
deeper issues that need to be addressed – unless anyone wishes to say that the politics of the area were not distorted by the colonial politics of the British and the Turks in the wake of the First World War.
Colonial politics distorted the politics of lots of areas of the world. One could imagine magically redrawing borders across most of Africa (and radically changing the core legal systems of those involved) to reverse those. Short of that, talking about the impact of colonialism is a useful historical exercise. But pretty much useless for deciding how best to go forward today.
One might equally use the lens of the impact on the Mongol conquest in the 1200s, or the Ottoman invasion in the early 1500s, to frame discussions of the disputes between Eastern and Western Europe. Yes, there unquestionably was an impact. Yes, those impacts had consequences which linger to this day. But they aren’t particularly useful in deciding how to deal with current disputes.
deeper issues that need to be addressed – unless anyone wishes to say that the politics of the area were not distorted by the colonial politics of the British and the Turks in the wake of the First World War.
Colonial politics distorted the politics of lots of areas of the world. One could imagine magically redrawing borders across most of Africa (and radically changing the core legal systems of those involved) to reverse those. Short of that, talking about the impact of colonialism is a useful historical exercise. But pretty much useless for deciding how best to go forward today.
One might equally use the lens of the impact on the Mongol conquest in the 1200s, or the Ottoman invasion in the early 1500s, to frame discussions of the disputes between Eastern and Western Europe. Yes, there unquestionably was an impact. Yes, those impacts had consequences which linger to this day. But they aren’t particularly useful in deciding how to deal with current disputes.
Then it’s good that I was implying no such subterfuge.
Excellent. In which case I apologise for taking it personally. But I feel very strongly that if one misuses words such as genocide one ends up becoming responsible for hysterically inflated terminology, with one result among others being that in the end there is no word to describe that particular phenomenon.
And actually, FWIW, “apartheid” is far from a bloodless word for people who actually witnessed it, or were subjected to it. It (along perhaps with the somewhat analogous example of the Nuremberg laws), expresses the particularly hideous phenomenon of legal separation and discrimination (regarding work, dwelling place, travel etc) by race, religion or ethnicity. And inevitably, the discriminated against in such ways are also at the mercy of physical and other kinds of mistreatment by those doing the discriminating. And if you meant to suggest that conditions in the SA townships were less terrible than those in Gaza or the West Bank before the current crisis, I don’t think that’s true either.
What Israel (and particularly the various Likud and Netanyahu regimes) has been doing, and is doing, to the Palestinians is bad enough, without misusing language for it.
Then it’s good that I was implying no such subterfuge.
Excellent. In which case I apologise for taking it personally. But I feel very strongly that if one misuses words such as genocide one ends up becoming responsible for hysterically inflated terminology, with one result among others being that in the end there is no word to describe that particular phenomenon.
And actually, FWIW, “apartheid” is far from a bloodless word for people who actually witnessed it, or were subjected to it. It (along perhaps with the somewhat analogous example of the Nuremberg laws), expresses the particularly hideous phenomenon of legal separation and discrimination (regarding work, dwelling place, travel etc) by race, religion or ethnicity. And inevitably, the discriminated against in such ways are also at the mercy of physical and other kinds of mistreatment by those doing the discriminating. And if you meant to suggest that conditions in the SA townships were less terrible than those in Gaza or the West Bank before the current crisis, I don’t think that’s true either.
What Israel (and particularly the various Likud and Netanyahu regimes) has been doing, and is doing, to the Palestinians is bad enough, without misusing language for it.
One might equally use the lens of the impact on the Mongol conquest in the 1200s, or the Ottoman invasion in the early 1500s, to frame discussions of the disputes between Eastern and Western Europe.
but one wouldn’t say that was colonialism. The Mongol conquests were possibly the result of a messianic leader or from a disruption of trade or a change in climate. It was also the conflict between nomadic and sedentary cultures.
As for the Ottoman invasion, while it might not have provided anything useful in dealing with NATO expansion, I’m sure as hell that all the parties were aware of it, as I am sure that anyone commenting on Türkiye (always happy to get a chance to type a diaeresis!) had better know about the Ottoman stuff.
One might equally use the lens of the impact on the Mongol conquest in the 1200s, or the Ottoman invasion in the early 1500s, to frame discussions of the disputes between Eastern and Western Europe.
but one wouldn’t say that was colonialism. The Mongol conquests were possibly the result of a messianic leader or from a disruption of trade or a change in climate. It was also the conflict between nomadic and sedentary cultures.
As for the Ottoman invasion, while it might not have provided anything useful in dealing with NATO expansion, I’m sure as hell that all the parties were aware of it, as I am sure that anyone commenting on Türkiye (always happy to get a chance to type a diaeresis!) had better know about the Ottoman stuff.
anyone commenting on Türkiye (always happy to get a chance to type a diaeresis!) had better know about the Ottoman stuff.
Likewise anyone commenting on the breakup of ex-Yugoslavia. Which events demonstrate the folly of hanging on to long ago resentments.
anyone commenting on Türkiye (always happy to get a chance to type a diaeresis!) had better know about the Ottoman stuff.
Likewise anyone commenting on the breakup of ex-Yugoslavia. Which events demonstrate the folly of hanging on to long ago resentments.
The Mongol conquests were possibly the result of a messianic leader or from a disruption of trade or a change in climate. It was also the conflict between nomadic and sedentary cultures.
Except that, whatever the original motivation, a lot of the places the Mongols overran ended up with Mongolian rulers for generations.
As a side note, it occurs to me that Americans’ history may have given us a distorted view of colonialism. Here (ditto Canada, Australia and New Zealand) the “colonies” actually were populated overwhelmingly by descendants of the colonial power. But other colonies: India, Vietnam, Congo, etc.? Nothing like — they had foreign rulers, but not immigrants anything near outnumbering the original inhabitants.
The Mongol conquests were possibly the result of a messianic leader or from a disruption of trade or a change in climate. It was also the conflict between nomadic and sedentary cultures.
Except that, whatever the original motivation, a lot of the places the Mongols overran ended up with Mongolian rulers for generations.
As a side note, it occurs to me that Americans’ history may have given us a distorted view of colonialism. Here (ditto Canada, Australia and New Zealand) the “colonies” actually were populated overwhelmingly by descendants of the colonial power. But other colonies: India, Vietnam, Congo, etc.? Nothing like — they had foreign rulers, but not immigrants anything near outnumbering the original inhabitants.
And actually, FWIW, “apartheid” is far from a bloodless word for people who actually witnessed it, or were subjected to it.
Point taken, and also this is exactly in line with what I am talking about as the notion of bearing unflinching witness. I’m not arguing that people should use the term “genocide” for what is happening in the Palestinian Territories, merely that none of the alternative descriptions carry the same sense of horror and urgency, and that the current situation in Gaza probably warrants that sense of horror and urgency. I’m not asking that the sense of what genocide is should be changed, merely that we don’t use it to create one pole of a continuum of suffering, and then police its use in order to interrupt the outrage directed against other forms, or to try to weight the scales in favor of one side in a conflict where both are guilty of atrocities.
wj – you seem too quick to dismiss anti-colonialism as an aid to understanding current and future politics. You can’t understand the current attitudes in the Global South (term used reservedly here) towards the plight of Ukraine and how it plays into Chinese foreign policy without an understanding of anti-colonialism.
And actually, FWIW, “apartheid” is far from a bloodless word for people who actually witnessed it, or were subjected to it.
Point taken, and also this is exactly in line with what I am talking about as the notion of bearing unflinching witness. I’m not arguing that people should use the term “genocide” for what is happening in the Palestinian Territories, merely that none of the alternative descriptions carry the same sense of horror and urgency, and that the current situation in Gaza probably warrants that sense of horror and urgency. I’m not asking that the sense of what genocide is should be changed, merely that we don’t use it to create one pole of a continuum of suffering, and then police its use in order to interrupt the outrage directed against other forms, or to try to weight the scales in favor of one side in a conflict where both are guilty of atrocities.
wj – you seem too quick to dismiss anti-colonialism as an aid to understanding current and future politics. You can’t understand the current attitudes in the Global South (term used reservedly here) towards the plight of Ukraine and how it plays into Chinese foreign policy without an understanding of anti-colonialism.
On pogroms, I should have said I wasn’t including the Nazis. I think what they did goes way way beyond pogroms. Krystallnacht was a pogrom. The Holocaust was orders of magnitude beyond that.I was thinking of the period under the Tsars ( and including current day Ukraine). Possibly I am wrong,but I usually thought when people talked about pogroms they were usually thinking of those. They, along with Dreyfus, were a big part of the motivation for modern Zionism, or so I thought.
And those pogroms typically involved death tolls of dozens or sometimes hundreds.
So I was sloppy. I apologize.
During the Russian civil war there were gigantic slaughters of Jews in Ukraine, mainly by the Whites but I think Orlando Figes says all factions did it to some degree. The total death toll I have seen estimated at anywhere from tens to low hundreds of thousands.
I might be wrong, but leaving the Nazis aside my impression was that Oct 7 might have been one of the largest single day slaughters of Jews in modern history. Maybe not.
I’ll probably ignore other issues tonight. Laundry needs to be done.
On pogroms, I should have said I wasn’t including the Nazis. I think what they did goes way way beyond pogroms. Krystallnacht was a pogrom. The Holocaust was orders of magnitude beyond that.I was thinking of the period under the Tsars ( and including current day Ukraine). Possibly I am wrong,but I usually thought when people talked about pogroms they were usually thinking of those. They, along with Dreyfus, were a big part of the motivation for modern Zionism, or so I thought.
And those pogroms typically involved death tolls of dozens or sometimes hundreds.
So I was sloppy. I apologize.
During the Russian civil war there were gigantic slaughters of Jews in Ukraine, mainly by the Whites but I think Orlando Figes says all factions did it to some degree. The total death toll I have seen estimated at anywhere from tens to low hundreds of thousands.
I might be wrong, but leaving the Nazis aside my impression was that Oct 7 might have been one of the largest single day slaughters of Jews in modern history. Maybe not.
I’ll probably ignore other issues tonight. Laundry needs to be done.
Hartmut— I have seen the term, but can’t remember it. It was some translation of Arabic.
Hartmut— I have seen the term, but can’t remember it. It was some translation of Arabic.
You can’t understand the current attitudes in the Global South (term used reservedly here) towards the plight of Ukraine and how it plays into Chinese foreign policy without an understanding of anti-colonialism.
I seem to be exceptionally dense tonight. So Russia invades Ukraine. With the explicit intent of ruling them, in defiance of the manifest desires of the natives. And then Russia cuts off Ukrainian exports of grain, thus cutting critical food supplies to the Global South. All of which inspires the Global South to favor . . . Russia?
Is it really more important to oppose someone whose support includes (but is hardly limited to) ex-colonial powers than to oppose someone who is engaging in exactly the sort of behavior you (justifiably) resent having done to you? On top of deliberately hurting you — perhaps trying for a variation on “blame the victim”?
You can’t understand the current attitudes in the Global South (term used reservedly here) towards the plight of Ukraine and how it plays into Chinese foreign policy without an understanding of anti-colonialism.
I seem to be exceptionally dense tonight. So Russia invades Ukraine. With the explicit intent of ruling them, in defiance of the manifest desires of the natives. And then Russia cuts off Ukrainian exports of grain, thus cutting critical food supplies to the Global South. All of which inspires the Global South to favor . . . Russia?
Is it really more important to oppose someone whose support includes (but is hardly limited to) ex-colonial powers than to oppose someone who is engaging in exactly the sort of behavior you (justifiably) resent having done to you? On top of deliberately hurting you — perhaps trying for a variation on “blame the victim”?
Argh. One last clarification. As was probably obvious innnmy previous clarification, I was thinking solely of pogroms against Jews in talking about Oct 7.
The massacre of El Mozote in El Salvador ( where we were supporting the government) killed almost 1000. The military in total murdered maybe 50,000. Guatemala’s slaughters in the same time period have been called genocidal. The Indonesians killed maybe 500,000 to a million in a slaughter applauded by the US. I still have to read Vince Blevins’s book on that. So yeah, I am vaguely aware of other mass slaughters.
Now I will absolutely shut up and check the laundry.
Argh. One last clarification. As was probably obvious innnmy previous clarification, I was thinking solely of pogroms against Jews in talking about Oct 7.
The massacre of El Mozote in El Salvador ( where we were supporting the government) killed almost 1000. The military in total murdered maybe 50,000. Guatemala’s slaughters in the same time period have been called genocidal. The Indonesians killed maybe 500,000 to a million in a slaughter applauded by the US. I still have to read Vince Blevins’s book on that. So yeah, I am vaguely aware of other mass slaughters.
Now I will absolutely shut up and check the laundry.
Donald, I am envious. I have been putting of laundry all day. Even though I know it will still be there tomorrow. Sometimes, procrastination just doesn’t get it done. I guess you’ve found a better way.
