Israel-Gaza war

[Vosem]

This is the wrong attitude. You need to actively work on peace. Or there won't be peace. It's basically negligent to not work on a long-lasting peace. Because if we get to a ceasefire or some kind of temporary peace, sooner or later conflict is bound to happen again. And again, and again and again. And even if Hamas is taken out, someone is going to take over out of the ruins of what is going to be the graveyard.

It's the same thing as with climate change. Postponing isn't good for anything, stop freezing conflicts because it makes peace impossible if nobody keeps working actively on peace which seems to be a trend... in later decades. How many long-lasting peaces have we seen since the cold war or especially fall of USSR? (regarding break-off states and so on)

Peace can happen the same way it did in South Africa: Hamas (or some broad 'Palestinian liberationism' party) can join a Likud-led (or broadly 'Israeli right' party) government, much like the National Party became a junior partner to the ANC. It can submit to a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, aid the Israeli right in its agenda, and reject its former beliefs not just in its rhetoric but deep in its soul.

When no one supports genocide, and when those who once did have cast off the parts of them that did so and rejected them, and Palestinian liberationism is left in the same dustbin as apartheid, then there will be peace.

My guess is that this is not very realistic; unlike the National Party, Hamas is not culturally close to movements which would encourage them to take these steps. In that case, warfare will continue until someone wins. In this particular conflict, the disparity of power, and the trend in the growth of the disparity of power, (and the trend in the growth of the disparity of allies), leave no doubt as to the outcome.

[Vosem]

This is the wrong attitude. You need to actively work on peace. Or there won't be peace. It's basically negligent to not work on a long-lasting peace. Because if we get to a ceasefire or some kind of temporary peace, sooner or later conflict is bound to happen again. And again, and again and again. And even if Hamas is taken out, someone is going to take over out of the ruins of what is going to be the graveyard.

It's the same thing as with climate change. Postponing isn't good for anything, stop freezing conflicts because it makes peace impossible if nobody keeps working actively on peace which seems to be a trend... in later decades. How many long-lasting peaces have we seen since the cold war or especially fall of USSR? (regarding break-off states and so on)

Peace can happen the same way it did in South Africa: Hamas (or some broad 'Palestinian liberationism' party) can join a Likud-led (or broadly 'Israeli right' party) government, much like the National Party became a junior partner to the ANC. It can submit to a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, aid the Israeli right in its agenda, and reject its former beliefs not just in its rhetoric but deep in its soul.

When no one supports genocide, and when those who once did have cast off the parts of them that did so and rejected them, and Palestinian liberationism is left in the same dustbin as apartheid, then there will be peace.

My guess is that this is not very realistic; unlike the National Party, Hamas is not culturally close to movements which would encourage them to take these steps. In that case, warfare will continue until someone wins. In this particular conflict, the disparity of power, and the trend in the growth of the disparity of power, (and the trend in the growth of the disparity of allies), leave no doubt as to the outcome.

Amazing post. Absolutely love when you're on an entirely alien wavelength. The sun is an avocado.

Right, the actual current Palestinian liberation movement is both genocidal and dying, so it isn't going to do this. The only plausible alternatives seem to be occupation forever, which is bad for everyone, or Gaza becoming a new Dresden if the society is so ideologically radicalized that reoccupation is impossible.

Do you have a suggestion that isn't "let the genocide happen"? A solution that lets those evicted from their homes in 2004 back would be strongly preferred from the point of view of justice and fairness, though who knows how much we're caring about those.

[Vosem]

Palestine just reminded the entire world that their home is still a warzone, and just completely destroyed Israel’s reputation as a safe country to visit. The Israeli tourism industry is going to be dead by everyone but religious zealots and those connecting with family for a good while.

Had Fatah not have been in the way to side with Israel if there were a war in the West Bank, Palestine would have won this war. Abbas’s bantustan is the only thing blocking an end to this war. Good riddance the zealous Trump Administration finally put UNRWA’s money laundering scheme to the coffin.

All eyes are on what the supposed invasion of Gaza is going to look like, as if any other front opens up Israel will continue to get bloody and have territory be in jeopardy bit by bit. They could have ended this conflict in the 90s by recognizing Palestine but didn’t out of wanting the whole pie. Like Armenia and Cyprus before it, not reading the room has negative consequences.

Revealing that you view it as winning a war for Hamas to butcher innocent civilians, and as morally unacceptable for Israel to build walls to protect itself and kill those Hamas members in retaliation.

It is, already, a (coming) military defeat and political victory. The direct comparison that's been made repeatedly is to Tet.

