Many decdes ago at university, I did a module on the 'social science' of revolutions. Fifty+ years later, I remember almost nothing of it except this: the contention that - when revolutionaries perceive their enemy as weak and accommodating - they (counterintuitively) actually hate it more than when they perceive it as strong and intransigent. Human psychology is a funny business.
I suspect that if Israel had been more ruthless, then they would have extinguished this situation decades ago. As a person living in San Diego on land which was clearly stolen from Mexico about 175 years ago, I would not have any compassion toward revolutionaries in Mexico trying to take it back by force. If they spent years shooting missiles and raping women at our festivals, they would quickly cease to exist. Gone, along with any person providing aid.
There were barely any Mexicans in California when it was handed over (by treaty). And those that were there didn’t get ethnically cleansed from their lands and made second class citizens - the opposite, in fact — they did much better under the U.S. gov than the Mexican one.
I suspect that if Israelis hadn’t been massive assholes they would have extinguished this situation decades ago.
There was, of course, one major incident of Mexican revolutionaries invading the U.S., killing civilians and looting: Pancho Villa's guerrillas at the Battle of Columbus. And the U.S. government did indeed respond in the way you suggest, with a full-bore smoke-em-out-of-their-holes punitive expedition under Pershing, but, in the grand tradition of counter-insurgents everywhere, it was unable to stop the Villaists from melting away into the mountainous countryside and returned home empty handed.
If there hadn't been anti-Jewish riots in the 1920s, there likely would have been no "Nakba." If "Palestine" hadn't defined itself by antipathy toward Israel (and Jews), we'd have seen a much larger population of Israeli Arabs remaining after 1948 (and they'd be the envy of the entire Arab world).
If Gaza had focused on infrastructure and development -- rather than electing and harboring Hamas -- it (arguably) wouldn't be an open-air prison today.
> If there hadn't been anti-Jewish riots in the 1920s, there likely would have been no "Nakba."
Those riots were wrong, and part of the problem, but we both know they were not the whole story. Historical grievances, even if valid, don’t absolve Israel and the Jewish paramilitaries that preceded it of their crimes, just like they don’t absolve Hamas and Palestinian terrorists of their crimes.
> If Gaza had focused on infrastructure and development
That's physically impossible when they don’t have enough natural resources to be self-sufficient and the blockade prevents them from trading for what they lack. Of course Hamas rule doesn’t help, but even the most enlightened government imaginable could not have ended the reliance on aid in those conditions. (And, of course, Netanyahu helped give Hamas billions of dollars in order to keep them in power.)
If I recall correctly, the blockade wasn't in full force until Gaza elected Hamas.
In any event, I'm not excusing Netanyahu's tactics, nor am I excusing those (earlier) "Jewish paramilitaries" -- but (at each stage I've noted), who picked this fight?
For that matter, the very rationale for "Palestine" (ever since the Romans kicked out the Jews and imposed that name) is, "Jews not welcome here." If this had been otherwise, the descendants of those refugees would now (as Israeli Arabs) be the envy of the entire region.
I don’t think a “who started it” going back a century is very relevant to the current situation, given that all involved back then are dead. But if you *do* insist on going down that road, Ze’ev Jabotinsky has an essay: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/quot-the-iron-wall-quot
By the definition Palestinian propagandists are using, Mexico would count as an "open-air prison", especially if Trump gets elected and gets serious about enforcing the border.
No, because Mexico’s seas and airspace are not blockaded (plus their southern border, and even the northern one is far more porous than Gaza’s). They can and do engage in trade with whoever they like without another country killing people to stop it. Compare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_flotilla_raid
That actually makes sense from an EvPsyc point of view. Getting mad at a weak and accommodating opponent is likely to lead to concessions, getting mad at a strong opponent won't accomplish anything and might just get you killed.
Quoting other generals about how Muslim haters of Israel are created by Israel's military response to the October 7 attack and to Hizbollah's year-long bombardment of Israeli cities is of no relevance to the situation where Muslim Palestinians live in Gaza or even in Judea and Samaria. Hanania is quite correct that Muslim hatred of Israel there is maxed out. Indeed, it is part of Musllm culture and Muslim practice against the "Zionist entity" for over a hundred years now. Muslim doctrine, reinforced by weekly sermons from Mosques, hateful educational material in schools, glorification of martyrs in sports venues, etc, etc, has created a climate of hatred of Israel among those who consider themselves Palestinians that have now reached down into their sexual pores, as witnessed by the depraved sexual cruelty perpetrated by the participants in the Gaza October 7 invasion of Israel. Your essay only whitewashed this situation by suggesting that Israel's retaliation might have created even more Israel-haters among the Palestinians in Gaza and Judea and Samaria. The latter may not all be Hamas or PLO members, but they all subscribe to the doctrines preached by these groups and continue to elect them when given a chance to vote. Indeed, one even hears them spout the party line when interviewed for television about how they feel: "again a Naqba," they say, blithely ignorant of the fact that the first so-called naqba was self-induced as the historical record shows. But this deeply ingrained attitude has been adopted by the intellectual classes of the western world, spearheading the explosion of antisemitic sentiment and acts on western university campuses and the streets of western capitals, including in my Canadian province where teacher unions have called for the inclusion of naqba education in the high school curriculum. This would make western intellectuals haters of Israel without even having their loved ones or houses destroyed by the war which Hamas unleashed. Little wonder western society is collapsing from within.
