War in the Middle East, again

[bradrn]

In this case, Palestine matters right now because the IDF is bombing Gaza to smithereens and starving those it hasn't bombed in a very disproportionate fashion at the very present.

And Sudan matters right now, and Myanmar also matters right now, and… you get the point, I hope.

I heard plenty about Darfur or the Rohingya, for one. Or are you just being snarky?

Do you really? Like, people may support these causes, but I don’t see students taking over campuses in support of the Rohingya, or screaming anti-Buddhist chants.

I have not heard much about them recently, but I remember hearing quite a bit about them not that long ago, all things considered.

I’m sorry, but you’re just being disingenuous now. In the US, the last protests of this scale were Black Lives Matter, and that was a domestic issue. The actions of Sudan, Iran or Myanmar have never inspired this level of activism — but the actions of Israel have.

[zompist]

It's not that it is a Jewish ethnostate in and of itself but rather that it is a settler-colonial state where the settler part is going on right now, rather than being mostly well in the past (even though as commented, there have been abuses in, say, the US up to the very present, albeit on a far lesser scale than in the past). If Israel evicted the settlers from the West Bank and allowed the Palestinians to constitute their own sovereign ethnostate while truly giving Arabs within Israel equal rights with Jews, Israel would still be an ethnostate, but would be a far less objectionable one.

Yes, of course. I thought I was clear about that in the last paragraph.

[Travis B.]

In this case, Palestine matters right now because the IDF is bombing Gaza to smithereens and starving those it hasn't bombed in a very disproportionate fashion at the very present.

And Sudan matters right now, and Myanmar also matters right now, and… you get the point, I hope.

Do you really? Like, people may support these causes, but I don’t see students taking over campuses in support of the Rohingya, or screaming anti-Buddhist chants.

I have not heard much about them recently, but I remember hearing quite a bit about them not that long ago, all things considered.

I’m sorry, but you’re just being disingenuous now. In the US, the last protests of this scale were Black Lives Matter, and that was a domestic issue. The actions of Sudan, Iran or Myanmar have never inspired this level of activism — but the actions of Israel have.

I give you that Sudan and Myanmar have not gotten the same level of attention as Israel, and have largely fallen from the public's consciousness (when activism about Darfur was a big thing was some years back, and has largely disappeared), and awareness of Iran has largely centered on the actions of its proxies across the Middle East (e.g. its indirect involvement in the war in Yemen).

[Moose-tache]

Jesus Effing Christ.

[bradrn]

Jesus Effing Christ.

If you want people to understand your points clearly, have you ever considered, you know, actually phrasing them clearly?

(And if you ever do decide to take such an approach, please clarify whether your last post was sarcasm or not. Though it’s an essentially correct argument, so I’m not sure why you would consider it sarcastic.)

[bradrn]

I give you that Sudan and Myanmar have not gotten the same level of attention as Israel, and have largely fallen from the public's consciousness (when activism about Darfur was a big thing was some years back, and has largely disappeared), and awareness of Iran has largely centered on the actions of its proxies across the Middle East (e.g. its indirect involvement in the war in Yemen).

I’m not just talking about Darfur. I’m talking about the full-scale civil war which is currently being waged between the Sundanese army and the so-called ‘Rapid Support Forces’, which began a year ago and which has already devastated the capital of Khartoum.

But then the thing is, it’s not just that Sudan and Myanmar have gotten less attention. It’s that Israel gets more attention than every other conflict in the world. Consistently, over decades. I’ve already mentioned the scale of the protests as one sign of this. Even on this very board, we have a dedicated thread for Israel, but not for any other conflict in the world. And then there’s the way the UNHRC has passed almost as many resolutions on Israel as it has on the rest of the world combined. Israel may have committed human rights violations, but it is physically impossible for it to be that much more evil than the entirety of the rest of the world.

So, to me, this suggests that there is a very substantial contingent of people who like to amplify accusations against Israel, but don’t seem to care much about other conflicts. And we must ask ourselves: why is this?

