Thank you for this. I have been feeling this as well since 10/7 and I haven’t really known how to process it. I felt so much anger that day. And admittedly, it hasn't subsided. That doesn't mean I don't feel sadness at the horrific death toll of innocent Palestinians as well. The bottom line is that the media wants to divide us when it is possible to have empathy for both, while also understanding the histories of both parties.
I think something that so many people that are hardliners on this issue (on both sides) don’t understand is that many things can be true at the same time. You can support both groups of people without supporting their leadership.
But nuance seems to be lost on most. Its easy to pick a side without even trying to understand the plight of your 'enemy'.
Diaspora Jews who feel the urge to be token Jews for anti-Jewish racists can figure out in their own head what they personally gain from their virtue signaling of throwing Israeli Jews under the bus. It’s not done for any moral reasons, so spare me. It’s not just October 7 these faux Jews ignore, it’s history in it’s entirety - the 138 suicide bombings of the second intifada, the lack of real interest the Palestinians have had to sign any peace deal, it’s Palestinian terrorism long before “the occupation”, it’s the fact that Palestinians have always had the goal of a genocide and ethnic cleansing for Jews since before the state of Israel, it’s the fact that when Arabs were the majority they behaved worse than racist Whites did in the south to the black minority - endless pogroms and lynchings of Jewish refugees by Arabs.
The problem progressive Jews have is with reality, and being gullible fools for the far left and Islamists.
Who is considering that many of these college students are reading Russian bot posts and being triggered by them the same way they triggered the far right and others? I think I have seen some on my FB posts and this issue isn’t being covered due to collective guilt about tragic Palestinian deaths, ignoring or justifying Hamas violence and residual worldwide Jew hatred. Jew hatred is a time- honored way of inciting the masses, not that like all peoples there are those worthy of hatred, like Bibi. The latest place I saw what I thought was a phony bot post was on my entry on the influence of Qatari and other Arab money on US Ivy League campuses. I think it’s significant and more important is an impediment to peace in the region which I assume all the protestors want right?
Protestors calling for a genocide and ethnic cleansing of 7 million Israeli Jews don’t want peace, they want more Hamas terrorism like October 7. “Pro Palestinian” activists are anti-peace.
This is where I think that supporters of Palestinians totally miss what they are doing. Standing outside the opera house in Sydney and chanting, Fuck the Jews, Gas the Jews. Not the best strategy. I absolutely get their anger. But it is counterproductive. I'm Jewish, but don't know how to feel. I loath Netanyahu almost as much as I loath his brother from another mother (Herr Pumpkinfuhrer). He needs to be gone. But I also recognize that the war crimes Netanyahu is committing in Gaza are not isolated (if that is the right word). I believe that the Biden Administration is working hard to find a solution. However, ending aid to Israel (while my first gut feeling is to do that) may actually make the situation in the region worse. If the US is seen as abandoning Israel, what would that mean? Would Iran or Yemen feel more empowered to take action and stage more and more attacks? Would that make the situation better or worse for Palestinians? My gut feeling is that it would be worse for them. While many in the region "support" Palestinians, I think that support is limited to funding terror groups to act on their behalf. I've seen little evidence that the actually care about what happens to these people. In my opinion, it is a mistake to try and unravel the Hamas attack and Netanyahus insane revenge from the other problems in the region. I just keep hoping that Biden and European allies can keep working at and succeed at cooling down the situation and finding a way to end this war. It's not good. I cannot even imagine what would be happening if the orange monster won in 2020. Diplomacy is not his (or anyone who works for him) strong suit.
You have completely the wrong idea about Netanyahu.
He is as vile as any other politician, he is as deceitful as any other politician.
His fault is that he is a politician. The fact is that for him, the success of the country is beneficial only if he is in power.
His fault is that he has crushed the whole party under himself, which he uses as a pocket tool.
That is, his fault is the work of a democratic country, Israel and the work of the Israelis, who will finally end his reign and will not allow him to spoil it even more.
But he is not a war criminal and does not commit any crimes in Gaza, as you try to describe it.
What is happening in Gaza is war. A war that was not started by Israel or Netanyahu, a war with a terrible and vile enemy. And here Netanyahu is doing what any other leader would do.
Maybe worse, maybe better, but he is not the culprit of the victims in Gaza. The culprit is Hamas and many other terrorist organizations in Gaza, which everyone forgets and in which about half of the population belongs directly or indirectly. And we must not forget that it was the residents, together with Hamas, who killed, raped and kidnapped. They were the ones who posted thousands of videos of murders and violence online. It was they who held a third of the hostages captive and killed those they no longer needed. They are the ones who rejoice at every death of every Jew. They are the ones who are not going to change their attitude towards Jews and Israel.
They are perverted maniacs who want to hate and kill.
If everything is in order with your moral orientation, then they are the ones you should hate, not Netanyahu. Because they violated all the moral laws that we know, and Netanyahu only violated a few of these laws.
Simply because acts are committed during a war does not mean they are not crimes. That’s why they are called war crimes. And the indiscriminate bombing of civilians is a war crime. And I seriously doubt that ANY leader would do what he is doing. There is plenty of evidence that he has provoked this war. And what I think is horrifying is that he clearly doesn’t care about civilians in Gaza or even his own countrymen. I don’t believe he gives a fuck about anyone or anything that doesn’t benefit him. Just like his orange brother.
War crimes are outlines by the Geneva Conventions and the Law of Armed Conflict. You can bomb civilians when military tunnels, equipment, or combatants are present. This idea that Israel is bombing children for kicks and grins is woefully erroneous.
It pains me to explain this to many people now, but it is necessary.
You want to be good and take the right moral stand. But you do not follow the path of knowledge and search for the right position, but take ready-made clichés, slogans and lies of propaganda, replacing your morality with a chain of false pseudo-moral concepts.
To begin with, you did not mention that Hamas is committing war crimes. And Hamas started this war.
You are completely unfamiliar with the methods of warfare, with the tactics of using modern weapons, but confidently talk about “Israeli war crimes” and “indiscriminate bombings”
I served in the army for many years and know well how the armies of many countries fight, their weapons and tactics. When I compare the actions that Israel is taking, I know for sure that no country in the world acts as selectively as the Israeli military. “Indiscriminate bombing” is a cliché and a lie fed to you to destroy your moral compass. Because the main actions are carried out by Israeli infantry, risking their lives and dying every day.
The actions of Israeli aviation are so precise and selective that no country has ever fought so selectively and will never fight so selectively. Firstly, because it contradicts the principle of wars (to destroy the enemy), and secondly, because no army is accused of what Israel is accused of, especially for which other armies are praised and respected (the ability to protect their own citizens), Israel is accused
Thus, Israel has an unprecedented system of selecting legitimate targets, making decisions in accordance with legal international laws, and precision weapons that are used to destroy the enemy.
And all this is to the detriment of the safety and lives of Israeli citizens.
By blaming Netanyahu for the Gaza war and putting him first among the culprits, you forgot to blame the Hamas leaders who personally gave orders to kill, brutally kill civilians, women and children. You forgot to blame Yahya Sinwar, who was released from an Israeli prison, although he had already been convicted of murder. You forgot to blame international organizations that for decades turned a blind eye to the cult of hatred of Jews, to military preparations, to many years of killings and shelling, to their willingness to kill, torture and kidnap Jews.
You forgot to blame the Gazans who 7.10. They voluntarily rushed to kill Israelis, going on safari, killing and raping people in such a way that for three months teams of doctors and forensic experts working 24/7 could not identify all the victims.
Instead, you found a scapegoat, Netanyahu, and blamed him for the war, for the “crimes,” for the lack of peace. Although many of the decisions that led to today's conflict were made without his participation.
Yes, Netanyahu is guilty, but not at all of what you accuse him of, making false accusations that also accuse Israel and all Israelis. Get to grips with your moral compass, it's broken. It is broken because you believe those who hate Israel and you do not believe those who defend it.
I don’t blame all Israelis at all but Bibi is putting me as a Jew in harm’s way here in the US. I KNOW that many Israelis fight for peace and then got October 7.
Israelis fight for peace and get October 7th for it. Netanyahu was elected by the Israelis (this is of course very simplistic), and now he is putting you in the US in danger. So the Israelis are putting you in danger with their struggle for life?
It didn't turn out well.
In fact, it's not like that.
Bibi, despite the fact that he is an unpleasant person, an unprincipled politician (I have the right to say so, because I have watched his political games for many years), and perhaps (I emphasize, perhaps because we have no evidence) puts personal interests above state interests. But since October 7, he has been pursuing policies that he cannot carry out personally. Israel is a democratic state in the full sense of the word, and decisions are made not only by coalition politicians, but by the military in general in opposition to Netanyahu. That is, any prime minister would do the same things. Maybe better, maybe worse. That is, these are not the actions of Bibi, but the actions of Israel.