Why would this military defeat be a political victory? As I laid out on AAD every prior Gaza conflict in the 2010s resulted in more sympathy for the Israelis (both in American public polling and in the positions of governments around the world/in the Middle East), and this time the reaction to the onset of the negative seems starkly more unfavorable towards the Palestinians, with enormous open demonstrations of support for Israel across western Europe.

I don't think there's actually been a political victory for the Palestinians of any kind since...uh...I guess the specifics of Barak's offer at Camp David in 2001? And there hasn't been a military victory in longer; if you don't count the other Arab states -- which you really shouldn't given how anti-Palestinian they were and are -- I think plausibly not since before the establishment of the State of Israel. I'm drawing a post-1930s blank.

[Vosem]

"Moving people across the border" isn't a reasonable solution here anyway. The Egyptian government does not want to take them and they are not inclined to go there for a zillion reasons. Even if the Egyptians' cooperation were established, to force them to move you'd have to reoccupy the territory anyway. Triggering a refugee crisis that Egypt needs to deal with would be a very hostile and unjustified act on the part of the Israeli government.

Which just goes back to the question of how exactly reoccupation can be done. At a certain point, developed countries do not tolerate expansionist genocidal governments, and where those governments have made the destruction of a particular city a fait accompli, as most famously happened in Dresden, where leaving the city intact while destroying German transport and communication networks was not possible, then those cities have been destroyed.

If there is not a way to destroy Hamas without leveling Gaza, then Gaza should be leveled. If there is -- I observe the PFLP basically organizationally no longer exists, and Jenin and Nablus did not have to be destroyed in 2002 -- then they should do that.

[Vosem]

I watched all the Jews and Muslims protest today in NYC over the Gaza/Israel border. If only all those people cared the same about our border!

No particular reason to think they don't. It is possible to hold more than one opinion at a time.

[Vosem]

I watched all the Jews and Muslims protest today in NYC over the Gaza/Israel border. If only all those people cared the same about our border!

No particular reason to think they don't. It is possible to hold more than one opinion at a time.

I mean they aren't passionate about it the same way or they would have been out on the streets a few weeks ago when NYC had a major migrant crisis.

...how do you know they weren't out a few weeks ago? Did you memorize the faces of everyone who might've protested at that time? Have you been stealing phone location data?

Look, man, I'm more sympathetic to your take than many people here might be, but participating in a protest does not imply holding one position or another about some completely unrelated topic. People come out when an organization exists, and not only for demonstrations about whatever topic matters most to them. It is possible to care about the Middle East and also about the border.

[Vosem]

I watched all the Jews and Muslims protest today in NYC over the Gaza/Israel border. If only all those people cared the same about our border!

No particular reason to think they don't. It is possible to hold more than one opinion at a time.

I mean they aren't passionate about it the same way or they would have been out on the streets a few weeks ago when NYC had a major migrant crisis.

...how do you know they weren't out a few weeks ago? Did you memorize the faces of everyone who might've protested at that time? Have you been stealing phone location data?

Look, man, I'm more sympathetic to your take than many people here might be, but participating in a protest does not imply holding one position or another about some completely unrelated topic. People come out when an organization exists, and not only for demonstrations about whatever topic matters most to them. It is possible to care about the Middle East and also about the border.

I think his point is one has a direct impact on every single American while the other is tangential for like 95% of us.

I think if there is a lesson to take from the first half of the 20th century it is that wars of conquest abroad are not tangential for 95% of Americans, even if they may seem that way.

It's also silly to look at a protest and ask "why aren't they talking about my pet issue?" There are thousands of things wrong with the world and millions of plausible solutions that might come from changing the policies or priorities of the American government. Protesting one bad thing does not make you complicit in something else. The reason people are protesting Israel/Palestine issues is that breaking news happened over the weekend, and not to distract from the crisis at the border or something.

[Vosem]

You guys are ok with the status quo, where the terrorist group that runs Gaza gets to massacre tons of Jews and Israel isn't allowed to go anything about it.  How dare you accuse me of being the inhumane one.  Your unwillingness to consider any alternative to the status quo just indicates that you're OK with it.

And you were okay with the status quo where Israel has blockaded the Gaza strip for sixteen years, killed thousands in bombings, while keeping the rest of the Palestinians under an apartheid regime (while killing hundreds there as well). Sorry, you don't get to claim the moral high ground just because the side you sympathize with was the one that suffered most this time.

Sure I do. One side supports genocide and tries to enact it, and tries to conquer territories that it has no claim to under international law; the other side does not. Israel has had the moral high ground for the entirety of its existence and continues to have it now. Not complicated at all, and no reasonable person disputes this or feels sympathy for Palestinian liberationism.

[Vosem]

You guys are ok with the status quo, where the terrorist group that runs Gaza gets to massacre tons of Jews and Israel isn't allowed to go anything about it.  How dare you accuse me of being the inhumane one.  Your unwillingness to consider any alternative to the status quo just indicates that you're OK with it.

