|
Jai Guru Dave posted:Well, I don’t think there is a real contradiction between thinking that Israel is a Nazi state hellbent on committing genocide in Gaza, but at the same time is about to give up and go home because they loving lost. 
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 16:26
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 8, 2024 06:47 |
|
|
Randalor posted:And that's assuming Israel actually uphold the 2 month ceasefire instead of a week later, resuming leveling all of Gaza with some loophole wording ("While we agreed to a ceasefire, we did not say anything about leveling buildings with set charges"). Alternatively they'll do something, Hamas or some other faction will respond, and then Israel and its defenders will claim Hamas broke the ceasefire. That's what happened after they killed two kids on video in Jenin and then Hamas-aligned militants attacked that Jerusalem bus stop in retaliation.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 16:58
|
|
|
You may recall that the nazis, famously, lost. Not just the war overall but many pivotal battles. That aside, it seems to me that you're saying Jai Guru Dave is a fascist, or at least operating under a fascistic viewpoint by Umberto's definition (the enemy is both overwhelmingly powerful and pathetically weak), which is extremely unfair and a belies a very poor understanding of Umberto's work. If this isn't the case I apologize, but you don't leave a lot to go off of a single emoticon. There is no contradiction in thinking that israel is a nazilike state operating under a leadership regime and zionist ideology of blood-and-soil nationalism and racial hierarchy justified by a mythologized history that has an explicit goal of the ethnic cleansing of the subaltern from a place they have decided is rightfully theirs and also thinking that the israeli IDF that exists in the actual world today cannot maintain a long-term occupation of the Gaza strip, or even north Gaza, for a variety of reasons, not least of which being that they don't have the capacity to succeed against the type of guerilla warfare that Hamas is engaged in.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 17:26
|
|
|
Pentecoastal Elites posted:...they don't have the capacity to succeed against the type of guerilla warfare that Hamas is engaged in. I basically agree with the rest of your post and despite the fact that we've tried about other stuff I mean this question to be sincerely curious and not trying to undermine your point. Does/could any state have this capacity? The US famously doesn't have that capacity despite having the richest/most technologically advanced army in the world. It seems to me that wiping out an insurgency, particularly an urban one, requires choosing between accepting huge casualties for the invading army or committing colossal broad-daylight war crimes so blatant that they cause internal/diplomatic crisis. Or both, like Israel is doing right now. Because to actually wipe out the insurgency, each and every building has to be either raided and indefinitely occupied - extremely dangerous for the soldiers and likely to produce civilian casualties - OR bombed to total destruction - certain to produce civilian casualties and often a war crime simply for the destruction of the building because it is vital civilian infrastructure like a school or a hospital. Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 17:48 on Jan 25, 2024 |
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 17:42
|
|
|
Civilized Fishbot posted:I basically agree with the rest of your post and despite the fact that we've tried about other stuff I mean this question to be sincerely curious and not trying to undermine your point. I genuinely don't think so, I think modern guerilla warfare in dense urban environments is something that no one has figured out an actual, practical answer to. Unless you're willing to root out literally everyone or bomb every square inch to glass, every modern state army is going to be mired in hugely disadvantageous terrain against an embedded opponent who has nearly every advantage. If the US military, with all the money and political backing you could ever ask for couldn't do it once over the past, what, 20 (50? 70?) years, I don't know if it's realistically possible. At least, in today's world -- maybe if things change or israel manages to withstand the internal and international strife, flattening the city would be a viable option. That's pessimistic, though, and I think if the US couldn't do it no one could. I think this is also happening in other types of warfare (mostly thanks to cheap, widely available technology), which you can see in the Houthi attacks on the shipping lanes. The US isn't going to be able to stop that, either. e: Yeah, that's well put. The way to stop this sort of combat is political, not militarily, but I'm not sure if states like the US or israel are willing or able to admit that, at least at this point VVVVV Pentecoastal Elites fucked around with this message at 18:17 on Jan 25, 2024 |
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 18:00
|
|
|
I mean you could do it buts it's a political solution, not a Military one I suspect.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 18:10
|
|
|
Your Brain on Hugs posted:And yet, they are withdrawing forces. This is a sticking point for many Israelis, they're saying "why are Gazans allowed to return to the northern strip while Israelis cannot return to settments in the Gaza envelope?". As long as Hamas is still firing rockets, the settlers will not return. As long as the IDF is still bombing Gaza, Hezbollah will not stop bombing the north, and displaced Israelis cannot return there either. And yet, the IDF is drawing down forces. What is their plan to rescue the hostages and defeat Hamas with less troops than they had before? Hamas trying to encourage civilians to return to the northern strip does not mean that Israel is “allowing” it: https://m.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-783560 And IDF are still murdering civilians in Gaza City without any pushback from Hamas at all: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/1/25/israels-war-on-gaza-live-israel-kills-9-in-un-shelter-sparking-outrage?update=2648959 It sure looks like Israel still has nearly full control of northern Gaza to me Also, there are no settlements near the Gaza border. If your talking about kibbutz that were attacked, it seems like people are still living there: https://m.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-780344 Kalit fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Jan 25, 2024 |
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 18:20
|
|
|
Y'all should read Clausewitz, he laid this out pretty clearly.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 18:20
|
|
|