But you have problems in the USA not because of Israel’s actions, but because the anti-Israeli majority (unfortunately the majority in the world is poisoned by lies towards Israel) does not want Israel to win, to live in peace, to exist. One of the methods of putting pressure on Israel is to incite hatred towards Jews, in particular in the USA and towards everyone who supports Israel, this undermines society and this puts you in danger. Not Bibi.
Good question. Do you really want to know? Or inflated death tolls are only needed to blame Israel?
When all the world media announced that Israel killed 500 people in a hospital in the Gaza Strip, everyone immediately believed it. And even then, when it turned out that it was not Israel, but the terrorists themselves, that they ended up not in the hospital, but in the parking lot next to the hospital, and that there were not 500 people and not 1000 (as some who wanted mass deaths said), but (maybe?) 10-15, or none at all.
That is, Israel did not kill a single person, but the lie spread forever. Not a single media outlet has apologized for its lies.
Same for the rest. Israel does not bomb residential areas. Most of the videos of explosions that show the explosion of numerous missile depots, combat positions, weapons and ammunition depots. They cannot be taken out of residential areas, because they are built into residential areas and can only be blown up to neutralize them. And at the same time, there have been no people or even terrorists there for a long time. There are only IDF soldiers who captured and neutralized the territory.
I have watched hundreds of videos of the Israeli army fighting and they are on the networks, and no one shows them or comments on them.
Everything you read in the media is a big lie and manipulation. The IDF fights with infantry units that clear terrorists house by house, block by block, and then blow up hundreds and thousands of warehouses with weapons and ammunition. Airstrikes are carried out in rare cases when a concentration of terrorists is clearly detected, when rocket fire is being fired from a certain location, and when there is a breakout of a large group of terrorists from tunnels.
Regarding the accuracy of Israeli airstrikes, you can see hundreds of videos of Gazans sitting calmly in a cafe, confident that the airstrike that the IDF warned them about would not harm them.
There are many videos after airstrikes, when a crowd of residents pretend to be victims, but by all indications, the strike was struck earlier and all the people came to the same place after the strike.
In addition, for the first two weeks the IDF did not carry out airstrikes at all, and there were reports of deaths. It’s the same now, for the last two months there have been almost no offensive actions in Gaza, and the death toll is growing just like in the days of intense fighting.
From all these observation documents, it can be assumed that the total number of deaths is overestimated by 1.5-2 times (maybe more, maybe less. Hamas is not limited in lies by anything, not even by common sense). If we subtract from this number the number of killed militants, the number of civilians , killed by falling and exploding rockets, killed during engineering work in tunnels, shot by Hamas while trying to leave the north of Gaza, killed in clashes with Hamas for humanitarian aid, died of natural causes, died in criminal showdowns, then approximately 10% of those killed unintentionally will remain, After many attempts to prevent their death, but due to Hamas efforts, it was not possible to increase the number of those killed.
I roughly described the real picture of how and why people die in Gaza, and the number of those who can be recognized as “innocent” is even smaller.
Victor, congratulations - you just described butcher bill in Auschwitz - some natural deaths, malnutrition, squabbles between barracks, and then some killings by the guards, but those are all exaggerated by British propaganda. Some people have no ability for retrospection, don’t they.
I just described the state of a gangster pseudo-state that existed with the help of a blind international community, which gave it money to prepare massacres, armament, and educate two generations of hateful monsters who dreamed of killing, raping and torturing their neighbors all their lives.
After they attacked, killed, raped and tortured people, people began to defend themselves and destroy the ability of this ugly and still willing to kill entity.
That's all.
Believe me, I definitely know everything about Auschwitz, and it’s not him. Auschwitz is what Hamas wants to do.
Gasa until 7.10. 23 was no different from Iran and North Korea in principle. All of Gaza's problems were solely due to Hamas, not Israel.
It was not Israel that forced Gaza to dig hundreds of kilometers of tunnels; it was not Israel that armed and filled mosques, hospitals, schools, and residential buildings with weapons. It was not Israel that taught the inhabitants from childhood that killing Jews is good, that killing Jews with particular cruelty will give them a pass to heaven.
And it was not Israel that attacked and deliberately killed children, women and the elderly. And it is not Israel that holds hostages and kills them one by one. The people of Gaza did all this.
Can you please look at your numbers they’ve been reduced. 30k down to 22k, 13k are Hamas and remaining 9k Palestinians. A good article however , the 10/7 attack and the hostages still not being returned is a pretty big freaking deal to me. Israel must stay strong. No acquiescing.
And a pretty telling thing. Otherwise how would someone not Jewish or Arab, be able to decide where their sympathies lie
15 years - no great school or university, no digging research institute, just 400 miles of tunnels - not for best in the world humus production, but to kill people.
How many, literally, gazza-screechers came out to condemn Hamas - 1, 2, 3?
If the tunnel is intentionally dug under a hospital, who should be blamed for casualties?
How many, how many ceasefire agreements were turned down by Hamas?
Also the total includes roughly 4k people who statistically die of natural causes in this period of time. And statisticians who looked at the data found a lot of dupes or incomplete records. That, along with the inability to disaggregate combatants from civilians are discrediting enough, but you're right, the PHA has since admitted that they basically have no idea and no criteria. It's an absolute scandal that this figure keeps being repeated by mainstream journalists with total credulity.
Very good article, Ben; I totally understand your conflicting feelings, even as an outsider to the Jewish community. Yeah, I remember seeing all the outright *hatred* against Jews after the October 7th attacks, and I was absolutely repulsed. Seeing college kids attacking not Israel, but *The Jews* made me sick to my stomach. I just now rewatched a video of some American college students "protesting"... something soon after the Hamas terrorist attack (protesting the Jewish students' existence on campus, basically.) Or to be more accurate, a video of a student mob screaming "Shame On You!" and "Dirty Jews!" at a group of other students, as if they should be ashamed of themselves for being Jewish. The parallels with Charlottesville is terrifying, and probably never even occurred to any of the fine, upstanding "protestors" involved.
And I'll bet you a million fucking dollars that every single Goddamn member of that ranting, Anti-Jewish MOB believed that they were being morally upright, socially conscious Leftys standing firmly "On the Right Side of History" by terrorizing a group of fellow students for their "incorrect" ancestry. It apparently didn't bother any of them that they were part of a violent mob that caused the event to be cancelled and necessitated the attending students to be emergency evacuated through underground tunnels for their own safety, away from a mob of "protestors" screaming "Dirty Jews!" at them. They only needed some tiki torches to complete the picture. (I really wish I had the video editing skills to combine the footage of the Unite the Right rally with the footage from Berkeley... maybe Photoshop a few lit tiki torches into the college mob.)
(Seriously, have you ever seen some of the rhetoric used in central Asian parts of the Internet? The way that Jewish people are talked about just as a matter of course? A year or two ago I stumbled across an Indian messageboard in English, and the way the people were talking about Jews was straight up Nazi... but then, Indian culture's actual idolization of Hitler is a WHOLE other disgusting topic.)
I can *absolutely* understand the very real need of Jews for Israel to exist, if just to feel like there is SOMEWHERE on Earth that is safe for them seeing as how anywhere you go on the planet there will be *someone* who hates you just for being Jewish. The way that Netanyahu and the Israeli Far Right exploits this very real need is grotesque, but there is no way I could ever dispute the physical and psychological need. Or even simply just *dismiss* it with seemingly no thought whatsoever, the way that is so fashionable with so much of the global Left (or with so many younger people today who *believe* that they're on the Left, while actually adhering to an extremely rigid orthodoxy that ostracizes anyone for straying from the approved message.) Every time I see another supposed liberal or other leftist attacking Israel as an "apartheid regime" or comparing it to Nazi Germany it seriously makes me sick and ashamed, because it is extremely clear that they've *never* given even a second's thought to how they are talking about the Universal Minority, the only people in the world who are despised across the entire planet. A small island of people who are universally despised across the entire planet, surrounded on all sides by nations of people who hate them on an almost *genetic level.* It apparently doesn't even occur to them that their Anti-Jewish rhetoric is an exact echo of the Far Right... or if it does occur to them, it doesn't seem to bother them one whit. But we all already knew that once you go far enough Left or Right it all becomes identical, anyway.
I can only imagine what it would be like to always have the fear lurking in the back of your mind whether there's going to be one of "them" around the next corner just waiting to attack you... and whether or not the attack will be with words, with fists, or with *lethal force.*
Arab Palestinians left their homes for a variety of reasons during the 1948 war. Some left on their own initiative. Some left because the Arab military forces suggested they leave. And some the Israelis moved forcibly for defensive reasons in wartime. There is no proof that Israel drove Palestinian Arabs from their homes simply because they were Arabs, and a fair amount of Arabs remained in Israel. Why would Israel not have forced all Arabs out of their country if they were so anti-Arab? And now about 20% of Israeli citizens are Arab, mostly Muslim I believe.
