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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   28012 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 27, 2024

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There is that element of it, but I suspect that both Hamas and the Israeli right are a little more deliberate about it than parasites. I think they to a certain extent deliberately prop up each other, and seek to antagonize them.

Bezalel Smotrich infamously had that 2015 quote about Hamas being an asset:

“The Palestinian Authority is a burden and Hamas is an asset. On the same international field, in this game of delegitimization, and think about it for a moment: the Palestinian Authority is a burden, and Hamas is an asset. It is a terrorist organization. No one will recognize it. No one will give it status at the ICC. No one will let it put forth a resolution at the U.N. Security Council. ...”

That's some galaxy-brained thinking, right there.

It's not so exotic, really. If your goal is to crush your opponent, it is to your benefit for them to discredit themselves.

It isn't necessarily a good tactical move to speak that observation into the microphone, of course...

In terms of "adopting a strategy that sacrifices one's own people for the greater good", it's quite in line with Hamas' thinking.

Kind of a similar category to Biden's campaign secretly hoping for Trump to say the n-word or something. Do you want a major presidential candidate to say the n-word? If you're American, no; better that we have two enlightened saints arguing based on high-minded principled policy differences. But if you're the Biden campaign, of course you do. And that doesn't make Biden analogous to Hamas in any central sense.

Kind of a similar category to Biden's campaign secretly hoping for Trump to say the n-word or something.

You mean like this Vox article from yesterday?

That is what I was thinking of, yes :)

No, this is like Hillary Clinton (and the rest of the like-minded Democratic establishment) wanting Trump as her opposition because he looked like such a doofus to her. Seemed like a great idea, up until he won, and now the majority of the Republican party is behind him, and his attitude is becoming more and more dominant on the right. This is the future she (and her people) made.

Smotrich could go on saying "it's good that our opposition is terrorist", right up until they raped, killed, and kidnapped a bunch of Israelis. It's the fable of the scorpion and the frog - what did he think terrorists do, occupy campuses and chant slogans? But maybe Smotrich thinks that sacrificing a small number of his own people will help him in the long run. Just like Hamas thinks that sacrificing a small number of their own people will help them in the long run.

I mean, I can't speak for Smotrich, but if his goal is to crush the dream of Palestinian statehood, that project does seem to be further along now than it was on October 6.

And all it took was 1200 dead Israelis!

It probably would have worked with fewer

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