It’s been obvious since the response immediately after October 7 that this is not about Israeli policy or something subtle. It’s about the destruction of Israel. Where have you been for 6 months? Under a rock? They tell us they want Israel destroyed. Dead. They want Jews dead. Believe them.
This is a stupid outgrowth of the “anti-colonial” sentiment that has been fermenting for the last decade plus on colleges. Everyone is playing “history fixer” on college. Which is also tied up on parts of the BLM Philosophy and a bunch of other “groups” modus operandi. That the original sin of modern society is historical colonialism and it needs to be fought everywhere. And that colonialism should be undone! That’s why that truly, truly stupid person that runs woke kindergarten was peddling that the USA has no right to exist.
And yes they do believe in and support violence. And they justify it. Because the oppressed apparently have carte Blanche to do whatever that wants and the “oppressors” just have to take it.
It’s an incredibly reductive, immature world view.
The "problem" is there are some people in these groups who are actually not antisemites. Some are just dumb. Personally I don't care anymore, and think that level of stupidity should be terminal, but I can respect those who want to try to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Honestly I can’t believe that. They came out on October 8 to blame Israel for everything that happened. To hell with all of them. They are the Nazis of today. I know what I’ve been seeing since October 8.
I think it's a mix of people. Even someone like Thomas Friedman in the NYT thinks that Israel's continual bombing of Gazan civilians is hurting Israel ethically and strategically. But Thomas Friedman isn't a protester at Columbia.
The protesters at Columbia, NYU etc look like they want to drive Jews out of Israel. At least that's what they're saying. Fortunately, a couple of hundreds protesters at a few universities protesting "colonialism" in the US (an ex-British colony after all) have no chance of doing anything more than embarrassing themselves. If that's still possible for someone carrying an Intifada Everywhere sign.
The thing is, there isn't a "continual bombing of Gazan civilians". The true number of civilians killed is absolutely unknown (whenever you think their numbers might be even a little accurate, think back to the PIJ rocket that hit a hospital, with immediate reports of 500 dead), but the Hamas numbers are certainly a maximum. With that, and when you take the number of Hamas members killed, compare the ratio to Mosul and you see an operation carried out with incredible discretion and accuracy.
> The thing is, there isn't a "continual bombing of Gazan civilians"
30 seconds on Google later...
• "Gaza: Moment Israeli bombing tears through buildings captured" (The Telegraph, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBq7F-5lxKk — literally yesterday): "Israel has carried out near-daily air raids on Rafah, where more than half of Gaza's population of 2.3 million has sought refuge from fighting elsewhere"
> The true number of civilians killed is absolutely unknown [...] the Hamas numbers are certainly a maximum
No, that's not remotely certain. It's not unusual for war bodycounts to be UNDERestimates because, duh, wars tend to mess with the infrastructure for detecting and counting the dead. In the earliest weeks of the fighting — precisely when "the Hamas numbers" of dead were rising most rapidly (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68745681) — "the Hamas numbers" were grounded in lists of names (and sometimes ages) of the identified dead, an open opportunity for doubters to identify supposedly dead people who were actually alive and well. A Lancet article found "No evidence of inflated mortality reporting from the Gaza Ministry of Health" early in this conflict either. And "Hamas" counts of people killed in Israel's 2014 war on Gaza ended up broadly agreeing with those of a UN inquiry and Israel itself (https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/despite-bidens-doubts-humanitarian-agencies-consider-gaza-toll-reliable-2023-10-27/).
> With that, and when you take the number of Hamas members killed,
By now 14,000 Hamas fighters have been killed in this war. So what if most Palestinians killed are not Hamas? Every single war has more civilians killed than combatants. Israel is actually doing better on this ratio than any war in the last 100 years, including US air operations in Fallujah, Mosul and Raqqa. So why are you specifically triggered by _this war_, other than it's Israel, "The Zionist Entity" if you speak like Iranian Islamists, which is fighting Hamas in a war the Palestinians started with the October 7 atrocities?
What war stopped because of civilian casualties going past some arbitrary point? Can you point to even one?
> By now 14,000 Hamas fighters have been killed in this war.
By now 34k Palestinians in general have been killed, with thousands more missing. So, accepting your 14k number as correct for argument's sake, the conclusion that most Palestinians killed were not Hamas fighters stands.
> So what if most Palestinians killed are not Hamas?
Aaaaaaand I think I've heard just about enough outta you.
So this is fun. YouTube has a fun link under telesur that mentions it’s mostly funded by Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telesur in fact just the Wikipedia is interesting in the people who opposed its founding and call it a propaganda machine. Now I know from our past encounters that digging past the first result when you google-fu your way to “evidence” is not your strong suit but I would urge against using what many experts consider to be a biased news organization that has recently been accused of spreading Russian propaganda about the war in Ukraine.
Congratulations on learning that a TV news station, like every other news source, has a slant. (And dinging me for explicitly pointing to Google when you didn't even bother to do that, instead relying on a single link up front and center in my own Google hit, is quite something!)
Funny how you don't mention (know?) anything about the slant of my other source, the British Telegraph, a xenophobic conservative newspaper so embedded in the right-wing British establishment that it paid Boris Johnson hundreds of thousands of dollars to write for it. And yet it winds up aligning with TeleSUR on the fact that Israel's bombing Gazan civilians! Hm!
I really don't know what "the last straw" is for certain people, and frankly, I don't care. If it marches with antisemites and shouts the slogans of antisemites, it needs to be treated as an antisemite. What does that treatment entail? I don't know, antisemitism isn't a crime anywhere in the world, that I'm aware of. But it certainly means that I, as a Jew, am going to treat that person as a threat, I will not be in an organisation with them, I will not socially engage with them unless there is a trusted armed presence also there, and I will make damned sure that none of my money goes to help them.
I will not take hold to the cry that "silence is violence", but I will agree that "silence is telling". Every Jew I know has an escape plan, sometimes it involves Israel, sometimes it does not. I hope that they're all taking note of who is speaking, and who isn't, and updating their plan accordingly. Isn't it ironic that in a country that just had hundreds of rockets, missiles, and drones launched at it, Jews feel more secure there than in "the land of the free"?