As a socialist Jewish American living in a red rural area, I think the silver lining about all of this is that this war made some things crystal clear for me - both in terms of how this current war could/should end, how Israel could win the Israeli-Palestinian Crisis, and what it means for me personally:
==THE CURRENT WAR==
1. In terms of the current war, Israel should do to Gaza what it should have done in Southern Lebanon in 2006: Israel should just TAKE the Northern 50% of Gaza, and (temporarily) expel the Palestinian population to Southern Gaza. (It already did this a few months ago - just do it again.) Then, tell Hamas that they'll get half of that have (25%) of Gaza back once all the hostages are returned, and the rest back once Hamas steps down and/or is overthrown. Blunt as this sounds, sometimes, the best way to respond to a hostage crisis is to take 20x as many of their people (or their land) hostage, and see how they like it. Similarly, if Biden had let Israel cut off Gaza's entire water supply (as was proposed when the war started), the Gaza War would have been over within a month. It's one of the saddest things I've ever had to learn (both as a Soldier myself and from the current war): Sometimes, trying to reduce suffering backfires. It just prolongs the conflict, bad guys don't get defeated, and the suffering just gets worse.
2. Ideally, Israel would a. invade Rafah to topple what's left of Hamas, then build a new democratic government in the strip from scratch to rebuild the place. But Biden doesn't look like he'll let Israel go into Rafah or take the Philadelphi Corridor (on the border of Egypt and Gaza). And Gaza does not deserve to be rebuilt as long as Hamas is running it. Hopefully, the lack of reconstruction coupled with loosing a quarter of half the strip will finally convince the Gazans to overthrow Hamas. But if not, at least they'll be punished for it.
==THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT==
3. Caroline Glick is right. And her solution for an Israeli victory to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis remains the most logical and valid solution out there: Israel should annex the West Bank, end the occupation, create a path to equal citizenship and voting rights for the peace-loving Palestinians who live there, and deport those who support terrorism. Gaza can be spun off as an independent country (which it de facto has been since 2007). If Hamas is overthrown, it could become a Middle Eastern Singapore. But if the Gazan population continues to support islamofascism, then Gaza will turn into a Middle Eastern Haiti.
4. Glick's solution works because it takes the best parts of the 1 and 2 state solutions and combines the two. It also helps that a. the 1997 Palestinian census was an empirically verifiable lie, whereby the Palestinian Authority claimed a Palestinian population about 25% higher than it actually was. With this in mind, Israel could maintain both its Jewish super-majority and democratic character by annexing the West Bank but not Gaza. It would also have the side benefit of b. eliminating the Palestinian Authority government, which for 25 years has created an incompetent, authoritarian, anti-Semitic kleptocracy that openly funds terrorism and is run by a Holocaust Denier (see Mahmoud Abbas's doctoral dissertation).
5. For those who still think Israel must turn over the West Bank to create a Palestinian state, riddle me this: The percentage of Israeli's who live in the West Bank (which has has a Jewish presence since the Bronze Age) is roughly equivalent to the percentage of Americans who live in Texas plus New Jersey. Would the United States EVER depopulate Texas in order to recreate the Comancheria? The Comancheria was the exceptionally violent Comanche empire that existed the 18th and early 19th centuries, which Americans then viewed pretty much the same way we would see ISIS today. That so many Israelis would have even considered doing the equivalent of this so seriously for the last quarter century shows just how seriously Israelis wanted peace. They really did try.
==POLITICAL & PERSONAL IMPLICATIONS==
6. The Democratic Party should no longer take the Jewish vote for granted. From 1992-2008, American Jews reliably gave the Dems 76-80% of the vote. But it's been declining since - down to 68% in 2020. And I think it'll probably sink even further as the Democratic Party adopts an anti-Israel narrative. However....
7. If Jews like me become Republican, you can bet that I'll take all my left-wing socialist and liberalism on economic and social issues with me. And it very well might be that, in the flaming wreckage of the GOP in what will be a likely Trump loss in 2024, ex-Democrat Jews might have to single-handedly rebuild a liberal or even socialist wing within the Republican Party, or maybe even become Independents. Whether such a thing is even possible isn't clear. But it's worth nothing that Bernie got elected to Congress as a socialist (and as mayor before that) back when Vermont was still a red state.
8. On a national level, I really like America's two-party system; each party keeps the other in check, and prevents an idiot like Trump from become a dictator. But on a state and local level, two-party competition breaks down into one party dominance, namely because we lack any mechanism of proportional representation (amongst the top two parties). One party dominance leads to corrupt and incompetent government. Having lived in Menino's Boston, Marion Barry's DC, and a GOP-dominated rural area, what's clear to me is that Democratic and Republican Party establishments are both terrible when not kept in check. And much as I'd die to keep American Democracy alive, I will not sacrifice myself for either the Democratic or Republican Party.
9. I say #8 with a great deal of pain in my heart, because I've put YEARS of my life into trying to rebuild the Democratic Party in my rural red state. Only to find out a. the massive gap between what needs to happen organizationally and what the state party is willing to do, and b. that for most local Democrats, being a Democrat is more about being part of a contrarian social club, and not actually winning or holding power. And that's not even throwing in the growing influence of anti-Semites amongst progressives or the anti-working class/anti-poor condescension amongst certain middle class interest groups I've had to spend my time dealing with.
10. So I'll say again: For those of us (like me) who are serious about fixing our broken system/economy, I'll fight to the death for what America stands for. But I won't die for the current Republican or Democratic Parties. Good news though: The flexibility this provides (i.e., running as a Republican in a Republican area to get elected, then becoming an Independent once elected) might broaden the path to power considerably. My illusions are gone. And that's my silver lining to this damn war!
I do semi-agree with you. I think that the issue, on a national level, is that we have one party representing the top 1%, the other party representing the top 10%, and the bottom 90% get ignored.
But it wasn't supposed to be this way. Sociologists dating back to Robert Michels described something called The Iron Law of Oligarchy, whereby any organizational or political leadership tends to put its own selfish interests ahead of everyone else's. (Case in point: See how quickly one-party dictatorships degenerate into the one party essentially robbing the rest of the population.) And there are really only two way to prevent this Iron Law dynamic from unfolding: One is Athenian-style direct democracy - fill political offices by lot rather than election (eliminating the barrier between ruler and ruled). The other is a two-party system - which as the sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset showed, involves two chunks of the elite keeping each other in check, and each trying to win over as much of the rest of the population.
Me personally, I'm much more in favor of the Athenian model. We could totally implement that, especially in local government. The Founding Fathers sadly chose not to adopt the Athenian model. Instead, they adopted the three branches of government system (perhaps unknowingly, from Ancient Carthage), and fused it with a two-party system of government that they had inherited from Great Britain (which itself was a consequence of the English Civil War in the 1600's ending in a stalemate).
Both Van Buren (who much as anyone created both the modern Democratic and Republican Parties) and Tocqueville argued that as long as there were two parties able to compete against each other at every level of government, especially locally, people would be empowered because they would have two intelligent models of governance to choose between. But if local/state level political competition broke down, national political competition would get hollowed out.
Also noteworthy is that our political system at its best worked to replace any party that failed to come up with such a local-to-national vision of governance. I.e., if one of the two main parties failed (Federalists, Whigs, Know-Nothings), either a third party or faction splitting off from the first party would replace the dying second party to become a new second party.
The problem is that this system is very high maintenance, especially as the geographic size and population grows. The same way Westminster-style parliamentary systems degenerate from a national 2-3 party system (Canada/UK) to a national 1.5 party system (India) when country sizes grow, our system - being so high-maintenance - also degenerates, but in its own way.
You still have two parties able to compete for the presidency largely as they always have. And when someone like Trump got elected, usually within two years they loose control of Congress, thus preventing people genuine authoritarians like him from doing what Orban did. But on the other hand, many states and especially localities have become one-party dominant. And with the two parties ossifying into being dominant in certain regions, a. main parties loose the incentive to compete as strongly in Wyoming as in Washington DC, and b. it makes it that much harder for a third party to replace one of the main ones. Hence the bottom 90% getting ignored.
Good News though: I don't actually see this problem as lasting forever. America has a rather unexpected history of passing major changes to political structures surprisingly quickly through both parties. Secret Ballots, primaries, McGovern-Fraser all completely reshaped two-party competition in less than 15 years each. All the problems described in this post could be fixed with a relatively minor change, versions of which are already beginning to get implemented.
Correct. Competition is almost gone. 80% of American political races are non-competitive. We began with the most astonishing political innovation, from monarchy to a Constitutional Republic governed via rule of law. And now we have fallen to an unbearable level of hyper-partisanship, with a system DESIGNED to maintain it. We need to pass substantive, meaningful reforms.
I think your analysis doesn’t go far enough when you say the GOP represents the 1% and Dems the top ten, although I agree with you that wealth inequality is a central, core, fundamental issues and it MUST be addressed or our democracy will continue to slide.
The Politics Industry is a look at the system and offers what I think are good ideas for reforming it. My background is in systems analysis, seeing human systems as a whole ecology of interdependent entities that interact and influence each other.
On the psychosocial aspects of what is happening in our political system today, I found this Moyer podcast edifying. Judith Herman Robert J Lifton figure in my own research, but Dr. Brandy Lee was new to me and she make aspects of the pathology of what is happening in the GOP clearer to me.
