The notion that any setback to Islamic imperial sprawl--literally contiguous islamic ethnostates across two continents--could somehow constitute 'genocide' or 'ethnic cleansing' is absurd on its face. Not only is it categorically impossible--there can be no genocide or ethnic cleansing of less than 1% of a people and/or territory--the hypocrisy is staggering.
I mean, can you imagine if there were Jewish ethnostates from Morocco to the Caucuses, and a tiny little band of Arabs set about establishing the one and only Islamic state around the Kaba'a (where Jews had built a synagogue to mark their conquest) . . . oh the horror if Jews were displaced from their coastal Jeddah enclave!
Muslims are the most successful genocidal ethno-cleansing apartheidists in history. They fight anyone (including other muslims) who would dare lower in status whichever set of ethno-religious commitments they happen to venerate. I mean, why does Saudi Arabia spend ~8% of GDP on defense? Who is it protecting itself from?
This is such a straightforward issue, it seems likely that there is no information war to win, sadly. There is just the slouch towards third-worldism, on the one side, and its opponents, on the other.
It is endlessly baffling that the world demands that every single Jew is removed from any potential Palestinian state- whereas the inverse idea would be gasped at in horror
well, it'll be a democratic binational state, bc *wink wink* unlike all the other Islamic ethnostates, this one will play nicely with others.
the extraordinary thing is that when you push dedicated 2SSers, even they concede that "an independent palestinian state" is a non-solution to no one's grievance. It's not a thing that anyone who is fighting is actually fighting for. In the 90s, ppl could play make believe, but now 'from the river to the sea' isn't even the quiet part anymore.
But because it's the most "just" outcome *to them* (bc it meets the legitimate grievances that, in their infinite wisdom, the Arabs ought to have, but don't) they insist it must be the only just outcome. They pot-commited to a solution, and they won't budge. It's narcissism all the way down, except drenched in blood.
"Muslims are the most successful genocidal ethno-cleansing apartheidists in history. "
Well actually, they are the most successful at converting subject populations, which is what happened to most of the Jewish and Christian residents of Palestine. This gives Islam a lot of power in local disputes because the Islamic party has 1 billion natural allies. If you don't like that, convert a billion people to Judaism.
...converting them how, precisely? cinnamon and spice, and everything nice?
it's not about whether I like it. it's about recourse to morally laden western concepts like "ethnic cleansing" and "genocide," and "apartheid," as well as correctly describing the terms of the conflict.
I understand perfectly well why islamic supremacists are islamic supremacists. That's their prerogative, and to their credit, they certainly demonstrate the courage of their convictions.
From a western 'liberal' perspective, however, there is no coherent path to any sympathy with their cause or grievances. None. They stand for (more or less) everything we object to. They are the bad guys, such that "bad" or "enemy" have any meaning, at all.
That so much of the 'west' would invoke liberal norms in their defense is a grotesque and cowardly inversion (not to mention the extraordinary waste of mental gymnastics required to perpetuate the delusion).
Good thought experiment, though of course, it's human nature for the people already there to resist the newcomers. The questions if how long, and to what cost...
Sure, or at least, humans have a long track record of ethno-religious supremacism. I understand why Arabs feel aggreived, but there is no reason for anyone else to dignify that grievance. Certainly not by invoking western liberal norms.
On this issue, Israel faces the same problem as any other force for order or self-interest in the modern world: trying to justify its actions on terms already set and defined by its enemies, which inevitably results in rearguard defenses in thought and half-measures in action.
Is Gaza a “genocide”? No, by any reasonable definition. Do the Israelis want to “ethnically cleanse” the Palestinians from Judea? Yeah, probably. And they should. And that’s a good and natural thing. Vae victis.
Eventually the regime of Global Human Resources Lady will fall - the weak cannot perpetually constrain the strong - supporters of The West generally and Israel specifically can only hope that happy day occurs before our civilization unravels irretrievably.
"the weak cannot perpetually constrain the strong"
The Muslim world, collectively, is stronger than Israel. The liberal world order, and the US willingness to back it up with cash, is what allows Israel to exist.
That's just not true since 1948. It wasn't even true in 1948, when Israel sourced its arms not from the US. The Arab world relied on the Soviet Union through most of the cold war and today on the US.
Collectively and with competence the Arab world would be stronger. But theyre neither united nor competent. If a fish had wheels it'd be a bike
It's much more true now than in 1948. Qatar is a much wealthier, better governed country than Israel, as is the UAE, as is Bahrain. Saudi Arabia is getting there too. If all these countries decided to team up against Israel, Israel would be toast, full stop.
Iran has the men, the arms, and the culture, but it got caned, because all that is really just bullshit. It's about smarts and efficient systems; everything else you buy. And, oopsies, Israel is in precipitous decline in both areas.
Israel is not protected by the “liberal world order”, it’s protected by the US military. Indeed Israel is an exception to the liberal world order whose position weakens as that ‘order’ gains suasion.
I thought the events of the past two years would have demonstrated that truth quite clearly.
The Muslim world is not a coherent entity with well-aligned interests. For example, in the last 80 years many more Muslims have been killed by other Muslims than by Israelis.
