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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 2024

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I believe nations main principal should be vae victus and hate the modern worlds glorification of victims. Child victims should be a stain on the honor of the government who was supposed to be defending them not a way to rally support to their cause. I view Hamas as something like an abusive father. I view Israel the same way on Oct 7th.

I rather doubt most Israel supporters would go "vae victis" if the Arab countries actually managed to unify under a hardline regime, destroyed Israel and expelled the Jews.

Yes, but in practice that would be it, since once reclaimed by the Arabs Jews would likely never again be able to win it militarily.

Also, the moment the Arabs defeat the jews the arabs will fight each other. Part of why 1948 failed was the jockeying between Syria and Egypt for the supposed spoils of war. There will be no time to mourn the jews when their massacre/expulsion is merely the first act of a neverending conflict.

Probably not, but I only speak for myself

No one says this immediately today. The question is what is the statute of limitations on historical land grievances? We discourage conquest and colonization today, but we cannot roll back or atone for every conquest that ever happened.

(This is why I find the Israelis' argument that Israel was "theirs" 2000 years ago to be completely irrelevant.)

How do you say "ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ" in modern Hebrew? The Arabs have tried that before; it did not go well for them.

Translated directly “בוא תיקח” sounds weird rather than defiant, so I’d go with translating the meaning rather than the words. “בוא נראה אותך” is “let’s see you (try)” works, or maybe “תנסה ותראה” which is “try and see (what happens if you do)”, akin to “fuck around and find out”. You’d have to change it to fit the speaker and subject, though.

The Persians did, in fact, ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ in the Battle of Thermopylae.

Eh, the Arab expulsion of jews from the greater middle east and the Algerian civil war don't elide much irredentism. If the Arabs got good enough to unify and crush every jew, pearls may be clutched for a day, then it'll be forgotten. No one cared about the Armenians, no one cares about the Rohingya and Masalit, and no one will care about the Hazara Kurds or Uighur. If the Arabs git gud enough to kill every jew, we won't care either after the requisite pearl clutching.

Eh, the Arab expulsion of jews from the greater middle east and the Algerian civil war don't elide much irredentism.

Why would it? It was basically a jackpot for the Zionist movement, insofar as getting the settlement of Israel properly going went.

Sure. I still don't exactly see the French agitating for the return of Algiers or the Poles demanding Lviv (despite Moscows rhetoric). Irredentism is temporary to living memory, and the more who die the less who remember.