Thank YOU for the book recommendation. I will definitely check it out!! Meanwhile, if you're interested - Bob Cesca on Banter wrote another post on the Electoral College. You mentioned the need to pass substantive, meaningful reforms - I totally agree! And in a reply I posted to Cesca's article, I wrote out what I think such a substantive reform could look like and why. Would love to know what you think!
I’ll take a look! It’s so nice to be in a “media” ecosystem where people share knowledge and links instead of busting on each other or competing for the most likes. Thanks!
The history you shared is fascinating to me, too, and I want to know more. But I am so woefully ignorant! I spent the World History class drawing the camel on the textbook cover. (Still got straight As, though. ;)
As a philosemitic Arab-American, I have long believed that even if one's sole moral concern were the security of Israel, it would be in the long-term interest of Israel to work much harder to de-escalate the overall situation. Work for the creation of a viable two-state solution, so the Palestinians have fewer causes for daily grievance. Remove the West Bank settlers. Get foreign aid to help improve the economic situation for the Palestinians — all of this would benefit *Israel* by calming the atmosphere and giving Palestinians a real hope of a decent life.
The Israeli right wing will never concede the value of an approach like this, of course. They're far too committed to territorial expansion and subjugation of the Arabs.
Finally, if one did consider Palestinian human rights and dignity in one's moral approach, and not just the security of Israel, then the path would be even clearer. As an Arab-American, I would gently encourage this. We're human beings too.
I agree completely about the West Bank and thought many years ago that keeping lands won in war was a big mistake for Israel. And they have back Sinai AND Gaza. However as far as foreign aid, I think we need to be careful to make sure it goes to help the Arabs/ Palestinians of Gaza and West Bank live better lives and NOT to build tunnels for a military force with weapons manufacture capabilities. Or as with UNRWA, for educational personnel and facilities that reportedly teach hatred of Jews and Israelis ( and I believe this to be the case). And unfortunately I keep on wonderful why the rest of the Middle East doesn’t help the Palestinians in the way that much of Europe helped Ukrainians under attack and the way that Israel helped Jewish refugees from other parts of the Middle East, Russia and Ethiopia when they needed help.
Although there is plenty of popular support in the Arab world for the Palestinians, the regional governments like having the crisis continue so they can keep Israel in turmoil. It's all very cynical power politics.
There has been a de facto two state solution. And statehood has been in the able many times over decades. Always turned turn by the Palestinian side. This isn’t about land for peace.
The Arabs in the region never agitated for a state - not under the Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years, not under Jordan or the British. Not even when Israel was initially given statehood. There wasn’t a Palestinian Arab movement. It did not exist. This is about killing Jews and removing them from the region. And it’s a modern astroturf movement that didn’t pick up momentum until the 1960s when Arafat came in the scene. Arafat who wasn’t even born in the area. The Arabs are the apartheid seekers here. Hanas is an islamofascist organization.
If they want peace, they can surrender. But they won’t and they will be finished off. The Palestinians who voted for them and support their efforts to ethnically cleanse the region of Jews, also deserve what they asked for. The barrier to peace is the maniacs who started the war and who preach hate all day long. If you have moral concerns, then figure out where the real problem lies.
Israel didn’t expel 700000 Arabs. They fled the war launched by the surrounding Arab nations in the instructions of their leaders. The idea was that after the brave Arabs slaughtered all the Jews, they would come back. Didn’t work out that way. Israel won’t let them come back. That much is true. Too bad, so sad.
There was a ceasefire with Hamas before they attacked on October 7th. Hamas broke the ceasefire by massacring Jews. Hamas deserves everything they are getting now. And the people who elected Hamas and support them by a wide margin, who were happy when the massacred Jews, and who went in after Hamas to loot and take their own hostages, are getting what they asked for. Don’t want war? Don’t start a war.
You’re conflicted because you can’t accept that reality is never black and white. People suffer in war. That’s a given. You’re a Jew agonizing over the people who have made it their life’s mission to wipe Jews out. Not smart.
The more compelling argument is that even if the events of 1948 were considered wrong (which they weren't), history demonstrates that such wrongs are often resolved over time through reconciliation and progress. Israel serves as a prime example; Ashkenazi Jews, including my own family, no longer feel the need to reclaim lost land in eastern Europe. Moroccan Jews in Israel have moved forward without longing for their former businesses. They have embraced progress and moved on. The persistent refusal of Palestinians to move past grievances perpetuates an unresolved conflict. Should Mexico resort to endless violence until they reclaim Los Angeles? Should the British retaliate until they recover their tea from Boston Harbor? History is filled with such examples of resilience and progress. Many who have suffered, such as Japan and Germany, have reconciled with former adversaries to become close partners. It's about acknowledging reality, self-reflection, and turning over a new leaf. Just as in our personal lives, nations must confront past wrongs to move forward. Why should nation-states be any different?
I will never forget the weekend after October 7, HAMAS had attacked, hundreds of hostages were being held and self-made videos of the atrocities were visible all over the internet while Israel other than a few targeted missile strikes and the mobilisation of some specialist army units had done nothing in response.
That next weekend saw the town squares, plazas and streets of western capital cities fill with protesters………. against Israel!!
I mean no wonder they decided they were on their own and nothing they would do could impact global opinion anyway
Personally I’ve given up on going out of my way to defend Israel the last 2 months, after years of being a staunch and loud defender of Israel even in groups of leftwing friends where it causes me grief, the behaviour of Bibi and particularly the Settlers in the West Bank the last few months is so self-defeating, so dangerous and so indefensible that this is the first thing in months I’ve said or written expressly on Israel’s side but even with all that terrible behaviour from Israeli settlers and their leader the fact still remains that Hamas launched the attack with the goal of killing as many Israelis as possible and (and this is very important to understand) with the plan to try and provoke Israel into killing as many Palestinian civilians as possible
Every step of their post October 7 strategy has been based around getting as many civilians killed as they can provoke and force the Israelis into, from tunnels to rocket launch sights, from putting military vehicles in aid truck convoys and using first aid symbols on military vehicles and buildings their goal has been to get Israeli soldiers to kill Palestinian civilians (why do you think we have so many perfectly shot gruesome videos of these deaths, they take camera crews sitting protected while they see their countrymen killed in actions they deliberately provoked the time and place of
So no, I have no time for ‘leftists’ attacking Israel BUT until Bibi is gone this will probably be my last comment In Israel’s defence, there are other problems in the world and Bibi has forfeited the right to get me to spend time or effort defending them
Sorry for such a long comment but at least it means I’ll be able to tell, if there are any replies, which ones came from ppl who read the whole thing and which from those who read one small part and replied with outrage and the ppl who can’t even be bothered reading it all before replying will get the response that kind of narcissism deserves
I agree. And one other point worth noting here: Even if we accept the Hamas casualty counts (which is probably a terrible idea), a 1:1 civilian:combatant kill ratio is actually REALLY good. Speaking as a member of the military, when we fought ISIS in Raqaa and Mosul, our civ:soldier kill ratio was probably 4:1 or 5:1. Which means that if we were fighting in Gaza instead of the Israelis, there would be 48,000 to 64,000 additional civilian deaths. And if the Russians were fighting in Gaza, it would be higher still.
This might not be a popular view elsewhere, but the Israelis have done a remarkably good job minimizing civilian casualties compared to comparable militaries.
I mean, I literally typed this in that comment 😔😔😔
“Sorry for such a long comment but at least it means I’ll be able to tell, if there are any replies, which ones came from ppl who read the whole thing and which from those who read one small part and replied ….. and the ppl who can’t even be bothered reading it all before replying will get the response that kind of narcissism deserves”
I seriously doubt that. Anyhow, as long as Hamas exists in Gaza, there can be no ceasefire. To steal a line from Robert Frost, for Israel the only way out is through.
Thank you for this. I have been feeling this as well since 10/7 and I haven’t really known how to process it. I felt so much anger that day. And admittedly, it hasn't subsided. That doesn't mean I don't feel sadness at the horrific death toll of innocent Palestinians as well. The bottom line is that the media wants to divide us when it is possible to have empathy for both, while also understanding the histories of both parties.
I think something that so many people that are hardliners on this issue (on both sides) don’t understand is that many things can be true at the same time. You can support both groups of people without supporting their leadership.
But nuance seems to be lost on most. Its easy to pick a side without even trying to understand the plight of your 'enemy'.
Therein lies the problem.
The media doesn't WANT to divide us. They have succeeded in doing so already. It's heartwrenching.
Diaspora Jews who feel the urge to be token Jews for anti-Jewish racists can figure out in their own head what they personally gain from their virtue signaling of throwing Israeli Jews under the bus. It’s not done for any moral reasons, so spare me. It’s not just October 7 these faux Jews ignore, it’s history in it’s entirety - the 138 suicide bombings of the second intifada, the lack of real interest the Palestinians have had to sign any peace deal, it’s Palestinian terrorism long before “the occupation”, it’s the fact that Palestinians have always had the goal of a genocide and ethnic cleansing for Jews since before the state of Israel, it’s the fact that when Arabs were the majority they behaved worse than racist Whites did in the south to the black minority - endless pogroms and lynchings of Jewish refugees by Arabs.