And you were okay with the status quo where Israel has blockaded the Gaza strip for sixteen years, killed thousands in bombings, while keeping the rest of the Palestinians under an apartheid regime (while killing hundreds there as well). Sorry, you don't get to claim the moral high ground just because the side you sympathize with was the one that suffered most this time.

Sure I do. One side supports genocide and tries to enact it, and tries to conquer territories that it has no claim to under international law; the other side does not. Israel has had the moral high ground for the entirety of its existence and continues to have it now. Not complicated at all, and no reasonable person disputes this or feels sympathy for Palestinian liberationism.

Israel's very existence is owed to massive ethnic cleansing of the native population it carried out in 1947-48.

No, this is a lie which has been debunked many times.

It has held - against international law  - Palestinian majority territories for decades while oppressing the locals.

It has not held Palestinian-majority territories against international law. One can argue about the propriety of its hold on the Golan, but there is no recognized state with any claim to territories within the former Mandate other than Israel itself.

Is that what you call the moral high ground?

…yes, I already said that. I think not recognizing the overwhelming moral superiority of the Israeli side is preposterous and comically blind.

That the Palestinians have also committed many terrible crimes against Israel over the years doesn't make Israel righteous.

And what does a "reasonable" person want to happen with the Palestinians if "liberationism" is unreasonable? Expulsion or apartheid?

The solution is post-apartheid: Palestinian liberationist organizations like Fatah and Hamas, like the apartheid National Party before them, should enter a coalition with the Israeli state as its junior partners and act in good faith towards Zionism and the furtherance of the goals of the Israeli state. The alternative is the fate of the National Socialist Party in Germany — nonexistence.

The Germans and white South Africans still exist, but the goals which their governments worked for have been utterly proscribed and cast out of the souls of the people living there. This is what any moral person demands of Palestinian leadership: to accept responsibility for the conflict, to totally abandon their current goals, and to take deliberate action to aid those they have been fighting against. Also to feel sincere happiness about this outcome and to celebrate it for generations.

[Vosem]

Even if it wasn't long proven (including by Israeli historians) that most  Palestinians were either forced out by the Israeli army or fled out of fear of Israeli attacks, Israel's refusal to allow them to return once the war was over was without any doubt ethnic cleansing.

No, people fleeing because of enemy propaganda does not count as ethnic cleansing. (Ethnic cleansing is what happened to the Israeli settlers in Gaza in 2004, who were moved out by force; by no means here is my position that the Israeli state is totally innocent). Countries also have a right to set their own immigration policy even if that results in ethnic changes; saying otherwise is the preserve of insane Eurabia conspiracy theorists.

It has held - against international law  - Palestinian majority territories for decades while oppressing the locals.

It has not held Palestinian-majority territories against international law. One can argue about the propriety of its hold on the Golan, but there is no recognized state with any claim to territories within the former Mandate other than Israel itself.

The Mandate has not been operative since 1948.

Yes, this is how decolonization works. The Mandate came to an end and Israel is its legal successor entity.

Israel has no rights under that Mandate (and good for them, because the Mandate also provided for respecting the rights of the Palestinians). No country has ever recognized Israel's right to any claim to the West Bank and in fact Israel has refused to make such a claim because then they'd have to treat the local Palestinians as citizens.

Yes, but the thing is that it belongs to Israel under international law and Israel has never renounced its claim; its final status remains pending a peace agreement. But there is actually no generally recognized existing entity other than Israel that has a claim to it under international law (although there is a partially-recognized Palestinian state, also with ill-defined boundaries); this is why the occupation is legal.

Instead they have held the West Bank as a military occupation and massively violated the provisions of military occupations in international law (most obviously by allowing their citizens to settle there).

Right, so they have a claim to the area under international law and since they control the immigration policy they can let their citizens live there, and in fact some of the circumstances in which they’ve denied that right to their citizens actually are violations of international law. My main problem with the Israeli state is that they are far too hostile towards the settlers, in ways that should not be permitted. This pales next to the existence of Palestinian liberationism but ultimately there is a set of crimes the state will have to pay for.

Is that what you call the moral high ground?

…yes, I already said that. I think not recognizing the overwhelming moral superiority of the Israeli side is preposterous and comically blind.

A country that would never have existed without ethnic cleansing and which claims that it needs to indefinitely hold millions under blockade or under occupation for its security can't hold the moral high ground, it can merely claim to be the lesser evil. Only someone who assumes that Palestinians deserve less rights than Israelis in principle can support such views.

