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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   29463 thread views

Israel-Gaza Megathread #1

This is a megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.

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At this point the optics don't matter. I genuinely believe that Israel could detonate some tactical nuclear weapons in Gaza, killing everybody there, including the prisoners, and would suffer almost no negative consequences for it.

Israel, and by extension the Jewish diaspora, has an absolute grasp on western media and government. During the American house speaker recall debate, one of the congresswomen gave a speech explaining that we should keep McCarthy as speaker because he has done the most to bring other congressmen to Israel. Major American policy debates center around support for Israel, a small foreign country.[1]

The Palestinian terror attacks were a type of brutality I don't think anybody in the modern western world has ever seen before. They were uniquely horrific, and I think this will be remembered as a turning point in modern history the same way that 9/11 was.

Israel is out for blood, and nobody in the west with any real power is going to stop them.

And by the way: good for them. I, a Catholic American, am jealous (although jealous is the wrong word since that sortof implies an animosity, which I have none of) of the power that the Jewish people have. Much of my criticism of The Church centers around not behaving more like The Jews. Why no Catholic equivalent to "Birthright Israel"? Why not make Catholics learn latin anymore? These are good things that people should do.

(Although I don't think they should be nuking Palestine.)

I genuinely believe that Israel could detonate some tactical nuclear weapons in Gaza, killing everybody there, including the prisoners, and would suffer almost no negative consequences for it.

Really? You really genuinely believe that Israel could break that many taboos at once and suffer "almost no consequences"? Is the "almost" poised to do very much work? Are we to read this as a literal statement of fact about your most deeply-held beliefs, or is there at least a moderate amount of hyperbole at work here?

IDF just said that Gazans have about 12 more hours to evacuate about 1M people before they start their invasion. How do you interpret that?

https://www.axios.com/2023/10/13/israel-gaza-hamas-evacuate-un-ground-operation

As a far cry from literally nuking the place, and, without intending offense, as you dodging the question.

Why are you asking me to restate this? Yes: I think Israel could do almost anything at this point, up to a tactical nuke, and would suffer almost no repercussions for it.

Yes I am being slightly hyperbolic.

Yes I am being slightly hyperbolic.

Being "slightly hyperbolic" amounts to "everything I say that someone calls me on, is hyperbolic. Everything I say that nobody calls me on, well, I got away with it". It's like "comedians" acting as serious political commentators right up until someone finds a hole in their story, which they then say was just part of the comedy.

I don’t think a debate about whether or not hyperbole is a useful rhetorical tool is something we’re going to solve on themotte.

What do you think would happen if Israel detonated a low yield nuclear weapon in Gaza? Let’s set up the scenario: they detonate a small yield tactical nuke inside of one of the Hamas tunnels? I’ve linked elsewhere in this thread to descriptions of the tunnels, but some of them could be pretty deep underground.

This would have the result of almost no civilian casualties, would collapse the tunnels, and would have no significant fallout.

Israel/IDF can get on the TV and explain that they assessed the situation and determined that conventional weapons wouldn’t work, and that the tunnels are an existential threat to Israel. They could explain that the yield wasn’t much higher than the MOAB, but that they needed that level of power in a small package that could fit in a tunnel. They would explain that this was done to minimize civilian deaths and that this was the surgical way of detonating the tunnels. Lindsay Graham would be on Fox News within the day defending it. The words “Israel has a right to exist” would be thrown around a lot. We’d hear about how dedicated Israel is to minimizing collateral damage despite Hamas using human shields and how this was the only option and also the most humanitarian option. Israel would take the moral high ground and people would fall in line supporting that idea.

Etc. etc. etc. We could go through these scenarios all day long and come up with ways in which Israel could probably get away with using a tactical nuke on Gaza. It’s very unlikely, but that is the point of hyperbole; taking the point to its furthest conclusion and exploring the territory out there. I think you’re getting into some pretty bad faith discussion by pretending that this is something else, which also has the effect of derailing the discussion. If you want to have a discussion about if hyperbole is a valid rhetorical tool, please do so in the small question Sunday thread.

