For generations now Israel has pursued a policy of divide and rule against the Palestinians, while (to use an euphemism) discouraging the development of popular, local democratic leaders in occupied territories. It has also failed to incorporate Israeli-Arab participation in coalition governments as a routine matter. Three significant (related) effects of this have been that, first, no Palestinian partner could ever deliver on any agreement and, second, radical factions always had an effective veto over any Israeli-Palestinian rapprochement. And, third, Zionism has come to be understood by its enemies and itself as a project that cannot allow Palestinian agency.
What about the fact that huge numbers of Arabs living in that area really just don’t like Jews and don’t want Israel to exist at all under any circumstances? How do you negotiate with those people? Obviously Hamas and other such organizations are opposed to peace with Israel, under any circumstances. But I think there’s good evidence for believing that most Arabs living in the West Bank and Gaza basically share that feeling. I think people underestimate or want to conveniently ignore the amount of rabid, mouth-foaming Jew hatred around.
Well, follow your reasoning further. What do you do with people you believe are intrinsically, fundamentally unable to negotiate with you, but who you also believe pose an existential threat to you? Whom you believe to be intrinsically, inalterably dangerous, who hate in a way that is beyond reason? What do you do if you believe you have sufficient force to reckon with such people?
I think it should not be difficult to see where that goes. At a minimum, it's a never-ending defensive war from inside of a permanently threatened, perpetually beseiged fortress. More likely, it's some form or another of eliminationist war against that enemy. It goes to the logic of genocide, slow or fast.
So think again. If there is hatred, the first question has to be, "Why? From where does that come? What's the history here? What's the underlying source?" That investigation may discover that there are ways to divert, lessen, transform, mitigate that structure of feeling. It may also turn up that in the house of hatred, there are many rooms, and that it is not merely "those people" who reside there. One may turn a corner in that house and discover a mirror.
Or think differently: do negotiations require peoples, nations, sides who like one another? Accept one another? Or are negotiations always about adversarial feelings and opposing interests? Often between parties who hate one another for real and imagined reasons? To negotiate well, one must try to find a partner on the other side who is both a legitimate representative of your opponent and willing to seek a reasonable settlement. Ask yourself whether Israel has done anything at all to cultivate or find such a partner, or has in fact sabotaged, undercut or outright destroyed any person or group who might step into such a role. If you face adversaries who will never, ever negotiate with you, that might be because you have made it impossible to be negotiated with.
I agree Israel hasn't always made peace easy, but on the other hand their history is filled with concession after concession that is met mainly with violence. I think it is more than fair to say that, of the two sides, Israel has made many offers and gestures toward peace while the Muslim Arabs have made very few, and often there is duplicity when they do make agreements. I think the sad fact is that many want Israel destroyed for ideological reasons and not much will change that, at least in the near future. Perhaps the total destruction of the current Iranian regime would help. I agree the death toll will be high but at the end of the day Israel has to do what it has to do to preserve its safety. i.e they should completely obliterate their enemies in a way that will not be forgotten for a very long time. Ultimately I lay blame for the deaths of innocent Muslims at the hands of Hamas and their Iranian puppeteers for forcing Israel's hand like this. To me this is as ethically clear at Allies vs Axis in WW2 and most of the ethical nuances are just distractions that attempt to prevent Israel from defending itself.
I was going to ask you, what about the foaming-at-the-mouth hatred of Palestinians; the number of Israelis and American Zionists who seemingly just don’t like Palestinians and don’t want Palestine or Palestinians to exist at all, but judging from this comment I think you may be all too well acquainted with such an outlook.
