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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   33253 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023

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So, does Israel have a case? Is Israeli behavior justifiable?

It depends on your premises.

1/If you believe in individual human rights, if you believe that murder is wrong, torture is wrong, imprisonment without trial is wrong, taking someone land and property without compensation is wrong, destroying people's houses and other collective punishments are wrong, then Israel is wrong.

2/If you believe in collective national rights, if you believe that land belongs to nation that lives there and foreigners showing up uninvited in someone else's country are wrong, then Israel is wrong.

3/If you believe in authority of United Nations, then Israel was right 76 years ago and is wrong ever since then.

4/If you believe that Bible is literally true, that Biblical laws are eternally binding, if you believe that Land of Israel was given by God to Hebrews for forever and ever, then Israel is wrong (for leaving any Palestinian or their livestock live).

5/If you believe that only right is might and only law is law of tooth and claw, then Israeli behavior is fine (and Palestinian terrorism is too).

This highlights a general disagreement I see. Pro-Palestine arguments are often based on high principles of human rights, international law, democracy, etc. Pro-Israel arguments are often based on pragmatism, political reality and a flavor to might-makes-right. The second kind of argument just clicks better with me, I guess this might be some moral foundation kind of thing. I can see the morally pure argument for fighting the Dane until he gives up all he has unlawfully taken. But the Dane seem to be well settled and well defended, and if your side would have won the wars of yesteryear, then you would be the ruler of Denmark today and you would be equally unwilling to give back to the Danes all that you'd taken from them, so at some point it's just time to accept reality and move on. (It's easy to claim the moral high ground and lofty principles when you are in a position without power.)

Or maybe I'm just unconsciously seeking out the arguments I like from the side I unconsciously want to like and the arguments I dislike from the side I don't want to like.

Or maybe I'm just unconsciously seeking out the arguments I like from the side I unconsciously want to like

You're missing one possibility: you like the argument that might is right, because the natural reaction of the powerless is to suck up to the mighty.

The "high principled" pro-Palestine arguments do better to outline flaws in those principles than they do to support the Palestinian case. The "democracy" argument comes down to two wolves complaining that the sheep isn't on the menu (granted it's a very tough and stringy sheep with big horns). The "human rights" argument has to turn a blind eye to the point that a lot of the claimed "human rights violations" exist because when relaxed, the Palestinians use the opportunities granted to kill more Israelis.

because when relaxed, the Palestinians use the opportunities granted to kill more Israelis.

Utterly meaningless aside that has shown up in several of your posts. If I punch you in the face and declare that I'm going to take your home from you by force of arms and then evict you with the help of a bunch of my well armed friends, do I then get to talk about how morally correct I was to do so because you keep trying to punch me in the face and take back your house? Your argument here only works because you remove those incidents from their historical context, and one can use the exact same technique to make all kinds of incorrect arguments (like my one above).

This amounts to an argument that it's right for the Palestinians to ethnically cleanse the Israelis. Which is an argument you can make, but it fails to sound as highly principled as the usual "human rights" arguments.

"Divorcing individual events from their historical context allows you to make nonsensical claims about morality" is incredibly far removed from "It's ok to genocide the jews" and I'm honestly surprised that you read that out of my post. You're putting an incredibly inflammatory comment in my mouth, and I can't see any reason for it.

Your analogy "If I punch you in the face and declare that I'm going to take your home from you by force of arms and then evict you with the help of a bunch of my well armed friends, do I then get to talk about how morally correct I was to do so because you keep trying to punch me in the face and take back your house?" directly implies that yes, it is OK for the Palestinians to "take back" Israel. I did not say "genocide", I said "ethnically cleanse". If this were to happen and somehow you were to keep the Jews from fighting back, most of them would probably leave rather than be genocided.

directly implies that yes, it is OK for the Palestinians to "take back" Israel.

No, it does not. It implies that choosing an arbitrary cut-off point for your moral condemnation is bad and can be used to justify any kind of dishonest conclusion, in the same way that it is an abuse of statistics to start comparing islamic and right-wing terrorism from the date of September 12, 2001. What I am saying is that your argument is useless when it comes to gaining additional clarity on the situation, and if you want to accurately apportion blame and determine who is in the right you need to look at these events in a larger historical context. Maybe the people with the best claim to that land are the French descendants of the Knights Templar - probably not, but my point is that your argument prevents this from happening and obscures the truth of the matter while making one side look better than the other.