Donald, I am envious. I have been putting of laundry all day. Even though I know it will still be there tomorrow. Sometimes, procrastination just doesn’t get it done. I guess you’ve found a better way.
Laundry done. Wj— I generally just do it Saturday night. Used to do it Friday.
Hartmut, here is a link to a dctir UN Gaza.
https://twitter.com/GhassanAbuSitt1/status/1713517364497514971
The acronym was given in English. WCNSF
Wounded child no surviving family.
I think I have seen this elsewhere. I thought in Arabic and then translated but maybe not
Laundry done. Wj— I generally just do it Saturday night. Used to do it Friday.
Hartmut, here is a link to a dctir UN Gaza.
https://twitter.com/GhassanAbuSitt1/status/1713517364497514971
The acronym was given in English. WCNSF
Wounded child no surviving family.
I think I have seen this elsewhere. I thought in Arabic and then translated but maybe not
I seem to be exceptionally dense tonight. So Russia invades Ukraine. With the explicit intent of ruling them, in defiance of the manifest desires of the natives. And then Russia cuts off Ukrainian exports of grain, thus cutting critical food supplies to the Global South. All of which inspires the Global South to favor . . . Russia?
If Ukraine had simply rolled over and submitted to Putin, the flow of grain would not have been interrupted. And since the war and thus the interruption of the grain flow is not likely to end soon as long as the West supports Ukraine, it’s ‘natural’ to blame the West and the stubborn Ukrainians for the problem. Not that ‘we’ are much better. ‘We’ tolerate lots of atrocities committed elsewhewre as long as it guarantees cheap goods on our markets and intervene mostly only when they interfere with the flow of those cheap goods (oil in particular). ‘We’ have tolerated or even outright installed murderous regimes all over the world because those were more favorable for the profits of ‘our’ companies and for the low prices of goods they promised (while democratic or – the horror – leftist governments were far too unreliable on that or even dared rising the prices in order that their population should get a fair share).
So, the Global South is merely pragmatic. They do not expect justice to play any role and thus calculate that Russia winning will get them what they need quicker than any vage hope of Ukraine prevailing. Or worse: If Russia gets punished, that will mainly be through sanctions including export bans on grain, natural gas etc., so a Russian defeat could perpetuate the supply shortage. Therefore: Go, Russia, go!
I seem to be exceptionally dense tonight. So Russia invades Ukraine. With the explicit intent of ruling them, in defiance of the manifest desires of the natives. And then Russia cuts off Ukrainian exports of grain, thus cutting critical food supplies to the Global South. All of which inspires the Global South to favor . . . Russia?
If Ukraine had simply rolled over and submitted to Putin, the flow of grain would not have been interrupted. And since the war and thus the interruption of the grain flow is not likely to end soon as long as the West supports Ukraine, it’s ‘natural’ to blame the West and the stubborn Ukrainians for the problem. Not that ‘we’ are much better. ‘We’ tolerate lots of atrocities committed elsewhewre as long as it guarantees cheap goods on our markets and intervene mostly only when they interfere with the flow of those cheap goods (oil in particular). ‘We’ have tolerated or even outright installed murderous regimes all over the world because those were more favorable for the profits of ‘our’ companies and for the low prices of goods they promised (while democratic or – the horror – leftist governments were far too unreliable on that or even dared rising the prices in order that their population should get a fair share).
So, the Global South is merely pragmatic. They do not expect justice to play any role and thus calculate that Russia winning will get them what they need quicker than any vage hope of Ukraine prevailing. Or worse: If Russia gets punished, that will mainly be through sanctions including export bans on grain, natural gas etc., so a Russian defeat could perpetuate the supply shortage. Therefore: Go, Russia, go!
Here’s a good article by Nicholas Kristof that sums up my view on the victims pretty well:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/21/opinion/israel-gaza-palestine-children.html
Here’s an explainer by the Economist:
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2023/10/27/why-are-so-many-of-the-victims-in-gaza-children
Here’s a good article by Nicholas Kristof that sums up my view on the victims pretty well:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/21/opinion/israel-gaza-palestine-children.html
Here’s an explainer by the Economist:
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2023/10/27/why-are-so-many-of-the-victims-in-gaza-children
Just realized the Economist article is behind a paywall, this is for free:
https://www.npr.org/2023/10/19/1206479861/israel-gaza-hamas-children-population-war-palestinians
Just realized the Economist article is behind a paywall, this is for free:
https://www.npr.org/2023/10/19/1206479861/israel-gaza-hamas-children-population-war-palestinians
I’m reluctant to speak of the war; I share GftNC’s thoughts.
The population dynamics in Gaza are extraordinary. Contrary to what npr implies, life expectancy is normal enough – a little higher than in Russia, a little lower than in the USA. But the birth rate is almost the highest in the world outside Africa.
After the Nakba in 1948, the population of Gaza was about 200 thousand, most of them refugees. In 1970 it was about 340,000. By 2000 it had reached 1 million. It’s now over 2.2 million and growing.
I’m reluctant to speak of the war; I share GftNC’s thoughts.
The population dynamics in Gaza are extraordinary. Contrary to what npr implies, life expectancy is normal enough – a little higher than in Russia, a little lower than in the USA. But the birth rate is almost the highest in the world outside Africa.
After the Nakba in 1948, the population of Gaza was about 200 thousand, most of them refugees. In 1970 it was about 340,000. By 2000 it had reached 1 million. It’s now over 2.2 million and growing.
That’s one of the fundamental dilemmas of Israel. Given the birthrates, it will have to face the question sooner rather than later, whether to stay a democracy (equal rights for non-Jewish citizens) or a Jewish state (no or second-class citizenships for non-Jews). Both at the same time will not be possible any longer in a single state. That’s why even many conservatives used to be for a two-state solution. These days the answer (from the right) seems clear: “We should get rid of democracy anyway and a combination with ethnic cleansing and keeping the complete territory suits us very well.”
And USian rightwingers look on with extreme envy.
That’s one of the fundamental dilemmas of Israel. Given the birthrates, it will have to face the question sooner rather than later, whether to stay a democracy (equal rights for non-Jewish citizens) or a Jewish state (no or second-class citizenships for non-Jews). Both at the same time will not be possible any longer in a single state. That’s why even many conservatives used to be for a two-state solution. These days the answer (from the right) seems clear: “We should get rid of democracy anyway and a combination with ethnic cleansing and keeping the complete territory suits us very well.”
And USian rightwingers look on with extreme envy.
Not trying to start a fight, but I feel like you have a very narrow conception of colonialism. Since the West was the most successful, it is often assumed that colonialism=Western colonialism, but there are actually a lot of varieties and a rather extensive literature. I’ve read some of it, primarily dealing with Asia in general and Japan in particular, and my takeaway is that there is an attempt to separate colonialism from modernization. Unfortunately, the two are entwined and it is not so simple to separate them, especially as legal and economic systems lock particular understandings and asymmetries in place.
I’m not sure how much you are taking from the Montefiore article, and I’ve not heard of him before, but looking at his other writing and his description as a pop historian (He doesn’t seem to have done any actual historical research, but seems more of a summarizer), he tends to look at history through a great man lens. I don’t want to trash him without having read his books, but looking at the reviews, he seems to ascribe to a great man theory of history and we can sufficiently understand historical trends and patters by limiting our study to that. I’m not saying that one shouldn’t, but for things like colonialism, relying on individuals or small groups of people is going to give a warped picture.
Harmut talks about the pragmatism of the Global South, and that is certainly true, but this hesitation at accepting the foregone conclusions of the West is not a new thing, I was just thinking of Radhabinod Pal, the Indian judge who voted not guilty in the Tokyo War Tribunal. Unfortunately, his ruling has been used by Japanese nationalists to claim innocence, but this article discusses how his ruling actually sets out those issues.
https://apjjf.org/2011/9/44/Nakajima-Takeshi/3627/article.html
This is not to apply these concepts to Hamas, just to point out that these things are not really so cut and dried.
Not trying to start a fight, but I feel like you have a very narrow conception of colonialism. Since the West was the most successful, it is often assumed that colonialism=Western colonialism, but there are actually a lot of varieties and a rather extensive literature. I’ve read some of it, primarily dealing with Asia in general and Japan in particular, and my takeaway is that there is an attempt to separate colonialism from modernization. Unfortunately, the two are entwined and it is not so simple to separate them, especially as legal and economic systems lock particular understandings and asymmetries in place.
I’m not sure how much you are taking from the Montefiore article, and I’ve not heard of him before, but looking at his other writing and his description as a pop historian (He doesn’t seem to have done any actual historical research, but seems more of a summarizer), he tends to look at history through a great man lens. I don’t want to trash him without having read his books, but looking at the reviews, he seems to ascribe to a great man theory of history and we can sufficiently understand historical trends and patters by limiting our study to that. I’m not saying that one shouldn’t, but for things like colonialism, relying on individuals or small groups of people is going to give a warped picture.
Harmut talks about the pragmatism of the Global South, and that is certainly true, but this hesitation at accepting the foregone conclusions of the West is not a new thing, I was just thinking of Radhabinod Pal, the Indian judge who voted not guilty in the Tokyo War Tribunal. Unfortunately, his ruling has been used by Japanese nationalists to claim innocence, but this article discusses how his ruling actually sets out those issues.
https://apjjf.org/2011/9/44/Nakajima-Takeshi/3627/article.html
This is not to apply these concepts to Hamas, just to point out that these things are not really so cut and dried.
“ I feel like you have a very narrow conception of colonialism.“
Who is that for? I don’t know if it is me.I doubt anyone here needs to be told that Japanese colonialism was horrific— I am not a big fan of the idea that the West is some uniquely evil expansionist culture. I also think that it helps understand things like the Israeli Palestinian issue if we take a more granular approach to the past. The interaction with the Native Americans involved atrocities on both sides. The Comanche were for a long time the dominant military power in their region. People in a given time and place are not necessarily aware of the good vs evil grand narratives that a Howard Zinn might write later.
Got a funeral to attend and other things going on.
“ I feel like you have a very narrow conception of colonialism.“
Who is that for? I don’t know if it is me.I doubt anyone here needs to be told that Japanese colonialism was horrific— I am not a big fan of the idea that the West is some uniquely evil expansionist culture. I also think that it helps understand things like the Israeli Palestinian issue if we take a more granular approach to the past. The interaction with the Native Americans involved atrocities on both sides. The Comanche were for a long time the dominant military power in their region. People in a given time and place are not necessarily aware of the good vs evil grand narratives that a Howard Zinn might write later.
Got a funeral to attend and other things going on.
Oh,, here is a thread where Erik Loomis brushes off the murder of children by Nat Turner.
https://twitter.com/ErikLoomis/status/1693666259408126252
I don’t know what he would say about Oct 7. Not the same situation, of course, but similar in that it raises the question as to whether the oppressed have a license to do anything. Loomis gets to play brave transgressive radical about things that happened nearly 200 years ago.
Going now.
Oh,, here is a thread where Erik Loomis brushes off the murder of children by Nat Turner.
https://twitter.com/ErikLoomis/status/1693666259408126252
I don’t know what he would say about Oct 7. Not the same situation, of course, but similar in that it raises the question as to whether the oppressed have a license to do anything. Loomis gets to play brave transgressive radical about things that happened nearly 200 years ago.
Going now.
Not trying to start a fight, but I feel like you have a very narrow conception of colonialism.
***
Who is that for?
It could be me, since I introduced the Montefiore piece, or maybe wj who went into the colonialism argument a bit. I notice that lj prefers to talk about what he has gathered about SSM’s background and practice (obviously important), rather than what he says (in my view at least as important). I had a very quick look into him, and FWIW found this:
Q: Can you tell us a little more about how you research? Has the process changed over the years?
A: My first three big history books were based on archival research so I simply went to the archives in Moscow, Tbilisi, London and Paris amongst others. Now my books are more based on synthesis and wide reading, but I always use old fashioned notecards.
Q: The common phrase is that history is written by the victors. Do you think this is true?
A: Yes, often, but it is also frequently written by the survivors and victims who outlive the victors.
https://aspectsofhistory.com/author_interviews/simon-sebag-montefiore/
Not trying to start a fight, but I feel like you have a very narrow conception of colonialism.
***
Who is that for?
It could be me, since I introduced the Montefiore piece, or maybe wj who went into the colonialism argument a bit. I notice that lj prefers to talk about what he has gathered about SSM’s background and practice (obviously important), rather than what he says (in my view at least as important). I had a very quick look into him, and FWIW found this:
Q: Can you tell us a little more about how you research? Has the process changed over the years?
A: My first three big history books were based on archival research so I simply went to the archives in Moscow, Tbilisi, London and Paris amongst others. Now my books are more based on synthesis and wide reading, but I always use old fashioned notecards.