“Many want Israel destroyed for ideological reasons” is true. Which is sad indeed. But ethical nuances are hardly a distraction in this case. This doesn’t look like an Allies vs Axis situation to me. This looks more similar to Chiang-Kai Shek’s ROC vs Taiwan’s indigenous people (or Japan’s occupation and erasure of Ryukyu’s Ainu) dialed up to 11 and extended for longer. The proposition that total destruction of non-Israeli belligerents is a hawkish position if I’ve ever seen one and plays into more prolonged lack of actual long-term safety for Jews as it would promote more regional instability, given that Arab neighbors may also have interests in each other’s territory. The economic integration of minorities would work better than an erasure of Palestinians (which seems to me to be this post’s point, Hamas’ duplicity aside, and despite their authority over their territory they don’t actually speak for all Palestinians). And in the case of Taiwan, for example, it actually seems to have worked, to the point where no one asks about their indigenous ethnic groups’ human rights situation anymore. Or Israel can keep following its own example, like the Philippines did in its counterinsurgency in Marawi a few years ago and totally obliterate its own city to “defend” itself. A nicely Pyrrhic victory when this resolves.
To be crystal clear I’m not advocating for targeting civilians or non-combatants. I’m acknowledging civilians will die and in this case I believe it is morally justified for Israel’s defense, but it is still horrific, and any actually workable peaceful option would of course be preferable. I just don’t think the Arab parties will go for it, and countries like Iran will be even bigger problems. I hope I’m wrong. As for the particular tactics Israel uses I’m obviously not qualified to judge and I’d leave it to the Israelis to decide that.
The “ethical nuances” was mostly referring to what I believe are garbage calls for “proportionality” on Israel’s part which basically means “don’t defend yourself too much”, and that is a stance I thoroughly reject.
After the Yom Kippur war, Assad and Israel decided to negotiate rather than double down,and the result was a lasting peace. sort of undermines the thesis that Muslim Arabs are somehow by nature unreasonable and unwilling to negotiate, I think.
Nothing about “by nature unreasonable” here. It is an issue of ideology. They want Jews dead mostly because of their triumphalist and genocidal religious beliefs. People don’t like noticing this though.
Some do work towards peace and should be commended greatly for trying, but it doesn't seem there there is sufficient popular or political support for it, at least with the world we have now. Too many in that area just don't want Israel to exist, period, any they ideally don't want any Jews in that area at all (the anti-semitic attacks started before the founding of Israel).
I won't speak for Netanyahu but I don't see any reason to believe he wants Muslims dead just for the sake of it. The fact is that Israel could, if they truly wanted to and were fanatically driven, kill every person in Gaza and the West Bank. But they don't, and part of the reason is that they aren't genocidally crazy. Not sure how the reference to US evangelicals is relevant?
This feels as if you would have been someone endorsing the firebombing of Dresden as retribution against all guilty members of a nation rather than as strategic; or perhaps, mass death *as* strategy. At which point I can only say that I do not believe that will preserve Israel's safety; every such final solution creates in the mind of the solutionist a need for yet more people to die.
No firebombing, “final solution”, indiscriminate killing, or death for death’s sake. But I do believe that when a country is attacked it has the right to respond with massively disproportionate force to assure its safety. That’s all. Ideally everyone would be friendly neighbors and peaceful.
does massively disproportionate force ensure safety though? that's been Israel's approach for some years, and is Israel safe now? maybe it's time to try something different.
"The term “Nakba,” originally coined to describe the magnitude of the self-inflicted Palestinian and Arab defeat in the 1948 war, has become in recent decades a synonym for Palestinian victimhood, with failed aggressors transformed into hapless victims and vice versa."
Thanks, I missed that. Just gave it a look. By my reading this is still very pessimistic indeed, even if you believe these are accurate results. I also don't see how it changes the ethics of the situation much.
Zionism is an identitarian ideology that is hostile to basic liberal tenets about equality and it has been cynically used as a justification to commit some of the greatest crimes against humanity, oppression, and ethnic displacement over the past 75 years.
What about the fact that huge numbers of Arabs living in that area really just don’t like Jews and don’t want Israel to exist at all under any circumstances? How do you negotiate with those people? Obviously Hamas and other such organizations are opposed to peace with Israel, under any circumstances. But I think there’s good evidence for believing that most Arabs living in the West Bank and Gaza basically share that feeling. I think people underestimate or want to conveniently ignore the amount of rabid, mouth-foaming Jew hatred around.