I did not say "genocide", I said "ethnically cleanse".

This is an absurd level of hairsplitting and even just looking at wikipedia (lol) the picture provided for the ethnic cleansing article is of an event described as a genocide. Is this really the quality of argument that you want to make?

The distinction I am making is "expel" versus "kill". This is not hairsplitting. That "ethnic cleansing" sometimes euphemistically refers to genocide and the UN definition of "genocide" (but not the more common definition) includes some things which aren't killing is the hairsplitting.

I settle on the same basic positions without having any particular affinity for Israel or the claim that it should be a Jewish homeland. I generally oppose modern invasions, but regard references to who should own something based on a generations old war to be worth not much more than an eyeroll. OK, sure, it's not fair that the United States drove Indians off of land that they occupied - now what? I don't care, it's American property and I have zero interest in land acknowledgement.

3/If you believe in authority of United Nations, then Israel was right 76 years ago and is wrong ever since then.

Well, we are hardly breaking ground with this thought, but the UN's position is schizophrenic. You can't both hold the position that a nation has a right to exist, but also insist its borders must be maximally indefensible and that it cannot expand them (as all nations have done) following a successful defensive war.

you can't both hold the position that a nation has a right to exist, but also insist its borders must be maximally indefensible and that it cannot expand them (as all nations have done) following a successful defensive war

the maximally indefensible borders which they "defended"?

Because their opposition was a bunch of clowns.

Yes, those ones. Had they just hung tight and said, "well, surely that massed formation poses no threat to us, they are on their side of the border and can form up as they like", Israel would have been in quite the pickle. For those not familiar with the relevant context:

In the months prior to the outbreak of the Six-Day War in June 1967, tensions again became dangerously heightened: Israel reiterated its post-1956 position that another Egyptian closure of the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping would be a definite casus belli. In May 1967, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser announced that the Straits of Tiran would again be closed to Israeli vessels. He subsequently mobilized the Egyptian military along the border with Israel, and also ordered the immediate withdrawal of all UNEF personnel.[32][25]

Perhaps the pre-1967 borders would have been tenable with an internationally recognized demilitarized zone and UN guarantee of clear shipping lanes, but that isn't what was transpiring. Establishing a new, defensible border was a reasonable and normal reaction to the Arab offensive.

you cannot claim something is maximally indefensible when you successfully defend them

I think I addressed this objection, but to try to rephrase - the indefensibility of the borders put them in a position where the only feasible approach was a preemptive strike across those borders as a response to buildup and economic pressure. They could not have taken a strictly defensive posture from the prior position, which leads to an unstable equilibrium.

It is correct that it's not "maximally" indefensible though, granted, I'm sure we could draw borders that were even less defensible.

you cannot claim borders are "maximally indefensible" to the point where it contradicts any ability whatsoever to exist at all while doing just that

the indefensibility of the borders put them in a position where the only feasible approach was a preemptive strike across those border

that was the approach they took, that doesn't mean it was "the only feasible approach" and otherwise would have resulted in defeat, i.e., the inability to defend the "maximally indefensible" borders

edit: Israeli wants are simply relabeled as necessities

if you look at Palestine, their borders are more "indefensible" and yet that doesn't mean they get to claim by necessity to make their borders "defensible" otherwise you are denying their "right to exist"

you cannot claim borders are "maximally indefensible" to the point where it contradicts any ability whatsoever to exist at all while doing just that

Cool, that's why I didn't claim that and stated that the poster who did was incorrect. I'm glad we could come to an accord on the matter.

if you look at Palestine, their borders are more "indefensible" and yet that doesn't mean they get to claim by necessity to make their borders "defensible" otherwise you are denying their "right to exist"

Yeah, it does. Palestine is being denied a right to exist. It doesn't exist as a stable entity in any meaningful sense and a significant part of this is that it lacks a coherent, defensible border or the means to create and enforce such a border.

the means to create and enforce the border is what causes the "defensible" border, not the other way around

my comments are meant to point out things presented as necessities to exist are simply not

Palestine is being denied a right to exist

indeed

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