Q: The common phrase is that history is written by the victors. Do you think this is true?
A: Yes, often, but it is also frequently written by the survivors and victims who outlive the victors.
https://aspectsofhistory.com/author_interviews/simon-sebag-montefiore/
While I think of it, and I think it is important that I say this having put myself in the position of objector to incorrect terminology, I have been bothered in retrospect by proposing that instead of “genocide” (which it isn’t) the Israeli actions in Gaza could be called “indiscriminate mass murder”. On second thoughts, I don’t believe this: “murder” necessarily involves the intention to kill the victim. I think it is more correct to call their actions “indiscriminate mass killing of civilians”. To my mind, this is exactly right, and correctly conveys the necessary information that the perpetrator is perfectly aware that as a result of their actions great numbers of innocent civilians will die.
Anybody else’s mileage may vary: I care that the language used would, for just one example, stand up in court .
While I think of it, and I think it is important that I say this having put myself in the position of objector to incorrect terminology, I have been bothered in retrospect by proposing that instead of “genocide” (which it isn’t) the Israeli actions in Gaza could be called “indiscriminate mass murder”. On second thoughts, I don’t believe this: “murder” necessarily involves the intention to kill the victim. I think it is more correct to call their actions “indiscriminate mass killing of civilians”. To my mind, this is exactly right, and correctly conveys the necessary information that the perpetrator is perfectly aware that as a result of their actions great numbers of innocent civilians will die.
Anybody else’s mileage may vary: I care that the language used would, for just one example, stand up in court .
“ I feel like you have a very narrow conception of colonialism.“
Who is that for? I don’t know if it is me.
Actually, that was for wj, who wrote
I’m reluctant to label the founding of Israel as colonialism. At minimum, that makes it too easy to ignore inconvenient facts which do not fit the narrative.
As for looking at Montefiore’s process, I don’t want to make this about the writer, but it seems to me that a historian is not simply someone who goes into an archive, looks up some things and summarizes them, it is a person who is familiar with the ideas of others and the larger theories about the event(s) being researched. I am reminded of Newt Gingrich’s PhD thesis.
https://tropicsofmeta.com/2016/07/14/newts-predictably-gonzo-dissertation-belgian-colonialism-for-the-win/
While I don’t mean to go nuclear on Montefiore by putting him in a barrel with Newt, but I wonder how many people thought ‘an, Montefiore is a historian, so he must have some expert knowledge about this’ when he’s actually just like any of us, reaching into our own experiences and trying to draw conclusions.
“ I feel like you have a very narrow conception of colonialism.“
Who is that for? I don’t know if it is me.
Actually, that was for wj, who wrote
I’m reluctant to label the founding of Israel as colonialism. At minimum, that makes it too easy to ignore inconvenient facts which do not fit the narrative.
As for looking at Montefiore’s process, I don’t want to make this about the writer, but it seems to me that a historian is not simply someone who goes into an archive, looks up some things and summarizes them, it is a person who is familiar with the ideas of others and the larger theories about the event(s) being researched. I am reminded of Newt Gingrich’s PhD thesis.
https://tropicsofmeta.com/2016/07/14/newts-predictably-gonzo-dissertation-belgian-colonialism-for-the-win/
While I don’t mean to go nuclear on Montefiore by putting him in a barrel with Newt, but I wonder how many people thought ‘an, Montefiore is a historian, so he must have some expert knowledge about this’ when he’s actually just like any of us, reaching into our own experiences and trying to draw conclusions.
I think Israel is deliberately killing civilians now because they shoot unarmed demonstrators in peacetime. They aren’t going to be better now. It’s not exactly a new thing in Israel’s history, any more than terrorism is something new on the Palestinian side. I can’t prove it. It just makes sense given how they act in peace.
Also, Western countries did it deliberately in WW 2 and in Korea. The Israeli ambassador to the UK invoked Dresden as a model in an interview with Sky News. I watched it on YouTube. She also invoked Mosul where she said 100,000 died when the coalition defeated ISIS,—actually more like 10,000, but it shows where her mind was at.
Westerners in the modern era tend to have a bit of doublethink going on when discussing civilian casualties. No, I don’t mean you, Gftnc. We disagree on this but I am thinking of people like the amabasssdor who says she doesn’t want to kill civilians and then shows her complete willingness to do it. Her words probably match your description— she is willing to bomb indiscriminately. But I think the people in charge are bombing homes and apartments to kill people, just like they cut the power. It is punishment.
Herzog said earlier there were no innocent civilians in Gaza because they could have overthrown Hamas, which is exactly what a terrorist would say. So there’s a mindset there and probably also some doublethink.
And the Israeli far right — well, to me they seem like Hamas.
I think Israel is deliberately killing civilians now because they shoot unarmed demonstrators in peacetime. They aren’t going to be better now. It’s not exactly a new thing in Israel’s history, any more than terrorism is something new on the Palestinian side. I can’t prove it. It just makes sense given how they act in peace.
Also, Western countries did it deliberately in WW 2 and in Korea. The Israeli ambassador to the UK invoked Dresden as a model in an interview with Sky News. I watched it on YouTube. She also invoked Mosul where she said 100,000 died when the coalition defeated ISIS,—actually more like 10,000, but it shows where her mind was at.
Westerners in the modern era tend to have a bit of doublethink going on when discussing civilian casualties. No, I don’t mean you, Gftnc. We disagree on this but I am thinking of people like the amabasssdor who says she doesn’t want to kill civilians and then shows her complete willingness to do it. Her words probably match your description— she is willing to bomb indiscriminately. But I think the people in charge are bombing homes and apartments to kill people, just like they cut the power. It is punishment.
Herzog said earlier there were no innocent civilians in Gaza because they could have overthrown Hamas, which is exactly what a terrorist would say. So there’s a mindset there and probably also some doublethink.
And the Israeli far right — well, to me they seem like Hamas.
Okay,LJ.
Btw, is there an open thread? I was about to post a link to something about Biden’s political chances which is partly about the wars but also about his unpopularity on domestic issues ( which I am not sure I get exactly) but that definitely doesn’t belong here.
Gotta go anyway. Antiwar zoom meeting. I hate zoom meetings. Hate meetings, come to think of it.
Okay,LJ.
Btw, is there an open thread? I was about to post a link to something about Biden’s political chances which is partly about the wars but also about his unpopularity on domestic issues ( which I am not sure I get exactly) but that definitely doesn’t belong here.
Gotta go anyway. Antiwar zoom meeting. I hate zoom meetings. Hate meetings, come to think of it.
I’ll open one up now.
I’ll open one up now.
Words have meanings and, as I have said before in less tortured situations, we must fight to retain the means to have meaningful discussion.
First, the meanings of words change. (And as you imply in your comment about standing up in court, useful meanings differ in different contexts.)
You can’t stop the process of language change any more than you can stop the tides. If you want to name the definition you want to use and have a discussion around that, fine, but I don’t see that as having happened here. And even after a discussion people might not agree, either about which definition the discussion should revolve around or whether the current situation meets a particular definition.
Secondly, speaking of ill-used words, one of my own hobbyhorses and one of the most carelessly used words in the language is “we.” Especially when followed by “must.” And even more when “fight” is added on. My feeling is apparently shared even beyond the joke about Tonto and the Lone Ranger.
In any case, in this context, you fight your battles, I’ll fight mine. Sometimes they’ll be the same battle, sometimes not.
Anybody else’s mileage may vary: I care that the language used would, for just one example, stand up in court .
My mileage varies pretty widely from that.
When it’s important for someone to specify what definition they’re using, then hopefully they will, and, as I said above, good discussion and more clarity may follow. But this is not a court of law, and in general I don’t intend to hold myself to either the vocabulary or the debate practices of the courtroom.
As I have said before in another context.
*****
I found the Wikipedia article on ethnic cleansing interesting in relation to definitions.
Words have meanings and, as I have said before in less tortured situations, we must fight to retain the means to have meaningful discussion.
First, the meanings of words change. (And as you imply in your comment about standing up in court, useful meanings differ in different contexts.)
You can’t stop the process of language change any more than you can stop the tides. If you want to name the definition you want to use and have a discussion around that, fine, but I don’t see that as having happened here. And even after a discussion people might not agree, either about which definition the discussion should revolve around or whether the current situation meets a particular definition.
Secondly, speaking of ill-used words, one of my own hobbyhorses and one of the most carelessly used words in the language is “we.” Especially when followed by “must.” And even more when “fight” is added on. My feeling is apparently shared even beyond the joke about Tonto and the Lone Ranger.
In any case, in this context, you fight your battles, I’ll fight mine. Sometimes they’ll be the same battle, sometimes not.
Anybody else’s mileage may vary: I care that the language used would, for just one example, stand up in court .
My mileage varies pretty widely from that.
When it’s important for someone to specify what definition they’re using, then hopefully they will, and, as I said above, good discussion and more clarity may follow. But this is not a court of law, and in general I don’t intend to hold myself to either the vocabulary or the debate practices of the courtroom.
As I have said before in another context.
*****
I found the Wikipedia article on ethnic cleansing interesting in relation to definitions.
wj – Is it really more important to oppose someone whose support includes (but is hardly limited to) ex-colonial powers than to oppose someone who is engaging in exactly the sort of behavior you (justifiably) resent having done to you? On top of deliberately hurting you — perhaps trying for a variation on “blame the victim”?
Is this really how you are understanding the situation? It seems quite reductive to me. Hartmut’s characterization of the Global South reading of the situation seems more in line with the popular thinking outside of North America and Europe. And whether or not I think that their views are productive or any less reductive than the representations of the conflict in “Western” media, I think it’s important to keep this perception of the West’s double standards in mind.
Back to my wish for more granularity where “anti-colonialism” is evoked in our conversation here, I think it’s a perfectly reasonable request that we not broad brush entire approaches to thinking about politics and history in a way that reduces them to an easily demonizable caricature. I’ve already seen that happen with “anti-racist,” “CRT,” “woke,” “marxist,” “postmodern,” etc. in ways that demonstrate that the person doing the demonizing has no real understanding of what these things are, and is mostly seeking to marginalize voices that they find disruptive to their own political goals.
There are many brilliant scholars who come from former colonies who have spent their lives trying to respond to the received narratives of history that they were taught, which put them in a box and limited the sort of responses and critiques they were allowed to put forth. Their critical responses and methodologies for opening up a space for critical colonial voices forms the body of what we call postcolonial, or anti-colonial, or decolonial theory. These three terms often get used interchangeably, and there is overlap in approach and methodology, but the terms also reveal some interesting disconnects and differences in approach or methodology.
I want to encourage you all to spend a bit of time trying to come to terms with the actual substance of these scholars’ critiques and understanding the reasons why they felt compelled to respond in the ways that they have before the labels we use silence them once again through guilt by association.
I think it is possible to listen while also maintaining a critical perspective. One can learn a lot from watching, say, The Battle of Algiers, and understand the perspective of Ali La Pointe, and even sympathize with his motivations, while also condemning their attacks on non-combatants.
wj – Is it really more important to oppose someone whose support includes (but is hardly limited to) ex-colonial powers than to oppose someone who is engaging in exactly the sort of behavior you (justifiably) resent having done to you? On top of deliberately hurting you — perhaps trying for a variation on “blame the victim”?
Is this really how you are understanding the situation? It seems quite reductive to me. Hartmut’s characterization of the Global South reading of the situation seems more in line with the popular thinking outside of North America and Europe. And whether or not I think that their views are productive or any less reductive than the representations of the conflict in “Western” media, I think it’s important to keep this perception of the West’s double standards in mind.
Back to my wish for more granularity where “anti-colonialism” is evoked in our conversation here, I think it’s a perfectly reasonable request that we not broad brush entire approaches to thinking about politics and history in a way that reduces them to an easily demonizable caricature. I’ve already seen that happen with “anti-racist,” “CRT,” “woke,” “marxist,” “postmodern,” etc. in ways that demonstrate that the person doing the demonizing has no real understanding of what these things are, and is mostly seeking to marginalize voices that they find disruptive to their own political goals.
There are many brilliant scholars who come from former colonies who have spent their lives trying to respond to the received narratives of history that they were taught, which put them in a box and limited the sort of responses and critiques they were allowed to put forth. Their critical responses and methodologies for opening up a space for critical colonial voices forms the body of what we call postcolonial, or anti-colonial, or decolonial theory. These three terms often get used interchangeably, and there is overlap in approach and methodology, but the terms also reveal some interesting disconnects and differences in approach or methodology.
I want to encourage you all to spend a bit of time trying to come to terms with the actual substance of these scholars’ critiques and understanding the reasons why they felt compelled to respond in the ways that they have before the labels we use silence them once again through guilt by association.
I think it is possible to listen while also maintaining a critical perspective. One can learn a lot from watching, say, The Battle of Algiers, and understand the perspective of Ali La Pointe, and even sympathize with his motivations, while also condemning their attacks on non-combatants.
we must fight to retain the means to have meaningful discussion.