Yeah, I mean, I have made it very clear that my position is that Palestinian liberationism should not exist at all; foreign support for it should not exist at all; and the goal should be to get the Palestinian people to a point of cultural development where they celebrate and revel in its demise. I think the movement is cartoonishly evil and if North Korea attacked the Palestinian liberationists they would also hold the moral high ground; my opinion of this entire political tendency is very low. Just in this conversation I have compared it to apartheid and Nazism; my point is that extreme violence is justified in destroying it and there can be peace only when its former adherents and international allies recognize the totality of its evil, depravity, and unjustifiability.

That the Palestinians have also committed many terrible crimes against Israel over the years doesn't make Israel righteous.

And what does a "reasonable" person want to happen with the Palestinians if "liberationism" is unreasonable? Expulsion or apartheid?

The solution is post-apartheid: Palestinian liberationist organizations like Fatah and Hamas, like the apartheid National Party before them, should enter a coalition with the Israeli state as its junior partners and act in good faith towards Zionism and the furtherance of the goals of the Israeli state. The alternative is the fate of the National Socialist Party in Germany — nonexistence.

The Germans and white South Africans still exist, but the goals which their governments worked for have been utterly proscribed and cast out of the souls of the people living there. This is what any moral person demands of Palestinian leadership: the total abandonment of their current goals and deliberate action to aid those they have been fighting against. Also to feel sincere happiness about this outcome and to celebrate it for generations.

So you're arguing for a one state solution where everyone has equal rights, which is what happened in South Africa after the fall of the Apartheid regime? Good for your if this is true. As difficult as making it work, it would be better than the present situation.

Yes, but I think to have that happen would require enormous changes in people’s souls. These are not impossible and have happened before, but the current circumstances are such that I really do not expect them.

[Vosem]

There will be a refugee crisis because of this war, like there is with EVERY war. I imagine the Biden administration would be very welcoming of refugees (like most Democrats are), but it will probably be more of a mixed bag in Europe. In either case, it is essential that governments do not repeat the mistake they made in WWII of denying refugees entering their countries.

I can assure you that no one in Europe wants even one of these murderous and mentally deranged "Palestinians". The entire Gaza strips needs thirty years of deprogramming to come to its senses.

Polling indicates that about 75% of Palestinians support Israel's right to exist. I am pretty sure only a fraction of the remaining 25% support Hamas' actions a few days ago. Plus, there will also be a lot of Israeli refugees, who clearly do not support Hamas' actions.

I doubt there will be a major national security risk in accepting refugees as there is probably very little overlap between those who wants to flee violence (refugees) and those who want to engage in violence (Hamas).

Why are there no protests against Hamas in the West Bank then and only celebrations?

Because the country is literally oppressed by Israel. Kinda makes sense to celebrate the attacks - based on the sh**t they have to endure - even during peaceful times, sh**t you don't care about, in part because you don't live there.

Great inversion of the truth here! Actuality, oppression comes from threats to annihilate a people, and not from being richer than another in an abstract way. Thanks, sweetie.

[Vosem]

Back in 2013, I embraced 21st-century American protest culture and complained to the school administraton about an Amnesty International group being started at my high school. (I think they ended up basically just renaming themselves, unfortunately.) Good times. (The club consisted of four girls, two of whom were sisters, whose parents had encouraged them to do it, more so out of college-prep fervor than any political feelings. I talked to one of the sisters I had a mutual friend with but she was absolutely bewildered by the complaint.)

No peace with those guys until they reject all sympathy for Palestinian liberationism, and until they can watch its destruction and have it spark joy.

But, no, over a decade I've been dead set against those guys.

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Again--what does my condemnation of Hamas do for Israelis, Palestinians, or anyone else? They're reactionary Islamists whose presence at the forefront of the Palestinian movement is both shameful and a direct consequence of Shamir's own propping-up of them against a PLO which has since recognized Israel and gotten nothing for it.

Twofold answer here:

1. You have been more than happy to offer strong condemnations of both the Israeli state (justifiable) and Israeli citizens (rather suspect amidst a genuinely horrific terror attack). “What does my condemnation of Hamas do for Israelis and Palestinians” is a complete non sequitur - we both understand that many Israelis are deeply racist against Palestinians, but the way you frame it here takes you genuinely close to apologizing for the massacres of attempting to redirect the conversation.

2. There is definitely blame for the Israeli Right and Far Right here, particularly in propping up Hamas to support their political goals. However, it should be noted that Hamas is not merely a product of outside circumstances and reflects a worrying trend of extreme political actors seizing power for their own personal gain at the expense of the Palestinian Authority.

Israel is the ultimate aggressor and the entire Israeli-Palestinian conflict (as opposed to the broader Arab-Israeli conflict, which essentially ended in 1973) is rooted in the occupation. The fact that Hamas was able to seize power against a weak Palestinian Authority was possible because the Palestinian Authority is not allowed to be an actual state with enforcement powers!

