It's so painful to read. I'm glad Tawfic's sorry is getting some coverage in the US. It's not enough, but it's more than what most people who die in these pogroms get.
We need an entirely new policy. This is unconscionable.
andrewrgross
joined 2 years ago
Did you read the article? I'm not talking about the country of India: I'm talking about Narendra Modi and the BJP. The article is about how he's a Hindu nationalist and his political coalition has built their political success on persecuting Muslims.
Many see the temple’s opening as the beginning of the election campaign for Modi, an avowed nationalist who has been widely accused of espousing Hindu supremacy in an officially secular India. Modi’s Hindu nationalist party is expected to once again exploit religion for political gain in the upcoming national elections in April or May and secure power for a third consecutive term.
I'm talking about Prime Minister Modi. And I'm not calling him a Hindu supremacist because he's Hindu: it's because he's a supremacist.
I think we might be talking past each other in some way.
Ethno/religious supremacy is very different than religious influence.
You can have a political identity that is shaped by your religion and be fully supportive of the rights of immigrants and other religious groups, etc. That's advancing the belief that your religion or ethnic group should have sole authority over state power.
Germany's Christian Democratics: religious, but not supremacist. Germany's National Socialist German Workers party: not religious, very supremacist.
I'm not really sure what point you're arguing. I think you might be reading things into my observation that aren't there.
My point was that it's unfortunate that non-violence civil disobedience appears to have been found to be highly infective under the conditions within Gaza at least circa 2018-19.
I think it's weird when someone says "Oct. 7 is proof that Israel was right to ______." Because while much is up for debate, I think the one thing we can agree is that Oct. 7 showed the overall security arrangement was a failure.
One can argue for any security strategy they like, but I don't think anyone should point to Oct. 7 to justify any policy that led up to Oct. 7.
First, I just want to say that I don't agree with your premise (I don't think Christianity is a common feature of successful democracies), but now importantly, I don't think your sentiments disagree with anything I said.
I don't mind if someone's ideology is shaped by faith. My lament was about ethno/religious supremacy.
That got a laugh outta me.
Christ, this asshole.
It's a constant source of frustration for me that building your political power on promises to elevate a dominant ethnicity or faith over a minority group is such a consistently successful strategy.
And, like ... where's this going? If feels like narratively, rising ethnonationalism never stops itself. It just gets bolder and bolder until something explodes. This feels like the early years of another of history's 'oh shit' moments.
I wish this was a non-violent resistance movement lead by someone that believed in peace and democracy.
A lot of people don't know this, but they tried this in 2018. It was called the Great March of Return. Gazaans tried protesting non violently for weeks, and faced a fierce violent response, but it was largely ignored by international news.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018%E2%80%932019_Gaza_border_protests
First, the logic works in reverse, too. If they are trying to pull us into a confrontation that they believe benefits them, allowing them to do so also demonstrates a tool for controlling the US that others will be motivated to use, and is also escalatory.
The problem is that we only think in personal, school yard fight terms. We're act sad though each country has a singular, logically operating decision making process. In reality, international actors are much more like natural phenomena, like mold growth or rabbit populations.
I'm not saying the school yard logic is baseless. When the US flinches, that definitely affects how Xi Jinping assesses our willingness to respond with force to a recapture of Taiwan, for instance. But: whether he decides to do that is not based primarily on whether he thinks the country as a whole has balls or not. It's based on a combination of benefits and draw backs.
So in the long run, if we wanted to prevent unification by force, we're far better off engineering conditions that make unification a bad deal, even if we look weak rather than make it appealing enough to go to war even if we seem likely to destabilize the whole world over it
This feels like a bunch of Bush era talking points.
They aren't orcs. There's this notion that our adversaries are unable to demonstrate the self control they need to make environments safe to raise kids but possess motivation for self destruction that is inexaustible.
After exclusively putting more and more weight on the boot on their collective neck with nothing buts decades of successive failure, let's try something else.
For those unmotivated by Christian mercy, I suggest what I am going to call "Machiavellian kindness".
What if their appetite for death is actually weaker than advertised? What if we try to give them a taste of comfort and security with the diabolical awareness that people who become accustomed to weekends of rest and full bellies, who watch their kids reach milestones lose their edge. They get gluttonous and lazy. They become attached to material comforts and the expectations of retirement and grandkids.
Perhaps my cynical machinations are too wicked. But in desperate times when all else has failed, I think they've given us no other choice.
This feels like a bunch of Bush era talking points.
They aren't orcs. There's this notion that our adversaries are unable to demonstrate the self control they need to make environments safe to raise kids but possess motivation for self destruction that is inexaustible.
After exclusively putting more and more weight on the boot on their collective neck with nothing buts decades of successive failure, let's try something else.
For those unmotivated by Christian mercy, I suggest what I am going to call "Machiavellian kindness".
What if their appetite for death is actually weaker than advertised? What if we try to give them a taste of comfort and security with the diabolical awareness that people who become accustomed to weekends of rest and full bellies, who watch their kids reach milestones lose their edge. They get gluttonous and lazy. They become attached to material comforts and the expectations of retirement and grandkids.
Perhaps my cynical machinations are too wicked. But in desperate times when all else has failed, I think they've given us no other choice.
Look, I'm going to suggest sidestepping the fact that an article about what Gazaans want cites IDF spokespeople and "Reports from Palestinian media" without actually citing any and ask a question I don't see enough.
What instructive lessons does the article provide? What should we do based on this?
If we assume the article is 100% true, we should be demanding a ceasefire and the establishment of a peace process. If this article is true, then the IDF campaign is a horrific humanitarian disaster that is punishing Gazaans and establishing a condition in which Hamas' power is unshakable within Gaza. There's no room for a political challenger, and there's no safe space to criticize Hamas. There's no possibility of revolution or political protest, because everyone is starving and there is no social or communication infrastructure.
I'm now going to address the elephant in the room: the article is useless as a piece of journalism, because it consists of an unreliable media outlet relying entirely on unreliable sources. I'm not saying it's wrong, just that it has no credibility or facts. From what I've read, Hamas was highly unpopular before the war, but has become far more popular as they've established themselves as the only group willing and able to challenge what looks to Palestinians like Netanyahu's attempt at genocide. You can read about this in the AP, which is an actual news source citing an actual poll:
https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-palestinians-opinion-poll-wartime-views-a0baade915619cd070b5393844bc4514
But guess what? If Gazaans want to overthrow Hamas, we need a ceasefire. If the war has made Hamas more popular, then we need a ceasefire.
The war is a disaster. It is a failure in every measure except the intended ones: it's an exercise in vengence, an attempt for the humiliated generals to massage their bruised egos, and an ongoing attempt by Netanyahu to keep his only remaining supporters -- Jewish supremacists -- happy while he tries to stay out of jail.
In every other measure -- rescuing hostages, securing Israeli safety, defeating Hamas -- this is an unmitigated disaster that we need to stop.