Obviously, anybody who doesn’t believe in fighting, or striving, to retain the means to have meaningful discussion is interesting to hear from! And, as clarification (although I doubt if many here need it), for anybody who objects to the construction “we must fight” in such a case, I mean of course that in my opinion it is the sign of people of goodwill that they resist the pull of emotional (or indeed ideological) manipulation to popularise and normalise the degradation of language, with the consequent loss of the ability to accurately express meaning.
You can’t stop language from changing, that’s for sure, but two of the most famous genocides in recent history (the Armenian and the holocaust) consisting of course of the attempted extermination of entire peoples, took place in the last century or so, and it seems a little soon to allow the word to refer to any of the regrettably frequent appalling massacres the world witnesses. What then would we call the attempted extermination of entire peoples? Myself, I do not favour “ethnic cleansing” because of its (admittedly openly and purposefully used) euphemism, but each to their own.
we must fight to retain the means to have meaningful discussion.
Obviously, anybody who doesn’t believe in fighting, or striving, to retain the means to have meaningful discussion is interesting to hear from! And, as clarification (although I doubt if many here need it), for anybody who objects to the construction “we must fight” in such a case, I mean of course that in my opinion it is the sign of people of goodwill that they resist the pull of emotional (or indeed ideological) manipulation to popularise and normalise the degradation of language, with the consequent loss of the ability to accurately express meaning.
You can’t stop language from changing, that’s for sure, but two of the most famous genocides in recent history (the Armenian and the holocaust) consisting of course of the attempted extermination of entire peoples, took place in the last century or so, and it seems a little soon to allow the word to refer to any of the regrettably frequent appalling massacres the world witnesses. What then would we call the attempted extermination of entire peoples? Myself, I do not favour “ethnic cleansing” because of its (admittedly openly and purposefully used) euphemism, but each to their own.
Obviously, anybody who doesn’t believe in fighting, or striving, to retain the means to have meaningful discussion is interesting to hear from!
That is not what I said, and it is not what I meant. My comment was about the fact that I disagree with you about what those means might be, which is a separate question.
Twisting people’s words also gets in the way of meaningful discussion.
Obviously, anybody who doesn’t believe in fighting, or striving, to retain the means to have meaningful discussion is interesting to hear from!
That is not what I said, and it is not what I meant. My comment was about the fact that I disagree with you about what those means might be, which is a separate question.
Twisting people’s words also gets in the way of meaningful discussion.
But Janie, it was that very sentence you specifically objected to! Disagreeing about the means would never be problematic, as far as I can see, it would just be a natural part of the discussion.
I think calling that “twisting people’s words” is extremely unfair.
However, I do know from past discussions that you have a particular aversion to that particular construction, interpreting it as pressure to, as it were, go along with the sentiment (often self-righteous) of the person using it. Whereas for me, it is a form of words signifying a deeply held (but perfectly arguable-with) conviction. If, for example, you had said to me “I don’t think that focussing on the exact meaning of the word genocide helps to retain the means to have a meaningful discussion about this” I would disagree with you, but so what – that’s one of the things we do here. But that was not what you said.
But Janie, it was that very sentence you specifically objected to! Disagreeing about the means would never be problematic, as far as I can see, it would just be a natural part of the discussion.
I think calling that “twisting people’s words” is extremely unfair.
However, I do know from past discussions that you have a particular aversion to that particular construction, interpreting it as pressure to, as it were, go along with the sentiment (often self-righteous) of the person using it. Whereas for me, it is a form of words signifying a deeply held (but perfectly arguable-with) conviction. If, for example, you had said to me “I don’t think that focussing on the exact meaning of the word genocide helps to retain the means to have a meaningful discussion about this” I would disagree with you, but so what – that’s one of the things we do here. But that was not what you said.
For clarification, I quoted GftNC:
Words have meanings and, as I have said before in less tortured situations, we must fight to retain the means to have meaningful discussion.
I think there’s a hidden assumption in there, a variation on presuming the conclusion (which I am too tired to tease out), which I think facilitated GftNC’s being able to misconstrue what I meant. A misinterpretation that I did not anticipate, unfortunately.
My response was an attempt to say that far from words being fixed, and all of us “people of goodwill” using them the same way and understanding the same things by them, sometimes, in order to have a meaningful discussion, we have to discuss the meanings of words first, and agree on what definition we’re going to use. That, I think, is a more fundamental sine qua non of “meaningful discussion” than assuming we already know what the nailed down meanings of words are.
*****
Also as to this:
Myself, I do not favour “ethnic cleansing” because of its (admittedly openly and purposefully used) euphemism, but each to their own.
“To each their own” implies that I favor the phrase “ethnic cleansing.” I never said that, either. But the wiki includes some debate on whether the phrase should even be used, and that is part of the same question of definitions.
For clarification, I quoted GftNC:
Words have meanings and, as I have said before in less tortured situations, we must fight to retain the means to have meaningful discussion.
I think there’s a hidden assumption in there, a variation on presuming the conclusion (which I am too tired to tease out), which I think facilitated GftNC’s being able to misconstrue what I meant. A misinterpretation that I did not anticipate, unfortunately.
My response was an attempt to say that far from words being fixed, and all of us “people of goodwill” using them the same way and understanding the same things by them, sometimes, in order to have a meaningful discussion, we have to discuss the meanings of words first, and agree on what definition we’re going to use. That, I think, is a more fundamental sine qua non of “meaningful discussion” than assuming we already know what the nailed down meanings of words are.
*****
Also as to this:
Myself, I do not favour “ethnic cleansing” because of its (admittedly openly and purposefully used) euphemism, but each to their own.
“To each their own” implies that I favor the phrase “ethnic cleansing.” I never said that, either. But the wiki includes some debate on whether the phrase should even be used, and that is part of the same question of definitions.
I went back to see something I said about this several hours ago. It was:
If we lose the true meanings of words, we eventually lose even the ability to think clearly.
I mean, this seems so very obvious to me as to be axiomatic. Would you have objected to that too? How about “If people lose the true meanings of words, they eventually lose even the ability to think clearly?” That disposes of the dreaded “we”, at any rate.
I went back to see something I said about this several hours ago. It was:
If we lose the true meanings of words, we eventually lose even the ability to think clearly.
I mean, this seems so very obvious to me as to be axiomatic. Would you have objected to that too? How about “If people lose the true meanings of words, they eventually lose even the ability to think clearly?” That disposes of the dreaded “we”, at any rate.
No, I wasn’t assuming that you favoured the phrase “ethnic cleansing”, although I see how it looks like that. It just seemed the only other expression on offer at the time…Anyway, I don’t want to fight with you. Times are hard enough already.
No, I wasn’t assuming that you favoured the phrase “ethnic cleansing”, although I see how it looks like that. It just seemed the only other expression on offer at the time…Anyway, I don’t want to fight with you. Times are hard enough already.
My 9:05 was composed before I saw GftNC’s 9:00.
That’s all I’m going to say.
My 9:05 was composed before I saw GftNC’s 9:00.
That’s all I’m going to say.
The word genocide is overused in my personal opinion, but the legal definition is pretty broad. Here is an article arguing fir using the word about Gaza.
https://jewishcurrents.org/a-textbook-case-of-genocide
It’s become standard on the antiwar left to use it here. At my antiwar meeting people were using it on the signs they were planning to carry.
We probably need some term like mass killings as Gftnc said as something intermediate between, um, war crimes ( which nowadays seems almost tame) and genocide and save genocide for when very large percentages of a group are killed, but it seems “ genocide” is the word people reach for and it’s been that way for decades.
I sometimes used to say Yemen was near genocidal, thinking if the giant famine death toll caused by the blockade. I was adhering to my own private atrocity scale. It was really bad, but a step below Rwanda level or Nazi level crimes. But nobody followed my lead.
“ Crimes against humanity “ is sometimes used and to me sounds like something really bad, but not necessarily genocide. But I don’t know the legal meaning. Will look up after I post this.
The word genocide is overused in my personal opinion, but the legal definition is pretty broad. Here is an article arguing fir using the word about Gaza.
https://jewishcurrents.org/a-textbook-case-of-genocide
It’s become standard on the antiwar left to use it here. At my antiwar meeting people were using it on the signs they were planning to carry.
We probably need some term like mass killings as Gftnc said as something intermediate between, um, war crimes ( which nowadays seems almost tame) and genocide and save genocide for when very large percentages of a group are killed, but it seems “ genocide” is the word people reach for and it’s been that way for decades.
I sometimes used to say Yemen was near genocidal, thinking if the giant famine death toll caused by the blockade. I was adhering to my own private atrocity scale. It was really bad, but a step below Rwanda level or Nazi level crimes. But nobody followed my lead.
“ Crimes against humanity “ is sometimes used and to me sounds like something really bad, but not necessarily genocide. But I don’t know the legal meaning. Will look up after I post this.
And here is a piece on apartheid and its application to Israel. In recent years HRW, Amnesty International and B’Tselem have all decided to apply it to Israel.
https://jewishcurrents.org/understanding-apartheid
And here is a piece on apartheid and its application to Israel. In recent years HRW, Amnesty International and B’Tselem have all decided to apply it to Israel.
https://jewishcurrents.org/understanding-apartheid
I guess it was not all I was going to say.
If people lose the true meanings of words, they eventually lose even the ability to think clearly?
Yes, I would and did object to that as well (whether with “we” or “people”), rather profoundly, but it really comes under everything else I’ve already said.
Once again it seems to me that there’s something missing in the logic of the sentence, some gap where it is just assumed that the first part entails the second part.
But to me, “true meanings” is a slippery concept, just like the words they are alleged to apply to. Even in court! Or else we would need far fewer courtrooms and judges.
There’s a wonderful passage in one of Chomsky’s books about what the word “London” means — I probably don’t have the book anymore, and probably wouldn’t be able to find it in the attic even if I had it, and I’m not at home anyhow. Maybe lj has the book and can find the passage — the book is called New horizons in the study of language and mind.
To go back to the sentence I quoted: if people have some idea of what *they* understand a word to mean, I would never say that they can’t think clearly just because that isn’t what you or I or Bryan Garner understand the word to mean. If words had “true meanings,” language would be math.
And I say that as a well-known stickler about language in many ways.
Meanwhile, if everyone in the discussion of the war is willing to use your definition, fine. I should have stayed out of it.
I guess it was not all I was going to say.
If people lose the true meanings of words, they eventually lose even the ability to think clearly?
Yes, I would and did object to that as well (whether with “we” or “people”), rather profoundly, but it really comes under everything else I’ve already said.
Once again it seems to me that there’s something missing in the logic of the sentence, some gap where it is just assumed that the first part entails the second part.
But to me, “true meanings” is a slippery concept, just like the words they are alleged to apply to. Even in court! Or else we would need far fewer courtrooms and judges.
There’s a wonderful passage in one of Chomsky’s books about what the word “London” means — I probably don’t have the book anymore, and probably wouldn’t be able to find it in the attic even if I had it, and I’m not at home anyhow. Maybe lj has the book and can find the passage — the book is called New horizons in the study of language and mind.
To go back to the sentence I quoted: if people have some idea of what *they* understand a word to mean, I would never say that they can’t think clearly just because that isn’t what you or I or Bryan Garner understand the word to mean. If words had “true meanings,” language would be math.
And I say that as a well-known stickler about language in many ways.
Meanwhile, if everyone in the discussion of the war is willing to use your definition, fine. I should have stayed out of it.
(again, cross-posted — this time with Donald — but i have to stop now, I have other engagements atm)
(again, cross-posted — this time with Donald — but i have to stop now, I have other engagements atm)
Donald, I don’t know if you saw it earlier in the thread, but personally I’ve never had a problem with the use of “apartheid” in the Israeli context. I think it’s a reasonable analogy.
Donald, I don’t know if you saw it earlier in the thread, but personally I’ve never had a problem with the use of “apartheid” in the Israeli context. I think it’s a reasonable analogy.
Hi Gftnc. I missed that. This was a busy day for me.
Another article. This one about Israeli right wanting to do a second Nakba.
Oct 7 threw things back decades. Brought out the worst in almost everyone.
Hi Gftnc. I missed that. This was a busy day for me.
Another article. This one about Israeli right wanting to do a second Nakba.
Oct 7 threw things back decades. Brought out the worst in almost everyone.
Forgot link. Definitely need to go offline now.
https://www.vox.com/world-politics/23933707/israel-palestine-hamas-gaza-nakba-displacement-refugees-history
Forgot link. Definitely need to go offline now.
https://www.vox.com/world-politics/23933707/israel-palestine-hamas-gaza-nakba-displacement-refugees-history
Words are tricky things. They have meanings, but also connotations, and resonances. They change their faces as contexts and audiences change. They absolutely have meanings, but any attempt to pin a signifier securely to its signified is going to end in frustration.