The problem progressive Jews have is with reality, and being gullible fools for the far left and Islamists.
Who is considering that many of these college students are reading Russian bot posts and being triggered by them the same way they triggered the far right and others? I think I have seen some on my FB posts and this issue isn’t being covered due to collective guilt about tragic Palestinian deaths, ignoring or justifying Hamas violence and residual worldwide Jew hatred. Jew hatred is a time- honored way of inciting the masses, not that like all peoples there are those worthy of hatred, like Bibi. The latest place I saw what I thought was a phony bot post was on my entry on the influence of Qatari and other Arab money on US Ivy League campuses. I think it’s significant and more important is an impediment to peace in the region which I assume all the protestors want right?
Protestors calling for a genocide and ethnic cleansing of 7 million Israeli Jews don’t want peace, they want more Hamas terrorism like October 7. “Pro Palestinian” activists are anti-peace.
This is where I think that supporters of Palestinians totally miss what they are doing. Standing outside the opera house in Sydney and chanting, Fuck the Jews, Gas the Jews. Not the best strategy. I absolutely get their anger. But it is counterproductive. I'm Jewish, but don't know how to feel. I loath Netanyahu almost as much as I loath his brother from another mother (Herr Pumpkinfuhrer). He needs to be gone. But I also recognize that the war crimes Netanyahu is committing in Gaza are not isolated (if that is the right word). I believe that the Biden Administration is working hard to find a solution. However, ending aid to Israel (while my first gut feeling is to do that) may actually make the situation in the region worse. If the US is seen as abandoning Israel, what would that mean? Would Iran or Yemen feel more empowered to take action and stage more and more attacks? Would that make the situation better or worse for Palestinians? My gut feeling is that it would be worse for them. While many in the region "support" Palestinians, I think that support is limited to funding terror groups to act on their behalf. I've seen little evidence that the actually care about what happens to these people. In my opinion, it is a mistake to try and unravel the Hamas attack and Netanyahus insane revenge from the other problems in the region. I just keep hoping that Biden and European allies can keep working at and succeed at cooling down the situation and finding a way to end this war. It's not good. I cannot even imagine what would be happening if the orange monster won in 2020. Diplomacy is not his (or anyone who works for him) strong suit.
You have completely the wrong idea about Netanyahu.
He is as vile as any other politician, he is as deceitful as any other politician.
His fault is that he is a politician. The fact is that for him, the success of the country is beneficial only if he is in power.
His fault is that he has crushed the whole party under himself, which he uses as a pocket tool.
That is, his fault is the work of a democratic country, Israel and the work of the Israelis, who will finally end his reign and will not allow him to spoil it even more.
But he is not a war criminal and does not commit any crimes in Gaza, as you try to describe it.
What is happening in Gaza is war. A war that was not started by Israel or Netanyahu, a war with a terrible and vile enemy. And here Netanyahu is doing what any other leader would do.
Maybe worse, maybe better, but he is not the culprit of the victims in Gaza. The culprit is Hamas and many other terrorist organizations in Gaza, which everyone forgets and in which about half of the population belongs directly or indirectly. And we must not forget that it was the residents, together with Hamas, who killed, raped and kidnapped. They were the ones who posted thousands of videos of murders and violence online. It was they who held a third of the hostages captive and killed those they no longer needed. They are the ones who rejoice at every death of every Jew. They are the ones who are not going to change their attitude towards Jews and Israel.
They are perverted maniacs who want to hate and kill.
If everything is in order with your moral orientation, then they are the ones you should hate, not Netanyahu. Because they violated all the moral laws that we know, and Netanyahu only violated a few of these laws.
Simply because acts are committed during a war does not mean they are not crimes. That’s why they are called war crimes. And the indiscriminate bombing of civilians is a war crime. And I seriously doubt that ANY leader would do what he is doing. There is plenty of evidence that he has provoked this war. And what I think is horrifying is that he clearly doesn’t care about civilians in Gaza or even his own countrymen. I don’t believe he gives a fuck about anyone or anything that doesn’t benefit him. Just like his orange brother.
War crimes are outlines by the Geneva Conventions and the Law of Armed Conflict. You can bomb civilians when military tunnels, equipment, or combatants are present. This idea that Israel is bombing children for kicks and grins is woefully erroneous.
It pains me to explain this to many people now, but it is necessary.
You want to be good and take the right moral stand. But you do not follow the path of knowledge and search for the right position, but take ready-made clichés, slogans and lies of propaganda, replacing your morality with a chain of false pseudo-moral concepts.
To begin with, you did not mention that Hamas is committing war crimes. And Hamas started this war.
You are completely unfamiliar with the methods of warfare, with the tactics of using modern weapons, but confidently talk about “Israeli war crimes” and “indiscriminate bombings”
I served in the army for many years and know well how the armies of many countries fight, their weapons and tactics. When I compare the actions that Israel is taking, I know for sure that no country in the world acts as selectively as the Israeli military. “Indiscriminate bombing” is a cliché and a lie fed to you to destroy your moral compass. Because the main actions are carried out by Israeli infantry, risking their lives and dying every day.
The actions of Israeli aviation are so precise and selective that no country has ever fought so selectively and will never fight so selectively. Firstly, because it contradicts the principle of wars (to destroy the enemy), and secondly, because no army is accused of what Israel is accused of, especially for which other armies are praised and respected (the ability to protect their own citizens), Israel is accused
Thus, Israel has an unprecedented system of selecting legitimate targets, making decisions in accordance with legal international laws, and precision weapons that are used to destroy the enemy.
And all this is to the detriment of the safety and lives of Israeli citizens.
By blaming Netanyahu for the Gaza war and putting him first among the culprits, you forgot to blame the Hamas leaders who personally gave orders to kill, brutally kill civilians, women and children. You forgot to blame Yahya Sinwar, who was released from an Israeli prison, although he had already been convicted of murder. You forgot to blame international organizations that for decades turned a blind eye to the cult of hatred of Jews, to military preparations, to many years of killings and shelling, to their willingness to kill, torture and kidnap Jews.
You forgot to blame the Gazans who 7.10. They voluntarily rushed to kill Israelis, going on safari, killing and raping people in such a way that for three months teams of doctors and forensic experts working 24/7 could not identify all the victims.
Instead, you found a scapegoat, Netanyahu, and blamed him for the war, for the “crimes,” for the lack of peace. Although many of the decisions that led to today's conflict were made without his participation.
Yes, Netanyahu is guilty, but not at all of what you accuse him of, making false accusations that also accuse Israel and all Israelis. Get to grips with your moral compass, it's broken. It is broken because you believe those who hate Israel and you do not believe those who defend it.
I don’t blame all Israelis at all but Bibi is putting me as a Jew in harm’s way here in the US. I KNOW that many Israelis fight for peace and then got October 7.
Let's follow your logic.
Israelis fight for peace and get October 7th for it. Netanyahu was elected by the Israelis (this is of course very simplistic), and now he is putting you in the US in danger. So the Israelis are putting you in danger with their struggle for life?
It didn't turn out well.
In fact, it's not like that.
Bibi, despite the fact that he is an unpleasant person, an unprincipled politician (I have the right to say so, because I have watched his political games for many years), and perhaps (I emphasize, perhaps because we have no evidence) puts personal interests above state interests. But since October 7, he has been pursuing policies that he cannot carry out personally. Israel is a democratic state in the full sense of the word, and decisions are made not only by coalition politicians, but by the military in general in opposition to Netanyahu. That is, any prime minister would do the same things. Maybe better, maybe worse. That is, these are not the actions of Bibi, but the actions of Israel.
But you have problems in the USA not because of Israel’s actions, but because the anti-Israeli majority (unfortunately the majority in the world is poisoned by lies towards Israel) does not want Israel to win, to live in peace, to exist. One of the methods of putting pressure on Israel is to incite hatred towards Jews, in particular in the USA and towards everyone who supports Israel, this undermines society and this puts you in danger. Not Bibi.
I prefer to scold Bibi for what he deserves.
Victor
What’s the current body count, Israel vs. Gaza?
Good question. Do you really want to know? Or inflated death tolls are only needed to blame Israel?
When all the world media announced that Israel killed 500 people in a hospital in the Gaza Strip, everyone immediately believed it. And even then, when it turned out that it was not Israel, but the terrorists themselves, that they ended up not in the hospital, but in the parking lot next to the hospital, and that there were not 500 people and not 1000 (as some who wanted mass deaths said), but (maybe?) 10-15, or none at all.
That is, Israel did not kill a single person, but the lie spread forever. Not a single media outlet has apologized for its lies.
