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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   27518 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 6, 2023

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  • I don't know if it's because Westerners don't think that people could actually sincerely believe in their religion like that so they must be ACTUALLY motivated by something else (wrong, as their writings tell us), or their belief that inside everyone is a Westerner waiting to come out who supports gay marriage and diversity,

It's both of these things. And their go-to reason for why these sorts of people behave the way they do is "socioeconomic inequality." IMO this is the result of a reductionist worldview that flattens everything to care/harm. And then even only economic care/harm, because have as a society lacked widely agreed upon moral common ground to work from that the only pure evil that can be imagined anymore is economic privation. Any other evil can ultimately be traced back to a resource-poor upbringing or generational poverty or economic exploitation.

They can't conceive of faith or honor or things like that, those must be false consciousnesses obscuring the true, material cause of the anger.

On the one hand we have a group that wants millions of arabs to live in the same town as their grandparents live. On the other hand we have a group that wants millions of arabs to be refugees. There are good moral reasons to oppose ethnic cleansing but also the massive net positive of arabs staying put in their home towns. If one doesn't want large numbers of arabs on the move, the natural response is to support Hamas. Israel's efforts to destabilize Syria have been a major humanitarian crisis but has also had consequences reaching far beyond the local region. Religion or not, there is no reason for the Palestinians not to fight back.

Israel has offered the Palestinians a state numerous times. Israelis interfered in Gaza very little for the past 15 years and even abandoned settlements on the territory. It seems the Palestinians too prefer to remain "refugees" (if that term can be applied to people living somewhere for three generations with at least some degree of autonomy).

Why would the Palestinians agree to less than half of their land? As for Gaza they are under a blockade and can't export goods. They have the right to strike back as long as Israel is conducting acts of war against them.

Why would the Palestinians agree to less than half of their land?

Because they have lost repeated wars over ownership of the land, and the consequence of losing is not getting what you want. I.e., the same reason why Silesia, Pomerania, and Prussia are no longer parts of Germany, why the western coast of Anatolia and Constantinople are not Greek, and why California is no longer part of Mexico.

Because they have lost repeated wars over ownership of the land

This is just pure racism. The Palestinians didn't fight those wars, countries like Egypt did.

What else but armed insurrection (i.e. war as waged by the stateless) do you call the 1st and 2nd Intifada?

Both Intifada's were long after the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians that happened during the Arab–Israeli Wars. You can't retroactively justify ethnic cleansing by arguing that revolt against that cleansing and the subsequent oppression, justified the ethnic cleansing and oppression.

I've never heard anyone argue that a person who fights back after getting sucker punched, retroactively deserved that sucker punch because they fought back. So I have a hard time believing that your argument reflects a principle you hold in general.

Because that's the best they are going to get.

Gaza is under blockade because they elected a regime that ran on the platform of eradicating Jews and Israel.

If they didn't fight back they would have been pushed out of Palestine a long time ago. There are still millions of Palestinians in Palestine because they fight back and defend themselves.

How would they have been pushed out if they had a sovereign state? Remaining a quasi territory of Israel is much worse if your goal is to keep your territory.

Again, Israel withdrew from Gaza over a decade ago and they insist on attacking the Israeli civilian population. Pushing gazans out of gaza was totally off the table until the Hamas self defense operation last month.

How would they have been pushed out if they had a sovereign state?

Sovereignty was never on the table, the Israeli "offer" has always been contingent on demands of demilitarization along with various Israeli control of borders and airspace.

Gaza is under a blockade which is an act of war. If Israel is blockading Gaza than the people of Gaza have every right to use military force against Israel.

what about the Rafah crossing with Egypt? its not like israel surrounds Gaza

Gaza attacked Israel, which is an act of war, and an aggressive war at that. The people of Gaza don't have any right to use military force in an aggressive war just because the enemy is now on their land.

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If Israel is blockading Gaza than the people of Gaza have every right to use military force against Israel.

Possibly. It doesn't give them the right to indiscriminately commit terroristic acts against the civilian population, which is the path they chose.

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And yet, strangely, Hamas has not attacked Egypt, which also blockades Gaza. One might infer that the blockade is a rationalization for the attack, rather than an actual cause thereof.

You again forget that the blockade started after Gazans elected a regime with the express goal of eradicating Jews and Israel. That is also an act of war and Israel has every right to prevent that regime from importing weapons and materiel.

massive net positive of arabs staying put in their home towns.

It's been three quarters of a century since their grandparents lived in those towns, and the vast majority of Palestinians haven't ever even seen their "home towns," which don't even exist anymore in any meaningful sense.

It's been three quarters of a century since their grandparents lived in those towns, and the vast majority of Palestinians haven't ever even seen their "home towns," which don't even exist anymore in any meaningful sense.

This is a much stronger argument against the creation of the State of Israel than it is against a Palestinian right of return. The Second Temple hasn't existed for a lot longer than the Palestinian hometowns that were destroyed/ethnically cleansed to create Israel.

Give me a time machine, and I pledge to use the same argument against those trying to create the state of Israel.

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