Hey, thanks for explaining yourself in such detail. That's a lot more reasonable than how I read it originally.

And by the way: good for them. I, a Catholic American, am jealous (although jealous is the wrong word since that sortof implies an animosity, which I have none of) of the power that the Jewish people have.

I'm not the first to notice that the way American neocons seem to revel in Israeli nationalism seems like a bit of a proxy for their repressed desire to express some sort of nationalism while still getting GoodBoyPoints.

Ukraine too. We're not allowed to have pride in our country generally, but it's okay so long as it's only to stomp the face of the Russians. It's sickening how much cheering happens over the bodies of dead Russian conscripts.

We're not allowed to have pride in our country generally.

Speak for yourself.

Oh, he's speaking for Germany, too, intentionally or not.

The Palestinian terror attacks were a type of brutality I don't think anybody in the modern western world has ever seen before.

Baffling statement as far as I am concerned. Nothing I've seen so far made we wince the way some videos from Ukraine do. Then there are cartel videos, and minor events like, for example, that tourist woman getting beheaded in Morocco (?). This is of course just the tip of the brutality iceberg that's easy to access.

I've seen some videos of Israelis getting shot, some dead women, some captive scared women. Stuff that, to me, does not feel out of place in Israel, considering the unresolved conflict. Is there any actually gruesome stuff out there?

I think the Hamas videos have mostly hit that sweet spot of "bad enough to be shocking, tame enough that people will watch it" that have allowed them to go viral. A lot of people have seen the German girl in the back of the truck getting spat on or the dead Israeli soldier getting stomped on, but not so many have watched the one where Hamas is trying to decapitate the Filipino guy with a garden hoe. That's just too much.

Right exactly, like you have to be an extreme degenerate to watch some of the worse cartel videos, they’re truly scarring. The Israel ones are shocking but the descriptions lead people who would never click on ‘NSFL Cartel Execution’ to watch them.

I guess I'm an extreme degenerate then. But I'm a strong believer in diving first swimming later. You don't grasp the true weight of the situation if you don't see the worst of it.

Am I scarred? No. If anything I'm better off. No matter how bad things get, at least I didn't piss off the zetas. The cartel videos gave me a new scale of how bad things truly can get.

Yeah. Pissing off the Zetas is suicide, if you do it it's best to always have bombs or grenades on you...

What videos from Ukraine are you referring to? I have seen a lot of videos with brutal combat footage or savage treatment of POWs, but I have not seen any comparable videos featuring civilians — worst ones are just civilians getting blown up by munitions hitting civilian areas, nothing comparable to Hamas.

I am primarily referring to 'brutal combat footage or savage treatment of POWs', yes. If the question is the emotional, subjective impact (what I meant by 'wince') of an individual video, I think it does not matter who the victim is, it all comes down to either extreme cruelty in full display or detail. There is a well known trench combat video when one of the surprised soldiers gets shot, you begin to hear him scream in fear and agony, and barely a second later his is shot again and silent - I mean this sort of detail. Meanwhile photos from Bucha mentioned below did nothing of the sort for me, as bad as murder is.

Photos that came out of Bucha is going to be the default answer. Incidental and collateral causalities don't typically have their hands tied. Of course, we live in an age of information warfare and PR so consume and verify according to your preferences.

I know about these, but I can hardly believe that these static photos of the aftermath made the original poster “wince”, compared to the videos of Hamas attack. I assumed that he referred to something else.

There were videos of Russian at checkpoint shooting civilian cars (and murdering whoever was also inside and dragging their corpses into wood).

And some recording from Mariupol (including some captured over several days by teenagers and younger).

But nothing significantly worse than what Hamas proudly published.

I haven't really seen it either, and that's despite a recent dip in the /pol pool -- it does seem to be very much what Current Thingers want everyone to believe though.

And by the way: good for them. I, a Catholic American, am jealous (although jealous is the wrong word since that sortof implies an animosity, which I have none of) of the power that the Jewish people have.