People who speak of Israel participating in the genocide of the Palestinians are not speaking in a legal register. They are speaking out of frustration at the way that a people so marked and defined by genocide can become so indifferent to the mass suffering of another people at their political hand. It’s like a note on one string striking a sympathetic vibration in another tuned to a different, but consonant note. Legal language does its best to damp the other strings and seek to true the single note. Political discourse is a mass of undamped strings.
Words are tricky things. They have meanings, but also connotations, and resonances. They change their faces as contexts and audiences change. They absolutely have meanings, but any attempt to pin a signifier securely to its signified is going to end in frustration.
People who speak of Israel participating in the genocide of the Palestinians are not speaking in a legal register. They are speaking out of frustration at the way that a people so marked and defined by genocide can become so indifferent to the mass suffering of another people at their political hand. It’s like a note on one string striking a sympathetic vibration in another tuned to a different, but consonant note. Legal language does its best to damp the other strings and seek to true the single note. Political discourse is a mass of undamped strings.
I think a major point about ‘genocide’ is that by now it has two disctinct legal meanings:
1) the physical extermination of a group/entity by killing the members and/or preventing their reproduction.
2) the cultural extinction of a group by systematic destruction of the defining parts of the culture.
The latter includes for example programs of taking children away from their parents to prevent them from inheriting the culture (e.g. done in Australia or Canada) and suppressing the expression of the culture (e.g. the suppression of Sami culture in Northern Scandinavia or Scottish culture after Culloden) including use of the language.
Turkey used to have a policy of simply denying that Kurds exist (defining them as ‘mountain Turks’)
In Israel there have always been ideas like that concerniug the Palestinians. Starting by classifying them as simply Arabs (who could be moved to other Arabian countries) thus denying them a distinct cultural identity per se; destroying settlements and planting forests above to give the impression that there never was a non-Jewish population there in the first place etc.
This would fit the definition of an attempted cultural genocide without physical extermination (‘merely’ expulsion).
But there are also the Chivingtons-in-spirit that think that the ‘problem’ requires a physical extermination* and anything else is at best temporary. And the killing of children is in case of doubt more important than that of adults since ‘just’ killing the adults leaves children thirsting for revenge.
The extreme Right in Israel is more an more open about favoring a physical genocide, not content anymore with the previous salami tactics of just a cultural one.
The physical genocides of the 20th century had cultural precursors. In the case of the Holocaust we even have a case where a ‘peaceful’ one (increasing volontary assimilation and secularisation of Jews in Germany) was seen as a danger by those that were ‘anti-semitic’ not just ‘anti-judaist’ (and who actually appropriated the linguistic term ‘semitic’ to distinguish between ‘race’ and ‘culture’).
In Israel there is an extremist movement that has in essence the same thoughts and e.g. sees mixed marriages between Palestinians and Jews as a mortal danger to their idea of a racially defined Jewish ethno-state. And, unfortunately, those are a core constituency of some Israeli rightwing parties (the same way that some GOPsters court outright neo-nazis).
‘Arab’ antisemitism, again unfortunately, got groomed by the original Nazis and they found their willing helpers (e.g. in the person of the grand mufti of Jerusalem) who ‘translated’ it and fused it with traditional (Quranic) anti-Jewish prejudices. Post-WW2 that became a tool of opportunistic politicians all over the region.
And now we have a mutually supportive mess and no easy way out.
*as Stalin put it**: The people are the problem. No people, no problem.
** I do not know whether this is attributed or a proven quote.
I think a major point about ‘genocide’ is that by now it has two disctinct legal meanings:
1) the physical extermination of a group/entity by killing the members and/or preventing their reproduction.
2) the cultural extinction of a group by systematic destruction of the defining parts of the culture.
The latter includes for example programs of taking children away from their parents to prevent them from inheriting the culture (e.g. done in Australia or Canada) and suppressing the expression of the culture (e.g. the suppression of Sami culture in Northern Scandinavia or Scottish culture after Culloden) including use of the language.
Turkey used to have a policy of simply denying that Kurds exist (defining them as ‘mountain Turks’)
In Israel there have always been ideas like that concerniug the Palestinians. Starting by classifying them as simply Arabs (who could be moved to other Arabian countries) thus denying them a distinct cultural identity per se; destroying settlements and planting forests above to give the impression that there never was a non-Jewish population there in the first place etc.
This would fit the definition of an attempted cultural genocide without physical extermination (‘merely’ expulsion).
But there are also the Chivingtons-in-spirit that think that the ‘problem’ requires a physical extermination* and anything else is at best temporary. And the killing of children is in case of doubt more important than that of adults since ‘just’ killing the adults leaves children thirsting for revenge.
The extreme Right in Israel is more an more open about favoring a physical genocide, not content anymore with the previous salami tactics of just a cultural one.
The physical genocides of the 20th century had cultural precursors. In the case of the Holocaust we even have a case where a ‘peaceful’ one (increasing volontary assimilation and secularisation of Jews in Germany) was seen as a danger by those that were ‘anti-semitic’ not just ‘anti-judaist’ (and who actually appropriated the linguistic term ‘semitic’ to distinguish between ‘race’ and ‘culture’).
In Israel there is an extremist movement that has in essence the same thoughts and e.g. sees mixed marriages between Palestinians and Jews as a mortal danger to their idea of a racially defined Jewish ethno-state. And, unfortunately, those are a core constituency of some Israeli rightwing parties (the same way that some GOPsters court outright neo-nazis).
‘Arab’ antisemitism, again unfortunately, got groomed by the original Nazis and they found their willing helpers (e.g. in the person of the grand mufti of Jerusalem) who ‘translated’ it and fused it with traditional (Quranic) anti-Jewish prejudices. Post-WW2 that became a tool of opportunistic politicians all over the region.
And now we have a mutually supportive mess and no easy way out.
*as Stalin put it**: The people are the problem. No people, no problem.
** I do not know whether this is attributed or a proven quote.
A bit late, just getting to this now before dinner.
Janie, thanks to the wonders of Google books, you (and others) can read Chomsky’s quote here I think)
https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=johr4hURMPgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=New+horizons+in+the+study+of+language+and+mind&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=London&f=false
and click on page 37. There’s a lot to discuss about that, and Chomsky relegates that to ‘I-language’, which is not what lingustics is supposed to investigate (sez he). That relegation of the messy facts of meaning to a separate category is why a lot of linguistics disagree with Chomskyan linguistics, but in terms of identifying how terms that might seen pretty concrete are actually rather slippery, the passage is pretty good. I may return to this in a post.
And colonialism. Again, not trying to pile on wj, but I’d echo nous’ request that you consider the discourse surrounding colonialism not as simply a single narrative, but a complex set of histories. Anti/post/decolonial studies is new enough that there is not a single narrative. As nous points out, a lot of this is scholars from former colonies, which is why the American discourse on this is not as rich: We didn’t technically have colonies. This brings up a whole pot of issues that I won’t go into here, but it seems understandable to me that a South American scholar’s understanding of what colonialism means will be different from an Indian scholars, which would be different from an Indonesian which would be different from a scholar from Senegal. I can understand hesitation at applying the model to Israel without carefully considering all the questions, but when you say
At minimum, that makes it too easy to ignore inconvenient facts which do not fit the narrative.
This sounds like you are suggesting that the previous narrative, that the colonizing powers had the best interests of the colonized in mind, doesn’t ignore those inconvenient facts. Even if you want to argue that it is a singular narrative, (I don’t believe it is) it still is bringing a lot of facts to the table that need to be seen.
I’d love to give you a good reference to read, but I think it is impossible because issues that are touched by colonialism are too many to cover. Museum collections, language and grammar, sports, music, food, dress, the list goes on and on. I did find this “Anti-colonial thought and global social theory”
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsoc.2023.1143776/full
which has a lot of references to track down.
A bit late, just getting to this now before dinner.
Janie, thanks to the wonders of Google books, you (and others) can read Chomsky’s quote here I think)
https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=johr4hURMPgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=New+horizons+in+the+study+of+language+and+mind&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=London&f=false
and click on page 37. There’s a lot to discuss about that, and Chomsky relegates that to ‘I-language’, which is not what lingustics is supposed to investigate (sez he). That relegation of the messy facts of meaning to a separate category is why a lot of linguistics disagree with Chomskyan linguistics, but in terms of identifying how terms that might seen pretty concrete are actually rather slippery, the passage is pretty good. I may return to this in a post.
And colonialism. Again, not trying to pile on wj, but I’d echo nous’ request that you consider the discourse surrounding colonialism not as simply a single narrative, but a complex set of histories. Anti/post/decolonial studies is new enough that there is not a single narrative. As nous points out, a lot of this is scholars from former colonies, which is why the American discourse on this is not as rich: We didn’t technically have colonies. This brings up a whole pot of issues that I won’t go into here, but it seems understandable to me that a South American scholar’s understanding of what colonialism means will be different from an Indian scholars, which would be different from an Indonesian which would be different from a scholar from Senegal. I can understand hesitation at applying the model to Israel without carefully considering all the questions, but when you say
At minimum, that makes it too easy to ignore inconvenient facts which do not fit the narrative.
This sounds like you are suggesting that the previous narrative, that the colonizing powers had the best interests of the colonized in mind, doesn’t ignore those inconvenient facts. Even if you want to argue that it is a singular narrative, (I don’t believe it is) it still is bringing a lot of facts to the table that need to be seen.
I’d love to give you a good reference to read, but I think it is impossible because issues that are touched by colonialism are too many to cover. Museum collections, language and grammar, sports, music, food, dress, the list goes on and on. I did find this “Anti-colonial thought and global social theory”
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsoc.2023.1143776/full
which has a lot of references to track down.
Didn’t Maine start out as a colony of Massachusetts?
But when the tyrannical imperialists of Connecticut tried to set up colonies in NE Pennsylvania, they were soundly defeated in the First, then the Second, finally the THIRD Pennamite/Yankee wars.
(which were more like tavern brawls than ‘wars’, but things were smaller back then)
Didn’t Maine start out as a colony of Massachusetts?
But when the tyrannical imperialists of Connecticut tried to set up colonies in NE Pennsylvania, they were soundly defeated in the First, then the Second, finally the THIRD Pennamite/Yankee wars.
(which were more like tavern brawls than ‘wars’, but things were smaller back then)
Again, not trying to pile on wj, but I’d echo nous’ request that you consider the discourse surrounding colonialism not as simply a single narrative, but a complex set of histories.
I thought that was close to the point I was trying to make. The “Global South” (speaking of massive generalizations) seems to be taking, or drifting towards taking, a position favoring Russia over Ukraine. Yet, to the extent that the collection of peoples and countries included in the Global South have a common characteristic,** it is that they were invaded and taken over by others, i.e. colonialism — at least as I understand the term. (Typically, but not necessarily, European others). Which is to say, precisely what Russia is attempting in Ukraine.
It is, of course, a generalization. That’s what happens when we lump so many disparate groups together — nuance and differences get lost.
** If there is a different common characteristic that others here are thinking of, by all means let me know.
Again, not trying to pile on wj, but I’d echo nous’ request that you consider the discourse surrounding colonialism not as simply a single narrative, but a complex set of histories.
I thought that was close to the point I was trying to make. The “Global South” (speaking of massive generalizations) seems to be taking, or drifting towards taking, a position favoring Russia over Ukraine. Yet, to the extent that the collection of peoples and countries included in the Global South have a common characteristic,** it is that they were invaded and taken over by others, i.e. colonialism — at least as I understand the term. (Typically, but not necessarily, European others). Which is to say, precisely what Russia is attempting in Ukraine.
It is, of course, a generalization. That’s what happens when we lump so many disparate groups together — nuance and differences get lost.
** If there is a different common characteristic that others here are thinking of, by all means let me know.
Didn’t Maine start out as a colony of Massachusetts?
In case this isn’t totally “snarky” from Snarki…
I don’t think so, at least not in the sense that Mass. conquered and took over Maine and then Maine seceded later. Maine *was* part of Massachusetts when the US was created, and it did secede and become a state in its own right in 1820.
But the Wiki has a long history of land manipulations that I don’t have time to read, but lots of back and forth amongst the native peoples, the French, and the English.
Didn’t Maine start out as a colony of Massachusetts?
In case this isn’t totally “snarky” from Snarki…
I don’t think so, at least not in the sense that Mass. conquered and took over Maine and then Maine seceded later. Maine *was* part of Massachusetts when the US was created, and it did secede and become a state in its own right in 1820.
But the Wiki has a long history of land manipulations that I don’t have time to read, but lots of back and forth amongst the native peoples, the French, and the English.
I think a lot of …-colonial scholars would say that the colonialism of the US is settler colonialism, as opposed to the mercantilism of the UK.