Pentecoastal Elites posted:There is no contradiction in thinking that israel is a nazilike state operating under a leadership regime and zionist ideology of blood-and-soil nationalism and racial hierarchy justified by a mythologized history that has an explicit goal of the ethnic cleansing of the subaltern from a place they have decided is rightfully theirs and also thinking that the israeli IDF that exists in the actual world today cannot maintain a long-term occupation of the Gaza strip, or even north Gaza, for a variety of reasons, not least of which being that they don't have the capacity to succeed against the type of guerilla warfare that Hamas is engaged in. i aint seeing poo poo that tells me israel cant succeed against hamas. they seem just as primed to win the long game and demolish and starve gaza one dead child at a time till its defaco IDF control i think people need to really reassess how and why they're convincing themselves israel is on the back foot quote:I think modern guerilla warfare in dense urban environments is something that no one has figured out an actual, practical answer to. this question only counts for occupying forces that are actively unwilling to do so without total population displacement and/or demolishing the area to rubble. they're trying to figure out how to do that without givin em the grozny israel has its answer
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 18:27
|
|
|
Staluigi posted:i aint seeing poo poo that tells me israel cant succeed against hamas. they seem just as primed to win the long game and demolish and starve gaza one dead child at a time till its defaco IDF control No state has an unlimited capacity for war or occupation, and it's yet to be seen if israel can actually fully depopulate Gaza. Even if they were to do so (or get close) it's unclear the degree to which that would actually impact Hamas' ability to strike at the occupying force. For all of the bombing and tunnel destruction, Hamas is still taking out occupiers. How long can israel keep sending 24 year old master sergeants to get cooked alive in Merkavas? Certainly for a while, but is that longer than Hamas is willing to stay in Gaza, even if it is mostly depopulated? There's no question that israel is willing and able to slaughter thousands and thousands more Palestinians via bombardment, but occupying territory is a different matter entirely. Also, like the nazis, it's easy to assume israel has a bottomless reserve of soldiers and materiel and a flawless war economy but that wasn't the case then and it isn't the case now. In a broader sense, even if israel does seize complete control of Gaza it's not going to end there, just due to the nature of israel and the zionist project. There will always be a political impetus to broaden their domain and subjugate the untermenschen, and no state has an infinite ability to pursue those goals. One way or another, israel -- or at least israel as a zionist apartheid ethnostate -- will end. Maybe it has finally overextended itself and its end will come in our lifetimes, maybe not, but it will absolutely end.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 18:52
|
|
|
I don't see why Israel is magically going to be better at occupying Gaza now than they were during the second intifada. it's not like they weren't openly genocidal then as well.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 18:56
|
|
|
Staluigi posted:i aint seeing poo poo that tells me israel cant succeed against hamas. they seem just as primed to win the long game and demolish and starve gaza one dead child at a time till its defaco IDF control I think the idea is that if Israel is unable to get rid of Hamas, they'll have to end the war and return things to roughly the pre 10/7 state. That they wont be able to maintain this level of military engagement indefinitely so they'll have to negotiate. Then there will be figuring out the aid and reconstruction and stuff like that. But theres no reason they cant just retreat and continue to blockade the Gaza strip and wait for the destroyed infrastructure and general deprivation to do its job. And just keep doing retaliatory airstrikes on more housing and infrastructure if any missiles come over the walls. Shut down as much communication coming out of the strip as possible so you can obfuscate whats going on and just wait. Maybe do one big retaliatory bombing run and take out as much of the remaining infrastructure, especially water, as possible as you retreat. If theres no political will to enforce a ceasefire theres certainly not going to be any political will to break a blockade. In this situation the only political pressure is going to be on Egypt to accept millions of refugees.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 19:00
|
|
|
punishedkissinger posted:I don't see why Israel is magically going to be better at occupying Gaza now than they were during the second intifada. it's not like they weren't openly genocidal then as well.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 19:32
|
|
|
Pentecoastal Elites posted:No state has an unlimited capacity for war or occupation, and it's yet to be seen if israel can actually fully depopulate Gaza. yeah and? that's the whole thing. It's Yet To Be Seen, and nobody's got a compelling argument that israel can't just actually succeed at eliminating gaza, so as the total death toll for Palestinians reaches breathtakingly bloody new heights i am less interested than ever in the analysis coming out rooted in the soothing conviction that israel is critically faltering and that their goals are not practically accessible, and i'm gonna stay real concerned about palestinean advocacy groups drifting into those narratives easier and easier as israel's campaign continues to work and prove how little meaningful will exists to stop it
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 19:33
|
|
|
I think Israel is burning more good will than people think. Anecdotal but most of the gen z people I know, almost all of whom are conservative, basically have a constant stream rolling of tik toks in which the IDF beats up old ladies and randomly shoots at people. They have all decided that Israel is the bad guy here, and good luck ever winning them back. I think the political winds could change in a big way in a decade.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 19:59
|
|
|
1/3 of Americans now believe Israel is committing genocide. I don't rally see that number improving and I don't see Israel surviving without US support https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/24/americans-believe-israel-committing-genocide-poll?CMP=share_btn_tw
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 20:02
|
|
|
