I’m joined in this wide-ranging conversation by Robert Farrell, a dedicated anti-Zionist who has been passionate about the topic for more than 25 years.
I am from Ireland and while that gives me no insight into Gaza, I know a little about how complicated these situations truly are. All my life I've been listening to foreigners saying "but it's just a reaction to occupation and colonialism" or "but the gov stands for law and order - at least they *try* to avoid harming civilians...".
It is hopeless to try and reason your way to a conclusion based on the sequence of what happened historically. Look how hard it is to know what's going on in the world now. It's almost impossible to get the truth. Do you think it gets clearer with the passage of time?
The older I get the more I find myself reaching for this simple thought experiment: what would happen if one given side put down their arms and stopped fighting? Now what if the other side did it instead?
The answer to this question doesn't tell you who started it, or which actions were justified and which were not. It only tells you what should happen next.
Here is a bitter pill to swallow: the past matters, but the kind of world that each conflicting side is trying to build matters more.
I completely agree that the prospective world each side is trying to build is the most important aspect by far. But it's for that reason that I don't find this conflict that complicated. The Palestinians are overwhelming motivated by jihadi fundamentalism and nationalistic revanchism (read: humiliation at Jewish competence).
And because jihadism is so central to their mythos, Palestinians are _far_ more religiously crazy than the rest of the Muslim world, with 98% describing themselves as either "somewhat" or "truly" religious (https://archive.ph/vtyO7). I personally have no interest in spawning yet another country that executes gays and subjugates women.
"We know they hate the jews, because Palestinians repeatedly tells us they do."
So how would you apply the miasma protocol to this particular lie?
It's unfortunately vague ("they," "Palestinians") relies on an unfalsifiable claim about the vaguely defined others mental state (Sure, they SAY they don't want to be anally raped until their intestines rupture, but I know they really mean they hate Jews.)
"The Palestinians are overwhelming motivated by jihadi fundamentalism and nationalistic revanchism (read: humiliation at Jewish competence)."
I would remind you that by your own admission, you've never read a single book by a Palestinian, never seen a movie or play created by Palestinian artists, could not name a single Palestinian sports hero, business leader, actor or politician. This psychoanalysis of the reaction of people to being violently ethnically cleansed is based on nothing other than characters you've created in your own imagination.
"And because jihadism is so central to their mythos, Palestinians are _far_ more religiously crazy than the rest of the Muslim world, with 98% describing themselves as either "somewhat" or "truly" religious"
So someone "somewhat" religious counts as "religiously crazy" according to your definition. Come on.
Let's take that as read for the sake of argument. Say the Palestinians are fanatically religious as rule (again, I remind you this impression on your part is based on no study of Palestinians, not talking to any Palestinians, not reading anything Palestinians have written, etc). Tough titties. I wish rural Americans could vote. They believe stupid things and vote for insane corrupt grifters who endanger us all. But that's not how democracies work.
"I support apartheid because if you give natives the vote, they'll vote for a kind of government I don't like." OK.
There's not a lot of need to generalize without data about Palestinians at large, when the organized institutions and parties of Palestinian society (Hamas, Fatah, PFLP, UNRWA, etc) have plenty about them to criticize.
UNRWA is not a Palestinian institution, it's a branch of the UN which provides food, shelter, healthcare, educations, and suchlike necessities of life to Palestinian refugees.
The effort to lump them in with Hamas and Fatah is Israeli propaganda with the obvious purpose of demonizing the the organization in order to make it easier to starve the Palestinians and otherwise cut off the basic necessities of life.
Obviously they hire local staff. There's no practical alternative to that. It doesn't make them a Palestinian organization, any more than MSF or World Central Kitchen are.
As for their political statements, if you could point me to anything more political than "Please stop killing us and the people we serve" I'd be happy to educate myself on their politics.
The difficulty with that thought experiment is that it entirely relies on your intuition about the parties involved. All it really tells you is who you like better.
Saying that you are relying on intuition to answer this question is the same thing as saying you just don't know the answer. That's fair enough - if you really don't have anything else to go on, then it's not a helpful experiment at all.
But there is often evidence to go on. Was there peace recently that was broken, where the circumstances were clear? If it was 50 years ago it's probably not much use. If there are credible accusations that the breaking of peace was provoked, then it's not much use. But sometimes it's fairly clear who broke the peace and why. Sometimes they tell you!
You can try taking each side at their word. In Northern Ireland, the UK government always claimed that they only wanted peace and the rule of law. On the other hand, the IRA made no such pretence - their stated goal was the removal the UK government from the island. Were both sides telling the truth about their goals? Hard to say, probably not 100%. But saying that you would have nothing but intuition to go on here would be ignoring some pretty strong evidence.
Then make the case with the evidence rather than an appeal to your, or others, imagination.
If we look at this specific instance, we find copious evidence of Israel making war on the Palestinians if they resist, and using racist violence under a brutal apartheid regime to slowly strangle them if they collaborate.
Israel has invaded every neighbor it shares a border with multiple times, and violated those borders innumerable times. But the people appealing to imagination are not thinking, and do not want their readers to think, about any of that. They want you to think the brown people are savage and fanatical, and the white people in suits are sane and reasonable and just want to be left alone.
This guy’s comments about the supposed illegitimacy of cutting off supplies to the enemy in war makes me wonder how much of the history of warfare he’s actually familiar with—if any—outside the context of Israel/palestine.
Also at 1:40:00 he’s very clearly “misunderstanding” you on purpose by conflating civilian and military.
That was a particularly frustrating exchange. The attempted bait-and-switch was bad enough, but the continued insistence was baffling after it was obvious that I wasn't falling for it.
You actually do get a "free pass" on any harms incurred by civilians, so long as the anticipated military advantage is "proportional" to the anticipated harms. There has never ever ever in the history of mankind ever been any assessment of military conduct which mandates that any harm to civilians above zero is automatically a war crime. You are hallucinating a made-up and completely unworkable standard. If you want to argue war crime violations, you must do so through the lens of proportionality.
Again, you are wrong, and it's a direct result of trying to speak authoritatively on subjects you know nothing about and haven't bothered to learn anything about.
Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 23:
"ART. 23. — Each High Contracting Party shall allow the free
passage of all consignments of medical and hospital stores and
objects necessary for religious worship intended only for civilians of
another High Contracting Party, even if the latter is its adversary. It
shall likewise permit the free passage of all consignments of
essential foodstuffs, clothing and tonics intended for children under
fifteen, expectant mothers and maternity cases."
The free passage of humanitarian aid has nothing to do with the proportionality doctrine, which applies to the consequences of military attacks. Nor, of course, would starving 2.3m people to punish Hamas, which has its own stockpiles of food and medicine, meet the doctrine of proportionality if it applied here, which it does not.
This is also discussed in the additional protocols (1977):
"Article 54 - Protection of objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population
"1. Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is prohibited.
2. It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works, for the specific purpose of denying them for their sustenance value to the civilian population or to the adverse Party, whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians, to cause them to move away, or for any other motive."
I find legalistic debate over IHL stupid because, to borrow a (para)phrase, "the Geneva Conventions are not a suicide pact." But even within the purely legalistic framework, it takes two seconds to see you're arguing in bad faith, as Article 23 expressly conditions the passage of humanitarian aid on military conditions:
------------------------------------------
The obligation of a High Contracting Party to allow the free passage of the consignments indicated in the preceding paragraph is subject to the condition that this Party is satisfied that there are no serious reasons for fearing:
(a) that the consignments may be diverted from their destination,
(b) that the control may not be effective, or
(c) that a definite advantage may accrue to the military efforts or economy of the enemy through the substitution of the above-mentioned consignments for goods which would otherwise be provided or produced by the enemy or through the release of such material, services or facilities as would otherwise be required for the production of such goods.
------------------------------------------
Paragraphs 3 and 5 of Article 54 to the additional protocols similarly contemplate that attacks on indispensable infrastructure may be militarily necessary under some circumstances.
If you were arguing in good faith, one could reasonably disagree over how these principles apply with respect to Israel and Hamas, but your intentional omission of those conditions from the terms of the debate shows you aren't.
I think Yassine would emphasise this point, not to military combatants. He stated multiple times that the problem is differentiating between civilian and militant population.
But I try to see your case. You think it doesn't matter if some or even most of it could be stolen by Hamas? It was intended for civilians, so Israel should still allow it, it doesn't matter what happens afterwards?
I think you cannot starve an entire population based on the accusation that some of the food COULD POSSIBLY be diverted to combatants. By that logic, government-engineered mass starvation, such as occurred in Eritrea under Ethiopian rule, or Ukraine under Soviet rule, would be fully justified, but in fact, these are rightly regarded as some of the worst atrocities of the 20th century.
There are international organizations delivering the aid. They aren't being raided or robbed by Hamas. This entire rationalization is based on a "what if" which itself doesn't make sense.
I would like to correct you on one point. Yassine at no point expressed that there was a problem in differentiating between combatants and noncombatants. His position is that if a single grain of rice could possibly come into the possession of a combatant by the provision of aid, then starvation of the entire civilian population is legal and just. Framing it as a problem implies the possibility of a solution or a compromise, but at no point did Yassine express any interest in or desire for a solution, because this is not something he sees as a problem, it's a way for him to rationalize his support for war crimes.
I don't see "Palestine," "Hamas," or any other similar entity or organization on the list of "State Parties/Signatories" to the Geneva Conventions (which makes sense because Palestinian statehood is...controversial and not well-accepted), but regardless excludes Hamas from the full protection afforded to conflicts between "High Contracting Parties."
At most they'd fall under Common Article 3, which applies to conflicts within the territory of contracting parties (though I doubt the Palestinians would like to admit they're "within Israeli territory") as well as to conflicts between governments and rebel forces...but even then they break the rules at least as much as the Israelis do, as CA3 bars muder (suicide bombs), taking of hostages (Oct. 7 and hijackings), and discrimination based on race/religion (refusal to allow jewish settlement in "palestinian" territories). And that's even before we get into their other breaches of customary law-of-war issues (not fighting in uniform; hiding among civilians; deliberately striking civilians, etc.).