Same for the rest. Israel does not bomb residential areas. Most of the videos of explosions that show the explosion of numerous missile depots, combat positions, weapons and ammunition depots. They cannot be taken out of residential areas, because they are built into residential areas and can only be blown up to neutralize them. And at the same time, there have been no people or even terrorists there for a long time. There are only IDF soldiers who captured and neutralized the territory.
I have watched hundreds of videos of the Israeli army fighting and they are on the networks, and no one shows them or comments on them.
Everything you read in the media is a big lie and manipulation. The IDF fights with infantry units that clear terrorists house by house, block by block, and then blow up hundreds and thousands of warehouses with weapons and ammunition. Airstrikes are carried out in rare cases when a concentration of terrorists is clearly detected, when rocket fire is being fired from a certain location, and when there is a breakout of a large group of terrorists from tunnels.
Regarding the accuracy of Israeli airstrikes, you can see hundreds of videos of Gazans sitting calmly in a cafe, confident that the airstrike that the IDF warned them about would not harm them.
There are many videos after airstrikes, when a crowd of residents pretend to be victims, but by all indications, the strike was struck earlier and all the people came to the same place after the strike.
In addition, for the first two weeks the IDF did not carry out airstrikes at all, and there were reports of deaths. It’s the same now, for the last two months there have been almost no offensive actions in Gaza, and the death toll is growing just like in the days of intense fighting.
From all these observation documents, it can be assumed that the total number of deaths is overestimated by 1.5-2 times (maybe more, maybe less. Hamas is not limited in lies by anything, not even by common sense). If we subtract from this number the number of killed militants, the number of civilians , killed by falling and exploding rockets, killed during engineering work in tunnels, shot by Hamas while trying to leave the north of Gaza, killed in clashes with Hamas for humanitarian aid, died of natural causes, died in criminal showdowns, then approximately 10% of those killed unintentionally will remain, After many attempts to prevent their death, but due to Hamas efforts, it was not possible to increase the number of those killed.
I roughly described the real picture of how and why people die in Gaza, and the number of those who can be recognized as “innocent” is even smaller.
Victor, congratulations - you just described butcher bill in Auschwitz - some natural deaths, malnutrition, squabbles between barracks, and then some killings by the guards, but those are all exaggerated by British propaganda. Some people have no ability for retrospection, don’t they.
I just described the state of a gangster pseudo-state that existed with the help of a blind international community, which gave it money to prepare massacres, armament, and educate two generations of hateful monsters who dreamed of killing, raping and torturing their neighbors all their lives.
After they attacked, killed, raped and tortured people, people began to defend themselves and destroy the ability of this ugly and still willing to kill entity.
That's all.
Believe me, I definitely know everything about Auschwitz, and it’s not him. Auschwitz is what Hamas wants to do.
Gasa until 7.10. 23 was no different from Iran and North Korea in principle. All of Gaza's problems were solely due to Hamas, not Israel.
It was not Israel that forced Gaza to dig hundreds of kilometers of tunnels; it was not Israel that armed and filled mosques, hospitals, schools, and residential buildings with weapons. It was not Israel that taught the inhabitants from childhood that killing Jews is good, that killing Jews with particular cruelty will give them a pass to heaven.
And it was not Israel that attacked and deliberately killed children, women and the elderly. And it is not Israel that holds hostages and kills them one by one. The people of Gaza did all this.
Yes, I understand that you cry out in pain every time you are forced to stamp on someone’s face. I get it.
What was the body county US vs Germany in WWII or US vs Japan WWII?
Two can play this game - by first let’s compare comparative navies and air force strengths, shall we?
Thank you — all excellent points!!
Can you please look at your numbers they’ve been reduced. 30k down to 22k, 13k are Hamas and remaining 9k Palestinians. A good article however , the 10/7 attack and the hostages still not being returned is a pretty big freaking deal to me. Israel must stay strong. No acquiescing.
And a pretty telling thing. Otherwise how would someone not Jewish or Arab, be able to decide where their sympathies lie
15 years - no great school or university, no digging research institute, just 400 miles of tunnels - not for best in the world humus production, but to kill people.
How many, literally, gazza-screechers came out to condemn Hamas - 1, 2, 3?
If the tunnel is intentionally dug under a hospital, who should be blamed for casualties?
How many, how many ceasefire agreements were turned down by Hamas?
Etc, etc...
Yes. Yes and Yes!! Thank you!!!
Also the total includes roughly 4k people who statistically die of natural causes in this period of time. And statisticians who looked at the data found a lot of dupes or incomplete records. That, along with the inability to disaggregate combatants from civilians are discrediting enough, but you're right, the PHA has since admitted that they basically have no idea and no criteria. It's an absolute scandal that this figure keeps being repeated by mainstream journalists with total credulity.
Very good article, Ben; I totally understand your conflicting feelings, even as an outsider to the Jewish community. Yeah, I remember seeing all the outright *hatred* against Jews after the October 7th attacks, and I was absolutely repulsed. Seeing college kids attacking not Israel, but *The Jews* made me sick to my stomach. I just now rewatched a video of some American college students "protesting"... something soon after the Hamas terrorist attack (protesting the Jewish students' existence on campus, basically.) Or to be more accurate, a video of a student mob screaming "Shame On You!" and "Dirty Jews!" at a group of other students, as if they should be ashamed of themselves for being Jewish. The parallels with Charlottesville is terrifying, and probably never even occurred to any of the fine, upstanding "protestors" involved.
And I'll bet you a million fucking dollars that every single Goddamn member of that ranting, Anti-Jewish MOB believed that they were being morally upright, socially conscious Leftys standing firmly "On the Right Side of History" by terrorizing a group of fellow students for their "incorrect" ancestry. It apparently didn't bother any of them that they were part of a violent mob that caused the event to be cancelled and necessitated the attending students to be emergency evacuated through underground tunnels for their own safety, away from a mob of "protestors" screaming "Dirty Jews!" at them. They only needed some tiki torches to complete the picture. (I really wish I had the video editing skills to combine the footage of the Unite the Right rally with the footage from Berkeley... maybe Photoshop a few lit tiki torches into the college mob.)
(Seriously, have you ever seen some of the rhetoric used in central Asian parts of the Internet? The way that Jewish people are talked about just as a matter of course? A year or two ago I stumbled across an Indian messageboard in English, and the way the people were talking about Jews was straight up Nazi... but then, Indian culture's actual idolization of Hitler is a WHOLE other disgusting topic.)
I can *absolutely* understand the very real need of Jews for Israel to exist, if just to feel like there is SOMEWHERE on Earth that is safe for them seeing as how anywhere you go on the planet there will be *someone* who hates you just for being Jewish. The way that Netanyahu and the Israeli Far Right exploits this very real need is grotesque, but there is no way I could ever dispute the physical and psychological need. Or even simply just *dismiss* it with seemingly no thought whatsoever, the way that is so fashionable with so much of the global Left (or with so many younger people today who *believe* that they're on the Left, while actually adhering to an extremely rigid orthodoxy that ostracizes anyone for straying from the approved message.) Every time I see another supposed liberal or other leftist attacking Israel as an "apartheid regime" or comparing it to Nazi Germany it seriously makes me sick and ashamed, because it is extremely clear that they've *never* given even a second's thought to how they are talking about the Universal Minority, the only people in the world who are despised across the entire planet. A small island of people who are universally despised across the entire planet, surrounded on all sides by nations of people who hate them on an almost *genetic level.* It apparently doesn't even occur to them that their Anti-Jewish rhetoric is an exact echo of the Far Right... or if it does occur to them, it doesn't seem to bother them one whit. But we all already knew that once you go far enough Left or Right it all becomes identical, anyway.
I can only imagine what it would be like to always have the fear lurking in the back of your mind whether there's going to be one of "them" around the next corner just waiting to attack you... and whether or not the attack will be with words, with fists, or with *lethal force.*
Thank you for writing this Aaron. Spot on. :)
Just for further awfulness, I am seeing the Hamas Oct 7 attack likened to the Warsaw Ghetto uprising,
Thank you for this. This column speaks to me and the constant angst I have felt since October 7th.
The only path to ending this horrific tragedy begins with Hamas return all the hostages.
Arab Palestinians left their homes for a variety of reasons during the 1948 war. Some left on their own initiative. Some left because the Arab military forces suggested they leave. And some the Israelis moved forcibly for defensive reasons in wartime. There is no proof that Israel drove Palestinian Arabs from their homes simply because they were Arabs, and a fair amount of Arabs remained in Israel. Why would Israel not have forced all Arabs out of their country if they were so anti-Arab? And now about 20% of Israeli citizens are Arab, mostly Muslim I believe.