For this, you would need to invent some "secular Catholic" identity and community, where someone who never went to Church, who does not obey and does not care about any of Catholic religious laws, someone who does not know transubstantiation from transmission, someone whose only connection to Catholicism is that some of his ancestors were sprinkled with water by priest hundreds years ago, would still identify as proud Catholic.

Aren't there some lingering-even-now vestiges of the Reformation that resemble this description? Ireland is the example that comes to mind, although I can't speak to church attendance among the parties in the Troubles. In the US, sentiment against Italian and Irish (and more recently, Latin American) immigrants was at least partly driven by the Catholic-Protestant divide. I think the history of the Dutch Flemish-speaking parts of Belgium would suggest that distinction is similar vis-a-vis The Netherlands.

Some Cajuns still disown for apostasy from the catholic faith(and I myself have a cousin we do not speak to). IRA members don’t go to church, and didn’t when irelands church attendance rate was extremely high either.

Among the eastern rites, Maronite and Ukrainian Catholics are known for their obsession with their catholic status even when it doesn’t entail waking up early enough on Sundays to actually make it to mass very often, and St Thomas Christians have the st Thomas Christian identity regardless of how well they actually adhere to the faith.

Ireland is the example that comes to mind, although I can't speak to church attendance among the parties in the Troubles.

It depends.

The Unionists took their religion seriously, with leaders like Ian Paisley.

The Republicans (IRA and various splinter groups of splinter groups) were "catholic" only in the sense that "I never go to church, and the church I do not go to is Catholic church).

It is no accident that the Irish Republicans gained sympathy and support worldwide while the Unionists had no allies, even in mainland Britain few were sympathetic to their struggle, most Brits saw Northern Ireland as nothing than millstone on their neck they should be better off without.

Yes exactly. I think that would be a good thing because it would be easier for lapsed adult Catholics to return to The Church.

No. This is borderline not being Catholic yourself especially how others are expressing it in the comments.

Catholicism is NOT an ethnicity. It’s not nationalism. It should never be an ethnicity or a nation. It’s about following Christ of which includes following the Church as the representative of Christ on earth.

I want nothing to do with people who want a culture Catholic ethnicity.

As brutal as the Spanish were there is a reason why Mayans and Aztecs today are mostly all Catholic. They were still viewed as brothers capable of embracing Christ.

Christ himself was pretty clearly against this notion. Matt 10:34-39

[34] Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.

[35] For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

[36] And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.

[37] He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

[38] And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.

[39] He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.

Emphasis mine.

EDIT: sorry meant to reply to @firmamenti

I was confused at first but then saw the edit. Like I said I’m not in communion currently with the Church. I don’t like your quote (34) and think it’s lacking context. But a lot of your quotes are why I fell away from the Church because I’m not actually willing to do those things. I don’t believe the Evangelicals that you just need to believe. But that you actually need to act.

I do feel like I understand what he’s looking for. I’ve seen videos of Jews coming together now. And I do think having a community like that is a good thing.

See my reply here: https://www.themotte.org/post/705/israelgaza-megathread-1/148332?context=8#context

In all of that you never once mention Christ. It makes me feel like an Evangelical. You mention beliefs like being anti-abortion. The reason we believe those things is because the Church at its core is to foster a personal relationship with Christ.

Michael Corleone was Catholic but I don’t think he was Christian. People can do all the things you say but I don’t think that’s what the religion is about.

Man I feel like you are going pretty far out of your way to misinterpret what I’m saying. Am I just missing the point you’re trying to make? This is starting to border on the sort of “Catholics aren’t really Christians since they follow the church and not Christ!” arguments that mega church pastors make before asking for money and telling you about the Ferris wheel.

Anyway I think I’ve made my point. I think people should be Catholic. No I don’t think there is any reasonable interpretation of what I’ve said and clarified that leads to Michael Corleone embodying anything I’m supporting. I also don’t think we are going to sit here and re-derive the entirely of Catholic theology and philosophy in some text posts back and forth.