Sure, the division of the Muslim world is why it has not been able to destroy Israel, and that itself is a function of the liberal world order of nation states.
"(A comparatively long quiet as it turned out. For ten years afterward there was no terrorism in Gaza; it was completely peaceful.) "
Sheikh Yassin founded Mujama al-Islamiya (i.e. what would become Hamas) in 1973. The Begin government gave it tax-exempt status in 1979. While Sharon's autobiography is a great historical source, it's not the same thing as a balanced account of the period.
So what is the logical conclusion? Continue the killings and the starvation as long as they are below the threshold of your amateur definition of genocide?
(I say "amateur" to distinguish it from the definition of historians who study genocide)
Imagine parroting ISIS, Boko Haram, or the Taliban’s health ministry as fact. Or that out of 60,000 dead, 100% are all civilians.
Urban warfare normally kills 3 to 9 civilians per fighter. Gaza, the most densely populated war zone on Earth, under an enemy that uses hospitals and schools as shields, has the lowest ratio ever recorded.
If Israel fought like the U.S. in Iraq, killing 40,000 Hamas fighters (their total army size prior to Oct 7) means the death of 120,000 Gazan civilians, and 180,000 total dead. Hamas inflates numbers to weaponise your outrage. It sounds like your issue is that anyone fights war at all, even when this is one of the most justified wars in history along side the declaration of war against the US by Japan with the bombing of pearl harbour
When you cite an Islamist death cult figures as truth, you become their mouthpiece and complicit in their atrocities against innocent civilians. You give moral cover to jihadists that engineers martyrdom for propaganda. Congrats smooth brain for still failing to understand this
Please share the actual Lancet link that says 60,000 civilians have died. You won’t, because it doesn’t exist. So either you didn’t read it or you’re just another useful idiot running jihadist propaganda.
The Lancet published a modelling study estimating about 64,000 traumatic deaths by mid-2024. That’s total deaths, including fighters and not “civilians only.” The lancet used The Hamas-run Health Ministry’s base data. Same source the UN and most media use. And yes, it makes zero distinction between terrorists and civilians, and has been proven to be verifiable untrue by other peer review studies including the demographic makeup up women and children in those deaths.
The question stands, would you trust casualty stats from an ISIS Health Ministry? Boko Haram’s? How about the Taliban’s? If not, why are you laundering Hamas figures, a known jihadist terrorist death cult as gospel? Islamist regimes don’t do transparency, they do information warfare. No one, anywhere in Gaza can report any divergent views without the the threat of death. You’re not helping Palestinians, you’re helping the death cult that enslaves them, that murders dissenters and free thinkers
I imagine you think that war does not ever involve civilian deaths. Interesting. However, in this case there are really no “civilians” in Gaza. The only innocents in Gaza are the hostages. A hard line yes, because the argument is “what about the children?” If Hamas and Gazans worried as much about the children as Israelis do, the war would have been over already.
It is a war that Hamas started with the support or their “civilians.” Oct 7 illustrated that when “civilians,” along with Hamas, also took many Israelis hostages. Many of those hostages have died and a number are still hostages. There is a price to pay. Hamas and complicit “civilians” can surrender and return all hostages living and dead. Unfortunately they probably won’t, so the war will continue until Hamas is eliminated.
The Israeli military has reduced “civilian” deaths by warning leaflets and postings. A remarkable job since doing so places Israeli soldiers and military operations in excessive jeopardy but Hamas insists on using their “civilians” as cover and camouflage.
“Civilians” remaining in Gaza will continue to suffer because that is what Hamas wants. It is good press. Even the food lines are attacked by Hamas, with “civilians” dying there, because it is good is press. I would guess that even you believe it is the Israelis luring Gazans to food lines to kill them. Fact is, Israelis are protecting food lines, killing Hamas who are attacking food lines, because it is good press when “civilians” in food lines get killed.
Have the US take it over and assume control, and be directly benevolent to the people of Gaza. Deal harshly with any remaining Hamas members, regardless of what international law says.
I believe that Israel IS taking care of it, despite all the caterwauling from the peanut gallery of the Western Left. We have nothing to gain from getting directly involved in that quagmire. Look at the hysteria that results when we deport illegals from our own country. Can you imagine what would happen if we laid a finger on one of the precious jihadis in Gaza? Let's continue cleaning our own house and give Israel a free hand to clean theirs.
The liberal mind cannot conceive of the possibility that the DEI rulers of a nation can be WORSE than foreign rulers.
What I mean: Mao was orders of magnitude worse than any European power incursion into China of the previous centuries. Hong Kong improved while the rest of China stagnated or was famined or genocided by Mao — ordinary Chinese people would have benefited from MORE European power incursion.
And there’s a population of Palestinians as large as the Gazans who live good lives in Israel, certainly better lives than in Syria, Egypt or Jordan.
Does anyone really think that any of the Palestinians with Israeli citizenship would prefer to be ruled by Palestinians in the West Bank or Gaza?