No? Both Intifadas were explicitly declared by the Palestinians. You can consider them justified attacks -- I think this is totally ridiculous and that even stuff like WW2 had more shades of grey, but whatever -- but it certainly wasn't Israel who launched them.

The problem with a "Palestinian Authority as an actual state with enforcement powers" is the genocidal agenda, on which Fatah is waffly but not, historically, totally opposed. The solution here, again, is a Palestinian movement that learns to explicitly see itself as a tool of the Israeli state.

[Vosem]

Again--what does my condemnation of Hamas do for Israelis, Palestinians, or anyone else? They're reactionary Islamists whose presence at the forefront of the Palestinian movement is both shameful and a direct consequence of Shamir's own propping-up of them against a PLO which has since recognized Israel and gotten nothing for it.

Twofold answer here:

1. You have been more than happy to offer strong condemnations of both the Israeli state (justifiable) and Israeli citizens (rather suspect amidst a genuinely horrific terror attack). “What does my condemnation of Hamas do for Israelis and Palestinians” is a complete non sequitur - we both understand that many Israelis are deeply racist against Palestinians, but the way you frame it here takes you genuinely close to apologizing for the massacres of attempting to redirect the conversation.

2. There is definitely blame for the Israeli Right and Far Right here, particularly in propping up Hamas to support their political goals. However, it should be noted that Hamas is not merely a product of outside circumstances and reflects a worrying trend of extreme political actors seizing power for their own personal gain at the expense of the Palestinian Authority.

Israel is the ultimate aggressor and the entire Israeli-Palestinian conflict (as opposed to the broader Arab-Israeli conflict, which essentially ended in 1973) is rooted in the occupation. The fact that Hamas was able to seize power against a weak Palestinian Authority was possible because the Palestinian Authority is not allowed to be an actual state with enforcement powers!

No? Both Intifadas were explicitly declared by the Palestinians. You can consider them justified attacks -- I think this is totally ridiculous and that even stuff like WW2 had more shades of grey, but whatever -- but it certainly wasn't Israel who launched them.

The problem with a "Palestinian Authority as an actual state with enforcement powers" is the genocidal agenda, on which Fatah is waffly but not, historically, totally opposed. The solution here, again, is a Palestinian movement that learns to explicitly see itself as a tool of the Israeli state.


That's a total non starter and you know it. The Palestinians would never go for something that denies their existence, and would lead to more extremism down the long run.


Then again, there isn't other options too. We don't have any viable solutions.

It should not deny their existence -- that would be a horrible crime, actually -- but the analogy I am drawing is to white South Africans. There needs to be an acknowledgement within the community that their movement has been a criminal one for decades and that their enemies have been on the side of good for that entire period, and ideally this would include a coalition government along the lines of 1994-1999 and some episode like the merger of the National Party into the ANC. At that point there can be discussions regarding autonomy or independence (at least prior to this conflict, Gaza as an independent city-state was quite reasonable); similarly in South Africa I think independence for western Cape would probably be good if it can be accomplished on friendly terms.

For people to accept being subject to a Truth and Reconciliation process, they actually do need to have some sliver of power. But they have to actually and sincerely support the new order and it is one in which it is clear that their movement 'lost' and where they don't mourn it.

[Vosem]

Again--what does my condemnation of Hamas do for Israelis, Palestinians, or anyone else? They're reactionary Islamists whose presence at the forefront of the Palestinian movement is both shameful and a direct consequence of Shamir's own propping-up of them against a PLO which has since recognized Israel and gotten nothing for it.

Twofold answer here:

1. You have been more than happy to offer strong condemnations of both the Israeli state (justifiable) and Israeli citizens (rather suspect amidst a genuinely horrific terror attack). “What does my condemnation of Hamas do for Israelis and Palestinians” is a complete non sequitur - we both understand that many Israelis are deeply racist against Palestinians, but the way you frame it here takes you genuinely close to apologizing for the massacres of attempting to redirect the conversation.

2. There is definitely blame for the Israeli Right and Far Right here, particularly in propping up Hamas to support their political goals. However, it should be noted that Hamas is not merely a product of outside circumstances and reflects a worrying trend of extreme political actors seizing power for their own personal gain at the expense of the Palestinian Authority.

Israel is the ultimate aggressor and the entire Israeli-Palestinian conflict (as opposed to the broader Arab-Israeli conflict, which essentially ended in 1973) is rooted in the occupation. The fact that Hamas was able to seize power against a weak Palestinian Authority was possible because the Palestinian Authority is not allowed to be an actual state with enforcement powers!