What about Palestinian Christians? Why do many of them fight against Israel? Or what about the secular PFLP? If this conflict is about Muslim vs. Jew hate, how come many participants, in both camps, are neither?
Actually, Palestinian Christians also indulge in the anti-Israel campaign of lies. See the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem's constant spreading of slander about Israel. Remember the siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and the patriarch's denunciation of Israel when it was Palestinian militants, including the secular PFLP, who desecrated the church? The so-called secular Palestinians have no trouble mobilizing Islamic motifs and doctrine to further their aims, blending revolutionary jargon with Islamic theology.
I feel like I can make a special contribution here as a Sicilian, as Sicily was owned and occupied by the Moors for many centuries, which means I most likely have some spicy Arab blood flowing through my veins.
Probably one of the most famous contributions Sicilians have made to the West (outside of yet connected to the Mafia) is the idea of VENDETTA—meaning more or less a sacred or totalizing form of vengeance, where you will dedicate your life and even the lives of your children and grandchildren to getting revenge on an enemy, which usually means their death (at the very least). And vendetta, linking it to the Palestinians, is rooted in a feeling of humiliation, the need to save face, to make sure you and everyone else knows that you were not the vanquished but the vanquisher.
Has an entire people and culture ever before been entirely dedicated to VENDETTA? Where there's no higher purpose and where there's no other incentive or reward that can budge them from pursuing revenge at all costs? I'm not sure, but this is what Israel is facing, the bear trap they've stepped into.
I think the truth is that it doesn't matter what Israel does: they could pursue war or peace, they could offer land swaps, they could remove their West Bank settlements (remember nothing changed when they withdrew from Gaza). The Palestinians in 75 years have refused every peace treaty, have walked away from every negotiation, violated every ceasefire. None of it matters: they only want VENDETTA.
The Palestinians have NEVER ONCE acknowledged the right of the Jewish state to exist, they consider it an intolerable humiliation (and this was even before Israel became rich), and their leaders have said on many occasions they don't care how many of their own children have to die for them to get revenge by erasing the evil Zionist entity.
Westerners cling to this illusion that the Palestinians just want a state and a Congress and Netflix and Prime etc just like the rest of us, and this illusion seems to only grow stonger the more it's refuted. Or that Israel is the world's most brutal and murderous regime and that Zionism is the worst -ism ever, some combo of racism, colonialism, and fascist bloodthirst all rolled up into a package that bears a striking resemblance to "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion".
But the truth is they're locked in a land dispute with an opponent that will only accept the total destruction of their enemy, no matter how long it takes or what it costs. I don't know where this leaves us, but it's still best to face the truth.
> The Palestinians in 75 years have refused every peace treaty
For most of those peace treaties, even Israeli officials admit they would have refused if they were in the place of the Palestinians. The only exception is the 2008 proposal, which fell through because Ehud Olmert resigned and Netanyahu chose not to continue negotiations.
"Maybe the blocakde, keeping Gaza an open-air prison..."
Ah the old "open-air prison" Leftist talking point. The blockade is also there on the Egyptian side, who want nothing to do with the Palestinians either, wisely.
And despite any blockade, Hamas still had full sovereignty and billions in donations, which they chose to spend on tunnels and weapons, leaving their own people to starve and suffer.
And I think 10/7 proved why Israel felt the need to separate themselves from these people and try to keep them from smuggling in weapons—the Palestinians wept tears of joy at finally getting the chance to rape and slaughter Jews.
10/7 proved that Hamas and their supporters are enemies of humanity and civilization. They built miles of tunnels to hide in and zero bomb shelters to protect their own people!
Western Leftists simply become blinded to reality and morality once they designate a group as one of their special pet victim classes—suddenly they are beyond agency and responsibility, they never do but are only done to.
Israel is not the Palestinian's worst enemy, it's all the outsiders who have turned them into a Cause, which means their welfare becomes irrelevant and what matters most is all the people hoping to at last see the Jews get their comeuppance.
There is simply no denying that every Palestinian leader has chosen war and terrorism over peace—they have not in 75 years accepted the existence of Israel—and that they have full responsibility for the path they've chosen and for the fact that their territory is now rubble.
Was the blockade even there in 2005? I seem to remember it didn’t exist for 1-2 years until the Gazans elected Hamas, who promptly slaughtered their political opponents to ensure there’d be no more elections in Gaza. So there were actually 1-2 years of no “open air prison” yet they still elected Hamas.
> The blockade is also there on the Egyptian side, who want nothing to do with the Palestinians either
Egypt has the right to control its borders, as does Israel. Israel does not have the right to blockade Gaza’s access to the air or sea, crippling the local economy and keeping its people imprisoned inside.
> they have not in 75 years accepted the existence of Israel
Israel has not in 75 years accepted the existence of Palestine. Maybe we could make a deal that trades one for the other? Perhaps modeled after Ehud Olmert’s 2008 proposal, which fell through after he resigned and Netanyahu chose not to continue the negotiations? Just a thought…
Following is a list of the major peace offers, proposals, gestures and opportunities presented to the Arabs/Muslims by both the international community and the State of Israel going back as far as 1919, but all have been rejected by the Arabs/Muslims because they refuse to coexist with Jews.