I don’t think either side is reasonable and I don’t understand why we provide direct financial assistance to a country as wealthy as Japan or France, a country which has universal healthcare for its citizens and where the ultra religious refuse to work (they rely on subsidies), and who freely mingle their legitimate self defense needs with religiously motivated land grabs in the West Bank. IMO we don’t need to sanction Israel but we should def stop subsidizing them, they can afford to pay for their own stuff. They’re on net a moral albatross around our neck. This doesn’t mean we need to rally around “Palestine Liberation” or Arab nationalism or the campus tentists either.
You say that the Israelis could have killed all 2.1 million Gazans but the fact that they only killed 100,000 proves they have no genocidal intent. I think that the Israelis would happily kill all 2.1 millions if they could get away with it but even with the world mostly allowing Israel a free pass so far, that would clearly be a step too far.
Israel is being promoted as a democratic state that is part of Western civilisation so people judge it differently than they do a repressive and autocratic regime such as Russia. (The other point relating to Chechnya is that many experts believe that the Russians were in fact behind the apartment bombings but that is another story.)
I often come across this type of argument that bad things happen in other parts of the world be it in Sudan or elsewhere but some people only seem to be interested in Israel / Palestine and not these other places. In addition to the point that Israel being promoted in the West as a like- minded country and therefore being judged accordingly, the other point is just because a mistake is being made in other conflicts, does this justify a mistake being made in Gaza?
You say that Gazans have hated the Jews for a long time. Please remember that Gazans are refugees who had to flee their homes or were forced from their homes elsewhere in Palestine by the Jews and have been living in hellish conditions in Gaza ever since. Would you not also hate the people who did something like this to you? The people who did this happen to be Jews so Gazans hate these Jews. It would be quite extraordinary if they did not.
My family are Egyptian Jewish refugees who were expelled by Egypt. We aren’t still sitting in camps. And we aren’t bombing and stabbing Egyptians. Why is it you and others give license to the idea that it’s normal for Gazans to want to kill israelis because they’re refugees? They aren’t still refugees. They are living on Palestinian land, which for the last 20 years was ruled by Palestinians. Just as Jews have been expelled and made refugees countless times over the centuries, just as none of these Jews turned into terrorist murderers of Germans or Spaniards, Palestinian Arabs will need to do the same. They need to abandon their Jew hatred, which predates Zionism, they need to abandon their Arab supremacy and Muslim supremacy. They will need to move on.
Probably. But why are they sitting in refugee camps? They’re living on so called Palestinian soil. Gazan “refugees” are living on Palestinian land ruled by Palestinians since 2005. Palestinian refugees are the only refugees in history that are not being resettled. There are no refugees from India/Pakistan, none from Greece/Turkey.
Billions of dollars have been sent to Gaza for decades. Imagine if those funds had built home and towns instead of tunnels and weapons.
>You say that the Israelis could have killed all 2.1 million Gazans but the fact that they only killed 100,000 proves they have no genocidal intent. I think that the Israelis would happily kill all 2.1 millions if they could get away with it but even with the world mostly allowing Israel a free pass so far, that would clearly be a step too far.
It may indeed be true that the Israelis would *like* to genocide the Gazans but implicit in the accusation that the Israelis are only not genociding the Gazans because they are afraid of world opinion is that the Israelis are not doing genocide.
Jews or anyone for that matter will never be rewarded by showing mercy or compassion. The only way to destroy far right extremists is systematic humiliation. You cannot ever let the Arabs save face to get a quick victory because humiliation is how you destroy their spirits.
Ignoring the semantics of what is and isnt a genocide have you followed https://substack.com/@mascilbinah on the war? Hes made a pretty compelling case alot of Netanyahus strategy has been pretty detached with what the security situation actually necessitates.
"The thing is that Israel’s neighbours have never accepted her. Not in 1936. Not in 1948 or 1956 or 1967 or 1973 or 2000 or 2006 or 2023."
This is simply untrue. Jordan and Egypt recognised Israel decades ago. Syria under Basil Assad nearly did until last minute bickering over the exact (still expanded) boundaries to draw around the Golan Heights.
Two fundamental issues with this analysis worth mentioning:
The first, very shortly, is what occurred in Chechnya - recognized by the Chechen people as a genocide and largely ignored by the West because of its proximity to the global war on terror (GWOT), and broader consenus that the north slopes of the Caucasus (Kavkaz) mountains are part of the Russian sphere of influence. Not Russia's first genocide but arguably its third, following the initial Russian invasion of the Caucasus culminating in the war against Imam Shamyl, and then Stalin's mass-expulsion to Kazakhstan under false pretenses of collaboration.
This point deserves a a better contrast to eretz Israel: like the mediterranean edge of the Levant, the Caucasus mountains are a nexus between climatic and geographic zones that have defined the boundaries of past civilizations. The point at which they meet is the melting pot that has produced the most expansive and explosive iterations of civilization, a crucible that allows for the reforming and integration of otherwise divergent paths.
In the Levant we get a syncretic in situ early state and culture formation of Judaism from the recension of the Egyptian empire with the stay-behind of a portion of its administrative and religious colonial satraps, the local Canaanite population, the refugees of several bronze age civilizations, and the core of a nomadic population (Hebrews) who can synthesize and adapt all that into a distinct polity. It is hyper-literate, but incredibly vulnerable to uniformity and, by contrast, invasion and explusion.
