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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   28222 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 23, 2023

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it’s a who/whom all the way down

I agree. Palestinians don’t magically want to kill Israelis as a deeply-held first principle. They want to kill Israelis for various perceived moral grievances against the state at large. As an example, there are 700,000 Israeli Jewish settlers in the West Bank, many of whom presumably knowing that their actions have been condemned by the UN. You don’t get 700,000 people violating international law without a serious problem of complicity among the general public in Israel.

If we are to continue the Southern metaphor — who are the Palestinians? Are they the slaves waging a revolt? I think few people today would condemn Nat Turner, or the slave revolt of Haiti, despite the casualties. Or are they the Southerners fighting for their right to self-determination? IMO it’s elements of both. Perhaps Hezbollah are the noble Northern cause, willing to go scorched earth to free a captive people? I would say no, but that’s how they would see themselves.

I think re: Robert E Lee, his veneration isn’t due to being pro-slavery. It’s due to his character. He was considered by many Americans at the time to have a great character and an honest disposition. And this should be extolled, because conflict is inevitable for the human race, and the most we can ask for is that our enemies behave like the idealized Robert E Lee — truthful, dignified, humble, and willing to compromise.

I agree. Palestinians don’t magically want to kill Israelis as a deeply-held first principle.

Aside from "magically" I believe you are incorrect.

They want to kill Israelis for various perceived moral grievances against the state at large.

And if they didn't have those they'd have different ones.

As an example, there are 700,000 Israeli Jewish settlers in the West Bank

And I don't believe the Gaza Palestinians give a damn about any of them.

I mean the southern metaphor is definitely imperfect, but notably the confederate army was mostly a "regular" force fighting using conventional tactics similar to say, Ukraine fighting Russia today(including being badly outclassed), not an insurgent group that mostly carries out terrorist attacks. The Israel-Hamas fight is different and doesn't map cleanly onto the civil war.

I thought of not because the South and Gaza map 1:1 but because the right to self determination is at stake with both.

Palestinians don’t magically want to kill Israelis as a deeply-held first principle

I’m not so sure nor should we turn your question into a binary. Very clearly killing is a primary goal for many Palestinians. The actual charter of Hamas plainly calls for the destruction of Israel, Jihad of all Muslims, and states the claim that all targets are legitimate. Hamas has repeatedly acted in accordance with that goal.

But even if the links have become distant from each other, and even if the obstacles erected by those who revolve in the Zionist orbit, aiming at obstructing the road before the Jihad fighters, have rendered the pursuance of Jihad impossible; nevertheless, the Hamas has been looking forward to implement Allah's promise whatever time it might take. The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said:

The time(16) will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him! This will not apply to the Gharqad(17), which is a Jewish tree (cited by Bukhari and Muslim)(18)

Palestinians don’t magically want to kill Israelis as a deeply-held first principle.

Maybe it didn't start that way. But at what point does it become a first principle? Hatred for Jews seem to predict behavior a lot more than any other principles. Given the choice between greater prosperity and killing Jews, they'll tear up their water pipes to build bombs.

If hatred of Jews were their first principle, we would see overseas Palestinians wage attacks on Jewish communities, where the communities do not have the heightened security of the Israeli state apparatus. That we pretty much never see that (thank God) is strong evidence that their grievances are against Israel and her people. In the average uneducated, undernourished, 85 IQ Palestinian mind, it’s a waste of time to distinguish between Israeli Jews and Israeli Zionists. Their enemies are uniformly Jewish-Zionist citizens of Israel.

I looked into the water pipe claim and I don’t see compelling evidence that this happened. It’s originally traced to a 2021 Telegraph article, which takes footage from a Memri Documentary. But per the documentary,

While the plan to reuse the explosives in the Israeli shells was moving ahead, long water pipelines were found buried in the areas of the settlements from which Israel withdrew in 2005. This discovery turned out to be a qualitative leap. These pipes, which stretched from the liberated settlements in the west across the Israeli border to the east, had been hidden from the eye. For years, they served Israel in its theft of Palestinian water. In the belly of the Earth, we found large quantities of thick metal pipes. It was part of a network that had been used to steal Gaza's groundwater and pump it into the occupied lands. We discovered the plans for that network, and then we dug into the ground and pulled out the pipes, so that they could be used in our military industries."

Given that this documentary is from 2020 and the Telegraph article is from 2021, it’s reasonable to trust the Memri documentary. Especially because it shows other procedures like collecting underseas Israeli munitions.

Undernourished and undereducated? 40% of gazans are overweight or obese and a gazan child completes 12 years of schooling on average. What are you even talking about?

From the UN’s OCHA: https://www.ochaopt.org/content/education-undermined-deteriorating-humanitarian-situation-gaza

Over 450,000 basic, secondary and kindergarten (KG) students and teachers are identified as ‘people in need’ in the 2018 Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP)

There was a 30% dropout rate in 2017.

On malnutrition, UNICEF says “According to recent national surveys, Palestinians are facing a double burden of malnutrition; malnutrition, a high level of micronutrient deficiencies, and increasing obesity rates.”

So now you send me your sources and we can discuss?

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/7c9b64c34a8833378194a026ebe4e247-0140022022/related/HCI-AM22-PSE.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwi74f6gw5mCAxXQHjQIHT5FD8AQFnoECA4QBg&usg=AOvVaw24pMjExhMdGAki5ml2zd9F

In the West Bank and Gaza, a child who starts school at age 4 can expect to complete 12.2 years of school by her 18th birthday.

Much of what the UN says about Gazan schools can also be said about American schools. Our children really is not learning.

Re malnutrition - the life expectancy in Gaza is 74 years and the regional expectancy is 76 years (pdf). So there's really a limit as to how malnourished they can be.

Even if overseas Palestinians aren't a major source of antisemitic activity(which I doubt, but a lot of it probably gets attributed to non-existent white supremacists), they are by definition a selected population that values "eating" and "living in a first world country, outside of a jail cell" over "killing Jews".

Hamas has the ability to place covert members in expatriate communities. Half of all Palestinians are diaspora. But they don’t do this, so perhaps it’s reasonable to assume they don’t want to just kill Jews. Perhaps they want to reclaim their lost territory?

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