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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 28, 2024

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I was merely disputing @Walterodim standard for banning international orgs.

I guess that the true grade of Hamas infiltration lies between nine out of 13k (or whatever the proven cases are) and 20% (because I think it very unlikely that Mossad would miss half the Hamas members). The 10% claim might well be correct.

I think Israel had solid reasons to turn Gaza into an open air prison pre-war, controlling what goods go into it (except for the stuff Hamas smuggles in). But I also claim that such a strategy imposes certain humanitarian obligations upon Israel. If people in Haiti are starving, Israel can wash their hands of it. For Gaza, not so much.

So you need organizations to go into Gaza and distribute humanitarian goods. In pre-war Gaza, any organization will need to find some understanding with Hamas, who will likely take a hefty cut for their protection.

Presumably, the UNWRA is paying Gazans to distribute humanitarian supplies within Gaza. For that part of their payroll, I am assuming that Hamas is heavily over-represented as compared to the Gazan population. Getting a low level job at an international humanitarian org is a nice gig for your goons, and once you put the word out that these jobs are for your people only (and perhaps shoot a few civilian applicants who did not get the message), you can easily force the org to hire your people.

However, I am not sure that this level of infiltration would be a big deal. Any aid sent to Gaza will feed Hamas first, but it does not follow that we should therefore let Gaza starve.

Beyond that baseline of inevitable Hamas infiltration, there could be more serious stuff going on. Some UNWRA staff can presumably cross the border, so they are in a position to gather intelligence, or perhaps smuggle goods. And the propaganda effort seems bad, sure.

Unlike Hezbollah, which is a militia which also runs some hospitals as a side project, UNWRA seems a humanitarian organisation which also cooperates with terrorists as a side project. Israel can not just ban the latter and wash their hands of the humanitarian consequences.

I mean, if Bibi said "any NGO working in Gaza had to deal with Hamas, this is why henceforth, humanitarian aid will be given by IDF directly", that would be fine with me. I just don't think that it is politically possible.

Any aid sent to Gaza will feed Hamas first, but it does not follow that we should therefore let Gaza starve.

Does it not? That seems like exactly what follows. If you'd like to win, you can't go around supplying your enemy.

I am aware that this line of thinking is both unpopular and putatively internationally illegal. I find the conclusion that you're actually obligated to feed your military enemy so bizarre that I feel like I must surely be misunderstanding something about the position.