punishedkissinger posted:1/3 of Americans now believe Israel is committing genocide. I don't rally see that number improving and I don't see Israel surviving without US support The number will have to get a lot higher before Israel loses US support - whether or not to support Israel isn't an independent item on the ballot, it's the perogative of the President, and everyone with a 1% or higher chance of being President before 2029 is intensely pro-Israel. I do think the way this war ends is that the US finally pulls Israel's leash hard enough, but it's going to take so many Americans becoming so disgusted that President Biden/Trump/Haley believes the future of their career depends on threatening to drop Israel as an ally, and that outrage-threshold is probably at least double the level of outrage now. Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 20:19 on Jan 25, 2024 |
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 20:10
|
|
|
punishedkissinger posted:1/3 of Americans now believe Israel is committing genocide. I don't rally see that number improving and I don't see Israel surviving without US support Like 2/3 of Americans support single payer healthcare, yet it's not even close to being under real consideration
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 20:11
|
|
|
punishedkissinger posted:1/3 of Americans now believe Israel is committing genocide. I don't rally see that number improving and I don't see Israel surviving without US support I posted in CE but there's a huge yougov polling that has 50% of Biden voters and 60% of liberals recognizing it as a genocide Kalli posted:Giant yougov / economist poll with all the normal boring stuff, but some pretty interesting polling on the state of Israel, turns out a whole lot of Dems really aren't down to be genocidin' with Biden. Of course, the other questions on the subject show they don't know what they want to do about that. https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/econTabReport_i9N6Z0N.pdf
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 20:36
|
|
|
Staluigi posted:yeah and? that's the whole thing. It's Yet To Be Seen, and nobody's got a compelling argument that israel can't just actually succeed at eliminating gaza, so as the total death toll for Palestinians reaches breathtakingly bloody new heights i am less interested than ever in the analysis coming out rooted in the soothing conviction that israel is critically faltering and that their goals are not practically accessible, and i'm gonna stay real concerned about palestinean advocacy groups drifting into those narratives easier and easier as israel's campaign continues to work and prove how little meaningful will exists to stop it You're talking about two different things here, one is if israel can defeat Hamas and two is if israel can accomplish the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. I think the former is impossible, I don't anyone much less israel, has the capacity to eliminate a resistance group like Hamas and I think Hamas militants have the ability to remain in, and operate out of, Gaza for as long as they want. As for depopulating Gaza, I think israel has the capacity, the internal will, and maybe even the international allowance to do so, and at the very least they're trying to -- I don't think anyone is arguing against that. It's an objective truth that there is a very profound risk that Gaza is rendered all but uninhabitable, even if Hamas is still able to operate out of that region. I also don't think anyone is trying to self-soothe by being realistic about israel's capabilities. I think, instead, it's probably pretty sound to evaluate israel as something other than their own projected image of an indefatigable warrior society capable of borderline-miraculous military feats (while also simultaneously painting themselves as the besieged victim, always within a hair's breadth of a second Holocaust -- there's your ur-fascism for you!), and instead a modern state buttressed by the US political and military apparatus and all that entails. Considering the other example we have of a modern western military operating in the region over the last 30 years it should be understood that they are capable of nearly unimaginable amounts of death and destruction. I've got to be honest, though, in that I have no idea what you mean by "palestinean advocacy groups drifting into [narratives of israel's failure]". I don't think any group is at any risk of that, at least right now. Sentiment everywhere is moving towards the Palestinians, finally bucking decades-long broad support of israel and the hundreds of millions (billions?) of dollars of propaganda, image-burnishing, and hasbara israel has engaged in for decades. If anything, Palestinian advocacy is becoming even more determined and militant. I have a hard time they'll fall into some sort of "hey, we'll get em next time" as israel's genocidal campaign continues. I also don't think it's self-soothing to say that fascistic ideologies like zionism are inherently unstable and doomed to collapse, even if they succeed in the short term. Societies like israel's are fundamentally oriented towards opposition against an inferior but immediately dangerous other, mythologically-justified expansionism, blood purity, etc. Theirs is not a stable political configuration and it will collapse. Maybe not tomorrow, and maybe it might still even be called "israel", but "ethnonationalist apartheid terror-state" is not a good choice if you want a national project to stick around for a long time.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 20:52
|
|
|
not a value-add posted:I think Israel is burning more good will than people think. Anecdotal but most of the gen z people I know, almost all of whom are conservative, basically have a constant stream rolling of tik toks in which the IDF beats up old ladies and randomly shoots at people. They have all decided that Israel is the bad guy here, and good luck ever winning them back. I think the political winds could change in a big way in a decade. This is the first I/P conflict I've experienced where more people are being sympathetic to Palestine than to Israel. Maybe it's social media but more people are seeing Israel as butchers and bullies. It might be a local thing, but even the leader of Ireland walked back from his statement that Israel cannot be accused of genocide because of the Holocaust. Maybe a week later he was saying that SAs case in the ICJ is valid. He's a windsock. 5 years ago backing Israel would have been the popular position, but people are viewing them more negatively in the light of what they are seeing happening in Gaza. I would have had to bite my tongue discussing P/I with people but now more seem to share my viewpoint of the conflict. Marenghi fucked around with this message at 21:00 on Jan 25, 2024 |
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 20:54
|
|
|