[zompist]

So, to me, this suggests that there is a very substantial contingent of people who like to amplify accusations against Israel, but don’t seem to care much about other conflicts. And we must ask ourselves: why is this?

You have a point, but this is also a bit disingenuous.

1) "Israel is no worse than Sudan or Burma" is not a great argument. Maybe Israel should try to be better than some of the worst post-colonial dictatorships in the world.
2) In the case of US protests, the US is not giving billions of dollars of military aid to Sudan or Burma.
3) It's simply not the case that no one cares about other conflicts or approves of them. Many people do, in fact, believe stomping on minorities is wrong for all countries. Burma has received a fair amount of attention, not least because Aung San Suu Kyi was once greatly admired, and then turned into a huge disappointment.
4) There are not a lot of historical or social ties to Sudan or Burma, for either the US or Europe. (Britain was the colonizing country for both; I don't know if either country is more salient to the Brits.)

US media is not very good at covering the whole world; it's not a terrible exaggeration to say that it only knows about one foreign country at a time. There's a huge neglect of Africa in particular.

[bradrn]

I think I may have been unclear in some parts. To address your points in turn:

1) "Israel is no worse than Sudan or Burma" is not a great argument. Maybe Israel should try to be better than some of the worst post-colonial dictatorships in the world.

You’re right, but it’s also not the argument I’m making. (I do think that it’s enormously better than both of them.) What I am saying is that, even if Israel is bad, it cannot possibly be so much worse than all these other countries that it justifies the enormous focus on Israel alone.

2) In the case of US protests, the US is not giving billions of dollars of military aid to Sudan or Burma.

Fair, but that doesn’t explain protests in other countries. (Though admittedly the most extreme protests seem to be in the US.)

3) It's simply not the case that no one cares about other conflicts or approves of them. Many people do, in fact, believe stomping on minorities is wrong for all countries. Burma has received a fair amount of attention, not least because Aung San Suu Kyi was once greatly admired, and then turned into a huge disappointment.

Oh, I’m not saying that no one cares about those other conflicts. In this thread, I’m sure that most of us care about them a great deal. But there does seem to be substantially more interest in Israel than in anywhere else.

4) There are not a lot of historical or social ties to Sudan or Burma, for either the US or Europe. (Britain was the colonizing country for both; I don't know if either country is more salient to the Brits.)

I think this is the only plausible argument which doesn’t boil down to ‘systemic antisemitism’. Note that there’s historical ties to Ukraine, too, and that has also been very salient in the media.

But then, there’s weird things about it… like the fact that the protests are against Israel. By and large, people tend to support countries with which they have a connection. You don’t see many anti-Ukraine protests, for instance. There definitely does seem to be something different about Israel.

US media is not very good at covering the whole world; it's not a terrible exaggeration to say that it only knows about one foreign country at a time. There's a huge neglect of Africa in particular.

Indeed… but then why does that ‘one foreign country’ so often seem to be Israel?

[Travis B.]

I get the impression that people implicitly seem to expect (due to the frankly rather racist view, to be honest) that as a Western (with a big W) country Israel ought to be better than, say, any random less-developed African or Asian country, so when it is not they are apt to criticize it ─ or care about it ─ more than, say, Sudan or Myanmar. I am sure that if the United States were doing what Israel is doing right now it would get significant amounts of attention and criticism.

[Ares Land]

It's not just the US. It's about the same here, Israel receives disproportionate attention as well. Is France really better at keeping track of the rest of the world though? I'm not sure.

I think there are two sides to this.
The first is antisemitism, which is real, a lot more prevalent than we think, and should really be confronted at some point.
The second is quite the opposite: I think we expect a lot better from Israel, because, among other things it's a democracy with strong cultural ties to us. I don't know how to compare indignation but I think people feel or felt the same about British and US war crimes. The Iraq War, or the Troubles in Northern Ireland certainly got the same kind of coverage.