1919: Arabs of Palestine refused nominate representatives to the Paris Peace Conference.
1947: UN General Assembly partition proposal (UNGAR 181), rejected.
1949: Israel's outstretched hand for peace (UNGAR 194), rejected.
1967: Israel's outstretched hand for peace (UNSCR 242), rejected.
1978: Begin/Sa’adat peace proposal, rejected (except for Egypt).
1994: Rabin/Hussein peace agreement, rejected by the rest of the Arab League (except for Egypt).
1995: Rabin's Contour-for-Peace, rejected.
2000: Barak/Clinton peace offer, rejected.
2001: Barak’s offer at Taba, rejected.
2005: Sharon's peace gesture, withdrawal from Gaza, rejected.
2008: Olmert/Bush peace offer, rejected. Olmert was prepared to give up territory in the West Bank, and allow some refugees to reclaim land. He was even willing to relinquish control of Jerusalem’s Old City to an international committee as part of recognizing Palestine as a sovereign state.
2009 to present: Netanyahu's repeated invitations to peace talks, rejected.
Sorry it gives me a paywall and im not giving them my info.
This is really a very difficult topic and is the one where people seem to find the least ability to compromise, and there's simply no article that's ever going to convince me that Israel is at fault here, when they're dealing w genocidal theocratic terrorists who can't open their mouths once without vomiting Jew hate. As far as I'm concerned, one side here is civilized and proves it every day by having an elected govt, civil rights for women and gays and by following the laws of war to the best of reasonable ability, and one side are barbarians who would murder every Israeli if they could (and there is no denying this).
Here is Arafat with Oriana Fallaci in the early 80s:
ARAFAT: We will continue to make war on Israel by ourselves until we get Palestine back. The end of Israel is the goal of our struggle, and it allows for neither compromise nor mediation. The issues of this struggle, whether our friends like it or not, will always remain fixed by the principles that we enumerated in 1965 with the creation of Al Fatah. First: revolutionary violence is the only system for liberating the land of our fathers; second: the purpose of this violence is to liquidate Zionism in all its political, economic and military forms, and to drive it out of Palestine forever; third: our revolutionary action must be independent of any control by party or state; fourth: this action will be of long duration. We know the inten-tions of certain Arab leaders: to resolve the conflict with a peaceful agreement. When this happens, we will oppose it.
FALLACI: Conclusion: you don’t at all want the peace that everyone is hoping for.
ARAFAT: No! We don’t want peace. We want war, victory. Peace for us means the destruction of Israel and nothing else. What you call peace is peace for Israel and the imperialists. For us it is injustice and shame. We will fight until victory. Decades if necessary, generations.
Here is Hamas Political Bureau Chairman Ismail Haniyeh:
"As I said, and I repeat every time, the blood of the children, women, and elderly – I do not say that it shouts out to you, but rather we need this blood so that it will ignite within us the spirit of revolution, so that it will arouse within us persistence, so that it will arouse within us defiance and [a forward] advance.”
And here is the famous Hamas charter:
"The Day of Judgment will not come until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say, 'O Muslim, O servant of God, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.'"
That Jewish Leftists like Jon Schwarz could take sides against their own people and support opponents who would torture and murder their own families makes me sick to my stomach.
Anti-Israel Jews will always strike me as self-loathing Judases who are only comfortable with Jewishness if it means being morally superior victims who always offer their throats to the blade of their enemies. But people have always hated Jews and always will no matter how much some of them grovel.
Like I said at the start, I'm Sicilian and our sacred belief is never taking sides against your own people. I confess an intractable bias.
"Note that before October 7, relatively few Gazans were affiliated with Hamas or other militant groups. The usual high-ball estimate is about 50,000, which represents 2.4% of the pre-war population."
I don't see the pertinence of this statistic. Hamas doesn't have limitless funds to pay salaries, or limitless jobs to fill. This just indicates that Hamas had the capacity to hire 2.4% of the population, not that there was a cap of 2.4% of the population willing to affiliate with it.
That's a fair point. I wouldn't claim the "2.4% statistic" proves very much, but I thought it was worth mentioning. Your thoughts on the overall argument?
I have to read the articles you link to (one of which is paywalled), but I am sceptical about this blood-feud motivation for becoming a militant. It's too easy to think of examples of violent ethnic feuds that fizzle out once political circumstances change. I'm more familiar with academic research on why some ethnic hatreds break out into conflict and others don't, and I believe that there is little relationship between intensity of hatred and paramilitary formation, rather it all comes down to low or high state capacity.
Specifically on Palestinians joining paramilitaries, this may be a cringe Hasbara take, but I believe it comes down to (a) an education system that promotes irredentism, nursing of historical grievances, and glorification of paramilitaries (and this is the entire Palestinian education system outside of a few foreign-run schools) and (b) funding. I agree more with you than Richard Hanania about the wisdom of the Gaza war, because I don't see how it addresses either of these issues. I have my ideas about (a), but it's really (b) which is amenable to military action, and that means attacking Iran.