Civilized Fishbot posted:"The global order will justify and allow us killing 25,000 of you" is also a point the Americans wanted to make, and that they've made very successfully. Are the Americans and NVA both winning? I just wanted to edit this to highlight the kind of war happening, this isn't two equivalent states, this is a war of empire, waged against a native population. It's not a mirror war between industrial states both fighting from their homeland, its got different players, different rules at the most fundamental layers with regards to motivation and respective cost:benefit to just about anything. That's why one side is salvaging stuff from World War I ships and building rockets of pee and whatever and the other side won't pull a trigger if they're not in an air conditioned room - they're coming to the fight from different directions and going different directions. This is not something that can be changed under these conditions, humans don't work that way over time, not according to any historical reference I can think of Only one of the two groups is going towards actual success in the long run, it isn't Israel and I don't think they can fix that no matter what anyone says or thinks, Even if netanyahu himself read all of this and fully believed me without hesitation he could not fix it. It's built into the institutions, they are not looking for the correct answers, they're not looking at the right problems. All of the ideology fueling the Israeli side is inherently weaker, more ineffective, more inefficient, at the group scale -because- it's a rejection of the correct side, not just morally but all-around, it's ignoring the evidence and saying actually I'm just better, so I deserve all of this and not the people who clearly do more. I am arriving at a point where i think history is demonstrating via consistent, unchanging long term outcome that all fascist colonial settler movements are doomed to fail over time due to ideology alone, supremacist mindset only works if you are correct about feeling superior. If you have real competition it just makes you weak and unable to recognize it. It encourages taking the wrong option because the other side is doing the right things but acknowledging that would mean destroying your own ideology at every level, fascism is an opposition to acknowledging physical reality at its core, throwing out evidence that doesn't fit what's assumed, burning books. The physical world is deterministic, the two don't mesh at any level, can't be made to, people can only fool themselves into thinking things work that way. Israelis will never care as much, they will never be the last one fighting for something they're biologically incapable of psychologically getting to that state, because they don't have as strong a motivator. I've seen them bringing in ibogaine and stuff to get the troops to fight, that's for PTSD to get people to not frag their officers. PTSD is a problem for the losing side, not the winners, the winners will all fight without needing drugs to fight because they know that their fight is right - that's actually how you can tell they will win, just that on its own That's why north vietnam won too and why I'm making the comparison, it's a psychological similarity, they've got the same motivations. NVA/VC were the more native movement that represented more people, people can't beat that, the strongest groups of people are looking to be the groups that have reason to care the most, now that technology is leveling out around the world. Racialized nationalist ubermensch thought requires a massive tech or resource/manpower advantage to actually work at all, because humans are all humans and skin color doesn't make people any smarter or better at fighting or better at killing or more importantly, any harder to kill in their sleep. Given infinite time the most economical soldier is a always gonna be a baby with a spear, you just have babies and give them spears and guns until your side wins, your side will always tolerate that when your fight is more important, it is all built in. The other side is who has to make stuff all complicated, -because- if they don't abstract it away the numbers only show it going one direction, and not enough people are delusional enough to subscribe to it who aren't also inherently delusional and incompetent people that're doomed to make the project fail. True believers of any kind aren't good at stuff, they just think they are, people with real reasons really are. One side is self-selecting for true believers, one side is doing the opposite and taking a position where people who fully recognize the conditions will automatically side with them, they're deterministically correct and I think history is showing that this is immutable and can only be slowed or sped up. IDF just don't have a thing that's as important as the other side - too many israelis have another place to go lol. They won't put up with losing as many family as Palestinians. They don't have the tolerance, morality will get to the non-psychos and then they'll stop supporting the project and the psychos are too weak by themselves but assume that they are the best because ethno-supremacists. They will never fix their own problems, and they are guaranteed by the universe to lose and be gone forever along with fascism and colonialism as concepts the same way liege lords and dukes are if humanity doesn't get wiped out. Consider how quickly the Israelis would be gone from Israel if they lost the same proportion of population as Gazans, like look at their respective strength from that direction - It's not even close. I don't think a single person reading this could convince themselves otherwise at this point, No matter who they support, just doesn't matter who you support, one side is better via physics, colonizers come from somewhere else and the Palestinians do not, per person the cost is different, Palestine can fight cheaper and harder and always will be able to in their homeland. People like their homeland and will protect it more than not-homeland and Israel doesn't have enough natives who will fight. They threw off the demographic balance of their country and this broke its war fighting ability entirely, there's no large enough socioeconomic class in Israel to draw motivated soldiers from or talented commanders. They self-selected for cruelty too much, the Nazis did the same thing. None of these things are coincidences, they are built into the systems. Any individual leader no matter how skilled or how motivated will not be able to make it better - it requires delusion to attempt. Other side doesn't. They're not able to tolerate the same burden without breaking, they will break first, lots of people will die, it's going to be horrific, all war is and will be, but there's no other outcome i don't think, just not enough explosives or ammo or troops to go around, and not a way to get