[Ares Land]

I get the impression that people implicitly seem to expect (due to the frankly rather racist view, to be honest) that as a Western (with a big W) country Israel ought to be better than, say, any random less-developed African or Asian country, so when it is not they are apt to criticize it ─ or care about it ─ more than, say, Sudan or Myanmar. I am sure that if the United States were doing what Israel is doing right now it would get significant amounts of attention and criticism.

Yes, exactly!

[rotting bones]

The US doesn't just give money to Israel. It is directly sending high tech weaponry that is being used to kill civilians without oversight, the US is blocking UN resolutions for Israel, etc. Israel is attacking Rafah now.

Roughly, the main problem from Israel's perspective is that, having been out of power for two millennia, Israelis don't seem to understand that 90% of being in power involves knowing when to shut up. To exaggerate slightly for contrast, you cannot target kids with high tech weaponry, dance on the graves of your enemies, stream the atrocities live, and then act dismayed when basically no one likes what you have done.

You can do the first two things if you must, but those are incompatible with doing the last two things. In fact, if you do the first two things, it's a good idea to make it look like a domestic squabble. Even if the evidence you planted is unconvincing under expert scrutiny, it's essential to shroud your atrocities in as much doubt and confusion as possible to appeal to the conspiracy theorists. The only problem is that the murder monsters in Israel don't understand the necessity of hushing up their atrocities since they are proud of them. Just like Hamas, they have scripture to assure them of the essential righteousness of their actions.

Other problems for Israel include:

1. Despite Israeli lies to the contrary, there are large numbers of Anti-Zionist Jews like the Jewish Voice for Peace who are ashamed of being associated with Israel and loudly denounce it. A third of the pro-Palestinian protestors arrested in Germany were Jewish.

2. Are there any Rohingya in the American government? Palestinians have 7 times the population of the Rohingya IIRC, and their exodus began a long time ago.

3. The fact that Israel is super-wealthy makes it look worse compared to Sudan. What people don't realize is that Netanyahu's power base are the poor Mizrahi in Israel, so this is the poors killing each other for the amusement of their patrons all over again.

4. The propaganda value of the "lack of Western values" that Hamas apparently has can only be stretched so far. "You oppress your wife, so I will kill her," is not convincing to anyone.

PS. The binational non-state solution I was thinking of was published as The Federation of Palestinian and Hebrew Nations. Personally, my solution to Arabs and Jews killing each other is a basic human rights guarantee and boarding schools to brainwash the crazy out of both groups. Cultural genocide is preferable to actual genocide.

PPS. Also, what the fuck is it with the Scott Aaronson(?) article? There was like one famous controversial feminist who was ideologically opposed to straight sex. I feel like someone who can blow that up into a leftist consensus against autistic boys finding love is the kind of person who would see an international humanitarian conspiracy against Israel.

[Travis B.]

The second is quite the opposite: I think we expect a lot better from Israel, because, among other things it's a democracy with strong cultural ties to us. I don't know how to compare indignation but I think people feel or felt the same about British and US war crimes. The Iraq War, or the Troubles in Northern Ireland certainly got the same kind of coverage.

I still remember the anti-war protests during W's administration, and the George Floyd protests were absolutely huge, not just domestically but also internationally.

[Ketsuban]

There has absolutely been coverage of Sudan and the Rohingya in the news here in Rightpondia, but I think we take a look-but-don't-touch approach because touching was what started the problems in the first place - no do-overs in decolonisation. The fact we militarily support Israel is a big part of why people are so unhappy - it feels hypocritical of us to defend Ukraine against Russian aggression but support Israeli aggression against Palestine.

Israel also has terrible internet propaganda. Easy access to machine translation means that when Israeli soldiers share their videos on TikTok and Twitter (expecting unconditional adulation because... they're Israeli! you don't want to be antisemitic, do you?) people can tell what's being said, so it doesn't look like regular military machismo - it looks like genocide and all-too-familiar anti-Muslim racism.