I don't wanna do a big back and forth and catch you in a "gotcha" Robert, just wanted to explain why this commenter and others might be frustrated with that exchange. I pulled the transcript here, so direct quotes, feel free to point out if I took anything out of context.
1:37:24
Y: "So if we have two enemy forces fighting each other, there's no civilians around whatsoever. You're claiming that it's illegal, it's a war crime to cut off supply to the enemy?"
R: "Food, to cut off food."
You clearly make a strong claim here. If you'd like to provide a source backing up this claim here in the comments I would appreciate it, but from my understanding this is incorrect.
I also wanted to point out this part of the exchange because it happened a lot throughout. Be careful about reframing others in such a way, it really subtracts from the conversation.
1:39:33
Y: "So I want to know where in the Geneva Convention it says that an enemy force is not allowed to cut off food supply to an active confrontational force."
R: "You want to know where it says they can't cut off food supplies to civilians?"
"I don't wanna do a big back and forth and catch you in a "gotcha" Robert"
Oh, I don't think you need to worry about that.
"You clearly make a strong claim here."
I'm not. That was was of several times I tried to correct the terminology Yassine was using, justifying starving civilians by calling food "supplies" or "rations." I'm correcting his slanted framing. I'm not saying anything about his hypothetical, which I reject. "OK, you think starving civilians is wrong, but WHAT IF there WERE no civilians there!" There were. There are. And cutting off FOOD to CIVILIANS is wrong.
Cutting off food to an area that has both civilians and armed combatants is a proportionality test question. There is no blanket prohibition on the tactic.
You've obviously heard of this one concept in the application of the Geneva Conventions to conflicts, failed to understand it, and think it it applies everywhere. "Mr Smith, you need to make your child support payments, or you will go to jail." "No because I PLEAD THE FIFTH." That's the level of understanding that you're at. I'm embarrassed for you.
Yassine, I commend you for putting in the effort to have this conversation, but I had to give up after an hour and half of listening to this guy's inane ramblings. I just couldn't take it anymore.
I know you're not doing this out of any tribal affiliations, but you have no idea how much it means to Jews to see someone like yourself standing up to these purveyors of hatred and trying to bring honesty, fairness and objectivity to these issues, so you have my utmost gratitude.
Well technically "children" is a legal term, and if we accept the interpretation from their jurisdiction of origin, we can see that Hamas (aka the government) considers 16 to be the age of majority, therefore this was not a "child" suicide bomber and you accordingly are a liar
Where's the 14-year-old suicide bomber, Yassine? You frequently claim you use language precisely and say exactly what you mean. Where is the 14-year-old suicide bomber you claimed existed?
Or, whatever, just keep beating up on your straw man here.
I think it's also worth pointing out that your claim is predicated not just on the fact of young *suicide bombers* but all sorts of violent attacks by youth, and of that occurring there is ample evidence. A few such examples:
I enjoyed it! Sure, some wild answers here and there, but they were answers that moved conversation forward and not stuck in a loop. Would be very glad if you two would talk again.
If I can ask a couple of questions to both sides.
For Yassine: what would convince you that Israel crossed the line and would would lose "right to exist"
For Robert: what would convince you that granting citizenship and full rights would invite unacceptable level of violence to jewish population. Bonus points if you define this unacceptable level
We didn't get a chance to discuss this, but I find the "right to exist" rubric rather inscrutable. Nevertheless, I'll interpret this broadly to mean "supporting its existence". The standard I'd apply to Israel is the same I would apply to any other country; a rough utilitarian calculus that incorporates material well-being as well as what values/ideas the country propagates. As a secular humanist, I support countries that advance on those metrics. Israel is extremely wealthy, and it retains a robust democratic and cosmopolitan apparatus within a region of the world that is otherwise wanting on that axis.
If for example Israel stripped citizenship from its Arab citizens, I'd have no interest in defending the country. Or if Israel had a much lower GDP, I'd wonder why exactly any of this project is worth it. Those are both extreme circumstances, but it's very likely my breaking point would be ahead of that.
There's plenty of countries around the world that fail my standards, basically any oppressive (Russia, North Korea, Iran) or immiserated state (so much of Africa), although I would always compare it against the potential replacement/alternative.
Thanks for the answer! If you don't mind, is there something they could do to Arab population in occupied territories that could made you lose interest in defending Israel?
Yes, the further their military actions become motivated by reprisal rather than a legitimate objective, the more they'd lose my support. It's still a fuzzy comparative calculus and there is no bright line. The Allies committed plenty of war crimes during WW2 but I still solidly supported them winning that war given what they were up against.
"For Robert: what would convince you that granting citizenship and full rights would invite unacceptable level of violence to jewish population. Bonus points if you define this unacceptable level"
Good question. I don't think there's a level of infra-communial violence, short of active preparations for genocide (making lists, stockpiling machetes), that would make me think continued apartheid is either morally justified or sustainable.
Let me point out that this is far from being a unique concern. Pro-slavery thinkers in the US hundreds of years ago coined the metaphor of having "the tiger by the tail." I idea being, slavery is not ideal, but if you let Black be emancipated, a bloody war of revenge would be the natural result.
With the benefit of hindsight, it's obvious that continued enslavement of other human beings is not justified as a method of controlling other human beings because you are afraid that, if released, they are going to take revenge.
As a practical matter, any negotiated peace would have to take into account Jews' fears of communal violence. But the question is how to make that transition as safe as possible, not whether or not it's completely without risk.
This argument ultimately rests upon the insane cruelty and brutality of Zionist rule. The worst it gets, the more people feel they can never lose the upper hand to the people they've been mistreating. Yet the fear of the oppressor that the oppressed will be exactly as abusive as they have been are often not bourne out by events.
It's a pretty out there hypothetical, I have to say. I might point out that Zionists have been running something of a natural experiment for the past fifty years. Palestine citizens are second-class, legally and practically inferior in terms of their rights and opportunities. But they can vote, they can engage in legal actions, they can obtain an education and a job. Result: Virtually no intra-communal violence beyond what racist Jews inflict upon them.
To believe in the machete scenario, you have to believe the only reason Palestinian citizens of Israel live in peace with the Jewish population is that the Jewish population always maintains control. If the Arab parties somehow won an election and somehow got the military and civil service to obey them, and switch would flip and the genocide would be on. That seems to me to be less than plausible.
A more parsimonious explanation for the observed facts is that Palestinians are perfectly capable of living peacefully alongside Israelis in a situation approaching legal equality. If you deny them civil rights, steal their land, murder their children etc., then like every other people in modern times that finds themselves in that situation, they will fight.
But let's entertain the hypothetical. Israel uncovers this conspiracy. I'd say they should arrest the people conspiring, break up their plans, strengthen the protections for minorities under the future constitutional regime, and then start moving towards the transition away from apartheid again.
I suppose you talk about West Bank? I wouldn't call 3 busses blowing up a few weeks ago as virtually no violence, personally.
"you deny them civil rights, steal their land". Well that's kinda the problem - right of return and desire that jews left the land. Nowadays progressive people argue that jews should all migrate to US, for example. Technically, the last would be etnhic cleansing rather than genocide, but stll.
"But let's entertain the hypothetical. Israel uncovers this conspiracy. I'd say they should arrest the people conspiring, break up their plans, strengthen the protections for minorities under the future constitutional regime, and then start moving towards the transition away from apartheid again."
Again, thanks for the answer. So it seems Israel shouldn't change direction and press forward for transition even if Palestinians want to kill jews?
No, I was referring to the Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Three empty buses blew up in late February.
"Again, thanks for the answer. So it seems Israel shouldn't change direction and press forward for transition even if Palestinians want to kill jews?"
We seem to be getting pretty far afield from the current reality, where Jews want to kill Palestinians -- especially women and children.
Do you have a thought about why Jews want to kill Palestinians? Do you think that Jews want to kill Palestinians exclusively, or all Muslims? Or Arabs. There are Jews in this conversation, I'm sure, we could ask them.
(Of course, they might object to being referred to in the collective, and as every member of a religion or ethnicity wants the same thing and all its actions (if deplorable) are the expression of the collective will is a little bigoted.)
If the irony is not clear, I do not think that "the Palestinians" as a collective want to kill "the jews." I think there is a lot of very reasonable anger at the specific Jewish persons who have used rape, murder, starvation, and ethnic cleansing again them because they want the Palestinians' home for themselves. To use that anger as an excuse to sustain an apartheid regime which can only survive by the perpetration of the same crimes that brought it into exist is, in my view, extraordinarily obtuse.
Holding people under tyrannical rule until they are no longer angry at the people doing it is literally "The floggings will continue until morale improves."
Yeah, the implied conclusion is that if you have to choose between the expulsion/extermination of minorities and giving some of those minorities enclave-states capable of repressing the majority, you should choose the former.
damn it, I’m still new to Premiere and made a rookie mistake when exporting. It cut out only the last 4 minutes but hopefully I can upload a replacement. Thanks for pointing it out, and making it through the end!
Wrt 2:16, MENA antisemitism exploded before the nakba in April 1948. There were pogroms (were these staged by Zionists too?) and bombings across the region starting in 1941 amid Palestinian leader Amin Husseini’s genocidal broadcasts on Radio Berlin International. And Egypt literally imprisoned and expelled its remaining Jews in the late 60s.
So I would question whether its useful to paint with such a broad brush.
If you study the history of Sephardic Jews in Arab/Muslim countries, one thing that jumps out is that every society is different and the relationship with their Jewish communities, after Zionists labeled them a foreign nation within a nation and began persecuting the Palestinians, played out in different ways in different societies.