more of any. The out-group has effectively reached combat parity, not through the same methods as the west. Warfare is a binary condition, you win or you lose, it doesn't matter how it happens, those things only change how it feels. doesn't change the outcome. The two places that lost the most people during World War II, Soviet Union and China, did not lose either. Same with Vietnam, Korean War, invader will never fight as hard and will never have as much popular support. liquidating the Gaza camp would mean sacrificing Ukraine Yemen etc entirely. the military industrial complex can't support much more. I don't think they thought this would happen. Israel actually cannot win without killing every human, they don't have a realistic way of doing that, trying would ensure Hezbollah and Iran and everyone else just shredded the state as fast as they could, it would lead to the long-term removal of Western influence from the whole global south probably I think that western imperialism is actually all imploding, right now and that this cannot be turned around, no matter what anyone actually thinks or feels. Western hegemony was the first casualty on October 7th. I similarly am certain capitalism as a whole is and is going to follow this trend given enough time for the exact same reasons, at the group level a profit motivated entity cannot fight as hard or care as much in the long run. It will lose in the long run when it comes up against human nature, it passed the event horizon in like 1971 and all this has been inevitable If it didn't work like that I don't think humans would be the way they are and vice versa, and I don't think what's happening would be happening. It's all guaranteed to occur by virtue of unequal amounts of motivation and solidarity, alone. Can't compete with that. I think Hamas has won and is going to win this war, I think anti-colonial movements have won for good, and going by every trend I am seeing, this appears to be a fact and something that was always going to end this way. Good, imo. FirstnameLastname fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Jan 25, 2024 |
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 21:36
|
|
|
FirstnameLastname posted:PTSD is a problem for the losing side, not the winners, the winners will all fight without needing drugs to fight because they know that their fight is right - that's actually how you can tell they will win, just that on its own Still taking in the rest of your post, sincerely enjoyed your mockup about what if I was just as ignorant but posting 60 years earlier. I do think you misinterpreted me - I was saying that "making a point" isn't a meaningful victory condition at least not in this case. I am 100% confident that PTSD does not work the way you describe. It's a reaction to the stress and trauma of staying in a war zone and watching and risking gruesome injury or death, it's not cancelled out by knowing that your "fight is right." It's not a matter of guilt or insufficient motivation, it's a matter of the human body, including the human brain, having a limit to how well it can adapt to/recover from terror. A lot of Palestinians, both soldiers and civilians including children, already have PTSD from this horrible war and will struggle with it throughout their lives. quote:Consider how quickly the Israelis would be gone from Israel if they lost the same proportion of population as Gazans, like look at their respective strength from that direction - It's not even close. I don't think a single person reading this could convince themselves otherwise at this point, No matter who they support, just doesn't matter who you support, one side is better via physics, colonizers come from somewhere else and the Palestinians do not, per person the cost is different, Palestine can fight cheaper and harder and always will be able to in their homeland. People like their homeland and will protect it more than not-homeland This too feels like ideological posturing/wishcasting and frankly right-wing-verging-on-mysticism in its presumptions about the significance of a "homeland" and what it means to "come from" somewhere. It basically parallels Zionist rhetoric about how Israelis fight harder than Palestinians because Israelis are fighting for their homeland in Eretz Israel and Palestinians are just invasive squatters. The Zionist idea - and this seems to apply to your thought as well - depends on a blood-and-soil definition of homeland, the difference being that when Zionists say Palestinians "came from somewhere else" they're talking about a hundred generations ago and in your case when you say Israelis "come from somewhere else" you're talking about 2 or 3 generations ago. Absolutely your interpretation is less ridiculous, but it still hinges on an idea that being born somewhere and living there isn't enough to "come from" there. The reality is that the vast majority of present-day Israelis and Palestinians were born in Israel-Palestine, lived there for pretty much their entire lived, and are dedicated to a national ideology that posits it as their only homeland. "We're fighting for our homeland, they're thieves who will flee at the first sight of trouble" is a recurring propaganda line that hasn't come true for the Israeli or Palestinian ideologues carrying it. Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 22:23 on Jan 25, 2024 |
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 21:57
|
|
|
I agree with the other posters that Israel and Palestine have different ideas about winning and losing. Ever since this started the Israeli side seems convinced that this is an existential war. This claim never made a lot of practical sense to me since Hamas is basically a cartel or gang in comparison to other neighbors like Hezbollah. But I think that validates what a lot of people in here are saying, that if Israel feels like it cannot completely crush its perceived enemies it will trigger some kind of existential crisis. How exactly that plays out I have no idea. Also yeah I think the Palestinians absolutely have PTSD. It’s probably another thing they just live with, because what else are they going to do? It’s not like they can go see a fancy psychiatrist or anything like that. not a value-add fucked around with this message at 22:08 on Jan 25, 2024 |
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 22:00
|
|
|
Civilized Fishbot posted:Still taking in the rest of your post, sincerely enjoyed your mockup about what if I was just as ignorant but posting 60 years earlier. I do think you misinterpreted me - I was saying that "making a point" isn't a meaningful victory condition at least not in this case. North Vietnamese ptsd is also well studied at this point
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 22:05
|
|
|
Flabbergasted by moral righteousness cancelling out PTSD. Am I misreading?