I think a lot of …-colonial scholars would say that the colonialism of the US is settler colonialism, as opposed to the mercantilism of the UK.
So to which kind of colonialism would you attribute Russia’s plans for Ukraine? Or perhaps it is a third kind…?
So to which kind of colonialism would you attribute Russia’s plans for Ukraine? Or perhaps it is a third kind…?
lj — thanks for the reference. That is indeed the passage I was thinking of, and I had even found it, but was utterly focused on copying text into a comment, and didn’t even think of linking it.
Also, thanks to nous for your 2:09 a.m. comment. You said much more clearly an approximation of what I was groping for.
lj — thanks for the reference. That is indeed the passage I was thinking of, and I had even found it, but was utterly focused on copying text into a comment, and didn’t even think of linking it.
Also, thanks to nous for your 2:09 a.m. comment. You said much more clearly an approximation of what I was groping for.
Russia and Ukraine is a particularly thorny case. From Russia’s POV Ukraine is the original Russia since the Russians consider the Kievan Rus as the seed Russia grew from.
It’s as if the capital of Italy was Verona because the unification of Italy left the full papal state intact and now the Italian government would try to take that part by force because Rome should naturally be the Italian capital. Or even more close, as if the papal state had been reconstituted after 1945 and the RW Italian goverment now would demand a forced reunion (while the pope has some literal divisions at hand to defend against that) and employ lots of mercenaries recruited from the diverse Italian and Sicilian mafia organisations.
Of course most of Italy was early on a part of the Holy Roman Empire and thus should be part of Germany. Germany in the borders of 1237 – Naples must stay German*
*a joke I once read on the wall of a public toilet. It’s a double joke since it refers to the 1937 German borders (when Silesia was still part of Germany) that were the original idea about the post-WW2 borders of Germany and stayed part of the longterm political demands of the Western German government until 1990 and to the official ‘birth year’ of the German capital Berlin [first mentioned in a surviving document in 1237].
The joke is aimed as the eternally-yesterdayers (Ewiggestrige) who still demand the lost territories back but are also very xenophobic and would hate (Southern) Italians becoming German citizens.
Russia and Ukraine is a particularly thorny case. From Russia’s POV Ukraine is the original Russia since the Russians consider the Kievan Rus as the seed Russia grew from.
It’s as if the capital of Italy was Verona because the unification of Italy left the full papal state intact and now the Italian government would try to take that part by force because Rome should naturally be the Italian capital. Or even more close, as if the papal state had been reconstituted after 1945 and the RW Italian goverment now would demand a forced reunion (while the pope has some literal divisions at hand to defend against that) and employ lots of mercenaries recruited from the diverse Italian and Sicilian mafia organisations.
Of course most of Italy was early on a part of the Holy Roman Empire and thus should be part of Germany. Germany in the borders of 1237 – Naples must stay German*
*a joke I once read on the wall of a public toilet. It’s a double joke since it refers to the 1937 German borders (when Silesia was still part of Germany) that were the original idea about the post-WW2 borders of Germany and stayed part of the longterm political demands of the Western German government until 1990 and to the official ‘birth year’ of the German capital Berlin [first mentioned in a surviving document in 1237].
The joke is aimed as the eternally-yesterdayers (Ewiggestrige) who still demand the lost territories back but are also very xenophobic and would hate (Southern) Italians becoming German citizens.
wj – perhaps read some decolonial perspectives on colonial power and try to wrap your head around where they are coming from in their approach to these issues? That would seem like a good use of your anthro background. Then maybe revisit your questions through a cross-cultural lens and see if they are the right questions or if another approach yields more productive exchange?
I don’t have enough anti/de/post-colonial reading under my own belt to speak for that perspective, and I’m certainly not in a place to speak for, or translate, for any of the Global Souths.
wj – perhaps read some decolonial perspectives on colonial power and try to wrap your head around where they are coming from in their approach to these issues? That would seem like a good use of your anthro background. Then maybe revisit your questions through a cross-cultural lens and see if they are the right questions or if another approach yields more productive exchange?
I don’t have enough anti/de/post-colonial reading under my own belt to speak for that perspective, and I’m certainly not in a place to speak for, or translate, for any of the Global Souths.
I too found nous’s 2.09 profound and in a sense beautiful. But it seems to me that it describes a phenomenon of language (the resonances, the vibrations of sympathetic strings) which, despite its undoubted truth, is more applicable to poetry than when, for example, one is trying to describe immoral or criminal acts. And, although I may be alone in this here, I hope some day that the perpetrators of atrocities can be brought to some kind of justice. It may be a forlorn hope.
Also, when nous refers to the way that a people so marked and defined by genocide can become so indifferent to the mass suffering of another people at their political hand, he describes exactly the disbelief and horror felt by many Jews, like myself for example, who oppose the treatment of the Palestinians in general, let alone the current horrific events.
But the trouble with calling it a genocide, when it is not, is that as well as the sensitive well-meaning people who are responding to the sympathetic vibration in another string tuned to a different, but consonant note, it can also be used by those very, very many gleeful antisemites who (because they are too sophisticated to be actual deniers) constantly accuse the Jews, or Israelis, of “weaponising” the holocaust, and are therefore only too delighted to be able to turn round and accuse them of doing the same thing. It is not the same thing. It is its own terrible thing.
And, as a further gloss for anybody who wants it (not Janie, I’m guessing) on my previous statement that If we lose the true meanings of words, we eventually lose even the ability to think clearly, the operative word is “eventually”. At the moment I can explain why this is not a genocide, but if one accedes to blurring the meaning of too many words, so that meaning (like facts) becomes entirely subjective, in the end explanation will become impossible. And then the ministry of propaganda will become Minitrue, and we may as well have on our walls “WAR IS PEACE,” “FREEDOM IS SLAVERY,” and “IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.”
I too found nous’s 2.09 profound and in a sense beautiful. But it seems to me that it describes a phenomenon of language (the resonances, the vibrations of sympathetic strings) which, despite its undoubted truth, is more applicable to poetry than when, for example, one is trying to describe immoral or criminal acts. And, although I may be alone in this here, I hope some day that the perpetrators of atrocities can be brought to some kind of justice. It may be a forlorn hope.
Also, when nous refers to the way that a people so marked and defined by genocide can become so indifferent to the mass suffering of another people at their political hand, he describes exactly the disbelief and horror felt by many Jews, like myself for example, who oppose the treatment of the Palestinians in general, let alone the current horrific events.
But the trouble with calling it a genocide, when it is not, is that as well as the sensitive well-meaning people who are responding to the sympathetic vibration in another string tuned to a different, but consonant note, it can also be used by those very, very many gleeful antisemites who (because they are too sophisticated to be actual deniers) constantly accuse the Jews, or Israelis, of “weaponising” the holocaust, and are therefore only too delighted to be able to turn round and accuse them of doing the same thing. It is not the same thing. It is its own terrible thing.
And, as a further gloss for anybody who wants it (not Janie, I’m guessing) on my previous statement that If we lose the true meanings of words, we eventually lose even the ability to think clearly, the operative word is “eventually”. At the moment I can explain why this is not a genocide, but if one accedes to blurring the meaning of too many words, so that meaning (like facts) becomes entirely subjective, in the end explanation will become impossible. And then the ministry of propaganda will become Minitrue, and we may as well have on our walls “WAR IS PEACE,” “FREEDOM IS SLAVERY,” and “IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.”
I see that sounds like I am mocking the sensitive well-meaning people who think “genocide” an acceptable term under these circumstances. I’m not. But as I say, I think a little deeper thought shows that it is unsuitable for discussing atrocities which, when described by their accurate terms, will hopefully be found to be grave breaches of the international laws of war, and therefore probably war crimes.
I see that sounds like I am mocking the sensitive well-meaning people who think “genocide” an acceptable term under these circumstances. I’m not. But as I say, I think a little deeper thought shows that it is unsuitable for discussing atrocities which, when described by their accurate terms, will hopefully be found to be grave breaches of the international laws of war, and therefore probably war crimes.
I suspect that, for some, “genocide” has become rather like “woke” has become for others: a handy label for pretty much anything they object to. Limited only by involving some number of deaths — the actual number not necessarily within orders of magnitude of what actually wiping out a culture or a nation would entail.
I suspect that, for some, “genocide” has become rather like “woke” has become for others: a handy label for pretty much anything they object to. Limited only by involving some number of deaths — the actual number not necessarily within orders of magnitude of what actually wiping out a culture or a nation would entail.
Except that “woke” is just a sarcastic label for an attitude, but both “genocide” and the more accurate alternatives are all referring to the actual killing of people. Just as we worry that slippage in “genocide” could dilute the meaning, we also have to be sure that our objections to the use don’t dilute the horror of the deaths that are happening.
We aren’t dealing with micro aggressions here. These are both atrocities being perpetrated against non-combatant populations.
I trust we all agree on this, but that needs to be foregrounded.
Except that “woke” is just a sarcastic label for an attitude, but both “genocide” and the more accurate alternatives are all referring to the actual killing of people. Just as we worry that slippage in “genocide” could dilute the meaning, we also have to be sure that our objections to the use don’t dilute the horror of the deaths that are happening.
We aren’t dealing with micro aggressions here. These are both atrocities being perpetrated against non-combatant populations.
I trust we all agree on this, but that needs to be foregrounded.
I certainly agree with that.
I certainly agree with that.
I want to point out that the legal definition of genocide is again quite broad and you can see it explained in the Jewish Currents article I linked above, which is an argument for saying Israel is practicing genocide. And people, not just lefties, have been using the term fir crimes far smaller than the Holocaust for quite a while.
I would like an intermediate term like mass killings, but that ship has sailed.
I want to point out that the legal definition of genocide is again quite broad and you can see it explained in the Jewish Currents article I linked above, which is an argument for saying Israel is practicing genocide. And people, not just lefties, have been using the term fir crimes far smaller than the Holocaust for quite a while.
I would like an intermediate term like mass killings, but that ship has sailed.
This one.
https://jewishcurrents.org/a-textbook-case-of-genocide
The other link is about apartheud.
This one.
https://jewishcurrents.org/a-textbook-case-of-genocide
The other link is about apartheud.
Yes, personally I am aware of the terms of the Genocide Convention,:
Article I
The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to
punish.
Article II
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with
intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as
such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its
physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Article III
The following acts shall be punishable:
(a) Genocide;
(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
(d) Attempt to commit genocide;
(e) Complicity in genocide.
Given the wording I have bolded, I think it is clear that what is happening in Gaza is not genocide, because what the Israeli government is doing is not committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Personally I agree that many extreme rightwing Israelis (and their American funders) would be delighted to destroy, at a stroke, all Palestinians and maybe (you could argue) all Muslims. But that is not the aim of the IDF or the government, whatever the secret wish in some of their hearts. Their aim is to destroy Hamas, and they show no compunction in trying to do so when it necessitates killing large numbers of civilians, so to my mind this is without doubt a war crime. As for whether they intend to drive the Gazans out of Gaza and into Egypt, never to return, the jury is out, but I can quite see why the Gazans fear it may be so.
Yes, personally I am aware of the terms of the Genocide Convention,:
Article I
The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to
punish.
Article II
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with
intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as
such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its
physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Article III
The following acts shall be punishable:
(a) Genocide;
(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
(d) Attempt to commit genocide;
(e) Complicity in genocide.
Given the wording I have bolded, I think it is clear that what is happening in Gaza is not genocide, because what the Israeli government is doing is not committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Personally I agree that many extreme rightwing Israelis (and their American funders) would be delighted to destroy, at a stroke, all Palestinians and maybe (you could argue) all Muslims. But that is not the aim of the IDF or the government, whatever the secret wish in some of their hearts. Their aim is to destroy Hamas, and they show no compunction in trying to do so when it necessitates killing large numbers of civilians, so to my mind this is without doubt a war crime. As for whether they intend to drive the Gazans out of Gaza and into Egypt, never to return, the jury is out, but I can quite see why the Gazans fear it may be so.
I think the “ in part” is the portion that lets you say it is genocide. I think you could also say the same about Oct 7. Some Israeli leaders have made genocidal- sounding remarks. I think ( my opinion of course, not claiming I can prove it) that they are deliberately trying to kill civilians. Not in whole but in part.
I am not a lawyer and don’t know how such arguments would fare in court. Also, as I said before, I would prefer a scale of terms for atrocities and genocide would be restricted to extreme cases like The Holocaust and what the Nazis did to the Roma, as well as Rwanda and a few others. On a smaller scale numerically, I think California put a bounty on Indian scalps in the 1800’s. That was genocidal.
Anyway, I don’t want to argue for a word usage that I would prefer was different. If I go to a protest and someone hands me a poster with genocide on it ( stop funding genocide in Gaza is one people in the local group use) I would carry it. If someone came up to argue I would say personally I prefer “ mass killings”. But I doubt the arguer would be satisfied with that. I would probably make and carry my own mass killing sign.