Do you really believe that Jews feel safer in Israel than in the US? Because I'm a Jew, and I think that's nuts.
Both Israel and the Palestinians in the OT are paying the price for a minimum of 25 years of truly terrible decisions. The launching of the Second Intifada in 2000, apparently to pressure Israel on the right of return, was a disaster that politically destroyed the only party willing to negotiate a two state solution. Simultaneously, continued Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and a blockade of Gaza made the Palestinians increasingly hopeless as more and more of their and was stolen by settlers.
Extremists on both sides only empower extremists on the other side. In the absence of the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank (or ceding the land to Jordan, I suppose), Israel is looking at either granting citizenship to the 5 million Palestinians living in the West Bank, or continuing an occupation that leaves 5 million people in Israel without any political or civil rights. With the lack of trust built over the last 25 years, Israel isn't going to agree to a one state solution, so the political situation there envisions no alternative to either ethnic cleansing, or permanent oppression of the Palestinians. That will not end well. That's why I will never move to Israel.
In the US, we have to deal with the protests of a few hundred students, many of whom are apparently too stupid to subtract 75 from 2024 to figure out they're demanding Israel abolish itself.
Maybe I'll be eating my words when President Trump appoints Ivanka President-for-life in 2028, but I don't think so.
I know that I can walk around with a Kippah and tzittzit in Israel feeling safe, and I am not attacked. I also know that the security forces take my safety very seriously, and will not allow protestors to attack me because I'm a Jew.
Maybe you feel safe where you are, and maybe it's accurate, but if I was a student at Columbia or at Yale, I certainly would not.
Neither side is willing to have 1 state, that is a non starter. 2 states has been on the table in the past, but there is no chance following further evidence of widespread support from the Palestinian public of 7 October. When the Arabs stop teaching their children to martyr themselves by killing Jews, then there can be peace. I have faith that eventually they will stop. But until then, I'm not willing to suicide.
I hope, for your sake, that you are able to stay in the United States, but Israel will be here to accept Jewish refugees. It has been proven too often in the past that no one else will.
And I hope that Israel will be there too. But I'm worried about the long term stability of a country whose continued existence currently requires preventing 5 million out of its 14 million residents from having any political rights.
As economists are fond of saying, if something can't go on forever, it will stop.
What do you mean? The Palestinians in both Judea and Samaria, as well as Gaza have both held elections. The fact that they haven't held elections since is not on Israel but on the PA (Abbas) and Hamas respectively.
Arab Israelis have full rights to vote, and have members of knesset as well as Supreme Court justices.
Honestly, you know what I mean. The people in the occupied territories who aren't Israeli citizens live under Israeli military rule. They voted for a Palestinian Authority that has no power to prevent Israeli settlers from taking their land. The people in Gaza were also under military rule pre-10/7, with an economic blockade imposed by Israel.
The blame for this situation lies in terrible mistakes made by both Israelis and Palestinians, and the worst decisions were made by Palestinians. But that still doesn't mean the situation is stable in the long term.
I honestly don't know what you mean. There is no world where Palestinians will ever have the right to vote in Israeli elections. In 2005 Israel pulled out of Gaza. If the people there were under military rule it was by Hamas, which kept firing rockets into Israel.
The problem is that there can be no compromise between the one side that wants to kill all the Jews, and the other side that doesn't want to be killed. Are there Palestinians with legitimate complaints? Yes, absolutely. But Israel can't solve that problem, the Palestinian ethos needs to evolve so that Israel doesn't believe (rightly, as was so aptly demonstrated in October) that the only thing standing between rapists, murderers, and terrorists, and Israeli civilians, is checkpoints, walls, and a vigorous and intrusive security apparatus.
It is true that the current situation isn't stable, which is why Israel needs to destroy Hamas. This war is a different entity entirely than any war Israel has ever fought before. It is an attempt to impose a status quo that is sustainable, for at least a time. The current relationship with our Arab neighbours is improving greatly. There is trade and tourism like never before. The way to make this stable is to have an Arab-Israel alliance that is so successful that it leaves the current mentality of the Palestinians in the sand. Unfortunately, there are very powerful players who are not interested in the Palestinians growing. I think the first step needs to be dealing with UNRWA, and getting their hatred out of the textbooks. Once you have children who grow up not wanting to die and kill Jews, only then can there even be a hope of peace. (also, pay for slay needs to end. It's crazy that the highest paying job many Palestinians can hope for is to sit in an Israeli prison!)
That being said, when the time line is long enough, nothing is sustainable in the long term. If we have to fight an existential war for our survival every 10 years, then that's what we'll do.
Considering the Palestinians already in Jordan keep trying to murder the royal family, you couldn’t pay the Hashemite Kingdom to take the West Bank back.
If you believe the scripture, Jordan was settled by Lot, Abraham’s nephew, in Genesis. Egypt won’t “help” either, possibly because of what happened in Exodus. Realistically, it’s probably because the Arabs want to keep the peace with Israel to protect their shrine in Jerusalem. Why else would Jordan open their airspace for Iran’s attack to be deterred?
An interview of a Nakba denier who "didn't even know what a Pogrom was before October 7th" by a woman who wrote an article about how being called "Eve Fartlow" was the leading edge of the "world's first social media pogrom". GMAFB.
> I really don't know what "the last straw" is for certain people, and frankly, I don't care. If it marches with antisemites and shouts the slogans of antisemites, it needs to be treated as an antisemite. [...] I will not take hold to the cry that "silence is violence", but I will agree that "silence is telling".
Are we going to be consistent in applying these standard to people who declare that they, for example, "stand with Israel", a state committing crimes against humanity while its government disgorges racist rhetoric and eliminationist rhetoric? Is it likewise "telling" when people remain silent about that?
> Isn't it ironic that in a country that just had hundreds of rockets, missiles, and drones launched at it, Jews feel more secure there than in "the land of the free"?