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 22:05
|
|
|
I feel like any read that colonialism never wins is kinda ignoring what happened to the Native Americans and other indigenous peoples. Turns out you can win if you kill enough people. I do not think the complete genocide of the Palestinian people is an impossible project. Pre 10/7, that was the status quo. But Israel is paying in blood for their cruelty. When I say Israel can't win, I mean that in the sense that there is no future where they are not going to be attacked until the project is complete. 10/7 will happen again, the elimination of violent attacks on the Israeli people by extremist groups like Hamas will not stop until enough there aren't enough people left to fight back. I think a return to pre 10/7 status quo is absolutely possible and possibly preferred by many actors, and it would be terrible in many ways because the situation had been terrible for decades. Whether that is a win for Israel or not is kind of up to the eye of the beholder, I would chalk that up for a loss for both sides though. Edit: my definition of pre 10/7 status quo being: Hamas in Gaza launching periodic attacks against Israel Israel continuing to marginalize Palestinians and edging settlements forward World turns a blind eye to it all WarpedLichen fucked around with this message at 22:44 on Jan 25, 2024 |
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 22:06
|
|
|
It's not the 1840s; people all over the world have been deluged with footage and images of what is being done to the people of Palestine. We are seeing in real time the murder and maiming of innocent people we knew via social media, and with the explicit support of the so-called "Leader of the Free World" That is not a genie that will go easily back into the bottle.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 22:13
|
|
|
I don’t think a return to the old status quo is possible, because I think a lot of Israelis will never “feel safe” unless Hamas is removed, whatever that means. There will never not be militants in Gaza and any rational person can see that. They’ve psychologically backed themselves into a strategic corner. Not to mention, the current state of affairs in the Middle East is crumbling so I doubt that running around Gaza for over a year will be possible without some other kind of major event occurring, and that will change the whole dynamic again. If the US is pushed out of Iraq, I wonder how that will change its relationship to Israel.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 22:19
|
|
|
I think FNLN can be a little florid at times: what they're describing shouldn't be recognized as PTSD. Acknowledging I might be stepping on toes here I'd call it something more like combat fatigue. This is not an existential fight for the israelis, no matter how often they try to pretend like it is, and they know it. It is, however, actually one for the Palestinians. Their trauma is infinitely more horrific and painful than whatever Pizza Disco manager has to sit in a Merkava and worry about red triangles, but the former will fight to the absolute limits of their mind and body and the latter will not. Like the US in Vietnam, if it really does go on for as long as Nethanyahu wants we'll absolutely see the same sorts of dissent and israeli COs getting fragged.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 22:23
|
|
|
Some interesting discussion on colonialism. Think everyone here should read Richard Overy’s ‘Blood and Ruins’ - takes WWII (correctly imo) as a massive colonial war. Reading through it you can’t escape the feeling that the real shift after the war is that the Europeans had either been directly colonised or were about to be. Literally every country in Europe (well, couple exceptions). The post-war order was primarily an agreement that Europe would never be colonised again. This had to be extended to other countries, partly to weaken most of Europe (US, USSR hegemonies) but also because the new order wouldn’t work without applying it across the board. So I don’t think you can look at modern colonialism, in the 21st century, in the same terms. I disagree that it can’t work, however. It’s working in Israel itself and is working in the West Bank. It’s working in China re Xinjiang and Tibet (huge Han migrations). The ingredients to make it work imo require de facto or de jure annexation and nuclear weapons. No external threat can unravel it. Internally subject population is divided and conquered. It really only takes a couple of generations for status quo to shift to an accepted and irreversible normal. It’s why the two state solution will never happen imo. It’s already too late.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 22:36
|
|
|
WarpedLichen posted:I feel like any read that colonialism never wins is kinda ignoring what happened to the Native Americans and other indigenous peoples. Turns out you can win if you kill enough people. If capable of it, yes. The holocaust would've 'succeeded' if not interrupted too, but the Nazis still would've been defeated when it came to war. genocide and war are different things, genocide isn't against an opponent, war is. Nazis fascists ethnosupremacists will have enthusiasm for committing a genocide, they won't for fighting a war they're not winning, they lose motivation when it gets hard and when it's not hard, they can't try hard enough because they think they've got it in the bag. Israel isn't 100% Nazis (p. close tho ) but Israel is being steered by 100% Nazis, so the behavior of the state and institutions are going to be 100% Nazi, and the attitudes that cause fascist entities to form also systemically self-select for violent power tripping morons with connections over talent, skill, or merit. It forces them to lose they and will always find a loss given enough time because they are doing stuff incorrectly Fascism is an ideology of individualism driven by emotion and not reason, emotion is irrational and doesn't even have language, and individualism is essentially a hallucination brains don't work that way, they just feel like it This all matters because making systems and institutions under the assumption that things do work that way and individualism is correct, will make a bad systems that won't work - it'll get too many errant inputs from individuals steering it away from its core purpose for their own needs and that breaks things if they're competing with systems that aren't the same thing, because it's just inefficient, can't fairly compete If the people in power didn't believe their own lies they wouldn't be a racial supremacist ethnostate, they believe they already won by virtue of race If institutions don't think they'll ever have to commit, they won't be able to commit as hard. That stuff all adds up into situations where the one side with more people and more wealth is just losing constantly because they just suck but think they don't and aren't capable of realizing it before it's too late, essentially. More importantly, I don't think they are physically capable of it. No matter how much they want to, If they tried to annihilate all of the Palestinians i think Israelis would be the ones who disappeared first, because the people they're fighting, if things were to escalate to that level, do have more people and more bullets. The West thought it made airplane so good that it didn't have to make army stuff It doesn't make much shells it doesn't make much ground stuff at all and every rifle needs hands to hold