Well, follow your reasoning further. What do you do with people you believe are intrinsically, fundamentally unable to negotiate with you, but who you also believe pose an existential threat to you? Whom you believe to be intrinsically, inalterably dangerous, who hate in a way that is beyond reason? What do you do if you believe you have sufficient force to reckon with such people?
I think it should not be difficult to see where that goes. At a minimum, it's a never-ending defensive war from inside of a permanently threatened, perpetually beseiged fortress. More likely, it's some form or another of eliminationist war against that enemy. It goes to the logic of genocide, slow or fast.
So think again. If there is hatred, the first question has to be, "Why? From where does that come? What's the history here? What's the underlying source?" That investigation may discover that there are ways to divert, lessen, transform, mitigate that structure of feeling. It may also turn up that in the house of hatred, there are many rooms, and that it is not merely "those people" who reside there. One may turn a corner in that house and discover a mirror.
Or think differently: do negotiations require peoples, nations, sides who like one another? Accept one another? Or are negotiations always about adversarial feelings and opposing interests? Often between parties who hate one another for real and imagined reasons? To negotiate well, one must try to find a partner on the other side who is both a legitimate representative of your opponent and willing to seek a reasonable settlement. Ask yourself whether Israel has done anything at all to cultivate or find such a partner, or has in fact sabotaged, undercut or outright destroyed any person or group who might step into such a role. If you face adversaries who will never, ever negotiate with you, that might be because you have made it impossible to be negotiated with.
I agree Israel hasn't always made peace easy, but on the other hand their history is filled with concession after concession that is met mainly with violence. I think it is more than fair to say that, of the two sides, Israel has made many offers and gestures toward peace while the Muslim Arabs have made very few, and often there is duplicity when they do make agreements. I think the sad fact is that many want Israel destroyed for ideological reasons and not much will change that, at least in the near future. Perhaps the total destruction of the current Iranian regime would help. I agree the death toll will be high but at the end of the day Israel has to do what it has to do to preserve its safety. i.e they should completely obliterate their enemies in a way that will not be forgotten for a very long time. Ultimately I lay blame for the deaths of innocent Muslims at the hands of Hamas and their Iranian puppeteers for forcing Israel's hand like this. To me this is as ethically clear at Allies vs Axis in WW2 and most of the ethical nuances are just distractions that attempt to prevent Israel from defending itself.
I was going to ask you, what about the foaming-at-the-mouth hatred of Palestinians; the number of Israelis and American Zionists who seemingly just don’t like Palestinians and don’t want Palestine or Palestinians to exist at all, but judging from this comment I think you may be all too well acquainted with such an outlook.
I certainly have that hatred toward organizations like Hamas but not ordinary people!
“Ethical nuances are just distractions”?
“Many want Israel destroyed for ideological reasons” is true. Which is sad indeed. But ethical nuances are hardly a distraction in this case. This doesn’t look like an Allies vs Axis situation to me. This looks more similar to Chiang-Kai Shek’s ROC vs Taiwan’s indigenous people (or Japan’s occupation and erasure of Ryukyu’s Ainu) dialed up to 11 and extended for longer. The proposition that total destruction of non-Israeli belligerents is a hawkish position if I’ve ever seen one and plays into more prolonged lack of actual long-term safety for Jews as it would promote more regional instability, given that Arab neighbors may also have interests in each other’s territory. The economic integration of minorities would work better than an erasure of Palestinians (which seems to me to be this post’s point, Hamas’ duplicity aside, and despite their authority over their territory they don’t actually speak for all Palestinians). And in the case of Taiwan, for example, it actually seems to have worked, to the point where no one asks about their indigenous ethnic groups’ human rights situation anymore. Or Israel can keep following its own example, like the Philippines did in its counterinsurgency in Marawi a few years ago and totally obliterate its own city to “defend” itself. A nicely Pyrrhic victory when this resolves.