I don't see how someone writes a sentence like that without feeling a twinge of incoherence. People who feel secure do not generally have an army kill a thousand people per week in a space smaller than Vermont plus Puerto Rico.
Are you new to splainer? He’s fun. I haven’t seen him around for a while since I went through line by line a study he claimed said one thing and, you know, didn’t. He’s a master of just believing the first two or three google search results. He’s fun!
On a more serious note: I'm wondering if these current protests might nudge the election over to Orange Man, much like the violent protests helped Richard Nixon get elected in 1968.
It's hard to say. Chaos probably helps TFG, but Biden is pretty obviously *not* on the side of the protesters. He's condemning anti-semitism and isn't fooled that these protests, calling for Intifada Everywhere, or reversing 75 years of colonialism, mean anything but driving Jews out of Israel and attacking Jews everywhere.
Agreed. Furthermore, my understanding (this could be wrong) is that foreign policy rarely has a significant effect on US presidential elections, except when we’re involved in a shooting war that’s unpopular.
Yes. They will not help Biden. He has tried to tame the beast but you can’t. The bloodlust is stirred up. These are like Hamas on October 7. They snell blood and they are intoxicated. They are high on hate.
Alright, let's sharpen that into a testable prediction: how many people do you expect to be murdered by the Hamas-like, blood-smelling, blood-lusting, "intoxicated" pro-Palestine protesters on campus?
How many is enough for you? Injured ok? Not being able to walk around freely is fine such you ? If you can’t interpret the level hatred being spewed out by these monstrous babies I can’t help you.
Well, "These are like Hamas on October 7. The s[m]ell blood and they are intoxicated. They are high on hate" is somewhat stronger than "Not being able to walk around freely."
Look, I pretty much agree with you that these protesters threatening to Jews on campus, from videos that make it look like Jews aren't free to roam around the protest site, at least with an Israeli flag.
But comparing a bunch of virtue signaling idiots with Hamas is ridiculous. And blaming Biden for them just makes it look like you're a Republican just looking for a stick to hit Biden with.
I'd love to see the number stay at zero, and my own expectation is that it shall stay at zero. I also suspect that, unlike me, you won't actually make a testable prediction about this. Almost as if you just want to grandstand!
This is the thing: you claim to "know" that the undergrad students chanting out on the lawn are "pure venomous antisemitic mobs" (never mind that a significant chunk of those protesters, at least at Columbia, are probably Jewish themselves) who "snell blood" (sic), are "intoxicated", "high on hate", with "bloodlust" "stirred", a "beast" that not even the President can "tame", "monstrous" (yet also "babies", huh?), who are "like Hamas on October 7"...but then, when I ask you to actually spell out your implication that the protesters are bloodthirsty killers, you shrink away and affect outrage. Never mind me, YOU don't even really believe what you're writing.
I heard similar notions 4 years ago about how Black Lives Matter "burning down cities" or whatever would reelect Trump. Seems that counties with BLM protests actually went harder for Biden (yes, even controlling for earlier Clinton vote share, the percentage of black people, percentage of college students, percentage of graduates, Covid deaths...): https://uncmap.org/publication/caren-black-2023/caren-black-2023.pdf. Violent protests may be turn-offs, but any analysis that omits the impact of nonviolent protests could well go wrong.
Man that Stanford article was so enraging; the contrast between college administrator responses between “this string that was tying up a piñata might secretly be a noose and we have to protect our students” and “sometimes you just get a Hitler on your door, it’s just part of life, what are we supposed to do about it?” is just crazy…
I think it might be a bit utopian, but eliminating Israel as a Jewish state doesn't automatically mean ethnic cleansing. A single multicultural Palestine where Jews are a minority isn't a call for genocide, even if it is unrealistic. Rooting explicitly for Hamas seems to mean that, but when people wish for a secular government in Iran, they obviously aren't meaning that the non-muslims are going to force all the Muslims out.
"A single multicultural Palestine where Jews are a minority isn't a call for genocide" in much the same way that a unified China isn't a call for crushing Taiwanese freedom -- sure, there's no inexorable reason why the one necessarily leads to the other, but you have to be willfully blind to the stated intent of the relevant players not to see the endgame.
A lot of South Koreans think reunification is aspirational (which is probably a better analogy because the populations are more similar). That doesn't exactly mean they are going to give their country to Kim Jong Un.
This idea isn’t merely utopian, it’s dangerously foolish. It ignores the broad sentiment among not only Palestinians but all Muslims in the region - and yes, it really is so widespread that you can functionally say ALL - that Jews, not Israelis, but JEWS, are the root of all evil and should be purged from the world by any means necessary. Those who aren’t willing to do the purging themselves are, at best, willing to shrug and turn away while it happens.
Israel without a Jewish majority not only doesn’t protect its Jewish citizens, it immediately allows them to be wiped out by both average non-Jewish citizens and nearby nation states.
And, of course, once Israel is gone, the powers that be would simply continue fighting over the region as they always have and nobody will care anymore when all the Palestinians die.
Why oh why must we support one side or the other? From my perspective, both the Zionists and Hamas are wrong. Both have the objective of getting rid of the other. Zionists have said so, Hamas has said so. Their actions bear this out. Why can’t Israel find some way to live in Judea (their ancient land - who has colonized who, really?) without treating non Jews as second class citizens? I don’t think it can be disputed that Israeli forces have committed atrocities. But the actions - and non actions - of the Palestinians are equally telling. No effort at all to come to terms with Israel along with ethnic hatred of the Jew. But my guess is that little reality penetrates the brains of these students. Self righteousness feels so good, especially when you can merge yourself into a crowd who all feel the same. It’s a kind of intoxication.
Your use of the word ‘Zionists’ is the ‘tell’. There is a country. It is called Israel. It exists. When you don’t use the word it says something about you. Not Israel. Think.