There has been an unstated alliance of convenience between the Israeli baboon Right which wanted a Gaza-first strategy (because of 'showing strength', revenge, and their fever dreams of reversing the 2005 disengagement) and the State Dept/international community who wanted to limit the conflict by containing it to Gaza. I understand their motivations, but I believe the best strategy for Israel would have to been to basically do nothing in Gaza, roll out the Hizb'Allah war 9 months ago, and then aim for either neutering or deposing the Iranian government, and, if that was successful, look for ways to peacefully liquidate Palestinian nationalism in conjunction with Arab neighbours (a version of the 3 state solution). But, in addition to the diplomatic difficulties involved, unfortunately Israel is a democracy
The key point is as follows: what makes the follow-up terror actions more likely, the forceful response to the previous terror actions or the weak (nominal, rhetorical, or no at all) response to the previous terror actions? You seem to miss the latter alternative.
I don’t think the blood revenge examples from formerly neutral Chechens, where the revenge is often against other Chechens, mean much here.
There’s consistent data from the Palestinian pollsters showing that for the first time ever, Gazan are more moderate than West Bankers. Most Gazans now think 10/7 was a mistake. They celebrated the day it happened. West Bankers still support it.
If most Gazans now think 10/7 was a mistake, they should be happy to see Israel annex Gaza, and the Israelis should be happy to build them new hospitals and schools (where the kids aren't taught to hate Jews). They merely need to be shown that they'd be better off as Israeli Arabs than they were under Hamas -- and that (given that result) their neighbors and children didn't die in vain.
I agree that Hanania's argument is very wrong. However, there are several dubious arguments in this piece.
In your piece on "why do Muslims care about Uighurs than Palestinians" you write: that "Uighurs have suffered arguably "more repression than Palestinians".
This statement was dubious even then, but now is it even remotely true? 90% of Gaza is internally dispaced and several tens of thousands have been killed within a year (somewhere between 2-4% of the population). Repression of the Uighurs, while brutal, is not on the same scale and intensity.
I would suggest that whatever the number of militants there may be, there will be _too many_ so long as counting coup on Israel is seen as a route to prestige and therefore power among the Arabs of Palestine.
Israeli parents are interested in the security of their children. Meaning, minimizing the odds of their heads being blown off by anti-tank missiles or rockets. To do that, Israeli parents must eliminate the threats to their posterity. If you loved your children you'd easily agree.
Most Israelis (and most Palestinians, and most people generally) are interested in the security of their children. The people leading Israel (and Gaza), perhaps not so much
How so? Israelis, through their leaders, assume very rationally that to secure their posterity they need to severely limit the unpredictable and self-combusting Arabs. Just as our ancestors in America had figured something similar about the Indians. And now we can drive around freely without being hit by tomahawks and arrows.
> they need to severely limit the unpredictable and self-combusting Arabs
It’s interesting that you use the word “combusting.” Here’s what Netanyahu has to say about combustion:
“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas… This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank … We control the height of the flames.”
> Just as our ancestors in America had figured something similar about the Indians.
Today’s Native Americans are full US citizens, in fact they have even more political rights than everyone else (can participate in tribal governments). The Palestinians live under apartheid (West Bank) or are trapped in an open-air prison (Gaza).
It doesn’t really matter what Netanyahu says. I’m trying to drive the point that it’s a simple risk management dilemma. Israeli parents seek to minimize the chances of their posterity’s brains being blown up by AT missiles. And so they conclude they should limit the Arabs. That’s reasonable if you love your children.
And today’s Indians are the remnants of what had been decimated and dismantled as a fighting force. Probably a good model for an Israeli approach towards the Arabs.
They were generally useless before ‘woke’ policies; always soft on black underclasses. I live in a deep blue urban area so speak from personal observations and experience.
They protect wealthy enclaves in cities where elites reside but considerably less for middle and working classes. Some cops are outstanding individuals but as an institution they leave much to be desired.
Ultimately it's a utilitarian question - how many Arabs does a parent need to eliminate to secure his children? Most sane parents would reply "as many as it takes."
Many decdes ago at university, I did a module on the 'social science' of revolutions. Fifty+ years later, I remember almost nothing of it except this: the contention that - when revolutionaries perceive their enemy as weak and accommodating - they (counterintuitively) actually hate it more than when they perceive it as strong and intransigent. Human psychology is a funny business.
I suspect that if Israel had been more ruthless, then they would have extinguished this situation decades ago. As a person living in San Diego on land which was clearly stolen from Mexico about 175 years ago, I would not have any compassion toward revolutionaries in Mexico trying to take it back by force. If they spent years shooting missiles and raping women at our festivals, they would quickly cease to exist. Gone, along with any person providing aid.
There were barely any Mexicans in California when it was handed over (by treaty). And those that were there didn’t get ethnically cleansed from their lands and made second class citizens - the opposite, in fact — they did much better under the U.S. gov than the Mexican one.
I suspect that if Israelis hadn’t been massive assholes they would have extinguished this situation decades ago.
There was, of course, one major incident of Mexican revolutionaries invading the U.S., killing civilians and looting: Pancho Villa's guerrillas at the Battle of Columbus. And the U.S. government did indeed respond in the way you suggest, with a full-bore smoke-em-out-of-their-holes punitive expedition under Pershing, but, in the grand tradition of counter-insurgents everywhere, it was unable to stop the Villaists from melting away into the mountainous countryside and returned home empty handed.
Today’s Mexicans aren’t trapped in an open-air prison and don’t live under apartheid.