In the Caucasus we have the same core nomadic population, dispersed in their village hamlets which, until the invention of the airplane, offer almost perfect protection against the incursion of various global empires. They are dramatically less literate, but have kept a much broader diversity of language and culture, the opposite of uniformity which is matched in their resilience to invasion and explusion. They also prove the lie to anti-muslim sentiment, showing their disinterest in global jihad and emphasis on the core religious values common to the Abrahamic religions. The caucasus, unlike many of the neighbouring arab states, have never been judenfrei.
Now we get to the line from Esther in the original quote about not siezing plunder; echoes from similar commandments given to the Israelites as they waged war in the Levant not to plunder, the contravention of which lost Saul his kingship when the prophet Samuel was commanded to remove and reinstitute it for the House of Judah in the wake of Saul's very obvious plunder, comically revealed by the bleeting of livestock.
Much has been made by proto-fascists of their love for the biblical commandment to exterminate "Amelek". But what is missing is the historical conception of what Amelek meant. Was it a people to be wiped out? A genetic lineage? No, these concepts didn't exist at the time. What was meant was a *way of living*. The Amelekites way of life, which included ritualized sexual abuse, child abuse and human sacrifice all wrapped up in the unifying mantle and cause of idolatry was to be ended.
But it was the way of life which was to be ended, and only the people insofar as they conformed to and could not be converted away from that way of life. A similar impulse is found in early Islam, almost identical, in the commandment to wage war against rival and neighbouring tribes offering a similar cultural vein that ran contrary to what we know consider falsely to be "universal" principles of human rights.
The sieizing of the spoils of war, by its very act, indicated the purpose of the conflict: the acquisition of people and material gain to expand power and wealth. Rejecting the spoils of war, both by Esther and her forebearers, noted a very different conception of war: a righteous war is one in which material gain is rejected, to indicate that the purpose was not typical for a war. Moreover, it signified that the progenitors of such a war were willing to take casualties for a righteous cause: a better future for all people, including liberating the surviving decendants of the Amelekites from the miserable fate of a cultural inheritance that reduced them to slaves being preyed upon by those living in a simian form of violent repression.
Judaism, like the disparate people of the caucasus, is not set up to allow for expansion as some of the comments have suggested. In fact quite the opposite: both cultural inheritances (the Torah for one, Kebzeh or Adat for another) hold people to a higher standard than what is typical, setting them each apart as a form of clergy to the broader population by virtue of the higher standard to which they are held. Members of both insult their inheritance if they dare to resent instead of giving thanks for this higher standard.
The Kahanist lunatics who want to pillage the modern incarnation of the Pentapolis are the great idolaters of our time. They have debased themselves with a rejection of the higher calling to be set apart. Instead of rejected spoils to demonstrate the righteousness of their cause, they complain the spoils should be absolute and the higher cause.
What’s the moral responsibility of a militarily defeated party to surrender and ask for terms? Presumably if Imperial Japanese just didn’t surrender the US would have kept bombing cities. Whose responsibility would that be?
Peace in the region requires clear delineation between what is Israeli government, what is Israeli people, what is Hamas, what is Palestinian people.
If Hamas is for Palestine and not just out for blood, they should accept a scenario where they are not government. Chances of this happening are very low because "freedom fighters" always feel entitled to governance. They might even deem it unfair if Palestinians who didn't fight in the war govern during peace. This is where the Palestinian should realize that the interest of Hamas and the interest of Palestine do not exactly align.
If Israeli government is for Israel and not just out for blood, then government figures should be willing to accept ICC trial to exonerate Israel from accusations IF their interests are truly aligned with Israel's.
This is where the Israeli should realize that the interest of figures within government and the interest of Israel do not exactly align.
In sum, does the population of Israel distance themselves from the actions of their government leaders? Are these leaders willing to undergo ICC trial? Do the Palestinians distance themselves from the actions of Hamas? Are Hamas leaders willing to accept a Palestine without the leadership of Hamas?
There can never be peace and stability if all the Palestinian and Israeli population see when they look at each other is Netanyahu and Hamas.
The notion that any setback to Islamic imperial sprawl--literally contiguous islamic ethnostates across two continents--could somehow constitute 'genocide' or 'ethnic cleansing' is absurd on its face. Not only is it categorically impossible--there can be no genocide or ethnic cleansing of less than 1% of a people and/or territory--the hypocrisy is staggering.
I mean, can you imagine if there were Jewish ethnostates from Morocco to the Caucuses, and a tiny little band of Arabs set about establishing the one and only Islamic state around the Kaba'a (where Jews had built a synagogue to mark their conquest) . . . oh the horror if Jews were displaced from their coastal Jeddah enclave!
Muslims are the most successful genocidal ethno-cleansing apartheidists in history. They fight anyone (including other muslims) who would dare lower in status whichever set of ethno-religious commitments they happen to venerate. I mean, why does Saudi Arabia spend ~8% of GDP on defense? Who is it protecting itself from?