Zionism is the movement that Jews have the right to self determination. In its origins it did not necessarily mean in the land of Israel (a distinct entity from the modern nation of Israel), but since the 20th century, and certainly since the establishment of the state, it has meant that. Specifically it now means that Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state. Nothing more, nothing less. Some people in Israel want to own all the land that was the land of Israel (Judea and Shimron), some people in Israel wanted to go back to the borders of 48 or 67 (less now, because a lot of the people killed on the 7th of October were in that camp. Some changed their minds, some are dead).
Equating the belief that Israel should exist, with Hamas is wrong. This is one of the reasons why many many Israelis/Zionists refuse to engage with those who criticise Israel in any sense (even though those same people may have been in the 100s of thousands that marched for months against this current government). There can be no good faith debate with a side that starts with the assumption that Israel should not exist.
Maybe that's not what you mean by "Zionists", but it's what a lot of people mean.
I'd quibble with your definition. Zion is Eretz Yisrael, which is not quite Medinat Yisrael. It is very embedded in Judaism though. Zionism, as established by Herzl has also changed through the years.
I think there's too little trust between the Israelis and Palestinians right now for a one state solution that protects the rights of Jews and Palestinians in a single state. Maybe in another generation or two, although the derivative d(Happiness)/dt in that area has been negative for quite some time.
If you don't want another 50 years of misery, I don't see any alternative to a two state solution, as far away as that seems today.
It may well be that there's "too little trust [...] for a one state solution that protests the rights of Jews and Palestinians", but I'm not sure how that makes it worse or less feasible than a two-state solution; a de facto two-state "solution" is what we have now, and what we've had for decades, and how's that turning out!?!
Stop it. What a bunch of disingenuous horseshit. They're COLLEGE KIDS and it's war. They're going to activate against blood and gore and guts because if it continues past their graduation, guess what? THEY MIGHT HAVE TO FIGHT!! Israel has every right to exist but you people are a fucking pain in the ass and everyone in that region fucking hates you. That's a fact. Why that is is between you and them. All our kids know is we have homeless in the streets of every city in this country, no money for infrastructure, no money for public schools, no money for universal health care, and they want to come for social security and medicare next. But we always have PLENTY of money in the budget EVERY YEAR for fucking rockets and bombs to send over to Israel for you guys to protect yourselves. Then you have the fucking BALLS to tell us to stay out of YOUR politics, but Netanyahu DEMANDS police crackdowns of first amendment rights of OUR CITIZENS on OUR COLLEGE CAMPUSES? Yeah, keep it up with the babe in the woods routine. Trust me, the kids know what's up more than you. So stick your judgement of their intellect straight up your ass and stop frantically building straw men to justify this. Let me help you reframe this issue in reality. Look at everything involved in this conflict through the following lens for the rest of your life and you'll never go wrong. Ready? Here goes: THERE IS NO GOD Hope that helps.
Thanks for this. Those wanting to protest Israeli policies without becoming anti-semitic eliminationists might want to look at what actual progressive Israelis have to say, such as historian Yuval Noah Harari
I think after October 7 most Israelis don’t believe a word Haaretz has to say. The left wing got bigger by fucking reality. Hamas barbarians. But I appreciate your recognition of ‘eliminationists’. You have the right to this opinion and threading that needle these days with Hamas apologists is getting harder and harder.
I have no illusions that Harari's is anything approaching a majority opinion, but it could one day become one: it is concerned with matters in the Middle East's only genuine democracy. But as you suggest, my point is another one. If activists want to engage seriously with the policies of another country, they need to engage with the opinions of citizens of that country, popular or unpopular as they may be.
While we're here, I'll mention as well Gershom Gorenberg, author of The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977, and his recent piece, "Why Biden and Bibi Are Tangling, and Why Biden Could Win: In this feud, a desperate Netanyahu has much to lose, and Biden has very little to lose by confronting him."
‘If activists want to engage seriously with the policies of another country…’. That’s the heart of the matter. The activists don’t want that country to exist. So they don’t engage. They scream. They want to annihilate it. We can debate Bibi’s policies etc all night long but it’s not relevant to what we see on campus. (It’s relevant elsewhere). You and I agree on this I think.
Yup. (Though to follow Jeff's point, I imagine that a significant number of college protesters doesn't know that "75 years of occupation" dates to the founding of the State of Israel rather than the aftermath of the 1967 War, which is at best the excuse of an idiot: it puts who uses it on the same level as Marjorie Taylor Greene claiming that she didn't know the Rothschilds, co-inventors of SPACE LASER, are Jewish.)
It’s been obvious since the response immediately after October 7 that this is not about Israeli policy or something subtle. It’s about the destruction of Israel. Where have you been for 6 months? Under a rock? They tell us they want Israel destroyed. Dead. They want Jews dead. Believe them.
This is a stupid outgrowth of the “anti-colonial” sentiment that has been fermenting for the last decade plus on colleges. Everyone is playing “history fixer” on college. Which is also tied up on parts of the BLM Philosophy and a bunch of other “groups” modus operandi. That the original sin of modern society is historical colonialism and it needs to be fought everywhere. And that colonialism should be undone! That’s why that truly, truly stupid person that runs woke kindergarten was peddling that the USA has no right to exist.
And yes they do believe in and support violence. And they justify it. Because the oppressed apparently have carte Blanche to do whatever that wants and the “oppressors” just have to take it.
It’s an incredibly reductive, immature world view.
Yes with all their stupid meaningless slogans.
The "problem" is there are some people in these groups who are actually not antisemites. Some are just dumb. Personally I don't care anymore, and think that level of stupidity should be terminal, but I can respect those who want to try to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Honestly I can’t believe that. They came out on October 8 to blame Israel for everything that happened. To hell with all of them. They are the Nazis of today. I know what I’ve been seeing since October 8.
I respect that too (and like I said, I'm actually with you on it).
I think it's a mix of people. Even someone like Thomas Friedman in the NYT thinks that Israel's continual bombing of Gazan civilians is hurting Israel ethically and strategically. But Thomas Friedman isn't a protester at Columbia.
The protesters at Columbia, NYU etc look like they want to drive Jews out of Israel. At least that's what they're saying. Fortunately, a couple of hundreds protesters at a few universities protesting "colonialism" in the US (an ex-British colony after all) have no chance of doing anything more than embarrassing themselves. If that's still possible for someone carrying an Intifada Everywhere sign.