If there hadn't been anti-Jewish riots in the 1920s, there likely would have been no "Nakba." If "Palestine" hadn't defined itself by antipathy toward Israel (and Jews), we'd have seen a much larger population of Israeli Arabs remaining after 1948 (and they'd be the envy of the entire Arab world).
If Gaza had focused on infrastructure and development -- rather than electing and harboring Hamas -- it (arguably) wouldn't be an open-air prison today.
> If there hadn't been anti-Jewish riots in the 1920s, there likely would have been no "Nakba."
Those riots were wrong, and part of the problem, but we both know they were not the whole story. Historical grievances, even if valid, don’t absolve Israel and the Jewish paramilitaries that preceded it of their crimes, just like they don’t absolve Hamas and Palestinian terrorists of their crimes.
> If Gaza had focused on infrastructure and development
That's physically impossible when they don’t have enough natural resources to be self-sufficient and the blockade prevents them from trading for what they lack. Of course Hamas rule doesn’t help, but even the most enlightened government imaginable could not have ended the reliance on aid in those conditions. (And, of course, Netanyahu helped give Hamas billions of dollars in order to keep them in power.)
If I recall correctly, the blockade wasn't in full force until Gaza elected Hamas.
In any event, I'm not excusing Netanyahu's tactics, nor am I excusing those (earlier) "Jewish paramilitaries" -- but (at each stage I've noted), who picked this fight?
For that matter, the very rationale for "Palestine" (ever since the Romans kicked out the Jews and imposed that name) is, "Jews not welcome here." If this had been otherwise, the descendants of those refugees would now (as Israeli Arabs) be the envy of the entire region.
What goes around comes around.
I don’t think a “who started it” going back a century is very relevant to the current situation, given that all involved back then are dead. But if you *do* insist on going down that road, Ze’ev Jabotinsky has an essay: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/quot-the-iron-wall-quot
By the definition Palestinian propagandists are using, Mexico would count as an "open-air prison", especially if Trump gets elected and gets serious about enforcing the border.
No, because Mexico’s seas and airspace are not blockaded (plus their southern border, and even the northern one is far more porous than Gaza’s). They can and do engage in trade with whoever they like without another country killing people to stop it. Compare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_flotilla_raid
That actually makes sense from an EvPsyc point of view. Getting mad at a weak and accommodating opponent is likely to lead to concessions, getting mad at a strong opponent won't accomplish anything and might just get you killed.
Quoting other generals about how Muslim haters of Israel are created by Israel's military response to the October 7 attack and to Hizbollah's year-long bombardment of Israeli cities is of no relevance to the situation where Muslim Palestinians live in Gaza or even in Judea and Samaria. Hanania is quite correct that Muslim hatred of Israel there is maxed out. Indeed, it is part of Musllm culture and Muslim practice against the "Zionist entity" for over a hundred years now. Muslim doctrine, reinforced by weekly sermons from Mosques, hateful educational material in schools, glorification of martyrs in sports venues, etc, etc, has created a climate of hatred of Israel among those who consider themselves Palestinians that have now reached down into their sexual pores, as witnessed by the depraved sexual cruelty perpetrated by the participants in the Gaza October 7 invasion of Israel. Your essay only whitewashed this situation by suggesting that Israel's retaliation might have created even more Israel-haters among the Palestinians in Gaza and Judea and Samaria. The latter may not all be Hamas or PLO members, but they all subscribe to the doctrines preached by these groups and continue to elect them when given a chance to vote. Indeed, one even hears them spout the party line when interviewed for television about how they feel: "again a Naqba," they say, blithely ignorant of the fact that the first so-called naqba was self-induced as the historical record shows. But this deeply ingrained attitude has been adopted by the intellectual classes of the western world, spearheading the explosion of antisemitic sentiment and acts on western university campuses and the streets of western capitals, including in my Canadian province where teacher unions have called for the inclusion of naqba education in the high school curriculum. This would make western intellectuals haters of Israel without even having their loved ones or houses destroyed by the war which Hamas unleashed. Little wonder western society is collapsing from within.
What about Palestinian Christians? Why do many of them fight against Israel? Or what about the secular PFLP? If this conflict is about Muslim vs. Jew hate, how come many participants, in both camps, are neither?
Actually, Palestinian Christians also indulge in the anti-Israel campaign of lies. See the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem's constant spreading of slander about Israel. Remember the siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and the patriarch's denunciation of Israel when it was Palestinian militants, including the secular PFLP, who desecrated the church? The so-called secular Palestinians have no trouble mobilizing Islamic motifs and doctrine to further their aims, blending revolutionary jargon with Islamic theology.
What is their motivation though? If it’s Muslims against Jews as you claim it is, why would they participate?
Why would they participate?
Fifty years ago, my grandmother admonished me, "Politics is a dirty business."
"But Grandma," I responded "This is different; it's MOVEMENT politics."
"Mark my words," she replied -- "Politics is a dirty business."
Grandma was right.
If the game is so dirty (and I agree it is), *why do they play anyway?*
Why does a leopard have spots?
Part of it is they don't want their Muslim neighbors to kill them.
So instead, they accept a far higher risk of the IDF killing them?
I feel like I can make a special contribution here as a Sicilian, as Sicily was owned and occupied by the Moors for many centuries, which means I most likely have some spicy Arab blood flowing through my veins.