If you want to be Christ-like and follow Christs teachings (which I think you should do) then being Catholic is good. Anything you’re trying to torture out of what I’ve said beyond that is a misinterpretation by you and I think I’ve done enough clarification at this point.

No. This is borderline not being Catholic yourself especially how others are expressing it in the comments.

An absurd statement. I want my literal sisters, my literal mother and father, and some of my friends, who have fallen off of the faith, to remember that they are still baptized, confirmed catholics and should return to Church with me every Sunday when I invite them to mass with me.

I'm not describing diluting the faith. I'm advocating for a more traditional interpretation of it where people assign more importance and value to it.

I feel like I have to have back @sliders1234 on this one. If those who have left the faith choose to return I believe they should be welcomed with open arms, but in the meantime...

he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.

  • Henry V, Act IV Scene III

Okay I think I understand what you guys are saying, and I think we're getting in a bit of a semantics trap here.

I'm saying: a person who was raised catholic, and who went through confirmation, should still consider themselves associated with The Church. When they hopefully decide to go back to church, it shouldn't be a question of which church they go to, since they are...Catholic.

Contrast this with an atheist, or somebody finding faith for the first time. Catholicism might be an option for them, but wouldn't be the default since they have no connection to Catholicism.

It's the difference between returning to something, and finding something for the first time.

I'm not saying that people who aren't going to church and aren't living a Catholic lifestyle should still refer to themselves as "Catholics". I think I'm actually saying the opposite of that. I can see where the confusion came from, though, since this is how many Jews approach their religion.

When I say be more like the Jews, it's probably based on a misunderstanding. What I actually mean is:

  • Send your kids to Catholic school

  • Marry other Catholics

  • Be friends with other Catholics

  • Make Catholicism a central part of your life (Many devout Catholics I know are extremely charitable, for instance)

  • Be assertively Catholic. Be unapologetically anti abortion, anti-degeneracy etc. Be proud of the makeup of the supreme court. Pray before meals, etc.

Maybe this is based on my interactions with Jewish friends, who all seem to be a lot more devout and dedicated to their religion than a lot of my Catholic friends. I don't think I have ever had a person reveal to me that they are Jewish, and have it be a surprise since they are all somewhat vocal about it. I have had the opposite reaction from friends who tell me that they're Catholic, and it be a surprise to me because they don't...seem very Catholic.

Consider Ben Shapiro: what does him being Jewish have to do with his talk show or whatever? But is there any question about his religious affiliation?

To my comment about Latin: the fact that many jews speak Hebrew creates a sense of belonging and camaraderie that I wish existed with Catholics. I hear my Jewish friends rattle stuff off in Hebrew all the time (although it's mostly references to practices, or holidays) - I think that being a Jew and having a language that unites you with other Jews probably does a lot to create a sense of cohesion, and I suspect also keeps people in the faith (not just the language, but all of the things like that).

So again I'm not saying to water the faith down and just let anybody say they're Catholic without really having that mean anything. I'm saying the opposite of that: make saying "I'm Catholic" really mean something.

I think that this stuff will make it harder to leave The Church, and easier to return if you do, since it is more of a central part of your identity than just something you do every Sunday for an hour.

What would be nice is if there was a religion that was more or less born and adapted to a modern, industrial context in which germ theory was a thing and there was essentially no threat of literally starving to death.

I can't speak for @sliders1234, but for my part...

I think I'm actually saying the opposite of that. I can see where the confusion came from, though, since this is how many Jews approach their religion.

...clears a lot up because, yes, the latter part is what I thought you ment and at the risk of proffering aid and comfort to the enemy by agreeing with our local neo-nazis I think this is an instance where the claim that there is a cabal of Jewish intellectuals trying to undermine the west is actually true. The idea that religious/ethnic identity is a matter of blood rather than one of cultural practice/affiliation is a distinctively Jewish one. Even the Jihadis for all their barbarism are welcoming of converts and on occasion respectful towards those they view as useful allies/worthy opponents.