"amid Palestinian leader Amin Husseini’s genocidal broadcasts on Radio Berlin International"
Yep, and Jane Fonda is why 55,000 Americans died in Vietnam. Be serious.
It is important to have insight into both sides of this ongoing conflict. There's much more to it than being against or for either party.
There is another important key factor for the hostilities from Arab countries towards the state of Israel : the deep rooted honor / shame mentality which plays an essential part in the daily lives of Arab muslim communities all over the world.
This aspect of difference in mentality between Arab and western cultures is too often being downplayed and ignored.
"The honor-shame dynamic explains much of the Arab and Muslim hostility to Israel. A state of free Jews (i.e., non-dhimmi infidels), living inside the historic Arab Dar al-Islam*, constitutes blasphemy. Israel’s ability to survive repeated Arab efforts to destroy it constitutes a permanent state of Arab shame before the entire global community."
"Whether one views the impact of Edward Said (1935-2003) on academia as a brilliant triumph or a catastrophic tragedy, few can question the astonishing scope and penetration of his magnum opus, Orientalism.
"In one generation, a radical transformation overcame Middle Eastern studies : A new breed of “post-colonial” academics, boasting a liberating, anti-imperialist perspective, replaced a generation of scholars disparaged by Said as “Orientalists.”
Source : Richard Lander's article "Celebrating Orientalism", winter 2017 :
Amin Husseini was a popular Arabic language Nazi propagandist during the war. He was also a key supporter of the Al-Muthanna Club, which perpetrated Iraq’s Farhud. One of the leading Arab politicians of his day. Not a marginal figure in the history of anti Jewish violence in MENA in the 40s. (And he’d personally incited the first violence of the Arab-Israeli conflict, a pogrom in the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem in 1920).
"One of the leading Arab politicians of the day" according to whom?
He's a convenient figure for Zionists like yourself who want to get around the simple reality that Zionist invaded Palestine, brutalized the people there, and loud proclaimed they were doing it in the name of all Jews everywhere. That affected the position of non-Zionist Jews elsewhere, as indeed was the intention.
Husseini comes up in every account I’ve seen of wartime MENA politics, and he dominated Palestinian politics for 30 years.
You compared my invocation of his genocidal broadcasts in connection with actual (pre-Nakba) pogroms across MENA to blaming Vietnam on Jane Fonda. (Did you think I meant to blame him for genocide in Europe?)
There were 17 years of Palestinian massacres of Jews before the Irgun was founded and began committing terrorism in 1937. Zionists accepted Res. 181; Palestinians committed the Fajja massacre launching the 47-48 war. Wouldn’t call that “Zionists invaded and brutalized Palestine.” More like Zionists wanted millions of refugees to migrate and become the majority in a future country there. Palestinians distrusted them and started killing random Jews, spawning a violent conflict.
"Husseini comes up in every account I’ve seen of wartime MENA politics" that definitely tells us something about who you're reading. Not much else, however.
You say this man was an important politician. In what government did he serve?
He led Egypt’s nominal Palestinian government after the 1948 war. Before that he led political bodies like the Supreme Muslim Council and Arab Higher Committee. The Palestinian delegation at the London Conference in 1939 recognized him as their leader and reluctantly conveyed his rejection of the white paper. I doubt you can find any account of Palestinian politics in the era which doesn’t discuss his dominance. Or any account of wartime MENA politics which doesn’t mention his pro Axis influence.
"There were 17 years of Palestinian massacres of Jews before the Irgun was founded and began committing terrorism in 1937."
There was Jewish terrorism long before the Irgun was founded. It was founded in 1931, not 1937. It was an offshoot of the Haganah, a Jewish terrorism organization founded in 1920.
"Wouldn’t call that 'Zionists invaded and brutalized Palestine.'"
Yes, I can see you're in denial about what happened. How can I help? Do you need a reading list?
You should put Islamic deflectionist in your title so people know where you're coming from.
As if you're obtuse belligerent nature about the Jews wasn't apparent enough.
57 Islamic Nations 22 Arab Nations and your lamenting the one Jewish Nation residing in its indigenous Homeland, odd peculiar and queer you are.
And remarkably unaware of characters on the ground presented by the author that you need to be refreshed yet you're able to produce book lists, don't be an Islamic deflectionist, rather listen to people in the region such as the Lebanese Christian quoted below who describes the barbaric nature of the practitioners of mohammadianism that you seem oblivious to or are a active proponent of.
To remain ignorant of the inherent Islamic teaching of fight the Jews and Christians until they pay the jizia is to be a chump indeed while blaming Israel for the malevolent nature of Islam.
Brigitte Gabriel
@ACTBrigitte
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Lebanon was the only Christian-majority nation in the Middle East.
It's where I was born.
We prided ourselves on inclusivity. Always welcoming Arab Muslim refugees from all over the Middle East.
We had the best economy despite having no natural oil. The best universities.
They called Beirut the "Paris of the Middle East" and the Mountains of Lebanon was a tourist destination.
My early childhood was idyllic, my father was a prosperous businessman in town and my mother was at home with me, an only child.
Slowly, the Arab Muslims began to become the majority in Lebanon and our rights began to wither away.
Soon, we would find ourselves unable to leave our small Christian town without fear of being stopped and killed by Arabs. In Lebanon your religion is on your government issued ID.
As the war intensified and the radical Islamists made their way south, my home was hit by an errant rocket and my life was forever changed.
We spent the next almost decade in a bomb shelter, scraping together pennies and eating dandelions and roots just to survive.
If it was not for Israel coming in and surrounding our town, I do not know If I would be here today.
Lebanon is now a country 100% controlled and run by Hezbollah. I lost my country of birth.
I thank God every single day I was able to immigrate to America and live out the dream that BILLIONS of people only dream of having.
Now here in America, my adopted country that I have come to love so much, I see the same threats and warning signs happening now that took place in Lebanon when I was a child.
This is my warning to you, America, reverse course now while you still can.
It's not too late to save our freedom and preserve it for the next generation.
I'm hesitant on how to phrase this, but in traditional Judaism, Jews are considered a separate nation, and that's been a mainstream self-conception among traditional Jews across time and geography. "Zionists" didn't start it. Historically, if a state has difficulty coping with that non-violently, violent antisemitism results.
I'm curious as to what you would say if you were satisfied that this was true.
I'm a traditional rabbi. I see this language in rabbinic legal texts from the Middle Ages and Early Modern Era, though you can also see it explicitly in the Book of Esther. I think the challenge this self-conception creates is very similar to the challenge posed by the same sentiment among the Roma. Today it is certainly shared by ultra-Orthodox Jews who reject Zionism, such as Neturei Karta.
The nation as we currently understand it is a concept formed and popularized in the 18th and 19th centuries. When older sources use the term "nation" they mean something different by it than what we now signify by the term.
Throughout that period, including up to the founding of the state of Israel and after, the great majority of Jewish people had the concept of being members of what Zionists and antisemites would consider their host nations (really, it is remarkable how much common ground these two groups have, and how often they agree.)
In the post-1967 era, it's not so much that the concept of Jews as a nation has triumphed as the concept of Jewish identity has become hopelessly confused. You, for example, would, I imagine, consider yourself ill-used if your synagogue was subject to taxation and you were asked to register as an agent of a foreign power.
Jewish people are a religious community. Antisemites assigned you an ethnic identity, which has caused Jews to be persecuted as an ethnic group (mostly but not entirely a modern phenomenon). Because of antisemites and what they have done and do, we have to acknowledge the category of "ethnic" Jews, although it doesn't have a basis in history. But ultimately, it's a religious faith, albeit, like many minority faiths, a somewhat insular one.
Another aspect of the phenomenon is the idea of Jews as direct descendants of Abraham and his sister Sarah. But, like the idea of the Roma that they came out of Egypt originally, this is a cultural tradition flatly refuted by the historical record. I recommend Sand's "The Invention of the Jewish People" for a careful and thorough debunking of this myth.
The idea of the nation of Israel seems not to have landed within the sphere of your skull, which seems to be inhabited by a population of Jews grinding away daily in the self-created skatepark between your ears.
As if Jews were ever considered an elemental regular citizen residents of any Nation in history up until the United States of america. Lay off the stupid dude
You’re using a pop history narrative to rebut a primary source scholar. I doubt you’ve convinced yonah that he’s imagined the texts he professionally studies.
As I've said numerous times now, what you're referring to is a complex decades-long process that occurred differently in different places for different reasons.
It's also hardly the case that Zionists didn't succeed elsewhere. In 1980 there were about 2.3m Jews in the Soviet Union; today the number in Russia is about 80k, a >95% decrease.
Of course the Jewish populations of Poland and Germany are a tiny fraction of where they once were. In 1930, there were 3.3m Jews in Poland. In 2024, there are 0.015m, a 99.5% percent decrease, due to the combined efforts of the Zionists and their anti-Semitic allies. (Herzl: “the anti-Semites will become our most dependable friends, the anti-Semitic countries our allies” -- Theodore Herzl, Diaries (June 12, pg 84). Accessed at: https://archive.org/stream/TheCompleteDiariesOfTheodorHerzl_201606/TheCompleteDiariesOfTheodorHerzlEngVolume1_OCR_djvu.txt)
That decrease in Russian population happened as a result of Soviet antisemitism, as I’m sure you’re well aware of. Just as I’m sure you’re suggesting that anything other than the Holocaust and attendant European antisemitism that allowed it in the first place caused those latter population drops, because suggesting Israel is responsible would be cartoonish levels of evil and dumb.
I would say demanding a monocausal explanation for a complex historical phenomenon is indeed "cartoonish levels…of dumb."