The word usage has moved on.
I think the “ in part” is the portion that lets you say it is genocide. I think you could also say the same about Oct 7. Some Israeli leaders have made genocidal- sounding remarks. I think ( my opinion of course, not claiming I can prove it) that they are deliberately trying to kill civilians. Not in whole but in part.
I am not a lawyer and don’t know how such arguments would fare in court. Also, as I said before, I would prefer a scale of terms for atrocities and genocide would be restricted to extreme cases like The Holocaust and what the Nazis did to the Roma, as well as Rwanda and a few others. On a smaller scale numerically, I think California put a bounty on Indian scalps in the 1800’s. That was genocidal.
Anyway, I don’t want to argue for a word usage that I would prefer was different. If I go to a protest and someone hands me a poster with genocide on it ( stop funding genocide in Gaza is one people in the local group use) I would carry it. If someone came up to argue I would say personally I prefer “ mass killings”. But I doubt the arguer would be satisfied with that. I would probably make and carry my own mass killing sign.
The word usage has moved on.
So to which kind of colonialism would you attribute Russia’s plans for Ukraine? Or perhaps it is a third kind…?
There are a lot more to choose from
https://www.historians.org/research-and-publications/perspectives-on-history/october-2015/a-typology-of-colonialism
Even though we were talking about Israel in relation to colonialism, drift happens. We can look at the Russia-Ukraine conflict through the lens of colonialism, there are a bunch of pieces discussing Putin’s need to return to an imperial Russia, here’s a quick link
https://ecfr.eu/article/putin-pushkin-and-the-decline-of-the-russian-empire/
While imperialism and colonialism are two separate terms, they share quite a bit of overlap. Certainly, Putin has made a lot of assumptions about the Ukraine and the initial actions were right out of the colonialism 101 playbook. Putin might have benefitted from reading some of the literature on decolonialism…
So to which kind of colonialism would you attribute Russia’s plans for Ukraine? Or perhaps it is a third kind…?
There are a lot more to choose from
https://www.historians.org/research-and-publications/perspectives-on-history/october-2015/a-typology-of-colonialism
Even though we were talking about Israel in relation to colonialism, drift happens. We can look at the Russia-Ukraine conflict through the lens of colonialism, there are a bunch of pieces discussing Putin’s need to return to an imperial Russia, here’s a quick link
https://ecfr.eu/article/putin-pushkin-and-the-decline-of-the-russian-empire/
While imperialism and colonialism are two separate terms, they share quite a bit of overlap. Certainly, Putin has made a lot of assumptions about the Ukraine and the initial actions were right out of the colonialism 101 playbook. Putin might have benefitted from reading some of the literature on decolonialism…
I think the “ in part” is the portion that lets you say it is genocide.
Donald: yes, I assumed that was what was driving it for people who thought so. But it seems clear to me that for it to qualify, you have to have an intent to destroy, even in part, a national, ethnical racial or religious group. And that actual intent, regarding any of those categories, seems clearly missing. But I have to say, on the whole, I think we agree. I have no argument whatsoever with “mass killings” or (as I have already said) “indiscriminate mass killings of civilians”, and that seems quite appalling enough.
I think the “ in part” is the portion that lets you say it is genocide.
Donald: yes, I assumed that was what was driving it for people who thought so. But it seems clear to me that for it to qualify, you have to have an intent to destroy, even in part, a national, ethnical racial or religious group. And that actual intent, regarding any of those categories, seems clearly missing. But I have to say, on the whole, I think we agree. I have no argument whatsoever with “mass killings” or (as I have already said) “indiscriminate mass killings of civilians”, and that seems quite appalling enough.
Gftnc— we mostly agree.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/30/us/politics/biden-israel.html
I was going to dig up links— I watched an interview with the Israeli ambassador to the UK with sky news on YouTube where she talked about Dresden as a model and also Mosul. The civilian death toll there was around 10,000, but she mistakenly said 100,000. However, that showed her mindset. And now that the Biden Administration is getting a bit uneasy, the NYT decides it can write about the fact that Israeli officials think the mass bombing campaigns in WW2 are a model for how they can behave in Gaza. Including Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That doesn’t mean using nukes— they mean they are willing to cause that level of harm.
At some point if the death toll got high enough I would use the genocide word. But it becomes arbitrary exactly when. Not now. But if it drags on and this is their attitude, then yes. I think Biden was unforgivable in his comment about Palestinian numbers. He is complicit in all the deaths so far. But evidently they are getting very worried or there wouldn’t be this NYT article which I interpret as a message from the Biden Administration to the world that they are trying to hold back these rightwing lunatics.
Gftnc— we mostly agree.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/30/us/politics/biden-israel.html
I was going to dig up links— I watched an interview with the Israeli ambassador to the UK with sky news on YouTube where she talked about Dresden as a model and also Mosul. The civilian death toll there was around 10,000, but she mistakenly said 100,000. However, that showed her mindset. And now that the Biden Administration is getting a bit uneasy, the NYT decides it can write about the fact that Israeli officials think the mass bombing campaigns in WW2 are a model for how they can behave in Gaza. Including Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That doesn’t mean using nukes— they mean they are willing to cause that level of harm.
At some point if the death toll got high enough I would use the genocide word. But it becomes arbitrary exactly when. Not now. But if it drags on and this is their attitude, then yes. I think Biden was unforgivable in his comment about Palestinian numbers. He is complicit in all the deaths so far. But evidently they are getting very worried or there wouldn’t be this NYT article which I interpret as a message from the Biden Administration to the world that they are trying to hold back these rightwing lunatics.
While imperialism and colonialism are two separate terms, they share quite a bit of overlap. Certainly, Putin has made a lot of assumptions about the Ukraine and the initial actions were right out of the colonialism 101 playbook. Putin might have benefitted from reading some of the literature on decolonialism…
The thing is, what Putin intends to do is to utterly destroy Ukrainian language and culture. Which would appear to meet the classic definition of genocide. Colonialism might be one of the planned tools, but the genocide is the ultimate goal.
While imperialism and colonialism are two separate terms, they share quite a bit of overlap. Certainly, Putin has made a lot of assumptions about the Ukraine and the initial actions were right out of the colonialism 101 playbook. Putin might have benefitted from reading some of the literature on decolonialism…
The thing is, what Putin intends to do is to utterly destroy Ukrainian language and culture. Which would appear to meet the classic definition of genocide. Colonialism might be one of the planned tools, but the genocide is the ultimate goal.
I was thinking of the annexation of the Crimea, which looks, in hindsight, like the first steps.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_Russian_Federation
About the assumption, Putin seemed to think that the Russian forces would be welcomed as liberators and protectors. Again, this seems to be a pretty common trope in colonialism, the idea that the larger power knows best.
I was thinking of the annexation of the Crimea, which looks, in hindsight, like the first steps.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_Russian_Federation
About the assumption, Putin seemed to think that the Russian forces would be welcomed as liberators and protectors. Again, this seems to be a pretty common trope in colonialism, the idea that the larger power knows best.
Putin seemed to think that the Russian forces would be welcomed as liberators and protectors.
Originally, yes. But, as is not uncommon, goals have changed as the fighting has continued. Putin has moved on from liberation to (cultural) extermination.
Putin seemed to think that the Russian forces would be welcomed as liberators and protectors.
Originally, yes. But, as is not uncommon, goals have changed as the fighting has continued. Putin has moved on from liberation to (cultural) extermination.
Meanwhile in Washington the plan is to transfer money from the IRS to the IDF so to speak. The (House) GOP is currently only willing to pass a support bill (for Israel, Ukraine and the Southern border), if Ukraine help is stripped from it completely (pretending that they will deal with it in a separate bill) and that the money for Israel is coming completely from the budget of the IRS, in particular the enforcement arm. And they have the nerve to say that this is to keep it budget neutral and to prevent the deficit from getting worse.
Meanwhile in Washington the plan is to transfer money from the IRS to the IDF so to speak. The (House) GOP is currently only willing to pass a support bill (for Israel, Ukraine and the Southern border), if Ukraine help is stripped from it completely (pretending that they will deal with it in a separate bill) and that the money for Israel is coming completely from the budget of the IRS, in particular the enforcement arm. And they have the nerve to say that this is to keep it budget neutral and to prevent the deficit from getting worse.
In my mind, ‘genocide’ means about what the Genocide Convention says it means.
To me, one good reason not to use ‘genocide’ to mean ‘mass killing which I think worse than other mass killings’ is that it forces a judgment on the speaker. I don’t want to call the recent Hamas murders ‘genocide’, I don’t want to call the IDF murders ‘genocide’, I want to condemn them for what they are.
In my mind, ‘genocide’ means about what the Genocide Convention says it means.
To me, one good reason not to use ‘genocide’ to mean ‘mass killing which I think worse than other mass killings’ is that it forces a judgment on the speaker. I don’t want to call the recent Hamas murders ‘genocide’, I don’t want to call the IDF murders ‘genocide’, I want to condemn them for what they are.
In my mind, ‘genocide’ means about what the Genocide Convention says it means.
To me, one good reason not to use ‘genocide’ to mean ‘mass killing which I think worse than other mass killings’ is that it forces a judgment on the speaker. I don’t want to call the recent Hamas murders ‘genocide’, I don’t want to call the IDF murders ‘genocide’, I want to condemn them for what they are.
In my mind, ‘genocide’ means about what the Genocide Convention says it means.
To me, one good reason not to use ‘genocide’ to mean ‘mass killing which I think worse than other mass killings’ is that it forces a judgment on the speaker. I don’t want to call the recent Hamas murders ‘genocide’, I don’t want to call the IDF murders ‘genocide’, I want to condemn them for what they are.
“The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name.”
“The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name.”
In a way I think this piece is the best one I have seen on the war because it shows what the Israeli system is like during peacetime.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/03/opinion/unarmed-teen-israel-gaza.html
For those who can’t read it, ( I don’t know how to do that thing where I let everyone read it) I will summaruze.
The piece is by a lawyer for an organization called Adalah in Israel which fights within the system for Palestinian rights. There have always been Israeli Jews and Israeli Palestinians working together doing this type of thing— they are heroes fighting a losing battle.
The writer tells about a 15 year old boy in Gaza who was on his family’s land who was shot during peace by an Israeli sniper and put in a wheelchair. They sued the Israeli government for compensation. They lost and the Supreme Court in Israel ( the good guys tge protestors were defending before Oct 7) upheld a law that says Gazans can’t sue the government in situations like this.
The boy was now a 24 year old man but recently was killed in an air strike.
In a way I think this piece is the best one I have seen on the war because it shows what the Israeli system is like during peacetime.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/03/opinion/unarmed-teen-israel-gaza.html
For those who can’t read it, ( I don’t know how to do that thing where I let everyone read it) I will summaruze.
The piece is by a lawyer for an organization called Adalah in Israel which fights within the system for Palestinian rights. There have always been Israeli Jews and Israeli Palestinians working together doing this type of thing— they are heroes fighting a losing battle.
The writer tells about a 15 year old boy in Gaza who was on his family’s land who was shot during peace by an Israeli sniper and put in a wheelchair. They sued the Israeli government for compensation. They lost and the Supreme Court in Israel ( the good guys tge protestors were defending before Oct 7) upheld a law that says Gazans can’t sue the government in situations like this.
The boy was now a 24 year old man but recently was killed in an air strike.
Netanyahu’s response to Blinken, denying a humanitarian pause while Hamas continues to hold hostages, shows the world that, in effect, his government is treating all of Gaza as hostages. The equivalency is implicit. And disturbing. And (sadly) unsurprising for anyone who has been paying attention since the start of the occupation.
My sympathies lie with the multitude of people of good faith and compassion, whose agency in this matter has been hijacked by the bloodthirsty nihilists who are supposed to represent them.
Netanyahu’s response to Blinken, denying a humanitarian pause while Hamas continues to hold hostages, shows the world that, in effect, his government is treating all of Gaza as hostages. The equivalency is implicit. And disturbing. And (sadly) unsurprising for anyone who has been paying attention since the start of the occupation.
My sympathies lie with the multitude of people of good faith and compassion, whose agency in this matter has been hijacked by the bloodthirsty nihilists who are supposed to represent them.
My sympathies lie with the multitude of people of good faith and compassion, whose agency in this matter has been hijacked by the bloodthirsty nihilists who are supposed to represent them.
Amen.
My sympathies lie with the multitude of people of good faith and compassion, whose agency in this matter has been hijacked by the bloodthirsty nihilists who are supposed to represent them.
Amen.
Decided to put this comment in the war thread. The quoted comment is mine from the other thread.