it and every pair of hands with a gun needs paid or it's going to point the gun at you, decades of military grift displaced all of the potential gearing-up I think this is also why the West can't increase munitions going to Ukraine, I think all of these things are interconnected and being caused by the same core set of inefficiencies created by colonialism capitalism fascism etc there isn't the political will to build any factories because they're not profitable enough, all of the money goes to stuff that has higher returns, no way to get a politician who would change that elected under the current system, wealth extraction is institutionally prioritized over having an effective government any mechanism that could prevent that would have prevented it from getting this bad, I don't think it can be stopped, It's runaway capitalism and it's crippled everything in ways nobody saw coming because America was in a position of such superiority, that people assumed that it couldn't not be and that for about 30 years no one has thought to check if it actually is in that position or can maintain it if challenged i don't think people checked, not until Ukraine started definitively losing in Ukraine. People forgot where the strength comes from, It comes from institutions that can efficiently scale up to collective effort and output. that will always be the most effective way to improve and the only reason you ever need automation or tools is when you're not able to just stuff in more people, people are cheaper and people can make more people, it's just basic comparative value what it's really looking like to me is too many people, for too many years, started to think that it came from having a high GDP or from flexibility and just-in-time deliveries those are profit things and efficiency things but those are not effectiveness things under the labor theory of value which is ideologically rejected at every level of government because the ruling class benefits from it being rejected and ignored, the state does not. I don't think that the people who found the right answers are being listened to if not only because the problems are all getting worse, and not better. long-term trends don't change unless something changes them and I only see mechanisms moving things in one direction, can't see any that can move them back in a way that wouldn't just be temporary stalling Dandywalken posted:Flabbergasted by moral righteousness cancelling out PTSD. Am I misreading? yeah that's not what I meant I meant in terms of war like PTSD and how it relates to an active war and success or failure of that war and which side is impacted at the institutional level, not PTSD in general and not individual experiences but trends, like I'm using it as a really clear example of which side is struggling, at the institutional level, with PTSD that ruins their soldiers' ability to fight because they just can't, or won't anymore, and which side isn't having that problem and why that is the case, it's because for the Palestinians the fight itself is fundamentally different than it is for the Israelis - It was an example of another sign of the same set of trends from the same motivational weaknesses to be clear, essentially how the morale in both the native and colonial powers resembles how it was in the Vietnam War, and was ultimately (imo) what forced the US out. that's the relevant part FirstnameLastname fucked around with this message at 23:00 on Jan 25, 2024 |
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 22:41
|
|
|
Pentecoastal Elites posted:I think FNLN can be a little florid at times: what they're describing shouldn't be recognized as PTSD. Acknowledging I might be stepping on toes here I'd call it something more like combat fatigue. This is not an existential fight for the israelis, no matter how often they try to pretend like it is, and they know it. It is, however, actually one for the Palestinians. Their trauma is infinitely more horrific and painful than whatever Pizza Disco manager has to sit in a Merkava and worry about red triangles, but the former will fight to the absolute limits of their mind and body and the latter will not. Like the US in Vietnam, if it really does go on for as long as Nethanyahu wants we'll absolutely see the same sorts of dissent and israeli COs getting fragged. Yeah I agree, I am skeptical about the willingness of of most Israelis to live in bombed out areas, beyond maybe the crazy settlers. The Palestinians tolerate much worse conditions. Not that they have any choice though. PTSD is tricky, I’ve seen and heard of people get it from all sorts of stuff and I’m not sure combat fatigue is a very clear distinction. I think its correlation to the overall ideological big picture of a war is kind of dubious on both ends outside of some specific instances of moral injury. not a value-add fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Jan 25, 2024 |
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 22:43
|
|
|
Pentecoastal Elites posted:You're talking about two different things here if we're talking about this quote:thinking that the israeli IDF that exists in the actual world today cannot maintain a long-term occupation of the Gaza strip, or even north Gaza, for a variety of reasons, not least of which being that they don't have the capacity to succeed against the type of guerilla warfare that Hamas is engaged in. my answer is: don't think that that is the open question. likud was probably all ready to go before the attacks with a plan to divide and depopulate sectionally first to incorporate under idf control, then jumped on the attacks as justification to begin. so you watch what happens to north gaza first
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 22:43
|
|
|
Pentecoastal Elites posted:This is not an existential fight for the israelis... The threat obviously isn'tliterally existential, but it's not comparable to Vietnam either. North Vietnam obviously had 0 capacity to harm a single American living in America - the "threat" was an abstract geopolitical idea. Hamas recently executed an attack that killed hundreds of Israeli civilians and hundreds more soldiers, sent hundreds of thousands into internal displacement, and generally placed the entire nation into a state of humiliated fury - the threat is obvious and highly salient. Even a poster here, who is clearly outside the Israeli propaganda bubble, explains that preventing another 10/7 will require killing so many Palestinians that "there aren't enough people to fight back." (Obviously this user isn't supporting the Israeli campaign against Palestine). WarpedLichen posted:When I say Israel can't win, I mean that in the sense that there is no future where they are not going to be attacked until the project is complete. 10/7 will happen again, the elimination of violent attacks on the Israeli people by extremist groups like Hamas will not stop until enough there aren't enough people left to fight back. I think thr above quote is what the average Israeli believes, the difference being that I assume the above poster sees another solution, the only remotely ethical one, in the form of giving all Palestinians basic rights and for the average Israeli this is completely off the table. And for this reason you will have far far far fewer soldiers saying "this is pointless, I don't know what I'm doing here, I am going to resist or attack the people making me fight here" like so many Americans during the Vietnam war. The Israeli soldiers know the threat (Hamas) and how their operations are supposed to resolve it (the destruction of Gaza and, as they are less and less reluctant to publicly recognize, the destruction of Palestine as a nation). Even the Israelis resisting the draft, like Tal Mitnick, don't say "there is no threat" but "there is no military solution." Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 22:51 on Jan 25, 2024 |