Zionists did indeed help the emptying-out of Eastern Europe. Happy to go into their links with the Nazis, efforts to encourage migration to Palestinian both before and after WWII, and their avowed intention of exploiting the genocide for their own purposes, eg:
“If I knew that it was possible to save all the children of Germany by transporting them to England, and only half by transferring them to the Land of Israel, I would choose the latter, for before us lies not only the numbers of these children but the historical reckoning of the people of Israel.”
Ben-Gurion (Quoted on pp 855-56 in Shabtai Teveth’s "Ben-Gurion" in a slightly different translation).
2 points from around 1:28: Not wanting to get hurt doesn't make you a coward, it makes you good at war. Making some other bastard die for his country, yadda yadda.
Also, urban warfare tends to have a civilian to combatant death ratio of about 9:1. Estimates from Gaza suggest civilian to combatant death ratio is less than 2:1.
If Israelis were good at war, they wouldn't have to keep fighting the same war over and over again. They spent a year an $17 billion of our tax dollars on an avowed effort to eliminate a tiny besieged armed faction, and failed. Because they are bad at war.
"Also, urban warfare tends to have a civilian to combatant death ratio of about 9:1."
Cite a source please.
"Estimates from Gaza suggest civilian to combatant death ratio is less than 2:1."
(I didn't expect you to be in the comments. If I had known, I would have used the full quote, not truncated it with yadda yadda.)
If the metric by which we measure how good a country is at war is preventing further conflict, Israel still passes handily. Consider the combatants in the six day war. How many of them still pose a threat to Israel?
But, note, this is a different metric than what was discussed before. I don't think anyone disagrees that Israel has the capability to reduce Gaza to a state where it could pose no threat. It chooses not to because it has prioritized protecting civilian life. I'd rather a country judge their war prowess by minimizing civilian casualties than primarily by preventing future conflict, as it was for most of history (see WWII: Dresden, London, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, etc.). As to my point, I don't think anyone would disagree that minimizing your own casualties is a sign of being good at war.
Always fair to ask for a source, here's where I got the 9:1 figure:
I could certainly see an argument for this source being biased, but it's about what I would expect.
For the ratio in Gaza, deaths are sitting at about 60k (I see no reason to think that Gaza (read: Hamas) is undercounting deaths), and estimates for Hamas deaths is about 20k. But even if we double the ratio, 4:1 is still well under what we would expect.
As for your second comment, the 9:1 ratio is for urban conflict. Most of the conflict on Oct. 7 wasn't in urban environments.
"Also, urban warfare tends to have a civilian to combatant death ratio of about 9:1."
Another amusing implication of this fake statistic is that it implies Hamas are a highly moral and restrained force -- the civilian: combatant death ratio on Oct 7th was less than 3:1.
Yeah there's just one problem. The Israeli civilian deaths on October 7th were not the result of collateral damage. They were killed without any reasonable military justification.
Reasonable is an entirely subjective concept in this context. Many people don't believe Israel's gleeful slaughter of civilians to have "reasonable military justification" which is why both the PM and the defense minister are indicted way criminals and there is an open case against Israel for the crime of genocide at the ICJ.
NB for Mr. Farrell in future debates: when an Arabic or Hebrew place name (e.g. Qibya) is written in English with a Q, it's safe to pronounce as a K. Hard to square 25 years engaging with this material with this repeated jarring mispronunciation.
So they wrote an important argument in an unclear way that embeds a partisan error.
As I understand it, Inverse Florida’s valid point is that leftists are fighting the discursive equivalent of a guerilla war, adopting a rhetorical posture that allows them to blame others while minimizing their blamable surface. A crucial part of this strategy is the rhetorical move of “why are you so worried about these things marginalized leftists are saying when you can see people with formal authority doing those bad things?“
The error mixed in is the false inference that just because leftists are doing a lot of damage in ways that ought to lower our opinion of them, and using criticisms of people in positions of formula authority to deflect attention away from that in bad faith, that therefore their criticisms of the actions of formal authority must therefore be false and unfounded. This is not a valid argument, and moreover the conclusion seems not to have been true in the case of the beheaded babies.
I haven’t looked into the details myself, but it seems like you Robert agree that the Israeli and American state credulously reported false information about beheaded babies as propaganda. Your judgment that the person who casually characterized this as “saying made up shit about beheaded babies” a few days after October 7 was judging prematurely, is some evidence that they have information you don’t, since they were able to form a correct judgment faster than you were.
If Inverse Florida’s thoughts had not been distorted by the perception that criticizing the left has to mean siding against them with the right, they might have more clearly distinguished the invalidity of disputing claims about beheaded babies as a way to dodge accountability for supporting a mass murder, from the question of whether the beheaded babies claim was true. It seems like maybe you inherited IF’s confusion along with their insight.
I never endorsed that inference. Someone trying to deflect attention away from one target towards another target does not tell us anything objective about either targets. All it tells us is how the _deflectors_ feel about either targets, and what their prioritizations are. In the instant case, pro-Hamas leftists really really don't want you to pay attention to Hamas atrocities, and they'll pretend the atrocities don't even exist if need be.
The 40 beheaded babies claim was indeed false, but I did not consider this an example of "credulous reporting". There's always going to be a baseline fog of uncertainty when reporting on any developing story from a live war zone. I've seen no indication that the level of credulity was higher on this story than what you'd expect.
> "is some evidence that they have information you don’t, since they were able to form a correct judgment faster than you were."
Absolutely not. An automaton who mindlessly predicts '6' before a million dice rolls will be 'correct' hundreds of thousands of times, but that's not any indication of the automaton having any exclusive information.
"they'll pretend the atrocities don't even exist if need be."
Or others, like you for example, will pretend that the fake atrocities did exist or, if that position becomes untenable, will pretend the truth doesn't matter at all.
When I got to the bit about, “If you don’t like martyrdom, you must have a really hard time with Memorial Day,” I had to turn it off. If this is the level of sophistry necessary to defend an argument, perhaps it isn’t defensible.
I did ask questions, but if you're accusing me of using questions as a way to present false/misleading claims (i.e. JAQing off) you better show your work.
I am from Ireland and while that gives me no insight into Gaza, I know a little about how complicated these situations truly are. All my life I've been listening to foreigners saying "but it's just a reaction to occupation and colonialism" or "but the gov stands for law and order - at least they *try* to avoid harming civilians...".
It is hopeless to try and reason your way to a conclusion based on the sequence of what happened historically. Look how hard it is to know what's going on in the world now. It's almost impossible to get the truth. Do you think it gets clearer with the passage of time?
The older I get the more I find myself reaching for this simple thought experiment: what would happen if one given side put down their arms and stopped fighting? Now what if the other side did it instead?
The answer to this question doesn't tell you who started it, or which actions were justified and which were not. It only tells you what should happen next.
Here is a bitter pill to swallow: the past matters, but the kind of world that each conflicting side is trying to build matters more.
I completely agree that the prospective world each side is trying to build is the most important aspect by far. But it's for that reason that I don't find this conflict that complicated. The Palestinians are overwhelming motivated by jihadi fundamentalism and nationalistic revanchism (read: humiliation at Jewish competence).
We know they hate the jews, because Palestinians repeatedly tells us they do. Apologists will pretend that they only talk about "Israelis" or "Zionists" but you don't need to be fluent in Arabic to hear and understand what "Yahud" means. There's nothing ambiguous about what people like this dude are saying, "qurati ardeeya" is literally referring to killing jews across the ENTIRE PLANET: https://www.memri.org/tv/hamas-political-bureau-fathi-hammad-explosive-belts-knives-slaughter-kill-jews-all-over-world-israel-one-week-ultimatum
And because jihadism is so central to their mythos, Palestinians are _far_ more religiously crazy than the rest of the Muslim world, with 98% describing themselves as either "somewhat" or "truly" religious (https://archive.ph/vtyO7). I personally have no interest in spawning yet another country that executes gays and subjugates women.
"We know they hate the jews, because Palestinians repeatedly tells us they do."
So how would you apply the miasma protocol to this particular lie?
It's unfortunately vague ("they," "Palestinians") relies on an unfalsifiable claim about the vaguely defined others mental state (Sure, they SAY they don't want to be anally raped until their intestines rupture, but I know they really mean they hate Jews.)
"The Palestinians are overwhelming motivated by jihadi fundamentalism and nationalistic revanchism (read: humiliation at Jewish competence)."
I would remind you that by your own admission, you've never read a single book by a Palestinian, never seen a movie or play created by Palestinian artists, could not name a single Palestinian sports hero, business leader, actor or politician. This psychoanalysis of the reaction of people to being violently ethnically cleansed is based on nothing other than characters you've created in your own imagination.
"And because jihadism is so central to their mythos, Palestinians are _far_ more religiously crazy than the rest of the Muslim world, with 98% describing themselves as either "somewhat" or "truly" religious"
So someone "somewhat" religious counts as "religiously crazy" according to your definition. Come on.
Let's take that as read for the sake of argument. Say the Palestinians are fanatically religious as rule (again, I remind you this impression on your part is based on no study of Palestinians, not talking to any Palestinians, not reading anything Palestinians have written, etc). Tough titties. I wish rural Americans could vote. They believe stupid things and vote for insane corrupt grifters who endanger us all. But that's not how democracies work.
"I support apartheid because if you give natives the vote, they'll vote for a kind of government I don't like." OK.
There's not a lot of need to generalize without data about Palestinians at large, when the organized institutions and parties of Palestinian society (Hamas, Fatah, PFLP, UNRWA, etc) have plenty about them to criticize.
UNRWA is not a Palestinian institution, it's a branch of the UN which provides food, shelter, healthcare, educations, and suchlike necessities of life to Palestinian refugees.
The effort to lump them in with Hamas and Fatah is Israeli propaganda with the obvious purpose of demonizing the the organization in order to make it easier to starve the Palestinians and otherwise cut off the basic necessities of life.
> UNRWA is not a Palestinian institution, it's a branch of the UN
Tell that to their staffing and political statements, which are 100% local Palestinians.