As a socialist Jewish American living in a red rural area, I think the silver lining about all of this is that this war made some things crystal clear for me - both in terms of how this current war could/should end, how Israel could win the Israeli-Palestinian Crisis, and what it means for me personally:
==THE CURRENT WAR==
1. In terms of the current war, Israel should do to Gaza what it should have done in Southern Lebanon in 2006: Israel should just TAKE the Northern 50% of Gaza, and (temporarily) expel the Palestinian population to Southern Gaza. (It already did this a few months ago - just do it again.) Then, tell Hamas that they'll get half of that have (25%) of Gaza back once all the hostages are returned, and the rest back once Hamas steps down and/or is overthrown. Blunt as this sounds, sometimes, the best way to respond to a hostage crisis is to take 20x as many of their people (or their land) hostage, and see how they like it. Similarly, if Biden had let Israel cut off Gaza's entire water supply (as was proposed when the war started), the Gaza War would have been over within a month. It's one of the saddest things I've ever had to learn (both as a Soldier myself and from the current war): Sometimes, trying to reduce suffering backfires. It just prolongs the conflict, bad guys don't get defeated, and the suffering just gets worse.
2. Ideally, Israel would a. invade Rafah to topple what's left of Hamas, then build a new democratic government in the strip from scratch to rebuild the place. But Biden doesn't look like he'll let Israel go into Rafah or take the Philadelphi Corridor (on the border of Egypt and Gaza). And Gaza does not deserve to be rebuilt as long as Hamas is running it. Hopefully, the lack of reconstruction coupled with loosing a quarter of half the strip will finally convince the Gazans to overthrow Hamas. But if not, at least they'll be punished for it.
==THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT==
3. Caroline Glick is right. And her solution for an Israeli victory to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis remains the most logical and valid solution out there: Israel should annex the West Bank, end the occupation, create a path to equal citizenship and voting rights for the peace-loving Palestinians who live there, and deport those who support terrorism. Gaza can be spun off as an independent country (which it de facto has been since 2007). If Hamas is overthrown, it could become a Middle Eastern Singapore. But if the Gazan population continues to support islamofascism, then Gaza will turn into a Middle Eastern Haiti.
4. Glick's solution works because it takes the best parts of the 1 and 2 state solutions and combines the two. It also helps that a. the 1997 Palestinian census was an empirically verifiable lie, whereby the Palestinian Authority claimed a Palestinian population about 25% higher than it actually was. With this in mind, Israel could maintain both its Jewish super-majority and democratic character by annexing the West Bank but not Gaza. It would also have the side benefit of b. eliminating the Palestinian Authority government, which for 25 years has created an incompetent, authoritarian, anti-Semitic kleptocracy that openly funds terrorism and is run by a Holocaust Denier (see Mahmoud Abbas's doctoral dissertation).
5. For those who still think Israel must turn over the West Bank to create a Palestinian state, riddle me this: The percentage of Israeli's who live in the West Bank (which has has a Jewish presence since the Bronze Age) is roughly equivalent to the percentage of Americans who live in Texas plus New Jersey. Would the United States EVER depopulate Texas in order to recreate the Comancheria? The Comancheria was the exceptionally violent Comanche empire that existed the 18th and early 19th centuries, which Americans then viewed pretty much the same way we would see ISIS today. That so many Israelis would have even considered doing the equivalent of this so seriously for the last quarter century shows just how seriously Israelis wanted peace. They really did try.
==POLITICAL & PERSONAL IMPLICATIONS==
6. The Democratic Party should no longer take the Jewish vote for granted. From 1992-2008, American Jews reliably gave the Dems 76-80% of the vote. But it's been declining since - down to 68% in 2020. And I think it'll probably sink even further as the Democratic Party adopts an anti-Israel narrative. However....
7. If Jews like me become Republican, you can bet that I'll take all my left-wing socialist and liberalism on economic and social issues with me. And it very well might be that, in the flaming wreckage of the GOP in what will be a likely Trump loss in 2024, ex-Democrat Jews might have to single-handedly rebuild a liberal or even socialist wing within the Republican Party, or maybe even become Independents. Whether such a thing is even possible isn't clear. But it's worth nothing that Bernie got elected to Congress as a socialist (and as mayor before that) back when Vermont was still a red state.
8. On a national level, I really like America's two-party system; each party keeps the other in check, and prevents an idiot like Trump from become a dictator. But on a state and local level, two-party competition breaks down into one party dominance, namely because we lack any mechanism of proportional representation (amongst the top two parties). One party dominance leads to corrupt and incompetent government. Having lived in Menino's Boston, Marion Barry's DC, and a GOP-dominated rural area, what's clear to me is that Democratic and Republican Party establishments are both terrible when not kept in check. And much as I'd die to keep American Democracy alive, I will not sacrifice myself for either the Democratic or Republican Party.
9. I say #8 with a great deal of pain in my heart, because I've put YEARS of my life into trying to rebuild the Democratic Party in my rural red state. Only to find out a. the massive gap between what needs to happen organizationally and what the state party is willing to do, and b. that for most local Democrats, being a Democrat is more about being part of a contrarian social club, and not actually winning or holding power. And that's not even throwing in the growing influence of anti-Semites amongst progressives or the anti-working class/anti-poor condescension amongst certain middle class interest groups I've had to spend my time dealing with.
10. So I'll say again: For those of us (like me) who are serious about fixing our broken system/economy, I'll fight to the death for what America stands for. But I won't die for the current Republican or Democratic Parties. Good news though: The flexibility this provides (i.e., running as a Republican in a Republican area to get elected, then becoming an Independent once elected) might broaden the path to power considerably. My illusions are gone. And that's my silver lining to this damn war!
Interesting points. Thanks for this.
Can't say that I agree with, or can analyze with authority everything you proposed without lengthy consideration, but a very solid, interesting piece.
Thanks!!
I don’t like the two party system and I disagree that it is working at the national level.
So you think voting third party will help? You a Russian bot?
I do semi-agree with you. I think that the issue, on a national level, is that we have one party representing the top 1%, the other party representing the top 10%, and the bottom 90% get ignored.
But it wasn't supposed to be this way. Sociologists dating back to Robert Michels described something called The Iron Law of Oligarchy, whereby any organizational or political leadership tends to put its own selfish interests ahead of everyone else's. (Case in point: See how quickly one-party dictatorships degenerate into the one party essentially robbing the rest of the population.) And there are really only two way to prevent this Iron Law dynamic from unfolding: One is Athenian-style direct democracy - fill political offices by lot rather than election (eliminating the barrier between ruler and ruled). The other is a two-party system - which as the sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset showed, involves two chunks of the elite keeping each other in check, and each trying to win over as much of the rest of the population.
Me personally, I'm much more in favor of the Athenian model. We could totally implement that, especially in local government. The Founding Fathers sadly chose not to adopt the Athenian model. Instead, they adopted the three branches of government system (perhaps unknowingly, from Ancient Carthage), and fused it with a two-party system of government that they had inherited from Great Britain (which itself was a consequence of the English Civil War in the 1600's ending in a stalemate).
Both Van Buren (who much as anyone created both the modern Democratic and Republican Parties) and Tocqueville argued that as long as there were two parties able to compete against each other at every level of government, especially locally, people would be empowered because they would have two intelligent models of governance to choose between. But if local/state level political competition broke down, national political competition would get hollowed out.
Also noteworthy is that our political system at its best worked to replace any party that failed to come up with such a local-to-national vision of governance. I.e., if one of the two main parties failed (Federalists, Whigs, Know-Nothings), either a third party or faction splitting off from the first party would replace the dying second party to become a new second party.
The problem is that this system is very high maintenance, especially as the geographic size and population grows. The same way Westminster-style parliamentary systems degenerate from a national 2-3 party system (Canada/UK) to a national 1.5 party system (India) when country sizes grow, our system - being so high-maintenance - also degenerates, but in its own way.
You still have two parties able to compete for the presidency largely as they always have. And when someone like Trump got elected, usually within two years they loose control of Congress, thus preventing people genuine authoritarians like him from doing what Orban did. But on the other hand, many states and especially localities have become one-party dominant. And with the two parties ossifying into being dominant in certain regions, a. main parties loose the incentive to compete as strongly in Wyoming as in Washington DC, and b. it makes it that much harder for a third party to replace one of the main ones. Hence the bottom 90% getting ignored.
Good News though: I don't actually see this problem as lasting forever. America has a rather unexpected history of passing major changes to political structures surprisingly quickly through both parties. Secret Ballots, primaries, McGovern-Fraser all completely reshaped two-party competition in less than 15 years each. All the problems described in this post could be fixed with a relatively minor change, versions of which are already beginning to get implemented.
Correct. Competition is almost gone. 80% of American political races are non-competitive. We began with the most astonishing political innovation, from monarchy to a Constitutional Republic governed via rule of law. And now we have fallen to an unbearable level of hyper-partisanship, with a system DESIGNED to maintain it. We need to pass substantive, meaningful reforms.
I think your analysis doesn’t go far enough when you say the GOP represents the 1% and Dems the top ten, although I agree with you that wealth inequality is a central, core, fundamental issues and it MUST be addressed or our democracy will continue to slide.
The Politics Industry is a look at the system and offers what I think are good ideas for reforming it. My background is in systems analysis, seeing human systems as a whole ecology of interdependent entities that interact and influence each other.