The thing is, there isn't a "continual bombing of Gazan civilians". The true number of civilians killed is absolutely unknown (whenever you think their numbers might be even a little accurate, think back to the PIJ rocket that hit a hospital, with immediate reports of 500 dead), but the Hamas numbers are certainly a maximum. With that, and when you take the number of Hamas members killed, compare the ratio to Mosul and you see an operation carried out with incredible discretion and accuracy.
> The thing is, there isn't a "continual bombing of Gazan civilians"
30 seconds on Google later...
• "Gaza: Moment Israeli bombing tears through buildings captured" (The Telegraph, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBq7F-5lxKk — literally yesterday): "Israel has carried out near-daily air raids on Rafah, where more than half of Gaza's population of 2.3 million has sought refuge from fighting elsewhere"
• "Hospitals Gaza Strip continue in emergency after being targeted by Israeli bombings" (TeleSUR English, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NBep1DwUbA — earlier today)
> The true number of civilians killed is absolutely unknown [...] the Hamas numbers are certainly a maximum
No, that's not remotely certain. It's not unusual for war bodycounts to be UNDERestimates because, duh, wars tend to mess with the infrastructure for detecting and counting the dead. In the earliest weeks of the fighting — precisely when "the Hamas numbers" of dead were rising most rapidly (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68745681) — "the Hamas numbers" were grounded in lists of names (and sometimes ages) of the identified dead, an open opportunity for doubters to identify supposedly dead people who were actually alive and well. A Lancet article found "No evidence of inflated mortality reporting from the Gaza Ministry of Health" early in this conflict either. And "Hamas" counts of people killed in Israel's 2014 war on Gaza ended up broadly agreeing with those of a UN inquiry and Israel itself (https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/despite-bidens-doubts-humanitarian-agencies-consider-gaza-toll-reliable-2023-10-27/).
> With that, and when you take the number of Hamas members killed,
Latest figure I can find for "number of Hamas members killed" is 12k in February (https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-says-12000-hamas-fighters-killed-in-gaza-war-double-the-terror-groups-claim/). Allowing for argument that the IDF isn't inflating that estimate, that would indicate that most of the Palestinians killed were NOT Hamas.
> compare the ratio to Mosul and you see an operation carried out with incredible discretion and accuracy
Hell, why not compare the killing rate to Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge: https://sethackerman.substack.com/p/the-khmer-rouge-index-updated-to
By now 14,000 Hamas fighters have been killed in this war. So what if most Palestinians killed are not Hamas? Every single war has more civilians killed than combatants. Israel is actually doing better on this ratio than any war in the last 100 years, including US air operations in Fallujah, Mosul and Raqqa. So why are you specifically triggered by _this war_, other than it's Israel, "The Zionist Entity" if you speak like Iranian Islamists, which is fighting Hamas in a war the Palestinians started with the October 7 atrocities?
What war stopped because of civilian casualties going past some arbitrary point? Can you point to even one?
> By now 14,000 Hamas fighters have been killed in this war.
By now 34k Palestinians in general have been killed, with thousands more missing. So, accepting your 14k number as correct for argument's sake, the conclusion that most Palestinians killed were not Hamas fighters stands.
> So what if most Palestinians killed are not Hamas?
Aaaaaaand I think I've heard just about enough outta you.
So this is fun. YouTube has a fun link under telesur that mentions it’s mostly funded by Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telesur in fact just the Wikipedia is interesting in the people who opposed its founding and call it a propaganda machine. Now I know from our past encounters that digging past the first result when you google-fu your way to “evidence” is not your strong suit but I would urge against using what many experts consider to be a biased news organization that has recently been accused of spreading Russian propaganda about the war in Ukraine.
Congratulations on learning that a TV news station, like every other news source, has a slant. (And dinging me for explicitly pointing to Google when you didn't even bother to do that, instead relying on a single link up front and center in my own Google hit, is quite something!)
Funny how you don't mention (know?) anything about the slant of my other source, the British Telegraph, a xenophobic conservative newspaper so embedded in the right-wing British establishment that it paid Boris Johnson hundreds of thousands of dollars to write for it. And yet it winds up aligning with TeleSUR on the fact that Israel's bombing Gazan civilians! Hm!
Oh man. When did you get back splainer???? I missed you!!! Should I go through these numbers 1 by 1?
I've been posting Substack comments all along, you just didn't bother to follow them. I'm not sure you really missed me at all 🤧
... But with jokes?
I'm kidding a little bit. I highly recommend (https://open.substack.com/pub/evebarlow/p/in-conversation-with-brianna-wu?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=1ht4mf), a piece about someone whose eyes were opened to what many Jews have been saying for years.
I really don't know what "the last straw" is for certain people, and frankly, I don't care. If it marches with antisemites and shouts the slogans of antisemites, it needs to be treated as an antisemite. What does that treatment entail? I don't know, antisemitism isn't a crime anywhere in the world, that I'm aware of. But it certainly means that I, as a Jew, am going to treat that person as a threat, I will not be in an organisation with them, I will not socially engage with them unless there is a trusted armed presence also there, and I will make damned sure that none of my money goes to help them.
I will not take hold to the cry that "silence is violence", but I will agree that "silence is telling". Every Jew I know has an escape plan, sometimes it involves Israel, sometimes it does not. I hope that they're all taking note of who is speaking, and who isn't, and updating their plan accordingly. Isn't it ironic that in a country that just had hundreds of rockets, missiles, and drones launched at it, Jews feel more secure there than in "the land of the free"?
Do you really believe that Jews feel safer in Israel than in the US? Because I'm a Jew, and I think that's nuts.
Both Israel and the Palestinians in the OT are paying the price for a minimum of 25 years of truly terrible decisions. The launching of the Second Intifada in 2000, apparently to pressure Israel on the right of return, was a disaster that politically destroyed the only party willing to negotiate a two state solution. Simultaneously, continued Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and a blockade of Gaza made the Palestinians increasingly hopeless as more and more of their and was stolen by settlers.