Obviously they hire local staff. There's no practical alternative to that. It doesn't make them a Palestinian organization, any more than MSF or World Central Kitchen are.
As for their political statements, if you could point me to anything more political than "Please stop killing us and the people we serve" I'd be happy to educate myself on their politics.
The difficulty with that thought experiment is that it entirely relies on your intuition about the parties involved. All it really tells you is who you like better.
Saying that you are relying on intuition to answer this question is the same thing as saying you just don't know the answer. That's fair enough - if you really don't have anything else to go on, then it's not a helpful experiment at all.
But there is often evidence to go on. Was there peace recently that was broken, where the circumstances were clear? If it was 50 years ago it's probably not much use. If there are credible accusations that the breaking of peace was provoked, then it's not much use. But sometimes it's fairly clear who broke the peace and why. Sometimes they tell you!
You can try taking each side at their word. In Northern Ireland, the UK government always claimed that they only wanted peace and the rule of law. On the other hand, the IRA made no such pretence - their stated goal was the removal the UK government from the island. Were both sides telling the truth about their goals? Hard to say, probably not 100%. But saying that you would have nothing but intuition to go on here would be ignoring some pretty strong evidence.
Then make the case with the evidence rather than an appeal to your, or others, imagination.
If we look at this specific instance, we find copious evidence of Israel making war on the Palestinians if they resist, and using racist violence under a brutal apartheid regime to slowly strangle them if they collaborate.
Israel has invaded every neighbor it shares a border with multiple times, and violated those borders innumerable times. But the people appealing to imagination are not thinking, and do not want their readers to think, about any of that. They want you to think the brown people are savage and fanatical, and the white people in suits are sane and reasonable and just want to be left alone.
This guy’s comments about the supposed illegitimacy of cutting off supplies to the enemy in war makes me wonder how much of the history of warfare he’s actually familiar with—if any—outside the context of Israel/palestine.
Also at 1:40:00 he’s very clearly “misunderstanding” you on purpose by conflating civilian and military.
That was a particularly frustrating exchange. The attempted bait-and-switch was bad enough, but the continued insistence was baffling after it was obvious that I wasn't falling for it.
Read the Geneva Conventions, my dude.
You don't get a free pass on starving civilians because you think there might be a terrorist in there somewhere.
You actually do get a "free pass" on any harms incurred by civilians, so long as the anticipated military advantage is "proportional" to the anticipated harms. There has never ever ever in the history of mankind ever been any assessment of military conduct which mandates that any harm to civilians above zero is automatically a war crime. You are hallucinating a made-up and completely unworkable standard. If you want to argue war crime violations, you must do so through the lens of proportionality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportionality_(law)#International_humanitarian_law
Again, you are wrong, and it's a direct result of trying to speak authoritatively on subjects you know nothing about and haven't bothered to learn anything about.
Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 23:
"ART. 23. — Each High Contracting Party shall allow the free
passage of all consignments of medical and hospital stores and
objects necessary for religious worship intended only for civilians of
another High Contracting Party, even if the latter is its adversary. It
shall likewise permit the free passage of all consignments of
essential foodstuffs, clothing and tonics intended for children under
fifteen, expectant mothers and maternity cases."
The free passage of humanitarian aid has nothing to do with the proportionality doctrine, which applies to the consequences of military attacks. Nor, of course, would starving 2.3m people to punish Hamas, which has its own stockpiles of food and medicine, meet the doctrine of proportionality if it applied here, which it does not.
This is also discussed in the additional protocols (1977):
"Article 54 - Protection of objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population
"1. Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is prohibited.
2. It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works, for the specific purpose of denying them for their sustenance value to the civilian population or to the adverse Party, whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians, to cause them to move away, or for any other motive."
I find legalistic debate over IHL stupid because, to borrow a (para)phrase, "the Geneva Conventions are not a suicide pact." But even within the purely legalistic framework, it takes two seconds to see you're arguing in bad faith, as Article 23 expressly conditions the passage of humanitarian aid on military conditions:
------------------------------------------
The obligation of a High Contracting Party to allow the free passage of the consignments indicated in the preceding paragraph is subject to the condition that this Party is satisfied that there are no serious reasons for fearing:
(a) that the consignments may be diverted from their destination,
(b) that the control may not be effective, or
(c) that a definite advantage may accrue to the military efforts or economy of the enemy through the substitution of the above-mentioned consignments for goods which would otherwise be provided or produced by the enemy or through the release of such material, services or facilities as would otherwise be required for the production of such goods.
------------------------------------------
Paragraphs 3 and 5 of Article 54 to the additional protocols similarly contemplate that attacks on indispensable infrastructure may be militarily necessary under some circumstances.
If you were arguing in good faith, one could reasonably disagree over how these principles apply with respect to Israel and Hamas, but your intentional omission of those conditions from the terms of the debate shows you aren't.
"Intended for children under
fifteen, expectant mothers and maternity cases."
I think Yassine would emphasise this point, not to military combatants. He stated multiple times that the problem is differentiating between civilian and militant population.
But I try to see your case. You think it doesn't matter if some or even most of it could be stolen by Hamas? It was intended for civilians, so Israel should still allow it, it doesn't matter what happens afterwards?
I think you cannot starve an entire population based on the accusation that some of the food COULD POSSIBLY be diverted to combatants. By that logic, government-engineered mass starvation, such as occurred in Eritrea under Ethiopian rule, or Ukraine under Soviet rule, would be fully justified, but in fact, these are rightly regarded as some of the worst atrocities of the 20th century.
There are international organizations delivering the aid. They aren't being raided or robbed by Hamas. This entire rationalization is based on a "what if" which itself doesn't make sense.
I would like to correct you on one point. Yassine at no point expressed that there was a problem in differentiating between combatants and noncombatants. His position is that if a single grain of rice could possibly come into the possession of a combatant by the provision of aid, then starvation of the entire civilian population is legal and just. Framing it as a problem implies the possibility of a solution or a compromise, but at no point did Yassine express any interest in or desire for a solution, because this is not something he sees as a problem, it's a way for him to rationalize his support for war crimes.
I am ignorant on Ethiopia case, but how Ukraine famine is related? Who are the combatantss?
As for stealing aid, you think it's not Hamas to blame but some other group? Someone did stole almost hundred trucks
https://www.algemeiner.com/2024/09/26/palestinian-authority-says-hamas-is-stealing-aid-meant-for-gaza-civilians/
I think Yassine sees it as a problem, but blames Hamas more. Personally I would blame IDF for refusing third parties to defend aid
I don't see "Palestine," "Hamas," or any other similar entity or organization on the list of "State Parties/Signatories" to the Geneva Conventions (which makes sense because Palestinian statehood is...controversial and not well-accepted), but regardless excludes Hamas from the full protection afforded to conflicts between "High Contracting Parties."
At most they'd fall under Common Article 3, which applies to conflicts within the territory of contracting parties (though I doubt the Palestinians would like to admit they're "within Israeli territory") as well as to conflicts between governments and rebel forces...but even then they break the rules at least as much as the Israelis do, as CA3 bars muder (suicide bombs), taking of hostages (Oct. 7 and hijackings), and discrimination based on race/religion (refusal to allow jewish settlement in "palestinian" territories). And that's even before we get into their other breaches of customary law-of-war issues (not fighting in uniform; hiding among civilians; deliberately striking civilians, etc.).
That's incorrect.
I can tell you why, but I think you'd learn more and it would be more likely to stick if you did the work yourself. Good luck!
See there's one tiny problem with your argument. The rules you listed apply to IACs not NIACs.
Again, you don't know what you're talking about. It's kinda sad.
I don't wanna do a big back and forth and catch you in a "gotcha" Robert, just wanted to explain why this commenter and others might be frustrated with that exchange. I pulled the transcript here, so direct quotes, feel free to point out if I took anything out of context.
1:37:24
Y: "So if we have two enemy forces fighting each other, there's no civilians around whatsoever. You're claiming that it's illegal, it's a war crime to cut off supply to the enemy?"
R: "Food, to cut off food."
You clearly make a strong claim here. If you'd like to provide a source backing up this claim here in the comments I would appreciate it, but from my understanding this is incorrect.
I also wanted to point out this part of the exchange because it happened a lot throughout. Be careful about reframing others in such a way, it really subtracts from the conversation.
1:39:33
Y: "So I want to know where in the Geneva Convention it says that an enemy force is not allowed to cut off food supply to an active confrontational force."
R: "You want to know where it says they can't cut off food supplies to civilians?"
"I don't wanna do a big back and forth and catch you in a "gotcha" Robert"
Oh, I don't think you need to worry about that.
"You clearly make a strong claim here."
I'm not. That was was of several times I tried to correct the terminology Yassine was using, justifying starving civilians by calling food "supplies" or "rations." I'm correcting his slanted framing. I'm not saying anything about his hypothetical, which I reject. "OK, you think starving civilians is wrong, but WHAT IF there WERE no civilians there!" There were. There are. And cutting off FOOD to CIVILIANS is wrong.
"There were. There are. And cutting off FOOD to CIVILIANS is wrong."
You could say that hypothetical is unrealistic. Many hypotheticals are. Yassine wanted to see how you think in theory
Cutting off food to an area that has both civilians and armed combatants is a proportionality test question. There is no blanket prohibition on the tactic.
That's again incorrect. Would you like some links to some basic sources on the Geneva Conventions, what they say and how they work?
And Hamas isn’t supposed to use human shields and hide among civilians, but here we are.
Here we are with you making shit up to justify genocide?
OK, Jan.
Your adolescent attitude and name-calling definitely aren’t winning me or anyone else over to your side.
Sincerely,
Jan
Winning you over to opposing genocide is hardly anything that is my problem. That's a you issue.
Seriously, I was at first intrigued by his command of the facts, but quickly lost all trust in him to deploy them without sophistry.