This is such a straightforward issue, it seems likely that there is no information war to win, sadly. There is just the slouch towards third-worldism, on the one side, and its opponents, on the other.
It is endlessly baffling that the world demands that every single Jew is removed from any potential Palestinian state- whereas the inverse idea would be gasped at in horror
well, it'll be a democratic binational state, bc *wink wink* unlike all the other Islamic ethnostates, this one will play nicely with others.
the extraordinary thing is that when you push dedicated 2SSers, even they concede that "an independent palestinian state" is a non-solution to no one's grievance. It's not a thing that anyone who is fighting is actually fighting for. In the 90s, ppl could play make believe, but now 'from the river to the sea' isn't even the quiet part anymore.
But because it's the most "just" outcome *to them* (bc it meets the legitimate grievances that, in their infinite wisdom, the Arabs ought to have, but don't) they insist it must be the only just outcome. They pot-commited to a solution, and they won't budge. It's narcissism all the way down, except drenched in blood.
"Muslims are the most successful genocidal ethno-cleansing apartheidists in history. "
Well actually, they are the most successful at converting subject populations, which is what happened to most of the Jewish and Christian residents of Palestine. This gives Islam a lot of power in local disputes because the Islamic party has 1 billion natural allies. If you don't like that, convert a billion people to Judaism.
...converting them how, precisely? cinnamon and spice, and everything nice?
it's not about whether I like it. it's about recourse to morally laden western concepts like "ethnic cleansing" and "genocide," and "apartheid," as well as correctly describing the terms of the conflict.
I understand perfectly well why islamic supremacists are islamic supremacists. That's their prerogative, and to their credit, they certainly demonstrate the courage of their convictions.
From a western 'liberal' perspective, however, there is no coherent path to any sympathy with their cause or grievances. None. They stand for (more or less) everything we object to. They are the bad guys, such that "bad" or "enemy" have any meaning, at all.
That so much of the 'west' would invoke liberal norms in their defense is a grotesque and cowardly inversion (not to mention the extraordinary waste of mental gymnastics required to perpetuate the delusion).
Good thought experiment, though of course, it's human nature for the people already there to resist the newcomers. The questions if how long, and to what cost...
Sure, or at least, humans have a long track record of ethno-religious supremacism. I understand why Arabs feel aggreived, but there is no reason for anyone else to dignify that grievance. Certainly not by invoking western liberal norms.
On this issue, Israel faces the same problem as any other force for order or self-interest in the modern world: trying to justify its actions on terms already set and defined by its enemies, which inevitably results in rearguard defenses in thought and half-measures in action.
Is Gaza a “genocide”? No, by any reasonable definition. Do the Israelis want to “ethnically cleanse” the Palestinians from Judea? Yeah, probably. And they should. And that’s a good and natural thing. Vae victis.
Eventually the regime of Global Human Resources Lady will fall - the weak cannot perpetually constrain the strong - supporters of The West generally and Israel specifically can only hope that happy day occurs before our civilization unravels irretrievably.
"the weak cannot perpetually constrain the strong"
The Muslim world, collectively, is stronger than Israel. The liberal world order, and the US willingness to back it up with cash, is what allows Israel to exist.
That's just not true since 1948. It wasn't even true in 1948, when Israel sourced its arms not from the US. The Arab world relied on the Soviet Union through most of the cold war and today on the US.
Collectively and with competence the Arab world would be stronger. But theyre neither united nor competent. If a fish had wheels it'd be a bike
It's much more true now than in 1948. Qatar is a much wealthier, better governed country than Israel, as is the UAE, as is Bahrain. Saudi Arabia is getting there too. If all these countries decided to team up against Israel, Israel would be toast, full stop.
No they have neither the men nor the arms nor the culture and are still US client states
The future may change, but could also change in Israel's favour…
Iran has the men, the arms, and the culture, but it got caned, because all that is really just bullshit. It's about smarts and efficient systems; everything else you buy. And, oopsies, Israel is in precipitous decline in both areas.
"The Muslim world, collectively, is stronger than Israel."
The Muslim world is looking pretty sluggish, then.
Israel is not protected by the “liberal world order”, it’s protected by the US military. Indeed Israel is an exception to the liberal world order whose position weakens as that ‘order’ gains suasion.
I thought the events of the past two years would have demonstrated that truth quite clearly.
The liberal word order is declining not gaining in suasion, and the dominance of the US military was it condition.
The Muslim world is not a coherent entity with well-aligned interests. For example, in the last 80 years many more Muslims have been killed by other Muslims than by Israelis.
Sure, the division of the Muslim world is why it has not been able to destroy Israel, and that itself is a function of the liberal world order of nation states.
"(A comparatively long quiet as it turned out. For ten years afterward there was no terrorism in Gaza; it was completely peaceful.) "
Sheikh Yassin founded Mujama al-Islamiya (i.e. what would become Hamas) in 1973. The Begin government gave it tax-exempt status in 1979. While Sharon's autobiography is a great historical source, it's not the same thing as a balanced account of the period.