Probably one of the most famous contributions Sicilians have made to the West (outside of yet connected to the Mafia) is the idea of VENDETTA—meaning more or less a sacred or totalizing form of vengeance, where you will dedicate your life and even the lives of your children and grandchildren to getting revenge on an enemy, which usually means their death (at the very least). And vendetta, linking it to the Palestinians, is rooted in a feeling of humiliation, the need to save face, to make sure you and everyone else knows that you were not the vanquished but the vanquisher.
Has an entire people and culture ever before been entirely dedicated to VENDETTA? Where there's no higher purpose and where there's no other incentive or reward that can budge them from pursuing revenge at all costs? I'm not sure, but this is what Israel is facing, the bear trap they've stepped into.
I think the truth is that it doesn't matter what Israel does: they could pursue war or peace, they could offer land swaps, they could remove their West Bank settlements (remember nothing changed when they withdrew from Gaza). The Palestinians in 75 years have refused every peace treaty, have walked away from every negotiation, violated every ceasefire. None of it matters: they only want VENDETTA.
The Palestinians have NEVER ONCE acknowledged the right of the Jewish state to exist, they consider it an intolerable humiliation (and this was even before Israel became rich), and their leaders have said on many occasions they don't care how many of their own children have to die for them to get revenge by erasing the evil Zionist entity.
Westerners cling to this illusion that the Palestinians just want a state and a Congress and Netflix and Prime etc just like the rest of us, and this illusion seems to only grow stonger the more it's refuted. Or that Israel is the world's most brutal and murderous regime and that Zionism is the worst -ism ever, some combo of racism, colonialism, and fascist bloodthirst all rolled up into a package that bears a striking resemblance to "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion".
But the truth is they're locked in a land dispute with an opponent that will only accept the total destruction of their enemy, no matter how long it takes or what it costs. I don't know where this leaves us, but it's still best to face the truth.
> nothing changed when they withdrew from Gaza
Maybe the blocakde, keeping Gaza an open-air prison, had something to do with that? Or perhaps Netanyahu helping to give Hamas billions of dollars with the explicit intention of preventing a peace agreement (https://original.antiwar.com/scott/2023/10/27/netanyahus-support-for-hamas-backfired-2/) contributed?
> The Palestinians in 75 years have refused every peace treaty
For most of those peace treaties, even Israeli officials admit they would have refused if they were in the place of the Palestinians. The only exception is the 2008 proposal, which fell through because Ehud Olmert resigned and Netanyahu chose not to continue negotiations.
"Maybe the blocakde, keeping Gaza an open-air prison..."
Ah the old "open-air prison" Leftist talking point. The blockade is also there on the Egyptian side, who want nothing to do with the Palestinians either, wisely.
And despite any blockade, Hamas still had full sovereignty and billions in donations, which they chose to spend on tunnels and weapons, leaving their own people to starve and suffer.
And I think 10/7 proved why Israel felt the need to separate themselves from these people and try to keep them from smuggling in weapons—the Palestinians wept tears of joy at finally getting the chance to rape and slaughter Jews.
10/7 proved that Hamas and their supporters are enemies of humanity and civilization. They built miles of tunnels to hide in and zero bomb shelters to protect their own people!
Western Leftists simply become blinded to reality and morality once they designate a group as one of their special pet victim classes—suddenly they are beyond agency and responsibility, they never do but are only done to.
Israel is not the Palestinian's worst enemy, it's all the outsiders who have turned them into a Cause, which means their welfare becomes irrelevant and what matters most is all the people hoping to at last see the Jews get their comeuppance.
There is simply no denying that every Palestinian leader has chosen war and terrorism over peace—they have not in 75 years accepted the existence of Israel—and that they have full responsibility for the path they've chosen and for the fact that their territory is now rubble.
Was the blockade even there in 2005? I seem to remember it didn’t exist for 1-2 years until the Gazans elected Hamas, who promptly slaughtered their political opponents to ensure there’d be no more elections in Gaza. So there were actually 1-2 years of no “open air prison” yet they still elected Hamas.
> The blockade is also there on the Egyptian side, who want nothing to do with the Palestinians either
Egypt has the right to control its borders, as does Israel. Israel does not have the right to blockade Gaza’s access to the air or sea, crippling the local economy and keeping its people imprisoned inside.
> they have not in 75 years accepted the existence of Israel
Israel has not in 75 years accepted the existence of Palestine. Maybe we could make a deal that trades one for the other? Perhaps modeled after Ehud Olmert’s 2008 proposal, which fell through after he resigned and Netanyahu chose not to continue the negotiations? Just a thought…
Following is a list of the major peace offers, proposals, gestures and opportunities presented to the Arabs/Muslims by both the international community and the State of Israel going back as far as 1919, but all have been rejected by the Arabs/Muslims because they refuse to coexist with Jews.
1919: Arabs of Palestine refused nominate representatives to the Paris Peace Conference.
1920: San Remo conference decisions, rejected.
1922: League of Nations decisions, rejected.
1937: Peel Commission partition proposal, rejected.
1938: Woodhead partition proposal, rejected
1947: UN General Assembly partition proposal (UNGAR 181), rejected.
1949: Israel's outstretched hand for peace (UNGAR 194), rejected.
1967: Israel's outstretched hand for peace (UNSCR 242), rejected.
1978: Begin/Sa’adat peace proposal, rejected (except for Egypt).
1994: Rabin/Hussein peace agreement, rejected by the rest of the Arab League (except for Egypt).