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 22:44
|
|
|
Civilized Fishbot posted:Hamas recently executed an attack that killed hundreds of Israeli civilians and hundreds more soldiers, sent hundreds of thousands into internal displacement, and generally placed the entire nation into a state of humiliated fury - the threat is obvious and highly salient. To be clear, you think that sending hundreds of thousands of people into displacement and humiliated fury is a bad thing? I want to be clear on your position before I give a more detailed response.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 22:52
|
|
|
The Sean posted:To be clear, you think that sending hundreds of thousands of people into displacement and humiliated fury is a bad thing? I want to be clear on your position before I give a more detailed response. I wasn't talking about the morality of it but the impact of it on Israeli soldier psychology and willingness-to-fight. Since you asked I'll talk about the morality of it - it's obviously different between Hamas and Israel because of the differential in power, desperation, and danger faced by the civilians they (claim to) work to protect. When Hamas did it, it was extremely tragic and sad, but done in defense of millions of people who were living under an authoritarian nightmare regime and whose attempts at peaceful resistance had gone nowhere. If any ends could justify those means, it would be those ends, and I'm glad I don't have to face moral dilemmas like whether or not to launch such an operation. It's ugly, and tragic, but from my cozy armchair who am I to condemn what might be the only way to bring down a greater atrocity? Israel, doing it right now, is accomplishing only the expansion of their racist, authoritarian regime's zone of direct control. It is plainly genocidal in intent and at least abominable in outcome. As another poster noted, if it were to make any Israeli safer by destroying any potential for Palestinian resistance, that would have to come about by the complete destruction of a Palestinian presence in Palestine - the completion of genocide. So yes it's bad. Every goal that Israel claims to want to accomplish by committing this horrible crime, it could better accomplish by acquiescing to a two-state solution or even smaller improvements in the status of Palestinians. Hamas does not have this option because they're not the ones blocking a two-state solution from proceeding. Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 23:14 on Jan 25, 2024 |
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 23:05
|
|
|
I don't think there will be a point where israelis demand the war stop (bombing Palestinians almost always gets near-unanimous support) but it is true that Israel is a lot more sensitive to deaths than Palestinians. When Hamas kills 21 soldiers it's an existential tragedy that merits questioning their methods, when 50+ Palestinians die in their homes from IDF bombings it's a weekday. I can't speak for what this sensitivity will cause, though I imagine Israel will become unpalatable to western audiences long before they lose their taste for war.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 23:15
|
|
|
I think "depopulate sectionally" is different from "incorporate under IDF control". I think the first is possible and the second, probably not. Maybe they have the capacity to bomb every square inch back to bedrock, but unless they do they won't be able to militarily defeat the guerilla campaign being waged by Hamas. This is different from saying "Hamas is gonna win" like they're going to march on Tel-Aviv by year's end or something -- that's not happening either. This, also, is completely separate from the genocide. Hamas does not have the capacity to end that. If you want to say that israel will destroy Gaza so thoroughly that Hamas will cede it and retreat to the West Bank or friendly countries and that counts as occupying/controlling Gaza -- I mean, maybe. I don't think that's the occupation israel is imagining or has planned for, though. I think they think they can both ethnically cleanse Gaza and defeat Hamas' guerillas. Civilized Fishbot posted:The threat obviously isn'tliterally existential, but it's not comparable to Vietnam either. North Vietnam obviously had 0 capacity to harm a single American living in America - the "threat" was an abstract geopolitical idea. Hamas recently executed an attack that killed hundreds of Israeli civilians and hundreds more soldiers, sent hundreds of thousands into internal displacement, and generally placed the entire nation into a state of humiliated fury - the threat is obvious and highly salient. I don't think it's the same as Vietnam but I also don't think it's so far away we can't draw comparisons. I think the dissent will arise from generally the same place, though not in the same form: the irreconcilable contradictions of the state. I think you're right in that israelis feel a live and salient threat, but I think that their -- I don't know how to put it -- cultural concord? national character? Has attenuated in the decades after WWII, and the system under threat is not built by and composed of utopian idealists or traumatized survivors, but the same sort of fully capitalized, fully atomized western consumer we've got in America. Maybe not to the degree you'd find in D.C., but israel is part of the imperial core and I think it is impossible to escape that cultural flattening. Maybe it's still too early for that to be completely true, but I interpret the overt cruelty, the massive push to the right, etc. not as a an expression of a renewed national unity in the face of a mortal threat, but the lashing out of a fascist state that is starting to get the feeling that the walls might be closing in. If that's true, I think the capacity for israelis to stomach the genocide and occupation is not very big. I don't think this will manifest itself as pro-Palestinian sentiment, I think it'll be much more traditionally fascist in terms of political unrest and upheaval: backstabbing (and associated conspiracies), intense political infighting, soft coups, etc. The longer it goes on I think the more israelis will hate and mistrust each other rather than develop compassion for Palestinians.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 23:45
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 8, 2024 06:47 |
|
|
In terms of past comparisons, maybe the Republican Party in the US is a good place to look. Those guys were all rah rah wave the flag and still are, but their general disillusionment has pushed a lot of them into what used to be weird fringe ideologies. Speaking on a personal level, none of them have actually lost their taste for violence and America beating up on other countries. If anything it’s gotten worse. But they also seem to hate their own party. Anyway this is a long winded way of saying I think the future of Israeli politics is going to be filled with a lot of impotent rage, lashing out, conspiracy theories, and people sitting around being mad.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2024 05:05
|
|