“ drone strikes aimed as carefully as possible at Hamas leaders would be very easy to defend and the U.S. could have taken that position”
You wouldn’t use 2000 lb bombs in a refugee camp in targeting a Hamas leader. Israel,probably creates more future terrorists than it kills with such tactics, plus the power cutoff, denounced as a war crime when Putin. Demanding adherence to the laws of war should be a no brainer.
Everyone in the world now sees the West has very open double standards on the laws of war. I think that our support for the Saudi war in Yemen was actually worse than Gaza up to this point— the blockade there killed the majority of the 400,000 who died and they were mostly children. But Israel gets huge attention, both positive and negative and while Yemen got caught creed maybe once a month and most people ignored it, Israel- Palestine is front page news. The double standards on human rights are right out there in the open. And Biden and most of our politicians jumped in with total support for everything Israel wanted to do, some pro forma talk about laws of war but also supporting everything Israel actually did. Now that protests are building, they are starting to see the PR problem and State Department people who have been sidelined are very upset, but I think Biden is still just treating this as a PR problem. Say some stuff about “ humanitarian pauses” which are utterly inadequate and which Netanyahu rejects.
Biden can only hope the war ends long before the campaign season starts and the press moves on.
Ukraine is also going to be a political problem, I suspect, since the offensive failed. I think that was a sh@tshow from the beginning but never had anything useful to say. Still don’t. I read some pro Russian sites and they think they are winning.
Decided to put this comment in the war thread. The quoted comment is mine from the other thread.
“ drone strikes aimed as carefully as possible at Hamas leaders would be very easy to defend and the U.S. could have taken that position”
You wouldn’t use 2000 lb bombs in a refugee camp in targeting a Hamas leader. Israel,probably creates more future terrorists than it kills with such tactics, plus the power cutoff, denounced as a war crime when Putin. Demanding adherence to the laws of war should be a no brainer.
Everyone in the world now sees the West has very open double standards on the laws of war. I think that our support for the Saudi war in Yemen was actually worse than Gaza up to this point— the blockade there killed the majority of the 400,000 who died and they were mostly children. But Israel gets huge attention, both positive and negative and while Yemen got caught creed maybe once a month and most people ignored it, Israel- Palestine is front page news. The double standards on human rights are right out there in the open. And Biden and most of our politicians jumped in with total support for everything Israel wanted to do, some pro forma talk about laws of war but also supporting everything Israel actually did. Now that protests are building, they are starting to see the PR problem and State Department people who have been sidelined are very upset, but I think Biden is still just treating this as a PR problem. Say some stuff about “ humanitarian pauses” which are utterly inadequate and which Netanyahu rejects.
Biden can only hope the war ends long before the campaign season starts and the press moves on.
Ukraine is also going to be a political problem, I suspect, since the offensive failed. I think that was a sh@tshow from the beginning but never had anything useful to say. Still don’t. I read some pro Russian sites and they think they are winning.
Argh. Some weird typos and accidental deletions above but you can probably figure out the meaning.
Argh. Some weird typos and accidental deletions above but you can probably figure out the meaning.
Putin’s investment in The Orange One and his merry GOPsters is paying off after all it seems.
Even Zelensky is quoted that without US help Ukraine can’t remain in the fight for long. And the House GOP has already decoupled help for Ukraine from the help for Israel and this in turn is coupled to help for rich tax cheats. Priorities!!! Even the senate GOP is disgruntled about that but without the House there can’t be anything financial/budget since that has to originate from the House. So, by doing nothing the House GOPsters get most of what they want and their (pay)masters rejoice.
Putin’s investment in The Orange One and his merry GOPsters is paying off after all it seems.
Even Zelensky is quoted that without US help Ukraine can’t remain in the fight for long. And the House GOP has already decoupled help for Ukraine from the help for Israel and this in turn is coupled to help for rich tax cheats. Priorities!!! Even the senate GOP is disgruntled about that but without the House there can’t be anything financial/budget since that has to originate from the House. So, by doing nothing the House GOPsters get most of what they want and their (pay)masters rejoice.
Donald,
while you are absolutely correct to deplore how some conflicts are ignored while others get attention, I think that much of that is simply whether people have personal connections to the region in question.
Chances are good that you know (maybe directly, maybe at one step) someone in/from Israel, Ukraine, Armenia, Northern Ireland, or Lebanon. Less likely Yemen. Or South Sudan. Or Ethiopia. Or Myanmar.
And probably more that I’m forgetting.
That’s just humans being primates and how primates prioritize based on how “closely” connected they are.
Still good to remind everyone that the world is larger than just our own circle of acquaintances.
Donald,
while you are absolutely correct to deplore how some conflicts are ignored while others get attention, I think that much of that is simply whether people have personal connections to the region in question.
Chances are good that you know (maybe directly, maybe at one step) someone in/from Israel, Ukraine, Armenia, Northern Ireland, or Lebanon. Less likely Yemen. Or South Sudan. Or Ethiopia. Or Myanmar.
And probably more that I’m forgetting.
That’s just humans being primates and how primates prioritize based on how “closely” connected they are.
Still good to remind everyone that the world is larger than just our own circle of acquaintances.
Ukraine is also going to be a political problem, I suspect, since the offensive failed. I think that was a sh@tshow from the beginning but never had anything useful to say. Still don’t. I read some pro Russian sites and they think they are winning.
I don’t doubt that the Russians think they are winning. Or, at least, feel constrained to say so publicly. But the way they keep blowing thru troops and equipment, without obviously accomplishing anything, suggests that position is debatable.
Sure, they’ve got more cannon fodder available. But it says something that they’re reduced to begging ammo and guns from North Korea. Not something you do unless you’re pretty desperate. And not a source with unlimited supplies available.
As for the Ukrainian offensive having failed? Well, it certainly wasn’t a reprise of their sweeping success a year ago. But then, nobody who bothered to look at the situation thought it would be. The situations were just totally different.
What it has done is make some small advances while bleeding the Russians. And it is characteristic of attacks against dug in positions like this that they look like they are getting nowhere . . . right up until they suddenly break thru. Are they going to break thru any time soon? No real way to tell (absent far more extensive intelligence on both sides’ situations). But it is premature to conclude that they won’t.
Will the Ukraine war be a political issue next year? Probably not. There will doubtless be lots of posturing, especially in the House. But as long as no Americans are fighting and dying, the average voter has lots of far more pressing concerns.
Ukraine is also going to be a political problem, I suspect, since the offensive failed. I think that was a sh@tshow from the beginning but never had anything useful to say. Still don’t. I read some pro Russian sites and they think they are winning.
I don’t doubt that the Russians think they are winning. Or, at least, feel constrained to say so publicly. But the way they keep blowing thru troops and equipment, without obviously accomplishing anything, suggests that position is debatable.
Sure, they’ve got more cannon fodder available. But it says something that they’re reduced to begging ammo and guns from North Korea. Not something you do unless you’re pretty desperate. And not a source with unlimited supplies available.
As for the Ukrainian offensive having failed? Well, it certainly wasn’t a reprise of their sweeping success a year ago. But then, nobody who bothered to look at the situation thought it would be. The situations were just totally different.
What it has done is make some small advances while bleeding the Russians. And it is characteristic of attacks against dug in positions like this that they look like they are getting nowhere . . . right up until they suddenly break thru. Are they going to break thru any time soon? No real way to tell (absent far more extensive intelligence on both sides’ situations). But it is premature to conclude that they won’t.
Will the Ukraine war be a political issue next year? Probably not. There will doubtless be lots of posturing, especially in the House. But as long as no Americans are fighting and dying, the average voter has lots of far more pressing concerns.
But as long as no Americans are fighting and dying, the average voter has lots of far more pressing concerns.
But that also means that the support money can be (and is) demagogued as wasteful spending that also keeps the gas prices high. And that is something the low-information voters are vulnerable for.
But as long as no Americans are fighting and dying, the average voter has lots of far more pressing concerns.
But that also means that the support money can be (and is) demagogued as wasteful spending that also keeps the gas prices high. And that is something the low-information voters are vulnerable for.
Israel gets a lot of attention because it’s considered a Western outpost in an illiberal Middle Eastern region. And the Middle Eastern region considers it the sharp point of Western invasion.
Here’s an interview with Sam Harris and Eric Weinstein wherein they discuss and debate the nature of, history, and future of the Israel-Palestine conflict and what can and can’t be done about it. You may not agree with them much but you’re likely to get some nuances that you haven’t encountered elsewhere.
“Sam Harris is an American neuroscientist, author, and podcast host. A central voice in the New Atheism movement, he is a well-known critic of religious ideology. Eric Weinstein is a mathematical physicist, public thinker, and host of the podcast ‘The Portal’.”
Sam Harris X Eric Weinstein: Israel-Palestine
Israel gets a lot of attention because it’s considered a Western outpost in an illiberal Middle Eastern region. And the Middle Eastern region considers it the sharp point of Western invasion.
Here’s an interview with Sam Harris and Eric Weinstein wherein they discuss and debate the nature of, history, and future of the Israel-Palestine conflict and what can and can’t be done about it. You may not agree with them much but you’re likely to get some nuances that you haven’t encountered elsewhere.
“Sam Harris is an American neuroscientist, author, and podcast host. A central voice in the New Atheism movement, he is a well-known critic of religious ideology. Eric Weinstein is a mathematical physicist, public thinker, and host of the podcast ‘The Portal’.”
Sam Harris X Eric Weinstein: Israel-Palestine
Jumping back and forth between threads. Anyway, this is a portion of a NYT editorial from Dec 2016 about Aleppo.
“ Mr. Putin’s bloody actions — the bombing of civilian neighborhoods, the destruction of hospitals, the refusal to allow noncombatants to receive food, fuel and medical supplies — are all in violation of international law. At the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday, Samantha Power, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, said to Mr. Assad, Russia and Iran that they had put a “noose” around Aleppo’s civilians and: “It should shame you. Instead, by all appearances, it is emboldening you.””
Jumping back and forth between threads. Anyway, this is a portion of a NYT editorial from Dec 2016 about Aleppo.
“ Mr. Putin’s bloody actions — the bombing of civilian neighborhoods, the destruction of hospitals, the refusal to allow noncombatants to receive food, fuel and medical supplies — are all in violation of international law. At the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday, Samantha Power, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, said to Mr. Assad, Russia and Iran that they had put a “noose” around Aleppo’s civilians and: “It should shame you. Instead, by all appearances, it is emboldening you.””
The difference between Syria and Israel has entirely to do with the heavy influence of both the Israel lobby and the Evangelicals in US politics. No one is going to argue that Syria has any right to exist as the only possible homeland for an oppressed people, and there are no messianic death cults built around the historical necessity of war in Syria to hasten the coming of your favorite members-only utopia and comeuppance for all the losers who totally deserve what they get.
Makes it easy (for some) to condemn Syria and hard to condemn Israel.
The difference between Syria and Israel has entirely to do with the heavy influence of both the Israel lobby and the Evangelicals in US politics. No one is going to argue that Syria has any right to exist as the only possible homeland for an oppressed people, and there are no messianic death cults built around the historical necessity of war in Syria to hasten the coming of your favorite members-only utopia and comeuppance for all the losers who totally deserve what they get.
Makes it easy (for some) to condemn Syria and hard to condemn Israel.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/04/us/politics/israel-gaza-deaths-bombs.html
Biden wants them to use 250 lb bombs rather than 1000 to 2000 lbs.
Area destroyed varies as two thirds power of yield, so assuming a 250 lb has 8 times less explosive ( probably not that simple) it would destroy 4 times less. Assuming same number of bombs dropped, maybe we have 1000 dead children at this point.
He also wants some sort of commando tactics or counterinsurgency or whatever the proper term would be. Israel is in a place where everybody hates them. They will be subjected to ambushes and btw, they have a history of using Palestinian civilians as human shields. The Israelis are hardly likely to risk the lives of their own men trying to spare the lives of Gazans, especially if they think the civilians might be cooperating with Hamas fighters in setting up ambushes. In Iraq it was a multi- sided war and some Iraqis would side with the US to keep other Iraqis from killing them. This war is a bit simpler.
Biden is delusional.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/04/us/politics/israel-gaza-deaths-bombs.html
Biden wants them to use 250 lb bombs rather than 1000 to 2000 lbs.
Area destroyed varies as two thirds power of yield, so assuming a 250 lb has 8 times less explosive ( probably not that simple) it would destroy 4 times less. Assuming same number of bombs dropped, maybe we have 1000 dead children at this point.
He also wants some sort of commando tactics or counterinsurgency or whatever the proper term would be. Israel is in a place where everybody hates them. They will be subjected to ambushes and btw, they have a history of using Palestinian civilians as human shields. The Israelis are hardly likely to risk the lives of their own men trying to spare the lives of Gazans, especially if they think the civilians might be cooperating with Hamas fighters in setting up ambushes. In Iraq it was a multi- sided war and some Iraqis would side with the US to keep other Iraqis from killing them. This war is a bit simpler.
Biden is delusional.