No? Both Intifadas were explicitly declared by the Palestinians. You can consider them justified attacks -- I think this is totally ridiculous and that even stuff like WW2 had more shades of grey, but whatever -- but it certainly wasn't Israel who launched them.

They were declared in response to an ongoing military occupation. I know what you've been doing here but you can't twist this one.

We've had this exact conversation before! We can go over the points. Your perspective here is only reasonable if you adopt standards that would make a mockery of many other conflicts, like immigration under colonialism being inherently improper or a poorer ethnicity being inherently oppressed. I think once you clear all this off Israel being morally in the right against the Palestinians is very clear-cut stuff.

(I'll probably write a response to GMantis about international law -- where, like, if you take stuff literally you come to the conclusion that Israel committed serious crimes against the settler movement -- but if you prefer consensus and you interpret 'consensus' in particular ways you can reach his conclusions. Ultimately the issue is that international law does not have teeth and nobody really tries to interpret it in consistent ways.)

Amnesty International is pro open borders and not a serious organization. There are like half a million superior sources.

Up there with the SPLC in having managed to maintain good vibes from an earlier era even though they've adopted a crapton of actually racist nonsense.

[Vosem]

But it's not as simple as that though. The South African situation doesn't have the 2,000 year history of religous, sectional, conflict.


The Holy Land which three major religions see as crucial to their religous faith.

The issue is that the white South African political movements saw themselves as part of a larger bloc of nations, and those nations were pushing them to behave reasonably. The Palestinian political movements see themselves as part of a larger bloc of nations, and those nations just don't.

It is not a serious suggestion in the sense that I obviously know it won't happen. I think this is what it would take to make peace, and the alternative is this happening eventually after some large Israeli victory, or sequence thereof, in which a large fraction of the people of Gaza really do die because they have nowhere to go. (Similarly, Germany could have surrendered in 1944-45 and allowed itself to become a tool of the Allied Powers. Japan did do this! Instead there was a military defeat, featuring justified carpet-bombings in places like Dresden, and then Germany became a tool of the Allied Powers anyway. This was tragic and could have been avoided given a different attitude among the German leadership. But then if that attitude had existed they may never have started the war in the first place.)

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From 2019, before the current extreme violence but after several waves of Hamas rocket attacks that killed Israeli civilians:
https://twitter.com/haaretzcom/status/1711329340804186619?s=20
I haven't made anything up.

No, clearly the present government is also substantially culpable in not reoccupying/destroying the territory earlier in the 2010s in response to rhetoric, and the former Sharon-Likud/Kadima government is also culpable in withdrawing from the territory and also ethnically cleansing its Jews. (Sharon's stroke, which almost certainly prevented a similar withdrawal from much of the West Bank, is an underrated pivotal 21st-century historical moment; had he ruled longer the present conflict might have ended up far bloodier).

I repeat again: I'm much more anti-Palestinian than pro-Israeli, and I think reasonable people have to be. The Israeli government and its predecessors have messed up in numerous ways which allowed for this moment to happen. (That doesn't mean you shouldn't support them now -- it was reasonable to support the western Allies in 1939-1940 even if you could note that the whole thing would've been avoided if they'd stopped Hitler from remilitarizing the Rhineland.)

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Big Stalin trusted Hitler moment, honestly.

Sorry, couldn't find an English-subtitled version of Gorodnitsky's Molotov-Ribbentrop waltz. Might need to create one myself for reference.

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What are the odds that with the air strikes Israël is going to accidentally kill the hostages theirselves?

You know, there's been a lot of continuing criticism of the Beslan response, but there has not actually ever been another attack like Beslan. Israel should try not to aim for the hostages, and it should try not to aim for Gazan civilians, but it should definitely open fire; it is a tragic characteristic of war that some people are in the wrong place at the wrong time.

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Both Intifadas were explicitly declared by the Palestinians. You can consider them justified attacks -- I think this is totally ridiculous and that even stuff like WW2 had more shades of grey, but whatever -- but it certainly wasn't Israel who launched them.

Genuinely lol'd at this

Yeah, there's no Finland on the bad side and no USSR on the good side. This conflict is incredibly morally simple; the correct choice is very clear and making that choice has never caused less collateral damage.

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We all know that Israel can brute-force a total takeover of Gaza between air power and ground troops, but such an operation would lead to thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of dead Israeli soldiers, and would be bogged down for weeks or months, and that's before the occupation. Is the Israeli military, government, and society actually ready for that? Not a rhetorical question, and if they aren't, then Hamas will have exposed their limits.