Extremists on both sides only empower extremists on the other side. In the absence of the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank (or ceding the land to Jordan, I suppose), Israel is looking at either granting citizenship to the 5 million Palestinians living in the West Bank, or continuing an occupation that leaves 5 million people in Israel without any political or civil rights. With the lack of trust built over the last 25 years, Israel isn't going to agree to a one state solution, so the political situation there envisions no alternative to either ethnic cleansing, or permanent oppression of the Palestinians. That will not end well. That's why I will never move to Israel.
In the US, we have to deal with the protests of a few hundred students, many of whom are apparently too stupid to subtract 75 from 2024 to figure out they're demanding Israel abolish itself.
Maybe I'll be eating my words when President Trump appoints Ivanka President-for-life in 2028, but I don't think so.
I know that I can walk around with a Kippah and tzittzit in Israel feeling safe, and I am not attacked. I also know that the security forces take my safety very seriously, and will not allow protestors to attack me because I'm a Jew.
Maybe you feel safe where you are, and maybe it's accurate, but if I was a student at Columbia or at Yale, I certainly would not.
Neither side is willing to have 1 state, that is a non starter. 2 states has been on the table in the past, but there is no chance following further evidence of widespread support from the Palestinian public of 7 October. When the Arabs stop teaching their children to martyr themselves by killing Jews, then there can be peace. I have faith that eventually they will stop. But until then, I'm not willing to suicide.
I hope, for your sake, that you are able to stay in the United States, but Israel will be here to accept Jewish refugees. It has been proven too often in the past that no one else will.
And I hope that Israel will be there too. But I'm worried about the long term stability of a country whose continued existence currently requires preventing 5 million out of its 14 million residents from having any political rights.
As economists are fond of saying, if something can't go on forever, it will stop.
What do you mean? The Palestinians in both Judea and Samaria, as well as Gaza have both held elections. The fact that they haven't held elections since is not on Israel but on the PA (Abbas) and Hamas respectively.
Arab Israelis have full rights to vote, and have members of knesset as well as Supreme Court justices.
Honestly, you know what I mean. The people in the occupied territories who aren't Israeli citizens live under Israeli military rule. They voted for a Palestinian Authority that has no power to prevent Israeli settlers from taking their land. The people in Gaza were also under military rule pre-10/7, with an economic blockade imposed by Israel.
The blame for this situation lies in terrible mistakes made by both Israelis and Palestinians, and the worst decisions were made by Palestinians. But that still doesn't mean the situation is stable in the long term.
I honestly don't know what you mean. There is no world where Palestinians will ever have the right to vote in Israeli elections. In 2005 Israel pulled out of Gaza. If the people there were under military rule it was by Hamas, which kept firing rockets into Israel.
The problem is that there can be no compromise between the one side that wants to kill all the Jews, and the other side that doesn't want to be killed. Are there Palestinians with legitimate complaints? Yes, absolutely. But Israel can't solve that problem, the Palestinian ethos needs to evolve so that Israel doesn't believe (rightly, as was so aptly demonstrated in October) that the only thing standing between rapists, murderers, and terrorists, and Israeli civilians, is checkpoints, walls, and a vigorous and intrusive security apparatus.
It is true that the current situation isn't stable, which is why Israel needs to destroy Hamas. This war is a different entity entirely than any war Israel has ever fought before. It is an attempt to impose a status quo that is sustainable, for at least a time. The current relationship with our Arab neighbours is improving greatly. There is trade and tourism like never before. The way to make this stable is to have an Arab-Israel alliance that is so successful that it leaves the current mentality of the Palestinians in the sand. Unfortunately, there are very powerful players who are not interested in the Palestinians growing. I think the first step needs to be dealing with UNRWA, and getting their hatred out of the textbooks. Once you have children who grow up not wanting to die and kill Jews, only then can there even be a hope of peace. (also, pay for slay needs to end. It's crazy that the highest paying job many Palestinians can hope for is to sit in an Israeli prison!)
That being said, when the time line is long enough, nothing is sustainable in the long term. If we have to fight an existential war for our survival every 10 years, then that's what we'll do.
What 5 million??? I think you are way off base here
https://www.state.gov/reports/2022-report-on-international-religious-freedom/israel-west-bank-and-gaza/west-bank-and-gaza/#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20government%20estimates%20the,Gaza%20Strip%20(midyear%202022).
According to US DoS, the West Bank has about 3 million Palestinians, and Gaza has about 2 million.
Considering the Palestinians already in Jordan keep trying to murder the royal family, you couldn’t pay the Hashemite Kingdom to take the West Bank back.
Jordan is the most fascinating case in the Middle East, how they have threaded the needle with Israel at least since 1973 and probably before.
If you believe the scripture, Jordan was settled by Lot, Abraham’s nephew, in Genesis. Egypt won’t “help” either, possibly because of what happened in Exodus. Realistically, it’s probably because the Arabs want to keep the peace with Israel to protect their shrine in Jerusalem. Why else would Jordan open their airspace for Iran’s attack to be deterred?
Jews in Israel feel proud. They can wear any symbol of their religion. They don’t run away.
Turns out that's true for Jews in the US as well.
> I highly recommend (https://open.substack.com/pub/evebarlow/p/in-conversation-with-brianna-wu?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=1ht4mf)
An interview of a Nakba denier who "didn't even know what a Pogrom was before October 7th" by a woman who wrote an article about how being called "Eve Fartlow" was the leading edge of the "world's first social media pogrom". GMAFB.
> I really don't know what "the last straw" is for certain people, and frankly, I don't care. If it marches with antisemites and shouts the slogans of antisemites, it needs to be treated as an antisemite. [...] I will not take hold to the cry that "silence is violence", but I will agree that "silence is telling".
Are we going to be consistent in applying these standard to people who declare that they, for example, "stand with Israel", a state committing crimes against humanity while its government disgorges racist rhetoric and eliminationist rhetoric? Is it likewise "telling" when people remain silent about that?