[Torco]

You're describing 99% of the states of the world. The French state, the German state, the Chinese state, the Japanese state, the Somali state, the Saudi state, the Russian state, the Iranian state. Some awful, some not so bad. Is it the "Jewish" part that really gets your blood going? Everyone else can have one, but it's only worth protesting when it's the Jews?

mmmm... no, see, not all states are ethnostates, thank god. I'm not so up to date in comparative laws, tbh, but I know about some states: chile, the US and spain (and the EU by extension): does any of those states afford special legal privileges to people according to their race? or their "ethnicity" (whatever difference there be between the two) ? I would say for the most part no. The Chilean state also is not an ethnostate in the sense that there exists some legal condition "being of chilean race or ethnicity" such that the state is notionally of, or for, people fulfilling said condition. You're right that most nation states began as ethnostates: the US and Latin America aren't the immediate examples that spring to mind by accident: we all began as settler colonial regimes, but Travis is correct, it's different to be a post-ethnostate than to be an actual ethnostate that's becoming more ethno by the minute. I'd also oppose the colonial system of racial castes enshrined into Spanish law, back in 1550s Santiago, you know, the legal system of different laws for peninsulares, mestizos, indios, zambos, mulatos, cuarterones blabla.

Everybody else gets to have an apartheid state that's actively committing genocide and lying about it, but suddenly people object when the Jews do it? Nobody makes a peep when there's ethnic cleansing in Sudan or Myanmar (don't google it), or when the AfD tries to do the fourth reich (don't google that either), or when Iran is on their bullshit (put your phone down). No one objects to any of that. They only object to Israel. People want a better world without ethnostates using violence to support religious privilege, but only in one exact spot. Everywhere else they like things to stay shit. Blatant anti-semitism. It's the only explanation.

I know right? yall did your extermination of your inferior races a while back, we're only now getting our lebensraum: it's only fair you let us catch up! plus, we took one, so we're entitled to give one back.
only defense against poe is being obvious, especially when propaganda is so strong reasonable people's actual views boil down to the ones that one parodically expresses: interestingly, a certain adolf explicitly said that what he wanted to do for Germany was exactly what America had done for herself with manifest destiny.

___
Besides what everyone correctly points out, anotehr part of what makes Palestine special is, admittedly, that the palestinians have a much larger and more influential diaspora and honestly honor and fucking glory to that diaspora: hell, in Chile we have a first division footbal team (the one you play with your feet) called Deportes Palestino, and believe you me a lot of chileans learned of the conflict because some game or other had a sign, a chant or a nice riot in reference to it. You can often see the same leftos that protest against Israel protesting against the US support of Saudi Arabia. Myanmar, sudan and the rest of 'em really should get as much energy as palestine is getting, granted, but that don't mean this one genocide oughtta get less. Whataboutism only works when the opposition is actuall inconsistent.

[Ares Land]

mmmm... no, see, not all states are ethnostates, thank god. I'm not so up to date in comparative laws, tbh, but I know about some states: chile, the US and spain (and the EU by extension): does any of those states afford special legal privileges to people according to their race? or their "ethnicity" (whatever difference there be between the two) ? I would say for the most part no. The Chilean state also is not an ethnostate in the sense that there exists some legal condition "being of chilean race or ethnicity" such that the state is notionally of, or for, people fulfilling said condition. You're right that most nation states began as ethnostates: the US and Latin America aren't the immediate examples that spring to mind by accident: we all began as settler colonial regimes, but Travis is correct, it's different to be a post-ethnostate than to be an actual ethnostate that's becoming more ethno by the minute. I'd also oppose the colonial system of racial castes enshrined into Spanish law, back in 1550s Santiago, you know, the legal system of different laws for peninsulares, mestizos, indios, zambos, mulatos, cuarterones blabla.