Legitimately an interesting question; the scale of the Israeli mobilization is such that the occupation of Gaza (at least; this is a largest-since-the-1970s mobilization and virtually certainly involves a crackdown on the West Bank/quite possibly southern Lebanon) is going to be attempted. The commentary I've seen from Israelis themselves suggest that the "left" (including, like, Meretz MKs) are much more enthusiastic about this than the "right", who have been afraid of a military coup which might derail court reform, and now appears likelier to happen in a de facto way where Netanyahu is sidelined.

https://twitter.com/YairGolan1/status/1710769681039012260

This man was considered the single left-most MK from a Jewish party. Not a whole lot of subtlety there.

By contrast leaks have generally suggested -- though this is rumor mill stuff, treat it as word on the street rather than news -- that behind the scenes it is Netanyahu and the Haredi parties are the ones urging caution and that less extreme measures be taken in response.

(What you are leaving out is that it is obviously within Israel's capabilities to bomb Gaza hard enough that the ensuing occupation wouldn't be that challenging, although the scale of mobilization suggests that is not actually what they're planning on doing.)

~~

https://twitter.com/HeTows/status/1711513514429284796

I'm not sure that the Israeli left, in the sense that we have understood it after 1994, actually currently exists right now. The Overtown window shifted very far over the course of, like, half a day. (Which isn't to say that it couldn't come back at some point, but I don't know how relevant opinions from even a few days ago are to what is about to happen.) The anger and desire for escalation feels much greater in Israeli-left than Israeli-right commentary.

I wonder -- just on Atlas and Twitter -- how much this also applies to other countries. The right in many places has been pro-Israeli for many years, but everywhere you look there are a huge number of center-left people that have been radicalized overnight.

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What I've definitely seen is "normie" Democrats, mostly older, who defaulted to soft Israel support get galvanized into more vociferous Israel support, along with a lot of very loud voices from the sorts of KHive circles (and some weird cult called the school bonds wolves who dox people? IDK if you've heard of them) who got negatively polarized into aggressively supporting Israel. I have not seen minds changed outright.

Well, "stuff I've seen" is for me basically never representative. I'm glad you agree on the KHive stuff, though -- I pointed out back in our discussion back in 2021 that there had already been a significant pro-Israel turn among plugged-in centrist Democrats (and that, in particular, volunteers for the Biden and Buttigieg campaigns seemed to be commonly drawn from pro-Israel organizations at the university level). There had already been some amount of negative polarization, where those who disliked Sanders/Warren had already become fairly stridently pro-Israel. Few Democratic communities were against Sanders and Warren in quite the way the most strident Kamala supporters were in 2019. The current movement is among those sociologically similar to those people, but not so tuned in that they would've gone and worked for a campaign.

(In general -- while I did not call that an attack like this would happen and my guess was that Hamas would get in trouble for sheltering some foreign terrorist group -- I want to note that I was correct in saying that Palestinian liberationism would behave in ways cartoonishly evil enough that the trend of it losing international support would continue after 2021. I also called increasing Israeli radicalism not being very relevant to opinion abroad.)

I've also seen Left-Zionists simultaneously advocate aggressive force against Gaza as well as an end to the West Bank occupation and an openness to discussing the occupation (in and of itself and as something which strained the IDF due to the right's fixation on it).

I haven't really seen that; I guess I've seen Haaretz not change its position. But the Haaretz editorial line has been very extreme for a while; back in 2016-2017 I recall it getting condemned for anti-Semitism by both quite left-wing Israel-skeptical American Jewish journalists and also the Israeli left at that time, and links to it have dropped precipitously since that time. Their business model had been based for a long time on getting attention by writing provocative things, so being behind a paywall is very strange.

But what I've seen from politicians within Israel is Meretz members advocating courses of action that would've been considered edgy and controversial among the hawkish right, like, last week.

[Vosem]

Again--where is this diversity of opinion in the American (or especially British in the past couple years) press?
https://twitter.com/haaretzcom/status/1711391086609117660?s=20

Oh... So diversity of opinion means ever country has to have a press that parrots your opinion?

We get it.  2 million Gazans are stuck in an open prison that they can leave anytime they wish. They just can't go into Judea, because they can't be trusted not to murder and rape Jewish women and children.  

Where are they 'free to leave anytime' to? The Mediterranean Sea presumably? Israel doesn't even allow married Gazan's to travel between the strip and the West Bank afaik. I'm truly dumbfounded by this statement.

12% of Gazans have left since Hamas seized power in the Strip; they are free to leave to wherever will take them. (My guess is Hamas probably fights emigration in some way, but not with enough success to stop 12% of Gazans from leaving.)

Some open air prison that people leave routinely and which bombs its surroundings!

That said, immigration is not easy, logistically or spiritually, and expecting everyone to have left is not realistic. Unfortunately their (unelected!) government has pursued a policy of maximizing civilian casualties in wartime for propaganda purposes, and in general in conflicts against regimes which have committed similar crimes inflicting very severe civilian casualties, including leveling cities used as communications/supply hubs, has not been considered a crime.