So what is the logical conclusion? Continue the killings and the starvation as long as they are below the threshold of your amateur definition of genocide?
(I say "amateur" to distinguish it from the definition of historians who study genocide)
As far as I’m concerned, Oct 7 gave Israel a pass to eliminate Hamas.
What does eliminating Hamas have to do with killing 60,000 civilians, minimum?
Imagine parroting ISIS, Boko Haram, or the Taliban’s health ministry as fact. Or that out of 60,000 dead, 100% are all civilians.
Urban warfare normally kills 3 to 9 civilians per fighter. Gaza, the most densely populated war zone on Earth, under an enemy that uses hospitals and schools as shields, has the lowest ratio ever recorded.
If Israel fought like the U.S. in Iraq, killing 40,000 Hamas fighters (their total army size prior to Oct 7) means the death of 120,000 Gazan civilians, and 180,000 total dead. Hamas inflates numbers to weaponise your outrage. It sounds like your issue is that anyone fights war at all, even when this is one of the most justified wars in history along side the declaration of war against the US by Japan with the bombing of pearl harbour
When you cite an Islamist death cult figures as truth, you become their mouthpiece and complicit in their atrocities against innocent civilians. You give moral cover to jihadists that engineers martyrdom for propaganda. Congrats smooth brain for still failing to understand this
I was actually citing the Lancet. Or are they run by Hamas too?
Please share the actual Lancet link that says 60,000 civilians have died. You won’t, because it doesn’t exist. So either you didn’t read it or you’re just another useful idiot running jihadist propaganda.
The Lancet published a modelling study estimating about 64,000 traumatic deaths by mid-2024. That’s total deaths, including fighters and not “civilians only.” The lancet used The Hamas-run Health Ministry’s base data. Same source the UN and most media use. And yes, it makes zero distinction between terrorists and civilians, and has been proven to be verifiable untrue by other peer review studies including the demographic makeup up women and children in those deaths.
The question stands, would you trust casualty stats from an ISIS Health Ministry? Boko Haram’s? How about the Taliban’s? If not, why are you laundering Hamas figures, a known jihadist terrorist death cult as gospel? Islamist regimes don’t do transparency, they do information warfare. No one, anywhere in Gaza can report any divergent views without the the threat of death. You’re not helping Palestinians, you’re helping the death cult that enslaves them, that murders dissenters and free thinkers
It would be great if any other agencies could verify the death toll…too bad Israel won't let them in!
Of course, you could always listen to what IDF soldiers are saying...
https://archive.is/37RtH
I imagine you think that war does not ever involve civilian deaths. Interesting. However, in this case there are really no “civilians” in Gaza. The only innocents in Gaza are the hostages. A hard line yes, because the argument is “what about the children?” If Hamas and Gazans worried as much about the children as Israelis do, the war would have been over already.
It is a war that Hamas started with the support or their “civilians.” Oct 7 illustrated that when “civilians,” along with Hamas, also took many Israelis hostages. Many of those hostages have died and a number are still hostages. There is a price to pay. Hamas and complicit “civilians” can surrender and return all hostages living and dead. Unfortunately they probably won’t, so the war will continue until Hamas is eliminated.
The Israeli military has reduced “civilian” deaths by warning leaflets and postings. A remarkable job since doing so places Israeli soldiers and military operations in excessive jeopardy but Hamas insists on using their “civilians” as cover and camouflage.
“Civilians” remaining in Gaza will continue to suffer because that is what Hamas wants. It is good press. Even the food lines are attacked by Hamas, with “civilians” dying there, because it is good is press. I would guess that even you believe it is the Israelis luring Gazans to food lines to kill them. Fact is, Israelis are protecting food lines, killing Hamas who are attacking food lines, because it is good press when “civilians” in food lines get killed.
Oh, you're just a psycho
Do you always resort to personal insults when an argument goes badly for you? Don’t bother replying. End of discussion.
Not an insult, just a descriptor. If you think children in Gaza deserve to die, that's what you are.
Have the US take it over and assume control, and be directly benevolent to the people of Gaza. Deal harshly with any remaining Hamas members, regardless of what international law says.
It worked for the Persians and Babylonians.
We have enough problems without being responsible for Gaza. Let Israel take care of it.
1) We don't.
2) Is Israel taking care of it?
I believe that Israel IS taking care of it, despite all the caterwauling from the peanut gallery of the Western Left. We have nothing to gain from getting directly involved in that quagmire. Look at the hysteria that results when we deport illegals from our own country. Can you imagine what would happen if we laid a finger on one of the precious jihadis in Gaza? Let's continue cleaning our own house and give Israel a free hand to clean theirs.
A very impressive essay. Thank you, Misha!
The liberal mind cannot conceive of the possibility that the DEI rulers of a nation can be WORSE than foreign rulers.
What I mean: Mao was orders of magnitude worse than any European power incursion into China of the previous centuries. Hong Kong improved while the rest of China stagnated or was famined or genocided by Mao — ordinary Chinese people would have benefited from MORE European power incursion.
And there’s a population of Palestinians as large as the Gazans who live good lives in Israel, certainly better lives than in Syria, Egypt or Jordan.