You've obviously never heard of the proportionality test.
You've obviously heard of this one concept in the application of the Geneva Conventions to conflicts, failed to understand it, and think it it applies everywhere. "Mr Smith, you need to make your child support payments, or you will go to jail." "No because I PLEAD THE FIFTH." That's the level of understanding that you're at. I'm embarrassed for you.
Yassine, I commend you for putting in the effort to have this conversation, but I had to give up after an hour and half of listening to this guy's inane ramblings. I just couldn't take it anymore.
I know you're not doing this out of any tribal affiliations, but you have no idea how much it means to Jews to see someone like yourself standing up to these purveyors of hatred and trying to bring honesty, fairness and objectivity to these issues, so you have my utmost gratitude.
Regarding the claim of kids being suicide bombers, here is a case of a 16-year-old caught in the act, with a suicide vest:
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/nytimes-partners/omnisky/international_story5.html
There is even video of the incident: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_p3ZeROiUrI
Here's a statement from HRW (not a group I'd typically give much credence to) listing various such incidents: https://www.hrw.org/news/2004/11/01/occupied-territories-stop-use-children-suicide-bombings
Remarkable footage, but how do we know if the mentally slow teenager wasn't just transporting explosives?
Also, here's a case of a teenage suicide bomber that did succeed in her goal. She was 17.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayat_al-Akhras
There is a plaque in her honor at a school in Bethlehem: https://www.jns.org/pa-girls-high-school-unveils-plaque-honoring-teen-suicide-bomber/
Well technically "children" is a legal term, and if we accept the interpretation from their jurisdiction of origin, we can see that Hamas (aka the government) considers 16 to be the age of majority, therefore this was not a "child" suicide bomber and you accordingly are a liar
Where's the 14-year-old suicide bomber, Yassine? You frequently claim you use language precisely and say exactly what you mean. Where is the 14-year-old suicide bomber you claimed existed?
Or, whatever, just keep beating up on your straw man here.
I refer you back to your selectively omitted source https://substack.com/@ymeskhout/note/c-97778123
So there was no 14-year-old suicide bomber. We're clear on that? That was either a mistake or a lie on your part?
When we're clear on that fact, we can move on to you not understanding (or pretending not to understand) how quotes work.
Could be argued that the might be older than 14. My google-fu failed, I'm interested to look up that 19 footnote
I think it's unfair to bring up a point Yassine conceded. And Yassine rejected to switch goalposts to 16 or 17 year old.
But out of curiosity, do you defend recruiting 14-year old to transport explosives?
Let me ask you a related question. Do you defend recruiting a 12-year-old to fight in a World War?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_Graham
Indeed, we will never know.
I think it's also worth pointing out that your claim is predicated not just on the fact of young *suicide bombers* but all sorts of violent attacks by youth, and of that occurring there is ample evidence. A few such examples:
15-year-old: https://www.timesofisrael.com/two-lightly-injured-in-stabbing-at-west-bank-checkpoint-assailant-shot/
14-year-old: https://www.timesofisrael.com/palestinian-teen-shot-dead-after-trying-to-stab-police-in-west-bank-town/
13-year-old: https://www.timesofisrael.com/palestinian-teen-sentenced-to-18-years-in-jail-for-2023-killing-of-border-police-officer/
13 and 15-year old cousins: https://archive.ph/H1oQq
Sadly, there are many more such cases. There is also the phenomenon of teens stoning vehicles, which also cause deaths.
Yes, I was aware of the random attacks but I intentionally tried to keep the conversation narrow
Pretty sure it's a war crime to use mentally slow teenagers to transport explosives.
I enjoyed it! Sure, some wild answers here and there, but they were answers that moved conversation forward and not stuck in a loop. Would be very glad if you two would talk again.
If I can ask a couple of questions to both sides.
For Yassine: what would convince you that Israel crossed the line and would would lose "right to exist"
For Robert: what would convince you that granting citizenship and full rights would invite unacceptable level of violence to jewish population. Bonus points if you define this unacceptable level
We didn't get a chance to discuss this, but I find the "right to exist" rubric rather inscrutable. Nevertheless, I'll interpret this broadly to mean "supporting its existence". The standard I'd apply to Israel is the same I would apply to any other country; a rough utilitarian calculus that incorporates material well-being as well as what values/ideas the country propagates. As a secular humanist, I support countries that advance on those metrics. Israel is extremely wealthy, and it retains a robust democratic and cosmopolitan apparatus within a region of the world that is otherwise wanting on that axis.
If for example Israel stripped citizenship from its Arab citizens, I'd have no interest in defending the country. Or if Israel had a much lower GDP, I'd wonder why exactly any of this project is worth it. Those are both extreme circumstances, but it's very likely my breaking point would be ahead of that.
There's plenty of countries around the world that fail my standards, basically any oppressive (Russia, North Korea, Iran) or immiserated state (so much of Africa), although I would always compare it against the potential replacement/alternative.
Thanks for the answer! If you don't mind, is there something they could do to Arab population in occupied territories that could made you lose interest in defending Israel?
Yes, the further their military actions become motivated by reprisal rather than a legitimate objective, the more they'd lose my support. It's still a fuzzy comparative calculus and there is no bright line. The Allies committed plenty of war crimes during WW2 but I still solidly supported them winning that war given what they were up against.
"For Robert: what would convince you that granting citizenship and full rights would invite unacceptable level of violence to jewish population. Bonus points if you define this unacceptable level"
Good question. I don't think there's a level of infra-communial violence, short of active preparations for genocide (making lists, stockpiling machetes), that would make me think continued apartheid is either morally justified or sustainable.
Let me point out that this is far from being a unique concern. Pro-slavery thinkers in the US hundreds of years ago coined the metaphor of having "the tiger by the tail." I idea being, slavery is not ideal, but if you let Black be emancipated, a bloody war of revenge would be the natural result.
With the benefit of hindsight, it's obvious that continued enslavement of other human beings is not justified as a method of controlling other human beings because you are afraid that, if released, they are going to take revenge.
As a practical matter, any negotiated peace would have to take into account Jews' fears of communal violence. But the question is how to make that transition as safe as possible, not whether or not it's completely without risk.
This argument ultimately rests upon the insane cruelty and brutality of Zionist rule. The worst it gets, the more people feel they can never lose the upper hand to the people they've been mistreating. Yet the fear of the oppressor that the oppressed will be exactly as abusive as they have been are often not bourne out by events.
Thanks for direct answer. I assume stockpikes of machetes are vallid if they are discovered in transitional period to one state, not before?
If so, what whould Israel do in such hypothetical?
It's a pretty out there hypothetical, I have to say. I might point out that Zionists have been running something of a natural experiment for the past fifty years. Palestine citizens are second-class, legally and practically inferior in terms of their rights and opportunities. But they can vote, they can engage in legal actions, they can obtain an education and a job. Result: Virtually no intra-communal violence beyond what racist Jews inflict upon them.
To believe in the machete scenario, you have to believe the only reason Palestinian citizens of Israel live in peace with the Jewish population is that the Jewish population always maintains control. If the Arab parties somehow won an election and somehow got the military and civil service to obey them, and switch would flip and the genocide would be on. That seems to me to be less than plausible.
A more parsimonious explanation for the observed facts is that Palestinians are perfectly capable of living peacefully alongside Israelis in a situation approaching legal equality. If you deny them civil rights, steal their land, murder their children etc., then like every other people in modern times that finds themselves in that situation, they will fight.
But let's entertain the hypothetical. Israel uncovers this conspiracy. I'd say they should arrest the people conspiring, break up their plans, strengthen the protections for minorities under the future constitutional regime, and then start moving towards the transition away from apartheid again.
I suppose you talk about West Bank? I wouldn't call 3 busses blowing up a few weeks ago as virtually no violence, personally.
"you deny them civil rights, steal their land". Well that's kinda the problem - right of return and desire that jews left the land. Nowadays progressive people argue that jews should all migrate to US, for example. Technically, the last would be etnhic cleansing rather than genocide, but stll.
"But let's entertain the hypothetical. Israel uncovers this conspiracy. I'd say they should arrest the people conspiring, break up their plans, strengthen the protections for minorities under the future constitutional regime, and then start moving towards the transition away from apartheid again."
Again, thanks for the answer. So it seems Israel shouldn't change direction and press forward for transition even if Palestinians want to kill jews?
No, I was referring to the Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Three empty buses blew up in late February.
"Again, thanks for the answer. So it seems Israel shouldn't change direction and press forward for transition even if Palestinians want to kill jews?"
We seem to be getting pretty far afield from the current reality, where Jews want to kill Palestinians -- especially women and children.
Do you have a thought about why Jews want to kill Palestinians? Do you think that Jews want to kill Palestinians exclusively, or all Muslims? Or Arabs. There are Jews in this conversation, I'm sure, we could ask them.
(Of course, they might object to being referred to in the collective, and as every member of a religion or ethnicity wants the same thing and all its actions (if deplorable) are the expression of the collective will is a little bigoted.)
If the irony is not clear, I do not think that "the Palestinians" as a collective want to kill "the jews." I think there is a lot of very reasonable anger at the specific Jewish persons who have used rape, murder, starvation, and ethnic cleansing again them because they want the Palestinians' home for themselves. To use that anger as an excuse to sustain an apartheid regime which can only survive by the perpetration of the same crimes that brought it into exist is, in my view, extraordinarily obtuse.
Holding people under tyrannical rule until they are no longer angry at the people doing it is literally "The floggings will continue until morale improves."
Yeah, the implied conclusion is that if you have to choose between the expulsion/extermination of minorities and giving some of those minorities enclave-states capable of repressing the majority, you should choose the former.
There are other ways, if the political will is there. But let us wait for Robert's answers
Not sure if it's just me, but it cuts off in the middle of a sentence at 3:02:06
damn it, I’m still new to Premiere and made a rookie mistake when exporting. It cut out only the last 4 minutes but hopefully I can upload a replacement. Thanks for pointing it out, and making it through the end!