Israel must take every measure reasonable to minimize civilian casualties -- it has an obligation to the world to do this -- but equally it must not allow minimizing civilian casualties to take priority over the destruction of the Gazan regime and its ideology. It has an obligation to the world on this point as well.

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Most Israelis are right of center on most issues.

'Left' and 'right' do not mean the same thing in every society, and every society has a different set of issues, and a different 'Overton window' of what positions on those issues are acceptable to hold. In Israel that window has been rapidly shifting over the past week.

In particular, militarism in Israel is a historically left-wing position, and while dovish thought has mostly been promoted by "left-wing" parties like Meretz and Avoda over the past few decades, the trend is towards dovish thought becoming associated with Haredi, religious fundamentalist parties.

Polling prior to the war breaking out suggested an election would result in a victory for the Kahol Lavan party of Benny Gantz, which by Israeli standards is "maybe-just-barely-left-of-center" -- although, yes, even in 2013 its positions would've scanned as "moderate right-of-center" -- but which has been led by a council of former generals.

This is just not a very coherent line of speculation, because I don't think the definitions of these words are precise enough to be meaningful in the context in which you're using them.

[Vosem]

12% of Gazans have left since Hamas seized power in the Strip; they are free to leave to wherever will take them. (My guess is Hamas probably fights emigration in some way, but not with enough success to stop 12% of Gazans from leaving.)

the residents of the Gaza Strip are not even remotely "free to leave" and the fact that so many of its residents have fled - despite the huge hurdles they must overcome in order to do so - only underlines just how desperate their situation has been since 2007.

I encourage you to read the article you linked here. As it states:

Some Palestinians depart for medical treatment without returning. Others pay bribes of thousands of dollars to Hamas police at the Rafah border crossing with Egypt. Sums as high as $10,000 dollars and more are paid to smugglers who take Palestinians by boat to Spain via Egypt and North Africa, or to Greece or Turkey, which are closer. Turkey is popular destination because the cost of a visa is only $150 and Turkey has a large Palestinian community of around 30,000.

The Palestinians are fleeing a bleak economic situation. Gaza’s unemployment rate stands at 74%. Those who manage to find a job earn an average yearly salary of $250. That puts 80% of Gaza’s population under the poverty line. The CIR report also noted a significant increase in suicide among youth.

I trust I don't need to spell it out for you here that the vast and overwhelming majority of Gazans are quite literally imprisoned within the Strip. Trapped, by both the blockade and the Hamas dictatorship.

I did read the article, and I said in my own post that immigration is hard both logistically and spiritually. It is hard to have the funds to leave a very poor country, and it is hard to abandon your family and support network to move to an uncertain life in a country where you may not speak the language and where people may not hold cultural assumptions which are very fundamental for you. I know individuals who fled Venezuela in the 2010s; when my father, mother, grandmother, and great-grandfather came to the US came to the US in 1995, it was after four years of Kafka-esque bureaucratic tangling, with $7,000 total, and with only my father even being familiar with the Latin alphabet. And no English.

Gaza is not unique in this. (Many dictatorships have functioned much more like prisons; to escape East Germany you had to be a MacGyver-esque genius, capable of personally engineering hot air balloons or literally personally inventing a new kind of vehicle). Paying a bribe is comparatively easy, and it is fair to note that leaving is not prohibited if 12% of people have left. (It is fair to note that those who left must have had some advantages over those who stayed; but this is always true when countries generate emigrant streams.)

like even if you're lucky enough to emigrate legally without having to give Hamas a bribe (by knowing the right people who can pull the right strings, i guess) the cheapest visa option is a whopping 60% the average annual salary - of the 26% who even EARN a salary.

Some open air prison that people leave routinely and which bombs its surroundings!

The Gaza Strip is an "open-air prison" for the two million civilians trapped inside.

Israel is the warden in this analogy but Hamas isn't an inmate - they are the guards

Gaza is not a prison. It is an authoritarian regime, and it is absolutely true that the people living under the authoritarian regime are oppressed by it much more than the people living in the states around it. It is important to maintain compassion for them -- even for people who are deluded enough to support the regime -- but that should not let anyone lose sight of what their situation is, or the threat posed by that regime to people around the world.

(Israel as the warden here feels strange; guards are hired by wardens, and don't fire rockets at them. But it is fair to say that the Gazan regime would not exist without the inexcusable failures of Israeli 'peace' policies between the Rabin and Olmert governments.)

More than one kind of evil exists in the world. Authoritarian regimes are not prisons. Thinking of them as prisons does not generally enlighten one as to what it is like to live under them -- maybe with a few select exceptions, like the DDR or Juche Korea -- or what their effect on the world around them is.