As for the EU... France is pretty bad in that respect. 'National preference' has been on the far-right agenda since at least the 80s, and is beginning to be implemented in law.
Is there a race and ethnicity condition? Not yet (though it should be any time soon) but Arabs in France certainly face difficulties. It's not horrible, but painful enough that a lot of Arabs are moving out of the country - I heard a debate recently. Not to mention the religious element -- the idea that you can be French and Muslim is seriously questioned.
But that's relatively minor. For worse, let's take a look at refugees: placed in camps; plus all of those that drown either in the Mediterranean or the Channel because official policy is not to offer any kind of help. Now look at Mayotte and the Comores. And then there's Guyane, New Caledonia.
Oh, by the way, the French Army definitely killed civilians in Mali, except nobody cares much.

I like to bring up France as an example, because it's my own country and I have a good idea of which closets the skeletons are hidden in. But this is entirely unexceptional for a European country. Let's do a quick, depressing tour of the EU: Italy regularly places neo-fascists in power, with the assorted policies. Germany and the AFD have been mentioned. There's the Netherlands, and Denmark... And then you get to the real bad ones, like Hungary or Poland.

So? "Actual ethnostate getting more ethno by the minute"? That definition covers most of the EU.

[Torco]

yeah, there's a lot of ethno garbage left over in most countries, especially in rich white countries, and especially especially in this age of fascist renaissance... but let's keep proportions here: neither chile nor france, for all of its sins (which are many), bomb its populations in order to exterminate an ethnic groupo so that another ethnic group gets the land, don't enforce apartheid, and don't explicitly go "you're not the right race, you don't have this right" to their citizens. they used to, and of course the right always wants to do it again, but it's not the case.

but yeah you don't have to convince the latin american commie that NATO is fash af. no wonder it's all over supporting israel.

[rotting bones]

When the British were thinking of creating Israel, the Saudi king suggested carving out a piece of Germany for the Jews. Not that the West would ever displace white people for racial justice. The Soviet Union also created a Jewish Autonomous Oblast. The problem is that, as the Bundists say, the Jewish working class was decimated in the Holocaust. Most Jews left alive in Europe didn't find it appealing to live in some out of the way backwater.

I wonder if there are any lands free for those of us who despise all major factions of 21st century politics. Are the Desolation Islands livable? Are there better options? Patagonia has a low population density.

[rotting bones]

I hear all the neighboring states declared war when Israel was created. Was this because they saw Israel as a crusader state? Was their reaction worse than the opposition faced by, say, Rojava?

The official narrative that Arabs/Muslims/poors are irredeemably antisemitic doesn't seem right to me. In the 1600s, a Jewish Messiah called Sabbatai Zevi tried to overthrow the Ottoman Empire with mystical powers. Even after his failure, the Middle East didn't declare war against the Jews. Ottomans recognized that Sabbatai Zevi was a lunatic.

Regarding the "Iran is antisemitic" narrative: How oppressed are the 10k Jews living in Iran right now? Honest question. I don't know anything about this issue.

Regarding the "Palestinians should be fought because they don't want peace" narrative, Scott Aaronson: Doesn't this mean Israel should be fought because a majority of Israelis don't want peace with Palestine?

[Travis B.]

I hear all the neighboring states declared war when Israel was created. Was this because they saw Israel as a crusader state? Was their reaction worse than the opposition faced by, say, Rojava?

The official narrative that Arabs/Muslims/poors are irredeemably antisemitic doesn't seem right to me. In the 1600s, a Jewish Messiah called Sabbatai Zevi tried to overthrow the Ottoman Empire with mystical powers. Even after his failure, the Middle East didn't declare war against the Jews. Ottomans recognized that Sabbatai Zevi was a lunatic.

Regarding the "Iran is antisemitic" narrative: How oppressed are the 10k Jews living in Iran right now? Honest question. I don't know anything about this issue.

Regarding the "Palestinians should be fought because they don't want peace" narrative, Scott Aaronson: Doesn't this mean Israel should be fought because a majority of Israelis don't want peace with Palestine?

I heard that Christian missionaries to the Middle East actually largely imported anti-Semitism there in the not-so-distant past, even though they largely failed to import Christianity itself (disregarding those Arabs and like who were already Christian to begin with).