To be crystal clear I’m not advocating for targeting civilians or non-combatants. I’m acknowledging civilians will die and in this case I believe it is morally justified for Israel’s defense, but it is still horrific, and any actually workable peaceful option would of course be preferable. I just don’t think the Arab parties will go for it, and countries like Iran will be even bigger problems. I hope I’m wrong. As for the particular tactics Israel uses I’m obviously not qualified to judge and I’d leave it to the Israelis to decide that.
The “ethical nuances” was mostly referring to what I believe are garbage calls for “proportionality” on Israel’s part which basically means “don’t defend yourself too much”, and that is a stance I thoroughly reject.
After the Yom Kippur war, Assad and Israel decided to negotiate rather than double down,and the result was a lasting peace. sort of undermines the thesis that Muslim Arabs are somehow by nature unreasonable and unwilling to negotiate, I think.
Nothing about “by nature unreasonable” here. It is an issue of ideology. They want Jews dead mostly because of their triumphalist and genocidal religious beliefs. People don’t like noticing this though.
And why do Jewish people in Israel like Bibi want Palestinians dead? what about christofascist islamophobic evangelicals in the US?
You failed to engage with the point that other Muslim Arabs in the Middle East have in fact worked towards peace, even after major conflicts.
Some do work towards peace and should be commended greatly for trying, but it doesn't seem there there is sufficient popular or political support for it, at least with the world we have now. Too many in that area just don't want Israel to exist, period, any they ideally don't want any Jews in that area at all (the anti-semitic attacks started before the founding of Israel).
I won't speak for Netanyahu but I don't see any reason to believe he wants Muslims dead just for the sake of it. The fact is that Israel could, if they truly wanted to and were fanatically driven, kill every person in Gaza and the West Bank. But they don't, and part of the reason is that they aren't genocidally crazy. Not sure how the reference to US evangelicals is relevant?
This feels as if you would have been someone endorsing the firebombing of Dresden as retribution against all guilty members of a nation rather than as strategic; or perhaps, mass death *as* strategy. At which point I can only say that I do not believe that will preserve Israel's safety; every such final solution creates in the mind of the solutionist a need for yet more people to die.
No firebombing, “final solution”, indiscriminate killing, or death for death’s sake. But I do believe that when a country is attacked it has the right to respond with massively disproportionate force to assure its safety. That’s all. Ideally everyone would be friendly neighbors and peaceful.
does massively disproportionate force ensure safety though? that's been Israel's approach for some years, and is Israel safe now? maybe it's time to try something different.
I leave it to Israel to determine the tactics they use. If it is to their advantage to take a different path then I hope they do.
Your thoughts on The Nakba?
https://www.commentary.org/articles/sol-stern/palestinian-nakba-narrative-wants-israel-dead/
https://besacenter.org/nakba-false-narrative/
"The term “Nakba,” originally coined to describe the magnitude of the self-inflicted Palestinian and Arab defeat in the 1948 war, has become in recent decades a synonym for Palestinian victimhood, with failed aggressors transformed into hapless victims and vice versa."
You are wrong - "by and large, Gazans do not share Hamas’s goal of eliminating the state of Israel." https://www.foreignaffairs.com/israel/what-palestinians-really-think-hamas?utm_medium=newsletters&utm_source=twofa&utm_campaign=What%20Palestinians%20Really%20Think%20of%20Hamas&utm_content=20231027&utm_term=FA%20This%20Week%20-%20112017
It’s paywalled so I can’t speak to that particular article, but I’ll believe it when I see it. Color me skeptical.
I think you can sign up for a free account that allows you to access a few articles for free each month. I think it's worth reading this one.
Thanks, I missed that. Just gave it a look. By my reading this is still very pessimistic indeed, even if you believe these are accurate results. I also don't see how it changes the ethics of the situation much.
thank you.
Zionism is an identitarian ideology that is hostile to basic liberal tenets about equality and it has been cynically used as a justification to commit some of the greatest crimes against humanity, oppression, and ethnic displacement over the past 75 years.