The idea that religious/ethnic identity is a matter of blood rather than one of cultural practice/affiliation is a distinctively Jewish one. Even the Jihadis for all their barbarism are welcoming of converts and on occasion respectful towards those they view as useful allies/worthy opponents.

Is this really the dominant idea among Jews nowadays? I'm sure someone can find a rabbi somewhere who endorses this or something, but I've never had the impression people actually reject converts. 17% of Jews in America were raised in another religion, Israel is already diverse and anyone from the rest of the world can get citizenship by converting, regardless of ethnic origin.

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I guess I think the goal of a Catholic is to live as how Christ lived (I’ve failed and am not in communion with the church presently).

Of course we all will fail at that. The sacraments when we try to accomplish that in good faith are there to give us forgiveness. And to believe that Jesus Christ the son God came to this earth to experience our experience and die for our sins to give us a path.

A more traditional interpretation of the faith would be the apostles and the saints. You don’t really get to have preferences for friends and family though it’s very human. The mission is to care for all the same and bring all into the faith. It’s one reason why Priest don’t have family’s so they don’t have biases versus caring for the whole community. Now not all are called to be Priest and Saints and you probably do have some special caring for family.

But using Jews specifically as an example Catholicism is not an ethnic community. We aren’t a chosen people. It gets a little dangerous to look at how Jews a religion by birth and apply their way of doing things to a universal church. Jews are in someways a blood cult. Catholics are not.

You've completely lost me here. I think Catholics should learn latin and should consider their faith a central part of their life and their family's life.

Anything else you're reading here you're misunderstanding.

And I’m saying that’s not the message of Catholicism or Christianity. Other than consider faith a central part of their life. That’s emphasizing tradition and well not the core messages of Christianity.

An emphasis on Latin especially. While that’s can be a fun tradition and a part it’s also exclusionary and Catholicism is a universal church for all which implies most would need their mother tongue. It’s the message that matters not the language.

Are you trying to tell me that Catholics do not have an emphasis on tradition? And that an interest or respect for tradition is somehow anti-Catholic?

Could you expand on that?

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Exactly NO. NO. NO.

Secular Jewish identity is not Baal teshuva movement, it is not run by Orthodox rabbis.

You need Catholic identity for people who do not ever want to obey any Catholic laws, who do not care about any priests, who cannot return to church because they had never been there, and do not want to go there for the first time under any circumstances, but still want to identify and feel as proud Catholics.

So Catholics for choice?

So you mean like very public proud Catholics who are denied communion over publicly disagreeing with core Church teachings and actively working against those same?

And by the way: good for them. I, a Catholic American, am jealous (although jealous is the wrong word since that sortof implies an animosity, which I have none of) of the power that the Jewish people have.

Hm, I'm wondering if there's a term for that, jealousy without animosity. Would "admiration" capture the meaning?

Perhaps envy? Checking myself on perceived connotation, this blog post says:

Many people interchange the words envy and jealousy without causing much confusion. You can say Joshua is envious or Joshua is jealous, and your audience will most likely understand the message you’re trying to convey. However, these two words have different meanings. Read on if you want to use these words precisely, and make your friends envious that you know the difference.

Envy is the longing to have what someone else has, whether it be attributes or possessions. Envy requires only two parties—you and someone else. For example, you may envy another student because they got a good grade on the exam, but you didn’t.

To feel jealous means “to feel threatened, insecure, or protective of something you already have (especially in a romantic sense).” Whereas envy requires two parties, jealousy requires three. For example, you might feel jealous of your best friend’s new friend because you feel as if you might get replaced.

So perhaps @firmamenti isn't jealous of Israel, as he doesn't hold a grudge against them or the Jewish diaspora, but he is envious of their ability to wield religious identity as both a shield and a weapon.

The way I understand the words, envy is when you want what others have and jealousy is when you don't want others to have what you have.

Yeah admiration is close. But it’s like admiration but also some form of sadness or sense of failing for not having the same thing.

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