Edit: fixed!
Wrt 2:16, MENA antisemitism exploded before the nakba in April 1948. There were pogroms (were these staged by Zionists too?) and bombings across the region starting in 1941 amid Palestinian leader Amin Husseini’s genocidal broadcasts on Radio Berlin International. And Egypt literally imprisoned and expelled its remaining Jews in the late 60s.
So I would question whether its useful to paint with such a broad brush.
If you study the history of Sephardic Jews in Arab/Muslim countries, one thing that jumps out is that every society is different and the relationship with their Jewish communities, after Zionists labeled them a foreign nation within a nation and began persecuting the Palestinians, played out in different ways in different societies.
"amid Palestinian leader Amin Husseini’s genocidal broadcasts on Radio Berlin International"
Yep, and Jane Fonda is why 55,000 Americans died in Vietnam. Be serious.
It is important to have insight into both sides of this ongoing conflict. There's much more to it than being against or for either party.
There is another important key factor for the hostilities from Arab countries towards the state of Israel : the deep rooted honor / shame mentality which plays an essential part in the daily lives of Arab muslim communities all over the world.
This aspect of difference in mentality between Arab and western cultures is too often being downplayed and ignored.
"The honor-shame dynamic explains much of the Arab and Muslim hostility to Israel. A state of free Jews (i.e., non-dhimmi infidels), living inside the historic Arab Dar al-Islam*, constitutes blasphemy. Israel’s ability to survive repeated Arab efforts to destroy it constitutes a permanent state of Arab shame before the entire global community."
"Whether one views the impact of Edward Said (1935-2003) on academia as a brilliant triumph or a catastrophic tragedy, few can question the astonishing scope and penetration of his magnum opus, Orientalism.
"In one generation, a radical transformation overcame Middle Eastern studies : A new breed of “post-colonial” academics, boasting a liberating, anti-imperialist perspective, replaced a generation of scholars disparaged by Said as “Orientalists.”
Source : Richard Lander's article "Celebrating Orientalism", winter 2017 :
https://www.meforum.org/middle-east-quarterly/celebrating-orientalism
* Arab Dar al-Islam : Jerusalem
Another excellent presentation about the Arab view on Israel based on historical and facts, can be watched here :
"The great misinterpretation : How Palestinians view Israel" :
https://youtu.be/QlK2mfYYm4U?si=SfNgONckUeNfb-iG
Thanks for the links, will definitely check them out. I mentioned the "Arab humiliation" aspect in my first piece: https://www.ymeskhout.com/p/the-jewish-conspiracy-to-change-my
Amin Husseini was a popular Arabic language Nazi propagandist during the war. He was also a key supporter of the Al-Muthanna Club, which perpetrated Iraq’s Farhud. One of the leading Arab politicians of his day. Not a marginal figure in the history of anti Jewish violence in MENA in the 40s. (And he’d personally incited the first violence of the Arab-Israeli conflict, a pogrom in the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem in 1920).
"One of the leading Arab politicians of the day" according to whom?
He's a convenient figure for Zionists like yourself who want to get around the simple reality that Zionist invaded Palestine, brutalized the people there, and loud proclaimed they were doing it in the name of all Jews everywhere. That affected the position of non-Zionist Jews elsewhere, as indeed was the intention.
Husseini comes up in every account I’ve seen of wartime MENA politics, and he dominated Palestinian politics for 30 years.
You compared my invocation of his genocidal broadcasts in connection with actual (pre-Nakba) pogroms across MENA to blaming Vietnam on Jane Fonda. (Did you think I meant to blame him for genocide in Europe?)
There were 17 years of Palestinian massacres of Jews before the Irgun was founded and began committing terrorism in 1937. Zionists accepted Res. 181; Palestinians committed the Fajja massacre launching the 47-48 war. Wouldn’t call that “Zionists invaded and brutalized Palestine.” More like Zionists wanted millions of refugees to migrate and become the majority in a future country there. Palestinians distrusted them and started killing random Jews, spawning a violent conflict.
"Husseini comes up in every account I’ve seen of wartime MENA politics" that definitely tells us something about who you're reading. Not much else, however.
You say this man was an important politician. In what government did he serve?
He led Egypt’s nominal Palestinian government after the 1948 war. Before that he led political bodies like the Supreme Muslim Council and Arab Higher Committee. The Palestinian delegation at the London Conference in 1939 recognized him as their leader and reluctantly conveyed his rejection of the white paper. I doubt you can find any account of Palestinian politics in the era which doesn’t discuss his dominance. Or any account of wartime MENA politics which doesn’t mention his pro Axis influence.
"There were 17 years of Palestinian massacres of Jews before the Irgun was founded and began committing terrorism in 1937."
There was Jewish terrorism long before the Irgun was founded. It was founded in 1931, not 1937. It was an offshoot of the Haganah, a Jewish terrorism organization founded in 1920.
"Wouldn’t call that 'Zionists invaded and brutalized Palestine.'"
Yes, I can see you're in denial about what happened. How can I help? Do you need a reading list?
Wow. THIS statement shows that you're not well informed about the historical and political events of a region and the population you claim to support.
I almost regret having wasted my time on replying to you.
You should put Islamic deflectionist in your title so people know where you're coming from.
As if you're obtuse belligerent nature about the Jews wasn't apparent enough.
57 Islamic Nations 22 Arab Nations and your lamenting the one Jewish Nation residing in its indigenous Homeland, odd peculiar and queer you are.
And remarkably unaware of characters on the ground presented by the author that you need to be refreshed yet you're able to produce book lists, don't be an Islamic deflectionist, rather listen to people in the region such as the Lebanese Christian quoted below who describes the barbaric nature of the practitioners of mohammadianism that you seem oblivious to or are a active proponent of.
To remain ignorant of the inherent Islamic teaching of fight the Jews and Christians until they pay the jizia is to be a chump indeed while blaming Israel for the malevolent nature of Islam.
Brigitte Gabriel
@ACTBrigitte
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Lebanon was the only Christian-majority nation in the Middle East.
It's where I was born.
We prided ourselves on inclusivity. Always welcoming Arab Muslim refugees from all over the Middle East.
We had the best economy despite having no natural oil. The best universities.
They called Beirut the "Paris of the Middle East" and the Mountains of Lebanon was a tourist destination.
My early childhood was idyllic, my father was a prosperous businessman in town and my mother was at home with me, an only child.
Slowly, the Arab Muslims began to become the majority in Lebanon and our rights began to wither away.
Soon, we would find ourselves unable to leave our small Christian town without fear of being stopped and killed by Arabs. In Lebanon your religion is on your government issued ID.
As the war intensified and the radical Islamists made their way south, my home was hit by an errant rocket and my life was forever changed.
We spent the next almost decade in a bomb shelter, scraping together pennies and eating dandelions and roots just to survive.
If it was not for Israel coming in and surrounding our town, I do not know If I would be here today.
Lebanon is now a country 100% controlled and run by Hezbollah. I lost my country of birth.
I thank God every single day I was able to immigrate to America and live out the dream that BILLIONS of people only dream of having.
Now here in America, my adopted country that I have come to love so much, I see the same threats and warning signs happening now that took place in Lebanon when I was a child.
This is my warning to you, America, reverse course now while you still can.
It's not too late to save our freedom and preserve it for the next generation.
Please use links instead of copy/pasting the same text in your comments. You've done it at least 4 times by now and it's very spammy.
He references "the barbaric nature of the practitioners of mohammadianism" and your only objection is the repetitive copy/pasting. Lol.
People don't click on links and I'm addressing specific arguments but I get where you're coming from
I'm hesitant on how to phrase this, but in traditional Judaism, Jews are considered a separate nation, and that's been a mainstream self-conception among traditional Jews across time and geography. "Zionists" didn't start it. Historically, if a state has difficulty coping with that non-violently, violent antisemitism results.
"that's been a mainstream self-conception among traditional Jews across time and geography"
That's not accurate at all.
I'm curious as to what you would say if you were satisfied that this was true.
I'm a traditional rabbi. I see this language in rabbinic legal texts from the Middle Ages and Early Modern Era, though you can also see it explicitly in the Book of Esther. I think the challenge this self-conception creates is very similar to the challenge posed by the same sentiment among the Roma. Today it is certainly shared by ultra-Orthodox Jews who reject Zionism, such as Neturei Karta.
The nation as we currently understand it is a concept formed and popularized in the 18th and 19th centuries. When older sources use the term "nation" they mean something different by it than what we now signify by the term.
Throughout that period, including up to the founding of the state of Israel and after, the great majority of Jewish people had the concept of being members of what Zionists and antisemites would consider their host nations (really, it is remarkable how much common ground these two groups have, and how often they agree.)
In the post-1967 era, it's not so much that the concept of Jews as a nation has triumphed as the concept of Jewish identity has become hopelessly confused. You, for example, would, I imagine, consider yourself ill-used if your synagogue was subject to taxation and you were asked to register as an agent of a foreign power.
Jewish people are a religious community. Antisemites assigned you an ethnic identity, which has caused Jews to be persecuted as an ethnic group (mostly but not entirely a modern phenomenon). Because of antisemites and what they have done and do, we have to acknowledge the category of "ethnic" Jews, although it doesn't have a basis in history. But ultimately, it's a religious faith, albeit, like many minority faiths, a somewhat insular one.
Another aspect of the phenomenon is the idea of Jews as direct descendants of Abraham and his sister Sarah. But, like the idea of the Roma that they came out of Egypt originally, this is a cultural tradition flatly refuted by the historical record. I recommend Sand's "The Invention of the Jewish People" for a careful and thorough debunking of this myth.
The idea of the nation of Israel seems not to have landed within the sphere of your skull, which seems to be inhabited by a population of Jews grinding away daily in the self-created skatepark between your ears.