> Isn't it ironic that in a country that just had hundreds of rockets, missiles, and drones launched at it, Jews feel more secure there than in "the land of the free"?
I don't see how someone writes a sentence like that without feeling a twinge of incoherence. People who feel secure do not generally have an army kill a thousand people per week in a space smaller than Vermont plus Puerto Rico.
I appreciate people like you. Now I can add you to a list. Thank you for your service.
Gee, what a powerful, rigorous rebuttal. You definitely don't sound McCarthyist at all!
Are you new to splainer? He’s fun. I haven’t seen him around for a while since I went through line by line a study he claimed said one thing and, you know, didn’t. He’s a master of just believing the first two or three google search results. He’s fun!
On a more serious note: I'm wondering if these current protests might nudge the election over to Orange Man, much like the violent protests helped Richard Nixon get elected in 1968.
It's hard to say. Chaos probably helps TFG, but Biden is pretty obviously *not* on the side of the protesters. He's condemning anti-semitism and isn't fooled that these protests, calling for Intifada Everywhere, or reversing 75 years of colonialism, mean anything but driving Jews out of Israel and attacking Jews everywhere.
He practically did a both sides have good people on this issue.
Agreed. Furthermore, my understanding (this could be wrong) is that foreign policy rarely has a significant effect on US presidential elections, except when we’re involved in a shooting war that’s unpopular.
Yes. They will not help Biden. He has tried to tame the beast but you can’t. The bloodlust is stirred up. These are like Hamas on October 7. They snell blood and they are intoxicated. They are high on hate.
Alright, let's sharpen that into a testable prediction: how many people do you expect to be murdered by the Hamas-like, blood-smelling, blood-lusting, "intoxicated" pro-Palestine protesters on campus?
How many is enough for you? Injured ok? Not being able to walk around freely is fine such you ? If you can’t interpret the level hatred being spewed out by these monstrous babies I can’t help you.
Well, "These are like Hamas on October 7. The s[m]ell blood and they are intoxicated. They are high on hate" is somewhat stronger than "Not being able to walk around freely."
Look, I pretty much agree with you that these protesters threatening to Jews on campus, from videos that make it look like Jews aren't free to roam around the protest site, at least with an Israeli flag.
But comparing a bunch of virtue signaling idiots with Hamas is ridiculous. And blaming Biden for them just makes it look like you're a Republican just looking for a stick to hit Biden with.
I’m not blaming Biden for them but his response was a both sides. And these idiots are really stirred up.
I'd love to see the number stay at zero, and my own expectation is that it shall stay at zero. I also suspect that, unlike me, you won't actually make a testable prediction about this. Almost as if you just want to grandstand!
Unlike you I don’t have to see death to know what I’m seeing is pure venomous antisemitic mobs.
This is the thing: you claim to "know" that the undergrad students chanting out on the lawn are "pure venomous antisemitic mobs" (never mind that a significant chunk of those protesters, at least at Columbia, are probably Jewish themselves) who "snell blood" (sic), are "intoxicated", "high on hate", with "bloodlust" "stirred", a "beast" that not even the President can "tame", "monstrous" (yet also "babies", huh?), who are "like Hamas on October 7"...but then, when I ask you to actually spell out your implication that the protesters are bloodthirsty killers, you shrink away and affect outrage. Never mind me, YOU don't even really believe what you're writing.
I heard similar notions 4 years ago about how Black Lives Matter "burning down cities" or whatever would reelect Trump. Seems that counties with BLM protests actually went harder for Biden (yes, even controlling for earlier Clinton vote share, the percentage of black people, percentage of college students, percentage of graduates, Covid deaths...): https://uncmap.org/publication/caren-black-2023/caren-black-2023.pdf. Violent protests may be turn-offs, but any analysis that omits the impact of nonviolent protests could well go wrong.
Man that Stanford article was so enraging; the contrast between college administrator responses between “this string that was tying up a piñata might secretly be a noose and we have to protect our students” and “sometimes you just get a Hitler on your door, it’s just part of life, what are we supposed to do about it?” is just crazy…
Is briandead (sic) a subtle Monty Python reference?
Beat me to it!
I think it might be a bit utopian, but eliminating Israel as a Jewish state doesn't automatically mean ethnic cleansing. A single multicultural Palestine where Jews are a minority isn't a call for genocide, even if it is unrealistic. Rooting explicitly for Hamas seems to mean that, but when people wish for a secular government in Iran, they obviously aren't meaning that the non-muslims are going to force all the Muslims out.
"A single multicultural Palestine where Jews are a minority isn't a call for genocide" in much the same way that a unified China isn't a call for crushing Taiwanese freedom -- sure, there's no inexorable reason why the one necessarily leads to the other, but you have to be willfully blind to the stated intent of the relevant players not to see the endgame.
A lot of South Koreans think reunification is aspirational (which is probably a better analogy because the populations are more similar). That doesn't exactly mean they are going to give their country to Kim Jong Un.
This idea isn’t merely utopian, it’s dangerously foolish. It ignores the broad sentiment among not only Palestinians but all Muslims in the region - and yes, it really is so widespread that you can functionally say ALL - that Jews, not Israelis, but JEWS, are the root of all evil and should be purged from the world by any means necessary. Those who aren’t willing to do the purging themselves are, at best, willing to shrug and turn away while it happens.
Israel without a Jewish majority not only doesn’t protect its Jewish citizens, it immediately allows them to be wiped out by both average non-Jewish citizens and nearby nation states.
And, of course, once Israel is gone, the powers that be would simply continue fighting over the region as they always have and nobody will care anymore when all the Palestinians die.
A one-state solution is bad for everyone.
Why oh why must we support one side or the other? From my perspective, both the Zionists and Hamas are wrong. Both have the objective of getting rid of the other. Zionists have said so, Hamas has said so. Their actions bear this out. Why can’t Israel find some way to live in Judea (their ancient land - who has colonized who, really?) without treating non Jews as second class citizens? I don’t think it can be disputed that Israeli forces have committed atrocities. But the actions - and non actions - of the Palestinians are equally telling. No effort at all to come to terms with Israel along with ethnic hatred of the Jew. But my guess is that little reality penetrates the brains of these students. Self righteousness feels so good, especially when you can merge yourself into a crowd who all feel the same. It’s a kind of intoxication.