Does anyone really think that any of the Palestinians with Israeli citizenship would prefer to be ruled by Palestinians in the West Bank or Gaza?
It's a genocide when it happens to my people.
It's not a genocide when we do it to our enemies.
I don’t think either side is reasonable and I don’t understand why we provide direct financial assistance to a country as wealthy as Japan or France, a country which has universal healthcare for its citizens and where the ultra religious refuse to work (they rely on subsidies), and who freely mingle their legitimate self defense needs with religiously motivated land grabs in the West Bank. IMO we don’t need to sanction Israel but we should def stop subsidizing them, they can afford to pay for their own stuff. They’re on net a moral albatross around our neck. This doesn’t mean we need to rally around “Palestine Liberation” or Arab nationalism or the campus tentists either.
You say that the Israelis could have killed all 2.1 million Gazans but the fact that they only killed 100,000 proves they have no genocidal intent. I think that the Israelis would happily kill all 2.1 millions if they could get away with it but even with the world mostly allowing Israel a free pass so far, that would clearly be a step too far.
Israel is being promoted as a democratic state that is part of Western civilisation so people judge it differently than they do a repressive and autocratic regime such as Russia. (The other point relating to Chechnya is that many experts believe that the Russians were in fact behind the apartment bombings but that is another story.)
I often come across this type of argument that bad things happen in other parts of the world be it in Sudan or elsewhere but some people only seem to be interested in Israel / Palestine and not these other places. In addition to the point that Israel being promoted in the West as a like- minded country and therefore being judged accordingly, the other point is just because a mistake is being made in other conflicts, does this justify a mistake being made in Gaza?
You say that Gazans have hated the Jews for a long time. Please remember that Gazans are refugees who had to flee their homes or were forced from their homes elsewhere in Palestine by the Jews and have been living in hellish conditions in Gaza ever since. Would you not also hate the people who did something like this to you? The people who did this happen to be Jews so Gazans hate these Jews. It would be quite extraordinary if they did not.
My family are Egyptian Jewish refugees who were expelled by Egypt. We aren’t still sitting in camps. And we aren’t bombing and stabbing Egyptians. Why is it you and others give license to the idea that it’s normal for Gazans to want to kill israelis because they’re refugees? They aren’t still refugees. They are living on Palestinian land, which for the last 20 years was ruled by Palestinians. Just as Jews have been expelled and made refugees countless times over the centuries, just as none of these Jews turned into terrorist murderers of Germans or Spaniards, Palestinian Arabs will need to do the same. They need to abandon their Jew hatred, which predates Zionism, they need to abandon their Arab supremacy and Muslim supremacy. They will need to move on.
"My family are Egyptian Jewish refugees who were expelled by Egypt. We aren’t still sitting in camps"
OK, but what if you were, you'd probably be pretty crazy, no?
Probably. But why are they sitting in refugee camps? They’re living on so called Palestinian soil. Gazan “refugees” are living on Palestinian land ruled by Palestinians since 2005. Palestinian refugees are the only refugees in history that are not being resettled. There are no refugees from India/Pakistan, none from Greece/Turkey.
Billions of dollars have been sent to Gaza for decades. Imagine if those funds had built home and towns instead of tunnels and weapons.
Yeah, I know this.
>You say that the Israelis could have killed all 2.1 million Gazans but the fact that they only killed 100,000 proves they have no genocidal intent. I think that the Israelis would happily kill all 2.1 millions if they could get away with it but even with the world mostly allowing Israel a free pass so far, that would clearly be a step too far.
It may indeed be true that the Israelis would *like* to genocide the Gazans but implicit in the accusation that the Israelis are only not genociding the Gazans because they are afraid of world opinion is that the Israelis are not doing genocide.
Jews or anyone for that matter will never be rewarded by showing mercy or compassion. The only way to destroy far right extremists is systematic humiliation. You cannot ever let the Arabs save face to get a quick victory because humiliation is how you destroy their spirits.
I find Adam Tooze far more convincing:
"Murder not crisis - Why Israel's starvation of Gaza is exceptional in a global context."
https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-400-not-crisis-but-murder
Ignoring the semantics of what is and isnt a genocide have you followed https://substack.com/@mascilbinah on the war? Hes made a pretty compelling case alot of Netanyahus strategy has been pretty detached with what the security situation actually necessitates.
Yes
Im open to it being a mistake in that way, which I state in the piece
"The thing is that Israel’s neighbours have never accepted her. Not in 1936. Not in 1948 or 1956 or 1967 or 1973 or 2000 or 2006 or 2023."
This is simply untrue. Jordan and Egypt recognised Israel decades ago. Syria under Basil Assad nearly did until last minute bickering over the exact (still expanded) boundaries to draw around the Golan Heights.
That's true, I wasn't very clear, I referred principally to the Palestinians
Two fundamental issues with this analysis worth mentioning:
The first, very shortly, is what occurred in Chechnya - recognized by the Chechen people as a genocide and largely ignored by the West because of its proximity to the global war on terror (GWOT), and broader consenus that the north slopes of the Caucasus (Kavkaz) mountains are part of the Russian sphere of influence. Not Russia's first genocide but arguably its third, following the initial Russian invasion of the Caucasus culminating in the war against Imam Shamyl, and then Stalin's mass-expulsion to Kazakhstan under false pretenses of collaboration.