As if Jews were ever considered an elemental regular citizen residents of any Nation in history up until the United States of america. Lay off the stupid dude
You’re using a pop history narrative to rebut a primary source scholar. I doubt you’ve convinced yonah that he’s imagined the texts he professionally studies.
And there’s 100,000 Jews in Russia, 10x more than all Muslim majority countries combined.
Yep, Jews moved to Palestine. That was literally the plan. Zionist worked hard to make that happen, and indeed it did happen.
You claimed that all Russian Jews had moved to Israel.
No, I never claimed that. A large majority moved to Israel or America. Not all.
You claimed all had moved to counter YM’s claim that the absence of Jews in MENA indicates push factors. Shortly after 2:16 in this video.
I didn't claim that, and didn't say push factors didn't exist or weren't important.
In your conception, why did Zionists succeed at emptying out the Middle East of Jews outside of Israel but not elsewhere?
As I've said numerous times now, what you're referring to is a complex decades-long process that occurred differently in different places for different reasons.
It's also hardly the case that Zionists didn't succeed elsewhere. In 1980 there were about 2.3m Jews in the Soviet Union; today the number in Russia is about 80k, a >95% decrease.
Of course the Jewish populations of Poland and Germany are a tiny fraction of where they once were. In 1930, there were 3.3m Jews in Poland. In 2024, there are 0.015m, a 99.5% percent decrease, due to the combined efforts of the Zionists and their anti-Semitic allies. (Herzl: “the anti-Semites will become our most dependable friends, the anti-Semitic countries our allies” -- Theodore Herzl, Diaries (June 12, pg 84). Accessed at: https://archive.org/stream/TheCompleteDiariesOfTheodorHerzl_201606/TheCompleteDiariesOfTheodorHerzlEngVolume1_OCR_djvu.txt)
That decrease in Russian population happened as a result of Soviet antisemitism, as I’m sure you’re well aware of. Just as I’m sure you’re suggesting that anything other than the Holocaust and attendant European antisemitism that allowed it in the first place caused those latter population drops, because suggesting Israel is responsible would be cartoonish levels of evil and dumb.
I would say demanding a monocausal explanation for a complex historical phenomenon is indeed "cartoonish levels…of dumb."
Zionists did indeed help the emptying-out of Eastern Europe. Happy to go into their links with the Nazis, efforts to encourage migration to Palestinian both before and after WWII, and their avowed intention of exploiting the genocide for their own purposes, eg:
“If I knew that it was possible to save all the children of Germany by transporting them to England, and only half by transferring them to the Land of Israel, I would choose the latter, for before us lies not only the numbers of these children but the historical reckoning of the people of Israel.”
Ben-Gurion (Quoted on pp 855-56 in Shabtai Teveth’s "Ben-Gurion" in a slightly different translation).
2 points from around 1:28: Not wanting to get hurt doesn't make you a coward, it makes you good at war. Making some other bastard die for his country, yadda yadda.
Also, urban warfare tends to have a civilian to combatant death ratio of about 9:1. Estimates from Gaza suggest civilian to combatant death ratio is less than 2:1.
If Israelis were good at war, they wouldn't have to keep fighting the same war over and over again. They spent a year an $17 billion of our tax dollars on an avowed effort to eliminate a tiny besieged armed faction, and failed. Because they are bad at war.
"Also, urban warfare tends to have a civilian to combatant death ratio of about 9:1."
Cite a source please.
"Estimates from Gaza suggest civilian to combatant death ratio is less than 2:1."
No they don't, not even close. Try again.
(I didn't expect you to be in the comments. If I had known, I would have used the full quote, not truncated it with yadda yadda.)
If the metric by which we measure how good a country is at war is preventing further conflict, Israel still passes handily. Consider the combatants in the six day war. How many of them still pose a threat to Israel?
But, note, this is a different metric than what was discussed before. I don't think anyone disagrees that Israel has the capability to reduce Gaza to a state where it could pose no threat. It chooses not to because it has prioritized protecting civilian life. I'd rather a country judge their war prowess by minimizing civilian casualties than primarily by preventing future conflict, as it was for most of history (see WWII: Dresden, London, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, etc.). As to my point, I don't think anyone would disagree that minimizing your own casualties is a sign of being good at war.
Always fair to ask for a source, here's where I got the 9:1 figure:
https://civiliansinconflict.org/our-work/conflict-trends/urban-warfare/
I could certainly see an argument for this source being biased, but it's about what I would expect.
For the ratio in Gaza, deaths are sitting at about 60k (I see no reason to think that Gaza (read: Hamas) is undercounting deaths), and estimates for Hamas deaths is about 20k. But even if we double the ratio, 4:1 is still well under what we would expect.
As for your second comment, the 9:1 ratio is for urban conflict. Most of the conflict on Oct. 7 wasn't in urban environments.
"Also, urban warfare tends to have a civilian to combatant death ratio of about 9:1."
Another amusing implication of this fake statistic is that it implies Hamas are a highly moral and restrained force -- the civilian: combatant death ratio on Oct 7th was less than 3:1.
Yeah there's just one problem. The Israeli civilian deaths on October 7th were not the result of collateral damage. They were killed without any reasonable military justification.
Reasonable is an entirely subjective concept in this context. Many people don't believe Israel's gleeful slaughter of civilians to have "reasonable military justification" which is why both the PM and the defense minister are indicted way criminals and there is an open case against Israel for the crime of genocide at the ICJ.
Are you seriously arguing the IDF is bad at war? Are you on freaking drugs?
I appreciate you taking the time to destroy this antisemite.
I thought I came off rather well, actually. Certainly your immediate resort to baseless ad hominem suggests so.
Indeed, facts never seperate the delusional from their fantasies. Carry on.
You'd know.
NB for Mr. Farrell in future debates: when an Arabic or Hebrew place name (e.g. Qibya) is written in English with a Q, it's safe to pronounce as a K. Hard to square 25 years engaging with this material with this repeated jarring mispronunciation.
I think the discussion of Inverse Florida’s article is a little confused because Inverse Florida is a little confused, irony-poisoned, and dialectic-poisoned: https://open.substack.com/pub/benhoffman700141/p/the-drama-of-the-hegelian-dialectic
So they wrote an important argument in an unclear way that embeds a partisan error.
As I understand it, Inverse Florida’s valid point is that leftists are fighting the discursive equivalent of a guerilla war, adopting a rhetorical posture that allows them to blame others while minimizing their blamable surface. A crucial part of this strategy is the rhetorical move of “why are you so worried about these things marginalized leftists are saying when you can see people with formal authority doing those bad things?“
The error mixed in is the false inference that just because leftists are doing a lot of damage in ways that ought to lower our opinion of them, and using criticisms of people in positions of formula authority to deflect attention away from that in bad faith, that therefore their criticisms of the actions of formal authority must therefore be false and unfounded. This is not a valid argument, and moreover the conclusion seems not to have been true in the case of the beheaded babies.
I haven’t looked into the details myself, but it seems like you Robert agree that the Israeli and American state credulously reported false information about beheaded babies as propaganda. Your judgment that the person who casually characterized this as “saying made up shit about beheaded babies” a few days after October 7 was judging prematurely, is some evidence that they have information you don’t, since they were able to form a correct judgment faster than you were.
If Inverse Florida’s thoughts had not been distorted by the perception that criticizing the left has to mean siding against them with the right, they might have more clearly distinguished the invalidity of disputing claims about beheaded babies as a way to dodge accountability for supporting a mass murder, from the question of whether the beheaded babies claim was true. It seems like maybe you inherited IF’s confusion along with their insight.
I never endorsed that inference. Someone trying to deflect attention away from one target towards another target does not tell us anything objective about either targets. All it tells us is how the _deflectors_ feel about either targets, and what their prioritizations are. In the instant case, pro-Hamas leftists really really don't want you to pay attention to Hamas atrocities, and they'll pretend the atrocities don't even exist if need be.
The 40 beheaded babies claim was indeed false, but I did not consider this an example of "credulous reporting". There's always going to be a baseline fog of uncertainty when reporting on any developing story from a live war zone. I've seen no indication that the level of credulity was higher on this story than what you'd expect.
> "is some evidence that they have information you don’t, since they were able to form a correct judgment faster than you were."
Absolutely not. An automaton who mindlessly predicts '6' before a million dice rolls will be 'correct' hundreds of thousands of times, but that's not any indication of the automaton having any exclusive information.
"they'll pretend the atrocities don't even exist if need be."
Or others, like you for example, will pretend that the fake atrocities did exist or, if that position becomes untenable, will pretend the truth doesn't matter at all.
When I got to the bit about, “If you don’t like martyrdom, you must have a really hard time with Memorial Day,” I had to turn it off. If this is the level of sophistry necessary to defend an argument, perhaps it isn’t defensible.
Perhaps you should interrogate your own feelings and prejudices that cause you to see these similar cases as dissimilar.
Celebrating people who fell in battle on behalf of the community is a ubiquitous cultural phenomenon.
I listened to about 45 minutes, jumping around to various points for 5 to 10 minutes at a time.
The guest definitely came more prepared, but Yassine wisely took a solid Just Asking Questions approach.
I did ask questions, but if you're accusing me of using questions as a way to present false/misleading claims (i.e. JAQing off) you better show your work.
not at all! I'm an old school JAQ defender til the end. Cursory and exploratory ftw
He removes all comments that do not supplicate and praise him completely on his YouTube channel.
Beinart has shown that there is a market for the self-harming Jew to supplicate himself in front of the nation's for Qatari cash or self degradation?
Another Islamic deflectionist doing harm to Jews 😵💫
Which youtube channel?
https://youtu.be/hwiIf61f11s?si=FDVVsYvm2fu3zFa4
Same dude?
lol absolutely not the same person
Doh 😵💫
😂😂😂