Your use of the word ‘Zionists’ is the ‘tell’. There is a country. It is called Israel. It exists. When you don’t use the word it says something about you. Not Israel. Think.
Zionism is the movement that Jews have the right to self determination. In its origins it did not necessarily mean in the land of Israel (a distinct entity from the modern nation of Israel), but since the 20th century, and certainly since the establishment of the state, it has meant that. Specifically it now means that Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state. Nothing more, nothing less. Some people in Israel want to own all the land that was the land of Israel (Judea and Shimron), some people in Israel wanted to go back to the borders of 48 or 67 (less now, because a lot of the people killed on the 7th of October were in that camp. Some changed their minds, some are dead).
Equating the belief that Israel should exist, with Hamas is wrong. This is one of the reasons why many many Israelis/Zionists refuse to engage with those who criticise Israel in any sense (even though those same people may have been in the 100s of thousands that marched for months against this current government). There can be no good faith debate with a side that starts with the assumption that Israel should not exist.
Maybe that's not what you mean by "Zionists", but it's what a lot of people mean.
Zionism literally means ‘Zion’ which is modern day Israel. It is embedded in Judaism.
I'd quibble with your definition. Zion is Eretz Yisrael, which is not quite Medinat Yisrael. It is very embedded in Judaism though. Zionism, as established by Herzl has also changed through the years.
I think there's too little trust between the Israelis and Palestinians right now for a one state solution that protects the rights of Jews and Palestinians in a single state. Maybe in another generation or two, although the derivative d(Happiness)/dt in that area has been negative for quite some time.
If you don't want another 50 years of misery, I don't see any alternative to a two state solution, as far away as that seems today.
It may well be that there's "too little trust [...] for a one state solution that protests the rights of Jews and Palestinians", but I'm not sure how that makes it worse or less feasible than a two-state solution; a de facto two-state "solution" is what we have now, and what we've had for decades, and how's that turning out!?!
Well. Not well. Good guys hardly ever take hostages.
I don't see a need to equivocate. Things clearly aren't turning out well, given the sheer scale of taking of hostages, mostly by Israel.
Good guys hardly ever take hostages.
Stop it. What a bunch of disingenuous horseshit. They're COLLEGE KIDS and it's war. They're going to activate against blood and gore and guts because if it continues past their graduation, guess what? THEY MIGHT HAVE TO FIGHT!! Israel has every right to exist but you people are a fucking pain in the ass and everyone in that region fucking hates you. That's a fact. Why that is is between you and them. All our kids know is we have homeless in the streets of every city in this country, no money for infrastructure, no money for public schools, no money for universal health care, and they want to come for social security and medicare next. But we always have PLENTY of money in the budget EVERY YEAR for fucking rockets and bombs to send over to Israel for you guys to protect yourselves. Then you have the fucking BALLS to tell us to stay out of YOUR politics, but Netanyahu DEMANDS police crackdowns of first amendment rights of OUR CITIZENS on OUR COLLEGE CAMPUSES? Yeah, keep it up with the babe in the woods routine. Trust me, the kids know what's up more than you. So stick your judgement of their intellect straight up your ass and stop frantically building straw men to justify this. Let me help you reframe this issue in reality. Look at everything involved in this conflict through the following lens for the rest of your life and you'll never go wrong. Ready? Here goes: THERE IS NO GOD Hope that helps.
Jeff, in case you have not seen this here is a truly great moment in the movement. I find this to be pure comedy gold.
https://x.com/Israellycool/status/1784294992996897204?t=SVnqQHCP8vGKBQWvSmHeIw&s=01
>movements that are extreme, brian dead
Brain dead, I assume.
What is "brian dead"? Is that another Monty Python reference?
Thanks for this. Those wanting to protest Israeli policies without becoming anti-semitic eliminationists might want to look at what actual progressive Israelis have to say, such as historian Yuval Noah Harari
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-04-18/ty-article-magazine/from-gaza-to-iran-the-netanyahu-government-is-endangering-israels-survival/0000018e-f25f-daad-a3de-fe7ff5790000
From Gaza to Iran, the Netanyahu Government Is Endangering Israel's Survival
I think after October 7 most Israelis don’t believe a word Haaretz has to say. The left wing got bigger by fucking reality. Hamas barbarians. But I appreciate your recognition of ‘eliminationists’. You have the right to this opinion and threading that needle these days with Hamas apologists is getting harder and harder.
I have no illusions that Harari's is anything approaching a majority opinion, but it could one day become one: it is concerned with matters in the Middle East's only genuine democracy. But as you suggest, my point is another one. If activists want to engage seriously with the policies of another country, they need to engage with the opinions of citizens of that country, popular or unpopular as they may be.
While we're here, I'll mention as well Gershom Gorenberg, author of The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977, and his recent piece, "Why Biden and Bibi Are Tangling, and Why Biden Could Win: In this feud, a desperate Netanyahu has much to lose, and Biden has very little to lose by confronting him."
https://newrepublic.com/article/179736/biden-netanyahu-feud-gaza
‘If activists want to engage seriously with the policies of another country…’. That’s the heart of the matter. The activists don’t want that country to exist. So they don’t engage. They scream. They want to annihilate it. We can debate Bibi’s policies etc all night long but it’s not relevant to what we see on campus. (It’s relevant elsewhere). You and I agree on this I think.
Yup. (Though to follow Jeff's point, I imagine that a significant number of college protesters doesn't know that "75 years of occupation" dates to the founding of the State of Israel rather than the aftermath of the 1967 War, which is at best the excuse of an idiot: it puts who uses it on the same level as Marjorie Taylor Greene claiming that she didn't know the Rothschilds, co-inventors of SPACE LASER, are Jewish.)
I meant bitten.