On the psychosocial aspects of what is happening in our political system today, I found this Moyer podcast edifying. Judith Herman Robert J Lifton figure in my own research, but Dr. Brandy Lee was new to me and she make aspects of the pathology of what is happening in the GOP clearer to me.
https://billmoyers.com/story/podcast-bill-moyers-talks-with-dr-bandy-lee-about-the-dangerous-case-of-donald-trump/
These two Substack articles get into what I’m working on in electoral reform:
https://open.substack.com/pub/democracysos/p/democracy-in-divided-societies-electoral?r=9xn5d&utm_medium=ios
https://open.substack.com/pub/scottsantens/p/what-alaskas-first-use-of-ranked?r=9xn5d&utm_medium=ios
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Thank YOU for the book recommendation. I will definitely check it out!! Meanwhile, if you're interested - Bob Cesca on Banter wrote another post on the Electoral College. You mentioned the need to pass substantive, meaningful reforms - I totally agree! And in a reply I posted to Cesca's article, I wrote out what I think such a substantive reform could look like and why. Would love to know what you think!
I’ll take a look! It’s so nice to be in a “media” ecosystem where people share knowledge and links instead of busting on each other or competing for the most likes. Thanks!
The history you shared is fascinating to me, too, and I want to know more. But I am so woefully ignorant! I spent the World History class drawing the camel on the textbook cover. (Still got straight As, though. ;)
As a philosemitic Arab-American, I have long believed that even if one's sole moral concern were the security of Israel, it would be in the long-term interest of Israel to work much harder to de-escalate the overall situation. Work for the creation of a viable two-state solution, so the Palestinians have fewer causes for daily grievance. Remove the West Bank settlers. Get foreign aid to help improve the economic situation for the Palestinians — all of this would benefit *Israel* by calming the atmosphere and giving Palestinians a real hope of a decent life.
The Israeli right wing will never concede the value of an approach like this, of course. They're far too committed to territorial expansion and subjugation of the Arabs.
Finally, if one did consider Palestinian human rights and dignity in one's moral approach, and not just the security of Israel, then the path would be even clearer. As an Arab-American, I would gently encourage this. We're human beings too.
Agreed. Well stated Christopher.
I agree completely about the West Bank and thought many years ago that keeping lands won in war was a big mistake for Israel. And they have back Sinai AND Gaza. However as far as foreign aid, I think we need to be careful to make sure it goes to help the Arabs/ Palestinians of Gaza and West Bank live better lives and NOT to build tunnels for a military force with weapons manufacture capabilities. Or as with UNRWA, for educational personnel and facilities that reportedly teach hatred of Jews and Israelis ( and I believe this to be the case). And unfortunately I keep on wonderful why the rest of the Middle East doesn’t help the Palestinians in the way that much of Europe helped Ukrainians under attack and the way that Israel helped Jewish refugees from other parts of the Middle East, Russia and Ethiopia when they needed help.
Although there is plenty of popular support in the Arab world for the Palestinians, the regional governments like having the crisis continue so they can keep Israel in turmoil. It's all very cynical power politics.
It is and Putin loves it too and I think Russia helps with the propaganda war that Israel is losing and has neglected at its peril.
There has been a de facto two state solution. And statehood has been in the able many times over decades. Always turned turn by the Palestinian side. This isn’t about land for peace.
The Arabs in the region never agitated for a state - not under the Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years, not under Jordan or the British. Not even when Israel was initially given statehood. There wasn’t a Palestinian Arab movement. It did not exist. This is about killing Jews and removing them from the region. And it’s a modern astroturf movement that didn’t pick up momentum until the 1960s when Arafat came in the scene. Arafat who wasn’t even born in the area. The Arabs are the apartheid seekers here. Hanas is an islamofascist organization.
If they want peace, they can surrender. But they won’t and they will be finished off. The Palestinians who voted for them and support their efforts to ethnically cleanse the region of Jews, also deserve what they asked for. The barrier to peace is the maniacs who started the war and who preach hate all day long. If you have moral concerns, then figure out where the real problem lies.
Israel didn’t expel 700000 Arabs. They fled the war launched by the surrounding Arab nations in the instructions of their leaders. The idea was that after the brave Arabs slaughtered all the Jews, they would come back. Didn’t work out that way. Israel won’t let them come back. That much is true. Too bad, so sad.
There was a ceasefire with Hamas before they attacked on October 7th. Hamas broke the ceasefire by massacring Jews. Hamas deserves everything they are getting now. And the people who elected Hamas and support them by a wide margin, who were happy when the massacred Jews, and who went in after Hamas to loot and take their own hostages, are getting what they asked for. Don’t want war? Don’t start a war.
You’re conflicted because you can’t accept that reality is never black and white. People suffer in war. That’s a given. You’re a Jew agonizing over the people who have made it their life’s mission to wipe Jews out. Not smart.
“The only thing standing between the Gazan people and a ceasefire is Hamas.” - Anthony Blinken. U.S. Secy. of State, this morning https://jewdicious.substack.com/p/passover-poland-april-19-1943
The more compelling argument is that even if the events of 1948 were considered wrong (which they weren't), history demonstrates that such wrongs are often resolved over time through reconciliation and progress. Israel serves as a prime example; Ashkenazi Jews, including my own family, no longer feel the need to reclaim lost land in eastern Europe. Moroccan Jews in Israel have moved forward without longing for their former businesses. They have embraced progress and moved on. The persistent refusal of Palestinians to move past grievances perpetuates an unresolved conflict. Should Mexico resort to endless violence until they reclaim Los Angeles? Should the British retaliate until they recover their tea from Boston Harbor? History is filled with such examples of resilience and progress. Many who have suffered, such as Japan and Germany, have reconciled with former adversaries to become close partners. It's about acknowledging reality, self-reflection, and turning over a new leaf. Just as in our personal lives, nations must confront past wrongs to move forward. Why should nation-states be any different?
You can thank UNRWA for that. Read Dr. Einat Wilfe on this topic.
I will never forget the weekend after October 7, HAMAS had attacked, hundreds of hostages were being held and self-made videos of the atrocities were visible all over the internet while Israel other than a few targeted missile strikes and the mobilisation of some specialist army units had done nothing in response.
That next weekend saw the town squares, plazas and streets of western capital cities fill with protesters………. against Israel!!
I mean no wonder they decided they were on their own and nothing they would do could impact global opinion anyway
Personally I’ve given up on going out of my way to defend Israel the last 2 months, after years of being a staunch and loud defender of Israel even in groups of leftwing friends where it causes me grief, the behaviour of Bibi and particularly the Settlers in the West Bank the last few months is so self-defeating, so dangerous and so indefensible that this is the first thing in months I’ve said or written expressly on Israel’s side but even with all that terrible behaviour from Israeli settlers and their leader the fact still remains that Hamas launched the attack with the goal of killing as many Israelis as possible and (and this is very important to understand) with the plan to try and provoke Israel into killing as many Palestinian civilians as possible
Every step of their post October 7 strategy has been based around getting as many civilians killed as they can provoke and force the Israelis into, from tunnels to rocket launch sights, from putting military vehicles in aid truck convoys and using first aid symbols on military vehicles and buildings their goal has been to get Israeli soldiers to kill Palestinian civilians (why do you think we have so many perfectly shot gruesome videos of these deaths, they take camera crews sitting protected while they see their countrymen killed in actions they deliberately provoked the time and place of
So no, I have no time for ‘leftists’ attacking Israel BUT until Bibi is gone this will probably be my last comment In Israel’s defence, there are other problems in the world and Bibi has forfeited the right to get me to spend time or effort defending them
Sorry for such a long comment but at least it means I’ll be able to tell, if there are any replies, which ones came from ppl who read the whole thing and which from those who read one small part and replied with outrage and the ppl who can’t even be bothered reading it all before replying will get the response that kind of narcissism deserves
I agree. And one other point worth noting here: Even if we accept the Hamas casualty counts (which is probably a terrible idea), a 1:1 civilian:combatant kill ratio is actually REALLY good. Speaking as a member of the military, when we fought ISIS in Raqaa and Mosul, our civ:soldier kill ratio was probably 4:1 or 5:1. Which means that if we were fighting in Gaza instead of the Israelis, there would be 48,000 to 64,000 additional civilian deaths. And if the Russians were fighting in Gaza, it would be higher still.
This might not be a popular view elsewhere, but the Israelis have done a remarkably good job minimizing civilian casualties compared to comparable militaries.
Thank you!!
I mean, I literally typed this in that comment 😔😔😔
“Sorry for such a long comment but at least it means I’ll be able to tell, if there are any replies, which ones came from ppl who read the whole thing and which from those who read one small part and replied ….. and the ppl who can’t even be bothered reading it all before replying will get the response that kind of narcissism deserves”
A great piece on how Bibi is completely fucking shit up. And ignoring his advisors.
https://open.substack.com/pub/tcinla757/p/israel-is-going-from-bad-to-worse?r=1rfdru&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
I seriously doubt that. Anyhow, as long as Hamas exists in Gaza, there can be no ceasefire. To steal a line from Robert Frost, for Israel the only way out is through.