naraburns nihil supernum
1yr ago
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Israel-Gaza Megathread #2
This is a refreshed 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.
Given the German history in the last century, I do not think that most of our European neighbors would view this as a call to charm them into ceding substantial parts of their territory out of their goodness of heart. They would clearly and correctly interpret it as a call to drown Europe in recidivist warfare again.
The history between the Palestinians longing for their own state and Israel is no less bloody than the one which lead to the current borders of Germany. Hamas, one of the most influential Palestinian organization which also happens to subscribes to the "river to the sea" territorial claim gave the world a clear taste of the means they prefer to accomplish their goal. While they thankfully don't have a realistic path to victory, I am not aware of any Palestinian group whose strategy is to charm Israel into ceding all of their territory to a Palestinian nation state out of their goodness of heart. I fully expect the Israelis would defend the existence of their state until their last soldier and nuke.
Under these circumstances, I see little semantic difference between “Palestine shall be free from the river to the sea” and "Go Hamas, drive the Jews into the sea!"
(Another debatable point would be the concept of a "free" nation state. As a person without strong nationalist sentiments (a trait I likely share with the wokes parroting the slogan), I think this is a curious choice of adjective. I suppose states like Afghanistan or North Korea would qualify as "free", because their despotic rulers are not beholden to any foreign power, while Scotland, Texas or Bavaria are not because they are part of larger states. If one focuses on personal freedom, the most free Palestinians in the Middle East are Israelis (because they are (2nd class) citizens of a western democracy) and the least free are Gazans (because they are ruled by Islamists (who in my experience are not great at respecting gender identities) who clearly place their suicidal terrorism over the welfare of their subjects.)
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Notes -
I agree.
As an intuition pump, suppose the Germans started using the first stanza of the Deutschlandlied again, which contains the lines
(See here for where these rivers run.)
Given the German history in the last century, I do not think that most of our European neighbors would view this as a call to charm them into ceding substantial parts of their territory out of their goodness of heart. They would clearly and correctly interpret it as a call to drown Europe in recidivist warfare again.
The history between the Palestinians longing for their own state and Israel is no less bloody than the one which lead to the current borders of Germany. Hamas, one of the most influential Palestinian organization which also happens to subscribes to the "river to the sea" territorial claim gave the world a clear taste of the means they prefer to accomplish their goal. While they thankfully don't have a realistic path to victory, I am not aware of any Palestinian group whose strategy is to charm Israel into ceding all of their territory to a Palestinian nation state out of their goodness of heart. I fully expect the Israelis would defend the existence of their state until their last soldier and nuke.
Under these circumstances, I see little semantic difference between “Palestine shall be free from the river to the sea” and "Go Hamas, drive the Jews into the sea!"
(Another debatable point would be the concept of a "free" nation state. As a person without strong nationalist sentiments (a trait I likely share with the wokes parroting the slogan), I think this is a curious choice of adjective. I suppose states like Afghanistan or North Korea would qualify as "free", because their despotic rulers are not beholden to any foreign power, while Scotland, Texas or Bavaria are not because they are part of larger states. If one focuses on personal freedom, the most free Palestinians in the Middle East are Israelis (because they are (2nd class) citizens of a western democracy) and the least free are Gazans (because they are ruled by Islamists (who in my experience are not great at respecting gender identities) who clearly place their suicidal terrorism over the welfare of their subjects.)
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