1995: Rabin's Contour-for-Peace, rejected.
2000: Barak/Clinton peace offer, rejected.
2001: Barak’s offer at Taba, rejected.
2005: Sharon's peace gesture, withdrawal from Gaza, rejected.
2008: Olmert/Bush peace offer, rejected. Olmert was prepared to give up territory in the West Bank, and allow some refugees to reclaim land. He was even willing to relinquish control of Jerusalem’s Old City to an international committee as part of recognizing Palestine as a sovereign state.
2009 to present: Netanyahu's repeated invitations to peace talks, rejected.
2014: Kerry's Contour-for-Peace, rejected.
https://theintercept.com/2023/11/28/israel-palestine-history-peace/
Sorry it gives me a paywall and im not giving them my info.
This is really a very difficult topic and is the one where people seem to find the least ability to compromise, and there's simply no article that's ever going to convince me that Israel is at fault here, when they're dealing w genocidal theocratic terrorists who can't open their mouths once without vomiting Jew hate. As far as I'm concerned, one side here is civilized and proves it every day by having an elected govt, civil rights for women and gays and by following the laws of war to the best of reasonable ability, and one side are barbarians who would murder every Israeli if they could (and there is no denying this).
Here is Arafat with Oriana Fallaci in the early 80s:
ARAFAT: We will continue to make war on Israel by ourselves until we get Palestine back. The end of Israel is the goal of our struggle, and it allows for neither compromise nor mediation. The issues of this struggle, whether our friends like it or not, will always remain fixed by the principles that we enumerated in 1965 with the creation of Al Fatah. First: revolutionary violence is the only system for liberating the land of our fathers; second: the purpose of this violence is to liquidate Zionism in all its political, economic and military forms, and to drive it out of Palestine forever; third: our revolutionary action must be independent of any control by party or state; fourth: this action will be of long duration. We know the inten-tions of certain Arab leaders: to resolve the conflict with a peaceful agreement. When this happens, we will oppose it.
FALLACI: Conclusion: you don’t at all want the peace that everyone is hoping for.
ARAFAT: No! We don’t want peace. We want war, victory. Peace for us means the destruction of Israel and nothing else. What you call peace is peace for Israel and the imperialists. For us it is injustice and shame. We will fight until victory. Decades if necessary, generations.
Here is Hamas Political Bureau Chairman Ismail Haniyeh:
"As I said, and I repeat every time, the blood of the children, women, and elderly – I do not say that it shouts out to you, but rather we need this blood so that it will ignite within us the spirit of revolution, so that it will arouse within us persistence, so that it will arouse within us defiance and [a forward] advance.”
And here is the famous Hamas charter:
"The Day of Judgment will not come until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say, 'O Muslim, O servant of God, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.'"
That Jewish Leftists like Jon Schwarz could take sides against their own people and support opponents who would torture and murder their own families makes me sick to my stomach.
Anti-Israel Jews will always strike me as self-loathing Judases who are only comfortable with Jewishness if it means being morally superior victims who always offer their throats to the blade of their enemies. But people have always hated Jews and always will no matter how much some of them grovel.
Like I said at the start, I'm Sicilian and our sacred belief is never taking sides against your own people. I confess an intractable bias.
Cheers
"Note that before October 7, relatively few Gazans were affiliated with Hamas or other militant groups. The usual high-ball estimate is about 50,000, which represents 2.4% of the pre-war population."
I don't see the pertinence of this statistic. Hamas doesn't have limitless funds to pay salaries, or limitless jobs to fill. This just indicates that Hamas had the capacity to hire 2.4% of the population, not that there was a cap of 2.4% of the population willing to affiliate with it.
That's a fair point. I wouldn't claim the "2.4% statistic" proves very much, but I thought it was worth mentioning. Your thoughts on the overall argument?
I have to read the articles you link to (one of which is paywalled), but I am sceptical about this blood-feud motivation for becoming a militant. It's too easy to think of examples of violent ethnic feuds that fizzle out once political circumstances change. I'm more familiar with academic research on why some ethnic hatreds break out into conflict and others don't, and I believe that there is little relationship between intensity of hatred and paramilitary formation, rather it all comes down to low or high state capacity.
Specifically on Palestinians joining paramilitaries, this may be a cringe Hasbara take, but I believe it comes down to (a) an education system that promotes irredentism, nursing of historical grievances, and glorification of paramilitaries (and this is the entire Palestinian education system outside of a few foreign-run schools) and (b) funding. I agree more with you than Richard Hanania about the wisdom of the Gaza war, because I don't see how it addresses either of these issues. I have my ideas about (a), but it's really (b) which is amenable to military action, and that means attacking Iran.
There has been an unstated alliance of convenience between the Israeli baboon Right which wanted a Gaza-first strategy (because of 'showing strength', revenge, and their fever dreams of reversing the 2005 disengagement) and the State Dept/international community who wanted to limit the conflict by containing it to Gaza. I understand their motivations, but I believe the best strategy for Israel would have to been to basically do nothing in Gaza, roll out the Hizb'Allah war 9 months ago, and then aim for either neutering or deposing the Iranian government, and, if that was successful, look for ways to peacefully liquidate Palestinian nationalism in conjunction with Arab neighbours (a version of the 3 state solution). But, in addition to the diplomatic difficulties involved, unfortunately Israel is a democracy
> (b) funding
https://original.antiwar.com/scott/2023/10/27/netanyahus-support-for-hamas-backfired-2/
The key point is as follows: what makes the follow-up terror actions more likely, the forceful response to the previous terror actions or the weak (nominal, rhetorical, or no at all) response to the previous terror actions? You seem to miss the latter alternative.