This point deserves a a better contrast to eretz Israel: like the mediterranean edge of the Levant, the Caucasus mountains are a nexus between climatic and geographic zones that have defined the boundaries of past civilizations. The point at which they meet is the melting pot that has produced the most expansive and explosive iterations of civilization, a crucible that allows for the reforming and integration of otherwise divergent paths.
In the Levant we get a syncretic in situ early state and culture formation of Judaism from the recension of the Egyptian empire with the stay-behind of a portion of its administrative and religious colonial satraps, the local Canaanite population, the refugees of several bronze age civilizations, and the core of a nomadic population (Hebrews) who can synthesize and adapt all that into a distinct polity. It is hyper-literate, but incredibly vulnerable to uniformity and, by contrast, invasion and explusion.
In the Caucasus we have the same core nomadic population, dispersed in their village hamlets which, until the invention of the airplane, offer almost perfect protection against the incursion of various global empires. They are dramatically less literate, but have kept a much broader diversity of language and culture, the opposite of uniformity which is matched in their resilience to invasion and explusion. They also prove the lie to anti-muslim sentiment, showing their disinterest in global jihad and emphasis on the core religious values common to the Abrahamic religions. The caucasus, unlike many of the neighbouring arab states, have never been judenfrei.
Now we get to the line from Esther in the original quote about not siezing plunder; echoes from similar commandments given to the Israelites as they waged war in the Levant not to plunder, the contravention of which lost Saul his kingship when the prophet Samuel was commanded to remove and reinstitute it for the House of Judah in the wake of Saul's very obvious plunder, comically revealed by the bleeting of livestock.
Much has been made by proto-fascists of their love for the biblical commandment to exterminate "Amelek". But what is missing is the historical conception of what Amelek meant. Was it a people to be wiped out? A genetic lineage? No, these concepts didn't exist at the time. What was meant was a *way of living*. The Amelekites way of life, which included ritualized sexual abuse, child abuse and human sacrifice all wrapped up in the unifying mantle and cause of idolatry was to be ended.
But it was the way of life which was to be ended, and only the people insofar as they conformed to and could not be converted away from that way of life. A similar impulse is found in early Islam, almost identical, in the commandment to wage war against rival and neighbouring tribes offering a similar cultural vein that ran contrary to what we know consider falsely to be "universal" principles of human rights.
The sieizing of the spoils of war, by its very act, indicated the purpose of the conflict: the acquisition of people and material gain to expand power and wealth. Rejecting the spoils of war, both by Esther and her forebearers, noted a very different conception of war: a righteous war is one in which material gain is rejected, to indicate that the purpose was not typical for a war. Moreover, it signified that the progenitors of such a war were willing to take casualties for a righteous cause: a better future for all people, including liberating the surviving decendants of the Amelekites from the miserable fate of a cultural inheritance that reduced them to slaves being preyed upon by those living in a simian form of violent repression.
Judaism, like the disparate people of the caucasus, is not set up to allow for expansion as some of the comments have suggested. In fact quite the opposite: both cultural inheritances (the Torah for one, Kebzeh or Adat for another) hold people to a higher standard than what is typical, setting them each apart as a form of clergy to the broader population by virtue of the higher standard to which they are held. Members of both insult their inheritance if they dare to resent instead of giving thanks for this higher standard.
The Kahanist lunatics who want to pillage the modern incarnation of the Pentapolis are the great idolaters of our time. They have debased themselves with a rejection of the higher calling to be set apart. Instead of rejected spoils to demonstrate the righteousness of their cause, they complain the spoils should be absolute and the higher cause.
What’s the moral responsibility of a militarily defeated party to surrender and ask for terms? Presumably if Imperial Japanese just didn’t surrender the US would have kept bombing cities. Whose responsibility would that be?
Peace in the region requires clear delineation between what is Israeli government, what is Israeli people, what is Hamas, what is Palestinian people.
If Hamas is for Palestine and not just out for blood, they should accept a scenario where they are not government. Chances of this happening are very low because "freedom fighters" always feel entitled to governance. They might even deem it unfair if Palestinians who didn't fight in the war govern during peace. This is where the Palestinian should realize that the interest of Hamas and the interest of Palestine do not exactly align.
If Israeli government is for Israel and not just out for blood, then government figures should be willing to accept ICC trial to exonerate Israel from accusations IF their interests are truly aligned with Israel's.
This is where the Israeli should realize that the interest of figures within government and the interest of Israel do not exactly align.
In sum, does the population of Israel distance themselves from the actions of their government leaders? Are these leaders willing to undergo ICC trial? Do the Palestinians distance themselves from the actions of Hamas? Are Hamas leaders willing to accept a Palestine without the leadership of Hamas?
There can never be peace and stability if all the Palestinian and Israeli population see when they look at each other is Netanyahu and Hamas.