I don’t think the blood revenge examples from formerly neutral Chechens, where the revenge is often against other Chechens, mean much here.
There’s consistent data from the Palestinian pollsters showing that for the first time ever, Gazan are more moderate than West Bankers. Most Gazans now think 10/7 was a mistake. They celebrated the day it happened. West Bankers still support it.
See for instance https://x.com/HeTows/status/1837587397778812944 this thread.
If most Gazans now think 10/7 was a mistake, they should be happy to see Israel annex Gaza, and the Israelis should be happy to build them new hospitals and schools (where the kids aren't taught to hate Jews). They merely need to be shown that they'd be better off as Israeli Arabs than they were under Hamas -- and that (given that result) their neighbors and children didn't die in vain.
See also my comment here https://substack.com/profile/12446785-usually-wash/note/c-74202874?r=7es01&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action and my further comments below
I agree that Hanania's argument is very wrong. However, there are several dubious arguments in this piece.
In your piece on "why do Muslims care about Uighurs than Palestinians" you write: that "Uighurs have suffered arguably "more repression than Palestinians".
This statement was dubious even then, but now is it even remotely true? 90% of Gaza is internally dispaced and several tens of thousands have been killed within a year (somewhere between 2-4% of the population). Repression of the Uighurs, while brutal, is not on the same scale and intensity.
I would suggest that whatever the number of militants there may be, there will be _too many_ so long as counting coup on Israel is seen as a route to prestige and therefore power among the Arabs of Palestine.
"As a result, Israel can best promote its long-term security by prioritising the destruction of Hamas."
Israel's intent is not to promote its long-term security but to espouse the territorial expansion and power of Zionism.
LOL what is the "power of Zionism?"
Israeli parents are interested in the security of their children. Meaning, minimizing the odds of their heads being blown off by anti-tank missiles or rockets. To do that, Israeli parents must eliminate the threats to their posterity. If you loved your children you'd easily agree.
Most Israelis (and most Palestinians, and most people generally) are interested in the security of their children. The people leading Israel (and Gaza), perhaps not so much
How so? Israelis, through their leaders, assume very rationally that to secure their posterity they need to severely limit the unpredictable and self-combusting Arabs. Just as our ancestors in America had figured something similar about the Indians. And now we can drive around freely without being hit by tomahawks and arrows.
> they need to severely limit the unpredictable and self-combusting Arabs
It’s interesting that you use the word “combusting.” Here’s what Netanyahu has to say about combustion:
“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas… This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank … We control the height of the flames.”
https://original.antiwar.com/scott/2023/10/27/netanyahus-support-for-hamas-backfired-2/
> Just as our ancestors in America had figured something similar about the Indians.
Today’s Native Americans are full US citizens, in fact they have even more political rights than everyone else (can participate in tribal governments). The Palestinians live under apartheid (West Bank) or are trapped in an open-air prison (Gaza).
It doesn’t really matter what Netanyahu says. I’m trying to drive the point that it’s a simple risk management dilemma. Israeli parents seek to minimize the chances of their posterity’s brains being blown up by AT missiles. And so they conclude they should limit the Arabs. That’s reasonable if you love your children.
And today’s Indians are the remnants of what had been decimated and dismantled as a fighting force. Probably a good model for an Israeli approach towards the Arabs.
> And so they conclude they should limit the Arabs.
Define “limit.” What *exactly* does that mean?
"LOL what is the "power of Zionism?""
They have a lot of control over the U.S. government.
"Meaning, minimizing the odds of their heads being blown off by anti-tank missiles or rockets."
Poor Zionists.
"To do that, Israeli parents must eliminate the threats to their posterity."
Bullshit, they have been committing crimes against Arabs for 76 years.
Noted that you did not address the illegal territorial expansion by the Israelis.
The only crime is to neglect one’s posterity.
"The only crime is to neglect one’s posterity."
At the expense of others posterity.
Congratulations, you’ve discovered the meaning of lifeboat ethics.
Hanania is one of those Arabs himself so should know better.
Hanania is right here.
Noah Carl here is using leftist "Police presence causes crime" logic.
Well whether it’s leftist or not is irrelevant. Leftist arguments can be correct. They can also be wrong.
In this case they are wrong: https://x.com/HeTows/status/1837587397778812944
And yes in the case of defunding the police they’re also wrong.
Did he bring his fidget spinner?
Police generally are useless anyway.
Compare what happened in places where the left succeeded in Defunding the Police to see how "useless" they are.
They were generally useless before ‘woke’ policies; always soft on black underclasses. I live in a deep blue urban area so speak from personal observations and experience.
Comparing with what happened after the woke policies makes it clear they were doing something.
They protect wealthy enclaves in cities where elites reside but considerably less for middle and working classes. Some cops are outstanding individuals but as an institution they leave much to be desired.
Ultimately it's a utilitarian question - how many Arabs does a parent need to eliminate to secure his children? Most sane parents would reply "as many as it takes."